303. _Madame Sacchi._ Madame Sacchi’s ‘astonishing performances’ on
the tight rope were introduced ‘for the accommodation of the
crowds of applicants’ who desired to witness them.
‘_So fails_,’ _etc._ See _The Excursion_, Book VII., 975 _et
seq._
‘_Affecting a virtue._’ ‘Assume a virtue, if you have it not.’
_Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.
‘_They two can be made one flesh._’ Cf. _Genesis_ ii. 24.
_Dame Hellenore._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book III. Canto X.
‘_Aggravated_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act I. Sc.
2.
304. ‘_There is some fury_,’ _etc._ _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_,
Act IV. Sc. 1.
‘_A word of naught._’ Cf. ‘You must say “paragon”; a paramour
is, God bless us, a thing of naught.’ _A Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, Act IV. Sc. 2.
‘_So stands the statue_,’ _etc._ Thomson, _The Seasons_,
Summer, 1347.
l. 24. Hazlitt concluded his article in _The Examiner_ as
follows: ‘He must be sent to Coventry or St. Helena!’
305. _Bertram._ By the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824),
author of _Melmoth the Wanderer_ (1820). _Bertram_ had
previously been recommended by Scott to Kemble who declined
it. Coleridge attacked it in _The Courier_ and in _Biographia
Literaria_. See Dykes Campbell’s _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_,
p. 223, note 1.
_Aristotle_, _etc._ Part of the famous definition of tragedy in
the _Poetics_.
‘_Yes, the limner’s art_,’ _etc._ _Bertram_, Act I. Sc. 5.
306. ‘_And yet some sorcery_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._
307. ‘_Yea, thus they live_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_By heaven_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.
_The speech of Bertram._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_The wretched have no country._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.
_Miss Somerville._ Margaret Agnes Somerville (1799-1883),
whose first appearance Hazlitt notices here. In 1819 she
married Alfred Bunn, the theatrical manager. Her subsequent
appearances were fitful, and she retired at an early age.
308. ‘_Decked in purple_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 5.
‘_Beholds that lady_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._
l. 13. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt adds: ‘Covent-Garden. We have
seen Miss O’Neill’s _Mrs. Oakley_. It is much better than her
_Lady Teazle_, and yet it is not good. Her comedy is only
tragedy _diluted_. It wants the true spirit.’
_Adelaide, or the Emigrants._ The first play of Richard Lalor
Sheil (1791-1851). It had been brought out at Dublin in 1814.
309. ‘_Throw it to the dogs_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.
_Mr. Murray._ Charles Murray (1754-1821), after acquiring
considerable reputation in the provinces, appeared at Covent
Garden in 1796.
310. ‘_Where did you rest last night._’ See _ante_, note to p. 263.
l. 22. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes with a long
account of the plot of _Bertram_.
_It has been observed of Ben Jonson_, _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note
to p. 42.
311. ‘_As dry_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.
‘_Like a man_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Sc. 2.
312. ‘_The baby of a girl._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.
‘_Rather than so_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 1.
313. _The Princess Charlotte._ The only daughter of the Prince
Regent, and a great favourite of the nation’s. She married
(May 2, 1816) Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and died
November 5, 1817.
‘_Leave me to my repose._’ ‘Leave me, leave me to repose.’
Gray. _The Vegtam’s Kivitha; or the Descent of Odin_.
‘_The line too labours_,’ _etc._ Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_,
371.
‘_I tell you_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 1.
314. ‘_Go, go._’ In the banquet scene presumably, Act III. Sc. 4.
_Mr. Horace Twiss._ Horace Twiss (1787-1849), the biographer of
Lord Eldon, was a nephew of Mrs. Siddons and wrote for her an
address which she delivered on taking her farewell of the
stage, June 29, 1812.
‘_Himself again._’ _Richard III._ (Cibber’s version).
‘_Tomorrow and tomorrow._’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.
_Printed by a steam-engine._ See vol. III., p. 158 (_Political
Essays_).
315. _Up all Night, or the Smuggler’s Cave._ By Matthew Peter King
(1773-1823) first produced in 1809 (words by S. J. Arnold).
_Mr. Russell from Edinburgh._ Hazlitt distinguishes him from
Samuel Thomas Russell (1769?-1845), great as Jerry Sneak.
_The Beehive._ A musical farce by John Gideon Millingen
(1782-1862), produced in 1811.
_Wrench._ Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843), after playing at Bath
and York, appeared in London in 1809 and became a well-known
comedian at Drury Lane, The Lyceum and Covent Garden.
_The School of Reform._ By Thomas Morton, produced in 1805.
316. _The Irish Widow._ By Garrick, produced in 1772.
l. 10. Hazlitt, in concluding his article in _The Examiner_,
declares his disbelief of the rumours relating to Mrs. Mardyn
(see _ante_, note to p. 249), and publishes a long letter
from her addressed to the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_,
indignantly denying them.
_The Jealous Wife._ By George Colman the elder, produced in
1761.
_Sylvester Daggerwood._ By George Colman the younger, first
acted in 1795 as ‘New Hay at the Old Market.’
‘_Like angels’ visits_,’ _etc._ See vol. IV., note to p. 346
(_The Spirit of the Age_).
_Wild Oats._ O’Keeffe’s comedy, produced in 1794.
317. _The acting of Dowton and Russell._ This paragraph is repeated
in _Lectures on the Comic Writers_. See _ante_, pp. 167-8.
319. _The Poor Gentleman._ By George Colman the younger, produced in
1802.
_The Agreeable Surprise._ Cf. Hazlitt’s account of this farce,
_ante_, pp. 166-7.
320. l. 4. Hazlitt continues in _The Examiner_: ‘We saw Miss
Matthews’s name in the bills, but as it was her benefit night
at Covent-Garden, her entrance in the afterpiece was an
agreeable surprise to us.—_English Opera_. A gentleman of the
name of Horn has re-appeared with much and deserved applause
at this Theatre, in the part of the _Seraskier_. His voice
and style of singing are good, and his action spirited and
superior to that of singers in general. We hope soon to say
more of him.’ Charles Edward Horn (1786-1849), the composer
of ‘Cherry Ripe,’ ‘I know a bank,’ etc.
_Artaxerxes._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 192-3.
321. _Exit by Mistake._ ‘A pretty good comedy in 3 acts, by Jameson’
(Genest).
322. _John Dennis._ Hazlitt probably refers to John Dennis’s
‘Remarks upon Cato.’ 1713.
_The editor of a modern journal._ Probably Hazlitt’s
brother-in-law, Dr., afterwards Sir John Stoddart.
323. _The Beggar’s Opera._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 193-5. Polly’s famous
song, ‘Oh, ponder well! be not severe,’ etc. (Act I.), is
said to have turned the tide in favour of the opera at its
first representation, January 29, 1728.
324. _Schlegel’s work on the Drama._ See Lecture IV. _Lectures on
Dramatic Art and Literature_ (trans. John Black, ed. 1900),
p. 64.
325. _Selon la coutume de notre pays._ See vol. I. note to p. 100.
_Cosi fan Tutti._ Mozart’s Opera, 1788.
_Dansomanie._ By Étienne Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817), produced in
Paris, 1800.
326. ‘_To draw three souls_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 3.
_Mr. Naldi._ Giuseppe Naldi (1770-1820), who first appeared in
London in 1806.
_Pandarus._ In _Troilus and Cressida_.
_Signor Begri._ Presumably Pierre Ignace Begrey (1783-1863),
who appeared in London, 1815-1822.
‘_Floats upon the air_,’ _etc._ Loosely quoted from _Comus_,
249-251.
‘_And silence_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ 557-560.
327. _Madame Vestris._ Lucia Elizabeth Bartolozzi (1797-1856),
granddaughter of the engraver, and the wife, first (1813) of
Armand Vestris, a dancer at the King’s Theatre, and second
(1838), of Charles James Mathews. She first appeared in
London in 1815, and retired in 1854. Mrs. Baron Wilson (_Our
Actresses_, II. 184) describes her as ‘the fair Syren, who,
for nearly a quarter of a century, has fascinated the whole
kingdom by her talent and beauty.’
_Miss L. Kelly._ The younger sister of Frances Maria Kelly,
born 1795.
328. l. 13. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows:
‘_Love in a Village_ is put off till Thursday next, and Mr.
Incledon is to perform in _Artaxerxes_ on Tuesday. Mr. Horn
played the _Seraskier_ in the _Siege of Belgrade_ on Friday,
and sung the songs, particularly ‘My heart with love is
beating’ with great truth and effect. Mr. Russell’s _Leopold_
was very lively. It is not necessary to say that Miss Kelly’s
_Lilla_ was good, for all that she does is so. The Duke and
Duchess of Gloucester were present, and were very cordially
greeted by the audience. After the play, God save the King
was repeatedly called for, and at length sung, with an
additional, occasional, and complimentary verse by Mr.
Arnold:—
“Long may the Royal Line,
Proud Star of Brunswick shine;
While thus we sing,
Joy may thy Daughter share,
Blest by a Nation’s pray’r,
Blest be the Royal Pair;
God save the King.”
‘At the Haymarket, where the same Illustrious Personages
appeared for the first time in public (since their marriage)
the night before, the following stanza was introduced:—
‘“Great George! thy people’s voice
Now hails thy daughter’s choice
Till echoes ring:
This shout still rends the air,
May she prove blest as fair!
Long live the noble pair!
God save the King.”’
_My Landlady’s Night-Gown._ _My Landlady’s Gown_ (August 10,
1816), by Walley Chamberlain Oulton (1770?-1820?).
‘_Its own place._’ _Paradise Lost_, 1. 254.
329. l. 4. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt proceeds: ‘A Miss Ives played a
little plump chambermaid prettily enough. _The Jealous Wife_
was acted at this Theatre on Monday. Mr. Meggett played _Mr.
Oakley_ but indifferently. He seemed to be at hawk and
buzzard between insipid comedy and pompous tragedy. It was
not the thing. Mr. Terry’s _Major Oakley_ we like very much.
Mrs. Glover, who played _Mrs. Oakley_, is really too big for
this little theatre. The stage cannot contain her, and her
violent airs. Miss Taylor was _Miss Russet_, and looked like
a very nice, runaway school-girl. Barnard played her lover,
and got through the part very well.’
_Rosetta._ In Bickerstaffe’s _Love in a Village_.
_Mr. Chatterley._ William Symonds Chatterley (1787-1822).
Justice Woodcock was his best character.
_Castle of Andalusia._ A comic opera by O’Keeffe, produced in
1782.
330. l. 36. The article in _The Examiner_ continues:
‘_Haymarket-Theatre_. The new farce in one act, called _The
Fair Deserter_, succeeds very well here. It preserves the
unities of time, place, and action, with the most perfect
regularity. The merit of it is confined to the plot, and to
the pretended changes of character by the changes of dress,
which succeed one another with the rapidity and with
something of the ingenuity of a pantomime. Mr. Duruset, a
young officer of musical habits, wishes to release Miss
MacAlpine from the power of her guardian, who is determined
to marry her the next day. The young lady is kept under lock
and key, and the difficulty is to get her out of the house.
For this purpose Tokely, servant to Duruset, contrives to
make the cook of the family drunk at an alehouse, where he
leaves him, and carries off his official paraphernalia, his
night-cap, apron, and long knife, in a bundle to his master.
The old guardian (Watkinson) comes out with his lawyer from
the house, and Tokely, presenting himself as the drunken
cook, is let in. He, however, takes the key of the street
door with him, which he shuts to, and as this intercepts the
return of the old gentleman to his house, Tokely is forced to
get out of the window by a ladder to fetch a blacksmith. He
presently returns himself, in the character of the
blacksmith, unlocks the door, but on the other’s refusing him
a guinea for his trouble, locks it again, and walks off in
spite of all remonstrances. The guardian is now compelled to
ascend the ladder himself as well as he can: and while he is
engaged in this ticklish adventure, the young Gallant and his
mischievous Valet return with a couple of sentries whom
Duruset orders to seize the poor old Guardian as a robber,
and upon his declaring who and what he is, he is immediately
charged by the lover with concealing a Deserter in his house,
who is presently brought out, and is in fact his ward,
disguised in a young officer’s uniform, which Tokely had
given to her for that purpose. Tokely now returns dressed as
an officer, and pretending to be the father of the young
gentleman, with much blustering and little probability,
persuades the guardian to consent to the match between his
(adopted) son and the young lady, who has just been arrested
as the Deserter, and who, upon this, throwing aside her
disguise, the affair is concluded, to the satisfaction of
every body but the old guardian, and the curtain drops. The
bustle of this little piece keeps it alive: there is nothing
good either in the writing or the acting of it.’
331. ‘_Gone like a crab_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.
_Mr. Terry last week_, _etc._ At the Haymarket, on August 27,
1816.
_The Surrender of Calais._ By George Colman the younger (1791).
‘_The line too labours_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 313.
‘_He resembles a person_,’ _etc._ Schlegel on Dryden. See
_Lectures on Dramatic Literature_ (trans. John Black, ed.
1900), p. 479.
332. ‘_Not to be hated._’ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 288.
_The Wonder._ Mrs. Centlivre’s (1714), Covent Garden, Sep. 13,
1816.
_The Busy Body._ 1709.
333. ‘_Trippingly from_ [on] _the tongue._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc.
2.
‘_A Scotsman is not ashamed_,’ _etc._ _The Wonder_, Act V. Sc.
1.
334. _The Distressed Mother._ Originally produced in 1712. Hazlitt
here notices the first appearance in London of William
Charles Macready (1793-1873), Covent Garden, Sep. 16, 1816.
335. _The epithet in Homer._ Κάρη κομδωντες Ἀξαϡολ.
_Lovers’ Vows._ Sep. 14, 1816. Cf. _ante_, p. 249.
_Writer in the Courier._ Coleridge. See _ante_, note to p. 305.
336. ‘_Pointing to_ [at] _the skies._’ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III.
339.
‘_A vaporous drop profound._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 5.
_Miss Boyle’s Rosalind._ October 2, 1816.
‘_How silver sweet_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.
_Lady Townley._ In Vanbrugh and Cibber’s _The Provoked
Husband_.
337. ‘_Our poesy_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Sc. 1.
_The Italian Lover._ Robert Jephson’s (1736-1803) _Julia, or
the Italian Lover_ (1787), revived at Covent Garden, Sep. 30,
1816.
338. l. 10. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows:
‘_Drury Lane._—O’Keeffe’s farce of the _Blacksmith of
Antwerp_ was brought out here on Thursday [Oct. 3, 1816], Mr.
Munden being sufficiently recovered from his indisposition.
It is founded on the old story of _Quintin Matsys_ and the
Citizen of Antwerp, who would marry his daughter to no
one but a painter. It is full of pleasant incidents and
situations, which succeed one another with careless rapidity,
without fatiguing the attention or exciting much interest. It
is one of the least striking of O’Keeffe’s productions. It
however went off very well, and we dare say will have a run.
The music is pleasing enough.’
_Mr. Macready’s Othello._ October 10, 1816.
‘_Let Afric_,’ _etc._ Young, _The Revenge_, Act V. Sc. 2.
339. ‘_I do agnise_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.
‘_No, not much moved._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Othello’s occupation’s gone._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Yet, oh the pity of it_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.
‘_Swell, bosom_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Like to the Pontic sea_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Horror on horror’s head_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Pride, pomp_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
340. _Mr. Stephen Kemble._ Stephen Kemble (1758-1822), brother of
Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble.
_Sir John Falstaff._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ was played at
Drury Lane, October 10, 1816.
‘_Had guts in his brains._’ Cf. ‘Who wears his wit in his belly
and his guts in his head.’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act II.
Sc. 1.
‘_How he cuts up_,’ _etc._ Burke, _A Letter to a Noble Lord_
(_Works_, Bohn, V. 145).
‘_The gods have not made_,’ _etc._ Cf. _As You Like It_, Act
III. Sc. 3.
_The writer in the Courier._ Hazlitt is plainly referring to
Coleridge. The poet’s contributions to _The Courier_ during
1816 have not been republished. Cf. _ante_, notes to pp. 305
and 335.
_Sir Richard Steele tells us_, _etc._ See a paper ‘On the Death
of Peer, the Property Man,’ in _The Guardian_ (No. 82), June
15, 1713.
342. _Mr. Kemble’s Cato._ October 25, 1816.
l. 5. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt continues: ‘Owing to the early
filling of the house, we were prevented from seeing _Othello_
on Tuesday; but we understand that Mr. Young played Othello
like a great humming-top, “full of sound, but signifying
nothing,”[67] and that Mr. Macready in Iago was like a
mischievous boy whipping him; and that Miss Boyle did not
play Desdemona as unaffectedly as she ought. But we hope we
have been misinformed: and shall be glad to say so, if
possible, in our next.’ The article concludes with an account
of Kean quoted from _The Edinburgh Courant_.
342. ‘_Being mortal._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act II. Sc. 1.
l. 27. In _The Examiner_ the article continues as follows:
‘After the play, we saw the _Broken Sword_, which is a
melodrame of some interest, for it has a dumb boy, a
murderer, and an innocent person suspected of being the
perpetrator of the crime, in it: but it is a very
ill-digested and ill-conducted piece. The introduction to the
principal events is very tedious and round about, and the
incidents themselves, when they arrive, come in very great
disorder, and shock from their improbability and want of
necessary connection as much as from their own nature. Mr.
Terry played the part of a murderer with considerable
gravity. We do not know at all how he came to get into so
awkward a situation. The piece is, we understand, from common
report, by Mr. Dimond.[68] It is by no means one of his best.
For he is a very impressive as well as a prolific writer in
this way, and would do still better, if he would mind his
fine writing less, and get on faster to the business of the
story. Mr. Farley was highly interesting as _Estevan_, the
servant who is unjustly accused of the murder of his master;
in fact, he always plays this class of characters admirably,
both as to feeling and effect; and Miss Lupino played the
dumb _Florio_ very prettily. In the first act, there was a
dance by the Miss Dennetts.[69] If our readers have not seen
this dance, we hope they will, and that they will _encore_
it, which is the etiquette. Certainly, it is the prettiest
thing in the world, except the performers in it. They are
quite charming. They are three kindred Graces cast in the
same mould: a little Trinity of innocent delights, dancing in
their “trinal simplicities below.”[70] They are like “three
red roses on a stalk;”[71] and in the _pas de trois_ which
they dance twice over, they are as it were twined and woven
into garlands and festoons of blushing flowers, such as
“Proserpine let fall from Dis’s waggon.”[72] You can hardly
distinguish them from one another, they are at first so alike
in shape, age, air, look: so that the pleasure you receive
from one is blended with the delight you receive from the
other two, in a sort of provoking, pleasing confusion. Milton
was thinking of them when he wrote the lines:—
‘Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two Sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.”[73]
Yet after all we have a preference, but we will not say which
it is, whether the tallest or the shortest, the fairest or
the darkest, of this lovely, laughing trio, more gay and
joyous than _Mozart’s_.—“But pray, dear sir, could you not
give us a little bit of a hint which of us it is you like the
very, very best?”—Yes, yes, you rogue, you know very well
it’s you, but don’t say a word of it to either of your
sisters.’ The theatrical criticisms during November were
written by Leigh Hunt.
_The Iron Chest._ By George Colman the younger (1796), revived
at Drury Lane, November 23, 1816.
343. _Adam Winterton._ A character in _The Iron Chest_.
_Mr. Colman was enraged_, _etc._ He wrote an angry preface
which was suppressed after the first edition.
344. ‘_Wears his heart_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Othello_, Act I. Sc.
1.
‘_The fiery soul_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_,
Part I., 156-8.
345. l. 5. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘The
new farce, _Laugh to Day and Cry Tomorrow_ [by E. P. Knight],
met as it deserved a very indifferent reception. It was a
series of awkward clap-traps about the glory of Old England,
and the good-nature of English audiences. Munden was the only
thing in it not _damnable_.’
_Mr. Kemble’s King John._ December 3, 1816.
‘_When we waked_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act III. Sc. 2.
346. _According to the book of arithmetic._ More commonly ‘according
to Cocker.’
‘_Man delight_’ [delights], _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.
347. ‘_Bulk, the thews_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Henry IV._, Part
II., Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Could Sir Robert_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act I. Sc. 1.
_Coriolanus._ November 28 and 30, 1816. For the rest of this
article, except the last paragraph, see vol. i. pp. 214-6
(_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_) and notes thereon.
350. l. 21. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows:
‘There have been two new farces this week: one at each
house. One was saved and one was damned. One was justly
damned, and the other unjustly saved. _Nota Bene_, or _The
Two Dr. Fungus’s_, shot up and disappeared in one night,
notwithstanding the inimitable acting and well-oiled humour
of Oxberry in one scene, where he makes bumpkin forward
love to Mrs. Orger in a style equal to Liston. _Love and
Toothache_, though there is neither Love nor Toothache in it,
is as disagreeable as the one and as foolish as the other.
One farce consists of a succession of low incidents without a
plot, and the other is one tedious and improbable incident
without a plot. The changing of the two signs, or Nota Benes
of the two Fungus’s, barber and doctor, in the first, is
better than anything in the last. The only difference is,
that at the one house they contrive to have their pieces
cast, and get them condemned at the other. Yet this is a
saying without any meaning; for in the present case they were
both got up as well as they could be.—We almost despair of
ever seeing another good farce. Mr. H——, thou wert damned.
Bright shone the morning on the play-bills that announced thy
appearance, and the streets were filled with the buzz of
persons asking one another if they would go to see Mr. H——,
and answering that they would certainly; but before night the
gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the
town, was eclipsed, for thou wert damned! Hadst thou been
anonymous, thou mightst have been immortal! But thou didst
come to an untimely end, for thy tricks and for want of a
better name to pass them off (as the old joke of Divine Right
passes current under the _alias_ of Legitimacy)—and since
that time nothing worth naming has been offered to the
stage!’ Hazlitt refers again to Lamb’s farce ‘Mr. H——’ in his
essay ‘On Great and Little Things.’ See vol. VI. p. 232 and
notes. The passage above, beginning ‘Mr. H——, thou wert
damned’ down to ‘for want of a better name to pass them off’
was prefixed to the farce by Lamb, when he published it in
1818.
_The Man of the World._ Revived December 27, 1816.
_Mr. Henry Johnston._ Henry Erskine Johnston, (1777-1830?), the
‘Scottish Roscius.’
_Sir Archy Mac Sarcasm._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la-Mode_ (1793)
revived at Covent Garden, with Johnston as Sir Archy, on
December 10, 1816.
351. ‘_Die and leave_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.
352. ‘_Ever charming_,’ _etc._ Dyer, _Grongar Hill_, l. 103.
_Jane Shore._ January 2, 1817. Rowe’s tragedy was first
produced in 1713. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt concludes this
article as follows:—‘We think the tragedy of _Jane Shore_,
which is founded on the dreadful calamity of hunger, is
hardly proper to be represented in these starving times; and
it ought to be prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain, on a
principle of decorum. Of Mrs. Alsop, who is said to have an
engagement at this theatre, we have spoken at the time when
she appeared at the other house. Those who have before
not witnessed her performance, will now probably have an
opportunity of seeing her in company with Mrs. Mardyn, and
may judge whether the laborious comparison we attempted
between her and that lady was well or ill-founded. We see
little alteration or improvement in her. Her figure and face
are against her; otherwise she is certainly a very spirited
little actress, and her voice is excellent. Her singing,
however, does not correspond with what you would expect from
her speaking tones. It wants volume and clearness. Mrs.
Alsop’s laugh sometimes puts us a little in mind of her
mother: and those parts of the character of _Violante_ in
which she succeeded best were the most joyous and exulting
ones: her expression of distress is truly distressing. Miss
Kelly played _Flora_; and it was the only time we ever
saw her fail. She seemed to be playing tricks with the
chambermaid: now those kind of people are as much in earnest
in their absurdities as any other class of people in the
world, and the great beauty of Miss Kelly’s acting in all
other instances is, that it is more in downright earnest than
any other acting in the world. We hope she does not think of
growing fantastical, and _operatic_. The new pantomime is
very poor.’
_The Theatrical Examiners_ of January 12 and January 19, 1817
are clearly Hazlitt’s. The first is a notice of Cherry’s _The
Soldier’s Daughter_, revived at Covent Garden, January 8, and
contains a severe criticism of Miss O’Neill as a comic
actress. The second is a notice of Cimarosa’s _Penelope_ and
the comic Ballet _Dansomanie_ at the King’s Theatre, and
concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber’s _Life_
on the introduction of opera into England.
353. _The Humorous Lieutenant._ In _The Examiner_ the article from
which this notice is taken begins with a long account
(probably by Hazlitt) of Southerne’s _Oroonoko_ revived at
Drury Lane January 20, 1817 with Kean as Oroonoko and Miss
Somerville as Imoinda. _The Humorous Lieutenant_ (January 18)
was ‘a bad alteration’ by Frederic Reynolds. Celia was played
by ‘a Young Lady, 1st appearance on any stage.’
‘_Whose utmost skirts_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 332-3.
l. 20. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of February 2, 1817 in which
are noticed John Philip Kemble’s farce _The Pannel_, revived
at Drury Lane January 29, 1816 and a melodrama (attributed to
Pocock) _The Ravens, or the Force of Conscience_, acted at
Covent Garden January 24, 1817, is clearly Hazlitt’s. The
article contains a comparison between the Drury Lane and
Covent Garden companies.
_Two New Ballets._ From a _Theatrical Examiner_ which begins
with an account of Mozart’s _Nozze di Figaro_ not at all in
Hazlitt’s manner.
_Like Virgil’s wood._ _Æneid_, III. 37-40.
‘_Whom lovely Venus_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 14 _et seq._
354. ‘_When you do dance_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.
_Booth._ Junius Brutus Booth (1796-1852), whose first important
appearances in London are noticed in this and the two
following articles. The last years of his life were spent in
America.
‘_What does he_ [do they] _in the north._’ _Richard III._, Act
IV. Sc. 4.
355. ‘_A weak invention_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘A thing devised by the
enemy.’ _Richard III._, Act V. Sc. 3.
_Figaro._ Holcroft’s _The Follies of a Day; or, the Marriage of
Figaro_ (1784).
356. ‘_The fell opposite._’ Vaguely Shakesperian. Cf. _Twelfth
Night_, Act III. Sc. 4, and _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_I know my price no less._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.
‘_Give the world_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.
‘_My wit comes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Othello_, Act II. Sc.
1.
357. _The O. P. rows._ The old price riots at the new Covent Garden
Theatre in 1809.
358. _Frightened to Death._ A musical farce by Oulton.
359. ‘_From which_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.
l. 19. The _Theatrical Examiner_ for the following week (March
9, 1817) contains a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of _The Heir
of Vironi, or Honesty the Best Policy_ (Covent Garden,
February 27), and of ‘Mr. Booth’s imitations of Mr. Kean.’
With this exception The _Theatrical Examiners_ down to March
13 are by Leigh Hunt.
_Cibber._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 160-2.
360. ‘_In hidden mazes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _L’Allegro_, 141-2.
361. ‘_Frontlet._’ _King Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.
362. _The Inn-Keeper’s Daughter._ By George Soane (1790-1860).
363. ‘_Airs from heaven_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.
364. ‘_And when she spake_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, II. iii.
24.
365. _Signor Ambrogetti._ Giuseppe Ambrogetti was in London
1817-1821.
‘_Sense of amorous delight._’ ‘The spirit of love and amorous
delight.’ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 477.
_Signor Crivelli_, _etc._ Gaetano Crivelli (1774-1836), a
tenor; Violante Camporese (b. 1785), a soprano; Carlo
Angrisani (b. _circa_ 1760), a bass.
366. l. 6. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes with an ‘Anecdote
relating to the Overture of _Don Giovanni_’ and a reference
to _Elphi Bey_, ‘a tedious and insipid’ romantic drama (Drury
Lane, April 17).
_Ex uno omnes._ ‘Ab uno disce omnes.’ _Æneid_, II. 65-6.
367. ‘_With all appliances_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II. Act III.
Sc. 1.
‘_The golden cadences_,’ _etc._ ‘Golden cadence of poesy.’
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Sc. 2.
368. l. 29. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 4, 1817, clearly by
Hazlitt, contains a notice of _Johnny Gilpin_ (Drury Lane,
April 28), and a brief reference to Mrs. Hill’s Lady Macbeth
(April 29). _Johnny Gilpin_ is described as ‘very poorly got
up.’
369. _Holland._ Charles Holland (1768-1849?) played at Drury Lane
1796-1820.
370. l. 14. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as follows: ‘We
have not room to say much of the new tragedy of _The
Apostate_,[74] for which we are not sorry, as we should have
little good to say of it. The poetry does not rise to the
merit of common-place, and the tragic situations are too
violent, frequent, and improbable. It is full of a succession
of self-inflicted horrors. Miss O’Neill played the heroine of
the piece, whose affectation and meddling imbecility occasion
all the mischief, and played it shockingly well. Mr. Young’s
_Malec_ was in his best and most imposing manner. The best
things in _The Apostate_ were the palpable hits at the
Inquisition and Ferdinand the Beloved, which were taken
loudly and tumultuously by the house, a circumstance which
occasioned more horror in that wretched infatuated devoted
tool of despotism, the Editor of _The New Times_,[75] than
all the other horrors of the piece. The Dungeons of the Holy
Inquisition, whips, racks, and slow fires, kindled by
legitimate hands, excite no horror in his breast; but that a
British public still revolt at these things, that that fine
word Legitimacy has not polluted their souls and poisoned
their very senses with the slime and filth of slavery and
superstition, this writhes his brain and plants scorpions in
his mind, and makes his flesh crawl and shrink in agony from
the last expression of manhood and humanity in an English
audience, as if a serpent had wound round his heart!’
The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 18, 1817, in which is
described a second visit to _Don Giovanni_, and Kean’s
_Eustace de St. Pierre_ in _The Surrender of Calais_, is
clearly Hazlitt’s.
370. ‘_Something rotten_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.
_Mr. Sinclair._ John Sinclair (1791-1857), tenor singer.
‘_To split the ears_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
371. ‘_And of his port_,’ _etc._ _The Canterbury Tales_, Prologue,
69.
372. ‘_None but himself_,’ _etc._ Lewis Theobald, _The Double
Falsehood_.
l. 9. The article in _The Examiner_ concludes: ‘Drury Lane. The
farce of _The Romp_[76] was revived here, and we hope will be
continued, for we like to laugh when we can. Mrs. Alsop does
the part of _Priscilla Tomboy_, and is all but her mother in
it. Knight is clever enough as _Watty Cockney_; and the
piece, upon the whole, went off with great _éclat_, allowing
for the badness of the times, for our want of genius for
comedy, and of taste for farce.’
_Barbarossa._ By John Brown (1715-1766), author of _An
Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_
(1757). _Barbarossa_ was produced in 1754, _Athelstane_,
the author’s other tragedy, in 1756.
_Paul and Virginia._ A musical drama by James Cobb (1756-1818),
produced in 1800.
‘_And when your song_,’ _etc._ _The Tatler_, No. 163 (by
Addison).
‘_In our heart’s core_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
last line. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as
follows:—‘_Covent Garden._ Mr. Kemble played _Posthumus_ here
on Friday. At present, to use a favourite pun, all his
characters are posthumous; he plays them repeatedly after
_the last time_. We hate all suspense: and we therefore wish
Mr. Kemble would go, or let it alone. We had much rather, for
ourselves, that he staid; for there is no one to fill his
place on the stage. The mould is broken in which he was cast.
His _Posthumus_ is a very successful piece of acting. It
alternately displays that repulsive stately dignity of
manner, or that intense vehemence of action, in which the
body and the mind strain with eager impotence after a certain
object of disappointed passion, for which Mr. Kemble is
peculiarly distinguished. In the scenes with _Iachimo_ he was
particularly happy, and threw from him the imputations and
even the proofs of _Imogen’s_ inconstancy with a fine manly
graceful scorn. The burst of inconsolable passion when the
conviction of his treacherous rival’s success is forced upon
him, was nearly as fine as his smothered indignation and
impatience of the least suggestion against his mistress’s
purity of character, had before been. In the concluding scene
he failed. When he comes forward to brave _Iachimo_, and as
it were to sink him to the earth by his very presence—‘Behold
him here’—his voice and manner wanted force and impetuosity.
Mr. Kemble executes a surprise in the most premeditated and
least unexpected manner possible. What was said the other day
in praise of this accomplished actor, might be converted into
an objection to him: he has been too much used to figure “on
tesselated pavements, when a fall would be fatal” to himself
as well as others. He therefore manages the movements of his
person with as much care as if he were a marble statue, and
as if the least trip in his gait, or discomposure of his
balance, would be sure to fracture some of his limbs. Mr.
Terry was _Bellarius_, and recited some of the most beautiful
passages in the world like the bellman’s verses. His voice is
not “musical as is Apollo’s lute,” but “harsh and crabbed as
dull fools suppose.”[77] Mr. Young made a very respectable
_Iachimo_, and Miss Foote lisped through the part of _Imogen_
very prettily. The rest of the characters were very poorly
cast.—Oh! we had forgot Mr. Liston’s _Cloten_: a sign that it
is not so good as his _Lord Grizzle_, or _Lubin Log_, or a
dozen more exquisite characters that he plays. It would,
however, have been very well, if he had not _whisked_ off the
stage at the end of each scene, “to set on some quantity of
barren spectators to laugh.”[78] The serenade at _Imogen’s_
window was very beautiful, and was _encored_,—we suspect,
contrary to the etiquette of the regular drama. But we take a
greater delight in fine music than in etiquette.’
373. _Mrs. Siddons’s Lady Macbeth._ The _Theatrical Examiner_, from
which this notice is taken, opens with a notice (possibly by
Hazlitt) of Paer’s opera _Agnese_, at the King’s Theatre.
Mrs. Siddons played Lady Macbeth on June 5, 1817, with J. P.
Kemble as Macbeth and Charles Kemble as Macduff. After this
date the theatrical criticism of _The Examiner_ was taken
over by Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt began to write for _The
Times_.
374. ‘_Thank God_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 1.
_Mr. Kemble’s retirement._ Covent Garden, June 23, 1817.
375. ‘_Like an eagle_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Sc. 6.
‘_My mother bows_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.
376. ‘_Nothing extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.
377. ‘_Is whispering_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act I. Sc. 2.
‘_Every_ [each] _corporal agent._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 7.
‘_There was neither variableness_,’ _etc._ _St. James_, i. 17.
‘_The fire i’ th’ flint_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Sc.
1.
378. ‘_My way of life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.
‘_The fiery soul_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1.
156-8.
‘_You shall relish_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.
379. ‘_The tug and war._’ Cf. ‘Then was the tug of war.’ Lee,
_Alexander the Great_, Act IV. Sc. 2.
‘_Fate and metaphysical aid._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.
_Invita Minerva._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 385.
ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM _THE LONDON MAGAZINE_, 1820.
PAGE
383. _Semper varium et mutabile._ Virgil, _Æneid_, IV. 569.
‘_The stage, the inconstant stage._’ Cf. ‘The moon, the
inconstant moon.’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.
384. ‘_To dally with the wind_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Richard III._, Act I.
Sc. 3.
‘_With coy_ [sweet] _reluctant_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
311.
385. ‘_Should God create_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 911-13.
386. ‘_Play the hostess._’ Cf. ‘Ourself will mingle with society,
and play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state,’ etc.
_Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.
387. _Eclipsed the gaiety_, _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 270.
_Beau Mordecai._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la Mode_, brought out in
1760.
_Lord Sands._ In _King Henry VIII_.
‘_With nods and becks_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 28.
388. ‘_Secret Tattle._’ In Congreve’s _Love for Love_.
389. ‘_Made a sunshine_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, 1. iii. 4.
‘_Talked far above singing._’ Beaumont and Fletcher,
_Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 5.
‘_Her bounty_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.
_Her Nell._ In Coffey’s _The Devil to Pay_ (1731).
392. ‘_Extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.
393. ‘_There were two_,’ _etc._ Cf. _St. Luke_, xvii. 31 _et seq._
‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘_To our moist vows denied._’ _Lycidas_, 159.
‘_Slippery turns_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 4.
‘_Mr. Limberham_,’ _etc._ Dryden’s _The Kind Keeper; or, Mr.
Limberham_ (1680).
‘_With its worldly goods_,’ _etc._ _The Book of Common Prayer_,
Marriage Service.
‘_The list of weeds_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_,
Chap. 1. § 2.
‘_In monumental mockery._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc.
3.
394. _The Surrey_, _etc._ The Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road,
opened in 1782; The Cobourg Theatre, Waterloo Bridge Road,
opened in 1818; The Sans Pareil, better known as The Adelphi
Theatre, in the Strand, opened in 1806.
395. ‘_Gentle and low_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act V. Sc. 3.
397. ‘_Like to another morn_, _etc._’ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310-11.
‘_Moody madness_,’ _etc._ Gray, Ode, _On a Distant Prospect of
Eton College_, 79-80.
398. ‘_Mar_ [scar] _that whiter skin_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc.
2.
399. _Gallantry, or Adventures at Madrid._ Jan. 15, 1820; acted only
once.
‘_Had its brother_,’ _etc._ Cf. Pope, _Moral Essays_, IV.
117-8.
400. ‘_As it was set down for him._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_The courtier’s or the lover’s melancholy._’ Cf. _As You Like
It_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
_Gilray._ James Gillray (1757-1815), the caricaturist.
_Mrs. Edwin._ Elizabeth Rebecca Richards (1771?-1854) first
appeared at Covent Garden 1789; married in 1791 John Edwin
the younger.
401. _Magis pares_, _etc._ Cf. ‘Similia omnia magis visa hominibus,
quam paria.’ Livy, XLV. 43.
Note 1. Pope’s _Essay on Criticism_, 1-2.
402. ‘_All is grace above_,’ _etc._ ‘Thus all below is strength, and
all above is grace.’
Dryden, _Epistle to Congreve_, 19.
‘_To relish all_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.
‘_I banish you._’ _Coriolanus_, Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_The most sweet voices._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.
403. ‘_Guns, drums_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Satires_, I. 26.
‘_Ample scope_ [room],’ _etc._ Gray, _The Bard_, 5.
404. ‘_Constrained by mastery._’ Cf. _post_, note to p. 479.
‘_Speculative_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.
‘_There he arriving_,’ _etc._ _Muiopotmos_, St. XXII. and
XXVII.
405. ‘_Like greyhound on the slip._’ _Henry V._, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘_The full eyes_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1.
§ 2.
‘_Embalmed with odours._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 843.
‘_A wide O._’ Cf. ‘Why should you fall into so deep an O?’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Come, let me clutch thee._’ _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 1.
‘_Those gay creatures_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 299-301.
406. _W—m._ Wem.
_The Rev. Mr. J——s._ The author’s son fills this blank with the
name of Jenkins.
407. ‘_Of imagination all compact._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_,
Act V. Sc. 1.
‘_Their mind to them_,’ _etc._ Sir Edward Dyer’s ‘My mynde to
me a kyngdome is,’ set to music by Byrd in 1588.
‘_Of all earth’s bliss_,’ _etc._ From Lamb’s version of
Thekla’s song in _Wallenstein_ (Part I., The Piccolomini).
See Coleridge’s _Poetical Works_ (ed. J. D. Campbell), 648.
408. ‘_By his so potent art._’ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.
‘_Happy alchemy of mind._’ See vol. V., note to p. 107.
‘_Severn’s sedgy side._’ ‘Gentle Severn’s sedgy bank.’ _Henry
IV._, Part I., Act I. Sc. 3.
‘Note. ‘_The beggars are coming_,’ _etc._ From the old song
beginning, ‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,’ etc.
409. ‘_Alas! how changed_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III. 305-6.
‘_Made of penetrable stuff._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.
410. ‘_See the puppets dallying._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.
_Mr. Stanley._ Stanley had been well known at Bath, and had
appeared for a short time at Drury Lane. Genest (VIII. 693)
describes him as ‘a very good actor for a provincial theatre,
and a fair actor for London.’
411. _Panopticon._ Cf. vol. IV., note to p. 197.
‘_My soul turn from them._’ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, 165.
‘_Her, lovely Venus_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 14-16.
‘_Vernal airs_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 264-6.
‘_Three red roses_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Richard III._, Act IV. Sc. 3.
‘_The witchery_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Peter Bell_ (Part I.), l.
265.
412. _Mr. Reeve._ John Reeve (1799-1838), a mimic and comedian,
chiefly associated with the Adelphi.
‘_Our hint to speak._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.
413. _Mr. Peter Moore._ Peter Moore (1753-1828), member of
parliament and company promoter. He was at one time one of
the managers of Drury Lane Theatre.
_The Antiquary._ A musical play in three acts by Daniel Terry,
Jan. 25, 1820.
‘_Warbled._’ ‘Come, warble, come.’ _As You Like It_, Act II.
Sc. 5.
Note. _The Surrey Theatre._ The Surrey Theatre had been taken
by Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841) in 1816.
414. ‘_Perplexed in the extreme._’ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_Horror sat plumed._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 989.
‘_Of one that loved_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_Turbaned Turk._’ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_I cannot think_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_The glorious triumph_ [trial],’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX.
961.
415. ‘_The high and palmy state._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 1.
416. _Mr. Milman’s Fazio._ Produced at Covent Garden, Feb. 5, 1818.
‘_Look abroad_,’ _etc._ Bacon, _The Advancement of Learning_,
Book I., III. 6.
417. ‘_Are embowelled_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 101).
_The Upholsterer._ Cf. _ante_, p. 96.
‘_A counterfeit presentment._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.
418. ‘_To relish_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, p. 402.
419. ‘_Unfeathered, two-legged thing._’ Dryden, _Absalom and
Achitophel_, I. 170.
‘_You may wear_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Sc. 5.
‘_He sits in the centre_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 382-3.
420. _Mr. Wordsworth’s hankering after the drama._ Wordsworth’s
tragedy, _The Borderers_, composed in 1795-6, and soon
afterwards refused by the Covent Garden management, was not
published till 1842.
‘_The daily intercourse_,’ _etc._ Quoted vaguely from
Wordsworth’s _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern
Abbey_.
note. Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), whose _Plays on the Passions_
had appeared in 3 vols. 1798-1812.
421. ‘_Like a wild overflow_,’ _etc._ Beaumont and Fletcher,
_Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 3.
‘_’Tis three feet long_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _The Thorn_, (l.
33), as published in _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798).
422. ‘_What? if one reptile_,’ _etc._ _Remorse_, Act III. Sc. 2.
423. _The Hebrew._ By George Soane (1790-1860).
‘_I had as lief_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Instinct with fire._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 937.
_Disjecta_ [disjecti] _membra poetae._ Horace, _Satires_, I. 4,
62.
425. ‘_His affections_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘_Holds sovereign sway._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.
‘_A far cry to Lochiel._’ ‘It’s a far cry to Lochow.’ See _Rob
Roy_, note to chap. 29.
‘_Hitherto shalt thou come_,’ _etc._ _Job_, xxxviii. 11.
‘_Like kings_,’ _etc._ Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_, 64-5.
427. ‘_Like to that sanguine flower_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, 106.
‘_Unkindness_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Sc. 2.
_Three Weeks after Marriage._ Arthur Murphy’s comedy, produced
in 1776.
_Mr. Connor._ Charles Connor (d. 1826), Irish comedian.
428. _The Manager in Distress._ By George Colman the elder.
‘_Too Late for Dinner._’ A farce by Richard Jones the actor.
429. ‘_Great heir of fame._’ Milton, _On Shakespeare_. l. 5.
‘_Strange that_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Then there’s hope a great man’s
memory may outlive his life half a year.’ _Hamlet_, Act III.
Sc. 2.
_Don Quixote’s throwing open the cages_, _etc._ _Don Quixote_,
Part II., Book I. Chap. 17.
‘_Tasteless monster_,’ _etc._ ‘A faultless monster whom the
world ne’er saw.’ John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire,
_Essay on Poetry_.
‘_If that they love_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘But that I love the gentle
Desdemona,’ etc. _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 2.
_Berlin and Milan decrees._ Of Napoleon, 1806 and 1807.
430. _Like the lady in the lobster._ Cf. Herrick’s _Hesperides_, No.
224 (The Faerie Temple).
‘_As if he would confine_,’ _etc._ _Samson Agonistes_, 307.
‘_A beard so old and white._’ ‘’Gainst a head so old and white
as this.’ _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 2.
_Nahum Tate’s Lear._ Produced in 1681.
431. ‘_There’s sympathy._’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II. Sc.
1.
432. ‘_Applauds you_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.
433. ‘_He must live to please_,’ _etc._ Johnson, Prologue at the
opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747, l. 54.
‘_Lard the lean earth_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._ Part I., Act II.
Sc. 2.
434. ‘_First, midst, and last._’ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, V. 165.
435. _Shakspear versus Harlequin._ An alteration of _Harlequin’s
Invasion_ produced in 1759.
‘_Charge on heaps_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Troilus and Cressida_, Act
III. Sc. 2.
436. _Quod sic mihi_, _etc._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 188.
‘_See o’er the stage_,’ _etc._ Cf. Thomson, _The Seasons_,
winter, 646.
‘_But thou, oh Hope_,’ _etc._ Collins, Ode, _The Passions_,
29-32.
439. _Sir Hugh Middleton’s Head._ The sign of this inn, opposite
Sadler’s Wells, figures in Hogarth’s _Evening_.
440. ‘_Shut their blue-fringed lids_,’ _etc._ Coleridge, _Fears in
Solitude_, 84-6.
_Mr. Booth’s Lear._ Covent Garden, April 13, 1820.
‘_I am every inch a King._’ _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.
‘_The fiery Duke._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.
441. _Henri Quatre._ A musical romance in three acts by Thomas
Morton.
‘_’Twas Lancelot_,’ _etc._ Leigh Hunt, _The Story of Rimini_.
‘_Ah! brilliant land_,’ _etc._ To this quotation the Editor of
_The London Magazine_ prints the following note: ‘Does our
Correspondent here refer to the ink he has himself shed in
severe criticism of the French National Character.’
442. ‘_The invincible knights of old._’ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘It is
not to be thought of,’ etc.
_Miss M. Tree._ Ann Maria Tree (1801-1862), afterwards Mrs.
Bradshaw, made her first appearance at Covent Garden in 1818.
_The present crisis of affairs._ Hazlitt alludes to the
Revolution in Spain, in 1820.
445. ‘_Accumulate horrors_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_That has outlasted_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from Beaumont and
Fletcher’s _Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 3.
‘_Tore it to tatters_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Hear, Nature, hear_,’ _etc._ The quotations from _King Lear_
in this paragraph are from Act I. Sc. 4.
446. ‘_Compunctious visitings of nature._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.
‘_Like a phantasma_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Sc. 1.
447. ‘_Dear daughter_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 4.
‘_Beloved Regan_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.
448. ‘_Appal the guilty_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Hamlet_, Act II.
Sc. 2.
‘_Create a soul_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 562.
‘_The fiery quality_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 4.
‘_I will do such things_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.
449. ‘_Blow winds_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_More germane_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.
‘_How dost_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Didst thou give all_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_What, have his daughters_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_Was set down._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
450. ‘_Aye, every inch a king._’ _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.
‘_When I do stare_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 6.
‘_Pray do not mock me._’ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 6.
‘_Which sacred pity_, _etc._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.
‘_False gallop._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Honest sonsy_,’ _etc._ Burns, _Address to a Haggis_, I.
451. _Artaxerxes._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 192-3.
452. ‘_Concords of sweet sounds._’ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V.
Sc. 1.
453. l. 15. In _The London Magazine_ the article concludes with a
notice (signed ‘X.’) of a new after-piece at Drury Lane,
entitled _The Lady and the Devil_, and a flattering notice of
_Virginius_ at Covent Garden. Neither of these notices is
written in Hazlitt’s manner, and it is evident from his later
account of Knowles’s tragedy (see pp. 455, _et seq._) that
the notice of _Virginius_ at any rate is the work of another
hand. It would seem that after seeing Kean in _King Lear_
Hazlitt retired for a time to Winterslow.
_The only article_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably refers to his third
article, published in the March number (_ante_, pp. 403, _et
seq._), which was probably written while the theatres were
closed in consequence of the deaths of the Duke of Kent (d.
January 23, 1820) and George III. (d. January 29, 1820).
_Mr. Weathercock._ Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1852),
afterwards well known as a forger and murderer, was at this
time a regular contributor to _The London Magazine_, chiefly
under the pseudonym of Janus Weathercock. His contributions
were for the most part on the Fine Arts, but in the number
for June 1820 (_Janus’s Jumble_, chap, III.) he wrote some
remarks on the theatres, in the course of which he chaffed
‘Mr. Drama’ (_i.e._ Hazlitt) on some of his theatrical
criticisms, and especially on his article on the minor
theatres published in March. To these remarks Hazlitt replies
in the present essay. For Wainewright himself see the
biographical introduction to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition
(1880) of his contributions to _The London Magazine_, and Mr.
Bertram Dobell’s _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_ (1903).
454. ‘_Odious in satin_,’ _etc._ ‘Odious! in woollen! ’twould a
saint provoke.’ Pope, _Moral Essays_, I. 246.
‘_Like little wanton boys_,’ _etc._ _Henry VIII._ Act III. Sc.
2.
‘_Inexpressive three._’ Cf. ‘Unexpressive she.’ _As You Like
It_, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_Written in our heart’s tables._’ _All’s Well that Ends Well_,
Act I. Sc. 1.
455. ‘_Entire affection scorneth_ [hateth],’ _etc._ _The Faerie
Queene_, Book I. Canto VIII. St. 40.
‘_A man’s mind_,’ _etc._ ‘Men’s judgements are a parcel of
their fortunes.’ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act III. Sc. 13.
‘_Diamond rings_,’ _etc. etc._ Hazlitt quotes from
Wainewright’s article.
‘_We came_,’ _etc._ A hasty adaptation, presumably, of the
famous ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’
_Virginius._ James Sheridan Knowles’s (1784-1862) _Virginius_
was produced at Covent Garden on May 17, 1820.
‘_Strike his lofty head_,’ _etc._ ‘Sublimi feriam sidera
vertice.’ Horace, _Odes_, I. I. 36.
456. _The Virginius and the David Rizzio_, _etc._ Another
_Virginius_, with Kean in the title _role_, was produced at
Drury Lane on May 29, 1820. _David Rizzio_, an opera by
Colonel Hamilton, appeared at the same theatre on June 17.
_A former article._ See _ante_, note to p. 453.
‘_I never saw you_,’ _etc._ _Virginius_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
‘_The lie_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.
‘_To be sure she will_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.
‘_Let the forum wait for us!_’ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.
‘_The freeborn Roman maid._’ Varied slightly from phrases
applied to Virginia in the play.
457. ‘_Lest the courtiers_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act II.
Sc. 2.
‘_Let the galled jade_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.
458. ‘_Why are those things hid_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I.
Sc. 3.
_Mr. Kean at his benefit._ June 12, 1820. The play was _Venice
Preserved_, followed by _The Admirable Crichton_.
_Educated in the fourth form_, _etc._ A gibe at Elliston, who
was educated at St. Paul’s School.
_Cast in the antique mould_, _etc._ The reference is to Kemble.
note. ‘_An honest man_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, IV. 248.
459. ‘_In this expectation_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘This was looked for at
your hand, and this was balked.’ _Twelfth Night_, Act III.
Sc. 2.
‘_Nothing can come of nothing._’ ‘De nihilo nihil.’ Persius,
_Satires_, III. 84.
460. _Miss Povey._ Born in 1804, and appeared first at Drury Lane in
1817.
461. ‘_Softly sweet in Lydian measures._’ Dryden, _Alexander’s
Feast_, 97.
_Giovanni in London._ By William Thomas Moncrieff (1794-1857),
originally produced at the Olympic on December 26, 1817.
462. ‘_She forgot to be a woman_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from
_Cymbeline_, Act III. Sc. 4.
‘_Like a new ta’en sparrow._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III.
Sc. 2.
‘_Like marigolds_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘The marigold, that goes to bed
wi’ the sun,’ etc. _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.
463. _The ‘Great Vulgar and the Small.’_ Cowley, Horace, _Odes_,
III. 1.
‘_Raised so high_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘High throned above all highth.’
_Paradise Lost_, III. 58.
‘_Such tricks_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. Sc.
1.
464. ‘_‘Present no mark._’ _Henry IV._, Part II. Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_You may as well_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.
‘_One bubble_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1. §
1.
_Her Yarico._ In Colman’s _Inkle and Yarico_ (1787).
‘_We had rather_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _All’s Well that Ends
Well_, Act I. Sc. 1.
465. ‘_In the catalogue_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Ay, in the catalogue ye go
for men.’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘_To curl her hair_,’ _etc._ See Congreve’s _The Way of the
World_, Act. II. Sc. 5.
465. ‘_Who rant and fret_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Macbeth_, Act V.
Sc. 5.
‘_Vine-covered hills._’ ‘From the vine-cover’d hills and gay
valleys of France.’ From lines ‘written in 1788’ by William
Roscoe (1753-1831). The lines were partly parodied by Canning
and Frere in _The Anti-Jacobin_ (‘La Sainte Guillotine’):
‘From the blood-bedew’d valleys and mountains of France.’ Cf.
vol. VI. p. 189 (_Table Talk_).
‘_And murmur_,’ _etc._ Landor, _Gebir_, Book I.
466. ‘_Sigh his soul_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘And sighed his soul towards the
Grecian tents.’ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V. Sc. 1.
467. ‘_A brother of the groves._’ Hazlitt perhaps recalls
Wordsworth’s line, ‘A brother of the dancing leaves’ (_The
Green Linnet_, 34). As originally published (_Poems_, 1807,
II. 81), the line ran, ‘A Brother of the Leaves he seems,’
which is still nearer to Hazlitt’s phrase.
468. _Crockery and Peter Pastoral._ In _Exit by Mistake_ and
_Teazing Made Easy_ respectively.
‘_His tears_,’ _etc._
Cf. ‘The tears which came to Matthew’s eyes
Were tears of light, the oil of gladness.’
Wordsworth, _Matthew_, as published in _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800,
vol. II. p. 121.
‘_Sic transit_,’ _etc._ Thomas à Kempis, _De Imitatione
Christi_, I. 3, 6.
469. ‘_Stands on end_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc.
5.
‘_Let those laugh_,’ _etc._
Cf. ‘Let those love now, who never lov’d before;
Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.’
Parnell, _The Vigil of Venus_.
470. ‘_Compunctious visitings._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc, 5.
_Little Pickle._ In _The Spoilt Child_.
471. _The great cat, Rodilardus._ In Rabelais. See _Pantagruel_, IV.
67.
‘_Dressed in a little brief authority_,’ _etc._ _Measure for
Measure_, Act II. Sc. 2.
472. ‘_You take my house_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act IV.
Sc. 1.
‘_Cleansed_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.
‘_Flesh is heir to._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.
473. ‘_Not a jot_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.
‘_But never more_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.
‘_Never so sure_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 51-2.