This is the title of Essays III and IV of the "Plain Speaker." Our
selection begins with the last paragraph of the first, which forms a
fitting introduction to the account of one of Lamb's celebrated Wednesday
evenings. Lamb tells us that his sister was accustomed to read this essay
with unmixed delight.
P. 301. _When Greek meets Greek_. Nathaniel Lee's "Alexander the Great,"
iv, 2.
_C----_. Coleridge.
P. 302. _small-coal man_. Thomas Britton (1654?-1714), a dealer in small
coal, who on the floor of his hut above the coal-shop held weekly concerts
of vocal and instrumental music, at which the greatest performers of the
day, even Handel, were to be heard.
_And, in our flowing cups_. Cf. "Henry V," iv, 3, 51:
"then shall our names
Familiar in his mouth as household words ...
Be in their flowing cups freely remember'd."
P. 303. _the cartoons_. See Hazlitt's account of Raphael's cartoons in
"The Pictures at Hampton Court" (Works, IX, 43).
_Donne_, John (1573-1631), poet and divine. Hazlitt in the "Lectures on
the English Poets" confesses that he knows nothing of him save "some
beautiful verses to his wife, dissuading her from accompanying him on his
travels abroad (see p. 318), and some quaint riddles in verse, which the
Sphinx could not unravel." V, 83.
P. 304. _Ned P----_. Edward Phillips. Lamb speaks of him as "that poor
card-playing Phillips, that has felt himself for so many years the outcast
of Fortune." (Works, ed. Lucas, VII, 972.)
_Captain ----_. Rear-Admiral James Burney (1750-1821), brother of Fanny
Burney the novelist, author of a "Chronological History of the Voyages and
Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean" in five volumes
(1803-1817). "The captain was himself a character, a fine, noble
creature--gentle, with a rough exterior, as became the associate of
Captain Cook in his voyages round the world, and the literary historian of
all these acts of circumnavigation." Crabb-Robinson's Diary, 1810.
_Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), of whom Lamb has left us a sketch in
the essay "On the Praise of Chimney-Sweepers": "He carried away half the
fun of the world when he died." He wrote, it is supposed with some
cooperation from Lamb, the "Original Letters, etc., of Sir John Falstaff
and his Friends" (1796), which were described by Lamb as "without
exception the best imitations I ever saw." (Works, ed. Lucas, VI, 2.) A
review of this book by Lamb, consisting chiefly of specimens, appeared in
the Examiner in 1819 (Works, ed. Lucas, I, 191 ff).
_turning like the latter end_. This phrase occurs in one of the extracts
in Lamb's review of Falstaff's Letters just mentioned (p. 194).
_A----_. William Aryton (1777-1858), a musical critic and director of the
King's Theatre in the Haymarket. In the letter of Elia to Robert Southey
(Lamb's Works, I, 230) he is spoken of as "the last and steadiest left me
of that little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble weekly, for so
many years, at the Queen's Gate."
_Mrs. R-----_. Mrs. Reynolds, who had been Lamb's schoolmistress.
_M. B._ Martin Charles Burney, son of Admiral Burney. "Martin Burney is as
odd as ever.... He came down here, and insisted on reading Virgil's
'AEneid' all through with me (which he did,) because a Counsel must know
Latin. Another time he read out all the Gospel of St. John, because
Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A third time,
he would carve a fowl, which he did very ill-favoredly, because 'we did
not know how indispensable it was for a Barrister to do all those sort of
things well. Those little things were of more consequence than we
supposed.' So he goes on, harassing about the way to prosperity, and
losing it. With a long head, but somewhat wrong one--harum-scarum. Why
does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one--: may be, he has
tired him out." Lamb's Works, VII, 855.
_Author of the Road to Ruin_. Thomas Holcroft.
P. 305. _Critique of Pure Reason_, by Kant.
_Biographia Literaria_. Coleridge's account of his literary life,
published in 1817.
_Those days are over!_ The event here referred to may be Waterloo. Mr.
Lucas thinks that Hazlitt's share in Lamb's gatherings "ceased after an
unfortunate discussion of Fanny Burney's Wanderer, which Hazlitt condemned
in terms that her brother, the Admiral, could not forgive." (Lamb's Works,
I, 482.) It is likely that Mr. Lucas has been led astray by the statement
in Crabb-Robinson's Diary to the effect that Hazlitt used to attend
Captain Burney's whist-parties "till he affronted the Captain by severe
criticisms on the works of his sister," presumably by his article in the
Edinburgh Review in 1814. Hazlitt commemorates Lamb's evenings in the
"Pleasure of Hating" ("Plain Speaker"): "What is become of 'that set of
whist players,' celebrated by Elia in his notable _Epistle to Robert
Southey, Esq._ ... 'that for so many years called Admiral Burney friend?'
They are scattered, like last year's snow. Some of them are dead--or gone
to live at a distance--or pass one another in the street like strangers;
or if they stop to speak, do it as coolly and try to _cut_ one another as
soon as possible. Some of us have grown rich--others poor. Some have got
places under Government--others a _niche_ in the Quarterly Review. Some of
us have dearly earned a name in the world; whilst others remain in their
original privacy. We despise the one, and envy and are glad to mortify the
other."
_Like angels' visits_. Cf. Blair's "The Grave," 582: "Like those of
angels, short and far between." Hazlitt was fond of pointing out this
source for Campbell's famous line "Like angels' visits few and far
between," and of insisting that the alteration spoiled the sense. Thereby
he is said to have incurred Campbell's bitter hostility.
P. 306. _Mr. Douce_, Francis (1757-1834), Shakespearian scholar and keeper
of the manuscripts in the British Museum.
_L. H----_. Leigh Hunt. There is a sketch of him in the "Spirit of the
Age."
_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_. "He sometimes had to be checked." This is
a quotation from Seneca which Ben Jonson in "Timber" (ed. Schelling, p.
23) had applied to Shakespeare.
P. 307. _The Indicator_. Leigh Hunt's most successful series of essays,
which began their run in 1819.
_Mr. Northcote_, James (1746-1831), the painter of whose talk Hazlitt has
left an entertaining record in the "Conversations of James Northcote"
(1830), a book which inspired Crabb-Robinson to say, "I do not believe
that Boswell gives so much good talk in an equal quantity of his life of
Johnson."
P. 308. _Sir Joshua's_. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the famous
English painter.
P. 309. _Horne Tooke_ (1736-1812), politician and author of a celebrated
philological volume, "The Diversions of Purley" (1786, 1805). His portrait
is included in the "Spirit of the Age": "He was without a rival (almost)
in private conversation, an expert public speaker, a keen politician, a
first-rate grammarian, and the finest gentleman (to say the least) of his
own party. He had no imagination (or he would not have scorned it!)--no
delicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments: his
intellect was like a bow of polished steel, from which he shot
sharp-pointed poisoned arrows at his friends in private, at his enemies in
public."
_hear a sound so fine_. J. S. Knowles's "Virginius," v, 2.
P. 310. _silenced a learned professor_. Cf. "Spirit of the Age": "He used
to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of the Teutonic dialects,
and Dr. Parr, by wishing to know the meaning of the common copulative,
_Is_."
_Curran_, John Philpot (1750-1817), member of Parliament from Ireland,
orator and wit.
P. 311. _Mrs. Inchbald_, Elizabeth (1753-1821), a well-known actress,
dramatist, and novelist. In literature she is associated with the group of
William Godwin, and her best-known works are "A Simple Story" and "Nature
and Art."
_from noon to dewy eve_. "Paradise Lost," I, 743.
_Mrs. M----_. Mrs. Montagu, wife of Basil Montagu. In the "Pleasure of
Hating" ("Plain Speaker") there is another allusion to Mrs. Montagu "whose
dark raven locks made a picturesque background to our discourse."
_H--t's_. Leigh Hunt's.
_N--'s_. Northcote's.
_H--yd--n's_. Haydon's.
_Doctor Tronchin_. Theodore Tronchin, a physician of Geneva, figures in
Rousseau's "Confessions."
P. 312. _Sir Fopling Flutter_, a character in George Etherege's comedy,
"The Man of Mode."
_For wit is like a rest_. "Master Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben
Jonson." For _players_ read _gamesters_.
_came down into the country_. Charles and Mary Lamb with a few of their
friends paid a visit to Hazlitt at Winterslow in 1810.
_Like the most capricious poet_. "As You Like It," iii, 3, 8.
_walked gowned_. Lamb's "Sonnet Written at Cambridge, August 15, 1819."
P. 313. _the person I mean_. George Dyer (1755-1841), an amiable
hack-writer and a friend of Lamb. He figures prominently in two of the
Essays of Elia, "Oxford in the Vacation" and "Amicus Redivivus," and in
many of Lamb's letters. "To G. D. a poem is a poem. His own as good as any
bodie's, and god bless him, any bodie's as good as his own, for I do not
think he has the most distant guess of the possibility of one poem being
better than another. The Gods by denying him the very faculty itself of
discrimination have effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom."
Letter to Wordsworth (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, VI, 519).