_of any poet_. In an essay in the "Plain Speaker" "On the Prose Style of
Poets," Hazlitt elaborates his theory that poets turned out inferior
prose. "I have but an indifferent opinion of the prose-style of poets: not
that it is not sometimes good, nay, excellent; but it is never the better,
and generally the worse from the habit of writing verse."
_full of wise saws_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 156.
P. 217. _historian and prose-translator_. Southey wrote the "History of
Brazil," the "History of the Peninsular War," the "Book of the Church,"
and lives of Wesley, Cowper, and Nelson. He translated from the Spanish
the romances of "Amadis of Gaul," "Palmerin of England," and "The Cid."
P. 219. _Pindaric or Shandean_, i.e., whimsical. Pindaric should of course
be understood as a reference to Peter Pindar, the name under which John
Wolcot (1738-1819) wrote his coarse and whimsical satires. Hazlitt
mentions him at the end of his lectures "On the Comic Writers": "The bard
in whom the nation and the king delighted, is old and blind, but still
merry and wise:--remembering how he has made the world laugh in his time,
and not repenting of the mirth he has given; with an involuntary smile
lighted up at the mad pranks of his Muse, and the lucky hits of his pen."
Shandean is derived from Sterne's novel, "Tristram Shandy."
_And follows so_. "Henry V," iv, 1, 293.
_his political inconsistency_. This is the subject of Hazlitt's attacks on
Southey. See "Political Essays" (Works, III, 109-120, 192-232).