ced in the mode of their appearance. The only way of
accounting for it, perhaps, is this; it was imagined that no one but an
author by profession was competent to fulfil the expectations that had
been formed in the public mind. The opinion generally entertained that
Mr Robins was the author of the Account of Anson's Voyage, might have
contributed to this very groundless notion; and the parties might have
hoped, that a person of Dr Hawkesworth's reputation in the literary
world, would not fail to fabricate a work that should at least rival
that excellent production. It would be unfair not to apprise the reader,
that this hope was not altogether realised. Public opinion has
unquestionably ranked it as inferior, but has not however been niggard
in its praise. The work is read, and always will be read, with high
interest. This, perhaps, is capable of augmentation; and the Editor much
deceives himself if he has not accomplished this effect by his labours,
as well in pruning off the redundant moralizings and cumbrous
ratiocinations of Dr Hawkesworth, as in contributing new but relevant
matter to the mass of amusing and instructive information which that
gentleman has recorded. He confesses that he has far less delicacy in
doing either of these offices in the present case, than he would chuse
to avow, had the account emanated purely and directly from the pens of
those who performed the voyages; nor can he help feeling a regret, that
such persons as Byron and Cook, both of whom have given most
satisfactory proofs of their possessing every literary requisite, were
not permitted to edify the public as they thought good, without the
officious instrumentality of an editor. These men needed no such
interference, though their modesty and good sense availed them,
undoubtedly, in profiting by the merely verbal corrections of
friendship; and their own productions have the charm of simplicity and
genuineness of narrative, which, it is certain, the ability acquired by
mere drudgery in composition is by no means adequate to produce.--E.]

Some particulars that are related in one voyage will perhaps appear to
be repeated in another, as they would necessarily have been if the
several commanders had written the account of their voyages themselves;
for a digest could not have been made of the whole, without invading the
right of each navigator to appropriate the relation of what he had seen:
these repetitions, however, taken together, will be f