Not harsh and crabbed. Comus, 477.
267. A robusteous, periwig-pated fellow. Hamlet, III. 2.
Gives us pause. Hamlet, III. I.
268. He repeated the famous lines in Milton. Though these words are referred to admiringly by Burke in The Sublime and Beautiful he does not seem to have quoted them in the House of Commons. Is not Hazlitt thinking of the occasion upon which Brougham used the quotation with immense effect at the Queen’s trial, 1820? (See Greville’s Memoirs, 1899 edit., I. 40.)
What seem’d its head. Paradise Lost, II. 672.
Fell still-born. Cf. vol. VI. Table Talk, p. 65 and note.
Lord Liverpool. Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828), Premier of England 1812–1827.
Mr. William Ward. ? William Ward, financier (1787–1849), who was returned to Parliament as a Tory in 1826 for the city of London.
Native to [‘and endued unto’] that element. Hamlet, IV. 7.
Subdued to the [‘even to the very’] quality. Othello, I. 3.
The late Lord Chatham (1708–1778). He began life as a cornet of dragoons (See p. 269).
That Roan shall be my throne. 1 King Henry IV., II. 3.
269. He spoke [taught] as one having authority. S. Matthew, vii. 29.
270. A few termes coude [hadde] he. The Prologue, 639. But the lines are told of the Somnour not the Monk.
Will halt for it. Hamlet, II. 2.
271. Mr. Place of Charing Cross. Francis Place (1771–1854) the radical tailor.
Trampled under the hoofs. Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution.
Sir Francis Burdett (1770–1844). He was the most popular politician of his day.
271. Dr. Johnson had a wish. See Boswell’s Life, ed. G. B. Hill, (II. 138–9).
Sir William Curtis. The ‘father’ of the corporation of London, for which city he was M.P. for thirty-three years. He made his money in the Greenland fisheries, and then became a member of the banking firm of Robarts, Curtis and Co. (1752–1829).
The Speaker (Onslow). Arthur Onslow (1691–1768) was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1728 and re-elected in 1735, 1741, 1747 and 1754. He retired in 1761 with the reputation of being the firmest and most dignified holder of his office and authority.
272. Give his own little Senate laws. Pope’s Prologue to Mr. Addison’s Cato and also Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 209.
They look only at the stop-watch. Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Book III. chap. 12.
Hit the house between wind and water. See vol. IV., The Spirit of the Age, 227.
273. Servile ministers. King Lear, III. 2.
Jack Davies. See vol. VI. Table Talk, p. 89.
Note. Making the worse appear the better reason. Paradise Lost, II. 113.
274. An indifferent History of James II. Charles James Fox’s A History of the early Part of the Reign of James the Second was published by Lord Holland in 1808.
A colleague of Lord Grenville. Fox was Foreign Secretary in the ‘Broad-bottomed’ or ‘All the Talents’ ministry, formed by Lord Grenville on the death of Pitt in 1806.
Like proud seas under him. Two Noble Kinsmen, II. 1.
It was in the Louvre. In 1802. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 91, and vol. III. of the present edition, The Eloquence of the British Senate, p. 421.
Guercino. Gianfrancesco Barbieri or Guercino da Cento, because of his squint (1590–1666), of Bologna.
Domenichino. Domenicho Zampieri (1581–1641), also of Bologna.
275. Does he wind into a subject like a serpent? Boswell’s Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill (II. 260).
Letter to a Noble Lord. Burke died two years after the publication of his Letter, his only important further writing being the Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796.
Note. Tom Paine. Thomas Paine (1737–1809) the deist.
276. The Leviathan. A Letter to a Noble Lord (Bohn, V. 129).
The Abbé Sieyes’s pigeon-holes. Ibid., p. 142.
The proud keep of Windsor. Ibid., p. 137.
Shut the gates of genius [mercy] on mankind. Gray’s Elegy, 17.
To leave no rubs or botches. Macbeth, III. 1.
277. Learn to write slow. Cf.
Byron’s ‘Advice to the Messrs. H—— and H—— to preach slow,’ 8. And also
The phrase of Ancient Pistol. 2 King Henry IV., and King Henry V.
278. Fancies and good nights. 2 King Henry IV., III. 2.
Dull as the lake that slumbers. Goldsmith, The Traveller, 312.
‘Made fierce with dark keeping.’ Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, Book I., iv. 7.
279. Became his glittering bride. Wordsworth, The Excursion, III. 735–6.
Dilettanti Society. An association founded in 1734 to promote the study of antique art in England.
Note. Stentor. Iliad. V. 783.
Note. Political House that Jack Built. A squib of William Hone’s, published in 1819.
Note. Mr. C. Wynne. Charles Watkin Williams Wynne (1775–1850). He was proposed for Speaker June 2, 1817, but Manners-Sutton was preferred to him. Canning said that the only objection to him was that ‘one would be sometimes tempted to say Mr. Squeaker,’ alluding to his voice. See vol. III. Political Essays, note to p. 213.
ESSAY XXV. ON A PORTRAIT OF AN ENGLISH LADY,
BY VANDYKE
280. Where all is conscience. Chaucer’s Prologue, 150.
Last recesses of the mind. Dryden, Translation of Second Satire of Persius, line 133.
282. This hand of yours requires. Othello, III. 4. [‘Sweating devil.’]
283. Qualified ... very craftily. Othello, II. 3.
Mind’s eye. Hamlet, I. 2.
284. Trod the primrose path. Hamlet, I. 3.
285. Stupidly good. Paradise Lost, IX. 465.
An eye to threaten and command. Hamlet, III. 4.
287. Leave stings. Cf.
290. While by the power. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey.
Come then, the colours and the ground prepare. Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. II.
292. The whole gallery at Fonthill. ‘Vathek’ Beckford’s place. See the volume of Hazlitt’s writings on art.
The taste of the great in pictures. The rest of the essay from this point appeared in Hazlitt’s Commonplaces, taken from The Examiner, 1823.
Note. Day’s garish eye. Il Penseroso, 141.
293. Mr. Holwell Carr. William Holwell Carr (1758–1830), art connoisseur. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1797–1820 as an honorary exhibitor.
Sir George Beaumont. Sir George Howard Beaumont, Bart. (1753–1827), amateur painter and patron of artists.
Bosoms and businesses of men. Bacon, Dedication to Essays.
Trifles light as air. Othello, III. 3.
Tintoret. Jacopo Robusti or Tintoretto (from his father’s trade, dyeing), (1518–1594), one of Ruskin’s ‘five supreme painters.’
ESSAY XXVI. ON NOVELTY AND FAMILIARITY
From The New Monthly Magazine, vol. XIII., No. 50, 1825, with additions.
294. Custom hath made it in him. Hamlet, V. 1.
295. Give us pause. Hamlet, III. 1.
297. Send the hearers weeping. King Richard II., V. 1.
298. They best can paint them. Pope’s Eloisa and Abelard.
Talma. François Joseph Talma (1763–1826). See ante, p. 83.
299. ‘The Gamester.’ By Edward Moore (1753).
300. Die of an encore in operatic pain. ‘Die of a rose in aromatic pain.’ Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. I. 200.
L. ... M. These blanks are filled in ‘Liston’ and ‘Mathews’ by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt.
Lamb’s wool. A beverage of apple juice and spiced ale.
Rosinante and Dapple. Don Quixote’s steed and Sancho Panza’s donkey.
There is no living with them. Martial, Epigrams, Bk. XII. Ep. 70. See Addison’s Spectator, No. 68.
The late Mr. Kemble ... Richard III. Macbeth and King Richard III., an answer to [Whately’s] Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakespeare (1817). See vol. I. Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, note to p. 171. Kemble died in 1823.
301. The silver-voiced Anna. Cf. J. P. Kemble’s Fugitive Pieces, York, 1780, the ‘Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Inchbald’s Husband,’ lines 14, 15,
Tamerlane. Rowe’s tragedy (1702). Mrs. Siddons acted in it at Drury Lane, Feb. 3, 1797.
Alexander the Great. The second title of Lee’s tragedy, The Rival Queens (1678).
302. Hope travels through [‘when we die’]. Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. II. 273.
The dregs of life. Dryden, Aureng-zebe, IV. 1.
Compacted of imagination. Midsummer Night’s Dream, V. 1. ‘Of imagination all compact.’
Reason panders will. Hamlet, III. 4.
303. Dallied with the innocence of love. Twelfth Night, II. 4.
The story of Federigo Alberigi. Boccaccio, Decameron (Fifth Day, Novel IX.).
Those notable discoveries that Pope was a poet. See vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, note to p. 259; vol. V. Lectures on the English Poets, pp. 69–71; and vol. VI. Table Talk, notes to pp. 210 and 223. See also Hazlitt’s Essay ‘On the Question whether Pope was a Poet’ in The New Scots Magazine, February 1818.
Her Simple Story. Elizabeth Inchbald’s (1753–1821) A Simple Story was published in 1791. Cf. a letter of Hazlitt’s to Miss Stoddart, Memoirs of W. Hazlitt, I. 153.
304. Simple movement of her finger. Les Confessions, Partie I. Liv. II.
The letter in the New Eloise. Première Partie, Lettre XXIII.
Glassy essence. Measure for Measure, II. 2.
Love’s golden rigol. 2 King Henry IV., IV. 4.
And bade the lovely scenes. Collins, Ode on the Passions, 32.
305. Mr. Kean stamped himself the first night in Shylock. See vol. I. Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, note to p. 298.
Mrs. Siddons did not succeed the first time. See vol. I. The Round Table, note to p. 156.
306. Old Dr. Chauncey. Charles Chauncey, M.D., F.S.A. (1706–1777).
Goodman’s Fields ... Richard. See vol. I. Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, note to p. 298.
Queen Katherine. In Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII.
Belvidera. In Otway’s Venice Preserved (1682).
306. Jane Shore. In N. Rowe’s tragedy (1713).
Calista. In N. Rowe’s The Fair Penitent (1703).
The Mourning Bride. Congreve’s tragedy (1697).
When I first came from Bath. Mrs. Siddons was a member of the Cheltenham Company when she was recommended to the notice of Garrick, and then obtained an engagement at Drury Lane (1775).
Lord Byron says. See Medwin, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824 (p. 106).
Sir Isaac Newton was not twenty. He seems to have been twenty-four. See Voltaire’s Lettres sur les Anglais.
Harvey ... at eighteen. The first lectures in which he set forth his views were delivered in 1616, in his 38th year.
Berkeley ... Essay on Vision. Bishop Berkeley’s Essay towards a New Theory of Vision was published in 1709. He was born in 1685.
Hartley’s great principle. David Hartley’s (1705–1757) great work, Observations on Man (1749), was begun when he was about twenty-five.
Hume ... Treatise on Human Nature. David Hume’s (1711–1776) Treatise was published in 1739.
Galileo. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was appointed mathematical professor at Pisa when he was twenty-four.
Leibnitz. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716). He was refused a Doctor’s Degree at Leipzig in his twentieth year on the ground of his youth.
Euler. Leonard Euler (1707–1783), of Basel. At the age of nineteen he was second in a competition projected by the Paris Academy for the best treatise on the masting of ships.
307. With heedless haste. ‘With wanton heed and giddy cunning.’ L’Allegro, 141.
308. Like the sweet south. Twelfth Night, I. 1.
Like poppies spread [‘the snow falls’]. Burns, Tam o’ Shanter.
Mandeville. Bernard Mandeville (1670?–1733), author of The Fable of the Bees (1714).
310. Defoe’s romance: i.e., Robinson Crusoe.
Round which, with tendrils. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, III.
ESSAY XXVII. ON OLD ENGLISH WRITERS AND SPEAKERS
From The New Monthly Magazine, vol. XIII., No. 49, 1825, with additions.
311. Marmontel. Jean François Marmontel (1723–1799), author of the Contes Moraux (1761).
Crebillon. Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674–1762), dramatic poet.
Marivaux. Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688–1763), author of Marianne (1731–1741), a romance and many comedies. Voltaire said he knew all the bye-paths of the human heart, but not the highway.
La Harpe. Jean François de la Harpe (1739–1803), whose works have acted as a standard of literary criticism.
To this obscure and wild. Paradise Lost, XI. 284.
On that fair fountain. Hamlet, III. 4.
Note. A splendid edition of Goldsmith. Washington Irving edited a 4–volume edition of The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith in 1825 (Paris).
312. The proper study of the French. ‘The proper study of mankind is man,’ Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. II.
St. Evremont. Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis Seigneur de Saint-Evremond (1613–1703), one of the most brilliant of French satirists. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
312. Note. What’s he that wishes for more men from England. King Henry V., IV. 3.
313. Marlowe’s. Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (1604).
Captain Medwin or his Lordship must have made a mistake. See Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 105.
Jonson’s ‘Every Man in his Humour.’ Acted 1596.
Massinger’s ‘A new Way to Pay old Debts.’ (1633.)
Ford’s ... ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.’ Printed 1633.
Grows with our growth. Pope’s Essay on Man, Epistle II. 136.
314. Mr. Shee. Sir Martin Archer Shee (1770–1850), portrait painter from the age of 16 onwards. He was knighted upon being made President of the Royal Academy in 1830.
Burnt the Memoirs. Moore sold the Byron Memoirs to Murray, November 1821, and in May 1824 rebought and burned them.
Note. Tales of the Crusaders, i.e. The Betrothed and the Talisman, published in 1825.
315. Leave all and follow it. Cf. S. Matthew, xix. 21.
De omne scibile et quibusdam aliis. See vol. VI. Table Talk, note to p. 214.
316. Selden’s notes on Drayton’s Poly-Olbion. ‘The learned John Selden’ edited Drayton’s work in the folio of 1613–22.
Stowe. See ante, note to p. 229.
Holinshed. See ante, note to p. 229.
Camden. William Camden (1551–1623), whose Britannia was published in 1586.
Saxo-Grammaticus. The greatest of the early Danish chroniclers (fl. end of 12th century).
Dugdale. Sir William Dugdale (1605–1686), antiquarian, whose Monasticon Anglicanum was published 1655–1673.
Job Orton, (1717–1783). His reputation rests on his Letters rather than on his preaching.
317. Caryl’s ‘Commentaries upon Job.’ Probably the folio edition of 1676–7 of An Exposition with Practical Observations on the Book of Job. By Joseph Caryl, 2 vols.; the 1648–1666 quarto edition was in 12 vols.
The Cabbala. See ante, note to p. 242.
Warton. Thomas Warton (1728–1790), author of The History of English Poetry (1774–1781). The same sonnet is quoted in vol. V. Lectures on the English Poets, p. 120.
318. Della-Cruscan. See vol. V. Lectures on the English Poets, note to p. 148.
Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains. Wordsworth’s Laodamia.
Earth destroys those raptures. Ibid.
319. Even to the crack of doom. Macbeth, IV. 1.
Poor Peter Peebles. The litigious drunkard in Redgauntlet.
The last and almost worst of them. Redgauntlet was published in 1824.
Nanty Ewart. Captain of the smuggler’s brig in Redgauntlet.
And her whose foot. Redgauntlet, Book II. chap. viii.
Old true-penny. Cf. ‘Art thou there, true-penny?’ etc. Hamlet, I. 5.
The catch that blind Willie and his wife, etc. Redgauntlet, Letter X.
320. Elysian beauty, melancholy grace. Wordsworth’s Laodamia.
At the birth of nature. Paradise Lost, VII. 102.
Pawing to get free. Paradise Lost, VII. 464.
Whose body nature was. Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. I. 268 [‘and God the soul’]
Pym, Hampden, Sydney. John Pym (b. 1584), one of the ‘five members’; John Hampden (1594–1643), the opponent of ship-money; and Algernon Sidney (1622–1682), executed for his share in the Rye-house Plot.
321. Mr. Southey’s Book of the Church. Published 1824.
Pure well of English undefiled. ‘Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled’ The Faerie Queene, IV. ii. 32.
Baxter. See ante, note to p. 243.
Calamy’s Non-Conformist’s Memorial. See vol. III. Political Essays, note to p. 265.
Note. The author of Virginius. James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862). Macready produced Virginius, his best play, in 1820, at Covent Garden, after it had appeared in the provinces.
322. Mr. Irvine. Edward Irving.
Prick-eared. Cf. ‘prick-eared cur of Iceland,’ King Henry V., II. 1. The word was commonly applied to Roundheads because of the tight black skull-cap drawn over the head, which left the ears exposed.
Sir J. Suckling. (1609–1641.)
Wycherley, Congreve, Rochester, and Waller. See vol. V. Lectures on the English Poets and Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.
323. Mr. Tracey’s ‘Ideologie.’ Antoine Louis Claude Comte Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), whose Élémens d’ Idéologie was published in 1817–1818.
ESSAY XXVIII. MADAME PASTA AND MADEMOISELLE MARS
From the New Monthly Magazine, vol. XIII. No. 49, 1825.
324. Mademoiselle Mars. Anne Françoise Boutet-Monvel (1779–1847), the clever impersonator of Molière’s heroines at the Théâtre Français. Her father, Moutet, was an actor, and her mother, Mars, an actress.
Madame Pasta. Giuditta Pasta, a Jewish opera-singer of Milanese birth (1798–1865). Her greatest triumphs were in Paris and London between 1825 and 1833.
325. Nina. An Italian opera, produced at Naples, May 1787, and played at the King’s Theatre, London, May 26, 1825, with Pasta as ‘Nina.’
326. Shepherdess. The Winter’s Tale, IV. 3.
327. Though that their art be nature. ‘Though that his joy be joy, etc.’ Othello, I. 1.
328. Schiller’s Robbers. 1781.
Klopstock’s Messiah. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s (1724–1803) poem was published in 1748–1773.
329. Those noble outlines ... at Hampton Court. The Cartoons of Raphael.
Chantry. See ante, note to p. 89.
Guiderius and Arviragus. Cymbeline, III. 6, and IV. 2.
330. Note. Valeria. A comedy of Scribe’s, produced in 1822 with Mlle. Mars in the title-rôle.
331. Girodet. Anne Louis Girodet-De-Roussy-Trioson, French historical painter and writer (1767–1824), a pupil of David.
Monsieur Chateaubriand. François René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), of noble Breton extraction, Royalist and writer of perfect prose.
333. Merrimee. J. F. L. Mérimée. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 87, 89. See also vol. VI. Table Talk, note to p. 319.
334. Foregone conclusion. Othello, III. 3.
ESSAY XXIX. SIR WALTER SCOTT, RACINE, AND SHAKESPEAR
336. The still small voice is wanting. 1 Kings xix. 12.
337. Four lagging winters. King Richard II., I. 3. [‘End in a word.’]
Come home to the bosoms. Bacon, Dedication to Essays.
The perilous stuff. Macbeth, V. 3.
Give sorrow words. Macbeth, IV. 3.
338. Gabble most brutishly. The Tempest, I. 2.
339. Sailing with supreme dominion. Gray, Progress of Poesy, III. 3.
David Ritchie. See ante, note to p. 207.
The Maid and the Magpye. See vol. VIII. A View of the English Stage, p. 244.
Mrs. Inchbald’s ‘Nature and Art.’ Published 1796.
340. O’er informing power. Cf. ‘And o’er-inform’d the tenement of clay.’ Dryden, Absolom and Achitophel, I. 158.
341. Globose. Cf. Paradise Lost, V. 753 and VII. 357.
A Dukedom to a beggarly denier. King Richard III., I. 2.
The little dogs and all. King Lear, III. 6.
Chronicle of the line of Brute. Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Book II. canto X.
342. Lay my head to the East. ‘Na, na! Not that way, the feet to the east.’ Guy Mannering, chap. XV.
Nothing but his unkind daughters. King Lear, III. 4.
By making Madge Wildfire ascribe. The Heart of Midlothian, ? vol. II. chap. v. and vi.
They are old like him. Cf. King Lear, II. 4.
The earth hath bubbles. Macbeth, I. 3.
And enjoin’d silence.
And then they melted into thin air.
But cf. The Tempest, IV. 1.
343. The geese of Micklestane Muir. The Black Dwarf, chap. ii.
Five editions deep in Captain Medwin’s Conversations. Two editions of Captain Thomas Medwin’s Conversations of Lord Byron, noted during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa in the years 1821 and 1822, appeared in 1824, and editions followed in Paris, New York and Germany.
There’s magic in the web. Othello, III. 4.
All appliances and means to boot. 2 King Henry IV., III. 1.
Sees Helen’s beauty. Midsummer Night’s Dream, V. 1.
’Tis common. Othello, III. 3.
344. Not a jot. Ibid.
344. By yon marble heaven. Othello, III. 3.
Like the Propontic. Ibid.
The dialogue between Hubert and Arthur. King John, IV. 1.
That between Brutus and Cassius. Julius Cæsar, I. 2.
Bertram. In Guy Mannering.
ESSAY XXX. ON DEPTH AND SUPERFICIALITY
347. A great but useless thinker. ? Coleridge.
Dr. Spurzheim. See ante, note to p. 17.
348. Spin round on its soft axle. ‘Spinning sleeps on her soft axle,’ Paradise Lost, VIII. 165.
350. Compunctious visitings of nature. Macbeth, I. 5.
The ‘wicked’ Lord Lyttleton. Thomas, Lord Lyttelton (1744–1779), renowned for his profligacy. He seems to have died three days after a nocturnal warning. See Chambers’s Book of Days, II. 625.
Mother Brownrigg. Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed in 1767 for whipping an apprentice to death. See vol. III. Political Essays, notes to pp. 220 and 238.
351. Credo quia impossibile est. A phrase of Tertullian’s.
353. Sweet oblivious antidote. Macbeth, V. 3.
354. Unquenchable fire. S. Mark, ix. 44.
Note. Search’s ‘Light of Nature Pursued.’ See vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, note to p. 371.
ESSAY XXXI. ON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE
362. Buys golden opinions. Macbeth, I. 7.
The learned pate ducks to the golden fool. Timon of Athens, IV. 3.
Otway was left to starve. Thomas Otway, one of the greatest of English tragedians, was choked by eating too ravenously bread bought after a long fast.
Spenser, kept waiting. See Fuller’s Worthies. The story is that Spenser petitioned Elizabeth thus:—