KEAN’S BAJAZET, Etc.

This theatrical notice is proved to be Hazlitt’s by the passage (p. 276) beginning ‘Happy age, when the utmost stretch of a morning’s study,’ etc., which is repeated in the Lecture ‘On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.’ See vol. VIII. p. 70. Rowe’s Tamerlane was first produced in 1702.

274.

Miss Stephens’s reappearance in Polly. Cf. vol. VIII. pp. 193–5.

275.

‘Full of sound,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.

 

‘A load to sink a navy.’ Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Ambition as the hunger of noble minds. See Tamerlane, Act II. Sc. 2.

276.

The Country Girl. Produced originally in 1766, an adaptation by Garrick of The Country Wife of Wycherley. Cf. vol. VIII. p. 76. Mrs. Mardyn, Mrs. Alsop, and the actors here referred to are dealt with by Hazlitt in A View of the English Stage.

DOCTRINE OF PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY

This paper, signed ‘W,’ is clearly Hazlitt’s. Cf. the Lecture on the same subject, ante, pp. 48–74. The essay is No. XXVII. of the Round Table series.

277.

‘For I had learnt,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 95–102.

278.

‘Threshold of Jove’s throne.’ Cf. ‘Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court,’ Comus, I.

279.

‘Praise and blame,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 56.

280.

‘A good favour,’ etc. Loosely quoted from Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Sc. 3.

282.

Marvell and his leg of mutton. Hazlitt refers to the story of Danby’s unsuccessful attempt to win over Marvell to the court. One version of the story is that in Danby’s presence Marvell summoned his servant and said to him, ‘Pray, what had I for dinner yesterday?’ ‘A shoulder of mutton.’ ‘And what do you allow me to-day?’ ‘The remainder hashed.’ Marvell then added to Danby, ‘And to-morrow, my lord, I shall have the sweet blade-bone broiled.’

 

‘Allemagne,’ etc. De l’Allemagne, Preface.

 

‘But there is matter,’ etc. Wordsworth, Hart-Leap Well, 95–6.

PARALLEL PASSAGES IN VARIOUS POETS

No. XXVIII. of the Round Table series, and signed ‘W.’ The long passages from Voltaire, etc. have been indicated by the first and last line.

282.

Zaire. 1732.

283.

‘Soft you,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2.

 

‘Vanished [melted] into thin air.’ The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

Ducis. Jean François Ducis (1733–1816), who adapted some of Shakespeare’s plays for the stage.

283.

‘As flat,’ etc. Cf. ‘He has crushed his nose, Susannah says, as flat as a pancake to his face.’ Tristram Shandy, III. 27.

284.

Potter. Robert Potter’s (1721–1804) translation of Æschylus appeared in 1777.

 

‘When I had gazed,’ etc. Poems on the Naming of Places, II. 51 et seq.

 

We have once already attempted, etc. In three articles in The Examiner. Cf. ante, pp. 572–5, and vol. I. (The Round Table), pp. 111–125.

 

‘In my former days of bliss,’ etc. From ‘The Shepherd’s Hunting’ (1615).

THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN

In addition to the essays reprinted in the text from The Examiner of 1815 there are four letters signed ‘Peter Pickthank’ on the Duke D’Enghien, to which reference should be made. These appeared on September 24, October 8, November 19, and December 10, and were written in reply to a correspondent signing himself ‘Fair Play.’ The controversy arose out of an article (September 3) entitled ‘Chateaubriand, The Quack,’ which contained a casual reference to the Duke D’Enghien, ‘whom Buonaparte is accused of having murdered because he was not willing that he, the said Royal Duke, should assassinate him.’ ‘Fair Play’ seized on this passage and protested (September 10) against the implied defence of the Duke D’Enghien’s execution. ‘Peter Pickthank’ replied (September 24), and the correspondence was kept up till near the end of the year, ‘Fair Play’ contributing letters on October 1, October 29, and November 26. ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ letters contain many of Hazlitt’s stock quotations and personal allusions (to Dr. Stoddart, for example); they embody exactly his political opinions, and altogether the internal evidence of their having been written by him is very strong. Inasmuch, however, as there is not absolute certainty in the matter, and a considerable part of the letters would have been unintelligible without including ‘Fair Play’s’ letters as well, the editors have felt justified in omitting the whole correspondence. An editorial note at the end of ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ third letter (November 19) states that ‘this article has been delayed in order to soften some of the asperities.’

MR. LOCKE A GREAT PLAGIARIST

285.

‘The very head,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘A justly exploded [decried] author.’ See ante, p. 167 and note.

 

Professor Stewart’s very elegant Dissertation. Prefixed to the Supplement to the 4th and 5th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1816).

286.

‘Fame is no plant,’ etc. Lycidas 78–82.

287.

‘The greatest and as it were radical distinction,’ etc. Bacon, Aphorisms, LV.

 

‘That strain I heard was of a higher mood.’ Lycidas, 87.

288.

What is most remarkable, etc. This passage on wit will be found in an expanded form in Lectures on the English Comic Writers. See vol. VIII. pp. 18–21.

 

Three papers, which we propose to write. These papers do not appear to have been written.

289.

‘The laborious fooleries.’ See ante, note to p. 239.

290.

‘The tenth transmitter,’ etc. Cf. ‘No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.’ Savage, The Bastard, 8.

 

‘The mind alone is formative.’ See ante, p. 176.

In The Examiner for March 3, 1816 appeared the following note:—‘A correspondent who signs himself J.W. thinks we ought to bring proofs of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as the founder of a system. We recommend him, if he is curious on this subject, to read the first eighty pages of Hobbes’s Leviathan, if the name does not alarm him. After that, if he is not satisfied and repeats his request, perhaps we may attend to it.’ On March 31 (Round Table No. XXXIV.) Hazlitt brings forward his proofs in a long paper which consists chiefly of extracts from Locke, Hobbes and other philosophers. The essay begins as follows:—

‘We have been required to give proof of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as a metaphysical reasoner, and of the claims of Hobbes to be considered as the founder of the modern system of the philosophy of the human mind.

‘Here then it is. But at the same time we would observe, that we do not think ourselves bound to give this proof to those who have demanded it (somewhat impatiently) at our hands. It was sufficient for us to have stated our opinion on this subject, and to have referred the curious expressly to the sources from which they might satisfy themselves of the truth or hollowness of our assertion. To our readers in general we owe some apology for alluding to such subjects at all. But to the point.—We have said that the principles of the modern school of metaphysics are all to be found, pure, entire, connected, and explicitly stated, in the writings of Hobbes: that Mr. Locke borrowed the leading principle of that philosophy from Hobbes, without understanding or without admitting the system in general, concerning which he always seems to entertain two opinions: that succeeding writers have followed up Mr. Locke’s general principle into its legitimate consequences, and have arrived at exactly the same conclusions as Hobbes, but that being ignorant of the name and writings of Hobbes, they have with one accord and with great injustice attributed the merit of the original discovery of that system to Mr. Locke, as having made the first start, and having gone further in it than any one else before him.

‘The principles of the modern system, of which Mr. Locke is the reputed and Mr. Hobbes the real founder, are chiefly the following:—

1. That all our ideas are derived from external objects, by means of the senses alone, and are merely repetitions of our sensible impressions.

2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so the mind itself, with all its operations, is nothing but matter and motion.

3. That thoughts are single, or that we can have only one idea at a time; in other words, that there are no complex ideas in the mind.

4. That we have no general or abstract ideas.

5. That the only principle of connection between one idea and another is association, or their previous connection in sense.

6. That reason and understanding are resolvable entirely into the mechanism of language.

7. and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source of all our affections.

9. That the mind acts from necessity, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent.

[The manner of stating and reasoning on this last point, viz. the moral and practical consequences of the doctrine of necessity is the only circumstance of importance, in which the modern philosophers differ from Hobbes.]

10. That there is no such thing as genius, or a difference in the natural capacities or dispositions of men, the mind being originally alike passive to all impressions, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances &c., &c.

‘That these are the most striking positions of the moderns with respect to the human mind, is what every one, familiar with the writers since Locke, as Berkeley, Hartley, Hume, Priestley, Horne Tooke, Beddoes, among ourselves, and Helvetius, Condillac, Mirabaud, Condorcet &c., among the French, will readily allow: that most of them are to be found in the Essay on Human Understanding, mixed up in a state of inextricable confusion with common-place and common sense notions, now advanced, now retracted, the arguments on one side of the question now prevailing through an endless labyrinth of explanation, now those on the other, and now both opinions asserted and denied in the same sentence is what is equally well known to the readers of Locke and his commentators. That the same system came from the mind of Hobbes, not hesitating, stammering, puling, drivelling, ricketty, a sickly half birth, to be brought up by hand, to be nursed and dandled into common life and existence, but just the reverse of all this, full grown, completely proportioned and articulated, compact, stamped in all its lineaments, with the vigour and decision of the author’s mind, is what we have now to shew.’

The extracts follow, interspersed with brief comments by Hazlitt, and the essay concludes as follows:—

‘To what Mr. Hobbes has written on this subject [Liberty and Necessity] nothing has been added nor can be taken away. We agree to every word of it, and the more heartily, because it is the only one of all the points which have been stated on which we do. In speaking of the popular notions of liberty, in his controversy with a foolish Bishop of that day (Bramhall), he says, “In fine, that freedom which men commonly find in books, that which the poets chaunt in the theatres, and the shepherds on the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches, and the doctors in the universities, and that which the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto, namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will, is a question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought on.” Hobbes was as superior to Locke as a writer, as he was as a reasoner. He had great powers both of wit and imagination. In short he was a great man, not because he was a great metaphysician, but he was a great metaphysician because he was a great man.

‘It has been thought, that the neglect into which Hobbes’s metaphysical speculations have fallen was originally owing to the obloquy excited by the irreligious and despotical tendency of his other writings. But in this he has also been unfairly dealt with. Locke borrowed his fundamental ideas of government from him; and there is not a word directly levelled at religion in any of his works. At least, his aristocratical notions and his want of religion must have, in some measure, balanced one another; and Charles II. had his picture hanging in his bed-room, though the Bishops wished to have him burnt. The true reason of the fate which this author’s writings met with was, that his views of things were too original and comprehensive to be immediately understood, without passing through the hands of several successive generations of commentators and interpreters. Ignorance of another’s meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred: hence arose the rancour and suspicion of his adversaries, who, to quote some fine lines of Spenser,

On June 2, 1816, The Examiner published a review of Coleridge’s Christabel, as to the authorship of which there has been some discussion. See Notes and Queries, 9th Ser. XI. pp. 171 and 271. Mr. Dykes Campbell (The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 606) is disposed to attribute the review to Hazlitt. As in the case of the Edinburgh Review notice of Christabel (see vol. X. of the present edition, pp. 411–418), Hazlitt’s authorship cannot be regarded as absolutely certain. The review is as follows:—

‘The fault of Mr. Coleridge is, that he comes to no conclusion. He is a man of that universality of genius, that his mind hangs suspended between poetry and prose, truth and falsehood, and an infinity of other things, and from an excess of capacity, he does little or nothing. Here are two unfinished poems, and a fragment. Christabel, which has been much read and admired in manuscript, is now for the first time confided to the public. The Vision of Kubla Khan still remains a profound secret; for only a few lines of it ever were written.^[74]

‘The poem of Christabel sets out in the following manner:

‘We wonder that Mr. Murray, who has an eye for things, should suffer this “mastiff bitch” to come into his shop. Is she a sort of Cerberus to fright away the critics? But—gentlemen, she is toothless.

‘There is a dishonesty as well as affectation in all this. The secret of this pretended contempt for the opinion of the public, is that it is a sorry subterfuge for our self-love. The poet, uncertain of the approbation of his readers, thinks he shews his superiority to it by shocking their feelings at the outset, as a clown, who is at a loss how to behave himself, begins by affronting the company. This is what is called throwing a crust to the critics. If the beauties of Christabel should not be sufficiently admired, Mr. Coleridge may lay it all to two lines which he had too much manliness to omit in complaisance to the bad taste of his contemporaries.

‘We the rather wonder at this bold proceeding in the author, as his courage has cooled in the course of the publication, and he has omitted, from mere delicacy, a line which is absolutely necessary to the understanding the whole story. The Lady Christabel, wandering in the forest by moonlight, meets a lady in apparently great distress, to whom she offers her assistance and protection, and takes her home with her to her own chamber. This woman,

is a witch. Who she is else, what her business is with Christabel, upon what motives, to what end her sorceries are to work, does not appear at present; but this much we know, that she is a witch, and that Christabel’s dread of her arises from her discovering this circumstance, which is told in a single line, which line, from an exquisite refinement in efficiency,^[75] is here omitted. When the unknown lady gets to Christabel’s chamber, and is going to undress, it is said—

‘The manuscript runs thus, or nearly thus:—

‘This line is necessary to make common sense of the first and second part. “It is the keystone that makes up the arch.”^[76] For that reason Mr. Coleridge left it out. Now this is a greater physiological curiosity than even the fragment of Kubla Khan.

‘In parts of Christabel there is a great deal of beauty, both of thought, imagery, and versification; but the effect of the general story is dim, obscure, and visionary. It is more like a dream than a reality. The mind, in reading it, is spell-bound. The sorceress seems to act without power—Christabel to yield without resistance. The faculties are thrown into a state of metaphysical suspense and theoretical imbecility. The poet, like the witch in Spenser, is evidently

But we do not foresee what he will make of it. There is something disgusting at the bottom of his subject, which is but ill glossed over by a veil of Della Cruscan sentiment and fine writing—like moon-beams playing on a charnel-house, or flowers strewed on a dead body. Mr. Coleridge’s style is essentially superficial, pretty, ornamental, and he has forced it into the service of a story which is petrific. In the midst of moonlight, and fluttering ringlets, and flitting clouds, and enchanted echoes, and airy abstractions of all sorts, there is one genuine outburst of humanity, worthy of the author, when no dream oppresses him, no spell binds him. We give the passage entire:—’

[Here follow ll. 403–430 of Christabel, beginning ‘But when he heard the lady’s tale.’]

‘Why does not Mr. Coleridge always write in this manner, that we might always read him? The description of the Dream of Bracy the bard, is also very beautiful and full of power.

‘The conclusion of the second part of Christabel, about “the little limber elf,” is to us absolutely incomprehensible. Kubla Khan, we think, only shews that Mr. Coleridge can write better nonsense verses than any man in England. It is not a poem, but a musical composition.

‘We could repeat these lines to ourselves not the less often for not knowing the meaning of them.’

In a sketch of Coleridge which appeared in The Examiner for Oct. 21, 1821, Leigh Hunt quotes the lines from Kubla Khan (‘A damsel with a dulcimer,’ etc.) and says: ‘We could repeat such verses ... down a green glade, a whole summer’s morning’; but in spite of this and a few other verbal similarities, a comparison of the sketch with the review does not support the theory that the latter was written by Leigh Hunt. Possibly he wrote a few lines here and there, but the review as a whole is far more suggestive of Hazlitt.

SHAKESPEAR’S FEMALE CHARACTERS

No. XLIII. of the Round Table series. It is partly reproduced in Characters of Shakespear’s Plays. See especially the essays on Cymbeline and Othello (vol. I. 179 et seq. and 200 et seq. and notes).

290.

Miss Peggy. See ante, p. 276.

291.

‘Calls true love,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 2.

295.

‘Books, dreams,’ etc. Personal Talk, ll. 33 et seq.

 

Tate. Nahum Tate’s King Lear was brought out in 1681.

 

‘And her heart beats,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 2.

296.

‘Sir, the fairest flowers,’ etc. A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES

Three papers appeared in The Examiner for April 6, April 13, and April 20, 1817, under the heading of ‘Sketches of the History of the Good Old Times before the French Revolution, when Kings and Priests did what they pleased, by the grace of God.’ In these essays a French anti-Bourbon book, the title of which is not given, is made the text for a most unflattering review of the characters of a number of kings, from Hugh Capet to Louis XVI. The subject would naturally attract Hazlitt, and indeed it may be said that the essays are almost certainly his. As, however, the internal evidence, though very strong, does not prove his authorship to be absolutely certain, it has been thought better not to include the essays in the present edition.

MISS O’NEILL’S WIDOW CHEERLY

This and the five succeeding theatrical papers from The Examiner of 1817 have been inserted in the text because the internal evidence seems to leave no room for doubt that they were written by Hazlitt. It is clear from A View of the English Stage that he was writing theatrical notices for The Examiner during the whole of the period in question (Jan.–May, 1817).

297.

The best actress ... with one great exception, etc. For this comparison of Miss O’Neill with Mrs. Siddons, cf. vol. VIII. p. 198, and for Miss O’Neill’s failure in comedy, ibid. p. 291.

297.

The Soldier’s Daughter. By Andrew Cherry, produced in 1804.

298.

‘The insipid levelling morality,’ etc. See Lamb’s footnote to Middleton and Rowley’s A Fair Quarrel. Hazlitt quotes the passage elsewhere.

PENELOPE AND THE DANSOMANIE

299.

‘Like to see the unmerited fall,’ etc. Cf. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 164).

300.

The Gentleman who is understood, etc. William Ayrton (1777–1858), who was musical director at the King’s Theatre in 1817 and again in 1821.

 

Of the Dansomanie, etc. A comparison of this passage with a reference to the ‘Dansomanie’ in vol. VIII. p. 437 is conclusive as to Hazlitt’s authorship of this notice.

 

‘Such were the joys,’ etc. Bickerstaffe, Love in a Village, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘Roll on,’ etc. Ossian, The Songs of Selma.

 

The notice concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber, introduced by the following paragraph: ‘As the present season may be considered as a sort of revival of the Opera, the following particulars of its first introduction into this country may not be unacceptable to the reader. They are taken from Colley Cibber’s Memoirs of himself, p. 316.’

OROONOKO

This tragedy by Thomas Southerne (1660–1746) was produced in 1696. See post, note to p. 303 (on Imogine), for conclusive proof of Hazlitt’s authorship of this notice.

301.

The success of his Richard II. This passage, though the conclusion drawn by Hazlitt is somewhat different, may be compared with his notice of Kean’s Richard II. (vol. VIII. p. 223).

 

‘The melting mood.’ Othello, Act V. Sc. 2.

302.

‘The devil has not,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act V. Sc 3.

303.

Imogine. In Maturin’s Bertram. Cf. the notice of that play in A View of the English Stage (vol. VIII. p. 307). In one of Hazlitt’s theatrical papers in The London Magazine (ibid. p. 391), he says of Miss Somerville’s (Mrs. Bunn’s) voice that ‘it resembles the deep murmur of a hive of bees in spring-tide, and the words drop like honey from her lips.’

 

‘The music of her honey-vows.’ Cf. ‘That suck’d the honey of his music vows.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘He often has beguiled us,’ etc. Cf. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

Gray, the poet, etc. See a letter to Horace Walpole, September, 1737 (Letters, ed. Tovey, i. 8).

THE PANNEL AND THE RAVENS

A comparison of this paper with A View of the English Stage and the other dramatic essays in vol. VIII., makes it perfectly clear that Hazlitt is the writer.

304.

The Pannel. By John Philip Kemble, produced at Drury Lane in 1788.

 

‘Balsam of fierabras.’ Described by Don Quixote. See Don Quixote, I. I. 2.

304.

The howling of the rabble. The Regent had been attacked on his return to St. James’s Palace after opening Parliament on March 28, 1817.

 

The wax figures at Mrs. Salmon’s. See ante, p. 175.

 

‘Circe and the Sirens three.’ Comus, 253.

 

Miss Stephens. Hazlitt had noticed her first appearance. See vol. VIII. p. 192.

 

Mr. Fawcett. John Fawcett (1768–1837) was manager of Covent Garden theatre.

 

Till Miss O’Neill is tired, etc. See vol. VIII. note to p. 308.

 

‘The ravens are hoarse,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

Toujours perdrix. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of The Age), p. 275 and note.

 

Mr. Canning. Cf. post, p. 336 note.

 

The Ravens, etc. See vol. VIII. note to p. 353.

 

The Maid and Magpie, etc. See vol. VIII. pp. 244 and 279.

 

‘And choughs,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

The Maid of Palisseau. The Magpie, or the Maid of Palaiseau, a version attributed to T. J. Dibdin of La Pie Voleuse, produced at Dury Lane, Sept. 12, 1815.

 

Reminded us of her mother’s. Mrs. Alsop was daughter of Mrs. Jordan.

JOHN GILPIN

305.

‘And when he next,’ etc. John Gilpin, St. 63.

306.

‘The turnpike men,’ etc. Ibid. St. 29 and 30.

 

‘First, last, and midst.’ Cf. Paradise Lost, V. 165. Quoted by Hazlitt more than once.

 

‘That ligament,’ etc. Hazlitt elsewhere quotes this passage from Tristram Shandy (Book VI. Chap. 10).

307.

Mrs. Hill. ‘From Belfast,’ her first appearance.

DON GIOVANNI AND KEAN’S EUSTACE DE ST. PIERRE

With this notice compare Hazlitt’s article on Don Juan in A View of the English Stage, vol. VIII. pp. 362–366.

307.

Spenser’s description of Belphebe. In his former notice Hazlitt had compared Madame Fodor with Spenser’s Belphebe. See vol. VIII. p. 364 and note.

308.

The Surrender of Calais. By George Colman, Junior, originally produced at the Haymarket in 1791, and described by Genest as ‘a jumble of Tragedy, Comedy, and Opera.’

 

‘A clout upon that head,’ etc. Hamlet, Act. II. Sc. 2.

 

‘Though we have seen this,’ etc. Ibid.

 

‘Thunder, nothing but thunder.’ Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

A new character, etc. Achmet in Barbarossa. See vol. VIII. p. 372.

CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY PEOPLE

The internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship of this paper is overwhelmingly strong. Some of the main points are referred to in the following notes. The essay was probably written at Winterslow.

309.

‘Here be truths.’ This is a saying, not of Dogberry, but of Pompey, in Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1.

309.

‘Mountain foreigner.’ The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘Retired from public haunts.’ Cf. ‘This our life exempt from public haunt,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

Lord Foppington. In Vanbrugh’s The Relapse.

 

A philosophical poet, etc. Coleridge, probably.

 

‘Pelting villages.’ King Lear, Act II. Sc. 3.

 

‘A crew of patches,’ etc. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

P—tt—n. Probably Pitton, a small village near Winterslow.

 

My friend C—— L——. Lamb, no doubt, who went with Hazlitt from Winterslow to Oxford in August, 1810. Cf. vol. VI. (Table Talk), p. 188.

 

‘Fearing no colours.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 5.

310.

They are feræ naturæ, etc. Cf. a sentence in vol. I. (The Round Table), p. 124: ‘They [country people] are taken out of a state of nature, without being put in possession of the refinements of art.’

311.

‘Be trampled in the mire,’ etc. A favourite quotation of Hazlitt’s from Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 93).

 

A mischievous wag, etc. Perhaps Lamb’s schoolfellow, Bobbie Allen, who visited Scotland and the Lakes with Dr. Stoddart in 1802. Lamb describes him in ‘Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago.’ See also Lamb’s Letters (ed. Ainger), I. 188.

 

‘The spinsters,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4.

 

‘May I not take mine ease at mine inn?’ 1 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 3.

 

A few odd volumes of old plays and novels. It is known that Hazlitt was at the Hut at Winterslow during the summer and autumn of 1819, and that he had taken with him some volumes of the old dramatists in order to prepare for the course of lectures ‘On the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,’ delivered in the following year. See Barry Cornwall’s Autobiographical Fragment.

 

‘Fleet the golden time,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

Note 1. Salisbury is only six miles from Winterslow.

312.

‘Giving to airy nothing,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

To elevate and surprise. Frequently quoted by Hazlitt from the Duke of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘But I told him,’ etc. Henry V., Act II. Sc. 3.

313.

‘Sufficient to the day,’ etc. S. Matthew, vi. 34.

 

‘’Twould thin the land,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act III. Sc. 4.

314.

‘Anon as patient,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1.

MR. MACREADY’S MACBETH

Macready played Macbeth for the first time on June 9, 1820. Cf. this with the notice of Kean’s Macbeth (vol. VIII. p. 204).

315.

‘Air-drawn dagger,’ etc. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

‘Thick-coming fancies.’ Ibid. Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Docked and curtailed.’ Cf. ‘We know that they [bishops] hate to be dockt and clipt.’ Milton, Reformation in England, I.

 

‘Twa lang Scotch miles.’ Cf. ‘We think na on the lang Scots miles.’ Tam O’Shanter, 7.

 

‘Oh Hell-kite, all?’ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3.

 

David Rizzio. See vol. VIII. p. 459.

315.

The Lord of the Manor. A comic opera by General John Burgoyne (1722–1792), produced in 1780.

 

The Libertine. An opera attributed to Isaac Pocock, produced in 1817. See vol. VIII. p. 370.

 

Mr. Contrast. In The Lord of the Manor.

 

‘A speaking face.’ Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of the lines in Bombastes Furioso (Sc. 1):

‘——Fusbos, give place,

You know you haven’t got a singing face.’

 

Moll Flagon. In The Lord of the Manor.

 

‘Let those laugh,’ etc. Cf.

‘Let those love now, who never lov’d before;

Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.’

Parnell, Catullus, The Vigil of Venus.

317.

Mrs. Salmon. Eliza Salmon (1787–1849), a well-known concert and oratorio singer. The references in this paragraph to Miss Stephens and the quotations are conclusive evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship of the notice.

 

D’une pathétique, etc. Rousseau, Confessions, Liv. I.

 

‘Thoughts of which,’ etc. Cf. ‘Yet loss of thee would never from my heart,’ Paradise Lost, IX. 912.

 

‘With other notes,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 17.

 

The voice of Liberty, etc. The Revolution in Spain had broken out early in 1820, and on March 10 King Ferdinand had proclaimed the Liberal Constitution of 1812.

 

‘Had three ears again.’ Cf. ‘Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.’ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

‘Know the return of spring.’ The Beggar’s Opera, Act II. Sc. 1.

GUY FAUX

See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), p. 365 and note, and the essay ‘On Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen’ (republished in vol. XII. of the present edition), from which it appears that the subject was suggested to Hazlitt by Lamb. Lamb himself wrote an essay (not republished by him) on the same subject in The London Magazine for November 1823. This essay, in which a chaffing reference is made to Hazlitt’s three papers, was partly founded on an earlier essay ‘On the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason,’ published in The Reflector, 1811. See The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 236 and notes.

317.

Mr. Hogg’s Jacobite Relics. Published in 2 vols. in 1819. In the Introduction Hogg says, ‘And now, when the horrors of the Catholic religion have ceased to oppress the minds of men, there is but one way of thinking on the rights of the Stuarts throughout the realm.’

 

A Popish Priest. Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) was not a priest.

318.

Which Mr. Hogg treats, etc. Hazlitt seems to be referring to the general sense of the Introduction to The Jacobite Relics.

 

‘The best of cut-throats.’ Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.

319.

Regulus. The stories of the self-sacrifice of Regulus and of Codrus, the last King of Athens, are familiar.

320.

‘The compunctious visitings of nature.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘The spirit is willing,’ etc. S. Matthew xxvi. 41.

320.

The keys of the House of Commons, etc. The allusion is to a passage in John Cam Hobhouse’s pamphlet, A Trifling Mistake, for which as a breach of privilege he was committed to Newgate in 1819.

 

Margaret Lambrun. This story is told as a ‘popular historical tradition’ by Miss Strickland in her Lives of the Queens of England.

321.

Sandt. Karl Ludwig Sand (1795–1820), who had assassinated Kotzebue the dramatist (March 23, 1819).

 

‘Well done,’ etc. S. Matthew, xxv. 21.

 

‘No dim doubts alloy.’ Lamb, Lines On the Celebrated Picture by Lionardo da Vinci, called the Virgin of the Rocks.

 

‘Quiring,’ etc. The Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1.

322.

‘This night,’ etc. Cf. S. Luke xxiii. 43.

 

‘Dross compared,’ etc. Cf. Romans viii. 18.

 

‘Disembowelled,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 101).

 

The Constitutional Association. See vol. VI. (Table Talk), note to p. 190.

 

The concealed Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine. This question of the editorship of Blackwood had recently (Feb. 16, 1821) led to the fatal duel between John Scott and Lockhart’s friend, Christie.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

323.

‘The infinite agitation of wit.’ Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book I. iv. 5.

 

‘The soul of goodness,’ Henry V., Act IV. Sc. 1.

324.

‘According to knowledge,’ Romans x. 2.

 

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

 

‘A king is but a king [man],’ etc. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 90).

 

‘As the vine,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 307.

325.

‘Through the airy region,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 2.

326.

Note. ‘As men should serve a cucumber,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Sc. 1.

327.

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

 

‘All mortal consequences.’ Ibid. Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Set duty in one eye,’ etc. Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

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

 

‘Happy warrior.’ See Wordsworth’s Character of a Happy Warrior (1807).

THE SAME SUBJECT CONCLUDED

328.

The Cid. Southey’s translation of the Chronicle of the Cid was published in 1808.

332.

Mr. Kean. An American lion was presented to Kean by Sir Edward Tucker. Barry Cornwall (Life of Edmund Kean, II. 135) says that ‘it amused the tragedian (who was fond of simple pleasures) to allure his acquaintance into the room, and set them face to face with the beast.’

 

‘Masterless passion,’ etc. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

‘The shot of accident,’ etc. Othello, Act IV. Sc. 1.

333.

Like Hotspur. 1 Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 4.

 

Regnault de St. Jean Angely. Michel Louis Étienne, Comte Regnaud de Saint Jean D’Angely (1762–1819), a well-known politician of the Revolution and under Buonaparte. The reference seems to be to his conduct in 1814 when in command of the National Guard at Paris.

333.

‘Be mine to read,’ etc. Gray, Letter to West (Letters, ed. Tovey, I. 97).

 

‘From worldly care,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, I. IV. 20.

CHARACTER OF MR. CANNING

This essay was included in the Paris edition (1825) and subsequent editions of The Spirit of the Age. See vol. IV. p. 186.

334.

‘The child,’ etc. Wordsworth, ‘My heart leaps up,’ etc.

 

‘Like as the sun-burnt Indians,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, III. XII. 8.

336.

‘Like the morn,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 310–311.

 

‘Scylla heard,’ etc. Cf. Comus, 257–259.

 

‘The nation’s Great Divan.’ Cf. ‘August divan of the British Senate.’ H. Walpole, Letters (1857), IV. 130.

337.

Reply to Sir John Coxe Hippesley. On March 11, 1813. Speeches, ed. Therry, III. 396.

338.

‘The worse the better reason.’ Paradise Lost, II. 113–4.

 

‘That makes these odds all even.’ Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘He aggravates,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘Quite chopfallen.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1.

339.

‘The inimitable satire of Cervantes.’ See Canning’s Plymouth speech, October 1823.

340.

‘Pluck out the heart,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘The deliverance of mankind.’ Cf. Southey, Carmen Triumphale.

 

‘Of his port,’ etc. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 69.

 

‘Freezes his spirits up,’ etc. Cf. 2 Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 1.

341.

Described so well, etc. In his speech on receiving the freedom of Plymouth, October 1823.

 

‘The golden round,’ etc. Cf. Richard II., Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘And to call evil good,’ etc. Isaiah v. 20.

 

‘Revered and ruptured Ogden.’ For this famous phrase, used during the debates on the Indemnity Bill, 1818, see Hansard, XXXVII. 1026, and Stapleton’s Political Life of Canning, I. 86.

 

Rejected Addresses. By James and Horace Smith, published in 1812.

 

‘Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin.’ Republished (1801) from The Anti-Jacobin.

342.

‘To turn what is serious,’ etc. Cf. ‘What should be great, you turn to farce.’ Prior, The Ladle, 139.

 

Note. See The Three Trials of William Hone (1818, First Trial, pp. 38–9), where a verse of Jekyll’s parody is quoted from The Spirit of the Journals.

 

Note. ‘A wit’s a feather,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 247–8.

THE DANDY SCHOOL

This essay, now republished for the first time, is attributed to Hazlitt by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, etc., I. xxix) and by Ireland (List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, p. 76). The MS., in Hazlitt’s hand-writing, is still in existence.

343.

Vivian Grey. Disraeli’s first novel, published 1826–7. The dedication was as follows: ‘To the best and greatest of men I dedicate these volumes. He, for whom it is intended, will accept and appreciate the compliment: those, for whom it is not intended, will—do the same.’

344.

Long’s. A well-known hotel in Bond Street.

 

Almack’s. Assembly Rooms (now known as ‘Willis’s Rooms’), in King Street, St. James’s.

 

Mr. Martin’s bill, etc. Richard Martin’s (1754–1834) efforts on behalf of animals were bitterly opposed on all sides.

 

Mr. Croker, etc. ‘The Dulwich collection ... was quite as distant as Russell Square, though he did not profess to know exactly where Russell Square was.’ March 28, 1825. Hansard, New Series, XII. 1266.

345.

Sir Sedley Clarendels, etc. In Camilla.

 

Meadowses. In The Wanderer.

346.

‘The Court,’ etc. Cf. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Sayings and Doings. The first series appeared in 1824, the second in 1825 and the third in 1828.

348.

Mr. Vivacity Dull. A character in Vivian Grey, said to represent Horace Twiss.

ACTORS AND THE PUBLIC

This and the eleven following papers from The Examiner of 1828 have been included in the text mainly on account of the strong internal evidence they bear of Hazlitt’s authorship. One of the papers is signed ‘W. H.,’ the rest are unsigned. During the period covered by these essays other Theatrical Examiners appeared, signed ‘X’ or ‘Q.’ So far as the editors are aware, it has not been hitherto known that Hazlitt resumed regular theatrical criticism so late as 1828, but they feel that no reasonable doubt can exist with regard to his authorship of these twelve essays.

349.

Bate Dudley. Sir Henry Bate Dudley (1745–1824), the notorious clergyman and journalist discussed by Johnson and Boswell (Life, ed. G. B. Hill, IV. 296). He was for a time editor of The Morning Post.

 

‘Fall into misfortune.’ Cf. post, note to p. 533.

 

‘To tatters,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

350.

Who has praised Sir Walter, etc. The failure of Constable and of Ballantyne and Co., involving Scott’s financial ruin, had occurred in 1826.

 

A vulgar crim. con. In January 1825, a verdict of £800 was given against Kean in an action, Cox v. Kean, for criminal conversation. In consequence of this he was for a time ‘hooted from the stage.’

 

‘The spells,’ etc. Cf. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

If an actor is indeed six feet high, etc. Hazlitt probably refers to Conway. See vol. VIII. p. 200, and post, p. 361.

351.

‘The fiery soul,’ etc. Dryden Absalom and Achitophel, 156–8.

 

‘The envy,’ etc. Richard II., Act II. Sc. 1.

 

Madame Catalani. Angelica Catalani had retired from the stage in 1827.

 

It was some time since we had seen Mr. Kean’s Shylock, etc. This paragraph makes Hazlitt’s authorship of this Theatrical Examiner quite certain. Cf. vol. VIII. p. 179.