The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 03 (of 12)

41. That he might be deemed so no longer, Mr. Coleridge soon after became passionate for war himself; and ‘swell’d the war-whoop’ in the Morning Post. ‘I am not indeed silly enough,’ he says, ‘to take as any thing more than a violent hyperbole of party debate, Mr. Fox‘s assertion that the late war (1802) was a war produced by the Morning Post; or I should be proud to have the words inscribed on my tomb.’—Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 212.

42. We never knew but one instance to contradict this opinion. A person who had only fourpence left in the world, which his wife had put by to pay for the baking of some meat and a pudding, went and laid it out in purchasing a new string for a guitar. Some on this occasion quoted the lines,

43. We hope Mr. Southey has not found the truth of the latter part of the passage. ‘Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.’

44. ‘And for the Bishops (in Edward VI.‘s days), they were so far from any such worthy attempts, as that they suffered themselves to be the common stales to countenance, with their prostituted gravities, every politick fetch that was then on foot, as oft as the potent Statists pleased to employ them. Never do we read that they made use of their authority, and high place of access, to bring the jarring nobility to Christian peace, or to withstand their disloyal projects: but if a toleration for Mass were to be begged of the King for his sister Mary, lest Charles the Fifth should be angry, who but the grave prelates, Cranmer and Ridley, must be sent to extort it from the young King! But out of the mouth of that godly and royal child, Christ himself returned such an awful repulse to those halting and time-serving Prelates, that, after much importunity they went their way, not without shame and tears.’—Milton—Of Reformation in England, and the Causes that have hitherto hindered it.

45. This passage is nearly a repetition of what was said before; but as it contains the sum and substance of all I have ever said on such subjects, I have let it stand.

46. What is the amount of this right of Mr. Coke’s? It is not greater than that of the Lords Balmerino and Lovatt to their estates in Scotland, or to the heads upon their shoulders, the one of which however were forfeited, and the other stuck upon Temple Bar, for maintaining, in theory and practice, that James II. had the same right to the throne of these realms, independently of his merits or conduct, that Mr. Coke has to his estate at Holkham. So thought they. So did not think George II.

47. See the description of Gargantua in Rabelais.

48. The Government of Ovando, a Spanish Grandee and Knight of Alcantara, who had been sent over to Mexico soon after its conquest, exceeded in treachery, cruelty, wanton bloodshed, and deliberate extortion, that of all those who had preceded him; and the complaints became so loud, that Queen Isabel on her death-bed requested that he might be recalled; but Ferdinand found that Ovando had sent home much gold, and he retained him in his situation.—See Capt. Burney’s History of the Buccaneers.

49. See Coleridge’s ‘Friend,’ No. 15.

50. .sp 1

51. ‘I have thought it prudent to omit some parts of Mr. Phelim Connor’s letter. He is evidently an intemperate young man, and has associated with his cousins, the Fudges, to very little purpose.’

52. ‘Somebody (Fontenelle, I believe) has said, that if he had his hand full of truths, he would open but one finger at a time; and I find it necessary to use the same sort of reserve with respect to Mr. Phelim Connor’s very plain-spoken letters. The remainder of this Epistle is so full of unsafe matter of fact, that it must, for the present at least, be withheld from the public.’

53. ‘To commemorate the landing of Louis le Desiré from England, the impression of his foot is marked out upon the pier at Calais, and a pillar with an inscription raised opposite to the spot.’

54. This character was written in a fit of extravagant candour, at a time when I thought I could do justice, or more than justice, to an enemy, without betraying a cause.

55. For instance: he produced less effect on the mob that compose the English House of Commons than Chatham or Fox, or even Pitt.

56. As in the comparison of the British Constitution to the ‘proud keep of Windsor,’ &c. the most splendid passage in his works.

57. If I had to write a character of Mr. Fox at present, the praise here bestowed on him would be ‘craftily qualified.’ His life was deficient in the three principal points, the beginning, the middle, and the end. He began a violent Tory, and became a flaming patriot out of private picque; he afterwards coalesced with Lord North, and died an accomplice with Lord Grenville. But—what I have written, I have written. So let it pass.

58. See an excellent character of Fox by a celebrated and admirable writer, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, November, 1806, from which this passage is taken as nearly as I could recollect it.

59. There is an admirable, judicious, and truly useful remark in the preface to Spenser (not by Dr. Johnson, for he left Spenser out of his poets, but by one Upton,) that the question was not whether a better poem might not have been written on a different plan, but whether Spenser would have written a better one on a different plan. I wish to apply this to Fox’s ungainly manner. I do not mean to say, that his manner was the best possible, (for that would be to say that he was the greatest man conceivable), but that it was the best for him.

60. This may seem to contradict what I have before said of Chatham—that he spoke like a man who was discharging a duty, &c. but I there spoke of the tone he assumed, or his immediate feelings at the time, rather than of the real motives by which he was actuated.

61. To this character none of those who could be compared with him in talents had the least pretensions, as Chatham, Burke, Pitt, &c. They would blackguard and bully any man upon the slightest provocation, or difference of opinion.

62. One instance may serve as an example for all the rest:—When Mr. Fox last summer (1805) predicted the failure of the new confederacy against France, from a consideration of the circumstances and relative situation of both parties, that is, from an exact knowledge of the actual state of things, Mr. Pitt contented himself with answering—and, as in the blindness of his infatuation, he seemed to think quite satisfactorily,—‘That he could not assent to the honourable gentleman’s reasoning, for that it went to this, that we were never to attempt to mend the situation of our affairs, because in so doing we might possibly make them worse.’ No; it was not on account of this abstract possibility in human affairs, or because we were not absolutely sure of succeeding (for that any child might know), but because it was in the highest degree probable, or morally certain, that the scheme would fail, and leave us in a worse situation than we were before, that Mr. Fox disapproved of the attempt. There is in this a degree of weakness and imbecility, a defect of understanding bordering on idiotism, a fundamental ignorance of the first principles of human reason and prudence, that in a great minister is utterly astonishing, and almost incredible. Nothing could ever drive him out of his dull forms, and naked generalities; which, as they are susceptible neither of degree nor variation, are therefore equally applicable to every emergency that can happen: and in the most critical aspect of affairs, he saw nothing but the same flimsy web of remote possibilities and metaphysical uncertainty. In his mind the wholesome pulp of practical wisdom and salutary advice was immediately converted into the dry chaff and husks of a miserable logic.

63. I do remember one passage which has some meaning in it. At the time of the Regency Bill, speaking of the proposal to take the King’s servants from him, he says, ‘What must that great personage feel when he waked from the trance of his faculties, and asked for his attendants, if he were told that his subjects had taken advantage of his momentary absence of mind, and stripped him of the symbols of his personal elevation.’ There is some grandeur in this. His admirers should have it inscribed in letters of gold; for they will not find another instance of the same kind.

64. I would recommend to the reader a masterly and unanswerable essay on the subject, in the Morning Post, by Mr. Coleridge, (see above) from which most of the above remarks are taken. See also Dr. Beddoes’s Letter on the public merits of Mr. Pitt. I will only add, that it is the property of true genius, to force the admiration even of enemies. No one was ever hated or envied for his powers of mind, if others were convinced of their real excellence. The jealousy and uneasiness produced in the mind by the display of superior talents almost always arises from a suspicion that there is some trick or deception in the case, and that we are imposed on by an appearance of what is not really there. True warmth and vigour communicate warmth and vigour; and we are no longer inclined to dispute the inspiration of the oracle, when we feel the ‘presens Divus’ in our own bosoms. But when, without gaining any new light or heat, we only find our ideas thrown into perplexity and confusion by an art that we cannot comprehend, this is a kind of superiority which must always be painful, and can never be cordially admitted. For this reason the extraordinary talents of Mr. Pitt were always viewed, except by those of his own party, with a sort of jealousy, and grudgingly acknowledged; while those of his rivals were admitted by all parties in the most unreserved manner, and carried by acclamation.

65. The prevalence of this check may be estimated by the general proportion of virtue and happiness in the world, for if there were no such check, there could be nothing but vice and misery.

66. Written in 1807, at a time when Mr. Whitbread’s scheme was in agitation in the House of Commons, and Mr. Malthus used to wait in the lobbies with his essay in his hand, for the instruction and compliments of Honourable Members. The above article is taken from a Reply to Mr. Malthus, one of my very early Essays, the style of which is, I confess, a little exuberant, but of the arguments I see no reason to be ashamed.

67. Altered in the last edition, to ‘suffer.’

68. Daughter of Marie Antoinette. Burke’s ‘romantic episode’ is in ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89).

69. From L’Allegro, 139.

70. Birch’s, No. 15 Cornhill. Samuel Birch (1757–1841), the proprietor, was Lord Mayor 1814–15. The shop (now famous for turtle soup) still retains some old features.

71. Othello. Act IV. Scene 2.

72. Hamlet, Act IV. Scene 2.

73. Cowper, The Task III. 113.