The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 01 (of 12)

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.