in one of the publick papers, I believe the London Chronicle.
A few days afterwards I had some conversation with Sir J. Reynolds relative to both Hawkins and Dyer. He said Dyer had so ill an opinion of Hawkins, that latterly at the Club he would not speak to him. Sir Joshua observed that Hawkins, though he assumed great outward sanctity, was not only mean and grovelling in disposition but absolutely dishonest. After the death of Dr. Johnson, he as one of his executors laid hold of his watch and several trinkets, coins, &c., which he said he should take to himself for his trouble—a pretty liberal construction of the rule of law, that an executor may satisfy his own demands in the first instance. Sir Joshua and Sir Wm. Scott, the other executors, remonstrated against this, and with great difficulty compelled him to give up the watch, which Dr. Johnson’s servant, Francis Barber, now has; but the coins and old pieces of money they could never get.
He likewise seized on a gold-headed cane which some one had by accident left in Dr. Johnson’s house previous to his death. They in vain urged that Francis had a right to this till an owner appeared, and should hold it in usum jus habentes. He would not restore it; and his house being soon afterwards consumed by fire, he said it was there burnt. The executors had several meetings relative to the business of their trust. Sir John Hawkins was paltry enough to bring them in a bill, charging his coach hire for every time they met. With all this meanness, if not dishonesty, he was a regular churchman, assuming
