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

Republished in Sketches and Essays.

PAGE

 

131.

Sewell and Cross’s. Linen-drapers and silk-mercers, 44 and 45 Old Compton Street, Soho.

 

The Bazaar. Established in 1815.

 

‘The Corinthian capitals,’ etc. Cf. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 164).

132.

As I look down Curzon Street. The essay would seem to have been written at 40 Half-Moon Street, where Hazlitt lodged from 1827 to 1829.

133.

‘Brothers of the groves.’ Cf. vol. VIII. note to p. 467.

 

Mr. N——. Sketches and Essays prints ‘Northcote.’

 

‘High Life Below Stairs.’ By James Townley (1714–1788), produced in 1759.

 

Mr. C——.? Coleridge.

 

Cassock. Sketches and Essays prints hassock.

 

The fate of the footman, etc. See Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Epistle from Arthur Grey, the Footman, to Mrs. Murray.

134.

‘Vine-covered hills,’ etc. From lines ‘Written in 1788’ by William Roscoe and parodied in The Anti-Jacobin.

 

‘As pigeons pick up peas.’ Cf. Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 2.

135.

‘No more—where ignorance,’ etc. Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

 

M. de Bausset. Louis François Joseph, Baron de Bausset (b. 1770), author of Mémoires anecdotiques sur l’intérieur du palais (1827–8).

136.

Wear green spectacles. These three words, which seem to have a personal application, were omitted in Sketches and Essays. Cf. post, p. 217.

ON THE WANT OF MONEY

Republished in Literary Remains.

137.

‘The heaviest stone,’ etc. Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, chap. IV.

138.

‘That Mr. Moore,’ etc. Moore’s Life of Sheridan appeared in 1825. This sentence was omitted in Literary Remains.

139.

Note. ‘Such gain,’ etc. Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 3.

140.

‘Screw one’s courage,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7.

 

‘As kind,’ etc. Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, I. 271.

141.

‘Of formal cut.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

The fair Aurora. Gil Blas, Livre IV.

 

Monsieur de Very. See ante, note to p. 104.

 

Apicius. Marcus Gabius Apicius, the notorious Roman epicure, referred to by Pliny, X. 48, 68, § 133.

 

Amelia’s hashed mutton. Amelia, Book X. chap. V.

142.

‘And ever,’ etc. L’Allegro, 135–6.

 

‘We called,’ etc. Cf. Colonel Jack, chap. 1.

 

‘The Colonel,’ etc. Ibid.

 

The City Madam. See Massinger’s, The City Madam, III. 3.

 

‘Spanish Rogue.’ Hazlitt refers to Mateo Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache (1599). Cf. vol. VIII. (Lectures on the Comic Writers), p. 111.

142.

Mr. Lamb has referred, etc. See Lamb’s Specimens, note to Rowley’s A New Wonder (Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, IV. 126).

 

Note. ‘His daughter and his ducats.’ The Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 8.

143.

‘By their so potent art.’ Cf. The Tempest, Act V. Sc. 1.

144.

‘We know,’ etc. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 5.

 

‘Within that lowest deep,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, IV. 76–77.

146.

I never knew but one man, etc. ? Jeffrey.

 

‘With wine,’ etc. Cf. Milton’s Sonnet, Lawrence, of virtuous father, etc.

149.

‘Pure in the last recesses of the mind.’ Dryden, The Second Satire of Persius, 133.

 

Mr. Thomas Wedgwood. Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805), Coleridge’s friend.

 

‘We can hold,’ etc. Richard II., Act I. Sc. 3.

ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH

Republished with many omissions and variations in Literary Remains and Winterslow.

PAGE

 

150.

‘Life is a pure flame,’ etc. Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, chap. V.

 

My brother’s. John Hazlitt (1767–1837), the miniature-painter. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Four Generations of a Literary Family, I. 210–18.

151.

‘The vast,’ etc. Cf. ‘The wide, the unbounded prospect, lies before me.’ Addison, Cato, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

‘Bear a charmed life.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 8.

 

‘Bidding,’ etc. Collins’s Ode, The Passions, 32.

 

‘This sensible,’ etc. Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.

152.

‘Wine of life,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3.

 

‘As in a glass darkly.’ Cf. 1 Corinthians xiii. 12.

 

‘So am not I.’ Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. V. chap. vii.

 

Note. The Art of War (1795) by Joseph Fawcett (d. 1804), an early friend of Hazlitt’s. See vol. VI. (Table-Talk), 224–5 and Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc., I. 75–79.

153.

‘The feast of reason,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Sat. I. 128.

 

‘Brave sublunary things.’ Cf. ‘Those brave translunary things.’ Michael Drayton, To Henry Reynolds.

 

‘The stockdove,’ etc. Cf. Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, I. St. 4.

 

Note. ‘Had it not been,’ etc. Works, II. 254.

 

Note. She says of Richardson. See Works, II. 285 et seq. and 222.

 

Note. Monstrum ingens biforme. Cf. Æneid, III. 658.

 

Note. ‘His spirits,’ etc. Works, II. 283.

156.

‘The purple light of love.’ Gray, The Progress of Poesy, 41.

 

‘The Raphael grace,’ etc. Cf. ‘Match Raphael’s grace with thy loved Guido’s air. ‘Pope, Moral Essays, VIII. 36.

 

‘Gain new vigour,’ etc. Cowper, Charity, 104.

157.

‘Beguile,’ etc. Cf. ‘Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

158.

‘Robbers.’ Schiller’s play, produced in 1782.

 

‘From the Dungeon,’ etc. Coleridge, Sonnet, ‘To the Author of The Robbers.’

 

Don Carlos. Schiller’s play (1787).

158.

‘That time is past,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 83–85.

159.

‘Even from the tomb,’ etc. Gray’s Elegy, 91–92.

 

‘All the life,’ etc. Cf. ‘For a’ the life of life is dead.’ Burns, Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn, st. 6.

 

‘From the last dregs,’ etc. Cf. Dryden, Aurengzebe, Act IV. Sc. 1.

160.

‘Treason domestic,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Reverbs its own hollowness.’ Cf. King Lear, Act I. Sc. 1.

ON READING NEW BOOKS

Published with omissions in Sketches and Essays. The essay was written at Florence. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc. II. 154.

PAGE

 

161.

Note. See vol. VIII. (Lectures on the Comic Writers), p. 22 and note.

162.

‘Has just come,’ etc. Cf. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 1.

164.

A Manuscript of Cicero’s. Hazlitt probably refers to Cardinal Angelo Mai’s (1782–1854) discoveries.

 

A Noble Lord. The Marquis of Blandford, who bought Valdarfer’s edition of Boccaccio for £2260 at the Roxburgh sale in 1812. Cf. ante, p. 43.

 

Mr. Thomas Taylor. Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), the Platonist. The ‘old Duke of Norfolk’ (Bernard Edward, 12th Duke, 1765–1842) was his patron, and locked up nearly the whole of Taylor’s edition of Plato (5 vols., 1804) in his library.

 

Ireland’s celebrated forgery. The main forgery, Vortigern, by William Henry Ireland, was produced at Drury Lane on April 2, 1796.

 

Note. Mr. G. D.’s chambers. Lamb’s friend George Dyer (1755–1841) lived in Clifford’s Inn from 1792. His History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge, etc. was published in 2 vols. in 1814. In reference to the number of corrections in this work, Lamb spoke of Dyer as ‘Cancellarius Magnus.’

 

Note. Another friend of mine, etc. Leigh Hunt. See his essay ‘Jack Abbot’s Breakfast’ reprinted in Men, Women, and Books (1847).

166.

‘Proud as when,’ etc. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3.

167.

‘Like sunken wreck,’ etc. Cf. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 2.

168.

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

 

‘An insolent piece of paper.’ ‘A piece of arrogant paper.’ Massinger, A New Way to pay Old Debts, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

‘Somewhat musty.’ Cf. ‘Something musty.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Longinus complains, etc. See Longinus, On the Sublime, IX.

169.

Irving’s orations. Cf. vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), p. 228.

 

The Jew’s letters. Dr. Philip le Fanu published in 1777 a translation of the Abbé Guenée’s Lettres de certaines Juives à M. Voltaire.

 

That Van Diemen’s Land of letters. These words were omitted in Sketches and Essays.

 

Flocci-nauci, etc. Shenstone, Letter xxi. 1741 (Works, 1791, III. 49).

 

‘Flames in the forehead,’ etc. Lycidas, 171.

170.

Mr. Godwin composed an Essay, etc. Hazlitt perhaps refers to the letter added by ‘Edward Baldwin’ to his own English Grammar. See vol. VI. p. 388.

 

Note. A certain poet. This note was omitted in Sketches and Essays.

171.

‘By Heavens,’ etc. Wordsworth Sonnet, The world is too much with us.

171.

‘Trampled,’ etc. Cf. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 93).

 

‘Kept like an apple,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 2.

172.

Note. ‘Speak evil of dignities.’ 2 Peter ii. 10.

 

Note. The Queens matrimonial-ladder. One of William Hone’s squibs, published in 1820, and illustrated with fourteen cuts by Cruikshank.

ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE

Republished in Sketches and Essays.

174.

‘Discourse of reason,’ etc. Loosely quoted from Hamlet. Cf. Act I. Sc. 2 and Act IV. Sc. 4.

 

‘The whole,’ etc. Cf. S. Matthew ix. 12.

 

‘As when,’ etc. Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, St. 64.

177.

‘Yea, into our heart of hearts.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘The volumes,’ etc. Roscommon, Horace’s Art of Poetry.

 

‘That dallies,’ etc. Cf. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4.

178.

‘Wit at the helm,’ etc. Cf. ‘Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.’ Gray, The Bard, 74.

179.

A butt, according to the Spectator, etc. See The Spectator, No. 47.

181.

‘Hew you,’ etc. Cf. Julius Cæsar, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

Tempora, etc. Cf. Æneid, IV. 293–4.

 

‘Not to admire,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epistles I. vi. 1–2.

 

The Westminster School of Reform. Hazlitt refers to the writers, including Bentham and James Mill, associated with The Westminster Review, founded in 1824.

182.

‘Milk of human kindness.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

ON MEANS AND ENDS

Published in Literary Remains with many variations presumably introduced by the editor, and again in the same form in Winterslow.

PAGE

 

184.

‘We work by wit,’ etc. Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.

185.

‘Leaps at once,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, V. 686.

 

‘From Indus,’ etc. Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 58.

187.

Hinc illæ lachrymæ. Horace, Epistles, I. xix. 41.

188.

‘Constrained by mastery.’ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Franklin’s Tale, 36; Wordsworth quotes the line in The Excursion, VI. 162–5.

189.

‘Makes a sunshine,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, I. iii. 4.

190.

David’s and Girodet’s pictures. Jacques Louis David (1748–1825) and Anne Louis Girodet (1767–1824).

 

‘Potations, pottle-deep.’ Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.

192.

‘In a phantasma,’ etc. Julius Cæsar, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘Courage,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 108.

193.

‘His thoughts,’ etc. Cf. Ibid., IX. 467.

 

Note. Strong passion, etc. Cf. The Rambler, No. 1.

 

Note. ‘The lunatic,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

194.

‘Set but a Scotsman,’ etc. Cf. Burns, The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer, Postscript, St. 4.

 

‘And it alone,’ etc. Cf. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘We read his works.’ Lamb’s Essay ‘On the Genius and Character of Hogarth’ (Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 71).

195.

‘The darlings of his precious eye.’ Cf. ‘Make it a darling like your precious eye.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.

196.

‘The jovial thigh,’ etc. Cf. Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 2.

197.

‘They are careful,’ etc. Cf. S. Luke X. 41–42.

198.

‘And with their darkness,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, I. 391.

 

‘They also serve,’ etc. Adapted from Milton’s Sonnet, No. XX., ‘When I consider how my light is spent,’ etc.

ON PERSONAL IDENTITY

Published with some omissions in Winterslow.

 

‘Ha! here be,’ etc. King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

‘If I were not Alexander,’ etc. The saying is given by Plutarch.

 

Note. Zoffani. Johann Zoffany, or Zaufelly (1733–1810).

 

Note. Reynolds’s Speculation. A comedy by Frederick Reynolds, produced in 1795. George III. was much amused by it. See Life of Reynolds, II. 208–210.

199.

‘Wishing to be,’ etc. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet XXIX.

 

‘The rub,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘Put off,’ etc. Ibid.

200.

‘What more felicity,’ etc. Spenser, Muiopotmos, St. 27.

201.

‘That something,’ etc. Cf. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 3–4.

 

‘Very choice Italian.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Vows,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, IV. 97.

 

‘The native hue,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

202.

‘Shut up,’ etc. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘I’d sooner,’ etc. Cf. Julius Cæsar, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

Sir Thomas Lethbridge. A sturdy Tory, member for Somersetshire. He is possibly the L—— referred to in vol. VI. (Table-Talk), p. 94. Though a staunch Protectionist, he voted for Reform and Catholic Emancipation.

203.

‘Ethereal braid,’ etc. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), note to p. 216.

 

Had I been a lord I should have married, etc. This sentence and the next were omitted in Winterslow.

204.

‘Give me,’ etc. Cf. 3 Henry VI., Act I. Sc. 4.

 

‘Monarchise,’ etc. Richard II., Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Tenth transmitters,’ etc. Richard Savage, The Bastard.

 

‘In the catalogue,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘Swinish multitude.’ Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 93).

205.

‘The fair,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

The person who bought Punch. Cf. post, p. 353.

206.

Why will Mr. Cobbett, etc. Cobbett had recently (1826) unsuccessfully contested Preston.

 

The bird described by Chaucer. See Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Manciple’s Tale, 59 et seq., and The Squiere’s Tale, 603 et seq.

 

You say there is a common language, etc. These words, down to ‘And he will laugh in your face,’ were omitted in Winterslow.

207.

‘A certain tender bloom,’ etc. Cf. ‘A certain tender gloom o’erspread his face.’ Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, I. St. 57.

208.

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

 

‘Laggard age.’ Collins, Ode, The Passions, 112.

209.

Like Benvenuto Cellini, etc. See Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Part II. lxxviii.

Now republished for the first time. In The Monthly Magazine they appeared as follows: I.–XI. October 1830; XII.–XXXVI. November 1830; XXXVII.–XLVII. December 1830; XLVIII.–LV. April 1831; LVI.–LXVI. May 1831; LXVII.–LXX. June 1831. They are described as ‘by the late William Hazlitt.’

PAGE

 

210.

Monmouth-street. In St. Giles’s, now partly occupied by Shaftesbury Avenue. Allusions to its old-clothes shops are very frequent in eighteenth-century literature.

211.

‘In the deep bosom,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘At one fell swoop.’ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3.

214.

O’Connell. Hazlitt no doubt refers to the proceedings of O’Connell after his election for Co. Clare in 1828.

215.

‘The soft collar,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 90).

 

‘The iron rod,’ etc. Cf.

‘When the scourge inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance.’ Paradise Lost, II. 90–2.

217.

An editor. Cf. ante, p. 136.

218.

‘There goes my wicked self.’ Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of the saying attributed to John Bradford (1510?–1555), who, on seeing some criminals going to execution, is said to have exclaimed: ‘But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford.’

 

‘To be honest,’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

L——.? Lamb.

219.

‘Leave others poor indeed.’ Cf. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘To be direct,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.

220.

‘Tout homme,’ etc. Cf. vol. I. (The Round Table), note to p. 117.

221.

A popular author. Scott, no doubt.

 

‘Writes himself,’ etc. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 1.

223.

‘To triumph,’ etc. Gray, The Bard, 142.

224.

A certain bookseller. Sir Richard Phillips. See vol. VI. (Mr. Northcote’s Conversations), p. 418.

225.

‘From every work,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, I. IV. 20.

226.

‘Melted,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

Beau Didapper. See Joseph Andrews, Book IV. chap. IX.

228.

‘Damned spot.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 1.

229.

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

 

The Devil’s Elixir, etc. The Devil’s Elixir, or the Shadowless Man, a musical romance by Edward Fitzball (1792–1873), produced at Covent Garden, April 20, 1829; The Bottle Imp, a melodrama by Richard Brinsley Peake (1792–1847), produced at the Lyceum, July 7, 1828, and at Covent Garden, Oct. 17, 1828.

 

Mr. Farley. Charles Farley (1771–1859), the actor, to whose skill as a theatrical machinist at Covent Garden Hazlitt here refers.

230.

‘La Belle Assemblée’s dresses for May.’ Cf. ‘In the manner of—Ackerman’s dresses for May’ (Moore, Horace, XI. ii.), quoted elsewhere by Hazlitt.

 

M. Stultz. M. Stulz, the well-known tailor, referred to by Bulwer in Pelham and (more than once) by Thackeray.

Republished with some omissions in Sketches and Essays. In the Magazine there is the following note by the Editor:—‘We give insertion to this article, one of the posthumous papers of Mr. Hazlitt, to shew that we do not consider ourselves implicated in the abuses complained of; and that we have no right to any share of indignation so whimsically lavished upon our fraternity. Ed.’

PAGE

 

230.

‘Our withers,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Tittle-tattle.’ The phrase is so printed in the Magazine and in Sketches and Essays, but Hazlitt probably wrote ‘kittle cattle,’ a distinctively Scots expression for what he meant to say.

 

‘Lay the flattering unction,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.

231.

As Mr. Horne Tooke said, etc. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), p. 236 and note.

232.

We only know one Editor. Hazlitt possibly refers to the Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine.

 

We will not mention names, etc. This sentence was omitted in Sketches and Essays.

 

‘More subtle web,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, II. xii. 77.

233.

The conductor, etc. This sentence and the next but one were omitted in Sketches and Essays.

 

‘Here’s the rub.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

THE LETTER-BELL

Reprinted with considerable omissions in Sketches and Essays.

235

‘One entire,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2

 

Blue hills. Cf. vol. VI. (Table-Talk), p. 256.

236.

‘I should notice,’ etc. A long passage from this point to ‘accumulate to a tolerable sum’ (p. 237) was omitted from Sketches and Essays.

 

From —— to ——. Sketches and Essays reads ‘From Wem to Shrewsbury.’ Cf. My First Acquaintance with Poets, post, p. 260.

 

‘And by the vision splendid,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth’s Ode, Intimations of Immortality, 73–74.

 

‘What though the radiance,’ etc. Ibid. 179–82.

 

‘Like morn,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, v. 310–11.

 

And may he not yet greet the yellow light, etc. Cf. post, p. 271.

 

‘And from his neck so free,’ etc. The Ancient Mariner, 289–91.

238.

Vangoyen. Jan Van Goyen (1596–1666), one of whose landscapes, it would seem, Hazlitt had copied.

 

‘The slow canal,’ etc. Goldsmith, The Traveller, 293–4.

 

‘While with an eye,’ etc. Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 47–49.

 

‘The secrets,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘Entire affection,’ etc. Cf. The Faerie Queene, I. viii. 40.

 

‘His shame,’ etc. Cf. Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 412.

 

‘Made good digestion,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

239.

An ingenious friend and arch-critic. ? Jeffrey.

 

‘More germain [germane],’ etc. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 2.

240.

‘Hark!’ etc. Cowper, The Task, IV. 1, et seq.

 

Lord Byron denies, etc. See vol. VI. (Table-Talk), p. 210 and note, and vol. XI. (Fugitive Writings), p. 492.

240.

The telegraphs. A system of semaphores, presumably. Electric telegraphs belong to a later date.

 

The new revolution. The Revolution of July 1830. Cf. post, pp. 456, et seq.

 

The beacon-fires. See the Agamemnon of Æschylus, ll. 281–316.

ON THE SPIRIT OF MONARCHY

Republished in Literary Remains. The essay was published (? 1835) as a pamphlet (together with ‘The Moral Effects of Aristocracy,’ by Godwin).

PAGE

 

242.

‘And by the vision,’ etc. See ante, note to p. 236.

 

The madman in Hogarth. The Rake’s Progress, Plate VIII.

 

‘There goes,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 218.

 

We once heard, etc. In vol. VI. (Mr. Northcote’s Conversations), p. 387, this sentiment is attributed to a ‘Mr. R——.’ It is clear from the present passage that this person was not Mr. Railton, but William Roscoe (1753–1831), the well-known historian, and that therefore the reading of The London Weekly Review was correct. See note to vol. VI. p. 387.

243.

‘That within,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘To fear,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.

244.

‘Peep through,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘Great is Diana,’ etc. Acts xix. 28.

 

‘Your gods,’ etc. Cf. S. Matthew xiii. 13.

 

In contempt of their worshippers. Cf. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 17).

 

Note. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 100–3.

245.

‘Gods partial,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, III. 257–8.

 

‘Any mark,’ etc. Cf. I Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 2.

246.

Note. See vol. III. (Political Essays), p. 298 and notes.

247.

‘From the crown,’ etc. Cf. Isaiah i. 6.

 

Virtue, says Montesquieu, etc. Esprit des Lois, III. 6.

 

‘Honour dishonourable.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 314–15.

 

‘Of outward shew,’ etc. Cf. Ibid. VIII. 538–9.

248.

‘To tread,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘Nice customs,’ etc. Henry V. Act V. Sc. 2.

 

‘In form and motion,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

‘Vice is undone,’ etc. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, I. 142–9.

249.

A Coronation-day. The coronation of George IV. had taken place on July 19, 1821.

250.

Prince Leopold. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (1790–1865), who had married the Princess Charlotte, and afterwards (1831) became King of the Belgians.

 

Castlereagh ... unstained, etc. Castlereagh committed suicide on Aug. 12, 1822.

 

‘A present deity,’ etc. Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 35–6.

251.

‘Worth makes the man,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 203–4.

 

‘The only amaranthine flower,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, III. 268–9.

252.

‘A man may read,’ etc. Holy Dying, chap. i. § 2.

ON THE SCOTCH CHARACTER

Now republished for the first time. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc. (1867), I. xxvii.

PAGE

 

253.

‘Edina’s darling seat.’ ‘Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!’ Burns, Address to Edinburgh.

253.

Lismahago. In Humphry Clinker.

254.

Lord Erskine. Lord Erskine was entertained at a banquet in Edinburgh on Feb. 21, 1820. He had not been in Scotland for more than fifty years.

255.

Teres et [atque] rotundus. Horace, Satires, II. vii. 86.

 

A very learned man. (?) Sir David Brewster, editor of The Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Cf. post, p. 316.

 

Mr. Macvey Napier. Macvey Napier (1776–1847), editor of a supplement to the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions and of the 7th edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica, and Jeffrey’s successor as editor of The Edinburgh Review. Hazlitt had contributed to the Supplement. See vol. IX. (Essays on the Fine Arts), p. 377 and note. In A Selection from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, Esq. (1879), p. 21, there is the following letter from Hazlitt to Napier:—

‘Winterslow Hut, near Salisbury,

‘August 26, 1818.

 

‘My dear Sir,—I am sorry to be obliged, from want of health and a number of other engagements, which I am little able to perform, to decline the flattering offer you make me. I have got to write, between this and the end of October, an octavo volume or a set of lectures on the Comic Drama of this country for the Surrey Institution, which I am anxious not to slur over, and it will be as much as I can do to get it ready in time. I am also afraid that I should not be able to do the article in question, or yourself, justice, for I am not only without books, but without knowledge of what books are necessary to be consulted on the subject. To get up an article in a Review on any subject of general literature is quite as much as I can do without exposing myself. The object of an Encyclopædia is, I take it, to condense and combine all the facts relating to a subject, and all the theories of any consequence already known or advanced. Now, where the business of such a work ends, is just where I begin, that is, I might perhaps throw in an idle speculation or two of my own, not contained in former accounts of the subject, and which would have very little pretensions to rank as scientific. I know something about Congreve, but nothing at all of Aristophanes, and yet I conceive that the writer of an article on the Drama ought to be as well acquainted with the one as the other. If you should see Mr. Constable, will you tell him I am writing nonsense for him as fast as I can?—Your very humble servant,

W. HAZLITT.’

 

It is difficult to know what ‘nonsense’ Hazlitt was writing for Constable.

256.

‘Damnable iteration.’ 1 Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 2.

 

Not like La Fleur, etc. See Sterne, The Sentimental Journey, The Passport, Paris.

 

Note 1. Cockney School of Poetry. See vol. VI. (Table-Talk), 99 and note.

 

Note 1. ‘Kernes and Gallowglasses.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 2.

258.

‘Sins,’ etc. Cf. Hebrews xii. 1.

 

A much-talked-of publication. Hazlitt no doubt refers to The Beacon, which, like John Bull, was intended to counteract the progress of Radical doctrine during the period of the Queen’s trial. For an account of it and of Scott’s connection with it, see Lockhart’s Life of Scott, v. 152–3.

 

‘Leaning,’ etc. Cf. The Faerie Queene, I. vi. 14.

259.

The editor. Theodore Hook, the editor of John Bull, was an Englishman.

 

‘Entire affection,’ etc. Cf. The Faerie Queene, I. viii. 40.