Chapter XXXVIII: Book IX

‘_The Corinthian capitals of polished society._’ Burke,
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
Payne, II. 164).

291. ‘_Palmy state._’ ‘In the most high and palmy state of Rome.’
_Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.

_An obscure and almost forgotten work._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘On
the Originality of Mr. Malthus’s Essay’ (_Political Essays_,
Vol. III. pp. 361–7), where long passages are quoted from
Wallace’s book.

295. ‘_Gospel is preached to the poor._’ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor.’ _Luke_, iv. 18.

‘_The laws of nature_,’ _etc._ Malthus, _Essay on Population_, 4to
ed., 1803, Book IV., Chap. vii. p. 540.

_The ‘tables are not full.’_ Hazlitt refers to Malthus’s figure of
‘nature’s mighty feast.’ _Ibid._ Book IV., Chap. vi. pp. 531–2.

296. ‘_To make it thick and slab._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Scene 1.

_Mr. Godwin has lately attempted an answer._ ‘Of Population. An
Enquiry concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of
Mankind, in Answer to Mr. Malthus on that Subject,’ 1820.

_A curious passage of Judge Blackstone._ _Commentaries on the Laws
of England_, Book II. Chap. xiv.

298. _Broke a lance with Mr. Ricardo._ In 1814 and 1815 Malthus
published two pamphlets on the corn laws, to which Ricardo
replied in an _Essay on the Influence of a low price of Corn on
the Profits of Stock_ (1815). Hazlitt probably refers to
Malthus’s _Political Economy_ (1820), in which his differences
with Ricardo are explained. See Sir Leslie Stephen’s _The
English Utilitarians_, II. 189 _et seq._

_Mandeville._ The second edition (1723) of Bernard Mandeville’s
_The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits_,
contained _An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools_.

298. _Plug Pulteney._ See _ante_, note to p. 2, note.

MR. GIFFORD. Cf. _A Letter to William Gifford_, Vol. I. pp.
365–411.

‘_In the event of his death_,’ _etc._ Gifford resigned the
editorship of _The Quarterly Review_ in 1824, and after a short
interval, during which John Taylor Coleridge was editor, was
succeeded by J. G. Lockhart.

299. _In his critical pages._ Gifford, though he used his editorial pen
very freely, does not seem to have written so many articles in
the _Quarterly_ as his contemporaries imagined. ‘The only entire
article ever contributed to the _Review_ by Gifford himself was
that which he wrote, in conjunction with Barron Field, on Ford’s
“Dramatic works.”’ See Smiles, _Memoirs of John Murray_, I. 180,
200; II. 44, 49. Sometimes he appears to have inserted what Dr.
Smiles calls ‘the pungent wit, the Attic salt’ into the articles
of his contributors.

300. ‘_Destroy his fib_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 91–2.

‘_I am not Stephano_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Scene 1.

301. _If a lady goes on crutches_, _etc._ The allusion is to Gifford’s
lines on Mrs. Robinson. See _A Letter to William Gifford_, Vol.
I. note to p. 378.

302. _The Feast of the Poets._ By Leigh Hunt, published in 1814. See
Vol. I. p. 377.

‘_A man was confined in Newgate_,’ _etc._ See Vol. I. p. 378 for
an account of the _Quarterly review_ of Leigh Hunt’s _Rimini_.

_Verses to Anna._ _Ibid._ p. 375.

‘_A bud_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 1.

_Mr. Keats’s ostensible crime_, _etc._ The famous _Quarterly
Review_ article on _Endymion_ appeared in September 1818, and
was written by Croker.

303. ‘_Out went the taper_,’ _etc._ Stanzas XXIII. to XXVII. of _The
Eve of St. Agnes_, published in 1820.

304. _Ecce iterum Crispinus._ Juvenal, _Sat._ IV. 1.

305. ‘_I wish I was_,’ _etc._ See Vol. I. p. 375.

Note. ‘_He! jam satis est._’ ‘Ohe jam satis est.’ Horace, _Sat._,
l. 5, 12–3.

Note. ‘_Why rack a grub_,’ _etc._

‘Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel, Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings,’ etc. Pope, _Prologue to the Satires_, 307 _et seq._

306. _Keats died when he was scarce twenty!_ Keats died in his 26th
year.

307. _Thus he informed the world_, _etc._ See a review of Hazlitt’s
_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ in the _Quarterly Review_
(Vol. XVIII., p. 458).

‘_It was amusing_,’ _etc._ See a review of _Political Essays_ in
the _Quarterly Review_ (Vol. XXII. p. 162), and _A Letter to
William Gifford_, Vol. I. p. 410. In the _Quarterly_ review of
_Table Talk_ Hazlitt is described as a ‘slang-whanger.’

308. _The St. Helena articles._ Two articles, in which Hudson Lowe’s
treatment of Buonaparte is defended, appeared in the _Quarterly
Review_ shortly after Buonaparte’s death. See Vol. XXVIII. p.
219, and Vol. XXXIII. 177.

_Lady Morgan._ Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan (1783?–1859), authoress
of _The Wild Irish Girl_ (1806) was a favourite subject for the
vulgar personal abuse of the _Quarterly Review_.

309. _Peter Pindar._ John Wolcot, ‘Peter Pindar,’ assaulted Gifford,
mistaking him for his namesake John Gifford, editor of the
_Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_. The result was Gifford’s
_Epistle to Peter Pindar_ (1800).

_This Drawcansir._ See _ante_, note to p. 277.

309. _His attacks on Mrs. Robinson_, _etc._ See _A Letter to William
Gifford_. (Vol. I., p. 378 note).

_What he will make of Marlowe._ Gifford did not publish an edition
of Marlowe.

‘_The fiery quality._’ _King Lear_, Act II. Scene 4.

_Spiritus_, _etc._ Petronius Arbiter (_Satirae_, 118, 3rd ed.
Bücheler, p. 84), quoted by Coleridge in _Biographia Literaria_,
Chap. xiv. ‘Praecipitandus est liber spiritus’ in the original.

_In attempting to add the name_, _etc._ See Gifford’s edition of
_Massinger_ (2nd ed. 1813, Vol. I., p. 14).

310. _An article had appeared_, _etc._ John Murray had conceived the
scheme of establishing a Tory review, and had obtained many
promises of support before the appearance of Jeffrey’s article
in the _Edinburgh_ (Oct. 1808, Vol. XIII., p. 215), on Cevallos
and the affairs of Spain. (See Smiles, _Memoirs of John Murray_,
I. 97). The first number of the _Quarterly Review_ appeared in
Feb. 1809.

311. ‘_Those who are not for them_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, xii. 30.

‘_Ugly all over with hypocrisy._’ See nowowte to Vol. I., p. 211.

Note. William Taylor (1765–1836), whose version of Bürger’s
_Lenore_ so fired the imagination of Scott, was a regular
contributor to _The Monthly Review_ from 1793 to 1800, and from
1809 to 1824.

312. _Mr. Stuart Rose._ William Stewart Rose (1775–1843), the friend of
Scott, and translator of Ariosto (1823–1831).

313. _The Lyrical Ballads._ Hazlitt presumably refers to some
introductory remarks on a new ‘sect of poets’ in a review by
Jeffrey of Southey’s _Thalaba_. (_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1802,
Vol. I., p. 63).

_Unqualified encouragement_, _etc._ For favourable references to
Malthus see _Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1807 (Vol. XI., p. 100),
August 1810 (Vol. XVI., p. 464), and March 1817 (Vol. XXVIII.,
p. 1). Southey attacked Malthus in the _Quarterly Review_ (Dec.
1812), but the _Essay on Population_ was defended five years
later (July 1817) by Sumner.

‘_Reasons_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act II., Scene 4.

_Mr. Jeffrey is the Editor of the Edinburgh Review._ Sydney Smith
claimed to have been editor of the first number (Oct. 1802),
Jeffrey was editor from that time till 1829, when he retired on
being appointed Dean of the Faculty of Advocates.

314. _Nearly a fourth part of the articles._ Lord Cockburn in his _Life
of Lord Jeffrey_ (1874 ed., p. 404 _et seq._) gives a total list
of 200 contributions. A selection was published in four volumes
in 1844.

‘_Infinite agitation of wit._’ Bacon, _Advancement of Learning_,