in her middle age. The proprietor of the ‘Dumfries Courier,’ charmed with her as a character, gratuitously printed her poems in little volumes with paper covers, and for half a century she was known as a wandering minstrel of the borders. She sold her booklets from house to house, travelling far in search of natives of Dumfries. She penetrated into England; and a genial Manchester patron declared that there were two forces a Dumfriesian in England could not escape—death and Susy Hawkins. Sir F. W. Johnstone, bart., of Wester Hall, Dumfriesshire, granted her ground for a cottage at Relief, near her brother's residence in the neighbourhood of Ecclefechan, and here she died through an accident, 29 March 1868.
The little volumes are all more or less reprints of one another, and they are now rare. It seems that Susanna began to publish about 1826, but what appears to be a first edition of ‘The Poems and Songs of Susanna Hawkins’ is dated 1838. This contains sixty pages; subsequent volumes reach six pages more. Nine volumes in all are extant, the last being published in 1861, and it is surmised that there might be one or two more. The poems are largely of a local and occasional character, and though fairly well rhymed are generally more rhetorical than poetic. The lofty autobiographical dedication is more entertaining than the verses it precedes.
[Irving's Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen; Dumfries Courier and Annan Observer; information from Mr. Cuthbertson of the Annan Observer, Mr. Anderson, publisher, Dumfries, and Mr. Fraser, publisher, Dalbeattie.]
HAWKINS, THOMAS (d. 1577), M.P. for Warwick. [See Fisher.]
HAWKINS, Sir THOMAS (d. 1640), poet and translator, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hawkins, knight-banneret, of Nash Court, Kent, by Anne, daughter and heiress of Cyriac Pettit, esq., of Boughton-under-the-Blean in the same county. John Hawkins, M.D. [q. v.], and Henry Hawkins, the jesuit [q. v.], were his brothers. He succeeded to the family estates on the death of his father, 10 April 1617, and was knighted by James I at Whitehall 4 May 1618 (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 173). Wood says he was an ingenious man, excellent in the faculty of music as well as in poetry. He was a friend and correspondent of James Howell, who mentions him in the ‘Epistolæ Ho-elianæ,’ and he was also acquainted with Edmund Bolton [q. v.], who selected him in 1624 to be one of the original eighty-four members of the projected Royal Academy, or College and Senate of Honour (Archæologia, xxxii. 144). Like all the members of his family, he was a staunch catholic and recusant. On 11 Dec. 1633 an attempt was made under a council-warrant to search the house of Sir Thomas Hawkins, ‘a great papist and harbourer of priests,’ for Father Symons, a Carmelite friar, and others. Lady Hawkins would not admit the officers without a special warrant, saying that her husband had the great seal of England in his trunk to protect her house, and the matter seems to have dropped there (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1633–1634, p. 319). Hawkins died at Nash Court, Kent, towards the close of 1640, and was buried near the graves of his father and mother.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of George Smith, esq., of Ashby Folville, Leicestershire, and had two sons, John and Thomas, both of whom died young and without issue.
His works are: 1. ‘The Odes and Epodes of Horace in Latin and English Verse,’ London, 1625, 4to. The title-page is very neatly engraved. The second edition is entitled ‘Odes of Horace, the best of Lyrick Poets; contayning much morallity and sweetness: Selected, translated, and in this edition reviewed and enlarged with many more,’ London, 1631, 8vo, and again 1635 and 1638, 12mo. This translation was plagiarised by Dr. Barten Holyday [q. v.] in 1652. 2. An English translation of ‘The Holy Court, or the Christian Institution of Men of Quality. With Examples of those who in Court haue flourished in Sanctity. By Nicolas Caussin of the Society of Jesus,’ 2 vols., Paris, 1626, 4to, the first volume being inscribed to Queen Henrietta Maria and the second to Edward Sackville, earl of Dorset. The third volume was not published in English till 1634, when vols. i. and ii. were reprinted at Rouen in fol.; a fourth volume followed in 1638, and contained ‘The Command of Reason over the Passions.’ Other editions, London, 1638, 1650, 1663, and 1678, fol. The later editions were probably prepared by Robert Codrington [q. v.], the puritan, who is said to have added some translations of his own. Hawkins was assisted by Sir Basil Brook. This work was for many years in great favour, especially among catholics. It contains lives, with portraits, of Mary Queen of Scots and Cardinal Pole. 3. An elegy on Sir John Beaumont, printed with that poet's ‘Bosworth Field,’ 1629. 4. ‘Unhappy Prosperitie, expressed in the Histories of Ælius Sejanus and Philippa the Catanian, with observations on the fall of Sejanus,’ translated from the French of Pierre Matthieu, London, 1632, 4to, and 1639, 12mo. Dedicated to William, earl of Salisbury.
