46. Chief Justice Holt used to say, ‘there were more robberies committed in England than in Scotland, because we had better hearts.’ The English are at all times disposed to interpret this literally.
47. See even the Ananias, Elymas, and others, which might be thought exceptions.
48. The girls who work in the vineyards, are paid three batz a day.
49. Since my return I have put myself on a regimen of brown bread, beef, and tea, and have thus defeated the systematic conspiracy carried on against weak digestions. To those accustomed to, and who can indulge in foreign luxuries, this list will seem far from satisfactory.
50. I believe this rule will apply to all except grotesques, which are evidently taken from opposite natures.
51. Some one finely applied to the repose of this figure the words:
52. By Mr. Coleridge.
53. The oil-pictures attributed to Michael Angelo are meagre and pitiful; such as that of the Fates at Florence. Another of Witches, at Cardinal Fesch’s at Rome, is like what the late Mr. Barry would have admired and imitated—dingy, coarse, and vacant.
54. See an admirable Essay on the genius of Hogarth, by Charles Lamb, in a periodical work, called The Reflector.
55. This painter’s book of studies from nature, commonly called Liber Veritatis, disproves the truth of the general opinion that his landscapes are mere artificial compositions for the finished pictures are nearly fac-similes of the original sketches.
56. The idea of the necessity of improving upon nature, and giving what was called a flattering likeness, was universal in this country fifty years ago; so that Gainsborough is not to be so much blamed for tampering with his subjects.
57. Why does not the British Institution, instead of patronising pictures of the battle of Waterloo, of red coats, foolish faces, and labels of victory, offer a prize for a picture of the subject of Ugolino that shall be equal to the group of the Laocoon? That would be the way to do something, if there is anything to be done by such patronage.
58. This subject of the Ideal will be resumed, and more particularly enlarged upon, under that head.
59. If we were to make any qualification of this censure, it would be in favour of some of Mr. Northcote’s compositions from early English history.
61. The conspirator in Peveril of the Peak. See B. Dobell’s Sidelights on Charles Lamb, pp. 203 et seq., for the story of this ‘trouble,’ and also a later volume of the present edition.
62. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 1.
63. Ibid., Act III. Sc. 2.
65. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.
66. In fact, Mr. T.’s landscapes are nothing but stained water-colour drawings, loaded with oil-colour. [W. H.]
67. Matvei Ivanovitch Count Platoff, the Cossack (1757–1818), who harried the French in the retreat from Moscow and later. He visited London with Blücher and was given a sword of honour.
68. Viscount Castlereagh was senior British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815.
69. Canto II.
70. Thomas Tomkins (1743–1816), author of the Beauties of Writing (1777). He wrote elaborate ornamental titles for books and taught handwriting.
71. Mary Robinson (1758–1800), actress, and mistress of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV.
72. Elizabeth Billington (1768–1818), one of the greatest of English singers, of Saxon birth, English by marriage and training.
73. Mengs speaks feelingly of ‘the little varieties of form in the details of the portraits of Vandyke.’ [W. H.]
74. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.
75. ‘The large picture of the Pembroke family at Wilton, is a finer commentary on the age of chivalry than Mr. Burke’s Reflections.’ [W. H.]
76. Catherine Maria Fisher (d. 1767), the courtesan.
77. See Warton’s The History of English Poetry, 1781, vol. II., pp. 249–251.
78. The Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts.
79. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.
80. ‘A young artist of the name of Day,[82] in company with Mr. Northcote and another student, taking leave of some pictures of Titian in a gallery at Naples said, with tears in his eyes,—“Ah! he was a fine old mouser!” This contains more true feeling than volumes of poetical criticism. Mr. Northcote has himself given a striking description of Titian, in his elegant allegory called the Painter’s Dream, at the end of his life of Sir Joshua.[83] It is worth remarking, that notwithstanding the delicacy and ingenuity with which he has contrived to vary the characters of all the other painters, yet when he comes to his favourite modern, he can only repeat the same images which he has before applied to Correggio and others, of wanton Cupids and attendant Graces.’ [W. H.]
81. Sir Robert Strange (1721–1792), who fought for the Stuarts at Culloden and elsewhere, one of the greatest of line engravers.
82. Alexander Day (1773–1841). See vol. VI., Mr. Northcote’s Conversations, p. 347 and note.
84. Wordsworth’s Excursion, Book VII., 1014–16.
85. Pope: Eloisa to Abelard, l. 74.
86. Roger de Piles (1635–1709), painter and voluminous writer on art.
87. Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy (1611–1665), French painter and writer of a poem on the art of painting.
88. Benjamin West (1738–1820) succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1792 as President.
89. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 550.
90. Essay on Criticism, III. 66.
91. Goldsmith, The Traveller, 42.
92. See a letter in The Champion, September 25, 1814. [W. H.]
93. Occasional assistance may be derived from both, but, in general, we must trust to our own strength. We cannot hope to become rich by living upon alms. Constant assistance is the worst incumbrance. The accumulation of models, and erection of universal schools for art, improved the genius of the student much in the same way that the encouragement of night-cellars and gin-shops improves the health and morals of the people. [W. H.]
94. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 338.
95. Congreve’s Comedy, 1695.
96. Edward Bysshe (fl. 1712), whose Art of English Poetry was published in 1702.
97. Hamlet, III. 3.
99. Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘The World is too much with us.’