Chapter XXVIII: Part III: Sect. xv

_Which describe pleasant motions._ ‘It has been conjectured that
the pleasure derived from visible form, might be always
resolved into the absence of every thing disagreeable to the
touch or difficult in motion.’ Note by Hazlitt in _The
Examiner_.

‘_He hath set his bow_,’ _etc._ _Ecclesiasticus_, xliii. 11, 12.

_Titian’s ‘Bath of Diana.’_ _Diana and Actaeon_, now the property
of the Earl of Ellesmere, in Bridgewater House. Hazlitt
described this picture at length in his _Sketches of the
Principal Picture Galleries in England_ (The Marquis of
Stafford’s Gallery).

ON IMITATION

No. 30 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

73. _The new Spurzheim principles._ See Hazlitt’s essays ‘On Dreams’
and ‘On Dr. Spurzheim’s Theory’ in _The Plain Speaker_.

74. Note. _Vanhuysum._ Jan van Huysum (1682–1749).

75. _Pansy freak’d with jet._ _Lycidas_, l. 144.

76. ‘_A pleasure in art_,’ _etc._

‘There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.’

Cowper’s _Task, The Timepiece_, ll. 285–286.

Cf. _Table Talk_ (‘On the Pleasure of Painting’): ‘There is a
pleasure in painting which none but painters know.’ The
original of the expression seems to be Dryden’s ‘There is a
pleasure, sure, in being mad, which none but madmen know’
(_Spanish Friar_, Act II. Scene 1).

_Titian’s ‘Schoolmaster.’_ For an account of this picture see
Hazlitt’s _Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in
England_ (the Marquis of Stafford’s Gallery).

ON GUSTO

No. 40 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

77. _Albano’s._ Francesco Albani (1578–1660), a pupil of Ludovico
Caracci.

78. _To touch them._ In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt gives the following
note to this passage: ‘This may seem obscure. We will therefore
avail ourselves of our privilege to explain as Members of
Parliament do, when they let fall any thing too paradoxical,
novel, or abstruse, to be immediately apprehended by the other
side of the House. When the Widow Wadman[110] looked over my
Uncle Toby’s map of the Siege of Namur with him, and as he
pointed out the approaches of his battalion in a transverse
line across the plain to the gate of St. Nicholas, kept her
hand constantly pressed against his, if my Uncle Toby had then
“been an artist and could paint,” (as Mr. Fox wished himself to
be,[111] that “he might draw Bonaparte’s conduct to the King of
Prussia in the blackest colours”) my Uncle Toby would have
drawn the hand of his fair enemy in the manner we have above
described. We have heard a good story of this same Bonaparte
playing off a very ludicrous parody of the Widow Wadman’s
stratagem upon as great a commander by sea as my Uncle Toby was
by land. Now, when Sir Isaac Newton, who was sitting smoking
with his mistress’s hand in his, took her little finger and
made use of it as a tobacco-pipe stopper, there was here a
total absence of mind, or a great want of gusto.’

_Mr. West._ Benjamin West (1738–1820), historical painter,
succeeded Sir J. Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy in
1792.

80. ‘_Or where Chineses_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 438–439.

‘_Wild above rule_,’ _etc._ _Ib._ V. 297.

ON PEDANTRY

No. 32 of the Round Table series. See _ante_, p. 382, for a reference by Hazlitt to this essay.

PAGE

80. _The pedantry of Parson Adams._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III.
Chap. v.

_Scotch Pedagogue._ _Roderick Random_, Chap. xiv.

_Seeing ourselves_, _etc._ Burns, _To a Louse_, st. 8.

81. _Monsieur Jourdain._ In _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_.

Note. ‘_Not to admire anything._’

‘Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque, quæ possit facere et servare beatum.’—Horace, Ep. I. vi. I.

82. _In the Library_, _etc._ At his father’s house at Wem. See
_Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, i. 33. The _Bibliotheca Fratrum
Polonorum_, _etc._, was published in eight volumes folio, 1656.

‘_From all this world’s_,’ _etc._ ‘From worldly cares himselfe he
did esloyne.’ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I. Canto iv. st. 20. In
_The Examiner_ Hazlitt published the following note: ‘Mr.
Wordsworth has on a late occasion humorously applied this line
of Spenser to persons holding sinecure places under government.
He seems to intend adding to the list of such places that of
Poet Laureate. This we think a decided improvement on the
system.’ The reference is to Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘Occasioned
by the Battle of Waterloo,’ beginning ‘The bard whose soul is
meek as dawning day.’

83. ‘_Mitigated authors_,’ _etc._ ‘It was this opinion which
mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be
fellows with kings. Without force, or opposition, it subdued
the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to
submit to the soft collar of social esteem,’ etc. Burke’s
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
Payne, ii. 90).

_The Spectator._ See _The Spectator_, No. 131.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

No. 33 the Round Table series.

PAGE

84. _A poetical enthusiast._ Wordsworth presumably.

‘_A clerk ther was_,’ _etc._ _Canterbury Tales_, Prologue, ll.
285 _et seq._

85. ‘_Chemist, statesman_,’ _etc._ Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_,
l. 550.

‘_Tongues in the trees_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Scene
1.

86. _Vestris was so far right_, _etc._ Vestris (1729–1808), ‘Le Dieu
de la danse,’ said that Europe contained only three great men,
himself, Voltaire, and Frederick of Prussia.

_We do not see_, _etc._ Johnson and Wordsworth were of the
opposite opinion. See Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G. B. Hill, iv.
114, and Rogers’s _Table-Talk_, p. 234.

87. _In Froissart’s ‘Chronicles.’_ Book IV. chapter 14 (Panthéon
Litteraire). The man was not a monk at all.

88. ‘_The sovereign’st thing on earth._’ _1 Henry IV._, Act I. Scene
3.

_Uneasy and insecure._ In _The Examiner_ the following note is
appended: ‘It has been found necessary to cement them with
blood. “Plus de belles paroles, messieurs, je veux du sang,”
is the language of all absolute sovereigns to their subjects,
when the film drops from their eyes which leads mankind to
suppose themselves the property of tyrants. If men are to be
treated like slaves, it is best that they should think
themselves born to be so. _Plus de belles paroles._ The
French Revolution was the necessary consequence of our
English Revolution and of the Reformation. A crusade once
more to re-establish the infallibility of the Pope all over
the Continent would be a logical inference from the late
crusade to restore divine right.’

ON THE CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU

No. 36 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

89. Note. In _The Examiner_ this note was continued as follows: ‘He
was the founder of Jacobinism, which disclaims the division of
the species into two classes, the one the property of the
others. It was of the disciples of _his_ school, where
principle is converted into passion, that Mr. Burke said and
said truly,—“Once a Jacobin, and always a Jacobin!” The adept
in this school does not so much consider the political injury
as the personal insult. This is the way to put the case, to set
the true revolutionary leaven, the self-love which is at the
bottom of every heart, at work, and this was the way in which
Rousseau put it. It then becomes a question between man and
man, which there is but one way of deciding.’

90. ‘_Va Zanetto_,’ _etc._ Part II. liv. 7.

‘_Louise Eleonore_,’ _etc._ Part I. liv. 2.

91. ‘_As fast_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Scene 2.

_There are, indeed, impressions_, _etc._ A quotation from
Rousseau’s _Confessions_. See Hazlitt’s essay entitled ‘My
first Acquaintance with Poets.’

92. ‘_Ah, voila de la pervenche!_’ _Confessions_, Part I. liv. 6.

_Mr. Wordsworth’s discovery._ The reference appears to be to
Wordsworth’s poem, ‘The Sparrow’s Nest.’

ON DIFFERENT SORTS OF FAME

No. 37 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

93. _Fitzosborne’s Letters_, by William Melmoth the younger
(1710–1799), were published in two vols. in 1742–1747.
Hazlitt’s quotation seems to be merely a summary of a passage
in Letter X. (p. 35, edit. 1748) which is itself quoted from
Wollaston’s _Religion of Nature Delineated_.

Note. _Burns._ See his autobiographical letter to Dr. John Moore,
2nd August 1787. (_Works_, ed. Chambers and Wallace, i. 20).

94. ‘_Bitter bad judges._’ _Beggar’s Opera_, Act I. Scene 1.

‘_Makes ambition virtue._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 3.

_Dr. Johnson._ See his Life of Milton (_Works_, vii. 108).

‘_Fame is the spur_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, ll. 70–77.

_Pluck its fruits, unripe and crude._ _Lycidas_, l. 3.

95. _Hogarth’s ‘Distressed Poet.’_ The map of the gold-mines of Peru
was substituted in the impression of 1740 for a print of Pope
thrashing Curll in the original impression of 1736.

_A man of genius and eloquence._ Coleridge presumably.

96. _Elphinstone._ James Elphinston (1721–1809), who superintended an
Edinburgh edition of _The Rambler_, in which he gave English
translations of most of the mottoes. This, however, was far
from being his only literary enterprise, and it is strange that
Hazlitt should ‘know nothing more of him.’ He published many
translations, one of which, _A Specimen of the Translations of
Epigrams of Martial_ (1778), achieved notoriety from its
extreme badness. In his later life he devoted himself to the
invention of a kind of phonetic spelling, which he explained in
_Propriety ascertained in her Picture, or English Speech and
Spelling under Mutual Guides_ (1787), and other works.

_Yorick and the Frenchman._ Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_. The
Passport.

CHARACTER OF JOHN BULL

No. 39 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

97. _A respectable publication._ _Edinburgh Review_, xxvi. p. 96
(Feb. 1816). The passage quoted is from a review by Hazlitt
himself of Schlegel’s _Lectures on Dramatic Literature_.

ON GOOD NATURE

No. 41 of the Round Table series.

PAGE

100. _Says Froissart._ This well-known saying is wrongly attributed to
Froissart. See _Notes and Queries_ for 1863 and subsequent
years.

102. _An Englishman, who would be thought a profound one._ Wordsworth.
See p. 116.

103. _Forge the seal of the realm_, _etc._ The allusion seems to be to
the events of the spring of 1804 when Lord Eldon, during the
king’s illness, affixed the great seal to a commission giving
the royal assent to certain bills.

104. _Good digestion wait on appetite._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.

_Without control._ In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt appended as a note:
‘Henry VIII. was a good-natured monarch. He cut off his wives’
heads with as little ceremony as if they had been eels. This
character ought, as Mr. Cobbett says, to be hooted off the
stage, as a disgrace to human nature. Shakspeare represented
kings as they were in his time.’

104. _Mr. Vansittart._ Nicholas Vansittart (1766–1851), created Baron
Bexley in 1823, was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1812 till
1822.

_Everything by starts and nothing long._ _Absalom and
Achitophel_, Part I. l. 548.

105. Note. This note is part of the note on Burke, which in _The
Examiner_ appeared at the foot of the essay ‘On Beauty.’ See
_ante_, p. 71.

ON THE CHARACTER OF MILTON’S EVE

No. 42 of the Round Table series, with occasional passages from No. 43, on Shakspeare’s female characters, the substance of which was published in _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ (_Cymbeline_, _Othello_, and _Winter’s Tale_).

PAGE

105. ‘_As the vine curls her tendrils._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 307.

106. ‘_Two of far nobler shape_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 288–311.

107. ‘_That day I oft remember_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 449–465.

‘_So spake our general mother_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
492–501.

‘_So much the more_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 8–20.

108. ‘_When Adam thus to Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 610–611.

‘_To whom thus Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 634.

‘_To whom our general ancestor_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
659–660.

‘_Methought close at mine ear_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V.
35–47.

‘_So talked the spirited sly snake._’ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 613.

‘_So cheered he his fair spouse_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V.
129–135.

109. ‘_Under his forming hands_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VIII.
470–477.

‘_In shadier bower_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 705–719.

‘_Meanwhile at table Eve_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 443–450.

110. ‘_Yet not more sweet_,’ _etc._ Southey’s _Carmen Nuptiale_,
Proem, stanza 18.

‘_O unexpected stroke_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 268–285.

111. ‘_This most afflicts me_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 315–333.

OBSERVATIONS ON MR. WORDSWORTH’S POEM ‘THE EXCURSION’

This essay is composed of two papers by Hazlitt which appeared in _The Examiner_ on August 21 and August 28, 1814.

PAGE

112. ‘_Without form and void._’ _Genesis_, i. 2.

113. ‘_The bare trees and mountains bare._’ Wordsworth, ‘To my
Sister.’

‘_Exchange the shepherd’s flock._’ _Excursion_, Book VI.

114. ‘_The sad historian of the pensive vale._’ Goldsmith’s _The
Deserted Village_, l. 136.

‘_Our system is not fashioned_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book VI.

‘_Such as the meeting soul may pierce._’ _L’Allegro_, l. 138.

‘_In that fair clime_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_, Book IV.

115. ‘_Now shall our great discoverers obtain_,’ _etc._ _Excursion_,