P. 251. _spreads its sweet leaves_. "Romeo and Juliet," i, 1, 158.
P. 252. _the stuff_. "Tempest," iv, 1, 156.
_mere oblivion_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 166.
_man's life_. "King Lear," ii, 4, 270.
P. 253. _There is warrant_. "Richard III," i, 4, 112.
_such seething brains_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 4.
_Angelica and Medoro_. Characters in "Orlando Furioso."
P. 254. _which ecstacy is very cunning in_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 138.
_Poetry, according to Lord Bacon_. Cf. Bacon's "Advancement of Learning,"
Book II: "Because _true Historie_ representeth Actions and Euents more
ordinarie and lesse interchanged, therefore _Poesie_ endueth them with
more Rarenesse and more vnexpected and alternatiue Variations: So as it
appeareth that _Poesie_ serueth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie,
and to delectation. And therefore it was euer thought to haue some
participation of diuinesse, because it doth raise and erect the Minde, by
submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the Mind, whereas reason
doth buckle and bowe the Mind unto the Nature of things."
P. 255. _Our eyes are made the fools_. "Macbeth," ii, 1, 44.
_That if it would_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 19.
_The flame o' th' taper_. "Cymbeline," ii, 2, 19.
P. 256. _for they are old_. Cf. "Lear," ii, 4, 194.
_Nothing but his unkind daughters_. Cf. "King Lear," iii, 4, 72:
"Nothing could have subdued nature
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters."
P. 257. _The little dogs_. Ibid., iii, 6, 65.
_So I am_. Ibid., iv, 7, 70.
_O now, for ever_. "Othello," iii, 3, 347.
_Never, Iago_. Ibid., iii, 3, 453.
P. 258. _But there_. Ibid., iv, 2, 57.
_To be discarded thence!_ The first edition at this point adds: "This is
like that fine stroke of pathos in 'Paradise Lost,' where Milton makes
Adam say to Eve,
'Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart!'"
_Impassioned poetry is an emanation of the moral and intellectual part of
our nature._ Cf. "On People of Sense" in "Plain Speaker": "Poetry acts by
sympathy with nature, that is, with the natural impulses, customs, and
imaginations of men, and is, on that account, always popular, delightful,
and at the same time instructive. It is nature moralizing and _idealizing_
for us; inasmuch as, by shewing us things as they are, it implicitly
teaches us what they ought to be; and the grosser feelings, by passing
through the strainers of this imaginary, wide-extended experience, acquire
an involuntary tendency to higher objects. Shakspeare was, in this sense,
not only one of the greatest poets, but one of the greatest moralists that
we have. Those who read him are the happier, better, and wiser for it."
_Moore_, Edward (1712-1757), author of "The Gamester" (1753).
P. 259. _As Mr. Burke observes_, in "A Philosophical Enquiry into the
Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful," Part I, Section 15:
"Choose a day on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy
we have; appoint the most favourite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes
and decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting, and
music; and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when
their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state
criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining
square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the
comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of
the real sympathy."
_Masterless passion_. Cf. "Merchant of Venice," iv, 1, 51: "For affection,
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood," etc.
P. 260. _satisfaction to the thought_. "Othello," iii, 3, 97.
_Now night descending_. See p. 128.
_Throw him_. Collins's "Ode to Fear."
_Ingratitude_. Cf. "King Lear," i, 4, 281: "More hideous, when thou
show'st thee in a child."
P. 261. _both at the first_. "Hamlet," iii, 2, 23.
P. 262. _And visions_. Hazlitt uses this quotation in his paper on
"Wordsworth's Excursion" in the "Round Table" with the change of _poetic_
to _prophetic_. "This couplet occurs in a letter from Gray to Walpole
('Letters,' ed. Tovey I, 7-8). The lines are apparently a translation by
Gray of Virgil, 'AEneid,' VI, 282-84." Waller-Glover, XII, 504.
P. 263. _Doctor Chalmers's Discourses_. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), a
celebrated divine and preacher of Scotland, published in 1817 "A Series of
Discourses on the Christian Revelation, Viewed in Connection with Modern
Astronomy."
_bandit fierce_. Milton's "Comus," 426.
_our fell of hair_. "Macbeth," v, 5, 11.
_Macbeth ... for the sake of the music_. Some copies of the first edition
misprint _Macheath_, the name of the leading character in Gay's "Beggar's
Opera." In writing "On Commonplace Critics," in the "Round Table," Hazlitt
represents the commonplace critic as questioning whether any one of
Shakespeare's plays, "if brought out now for the first time, would
succeed. He thinks that 'Macbeth' would be the most likely, from the music
which has been introduced into it." The reference is to the music written
for D'Avenant's version of the play, produced in 1672. According to
Waller-Glover (I, 436), "this music, traditionally assigned to Matthew
Locke, is now attributed to Purcell"; but Furness, in the Variorum edition
of "Macbeth," accepts the conclusion of Chappell in Grove's "Dictionary of
Music," "that Purcell could not have been the composer of a work which
appeared when he was in his fourteenth year," especially as "the only
reason that can be assigned why modern musicians should have doubted
Locke's authorship is that a manuscript of it exists in the handwriting of
Henry Purcell."
P. 264. _Between the acting_. "Julius Caesar," ii, 1, 63.
P. 265. _Thoughts that voluntary move_. "Paradise Lost," III, 37.
_the words of Mercury_. Cf. "Love's Labour's Lost," v, 2, 940: "The words
of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo."
_So from the ground_. "Faerie Queene," I, vi, 13.