The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 04 (of 12)

Thomas Robert Malthus’s (1766–1834) Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society was published anonymously in 1798. The second edition ‘very much enlarged’ appeared with the author’s name in a large 4to volume in 1803. For a sketch of Malthus’s life and doctrine and of the Malthusian controversy, see Sir Leslie Stephen’s The English Utilitarians, II. 137–185 and 238–259. The references in the following notes are to the second (1803) edition of the Essay. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay on Malthus in The Spirit of the Age, ante, pp. 287–298, and the last five essays in Political Essays, vol. III. pp. 356–385. A paper by De Quincey, entitled ‘Malthus,’ in the London Magazine for Oct. 1823, led to a brief controversy between De Quincey and Hazlitt, the particulars of which will be found in De Quincey’s Works (ed. Masson), IX. pp. 3, 20–31. Hazlitt’s Reply to Malthus was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review for August 1810 (vol. xvi. p. 464), or rather, as Hazlitt complains, the title of his Reply was prefixed to an article in the Edinburgh ‘as a pretence for making a formal eulogy’ on Malthus’s work. Hazlitt thereupon wrote the following letter to Cobbett’s Political Register (Nov. 24, 1810, vol. xviii. p. 1014) under the heading ‘Mr. Malthus and the Edinburgh Reviewers’:—

‘Sir,—The title-page of a pamphlet which I published some time ago, and part of which appeared in the Political Register in answer to the Essay on Population, having been lately prefixed to an article in the Edinburgh Review as a pretence for making a formal eulogy on that work, I take the liberty to request your insertion of a few queries, which may perhaps bring the dispute between Mr. Malthus’s admirers and his opponents, to some sort of issue. It will, however, first of all be proper to say something of the article in the Review. The writer of the article accuses the ‘anonymous’ writer of the reply to the Essay, of misrepresenting and misunderstanding his author, and undertakes to give a statement of the real principles of Mr. Malthus’s work. He at the same time informs us for whom this statement is intended, namely, for those who are not likely even to read the work itself, and who take their opinions on all subjects moral, political, and religious, from the periodical reports of the Edinburgh Review. For my own part, what I have to say will be addressed to those who have read Mr. Malthus’s work, and who may be disposed to form some opinion of their own on the subject.—The most remarkable circumstance in the Review is, that it is a complete confession of the force of the arguments which have been brought against the Essay. The defence here set up of it may indeed be regarded as the euthanasia of that performance. For in what does this defence consist but in an adoption, point by point, of the principal objections and limitation, which have been offered to Mr. Malthus’s system; and which being thus ingeniously applied to gloss its defects, the Reviewer charges those who had pointed them out with misrepresenting and vilifying the author? In fact, the advocates of this celebrated work do not at present defend its doctrines, but deny them. The only resource left them is that of screening its fallacies from the notice of the public by raising a cry of misrepresentation against those who attempt to expose them, and by holding a mask of flimsy affectation over the real and distinguishing features of the work. Scarcely a glimpse remains of the striking peculiarities of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning, his bold paradoxes dwindle by refined gradations into mere harmless common-places, and what is still more extraordinary, an almost entire coincidence of sentiment is found to subsist between the author of the essay and his most zealous opponents, if the ignorance and prejudices of the latter would but allow them to see it. Indeed the Edinburgh Reviewer gives pretty broad hints that neither friends nor foes have ever understood much of the matter, and kindly presents his readers for the first time, with the true key to this much admired production. He accordingly proceeds with considerable self-complacency to translate the language of the essay into the dialect of the Scotch school of economy, to put quite on one side the author’s geometrical and arithmetical ratios, which had wrought such wonders, to state that Mr. Malthus never pretended to make any new discovery, and to quote a passage from Adam Smith, which suggested the plan of his work; to shew that this far-famed work which has been so idly magnified, and so unjustly decried as overturning all the commonly received axioms of political philosophy, proves absolutely nothing with respect to the prospects of mankind or the means of social improvement, that the sole hopes either of the present or of future generations do not centre (strange to tell!) in the continuance of vice and misery, but in the gradual removal of these, by diffusing rational views of things and motives of action, and particularly by ameliorating the condition, securing the independence, and raising the spirit, of the lower classes of society; and finally that both the extent of population, and the degree of happiness enjoyed by the people of any country depend very much upon, and, as far as there is any difference observable between one country or state of society and another, are wholly regulated by political institutions, a good or bad government, moral habits, the state of civilization, commerce, or agriculture, the improvements in art or science, and a variety of other causes quite distinct from the sole mechanical principle of population. And, this Sir, is what the Reviewer imposes on his unsuspecting readers as the sum and substance, the true scope and effect of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning. It is in truth an almost literal recapitulation of the chief topics insisted on in the Reply to the Essay, which the Reviewer seems silently to regard as a kind of necessary supplement to that work.—In this account it is evident, both that Mr. Malthus’s pretentions as an original discoverer are given up by the Reviewer, and that his obnoxious and extravagant conclusions are carefully suppressed. Now with regard to the general principle of the disproportion between the power of increase in population, and in the means of subsistence, and the necessity of providing some checks, moral or physical, to the former, in order to keep it on a level with the means of subsistence, I have never in any instance called in question either of “these important and radical facts,” which it is the business of Mr. M.’s work to illustrate. All that I undertook in the Reply to the Essay was to disprove Mr. Malthus’s claim to the discovery of these facts, and to shew that he had drawn some very false and sophistical conclusions from them, which do not appear in the article in the Review. As far therefore as relates to the Edinburgh Reviewers, and their readers, I might consider my aim as accomplished, and leave Mr. Malthus’s system and pretensions in the hands of these friendly critics, who will hardly set the seal of their authority—on either one or the other, till they have reduced both to something like their own ordinary standard. But against this I have several reasons. First, as I never looked upon Mr. Malthus as “a man of no mark or likelihood,”^[74] I should be sorry to see him dandled into insignificance, and made a mere puppet in the hands of the Reviewers. Secondly, I in some measure owe it to myself to prove that the objections I have brought against his system are not the phantoms of my own imagination. Thirdly, Mr. Malthus’s work cannot be considered as entirely superseded by the account of it in the Review, as there are, no doubt, many persons who will still take their opinion of Mr. Malthus’s doctrines from his own writings, and abide by what they find in the text as good authority and sound argument, though not sanctioned in the Commentary.—I will therefore proceed to put the questions I at first proposed as the best means I can devise for determining, both what the contents of Mr. Malthus’s work really are, and to what degree of credit they are entitled, or how far they are true or false, original or borrowed.’

The queries which follow were with a few alterations republished by Hazlitt in The Examiner (Oct. 29, 1815—The Round Table, No. 23) and in Political Essays (vol. III. pp. 381–5). The alterations are almost entirely confined to the omission of all reference to the Edinburgh Review, for which Hazlitt himself had begun to write in 1814. The letter concludes as follows: ‘The drift of these questions, is, I believe, sufficiently obvious and direct; but if they should not be thought clear enough in themselves, I am ready to add a suitable commentary to them, by collating a convenient number of passages from the Essay, the Reply, and the Review.’

PAGE

 

1.

Letter I. First published in Cobbett’s Political Register, March 14, 1807: xi. 398.

 

The proposed alteration. Hazlitt alludes to the poor-law bill of Samuel Whitbread (1758–1815), introduced on February 19, 1807. One of the main features of the scheme was the establishment of a system of free education. The bill was attacked not only by Cobbett (Political Register, August, September, and October, 1807), and Hazlitt, but also by Malthus. Portions of the scheme passed their second readings as separate bills, but were abandoned. See Martineau, History of the Peace, I. 116.

2.

‘Who have none to help them.’ Job, xxix. 12.

 

‘Pride and covetousness.’ St. Mark, vii. 22.

 

‘The compunctious visitings of nature.’ Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5.

 

‘Laying the flattering unction.’ Hamlet, Act III. Scene 4.

 

‘Grinding the faces of the poor.’ Isaiah, iii. 15.

 

Mandeville. He refers to Bernard Mandeville (1670?–1733), whose Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits, appeared in 1714.

 

‘Will but skin and film,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 4.

 

Note. The late Sir W. Pulteney. Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, 5th bart. of Westerhall (1721–1805), M.P. for Shrewsbury in seven successive parliaments. His name was originally Johnstone, but he took the name of Pulteney on marrying the youngest daughter and heiress of Daniel Pulteney, Lord of the Admiralty in Sir R. Walpole’s Ministry. ‘In private life he was remarked principally for his frugal habits, which were perhaps the more striking, as he was supposed to be the richest Commoner in the kingdom.... In the latter part of his life he was remarkable for his abstemious manner of living, his food being composed of the most simple nourishment, principally bread and milk.’ Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 1805, Vol. LXXV., p. 587. In 1804 he married the widow of Andrew Stuart, who fought a duel with Thurlow in connection with the Douglas cause. Cf. ante, p. 298.

3.

In corpore vili. This well known saying was quoted by Burke in his great speech on conciliation with America. See Select Works, ed. Payne, I. 224. The editor in a note (p. 325) quotes from Menagiana (3rd ed., p. 129) an anecdote of Muretus which is said to be the origin of the saying.

4.

‘Baser matter.’ Hamlet, Act I. Scene 5.

5.

Leurre de dupe. An expression of Rousseau’s (Confessions, Liv. IV.).

 

Unsuccessful endeavours, etc. Hazlitt refers to Whitbread’s management of the impeachment of Lord Melville for malversation as Treasurer of the Navy. Melville was acquitted on June 12, 1806.

6.

The celebrated Howard. John Howard died of camp fever at Kerson on January 20, 1790, while investigating the condition of Russian military hospitals.

 

The ‘champion,’ etc. A reference to Pitt’s description of Buonaparte as ‘the child and champion of Jacobinism. See Vol. III., note to page 99.

7.

‘The latter end,’ etc. Tempest, Act II. Scene 1.

 

Letter II. Political Register, May 16, 1807: XI. 883.

 

The English have been called, etc. Diderot said this in his Lettre sur les aveugles, ed. Tourneux, I. 312, but the opinion was expressed more than once in France during the period of Anglomania which prevailed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Cf. Texte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (trans. Matthews) pp. 96 et. seq.

8.

‘Worthless importunity in rags.’

‘——Lib’ral of their aid

To clam’rous Importunity in rags.’

Cowper, The Task, IV. 413–4.

9.

‘Its bane and antidote.’ Addison’s Cato, Act V. Scene 1.

 

Multum abludit imago. Horace, Satires, II. 3, 320.

 

Wallace is the chief. Robert Wallace (1697–1771), a minister of the Scottish Church, published his Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, in 1761. The British Museum copy of Hazlitt’s Reply contains the following MS. note: ‘The writer of this note put into the hands of Mr. Hazlitt in the year 1828 a small volume entitled “a philosophical survey of the animal creation, which is a translation (by the author) of the Théorie du Système Animal,” which the Rev. John Bruckner had published some time before: after a perusal of the English edition of this work, Mr. Hazlitt admitted that the principles of the Essay on Population had been anticipated to a greater extent by the Flemish Divine, who settled in England, than they had been by Mr. Wallace.’ The Rev. John Bruckner (1726–1804), Minister of the Dutch Church at Norwich, published his Théorie du Système Animal in 1767, and Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley in 1790.

14.

‘Present circumstances of the earth.’ In the Political Register Hazlitt has the following note: ‘A different spirit breathes through this chapter from that of the Essay; the spirit of a gentleman, a philosopher, and a philanthropist. Mr. Malthus, indeed, sometimes limps after his model, and cants liberality in the true whine of hypocrisy.’

15.

‘So will his anticipation,’ etc. ‘So shall my anticipation prevent your discovery.’ Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

 

Arithmetical series. In the Political Register the following note is appended: ‘As far as I understand the nature of an arithmetical and geometrical series, I do not apprehend that Mr. M. could make good their strict application to the subject. An arithmetical series is where any number or quantity is increased by the perpetual addition of the same given sum or quantity. But how does Mr. M. know that this is true of the cultivation of the land, or that much more rapid strides may not be made at one time than at another?’

15.

Mr. Shandy was of opinion, etc. Tristram Shandy, Book I. chap. xix.

18.

Letter III. Political Register, May 23, 1807: xi. 935. Hazlitt published part of this letter in his Political Essays. See vol. III. pp. 367–374.

 

‘A swaggering paradox,’ etc. Cf. ‘The paradoxes of one age become the common-places of the next.’ Jowett, Plato, III. 155.

19.

The reply of the author of the Political Justice. In Thoughts on Dr. Parr’s Spital Sermon (1801) Godwin replied to Parr, Mackintosh, and Malthus. Many years later, in 1820, he wrote Of Population. An Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind, in Answer to Mr. Malthus on that Subject.

21.

‘The exuberant strength of my argument.’ A phrase of Malthus’s. Essay on Population, p. 372.

22.

‘What conjuration,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Scene 3.

23.

And as Trim. Tristram Shandy, Book VI. chap. xxiii.

24.

‘These three bear record,’ etc. Cf. 1 John, v. 7.

25.

‘Tis as easy as lying,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

 

To sum up the whole of the argument. The conclusion of Letter III. from this point is not in the Political Register.

 

‘And less than smallest dwarfs,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 779–781.

28.

‘It cannot but be,’ etc. Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 353–4.

29.

‘Who am no great clerk.’ Cf. Burke, A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 150). ‘He [Lord Keppel] was no great clerk.’

35.

‘It may be safely affirmed,’ etc. Malthus, pp. 7–8.

36.

Sancho Panza. Don Quixote, Part II., Book III., chap. xlix.

38.

‘Fast by,’ etc. Paradise Lost, II. 1051–2.

 

‘To nature’s furthest verge,’ etc.

‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim night

A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins

Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.

Paradise Lost, II. 1036–8.

 

‘Come on, sir,’ etc. King Lear, Act IV. Scene 6.

41.

A new Iliad of woes. See note to vol. III. p. 10.

42.

‘It keeps on its way,’ etc. Cf.

‘——I do know but one

That unassailable holds on his rank,

Unshaked of motion.’

Julius Caesar, Act III. Scene 1.

44.

‘Squalid poverty.’ Malthus, p. 516.

 

Note. ‘I am not as this poor Hottentot.’ Cf. ‘God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, etc.’ St. Luke, xviii. II.

 

Note. ‘Chill and comfortless.’ Cf. ‘All dark and comfortless.’ King Lear, Act III. Scene 7.

45.

‘Palaces, her ladies and her pomp.’

‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’

Cowper, The Task, I. 643–4.

46.

‘Upland swells,’ etc.

‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swells

Echo to the bleat of flocks.’

Coleridge, Ode on the Departing Year, ll. 125–6.

53.

When Don Quixote had to encounter, etc. See Don Quixote, Part II., Book I. Chap. xiv.

55.

‘Their greatest merit,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Scene 3.

 

No maid could live near such a man. See note to vol. I. p. 305.

56.

‘Were they as prime,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Scene 3.

 

Note. Even Miss Howe, etc. In Clarissa Harlowe.

62.

‘The sin that most easily besets him.’ Hebrews, xii. I.

 

‘The rich golden shaft,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Scene 1.

 

‘All for love, or the world well lost.’ Dryden’s version of Antony and Cleopatra (1678).

63.

‘But as the dust in the balance.’ Isaiah, xl. 15.

 

Aaron’s rod. Exodus, vii. 12.

 

‘Sits umpire,’ etc. Paradise Lost, II. 907–9.

 

‘Our greatest good,’ etc.

‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’

Goldsmith, The Traveller, 144.

66.

Described by Hogarth. In what Lamb calls the ‘sublime print,’ entitled ‘Gin Lane.’

70.

Hume’s assertion. Dialogues on Natural Religion, Part XI. p. 212. The assertion is denied by Malthus in his Essay, p. 587.

71.

Note. A late publication. Letters to Samuel Whitbread, M.P., on his proposed Bill for the Amendment of the Poor Laws (1807).

 

Note. Jactet, etc. ‘Illa se jactet in aula Aeolus.’ Virgil, Aeneid, I. 140–1.

81.

Algernon Sydney. Sidney’s Discourses concerning Government, written about 1680, in reply to Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, were first published in 1698.

82.

‘The face of the clearest warning,’ etc. Quoted inaccurately from Malthus. See ante, pp. 173–4.

83.

Note. ‘Monks, eremites,’ etc.

‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’

Paradise Lost, III. 474–5.

84.

Lord Kaims’s account, etc. See Lord Kaims’s Sketches of the History of Man, vol. II. pp. 240–1 (edit. 1788).

85.

A common-place book. Hazlitt refers to James Burgh’s (1714–1775) Political Disquisitions: or, an Enquiry into public Errors, Defects, and Abuses. Illustrated by, and established upon Facts and Remarks extracted from a Variety of Authors, ancient and modern. Calculated to draw the timely attention of Government and People to a due Consideration of the Necessity, and the Means, of reforming those Errors, Defects, and Abuses; of restoring the Constitution, and saving the State. (3 vols. 1774–5).

 

‘That honest Chronicler.’ ‘But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.’ Henry VIII., Act IV. Scene 2.

 

‘The excellent Montague.’ Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republics. Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain, by Edward Wortley Montagu (1713–1776), son of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was published in 1759. See Burgh’s Political Disquisitions, III. 68 et seq.

90.

The descendants of the heroes, etc. This passage to the end of the quotation is from Bolingbroke’s Political Tracts, 270. See Burgh, III. 414.

91.

The account which Voltaire gives. Burgh (III. 410) quotes this passage from Essais sur l’Histoire, II. 60.

 

Since that time it has fallen, etc. It is difficult to understand what such a worshipper of Napoleon as Hazlitt means by this sentence. The Vienna Congress (1815) ultimately declared the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

92.

‘I see,’ he says, etc. Burgh, III. 416.

 

‘A consummation,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

93.

Lord Molesworth. Robert Molesworth, first Viscount Molesworth (1656–1725), was appointed envoy extraordinary at the Danish Court in 1692, but left abruptly in 1694, and in the same year published An Account of Denmark as it was in the year 1692. See Burgh, III. 412.

95.

‘It must indeed be an answer,’ etc. All’s Well that Ends Well, Act II. Scene 2.

 

‘A thing may serve,’ etc. Ibid.

 

Burnet’s Travels. Gilbert Burnet’s Some Letters containing an Account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, etc. (1686). See Burgh, III. 398–9.

 

‘Italy shews,’ etc. Ibid. III. 399.

 

‘In England,’ etc. Ibid. III. 400.

96.

‘The title of freemen,’ etc. From Spelman’s Glossary, quoted in Burgh, III. 400.

 

‘It is constantly,’ etc. Quoted by Burgh (III. 400) from Hume’s History of the Tudors, II. 640.

 

‘Nations have often,’ etc. Burgh, III. 34.

 

‘A single genius,’ etc. Ibid. III. 220.

 

‘Commerce,’ etc. Ibid. III. 83–4.

 

‘The extreme poverty,’ etc. Ibid. III. 84.

97.

‘Government, according to Plato,’ etc. Cf. Burgh, III. 175–8.

 

‘The great difference we see,’ etc. Ibid. III. 220.

 

‘Among the Lacedemonians,’ etc. Ibid. III. 150.

98.

‘Aristotle lays down,’ etc. Ibid. III. 156.

 

‘Lycurgus did not allow,’ etc. Ibid.

 

‘At Sparta,’ etc. Ibid. III. 181.

 

‘A very wise man,’ etc. Ibid. III. 100.

99.

‘The grave Romans,’ etc. Cf. Ibid. III. 100. The saying alluded to is Cicero’s. ‘Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.’ Pro Murena. Cap. 6.

 

‘In the old English laws,’ etc. Quoted by Burgh (III. 139) from Spelman’s Concilia.

 

‘Who elbow us aside,’ etc.

‘Till prostitution elbow us aside

In all our crowded streets.’

Cowper, The Task, III. 60–1.

100.

‘Insensés qui vous plaignez,’ etc. Hazlitt seems to be recalling imperfectly a passage in Rousseau’s Émile (Liv. I.):—‘Nous plaignons le sort de l’enfance, et c’est le nôtre qu’il faudroit plaindre. Nos plus grands maux nous viennent de nous.’ See also a letter to Voltaire, 18th August 1756. Correspondance (1822), I. 216 et seq.

101.

Zaleucus. See Burgh, III. 180.

 

The greedy eye, etc. Cf. The English Comic Writers. (‘Comic Writers of the last Century’), and The Round Table (‘On Modern Comedy’), vol. I., p. 13.

102.

Narcissus and the Graces. A ballet by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1786–1855), produced at the King’s Theatre, June, 1806.

 

Note. The Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Fanny Hill, or the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland (1709–1789), was published, Part I. in 1748, Part II. in 1749. In 1750 the work was republished in a milder form by Ralph Griffiths, who is said to have paid twenty guineas for the copyright, and made a profit of £10,000. Cleland was summoned before the Privy Council, and received a pension of £100 from Lord Granville that he might devote himself to worthier forms of literature.

104.

‘In which the wicked,’ etc. Job, iii. 17.

 

‘Happy are they,’ etc. Hazlitt repeated this paragraph in a paper in The Yellow Dwarf. See Political Essays, vol. III., note to p. 266.

 

‘Hurt by the archers.’ Cowper, The Task, III. 113.

105.

‘M. Condorcet’s “Esquisse,”’ etc. Malthus, p. 354. Condorcet’s work appeared in 1794.

106.

‘This posthumous publication,’ etc. Ibid.

107.

‘This would indeed,’ etc. Ibid. p. 368.

108.

White Conduit-House. A ‘popular place of entertainment and tea-gardens’ at Pentonville. See Wheatley and Cunningham’s London Past and Present, III. 496, and ibid., I. 86, for an account of Bagnigge-Wells, a ‘noted place of entertainment, much resorted to the lower sort of tradesman,’ in the neighbourhood of King’s Cross.

 

‘There exists,’ etc. Malthus, p. 355.

109.

‘Such establishments,’ etc. Ibid. p. 356.

110.

‘Killing frost.’ Henry VIII., Act III. Scene 2. See Malthus, p. 356.

111.

‘Variations’ etc. Malthus, p, 359.

112.

‘It will be said, perhaps.’ Ibid. p. 362.

113.

‘What can we reason,’ etc. Pope’s Essay on Man, I. 18.

116.

Note. Dr. Paley. See his Evidences of Christianity. Preparatory Considerations. Of the antecedent credibility of miracles.

117.

The old argument of the Heap. Hazlitt alludes to a favourite logical impasse of the Stoics: ‘What constitutes a heap? Is it two, three, or four atoms, and on taking them away, when does a heap cease to exist?’ Cf. Horace, Ep. II. 1–47; and Cicero, De Div. II. 4.

 

‘It does not, however,’ etc. Malthus, p. 363.

 

Quotes Bickerstaff. See The Tatler, No. 75.

 

‘Mr. Godwin,’ etc. Malthus, p. 367.

118.

‘It is not, therefore,’ etc. Ibid. p. 43.

120.

‘They neither marry,’ etc. St. Matthew, xxii. 30.

122.

‘It may be curious,’ etc. Malthus, p. 374.

128.

The charge which he brings against Paine. Ibid. p. 530.

130.

‘Those who were born,’ etc. Ibid. p. 377.

132.

‘‘A man’ he says,’ etc. Ibid. p. 531.

134.

‘In most countries,’ etc. Ibid. p. 537.

135.

‘There is one right,’ etc. Ibid. p. 531.

138.

‘Sharpens his understanding,’ etc. ‘Thy flinty heart,’ occurs in Henry VI., Part II., Act III. Scene 2.

139.

‘Metaphysical aid.’ Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5.

140.

‘The quantity of food,’ etc. Malthus, p. 375.

142.

‘As Mr. Godwin,’ etc. Ibid. p. 381.

143.

‘He is himself again.’ ‘Richard’s himself again.’ Colley Cibber’s version of Richard III., Act V. Scene 3.

145.

‘Which after,’ etc. Butler, Hudibras, Part II., Canto I, 377–8.

 

‘Suppose,’ etc. Malthus, p. 396.

 

‘The question is,’ etc. Ibid. p. 422.

146.

‘It may at fist,’ etc. Ibid. p. 398.

150.

‘They lay heavy burthens,’ etc. St. Matthew, xxiii. 4.

 

‘Fared sumptuously,’ etc. St. Luke, xvi. 19.

151.

‘If instead,’ etc. Malthus, p. 405.

153.

‘Whose solid virtue,’ etc. Othello, Act IV. Scene 1.

156.

‘Independently of any considerations,’ etc. Malthus, p. 409.

157.

‘Alas from what height fallen.’ Cf.

‘——into what pit thou seest

From what highth fallen.’

Paradise Lost, I. 91–2.

 

And

‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapse

Unlooked for are we fallen!’

Paradise Regained, II. 30–1.

158.

‘Comes to him,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene 4.

 

‘Shall no more impart,’ etc. Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 239–40.

 

‘Their drunkenness and dissipation.’ Malthus, p. 411.

 

‘Their squalid appearance.’ See Ibid. p. 516.

159.

‘The symmetry of person,’ etc. This is a quotation of Malthus’s (p. 488) from Godwin (Political Justice, Vol. I., Book I., Chap. v).

 

‘Our Doctors Commons,’ etc. Malthus, p. 576.

 

‘Father Paul.’ In Sheridan’s Duenna, first performed in 1775 at Covent Garden.

 

‘That the poor,’ etc. Malthus, p. 411.

 

‘A man who,’ etc. Ibid.

160.

‘“If,” says he,’ etc. Ibid. p. 540.

161.

‘This is well said,’ etc. Henry VIII., Act III. Scene 2.

162.

‘I like not,’ etc. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. IV. Scene 2.

165.

Omne tulit punctum. Horace, Ars Poetica, 343.

166.

Mr. Burke has said. ‘Nobody will be argued into slavery.’ Speech on American Taxation (April 19, 1774, Select Works, ed. Payne, I. 155).

166.

‘Among the prejudices,’ etc. Malthus, p. 477.

 

Note. Tucker. Abraham Tucker (1705–1774), whose chief work The Light of Nature Pursued (7 vols., 1768–1778) was abridged by Hazlitt (1807). See ante, pp. 371–385. Paley admitted his obligations to Tucker.

168.

‘Will come when it will come.’ Julius Caesar, Act II. Scene 2.

 

‘The object of those,’ etc. Malthus, p. 508.

169.

‘The pressure of distress,’ etc. Ibid. p. 525.

 

Blifil. In Tom Jones.

 

The euthanasia foretold by Hume. See his Essay ‘On the British Government.’ ‘They talk,’ said Burke, ‘of Mr. Hume’s Euthanasia of the British Constitution gently expiring without a groan in the paternal arms of a mere Monarchy. In a monarchy! Fine trifling indeed! There is no such Euthanasia for the British Constitution.’ Regicide Peace (ed. Payne), p. 352.

172.

Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes. Virgil, Aeneid, II. 49.

 

As the husband secured the virtue of his wife, etc. That is, presumably, by cutting off her head, ‘the Sign of the Good Woman,’ representing a headless woman carrying her head in her hand.

173.

‘I should propose,’ etc. Malthus, p. 538. A great part of the rest of Hazlitt’s Reply was repeated in the Political Essays. See vol. III. pp. 374–381.

176.

‘These paper bullets of the brain.’ Much Ado about Nothing, Act II. Scene 3.

177.

‘Would submit to the sufferings‘, etc. Malthus, p. 539.

180.

‘The scanty relief,’ etc. Ibid. p. 415.

 

‘If, as in Ireland,’ etc. Ibid. p. 548.

181.

‘It is not enough,’ etc. Ibid. p. 549.

183.

‘In some conversations,’ etc. Ibid. p. 553.

 

Anthony’s repeated declaration. Julius Caesar, Act III. Scene 2.

184.

‘It very rarely,’ etc. Malthus’s Essay (1st edition, 1798), p. 34.