FRENCH PLAYS

352.

Monsieur Perlet. Adrien Perlet (1795–1850), a well-known French comedian, who had made his first appearance in 1814.

 

‘Upturned eyes,’ etc. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 2.

352.

Madame Pasta. Cf. vol. VII. (The Plain Speaker), pp. 324 et seq.

 

‘A friend of ours,’ etc. See Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintance (vol. III. pp. 32–5). According to Patmore, the following passage was intended by Hazlitt to form part of the Conversations with Northcote in The New Monthly Magazine, but was suppressed by the editor:—

 

‘He then asked me if I had seen anything of H——?^[78] I said, yes; and that he had vexed me; for I had shown him some fine heads from the Cartoons, done about a hundred years ago (which appeared to me to prove that since that period those noble remains have fallen into a state of considerable decay), and when I went out of the room for a moment, I found the prints thrown carelessly on the table, and that he had got out a volume of Tasso, which he was spouting, as I supposed, to let me understand that I knew nothing of art, and that he knew a great deal about poetry.

 

‘I said I never heard him speak with enthusiasm of any painter or work of merit, nor show any love of art, except as a puffing-machine for him to get up into to blow a trumpet in his own praise. Instead of falling down and worshipping such names as Raphael and Michael Angelo, he is only considering how he may, by storm or stratagem, place himself beside them, on the loftiest seats of Parnassus, as ignorant country squires affect to sit with judges on the bench. He told me he had had a letter from Wilkie, dated Rome, with three marks of admiration, and that he had dated his answer “Babylon the Great,” with four marks of admiration. Stuff! Why must he always “out-Herod Herod?”^[79] Why must the place where he is always have one note of admiration more than any other? He gave as his reasons, indeed, our river, our bridges, the Cartoons, and the Elgin Marbles—the two last of which, however, are not our own. H. should have been the boatswain of a man-of-war: he has no other ideas of glory than those which belong to a naval victory, or to vulgar noise and insolence; not at all as something in which the whole world may participate alike. I hate “this stamp exclusive and professional.”^[80] He added that Wilkie gave a poor account of Rome, and seemed, on the whole, disappointed. He (Haydon) should not be disappointed when he went, for his expectations were but moderate. “Ay,” said Northcote, “that is like the speech of a little, crooked, conceited painter of the name of Edwards, who went to Italy with Romney and Humphreys, and when they looked round the Vatican, he turned round to Romney and said, ‘Egad, George, we’re bit.’”

 

‘I said that when I heard stories of this kind, of even clever men who seemed to have no idea or to take no interest except in what they themselves could do, it almost inclined me to be of Peter Pindar’s opinion, who pretended to prefer taste to genius: “Give me,” said he, “one man of taste, and I will find you twenty men of genius.” N. replied, “It is a pity you should be of that opinion, for all your acquaintances are great geniuses; and yet, I fancy, they have no admiration for anybody but themselves.’”

352.

Sir William Curtis’s. Sir William Curtis (1752–1829), Lord Mayor of London (1795) and for long M.P. for the City.

353.

‘Our Cupid,’ etc. Cf. The Earl of Dorset’s song, Dorinda.

354.

The age of Louis XIV., etc. Cf. a passage in vol. IX. (Notes of a Journey, etc.), p. 150.

354.

‘New manners,’ etc. Thomas Warton, Sonnet ‘Written in a Blank Leaf of Dugdale’s Monasticon.’

355.

‘Unmixed with baser matter.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

A certain happy-spirited writer. Leigh Hunt, no doubt, whose recently published Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries had created some sensation.

FRENCH PLAYS (continued)

This article in The Examiner begins with a long editorial passage written in a chaffing spirit and praising the former notice of the French Plays.

356.

‘That soul of pleasure,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 306.

357.

l. 15. Ariste. This should be Valère.

358.

There is a credulous and unqualified assent, etc. Cf. a passage in vol. VIII. (English Comic Writers), p. 29, where almost the same words are used.

 

‘To the woods,’ etc. Quoted elsewhere by Hazlitt.

THE THEATRES AND PASSION WEEK

This paper is signed ‘W. H.’

358.

‘Because thou art virtuous,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 3.

359.

‘Seizing [tear] their pleasures,’ etc. Marvell, To his Coy Mistress.

360.

Ranting Croly. The Rev. George Croly (1780–1860), a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine, and to Jerdan’s Literary Gazette.

 

‘Stretched upon the rack,’ etc. Cf.

‘Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy.’ Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘All the natural ills [shocks], etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘To jest,’ etc. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.

361.

‘What is set down for them.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

CHARLES KEAN

362.

Young Mr. Kean. Charles John Kean (1811?–1868), second son of Edmund Kean. He had made his first appearance at the opening of the Drury Lane season, October 1, 1827.

 

Lovers’ Vows. Mrs. Inchbald’s adaptation from Kotzebue (1798).

 

The Marquis of Douro. Arthur Richard (1807–1884), eldest son of the Duke of Wellington, afterwards second Duke.

363.

We do not presume, etc. This adaptation of a passage from Burke’s A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 114) is quoted elsewhere by Hazlitt.

 

The Dumb Savoyard. By Thompson, acted thirty-eight times.

364.

Mrs. W. West. Mrs. W. West (1790–1876) who first appeared (as Miss Cooke) in London in 1812. She married William West in 1815.

 

Meggy Macgilpin. Maggy Macgilpin in O’Keeffe’s Highland Reel (1788).

 

Keeley. Robert Keeley (1793–1869). His height was five feet two inches.

365.

‘A man made after supper,’ etc. 2 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Vice to be hated,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, II. 217–18.

366.

Ecole des Veillards. By Casimir Delavigne (1823).

This notice is full of favourite quotations and of sentiments which Hazlitt had expressed elsewhere. See specially the Dramatic Essays in vol. VIII.

366.

‘Warbles,’ etc. L’ Allegro, 134.

 

‘Fierce extremes.’ Paradise Lost, II. 599.

 

The Invincibles. A musical farce, acted 34 times.

 

‘Our mind’s eye.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘Our heart’s core.’ Cf. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2.

367.

‘Fancy’s midwife.’ Cf. ‘The fairies’ midwife.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 4.

 

‘Gay creatures,’ etc. Comus, 299–301.

 

‘Tears,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 620.

368.

‘Mr. Kean’s Othello,’ etc. From The Times. See post, p. 406, and vol. VIII. p. 414 and notes.

 

‘With kindliest change.’ Paradise Lost, V. 336.

THE COMPANY AT THE OPERA

369.

Mr. Peake. Richard Brinsley Peake (1792–1847). The farce here noticed is called by Genest ‘Little Offerings.’

 

‘Crabbed age,’ etc. The Passionate Pilgrim, Stanza XII.

 

Miss Goward. Mary Ann Goward (1805?–1899), who afterwards became so well known as Mrs. Keeley. She married Keeley in 1829.

370.

Madame Caradori. Madame Caradori-Allan (1800–1865), who made her début at the Italian Opera in London in 1822.

 

Mademoiselle Sontag. Henriette Sontag (1806–1854). She married Count Rossi in 1828 and retired from the stage till near the end of her life.

371.

Brocard. Suzanne Brocard (1798–1855), whose first appearance at the Comédie Française was in 1817 and who retired in 1839.

372.

Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. Cf. ante, note to p. 355.

 

‘The mob,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Book II. Ep. I. 108.

THE BEGGAR’S OPERA

373.

‘Vanity, chaotic Vanity.’ Hazlitt may have had in mind the lines in Romeo and Juliet (Act I. Sc. 1), ‘O heavy lightness! serious vanity! misshapen chaos!’

374.

‘Waste her sweetness,’ etc. Cf. Gray’s Elegy, 56.

 

Splenetic ‘[splenitive] and rash.’ Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

Blanchard. William Blanchard (1769–1835), for long a member of the Covent Garden Company.

 

‘And when the date,’ etc. Butler, Hudibras, Part I. Canto 1. 285–6.

 

De Vere. By Robert Plumer Ward (1765–1846), published in 1827. It was supposed by some, though denied by the author, that De Vere was intended to represent Canning.

 

‘We have heard,’ etc. 2 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 2.

375.

Sir John Sylvester. Sir John Silvester (1745–1822), Recorder of London.

 

‘The thief,’ etc. Leviathan, Part I. Chap. 3.

 

A Race for Dinner. By G. H. B. Rodwell (1800–1852).

 

‘And Birnam wood,’ etc. Macbeth, Acts IV. and V.

 

The Poor Gentleman. By George Colman the Younger (1801).

375.

‘To advantage dressed.’ Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 297.

376.

Miss Ellen Tree. Ellen Tree (1805–1880), who married Charles Kean in 1842. She was a younger sister of Mrs. Bradshaw, the actress and singer.

377.

Miss Love. Emma Love, afterwards Mrs. Calcroft, had made her first appearance on the stage in 1817 at the English Opera House.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW AND L’AVARE

377.

‘The lungs of others,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

378.

Mr. Wilkie failed, etc. See ante, p. 252.

 

‘Warble, warble.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 5.

379.

Mademoiselle Mars. For Mademoiselle Mars in ‘a sort of shadowy Catherine and Petruchio,’ see vol. IX. p. 151.

380.

Ninette à la cour. By Charles Simon Favart (1710–1792).

381.

Seraglio. An opera by Dimond, produced in 1827.

 

Charles the Second. By Howard Payne, produced in 1824.

MRS. SIDDONS

381.

Pie Voleuse. See ante, note to p. 304.

 

‘Born to converse,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Prologue to the Satires, 196.

 

The Fall of Nineveh. By John Martin (1789–1854). The painting was being exhibited in Bond Street.

382.

Abridged Paradise Lost. Mrs. Siddons published The Story of our First Parents selected from Milton’s Paradise Lost for the use of young persons, 1822.

 

A triumphant peroration, etc. Hazlitt no doubt refers to Scott’s Life of Napoleon, published in 1827.

 

‘The worst, the second fall of man.’ Cf. William Windham, Speeches, II. 47 (Nov. 4, 1801).

384.

‘Barren spectators.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

Mr. Stanfield’s landscape back-grounds. William Clarkson Stanfield (1793–1867).

 

Veluti in speculum. Cf. ‘Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium,’ etc. Terence, Adelphi, Act III. Sc. 3.

THE THREE QUARTERS, Etc.

384.

The new comedy. Ups and Downs, or the Ladder of Life was the title of the piece here noticed by Hazlitt. It was acted eight times.

 

The secretary of the Admiralty, etc. Croker. Cf. ante, p. 344.

385.

A nice distinction in Miss Burney. See her Cecilia.

 

Killing no Murder. A farce by Theodore Hook, produced in 1809.

386.

‘Like dew-drops,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘Fine by degrees,’ etc. Prior, Henry and Emma, 430.

 

‘They best can paint them,’ etc. Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 366.

 

Lord Porchester’s tragedy. Don Pedro, King of Castile, by Lord Porchester, afterwards 3rd Earl of Carnarvon (1800–1849) was produced at Drury Lane on March 10, 1828.

 

Lord Morpeth’s. Lord Morpeth, afterwards 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802–1864) published in 1828 The Last of the Greeks; or the Fall of Constantinople, a tragedy in verse.

386.

The Sphynx, etc. The Sphynx (1827) and The Athenæum (1828) were started, and The Argus (1828) was projected by James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855).

387.

‘Oh! dearest Ophelia,’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

388.

‘He knows his cue,’ etc. Cf. Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.

MR. KEAN

389.

We do not wonder, etc. Kean had played Richard III. at the Théâtre Français in May 1828.

 

Voltaire has borrowed, etc. Cf. ante, p. 282.

 

‘The poet’s eye,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

390.

‘Should be as a book,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

The Hetman Platoff. The Russian general, Matvei Ivanovich Platoff (1757–1818), Hetman of the Cossacks of the Don. See vol. IX. p. 465.

391.

‘Give us pause.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

Miss Smithson. Harriet Constance Smithson (1800–1854), who played frequently in France and married Hector Berlioz in 1833.

 

A series of elegant bas-reliefs, etc. Cf. vol. VIII. p. 456, where the same comparison is made.

392.

Little Bartolozzi. Miss Bartolozzi made her first appearance (at the Haymarket) on June 17, 1828. She was a sister of Madame Vestris.

MUNDEN’S SIR PETER TEAZLE

For Hazlitt’s connection with The Times as dramatic critic see vol. VIII. p. 512. The fifteen articles reprinted for the first time in the present volume have been included upon internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship. No reasonable doubt can be felt with regard to any of them.

392.

Past Ten O’clock. ‘A moderate farce’ by Dibdin, produced March 11, 1815. See Genest. In another account of Munden (vol. VIII. p. 270) Hazlitt had referred to his ‘broad shining face’ and ‘the alarming drop of his chin.’

YOUNG’S HAMLET

Cf. this paper with the account of Hamlet in Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 237.

394.

The Miller and his Men. A successful melodrama by Pocock, produced in 1813.

395.

‘The paragon of animals.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

‘Peaked or pined.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘Oh that this too, too solid flesh,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘The pretty Ophelia.’ Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 5.

DOWTON IN THE HYPOCRITE

Cf. the notice of The Hypocrite in A View of the English Stage, vol. VIII. pp. 245–7.

395.

‘Very craftily qualified.’ Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.

Cf. the notices of two other Rosalinds in A View, etc., vol. VIII. pp. 252 and 336.

397.

Miss Brunton. Elizabeth Brunton (1799–1860), who in 1823 married Frederick Henry Yates, the actor.

 

‘Good emphasis and discretion.’ Cf. ‘With good accent and good discretion,’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

‘The gods,’ etc. As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 3.

MAYWOOD’S ZANGA

Hazlitt had noticed Maywood’s Shylock. See A View, etc. vol. VIII. p. 374. In 1821 Maywood wrote to Hazlitt from New York introducing a Mr. Greenhow, who was entrusted to present to Hazlitt a morsel of George Cooke’s liver. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc., II. 1–2.

398.

‘From the sound,’ etc. Cf. Collins, Ode, The Passions, 19–20.

 

‘Distilling them,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5.

 

‘Too tame.’ Ibid., Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘’Twas I that did it.’ The Revenge, Act V. Sc. 2.

 

‘Forced gait.’ 1 Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 1.

KEAN’S RICHARD III.

Cf. the essay on Richard III. in Characters of Shakespear’s Plays (vol. I. pp. 298–303), where Hazlitt speaks of the ‘miserable medley acted for Richard III.’ and gives some of the omitted passages as being ‘peculiarly adapted for stage effect.’ Shakespeare’s Richard III. was revived at Covent Garden on March 12, 1821, Macready playing Richard and Mrs. Bunn Queen Margaret.

399.

‘Now is the winter,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 1.

 

‘Even so!’ etc. Ibid.

400.

‘They do me wrong,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘His grace looks cheerfully,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 4.

THE WONDER

Cf. A View, etc., vol. VIII. p. 332.

402.

‘Snatch a grace,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 155.

 

‘Catch ere she falls,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, II. 20.

VENICE PRESERVED

Cf. the account of Kemble’s Pierre, vol. VIII. p. 378.

403.

‘The most replenished,’ etc. Richard III., Act IV. Sc. 3.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

403.

Borrowed from Fielding’s Joseph Andrews. Cf. vol. III. p. 115.

404.

‘His singularity,’ etc. Johnson frequently denounced singularity. The instances are collected in Boswell’s Life, ed. G. B. Hill, II. 74–5.

405.

Except in the murder scene. Cf. vol. VIII. p. 207.

 

‘Proud and lion-hearted,’ etc. Cf. ‘Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care,’ etc. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.

KEAN’S OTHELLO

405.

This young debutante. Her name was Mrs. Robinson.

406.

Mr. Kean’s Othello, etc. This passage, to the end of the notice, was quoted more than once by Hazlitt. Cf. ante, p. 368 and vol. VIII. p. 414 and notes.

KEAN AND MISS O’NEILL

Cf. this with Hazlitt’s appreciation of Miss O’Neill in The London Magazine, vol. VIII. of the present edition, pp. 392 et seq.

407.

‘O’erstep the modesty,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

408.

‘As one in suffering all,’ etc. Ibid.

 

‘Abide the beating,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4.

THE HONEY MOON

409.

‘What is set down for him.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘Plautus was too light,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

 

‘And near him,’ etc. Collins, Ode on the Poetical Character, 43–4.

 

‘Grew sharp as a pen.’ Henry V., Act II. Sc. 3.

410.

‘Go thou,’ etc. S. Luke x. 37.

MR. KEAN

410.

‘Not Fate itself could awe.’ Richard III. (Cibber’s version), Act V. Sc. 3.

KING JOHN

411.

‘To me,’ etc. King John, Act III. Sc. 1.

THE PRESS, Etc.

Hazlitt was a very frequent contributor to John Hunt’s ‘Weekly Miscellany,’ The Yellow Dwarf, which ran from Jan. 1 to May 23, 1818. Most of his contributions were included in Political Essays. See vol. III. pp. 254 et seq. Of those included in the present volume ‘The Opera’ was reprinted with some omissions and variations in Literary Remains, the rest are now republished for the first time, on the strength of what the editors regard as the conclusive internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship. All the essays are reprinted verbatim from the Magazine.

411.

M. Jollivet. Jean Baptiste Moïse, Comte Jollivet (1753–1818), a prominent French politician.

412.

‘Had’st thou believed,’ etc. Zapolya, Prelude, Sc. 1.

413.

Was one of the passages, etc. See the last chapter of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria.

 

‘Restored,’ etc. Carmen Triumphale, St. XVIII.

 

‘A full solemne man.’ Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 209.

414.

Odes on Hoffer, etc. Hazlitt refers to some of Wordsworth’s ‘Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty.’

 

‘A dateless bargain,’ etc. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘Stretching out,’ etc. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.

 

‘The same,’ etc. Hazlitt is no doubt quoting from Southey’s Carmen Nuptiale, St. 52.

 

Mrs. Tofts. See Hogarth’s ‘Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism,’ where the well-known imposture of Mary Tofts (1701?–1763) is ridiculed.

415.

‘Charm these deaf adders,’ etc. Cf. Psalms, lviii. 4, 5.

 

‘Drops which sacred pity,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.

 

‘Which knaves,’ etc. Butler, Hudibras, I. i. 35–6.

416.

‘The Gods,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 3.

 

‘A mingled [medley] air,’ etc. Wordsworth, Peter Bell, 304–5.

MR. COLERIDGE’S LECTURES

This course of Lectures began on Jan. 27, and ended on March 13, 1818. Hazlitt was lecturing on Poetry at the same time. For Coleridge’s prospectus see Lectures on Shakespeare (ed. Ashe), 170.

416.

‘Those fair parts,’ etc. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 1.

417.

‘Unhouselled,’ [unhoused] etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘This island’s mine,’ etc. The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘Independently of his conduct,’ etc. Cf. vol. III. (Political Essays), p. 285.

 

‘He had peopled else,’ etc. The Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘Lunes and abstractions.’ Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV. Sc. 2.

418.

‘Conquering and to conquer.’ Revelation vi. 2.

 

Bertram. Cf. vol. X. p. 158, and ante, pp. 412–3.

 

‘Tedious and brief.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

 

‘The man may indeed be a reviewer,’ etc. This saying does not seem to have been reported elsewhere. Coleridge and Wordsworth were often accused of ridiculing Southey’s poetical genius.

419.

‘Fie, Sir!’ etc. Milman, Fazio, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘To leave this keen encounter,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 2.

 

‘Reason [reasons] as plenty,’ etc. 1 Henry IV., Act II. Sc. 4.

 

‘The inconstant moon.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 2.

420.

‘His large discourse of reason,’ etc. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 4.

CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE

420.

‘I do perceive a fury,’ etc. Cf.

‘I do understand a fury in your words,

But not the words.’ Othello, Act IV. Sc. 2.

421.

‘And as the soldiers’ bare dead bodies lay,’ etc. 1 Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘The very age,’ etc. ‘The very age and body of the time.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.

 

‘An understanding,’ etc. ‘Give it an understanding, but no tongue.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.

421.

‘They are begot,’ etc. Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of ‘Begot upon itself, born on itself.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.

 

‘He has tasted,’ etc. Lamb’s version (as given by Coleridge) of Thekla’s song in Act II. Sc. 6 of The Piccolomini. See Coleridge’s Poetical Works (ed. J. D. Campbell), p. 648. Lamb himself printed the song differently. See The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas, v. 27 and notes.

422.

‘The man whose eye,’ etc. Wordsworth, Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, etc., 55–59.

 

Hogarth’s famous print. Hazlitt perhaps refers to Hogarth’s frontispiece to Kirby’s ‘Perspective.’

 

‘As ’twere in spite of scorn.’ Cf. Paradise Lost, I. 619.

 

‘The child and champion,’ etc. See vol. III. p. 99 and note.

424.

‘The statue,’ etc. Thomson, The Seasons, Summer, 1346.

 

‘The starry Galileo.’ Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV. 54.

 

‘Now in glimmer,’ etc. Coleridge, Christabel, 169.

 

‘Moving wild laughter,’ etc. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.

 

‘The double night’, etc. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV. 81.

425.

‘Seen of all eyes.’ Cf. Revelation, i. 7.

THE OPERA

426.

‘The glass of fashion,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.

 

‘The fool of the senses.’ Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1.

 

‘How happy,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act II. Sc. 2.

428.

‘With some sweet,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3.

 

‘The cloister’d heart,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 268 and note.

429.

‘The flower of Britain’s warriors,’ etc. Southey, Carmen Nuptiale, 16.

430.

A contemporary critic. Hazlitt perhaps refers to Schlegel. See vol. VIII. (A View, etc.) p. 324.

ON THE QUESTION WHETHER POPE WAS A POET

Hazlitt was for a time a fairly frequent contributor to The Edinburgh Magazine (New Series), otherwise known as The New Scots Magazine. Two of his contributions, ‘Remarks on Mr. West’s Picture of Death on the Pale Horse,’ and ‘On the Ignorance of the Learned,’ have been published in vols. IX. and VI. respectively. The essays ‘On Fashion,’ ‘On Nicknames’ and ‘Thoughts on Taste’ in the present volume were first reprinted with omissions and variations in Sketches and Essays (1839); those ‘On the Question whether Pope was a Poet,’ (signed W. H.), and ‘On Respectable People,’ are now reprinted for the first time.

431.

‘The pale reflex.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 5.

432.

‘In fortune’s ray,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3.

 

‘Gnarled oak.’ Shakespeare uses this phrase (Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2), but Hazlitt probably meant a ‘knotted oak’ which is the expression used in the passage he had just written down.

 

‘Calm contemplation,’ etc. Thomson, The Seasons, Autumn, 1277.