Chapter XXXIV: Act I: Scene 2

‘_Familiar as his garter._’

‘The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter.’
_Henry V._, Act I. Scene 1.

_Mr. Windham._ Horne Tooke in the 4to edition of his _Diversions_,
speaking of Bruckner’s _Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley_
(1790) says that the substance of that work ‘was, with singular
industry and a characteristical affectation, gossiped by the
present precious Secretary at War, in Payne the bookseller’s
shop; the cannibal commencing with this modest observation,
that—“I had found a mare’s nest.”’ See the _Diversions_ (ed. R.
Taylor, 1860 ed.), p. 122.

_Bull-baiting._ Windham spoke twice in defence of bull-baiting, on
April 18, 1800, and May 24, 1802. See his _Speeches_, i.
331–356.

240. ‘_A complex idea_,’ _etc._ See Horne Tooke’s _Diversions_ (ed. R.
Taylor, 1860), p. 19.

240. _Mr. Lindley Murray’s Grammar._ Published in 1795 at York, where
Lindley Murray (1745–1826) settled on coming to England from
America in 1784. De Quincey refers to Murray as ‘an imbecile
stranger’ (_Works_, ed. Masson, x. 127), and speaks (_ib._ XI.
352) of Hazlitt’s _New and Improved Grammar of the English
Tongue_, _etc._ (see _ante_, p. 389) as an ‘examination’ of
Lindley Murray’s English Grammar.

241. _Mr. C***_ ... _Mr. M***_. Probably Croker and Malthus.

SIR WALTER SCOTT. Published originally in the _New Monthly
Magazine_ (1824, Vol. X. p. 297). Cf. Hazlitt’s Essay on Scott,
Racine, and Shakespeare in _The Plain Speaker_.

‘_The present ignorant time._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.

‘_Laudator temporis acti._’ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 173.

242. ‘_Poetry of no mark_,’ _etc._ ‘A fellow of no mark nor
likelihood.’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III. Scene 2.

In the _New Monthly Magazine_ there is the following editorial
note on this passage: ‘The writer of this paper, and not the
Editor, must be considered as here presuming to be the critical
arbiter of Sir Walter’s poetry. A journal such as this cannot be
supported without the aid of writers of a certain degree of
talent, and it is not possible to modify all their opinions so
as to suit everybody’s taste.’

243. Note. _Agnes._ _Agnes, or the Triumph of Principle_, 1822.

_The late Mr. John Scott._ John Scott (1783–1821), editor of the
_London Magazine_, died in Feb. 1821, from a wound received in a
duel with Lockhart’s friend Christie, arising out of a quarrel
between _Blackwood’s Magazine_ and the _London Magazine_. The
‘elaborate panegyric’ of the Scotch Novels had appeared in the
latter magazine early in 1820.

‘_Skinned and filmed over._’ ‘It will but skin and film the
ulcerous place.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4.

244. _Mr. Westall’s drawings._ Richard Westall illustrated _Marmion_
(1809) and _The Lord of the Isles_ (1813).

_A story goes_, _etc._ A very unlikely story. Long before the
publication of _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), Scott had
written not only the translations from the German, but a good
deal of original work in _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_
(1802–3).

‘_A metre ballad-monger._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act III. Scene 1.

‘_Fancies and good-nights._’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Scene
2.

‘_Glances from heaven to earth_’ _etc._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_,