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

And who, it seems, has been rambling about all night, having, the night before, had dreams about her lover, which “made her moan and leap.” While kneeling, in the course of her rambles, at an old oak, she hears a noise on the other side of the stump, and going round, finds, to her great surprize, another fair damsel in white silk, but with her dress and hair in some disorder; at the mention of whom, the poet takes fright, not, as might be imagined, because of her disorder, but on account of her beauty and her fair attire—

Christabel naturally asks who she is, and is answered, at some length, that her name is Geraldine; that she was, on the morning before, seized by five warriors, who tied her on a white horse, and drove her on, they themselves following, also on white horses; and that they had rode all night. Her narrative now gets to be a little contradictory, which gives rise to unpleasant suspicions. She protests vehemently, and with oaths, that she has no idea who the men were; only that one of them, the tallest of the five, took her and placed her under the tree, and that they all went away, she knew not whither; but how long she had remained there she cannot tell—

—although she had previously kept a pretty exact account of the time. The two ladies then go home together, after this satisfactory explanation, which appears to have conveyed to the intelligent mind of Lady C. every requisite information. They arrive at the castle, and pass the night in the same bed-room; not to disturb Sir Leoline, who, it seems, was poorly at the time, and, of course, must have been called up to speak to the chambermaids, and have the sheets aired, if Lady G. had had a room to herself. They do not get to their bed, however, in the poem, quite so easily as we have carried them. They first cross the moat, and Lady C. “took the key that fitted well,” and opened a little door, “all in the middle of the gate.” Lady G. then sinks down “belike through pain”; but it should seem more probably from laziness; for her fair companion having lifted her up, and carried her a little way, she then walks on “as she were not in pain.” Then they cross the court—but we must give this in the poet’s words, for he seems so pleased with them, that he inserts them twice over in the space of ten lines—

‘Lady C. is desirous of a little conversation on the way, but Lady G. will not indulge her Ladyship, saying, she is too much tired to speak. We now meet our old friend, the mastiff bitch, who is much too important a person to be slightly passed by—

‘Whatever it may be that ails the bitch, the ladies pass forward, and take off their shoes, and tread softly all the way up stairs, as Christabel observes that her father is a bad sleeper. At last, however, they do arrive at the bed-room, and comfort themselves with a dram of some home-made liquor, which proves to be very old; for it was made by Lady C.’s mother; and when her new friend asks if she thinks the old lady will take her part, she answers, that this is out of the question, in as much as she happened to die in childbed of her. The mention of the old lady, however, gives occasion to the following pathetic couplet.—Christabel says,

‘A very mysterious conversation next takes place between Lady Geraldine and the old gentlewoman’s ghost, which proving extremely fatiguing to her, she again has recourse to the bottle—and with excellent effect, as appears by these lines.

—From which, we may gather among other points, the exceeding great beauty of all women who live in a distant place, no matter where. The effects of the cordial speedily begin to appear; as no one, we imagine, will doubt, that to its influence must be ascribed the following speech—

‘Before going to bed, Lady G. kneels to pray, and desires her friend to undress, and lie down; which she does “in her loveliness”; but being curious, she leans “on her elbow,” and looks towards the fair devotee,—where she sees something which the poet does not think fit to tell us very explicitly.

‘She soon rises, however, from her knees; and as it was not a double-bedded room, she turns in to Lady Christabel, taking only “two paces and a stride.” She then clasps her tight in her arms, and mutters a very dark spell, which we apprehend the poet manufactured by shaking words together at random; for it is impossible to fancy that he can annex any meaning whatever to it. This is the end of it.

‘The consequence of this incantation is, that Lady Christabel has a strange dream—and when she awakes, her first exclamation is, “Sure I have sinn’d”—“Now heaven be praised if all be well!” Being still perplexed with the remembrance of her “too lively” dream—she then dresses herself, and modestly prays to be forgiven for “her sins unknown.” The two companions now go to the Baron’s parlour, and Geraldine tells her story to him. This, however, the poet judiciously leaves out, and only signifies that the Baron recognized in her the daughter of his old friend Sir Roland, with whom he had had a deadly quarrel. Now, however, he despatches his tame poet, or laureate, called Bard Bracy, to invite him and his family over, promising to forgive every thing, and even make an apology for what had passed. To understand what follows, we own, surpasses our comprehension. Mr. Bracy, the poet, recounts a strange dream he has just had, of a dove being almost strangled by a snake; whereupon the Lady Geraldine falls a hissing, and her eyes grow small, like a serpent’s,—or at least so they seem to her friend; who begs her father to “send away that woman.” Upon this the Baron falls into a passion, as if he had discovered that his daughter had been seduced; at least, we can understand him in no other sense, though no hint of such a kind is given; but, on the contrary, she is painted to the last moment as full of innocence and purity.—Nevertheless,

‘Nothing further is said to explain the mystery; but there follows incontinently, what is termed “The conclusion of Part the Second.” And as we are pretty confident that Mr. Coleridge holds this passage in the highest estimation; that he prizes it more than any other part of “that wild, and singularly original and beautiful poem Christabel,” excepting always the two passages touching the “toothless mastiff Bitch;” we shall extract it for the amazement of our readers—premising our own frank avowal that we are wholly unable to divine the meaning of any portion of it.

‘Here endeth the Second Part, and, in truth, the “singular” poem itself; for the author has not yet written, or, as he phrases it, “embodied in verse,” the “three parts yet to come;”—though he trusts he shall be able to do so “in the course of the present year.”

‘One word as to the metre of Christabel, or, as Mr. Coleridge terms it, “the Christabel”—happily enough; for indeed we doubt if the peculiar force of the definite article was ever more strongly exemplified. He says, that though the reader may fancy there prevails a great irregularity in the metre, some lines being of four, others of twelve syllables, yet in reality it is quite regular; only that it is “founded on a new principle, namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables.” We say nothing of the monstrous assurance of any man coming forward coolly at this time of day, and telling the readers of English poetry, whose ear has been tuned to the lays of Spenser, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, that he makes his metre “on a new principle!” but we utterly deny the truth of the assertion, and defy him to show us any principle upon which his lines can be conceived to tally. We give two or three specimens, to confound at once this miserable piece of coxcombry and shuffling. Let our “wild, and singularly original and beautiful” author, show us how these lines agree either in number of accents or of feet.

‘Kubla Khan is given to the public, it seems, “at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity;”—but whether Lord Byron the praiser of “the Christabel,” or the Laureate, the praiser of Princes, we are not informed. As far as Mr. Coleridge’s “own opinions are concerned,” it is published, “not upon the ground of any poetic merits,” but “as a PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITY!” In these opinions of the candid author, we entirely concur; but for this reason we hardly think it was necessary to give the minute detail which the Preface contains, of the circumstances attending its composition. Had the question regarded “Paradise Lost,” or “Dryden’s Ode” we could not have had a more particular account of the circumstances in which it was composed. It was in the year 1797, and the summer season. Mr. Coleridge was in bad health;—the particular disease is not given; but the careful reader will form his own conjectures. He had retired very prudently to a lonely farm-house; and whoever would see the place which gave birth to the “psychological curiosity,” may find his way thither without a guide; for it is situated on the confines of Somerset and Devonshire, and on the Exmoor part of the boundary; and it is, moreover, between Porlock and Linton. In that farm-house, he had a slight indisposition, and had taken an anodyne, which threw him into a deep sleep in his chair, (whether after dinner or not he omits to state), “at the moment that he was reading a sentence in Purchas’s Pilgrims,” relative to a palace of Kubla Khan. The effects of the anodyne, and the sentence together, were prodigious: They produced the “curiosity” now before us; for, during his three-hours sleep, Mr. Coleridge “has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines.” On awaking, he “instantly and eagerly” wrote down the verses here published; when he was (he says “unfortunately”) called out by a “person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour;” and when he returned, the vision was gone. The lines here given smell strongly, it must be owned, of the anodyne; and, but that an under dose of a sedative produces contrary effects, we should inevitably have been lulled by them into forgetfulness of all things. Perhaps a dozen more such lines as the following would reduce the most irritable of critics to a state of inaction.

‘There is a good deal more altogether as exquisite—and in particular a fine description of a wood, “ancient as the hills;” and “folding sunny spots of greenery!” But we suppose this specimen will be sufficient.

‘Persons in this poet’s unhappy condition, generally feel the want of sleep as the worst of their evils; but there are instances, too, in the history of the disease, of sleep being attended with new agony, as if the waking thoughts, how wild and turbulent soever, had still been under some slight restraint, which sleep instantly removed. Mr. Coleridge appears to have experienced this symptom, if we may judge from the title of his third poem, “The Pains of Sleep;” and, in truth, from its composition—which is mere raving, without any thing more affecting than a number of incoherent words, expressive of extravagance and incongruity.—We need give no specimen of it.

‘Upon the whole, we look upon this publication as one of the most notable pieces of impertinence of which the press has lately been guilty; and one of the boldest experiments that has yet been made on the patience or understanding of the public. It is impossible, however, to dismiss it, without a remark or two. The other productions of the Lake School have generally exhibited talents thrown away upon subjects so mean, that no power of genius could ennoble them; or perverted and rendered useless by a false theory of poetical composition. But even in the worst of them, if we except the White Doe of Mr. Wordsworth and some of the laureate odes, there were always some gleams of feeling or of fancy. But the thing now before us, is utterly destitute of value. It exhibits from beginning to end not a ray of genius; and we defy any man to point out a passage of poetical merit in any of the three pieces which it contains, except, perhaps, the following lines in p. 32, and even these are not very brilliant; nor is the leading thought original—

‘With this one exception, there is literally not one couplet in the publication before us which would be reckoned poetry, or even sense, were it found in the corner of a newspaper or upon the window of an inn. Must we then be doomed to hear such a mixture of raving and driv’ling, extolled as the work of a “wild and original” genius, simply because Mr. Coleridge has now and then written fine verses, and a brother poet chooses, in his milder mood, to laud him from courtesy or from interest? And are such panegyrics to be echoed by the mean tools of a political faction, because they relate to one whose daily prose is understood to be dedicated to the support of all that courtiers think should be supported? If it be true that the author has thus earned the patronage of those liberal dispensers of bounty, we can have no objection that they should give him proper proofs of their gratitude; but we cannot help wishing, for his sake, as well as our own, that they would pay in solid pudding instead of empty praise; and adhere, at least in this instance, to the good old system of rewarding their champions with places and pensions, instead of puffing their bad poetry, and endeavouring to cram their nonsense down the throats of all the loyal and well affected.’

COLERIDGE’S LAY SERMON

The authorship of this review has also been the subject of controversy. See the authorities cited on p. 411. Mr. Dykes Campbell, in the note there quoted, says that, as in the case of Christabel, the ascription of the review to Hazlitt is ‘probably, though not certainly correct.’ The editors regarded the internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship as so overwhelmingly strong, especially after a comparison of the article with Hazlitt’s review of the same work in The Examiner (see Political Essays, III. 143–152), that they decided to include it in the text. It has not been thought necessary to give references to all Hazlitt’s quotations from the Lay Sermon. References, when they are given, are to the edition in Bohn’s Standard Library.

PAGE

 

120.

‘Fancies and Good-nights.’ Henry IV., Part II., Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Odd ends of verse, etc. Hudibras, I. iii. 1011–2.

 

‘Chase his fancy’s rolling speed.’ Cf. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 29.

121.

‘Babbles of green fields.’ Henry V., Act II. Sc. 3.

 

‘Alarmists by trade.’ A Lay Sermon, p. 309.

 

‘A gentle Husher,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto IV. Stanza 13.

 

Joanna Southcote. Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), the fanatic and impostor, whose prophesies had recently caused a good deal of excitement.

122.

‘Thick-coming fancies.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3.

123.

The ‘Friend.’ Published in numbers at irregular intervals between June 1809 and March 1810. Coleridge published a recast—‘a complete Rifacimento’—of The Friend in 1818.

 

‘Like the swan’s down feather,’ etc. Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Sc. 2.

124.

‘They are not sought for,’ etc. These words are quoted by Coleridge from Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii. 33–34. See A Lay Sermon, 308–309.

126.

‘Twice ten degrees,’ etc. Paradise Lost, X. 669–670.

 

‘With jealous leer malign.’ Ibid., IV. 503.

127.

‘Fraught with potential infidelity.’ A Lay Sermon, p. 329.

131.

The Watchman. The Watchman ran from March to May, 1796. Coleridge gives an account of his tour to procure subscribers. See Biographia Literaria, Chap. X. The Conciones ad Populum, originally published in 1795, were reprinted in Essays on his own Times (1850).

 

One of Goldsmith’s Essays. See A Lay Sermon, p. 319 note.

 

As Gulliver did, etc. See A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chap. V.

132.

‘As Alps o’er Alps arise.’ Pope, An Essay on Criticism, II. 232.

134.

‘High enthroned,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 58.

135.

‘It is by means,’ etc. See Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I. Chap. IV. 5, 15.

COLERIDGE’S LITERARY LIFE

This review, though claimed for Jeffrey by Lord Cockburn, and marked doubtful by Mr. Ireland, is certainly Hazlitt’s. Nearly the whole of the long passage on Burke (pp. 150–154 of the present volume), after doing duty in The Champion (Oct. 5, 1817), was published by Hazlitt in Political Essays as the first of two ‘Characters of Mr. Burke’ which appeared in that volume. See vol. III. pp. 250–253.

PAGE

 

135.

‘It will be found,’ etc. Chap. I.

 

‘At school,’ etc. Ibid.

138.

Bowles’s Sonnets. William Lisle Bowles’s (1762–1850) famous Fourteen Sonnets written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey appeared anonymously in 1789. More sonnets were added in later editions. The sonnets of Thomas Warton (1728–1790) are frequently quoted by Hazlitt, and were eulogised by him in his Lectures on the English Poets (see vol. V. pp. 120–1). See Chap. I. of Biographia Literaria for Coleridge’s praise of Bowles.

138.

Jacob Behmen. Jakob Boehme (1575–1624), the mystic.

 

The Morning Post. Coleridge’s contributions to The Morning Post (chiefly during 1800) were reprinted in Essays on his own Times (1850).

139.

‘It is not, however,’ etc. Note at the end of Chap. III.

 

The Cannings, the Giffords, and the Freres. William Gifford (1756–1826) was the editor of the Anti-Jacobin (1797–8), and George Canning (1770–1827) and John Hookham Frere (1769–1846) were the chief contributors. See an article in The Athenæum for May 31, 1890, on ‘Coleridge and The Anti-Jacobin.’

140.

‘Publicly,’ etc. Biographia Literaria, Chap. III.

142.

‘Full of wise saws,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

‘It has been hinted,’ etc. Biographia Literaria, Chap. IV.

143.

Mr. C. thinks fit, etc. Chap. V.

144.

A series of citations. Hazlitt probably refers to an article in The Examiner for March 31, 1816, which consists to a large extent of quotations from Hobbes’s Leviathan, and which is referred to in a later volume of the present edition; but he was never tired of proclaiming the greatness and originality of Hobbes. Cf. the essay or lecture ‘On the writings of Hobbes,’ published in Literary Remains.

145.

‘Sound book-learnedness.’ A Lay Sermon (Bohn), p. 327.

 

‘Wander down,’ etc. Paradise Lost, XI. 282–284.

 

‘Towards the close,’ etc. Chap. X.

150.

‘As our very sign-boards,’ etc. Ibid.

 

‘Let the scholar,’ etc. Ibid.

 

It is not without reluctance, etc. The greater part of this character of Burke, down to the foot of p. 154, was repeated in Political Essays. See vol. III. pp. 250 et seq., and notes.

155.

Any account of it at all. At this point in The Edinburgh Review a long note, signed F. J., is appended, in which Jeffrey replies to what he describes as ‘averments of a personal and injurious nature’ against the Edinburgh Review. A great part of the note relates to Coleridge’s attack on Jeffrey in Chap. III. of the Biographia Literaria (see Bohn’s edition, p. 25 note), but part of it concerns Hazlitt. Coleridge had said (Chap. xxiv.): ‘In the Edinburgh Review it [Christabel] was assailed with a malignity and a personal hatred that ought to have injured only the work in which such a tirade was suffered to appear: and this review was generally attributed (whether rightly or no I know not) to a man, who both in my presence and in my absence has repeatedly pronounced it the finest poem in the language.’ Jeffrey refers to this passage, and states that when he visited Coleridge at Keswick, there was some talk about the poem. ‘We spoke,’ he says, ‘of Christabel, and I advised him to publish it; but I did not say it was either the finest poem of the kind, or a fine poem at all; and I am sure of this, for the best of all reasons, that at this time, and indeed till after it was published, I never saw or heard more than four or five lines of it, which my friend Mr. Scott once repeated to me. That eminent person, indeed, spoke favourably of it; and I rather think I told Mr. C. that I had heard him say, that it was to it he was indebted for the first idea of that romantic narrative in irregular verse, which he afterwards exemplified in his Lay of the Last Minstrel, and other works. In these circumstances, I felt a natural curiosity to see this great original; and I can sincerely say, that no admirer of Mr. C. could be more disappointed or astonished than I was, when it did make its appearance. I did not review it.’ With regard to A Lay Sermon, Coleridge had said (Biographia Literaria, chap. xxiv.): ‘A long delay occurred between its first annunciation and its appearance; it was reviewed, therefore, by anticipation with a malignity so avowedly and exclusively personal as is, I believe, unprecedented even in the present contempt of all common humanity that disgraces and endangers the liberty of the press. After its appearance, the author of this lampoon was chosen to review it in the Edinburgh Review: and under the single condition, that he should have written what he himself really thought, and have criticised the work as he would have done had its author been indifferent to him, I should have chosen that man myself, both from the vigour and the originality of his mind, and from his particular acuteness in speculative reasoning, before all others. I remembered Catullus’s lines [lxxiii.]:

“Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri,

Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.

Omnia sunt ingrata: nihil fecisse benigne est:

Immo, etiam taedet, taedet obestque magis.

Ut mihi, quem nemo gravius nec acerbius urget

Quam modo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit.”

 

But I can truly say, that the grief with which I read this rhapsody of predetermined insult had the rhapsodist himself for its whole and sole object: and that the indignant contempt which it excited in me, was as exclusively confined to his employer and suborner.’ Coleridge here refers to the first of the two reviews of A Lay Sermon, contributed by Hazlitt to The Examiner in 1816. See Political Essays, vol. III. pp. 138–142. Jeffrey’s reply is as follows: ‘As to the review of the Lay Sermon, I have only to say, in one word, that I never employed or suborned any body to abuse or extol it or any other publication. I do not so much as know or conjecture what Mr. C. alludes to as a malignant lampoon or review by anticipation, which he says had previously appeared somewhere else. I never saw nor heard of any such publication. Nay, I was not even aware of the existence of the Lay Sermon itself, when a review of it was offered me by a gentleman in whose judgment and talents I had great confidence, but whom I certainly never suspected, and do not suspect at this moment, of having any personal or partial feelings of any kind towards its author. I therefore accepted his offer, and printed his review, with some retrenchments and verbal alterations, just as I was setting off, in a great hurry, for London, on professional business, in January last.’

156.

‘The dew of Castalie.’ Cf. ‘With verses, dipt in deaw of Castalie.’ Spenser, The Ruines of Time, l. 431.

 

‘Sky-tinctured.’ Paradise Lost, V. 285.

 

‘Thoughts that voluntary move,’ etc. Ibid., III. 37–38.

157.

‘The golden cadences of poesy.’ Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV. Sc. 2.

 

‘Poets [lovers and madmen] have such seething brains.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

With Plato. The Republic, Book X.

158.

‘Pleasurable poetic fervour.’ Hazlitt probably had in his mind chap. xviii. of the Biographia Literaria. The words suggest that conception of poetry which was expressed by Wordsworth in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (especially in the extended 1802 form), and which was frequently repeated by Coleridge. See, in addition to the Biographia Literaria, Lectures on Shakespere, etc. (Bohn’s ed.), p. 49.

158.

Note.—Maturin’s Bertram was attacked in The Courier, ‘the pen being either wielded or guided by Coleridge,’ but the attack in Biographia Literaria was a different one. See Dykes Campbell’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 223 note 1.

LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE

A review of Letters from the Hon. Horace Walpole to George Montagu, Esq. From the year 1736 to 1770, published in 1818. This and other volumes of Walpole’s correspondence were reprinted in Peter Cunningham’s collected edition of Walpole’s Letters (9 vols., 1857–1859), where the passages quoted by Hazlitt may be found.

PAGE

 

159.

Princess Amelia. George II.’s daughter. See Walpole’s Letters, passim.

 

George Selwyn. George Augustus Selwyn (1719–1791), the wit, Walpole’s ‘oldest acquaintance and friend.’

 

Mr. Chute. John Chute (1703–1776), a great friend of Walpole’s. See especially a letter to Sir Horace Mann, 27 May, 1776.

160.

‘Of outward show,’ etc. Paradise Lost, VIII. 539.

 

Pam. The Knave of Clubs, and the best trump at one form of Loo.

161.

Balmerino. Arthur Elphinstone, sixth Lord Balmerino (1688–1746), beheaded for participation in the Rebellion of 1745.

 

‘Are kept in ponderous vases.’ Pope, The Rape of the Lock, V. 115.

163.

‘Have got the start,’ etc. Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

Poor Bentley. Richard Bentley (1708–1782), son of the scholar.

 

‘High fantastical.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1.

164.

Müntz. John Henry Müntz, a Swiss, who painted and copied paintings for Walpole.

 

‘That which he esteemed,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7.

 

Mr. Mason. William Mason (1724–1797), the poet and friend of Gray.

165.

The Mysterious Mother. Walpole’s tragedy (1768).

166.

‘Himself and the universe.’ Hazlitt elsewhere says of Wordsworth (vol. I. p. 113), ‘it is as if there were nothing but himself and the universe.’

 

‘Admit no discourse,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

168.

Lord Ferrers. Laurence Shirley (1720–1760), fourth Earl Ferrers, was hanged for the murder of his steward, John Johnson.

169.

‘Sleep no more,’ etc. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 2.

172.

Smithson. Sir Hugh Smithson (1715–1786), married in 1740 the heiress of the Percy estates, succeeded to the title of Earl of Northumberland in 1750, and was created Duke in 1766.

 

Pope. Hazlitt refers presumably to ‘Song, by a Person of Quality,’ beginning, ‘Flutt’ring spread thy purple pinions.’

 

‘Very chargeable.’ A New Way to Pay Old Debts, Act III. Sc. 2.

LIFE OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

Joseph Farington’s (1747–1821) Memoirs of the Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds was published in 1819. This review was republished in Criticisms on Art (1843–4), and in Essays on the Fine Arts (1873).

PAGE

 

172.

Dispute between their late President, etc. Relating to the election of Joseph Bonomi as professor of perspective. Reynolds resigned his membership of the Academy in Feb. 1790, but afterwards withdrew his resignation. Edmond Malone (1741–1812) published a Memoir of Reynolds in 1797.

173.

‘Pleased with a rattle,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, II. 276.

174.

Richardson. Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745), author of A Theory of Painting (1715).

 

Hudson. Thomas Hudson (1701–1779), portrait-painter.

177.

The French materialists. See Helvétius, De l’Esprit, Discourse III.

178.

‘A greater general capacity,’ etc. See Johnson’s Life of Cowley.

180.

Hayman. See Vol. i. (The Round Table) note to p. 149.

 

Highmore. Ibid.

 

‘Darted contagious fire.’ Paradise Lost, IX. 1036.

181.

Gandy. See vol VI. (Table Talk), note to p. 21.

184.

In the days of Montesquieu. See his De l’ Esprit des Lois.

185.

‘Like flowers,’ etc. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3.

186.

Says Schlegel. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, I.

 

‘Like the forced pace,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I. Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘With coy, reluctant,’ etc. ‘And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 311.

 

Terrae filii. Cf. Persius, Satires, VI. 59.

 

‘The crown which Ariadne,’ etc. Cf. The Faerie Queene, Book VI. Canto X. St. 13.

 

‘Their affections,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

187.

In that part of the country. Winterslow presumably.

 

‘Returning with a choral song,’ etc. Wordsworth, Ruth, 53–54.

 

‘We also are not Arcadians!’ Hazlitt frequently quoted the old saying, attributed to Schidoni, ‘Et ego in Arcadia vixi.’ See, e.g. Table Talk, vol. VI. p. 168.

188.

‘The unbought grace of life.’ Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89).

190.

Leo. Leo X. (1475–1521), son of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

 

Piranesi’s drawings. Giambattista Piranesi (1720–1778), engraver of architecture and ancient ruins.

 

Winckelman. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), author of Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764).

191.

‘All eyes’ etc. Cf. Isaiah, xlv. 22–23, and Romans, xiv. 11.

 

‘Amazing brightness,’ etc. Otway, Venice Preserved, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘A present deity,’ etc. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 35–36.

 

The Madona of Foligno. Raphael’s, in the Vatican.

 

The ceiling at Parma. Painted by Girolamo Mazzola, a pupil of Correggio.

192.

Leonardo’s Last Supper. This famous fresco, now almost entirely destroyed, was at the convent of S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan.

 

The institution of Academies, etc. Cf. vol I. The Round Table, p. 160 and note, and vol. IX. p. 311 et seq.

195.

‘The cat and canary-bird,’ etc. See ante, p. 193.

 

‘Leaving the thing,’ etc. Philippians, iii. 13.

196.

The Catalogue Raisonnée. Cf. vol. I., The Round Table, pp. 140 et seq.

 

‘With jealous leer malign.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 503.

197.

Grampound. The borough was disfranchised for corrupt practices in 1821.

 

‘That is true history.’ This was said by Fuseli. See vol. VI. (Mr. Northcote’s Conversations), p. 340.

199.

Mr. West’s pictures. Benjamin West (1738–1820), president of the Royal Academy from 1792. Cf. vol. IX. pp. 318 et seq.

 

Barry. James Barry (1741–1806). Hazlitt refers to one of the pictures Barry painted for the Society of Arts in John Street, Adelphi.

200.

‘The bodiless creations,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4, ll. 136–137.

 

‘Like the baseless fabric,’ etc. The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

Mr. Haydon. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846). Mr. W. C. Hazlitt has given an account of his relations with Hazlitt. See Memoirs, I. 209–213, and Four Generations of a Literary Family, I. 234–236. At his house Hazlitt met Keats.

 

‘So from the root,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 479–481.

201.

His own Penitent Girl. Hazlitt seems to refer to a figure in the Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.

 

His Christ. Haydon’s picture, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, was first exhibited in 1820. At the private view, Haydon says (Tom Taylor’s Life, I. 371), ‘the room was full, Keats and Hazlitt were up in a corner, really rejoicing.’ Hazlitt is introduced into the picture ‘looking at the Saviour as an investigator.’ The picture is now in America. For Mrs. Siddons’s opinion of the picture see Life, I. 372.

 

Mr. Haydon is a devoted, etc. See his letter in The Examiner, March 17, 1816.