66. ‘_Hussey, hussey_,’ _etc._ _Beggar’s Opera_, Act I.
_Miss Hannah More’s laboured invectives._ Such as _Thoughts on
the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society_
(1788) and _An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable
World_ (1790). See _ante_, p. 154, for another expression of
Hazlitt’s belief in the disciplinary value of _The Beggar’s
Opera_.
Note. For further reference to Baron Grimm’s _Correspondance_
(1812–14) see _ante_, p. 131, the essay ‘On the Literary
Character.’ Claude Pierre Patu (1729–1757) published _Choix de
pièces traduites de l’anglais_ (de Robert Dodsley et John Gay)
in 1756. The collected works of Jean Joseph Vadé (1720–1757)
were published in 1775.
ON PATRIOTISM—A FRAGMENT
This fragment is taken from one of the ‘Illustrations of Vetus’ which
appeared originally in _The Morning Chronicle_ and were republished in
_Political Essays_.
PAGE
67. ‘_The love of mankind_‘, _etc._ Rousseau’s _Emile_, Liv. IV. p.
279 (edit. Garnier): a favourite quotation of Hazlitt’s.
ON BEAUTY
No. 29 of the Round Table series, and signed in _The Examiner_—‘An
Amateur.’
PAGE
68. _Three Papers_, _etc._ Reynolds’s papers in the _Idler_ are Nos.
76, 79, and 82. It is to the last, _On the true idea of
Beauty_, that Hazlitt particularly refers.
69. _Spenser’s description of Belphœbe._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book
II. Canto iii. st. 21 _et seq._
70. ‘_Her full dark eyes_,’ _etc._ The reference seems to be to
_Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (December 6).
71. _Pope’s translation._ Homer’s _Odyssey_, V. 56–67.
Note. _A classical friend._ Leigh Hunt.
Note. ‘_That was Arion crown’d_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_,
Book IV. Canto xi. st. 23 and 24.
Note. _A striking description._ Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 89).
Note. _The idea is in ‘Don Quixote.’_ Part II. Chap, xlviii. In
_The Examiner_ this note was concluded as follows: ‘Much the
same impression which the sight of the Queen of France made on
Mr. Burke’s brain sixteen years before the French Revolution,
did the reading of the New Eloise make on mine at the
commencement of it. “Such is the stuff of which our dreams are
made!”[103] This man (Burke), who was a half poet and a half
philosopher, has done more mischief than perhaps any other
person in the world. His understanding was not competent to the
discovery of any truth, but it was sufficient to palliate a
lie; his reasons, of little weight in themselves, thrown into
the scale of power, were dreadful. Without genius to adorn the
beautiful, he had the art to throw a dazzling veil over
the deformed and disgusting, and to strew the flowers of
imagination over the rotten carcase of corruption, not to
prevent, but to communicate the infection. His jealousy of
Rousseau[104] was one chief cause of his opposition to the
French Revolution. The writings of the one had changed the
institutions of a kingdom; while the speeches of the other,
with the intrigues of his whole party, had changed nothing but
the _turnspit of the King’s kitchen_.[105] He would have
blotted out the broad, pure light of Heaven, because it did not
first shine in upon the narrow, crooked passages of St.
Stephen’s Chapel. The genius of Rousseau had levelled the
towers of the Bastile with the dust; our zealous reformist, who
would rather be doing mischief than nothing, tried therefore to
patch them up again, by calling that loathsome dungeon the
King’s Castle, and by fulsome adulation of the virtues of a
Court Strumpet. This man had the impudence to say[106] that an
Elector of Hanover was raised to the throne of these kingdoms,
“in contempt of the will of the people,” while the hereditary
successor was still alive. He was at once a liar, a coward, and
a slave; a liar to his own heart, a coward to the success of
his own cause, a slave to the power he despised. See his Letter
about the Duke of Bedford, in which the man gets the better of
the sycophant, and he belabours the Duke in good earnest. It is
not a source of regret to reflect that he closed his eyes on
the ruin of liberty, which he had been the principal means of
effecting, and of his own projects, at the same time. He did
not live to see that deliverance of mankind, bound hand and
foot into the absolute, lasting, inexorable power of Kings
and Priests, which the author of Joan of Arc[107] has so
triumphantly celebrated. He did not live to see the sending of
the Liberales of Spain to the gallies, and the liberating the
Afrancesadoes from prison, for which our romantic Laureate, who
sees so much farther into futurity than the Edinburgh
Reviewers,[108] thanks God. He did not live to read that
Sonnet[109] to the King which Mr. Wordsworth has written, in
imitation of Milton’s Sonnet to Cromwell. There is a species of
literary prostitution which has sprung up and spread wide in
these days, more nauseous and despicable than any recorded in
Juvenal. It proves, however, one thing, that is, the force
which knowledge and opinion have acquired, and which makes it
worth while for power to court and pervert those faculties
which were intended to enlighten and reform the world, in order
to plunge it into a darkness that may be felt; and slavery,
that can only cease by putting a stop to the propagation of the
species.’ Hazlitt used a part of this passage as a note to his
essay ‘On Good-Nature.’ See _post_, p. 105 note.
72. _Mr. Burke_, _etc._ See his _Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful_,
Part III. Sect. xv.
_Which describe pleasant motions._ ‘It has been conjectured that
the pleasure derived from visible form, might be always
resolved into the absence of every thing disagreeable to the
touch or difficult in motion.’ Note by Hazlitt in _The
Examiner_.
‘_He hath set his bow_,’ _etc._ _Ecclesiasticus_, xliii. 11, 12.
_Titian’s ‘Bath of Diana.’_ _Diana and Actaeon_, now the property
of the Earl of Ellesmere, in Bridgewater House. Hazlitt
described this picture at length in his _Sketches of the
Principal Picture Galleries in England_ (The Marquis of
Stafford’s Gallery).
ON IMITATION
No. 30 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
73. _The new Spurzheim principles._ See Hazlitt’s essays ‘On Dreams’
and ‘On Dr. Spurzheim’s Theory’ in _The Plain Speaker_.
74. Note. _Vanhuysum._ Jan van Huysum (1682–1749).
75. _Pansy freak’d with jet._ _Lycidas_, l. 144.
76. ‘_A pleasure in art_,’ _etc._
‘There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.’
Cowper’s _Task, The Timepiece_, ll. 285–286.
Cf. _Table Talk_ (‘On the Pleasure of Painting’): ‘There is a
pleasure in painting which none but painters know.’ The
original of the expression seems to be Dryden’s ‘There is a
pleasure, sure, in being mad, which none but madmen know’
(_Spanish Friar_, Act II. Scene 1).
_Titian’s ‘Schoolmaster.’_ For an account of this picture see
Hazlitt’s _Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in
England_ (the Marquis of Stafford’s Gallery).
ON GUSTO
No. 40 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
77. _Albano’s._ Francesco Albani (1578–1660), a pupil of Ludovico
Caracci.
78. _To touch them._ In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt gives the following
note to this passage: ‘This may seem obscure. We will therefore
avail ourselves of our privilege to explain as Members of
Parliament do, when they let fall any thing too paradoxical,
novel, or abstruse, to be immediately apprehended by the other
side of the House. When the Widow Wadman[110] looked over my
Uncle Toby’s map of the Siege of Namur with him, and as he
pointed out the approaches of his battalion in a transverse
line across the plain to the gate of St. Nicholas, kept her
hand constantly pressed against his, if my Uncle Toby had then
“been an artist and could paint,” (as Mr. Fox wished himself to
be,[111] that “he might draw Bonaparte’s conduct to the King of
Prussia in the blackest colours”) my Uncle Toby would have
drawn the hand of his fair enemy in the manner we have above
described. We have heard a good story of this same Bonaparte
playing off a very ludicrous parody of the Widow Wadman’s
stratagem upon as great a commander by sea as my Uncle Toby was
by land. Now, when Sir Isaac Newton, who was sitting smoking
with his mistress’s hand in his, took her little finger and
made use of it as a tobacco-pipe stopper, there was here a
total absence of mind, or a great want of gusto.’
_Mr. West._ Benjamin West (1738–1820), historical painter,
succeeded Sir J. Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy in
1792.
80. ‘_Or where Chineses_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 438–439.
‘_Wild above rule_,’ _etc._ _Ib._ V. 297.
ON PEDANTRY
No. 32 of the Round Table series. See _ante_, p. 382, for a reference by
Hazlitt to this essay.
PAGE
80. _The pedantry of Parson Adams._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III.
Chap. v.
_Scotch Pedagogue._ _Roderick Random_, Chap. xiv.
_Seeing ourselves_, _etc._ Burns, _To a Louse_, st. 8.
81. _Monsieur Jourdain._ In _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_.
Note. ‘_Not to admire anything._’
‘Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque, quæ possit facere et servare beatum.’—Horace, Ep. I. vi. I.
82. _In the Library_, _etc._ At his father’s house at Wem. See
_Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, i. 33. The _Bibliotheca Fratrum
Polonorum_, _etc._, was published in eight volumes folio, 1656.
‘_From all this world’s_,’ _etc._ ‘From worldly cares himselfe he
did esloyne.’ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I. Canto iv. st. 20. In
_The Examiner_ Hazlitt published the following note: ‘Mr.
Wordsworth has on a late occasion humorously applied this line
of Spenser to persons holding sinecure places under government.
He seems to intend adding to the list of such places that of
Poet Laureate. This we think a decided improvement on the
system.’ The reference is to Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘Occasioned
by the Battle of Waterloo,’ beginning ‘The bard whose soul is
meek as dawning day.’
83. ‘_Mitigated authors_,’ _etc._ ‘It was this opinion which
mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be
fellows with kings. Without force, or opposition, it subdued
the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to
submit to the soft collar of social esteem,’ etc. Burke’s
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
Payne, ii. 90).
_The Spectator._ See _The Spectator_, No. 131.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
No. 33 the Round Table series.
PAGE
84. _A poetical enthusiast._ Wordsworth presumably.
‘_A clerk ther was_,’ _etc._ _Canterbury Tales_, Prologue, ll.
285 _et seq._
85. ‘_Chemist, statesman_,’ _etc._ Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_,
l. 550.
‘_Tongues in the trees_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Scene
1.
86. _Vestris was so far right_, _etc._ Vestris (1729–1808), ‘Le Dieu
de la danse,’ said that Europe contained only three great men,
himself, Voltaire, and Frederick of Prussia.
_We do not see_, _etc._ Johnson and Wordsworth were of the
opposite opinion. See Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G. B. Hill, iv.
114, and Rogers’s _Table-Talk_, p. 234.
87. _In Froissart’s ‘Chronicles.’_ Book IV. chapter 14 (Panthéon
Litteraire). The man was not a monk at all.
88. ‘_The sovereign’st thing on earth._’ _1 Henry IV._, Act I. Scene
3.
_Uneasy and insecure._ In _The Examiner_ the following note is
appended: ‘It has been found necessary to cement them with
blood. “Plus de belles paroles, messieurs, je veux du sang,”
is the language of all absolute sovereigns to their subjects,
when the film drops from their eyes which leads mankind to
suppose themselves the property of tyrants. If men are to be
treated like slaves, it is best that they should think
themselves born to be so. _Plus de belles paroles._ The
French Revolution was the necessary consequence of our
English Revolution and of the Reformation. A crusade once
more to re-establish the infallibility of the Pope all over
the Continent would be a logical inference from the late
crusade to restore divine right.’
ON THE CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU
No. 36 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
89. Note. In _The Examiner_ this note was continued as follows: ‘He
was the founder of Jacobinism, which disclaims the division of
the species into two classes, the one the property of the
others. It was of the disciples of _his_ school, where
principle is converted into passion, that Mr. Burke said and
said truly,—“Once a Jacobin, and always a Jacobin!” The adept
in this school does not so much consider the political injury
as the personal insult. This is the way to put the case, to set
the true revolutionary leaven, the self-love which is at the
bottom of every heart, at work, and this was the way in which
Rousseau put it. It then becomes a question between man and
man, which there is but one way of deciding.’
90. ‘_Va Zanetto_,’ _etc._ Part II. liv. 7.
‘_Louise Eleonore_,’ _etc._ Part I. liv. 2.
91. ‘_As fast_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.
_There are, indeed, impressions_, _etc._ A quotation from
Rousseau’s _Confessions_. See Hazlitt’s essay entitled ‘My
first Acquaintance with Poets.’
92. ‘_Ah, voila de la pervenche!_’ _Confessions_, Part I. liv. 6.
_Mr. Wordsworth’s discovery._ The reference appears to be to
Wordsworth’s poem, ‘The Sparrow’s Nest.’
ON DIFFERENT SORTS OF FAME
No. 37 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
93. _Fitzosborne’s Letters_, by William Melmoth the younger
(1710–1799), were published in two vols. in 1742–1747.
Hazlitt’s quotation seems to be merely a summary of a passage
in Letter X. (p. 35, edit. 1748) which is itself quoted from
Wollaston’s _Religion of Nature Delineated_.
Note. _Burns._ See his autobiographical letter to Dr. John Moore,
2nd August 1787. (_Works_, ed. Chambers and Wallace, i. 20).
94. ‘_Bitter bad judges._’ _Beggar’s Opera_, Act I. Scene 1.
‘_Makes ambition virtue._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
_Dr. Johnson._ See his Life of Milton (_Works_, vii. 108).
‘_Fame is the spur_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 70–77.
_Pluck its fruits, unripe and crude._ _Lycidas_, l. 3.
95. _Hogarth’s ‘Distressed Poet.’_ The map of the gold-mines of Peru
was substituted in the impression of 1740 for a print of Pope
thrashing Curll in the original impression of 1736.
_A man of genius and eloquence._ Coleridge presumably.
96. _Elphinstone._ James Elphinston (1721–1809), who superintended an
Edinburgh edition of _The Rambler_, in which he gave English
translations of most of the mottoes. This, however, was far
from being his only literary enterprise, and it is strange that
Hazlitt should ‘know nothing more of him.’ He published many
translations, one of which, _A Specimen of the Translations of
Epigrams of Martial_ (1778), achieved notoriety from its
extreme badness. In his later life he devoted himself to the
invention of a kind of phonetic spelling, which he explained in
_Propriety ascertained in her Picture, or English Speech and
Spelling under Mutual Guides_ (1787), and other works.
_Yorick and the Frenchman._ Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_. The
Passport.
CHARACTER OF JOHN BULL
No. 39 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
97. _A respectable publication._ _Edinburgh Review_, xxvi. p. 96
(Feb. 1816). The passage quoted is from a review by Hazlitt
himself of Schlegel’s _Lectures on Dramatic Literature_.
ON GOOD NATURE
No. 41 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
100. _Says Froissart._ This well-known saying is wrongly attributed to
Froissart. See _Notes and Queries_ for 1863 and subsequent
years.
102. _An Englishman, who would be thought a profound one._ Wordsworth.
See p. 116.
103. _Forge the seal of the realm_, _etc._ The allusion seems to be to
the events of the spring of 1804 when Lord Eldon, during the
king’s illness, affixed the great seal to a commission giving
the royal assent to certain bills.
104. _Good digestion wait on appetite._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.
_Without control._ In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt appended as a note:
‘Henry VIII. was a good-natured monarch. He cut off his wives’
heads with as little ceremony as if they had been eels. This
character ought, as Mr. Cobbett says, to be hooted off the
stage, as a disgrace to human nature. Shakspeare represented
kings as they were in his time.’
104. _Mr. Vansittart._ Nicholas Vansittart (1766–1851), created Baron
Bexley in 1823, was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1812 till
1822.
_Everything by starts and nothing long._ _Absalom and
Achitophel_, Part I. l. 548.
105. Note. This note is part of the note on Burke, which in _The
Examiner_ appeared at the foot of the essay ‘On Beauty.’ See
_ante_, p. 71.
ON THE CHARACTER OF MILTON’S EVE
No. 42 of the Round Table series, with occasional passages from No. 43,
on Shakspeare’s female characters, the substance of which was published
in _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ (_Cymbeline_, _Othello_, and
_Winter’s Tale_).
PAGE
105. ‘_As the vine curls her tendrils._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 307.
106. ‘_Two of far nobler shape_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 288–311.
107. ‘_That day I oft remember_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 449–465.
‘_So spake our general mother_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
492–501.
‘_So much the more_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 8–20.
108. ‘_When Adam thus to Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 610–611.
‘_To whom thus Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 634.
‘_To whom our general ancestor_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
659–660.
‘_Methought close at mine ear_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V.
35–47.
‘_So talked the spirited sly snake._’ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 613.
‘_So cheered he his fair spouse_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V.
129–135.
109. ‘_Under his forming hands_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VIII.
470–477.
‘_In shadier bower_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 705–719.
‘_Meanwhile at table Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 443–450.
110. ‘_Yet not more sweet_,’ _etc._ Southey’s _Carmen Nuptiale_,
Proem, stanza 18.
‘_O unexpected stroke_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 268–285.
111. ‘_This most afflicts me_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 315–333.
OBSERVATIONS ON MR. WORDSWORTH’S POEM ‘THE EXCURSION’
This essay is composed of two papers by Hazlitt which appeared in _The
Examiner_ on August 21 and August 28, 1814.
PAGE
112. ‘_Without form and void._’ _Genesis_, i. 2.
113. ‘_The bare trees and mountains bare._’ Wordsworth, ‘To my
Sister.’
‘_Exchange the shepherd’s flock._’ _Excursion_, Book VI.
114. ‘_The sad historian of the pensive vale._’ Goldsmith’s _The
Deserted Village_, l. 136.
‘_Our system is not fashioned_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book VI.
‘_Such as the meeting soul may pierce._’ _L’Allegro_, l. 138.
‘_In that fair clime_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book IV.
115. ‘_Now shall our great discoverers obtain_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_,
Book IV.
116. ‘_Poor gentleman_,’ _etc._ Wycherley’s _Love in a Wood_, Act III.
Scene 1.
_Dull._ Wordsworth speaks of _Candide_ as ‘this dull product of a
scoffer’s pen’ (_Excursion_, Book II.) and refers to it again
in Book IV.:—
‘Him I mean
Who penned, to ridicule confiding faith,
This sorry Legend.’
See _ante_, p. 102.
117. _Tout homme reflechi_, _etc._ Cf. ‘J’ose presque assurer que
l’état de réflexion est un état contre nature, et que l’homme
qui médite est un animal dépravé.’ Rousseau’s _Discours sur
l’origine de l’inégalité parmi les hommes_ (édit. Firmin-Didot,
p. 52).
‘_From that abstraction I was roused_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book
III.
118. ‘_For that other loss_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book IV.
119. ‘_What though the radiance_,’ _etc._ _Intimations of
Immortality_, stanza 10.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
From _The Examiner_, October 2, 1814.
PAGE
120. ‘_With glistering spires_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 550.
‘_The great vision of the guarded mount._’ _Lycidas_, l. 161.
121. ‘_A sudden illness_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book VI.
123. _Aristotle observed._ In _The Poetics_.
_Bells or Lancaster’s._ Andrew Bell (1753–1832) founder of the
Madras system of education, and Joseph Lancaster (1770–1838).
For an account of these two rival reformers of education see
Leslie Stephen’s _The English Utilitarians_, II. 17–19.
_Guzman d’Alfarache._ Hazlitt discussed this novel by Mateo
Aleman, published in 1599, in his _English Comic Writers_
(Lecture on the English Novelists).
_A discipline of humanity._ Bacon’s _Essays_, ‘Of Marriage and
Single Life.’
124. _The Whig and Jacobite friends._ _Excursion_, Book VI.
_Sir Alfred Irthing._ _Excursion_, Book VII.
‘_Have proved a monument._’ From the sonnet in which Wordsworth
dedicated _The Excursion_ to Lord Lonsdale.
CHARACTER OF THE LATE MR. PITT
This ‘character’ originally appeared in _Free Thoughts on Public
Affairs_, _etc._ (1806). It must have been a favourite with the author,
for he afterwards reprinted it in _The Eloquence of the British Senate_,
_etc._ (1807), in _The Round Table_ (1817), and in _Political Essays_
(1819). It also appeared in the posthumous _Winterslow_ (1839). See note
on p. 383, _ante_.
PAGE
127. ‘_They had learned the trick_,’ _etc._ Hobbes’s _Behemoth_
(_Works_, ed. Molesworth, vi. 240).
128. ‘_Not matchless_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VI. 341–2.
_And in its liquid texture_, _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VI. 148–149.
ON RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY
From _The Examiner_, October 9, 1814, ‘Common-places,’ No. 1.
PAGE
129. ‘_But ’tis not so above._’ Hamlet, Act III. Scene 3.
‘_Compelled to give in evidence_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._
130. ‘_Open and apparent shame._’ _1 Henry IV._, Act II. Scene 4.
131. _Elymas the sorcerer._ See _Sketches of the Principal Picture
Galleries in England_ (the Pictures at Hampton Court) where
Hazlitt describes this cartoon.
ON THE LITERARY CHARACTER
Reprinted with some omissions from a letter which appeared in _The
Morning Chronicle_ for October 28, 1813, entitled ‘Baron Grimm and the
Edinburgh Reviewers.’
PAGE
131. _A late number_, _etc._ _Edinburgh Review_, vol. xxi. July 1813.
The _Correspondance_ of Friedrich Melchior, Baron Grimm
(1723–1807) was published in 1812–14. The article in the
_Edinburgh_ is by Jeffrey. Hazlitt, in _The Examiner_, quotes
from it at greater length, and proceeds: ‘These remarks,
however shrewd and ingenious in themselves, are somewhat
irrelevant to the literary and philosophical character of Mr.
Grimm and his friends. There seems to have been an odd
transposition of ideas in the writer’s mind; for the whole of
his reasoning relates to the manners of fashionable life, or
the tendency of mixed and agreeable society in general, to
produce levity and insensibility, and does not at all apply to
the peculiar defects of the literary character, or account for
that hard-heartedness, which Mr. Burke attributes, by way of
emphasis, to the _thorough-bred metaphysician_.[112] The two
characters are evidently distinct, and proceed from very
different and even opposite causes, which ought not to have
been confounded. It would have been a task worthy of the
Edinburgh Reviewers to have pointed out the sources of each,
and to have shewn how both appear to have united in the present
instance with the natural levity of the French character, to
produce that “faultless monster which the world ne’er saw”
before.[113] Much is undoubtedly to be given to accidental and
local circumstances. Boswell’s Life of Johnson presents a very
different picture of men and manners from Grimm’s Memoirs,
though in the circle described by the former there were men who
at least rivalled M. Grimm in literature, and in politeness and
knowledge of mankind might vie with Baron d’Holbach. The
profligacy of the French court, and the mummeries of the
established religion might naturally produce an almost satiric
license and impudence among the enlightened partisans of the
new order of things, and lead them to regard all religion as a
barefaced cheat, and every pretension to virtue as hypocrisy.
The peculiar intelligible features of the philosophical and
literary character are, however, stamped on every page of M.
Grimm’s correspondence; and as they do not seem to have been
very well distinguished by the Reviewer, I shall venture to
throw out a few hints on the subject, in the hope that they may
be taken up and embodied in an authentic form in some future
supplementary volume.’
133. _Multiplicity of persons and things._ Hazlitt quotes with
characteristic inaccuracy the _Edinburgh_ article on Grimm (see
p. 131). A few lines further on he speaks of a ‘_succession_ of
persons and things.’
_Rocks of Meillerie._ _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, Part IV. 17.
135. _Mr. Shandy._ _Tristram Shandy_, V. Chap, iii., where Sterne
tells the story of Cicero and his daughter referred to in the
text.
‘_Hæret lateri_,’ _etc._ Virgil, _Aeneid_, V. 73.
‘_Clad in flesh and blood._’ From Burke, _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 101).
_The ghosts of Homer’s heroes._ _Odyssey_, Book XI.
‘_Play round the head, but never reach the heart._’
‘All fame is foreign, but of true desert;
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.’
Pope’s _Essay on Man_, IV. 254.
Hazlitt’s letter in _The Morning Chronicle_ concluded as
follows: ‘There is another very striking distinction between
the indifference and insensibility to moral good and evil, to
be met with in the philosopher or the man of the world, which
the Reviewer has not pointed out. In the one, it is the
effect of “frivolity, dissipation, and familiarity with
vice”; in the other, it is oftener the effect of disappointed
hope and early enthusiasm. The aversion of the philosopher to
moral speculations has almost always the same source as the
exclamation of Brutus, “Oh Virtue! I embraced thee as a
substance, and I find thou art a shadow!” There is hardly any
one of the persons who figure in these memoirs who did not
set out with some panacea for the salvation of mankind, with
as much sanguine extravagance as ever knight-errants indulged
to conquer giants and rescue distressed damsels. The wounds
received in the conflict might close, but the scar would
remain. Indeed, the practical knowledge of vice and misery
makes a stronger impression on the mind, when it has once
imbibed a habit of abstract reasoning. Evil thus becomes
embodied in a general principle, and shews its happy form in
all things. It is a fatal, inevitable necessity hanging over
us. It follows us wherever we go—if we fly into the uttermost
parts of the earth, it is there; whether we turn to the right
or the left, we cannot escape from it.
‘This, it is true, is the disease of philosophy; but it is one to
which it is liable in minds of a certain cast, after the first
ardour of expectation has been disabused by experience, and the
finer feelings have received an irrecoverable shock from the
jarring of the world.
‘There seems a peculiar tenaciousness in the French character in
this respect, an unfortunate aptitude to cling to every vice
and catch at every folly, or else a want of freshness of
feeling, of that elastic force about the heart which repels the
approach of moral or intellectual depravity.
‘What is said of the tone of the literary society of Paris, is
equally misunderstood. The Reviewers hardly mean to represent
the exclusion of tediousness and pertinacious wrangling, as the
general character of assemblies of wits, and philosophers in
all ages and nations. If so, their opinion differs from that of
the Sage. The fact is, that the men of letters at this period,
by mixing in the fashionable circles, took the tone of good
company, as the people of fashion, by their familiarity with
men of letters, received the tincture of philosophy. The two
characters were blended together in real life, and are
confounded in the Edinburgh Review.’
135. Note. _Plato’s Cave._ _Republic_, Book VII.
ON COMMON-PLACE CRITICS
No. 47 of the Round Table series.
PAGE
136. _Tout homme réfléchi_, _etc._ See note to p. 117.
‘_Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive._’ Dryden, _The
Hind and the Panther_, Part I. l. 315.
_We have already._ In a paper (by Leigh Hunt) _On Commonplace
People_ (_Examiner_, March 19, 1815).
138. _The music which has been since introduced_, _etc._ The famous
‘Macbeth music’ written for D’Avenant’s version produced,
according to Genest, in 1672. This music, traditionally
assigned to Matthew Locke, is now attributed to Purcell.
139. _Mr. Westall’s drawings._ Richard Westall (1765–1836).
_Horne Tooke’s account_, _etc._ See _The Diversions of Purley_
and Hazlitt’s essay on Horne Tooke in _The Spirit of the Age_.
‘_For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit._’ Pope’s _Moral
Essays_, II. 114.
_The new Schools for all._ For the famous educational schemes
of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster and for Bentham’s
_Panopticon_, see Leslie Stephen’s _English Utilitarians_.
_The Penitentiary._ Millbank Prison, formerly known as the
Penitentiary, was the ultimate result of Bentham’s _Panopticon_
scheme and was opened in 1816.
_The new Bedlam._ The new Bedlam Hospital was opened in 1815.
_The new steamboats._ The first steamboat had been launched on
the Clyde in 1812.
_The gaslights._ The Chartered Gas Company obtained its Act of
Parliament in 1810.
_The Bible Society._ The British and Foreign Bible Society was
established in 1804.
_The Society for the Suppression of Vice._ See _ante_, note to p.
60.
ON THE CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ OF THE BRITISH INSTITUTION
These two papers are taken (with considerable variations) from the two
last of three ‘Literary Notices,’ dealing with the Catalogue, which
Hazlitt contributed to _The Examiner_ on Nov. 3, Nov. 10, and Nov. 17,
1816. The first of these ‘Literary Notices’ was never republished by
Hazlitt. All three were republished in their _Examiner_ form in the
second volume of _Criticisms on Art_, _etc._ (2 vols., 1843–44), edited
by the author’s son, who omitted from his edition of _The Round Table_
the two essays in the present text. All three essays will be included in
a later volume of the present edition.
PAGE
140. _Our former remarks._ In _The Examiner_, Nov. 3, 1816.
141. _The Prince Regent’s new sewer._ Presumably the Regent’s Canal,
part of which was opened in 1814.
142. ‘_The scale by which_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 591.
_Mrs. Peachum’s coloured handkerchiefs._ _Beggar’s Opera_, Act 1.
143. ‘_A name great above all names._’ _Philippians_, ii. 9.
143. _Mr. Payne Knight._ Richard Payne Knight gave evidence in 1816
before a Select Committee of the House of Commons upon the
value of the Elgin Marbles. He placed them in the second rank
of art, and valued them at £25,000. They were bought by the
nation for £35,000. Haydon the artist wrote a long letter to
_The Examiner_ (March 17, 1816) on the subject, entitled ‘On
the Judgment of Connoisseurs being preferred to that of
Professional Men, Elgin Marbles, etc.’
144. _Mr. Soane._ John Soane (1753–1837), knighted in 1831. His house
and its contents, presented by him to the nation in 1833, now
form the Soane Museum.
‘_With riches fineless._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
‘_Beastly; subtle as the fox_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act. III.
Scene 3.
‘_The link_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act I. Scene 3.
_It is many years ago_, _etc._ Apparently, says Mr. W. C.
Hazlitt, about 1798, at St. Neot’s, Huntingdonshire. See _The
English Comic Writers_, where this passage is repeated in the
Lecture on the Works of Hogarth.
145. ‘_How were we then uplifted._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III.
Scene 2.
‘_Temples not made with hands_‘, _etc._ _Acts_, vii. 48.
_E. O. Tables._ A new game introduced shortly before 1782, when a
Bill was brought in prohibiting it under severe penalties. The
Bill was lost in the House of Lords. See _Parl. Hist._, vol.
xxiii. pp. 110–113.
‘_Cutpurses of the art_,’ _etc._
‘A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!’
_Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
146. ‘_That a great man’s memory_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.
_Their late President._ Sir Joshua Reynolds.
147. ‘_Feel the future in the instant._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.
148. ‘_Depend upon it_,’ _etc._ This letter was not avowed by Burke,
but was attributed to him by Barry himself and by Sir James
Prior in his _Life of Burke_, (Bohn, p. 227).
149. ‘_Playing at will_,’ _etc._
‘——and played at will
Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more sweet,
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.’
_Paradise Lost_, v. 294–296.
_Highmore_, _etc._ Joseph Highmore (1692–1780); Francis Hayman
(1708–1776), one of the founders of the Royal Academy; Thomas
Hudson (1701–1779), portrait painter; Sir Godfrey Kneller
(1646–1723).
‘_Like flowers in men’s caps_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene
3.
_Hoppner_, _etc._ John Hoppner (1758–1810), the portrait painter;
John Opie (1761–1807); Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769–1850),
President of the Royal Academy from 1830 to 1845; Philip James
Loutherbourg (1740–1812), scene painter to Garrick; John
Francis Rigaud (1742–1810); George Romney (1734–1802). Alderman
John Boydell’s (1719–1804) famous Shakespeare Gallery comprised
one hundred and seventy pictures. The engravings were published
in 1802.
150. ‘_Gone to the vault_,’ _etc._ A favourite quotation of Burke’s
from the lines in Shakespeare:—
‘To that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV. Scene 1.
_The picture ... of Charles I._ In Hazlitt’s time this picture
was at Blenheim, and he referred to it in his _Sketches of the
Principal Picture Galleries in England_ (Pictures at Oxford and
Blenheim). It was bought by Parliament from the Duke of
Marlborough in 1885, and is now in the National Gallery.
_The Waterloo Exhibition._ The Waterloo Museum in Pall Mall
‘which now (according to the advertisement) presents to public
view upwards of 1000 mementos of the late extraordinary events
upon the Continent.’
‘_From this time forth_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.
_The English are a shopkeeping nation._ Hazlitt probably refers
to the exclamation of Barère said to have been repeated by
Napoleon. The expression seems to have been first used by Dean
Tucker of Gloucester in a _Tract_ of 1766.
‘_Balm of hurt minds_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 2.
151. ‘_Smoothing the raven down_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 251–252.
ON POETICAL VERSATILITY
This fragment is taken from the third of a series of four ‘Illustrations
of the Times Newspaper,’ which Hazlitt contributed to _The Examiner_
under the heading of ‘Literary Notices.’ The first of these four papers
(Dec. 1, 1816) has not been republished; the other three, dated
respectively December 15, 1816, December 22, 1816, and January 12, 1817,
were published in _Political Essays_.
PAGE
151. ‘_Heaven’s own tinct._’ _Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 2.
‘_Being so majestical_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.
152. _Poets, it has been said._ See _Political Essays_ (Mr. Southey’s
New Year’s Ode).
_They do not like_, _etc._ The reference is to Southey, Poet
Laureate, and Wordsworth, distributor of stamps for the county
of Westmoreland.
ON ACTORS AND ACTING
This essay and the next are based upon the last (No. 48) of the Round
Table series, which appeared in _The Examiner_ for Jan. 5, 1817. Hazlitt
has, however, interpolated into both essays various passages from former
theatrical criticisms. The paper in the _Round Table_ appears to have
been inspired by Colley Cibber’s _Apology for his Life_. A general
reference may here be made to that work, to the volume in the present
edition containing Hazlitt’s dramatic criticisms, and to Lamb’s and
Leigh Hunt’s essays on the stage.
PAGE
153. ‘_The abstracts_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
154. _George Barnwell._ By George Lillo (1693–1739), produced at Drury
Lane Theatre on June 22, 1731. The play was frequently revived,
and was in some places acted annually as a moral lesson to
apprentices.
_The Inconstant._ Farquhar’s comedy (1702). _Orinda_ should be
_Oriana_.
_Mr. Liston._ John Liston (1776?-1846),the comic actor, who made
his first appearance in 1805 and retired in 1837.
155. _Sir George Etherege_ (1635?-1691), the dramatist. See _English
Comic Writers_, where a part of this passage is repeated.
_John Kemble._ John Philip Kemble (1757–1823). Hazlitt wrote an
account of his retirement from the stage, which took place at
Covent Garden on June 23, 1817.
_Pierre._ In Otway’s _Venice Preserved_ (1682), ‘one of the
happiest and most spirited of all Mr. Kemble’s performances’
(_A View of the English Stage_).
_The Stranger._ Benjamin Thompson’s (1776?-1816) play, ‘The
Stranger,’ translated from Kotzebue, was produced in 1798,
Kemble playing the title-rôle. See Hazlitt’s essay on ‘Mr.
Kemble’s Retirement.’
‘_A tale of other times._’ ‘A tale of the times of old!’ the
opening words of Macpherson’s _Ossian_.
_One of the most affecting things_, _etc._ This paragraph is
taken from a ‘Theatrical Examiner’ (June 4, 1815) on the
retirement of John Bannister (1760–1836) from the stage. For
Bannister and Richard Suett (1755–1805) see Hazlitt’s essay ‘On
Play-Going and on Some of our old Actors,’ and Lamb’s ‘On Some
of the old Actors.’
_The Prize._ By Prince Hoare (1755–1834), originally produced in
1793.
_Mrs. Storace._ Anna Selina Storace or Storache (1766–1817), the
singer and actress, played in ‘The Prize’ in 1793.
_My Grandmother._ By Prince Hoare, produced in 1793.
_The Son-in-Law._ A comic opera by John O’Keeffe (1747–1833),
produced in 1779.
_Scrub._ In _The Beaux’ Stratagem_ of Farquhar.
Thomas King (1730–1805), the original Sir Peter Teazle; William
Parsons (1736–1795); James William Dodd (1740–1796); John Quick
(1748–1831), who made his last appearance in 1813; and John
Edwin the elder (1749–1790). See Hazlitt’s essay ‘On Play-Going
and Some of our old Actors.’
156. ‘_All the world’s a stage_’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II.
Scene 7.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
A large part of the first paragraph of this essay appeared originally in
a notice of Kean’s Sir Giles Overreach (‘Theatrical Examiner,’ Jan. 14,
1816). See _A View of the English Stage_.
PAGE
156. ‘_Leaving the world no copy._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 5.
_Colley Cibber’s account._ See Chap. iv. of Cibber’s _Apology_.
_Miss O’Neill._ Eliza O’Neill (1791–1872) made her last
appearance on the stage on July 13, 1819, shortly before her
marriage with Mr. Becher, who afterwards became a baronet.
Hazlitt in an article on her retirement (see _A View of the
English Stage_) said that ‘her excellence (unrivalled by any
actress since Mrs. Siddons) consisted in truth of nature and
force of passion.’
_Mrs. Siddons._ Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) appeared without
success in London in 1775 and 1776, gained a great reputation
in Manchester and Bath, and reappeared in London on October 10,
1782 in Garrick’s _Isabella_, a version of Southerne’s _Fatal
Marriage_. After a long series of triumphs she made her
farewell appearance on June 29, 1812, as Lady Macbeth.
Hazlitt’s notices of her are confined to two of the occasional
benefit performances which she gave before she finally retired
in June 1819. See _A View of the English Stage_ (June 15, 1816,
and June 7, 1817).
157. ‘_We have seen what a ferment_,’ _etc._ See the essays above, ‘On
the Catalogue Raisonné of the British Institution.’
_Betterton_, _etc._ Thomas Betterton (1635?-1710); Barton Booth
(1681–1733); Robert Wilks (1665?-1732); Samuel Sandford, a
well-known actor on the Restoration stage, who died early in
the eighteenth century; James Nokes (_d._ 1692); Anthony Leigh
(_d._ 1692); William Pinkethman (_d._ 1724); William Bullock
(_d._ 1740?); Richard Estcourt (1668–1712); Thomas Dogget (_d._
1721): Elizabeth Barry (1658–1713); Susanna Mountfort, the
daughter of William Mountfort, the actor and dramatist, who was
murdered by Captain Hill and Lord Mohun in 1692; Anne Oldfield
(1683–1730); Anne Bracegirdle (1663?-1748), who retired from
the stage in 1707 after being defeated in a competition with
Mrs. Oldfield; Susannah Maria Cibber (1714–1766), sister of
Arne the composer, and wife of Theophilus Cibber, famous first
as a singer (especially of Handel’s music), and later as an
actress of tragedy.
_Cibber himself._ Colley Cibber (1671–1757), actor and dramatist,
Poet Laureate from 1730 till his death. For a very entertaining
account of himself and of nearly all the well-known actors and
actresses whose names appear in the preceding note see his
_Apology for his Life_ (1740).
_Macklin_, _etc._ Charles Macklin (1697?-1797), actor and
dramatist, whose great part was Shylock; James Quin
(1693–1766); John Rich (1682–1761), the originator of pantomime
in England (his name is substituted by Hazlitt for that of Peg
Woffington, which appeared in the original _Round Table_
paper); Catherine or Kitty Clive (1711–1785), whose acting and
‘sprightliness of humour’ were admired by Dr. Johnson, and
Hannah Pritchard (1711–1768), who created the part of Irene in
Johnson’s play, and Frances Abington (1737–1815), well-known
members of Garrick’s company; Thomas Weston (1737–1776), and
Edward Shuter (1728–1776), two of the best comic actors of
their time.
‘_Gladdened life_,’ _etc._ A composite quotation from Johnson’s
well-known reference to Garrick (_Lives of the Poets_, Edmund
Smith). See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill, iii.
387.
_Our hundred days._ The reference is a characteristic one to
Buonaparte’s hundred days in Europe in 1815.
_Betterton’s Hamlet or his Brutus_, _etc._ Colley Cibber
(_Apology_, Chap, iv.) refers particularly to these two
impersonations, describes (Chap. xiv.) Booth’s performance of
Cato in 1713, and specially eulogises Mrs. Barry’s Monimia
and Belvidera in Otway’s plays, _The Orphan_ and _Venice
Preserved_. (Chap. v.). See Hazlitt’s lecture ‘On the Spirit
of Ancient and Modern Literature’ in his _Lectures on the
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth_ for a criticism of these
plays. He saw and reviewed Miss O’Neill’s performances in
both these characters. See _A View of the English Stage_.
_Penkethman’s manner_, _etc._ See _The Tatler_, No. 188.
_Dowton._ Hazlitt spoke of William Dowton (1764–1851) as ‘a
genuine and excellent comedian’ (‘On Play-Going and on Some of
the old Actors’). There are frequent notices of him in _A View
of the English Stage_.
157. Note. _Marriage à la mode._ By Dryden, first produced in 1672. In
_The Examiner_ this note forms part of the text. At the end of
the passage quoted Hazlitt proceeds: ‘The whole of Colley
Cibber’s work is very amusing to a dramatic amateur. It gives
an interesting account of the progress of the stage, which in
his time appears to have been in a state _militant_. Two
actors, _Kynaston_ and _Montfort_ were run through the body in
disputes with gentlemen, with impunity; and the Master of the
Revels arrested any of the two companies who was refractory to
the managers, at his pleasure. _Dogget_ was brought up in this
manner from Norwich, by two constables: but _Dogget_ being a
whig, and a surly fellow, got a _Habeas Corpus_, and the Master
of the Revels was driven from the field.’ Edward Kynaston
(1640–1706) was beaten more than once at the instance of Sir
Charles Sedley whom he impersonated on the stage. For the story
of the Lord Chamberlain and Dogget, see Cibber’s _Apology_
(Chap. x.).
158. _Sir Harry Wildair._ Farquhar’s _Sir Harry Wildair_, a
continuation of _The Constant Couple_, was produced in 1701.
‘_The Jew that Shakespeare drew._’ This is an exclamation
(attributed to Pope) overheard at one of Macklin’s
representations of Shylock.
_As often as we are pleased._ The following passage from _The
Examiner_ is omitted by Hazlitt: ‘We have no curiosity about
things or persons that we never heard of. Mr. Coleridge
professes in his Lay Sermon to have discovered a new faculty,
by which he can divine the future. This is lucky for himself
and his friends, who seem to have lost all recollection of the
past.’ Hazlitt here refers to _The Statesman’s Manual; or, The
Bible the best guide to political skill and foresight: A Lay
Sermon, addressed to the Higher Classes of Society_ (1816),
known as the first Lay Sermon. Hazlitt wrote two notices of it
in _The Examiner_, one of which (September 8, 1816) was based
merely on newspaper announcements of its forthcoming appearance
(see _Political Essays_); and probably, as Coleridge believed,
reviewed it in the _Edinburgh Review_ for December 1816.
_Players, after all_, _etc._ This passage to the end of the
paragraph is from a ‘Theatrical Examiner,’ January 14, 1816.
_Actors have been accused_, _etc._ The whole of this paragraph is
taken from a ‘Theatrical Examiner,’ March 31, 1816.
‘_The web of our life_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act
IV. Scene 3.
159. ‘_Like the giddy sailor_,’ _etc._ _Richard III._, Act III. Scene
4.
_A neighbouring country._ Hazlitt probably refers to France where
the disqualifications of actors had only recently been removed
by the Revolution government. For an account of ecclesiastical
intolerance towards actors, especially in France, see Lecky’s
_The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe_, II. 316 _et
seq._
‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.
‘_The wine of life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 3.
160. ‘_Hurried from fierce extremes_,’ _etc._
‘——and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,’ etc.
_Paradise Lost_, II. 599 _et seq._
_The strolling player in ‘Gil Blas.’_ _Gil Blas_, Liv. II. Chap.
viii.
WHY THE ARTS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE: A FRAGMENT
In _The Morning Chronicle_ for January 11 and 15, 1814, Hazlitt
published two papers entitled ‘Fragments on Art. Why the Arts are not
progressive?’ Later in the year he contributed two papers to _The
Champion_ (August 28, 1814, and September 11, 1814) under the heading
‘Fine Arts. Whether they are promoted by Academies and Public
Institutions?’ and in a letter (October 2) replied to the criticisms of
a correspondent. The present ‘Fragment’ is composed of (1) the first of
the articles in _The Morning Chronicle_ and part of the second, and (2)
part of the second article in _The Champion_. Much of the matter of the
present essay is embodied in Hazlitt’s article on the Fine Arts,
contributed to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
PAGE
160. ‘_It is often made a subject_,’ _etc._ The first three paragraphs
are taken from _The Morning Chronicle_, January 11, 1814. In
_The Champion_ for August 28, 1814, the first two paragraphs
appear as a quotation from a ‘contemporary critic.’
_Antæus._ The story of Antæus the giant is referred to by Milton
(_Paradise Regained_, IV. 563 _et seq._).
161. _Nothing is more contrary_, _etc._ This paragraph and part of the
next are repeated at the beginning of the Lecture on Shakspeare
and Milton in _Lectures on the English Poets_.
162. _Guido._ Substituted for Claude Lorraine, upon whom, in _The
Morning Chronicle_, Hazlitt has the following note: ‘In
speaking thus of Claude, we yield rather to common opinion than
to our own. However inferior the style of his best landscapes
may be, there is something in the execution that redeems all
defects. In taste and grace nothing can ever go beyond them. He
might be called, if not the perfect, the faultless painter. Sir
Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another
Raphael, before there was another Claude. In Mr. Northcote’s
Dream of a Painter (see his _Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds_),
there is an account of Claude Lorraine, so full of feeling, so
picturesque, so truly classical, so like Claude, that we cannot
resist this opportunity of copying it out.’ The passage quoted
from Northcote is the paragraph beginning, ‘Now tired with pomp
and splendid shew.’ See Northcote’s Varieties on Art (The Dream
of a Painter) in his _Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds_, _etc._
(1813–1815) p. xvi.
‘_The human face divine._’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 44.
‘_Circled Una’s angel face_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I.
Canto iii. st. 4.
_Griselda._ See _The Canterbury Tales_ (The Clerk’s Tale).
_The Flower and the Leaf._ This poem, a great favourite of
Hazlitt’s, is not now attributed to Chaucer.
163. _The divine story of the Hawk._ _The Decameron_ (Fifth Day, Novel
IX.). Hazlitt continually refers to the story.
_Isabella._ _The Decameron_ (Fourth Day, Novel V.).
_So Lear_, _etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Scene 4.
_Titian._ The picture referred to is one of those which Hazlitt
copied while he was studying in the Louvre in 1802. See
_Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, I. 88. He frequently mentions it.
_Nicolas Poussin._ ‘But, above all, who shall celebrate, in terms
of fit praise, his picture of the shepherds in the Vale of
Tempe going out in a fine morning of the spring, and coming to
a tomb with this inscription:—Et ego in Arcadia vixi!’ (_Table
Talk_, ‘On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin.’)
_In general, it must happen_, _etc._ The two concluding
paragraphs are taken from _The Champion_, September 11, 1814.
_Current with the world._ The following passage in _The Champion_
is here omitted: ‘Common sense, which has been sometimes
appealed to as the criterion of taste, is nothing but the
common capacity, applied to common facts and feelings; but it
neither is nor pretends to be, the judge of anything else. To
suppose that it can really appreciate the excellence of works
of high art, is as absurd as to suppose that it could produce
them.’
_Count Castiglione._ Baldassare Count Castiglione (1478–1529),
whose famous _Il Cortegiano_ was translated into English by Sir
Thomas Hoby under the title of ‘The Courtyer’ (1561).
CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEAR’S PLAYS
PAGE
171. _It is observed by Mr. Pope._ Ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. X.
pp. 534–535.
_A gentleman of the name of Mason._ Neither George Mason
(1735–1806), author of _An Essay on Design in Gardening_, 1768,
nor John Monck Mason (1726–1809), Shakespearian commentator, is
the author of the work alluded to by Hazlitt, but Thomas
Whately (_d._ 1772) whose _Remarks on some of the Characters of
Shakespere_ was published after Thomas Whately’s death by his
brother, the Rev. Jos. Whately, in 1785, as ‘by the author of
_Observations on Modern Gardening_’ [1770]; a second edition
was published in 1808 with the author’s name on the title-page,
and a third in 1839, edited by Archbishop Whately, Thomas
Whately’s nephew.
_Richardson’s Essays._ _Essays on Shakespeare’s Dramatic
Characters._ 1774–1812. By William Richardson (1743–1814).
_Schlegel’s Lectures on the Drama._ _A Course of Lectures on
Dramatic Art and Literature._ By A. W. von Schlegel. Delivered
at Vienna in 1808. English translation, by John Black, in 1815.
The quotation which follows will be found in Bohn’s one vol.
edition, 1846, pp. 363–371, and the further references given in
these notes are to the same edition.
174. ‘_to do a great right._’ _Mer. Ven._ IV. 1.
‘_alone is high fantastical._’ _Twelfth Night_, I. 1.
175. _Dr. Johnson’s Preface to his Edition of Shakespear._ 1765.
‘_swelling figures._’ Dr. Johnson’s _Preface_. See Malone’s
_Shakespeare_, 1821, vol. i. p. 75.
176. _Dover cliff in_ LEAR, Act IV. 6.
_flowers in_ THE WINTER’S TALE, Act IV. 4.
_Congreve’s description of a ruin in the_ MOURNING BRIDE, Act II.
1.
177. _the sleepy eye of love._ Cf. ‘The sleepy eye that spoke the
melting soul.’ Pope, _Imit. 1st Epis. 2nd. Bk. Horace_, l. 150.
_In his tragic scenes._ Dr. Johnson’s _Preface_, p. 71.
_His declamations_, _etc._ _Ibid._, p. 75.
_But the admirers_, _etc._ _Ibid._, p. 75.
178. _in another work, The Round Table._ See pp. 61–64.
CYMBELINE
When the name of the Play is not given it is to be understood that the
reference is to the Play under discussion. Differences between the text
quoted by Hazlitt and the text of the _Globe_ Shakespeare which seem
worth pointing out are indicated in square brackets.
PAGE
179. _Dr. Johnson is of opinion._ Dr. Johnson’s _Preface_, p. 73.
180. _Cibber, in speaking of the early English stage._ _Apology for
the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber_ (1740), vol. i. chap. iv.
181. _My lord_, Act I. 6.
_What cheer_, Act III. 4. The six following quotations in the
text are in the same scene.
182. _My dear lord_, Act III. 6.
_And when with wild wood-leaves_ and _with fairest flowers_, Act
IV. 2.
183. _Cytherea, how bravely_, Act II. 2.
_Me of my lawful pleasure_, Act II. 5.
_Whose love-suit_, Act III. 4.
_the ancient critic_, Aristophanes of Byzantium.
184. _Out of your proof_, Act III. 3.
185. _The game’s a-foot_ [is up], Act III. 3.
_under the shade._ _As You Like It_, Act II. 7.
_See, boys!_ Act III. 3.
_Nay, Cadwell_, Act IV. 2.
186. _Stick to your journal course_, Act IV. 2.
_creatures_ and _Your Highness_, Act I. 5.
MACBETH
186. _The poet’s eye._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. 1.
your only _tragedy-maker_. It would be better to italicise only
‘tragedy’; the reference is probably to _Hamlet_, III. 2, ‘your
only jig-maker.’
_the air_ [heaven’s breath] _smells wooingly_ and _the
temple-haunting martlet builds_ [does approve by his loved
mansionry], Act I. 6.
187. _the blasted heath_, Act I. 3.
_air-drawn dagger_, Act III. 4.
_gracious Duncan_, Act III. 1.
_blood-boultered Banquo_, Act IV. 1.
_What are these_, Act I. 3.
_bends up_, Act I. 7.
_The deed_ [The attempt and not the deed confounds us], Act II.
2.
_preter_ [super] _natural solicitings_, Act I. 3.
188. _Bring forth_ and _screw his courage_, Act I. 7.
_lost so poorly_ and _a little water_, Act II. 2.
_the sides of his intent_, Act I. 7.
_for their future days_ and _his fatal entrance_, Act I. 5.
_Come all you spirits_, Act I. 5.
189. _Duncan comes there_, Act I. 5. The two following quotations in
the text are in the same scene.
_Mrs. Siddons._ Sarah Siddons (1755–1831). It was as Lady Macbeth
that Mrs. Siddons made her ‘last’ appearance on the stage, June
29, 1812. She returned occasionally, and Hazlitt saw her act
the part at Covent Garden, June 7, 1817. See note to p. 156,
and also Hazlitt’s _A View of the English Stage_.
190. _There is no art_, Act I. 4.
_How goes the night_, Act II. 1.
_Light thickens_, Act III. 2–3.
191. _So fair and foul_, Act I. 3.
_Such welcome and unwelcome news together_ [things at once] and
_Men’s lives_, Act IV. 3.
_Look like the innocent flower_, Act I. 5.
_To him and all_ [all and him], _Avaunt_, and _himself again_,
Act III. 4.
_he may sleep_, Act IV. 1.
_Then be thou jocund_, Act III. 2.
_Had he not resembled_, Act II. 2.
_they should be women_, and _in deeper consequence_, Act I. 3.
192. _Why stands Macbeth_, Act IV. 1.
_the milk of human kindness_, Act I. 5.
_himself alone._ _The Third Part of King Henry VI._, Act V. 6.
_For Banquo’s issue_, Act III. 1.
193. _Duncan is in his grave_, Act III. 2.
_direness is thus rendered familiar_, Act V. 5.
_is troubled_, Act V. 3.
_subject_ [servile] _to all the skyey influences_. _Measure for
Measure_, Act III. 1.
_My way of life_, Act V. 3.
194. _the ‘Beggar’s Opera,’_ by John Gay (1685–1732), first acted
January 29, 1728. See _The Round Table_, pp. 65–66.
_Lillo’s murders._ George Lillo, dramatist (1693–1739), author of
_Fatal Curiosity_ and _George Barnwell_. See note to p. 154.
_Lamb’s Specimens of Early [English] Dramatic Poets_, 1808. See
Gollancz’s edition, 2 vols., 1893, vol. I. pp. 271–272.
_the Witch of Middleton._ Thomas Middleton (?1570–1627). It is
not known whether the date of the _Witch_ is earlier or later
than that of _Macbeth_.
JULIUS CÆSAR
195. _the celebrated Earl of Hallifax._ Charles Montague, Earl of
Halifax (1661–1715), poet and statesman. _King and no King_,
licensed 1611, printed 1619; _Secret Love, or, the Maiden
Queen_, first acted 1667, printed the following year.
_Thou art a cobler_ [but with awl. I] and _Wherefore rejoice_,
Act I. 1.
196. _once upon a raw_ and _The games are done_, Act I. 2.
197. _And for Mark Antony_, and _O, name him not_, Act II. 1.
198. _This disturbed sky_, Act I. 3.
_All the conspirators_, Act V. 5.
_How ‘scaped I killing_, Act IV. 3.
_You are my true_, Act II. 1.
199. _They are all welcome_ and _It is no matter_, Act II. 1.
OTHELLO
200. _tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity_, Aristotle’s
_Poetics_.
_It comes directly home_, Dedication to Bacon’s _Essays_.
_The picturesque contrasts._ The germ of this paragraph may be
found in _The Examiner_ (_The Round Table_, No. 38), May 12th,
1816. The paper there indexed as _Shakespeare’s exact
discrimination of nearly similar characters_ was used in the
preparation of _Othello_, _Henry IV._ and _Henry VI._ in the
_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_.
202. _flows on to the Propontic_, Act III. 3.
_the spells_, Act I. 3.
_What! Michael Cassio?_ and _If she be false_, Act III. 3.
203. _Look where he comes_, Act III. 3. The four following quotations
in the text and footnote are in the same scene.
[I found not Cassio’s kisses
... thy hollow cell.]
_Yet, oh the pity of it_, Act IV. 2.
_My wife!_ Act V. 2.
204. _his whole course of love_, Act I. 3.
_’Tis not to make me jealous_, Act III. 3.
_Believe me_, Act III. 4.
_I will, my Lord_, Act IV. 3.
205. _her visage._ Cf. ‘I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,’ Act I. 3.
_A maiden never bold_, Act I. 3.
_Tempests themselves_, Act II. 1.
205. _She is subdued_ and _honours and his valiant parts_, Act I. 3.
_Ay, too gentle_, Act IV. 1.
_remained at home_, Act I. 3.
_Alas, Iago_, Act IV. 2.
206. _Would you had never seen him_, Act IV. 3.
_Some persons._ See _The Round Table_, p. 15.
207. _Our ancient_, Dram. Per. ‘Iago, his ancient.’
_What a full fortune_, and _Here is her father’s house_, Act I.
1.
208. _I cannot believe_, Act II. 1.
_And yet how nature_, Act III. 3.
_the milk of human kindness._ _Macbeth_, Act I. 5.
_relish of salvation._ _Hamlet_, Act III. 3.
_Oh, you are well tuned now_, Act II. 1.
_My noble lord_, Act III. 3.
209. _O grace! O Heaven forgive_ [defend] _me_, Act III. 3.
_How is it, General_, Act IV. 1.
_Zanga._ See _The Revenge_, by Edward Young (1683–1765), first
acted 1721.
TIMON OF ATHENS
210. _Follow his strides_, Act I. 1.
211. _What, think’st thou_, Act IV. 3 [moss’d trees].
_A thing slipt_, Act I. 1.
_Ugly all over with hypocrisy._ Cf. ‘He is ugly all over with the
affectation of the fine gentleman.’ Quoted by Steele from
Wycherley, _The Tatler_, No. 38.
212. _This yellow slave_, Act IV. 3.
_Let me look_, Act IV. 1.
213. _What things in the world_, Act IV. 3.
_loved few things better_, Act I. 1.
_Come not to me_, Act V. 1.
_These well express_, Act V. 4.
CORIOLANUS
214. _no jutting frieze_ and _to make its pendant bed_. _Macbeth_, Act
I. 6.
_it carries noise_, Act II. 1.
_Carnage is its daughter._ See Wordsworth’s _Ode_, No. XLV. of
Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty, ed.
Hutchinson, 1895. The line was altered by Wordsworth in 1845.
See also Byron’s _Don Juan_, Canto viii. Stanza 9.
215. _poor_ [these] _rats_, Act I. 1.
_as if he were a God_, Act II. 1.
_Mark you_ and _cares_, Act III. 1.
216. _Now the red pestilence_, Act IV. 1.
217. _Methinks I hither hear_, Act I. 3 [At Grecian sword,
contemning].
_These are the ushers_, Act II. 1.
_Pray now, no more_, Act I. 9.
218. _The whole history._ The sentence quoted is by Pope. See Malone’s
_Shakespeare_, 1821, vol. xiv.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
221. _Troy, yet upon her basis_, Act I. 3.
222. _without o’erflowing full._ Said of the Thames in _Cooper’s
Hill_, by Sir John Denham (1615–1669).
222. _of losing distinction in his thoughts_ [joys] and _As doth a
battle_, Act III. 2.
223. _Time hath, my lord_, Act. III. 3.
224. _Why there you touch’d_, Act II. 2.
_Come here about me_, Act V. 7.
_Go thy way_, Act I. 2.
_It is the prettiest villain_, Act III. 2.
225. _the web of our lives._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act IV. 3.
_He hath done_, Act V. 5.
226. _Prouder than when_, Act I. 3.
_like the eye of vassalage_, Act III. 2 [like vassalage at
unawares encountering the eye of majesty].
_And as the new abashed nightingale_, Chaucer’s _Troilus and
Criseyde_, Book III. 177.
227. _Her armes small._ _Ibid._, 179.
_O that I thought_, Act III. 2.
_Rouse yourself_, Act III. 3.
_What proffer’st thou_, Chaucer’s _Troilus and Criseyde_, Book
III. 209.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
228. _like the swan’s down-feather_, Act III. 2.
_If it be love indeed_, Act I. 1.
229. _The barge she sat in_, Act II. 2.
_like a doating mallard_, Act III. 10.
_He’s speaking now_, Act I. 5.
_It is my birthday_ and _To let a fellow_, Act. III. 13.
_Age cannot wither_, Act. II. 2 [stale].
_There’s gold_, Act. II. 5.
230. _Dost thou not see_, Act V. 2.
_Antony, leave thy lascivious wassels_, Act I. 4. [_For_ Mutina
_read_ Modena.]
_Yes, yes_, Act III. 11.
231. _Eros, thou yet behold’st me_, Act IV. 14.
_I see men’s judgments_, Act III. 13.
232. _a master-leaver_, Act IV. 9.
HAMLET
232. _this goodly frame_ and _man delighted not_, Act II. 2.
_too much i’ th’ sun._ Cf. Act II. 2.
_the pangs of despised love_, Act III. 1.
233. _the outward pageants._ Cf. the trappings and the suits of woe,
Act I. 2.
_we have that within_, Act I. 2.
234. _that has no relish of salvation_ and _He kneels and prays_ [now
might I do it pat, now he is praying], Act III. 3.
_How all occasions_, Act IV. 4 [fust in us].
235. _Whole Duty of Man_, 1659, a once-popular ethical treatise of
unknown authorship.
_Academy of Compliments, or the whole Art of Courtship, being the
rarest and most exact way of wooing a Maid or Widow, by the way
of Dialogue or complimental Expressions._ London, 12mo.
Academies of Compliments were also published in 1655 and 1669.
236. _his father’s spirit_, Act I. 2.
_I loved Ophelia_ and _Sweets to the sweet_, Act V. 1.
_Oh rose of May_, Act IV. 5.
_There is a willow_, Act IV. 7 [grows aslant].
237. _a wave o’ th’ sea._ _The Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. 4.
THE TEMPEST
238. _Either for tragedy._ _Hamlet_, Act II. 2. Hazlitt alters the
words of Polonius to apply them to Shakespeare.
_a deed without a name._ _Macbeth_, Act IV. 1.
_does his spiriting gently_, Act I. 2.
_to airy nothing._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. 1.
_semblably._ _The Second Part of King Henry VI._, Act V. 1.
_worthy of that name._ Cf. Act III. 1.
239. _like the dyer’s hand._ _Sonnet_ CXI.
‘_the liberty of wit_’ ... _‘the law’ of the understanding_. Cf.
_Hamlet_, Act II. 2 [the law of writ and the liberty].
_of the earth, earthy._ _St. John_, iii. 31.
_always speaks in blank verse_, Schlegel, p. 395.
_As wicked dew_, Act I. 2.
240. _I’ll shew thee_, Act II. 2.
_Be not afraid_, Act III. 2.
241. _I drink the air_, Act V. 1.
_I’ll put a girdle_, _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act II. 2.
_Your charm_, Act V. 1.
_Come unto these yellow sands_, Act I. 2.
242. _The cloud-capp’d towers_, Act IV. 1.
_Ye elves of hills_, Act V. 1.
243. _Shakespear has anticipated._ The passage quoted is based on
Florio’s translation of Montaigne. See Chapter XXX. Book 1. _Of
the Caniballes_.
_Had I the plantation_, Act II. 1.
THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
See _The Round Table_, pp. 61–64.
244. _This crew of patches_, Act III. 2.
_He will roar_, Act I. 2. The two following quotations in the
text are in the same scene.
_I believe we must leave_, Act III. 1.
245. _Write me a prologue_, Act III. 1.
_with amiable cheeks_ and _Monsieur Cobweb_, Act IV. 1.
_Lord, what fools_, Act III. 2.
_the human mortals_, Act II. 1.
_gorgons and hydras._ _Paradise Lost_, Book II. l. 628.
_regarded him rather as a metaphysician._ Cf. ‘No man was ever
yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound
philosopher.’ Coleridge’s _Biographia Literaria_, Chap. XV.
246. _Be kind_, Act III. 1.
_Go, one of you_, Act IV. 1.
247. _the most fearful wild-fowl_, Act III. 1.
247. _Liston_ acted in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ at Covent Garden,
January 17, 1816. See Genest’s _Some Account of the English
Stage_, VIII. 545–549. See also Hazlitt’s _A View of the
English Stage_, where a few of the same sentences used here
also occur.
ROMEO AND JULIET
248. _whatever is most intoxicating_, Schlegel, p. 400.
_fancies_ [cowslips] _wan_. _Lycidas_, l. 147.
249. _We have heard it objected._ By Curran. See _post_, p. 393.
_too unripe and crude._ Cf. _Lycidas_, l. 3, ‘harsh and crude.’
_the_ STRANGER. _Menschenhass und Reue_, by A.F.F. von Kotzebue
(1761–1819), adapted for the English stage under the title of
_The Stranger_. See note to p. 155.
_gather grapes._ _St. Matthew_, vii. 16.
_My bounty_, Act II. 2.
250. _they fade by degrees_, Wordsworth’s Ode, _Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of early Childhood_, V. [fade
into the light].
_that lies about us._ _Ibid._
251. _the purple light of love_, Gray’s _Progress of Poesy_, l. 41.
_another morn risen on mid-day_ [mid-noon], _Paradise Lost_, V.
310–311.
_in utter nakedness_, Wordsworth’s _Ode_ (see above), V.
_I’ve seen the day_, Act I. 5.
_At my poor house_, Act I. 2.
_But he_, Act I. 1.
252. _the white wonder_, Act III. 3.
_What lady’s that_, Act I. 5.
_But stronger Shakespear felt for man alone_, Collins’s _Epistle
to Sir Thomas Hanmer_.
_Thou know’st the mask_, Act II. 2.
253. _calls_ [think] _true love spoken_ [acted] and _Gallop apace_,
Act III. 2.
_It was reserved_, Schlegel, p. 400.
254. _Here comes the lady_, Act II. 6.
_Ancient damnation_, Act III. 5.
_frail thoughts._ _Lycidas_, 153 [false surmise].
_the flatteries_, Act V. 1.
_What said my man_, Act V. 3.
_If I may trust_, Act V. 1 [flattering truth of sleep].
255. _Shame come to Romeo_ and _Blister’d be thy tongue_, Act III. 2.
256. _father, mother_, Act III. 2.
_Let me peruse_, Act V. 3.
257. _as she would take_ [catch]. _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act V. 2.
_The Beauties of Shakespear._ By Dr. Wm. Dodd (1729–1777), 1753.
LEAR
258. _Be Kent unmannerly_ and _Prescribe not_, Act I. 1.
259. _This is the excellent foppery_, Act I. 2.
_the dazzling fence of controversy._ Cf. the ‘dazzling fence’ of
rhetoric, _Comus_, 790–791.
260. _beat at the gate, he has made_ and _Let me not stay_, Act I. 4.
_How now, daughter._ _Ibid._ [much o’ the savour].
263. _O let me not be mad_, Act I. 5.
264. _Vengeance_ and _Good-morrow to you both_, Act II. 4 [how this
becomes the house].
268. _See the little dogs_, Act III. 6.
_Let them anatomise Regan_, Act III. 6.
_Nothing but his unkind daughters_, Act III. 4.
_whether a madman_, Act III. 6.
_Come on, sir_, Act IV. 6.
_full circle home_, Act V. 3.
269. _Shame, ladies_, Act IV. 3.
_Alack, ’tis he_, Act IV. 4.
_How does my royal lord_, Act IV. 7.
_We are not the first_, Act V. 3.
270. _And my poor fool_, Act V. 3.
_Vex not his ghost_, Act V. 3 [this tough world].
_Approved of by Dr. Johnson._ See Malone’s _Shakespeare_, vol. X.
p. 290.
_condemned by Schlegel._ See Schlegel, p. 413.
_The Lear of Shakespear._ See Lamb’s _Miscellaneous Essays_, ed.
Ainger, 1884, p. 233.
271. [_For_ that rich sea _read_ that sea.]
RICHARD II.
273. _How long a time_, Act I. 3.
_sighed his English breath_, Act III. 1.
_The language I have learnt_, Act I. 3.
_is hung armour_, Wordsworth’s Sonnet, _It is not to be thought
of_ (1802).
_keen encounters._ _King Richard III._, Act I. 2.
_If that thy valour_, Act IV. 1 [Till thou the lie-giver and that
lie do lie].
275. _This royal throne of kings_, Act II. 1 [fear’d by their breed
and famous by their birth ... the envious siege].
276. _Ourself and Bushy_, Act I. 4.
_I thank thee_, Act II. 3.
_O that I were a mockery king_, Act IV. 1.
_it yearned his heart_, Act V. 5.
_My lord, you told me_, Act V. 2 [scowl on gentle Richard].
HENRY IV.
278. _we behold the fulness._ Cf. _Col._ ii. 9.
_lards the lean earth._ _1 King Henry IV._, Act II. 2.
_into thin air._ _The Tempest_, Act IV. 1.
_three fingers_ [omit _deep_], Act IV. 2.
_it snows of meat and drink._ _Canterbury Tales_, Prologue, 345.
_ascends me into the brain_, Part II. Act IV. 3.
_a sun of man_, Part I. Act II. 4.
279. _open, palpable_, Part I. Act II. 4 [like their father that
begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable].
_By the lord_, Part I. Act I. 2.
280. _But Hal_, Part I. Act I. 2.
_who grew from four_ [two] _men_, Part I. Act II. 4.
281. _Harry, I do not only marvel_, Part I. Act II. 4 [purses? a
question to be asked].
282. _What is the gross sum_ and _Marry, if thou wert an honest man_,
Part II. Act II. 1.
283. _Would I were with him._ _Henry V._, Act II. 3.
_turning his vices_ [diseases], Part II. Act I. 2.
_their legs_, Part II. Act II. 4.
_a man made after supper_ and _Would, cousin Silence_, Part II.
Act III. 2.
_I did not think Master Silence, in some authority_, and _You
have here_, Part II. Act V. 3.
284. _When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank_ and _By heaven_ [honour
from the pale-faced moon], Part I. Act I. 3.
_Had my sweet Harry_, Part II. Act II. 3.
HENRY V.
PAGE
285. _the_ [best] _king of good fellows_, Act V. 2.
_plume up their wills._ _Othello_, Act I. 3.
_the right divine_, Pope’s _Dunciad_, Book IV. 1. 188.
286. _when France is his_, Act I. 2.
_O for a muse of fire_, Prologue.
287. _the reformation and which is a wonder_, Act I. 1.
_And God forbid_, Act I. 2.
288. _the ill neighbourhood_, _For once the eagle England_, and _For
government_ [the act of order], Act I. 2.
289. _rich with_ [omit _his_] _praise_, Act I. 2.
_O hard condition_, Act IV. 1.
290. _The Duke of York_, Act IV. 6.
291. _some disputations_, Act III. 2.
HENRY VI.
292. _flat and unraised._ _King Henry V._, Act I., Chorus.
_Glory is like a circle_, Part I. Act I. 2.
_yet tell’st thou not_, Part I. Act I. 4.
293. _Aye, Edward will use women honourably_, Part III. Act III. 2.
_We have already observed._ See note to p. 200 for the source of
this paragraph.
294. _The characters and situations._ The material between these words
and _disappointed ambition_ (p. 297) formed part of an article
by Hazlitt in _The Examiner_ (see note to p. 200).
_Edward Plantagenet_, Part III. Act II. 2.
_mock not my senseless conjuration._ _Richard II._, Act III. 2
[foul rebellion’s arms ... lift shrewd steel ... God for his
Richard].
295. _But now the blood._ _Richard II._, Act III. 2.
_cheap defence._ Cf. Burke: _Reflections on the Revolution in
France_, ‘the cheap defence of nations.’
_Awake, thou coward majesty_ [twenty thousand names] and _Where
is the duke_. _Richard II._, Act III. 2.
296. _what must the king do now._ _Richard II._, Act III. 3.
_This battle fares_, Part III. Act II. 5.
297. _had staggered his royal person._ _Richard II._, Act V. 5.
RICHARD III.
PAGE
298. _the character in which Garrick came out._ David Garrick
(1717–1779) appeared, October 19, 1741, at the theatre in
Goodman’s Fields.
_the second character in which Mr. Kean appeared._ Edmund Kean
(1787–1833) appeared at Drury Lane as Shylock, January 26,
1814, on February 1st as Shylock, on February 12th as Gloster
in Richard III. See _Some Account of the English Stage_,
Genest, vol. viii. pp. 407–408, 1832. See also Hazlitt’s _A
View of the English Stage_.
_But I was born_, Act I. 3.
299. _Cooke._ George Frederick Cooke (1756–1811) acted Richard III. at
Covent Garden on September 20, 1809. See Genest’s _Some Account
of the English Stage_, viii. p. 178.
300. _Sir Giles Overreach_, in Massinger’s _A New Way to Pay Old
Debts_ (1620–33). For Hazlitt’s criticism of Kean’s acting in
this and the other characters referred to in the same paragraph
see his _A View of the English Stage_.
_Oroonoko_, or the Royal Slave. A play (1696) by Thomas Southerne
(1660/1–1746) founded on a novel of Aphra Behn’s (1640–1689).
_Cibber._ See note to p. 157.
301. _bustle in_, Act I. 1.
_they do me wrong_, Act I. 3 [speak fair].
_I beseech your graces_, Act I. 1.
302. _Stay, yet look_, Act IV. 1 [rude, ragged nurse].
_Dighton and Forrest_, Act IV. 3.
HENRY VIII.
303. _Nay, forsooth_, Act III. 1.
_Dr. Johnson observes_, Malone’s _Shakespeare_, vol. xix. p. 498.
304. _Farewell, a long farewell_, Act III. 2.
_him whom of all men_, Act IV. 2.
_while her grace sat down_, Act IV. 1.
305. _No maid could live near such a man._ Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests
that by a slip this remark has been said of Shakespeare instead
of Henry VIII. The emendation would make the paragraph read
thus: ‘It has been said of him [_i.e._ Henry VIII.]—“No maid
could live near such a man.” It might with as good reason be
said of Shakespear—“No king could live near such a man.”’
_the best of kings._ A phrase applied to Ferdinand VII. of Spain
in official documents. See _The Examiner_, September 25, 1814,
where the words are ironically italicised.
KING JOHN
306. _denoted a foregone conclusion._ _Othello_, Act III. 3.
_To consider thus._ _Hamlet_, Act V. 1.
307. _Heat me these irons_, Act IV. 1.
310. _There is not yet_, Act IV. 3.
_To me_, Act III. 1.
_that love of misery_ and _Oh father Cardinal_, Act III. 4.
311. _Aliquando._ Ben Jonson’s _Discoveries_, LXIV., _De Shakespeare
Nostrati_.
_commodity, tickling commodity_, Act II. 1.
312. _That daughter there_, Act II. 1 [niece to England].
_Therefore to be possessed_, Act IV. 2.
TWELFTH NIGHT
314. _high fantastical_, Act I. 1.
_Wherefore are these things hid_, Act I. 3.
_rouse the night-owl_ and _Dost thou think_, Act II. 3.
_we cannot agree with Dr. Johnson._ See Dr. Johnson’s _Preface_,
before cited, p. 71.
315. _What’s her history_, Act II. 4.
_Oh, it came o’er the ear_, Act I., 1 [the sweet sound].
_They give a very echo_, Act II. 4.
_Blame not this haste_, Act IV. 3.
316. _O fellow, come_, Act II. 4.
_Here comes the little villain_, Act II. 5 [drawn from us with
cars].
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
318. _It is observable._ The note is by Pope. See Malone’s
_Shakespeare_, vol. iv. p. 3.
_This whole scene._ Pope’s note is to Act I. 1. See Malone’s
_Shakespeare_, vol. iv. p. 13.
_Why, how know you_, Act II. 1.
319. _I do not seek_, Act II. 7.
_The river wanders_ [glideth] _at its_ [his] _own sweet will.
Sonnet composed upon Westminster Bridge_, September 3, 1802.
_And sweetest Shakespear._ _L’Allegro_, lines 133–134.
[Or sweetest Shakespeare ...
Warble....]
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
320. _Mr. Cumberland._ Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), dramatist.
_baited with the rabble’s curse._ _Macbeth_, Act V. 8.
_a man no less sinned against._ Cf. _King Lear_, Act III. 2.
_the lodged hate_, Act IV. 1.
_milk of human kindness._ _Macbeth_, Act I. 5.
_Jewish gaberdine_, Act I. 3.
_lawful_, Act IV. 1.
_on such a day_, Act I. 3.
321. _I am as like_, Act I. 3.
_To bait fish withal_, Act III. 1.
_What judgment_, Act IV. 1.
322. _I would not have parted_, Act III. 1.
_civil doctor_ and _On such a night_, Act V. 1.
_conscience and the fiend_, Act II. 2.
_I hold the world_, Act I. 1.
323. _How sweet the moonlight_, Act V. 1.
_Bassanio and old Shylock_, Act IV. 1.
324. _’Tis an unweeded garden._ _Hamlet_, Act I. 2 [things rank, and
gross in nature, possess it merely].
THE WINTER’S TALE
324. _We wonder that Mr. Pope._ See Pope’s _Preface_, Malone’s
_Shakespeare_, vol. i. p. 15.
_Ha’ not you seen_, Act I. 2.
325. _Is whispering nothing?_ Act I. 2.
326. _Thou dearest Perdita_, Act IV. 4.
329. _Even here undone_, Act IV. 4.
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
330. _Oh, were that all_, Act I. 1.
_The soul of this man_, Act II. 5.
_the bringing off of his drum_, Act III. 6 and Act IV. 1.
331. _Is it possible_, Act IV. 1.
_Yet I am thankful_, Act IV. 3.
_Frederigo Alberigi and his Falcon_, Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, 5th
day, 9th story.
332. _the story of Isabella._ _Id._, 4th day, 5th story.
_Tancred and Sigismunda._ _Id._, 4th day, 1st story. See also
Dryden’s _Sigismonda and Guiscardo_.
_Honoria._ _Id._, 5th day, 8th story. See also Dryden’s _Theodore
and Honoria_.
_Cimon and Iphigene._ _Id._, 5th day, 1st story. See also
Dryden’s _Cimon and Iphigenia_.
_Jeronymo._ _Id._, 4th day, 8th story.
_the two holiday lovers._ _Id._, 4th day, 7th story.
_Griselda._ _Id._, 10th day, 10th story.
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
332. _the golden cadences of poesy_, Act IV. 2.
_set a mark of reprobation_, Pope’s note to _The Two Gentlemen of
Verona_. Malone’s _Shakespeare_, vol. iv. p. 13.
333. _as too picked_, Act V. 1.
_as light as bird from brake_ [brier]. _A Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, Act V. 1.
_O! and I forsooth_, Act III. 1 [a humorous sigh ... This
senior-junior].
334. _Oft have I heard_, Act V. 2 [your fruitful brain].
_the words of Mercury_, Act V. 2.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
335. _Oh, my lord_, Act I. 1.
_No, Leonato_, Act. IV. 1.
336. _She dying_, Act IV. 1 [the idea of her life].
_For look where Beatrice_ and _What fire is in mine ears_, Act
III. 1.
337. _Monsieur Love_ ... _This can be no trick_, Act II. 3.
_Disdain and scorn_, Act III. 1.
AS YOU LIKE IT
338. _fleet the time_, Act I. 1.
_under the shade_, Act II. 7.
_who have felt_, Cymbeline, Act III. 2.
_They hear the tumult_, Cowper’s _Task_, IV. 99–100, ‘I behold
the tumult, and am still.’
339. _And this their life_, Act II. 1.
_suck melancholy_, Act II. 5.
_who morals on the time_, Act II. 7.
_Out of these convertites_, Act V. 4.
_In heedless mazes._ _L’Allegro_, 141–142.
[With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running.]
_For ever and a day_, Act IV. 1.
340. _We still have slept together_, Act I. 3.
_And how like you_, Act III. 2.
341. _Blow, blow_, Act II. 7.
_an If_, Act V. 4.
_Think not I love him_, Act III. 5.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
342. _Think you a little din_, Act I. 2.
_I’ll woo her_, Act II. 1.
343. _Tut, she’s a lamb_, Act III. 2.
344. _Good morrow, gentle mistress_, Act IV. 5.
_The mathematics_, Act I. 1.
_The Honey-Moon._ A successful play by John Tobin (1770–1804)
with a plot similar to that of _The Taming of the Shrew_,
produced at Drury Lane January 31, 1805.
_Tranio, I saw her coral lips_, Act I. 1.
345. _I knew a wench_, Act IV. 4.
_Indifferent well_, Act I. 1.
_for a pot_ and _I am Christopher Sly_, Induc. Scene 2.
_The Slies are no rogues_, Induc. Scene 1.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
345. _The height of moral argument._ ‘The highth of this great
argument,’ _Paradise Lost_, I. l. 24.
346. _one that apprehends death_, Act IV. 2.
_He has been drinking_, Act IV. 3.
_wretches_, Schlegel, p. 387.
_as the flesh_, Act II. 1.
_A bawd, sir?_ and _Go to, sir_, Act IV. 2.
347. _there is some soul of goodness._ _Henry V._, Act IV. 1.
_Let me know the point_, Act III. 1.
348. _Reason thus with life_, Act III. 1.
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
PAGE
349. _commanded to shew the knight._ Cf. Schlegel, p. 427.
350. _some faint sparks._ _Hamlet_, Act V. 1 [your flashes ... the
table on a roar].
_to eat._ _2 Henry IV._, Act II. 1.
_to be no more so familiarity._ _2 Henry IV._, Act II. 1.
_an honest_, Act I. 4.
_very good discretions._ Cf. Act I. 1.
_cholers_, Act III. 1.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
352. _How long hath this possession_, Act V. 1.
353. _They brought one Pinch_, Act V. 1.
DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEAR
353. _All the editors_, Schlegel, p. 442.
_at the blackness_, Schlegel, see above.
357. _a lasting storm._ _Per._, IV. 1 [whirring me from my friends].
POEMS AND SONNETS
358. _as broad and casing._ _Macbeth_, Act III. 4 [broad and general
as the casing air].
_cooped._ Cf. _Macbeth_, Act III. 4 [cabined, cribbed, confined].
_glancing from heaven._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. 1.
359. _Oh! idle words._ _Lucrece_, ll. 1016–1122 [Out, idle words, be
you mediators].
_Round hoof’d._ _Venus and Adonis_, ll. 295–300.
_And their heads._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act IV. 1.
360. _Constancy._ _Sonnet_ XXV.
_Love’s Consolation._ _Sonnet_ XXIX.
_Novelty._ _Sonnet_ CII. [stops her pipe].
361. _Life’s Decay._ _Sonnet_ LXXIII.
A LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.
William Gifford (1756–1826), the son of a glazier, after a neglected
childhood, during which he was at one time apprenticed to a shoemaker,
entered Exeter College, Oxford, through the kindness of a friend, and
graduated in 1782. His two satires, _The Baviad_ (1791) and _The Mæviad_
(1795), were published together in 1797, and his translation of Juvenal,
upon which he had been working since he left Oxford, in 1802. He became
editor of _The Anti-Jacobin_ (1797), and was the first editor
(1809–1824) of _The Quarterly Review_. He published a translation of
Persius in 1821, and editions of some of the old dramatists: Massinger
(1805), Ben Jonson (1816), Ford (1827), and Shirley (completed by Dyce,
1833). In _The Examiner_ for June 14, 1818, appeared a ‘Literary
Notice,’ entitled ‘The Editor of the Quarterly Review,’ which Hazlitt
incorporated in the present ‘Letter.’
366. ‘_False and hollow_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 112 _et seq._
_Ackerman’s dresses for May._ Rudolf Ackerman’s (1764–1834)
_Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures_,
_etc._, was issued periodically between 1809 and 1828.
_Carlton House._ The residence of the Prince Regent. It was
pulled down in 1826.
367. _A Jacobin stationer._ Hazlitt refers to the case of William Paul
Rogers, a Chelsea stationer, who for taking an active part in a
petition for reform was deprived of the charge of a letter-box.
Leigh Hunt referred to the case in _The Examiner_ for February
7, 1819 (not February 9, as Hazlitt says), and opened a
subscription list for Rogers. The two clergymen referred to
took an active part against Rogers. Wellesley, a brother of the
Duke of Wellington, was Rector of Chelsea, and Butler had a
school there.
‘_The tenth transmitter._’
‘No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.’
Richard Savage’s _The Bastard_, l. 7.
368. _Ultra-Crepidarian._ Leigh Hunt published a satire on Gifford
entitled _Ultra-Crepidarius_ in 1823, but the phrase was
invented for Gifford, Leigh Hunt says in his preface, ‘by a
friend of mine ... one of the humblest as well as noblest
spirits that exist.’ This was perhaps Lamb.
370. _Your account of the first work._ In _The Quarterly Review_,
April 1817 (vol. xvii. p. 154).
_Albemarle Street hoax._ John Murray (1778–1843), the founder and
publisher of _The Quarterly Review_, purchased No. 50 Albemarle
Street in 1812.
372. ‘_Secret, sweet and precious._’
‘The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi’ secret favours, sweet and precious.’
Burns, _Tam o’Shanter_.
373. ‘_Two or three conclusive digs_,’ _etc._ From a passage in Leigh
Hunt’s essay ‘On Washerwomen’ referred to by Gifford.
Note. ‘_The milk of human kindness._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.
374. _Earl Grosvenor._ Gifford was for a time tutor in Lord
Grosvenor’s family.
‘_Their gorge did not rise._’ _Hamlet_, Act V. Scene 1.
‘_You assume a vice_,’ _etc._
‘Assume a virtue, if you have it not.’
_Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.
_In the ‘Examiner.’_ February 25, 1816.
375. _How little knew’st thou of Calista!_
‘O, thou hast known but little of Calista!’
Rowe’s _The Fair Penitent_, Act IV. Scene 1.
_Anne Davies._ Gifford bequeathed £3000 to her relatives. In
addition to the epitaph quoted in the text he wrote an elegy on
her, beginning, ‘I wish I was where Anna lies,’ which is
referred to in Hazlitt’s character of Gifford in _The Spirit of
the Age_.
376. ‘_Other such dulcet diseases._’ _As You Like It_, Act V. Scene 4.
‘_Compunctious visitings of Nature_.’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.
‘_You are well tuned now_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Scene 1.
‘_Made of penetrable stuff._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.
‘_Stuffed with paltry, blurred sheets._’ Burke’s _Reflections on
the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 101).
Note 1. ‘_It is easier_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xix. 24.
377. _The Admiralty Scribe._ John Wilson Croker (1780–1857), who
contributed two hundred and sixty articles to _The Quarterly
Review_, was Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830.
_His ‘Feast of the Poets.’_ Published in 1814.
378. _Thus painters write their names at Co._ From Prior’s
_Protogenes_ and _Apelles_. Burke quoted the line in his
_Regicide Peace_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, p. 94).
_For this passage_, _etc._ Leigh Hunt and his brother John were
in prison for two years from February 1813 for a libel on the
Prince Regent in _The Examiner_ (March 22, 1812). Leigh Hunt
was sent, not to Newgate, but to the Surrey Gaol in Horsemonger
Lane, where he wrote _The Descent of Liberty: A Masque_, and
the greater part of _The Story of Rimini_. Gifford’s review of
_Rimini_ appeared in _The Quarterly Review_ for Jan. 1816 (vol.
xiv. p. 473).
378. _Yet you say somewhere._ In the review of Hazlitt’s _Lectures on
the English Poets_ (_Quarterly Review_, July 1818, vol. xix. at
p. 430).
Note. _Mary Robinson_ (1758–1800), known as ‘Perdita,’ from her
having captivated the Prince of Wales while she was acting in
that part in 1778. On being deserted by him she devoted herself
to literature, and became one of the Della Cruscan School
ridiculed by Gifford. Hazlitt refers to Gifford’s _Baviad_, ll.
27–28:—
‘See Robinson forget her state, and move
On crutches tow’rds the grave, to “Light o’ Love.”’
_Put on the pannel_, _etc._ ‘If I can help it, he shall not be on
the inquest of my _quantum meruit_.’ Burke’s _A Letter to a
Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 114). Note. _Mr. Sheridan once
spoke._ See speech of March 7, 1788 (_Parl. Hist._, vol.
xxvii.).
379. John Hoppner (1758–1810), the portrait-painter.
Charles Long (1761–1838), paymaster-general, created Baron
Farnborough in 1826.
380. ‘_From slashing Bentley_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Prologue to the
Satires_, l. 164.
381. ‘_It was Caviare to the multitude._’ ‘’Twas caviare to the
general.’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
Note. _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
382. _An Essay on the Ignorance of the Learned._ Republished in _Table
Talk_, from _The Scots Magazine_ (New Series), iii. 55.
384. _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine._ Founded by William Blackwood
(1776–1834) in 1817.
_You have tried it twice since._ That is, in his reviews of
_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ (January 1818, vol. xviii.
p. 458) and of _Lectures on the English Poets_ (July 1818, vol.
xix. p. 424).
385. _Be noticed in the Edinburgh Review._ By Jeffrey, July 1817 (vol.
xxviii. p. 472). ‘_Dedicate its sweet leaves._’
‘Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 1.
386. ‘_This is what is looked for_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act III.
Scene 2.
‘_They keep you as an ape_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 2.
_You ‘have the office,’_ _etc._
‘——You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!’
_Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.
386. _You ‘keep a corner,’_ _etc._
‘Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in.’
_Othello_, Act IV. Scene 2.
‘_Lay the flattering unction._’
‘Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.’
_Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.
387. _The authority of Mr. Burke._ Burke refers to Henry VIII. as ‘one
of the most decided tyrants in the rolls of history,’ and
speaks of ‘his iniquitous proceedings’ ‘when he resolved to rob
the abbies.’ _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select
Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 136–137). See also a passage in _A
Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 131 _et seq._).
_With Mr. Coleridge in his late Lectures._ Hazlitt probably
refers to _The Statesman’s Manual_ (1816). See _Political
Essays_.
‘_Truth to be a liar._’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
‘_Speak out, Grildrig._’ See Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_ (Voyage
to Brobdingnag).
388. ‘_The insolence of office_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.
_Those ‘who crook,’_ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.
_Spa-fields._ Where the famous meeting of reformers had recently
(December 2, 1816) been held.
_A seditious Sunday paper._ _The Examiner_ was published on
Sunday.
_Mr. Coleridge’s ‘Conciones ad Populum.’_ Two anti-Pittite
addresses published in 1795.
389. ‘_The pride, pomp_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
‘_One murder makes a villain_,’ _etc._ From Bishop Porteus’s
prize poem _Death_ (1759).
390. _The still sad music of humanity._ Wordsworth’s _Lines composed a
few miles above Tintern Abbey_.
391. _You have forgotten Mr. Burke_, _etc._ See _Letters on a Regicide
Peace_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, iii. p. 50).
‘_Go to_,’ _etc._
‘Go to, Sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.’
_Measure for Measure_, Act IV. Scene 2.
‘The weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.’
_2 Henry IV._, Act III. Scene 4.
‘_Cinque-spotted_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 3.
Note. ‘_Carnage is the daughter of humanity._’ See note to p. 214
and _Notes and Queries_, 9th series, ii. 309, 398; iii. 37.
392. _Red-lattice phrases._ Alehouse language. See _Merry Wives of
Windsor_, Act II. Scene 2.
393. _Such ‘welcome and unwelcome things.’_ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene
3.
_The objection to ‘Romeo and Juliet.’_ See _ante_, p. 249.
Hazlitt refers to the criticism of _Paradise Lost_ in his
Lecture on Shakspeare and Milton (_Lectures on the English
Poets_).
Note. Quoted from a review by Jeffrey in _The Edinburgh Review_,
August 1817 (vol. xxviii. at p. 473).
394. ‘_One of the most perfect_,’ _etc._ Quoted from Gifford’s review
of _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ (vol. xviii. p. 458).
_Ends of verse_, _etc._
‘Chear’d up himself with ends of verse,
And sayings of philosophers.’
_Hudibras_, Part I. Canto iii.
394. _The geometricians and chemists of France._ Burke’s _A Letter to
a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 142).
‘_Present to your mind’s eye._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2.
‘_Holds his crown_,’ _etc._ Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 17).
395. _The ingenious parallel_, _etc._ See _ante_, p. 171.
_The article in the last Review._ _Quarterly Review_, July 1818
(vol. xix, p. 424).
398. _We must speak by the card_, _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act V. Scene 1.
_A knavish speech_, _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 2.
_Shakespear says_, _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.
400. _The authority of Mr. Burke._ Hazlitt quotes inaccurately a
passage in Burke’s essay ‘On the Sublime and Beautiful,’
_Works_ (Bohn), i. 81.
_Emelie that fayrer_, _etc._ _Canterbury Tales_ (The Knightes
Tale, 1035–8).
401. _The only mistake._ The reference is probably to a passage in the
first edition, where Hazlitt says, ‘Prior’s serious poetry, as
his _Alma_, is as heavy, as his familiar style was light and
agreeable.’ Gifford quotes this passage and adds: ‘Unluckily
for our critic, Prior’s _Alma_ is in his lightest and most
familiar style, and is the most highly finished specimen of
that species of versification which our language possesses.’ In
the second edition Hazlitt substituted _Solomon_ for _Alma_.
_Mr. Coleridge._ See _Biographia Literaria_, Chap, iii., note at
the end. Coleridge had already in the first number of the
Friend referred to this passage, which appeared in a footnote
by the editor of _The Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin_, and not in
_The Anti-Jacobin_ itself. See _Athenæum_, May 31, 1900.
_Your predecessor._ Gifford was himself editor of the
_Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner_, which appeared from
November 20, 1797, to July 9, 1798.
402. ‘_Dying, make a swan-like end._’
‘Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.’
_Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Scene 2.
‘_Being so majestical_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.
‘_Love is not love_,’ _etc._ Shakespeare, _Sonnet_ CXVI.
403. ‘_A writer of third-rate books._’ ‘He is a mere quack, Mr.
Editor, and a mere bookmaker; one of the sort that lounge in
third-rate book shops, and write third-rate books.’ From a
letter in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, August 1818 (vol. iii. p.
550).
_An Essay on the Principles of Human Action._ Published in 1805.
408. _Mirabaud._ D’Holbach’s _Système de la Nature_ is wrongly
attributed to Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud (1675–1760), the
translator of Tasso.
409. ‘_On this bank and shoal of time._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 7.
-----
Footnote 87:
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act IV. Scene 14.
Footnote 88:
For Tramezzani and William Augustus Conway (1789–1828), who were not
favourites of Hazlitt, see _A View of the English Stage_.
Footnote 89:
_Paradise Lost_, IV. 299.
Footnote 90:
_Don Quixote_, Book III. Chap. xxv.
Footnote 91:
_The Canterbury Tales._ _The Wife of Bath’s Prologue_, ll. 593–599.
Footnote 92:
_Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.
Footnote 93:
Cobbett’s _Weekly Political Register_ for November 18, 1815 (vol.
xxix). Cobbett’s outburst against Milton and Shakespeare is headed ‘On
the subject of potatoes.’
Footnote 94:
See _ante_, p. 116.
Footnote 95:
_Œuvres_, xxxv. p. 159.
Footnote 96:
Probably the Letter from Paris, dated September 23, 1815, relating to
the disposal of the works of art acquired by Napoleon.
Footnote 97:
See _ante_, pp. 140–151. The _Catalogue_ appeared in _The Morning
Chronicle_ during the autumn of 1815 and the spring of 1816, beginning
on September 22, 1815.
Footnote 98:
The reference seems to be to Samuel Parr (1747–1825) and Charles
Burney (1757–1817). See Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the Ignorance of the
Learned’ in _Table Talk_.
Footnote 99:
_2 Henry IV._, Act II. Scene 4.
Footnote 100:
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act I. Scene 2.
Footnote 101:
_Political Register_, July 30, 1802.
Footnote 102:
See _The Faerie Queene_, II. xii. st. 86 and 87.
Footnote 103:
A variation, quoted from Burke (_A Letter to a Noble Lord_), of
Shakespeare’s well-known lines in _The Tempest_, Act IV. Scene 1.
Footnote 104:
For Burke on Rousseau see especially _A Letter to a Member of the
National Assembly_ (1791).
Footnote 105:
‘I give you joy of the report,
That he’s to have a place at court.’
‘Yes, and a place he will grow rich in;
A turnspit in the royal kitchen.’
Swift, Miscell. Poems, _Upon the Horrid Plot_, etc.
See Burke’s Speech (1780) on Economical Reform.
Footnote 106:
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne,
ii. 17).
Footnote 107:
See Southey’s _Carmen Triumphale_.
Footnote 108:
See the Notes to Southey’s _Carmen Triumphale_.
Footnote 109:
See _ante_, note to p. 45.
Footnote 110:
_Tristram Shandy_, IX. 26.
Footnote 111:
In the _Life of Napoleon_ Hazlitt refers to this saying, which he
calls ‘quackery.’
Footnote 112:
‘Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred
metaphysician.’ _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 141).
Footnote 113:
From the _Essay on Poetry_ of John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty at the
Edinburgh University Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. No attempt was made to standardize inconsistencies in spelling such
as Shakespear, Shakespeare, and Shakspeare.
2. Changed “dissoûte” to “dissoute” on p. xxxi.
3. Changed “etoit” to “étoit” on p. 90.
4. Changed “bonhommie” to “bonhomme” on p. 208.
5. Silently corrected typographical errors.
6. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
7. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.