Chapter XXXI: Letter II: note 2

‘_I love to talk_,’ _etc._ Coleridge, _The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner_, 517–8.

‘_A collusion_,’ _etc._ ‘’Tis true indeed: the collusion holds in
the exchange.’ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Scene 2.

68. _Why must a man_, _etc._ Hazlitt is referring to Wordsworth. Cf.
_The Spirit of the Age_, vol. IV. p. 276 and note.

‘_Virtue extant._’ _Henry IV._ Part I., Act II. Scene 4.

‘_Men were brutes without them._’ Cf.

‘O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.’
Otway, _Venice Preserved_, Act I. Scene 1.

_Moody in the Country Girl._ Garrick’s _Country Girl_, altered
from Wycherley’s _Country Wife_, was produced in 1766.

_M—._ Lamb’s friend, Thomas Manning (1772–1840).

_L. H._ Leigh Hunt.

69. ‘_Stand accountant_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Scene 1.

‘_Its palaces_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, I. 643–4.

‘_With them conversing_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 639–40.

ESSAY VIII. ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED

First published in the _Scots’ Magazine_ (New Series), July 1818, vol. III. pp. 55 _et seq._ Hazlitt refers to this essay in _A Letter to William Gifford_ (vol. I., p. 382).

70. ‘_For the more languages_,’ _etc._ _Satire upon the Abuse of Human
Learning_, 57–68.

‘_Spectacles._’ Dryden says of Shakespeare, ‘he needed not the
spectacles of books to read Nature.’ _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_
(_Essays_, ed. Ker, I. 80).

71. ‘_Leave me to my repose._’ ‘Leave me, leave me to repose,’ the
refrain of the Prophetess in Gray’s _The Vegtam’s Kivitha_. The
line is quoted by Burke in _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_,
Bohn, V. 112).

‘_Take up his bed and walk._’ _St. Matthew_, ix. 6.

‘_Enfeebles all internal strength of thought._’ Goldsmith, _The
Traveller_, 270.

‘_Sweats in the eye of Phœbus._’ _Henry V._, Act IV. Scene 1.

72. ‘_Th’ enthusiast Fancy_,’ _etc._ ‘The truant fancy was a wanderer
ever.’ Lamb, _Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects_, I. 1.

_The least respectable character._ Hazlitt is probably referring
to Canning.

73. _A person of this class._ Charles Burney, D.D. (1757–1817), whose
_Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton_ appeared in 1790.

_Dr. —._ Hazlitt refers to Charles Burney (see last note) and Dr.
Parr. Cf. a similar passage in _The Examiner_, vol. I. p. 425.

74. ‘_The mighty world of eye and ear._’ Wordsworth, _Lines composed a
few miles above Tintern Abbey_, 105–6.

‘_Knowledge quite shut out._’ ‘And wisdom at one entrance quite
shut out.’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 50.

‘_Of the colouring of Titian_,’ _etc._ _Tristram Shandy_, III. 12.

_The Elgin marbles._ See _The Round Table_, vol. I. p. 143 and
note.

‘_Knows no touch of it._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

‘_The art and practique_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act I. Scene 1.

‘_Has no skill in surgery._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act V. Scene 1.

76. _Baxter._ Cf. the essay ‘On People of Sense’ in the _Plain
Speaker_, vol. VII. p. 243.

‘_Wink and shut_,’ _etc._ Prologue to Marston’s _Antonio’s
Revenge_ (_History of Antonio and Mellida_, Part II.).

_Laud_, _etc._ William Laud (1573–1645), and John Whitgift
(1530?–1604), Archbishops of Canterbury; George Bull
(1634–1710), Bishop of St. David’s, author of _Defensio Fidei
Nicenae_ (1685) and other theological works; Daniel Waterland
(1683–1740), whose works were edited in eleven vols. in
1823–1828, was not a bishop; Humphrey Prideaux (1648–1724),
whose _Old and New Testament connected ... to the Time of
Christ_ first appeared in two folio volumes 1716–1718; Isaac de
Beausobre (1659–1738), the Huguenot writer; Augustine Calmet
(1672–1757); Samuel, Baron von Puffendorf (1632–1694) and Eméric
de Vattel (1714–1767), the jurists; Joseph Justus Scaliger
(1540–1609); Jerome Cardan (1501–1576), and Kaspar Schoppe
(1576–1649).

76. ‘_Gone to the vault of all the Capulets._’ See vol. I. note to p.
150.

ESSAY IX. THE INDIAN JUGGLERS

79. Note. It was at Truro that Opie, who had already acquired
some practice as a portrait painter, met with John Wolcot
(1738–1819).

80. _I was at that time employed_, _etc._ See _Memoirs of William
Hazlitt_, I. xvi.

‘_In argument_,’ _etc._ _The Deserted Village_, 211–2.

81. ‘_To allow for the wind._’ _Ivanhoe_, chap. xiii.

‘_Human face divine._’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 44.

82. _H—s and H—s._ Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his edition of _Table Talk_
prints ‘Haydons and H—s.’

‘_In tones and gestures hit._’ ‘In tones and numbers hit.’
_Paradise Regained_, IV. 255.

_To snatch this grace_, _etc._ An unacknowledged quotation from
Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 153.

‘_Commercing with the skies._’ _Il Penseroso_, 39.

83. ‘_Thrills in each nerve_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘a sudden horror chill
Ran through each nerve, and thrilled in ev’ry vein.’
Addison, _Milton’s Style Imitated_, 123–4.

‘_Half flying, half on foot._’ ‘Half on foot, half flying.’
_Paradise Lost_, II. 941–2.

_I know an individual._ Leigh Hunt, no doubt. Hazlitt’s son
dedicated the third edition of _Table Talk_ ‘to Leigh Hunt, whom
the author alike admired and esteemed; the “Rochester without
the vice, the modern Surrey,” whom he celebrates in one of these
Essays.’

84. _Nugæ canoræ._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 322.

_Themistocles said._ See North’s _Plutarch_ (ed. Rouse, Temple
Classics, II. 3). Hazlitt probably read the story in Bacon,
_Advancement of Learning_, Book I.

85. _Napier’s bones._ Hazlitt refers, apparently, to John Napier
(1550–1617), the inventor of logarithms.

‘_He dies_,’ _etc._

‘Lady, you are the cruell’st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.’
_Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 5.

_John Hunter._ John Hunter (1728–1793).

_Sir Humphry Davy._ Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829).

86. ‘_Great scholar’s memory_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Then there’s hope a great
man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.’ _Hamlet_, Act
III. Scene 2.

87. ‘_Care mounted_,’ _etc._ ‘Post equitem sedet atra cura.’ Horace,
_Odes_, III. l. 40.

‘_In the instant._’

‘And I feel now
The future in the instant.’
_Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.

87. ‘_Domestic treason_,’ _etc._ _Ib._ Act III. Scene 2.

88. _Rosemary Branch._ A much frequented tavern at Peckham.

_Copenhagen-house._ A tavern and tea-garden ‘in the fields north
of the metropolis, between Maiden-lane, the old road to Highgate
on the west, and the very ancient north road, or bridle-way,
called Hogbush-lane, on the east.’ See Hone’s _Every Day Book_
(I. 858 _et seq._), where an interesting account of the house is
given, and the greater part of Hazlitt’s account of Cavanagh is
reproduced.

89. _The Fleet or King’s Bench._ The Fleet Prison in Farringdon Street
and the King’s Bench Prison in Southwark, where there were open
ground racket courts.

‘_Who enters here._’ Hazlitt may have been recalling the lines in
_The Dunciad_, (IV. 518–9):

‘Which whoso tastes, forgets his former friends,
Sire, Ancestors, Himself,’ etc.

_Sutton._ Charles Manners Sutton, first Viscount Canterbury
(1780–1845), was elected Speaker on June 2, 1817.

‘_Let no rude hand_,’ _etc._

‘May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn _hic jacet_.’
Wordsworth, _Ellen Irwin_, 55–6.

ESSAY X. ON LIVING TO ONE’S-SELF

90. ‘_Remote, unfriended_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, l. 1.

_Winterslow._ Hazlitt’s wife inherited some cottages at
Winterslow, a small village six or seven miles from Salisbury on
the Andover road, and in one of these cottages a part of their
early married life was spent. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_,
I. 168 _et seq._, where an account is given of a visit paid to
Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt by Charles and Mary Lamb. After 1819 (see
_Memoirs_ II. 16) Hazlitt began to frequent Winterslow Hut or
the Pheasant Inn, where many of his essays (collected under the
title of ‘Winterslow’) were written.

‘_While Heavn’s chancel-vault_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘When the chill rain begins at shut of eve
In dull November, and their chancel vault,
The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.’
Keats, _Hyperion_, II. 36–8.

91. _He hears the tumult_, _etc._

‘I behold
The tumult and am still.’
Cowper, _The Task_, IV. 99–100.

‘_The man whose eye_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Lines left upon a Seat
in a Yew-tree_, _etc._ (‘Poems written in youth’) ll. 55–9.

92. ‘_To see the children_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, Ode, _Intimations of
Immortality_, 170–1.

_Nicholson._ William Nicholson (1753–1815).

‘_Never ending, still beginning._’ Dryden, _Alexander’s Feast_, l.
102.

‘_The witchery of the soft blue sky._’ Wordsworth, _Peter Bell_,
l. 265.

93. _Goldsmith_, _etc._ Hazlitt had probably read the story in
Northcote’s _Life of Reynolds_, where the scene is laid at
Antwerp. The incident really occurred at Lisle, while Goldsmith
was on his way to Paris with the Hornecks. We have Miss
Horneck’s authority for believing that the story, as told by
Northcote, and here repeated by Hazlitt, is much exaggerated.
See Prior’s _Life of Goldsmith_, II. 290–1; Forster’s _Life and
Times of Oliver Goldsmith_, II. 217; and Boswell’s _Life of
Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), I. 414 and note.

93. ‘_Whose top to climb_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act III. Scene 3.

_Exclaimed Cromwell._ Speech XVIII., Feb. 4, 1658. See Carlyle,
_Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches_.

94. ‘_The insolence of office_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 1.

‘_After the heart-aches_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_A mouse_,’ _etc._ Webster’s _The Duchess of Malfi_, Act IV.
Scene 1.

_Says Rousseau._ _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, V. Lettre III. (édit.
Firmin-Didot, p. 529 note).

‘_Some demon_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, IV. 16.

95. _Canaletti._ Antonio Canal (1697–1768), the Venetian painter, or
Bernardo Bellotto (1724?–1780), his nephew.

‘_Virgined it e’er since._’ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Scene 3.

_The Clandestine Marriage._ By George Colman the elder, and
Garrick; first produced in 1766.

96. ‘_The baby of a girl._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.

‘_With what a waving air_,’ _etc._ B. W. Procter’s (Barry
Cornwall’s) _Mirandola_, Act I. Scene 3. Hazlitt quoted the
lines in _Liber Amoris_ (see vol. II. p. 334), and it is clear
that here as in many other parts of _Table Talk_ he is referring
to the story recorded in that book.

‘_The fly that sips treacle_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act
II. Scene 2.

‘_For either_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, X. 898–908.

97. _The madman in Don Quixote._ ‘He loved and was abhorred; he
adored, and was scorned; he courted a savage; he solicited a
statue; he pursued the wind; he called aloud to the desert,’
etc. _Don Quixote_ (trans. Jarvis), Part I. Book II. chap. xiii.

‘_I have not loved the world_,’ _etc._ Byron, _Childe Harold_,