‘_Exaggerated evils._’ Coleridge says that the speeches in _Wat
Tyler_ were intended ‘as exaggerated truths characteristic of
heated minds.’
_‘Horrible shadows,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.
_‘Within the book,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 5.
_Herodias’s daughter._ _St. Matthew_ xiv. 6–8.
_‘No speculation,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.
210. ‘_Come, let me clutch thee._’ _Ib._ Act II. Scene 1.
‘_Tickling commodity._’ ‘That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling
Commodity. _King John_, Act II. Scene 1.
_‘The chief dread,’ etc._ This phrase is from the second of
Coleridge’s _Courier_ articles on _Wat Tyler_.
A LETTER TO WILLIAM SMITH, ETC. _The Examiner_, Literary Notices,
No. 27, May 4, 1817. Southey’s Letter was included in his
_Essays Moral and Political_ (vol. II. pp. 3–31), to which
reference should be made.
_Mr. Burke’s celebrated ‘Letter,’ etc._ ‘A letter from the Right
Hon. Edmund Burke, to a noble Lord on the attacks made upon him
and his pension, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford
and the Earl of Lauderdale, early in the present session of
Parliament. 1796.’ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 110–151.)
210. _The Abbé Sieyes’s pigeon-holes._ Burke’s _Letter_, p. 142.
211. ‘_A swan-like end._’ _Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Scene 2.
_‘The ruling passion,’ etc._ Varied from Pope’s _Moral Essays_, i.
178–9.
_‘There is,’ etc._ _St. Matthew_ v. 48.
212. _‘As fortune,’ etc._ _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Scene 1.
_‘I, Robert Shallow,’ etc._ ‘He shall not abuse Robert Shallow,
esquire.’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act I. Scene 1.
_Spencean._ The ‘Spencean Philanthropists,’ who took their
name from Thomas Spence (1750–1814), advocated a form of
land-nationalisation, and included among them the Spa-fields
rioters. See Harriet Martineau’s _History of the Peace_
(Bell), I. 81–88. ‘Ex-Spencean’ appears to be a pun of Sir
Francis Burdett’s. The word was applied by him to the
ministers ‘who had got possession of the purse of the
people.’ Debate in the House of Commons, Feb. 24, 1817.
_‘To know my deed,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 2.
‘_Blind with the pin and web._’ _Winter’s Tale_, Act I. Scene 2.
213. _‘Dost thou think,’ etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Scene 3.
_Mr. Alderman Smith._ Mr. Alderman Joshua Jonathan Smith, when
sitting in Quarter Sessions to hear an application for a licence
to hold meetings, said: ‘The object of the Act is to put down
all political debate whatever.’ See _The Examiner_, April 27,
1817.
_Mr. Wynne_. Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775–1850), who
allowed Southey £160 per annum from 1796 to 1807. He sat for
Montgomeryshire from 1799 till his death, and successively
held sundry subordinate offices. His elder brother and he were
known as Bubble and Squeak, and when he was proposed for the
Speakership in 1817, Canning feared that members might be
tempted to call him ‘Mr. Squeaker.’
_Mr. Canning’s want of regularity._ During the Debate on the
Address, Jan. 29, 1817.
214. _‘In the third tier,’ etc._ See _ante_, p. 150.
_The person who published ‘Wat Tyler.’_ The publishers were
Sherwood, Neely and Jones.
215. _‘Upon his brow,’ etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Scene 2.
217. _‘Found him poor,’ etc._ Goldsmith’s _Deserted Village_, l. 414.
_‘Be to her faults,’ etc._ Prior’s _An English Padlock_.
218. _‘What’s here,’ etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act IV. Scene 3.
A LETTER TO WILLIAM SMITH, ESQ., _etc._ (_continued_). _The
Examiner_, Literary Notices, No. 27, May 11, 1817.
_‘What word,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 1144.
‘_Mark you his absolute John._’ ‘Mark you his absolute “shall”?’
_Coriolanus_, Act III. Scene 1.
_The Commander-in-Chief._ The Duke of York retired in 1809 in
consequence of the disclosures made in the House of Commons.
Mrs. Clarke made use of her influence with the Duke to obtain
promotion for officers who paid her for her assistance. The Duke
was re-instated in 1811.
‘_The reading rabble._’ Hazlitt is probably referring to
Coleridge’s contemptuous passage on ‘The Reading Public.’ See
_ante_, pp. 149–150.
_Roderic Random._ See Chap. xxxiv.
_An exalted Personage._ The Prince Regent.
219. ‘_As pure as sin with baptism._’ _Henry V._, Act I. Scene 2.
_‘The collusion,’ etc._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Scene 2.
_Mr. Gifford._ See Vol. I. p. 456.
_‘The lovely Marcia,’ etc._ Addison’s _Cato_, Act I. Scene 4.
220. _The Inscription at Chepstow Castle._ This Inscription of
Southey’s in honour of the regicide Henry Martin was parodied by
Canning and Frere in the _Anti-Jacobin_ in the famous
‘Inscription for the door of the cell at Newgate, where Mrs.
Brownrigg, the ‘Prentice-cide was confined previous to her
execution.’
221. _Irritabile genus vatum._ Horace, _Epistles_, ii. 2, 102.
_The last Quarterly._ See Southey’s _Essays, Moral and Political_,
Essay VII. He defines Sir Richard Phillips as ‘Knight and
Ex-Sheriff, Buonapartist, Member of the Society for Abolishing
War, Pythagorean, and Spencean Philanthropist.’
_‘Why man,’ etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act I. Scene 2.
_Has overlaid the posthumous birth of the young Shiloh._ The
reference is to Joanna Southcott. See _post_, note to p. 297.
224. _Like Mr. Cobbett._ Cobbett had been in Newgate for two years
(1810–1812) and fined £1000 for an article on military flogging,
and had recently (March, 1817) been obliged to leave England
from the fear of a second imprisonment.
A LETTER TO WILLIAM SMITH, ESQ., _etc._ (_concluded_). _The
Examiner_, Literary Notices, No. 28, May 18, 1817.
225. _The Monthly._ Established in 1796 by Richard (afterwards Sir
Richard) Phillips, the vegetarian publisher. See Vol. II. p.
177.
_‘The hour when I escap’d,’ etc._ Beattie, _The Minstrel_, Stanza
40.
_Doctors Price and Priestley._ Richard Price (1723–1791), whose
sermon on Nov. 4, 1789 is so violently attacked by Burke in his
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_, and Joseph Priestley
(1733–1804) were Unitarians, ‘hot men’ as Burke called them.
They figure together in a note of Boswell’s (_Life of Johnson_,
ed. G. B. Hill, IV. 238).
226. _Don Giovanni._ _Don Juan_ had been given at the King’s
Theatre on April 12, 1817. See Hazlitt’s _Dramatic Essays_.
_‘Damn you,’ etc._ _The Rivals_, Act II. Scene 1.
227. _‘For a man,’ etc._ This line from _Hamlet_ (Act V. Scene 2)
formed the motto to _The Spirit of the Age_.
_‘Children and champions,’ etc._ See _ante_, p. 99.
_‘A consummation,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.
‘_O fool, fool, fool._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Scene 2.
228. _Half Luddite._ The Luddites, bands of workmen who destroyed
machinery, chiefly in the Midlands, had shown their greatest
activity in the preceding year, 1816.
229. _In his speech from the Throne._ On Jan. 28, 1817, Regent said
that the Estimates ‘had been formed upon a full consideration of
all the present circumstances of the country, with an anxious
desire to make every reduction in our Establishments which the
safety of the Empire and sound policy allow.’ A disorderly crowd
attended him back to St. James’s Palace after the opening of
Parliament, and the windows of his carriage were broken.
231. _‘O what delicate wooden spoons,’ etc._ _Don Quixote_, Part II.
Chap, lxvii.
_But Lord Castlereagh, etc._ Croker’s salary was raised from £3000
to £4000 in March 1816, the vote being passed by a majority of
only 29 (March 20).
_Flocci, etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 33.
232. _‘The high leaves,’ etc._ See Southey’s _The Holly Tree_, Stanza
5.
_Some evenings ago._ June 23, 1817, when Castlereagh proposed the
first reading of a Bill for further suspending the Habeas Corpus
Act.
232. _Castles and Oliver._ Violent debates took place in Parliament
during 1817 and 1818 in connection with the employment of Castle
and Oliver by the Government. See Hansard, _Parl. Debates_,
XXXVI. and XXXVIII., and Walpole’s _History of England_, I.
Chap. v. Castle was the chief witness against the Spa-Fields
rioters. Oliver supplied continuous reports of the progress of
insurrection in the two following years, 1817 and 1818.
233. _Lingo in the play._ O’Keefe’s _Agreeable Surprise_ (1798).
_Mr. Wynne._ See _ante_, note to p. 213.
_Lord Lascelles’s hat._ Henry Lascelles (1767–1841), a Yorkshire
member, succeeded to the Earldom of Harewood in 1820.
_That preux chevalier._ Dr. Stoddart left _The Times_ early in
1817 and entered into an arrangement with the proprietor of _The
Day_, in accordance with which that paper became known as _The
Day and New Times_. See Fox Bourne’s _English Newspapers_, I.
359–60.
_‘The age of chivalry,’ etc._ Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).
234. _There is no imputation, etc._ This was a remark of Mr. Lee Keck
in course of the debate.
_Fielding’s hero._ See _Jonathan Wild_, chap. xiii.
ON THE SPY-SYSTEM (_continued_). From _The Morning Chronicle_,
July 15, 1817.
_The debate._ On July 11, 1817.
_Genoa._ It was part of Brougham’s charge against the Government
that they had taken no effective steps on behalf of British
merchants of Genoa, who were treated by the Chamber of Commerce
at Genoa with every species of oppression and violence, and in
particular had been assessed for the professed purpose of buying
a frigate for the King of Sardinia.
235. ‘_Petty tyrant._’ Cf. ‘The little tyrant of his fields withstood.’
Gray’s _Elegy_, l. 58.
_Spanish America._ Brougham accused ministers of failing to
observe neutrality ‘in the great and interesting struggle of the
people of South America to rescue themselves from the most
odious tyranny that ever disgraced the history of the world.’
237. _Mr. Finnerty._ Peter Finnerty (1766?–1822) was imprisoned for two
years from Oct. 1797 for his account of the trial and execution
of William Orr. He afterwards became parliamentary reporter on
_The Morning Chronicle_. In Feb. 1811 he was imprisoned for
eighteen months for a libel charging Castlereagh with cruelty in
Ireland.
_Mr. Judkin Fitzgerald._ For a sketch of Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald,
High Sheriff of Tipperary, see Lecky’s _History of Ireland_
(Cabinet edition, IV. 277 _et seq._). A verdict against him of
£500 damages for illegal acts committed in order to suppress the
rebellion in Ireland led to the case being brought before
Parliament and to the passing of a wider Act of Indemnity.
_‘And struts,’ etc._ ‘Will sneaks a scriv’ner, an exceeding
knave.’ Pope, _Moral Essays_, I. 154.
_‘Innocent of the knowledge,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 2.
238. ON THE TREATMENT OF STATE PRISONERS. From _The Morning
Chronicle_, July 17, 1817.
_Mr. Hiley Addington._ See the debate in the House of Commons on
July 2, 1817. Hiley Addington was a brother of Lord Sidmouth, of
whom it was said,
‘When his periods hobble vilely
What “hear hims” burst from brother Hiley!’
238. _Thomas Evans_, imprisoned on suspicion under the Habeas Corpus
Suspension Act, was Librarian to the Society of Spencean
Philanthropists.
Note. _Mother Brownrigg._ Elizabeth Brownrigg, a midwife, who was
executed in 1767 for the murder of her apprentice, Mary
Clifford. See _ante_, note to p. 220.
Note. ‘_Comfit-makers wives’ oaths_’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act
III. Scene 1.
239. _‘As a lamb’ etc._ _Isaiah_ liii. 7.
‘_Poor, poor dumb mouths._’ _Julius Caesar_, Act III. Scene 2.
_‘Camels in their war,’ etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act II. Scene 1.
_Sir Robert Filmer._ Sir Robert Filmer (d. 1653), the absolutist,
whose ‘Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings asserted,’ was
published in 1680.
240. _‘Where is the madman,’ etc._ See _post_, p. 285, where much of
this matter is repeated.
_The Opposition and the Courier._ From _The Morning Chronicle_,
July 19, 1817.
_‘To acquaint us,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1.
241. _As Mr. Canning formerly thought._ Canning resigned from the Duke
of Portland’s ministry in 1809, and did not join Lord
Liverpool’s ministry till 1816. The Foreign Office was offered
to him in 1812, but he refused to take it with the condition
that Castlereagh should lead the House of Commons.
ENGLAND IN 1798, _etc._ From _The Morning Chronicle_, Aug. 2,
1817.
243. ON THE EFFECTS OF WAR AND TAXES. From _The Morning
Chronicle_, Aug. 13, 1817.
_‘Great princes,’ etc._ Cowper’s _The Task_, Book V.
_Not even the Finance Committee._ The Government had recently
appointed a Select Committee to consider the receipts and
expenditure for 1817, 1818, and 1819, and to report from time to
time what reductions might be made in the expenditure.
244. Note. _‘And ever,’ etc._ _L’Allegro_, l. 136.
246. _The Pavilion at Brighton._ Begun by the Prince of Wales in 1784.
_‘Minions of the moon,’ etc._ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act I. Scene
2.
247. _‘If we made,’ etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act II. Scene 4.
_‘The gout,’ etc._ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Scene 1.
249. _A writer, whose own fault, etc._ Coleridge. See his Essay ‘On the
Vulgar Errors respecting Taxes and Taxation.’ _The Friend_
(Section I., Essay 7).
_Mr. Southey in his late pamphlet._ _The Letter to William Smith._
See _Essays, Moral and Political_, II. 28.
250. CHARACTER OF MR. BURKE. Copied in _The Champion_, Oct. 5,
1817, from an article by Hazlitt in the _Edinburgh Review_, Vol.
XXVIII. pp. 503–7, Aug. 1817, on ‘Coleridge’s _Literary Life_.’
252. _The word ‘abdication.’_ _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
(_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 31–2).
253. _‘Never so sure,’ etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 51–2.
254. ON COURT INFLUENCE. From No. 1 (Jan. 3, 1818) of _The Yellow
Dwarf_, ‘a Weekly Miscellany’ founded by John Hunt, and
continued to No. 21 (May 23, 1818).
_‘To be honest,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
_‘But still the world,’ etc._ Thomson, _The Seasons_ (Autumn, l.
233).
255. _Doctors Parr and Burney._ See Vol. I., note to p. 64.
256. ‘_A certificate of merit._’ ‘At every step of my progress in life,
(for in every step was I traversed and opposed), and at every
turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my passport.’ _A Letter to
a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 125).
256. _‘Thou hast it now,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1.
‘_Swept and garnished._’ _St. Luke_ xi. 25.
257. _Indignatio facit versus._ Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 79.
_William Burke._ A kinsman, not the brother of Edmund. For his
letters to James Barry, the painter, see Barry’s _Works_ (1809).
_‘And with it,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.
258. _‘Escap’d,’ etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 225.
_‘Britain’s warriors,’ etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 162.
259. _Not ‘gain but glory.’_ ‘For gain, not glory winged his roving
flight.’ Pope, _Satires_, V. 71.
_‘In their Livery,’ etc._ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act V. Scene 2.
_That sweet smile, etc._ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2.
ON COURT INFLUENCE (_concluded_). From No. 2 (Jan. 10, 1818) of
_The Yellow Dwarf_.
260. _‘Pierces through,’ etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Scene 1.
_‘Whosoever shall stumble,’ etc._ _St. Matthew_, xxi. 44.
_For ‘scorn to point,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.
261. _‘A consummation,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.
_A certain distinguished character._ Castlereagh, who was regarded
as mainly responsible for the disastrous Walcheren expedition in
1809. For his vindication of the Government spies, see _ante_
pp. 232–8.
_Reynolds._ Thomas Reynolds (1771–1836) had long been notorious as
an informer in the Irish rebellion. His name appeared on the
grand jury which returned a true bill against Wilson and others
for high treason in connection with the Spa Field riots, and the
Government felt obliged to send him out of England on the
Consular service. See Lecky’s _History of Ireland_, Chap. X.
_The Attorney-General._ Sir Samuel Shepherd (1760–1840) succeeded
Garrow in 1817.
_Mr. Coleridge._ Coleridge’s _Biographia Literaria_ was published
in 1817. For the passage referred to on Anti-Jacobin slanders,
see note at the end of Chap. iii.
262. _His present friend and associate._ Gifford. See Hazlitt’s _Letter
to William Gifford_ (vol. I. p. 401).
_‘The cynosure,’ etc._ _L’Allegro_, l. 80.
263. _Have lately made an attempt, etc._ Hazlitt seems to refer to an
article of Southey’s republished (_Essays, Moral and Political_,
II. 35–107) under the title ‘On the Rise and Progress of Popular
Disaffection,’ and to Coleridge’s _Statesman’s Manual_.
_In discharge of an old debt._ See note to the Essay ‘On the
Tendency of Sects’ in _The Round Table_ (vol. I. p. 51) where,
after showing in the Essay that ‘there is a natural tendency in
sects to narrow the mind,’ he says, ‘we shall some time or other
give the reverse of the picture.’
264. _‘Or if severe,’ etc._
‘—— or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.’
Goldsmith, _The Deserted Village_, ll. 205–6.
_Dissenters are the safest partisans, etc._ This passage is
repeated from the last paragraph of the Essay ‘On the Tendency
of Sects.’
_The ‘hortus siccus’ of dissent._ Burke, _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 14).
_Non ex quovis, etc._ Erasmus, _Adagiorum Chiliades_, ‘Munus
aptum.’
265. _But we have known some such, etc._ Hazlitt seems to have had his
father in his mind when he wrote this description. Cf. _The
Round Table_ (On Pedantry), vol. I. p. 82.
_The Book of Martyrs._ The name by which from the date (1563) of
its publication John Foxe’s (1516–1587) _Actes and Monuments_
was known. The martyrdoms of John Huss (1415) and Jerome of
Prague (1416) are narrated therein. John Ziska, leader of the
extreme Hussite party.
_Neale’s History of the Puritans._ Daniel Neal’s (1648–1743)
_History of the Puritans_ (1732–8).
_Calamy’s Account, etc._ Edmund Calamy’s (1671–1732) _Account of
the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges and
Schoolmasters who were Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration
in 1660_, originally part of his ‘Abridgment’ (1702) of Richard
Baxter’s posthumous ‘Narrative, etc. of his Life and Times,’ was
separately published in the second edition of the ‘Abridgment’
(1713). The number of ‘two thousand’ ejected (given by Hazlitt)
appeared on the title-page in Samuel Palmer’s edition of Calamy
(1802).
266. _Silver-tongued Bates._ William Bates (1625–1699) and John Howe
(1630–1705), two of the ejected divines.
_Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel History._ By Nathaniel
Lardner (1684–1768), published 1727–1757.
_The Fratres Poloni._ See vol. II., note to p. 165. This work and
probably the others referred to in this Essay formed part of the
Library of Hazlitt’s father.
_‘Glory to God,’ etc._ _St. Luke_ ii. 14.
‘_Time-rent._’ Coleridge’s Sonnet to Schiller.
In _The Yellow Dwarf_ Hazlitt concluded as follows:—‘Happy are
they, who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all
things by the light of their own minds: who walk by faith and
hope, not by knowledge; to whom the guiding star of their youth
still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world
has not entered! They have not been ‘hurt by the archers,’[73]
nor has the iron entered into their souls. They live in the
midst of arrows and of death, unconscious of harm. The evil
thing comes not nigh them. The shafts of ridicule pass unheeded
by, and malice loses its sting. The example of vice does not
rankle in their breasts, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Evil
impressions fall off from them, like drops of water. The yoke of
life is to them light and supportable. The world has no hold on
them. They are in it, not of it; and a dream and a glory is ever
about them.’ Cf. Hazlitt’s _Reply to Malthus_, vol. IV. p. 104.
ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER. From No. 4 (Jan. 24, 1818) of _The
Yellow Dwarf_. This and the two following essays may be taken as
a further attempt to discharge the ‘old debt’ referred to on p.
263.
_‘Now mark,’ etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, I. 725.
_‘And in Franciscan,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 480.
268. _‘To counterfeiten chere,’ etc._ Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_, The
Prologue, ll. 139–141.
269. _‘The collusion,’ etc._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Scene 2.
270. _‘Eremites and friars,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 474–5.
271. ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER (_continued_). From No. 5 (Jan. 31,
1818) of _The Yellow Dwarf_.
272. _It is better to marry than burn._ ‘But if they cannot contain,
let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.’ _1
Corinthians_ vii. 9.
_‘Continents,’ says Hobbes, etc._ _Human Nature_, (_Works_, ed.
Molesworth, IV. 50).
273. _‘Where’s that palace,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
‘_Pure in the last recesses of the mind._’ This line, which is
perhaps quoted by Hazlitt more frequently than any other, is
from Dryden’s translation from the Second Satire of Persius, l.
133.
_‘While they,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
_The Society for the Suppression of Vice._ See _The Round Table_,
vol. p. 1. 60.
275. _‘To be conformed,’ etc._ _Romans_ xii. 2.
_‘Like little wanton boys,’ etc._ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Scene 2.
_‘Glimpses,’ etc._ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘The world is too much
with us.’
276. _‘Who far,’ etc._ Dryden’s _The Hind and the Panther_, i. 312–3.
_Bishop Watson’s Life._ Richard Watson (1737–1816), Professor of
Chemistry at Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Llandaff. His
life, written by himself, was published by his son in 1817.
Mosheim’s _Institutiones Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ_ was published in
1726 (Eng. trans. 1765–8), Anthony Wood’s _Athenæ Oxonienses_ in
1691–2.
277. ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER (_concluded_). From No. 6 (Feb. 7,
1818) of _The Yellow Dwarf_.
_‘One fate,’ etc._ For this and the two following quotations from
Southey, see his _Lay of the Laureate_, and _ante_, pp. 109 _et
seq._
278. _Launce._ _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act IV. Scene 4.
279. _Sir John Oldcastle._ ‘The good Lord Cobham,’ the original of
Shakespeare’s Falstaff. He was hanged as a heretic in 1417.
‘_Blind with double darkness._’ Hazlitt elsewhere quotes, ‘with
double darkness bound,’ and possibly recalls a line (593) in
_Samson Agonistes_, ‘But yield to double darkness nigh at hand.’
280. _Brandreth._ Jeremiah Brandreth executed on Nov. 7, 1817 for an
attempt at insurrection into which he had been trapped by Oliver
the spy.
_‘They will have them to shew,’ etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 121).
_An eminent poet._ Probably Southey, who in his letter to _William
Smith, Esq., M.P._ said that the Government ‘must curb the
seditious press, and keep it curbed. For this purpose, if the
laws are not at present effectual, they should be made so.’
281. _Deprecated by Mr. Burke._ _Reflections on the Revolution in
France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 104–105), and _Thoughts
on French Affairs_ (_Works_, Bohn, III. 353).
_‘At this day,’ etc._ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, Book IV.
282. _By ‘the sufferance of supernal power.’_ _Paradise Lost_, I. 241.
WHAT IS THE PEOPLE? From No. 10 (March 7, 1818) of _The Yellow
Dwarf_.
‘_A vile jelly._’ _King Lear_, Act III. Scene 7.
284. ‘_The unbought grace of life._’ Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).
Note. Cf. _ante_, pp. 174–175.
285. _Latter Lammas._ _I.e._, never.
_‘Miraturque,’ etc._ Virgil, _Georgics_, II. 82.
_Mr. Coke_ was Thomas William Coke (1752–1842), member for Norfolk
(except for one short interval) from 1776 to 1832, and
well-known for his zeal in the reform of agriculture. He was
created Earl of Leicester of Holkham in 1837.
Note. Lord Balmerino was executed in 1746, and the famous Simon
Fraser, Lord Lovat, in 1747, for participation in the Jacobite
Rebellion of 1745.
287. _‘Gods to punish,’ etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act III. Scene 1.
_‘Why, what a fool,’ etc._ _The Tempest_, Act II. Scene 2.
288. _‘Because men,’ etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, V. 192.
_‘Cribbed,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.
_‘The right divine,’ etc._ Pope’s _Dunciad_, IV. 188.
_‘Broad and casing,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.
289. _‘Like the rainbow’s,’ etc._ Burns, _Tam O’ Shanter_. Hazlitt
changes the order of the lines.
_‘Enthroned in the hearts of Kings._’ _Merchant of Venice_, Act
IV. Scene 1.
_‘And levy,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 501–502.
_‘Steeped in poverty,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.
290. Note. Captain James Burney’s (1750–1821) _Buccaneers of
America_, a part of his _Chronological History of the
Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean_, was published in
1816.
291. _Mr. C—— or Lord C——._ Canning and Castlereagh.
_‘Any faction,’ etc._ Cf. _An Appeal from the New to the Old
Whigs_ (_Works_, Bohn, III. 45).
292. WHAT IS THE PEOPLE? (_concluded_). From No. II (March 14,
1818) of _The Yellow Dwarf_.
293. _‘If they had not ploughed,’ etc._ _Judges_, xiv. 18.
295. _When Mr. John Gifford, etc._ John Gifford or John Richards Green
(1758–1818) was editor of _The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_
which succeeded the famous _Anti-Jacobin or Weekly Examiner_ in
1798. The denunciation of Coleridge and his friends referred to
in the text was made in a note to the poem of _The New Morality_
in _The Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin_ (1799). See Vol. I. note
to p. 401, and the _Athenaeum_, May 31, 1900.
_‘Make him a willow-cabin,’ etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 5.
_He indeed assures us, etc._ Southey’s _Essays, Moral and
Political_, I. 420–421.
296. _Mr. Locke has observed._ _An Essay concerning Human
Understanding_, Book IV. Chap. xx.
297. _Like Orlando’s brother._ _As You Like It_, Act I. Scene 1.
‘_Stying us._’ ‘_And here you sty me in this hard rock._’ _The
Tempest_, Act I. Scene 2.
_Joanna Southcott._ Joanna Southcott (1750–1814) had recently
caused an extraordinary amount of excitement in the country by
her promise to bring forth into the world the second Christ.
‘_When the sky falls._’ ‘Si les nues tomboyent, esperoyt prendre
les alouettes.’ _Rabelais_, Book I. Chap. xi.
298. _‘Hold a barren sceptre,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1.
_‘For the Son to tread,’ etc._
‘Look to thy sire, and in his steady way,
As in his Father’s he, learn thou to tread.’
Southey’s _Carmen Nuptiale_, The Dream, Stanza 32.
_The two Ferdinands._ Ferdinand I. of Naples and Ferdinand VII. of
Spain.
299. _Poor Evans._ See _ante_, p. 238.
300. _Mr. Cobbett himself, etc._ See _ante_, p. 224.
301. _His Lisbon Job._ Canning had gone to Lisbon in 1814, and had been
appointed ambassador extraordinary, at a salary of £14,000, to
receive the King of Portugal on his return from Brazil. The king
did not return after all, and Canning’s appointment was
represented by the Opposition as a job. A vote of censure was
moved in the House of Commons on May 6, 1817, and defeated by a
majority of 174.
301. _‘Duller,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 5.
_‘The dim suffusion,’ etc._
‘But thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled.’
_Paradise Lost_, III. 22–26.
_‘Making Ossa,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act V. Scene 1.
302. _‘As gross,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
303. _‘A necessity,’ etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in
France_. (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 114).
‘_Too foolish fond and pitiful._’ Hazlitt seems to refer to Lear’s
words to Cordelia (Act _IV._ Scene 7), ‘I am a very foolish fond
old man.’
_‘Did never wrong,’ etc._ Hazlitt seems to have in mind the words,
‘Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause will he be
satisfied.’ _Julius Caesar_, Act III. Scene 1.
304. _Exit by Mistake._ Produced at the Haymarket in July, 1816.
See Hazlitt’s Dramatic Essays.
305. ON THE ROYAL CHARACTER. From No. 20 (May 16, 1818) of _The
Yellow Dwarf_.
306. _‘There’s a divinity,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 5.
307. _Coates._ Francis Cotes (1725–1770).
310. _One Englishman._ He means Burke.
_Master of Hoyle._ Edmond Hoyle’s (1672–1769) _Short Treatise on
the Game of Whist_ was published in 1742.
_The Jockey club._ Founded in the middle of the eighteenth
century.
311. _Cibber tells us._ Apology for the _Life of Mr. Colley Cibber_,
Chap. ii.
_Jefferies._ Jeffreys was appointed Lord Chief Justice in 1683,
and is perhaps chiefly remembered for his famous circuit in the
west of England in 1685 after the accession of James II., who
made him Lord Chancellor.
THE FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS. From No. 17 (April 25, 1818) of _The
Yellow Dwarf_.
‘_Set it down, my tables._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 5.
‘_A full solempne man._’ Chaucer, _The Canterbury Tales_,
Prologue, l. 209.
312. _A merry Andrew._ Gifford perhaps.
_The more pitiful Jack-Pudding._ It is plain from a note in _The
Yellow Dwarf_ that Hazlitt refers to Canning.
‘_Immortal verse._’ _L’Allegro_, 137.
_‘Tam knew,’ etc._ Burns’s _Tam O’ Shanter_.
_A late celebrated wit and orator._ Probably Curran, who died in
October 1817.
‘_A certain little gentleman._’ Moore’s description of himself in
the Preface to _The Fudge Family in Paris_.
Note. _‘I look down,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.
313. _In the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’_ Chapter xi.
‘_The damnable face-making._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.
_‘The flocci-nauci,’ etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 33.
_Dr. S——._ Dr. Stoddart. See _ante_, note to p. 153.
_And ‘find no dawn,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 24.
‘_Blind mouth._’ _Lycidas_, 119.
‘_His sweet voice._’ _Coriolanus_, Act _II._ Scene 3.
314. _Billingsgate slang._ Billingsgate was notorious for its coarse
language as early as Fuller. See Wheatley and Cunningham,
_London Past and Present_, I. 183.
314. _‘With shame,’ etc._ _Richard II._, Act II. Scene 1.
_‘Like a rebel’s whore.’_ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 2.
_Brangle, etc._ Cf.
‘And Noise and Norton, Brangling and Breval,
Dennis and Dissonance, and captious Art.’
Pope, _The Dunciad_, II. 238–9.
_‘The pillar’d firmament,’ etc._ _Comus_, ll. 598–9.
315. _‘The sad historian,’ etc._ ‘The sad historian of the pensive
plain.’ Goldsmith, _The Deserted Village_, l. 136.
_‘As precious,’ etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Scene 1.
_‘Return,’ etc._ Letter IV.
_E******._ E—gl—d in the original.
317. _Indignatio facit versus._ See _ante_, note to p. 257.
318. _‘Yes—’twas a cause,’ etc._ Letter XI.
319. _‘By the bye though,’ etc._ Letter I.
_‘Good Viscount S—dm—th,’ etc._ Letter IX.
321. _‘They do not cut up,’ etc._ Burke, _Letter to a Noble Lord_
(_Works_, Bohn, V. 145).
CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM. First published as one of the critical
notices in _The Eloquence of the British Senate_.
‘_A flame of sacred vehemence._’ _Comus_, l. 795.
323. _‘Flew an eagle flight,’ etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Scene 1.
_‘Sailing with,’ etc._ Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_, ll. 116–7.
‘_Both end and use._’ Cf. ‘His actions’, passions’, being’s use
and end.’ Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 66.
_‘Laps it,’ etc._ _Comus_, l. 257.
325. CHARACTER OF MR. BURKE. First published in _The Eloquence of
the British Senate_.
_The following speech._ On presenting to the House of Commons (on
the 11th February 1780) a plan for the better security of the
independence of Parliament, and the economical reformation of
the civil and other establishments (_Works_, Bohn, II. 55).
326. _‘The elephant,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 345–7.
_‘Native and endued,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 7.
328. Note. In _The Eloquence of the British Senate_ this note
proceeded: ‘and he produced less effect on the mob that compose
the English Public than Paine or Joel Barlow, at least at the
time.’ Joel Barlow (1755–1812), the American poet, was, like
Paine, an active sympathiser with the French Revolution.
329. ‘_Alas! Leviathan was not so tamed._’ Cowper, _The Task_, II. 322.
_The corner stone, etc._ _Psalms_, cxviii. 22.
_To the Jews, etc._ _1 Corinthians_ i. 23.
333. _‘How charming,’ etc._ _Comus_, l. 476.
336. _Dr. Johnson observed._ See his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, Oxford,
1825), VIII. 329.
Note. ‘_Proud keep of Windsor._’ _A letter to a Noble Lord_
(_Works_, Bohn, V. 137).
337. _A person._ Hazlitt’s early friend, Joseph Fawcett, perhaps. See
_Table Talk_, On Criticism.
CHARACTER OF MR. FOX. From _The Eloquence of the British Senate_,
where the ‘Character’ begins: ‘I have hitherto deferred giving
any opinion on the talents of eminent speakers, till I could
present the reader with something that might justify the
encomiums passed upon them; as the following is one of the most
memorable of Mr. Fox’s speeches, I shall prefix to it a sort of
character, the best I can give, of this celebrated man.’ The
speech referred to was on the War with France, delivered in
1794.
Note. ‘_Craftily qualified._’ _Othello_, Act II. Scene 3.
339. _‘Whose sound,’ etc._ _King Lear_, Act I. Scene 1.
_That is an automaton._ In _The Eloquence of the British Senate_
Hazlitt has the following note to this passage: ‘I ought to beg
pardon of the polite reader for thus rudely contrasting these
two celebrated men and leaders of parties together. It has of
late become more fashionable to consider them in the light of
the United Friends. But as I am no sign-painter, I hope I may be
excused for not adhering exactly to the _costume_ of the times.
This agreeable idea might however, if skilfully executed, be
improved into a very appropriate sign for the tap-room of the
house of commons. My Lord Howick the other day drew a pleasing
picture of them _shaking hands in Elysium_. It must be owned
that this is pretty and poetical. Happy, well assorted pair!
Methinks I see you, bowing to one another, with repeated
assurances of friendship and esteem, but half believed, just
like—lord Grenville and lord Howick in the park! This was
probably what his lordship had in his mind at the time: but as
our _young_ orators generally love to shew that they have _read_
the classics, so perhaps his lordship was willing to shew that
he had not _forgot_ them. It is pleasing to see great men
sweetening the cares of state with the flowers of poetical
allusion; condescending to turn with a benign countenance from
the serious realities of life, to the lighter scenes of fable
and romance; still wandering, (as in their boyish days) with
Dido and Æneas, and taking an imaginary trip from Downing Street
to the Elysian Fields, and from the Elysian Fields back again!
After all, I do not know that it would be any disgrace to Mr.
Fox to associate with Mr. Pitt in the other world, if we
recollect the company he kept in this. Lord H—— I believe, on
the same occasion, quoted Dryden, and compared the late duke of
Brunswick to Darius. Really, his lordship’s researches in poetry
are astonishing; they are almost as extensive and profound as
his knowledge of the affairs of Europe, or of the fate of
battles! There is some excuse, however, for this last mentioned
quotation, as though the passage quoted was by no means new in
itself, yet the particular application of it must certainly have
been very new to his lordship’s mind, and one which the public
might not have been disposed to give him credit for without some
positive evidence. To complete the solemnity of the scene,
nothing more was wanting but for the whole house to have joined
chorus in this affecting and well known specimen of elegiac
sadness, particularly as it had been already set to music, one
would suppose for this very purpose.’
Note 1. Hazlitt refers to an article on Fox by William Godwin
published in _The Morning Chronicle_, Nov. 22, 1806.
Note 2. John Upton published an edition of _The Faerie Queen_ in
1758.
340. _Lord Lansdown._ Lord Shelburne, created Marquis of Lansdowne in
1784.
342. _‘Jutting frieze,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 6.
344. _‘With mighty wings,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 20–2.
345. ‘_The dazzling fence of argument._’ Cf.
‘Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.’
_Comus_, ll. 790–1.
345. ‘_An honest man’s the noblest work of God._’ Pope’s _Essay on
Man_, IV. 248.
346. _What Burke said of him._ In a speech on the Army Estimates (Feb.
9, 1790), in which he replied to Fox’s eulogy of the French
Revolution. See _Works_, Bohn, III. 273–4.
CHARACTER OF MR. PITT, 1806. See _ante_, pp. 14 _et seq._ and
notes.
349. Note. The passage referred to is from Pitt’s Speech on the
Regency, delivered on January 16, 1789.
350. PITT AND BUONAPARTE. This essay by Coleridge is reprinted in
_Essays on His Own Times_, vol. II. pp. 319–329. The editor
(Coleridge’s daughter Sara, the wife of Henry Nelson Coleridge),
referring to the essay, says (I. lxxxv. note), ‘“The character
of Pitt” is given to my Father on the repeated testimony of Mr.
Stuart, which indeed was scarcely needed to confirm the strong
internal evidence of both style and matter.’ See J. D.
Campbell’s _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, p. 108.
356. AN EXAMINATION OF MR. MALTHUS’S DOCTRINES. From No. 14 (April
4, 1818) of _The Yellow Dwarf_. In these concluding papers
Hazlitt repeats the substance of the more elaborate criticism
which he had already published in 1807, under the title of _A
Reply to Malthus_. See that work and Hazlitt’s sketch of Malthus
in _The Spirit of the Age_ (vol. IV. of the present edition).
359. _Major Torrens._ Robert Torrens (1780–1864), who, after serving in
the Royal Marines, retired on half-pay, and devoted himself to
economical study.
361. _This will never do._ Perhaps this is a reference to the famous
opening words of the _Edinburgh Review_ article on Wordsworth’s
_Excursion_ (xxiv. p. 1). The _Edinburgh_ had defended Malthus.
ON THE ORIGINALITY OF MR. MALTHUS’S ESSAY. This essay does not
seem to have been published in _The Yellow Dwarf_.
367. ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, ETC. From Hazlitt’s _Reply to
Malthus_, Letter III. See vol. IV. of the present edition.
371. _‘What conjuration,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Scene 3.
373. _‘These three bear record,’ etc._ Cf. _1 John_ v. 7.
_‘’Tis as easy as lying,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.
374. _‘To this end,’ etc._ Malthus’s _Essay, etc._ (2nd Ed. 1803), pp.
538–540.
375. _Well answered by Mr. Cobbett._ Cobbett addressed a letter ‘To
Parson Malthus’ (_Political Register_, May 1819) beginning
abruptly ‘Parson.’ ‘No assemblage of words,’ he says, ‘can give
an appropriate designation of you; and therefore, as being the
single word which best suits the character of such a man, I call
you _Parson_,’ _etc._
376. _In a separate work._ See his _Reply to Malthus_ in vol. IV. of
the present edition.
381. QUERIES RELATING TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION. No. 23 of _The
Round Table_ series in _The Examiner_ (Oct. 29, 1815), which is
in the form of a letter addressed to the President of the Round
Table, and begins as follows:—‘Sir,—You some time ago inserted
in your Paper [Round Table, No. 26, Feb. 15, 1815] a letter from
_A Mechanic_, who seemed strangely puzzled by a learned friend
of his, who thwarts him in all his notions, political, moral,
domestic and economical, by interrogatories put to him out of
Mr. Malthus’s _Essay on Population_. I do not know whether your
Correspondent has got rid of his troublesome acquaintance; but
if he has not, I think he will be able to do it by putting to
him the following questions as to the merits of Mr. Malthus and
his work, which I met with in the course of my reading this
morning, and which it appears to me to be incumbent on the
admirers of that gentleman to answer, Aye or No.’
383. _‘Sicklied over,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 1.
385. _‘Neither married,’ etc._ _St. Matthew_ xxii. 30.
_‘Beware therefore,’ etc._ Chaucer, _The Canterbury Tales_, The
Somnour’s Tale, ll. 2074 _et seq._
ADVERTISEMENT, ETC., FROM ‘THE ELOQUENCE OF THE BRITISH SENATE’
All the biographical and critical notes, introductory to the selected
Speeches, are here reproduced, except (1) a few which consist merely of
dates, and (2) the ‘characters’ of Chatham, Burke, Fox and Pitt. These
were republished by Hazlitt in _Political Essays_, and will be found in
the present reprint of that work (see _ante_, pp. 321–350). Where there
are two notes on the same speaker, they have been printed together under
the same heading. In cases where Hazlitt specially mentions a particular
speech, a reference to that speech is given below. Hazlitt himself, in
the Table of Contents, described the following as the ‘principal
biographical notices,’ viz., in vol. I., Cromwell, Whitlocke, Lord
Belhaven, Mr. Pulteney, Lord Chesterfield, Sir John St. Aubin, and Sir
Robert Walpole; and, in vol. II., Lord Chatham, Lord Mansfield, Lord
Camden, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt.
389. _‘Who strut and fret,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Scene 5.
390. _‘Wherein I saw them,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 4.
‘_Set the imprisoned wranglers free again._’ Cowper, _The Task_,