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

This essay is referred to by Brougham, who, on August 18, 1837, wrote to Macvey Napier (then editor of the Edinburgh Review): ‘I wish the Newspaper Press had not been flattered so much; at any rate its glaring faults should have been pointed out. This was done, and very ill done, in 1823, when it had hardly any sins to answer for.’ (Selections from the Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 199).

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204.

‘We are [I am] nothing, if not critical. Othello, Act II. Sc. 1. The words were used by Hazlitt as the motto to A View of the English Stage.

 

Terra plena, etc. Æneid, I. 460.

 

‘Large discourse,’ etc. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 4.

205.

‘The pomp of elder days.’ Thomas Warton’s Sonnet, ‘Written in a blank leaf of Dugdale’s Monasticon.’

206.

‘Cabin’d,’ etc. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

207.

The Children of the Mist. In The Legend of Montrose.

 

‘A chemist,’ etc. Absalom and Achitophel, I. 550.

208.

Sir Thomas Lawrence. President of the Royal Academy from 1820 till his death in 1830.

 

‘Though he should have,’ etc. Adapted from 1 Corinthians, xiii. 1.

 

‘The toe of the scholar,’ etc. Varied from Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1.

209.

‘Take the good,’ etc. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 106.

210.

‘Make the age to come her own.’ Cowley, The Motto, l. 2.

 

Mille ornatus habet, etc. ‘Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.’ From the first of the Sulpicia poems which are in Book IV. of the Elegies of Tibullus, but the authorship of which is not certainly known.

 

‘Now this,’ etc. Spenser, Muiopotmos, St. 22.

 

‘To beguile the time,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

211.

‘Squeak and gibber.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

The St. James’s Chronicle. Started in 1760 as a tri-weekly, independent Whig evening paper. It was for a time edited by James Mill.

 

212 note. Mrs. Radcliffe, the novelist, was married in 1787 to William Radcliffe, an Oxford graduate and a student of law, described by Sir Walter Scott (Lives of the Novelists) as ‘afterwards proprietor and editor of the English Chronicle.’

213.

The Morning Chronicle. Founded June 28, 1769. The early notable editors were William Woodfall (1746–1803), James Perry (1756–1821), who was editor from 1789 to 1817, and John Black (1783–1855). For Perry cf. vol. VI. Table Talk, p. 292.

 

Porson. Richard Porson (1759–1808) was Perry’s brother-in-law.

 

Jekyll. Joseph Jekyll (d. 1837) contributed many of his jokes to The Morning Chronicle.

214.

The Marquis Marialva. Gil Blas, Livre VII. chap x.

215.

Lord Nugent. Presumably Robert, Earl Nugent (1702–1788), who retired from parliamentary life in 1784. It is odd that Hazlitt should refer to so well-known a man as a Lord Nugent.

 

The Times Newspaper. John Walter (1739–1812) in 1785 started The Daily Universal Register, the name of which was changed on Jan. 1, 1788 to The Times or Daily Universal Register, and on March 18, 1788 to The Times.

 

A steam-engine. See vol. III. Political Essays, p. 158.

216.

‘Ever strong,’ etc. King John, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘Whiff and wind.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

‘Aggravate its voice,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I. Sc. 2.

217.

Mr. Walter. John Walter the Second (1776–1847).

 

A writer in his employ. Hazlitt’s brother-in-law, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, who left The Times in 1817 and started The Day and New Times, called from 1818 onwards The New Times. Hazlitt frequently attacks him.

 

‘Champion’s Legitimacy,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1.

219.

The late queen. Queen Caroline, George IV.’s wife, who died in 1821, shortly after her trial.

 

The Courier. An evening paper bought in 1799 by Coleridge’s friend Daniel Stuart (1766–1846), under whose management it quickly gained a large circulation.

 

‘The force of dulness,’ etc. Cf. ‘The force of nature could no farther go.’ Dryden, Lines printed under the engraved portrait of Milton.

 

The ingenious editor. William Mudford (1782–1848) was editor for some years before 1828.

220.

The Sun. An evening paper started in 1792 by Pitt’s friend, George Rose.

 

The Traveller. Started about 1803 by Edward Quin (d. 1823). It was amalgamated with The Globe in 1823.

 

The Morning Post. Founded in 1772.

 

Cobbett. William Cobbett (1762–1835) who started The Weekly Political Register in 1802.

 

We once tried, etc. Jeffrey attacked Cobbett in the Edinburgh (July 1807, vol. X. p. 386).

 

The Examiner. Founded by John and Leigh Hunt in 1808. Hazlitt had of course been intimately associated with the paper.

 

The News. A Sunday paper started in 1805.

 

The Observer. Another Sunday paper first made successful by William Innell Clement (d. 1852), who afterwards bought The Morning Chronicle.

221.

The Weekly Literary Journals, Gazettes. Of which The Literary Gazette, founded in 1817 and edited for a long time by William Jerdan (1782–1869), was the chief. Others were The Literary Journal (founded by James Mill in 1803) and The Literary Chronicle.

 

‘Coming Reviews,’ etc. Cf. ‘And coming events cast their shadows before.’ Campbell, Lochiel’s Warnings, l. 56.

 

The Scotsman. Started in 1817 by Charles Maclaren (1782–1866), who was editor from 1820 to 1845.

 

The Gentleman’s Magazine. Founded in 1731 by Johnson’s first employer, Edward Cave (1691–1754).

 

Mr. Blackwood’s. Founded in April 1817 by William Blackwood (1776–1834) as The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. With the seventh number (Oct. 1, 1817) the title was changed to ‘Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.’ The thousandth number appeared in February, 1899.

 

The European. Founded by James Perry in 1782.

 

The Lady’s. The Lady’s Magazine; or entertaining Companion for the fair sex, 1717–1818. A new series began in 1820.

 

The London. The London Magazine was started in January 1820, with John Scott (1723–1821) as editor, and for some years maintained a very high level of excellence. See Talfourd’s Final Memorials of Charles Lamb (II. 1–9), and Mr. Bertram Dobell’s Sidelights on Charles Lamb. Hazlitt was a regular contributor.

 

The Monthly. The Monthly Magazine founded in 1796 by Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) Phillips (1767–1840).

 

The New Monthly. The New Monthly Magazine was started by Henry Colburn (d. 1855) in 1814, in opposition to Phillips’s magazine. A new series, edited by Thomas Campbell, began in 1821. Many of Hazlitt’s best-known essays were contributed to it. The working editor was Cyrus Redding (1785–1870).

 

The head of Memnon. Hazlitt might have seen a plate of this in The London Magazine for February, 1821.

 

Dr. Johnson’s dispute, etc. See Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), I. 154.

222.

Elia. Lamb wrote many of his Elia essays in The London Magazine, chiefly between 1820 and 1823.

 

The author of Table Talk. Hazlitt himself.

 

The Confessions of an Opium-Eater. Published in The London Magazine for September and October, 1821.

 

Tales of Traditional Literature. A series of tales by Allan Cunningham (1784–1842), republished in 1822 as ‘Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry.’

 

Mr. Geoffrey Crayon. Washington Irving (1783–1859), whose Sketch Book, to which Hazlitt probably refers, appeared in New York, 1819–1820.

 

‘With a blush,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3.

223.

The Editor, we are afraid, etc. Talfourd, in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, gives a lively account of Campbell’s fastidious editorship of the New Monthly.

 

‘Lively’ [waking], etc. Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. 5.

 

‘The sin,’ etc. Hebrews, xii. 1.

225.

The Anti-Jacobin. Cf. ante, p. 139 and note.

 

‘The manna,’ etc. Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore. See ante, p. 69.

 

‘The pelting,’ etc. King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.

227.

A well-known paper. John Bull, Oct. 27, 1822. On the previous Tuesday (Oct. 22) young Las Cases ‘applied a horsewhip to the shoulders’ of Sir Hudson Lowe, with a view, as he said, to provoke a duel. Lowe obtained a warrant for the apprehension of Las Cases, who, however, retired to France. The radical papers made great fun of the incident. See The Examiner, Nov. 3, 1822.

 

A man of classical taste, etc. Hazlitt refers to Leigh Hunt and The Story of Rimini. See vol. I. (A Letter to William Gifford), pp. 376–378 and notes.

228.

A young poet. On Keats and his Critics see vol. VI. (Table Talk), p. 98 and note, and vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), pp. 302–307 and notes.

 

Author of the Baviad, etc. William Gifford.

229.

Such a paper was detected, etc. This was John Bull, Theodore Hook’s weekly paper, which on August 18, 1822, accused Mr. Fyshe Palmer, member for Reading, of having said that ‘he should have a dinner at the Crown on the occasion, with a haunch of venison, and turtle, and lots of punch.’ The detection was quoted from The Times in John Bull, Sep. 15, 1822.

LANDOR’S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

Hazlitt here reviews the first two volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s (1775–1864) Imaginary Conversations, published in 1824. A second edition, ‘corrected and enlarged,’ appeared in 1826, and vol. III. completing the ‘first series,’ in 1828. Vols. IV. and V. constituting the ‘second series,’ were published in 1829. For an account of Hazlitt’s visit to Landor at Florence in 1825 see Forster’s Walter Savage Landor, a Biography, II. 201–211, where a subsequent letter from Hazlitt to Landor is quoted, in which he says: ‘I am much gratified that you are pleased with the Spirit of the Age. Somebody ought to like it, for I am sure there will be plenty to cry out against it. I hope you did not find any sad blunders in the second volume; but you can hardly suppose the depression of body and mind under which I wrote some of those articles.’ This review of the Imaginary Conversations seems to have been cut about a good deal by Jeffrey.

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231.

‘Great wits,’ etc. Absalom and Achitophel, I. 163.

233.

‘It travels in a road’ [strait], etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3.

235.

Dashed and brewed. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 114.

 

‘To every good word,’ etc. Epistle to Titus, I. 16.

238.

‘All in conscience,’ etc. Chaucer, Prologue, 150.

 

Note. Tâtar. Cf., e.g.,

‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bond

Of erring faith conjoin’d.’

Roderick, the Last of the Goths, I. 18–19.

 

See also Notes and Queries, tenth Series, I. 11, 12.

242.

‘The fairest princess under sky.’ The Faerie Queene, Introductory Stanzas, IV.

 

‘Paint the lily,’ etc. King John, Act IV. Sc. 2.

243.

‘Famous poets’ verse.’ Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I. XI. 27, and III. IV. 1.

 

‘The spur,’ etc. Lycidas, 70.

 

Belvidera’s sorrows. In Otway’s Venice Preserved.

245.

Occasion and Furor. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto IV.

 

‘Cymocles,’ etc. Ibid., Book II. Canto VI.

 

The philosopher of Malmesbury. Hobbes.

250.

Horace’s ‘nine years.’ ‘Nonumque prematur in annum.’ Ars Poetica, 388.

 

‘Que, si sous Adam,’ etc. A line in Boileau’s tenth satire. See the Conversation between the Abbé Delille and Walter Landor.

 

General Mina. The second volume of Imaginary Conversations was dedicated to General Espoz y Mina (1784–1835), the Spanish patriot who opposed Napoleon, and, later, the tyranny of the restored Bourbons.

 

Balasteros. Francisco Ballasteros (1770–1832), the Spanish general, who had capitulated to the French invaders in 1823, and been banished for life.

251.

Caviare to the multitude [general]. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

254.

Articles in The Friend. See The Friend, February 8, 1810. Coleridge referred to this essay, and quoted passages from it in one of the articles he wrote in The Courier in 1811. See Essays on his own Times, III. 829 et seq. These articles are probably alluded to by Hazlitt when he speaks of ‘strong allusions ... in a celebrated journal.’

255.

‘Final hope,’ etc. Paradise Lost, II. 143.

 

‘To shut,’ etc. Cf. ‘She opened; but to shut excelled her power.’ Paradise Lost, II. 883–884.

 

Bolivar. Simon Bolivar (1783–1830), ‘the Liberator’ of South America. Landor dedicated to him the third volume of his Imaginary Conversations.

 

Gebir. Published anonymously in 1798. ‘Many parts of it,’ says Landor (Preface to 1831 edition), ‘were first composed in Latin; and I doubted in which language to complete it.’

 

‘Pleased they remember,’ etc. Cf. Gebir, I. 168–169.

 

Count Julian. Published anonymously in 1812.

The volume here reviewed was published in 1824 by John and Henry L. Hunt. Hazlitt had little sympathy with Shelley either as a man or a poet. The grounds of his distrust of him as a man are given more than once, most fully, perhaps, in the essay ‘On Paradox and Common-Place’ (Table Talk, VI. 148–150), which led to the quarrel between Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt in 1821. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 304–315, and Four Generations of a Literary Family, I. 130–135. As for Shelley’s poetry, P. G. Patmore suggests that Hazlitt knew little or nothing of it. ‘Though I have often,’ he says (My Friends and Acquaintance, III. 136), ‘heard him speak disparagingly of Shelley as a poet, I never heard him refer to a single line or passage of his published writings.’ Hazlitt met Shelley at Leigh Hunt’s, and the two discussed Monarchy and Republicanism until three in the morning.’ See Mary Shelley’s journal of 1817, quoted in Professor Dowden’s Life, II. 103.

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256.

‘Too fiery,’ etc. Cf. ‘You know the fiery quality of the duke.’ King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4.

 

‘Beyond the visible,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, VII. 22.

 

‘All air.’ Cf. ‘He is pure air and fire.’ Henry V., Act III. Sc. 7.

257.

‘So divinely wrought,’ etc. Cf. John Donne, An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–246.

 

‘And dallies,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘More subtle web,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto XII. St. 77.

259.

‘There the antics sit.’ Richard II., Act. III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Palsied eld.’ Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.

260.

Mr. Shelley died, etc. When Shelley’s body was cast ashore near Via Reggio (July 18, 1822), a volume of Keats’s poems was found in one pocket, and a volume of Sophocles in the other.

 

Two out of four poets, patriots, and friends. The four poets were presumably Shelley, Keats, Byron and Leigh Hunt.

 

Keats died young, etc. Cf. vol. VI. (Table Talk) p. 99.

 

A third has since been added, etc. Byron died at Mesolonghi, April 19, 1824.

261.

Mrs. Shelley. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797–1851) married to Shelley, Dec. 30, 1816.

 

Alastor. Originally published in 1816.

 

Translation of the May-day Night. Published in The Liberal.

 

Julian and Maddalo. This poem, first published in Posthumous Poems, had been sent to Leigh Hunt in 1819 for publication by Ollier.

264.

‘Made as flax.’ Cf. Judges, XV. 14.

267.

The Letter to a Friend in London. The Letter to Maria Gisborne presumably.

 

‘Toys of feathered cupid.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

269.

‘The sun is warm,’ etc. Stanzas written in dejection near Naples.

270.

Mr. Keats’s sounding lines. Endymion, Book I. 232 et seq.

 

‘Weakness and melancholy.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

271.

‘To elevate and surprise.’ The Duke of Buckingham’s Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘Overstep the modesty.’ Hamlet, Act III., Sc. 2.

 

‘Good set terms.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

Lord Leveson Gower. Lord Francis Leveson Gower (1800–1857), son of the second Marquis of Stafford, inherited a large property from his uncle, Francis Henry Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, assumed the name of Egerton, and in 1846 was created Earl of Ellesmere. His translation of Faust appeared in 1823.

275.

Note. See vol. V. pp. 202–203, and notes.

This Life appeared in 1823. Sydney Owenson (1783?–1859), author of The Wild Irish Girl in (1806), and many other less known books, was the daughter of Robert Owenson, the actor, and in 1812 married Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, the physician and philosopher. Cf. The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV.), p. 308, and The Plain Speaker (vol. VII.), p. 220. This review was republished in Criticisms on Art (1843–4) and in Essays on the Fine Arts (1873).

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278.

The miracle in Virgil. Æneid, III. 37–40.

279.

‘Housing with wild men,’ etc. Coleridge, Zapolya, Act II. Sc. 1.

280.

‘Their mind,’ etc. Sir Edward Dyer’s poem, beginning ‘My mind to me a kingdom is.’

 

‘In measureless content.’ Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘Unjust tribunals,’ etc. Samson Agonistes, 695.

282.

‘Pride, pomp,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

283.

The celebrated Lanfranco. Giovanni Lanfranco (1581–1647), the painter.

 

‘Skins and films,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.

287.

‘Another moon,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 311.

291.

‘According to Lord Bacon,’ etc. Advancement of Learning, Bk. II. iv. p. 2.

 

‘Burke, in a like manner,’ etc. See A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791 (Works, Bohn, II. p. 535, et seq.)

292.

‘Moralizes,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

Bernini. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the sculptor.

296.

Passeri. Giovanni Battista Passeri (1610?–1679), author of Vite de’Pittori, Scultori, e Architetri, etc. (1772).

 

Mrs. Radcliffe’s Italian. Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, 1797.

 

Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter (1776–1850), published in 1803.

298.

‘Like a wounded snake,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Criticism (II.), 357.

300.

‘Where universal Pan,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 266–268.

301.

Massaniello. Tommaso Aniello—called Masaniello—(1623–1647), the fisherman leader of the Neapolitan revolt against the Spanish viceroy in 1647.

AMERICAN LITERATURE—DR. CHANNING

This review is stated to be Hazlitt’s in the volume of Selections from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, p. 70 note. Jeffrey writes to Napier, Nov. 23, 1829 (Ibid. pp. 69–70): ‘Your American reviewer is not a first-rate man, a clever writer enough, but not deep or judicious, or even very fair. I have no notion who he is. If he is young he may come to good, but he should be trained to a more modest opinion of himself, and to take a little more pains, and go more patiently and thoroughly into his subject.’ Carlyle, on the other hand, writes, Jan. 27. 1830 (Ibid. p. 78): ‘I liked the last [number] very well; the review of Channing seemed to me especially good.’ It is very strange that Jeffrey should not have recognised Hazlitt’s manner. Procter (An Autobiographical Fragment, p. 261) quotes a letter from Jeffrey of May 12, 1826, in which he says, ‘Can you tell me anything of our ancient ally Hazlitt?’

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310.

Mr. Brown. Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810), one of the earliest of American writers, author of Wieland (1798), Ormond (1799), Arthur Mervyn (1800), Edgar Huntley (1801), Clara Howard (1801), and Jane Talbot (1804). The first four of these are mentioned by Peacock as amongst the books ‘which took the deepest root in Shelley’s mind, and had the strongest influence on the formation of his character.’

310.

Mr. Cooper. James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), whose most famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans, had appeared in 1826.

311.

An ample tribute of respect. See reviews in the Edinburgh of The Sketch Book (Aug. 1820), and Bracebridge Hall (Nov. 1822). Both were written by Jeffrey.

 

Frankenstein. Mrs. Shelley’s novel (1818).

 

‘Of Brownies,’ etc. ‘Of Brownies and of bogillis full this buke.’ Gawin Douglas, Aeneis, VI. Prol. 18.

 

They hoot the Beggar’s Opera, etc. Cf. vol. VIII. (Dramatic Essays), p. 473 and note.

312.

Our own unrivalled novelist. Sir Walter Scott.

313.

The historiographer of Brother Jonathan. Hazlitt refers to John Neal’s Brother Jonathan: or the New Englanders. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1825.

 

His Pilot. 1823.

 

‘To suffer,’ etc. The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.

314.

‘Line upon line,’ etc. Isaiah, xxviii. 10.

 

Franklin. Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790).

 

Poor Robin. Poor Richard’s Almanac, begun by Franklin in 1732, and continued with great success for twenty-five years.

 

1754. This apparently should be 1764.

 

‘Metre-ballad-mongering.’ Cf. Henry IV., Part I. Act III. Sc. 1.

315.

Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), whose Freedom of the Will appeared in 1754. Cf. Hazlitt’s philosophical lectures in vol. XI.

 

‘An honest method.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

316.

Dr. Channing. William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), minister of a Congregational church in Boston from 1803. He had visited England in 1822. Hazlitt is here reviewing Sermons and Tracts: including Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton, and of Fenelon; and an analysis of the Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1829.

320.

In answer to Fenelon. Channing’s ‘Remarks’ were upon a volume of Selections from Fénelon, published in Boston, 1829.

323.

Bishop Butler’s Sermons. 1726.

325.

‘Wise above what is written.’ Cf. 1 Corinthians, iv. 6.

 

‘With authority,’ etc. S. Matthew, vii. 29.

326.

‘As having something,’ etc. The Advancement of Learning, Book II. iv. 2.

327.

‘The father of lies.’ Cf. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Partition I. Sec. IV. Member i. Subsection 4.

328.

Fielding’s character of Mr. Abraham Adams. Joseph Andrews, Book III. chap. 5.

329.

‘No babies.’ ‘I am no baby.’ Titus Andronicus, Act V. Sc. 3.

FLAXMAN’S LECTURES ON SCULPTURE

A review of John Flaxman’s (1755–1826) Lectures on Sculpture (1829). The review was republished in Criticisms on Art (1843–4) and in Essays on the Fine Arts (1873). Flaxman had been professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy from 1810. In his Memoirs of William Hazlitt (II. 269) Mr. W. C. Hazlitt gives a number of marginal notes made by Hazlitt upon his copy of Flaxman’s Lectures probably with a view to this article.

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335.

Torregiano. Pietro Torrigiano (c. 1470–1522), the Florentine sculptor who broke Michael Angelo’s nose. He came to England in 1509.

 

‘A city,’ etc. S. Matthew, V. 14.

336.

‘High and palmy.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘Growing with its growth.’ Pope, Essay on Man, II. 136.

341.

Sir Anthony Carlisle. Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768–1840), the surgeon, studied for a time at the Royal Academy, and wrote an essay ‘On the Connection between Anatomy and the Fine Arts,’ to which Hazlitt probably refers.

344.

‘To make Gods,’ etc. Cf. Genesis, i. 26.

 

‘Hitherto,’ etc. Job, xxxviii. 11.

345.

‘The labour,’ etc. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3.

348.

‘Shreds and patches.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

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

349.

‘By their own beauty,’ etc. Cf. ‘By our own spirits are we deified.’ Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence, 47.

350.

‘The scale,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, VIII. 591–592.

351.

Incendio del Borgo. Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican.

WILSON’S LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL DEFOE

Walter Wilson’s (1781–1847) Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe was published in 3 vols. in 1830.

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355.

Tutchin and Ridpath. John Tutchin (1661?–1707) and George Ridpath (d. 1726), two Whig contemporaries of Defoe, successive editors of The Observator.

 

Dispraise of the Beggars’ Opera. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, III. 595–596.

356.

‘Excellent iteration in him.’ Cf. Henry IV., Part I. Act I. Sc. 2.

 

As honest Hector Macintyre, etc. See The Antiquary, chap. XX.

 

‘Thinly scattered,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

Rari nantes, etc. Æneid, I. 118.

356.

‘I remember my grandfather,’ etc. Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, I. 6, and Defoe’s Review, vii. Pref.

357.

Mr. Samuel Wesley. Samuel Wesley the elder (1662–1735), whose attack on the education of the Dissenters (1703) engaged him in a controversy.

 

Shortest Way with the Dissenters., 1702.

358.

Harley. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (1661–1724).

 

‘Heaven lies about us,’ etc. Wordsworth, Ode, Intimations of Immortality, 66.

 

‘Poor Robinson Crusoe,’ etc. Robinson Crusoe, Section XV.

358.

True-born Englishman. 1701.

 

Review. 1704–1713.

 

Essays on Trade. Defoe wrote several tracts on the subject of trade.

360.

Legion Petition. ‘Legion’s Memorial’ to the House of Commons in reference to the Kentish Petition of 1701. A second Memorial appeared in the following year.

 

‘Heaping coals of fire,’ etc. Romans, xii. 20.

 

‘Stuff of the conscience.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

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

361.

Toland. John Toland (1670–1722), the deist.

362.

Note. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, I. 73 note.

363.

‘There goes a very honest gentleman,’ etc. According to Madame de La Fayette (Mémoires de la Cour de France), it was Louvois’ brother, the Archbishop of Rheims, who, on seeing James come from Mass, said: ‘Voilà un fort bon homme, il a quitté trois royaumes pour une messe.’

 

Dr. Sherlock. William Sherlock (1641?–1707), one of the non-jurors for a short time after the Revolution.

364.

An eloquent passage. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, I. 76–77 and Defoe’s Review, IV. 643–644.

 

The Exclusion Bill. Passed by the House of Commons and rejected by the House of Lords, 1680.

 

A very curious account. Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, I. 156 et seq.

366.

His Complete Tradesman. The Complete English Tradesman, 1727.

367.

‘To keep their seats firm.’ Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 97).

 

‘The fate of James,’ etc. Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, I. 162–163.

368.

‘Courage had been screwed,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7.

 

An Address to the Dissenters. This pamphlet (1687) seems to have been Bishop Burnet’s. See Lee’s Life of Defoe and Notes and Queries, 4th Ser. IV. 253, 307.

 

The Marquis of Halifax. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633–1695). The pamphlet referred to by Hazlitt appeared in 1686.

369.

An early Piece. Lee (Life of Defoe, I. 15) regards this piece (1683) and Speculum Crape-gownorum (1682) as spurious.

 

Lives of the Philipses. William Godwin’s Lives of Edward and John Philips, 1815.

 

Note. An Appeal to Honour and Justice. 1715.

370.

‘The Hortus Siccus of Dissent.’ Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 14).

 

Oldmixon. John Oldmixon (1673–1742), whose History of England during the Reign of the Royal House of Stuart was published in 3 vols. 1729–1739.

371.

‘Though that his joy,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 1.

372.

‘Not pierceable‘, etc. Cf. ‘Not perceable with power of any starr.’ The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto I. St. 7.

373.

‘Speaking a word,’ etc. Cf. Proverbs, XV. 23.

374.

Sacheverell. Henry Sacheverell (1674–1724). The sermon referred to was preached before the University of Oxford on June 2, 1702. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc. of Defoe, II. 27–28.

 

‘So should his anticipation,’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

375.

A Hymn to the Pillory. 1703.

 

‘See where on high,’ etc. ‘Earless on high stood unabash’d De Foe.’ The Dunciad, II. 147.

 

‘Dishonour, honourable.’ Cf. ‘Honour dishonourable.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 314.

 

‘Condemned to everlasting fame.’ ‘Damned to everlasting fame.’ Pope, Essay on Man, IV. 284.

 

‘Oh soul supreme,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle V. 23–24.

 

‘The fellow that was pilloried.’ See Swift’s A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland, to a Member of the House of Commons in England, concerning the Sacramental Test (1709).

 

‘The superficial part of learning.’ Gay, in his Present State of Wit (1711), spoke of Defoe as a ‘fellow, who had excellent natural parts, but wanted a small foundation of learning.’

376.

‘Flying to others,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

376.

‘Why troublest thou,’ etc. Cf. ‘Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?’ S. Matthew, viii, 29.

377.

William Benson. William Benson (1682–1754). Defoe was prosecuted and imprisoned for his anti-Jacobite tracts of 1713, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, etc.

 

‘The force of dulness,’ etc. Cf. Dryden, Lines printed under the Engraved Portrait of Milton, 5.

378.

His History of that event. History of the Union of Great Britain, 1709.

 

Apology for the Massacre of Glencoe. In Defoe’s History of the Union, 4to. edition, pp. 68–73.

 

‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,’ etc. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, II. 457.

379.

His novels. Those referred to by Hazlitt are Moll Flanders, 1721; Roxana, 1724; Captain Singleton, 1720; Colonel Jack, 1722; and Memoirs of a Cavalier, 1720.

 

The Family Instructor. 1715–1718.

 

‘Meddling with the unclean thing.’ Cf. 2 Corinthians, VI. 17.

380.

‘All the fore-end of his time.’ Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘Vice, by losing,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89).

 

‘Purple light.’ Cf. ‘The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.’ Gray, The Progress of Poesy, 41.

381.

What Mr. Lamb says, etc. See Lamb’s ‘Estimate of De Foe’s Secondary Novels,’ written for Wilson’s Life of Defoe (III. 636). The paper is reprinted in The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 325–327.

382.

Imposed upon Lord Chatham. See Wilson’s Memoirs, etc., of Defoe, III. 509.

 

History of Apparitions. An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions, 1727.

 

‘Call spirits,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I., Act III. Sc. 1.

 

History of the Plague. Journal of the Plague Year, 1722.

MR. GODWIN

This was ostensibly a review of Cloudesley, published in 1830. Some years previously Sir James Mackintosh had suggested that Hazlitt should be asked to review Godwin’s novels. Towards the end of 1823 he wrote to Godwin: ‘I see your novels advertised to-day. Could you ask Mr. Hazlitt to review them in the Edinburgh Review. He is a very original thinker, and notwithstanding some singularities which appear to me faults, a very powerful writer. I say this, though I know he is no panegyrist of mine. His critique might serve all our purposes, and would, I doubt not, promote the interests of literature also.’ (C. Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, II. 289.) The Edinburgh had reviewed Godwin’s Fleetwood (vol. VI. p. 182), and had praised Caleb Williams very highly in a review of the Lives of Edward and John Philips (XXV. p. 485). Cf. Hazlitt’s sketch of Godwin in The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. pp. 200 et seq., and notes.

PAGE

 

385.

Dramatised. Caleb Williams was dramatised by George Colman the younger as The Iron Chest. See vol. VIII. (A View of the English Stage), p. 342.

386.

‘Seemed like another morn,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 310–311.

 

‘Even in his ashes,’ etc. Cf. Gray, Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard, 92.

387.

Otium cum dignitate. Cicero, Pro Sestio, XLV. 98.

 

‘Retired leisure,’ etc. Il Penseroso, 49–50.

387.

Horas non numero, etc. The motto of a sun-dial near Venice. See Hazlitt’s essay ‘On a Sun-Dial.’

 

‘The iron rod,’ etc. Vaguely quoted from Paradise Lost, II. 90–92.

 

‘Stretched upon the rack,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘And like a gallant horse,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

There is only one living writer. Scott, no doubt.

388.

‘O let not virtue,’ etc. Loosely quoted from Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘To elevate and surprise.’ The Duke of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘Takes an inventory.’ Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Act III. Sc. 2.

391.

‘A pass of wit.’ Cf. ‘Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. “Steal by line and level” is an excellent pass of pate.’ The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

‘O’ersteps,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

392.

Annesley. Hazlitt refers to the well-known case of James Annesley (1715–1760), who claimed to be the legitimate son and heir of Lord Altham. The story will be found in Howell’s State Trials (vols. XVI. and XVII.), and has been used by other novelists besides Godwin. See Peregrine Pickle (chap. 98) and Charles Reade’s The Wandering Heir. Godwin, in the advertisement to Cloudesley, says: ‘It is but just that the reader should be informed that a novel has been already written on this theme, and printed in the year 1743, under the title of “Memoirs of an unfortunate young Nobleman, Returned from a Thirteen Years’ Slavery in America.”’ This is presumably the work referred to by Hazlitt as ‘a novel with the title of Annesley.’ In 1756 appeared The Case of the Honourable J. A., humbly offered to all lovers of truth and justice.

 

‘Mark and likelihood.’ Henry IV., Part I., Act III. Sc. 2.

393.

Multum abludit imago. Horace, Satires, II. 3, 320.

 

‘Subject [servile] to all,’ etc. Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘A fiery soul,’ etc. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 156–158.

394.

‘But the lees,’ etc. Loosely quoted from Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3.

 

‘After a thousand victories,’ etc. Shakespeare, Sonnet XXV.

 

‘A great man’s memory,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

395.

‘At first no bigger,’ etc. Cf. S. Matthew, xiii. 31.

397.

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

 

‘The scale by which we ascend.’ Cf. Paradise Lost, VIII. 591–592.

398.

‘Reaches the verge,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays, II. 52.

399.

His New Man of Feeling. Fleetwood; or, The New Man of Feeling, 1805.

 

Mandeville. 1817.

 

Life of Chaucer. 1803.

 

Essay on Sepulchres. 1809.

 

Mr. Malthus’s theory. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), p. 296.

400.

Sermons. Sketches of History, in Six Sermons, 1784.

 

An English Grammar. The grammar was written by Hazlitt himself and published by Mrs. Godwin at the Skinner Street house. See vol IV., Bibliographical Note on p. 388. It contained a letter written by Godwin under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin.