363. His favourite poet Butler. Samuel Butler (1612–1680). He was buried in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Covent Garden, at the expense of his friend William Longueville of the Temple.
The time gives evidence of it. See ante, note to p. 136.
Parson Adams drinking his ale. Joseph Andrews, Book I. 2.
Peter Pounce. In Joseph Andrews.
The character of Captain Blifil. Tom Jones, Book II. 9.
Pope somewhere exclaims. [‘Or slaves or cowards’]. Pope’s Essay on Man, Ep. IV. 215.
364. All honourable men. Julius Cæsar, III. 2.
365. It is michin-malico. Hamlet, III. 2.
With the Levite, that ‘he is not one of those.’ Cf. the story of the Pharisee, St. Luke, xviii. 2.
The snow-falls in the river. Burns’ Tam o’ Shanter. Cf. ante, note to P. 308.
The mighty dead. Thomson’s Seasons, Winter, 431.
366. So shall their anticipation. Hamlet, II. 2.
The gaze and shew [‘show and gaze’] of the time. Macbeth, V. 7.
Elysian beauty. Wordsworth’s Laodamia.
367. This, this is the unkindest cut of all. Julius Cæsar, III. 2.
Mr. Chantry. See ante, note to p. 89.
It will never do. See vol. III. Political Essays, note to p. 361.
Rash judgments. Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey (Lyrical Ballads, 1798).
368. But ’tis the fall. Pope, Epilogue to Satires, I. 143.
Madame Guyon. Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe Guyon, the French Quietist (1648–1717).
Canova’s marble. See ante, note to p. 113.
Guido’s canvas. Guido Reni, of the school of Bologna (1575–1642).
Thomas Little. Thomas Moore’s (1779–1852) early erotic verses appeared (1801) as the ‘Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little.’
Now in glimmer. Coleridge’s Christabel, 169.
369. From Paraclete’s white walls. Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, 348.
Swan-like end. Merchant of Venice, III. 2.
’Tis my vice [‘It is my nature’s plague’] to spy into abuses. Othello, III. 3.
370. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Jeremiah, xiii. 23.
Married to immortal verse. L’Allegro, 137.
Thoughts that glow [breathe]. Gray, The Progress of Poesy, III. 3.
But his soul is fair. Thomson, Castle of Indolence, II. 30.
371. Give us reason with his rhyme. See ante, note to p. 362.
His dear Charmettes. Where Rousseau’s happiest years were spent with Madame de Warens.
I care not, Fortune. Thomson’s Castle of Indolence, canto II. 3.
Books, dreams [dreams, books]. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, [will grow].
Note. Ah! voila de la pervenche. Rousseau’s Confessions, part I. book VI.
Reveries of a Solitary Walker. Published in 1777.
373. A witchery in the soft blue sky. Wordsworth’s Peter Bell, part I. 15.
Not by the sufferance of supernal power. Paradise Lost, I. 241.
Squeaked and gibbered in our streets. Hamlet, I. 1.
In his Treatise of Government. Published in 1689–1690.
374. Blackstone and De Lolme. Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), whose Commentaries on the Laws of England were published in 1765–1769, and John Louis Delolme, a Genevan (1740–1806), whose work on The Constitution of England was published in French in 1771, and in English four years later.
The right divine of kings. Pope, The Dunciad, IV. 188.
Age of chivalry. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89).
Mr. Ricardo. David Ricardo (1772–1823), stockbroker and political economist.
With the laurel wreath. Southey was made poet-laureate in 1813.
374. Carnage as ‘God’s Daughter.’ See vol. I. Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, note to p. 214.
Written the Friend. Coleridge’s Series of Essays (1809–1810), ‘to aid in the formation of fixed principles in politics, morals and religion.’
Like a devilish engine. Paradise Lost, IV. 17.
With looks commercing. Il Penseroso, 39.
375. Doth part the flux. As You Like It, II. 1.
The powers that be. Romans, xiii. 1.
Chop-fallen. Hamlet, V. 1.
For the good of the country. Cf. ‘’Twas for the good of my country that I should be abroad.’ Farquhar, The Beaux’ Stratagem, III. 2.
376. The Bills of Mortality. Weekly burial reports, first supplied by parish clerks in 1592–3.
Mr. Theodore Hook will cry ‘Cockney.’ See vol. VI. Table Talk, note to p. 98.
One-eyed M——. Probably John Murray, who had lost the sight of one eye through an accident.
377. When they censure the age. The Beggar’s Opera, Air XII.
Done the State some service. Othello, V. 2.
378. Like poor Morgan. Roderick Random, chap. xxxiv.
Come betwixt the wind and their nobility. 1 King Henry IV., I. 3.
The Liberal. The quarterly review which lasted for four numbers (1822–3). See vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, the Essay on Lord Byron, and notes to pp. 258 and 359.
The John Bull. Theodore Hook’s Tory paper.
Mr. Jerdan. William Jerdan (1782–1869), editor of the Tory Sun (1813–17), and then identified for thirty-three years with the Literary Gazette.
The Examiner-Officer. ? a misprint for Examiner Office.
379. Mr. Shelley’s father. Hobhouse’s father, Sir Benjamin, was made a baronet in 1812. The Shelley baronets of Castle Goring, Sussex, were created in 1806.
Illustrations of Childe Harold. Historical Illustrations of the fourth canto of Childe Harold; containing Dissertations on the Ruins of Rome, and an Essay on Italian Literature (1818).
The member for Westminster. Hobhouse was elected in 1820 by a large majority.
The Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy. Hazlitt’s essay was published in the second number of The Liberal.
This gentleman wrote off to Lord Byron. See Byron’s Letters and Journals (ed. Prothero), VI. 167. Cf. vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, p. 359 and note.
His Vision of Judgment. Byron’s poem was published in No. 1 of The Liberal.
380. I had spoken against Lalla Rookh. Published in 1817. See vol. V. Lectures on English Poets, p. 152.
‘Fudge Family.’ Published in 1818.
Hulling on the flood. Paradise Lost, XI. 840.
Whistle me down the wind. Othello, III. 3.
Proved haggard. Ibid.
Tricksy. Cf. ‘My tricksy spirit.’ The Tempest, V. 1.
To view with scornful. Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 199–200.
381. The account of the ‘Characters of Shakespear’s Plays.’ See vol. I. Bibliographical Note on p. 166.
381. The Gods ... had made me poetical. As You Like It, III. 3.
Not a true thing. Ibid.
The first thing the Westminster Review did. See ante, note to p. 183. In the very first number (Jan. 1824), the article being written by James Mill, assisted by his son John Stuart Mill. See Sir Leslie Stephen’s The English Utilitarians, vol. III. p. 18.
382. As Mr. Place lost Mr. Hobhouse his first election. Hobhouse unsuccessfully contested Westminster as an advanced Liberal in 1818.
Note. But not till then. For this remark of Porson’s see vol. VII., Lectures on the English Comic Writers, p. 17.
Hazlitt had made the ‘discovery’ set forth in this essay and had begun to write the essay itself as early as 1798, when he had his memorable meeting with Coleridge. See the essay ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’ He did not, however, succeed in making himself understood by the poet, and when the book came to be published, its sale was slow and small, though Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, I. 112) relates that according to a tradition in the family it won the admiration of Mr. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger. Hazlitt himself was proud of the essay, and continually refers to it in his later writings. See especially A Letter to William Gifford, vol. I. pp. 403 et seq., where he explains the nature of the argument. Cf. also the essay on ‘Self-Love’ and the fragments of lectures on English Philosophy first published in Literary Remains. The variations made in the second edition from marginal notes in the author’s copy (see Bibliographical Note) are few and trifling.
395. An airy, notional good. Cf.
398. Note. Usher. James Usher’s (1720–1772) An Introduction to the Theory of the Human Mind, was published in 1771.
409. Note. ‘Eros, thou yet behold’st me,’ etc. Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Scene 14.
410. Note. Rousseau ... not a Frenchman. Rousseau was born at Geneva, whither his ancestors had removed from Paris as far back as 1529.
415. Note. Berkeley’s Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, published in 1709.
427. Junius has remarked, etc. In his letter to George III. (Dec. 19, 1769).
429. ‘Short-lived pleasure,’ etc. Cf.
Note. See Preface to The Lyrical Ballads (2nd edition, 1801), reprinted with variations in the succeeding editions of the poet’s works. (Poetical Works, ed. T. Hutchinson, p. 940.)
430. To add, etc. This sentence, which seems obscure, should perhaps begin ‘I may add that,’ etc.
The Essay on the Inequality of Mankind. Rousseau’s Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes, 1755.
‘Faithful remembrancer.’ Cowper, On the Receipt of My Mother’s Picture, 11.
‘His high endeavour,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, V. 901.
The System of Nature. Hazlitt wrongly attributes to Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud (1675–1760) the Système de la Nature of Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789), published in 1770.
434. Hartley. David Hartley (1705–1757), whose Observations on Man, containing his famous principle of the Association of Ideas, appeared in 1749.
Helvetius. Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), whose famous work De L’Esprit appeared in 1758.
Note. Butler in the Preface to his Sermons. The Fifteen Sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel were published in 1726.
441. As has been explained, etc. An imperfect sentence. Probably Hazlitt wrote, ‘This has been explained,’ etc.
443. Note. Sir Kenelm Digby’s (1603–1665) Observations upon Religio Medici were published in 1643, and were afterwards frequently reprinted in editions of that work.
446. Note. Published in 1780.
447. Mr. Mac-Intosh. Sir James Mackintosh’s lectures on ‘The Law of Nature and Nations’ were delivered at Lincoln’s Inn Hall in 1799.
450. ‘In subduing,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Scene 3.
453. ‘Sentir est penser.’ This well-known aphorism of the Sensational School is attributed to Destutt de Tracy. See ante, note to p. 323.
More drossy and divisible. Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, I. 319.
454. Note. Condillac. Etienne de Condillac (1715–1780), whose Traité des Sensations appeared in 1754.
Note. The book De l’Esprit. See ante, note to p. 434.
Note. ‘Me voici,’ etc. Émile, Liv. IV. (Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard).
457. ‘Discourse of reason.’ Hamlet, Act I. Scene II.
464. ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments.’ Published in 1759.
465. Don Quixote. See Part I., Book III., chaps. 25 and 26.
1. Is it not a collateral proof that Sir Walter Scott is the Author of Waverley, that ever since these Novels began to appear, his Muse has been silent, till the publication of Halidon-Hill?
2. See the Portraits of Kneller, Richardson, and others.
3. Goldsmith was not a talker, though he blurted out his good things now and then: yet his style is gay and voluble enough. Pope was also a silent man; and his prose is timid and constrained, and his verse inclining to the monotonous.
4. As a singular example of steadiness of nerves, Mr. Tooke on one occasion had got upon the table at a public dinner to return thanks for his health having been drank. He held a bumper of wine in his hand, but he was received with considerable opposition by one party, and at the end of the disturbance, which lasted for a quarter of an hour, he found the wine glass still full to the brim.
5. I have been told, that when Sheridan was first introduced to Mr. Fox, what cemented an immediate intimacy between them was the following circumstance. Mr. Sheridan had been the night before to the House of Commons; and being asked what his impression was, said he had been principally struck with the difference of manner between Mr. Fox and Lord Stormont. The latter began by declaring in a slow, solemn, drawling, nasal tone that ‘when he considered the enormity and the unconstitutional tendency of the measures just proposed, he was hurried away in a torrent of passion and a whirlwind of impetuosity,’ pausing between every word and syllable; while the first said (speaking with the rapidity of lightning, and with breathless anxiety and impatience), that ‘such was the magnitude, such the importance, such the vital interest of this question, that he could not help imploring, he could not help adjuring the House to come to it with the utmost calmness, the utmost coolness, the utmost deliberation.’ This trait of discrimination instantly won Mr. Fox’s heart.
6.
7. The topics of metaphysical argument having got into female society in France, is a proof how much they must have been discussed there generally, and how unfounded the charge is which we bring against them of excessive thoughtlessness and frivolity. The French (taken all together) are a more sensible, reflecting, and better informed people than the English.
8. See Memoirs of Granville Sharp, by Prince Hoare, Esq.
9. The Rev. W. Shepherd, of Gateacre, in the Preface to his Life of Poggio.
10. School-boys attend to their tasks as soon as they acquire a relish for study, and apply to that for which they find they have a capacity. If a boy shows no inclination for the Latin tongue, it is a sign he has not a turn for learning languages. Yet he dances well. Give up the thought of making a scholar of him, and bring him up to be a dancing-master!
11. This circumstance did not happen to me, but to an acquaintance.
12. Lavender.
13. Mr. C****r made his first appearance in this country as a hack-writer, and received this surname from the classic lips of Mr. Cumberland.
14. Sir Joshua may be thought to have studied the composition of his female portraits very coolly. There is a picture of his remaining of a Mrs. Symmons, who appears to have been a delicate beauty, pale, with a very little colour in her cheeks: but then to set off this want of complexion, she is painted in a snow-white satin dress, there is a white marble pillar near her, a white cloud over her head, and by her side stands one white lily.
15. ‘No man lives too long, who lives to do with spirit, and suffer with resignation, what Providence pleases to command or inflict: but indeed they are sharp incommodities which beset old age. It was but the other day, that in putting in order some things which had been brought here on my taking leave of London for ever, I looked over a number of fine portraits, most of them of persons now dead, but whose society, in my better days, made this a proud and happy place. Amongst these was the picture of Lord Keppel. It was painted by an artist worthy of the subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for many years without a moment of coldness, of peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to the day of our final separation.
‘I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. He was much in my heart, and I believe I was in his to the very last beat. It was after his trial at Portsmouth that he gave me this picture. With what zeal and anxious affection I attended him through that his agony of glory; what part, my son, in early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue and the pious passion with which he attached himself to all my connexions, with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, just as I should have felt, such friendship on such an occasion.’—Letter to a Noble Lord, p. 29, second edition, printed for T. Williams.
I have given this passage entire here, because I wish to be informed, if I could, what is the construction of the last sentence of it. It has puzzled me all my life. One difficulty might be got over by making a pause after ‘I believe he felt,’ and leaving out the comma between ‘have felt’ and ‘such friendship.’ That is, the meaning would be, ‘I believe he felt with what zeal and anxious affection,’ &c. ‘just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion.’ But then again, what is to become of the ‘what part, my son?’ &c. With what does this connect, or to what verb is ‘my son’ the nominative case, or by what verb is ‘what part’ governed? I should really be glad, if, from any manuscript, printed copy, or marginal correction, this point could be cleared up, and so fine a passage resolved, by any possible ellipsis, into ordinary grammar.
16. The only exception to the general drift of this Essay (and that is an exception in theory—I know of none in practice) is, that in reading we always take the right side, and make the case properly our own. Our imaginations are sufficiently excited, we have nothing to do with the matter but as a pure creation of the mind, and we therefore yield to the natural, unwarped impression of good and evil. Our own passions, interests, and prejudices out of the question, or in an abstracted point of view, we judge fairly and conscientiously; for conscience is nothing but the abstract idea of right and wrong. But no sooner have we to act or suffer, than the spirit of contradiction or some other demon comes into play, and there is an end of common sense and reason. Even the very strength of the speculative faculty, or the desire to square things with an ideal standard of perfection (whether we can or no) leads perhaps to half the absurdities and miseries of mankind. We are hunting after what we cannot find, and quarrelling with the good within our reach. Among the thousands that have read The Heart of Midlothian there assuredly never was a single person who did not wish Jeanie Deans success. Even Gentle George was sorry for what he had done, when it was over, though he would have played the same prank the next day: and the unknown author, in his immediate character of contributor to Blackwood and the Sentinel, is about as respectable a personage as Daddy Ratton himself. On the stage, every one takes part with Othello against Iago. Do boys at school, in reading Homer, generally side with the Greeks or Trojans?
17. There is a fellow in Hogarth’s Election Dinner, holding his wig in one hand, and wiping his bare scalp with the other. What a peep for a craniologist! Let him look well to it, and see that his system is borne out by the gesture, character, and actions of the portrait! A celebrated Scotch barrister being introduced to Dr. Spurzheim without his wig, said—‘It is dangerous to appear before you, Doctor, at this disadvantage.’ To which the Doctor replied—‘Oh! you have nothing to fear. Your head——’ ‘At least,’ interrupted the other, ‘you will not find the organ of credulity there!’
18. It appears, I understand, from an ingenious paper published by Dr. Combe of Edinburgh, that three heads have caused considerable uneasiness and consternation to a Society of Phrenologists in that city, viz. those of Sir Walter Scott, of the Duke of Wellington, and of Marshal Blucher. The first, contrary to the expectation of these learned persons, wants the organ of imagination; the second the organ of combination; and the last possesses the organ of fancy. This, I confess, as to the two first, appears to me a needless alarm. It would incline me (more than any thing I have yet heard) to an opinion that there is something like an art of divination in the science. I had long ago formed and been hardy enough to express a conviction that Sir Walter’s forte is a sort of traditional literature (whatever he accumulates or scatters through his pages, he leaves as he finds it, with very few marks of the master-mind upon it)—and as to the second person mentioned, he has just those powers of combination which belong to a man who leads a bull-dog in a string, and lets the animal loose upon his prey at the proper moment. With regard to Prince Blucher, if he had not ‘fancy in himself, he was the cause of it in others,’ for he turned the heads of many people, who ‘fancied’ his campaigns were the precursors of the Millennium. I have at different times seen these three puzzling heads, and I should say that the Poet looks like a gentleman-farmer, the Prince like a corporal on guard, or the lieutenant of a press-gang, the Duke like nothing or nobody. You look at the head of the first with admiration of its capacity and solid contents, at the last with wonder at what it can contain (any more than a drum-head), at the man of ‘fancy’ or of ‘the fancy’ with disgust at the grossness and brutality which he did not affect to conceal. These, however, are slight physiognomical observations taken at random: but I should be happy to have my ‘squandering glances’ in any degree confirmed by the profounder science and more accurate investigations of northern genius!
19. The books that we like in youth we return to in age, if there is nature and simplicity in them. At what age should Robinson Crusoe be laid aside? I do not think that Don Quixote is a book for children; or at least, they understand it better as they grow up.
20. I do not speak of poverty as an absolute evil; though when accompanied with luxurious habits and vanity, it is a great one. Even hardships and privations have their use, and give strength and endurance. Labour renders ease delightful—hunger is the best sauce. The peasant, who at noon rests from his weary task under a hawthorn hedge, and eats his slice of coarse bread and cheese or rusty bacon, enjoys more real luxury than the prince with pampered, listless appetite under a canopy of state. Why then does the mind of man pity the former, and envy the latter? It is because the imagination changes places with others in situation only, not in feeling; and in fancying ourselves the peasant, we revolt at his homely fare, from not being possessed of his gross taste or keen appetite, while in thinking of the prince, we suppose ourselves to sit down to his delicate viands and sumptuous board, with a relish unabated by long habit and vicious excess. I am not sure whether Mandeville has not given the same answer to this hackneyed question.
21. Women abroad (generally speaking) are more like men in the tone of their conversation and habits of thinking, so that from the same premises you cannot draw the same conclusions as in England.
22. This circumstance is noticed in Ivanhoe, though a different turn is given to it by the philosopher of Rotherwood.
‘Nay, I can tell you more,’ said Wamba in the same tone, ‘there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou; but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf too becomes Monsieur de Veau in like manner: he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.’—Vol. 1, Chap. 1.
23. Hence the peculiar horror of cannibalism from the stronger sympathy with our own sensations, and the greater violence that is done to it by the sacrilegious use of what once possessed human life and feeling.
24. Thomas Cooper of Manchester, the able logician and political partisan, tried the experiment some years ago, when he invited a number of gentlemen and officers quartered in the town to dine with him on an ass’s foal instead of a calf’s-head, on the anniversary of the 30th of January. The circumstance got wind, and gave great offence. Mr. Cooper had to attend a country-meeting soon after at Boulton-le-Moors, and one of the country magistrates coming to the inn for the same purpose, and when he asked ‘If any one was in the room!’ receiving for answer—‘No one but Mr. Cooper of Manchester’—ordered out his horse and immediately rode home again. Some verses made on the occasion by Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Shepherd of Gateacre explained the story thus—
25. What a plague Moses had with his Jews to make them ‘reform and live cleanly!’ To this day (according to a learned traveller) the Jews, wherever scattered, have an aversion to agriculture and almost to its products; and a Jewish girl will refuse to accept a flower—if you offer her a piece of money, of jewellery or embroidery, she knows well enough what to make of the proffered courtesy. See Hacquet’s Travels in Carpathia, &c.
26. The dirt and comparative want of conveniences among Catholics is often attributed to the number of their Saints’ days and festivals, which divert them from labour, and give them an idle and disorderly turn of mind.
27. Lord Bacon, in speaking of the Schoolmen.
28. This is not confined to the Westminster. A certain Talking Potatoe (who is now one of the props of Church and State), when he first came to this country, used to frighten some respectable old gentlewomen, who invited him to supper, by asking for a slice of the ‘leg of the Saviour,’ meaning a leg of Lamb; or a bit of ‘the Holy Ghost pie,’ meaning a pigeon-pie on the table. Ill-nature and impertinence are the same in all schools.
29. One of them has printed a poem entitled ‘Rhodope;’ which, however, does not show the least taste or capacity for poetry, or any idea corresponding to it. Bad poetry serves to prove the existence of good. If all poetry were like Rhodope, the philosophic author might fulminate his anathemas against it (floods of ghastly, livid ire) as long as he pleased: but if this were poetry, there would be no occasion for so much anger: no one would read it or think any thing of it!
30. ‘Old Lady Lambert. Come, come: I wish you would follow Dr. Cantwell’s precepts, whose practice is conformable to what he teaches. Virtuous man!—above all sensual regards, he considers the world merely as a collection of dirt and pebble-stones. How has he weaned me from temporal connexions! My heart is now set upon nothing sublunary; and, I thank Heaven, I am so insensible to every thing in this vile world, that I could see you, my son, my daughters, my brothers, my grandchildren, all expire before me, and mind it no more than the going out of so many snuffs of a candle.
‘Charlotte. Upon my word, madam, it is a very humane disposition you have been able to arrive at, and your family is much obliged to the Doctor for his instructions.’—Act ii. Scene 1.
31. It is more desirable to be the handsomest than the wisest man in his Majesty’s dominions, for there are more people who have eyes than understandings. Sir John Suckling tells us that
In like manner, I would be permitted to say, that I am somewhat sick of this trade of authorship, where the critics look askance at one’s best-meant efforts, but am still fond of those athletic exercises, where they do not keep two scores to mark the game, with Whig and Tory notches. The accomplishments of the body are obvious and clear to all: those of the mind are recondite and doubtful, and therefore grudgingly acknowledged, or held up as the sport of prejudice, spite, and folly.