Chapter XXII: Preface (21)

CHARLES PRATT, (_Earl Camden_,) was the son of Sir John Pratt, and born in the year 1713. He was educated at Cambridge. He made little figure for many years after he was called to the bar; but at length, by the interest of the chancellor Henley, he obtained considerable practice, and was recommended by him to the friendship of Mr. Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham. By this means, he successively rose to the stations of attorney-general, chief justice of the common pleas, and lord chancellor. He distinguished himself in the latter situations by taking a decided part against the government, in favour of Wilkes. For this, he had the freedom of the city of London voted him in a gold box, and his portrait was stuck up in Guildhall. He was made president of the council after the American war, which situation he held till his death, in 1794. He appears to have been a mere party man, without any abilities whatever, and without that sense of his own deficiencies which atones for the want of them. He was the legal mouth-piece of Chatham, the judicial oracle of the party, who gravely returned the answers that were given him by the political priesthood, of whom he was the organ. He was one of those dull, plodding, headstrong, honest men, with whom so large a part of the community naturally sympathise, and of whom it is always convenient to have one at least in every administration, or antiministerial party. To the generality of mankind, dulness is the natural object of sympathy and admiration; it is the element in which they breathe; it is that which is best fitted to their gross capacities. The divinity of genius is itself too dazzling an object for them to behold, and requires the friendly interposition of some thick cloud to dim its lustre, and blunt the fierceness of its rays. The people love to idolize greatness in some vulgar representation of it, and to worship their own likeness in stocks and stones. Lord Camden was just the man to address those who can only assent, but cannot reason. With men of this character, the strength of the reasoning always weakens the force of the argument; their heads will only bear a certain quantity of thought, and by attempting to enlighten, you only confound their understandings. Any thing like proof always operates as a negative quantity upon their prejudices, because it puts them out of their way, and they cannot get into any other. Nothing can be more feeble than the following reply of his to lord Mansfield, in which he had pledged himself to prove—I know not what. He was more ready to throw down his pledges than to redeem them, (to speak in the parliamentary style). This was of little consequence. Though often foiled, it did not abate his ardour, or lessen his confidence: he was still _staunch_ to his cause, and (no matter whether right or wrong in his argument,) he was always sure of his conclusion. The less success a man has in maintaining his point, the more does he shew his steadiness and attachment to his object in persevering in it in spite of opposition; and the proof of fortitude which he thus gives must naturally induce all those of the same sanguine disposition, who have the same zeal and the same imbecility in the defence of truth, to make common cause with him. Such was lord Camden; of whom, however, (lest I should seem to have conceived some hasty prejudice against him,) I must confess that I am by no means convinced that he was not quite as great a man as the generality of those who have risen by the same gradations to the same high offices that he did, either before or since his time.

COLONEL BARRE.—He was one of the most strenuous opposers of lord North’s administration. Junius says, ‘I would borrow a simile from Burke, or a sarcasm from Barre.’ There is a vein of shrewd irony, a lively, familiar, conversational pleasantry running through all his speeches. _Garrit aniles ex re fabellas._ His eloquence is certainly the most _naïve_, the most unpremeditated, the most gay and heedless, that can be imagined. He was really and naturally what Courteney (afterwards) only pretended to be. [Hazlitt adds in a note]—I am sorry that I can give no account of this celebrated character. Indeed, I have to apologize to the reader for the frequent defects and chasms in the biographical part of the work. I have looked carefully into the dictionaries, but unless a man happens to have been a nonconformist divine in the last century, a chymist, or the maker of a new spelling and pronouncing dictionary, his name is hardly sure of obtaining a place in these learned compilations. The writers seem, by a natural sympathy, more anxious to bring obscure merit into notice, than to gratify the idle curiosity of the public respecting characters on which a dazzling splendor has been shed, by the accidental circumstances of situation, by superficial accomplishments, and shewy talents. In giving the history of illustrious statesmen or politicians, they are very uncertain helps; but if any one had to make out a list of antiquarians, schoolmasters, or conjurors, he would find them complete for his purpose. The Barres, the Grenvilles, and the Townshends, are forgotten; while the Dyches, the Fennings, the Lillys, and the Laxtons, vie with the heroes and sages of antiquity, in these motley lists of fame, which like death, level all ranks, and confound all distinctions.

FREDERICK, LORD NORTH, (_afterwards Earl of Guildford_,) was born in 1732. He succeeded Mr. C. Townshend as chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1770 was made first lord of the treasury, in which situation he continued till the close of the American war. He died in 1792. His speeches are in general, like the following, short, shrewd, and lively, and quite free from the affectation of oratory. He spoke like a gentleman, like a man of sense and business, who had to explain himself on certain points of moment to the country, and who in doing this did not think that his first object was to shew how well he could play the orator by the hour. The following masterly character is given of him by Burke. ‘He was a man of admirable parts; of a general knowledge; of versatile understanding fitted for every sort of business; of infinite wit and pleasantry; of a delightful temper; and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. But it would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honour the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command that the time required.’

The following Speech is a most masterly defence of himself. It is a model in its kind.

MR. BURKE was born at Dublin, January 1, 1730. His father was a respectable attorney, and a Protestant. He received his school education under Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker; and whenever Mr. Burke afterwards visited Ireland, he always went to see his old tutor. In 1746, he entered as a scholar at Trinity College, which he left, after taking his bachelor’s degree, in 1749. Not long after, he became candidate for the professorship of logic, at Glasgow, but did not succeed. In 1753, he entered himself of the Inner Temple, but he did not apply very closely to the study of the law, and supported himself by writing for the booksellers. In 1756, he published his Vindication of Natural Society, and in 1757 his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He was first brought into parliament for the borough of Wendover, by the interest of lord Rockingham, to whom he had been private secretary. He soon after published his Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents. In 1774, he was invited by the citizens of Bristol to become one of their representatives; but at the next election, he was rejected by them, for having supported the free trade of Ireland and the Catholic claims, and was returned for Malton, in Yorkshire. The rest of his political life is too well known to need recapitulating here. The part he took against the French revolution was the most important and memorable event of his life. He withdrew from parliament in 1794, leaving his seat for Malton to his son, who died shortly after. This hastened his death, which happened in July, 1797. The best character of him, and perhaps the finest that ever was drawn of any man, is that by Goldsmith, in his poem of Retaliation.

THE HONOURABLE C. J. FOX was born Jan. 13, 1748. He was educated first at Eton and afterwards at Hertford College, Oxford. He was returned to Parliament for Midhurst in 1768. He was at first on the side of ministry, but declared himself on the side of opposition on the dispute with America. He became secretary for foreign affairs in 1782, and again in 1806, when it was too late for his country and himself. He died September, 1806. Of this great man I shall speak more at large when I come to his later speeches. The following boyish rhapsody, on a question relating to the Lowther estate, is remarkable only for its contrast to the speeches which he made afterwards—for its affectation and bluster and imbecility. It may be easily believed, as is reported of him, that at the time he made this and other speeches like it, he wore red heels and blue powder, and was distinguished as the greatest coxcomb in Europe. He was not then the same figure that I afterwards beheld in the Louvre, with hairs grown grey in the service of the public, with a face pale and furrowed with thought, doing honour to the English character as its best representative, conciliating by his frank, simple, unaffected manners, the affection and esteem of strangers, and wandering carelessly and unconsciously among those courts and palaces, whose profound policy and deep-laid machinations he alone, by his wisdom and the generous openness of his nature, was able to resist. His first acquaintance with Burke seems to have been the æra of his manhood; or rather, it was then that he first learned to know himself, and found his true level. A man in himself is always the same, though he may not always appear to be so.

SIR W. MEREDITH.—This speech discovers true zeal and earnestness. It seems to belong to an earlier period of our history.

I have already said something in praise of his speeches. They have in them what an old poet calls ‘veins of nature’—a heartfelt simplicity, before which wit, and elegance, and acuteness, and the pomp of words, sink into insignificance.

MR. SAWBRIDGE.—Junius praises this city orator and patriot for his republican firmness. If he is to be taken as a model of the republican character, he does not, in my opinion, reflect much credit on it. In the following speech there is all the impudence, indecency, grossness, and vulgarity, of a factious demagogue. This character, I know not how, unfortunately sprung up in the beginning of the present reign.

COLONEL (afterwards GEN.) BURGOYNE was the natural son of lord Bingley. His defeat and capture by general Gates determined the issue of the contest with America. As a writer and a speaker, he had more success, though he aimed at more than he effected. His Heiress is a feeble, though a very elegant comedy; and in his speeches, which are modelled according to the rules of Cicero, his own abilities and his own modesty take up half of the paper, and the reader’s attention is equally divided between the speaker and the subject. At the same time, if they were a little less affected, they would not be without merit.

MR. JENKINSON. (_The present Earl of Liverpool_).

‘Servetur ad imum
‘Qualis ab incœptu processerit, & sibi constet.’

HON. TEMPLE LUTTREL.—I have introduced the following Speech as an exquisite specimen of unaccountably absurd affectation.

MR. WILKES, (_the Lord Mayor_).—This celebrated man was born in 1728. In 1761, he was elected member for Aylesbury, about which time he excited the indignation of ministry by publishing a periodical paper, called the North Briton, for the forty-fifth number of which he was apprehended by a general warrant. He was however liberated, and became the patriot of the day. He was soon after expelled the house for his Essay on Woman. He was repeatedly returned for Middlesex after this, but the election was always declared void, till 1774, when he took his seat without opposition. The following speech in his own defence contains the clearest, most logical, and best argued case, that has been made out on that side of the question. He takes the same ground, and often uses the same words as Junius, but I think he establishes his point more satisfactorily. He was a clear, correct, able, and eloquent speaker. His conversational talents were very brilliant. He was a very ugly and a very debauched man, but a great favourite with the women, whom he accordingly satirized without mercy. He died 1797.

MR. DUNNING, (_afterwards Lord Ashburton_,) was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, in 1731. After studying some time under his father, who was an attorney, he entered at the Temple, and on being called to the bar, soon rose to eminence in his profession: he obtained a seat in parliament, and became one of the most distinguished members of opposition at this period. He died 1782. The following is the most brilliant display of his eloquence that I have met with; which I was at some pains to pick out from among the shreds and patches that remain of his speeches. In general, he was neither an elegant nor an agreeable speaker. His style was dry, harsh, formal, and pedantic. His legal knowledge is said to have been very great: but as this is a subject which I do not understand, I must leave it to the lawyers to pronounce his panegyric in ‘good set terms’ of their own.

THOMAS (LORD) LYTTLETON succeeded his father in 1773. He was a young man of great talents, but very profligate in his manners. He died in 1779, at the age of 35.

WILLIAM PITT, (_son of the late Earl of Chatham_,) was born in 1759. He was educated at Cambridge. He entered at Lincoln’s-Inn, and was called to the bar, where he had not much practice. He was just returned to parliament for the borough of Appleby. The following is the first speech he made in the house, on economical reform. He became chancellor of the exchequer in 1783, which office he continued till 1801. He then retired, but came in again in 1804, and continued in that office till his death, January 1806.

MR. SHERIDAN.—Richard Brinsley Sheridan, one of the most brilliant speakers that ever appeared in the house of commons, was born in 1750. He was known to the public before he came into parliament, as having written the best comedies of the age. He was returned member for Stafford in 1780, which place he continued to represent till the last election, in 1806, when he succeeded Fox as member for Westminster. On Fox’s accession to office in the beginning of the same year, he was appointed treasurer of the navy. The following is his first speech in the house. He has said more witty things than ever were said by any one man in the house of commons: but at present one may say of him, ‘The wine of life is drunk and but the lees remain.’

I have retained the compliment with which the following speech is prefaced in the report from which it is taken, ‘that it was the most brilliant reply that perhaps was ever made in the House of Commons,’ because I am half inclined to be of the same opinion. The expression _brilliant_ belongs peculiarly to Sheridan’s style of eloquence. For brilliant fancy, for vivacity of description, for animation, for acuteness, for wit, for good sense and real discrimination, for seeing the question at once just in the right point of view, being neither perplexed with the sophisms of others, nor led away by the warmth of his own imagination, he was (I do not say he is) equal to any of his competitors; for he has got none left (except indeed Windham, who is however as different a man as can be). I have made more _fuss_ about some other speakers, but to say the truth, he is about as good as the best of them. He was undoubtedly the second public man after Fox, both with respect to talents, and firmness to his principles.

SIR GEORGE SAVILLE, (_Member for Yorkshire_,) distinguished himself by his opposition to the American war, and by bringing in the bill for the repeal of the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics. His speeches abound with real wit and humour. He died 1784, at the age of 59.

MR. GRATTAN.—I do not, I confess, like this style, though it is what many people call eloquent. There is a certain spirit and animation in it, but it is over-run with affectation. It is at the same time mechanical, uncouth, and extravagant. It is like a piece of Gothic architecture, full of quaintness and formality. It is ‘all horrid’ with climax and alliteration and epithet and personification. ‘From injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty: precedent and principle, the Irish volunteers, and the Irish parliament.’ I am not fond of these double facings, and splicings and clenches in style. They too much resemble a garden laid out according to Pope’s description,

‘Where each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.’

MR. CURRAN.—This celebrated pleader has been called by some, who probably intended it as a compliment, the Irish Erskine. I do not know what the effect of their manner may be, having never heard them; but this I know, that as to their _written_ speeches, there is no comparison either with respect to brilliancy or solidity between Erskine’s speeches and those of Curran. The speeches of the latter are also free from that affectation, or false glitter, which is the vice of Irish eloquence. Every Irish orator thinks himself bound to be a Burke. But according to the old axiom, no man is bound to do that which he cannot.

MR. CANNING.—This gentleman writes verses better than he makes speeches. If he had as much understanding as he has wit, he would be a great man: but that is not the case. _Non omnia possumus omnes._ However, there is a degree of elegance and brilliancy, and a certain ambitious tip-toe elevation in his speeches. But they want manliness, force, and dignity. His eloquence is something like a bright, sharp-pointed sword, which, owing to its not being made of very stout metal, bends and gives way, and seems ready to snap asunder at every stroke; and he is perpetually in danger of having it wrested out of his hands.

MR. HORNE TOOKE.—I shall only say of the following speech that it is worthy of the celebrated man by whom it was delivered.

NOTES

FREE THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS

PAGE

2. _‘There is wisdom,’ etc._ _Proverbs_ xv. 22.

_The late administration._ Pitt’s second ministry. Pitt died on
Jan. 23, 1806, and Fox became Foreign Secretary in the Ministry
of ‘All the Talents.’

3. _Mr. Addington._ Henry Addington (1757–1844), created Viscount
Sidmouth in 1805, was Prime Minister and Chancellor of the
Exchequer during the peace negotiations.

_Came home to the bosoms, etc._ Bacon, Dedication to the Essays
(1625).

5. _‘The unconquerable will,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 106–9.

_‘The still small voice,’ etc._ _1 Kings_ xix. 12.

6. _It certainly had this good effect._ ‘The peace of Amiens,’ said
Coleridge, ‘deserved the name of peace, for it gave us unanimity
at home, and reconciled Englishmen with each other’ (_The
Friend_, section I. Essay 6).

7. _The incautious surrender of Malta._ By the treaty of Amiens
(1802) Malta was restored to the Knights of St. John. By the
first Peace of Paris (1814) it was given to England.

_One to whose authority, etc._ Few people at the time recognised
the importance of Malta to Great Britain. Lord Nelson himself
spoke slightingly of it, and so did Pitt. See _Parl. Hist._
XXXVI., _passim_, for the discussions in Parliament. Coleridge,
in _The Friend_ (see especially Essays 3, 4, 5, and 6 of ‘The
Third Landing-Place’), while defending the retention of Malta,
admitted that Nelson was right in denying that Malta was the key
of Egypt (Bohn’s ed., p. 382).

8. _‘Against infection,’ etc._ _Richard II._, Act II. Scene 1.

10. ‘_Another Iliad of woes._’ Burke’s _Regicide Peace_ (_Select
Works_, ed. Payne, p. 116). Cf. ‘From hence those tears, that
Ilium of our woe.’ Dryden’s _The Medal_, l. 67.

12. _The partition of Poland._ In 1795. Suwarroff, the Russian
general, stormed Ismael on Dec. 11, 1790, and Warsaw on Nov. 4,
1794. ‘Thirty thousand persons, of whom one half were
inhabitants of the town, perished in the assault of Ismael’
(Alison, _History of Europe_, X. 455). At Warsaw ‘about twelve
thousand citizens, of every age and sex, were put to the sword’
(_ib._, III. 526).

14. _Had not Austria, etc._ Precipitated, he means, by the subsidising
policy of Pitt. The battle of Austerlitz (Dec. 2, 1805)
completely crushed Austria.

_The character of Mr. Pitt, etc._ Hazlitt repeated this
‘character’ down to ‘And in its liquid texture,’ etc. (p. 18),
in his _Political Essays_ (see _ante_, pp. 346–350) and in _The
Round Table_ (see Vol. I. pp. 125–128).

15. _The fog and haze._ A phrase of Burke’s (_Reflections on the
Revolution in France, Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 55).

Note. _When Mr. Fox last summer._ On June 21, 1805. See Hansard’s
_Parl. Debates_, V. 542.

16. _Described by Hobbes._ _Behemoth_ (_Works_, ed. Molesworth, VI.
240).

18. _‘Not matchless,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VI. 341–2.

_‘And in its liquid texture,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VI. 348–9.

Note. Hazlitt printed this essay of Coleridge’s in _Political
Essays_ (see _ante_, pp. 350–356) under the title of ‘Pitt and
Buonaparte.’

20. _‘Some happier island,’ etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 106–8.

21. _‘Virtue is not their habit,’ etc._ Burke’s _Regicide Peace_ (ed.
Payne, p. 105).

22. _‘Lay the fault upon themselves,’ etc._ Julius Cæsar, Act I. Scene
2.

_‘Dull as her lakes,’ etc._ Goldsmith’s _The Traveller_, l. 312.

23. _‘When, stript,’ etc._ Goldsmith’s _The Traveller_, ll. 355–60.

_‘They think there is nothing real,’ etc._ ‘They think there is
nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle; which
they can measure with a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon
two fingers.’ Burke’s _Regicide Peace_ (ed. Payne, p. 105).

POLITICAL ESSAYS

The title-page contained a motto from _Twelfth Night_ (Act I. Scene 5): ‘Come, draw the curtain, shew the picture,’

29. John Hunt (1780?–1848), an elder brother of Leigh Hunt, was
with him the joint founder of _The Examiner_ in 1808. The two
brothers were at first joint proprietors, John being printer and
manager and Leigh Hunt editor. John Hunt was twice in prison,
for two years (1813–5) for a libel on the Prince Regent, and
again for one year (1821–2) for a libel on the House of Commons.
For an account of his services to journalism see Fox Bourne’s
_English Newspapers_ (I. 335–51).

32. ‘_In contempt of the choice of the people._’ Burke’s _Reflections
on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II.
17). In his _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_ (1791) Burke
defends and elaborates the constitutional doctrines of the
_Reflections_.

33. ‘_The envy of less happier lands._’ _Richard II._, Act II. Scene
1.

_Sworn brother to the Pope._ Because the sworn enemy of Hazlitt’s
hero, Napoleon, who abolished the Inquisition in Spain in 1808.
Ferdinand VII. restored it in 1814.

_Arbuthnot._ John Arbuthnot (1667–1735), whose famous pamphlet
_The History of John Bull_ (as it was afterwards called)
appeared in 1712.

_Flocci, etc._ These words are the beginning of a rule in the old
Latin grammars which brings together a number of words meaning
‘of no account.’ See _Letters of Charles Lamb_ (ed. Ainger), I.
62.

34. _‘One fate attends,’ etc._ Southey’s _Carmen Nuptiale_, Stanza 51.

‘_At one fell swoop._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene 3.

_‘That painted sepulchre,’ etc._ ‘_Whited_ sepulchres,’ etc. _St.
Matthew_ xxiii. 27.

_‘Bogs, dens,’ etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 621–2.

35. ‘_Awhile they stood abashed._’

‘abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is.’
_Paradise Lost_, IV. 846–7.

_‘Never can true reconcilement,’ etc._ _Ib._, IV. 98.

36. _Lord Castlereagh._ Robert Stewart (1769–1822), who became
Viscount Castlereagh in 1796, and second Marquis of Londonderry
in 1821, was Irish Chief Secretary during the Rebellion and the
passing of the Act of Union (1798–1801), War Secretary
(1807–1809), and Foreign Secretary from 1812 till his death.
After the death of Pitt he may be regarded as the chief
representative of Great Britain in the struggle against
Napoleon. That accounts for Hazlitt’s hatred, but he was for
many reasons (some of which appear in the _Political Essays_)
the best hated minister of his time.

_Benjamin Constant_ (1767–1830), the French Liberal politician,
was banished from France in 1802 for denouncing the despotic
acts of Napoleon. He returned to France after the restoration of
the Bourbons and advocated constitutional freedom.

_‘That Harlot old,’ etc._ Southey’s _Carmen Nuptiale_, Stanza 52.

_Douce humanité._ A phrase used by Burke in speaking of the
revolution party in France. _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_,
Bohn, V. 140).

37. _‘At this day,’ etc._ Wordsworth’s _The Excursion_, Book IV.

‘_Tickling commodities._’ _King John_, Act II. Scene 1.

_The case of the Income-Tax._ The ministry’s five per cent
property tax (as it was called) was rejected by the House of
Commons on March 19, 1816, by 238 votes to 201. See Walpole’s
_History of England_, I. 408–10.

‘_A feeling disputation._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III. Scene 1.

38. _Mr. Robson brought forward, etc._ On March 4, 1802. The bill was
for £19 odd. On March 8, Addington admitted that it had not been
paid. See _Parl. Hist._ XXXVI. 346–50.

_The Great Vulgar and the Small._ Cowley, Horace, _Odes_, III. 1.

39. _Never is, etc._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, I. 93. In Hazlitt’s
composite portrait of ‘a Reformer,’ there seems to be a good
deal of Godwin.

_Mr. Place._ Francis Place (1771–1854), the radical tailor. John
Cam Hobhouse (1786–1869), Byron’s friend, was defeated at
Westminster by George Lamb in February 1819. For Place’s
_Report_ to the Westminster electors, presented to a public
meeting, Feb. 9, 1819, see Wallas, _Life of Francis Place_,
134–9.

40. _One of these virtuosos._ The description seems to fit Hazlitt’s
conception of Godwin. See _Spirit of the Age_.

_Nicolas Gimcracks of Reform._ See Hazlitt’s _Table Talk_ (‘On
will making’), where the will of ‘a certain virtuoso,’ Nicholas
Gimcrack, is quoted from _The Tatler_ (No. 216).

_‘Pleased with a feather,’ etc._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, II. 276.

‘_The giant-mass._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act I. Scene 3.

_Another, more bold, etc._ Cobbett, no doubt.

41. _Dance the hays._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V. Scene 1.

_‘Perpetual circle,’ etc._

‘——that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things,’ etc.
_Paradise Lost_, V. 181–3.

_Going with Sancho, etc._ _Don Quixote_, Second Part, Book II.,
chaps, xx. and xxi.

‘_The best of kings._’ See vol. I., note to p. 305.

42. _Epicuri de grege porcus._ Horace, _Epistles_, I. iv. 16.

_‘When a great wheel,’ etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Scene 4.

_A Theophilanthropist._ The name of a sect established by Thomas
Paine in Paris in 1797.

_‘Wiser in his generation,’ etc._ _St. Luke_ xvi. 8.

42. ‘_Servile slaves._’ _The Faerie Queene_, Book II. Canto vii. St.
33.

43. _‘Screw their courage,’ etc._ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 7.

44. _‘Are subdued,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Scene 3.

_Holland House._ Best described by Macaulay in the _Edinburgh
Review_ (July 1841—_Essays_, Lord Holland). The third Lord
Holland (1773–1840) was a consistent champion of Buonaparte,
which makes it strange that Hazlitt should have written and
republished this sneer at Holland House.

_My Lord Erskine._ Thomas Erskine (1750–1823), the great Whig
advocate, Lord Chancellor in the ‘Talents’ Ministry (1806–7). He
had recently been decorated by the Regent with the Knighthood of
the Thistle.

_‘Untaught knaves,’ etc._ _Henry IV._, Part I. Act I. Scene 3.

_Ultima ratio regum._ It was a maxim of Richelieu’s that ‘le canon
est l’_ultima ratio_ des rois.’

_‘Strange that such difference,’ etc._ John Byrom, _On the Feuds
between Handel and Bononcini_.

_‘Nearly are allied,’ etc._ Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_,