_Ballantyne press_. The printing firm of John and James Ballantyne in
Edinburgh with which Scott was associated, and in whose financial ruin he
was so disastrously involved.
_Minerva Press_. The sponsor of popular romances.
P. 337. _Mrs. Radcliffe_, Anne (1764-1823), a very popular writer of
novels in which romance, sentiment, and terror are combined in cunning
proportions. Her chief novels are "The Romance of the Forest" (1791), "The
Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794) and "The Italian" (1797). Hazlitt writes of
her in the lecture "On the English Novelists."
_sweet in the mouth_. Revelation, x, 9.
_gay creatures_. "Comus," 299.
_Tom Jones discovers Square_. Bk. V, ch. 5.
_where Parson Adams_. "Joseph Andrews," Bk. IV, ch. 14.
P. 338. _Chubb's Tracts_. Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), a tallow-chandler who
devoted his leisure hours to the deistic controversy. His "Tracts and
Posthumous Works" were published in six volumes in 1754.
_fate, free-will_. "Paradise Lost," II, 560.
_Would I had never seen_. Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," Scene 19.
P. 339. _New Eloise_. "Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise" (1760), a novel by
the great French sentimentalist, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who
was the most powerful personal force in the revolutionary movement of the
eighteenth century and whose writings have left a deep impression on the
political and educational systems of the nineteenth. His other important
works are "The Social Contract" and "Emile" (1762) and the "Confessions"
(1782). Hazlitt has a "Character of Rousseau" in the "Round Table" (see
p. xliv, n.).
_scattered like stray-gifts_. Wordsworth's "Stray Pleasures."
_Sir Fopling Flutter_, in Sir George Etherege's comedy "The Man of Mode"
(1676).
P. 339, n. _a friend_. Charles Lamb.
P. 340. _leurre de dupe_, a decoy. The expression occurs in the fourth
book of Rousseau's "Confessions."
_a load to sink a navy_. "Henry VIII," iii, 2, 383.
_Marcian Calonna is a dainty book._ Lamb's "Sonnet to the Author of Poems
Published under the Name of Barry Cornwall."
P. 341. _Keats_. Hazlitt shared the popular conception of Keats as an
effeminate poet. He concludes the essay "On Effeminacy of Character" in
"Table Talk" with a reference to Keats: "I cannot help thinking that the
fault of Mr. Keats's poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style.
He had beauty, tenderness, delicacy, in an uncommon degree, but there was
a want of strength and substance. His Endymion is a very delightful
description of the illusions of a youthful imagination, given up to airy
dreams--we have flowers, clouds, rainbows, moonlight, all sweet sounds and
smells, and Oreads and Dryads flitting by--but there is nothing tangible
in it, nothing marked or palpable--we have none of the hardy spirit or
rigid forms of antiquity. He painted his own thoughts and character; and
did not transport himself into the fabulous and heroic ages. There is a
want of action, of character, and so far, of imagination, but there is
exquisite fancy. All is soft and fleshy, without bone or muscle. We see in
him the youth, without the manhood of poetry. His genius breathed 'vernal
delight and joy.'--'Like Maia's son he stood and shook his plumes,' with
fragrance filled. His mind was redolent of spring. He had not the
fierceness of summer, nor the richness of autumn, and winter he seemed not
to have known, till he felt the icy hand of death!" Again in the
introduction to the "Select British Poets" (Works, V, 378), he says that
Keats "gave the greatest promise of genius of any poet of his day. He
displayed extreme tenderness, beauty, originality, and delicacy of fancy;
all he wanted was manly strength and fortitude to reject the temptations
of singularity in sentiment and expression. Some of his shorter and later
pieces are, however, as free from faults as they are full of beauties."
_Come like shadows_. "Macbeth," iv, 1, 111.
_Tiger-moth's wings_ and _Blushes with blood_. Keats's "Eve of St. Agnes."
_Words, words_. "Hamlet," ii, 2, 194.
_the great preacher_. Edward Irving.
_as the hart_. Psalms, xlii, 1.
_Giving my stock_ [sum]. "As You Like It," ii, 1, 48.
P. 342. _Valentine, Tattle and Prue_, characters in Congreve's "Love for
Love" (1695).
_know my cue_. Cf. "Othello," i, 2, 83.
_Intus et in cute_. See p. 163.
_Sir Humphry Davy_ (1778-1829), the celebrated chemist.
P. 343. _with every trick and line_ [line and trick]. "All's Well That
Ends Well," i, 1, 107.
_the divine Clementina_, in Richardson's "Sir Charles Grandison."
_that ligament_. Sterne's "Tristram Shandy." Bk. VI, ch. 10.
_story of the hawk_. "Decameron," Fifth Day, ninth story.
_at one proud_ [fell] _swoop_. "Macbeth," iv, 3, 219.
P. 344. _with all its giddy_ [dizzy] _raptures_. Wordsworth's "Tintern
Abbey," 85.
_embalmed with odours_. "Paradise Lost," II, 843.
_the German criticism_. See p. 112.
_His form_. "Paradise Lost," I, 591.
_Falls flat_. Ibid., I, 460.
P. 345. _For Dr. Johnson's and Junius's style_. See pp. 147-9, 186, 190.
_he, like an eagle_. "Coriolanus," v, 6, 115.
_An Essay on Marriage_. "No such essay by Wordsworth is at present known
to exist. It would seem either that 'Marriage' is a misprint for some
other word, or that Hazlitt was mistaken in the subject of the essay
referred to by Coleridge. Hazlitt is probably recalling a conversation
with Coleridge in Shropshire at the beginning of 1798 (cf. 'My First
Acquaintance with Poets'), at which time _A Letter to the Bishop of
Llandaff_ (1793) was the only notable prose work which Wordsworth had
published." Waller-Glover.
P. 345, n. _Is this the present earl?_ "James Maitland, eighth Earl of
Lauderdale (1759-1839), succeeded his father in August, 1789."
Waller-Glover.
P. 346. _worthy of all acceptation_. 1 Timothy, i, 15.
_Clarendon_. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), English statesman
and author of the "History of the Rebellion" (1704-1707).
_Froissart_, Jean (1338-1410), the chronicler of the Hundred Years' War.
_Holinshed_, Ralph (d. 1580?), author of "Chronicles of England,
Scotlande, and Irelande" (1578).
_Stowe_, John (1525?-1605), author of "Englysh Chronicles" (1561).
_Thucydides_ (460? B.C.-399?), the historian of the Peloponnesian War.
_Guicciardini_, Francesco (1483-1540), Italian statesman and author of a
"History of Italy from 1494 to 1532."
P. 347. _The Loves of Persiles and Sigismunda_, the last work of Cervantes
(translated into English in 1619) and _Galatea_, his first work (1585).
_another Yarrow_. Cf. Wordsworth's "Yarrow Revisited."