The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 10 (of 12)

Hazlitt was a regular, though not a frequent contributor to The Edinburgh Review from 1814 until 1830, the year of his death. How he came to be introduced so early to Jeffrey’s notice is not known. Possibly the introduction came through Longman & Co., who had published Hazlitt’s Reply to Malthus (1807), and who had been the London publishers of the Review since its foundation in 1802. Hazlitt at any rate was proud of the connection, and had a high regard for Jeffrey, whom he called ‘the prince of critics and the king of men.’ See vol. II., Liber Amoris, p. 314 and note, and cf. also vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, pp. 310–318. In The Atlas for June 21, 1829, there is a short article, ‘Mr. Jeffrey’s Resignation of the Editorship of The Edinburgh Review,’ which is not unlike Hazlitt, but cannot be confidently attributed to him.

In the text of the present volume are printed all Hazlitt’s contributions to The Edinburgh Review as to the authorship of which there is no reasonable doubt. In the following notes two articles are included, Hazlitt’s authorship of which, though probable, cannot be regarded as certain. In addition to these, the following have been attributed to him: (1) Wat Tyler and Mr. Southey (1817, vol. XXVIII. p. 151); (2) The History of Painting in Italy (1819, vol. XXXII. p. 320); (3) Byron’s Sardanapalus (1822, vol. XXXVI. p. 413); and (4) an article or articles on the Scotch Novels. See Ireland’s List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, p. 75, a letter from Mr. Ireland in Notes and Queries, 5th Series, XI. 165, and Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s ‘Chronological Catalogue’ of Hazlitt’s writings published in the Memoirs of William Hazlitt, vol. I. pp. xxiv-xxx. It is almost certain that Hazlitt wrote none of these reviews, and they have therefore been excluded from the present edition. The first (Wat Tyler and Mr. Southey) is included in Lord Cockburn’s list of Jeffrey’s contributions to the Edinburgh (Life of Francis Jeffrey, 1874 ed. p. 407). This list, it must be admitted, is not thoroughly trustworthy, but the internal evidence against Hazlitt’s authorship is very strong. It is incredible that Hazlitt could have written a long article like this on such a subject (cf. Political Essays, vol. III. pp. 192 et seq.) without betraying his identity by a single phrase. The second of these articles, a review of Stendhal’s History of Painting in Italy, Mr. Ireland attributes to Hazlitt on merely internal evidence. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt does not include it in his Catalogue. That Hazlitt was acquainted with Stendhal and was fond of writing on Art are reasons why he might have wished to review the book, but they tell strongly against his having written this particular article, which is very dull indeed, and shows not a single trace of Hazlitt’s manner from beginning to end. The review of Byron’s Sardanapalus has been attributed to Hazlitt on the strength, no doubt, of a letter which he himself wrote to P. G. Patmore on March 30, 1822. In this letter he says, ‘My Sardanapalus is to be in [i.e. in the Edinburgh]. In my judgment Myrrha is most like S. W. [Sarah Walker], only I am not like Sardanapalus.’ See Mr. Le Gallienne’s edition of Liber Amoris (1894) p. 212. Whatever the explanation may be, the review of Sardanapalus which did appear in the Edinburgh was written by Jeffrey himself and is included in his Contributions to the Edinburgh Review (1844), vol. II. p. 333. There is no evidence that Hazlitt wrote any of the numerous reviews of the Scotch Novels. According to Patmore (My Friends and Acquaintance, III. 155–157), Hazlitt was anxious to review Bulwer in The Edinburgh Review, and proposed the matter, first to Jeffrey, and, on his retirement, to Napier, personally in London. The subject, however, was, in Patmore’s phrase, ‘interdicted.’

DUNLOP’S HISTORY OF FICTION

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5.

Dunlop’s History of Fiction. John Colin Dunlop’s (d. 1842) The History of Fiction: being a Critical Account of the most celebrated Prose Fictions, from the earliest Greek Romances to the novels of the Present Age, was published in 3 vols., 1814.

7.

Νείατον ἐς κενεῶνα. Iliad, V. 857.

 

‘Romulus,’ etc. Horace, Epistles, II. i. 5–6.

8.

Bossu. René Le Bossu (1631–1680), author of a Traité du poème épique (1675), referred to in Tristram Shandy, III. 12. Dryden calls him ‘the best of modern critics’ (Preface to Troilus and Cressida).

9.

Bandello. Matteo Bandello (1480–1562), whose Tales appeared in four volumes, 1554–1573.

 

Ariosto. Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533), whose Orlando Furioso (from which the ‘contrivance’ referred to by Hazlitt was borrowed) was published in 1516–1532.

11.

Middleton. Conyers Middleton (1683–1750). See his Letter from Rome, 1729.

 

Bayes. See the Duke of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.

13.

Quidlibet audendi, etc. Horace, Ars Poetica, 10.

15.

Bell of Antermony. John Bell (1691–1780), whose Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to various parts of Asia was published in 1763.

16.

Mr. Cumberland’s novels. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), author of The West Indian (1771), published two novels, Arundel (1789) and Henry (1795).

 

Marianne. By Claude Prosper Jolyot de Marivaux (1688–1763), published between 1731 and 1741.

18.

Warburton. Warburton’s argument is summarised by Dunlop (chap. ii.) from The Divine Legation of Moses.

19.

Bayes’s most expeditious recipe, etc. The Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.

20.

Mr. Southey’s translation. Southey’s translation of Amadis of Gaul was published in four vols. 1803.

 

M. de St. Palaye. Jean-Baptiste de la Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1697–1781), author of Mémoires sur l’Ancienne Chevalerie, 1759–1781.

24.

Mr. Ellis. Scott’s friend, George Ellis (1753–1815) published his Specimens of early English Metrical Romances in three vols. in 1805.

 

D’Urfé. Thomas D’Urfey (1653–1723), the dramatist and song-writer.

 

Betsy Thoughtless. Eliza Haywood’s (1693?–1756) The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, published in 1751. See Dunlop’s History of Fiction, chap. xiv.

STANDARD NOVELS AND ROMANCES

This is ostensibly a review of Madame D’Arblay’s The Wanderer, published in 1814. Nearly the whole of it was incorporated by Hazlitt in his Lecture on the English Novelists. Cf. vol. VIII. pp. 106 et seq. and notes. In his Essay ‘A Farewell to Essay-Writing,’ Hazlitt says that this review was the result of a discussion at Lamb’s, ‘sharply seasoned and well sustained till midnight.’ Though the review cannot be considered as harsh towards Madame D’Arblay, it led to Hazlitt being dropped out of Admiral Burney’s whist parties. See Crabb Robinson’s Diary, chap. xiii. This fact perhaps partly accounts for Hazlitt’s contemptuous reference to the Burneys in his Essay ‘On the Aristocracy of Letters,’ where, after praising Madame D’Arblay, he says, ‘The rest have done nothing, that I know of, but keep up the name.’ See vol. VI. (Table Talk), p. 209.

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25.

Crebillon. Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707–1777), son of the dramatist.

 

The celebrated French philosopher. Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of Diderot’s well-known eulogy of Richardson (Œuvres, V. 212–227).

39.

The Story of Le Febre. See Tristram Shandy, Book VI. chap. vi. et seq.

SISMONDI’S LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH.

Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi (1773–1842) published his Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen-Age in 16 vols, between 1807 and 1818; his Littérature du midi de l’Europe (here reviewed and afterwards—in 1823—translated by Thomas Roscoe) in 4 vols. in 1813; and his Histoire des Français in 31 vols., 1821–1844. Roscoe’s translation forms two volumes of Bohn’s Standard Library. The translations in the present review are presumably by Hazlitt himself.

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45.

Metastasio. Pietro Antonio Bonaventura Trapassi (1698–1782), poet and librettist.

 

Alfieri. Vittorio, Count Alfieri (1749–1803), the dramatist and poet.

 

Goldoni. Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), the comic dramatist.

46.

Professor Boutterwek. Friedrich Bouterwek (1765–1828), author of Geschichte der neuern Poesie und Beredsamkeit (1801–1819).

 

Millot’s History of the Troubadours. Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours (1774), by Claude François Xavier Millot (1726–1785).

 

Tiraboschi. Girolamo Tiraboschi (1731–1794), author of Storia della Letteratura Italiana (1772–1782).

 

Velasquez. Louis Joseph Velasquez de Velasco (1722–1772), author of several works on Spanish poetry and antiquities.

 

‘Rose like an exhalation.’ Paradise Lost, I. 711.

56.

Preserved by Cervantes, etc. Don Quixote, Part I., Book I., chap. vi.

61.

Dante. Cf. Lectures on the English Poets, vol. V. pp. 17, 18, and notes.

62.

That withering inscription. At the beginning of Canto III. of the Inferno.

 

The Story of Geneura. It is clear from the note that Hazlitt is referring to the story of Francesca of Rimini in Canto V. of the Inferno. Paolo and Francesca read together the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.

 

Note. ‘And all that day we read no more!’ Inferno, Canto V.

63.

‘Because on earth,’ etc. Hazlitt is fond of quoting these lines, which, however, do not appear to be Dante’s. Possibly the explanation is to be found in a letter from Lamb to Bernard Barton (Feb. 17, 1823), where he says: ‘I once quoted two lines from a translation of Dante, which Hazlitt very greatly admired, and quoted in a book, as proof of the stupendous power of that poet; but no such lines are to be found in the translation, which has been searched for the purpose. I must have dreamed them, for I am quite certain I did not forge them knowingly. What a misfortune to have a lying memory!’

 

‘I am the tomb,’ etc. Inferno, Canto XI.

 

As when Satan is compared, etc. Hazlitt seems to be confusing Dante with Milton. See Paradise Lost, IV. 196.

 

‘Instinct with life.’ Cf. ‘Instinct with spirit.’ Paradise Lost, vi. 752.

 

Count Ugolino. Inferno, Canto XXXIII. Lamb shared Hazlitt’s dislike of Reynolds’s picture. See Works (ed. E. V. Lucas), I. 75 and 149. Patmore (My Friends and Acquaintance, II. 252) compares Hazlitt with Ugolino.

 

‘By the sole strength,’ etc. See Paradiso, Canto I.

65.

The Sonnet of Petrarch. No. CCLI. See Sismondi, chap. X.

68.

The story of the two holiday lovers. The Decameron, 4th Day, Novel VII.

69.

Pulci. Luigi Pulci (1432–?1484), author of Il Morgante Maggiore (1481).

 

Boyardo. Matteo Maria Boiardo (1434–1494), whose Orlando Innamorato was published in 1486. Francesco Berni’s (1490?–1536) version appeared in 1541.

71.

‘Giace l’alta Cartago.’ Jerusalem Delivered, Canto XV. St. 20.

 

The speech of Satan. Ibid. Canto IV.

72.

‘I rather envied,’ etc. Montaigne, Essays, Book II., chap. xii.

73.

‘Like the swift Alpine torrent,’ etc. From the final chorus of Il Torrismondo.

74.

Chaucer and Spenser. Much of what follows was repeated by Hazlitt in his lecture on Chaucer and Spenser. See vol. V., pp. 19–44, and notes.

75.

Rousseau’s description of the Elisée. La Nouvelle Héloïse, Partie IV., Lettre XI.

76.

In looking back, etc. These two concluding paragraphs were lifted into Hazlitt’s lecture on Shakspeare and Milton. See vol. V. pp. 44–46, and notes.

SCHLEGEL ON THE DRAMA.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel’s (1767–1845) ‘Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature’ were delivered in Vienna in 1808. Hazlitt reviews the English translation, published in 1815, by John Black (1783–1855), who afterwards became editor of The Morning Chronicle.

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79.

The admirable translator. Schlegel had translated Shakespeare (9 vols. 1797–1810), and Calderon (Spanish Theatre, 2 vols., 1803–1809).

 

Madame de Staël. Schlegel lived for many years at Madame de Staël’s house at Coppet.

81.

Florimel. The Faerie Queene, Book III., Canto VII.

82.

‘There was magic in the web.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

Schlegel somewhere compares, etc. Lectures XXV.

 

‘So withered,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘Metaphysical aid.’ Ibid., Act I. Sc. 5.

83.

‘That she moved with grace,’ etc. Possibly Hazlitt was thinking of the scene in the Iliad (III. 150, et seq.), where at the Scaean Gate the Trojan elders see Helen for the first time.

 

‘Upon her eyelids,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II., Canto III., St. 25.

 

‘All plumed,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I., Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

‘For they are old,’ etc. King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4.

85.

‘Antres vast,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

Orlando’s enchanted sword, etc. In Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.

86.

‘New-lighted,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

‘The evidence of things seen.’ Hebrews, xi. 1.

86.

‘Broods,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 21–22.

 

‘The ignorant present time.’ Macbeth, Act. I. Sc. 5.

88.

Jones. Sir William Jones (1746–1794), the Orientalist.

98.

‘Tu y seras, ma fille.’ Racine, Iphigénie, Act II. Sc. 3.

 

‘The dry chips,’ etc. Cowley, Ode, Of Wit.

100.

‘Tries conclusions infinite.’

Cf. ‘She hath pursued conclusions infinite

Of easy ways to die.’

Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. Sc. 2.

106.

The infant Joaz. Athalie, Act II. Sc. 9.

 

The speech of Phædra. Phèdre, Act IV. Sc. 6.

107.

Mr. Schlegel speaks highly, etc. See Lecture XXI. For Hazlitt on Molière cf. vol. VIII. pp. 28–9 (English Comic Writers), where much of this passage is repeated.

108.

Extremes meet, etc. Hazlitt quoted this paragraph in The Round Table (vol. I. pp. 97–8).

111.

‘Not a jot,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘Light thickens.’ Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Why stands Macbeth,’ etc. Ibid., Act IV. Sc. 1.

116.

‘Ethereal mould,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, II. 139 and V. 285.

 

‘Stronger Shakespear,’ etc. Collins, Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 64.

117.

The scene between Surly and Sir Epicure Mammon. The Alchemist, Act II. Sc. 1.

118.

‘A man walking upon stilts,’ etc. Lecture XXVIII.

119.

‘By a singular vicissitude,’ etc. Madame de Staël’s De l’ Allemagne, chap. xxii.

LEIGH HUNT’S ‘RIMINI’

The Edinburgh Review for June, 1816 (vol. XXVI. pp. 476–491) contained a notice of Leigh Hunt’s The Story of Rimini. Lord Cockburn includes this review in his List of Lord Jeffrey’s articles in the Edinburgh (see Life of Francis Jeffrey); Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, I. pp. xxv. and 225) attributes it to Hazlitt; and Mr. Ireland, in his Bibliography of Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, marks it as doubtful. The Blackwood set regarded or professed to regard Hazlitt as the author, as appears from a passage in Lockhart’s attack on Hunt in the first number (October 1817) of Blackwood’s Magazine: ‘The very culpable manner in which his [Hunt’s] chief poem was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review (we believe it is no secret, at his own impatient and feverish request, by his partner in the Round Table), was matter of concern to more readers than ourselves.... Mr. Jeffrey does ill when he delegates his important functions into such hands as those of Mr. Hazlitt.’ Lockhart, however, knew nothing about Hunt or Hazlitt, and his ‘no secret’ (which afforded an opportunity for a hit at Jeffrey) does not throw any light on the question. Hunt denied the insinuation. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 225. The review does not read like Hazlitt, but, from a letter which he afterwards addressed to Leigh Hunt, it would seem that at the least he had some hand in it. The letter is dated April 21, 1821 (see Four Generations of a Literary Family, I. 133), and contains an account of Hazlitt’s grievances against Leigh Hunt. In course of it, he says: ‘For instance, I praised you in the Edinburgh Review.’ There does not seem to be any praise of Hunt to which this passage can refer except this review, which is possibly the result of some rather free handling of Hazlitt’s MS. by Jeffrey.

The review is given below. The long extracts from the poem are roughly indicated by the first and last line, though in a few cases some of the intermediate lines are omitted in the review.

 

The Story of Rimini, a Poem. By Leigh Hunt. pp. 111. London, Murray, 1816.

‘There is a great deal of genuine poetry in this little volume; and poetry, too, of a very peculiar and original character. It reminds us, in many respects, of that pure and glorious style that prevailed among us before French models and French rules of criticism were known in this country, and to which we are delighted to see there is now so general a disposition to recur. Yet its more immediate prototypes, perhaps, are to be looked for rather in Italy than in England: at least, if it be copied from any thing English, it is from something much older than Shakespeare; and it unquestionably bears a still stronger resemblance to Chaucer than to his immediate followers in Italy. The same fresh, lively and artless pictures of external objects,—the same profusion of gorgeous but redundant and needless description,—the same familiarity and even homeliness of diction,—and, above all, the same simplicity and directness in representing actions and passions in colours true to nature, but without any apparent attention to their effect, or any ostentation, or even visible impression as to their moral operation or tendency. The great distinction between the modern poets and their predecessors, is, that the latter painted more from the eye and less from the mind than the former. They described things and actions as they saw them, without expressing, or at any rate without dwelling on the deep-seated emotions from which the objects derived their interest, or the actions their character. The moderns, on the contrary, have brought these most prominently forward, and explained and enlarged upon them perhaps at excessive length. Mr. Hunt, in the piece before us, has followed the antient school; and though he has necessarily gone something beyond the naked notices that would have suited the age of Chaucer, he has kept himself far more to the delineation of visible, physical realities, than any other modern poet on such a subject.

‘Though he has chosen, however, to write in this style, and has done so very successfully, we are not by any means of opinion, that he either writes or appears to write it as naturally as those by whom it was first adopted; on the contrary, we think there is a good deal of affectation in his homeliness, directness, and rambling descriptions. He visibly gives himself airs of familiarity, and mixes up flippant, and even cant phrases, with passages that bear, upon the whole, the marks of considerable labour and study. In general, however, he is very successful in his attempts at facility, and has unquestionably produced a little poem of great grace and spirit, and, in many passages and many particulars, of infinite beauty and delicacy.

‘In the subject he has selected, he has ventured indeed upon sacred ground; but he has not profaned it. The passage in Dante, on which the story of Rimini is founded, remains unimpaired by the English version, and has even received a new interest from it. The undertaking must be allowed to have been one of great nicety. An imitation of the manner of Dante was an impossibility. That extraordinary author collects all his force into a single blow: His sentiments derive an obscure grandeur from their being only half expressed; and therefore, a detailed narrative of this kind, a description of particular circumstances done upon this ponderous principle, an enumeration of incidents leading to a catastrophe, with all the pith and conclusiveness of the catastrophe itself, would be intolerable. Mr. Hunt has arrived at his end by varying his means; and the effect of his poem coincides with that of the original passage, mainly, because the spirit in which it is written is quite different. With the personages in Dante, all is over before the reader is introduced to them; their doom is fixed;—and his style is as peremptory and irrevocable as their fate. But the lovers, whose memory the muse of the Italian poet had consecrated in the other world, are here restored to earth, with the graces and the sentiments that became them in their lifetime. Mr. Hunt, in accompanying them to its fatal close, has mingled every tint of many-coloured life in the tissue of their story—blending tears with smiles, the dancing of the spirits with sad forebodings, the intoxication of hope with bitter disappointment, youth with age, life and death together. He has united something of the voluptuous pathos of Boccacio with Ariosto’s laughing graces. His court dresses, and gala processions he has borrowed from Watteau. His sunshine and his flowers are his own! He himself has explained the design of his poem in the Preface. [A long passage from the Preface is quoted.]

‘The poem opens with the following passage of superb description:—

‘Such is the manner in which the business of the day is ushered in. The rest of the first canto is taken up in describing the preparations for receiving the bridegroom, the processions of knights that precede his expected arrival; the dresses, &c.—There is something in all this part of the poem which gives back the sensation of the scene and the occasion;—a glancing eye, a busy ear, great bustle and gaiety, and, where it is required, great grace of description. Perhaps the subject is too long dwelt upon; and there is, occasionally, a repetition of nearly the same images and expressions. The reader may take the following as fair specimens:

‘After all, the future husband does not appear, but his younger brother, Paulo, who comes as his proxy to take the bride to Rimini; and it is to the mistaken impression thus made on her mind that all the subsequent distress is owing. His person, his dress, the gallantry of Paulo’s demeanour, are very vividly described, and the effect of his appearance on the surrounding multitude.

‘The Second Canto gives an account of the bride’s journey to Rimini, in the company of her husband’s brother, which abounds in picturesque descriptions. Mr. Hunt has here taken occasion to enter somewhat learnedly into the geography of his subject; and describes the road between Ravenna and Rimini, with the accuracy of a topographer, and the liveliness of a poet. There is, however, no impertinent minuteness of detail; but only those circumstances are dwelt upon, which fall in with the general interest of the story, and would be likely to strike forcibly upon the imagination in such an interval of anxiety and suspense. We have only room for the concluding lines.

‘We have detained our readers longer than we intended, from that which forms the most interesting part of the poem, the Third Canto, of which the subject is the fatal passion between Paulo and Francesca. We shall be ample in our extracts from this part of the poem, because we have no other way of giving an idea of its characteristic qualities. Mr. Hunt, as we have already intimated, does not belong to any of the modern schools of poetry; and therefore we cannot convey our idea of his manner of writing, by reference to any of the more conspicuous models. His poetry is not like Mr. Wordsworth’s, which is metaphysical; nor like Mr. Coleridge’s, which is fantastical; nor like Mr. Southey’s, which is monastical. But it is something which we have already endeavoured to sketch by its general features, and shall now enable the reader to study in detail in the following extracts.

‘The first disappointment of the warm-hearted bride, and the portraits of the rival brothers, are sketched with equal skill and delicacy.

‘Paulo’s growing passion for Francesca is described with equal delicacy and insight into the sophistry of the human heart. He is represented as first concealing his attachment from himself; then struggling with it; then yielding to it.

‘But we hasten on to the principal event and the catastrophe of the poem. The scene of the fatal meeting between the lovers is laid in the gardens of the palace, which are here described with the utmost elegance and beauty.

‘Such is the landscape:—now for the figures.

‘We cannot give the whole extract of the story,—only she becomes more deeply engaged as she comes to the love scenes.—What follows, we think is very exquisitely written.

‘We do not think the execution of the fourth and last Canto quite equal to that of the third: Yet there are passages in it of the greatest beauty; and an air of melancholy breathes from the whole with irresistible softness and effect.

‘The feelings of Francesca, arising from the consciousness of her melancholy situation and broken vows, are thus finely represented.

‘From the distress and agitation of her mind, she afterwards betrays the secret of her infidelity to her husband in her sleep. This leads to a rencounter between the two brothers, which is fatal to Paulo, who runs voluntarily upon his brother’s sword; and partly from the shock of the news, partly from previous grief preying on her mind and body, Francesca dies the same day. Her death is profoundly affecting, and leaves an impression on the imagination, icy, cold, and monumental. The squire of Paulo is admitted to the side of her sad couch, to tell the dismal story—and repeats, in the Prince’s own words, how he had been forced to fight with his brother—

‘The bodies of the two lovers are sent back, by order of the husband, to Ravenna, to be buried in one tomb. We shall close our extracts with the account of the arrival of this mournful procession, so different in every respect from the former one.

‘We have given these extracts at length, that our readers might judge of the story of Rimini, less on our authority, than its own merits; and we have few remarks to add to those which we ventured to make at the beginning. The diction of this little poem is among its chief beauties—and yet its greatest blemishes are faults in diction.—It is very English throughout—but often very affectedly negligent, and so extremely familiar as to be absolutely low and vulgar. What, for example, can be said for such lines as

‘We see no sort of beauty either in such absurd and unusual phrases as “a clipsome waist,”—“a scattery light,” or “flings of sunshine,”—nor any charm in such comparatives as “martialler,” or “tastefuller,” or “franklier,” or in such words as “whisks,” and “swaling,” and “freaks and snatches,” and an hundred others in the same taste. We think the author rather heretical too on the subject of versification—though we have much less objection to his theory than to his practice. But we cannot spare him a line more on the present occasion—and must put off the rest of our admonitions till we meet him again.’

COLERIDGE’S ‘CHRISTABEL’

In the Edinburgh Review for September, 1816 (vol. XXVII. pp. 58–67), appeared a review of Coleridge’s Christabel, as to the authorship of which there has been a good deal of discussion. Coleridge himself believed that it was written by Hazlitt. (See post, note to p. 155.) Hazlitt never acknowledged the authorship, and there is indeed no external evidence upon the subject. Mr. Dykes Campbell (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 225, note 1) regards the ascription of the review to Hazlitt as being ‘probably, though not certainly, correct.’ Neither Mr. Ireland nor Mr. W. C. Hazlitt ascribes it to Hazlitt. Quite recently the question of Hazlitt’s authorship, determined one way or the other by a consideration of the internal evidence, has been the subject of a controversy in Notes and Queries (9th Series, A. 388, 429: XI. 170, 269), to which reference should be made. Mr. Andrew Lang in his Life of J. G. Lockhart (vol. I. pp. 139–142) refers to the review at some length as a kind of set-off against Lockhart’s early indiscretions in Blackwood. Without discussing the authorship of the review, he is indignant with Jeffrey for having admitted it into the Edinburgh. The present editors are disposed to think that the review is substantially the work of Hazlitt, though, as in the case of the review of Rimini, it may be conjectured that Jeffrey used his editorial pen pretty freely. Since absolute certainty is not at present attainable, the review, instead of being printed in the text, is given below.

 

Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision. The Pains of Sleep. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. London. Murray, 1816.

‘The advertisement by which this work was announced to the publick, carried in its front a recommendation from Lord Byron,—who, it seems, has somewhere praised Christabel, “as a wild and singularly original and beautiful poem.” Great as the noble bard’s merits undoubtedly are in poetry, some of his latest publications dispose us to distrust his authority, where the question is what ought to meet the public eye; and the works before us afford an additional proof, that his judgment on such matters is not absolutely to be relied on. Moreover, we are a little inclined to doubt the value of the praise which one poet lends another. It seems now-a-days to be the practice of that once irritable race to laud each other without bounds; and one can hardly avoid suspecting, that what is thus lavishly advanced may be laid out with a view to being repaid with interest. Mr. Coleridge, however, must be judged by his own merits.

‘It is remarked, by the writers upon the Bathos, that the true profound is surely known by one quality—its being wholly bottomless; insomuch, that when you think you have attained its utmost depth in the work of some of its great masters, another, or peradventure the same, astonishes you, immediately after, by a plunge so much more vigorous, as to outdo all his former outdoings. So it seems to be with the new school, or, as they may be termed, the wild or lawless poets. After we had been admiring their extravagance for many years, and marvelling at the ease and rapidity with which one exceeded another in the unmeaning or infantine, until not an idea was left in the rhyme—or in the insane, until we had reached something that seemed the untamed effusion of an author whose thoughts were rather more free than his actions—forth steps Mr. Coleridge, like a giant refreshed with sleep, and as if to redeem his character after so long a silence, (“his poetic powers having been, he says, from 1808 till very lately, in a state of suspended animation,” p. v.) and breaks out in these precise words—

‘It is probable that Lord Byron may have had this passage in his eye, when he called the poem “wild” and “original”: but how he discovered it to be “beautiful,” is not quite so easy for us to imagine.

‘Much of the art of the wild writers consists in sudden transitions—opening eagerly upon some topic, and then flying from it immediately. This indeed is known to the medical men, who not unfrequently have the care of them, as an unerring symptom. Accordingly, here we take leave of the Mastiff Bitch, and lose sight of her entirely, upon the entrance of another personage of a higher degree,