_The Nice Valour, or Passionate Madman._ Published 1647.
_Most musical._ _Il Penseroso_, 62.
296. _The silver foam._ Cowper’s _Winter’s Walk at Noon_, ll. 155–6—
‘Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave.’
_Grim-visaged, comfortless despair._ Cf. ‘grim visag’d war.’ _Richard
III._, I. 1; and ‘grim and comfortless despair.’ _Comedy of Errors_,
V. 1.
_Beaumont died._ His years were thirty-two (1584–1616).
_’Tis not a life._ _Philaster_, Act V. 2. See p. 262.
_The lily on its stalk green._ Chaucer, _The Knighte’s Tale_, 1036.
_Lapt in Elysium._ _Comus_, 257.
_Raphael._ Raphael’s years were thirty-seven (1483–1520).
297. _Now that his task._ _Comus_, 1012.
_Rymer’s abuse._ See Thomas Rymer’s (1641–1713) _The Tragedies of the
Last Age Considered_ (1678). He was called by Pope ‘the best’ and by
Macaulay ‘the worst’ English critic.
_The sons of memory._ Milton’s _Sonnet on Shakespeare_, 1630.
_Sir John Beaumont_ (1582–1628), the author of _Bosworth Field_.
_Fleeted the time carelessly._ _As You Like It_, I. 1. [‘golden
world.’]
298. _Walton’s Complete Angler._ Third Day, chap. iv.
Note. Rochester’s _Epigram_. Sternhold and Hopkins were the joint
authors of the greater number of the metrical versions of the Psalms
(1547–62) which used to form part of the _Book of Common Prayer_.
299–300. _Drummond of Hawthornden._ William Drummond (1585–1649). His
_Conversations with Ben Jonson_ were written of a visit paid him by
Jonson in 1618. Mention might be made of Mr. W. C. Ware’s edition of
his Poems (1894), wherein many variations from Hazlitt’s text of the
sonnets may be noted, too numerous to detail here.
Note. _I was all ear._ _Comus_, 560.
301. _The fly that sips treacle._ Gay’s _Beggar’s Opera_, II. 2.
_Sugar’d sonnetting._ Cf. Francis Meres’ _Palladis Tamia_, 1598,
concerning Shakespeare’s ‘sugred Sonnets,’ and Judicio in _The Return
from Parnassus_ (see p. 281 _ante_), ‘sugar’d sonnetting.’
302. _The gentle craft._ The sub-title of a play of T. Dekker’s: _The
Shoemaker’s Holiday, or the Gentle Craft_ (1600). The phrase has long
been associated with that handicraft.
_A Phœnix gazed by all._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 272.
_Give a reason for the faith that was in me._ Cf. Sydney Smith’s—‘It
is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the
faith that is within him.’
303. _Oh, how despised._ Act I. 1.
304. _The Triumph of his Mistress._ _The Triumph of Charis._
_Nest of spicery._ _Richard III._, IV. 4.
_Oh, I could still._ _Cynthia’s Revels_, I. 1.
306. _A celebrated line._ See Coleridge’s Tragedy _Osorio_, Act iv.,
Sc. 1., written 1797, but not published in its original form until
1873. Coleridge’s _Poetical Works_, ed. Dykes Campbell, p. 498.
‘Drip! drip! drip! drip! in such a place as this
It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip!’
Recast and entitled _Remorse_, the tragedy was performed at Drury
Lane, Jan. 23, 1813, and published in pamphlet form. In the Preface
Coleridge relates the story of Sheridan reading the play to a large
company, and turning it into ridicule by saying—
‘Drip! drip! drip! there’s nothing here but dripping.’
Hazlitt’s quotation is taken, of course, from this Preface to
_Remorse_.
307. _The milk of human kindness._ Macbeth, I. 5.
309. _Daniel._ Samuel Daniel, 1562–1619.
311. _Michael Drayton_ (1563–1631). His Polyolbion, or
‘chorographicall’ description of England in thirty books was issued in
1612–22. See the Spenser Society’s editions of Drayton’s works.
_P. Fletcher’s Purple Island._ Phineas Fletcher (1582–1650). _The
Purple Island_, 1633. The poem has been topographically catalogued
under ‘Man, Isle of’!
_Brown._ William Browne (1591–_c._ 1643). _Britannia’s Pastorals_,
1613–16; a third book (in MSS.) was printed in 1852.
_Carew._ Thomas Carew (_c._ 1594–_c._ 1639).
_Herrick._ Robert Herrick (1591–1674). His poems were edited by Dr.
Grosart in 1876.
_Crashaw._ Richard Crashaw (? 1612–1649), the English Mystic. See Dr.
Grosart’s edition, 1872.
_Marvell._ Andrew Marvell (1621–1678). See Dr. Grosart’s edition,
1872–74.
312. _Like the motes._ ‘The gay motes that people the sunbeams.’
Milton’s _Il Penseroso_, 8.
313. _On another occasion._ See _ante_ p. 83.
315. _Clamour grew dumb._ _Pastorals_, Book II. Song 1.
_The squirrel._ Book I. Song 5.
_The hues of the rainbow._ Book II. Song 3.
_The Shepherd’s Pipe_, 1614.
_The Inner Temple Mask_, 1620.
_Marino._ Giambattista Marini (1569–1625).
_His form had not yet lost._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 591.
_Sir Philip Sidney_ (1554–86). See Grosart’s edition of the Poems and
Arber’s editions of the _Apologie_ and _Astrophel and Stella_.
318. _Ford’s Version._ See Act I. 1. _The Countess of Pembroke’s
Arcadia_ was published in 1690.
_On compulsion._ _I. Henry IV._ II. 4.
_The soldier’s._ _Hamlet_, III. 1.
_Like a gate of steel._ _Troilus and Cressida_ III. 3. [‘receives and
renders’].
320. _With centric._ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 83.
321. _So that the third day._ Book I. chap. ii. [‘delightful
prospects’].
_Georgioni_, _i.e._ Giorgione, or Giorgio Barbarella (1477–1511), the
great Venetian painter.
322. _Like two grains of wheat._ _The Merchant of Venice_, I. 1. [‘hid
in two bushels’].
_Have you felt the wool._ In _The Triumph of Charis_.
323. _As Mr. Burke said of nobility._ Cf. _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_, ed. Payne, vol. II. p. 163. ‘To be honoured and
even privileged by the laws, opinions and inveterate usages of our
country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke
horror and indignation in any man.’
_The shipwreck of Pyrochles._ Book I. chap. i.
324. _Certainly, as her eyelids._ Book I. chap. i.
_Adriano de Armada, in Love’s Labour Lost._ See the two characteristic
letters of Don Adriano de Armado, in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act I.
1., and IV. 1.
325. _The reason of their unreasonableness._ _Don Quixote_, l. 1.
_Pamelas and Philocleas._ Heroines of the _Arcadia_.
326. _Defence of Poetry._ _An Apologie for Poetry_, 1595.
VII. CHARACTER OF LORD BACON’S WORKS, ETC.
_One of the wisest._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Epis. iv. 282.
_As in a map._ Cowper’s _Task_, vi. 17.
327. _Large discourse._ _Hamlet_, IV. 4.
331. _Sir Thomas Brown._ Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682).
333. _The bosoms and businesses._ Dedication to Bacon’s _Essays_.
_Find no end._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 561.
_Oh altitudo._ _Religio Medici_, Part I. ‘I love to lose myself in a
mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo!’
334. _Differences himself by._ _Religio Medici_, Part I. ‘But (to
difference my self nearer, and draw into a lesser Circle).’
_He could be content if the species were continued like trees._
_Religio Medici_, Part II.
335. _Walks gowned._ Lamb’s _Sonnet_, written at Cambridge, August 15,
1819.
_As it has been said._ Cf. the passage quoted later (p. 340) from
Coleridge.
339. _Mr. Coleridge._ See Coleridge’s _Literary Remains_, vol. II.
1836. On p. 340, l. 4 the phrase, as written by Coleridge, should be
‘Sir-Thomas-Brownness.’
341. _Stuff of the conscience._ _Othello_, I. 2.
_To give us pause._ _Hamlet_, III. I.
_Cloys with sameness._ Cf. Shakespeare’s _Venus and Adonis_, XIX.,
‘cloy thy lips with loathed satiety.’
Note. _One of no mark._ _1 Henry IV._, III. 2.
_Without form and void._ _Genesis_, I. 2.
_He saw nature in the elements of its chaos._ _Religio Medici_, Part
I.
342. _Where pure Niemi’s faery banks_ [mountains]. Thomson’s _Winter_,
875–6.
_Rains sacrificial roses_ [whisperings]. _Timon of Athens_, I. 1.
_Some are called at age._ Chap. i. § 3.
343. _It is the same._ Chap. iii. § 7.
_I have read_, and the next two quotations. Chap. i. § 2.
VIII. ON THE SPIRIT OF ANCIENT AND MODERN LITERATURE, ETC.
345. _The Apostate and Evadne._ _The Apostate_ (1817) by Richard Lalor
Sheil (1791–1851), _Evadne_ (1819).
_The Traitor by old Shirley._ James Shirley’s (1596–1666) _The
Traitor_ (1637).
_The last of those fair clouds._
_Mr. Tobin._ John Tobin (1770–1804). The _Honey-Moon_ was produced at
Drury Lane, Jan. 31, 1805. See _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_,
vol. I. p. 344.
_The Curfew._ Tobin’s play was produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 19, 1807.
346. _Mr. Lamb’s_ _John Woodvil._ Published 1802.
_There where we have treasured._ Cf. _St. Matt._ vi. 21.
_The tall_ [and elegant stag] _deer that paints a dancing shadow of
his horns in the swift brook_ [in the water, where he drinks].
Lamb’s _John Woodvil_, II. ii. 195–7.
_But fools rush in._ Pope’s _Essay on Criticism_, III. 66.
_To say that he has written better._ Lamb’s articles in Leigh Hunt’s
_Reflector_ on Hogarth and Shakespeare’s tragedies, appeared in 1811.
_A gentleman of the name of Cornwall._ Bryan Waller Procter’s (Barry
Cornwall 1787–1874), _Dramatic Scenes_ were published in 1819.
347. _The Falcon._ Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, 5th day, 9th story. See
_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_, vol. I. p. 331, and _The Round
Table_, vol. I. p. 163.
348. _A late number of the Edinburgh Review._ The article is by
Hazlitt himself, in the number for Feb. 1816, vol. 26, pp. 68, _et
seq._
_Florimel in Spenser._ Book III. 7.
_There was magic._ _Othello_, III. 4.
349. _Schlegel somewhere compares._ Cf. _Lectures on Dramatic Art and
Literature_ (Bohn, 1846) p. 407.
_So withered._ _Macbeth_, I. 3.
_The description of Belphœbe._ _The Faerie Queene_, II. iii. 21 _et
seq._
350. _All plumed like estriches._ Cf. _1 King Henry IV._ IV. 1.
352. _Antres vast._ _Othello_, I. 3.
_Orlando ... Rogero._ In Ariosto’s _Orlando Furioso_.
353. _New-lighted._ _Hamlet_, III. 4.
_The evidence of things unseen._ _Hebrews_, xi. 1.
_Broods over the immense_ [vast] _abyss_. _Paradise Lost_, I. 21.
_The ignorant present time._ _Macbeth_, I. 5.
355. _See o’er the stage._ Thomson’s _Winter_, ll. 646–8.
_The Orphan._ By Otway, 1680.
_Arabian trees._ _Othello_, V. 2.
_That sacred pity._ _As You Like It_, II. 7.
_Miss O’Neill._ Eliza O’Neill (1791–1872).
356. _Hog hath lost his Pearl._ 1613.
_Addison’s Cato._ 1713.
_Dennis’s Criticism._ John Dennis’s (1657–1734) _Remarks on Cato_,
1713.
_Don Sebastian._ 1690.
_The mask of Arthur and Emmeline._ _King Arthur, or the British
Worthy_ 1691, a Dramatic Opera with music by Purcell.
357. _Alexander the Great ... Lee._ _The Rival Queens_ (1677) by
Nathaniel Lee (1655–92).
_Œdipus._ 1679.
_Relieve the killing languor._ Burke’s _Reflections on the Revolution
in France_ (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 120).
_Leave then the luggage_, and the two following quotations. _Don
Sebastian_, Act II. 1.
359. _The Hughes._ John Hughes (1677–1720) author of _The Siege of
Damascus_ 1720, and one of the contributors to _The Spectator_.
_The Hills._ Aaron Hill (1684–1749) poet and dramatist.
_The Murphys._ Arthur Murphy (1727–1805) dramatist and biographer.
_Fine by degrees._ Matthew Prior’s _Henry and Emma_.
_Southern._ Thomas Southerne (1660/1–1746), who wrote _Oroonoko, or
the Royal Slave_ (1696).
_Lillo._ George Lillo (1693–1739), _Fatal Curiosity_, 1737.
_Moore._ Edward Moore (1712–1757), _The Gamester_, 1753.
_In one of his Letters._ See the letter dated September, 1737.
_Sent us weeping._ _Richard II._ V. 1.
_Rise sadder._ Coleridge’s _Ancient Mariner_.
_Douglas._ A tragedy by John Home (1724–1808), first played at
Edinburgh in 1756.
360. _Decorum is the principal thing._ ‘What Decorum is, which is the
grand Master-piece to observe.’ Milton on Education, Works, 1738, I.
p. 140.
_Aristotle’s definition of tragedy._ In the _Poetics_.
_Lovers’ Vows._ Mrs. Inchbald’s adaptation from Kotzebue, 1800.
_Pizarro._ Sheridan’s adaptation from Kotzebue’s _The Spaniard in
Peru_, 1799.
_Shews the very age._ _Hamlet_, III. 2.
361. _Orson._ In the fifteenth century romance, _Valentine and Orson_.
_Pure in the last recesses._ Dryden’s translation from the Second
Satire of _Persius_, 133.
_There is some soul of goodness._ _Henry V._, IV. 1.
_There’s something rotten._ _Hamlet_, I. 4.
362. _The Sorrows of Werter._ Goethe’s _Sorrows of Werther_ was
finished in 1774.
_The Robbers._ By Schiller, 1781.
_It was my wish._ Act III. 2.
363. _Don Carlos._ 1787.
_His Wallenstein._ Schiller’s, 1799; Coleridge’s, 1800.
_Cumberland’s imitation._ Richard Cumberland’s (1732–1811) _Wheel of
Fortune_ (1779).
_Goethe’s tragedies._ _Count Egmont_, 1788; _Stella_, 1776;
_Iphigenia_, 1786.
_Memoirs of Anastasius the Greek._ Thomas Hope’s (1770–1831) Eastern
romance was published in 1819 and was received with enthusiasm by the
_Edinburgh Review_.
_When in the fine summer evenings._ Werther (ed. Bohn), p. 337.
364. _As often got without merit._ _Othello_, II. 3.
SELECT BRITISH POETS
Dates, etc., are not given of those writers mentioned earlier in the
present volume.
See W. C. Hazlitt’s _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, II. 197–8, for the few
details that are known concerning the origin of this work. It was the
opinion of Edward Fitzgerald that ‘Hazlitt’s Poets is the best selection
I have ever seen.’
367. _Dr. Knox._ Vicesimus Knox, D.D. (1752–1821), a voluminous and
able author, preacher, and compiler. See Boswell’s _Johnson_, ed. G.
B. Hill, iv. 390–1.
368. _Baser matter._ _Hamlet_, I. 5.
_Taken him._ _Romeo and Juliet_, III. 2.
369. _Perpetual feast._ _Comus_, 480.
_Rich and rare._ Cf. Pope, Prologue to _Satires_, 171.
371. _Daniel._ Samuel Daniel, 1562–1619.
372. _Cowley._ Abraham Cowley, 1618–1667.
_Roscommon._ Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, 1634–1685. His
translation of Horace’s _Art of Poetry_ was published in 1680.
_Pomfret._ John Pomfret, 1667–1703. _The Choice_, 1699.
_Lord Dorset._ Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (_c._ 1536–1608),
author of the _Induction to a Mirror for Magistrates_, and
joint-author with Thomas Norton of the tragedy _Ferrex and Porrex_
(Gorboduc). See p. 193, _et seq._
_J. Philips._ John Philips, 1676–1708. _The Splendid Shilling_, 1705.
_Halifax._ Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, 1661–1715, joint-author
with Matthew Prior of the parody on Dryden’s _Hind and Panther_,
entitled _The Town and Country Mouse_.
373. _The mob of gentlemen._ Pope, _Epis. Hor._ Ep. I. Book II. 108.
_Parnell._ Thomas Parnell, 1679–1717. He was a friend of Swift and of
Pope.
_Prior._ Matthew Prior, 1664–1721.
374. _Blair._ Robert Blair, 1699–1746. _The Grave_, 1743.
_Ambrose Philips’s Pastorals._ These appeared in Tonson’s _Miscellany_
(1709). Ambrose Philips’s dates are ? 1675–1749. He has his place in
_The Dunciad_.
375. _Mallet._ David Mallet, 1700–1765, is best remembered for his
fusion of two old ballads into his _William and Margaret_, and for his
possible authorship of _Rule Britannia_.
_Less is meant._ Cf. Milton’s _Il Penseroso_, 120.
378. _Thoughts that glow_ [breathe]. Gray’s _Progress of Poesy_, 110.
_Lord Thurlow._ Edward, second Lord Thurlow (1781–1829), a nephew of
the Lord Chancellor, published _Verses on Several Occasions_ (1812),
_Ariadne_ (1814), and other volumes of poems.
379. _Mr. Milman._ Henry Hart Milman, 1791–1868, of _Latin
Christianity_ fame was also the author of several dramas and dramatic
poems, and of several well-known hymns.
_Bowles._ William Lisle Bowles, 1762–1850.
_Mr. Barry Cornwall._ Bryan Waller Procter (1787–1874).
-----
Footnote 1:
Burke’s writings are not poetry, notwithstanding the vividness of the
fancy, because the subject matter is abstruse and dry, not natural,
but artificial. The difference between poetry and eloquence is, that
the one is the eloquence of the imagination, and the other of the
understanding. Eloquence tries to persuade the will, and convince the
reason: poetry produces its effect by instantaneous sympathy. Nothing
is a subject for poetry that admits of a dispute. Poets are in general
bad prose-writers, because their images, though fine in themselves,
are not to the purpose, and do not carry on the argument. The French
poetry wants the forms of the imagination. It is didactic more than
dramatic. And some of our own poetry which has been most admired, is
only poetry in the rhyme, and in the studied use of poetic diction.
Footnote 2:
Taken from Tasso.
Footnote 3:
This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which Spenser
sometimes took with language.
Footnote 4:
‘That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Tho’ they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to Dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gold o’er-dusted.’
_Troilus and Cressida._
Footnote 5:
‘To begin then with Shakspeare: he was the man who of all modern, and
perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.
All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them
not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more
than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted
learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned:
he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked
inwards and found her there. I cannot say, he is every where alike;
were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of
mankind. He is many times flat, and insipid; his comic wit
degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he
is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him. No man
can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise
himself as high above the rest of poets,
_Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi._’
Footnote 6:
Written in the Fleet Prison.
Footnote 7:
Pope also declares that he had a particular regard for an old post
which stood in the court-yard before the house where he was brought
up.
Footnote 8:
Burns.—These lines are taken from the introduction to Mr. Wordsworth’s
poem of the LEECH-GATHERER.
Footnote 9:
Sonnet on Sherwood Forest, by J. H. Reynolds, Esq.
Footnote 10:
There is the same idea in Blair’s Grave.
‘——Its visits,
Like those of angels, short, and far between.’
Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has spoiled it. ‘Few,’ and
‘far between,’ are the same thing.
Footnote 11:
‘O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly Tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm’d the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in the wisdom of the Holly Tree
Can emblems see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
Such as may profit in the after time.
So, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.’—
Footnote 12:
In some Roman Catholic countries, pictures in part supplied the place
of the translation of the Bible: and this dumb art arose in the
silence of the written oracles.
Footnote 13:
See a Voyage to the Straits of Magellan, 1594.
Footnote 14:
‘The smiler with the knife under his cloke.’
_Knight’s Tale._
Footnote 15:
He died about 1594.
Footnote 16:
An anachronism.
Footnote 17:
This expression seems to be ridiculed by Falstaff.
Footnote 18:
‘He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,
That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,
And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;
Whose face has been a grind-stone for men’s swords:
His hands are hack’d, some fingers cut quite off,
Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looks
Like one that is employ’d in catzerie,
And cross-biting; such a rogue
As is the husband to a hundred whores;
And I by him must send three hundred crowns.’
_Act IV._
Footnote 19:
‘In spite of these swine-eating Christians
(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;
Such poor villains as were ne’er thought upon,
Till Titus and Vespasian conquer’d us)
Am I become as wealthy as I was.
They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;
But she’s at home, and I have bought a house
As great and fair as is the Governor’s:
And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,
Having Ferneze’s hand; whose heart I’ll have,
Aye, and his son’s too, or it shall go hard.
I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,
That can so soon forget an injury.
We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please;
And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks
As innocent and harmless as a lamb’s.
I learn’d in Florence how to kiss my hand,
Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,
And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:
Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,
Or else be gather’d for in our synagogue,
That when the offering bason comes to me,
Even for charity I may spit into it.’
Footnote 20:
Sir John Harrington’s translation.
Footnote 21:
See the conclusion of Lecture IV.
Footnote 22:
‘Am I not thy Duchess?
_Bosola._ Thou art some great woman, sure; for riot begins to sit on
thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry
milkmaid’s. Thou sleep’st worse than if a mouse should be forced to
take up his lodging in a cat’s ear: a little infant that breeds its
teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the
more unquiet bed-fellow.
_Duch._ I am Duchess of Malfy still.’
Footnote 23:
Euphrasia as the Page, just before speaking of her life, which
Philaster threatens to take from her, says,
——‘’Tis not a life;
’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.’
What exquisite beauty and delicacy!
Footnote 24:
The following criticism on this play has appeared in another
publication, but may be not improperly inserted here:
‘A New Way to Pay Old Debts is certainly a very admirable play, and
highly characteristic of the genius of its author, which was hard and
forcible, and calculated rather to produce a strong impression than a
pleasing one. There is considerable unity of design and a progressive
interest in the fable, though the artifice by which the catastrophe is
brought about, (the double assumption of the character of favoured
lovers by Wellborn and Lovell), is somewhat improbable, and out of
date; and the moral is peculiarly striking, because its whole weight
falls upon one who all along prides himself in setting every principle
of justice and all fear of consequences at defiance.
‘The character of Sir Giles Overreach (the most prominent feature of
the play, whether in the perusal, or as it is acted) interests us less
by exciting our sympathy than our indignation. We hate him very
heartily, and yet not enough; for he has strong, robust points about
him that repel the impertinence of censure, and he sometimes succeeds
in making us stagger in our opinion of his conduct, by throwing off
any idle doubts or scruples that might hang upon it in his own mind,
‘like dew-drops from the lion’s mane.’ His steadiness of purpose
scarcely stands in need of support from the common sanctions of
morality, which he intrepidly breaks through, and he almost conquers
our prejudices by the consistent and determined manner in which he
braves them. Self-interest is his idol, and he makes no secret of his
idolatry: he is only a more devoted and unblushing worshipper at this
shrine than other men. Self-will is the only rule of his conduct, to
which he makes every other feeling bend: or rather, from the nature of
his constitution, he has no sickly, sentimental obstacles to interrupt
him in his headstrong career. He is a character of obdurate self-will,
without fanciful notions or natural affections; one who has no regard
to the feelings of others, and who professes an equal disregard to
their opinions. He minds nothing but his own ends, and takes the
shortest and surest way to them. His understanding is clear-sighted,
and his passions strong-nerved. Sir Giles is no flincher, and no
hypocrite; and he gains almost as much by the hardihood with which he
avows his impudent and sordid designs as others do by their caution in
concealing them. He is the demon of selfishness personified; and
carves out his way to the objects of his unprincipled avarice and
ambition with an arm of steel, that strikes but does not feel the blow
it inflicts. The character of calculating, systematic self-love, as
the master-key to all his actions, is preserved with great truth of
keeping and in the most trifling circumstances. Thus ruminating to
himself he says, “I’ll walk, to get me an appetite: ’tis but a mile;
and exercise will keep me from being pursy!”—Yet to show the absurdity
and impossibility of a man’s being governed by any such pretended
exclusive regard to his own interest, this very Sir Giles, who laughs
at conscience, and scorns opinion, who ridicules every thing as
fantastical but wealth, solid, substantial wealth, and boasts of
himself as having been the founder of his own fortune, by his contempt
for every other consideration, is ready to sacrifice the whole of his
enormous possessions—to what?—to a title, a sound, to make his
daughter “right honourable,” the wife of a lord whose name he cannot
repeat without loathing, and in the end he becomes the dupe of, and
falls a victim to, that very opinion of the world which he despises!
The character of Sir Giles Overreach has been found fault with as
unnatural; and it may, perhaps, in the present refinement of our
manners, have become in a great measure obsolete. But we doubt whether
even still, in remote and insulated parts of the country, sufficient
traces of the same character of wilful selfishness, mistaking the
inveteracy of its purposes for their rectitude, and boldly appealing
to power as justifying the abuses of power, may not be found to
warrant this an undoubted original—probably a fac-simile of some
individual of the poet’s actual acquaintance. In less advanced periods
of society than that in which we live, if we except rank, which can
neither be an object of common pursuit nor immediate attainment, money
is the only acknowledged passport to respect. It is not merely
valuable as a security from want, but it is the only defence against
the insolence of power. Avarice is sharpened by pride and necessity.
There are then few of the arts, the amusements, and accomplishments
that soften and sweeten life, that raise or refine it: the only way in
which any one can be of service to himself or another, is by his
command over the gross commodities of life; and a man is worth just so
much as he has. Where he who is not ‘lord of acres’ is looked upon as
a slave and a beggar, the soul becomes wedded to the soil by which its
worth is measured, and takes root in it in proportion to its own
strength and stubbornness of character. The example of Wellborn may be
cited in illustration of these remarks. The loss of his land makes all
the difference between “young master Wellborn” and “rogue Wellborn;”
and the treatment he meets with in this latter capacity is the best
apology for the character of Sir Giles. Of the two it is better to be
the oppressor than the oppressed.
‘Massinger, it is true, dealt generally in extreme characters, as well
as in very repulsive ones. The passion is with him wound up to its
height at once, and he never lets it down afterwards. It does not
gradually arise out of previous circumstances, nor is it modified by
other passions. This gives an appearance of abruptness, violence, and
extravagance to all his plays. Shakespear’s characters act from mixed
motives, and are made what they are by various circumstances.
Massinger’s characters act from single motives, and become what they
are, and remain so, by a pure effort of the will, in spite of
circumstances. This last author endeavoured to embody an abstract
principle; labours hard to bring out the same individual trait in its
most exaggerated state; and the force of his impassioned characters
arises for the most part, from the obstinacy with which they exclude
every other feeling. Their vices look of a gigantic stature from their
standing alone. Their actions seem extravagant from their having
always the same fixed aim—the same incorrigible purpose. The fault of
Sir Giles Overreach, in this respect, is less in the excess to which
he pushes a favourite propensity, than in the circumstance of its
being unmixed with any other virtue or vice.
‘We may find the same simplicity of dramatic conception in the comic
as in the tragic characters of the author. Justice Greedy has but one
idea or subject in his head throughout. He is always eating, or
talking of eating. His belly is always in his mouth, and we know
nothing of him but his appetite; he is as sharpset as travellers from
off a journey. His land of promise touches on the borders of the
wilderness: his thoughts are constantly in apprehension of feasting or
famishing. A fat turkey floats before his imagination in royal state,
and his hunger sees visions of chines of beef, venison pasties, and
Norfolk dumplings, as if it were seized with a calenture. He is a very
amusing personage; and in what relates to eating and drinking, as
peremptory as Sir Giles himself.—Marrall is another instance of
confined comic humour, whose ideas never wander beyond the ambition of
being the implicit drudge of another’s knavery or good fortune. He
sticks to his stewardship, and resists the favour of a salute from a
fine lady as not entered in his accounts. The humour of this character
is less striking in the play than in Munden’s personification of it.
The other characters do not require any particular analysis. They are
very insipid, good sort of people.’
Footnote 25:
‘_Ithocles._ Soft peace enrich this room.
_Orgilus._ How fares the lady?
_Philema._ Dead!
_Christalla._ Dead!
_Philema._ Starv’d!
_Christalla._ Starv’d!
_Ithocles._ Me miserable!’
Footnote 26:
‘High as our heart.’—See passage from the Malcontent.
Footnote 27:
Or never known one otherwise than patient.
Footnote 28:
Sonnet to Cambridge, by Charles Lamb.
Footnote 29:
The name of Still has been assigned as the author of this singular
production, with the date of 1566.
Footnote 30:
So in Rochester’s Epigram.
‘Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms,
When they translated David’s Psalms.’
Footnote 31:
His mistress.
Footnote 32:
Scotch for send’st, for complain’st, &c.
Footnote 33:
‘I was all ear,’ see Milton’s Comus.
Footnote 34:
Chapman’s Hymn to Pan.
Footnote 35:
Alluding to the fulfilment of the prophecies and the birth of the
Messiah.
Footnote 36:
‘He spreads his sail-broad vans.’—Par. Lost, b. ii. l. 927.
Footnote 37:
See Satan’s reception on his return to Pandemonium, in book X. of
Paradise Lost.
Footnote 38:
Sir Thomas Brown has it, ‘The huntsmen are up in America,’ but Mr.
Coleridge prefers reading Arabia. I do not think his account of the
Urn-Burial very happy. Sir Thomas can be said to be ‘wholly in his
subject,’ only because he is _wholly out of it_. There is not a word
in the Hydriotaphia about ‘a thigh-bone, or a skull, or a bit of
mouldered coffin, or a tomb-stone, or a ghost, or a winding-sheet, or
an echo,’ nor is ‘a silver nail or a gilt _anno domini_ the gayest
thing you shall meet with.’ You do not meet with them at all in the
text; nor is it possible, either from the nature of the subject, or of
Sir T. Brown’s mind, that you should! He chose the subject of
Urn-Burial, because it was ‘one of no mark or likelihood,’ totally
free from the romantic prettinesses and pleasing poetical
common-places with which Mr. Coleridge has adorned it, and because,
being ‘without form and void,’ it gave unlimited scope to his
high-raised and shadowy imagination. The motto of this author’s
compositions might be—‘_De apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est
ratio._’ He created his own materials: or to speak of him in his own
language, ‘he saw nature in the elements of its chaos, and discerned
his favourite notions in the great obscurity of nothing!‘
Footnote 39:
The above passage is an inimitably fine paraphrase of some lines on
the tombs in Westminster Abbey by F. Beaumont. It shows how near
Jeremy Taylor’s style was to poetry, and how well it weaves in with
it.
‘Mortality, behold, and fear,
What a charge of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within this heap of stones:
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to stir their hands.
Where from their pulpits seal’d in dust,
They preach “In greatness is no trust.”
Here’s an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royal’st seed
That the earth did e’er suck in,
Since the first man died for sin.
Here the bones of birth have cried,
Though Gods they were, as men they died.
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropp’d from the ruin’d sides of kings.
Here’s a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate.’
Footnote 40:
He and his wife both died from fright, occasioned by the great fire of
London in 1665, and lie buried in St. Giles’s church-yard.
Footnote 41:
The difference in the tone of moral sentiment is the greatest of all
others.
Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 20, changed “was an effeminate as” to “was as effeminate as”.
2. P. 89, changed “that that of the torrid zone” to “than that of the
torrid zone”.
3. P. 150, changed “Procustes” to “Procrustes”.
4. Other spelling errors were left uncorrected.
5. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at
the end of the last chapter.
6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
7. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
8. Superscripts are denoted by a caret before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
9. Subscripts are denoted by an underscore before a series of
subscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. H_{2}O.