Chapter XXIII: Preface: It is observed by Mr. Pope, that (13)

24. Note. ‘_Oh! for my sake_,’ _etc._ Sonnet No. III. ‘_Desiring this
man’s art_,’ _etc._ Sonnet No. 29.

ON HOGARTH’S ‘MARRIAGE À LA MODE’

This essay (from _The Examiner_, June 5, 1814) and the next one (June 19, 1814) continuing the same subject, were (in substance) republished in the _English Comic Writers_ (see the Lecture VII. on the works of Hogarth) and also in _Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England_, _etc._ (1824).

PAGE

25. _The late collection._ In 1814.

‘_Of amber-lidded snuff-box._’ Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, IV.
123.

26. ‘_A person, and a smooth dispose_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I.
Scene 3.

‘_Vice loses half its evil in losing all its grossness._’ Burke’s
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
Payne, ii. 89).

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED

28. _What Fielding says._ See _Tom Jones_, Book IV. Chap. i.

30. ‘_All the mutually reflected charities._’ Burke’s _Reflections on
the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 40).

‘_Frequent and full_,’ _etc._ See _Paradise Lost_, III. 795–797.

31. Note. _The ‘Reflector.’_ For 1811. The essay is included in
_Poems, Plays and Miscellaneous Essays of Charles Lamb_ (ed.
Ainger).

ON MILTON’S LYCIDAS

No. 15 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

31. ‘_At last he rose_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, 192–193.

_Dr. Johnson._ See his Life of Milton (_Works_, Oxford ed., vii.
119).

‘_Most musical, most melancholy._’ _Il Penseroso_, l. 62.

‘_With eager thought warbling his Doric lay._’ _Lycidas_, l. 189.

32. ‘_Together both_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 25 _et seq._

‘_Oh fountain Arethuse_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 85 _et seq._

33. ‘_Like one that had been led astray_,’ _etc._ _Il Penseroso_, ll.
69–70.

‘_Next Camus_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 103 _et seq._

_Has been found fault with._ By Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton
(_Works_, Oxford ed., vii. 120).

_Camoens, who, in his ‘Lusiad.’_ See _The Lusiads_, Canto ii.
stanzas 56 _et seq._

34. ‘_The muses in a ring_,’ _etc._ _Il Penseroso_, ll. 47–48.

‘_Have sight of Proteus_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘The world
is too much with us.’

‘_Return, Alphaeus_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 132 _et seq._

35. _Dr. Johnson._ Johnson does not seem to have been offended by the
dolphins in particular.

_The picture by Barry._ ‘The triumph of the Thames,’ number 4 of
the six pictures painted by James Barry (1741–1806) for the
Society of Arts. Johnson’s friend, Dr. Charles Burney
(1726–1814) figures as one of the renowned dead.

‘_Here’s flowers for you_’ _etc._ _Winter’s Tale_, Act. IV. Scene
4.

36. _Dr. Johnson’s ‘general remark_,’ _etc._ See his Life of Milton
(_Works_, Oxford ed., vii. 119, 131), and Boswell’s _Life of
Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), iv. 305.

ON MILTON’S VERSIFICATION

No. 16 of the Round Table series. Hazlitt drew largely on this essay for his lecture on Shakspeare and Milton. See _Lectures on the English Poets_.

PAGE

37. ‘_Makes Ossa like a wart._’ _Hamlet_, Act V. Scene 1.

‘_Sad task, yet argument_,’ _etc._ Quoted, with omissions, from
_Paradise Lost_, IX. 13–45.

37. ‘_Him followed Rimmon_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 467–469.

‘_As when a vulture_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 431–439.

38. _It has been said_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably refers to Coleridge.
See his _Lectures on Shakspeare_ (Bell’s ed., p. 526).

‘_He soon saw within ken_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 621–634.

39. _Dr. Johnson._ Hazlitt somewhat exaggerates Johnson’s strictures
on Milton. See _The Rambler_, Nos. 86, 88, and 90.

‘_His hand was known_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 732–747.

‘_But chief the spacious hall_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I.
762–788. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt has a note to the words
‘brush’d with the hiss of rustling wings,’ pointing out that it
was one of Dr. Johnson’s speculations, that all imitative sound
is merely fanciful. He refers probably to _The Rambler_, No.
94.

40. ‘_Round he surveys_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 555–567.

‘_In many a winding bout_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, ll. 139–140.

41. ‘_The hidden soul of harmony._’ _L’Allegro_, l. 144.

Note. Hazlitt quoted these couplets again in his _Lectures on the
English Poets_. See Lecture IV. on Dryden and Pope.

ON MANNER

This essay is compounded of two papers in the Round Table series, Nos. 17 and 18.| Hazlitt, however, omitted the greater part of No. 18, at the beginning of which he discussed Dryden’s version of _The Flower and the Leaf_. No. 18 was published in _Winterslow_ (1839) under the title of _Matter and Manner_.

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42. _Says Lord Chesterfield._ ‘Observe the looks and countenances of
those who speak, which is often a surer way of discovering the
truth than what they say.’ _Letters to his Son_, No. cxxx.

_Than his sentiments._ In _The Examiner_ appears the following
note on this passage: ‘We find persons who write what may be
called an _impracticable_ style; and their ideas are just as
impracticable. They have as little tact of what is going on in
the world as of the habitual meaning of words. Other writers
betray their natural disposition by affectation, dryness, or
levity of style. Style is the adaptation of words to things.
Dr. Johnson had no style, that is, no scale of words answering
to the differences of his subject. He always translated his
ideas into the highest and most imposing form of expression, or
more properly, into Latin words with English terminations.
Goldsmith said to him, “If you had to write a fable, and to
introduce little fishes speaking, you would make them talk like
great whales.” It is a satire on this kind of taste that the
most ignorant pretenders are in general what is generally
understood by the finest writers. Women generally write a good
style, because they express themselves according to the
impression which things make upon them, without the affectation
of authorship. They have besides more sense of propriety than
men.’ For the story of Goldsmith see Boswell’s _Life of
Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), ii. 231.

43. _One of the most pleasant_, _etc._ It is evident from a passage
in _Table Talk_ (on Coffee-House Politicians) that this friend
is Leigh Hunt, and that ‘another friend’ is Lamb.

‘_As dry as the remainder biscuit_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act
II. Scene 7.

‘_Learning is often_,’ _etc._ _2 Henry IV._, Act IV. Scene 3.

44. _Lord Chesterfield’s character of the Duke of Marlborough._
_Letters to his Son_, No. clxviii.

45. Note 1. It appears from a MS. note in a copy of the 1817 edition
that Hazlitt here refers to Lord Castlereagh.

_The greatest man_, _etc._ Napoleon. Cf. _Table Talk_ (on Great
and Little Things) and _Life of Napoleon_, Chap. lvii.

Note 2. _A sonnet to the King._ This must be the sonnet
beginning—

‘Now that all hearts are glad, all faces bright’

to which Hazlitt referred again in _Political Essays_
(‘Illustrations of _The Times_ Newspaper’). Wordsworth’s attack
on a set of gipsies was in the poem entitled ‘Gipsies’ (1807).

‘_In a wise passiveness._’ _Expostulation and Reply_ (1798).

_In the ‘Excursion’._ Book VIII.

_‘They are a grotesque ornament,’ etc._ ‘Nobility is a graceful
ornament to the civil order.’ Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, ii. 164).

_This is enough._ In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt adds: ‘We really have
a very great contempt for any one who differs from us on this
point.’

46. _The Story of the glass-man._ The Barber’s story of his Fifth
Brother.

_That manner is everything._ ‘Sheer impudence answers almost the
same purpose. “Those impenetrable whiskers have confronted
flames.” Many persons, by looking big and talking loud, make
their way through the world without any one good quality. We
have here said nothing of mere personal qualifications, which
are another set-off against sterling merit. Fielding was of
opinion that “the more solid pretensions of virtue and
understanding vanish before perfect beauty.” “A certain lady of
a manor” (says _Don Quixote_[90] in defence of his attachment
to _Dulcinea_, which however was quite of the Platonic kind),
“had cast the eyes of affection on a certain squat, brawny
lay-brother of a neighbouring monastery, to whom she was lavish
of her favours. The head of the order remonstrated with her on
this preference shown to one whom he represented as a very low,
ignorant fellow, and set forth the superior pretensions of
himself, and his more learned brethren. The lady having heard
him to an end made answer: All that you have said may be very
true; but know, that in those points which I admire, Brother
Chrysostom is as great a philosopher, nay greater than
Aristotle himself!” So the _Wife of Bath_:[91]—

“To church was mine husband borne on the morrow
With neighbours that for him maden sorrow,
And Jenkin our clerk was one of tho:
As help me God, when that I saw him go
After the bier, methought he had a pair
Of legs and feet, so clean and fair,
That all my heart I gave unto his hold.”

“All which, though we most potently believe, yet we hold it not
honesty to have it thus set down.”’[92]—Note by Hazlitt in _The
Examiner_, September 3, 1815.

Note. _Sir Roger de Coverley._ _The Spectator_, No. 130.

47. _The successful experiment._ See _Peregrine Pickle_, Chap,
lxxxvii.

ON THE TENDENCY OF SECTS

No. 19 of the Round Table series.

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49. Note 1. The _Freedom of the Will_ of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)
was published in 1754. Edwards was, of course, an American, as
Flower reminded Hazlitt in his letter referred to below (49,
note 2).

‘_Hid from ages._’ _Colossians_, i. 26.

Note 2. Benjamin Flower, in a reply which he wrote to this essay
(_The Examiner_, October 8, 1815), pointed out the ‘phenomenon’
of a Quaker poet ‘appeared about thirty years since, Mr. Scott
of Amwell, whose volume of poetry obtained the marked
approbation of our acknowledged best critics.’ Johnson said of
John Scott of Amwell’s (1730–1783) _Elegies_, ‘they are very
well; but such as twenty people might write’ (Boswell’s _Life
of Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill, ii. 351). Another correspondent,
signing himself ‘B. B.,’ wrote a letter to _The Examiner_
(September 24, 1815), protesting against Hazlitt’s sketch of
Quakerism. This was no doubt Bernard Barton (1784–1849),
another Quaker poet, and afterwards the friend of Lamb.

50. ‘_There is some soul of goodness_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV.
Scene 1.

‘_Evil communications_,’ _etc._ _1 Corinthians_, xv. 33.

ON JOHN BUNCLE

No. 20 of the Round Table series.

_The Life of John Buncle, Esq._, by Thomas (not John) Amory (1691?-1788), was published in two volumes, 1756–1766. A new edition in three volumes was published in 1825, very likely on Hazlitt’s recommendation. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, ii. 198. A quotation from the present essay faces the title-page of the new edition (vol. i.). A volume containing the most readable parts of the book, and happily entitled ‘The Spirit of Buncle,’ was published in 1823. The book was a great favourite of Lamb’s as well as of Hazlitt’s.

PAGE

52. _Botargos._ ‘Hard roes of mullet called botargos.’ Urquhart’s
Rabelais, I. xxi.

53. ‘_Man was made to mourn._’

‘Who breathes, must suffer; and who thinks, must mourn.’

Prior, _Solomon on the Vanity of the World_, III. 240.

_He danced the Hays._

‘I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.’

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V. Scene 1.

_A mistress and a saint in every grove._ Goldsmith’s _Traveller_,
152.

‘_Most dolphin-like._’ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act V. Scene 2.

‘_And there the antic sits_,’ _etc._ _Richard II._, Act III.
Scene 2.

56. _Philips’s._ The Pastorals of Pope and Ambrose Philips
(1675?-1749) appeared in Tonson’s _Miscellany_ (1709).

_Sannazarius._ An English translation of the Piscatory Eclogues
of Jacopo Sannazario was published in 1726.

‘_What he beautifully calls_,’ _etc._ See _The Complete Angler_,