80. Besides these jolly birds. The Hind and the Panther, III. 991–1025. [‘Whose crops impure.’]
81. The jolly God. Alexander’s Feast, or the power of music: A song in honour of St. Cecilia’s Day 1697, 49–52. A few phrases from this criticism were used in the Essay on Mr. Wordsworth, The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV. p. 276).
For for, as piece, read for, as a piece.
82. The best character of Shakespeare. Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, ed. Ker, I. 79–80.
Tancred and Sigismunda. i.e. Sigismonda and Guiscardo.
Thou gladder of the mount. Palamon and Arcite, III. 145.
83. Donne. John Donne (1573–1631), whose life was written by Izaak Walton, and whom Ben Jonson described as ‘the first poet in the world in some things,’ but who would not live ‘for not being understood.’
Waller. Edmund Waller’s (1605–1687) Saccharissa was Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester.
Marvel. Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), ‘poet, patriot, and friend of Milton.’
Harsh, as the words of Mercury. [‘The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.’] Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 2.
Rochester. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–1680).
Denham. Sir John Denham (1615–1669). His Cooper’s Hill was published in 1642.
Wither’s. George Wither (1588–1667). See Lamb’s Essay on the Poetical Works of George Wither. Poems, Plays, and Essays, ed. Ainger. The lines quoted by Hazlitt are from ‘The Shepheards’ Hunting,’ (1615). [‘To be pleasing ornaments.’ ‘Let me never taste of gladnesse.’]
V. ON THOMSON AND COWPER
85. Dr. Johnson makes it his praise. ‘It is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained “no line which, dying, he could wish to blot.“’ Life of Thomson.
Bub Doddington. George Bubb Dodington (1691–1762), one of Browning’s ‘persons of importance in their day.’ His Diary was published in 1784.
Would he had blotted a thousand! Said by Ben Jonson of Shakespeare, in his Timber.
86. Cannot be constrained by mastery.
Come, gentle Spring! ‘Spring,’ 1–4.
And see where surly Winter. Ibid. 11–25.
88. A man of genius. Coleridge. See Hazlitt’s Essay, ‘My First Acquaintance with the Poets.’
A burnished fly. The Castle of Indolence, I. 64. [‘In prime of June.’]
For whom the merry bells. Ibid. I. 62.
All was one full-swelling bed. Ibid. I. 33.
The stock-dove’s plaint. Ibid. I. 4.
The effects of the contagion. ‘Summer,’ 1040–51.
Of the frequent corse. Ibid. 1048–9.
Breath’d hot. Ibid. 961–979.
89. The inhuman rout. ‘Autumn,’ 439–44.
There through the prison. ‘Winter,’ 799–809.
Where pure Niemi’s fairy mountains rise. Ibid. 875–6.
The traveller lost in the snow. Ibid. 925–35.
90. Through the hush’d air. Ibid. 229–64.
Enfield’s Speaker. The Speaker, or Miscellaneous Pieces selected from the best English Writers, 1775, and often reprinted. By William Enfield, LL.D., (1741–1797).
Palemon and Lavinia. ‘Autumn,’ 177–309.
Damon and Musidora. ‘Summer,’ 1267–1370.
Celadon and Amelia. Ibid. 1171–1222.
91. Overrun with the spleen. Cf. ‘The lad lay swallow’d up in spleen.’—Swift’s Cassinus and Peter, a Tragical Elegy, 1731.
Unbought grace. Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution: Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89.
92. His Vashti. The Task, III. 715.
Crazy Kate, etc. The Task, I. 534, et seq.
Loud hissing urn. Ibid. IV. 38.
The night was winter. Ibid. VI. 57–117.
94. The first volume of Cowper’s poems. This was published in 1782, and contained Table Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expostulation, Hope, Charity, Conversation, Retirement, etc.
The proud and humble believer. Truth, 58–70.
Yon cottager. Truth, 317–36.
But if, unblamable in word and thought. Hope, 622–34.
95. Robert Bloomfield (1766–1823). The Farmer’s Boy was written in a London garret. It was published in 1800, and rapidly became popular.
96. Thomson, in describing the same image. The Seasons, ‘Spring,’ 833–45.
While yet the year. [‘As yet the trembling year is unconfirm’d.’] The Seasons, ‘Spring,’ 18.
97. Burn’s Justice. Justice of the Peace, by Richard Burn (1709–1785), the first of many editions of which was issued in two vols., 1755.
Wears cruel garters. Twelfth Night, II. 5. [‘Cross-gartered.’]
A panopticon. Jeremy Bentham’s name for his method of prison supervision. See The Spirit of the Age, vol. III., note to p. 197.
The latter end of his Commonwealth [does not] forget[s] the beginning. The Tempest, II. 1.
98. Mother Hubberd’s Tale. Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberd’s Tale.
98. The Oak and the Briar. ‘Februarie,’ in The Shepheard’s Calender.
Browne. William Browne (1591–?1643), pastoral poet. His chief work was Britannia’s Pastorals (1613–6).
Withers. See note to p. 83, ante. The family name is occasionally spelt Withers though the poet is generally known as Wither.
The shepherd boy piping. Book I. chap. ii.
Like Nicholas Poussin’s picture. See Hazlitt’s Essay ‘On a Landscape by Nicolas Poussin’ in Table Talk, vol. VI. p. 168, et seq.
Sannazarius’s Piscatory Eclogues. Iacopo Sannazaro’s (1458–1530) Piscatory Eclogues, translated by Rooke, appeared in England in 1726. See The Round Table, vol. I. p. 56, ‘On John Buncle,’ for a similar passage on Walton.
99. A fair and happy milk-maid. The quotation of the ‘Character’ from Sir Thomas Overbury’s Wife was contributed to the notes to Walton’s Complete Angler by Sir Henry Ellis, editor of Bagster’s edition, 1815. He took it from the twelfth edition, 1627, of Sir Thomas Overbury’s book. The following passages may be added between ‘curfew’ and ‘her breath’ to make the note as quoted perfect:—‘In milking a cow, and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came almond glue or aromatic ointment of her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them.’
100. Two quarto volumes. John Horne Tooke’s Diversions of Purley was published in two volumes, 4to, in 1786–1805. See The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. p. 231, on ‘The Late Mr. Horne Tooke.’
The heart of his mystery. Hamlet, III. 2.
Rousseau in his Confessions ... a little spot of green. Part I. Book III. See The Round Table, ‘On the Love of the Country,’ and notes thereto, vol. I. p. 17, et seq. The greater part of that letter was used for the purposes of this lecture.
102. Expatiates freely. Pope’s Essay on Man, Epis. I. 5.
Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances. Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), author of The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and other popular stories of sombre mystery and gloom.
103. My heart leaps up. Wordsworth.
Ah! voila de la pervenche. Confessions, Part I. Book VI.
That wandering voice. Wordsworth. To the Cuckoo.
VI. ON SWIFT, YOUNG, GRAY, COLLINS, Etc.
104. Parnell. Thomas Parnell (1679–1717). His poems were published by Pope, and his life was written by Goldsmith.
Arbuthnot. John Arbuthnot (1667–1735), physician and writer. He had the chief share in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, which was published amongst Pope’s works in 1741. His History of John Bull was published in 1712.
105. Trim ... the old jack-boots. Tristram Shandy, III. 20.
106. Prior. Matthew Prior (1664–1721), diplomatist and writer of ‘occasional’ verse. See Thackeray’s English Humourists.
Sedley. Sir Charles Sedley (1639–1701), Restoration courtier and poet.
Little Will. An English Ballad on the taking of Namur by the King of Great Britain, 1695.
107. Gay. John Gay (1685–1732), the author of Fables, The Beggar’s Opera, so often quoted by Hazlitt, and Black-eyed Susan. Polly was intended as a sequel to The Beggar’s Opera, but it was prohibited from being played, though permitted to be printed. See The Round Table, The Beggar’s Opera, and notes thereto. That Essay was used as part of the present lecture.
Happy alchemy of mind. See The Round Table, vol. i., p. 65. Cf. also Lamb’s essay, ‘The Londoner,’ Morning Post, Feb. 1, 1802: ‘Thus an art of extracting morality from the commonest incidents of a town life, is attained by the same well-natured alchemy, with which the Foresters of Arden,’ etc.
O’erstepping [not] the modesty of nature. Hamlet, III. 2.
108. Miss Hannah More’s laboured invectives. Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society, 1788, and An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World, 1790. Each passed through several editions before the close of the century. Of the first named, the third edition is stated to have been sold out in four hours.
Sir Richard Blackmore. Court physician to William and Anne. He died in 1729, after having written six epics in sixty books.
109. Mr. Jekyll’s parody. Joseph Jekyll (1754–1837), Master of Chancery. The parody was published in the Morning Chronicle, Friday, Aug. 19, 1809.
A City Shower. See The Tatler, No. 238.
110. Mary the cookmaid ... Mrs. Harris. ‘Mary the Cook-maid’s letter to Dr. Sheridan,’ 1723, which begins thus:—
‘Mrs. Harris’s Petition,’ 1699, after the preliminaries—
Rector of Laracor. Swift was appointed to the vicarage of Laracor, Trim, West Meath, Ireland, in 1700.
Gulliver’s nurse. In the Voyage to Brobdingnag.
An eminent critic. Jeffrey’s article on Scott’s Swift, Edinburgh Review, No. 53, Sept. 1816, vol. xxvii. pp. 1 et seq.
112. Shews vice her own image. [To shew virtue her own feature, scorn her own image.] Hamlet, III. 2.
Indignatio facit versus. [Facit indignatio versum.] Juvenal, Sat. I. 79.
As dry as the remainder biscuit. As You Like It, II. 7.
Reigned there and revelled. Paradise Lost, IV. 765.
As riches fineless. Othello, III. 3.
113. Camacho’s wedding. Part II. chap. xx.
How Friar John ... lays about him. Gargantua, Book I., chap. xxvii.
How Panurge whines in the storm. Pantagruel, Book IV. chap. xix., et seq.
How Gargantua mewls. Gargantua, Book I., chap. vii.
113. The pieces of silver money in the Arabian Nights. The Story of the Barber’s Fourth Brother.
Mortal consequences. Macbeth, V. 3.
114. The dull product of a scoffer’s pen. Wordsworth’s Excursion, Book II.
Nothing can touch him further. Macbeth, III. 2.
Voltaire’s Traveller. See Histoire des Voyages de Scarmentado.
Be wise to-day. Night Thoughts, I. 390–433.
115. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it. Cf. Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, ‘Othello,’ vol. I. p. 209. Edward Young’s (1683–1765) Revenge was first acted in 1721.
116. We poets in our youth. Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence, 8.
Read the account of Collins. See Johnson’s life of him in his English Poets, where the eighth verse of the ‘Ode to Evening’ is as follows:—
And the last:—
118. Hammond. James Hammond (1710–1741). See Johnson’s Lives of the Poets. He seems to have died of love. His Love Elegies, in imitation of Tibullus, were published posthumously.
Mr. Coleridge (in his Literary Life). See ed. Bohn, p. 19. ‘[I] felt almost as if I had been newly couched, when by Mr. Wordsworth’s conversation, I had been induced to re-examine with impartial strictness Gray’s celebrated Elegy.’
The still sad music of humanity. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey.
Be mine ... to read eternal new romances. Letter to Richard West, Thursday, April 1742.
Don’t you remember Lords —— and ——. Letter to Richard West, May 27, 1742.
Shenstone. William Shenstone (1714–1763),the ‘water-gruel bard’ of Horace Walpole.
119. Akenside. Mark Akenside (1721–1770), physician and poet. The Pleasures of the Imagination was begun in his eighteenth year, and was first published in 1744.
Armstrong. John Armstrong (1709–1779), also physician and poet, whose Art of Preserving Health, a poem in four books, was also published in 1744.
Churchill. Charles Churchill (1731–1764), satirist. His Rosciad, in which the chief actors of the time were taken off, was published in 1761. The Prophecy of Famine, a Scots Pastoral, inscribed to John Wilkes, Esq., in which the Scotch are ridiculed, appeared in 1763.
Green. Matthew Green (1696–1737). The Spleen (1737).
Dyer. John Dyer (?1700–1758), Grongar Hill (1727). See Johnson’s Lives of the Poets and Wordsworth’s Sonnet to him.
His lot [feasts] though small. The Traveller.
And turn’d and look’d. The Deserted Village, 370. ‘Return’d and wept and still return’d to weep.’
120. Mr. Liston. John Liston (1776–1846).
120. His character of a country schoolmaster. In The Deserted Village.
Warton. Thomas Warton (1728–1790), author of The History of English Poetry (1774–81). He succeeded William Whitehead as poet laureate.
Tedious and brief. All’s Well that Ends Well, II. 3, etc.
122. Chatterton. Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770). The verse of Wordsworth’s quoted is in Resolution and Independence.
Dr. Milles, etc. Dr. Jeremiah Milles (1713–1784), whom Coleridge described as ‘an owl mangling a poor dead nightingale.’ See Sir Herbert Croft’s (1751–1816) Love and Madness, Letter 51 (1780). Vicesimus Knox, D.D. (1752–1821), author of many volumes of Essays, Sermons, etc.
VII. ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH BALLADS
123. Unslacked of motion. See vol. IV., note to p. 42.
Anderson. Robert Anderson, M.D. (1751–1830), editor and biographer of British Poets.
Mr. Malone. Edmond Malone (1741–1812), the Shakespearian editor. He did not believe in the ‘antiquity’ of Chatterton’s productions. See his ‘Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley,’ 1782.
Dr. Gregory. George Gregory, D.D. (1754–1808), author of The Life of Thomas Chatterton, with Criticisms on his Genius and Writings, and a concise view of the Controversy concerning Rowley’s Poems. 1789.
124. Annibal Caracci. Annibale Caracci (1560–1609), painter of the Farnese Gallery at Rome.
Essays, p. 144. The reference should be to Dr. Knox’s Essay, No. CXLIV., not p. 144 (vol. iii. p. 206, 1787).
127. He was like a man made after supper. 2 King Henry IV., III. 2.
Some one said. Cf. Hazlitt’s Essay, ‘Of Persons one would wish to have seen,’ where Burns’s hand, held out to be grasped, is described as ‘in a burning fever.’
Made him poetical. As You Like It, III. 2.
Create a soul under the ribs of death. Comus, 562.
128. A brazen candlestick tuned. 1 King Henry IV., III. 1.
In a letter to Mr. Gray. January 1816.
Via goodman Dull. Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 1.
129. Out upon this half-faced fellowship. 1 King Henry IV., I. 3.
As my Uncle Toby. Tristram Shandy, Book VI., chap. xxxii.
Drunk full after. Chaucer’s The Clerkes Tale. ‘Wel ofter of the welle than of the tonne she drank.’
The act and practique part. King Henry V., I. 1.
The fly that sips treacle. The Beggar’s Opera, II. 2.
131. In a poetical epistle. To a friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry.
Self-love and social. Pope’s Essay on Man, IV. 396.
Himself alone. 3 King Henry VI., V. 6.
If the species were continued like trees. Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, Part II.
This, this was the unkindest cut. Julius Caesar, III. 2.
132. Launce’s account of his dog Crabbe. Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV. 4.
135. Tam o’ Shanter. [For ‘light cotillon,’ read ‘cotillon, brent.’]
137. The bosom of its Father. Gray’s Elegy.
The Cotter’s Saturday Night. [For ‘carking cares,’ read ‘kiaugh and care.’]
139. The true pathos and sublime of human life. Burns, ‘Epistle to Dr. Blacklock.’
140. O gin my love. [‘O my luv’s like a red, red rose.’]
140. Thoughts that often lie. Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality.
Singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles. Part II., Chap. IX.
141. Archbishop Herring. Thomas Herring (1693–1757), Archbishop of Canterbury. Letters to William Duncombe, Esq., 1728–1757 (1777), Letter XII., Sept. 11, 1739.
Auld Robin Gray ... Lady Ann Bothwell’s lament. Lady Anne Barnard (1750–1825) did not acknowledge her authorship of ‘Auld Robin Gray’ (to Sir Walter Scott) until 1823.
142. O waly, waly. This ballad was first published in Allan Ramsay’s Tea Table Miscellany, 1724.
The Braes of Yarrow. By William Hamilton, of Bangour (1704–1754).
143. Turner’s History of England. Sharon Turner (1768–1847), History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Death of Elizabeth (1814–1823). The story is a pretty one, but the Eastern lady was not the mother of the Cardinal.
J. H. Reynolds. John Hamilton Reynolds (1796–1852).
VIII. ON THE LIVING POETS
143. No more talk where God or angel guest. Paradise Lost, IX. 1–3.
146. The Darwins, the Hayleys, the Sewards. Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin, and author of The Loves of the Plants (1789), a poem parodied by Frere in The Anti-Jacobin as ‘The Loves of the Triangles.’ William Hayley (1745–1820), who wrote The Triumphs of Temper and a Life of Cowper. Anna Seward (1747–1809), the ‘Swan of Lichfield.’ She wrote poetical novels, sonnets and a life of Dr. Darwin.
Face-making. Hamlet, III. 2.
Mrs. Inchbald. Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821), novelist, dramatist and actress.
Thank the Gods. Cf. As You Like It, III. 3.
Mrs. Leicester’s School. Ten narratives, seven by Mary, three by Charles, Lamb (1807).
The next three volumes of the Tales of My Landlord. The Heart of Midlothian (second series of the Tales) was published in 1818, and the third series, consisting of The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose, in 1819.
147. Mrs. Barbauld. Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825), daughter of the Rev. John Aitken, D.D., joint-author, with her brother John Aitken, of Evenings at Home.
Mrs. Hannah More (1745–1833). Her verses and sacred dramas were published in the first half of her life: she gradually retired from London society, and this may have led to Hazlitt’s doubtful remark as to her being still in life.
147. Miss Baillie. Joanna Baillie (1762–1851). Count Basil is one of her Plays of the Passions (1798–1802), and is concerned with the ‘passion’ of love. De Montfort was acted at Drury Lane in 1800 by Mrs. Siddons and Kemble.
Remorse, Bertram, and lastly Fazio. Coleridge’s Remorse (1813), for twenty nights at Drury Lane. C. R. Maturin’s Bertram (1816), successful at Drury lane. Dean Milman’s Fazio (1815), acted at Bath and then at Covent Garden.
A man of no mark. 1 King Henry IV., III. 2.
Make mouths [in them]. Hamlet, IV. 3.
Mr. Rogers’s Pleasures of Memory. Published in 1792.
The Election. Genest says it was performed for the third time on June 10, 1817.
148. The Della Cruscan. The sentimental and affected style, initiated in 1785 by some English residents at Florence, and extinguished by Gifford’s satire in the Baviad (1794), and Maeviad (1796).
To show that power of love
149. Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope. Published in 1799, Gertrude of Wyoming in 1809.
Some hamlet shade. Pleasures of Hope, I. 309–10.
Curiosa infelicitas. ‘Curiosa felicitas Horatii.’ Petronius Arbiter, § 118.
Of outward show elaborate. Paradise Lost, VIII. 538.
Tutus nimium, timidusque procellarum. Horace, De Arte Poet., 128.
150. Like morning brought by night. Gertrude of Wyoming, I. xiii.
Like Angels’ visits. Pleasures of Hope, Part II., l. 378. Cf. The Spirit of the Age, vol. III. p. 346.
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus. Horace, De Arte Poetica, 191.
151. So work the honey-bees. Henry V., I. 2.
Around him the bees. From the Sixth Song in The Beggar’s Opera.
Perilous stuff. Macbeth, V. 3.
152. Nest of spicery. King Richard III., IV. 4.
Therefore to be possessed with double pomp. King John, IV. 2.
153. Nook monastic. As You Like It, III. 2.
He hath a demon. Cf. ‘He hath a devil,’ St. John X. 20.
House on the wild sea. Coleridge’s The Piccolomini, I. iv. 117.
154. Looks on tempests. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, CXVI.
Great princes’ favourites. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, XXV.
155. Their mortal consequences. Macbeth, V. 3.
The warriors in the Lady of the Lake. Canto V. 9.
The Goblin Page. Canto II. 31.
Mr. Westall’s pictures. Richard Westall (1765–1836). He designed numerous drawings to illustrate Milton, Shakespeare, Scott, etc.
156. Robinson Crusoe’s boat. The Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, p. 138, ed. G. A. Aitken.
I did what little I could. Hazlitt reviewed The Excursion in The Examiner (see The Round Table, vol. I. pp. 111–125).
162. Coryate’s Crudites. Hastily gobled up in Five Moneths’ Travells in France, etc. (1611), by Thomas Coryate (? 1577–1617).
The present poet-laureate. Southey.
Neither butress nor coign of vantage. Macbeth, I. 6.
162. Born so high. King Richard III., I. 3.
In their train [‘his livery’] walked crowns. Antony and Cleopatra, V. 2.
163. Meek daughters. Coleridge’s The Eolian Harp.
Owls and night-ravens flew. Cf. Titus Andronicus, II. 3. ‘The nightly owl or fatal raven.’
Degrees, priority, and place. Troilus and Cressida, I. 3.
No figures nor no fantasies. Julius Caesar, II. 1.
[No] trivial fond records. Hamlet, I. v.
The marshal’s truncheon, and the next quotation. Measure for Measure, II. 2.
Metre ballad-mongering. 1 King Henry IV., III. 1.
The bare trees and mountains bare. Wordsworth, ‘To my Sister.’
He hates conchology. See The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. p. 277.
164. The Anti-Jacobin Review. Not The Anti-Jacobin Review (1798–1821) but The Anti-Jacobin, wherein will be found Canning and Frere’s parodies, the best-known of which is the one on Southey’s The Widow, entitled ‘The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder.’
When Adam delved. See Political Essays, ‘Wat Tyler,’ Vol. III. pp. 192 et seq., and notes thereto.
The Rejected Addresses. By Horace and James Smith (1812).
Sir Richard Blackmore. See p. 108 and note thereto ante.
166. Is there here any dear friend of Caesar? Julius Caesar, III. 2.
Conceive of poetry. ‘Apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come,’ Measure for Measure, IV. 2.
It might seem insidious. Probably a misprint for ‘invidious.’
167. Schiller! that hour.