The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)

These Lectures were delivered at the Surrey Institution, in Blackfriars Road, in 1818, after the completion of the course on the English Poets (see vol. V.). Some particulars as to their delivery will be found in Talfourd’s edition of Lamb’s Letters (see Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s reprint, Bohn, i. 38 et seq.), and in Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintance. See also Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Four Generations of a Literary Family (vol. I. pp. 121-2), where the opinions of Beckford and Thackeray are referred to. In the third edition of the Lectures (see Bibliographical Note) several passages ‘collected by the author, apparently with a view to a reprint of the volume,’ were interpolated. Two of these passages are taken from a long letter (published in full in the Appendix to these notes) which Hazlitt contributed to The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1813. The rest are taken from prefatory notices which he contributed to William Oxberry’s The New English Drama (20 vols. 1818-1825), and are printed in the following notes.

LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY

PAGE

 

8.

The Tale of Slaukenbergius. Tristram Shandy, vol. IV.

9.

‘There is something in the misfortunes,’ etc. Rochefoucault, Maximes et Réflexions Morales, CCXLI.

 

‘They were talking,’ etc. Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

Lord Foppington. In The Relapse of Vanbrugh. See post, p. 82.

10.

Aretine laughed himself to death, etc. The story is that while laughing at the jest Aretine fell from a stool and was killed.

 

Sir Thomas More jested, etc. More bade the executioner stay till he had put aside his beard, ‘for that,’ he said, ‘had never committed treason.’

 

Rabelais and Wycherley. ‘When Rabelais,’ says Bacon (Apophthegms), ‘the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend came to him afterwards, and asked him how he did? Rabelais answered, “Even going my journey, they have greased my boots already.”’ But his last words, uttered ‘avec un éclat de rire,’ were: ‘Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.’ It is said that Wycherley, on the night before he died, made his young wife promise that she would never marry an old man again. See a letter from Pope to Blount, Jan. 21, 1715-6 (Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, VI. 366). Pope, after telling the story, adds: ‘I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour.’

 

The dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet. The Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke. In Thomas Morton’s School of Reform (1805). Cf. post, p. 391.

11.

The Liar. By Samuel Foote (1762).

 

The Busy Body. By Susannah Centlivre (1709).

 

The history of hobby-horses. See Tristram Shandy, vol. I. especially chaps. XXIV. and XXV.

 

‘Ever lifted leg.’ Cf. ‘A better never lifted leg.’ Tam o’ Shanter, 80.

12.

Malvolio’s punishment, etc. Twelfth Night, Act IV. Sc. 2.

 

Christopher’s Sly’s drunken transformation. The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Sc. 2.

 

Parson Adams’s fall, etc. See Joseph Andrews, Book III. Chap. 7, Book IV. Chap. 14, and Book II. Chap. 12.

 

Baltimore House. In what is now Russell Square.

14.

The author of the Ancient Mariner. Cf. a passage in the essay ‘On Dreams’ (Plain Speaker, vol. VII. pp. 23-24).

 

Bishop Atterbury. See Pope’s Works (ed. Elwin and Courthope), IX. 21-4. As Mr. Austin Dobson, however, points out, it is not clear that the Arabian Nights are referred to. Atterbury speaks of ‘Petit de la Croix’ as ‘the pretended author’ of the tales, from which it would appear that the tales he found so hard to read were not the Arabian Nights, but the Contes Persans of Petit de la Croix, a translation of which Ambrose Philips had published in 1709.

 

‘Favours secret,’ etc. Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 48.

 

‘The soldiers,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

Horner, etc. Horner, in Wycherley’s The Country Wife; Millamant, in Congreve’s The Way of the World; Tattle and Miss Prue, in Congreve’s Love for Love; Archer and Cherry, in Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem; Mrs. Amlet, in Vanbrugh’s The Confederacy (see Act III. Sc. 1); Valentine and Angelica, in Love for Love; Miss Peggy, in Garrick’s The Country Girl, adapted from The Country Wife; Anne Page, in The Merry Wives of Windsor (See Act III. Sc. 1).

15.

‘The age of comedy,’ etc. An adaptation of Burke’s famous ‘But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.’ (Reflections on the Revolution in France, Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89.)

 

‘Accept a miracle,’ etc. By the poet Young. See Spence’s Anecdotes, p. 378.

16.

‘The sun had long since,’ etc. Hudibras, Part II., Canto II. 29-38.

 

‘By this the northern waggoner,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I., Canto II. St. 1.

 

‘At last,’ etc. Ibid. Book I., Canto V. St. 2.

17.

‘But now a sport,’ etc. Hudibras, Part I., Canto I. 675-688.

 

Mr. Sheridan’s description, etc. In his speech on the Definitive Treaty of Peace, May 14, 1802.

 

‘The sarcastic reply of Porson.’ According to Rogers (Dyce, Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers, p. 330), the ‘not till then’ was the comment of Byron on a remark of Porson’s (Porsoniana) that ‘Madoc will be read, when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.’

18.

‘Compound for sins,’ etc. Hudibras, Part I., Canto I., 215-216.

 

‘There’s but the twinkling,’ etc. Ibid. Part II., Canto III., 957-964.

 

‘Now night descending,’ etc. The Dunciad, I. 89-90.

19.

Harris. James Harris (1709-1780), author of Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar (1751).

20.

‘A foregone conclusion.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘Comes in such,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 4.

 

‘Soul-killing lies,’ etc. Lamb, John Woodvil, Act II.

21.

‘The instance might be painful,’ etc. Letters of Junius, Letter XLIX.

 

‘And ever,’ etc. L’Allegro, 135-6.

 

The reply of the author, etc. This was Richard Owen Cambridge (1717-1802), contributor to Edward Moore’s The World (1753-1756).

 

‘Full of sound and fury,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.

 

‘For thin partitions,’ etc. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. 164.

 

Mr. Curran. Curran had died on October 14, 1817.

22.

Hæret lateri, etc. Æneid, IV. 73.

 

The Duke of Buckingham’s saying. ‘And give me leave to tell your lordships, by the way, that statutes are not like women, for they are not one jot the worse for being old.’ Speech on the Dissolution of Parliament, 1676. The speech was included by Hazlitt in his Eloquence of the British Senate. See vol. III. p. 399.

 

Mr. Addison, indeed, etc. The Spectator, No. 61.

 

Mandrake. In Farquhar’s The Twin Rivals, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

Sir Hugh Evans. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 1.

23.

‘From the sublime,’ etc. ‘Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas.’ Attributed to Napoleon. Thomas Paine had, however, said the same thing in his Age of Reason, Part II.

24.

Mr. Canning’s Court Parodies, etc. In the Anti-Jacobin (1797-1798). Southey was the victim of two of the best known of these parodies, the Inscription for the door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her execution, and The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder.

 

The Rejected Addresses. By James and Horace Smith, published in 1812. The parody of Crabbe was by James Smith.

 

Lear and the Fool. The references in this paragraph are to King Lear, Act I. Sc. 4.

 

‘’Tis with our judgments,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Criticism, 9-10.

25.

‘He is the cause,’ etc. Cf. ‘I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.’ Henry IV., Part II., Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘That perilous stuff,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Imitate humanity,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

26.

Barrow’s celebrated description. See Isaac Barrow’s (1630-77) sermon ‘Against Foolish Talking and Jesting.’

27.

‘Who did essay,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II., Canto VI., St. 7.

28.

Barnaby Brittle. See post, note to p. 481.

29.

The strictures of Rousseau. Lettre à M. D’Alembert. Petits Chefs-d’œuvre (ed. Firmin-Didot), pp. 405 et seq.

 

An exquisite ... defence. See La Critique de l’École des Femmes, Sc. 6.

 

‘An equal want,’ etc. ‘But equally a want of books and men.’ Wordsworth, Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty, XV., Sonnet beginning ‘Great men have been among us; hands that penned,’ etc.

LECTURE II. ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON

30.

Dr. Johnson thought, etc. See his Preface to Shakespeare (Works, Oxford, 1825, vol. V. p. 113).

 

‘Smit with the love of sacred song.’ Paradise Lost, III. 29.

31.

There is but one, etc. Hazlitt is recalling Dryden’s line, ‘within that circle none must walk but he.’ (Prologue to The Tempest.)

 

‘Not to speak it profanely.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Like an unsubstantial pageant faded.’ The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1.

32.

‘He is the leviathan,’ etc. Hazlitt adapts a passage of Burke’s: ‘The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the Crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty.’ A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 129).

 

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

 

The description of Queen Mab. In Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 4.

 

‘The shade of melancholy boughs.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

‘Give a very echo,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4.

 

‘Oh! it came,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 1.

33.

‘Covers a multitude of sins.’ I. Peter, iv. 8.

 

The ligament, etc. Cf. ‘And that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.’ Tristram Shandy, VI. 10.

 

The Society for the Suppression of Vice. Cf. The Round Table, vol. I. p, 60 and note.

 

‘He has been merry,’ etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Heard the chimes at midnight.’ Ibid., Act III. Sc. 2.

34.

‘Come on, come on, etc. Ibid.

35.

‘One touch of nature,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘It is apprehensive, etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act IV. Sc. 3.

36.

‘Go to church,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

Tattle and Sparkish. In Congreve’s Love for Love and Wycherley’s The Country Wife respectively.

 

‘All beyond Hyde Park,’ etc. Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode, Act V. Sc. 2.

 

‘Lay waste a country gentleman.’ Hazlitt uses this expression elsewhere. See his character of Cobbett in The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV. p. 334), where he says that Cobbett ‘lays waste a city orator or Member of Parliament.’

 

Lord Foppington. In Vanbrugh’s The Relapse.

 

‘The Prince of coxcombs,’ etc.

 

‘Fashion. Now, by all that’s great and powerful, thou art the prince of coxcombs.

 

Lord Foppington. Sir—I am proud of being at the head of so prevailing a party.’

The Relapse, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘Manners damnable,’ etc. See the dialogue between Touchstone and Corin in As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2.

37.

‘Airy nothing.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

‘Love’s golden shaft,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘There the mind,’ etc. ‘Therein the patient must minister to himself.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Of solitude,’ etc. Cf. ‘Of solitude and melancholy born.’ Beattie, The Minstrel, Canto I. St. 56.

38.

‘In the crust of formality.’ Hazlitt elsewhere attributes this phrase to Milton.

 

To wanton in the idle summer air. Cf. ‘That idles in the wanton summer air.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 6.

39.

‘Does mad and fantastic execution,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 5.

 

Schlegel observes, etc. In his Lectures on Dramatic Literature (No. XXVII.) the English version of which was reviewed by Hazlitt in The Edinburgh Review for Feb. 1816.

 

‘Lively, audible,’ etc. ‘Waking, audible, and full of vent.’ Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. 5.

40.

Captain Otter. In The Silent Woman (1609).

 

‘Bless’d conditions.’ Othello, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘If to be wise,’ etc. Cf. ‘Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.’ Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. 3.

41.

‘The gayest,’ etc. Akenside, Pleasures of the Imagination, I. 30.

 

Aliquando sufflaminandus erat. See Ben Jonson’s Timber: or, Discoveries, LXIV., and note to The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. p. 336.

 

Howel’s Letters. See the Familiar Letters of James Howell, 10th ed., 1737, pp. 323-4.

42.

Jamque opus, etc. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV. 871.

 

Exegi monumentum, etc. Horace, Odes, III. 30, 1.

 

O fortunatam, etc. Cicero, De Suis Temporibus, quoted by Juvenal, Satire X. 122.

 

A detailed account. In Characters of Shakespear’s Plays (1817).

 

l. 23. In the third edition the following sentence is interpolated: ‘It has been observed of this author, that he painted not so much human nature as temporary manners; not the characters of men, but their humours; that is to say, peculiarities of phrase, modes of dress, gesture, etc., which becoming obsolete, and being in themselves altogether arbitrary and fantastical, have become unintelligible and uninteresting.’ Hazlitt probably refers to Schlegel. See Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (trans. John Black, ed. 1900, p. 464).

 

The meeting between Morose and Epicene. Act II. Sc. 3.

43.

O’er step, etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

The scene between Sir Amorous La Foole and Sir John Daw, etc. See The Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. 2, and Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

Decorum ... which Milton says, etc. On Education (Works, 1738, 1. p. 140).

 

Truewit. In The Silent Woman.

 

Thus Peregrine, in Volpone, etc. Act II. Sc. 1. Volpone was first acted in 1605.

 

This play was Dryden’s favourite. Hazlitt refers to The Silent Woman, of which Dryden gives an ‘Examen’ in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (Select Essays, ed. Ker, I. 83 et seq.).

 

Truewit says. The Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. 2.

 

‘Even though we should hold,’ etc. Cf. ‘All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

The directions for making love. The Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. 1.

44.

‘Hood an ass,’ etc. Volpone, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

Every Man in his Humour. First acted in 1598, this play held the stage until Hazlitt’s time. Cf. his notice of Kean’s Kitely in A View of the English Stage, post, p. 310. Dickens played the part of Bobadil in 1845.

 

‘As dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

His well-known proposal, etc. Every Man in his Humour, Act IV. Sc. 5.

45.

The scene in which Brainworm, etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 2.

 

Bartholomew Fair. Produced in 1614.

 

The Alchymist. Produced in 1610.

 

One glorious scene. Act II. Sc. 1.

48.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Cf. vol. V., p. 261 and note.

 

The Inconstant. Farquhar’s comedy (1703).

49.

Mrs. Jordan. Mrs. Jordan had died on May 24, 1817.

PAGE

 

 

‘The metaphysical poets,’ etc. Johnson, Life of Cowley in The Lives of the Poets.

 

The father of criticism. Aristotle. See the Poetics.

50.

‘Hitch into a rhyme.’ Pope, Imitations of Horace, Satires, Book II., Satire i. 78.

51.

‘And though reclaim’d,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, IV. 723-5.

 

Donne. John Donne (1573-1631).

 

‘Heaved pantingly forth.’ King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

‘Buried quick again.’ Hamlet’s words ‘Be buried quick with her, and so will I’ (Act V. Sc. 1), were perhaps in Hazlitt’s mind.

 

‘Little think’st thou,’ etc. Poems (‘Muses’ Library,’ I. 63).

52.

A lame and impotent conclusion. Othello, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘Whoever comes,’ etc. Poems, i. 61.

 

‘I long to talk,’ etc. Ibid. I. 56.

53.

‘Here lies,’ etc. Ibid. I. 86.

 

To the pure, etc. Titus I. 15.

 

Bishop Hall’s Satires. The Satires of Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Exeter (1627) and of Norwich (1641), were published in 1597 and 1598 under the title of Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. For Pope’s admiration of him see Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, III. 423.

 

Sir John Davies (1569-1626). His Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dancing, appeared in 1596, his Nosce Teipsum, a poem on the immortality of the soul, in 1599.

 

Crashaw. Richard Crashaw (1612?-1649). The ‘celebrated Latin Epigram’ appeared in a volume of Latin poems and epigrams published in 1634. The line referred to by Hazlitt, ‘Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit,’ is the last of a four-line epigram. See Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. Croker, 1847, p. 598).

 

‘Seething brains.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

The contest between the Musician and the Nightingale. Musick’s Duel, a version from the Latin of the Roman Jesuit Strada, paraphrased also by Ford in The Lover’s Melancholy, Act. I. Sc. 1.

 

Davenant’s Gondibert. The Gondibert of Sir William D’Avenant (1606-1668), published in 1651.

54.

‘Yet on that wall,’ etc. Gondibert, Book II. Canto V. St. 33.

 

Marvel. Cf. Lectures on the English Poets, vol. V. p. 83.

 

‘And sat not as a meat,’ etc. The Character of Holland, 1. 30.

 

One whose praise, etc. Probably Lamb.

 

Shadwell. Thomas Shadwell (1642?-1692). The Libertine appeared in 1676.

 

Carew. Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?). The reference to him in Sir John Suckling’s Session of the Poets (1637) is as follows:—

‘Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault

That would not stand well with a laureat;

His Muse was hard bound, and th’ issue of’s brain

Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain.’

 

His masque. Performed in Feb. 1633-4.

55.

Milton’s name, etc. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says: ‘Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson, the carrier.’

 

‘Aggregation of ideas.’ ‘Sublimity,’ says Johnson (Life of Cowley), ‘is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion.’

 

‘Inimitable on earth,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 508-9.

 

Suckling. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642). Johnson refers to him in his Life of Cowley as one of the ‘immediate successors’ of the metaphysical poets, but adds: ‘Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.’

57.

Cowley. Cf. vol. V. p. 372.

 

‘The Phœnix Pindar,’ etc. The Praise of Pindar, l. 2.

 

‘Sailing with supreme dominion,’ etc. Gray, The Progress of Poesy, III. 3.

58.

He compares Bacon to Moses. ‘Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last.’ To the Royal Society.

60.

Cowley’s Essays. Published in 1668.

61.

Cutter of Coleman Street. The Guardian acted at Cambridge in 1641 and printed in 1650, afterwards re-written and produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields as ‘Cutter of Coleman Street’ in 1661.

62.

‘Call you this backing your friends?’ Henry IV., Part I., Act II. Sc. 4.

 

Butler’s Hudibras. The three Parts of Hudibras appeared in 1662, 1663, and 1678 respectively.

 

Dr. Campbell. Dr. George Campbell (1719-1796) published his Philosophy of Rhetoric in 1776.

 

‘Narrow his mind,’ etc. Goldsmith’s Retaliation, 31-2.

 

Dr. Zachary Grey. Zachary Grey’s (1688-1766) edition of Hudibras appeared in 1744.

63.

Note. (1) Part II., Canto II. 297-8; and II., I. 617-20; (2) II., I. 273-4; (3) I., II. 255-6; (4) I., II. 109-10; (5) I., II. 225-6; I., I. 241-252; and I., I. 375-8.

64.

Note. (1) Part II. Canto II. 831-2, and II. III. 107-8; (2) II. II. 421-2; (3) I. I. 59-60; (4) II. III. 809-10; (5) I. II. 1099-1102.

65.

‘Pilloried,’ etc. Cowper, Hope, 556.

 

‘As one grain of wheat,’ etc. Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

The account of Sidrophel and Whackum. Hudibras, Part II. Canto III.

 

Note. ‘Thus stopp’d,’ etc. Hudibras, Part I. Canto III. 951-2. ‘And setting his right foot,’ etc. I. III. 82-4. ‘At this the knight,’ etc. II. II. 541-4. ‘The knight himself,’ etc. I. II. 1123-6. ‘And raised,’ etc. I. II. 95-6. ‘And Hudibras,’ etc. II. II. 661-2. ‘Both thought,’ etc. II. II. 577-90.

67.

The burlesque description, etc. Hudibras, Part I. Canto II. 1129, et seq.

 

‘As when an owl,’ etc. Ibid. I. III. 403-6.

 

‘The queen of night, etc. Ibid. III. I. 1321-6.

 

Butler’s Remains. The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler, not published till 1759.

 

‘Reduce all tragedy,’ etc. Butler, Upon Critics, 17-42.

68.

Etherege. Sir George Etherege (1635?-1691) wrote three comedies, The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub (1664), She Would if she Could (1667), and The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676). The last was a great favourite of Hazlitt’s, and is constantly referred to by him.

 

‘Tames his wild heart,’ etc. Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘Like the morn,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 310-11.

 

The Wild Gallant. First performed February 1662-3. See Act II. Sc. 1.

69.

Sir Martin Mar-all. Produced in 1667, and founded on a translation by the Duke of Newcastle of Molière’s L’Étourdi. The Busy Body, by Mrs. Centlivre, appeared in 1709.

 

Otway’s comedies. The Cheats of Scapin (adapted from Molière) (1677), Friendship in Fashion (1678), The Soldier’s Fortune (1681), and The Atheist (1684).

 

Rehearsal. The Duke of Buckingham’s (1628-1687) The Rehearsal, first published in 1672.

 

Knight of the Burning Pestle. Written about 1611 and published in 1613.

 

Sir Robert Howard. The Committee, by Sir Robert Howard (1626-1698), was produced in 1662. Thomas Knight’s The Honest Thieves, an adaptation, was acted at Covent Garden in 1797.

 

‘Mitigated into courtiers [companions],’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 90).

 

The great bed of Ware. Referred to by Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 2), and now at Rye House.

LECTURE IV. ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR

70.

‘Graceful ornament,’ etc. ‘Nobility is a graceful ornament,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 164).

 

Waller’s Sacharissa. Lady Dorothy Sidney, eldest daughter of the second Earl of Leicester.

 

Wycherley, etc. William Wycherley (1640?-1715), William Congreve (1670-1730), Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), and George Farquhar (1678-1707). Leigh Hunt in 1840 published an edition of the dramatic works of all these writers, with biographical and critical notices. With this lecture compare Lamb’s famous essay ‘On the Artificial Comedy of the last Century,’ contributed to The London Magazine, April 1822.

71.

‘Whose jewels,’ etc. Collins’s Ode, The Manners, 55-6.

 

In the dedication of one of his plays. Probably The Way of the World, though the dedication hardly bears out Hazlitt’s account of it.

 

Love for Love. 1695.

 

The Way of the World. 1700.

 

Munden’s Foresight. See A View of the English Stage, ante, p. 278.

72.

‘I never valued,’ etc. Love for Love, Act V. Sc. 12.

 

‘To divest him,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 7.

 

The short scene with Trapland. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘More misfortunes,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 9.

 

‘Sisters every way.’ Ibid. Act II. Sc. 9.

 

‘Nay, if you come to that,’ etc. Ibid.

 

The Old Bachelor, brought out in January, 1692-3; The Double Dealer, in November 1693.

 

‘Dying Ned Careless.’ The Double Dealer, Act IV. Sc. 9.

 

‘Love’s thrice reputed [repured] nectar.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 2.

73.

‘Ah! idle creature.’ The Way of the World, Act IV. Sc. 5.

 

‘Like Phœbus,’ etc. Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 4.

 

‘Come then,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle II., 17-20.

 

‘If there’s delight,’ etc. The Way of the World, Act III. Sc. 12.

 

‘Beauty the lover’s gift,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 5.

74.

‘Nature’s own sweet,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘Wild wit,’ etc. Gray, Ode On a distant Prospect of Eton College, 46.

 

‘Blazons herself.’

‘Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon’st

In these two princely boys!’

Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 2.

 

Mrs. Abington’s Millamant. Frances Abington (1737-1815) practically retired from the stage in 1790, though she re-appeared for a season as late as 1799.

 

Declaim. Disclaim.

 

‘He’s but his half-brother.’ The Way of the World, Act I. Sc. 6.

75.

The description of the ruins, etc. The Mourning Bride, Act II. Sc. 3. For Johnson’s praise of this passage see Boswell’s Life (ed. G. B. Hill, II. 85).

 

‘Be every day,’ etc. The Mourning Bride, Act I. Sc. 3.

76.

Bolingbroke’s entry into London. Richard II., Act V. Sc. 2.

 

Country Wife. Produced in 1672 or 1673, published in 1675, this play was partly founded on Molière’s L’École des Femmes and L’École des Maris.

 

Agnes. In Molière’s L’École des Femmes.

77.

Moody. In Garrick’s adaptation The Country Girl (1766).

 

‘With him a wit,’ etc. ‘A wit to me is the greatest title in the world.’ The Country Wife, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

The Plain Dealer. Produced in 1674, published in 1677. The passage in which Wycherley refers to The Country Wife is in Act II. Sc. 1.

78.

‘A discipline of humanity.’ Bacon’s Essays, ‘Of Marriage and Single Life.’

 

‘Go! You’re a censorious ill woman.’ ‘Let us begone from this censorious ill woman.’ The Plain Dealer, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

The Gentleman Dancing Master. Produced about 1671, published in 1673.

 

Love in a Wood. Produced in 1671. It was Wycherley’s first play.

79.

‘Had I the tediousness,’ etc. Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 5.

 

The treatment he received from Pope. See Elwin and Courthope’s edition of Pope’s Works, vol. V. 73-5. Wycherley’s letters to Pope are printed in Appendix I. to that volume.

 

The Provoked Wife. Produced by Betterton and published in 1697.

 

The Relapse. Produced and published in 1697.

80.

The Confederacy. Produced and published in 1705.

 

This last scene. The Confederacy, Act III. Sc. 2.

81.

‘It does somewhat smack.’ Cf. ‘My father did something smack.’ The Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

Old Palmer. See ante, p. 388.

82.

‘The best company in the world.’ The Man of Mode, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

‘Now, for my part,’ etc. The Relapse, Act V. Sc. 5.

 

‘Let loose the greyhound,’ etc. See Ibid. Act III. Sc. 3.

83.

‘It’s well they’ve got me a husband,’ etc. Ibid.

 

‘A devilish girl at the bottom.’ The Confederacy, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘Proud to be at the head,’ etc. See ante, note to p. 36.

 

Garrick’s favourite part. A portrait of Garrick as Sir John Brute, by Zoffany, is in the Garrick Club.

 

The drunken scene. See Act IV. Scenes 1 and 3 of The Provoked Wife. When the play was revived in 1725 Vanbrugh himself changed Sir John Brute’s disguise, and made him appear before the justice in his wife’s ‘short cloak and sack.’

84.

‘Hair-breadth ‘scapes.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘Any relish of salvation.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 3.

85.

‘O’erstep the modesty of nature.’ Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘God Almighty’s gentlemen.’ Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Part I. 645.

 

He somewhere prides himself, etc. In the dedication of The Inconstant.

 

The Trip to the Jubilee. The Constant Couple; or, a Trip to the Jubilee, produced in 1700.

85.

Mr. Burke’s courtly and chivalrous observation. ‘That chastity of honour ... under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.’ Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89).

86.

‘Now, dear madam,’ etc. Sir Harry Wildair, Act IV. Sc. 2.

88.

The dialogue between Cherry and Archer. See The Beaux’ Stratagem (produced 1707), Act II. Sc. 3.

89.

The Recruiting Officer. 1706.

 

Catastrophe of this play. See Farquhar’s Dedication.

 

Love and a Bottle, 1699; The Twin Rivals, 1702.

 

Farquhar’s Letters. Originally published in 1702 under the title of ‘Love and Business.’

 

Dennis’s Remarks, etc. Dennis’s Remarks upon Cato appeared in 1713.

 

His View of the English Stage. Jeremy Collier’s Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1697-8).

90.

‘Shews vice,’ etc. Cf. ‘To show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Denote a foregone conclusion.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

Colley Cibber’s Life, etc. Cf. the second essay ‘On Actors and Acting’ in The Round Table, vol. I. p. 156.

91.

‘Let no rude hand,’ etc. Wordsworth, Ellen Irwin, St. 7.

 

‘Die and leave the world no copy.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 5.

LECTURE V. ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS

 

‘The proper study,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, II. 2.

 

‘Comes home to the business,’ etc. Bacon, dedication of the Essays.

 

‘Quicquid agunt homines,’ etc. These words of Juvenal (Sat. I. 85-6) formed the motto of the first 40 numbers of The Tatler.

 

‘Holds the mirror,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘The act [art] and practic part,’ etc. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 1.

92.

‘‘The web of our life,’ etc. All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

‘Quid sit pulchrum,’ etc. Horace, Epistles, I. 2, ll. 3-4.

 

Montaigne. The Essais of Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592), were published, Books I. and II. in 1580, Book III. in 1588.

93.

‘Pour out all as plain,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Sat. I. 51-2.

 

Note.

‘What made (say Montaigne, or more sage Charron!)

Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon.’

Pope, Moral Essays, I. 87-8.

 

De la Sagesse, the chief work of Montaigne’s friend Pierre Charron (1541-1603), appeared in 1601.

94.

‘Pereant isti,’ etc. Ælius Donatus, St. Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Cap. I.

 

Charles Cotton. Cotton’s translation of Montaigne was published in three volumes in 1685, and has frequently been reprinted, the latest edition being that of Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (republished 1902). The earlier version by John Florio (1603) has been included in the Tudor Translations (1893) and in the Temple Classics (1897).

 

‘The book in the world,’ etc. Cotton’s translation was dedicated to George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, who, in his reply, addressed to Cotton, spoke of the Essays as ‘the book in the world I am best entertained with.’

 

Cowley, etc. Abraham Cowley’s Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse were appended to the collected edition of his works in 1668; Sir

 

William Temple’s (1628-1699) essays entitled Miscellanea were published in 1680 and 1692; Lord Shaftesbury’s (1671-1713) Moralists in 1709, and Characteristics in 1711.

94.

Note. Nam quodcumque, etc. Lucretius, III. 752-3.

95.

‘The perfect spy o’ th’ time.’ Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

The Tatler. The first number of the Tatler appeared on April 12, 1709, the last on January 2, 1711. The papers were re-issued in two forms, one in 8vo., one in 12mo., in 1710-11. Nearly the whole of this paragraph and the next is taken from an essay in The Examiner (March 5, 1815), reprinted in The Round Table. See vol. I. pp. 7-10, and the notes thereon.

96.

Note. No. 86, not No. 125, of The Tatler.

 

Mr. Lilly’s shop-windows. Charles Lillie, the perfumer’s at the corner of Beaufort Buildings in the Strand.

 

Will Estcourt or Tom D’urfey. Richard Estcourt (1668-1712), actor and dramatist, and Tom D’Urfey (1653-1723), the dramatist and song-writer, are constantly referred to in The Tatler.

97.

The Spectator. The Spectator ran from March I, 1711, to December 6, 1712, and from June 18, 1714, to December 20, 1714. The collected edition appeared in 8 vols., 1712-15.

 

‘The whiteness of her hand.’ ‘She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world.’ The Spectator, No. 113.

98.

‘He has a widow in his line of life.’ The Spectator, No. 130.

 

His falling asleep in church, etc. The Spectator, No. 112. John Williams should be ‘one John Matthews.’

99.

The Guardian. March 12, 1713, to October 1713. Of the 176 numbers Steele contributed 82, and Addison 53, papers.

100.

The Rambler. March 20, 1749-50, to March 14, 1752.

 

‘Give us pause.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

101.

‘The elephant,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 345-7.

102.

‘If he were to write,’ etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 231. Abused Milton and patronised Lauder. See Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), I 228-31.

103.

‘The king of good fellows,’ etc. Burns, Auld Rob Morris, l. 2.

 

‘Inventory of all he said.’ Cf. ‘And ta’en an inventory of what they are.’ Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Does he wind, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 260.

 

‘If that fellow Burke,’ etc. Ibid. II. 450.

 

‘What, is it you,’ etc. Ibid. I. 250.

 

‘Now I think I am,’ etc. Ibid. II. 362.

 

His quitting the society, etc. Ibid. I. 201.

 

His dining with Wilkes. Ibid. III. 64 et seq.

 

His sitting with the young ladies. Ibid. II. 120.

 

His carrying the unfortunate victim, etc. Ibid. IV. 321.

104.

An act which realises the parable of the good Samaritan. Sergeant Talfourd, in his account of these Lectures, speaks of the insensibility of the bulk of the audience, and adds: ‘He [Hazlitt] once had a more edifying advantage over them. He was enumerating the humanities which endeared Dr. Johnson to his mind, and at the close of an agreeable catalogue mentioned as last and noblest “his carrying the poor victim of disease and dissipation on his back through Fleet Street,” at which a titter arose from some who were struck by the picture as ludicrous, and a murmur from others who deemed the allusion unfit for ears polite: he paused for an instant, and then added, in his sturdiest and most impressive manner—“an act which realizes the parable of the Good Samaritan”—at which his moral, and his delicate hearers shrank, rebuked, into deep silence.’ Lamb’s Letters (ed. W. C. Hazlitt), I. 39-40.

104.

‘Where they,’ etc. Gray’s Elegy, The Epitaph.

 

The Adventurer. Nov. 7, 1752, to March 9, 1754. John Hawkesworth (1715-1773) was the chief contributor.

 

The World. Jan. 4, 1753, to Dec. 30, 1756.

 

The Connoisseur. Jan. 31, 1754, to Sept. 30, 1756.

 

One good idea, etc. Hazlitt refers to a paper by Edward Moore which appeared in The World (No. 176), not, as he says, in The Connoisseur.

 

Citizen of the World. Republished (from the Public Ledger and elsewhere) in 2 vols., 1762.

 

‘Go about to cozen,’ etc. Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 9.

 

The Persian Letters. Lord Lyttelton’s Letters from a Persian in England to his friend at Ispahan, 1735.

 

‘The bonzes,’ etc. The Citizen of the World, Letter X.

105.

‘Edinburgh. We are positive,’ etc. Ibid. Letter V.

 

Beau Tibbs. Ibid. Letters XXIX., LIV., LV., and LXXI.

 

The Lounger and The Mirror. The Mirror appeared in Edinburgh from Jan. 23, 1779, to May 27, 1780; The Lounger from Feb. 5, 1785, to Jan. 6, 1786. Henry Mackenzie was the chief contributor to both.

 

La Roche. The Mirror, Nos. 42, 43, and 44.

 

Le Fevre. Tristram Shandy, VI. chaps. 6 et seq.

 

The Man of the World. By Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), published in 1773.

 

Julia de Roubigné. Published in 1777.

 

Rosamund Gray. See Lamb’s Poems, Plays, and Essays, ed. Ainger, Notes to Rosamund Gray, p. 391.

 

The Man of Feeling. Published in 1771.

LECTURE VI. ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS

The whole of this Lecture down to the end of the paragraph on p. 125 is taken with but few variations from an article in The Edinburgh Review for Feb. 1815, on ‘Standard Novels and Romances,’ ostensibly a review of Madame D’Arblay’s The Wanderer.

PAGE

 

106.

‘Be mine to read,’ etc. Gray, in a letter to Richard West, April 1742 (Letters, ed. Tovey, I. 97).

 

‘Something more divine in it.’ Hazlitt is perhaps recalling a passage in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (II. iv. 2): ‘So as poesy serveth and conferreth to delectation, magnanimity, and morality, ... it may seem deservedly to have some participation of divineness,’ etc.

107.

Fielding in speaking, etc. Joseph Andrews, Book III. chap. 1.

 

The description ... given by Mr. Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 92-3).

 

Echard ‘On the Contempt of the Clergy.’ John Eachard’s (1636?-1697) The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion enquired into, published in 1670 and frequently reprinted.

 

‘Worthy of all acceptation.’ 1 Timothy, 1. 15.

 

The Lecture which Lady Booby reads, etc. Joseph Andrews, Book IV. chap. 3.

 

Blackstone or De Lolme. Sir William Blackstone’s (1723-1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England appeared in 1765-9, John Louis De Lolme’s (1740?-1807) The Constitution of England, in French 1771, in English 1775.

108.

What I have said upon it, etc. In The Edinburgh Review. See ante, note to p. 106.

 

Don Quixote. Part I., 1605; Part II., 1615.

 

‘The long-forgotten order of chivalry.’ ‘The long-neglected and almost extinguished order of knight-errantry,’ Don Quixote (trans. Jarvis), Part I., Book IV. chap. 28.

 

‘Witch the world,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I., Act IV. Sc. 1.

109.

‘Oh, what delicate wooden spoons,’ etc. Don Quixote, Part II., Book IV. chap. 67.

 

The curate confidentially informing Don Quixote, etc. Ibid.

 

Our adventurer afterwards, etc. Ibid.

110.

‘Still prompts,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, IV. 3-4.

 

‘Singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles.’ Don Quixote, Part II., Book I. chap. 9.

 

Marcella. Ibid. Part I., Book I. chaps. 12 and 13.

 

His Galatea, etc. Galatea, 1585; Persiles and Sigismunda, 1616.

111.

Gusman D’Alfarache. By Mateo Aleman, published in 1599.

 

Lazarillo de Tormes. Attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575), published in 1553.

 

Gil Blas. The Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane of Alain-René le Sage (1668-1747) appeared in 4 vols., 1715-1735.

112.

Smollett is more like Gil Blas. In the Preface to Roderick Random he admitted his obligation to Le Sage.

113.

Tom Jones. Published in 1749.

114.

‘I was never so handsome,’ etc. Tom Jones, Book XVII. chap. 4.

 

The story of Tom Jones, etc. Cf. the well-known dictum of Coleridge (Table Talk, July 5, 1834), ‘Upon my word, I think the Œdipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones, the three most perfect plots ever planned.’

 

Amelia and Joseph Andrews. Published in 1751 and 1742 respectively.

 

Amelia, and the hashed mutton. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘A Farewell to Essay-writing,’ from which it appears that the article in the Edinburgh Review from which this lecture is taken was the result of a ‘sharply-seasoned and well-sustained’ discussion with Lamb, kept up till midnight.

115.

Roderick Random. Published in 1748, when Smollett was 27; Tom Jones was published in 1749, when Fielding was 42.

116.

Intus et in cute. Persius, Satires, III. 30.

117.

Peregrine Pickle ... and Launcelot Graves. 1751 and 1762 respectively.

 

Humphrey Clinker and Count Fathom. 1771 and 1753 respectively.

 

Richardson. The three novels of Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) appeared as follows: Pamela in 1740; Clarissa Harlowe in 1747-8; Sir Charles Grandison in 1753.

119.

Dr. Johnson ... when he said, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 174.

120.

‘Books are a real world,’ etc. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, St. 3.

 

Sterne. Laurence Sterne’s (1713-1768) Tristram Shandy appeared in 9 vols. 1759-1767, and A Sentimental Journey (2 vols.) in 1768.

121.

Goldsmith ... should call him, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 222.

123.

‘Have kept the even tenor of their way.’ Gray’s Elegy, 76.

 

Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla. By Frances Burney, Madame D’Arblay (1752-1840), published respectively in 1778, 1782, and 1796.

 

Mrs. Radcliffe. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1822), author of The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), etc.

 

‘Enchantments drear.’ Il Penseroso, 119.

 

Mrs. Inchbald. Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), novelist, dramatist, and actress. Her Nature and Art appeared in 1796, A Simple Story in 1791.

 

Miss Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849). Castle Rackrent appeared in 1800.

 

Meadows. In The Wanderer.

 

Note. The Fool of Quality, by Henry Brooke (1766); David Simple, by Sarah Fielding (1744); and Sidney Biddulph, by Mrs. Sheridan (1761).

124.

It has been said of Shakspeare, etc. By Pope. See Hazlitt’s Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 171 and note.

 

‘There is nothing so true as habit.’ Windham, Speech on the Conduct of the Duke of York, Speeches, III. 205, March 14, 1809.

125.

‘Stand so [not] upon the order,’ etc. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

The green silken threads, etc. Don Quixote, Part II. IV. Chap. 58.

 

The Wanderer. 1814.

 

‘The gossamer,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 6.

127.

The Castle of Otranto. By Horace Walpole (1764).

 

Quod sic mihi, etc. Horace, Ars Poetica, 188.

 

The Recess, by Sophia Lee (1785); The Old English Baron, by Clara Reeve, originally published in 1777 under the title of ‘The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story.’

 

‘Dismal treatises.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.

 

The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1795 as ‘Ambrosio, or the Monk.’

 

‘All the luxury of woe.’ Moore, Juvenile Poems, stanzas headed ‘Anacreontic,’ beginning ‘Press the grape, and let it pour,’ etc.

128.

‘His chamber,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto ix. St. 50.

129.

‘Familiar in our mouths,’ etc. Henry V., Act IV. Sc. 3.

130.

The author of Caleb Williams. William Godwin (1756-1836). Caleb Williams appeared in 1794, St. Leon in 1799, Mandeville in 1817.

 

‘Action is momentary,’ etc. These lines are slightly misquoted from Wordsworth’s tragedy, The Borderer. See note to vol. IV., p. 276.

132.

Political Justice. An Inquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness, 1793.

 

‘Where his treasure,’ etc. St. Matthew, vi. 21.

LECTURE VII. ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH—ON THE GRAND AND FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAINTING