Chapter XXXVI: Act V: Scene 1., where Drawcansir says

‘Others may boast a single man to kill:
But I the blood of thousands daily kill,’ etc.

_Tristram Shandy_. _Tristram Shandy_ was violently attacked by
Griffiths in _The Monthly Review_.

Note. _Rev. Dr. Kippis._ Andrew Kippis (1724–1795), Nonconformist
divine and editor of the 2nd edition of _Biographia Britannica_
(5 vols. 1778–1793).

_The Monthly Review_ for Feb. 1751 (Vol. IV. p. 309), in its
‘Monthly Catalogue’ contained the following notice: ‘An Elegy
wrote in a country churchyard. 4to. Dodsley, 6^d. Seven pages.
The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its
want of quantity.’ A full review followed in June, 1753 (Vol.
VIII. p. 477).

217. _Dryden’s Prefaces._ Dryden’s principal essays on literary
subjects have recently been edited by Prof. Ker (2 vols. 1900).
See also Prof. Saintsbury’s _History of Criticism_, vol. II. pp.
371–391.

Note. For Dryden’s comparison between Ovid and Virgil, see his
_Dedication of the Aeneid_ (1697—_Essays_, ed. Ker, II. 154 _et
seq._), and for his character of Shakespeare _An Essay on
Dramatic Poesy_ (1668—_ib_. I. 79–80). Cf. _Lectures on the
English Poets_, vol. V. p. 82, note.

218. _Dryden had no other way_, _etc._ Dryden’s Opera _The State of
Innocence_, founded upon _Paradise Lost_, was published in 1674.

‘_Graces snatched_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 155.

219. ‘_Looks commercing with the skies._’ _Il Penseroso_, 39.

‘_The limbs and flourishes_,’ _etc._

‘Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,’ _etc._
_Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

_As Lord Byron asserts_, _etc._ In his Letter to John Murray,
referred to above (p. 210, note), Byron says: ‘The poet is
always ranked according to his execution, and not according to
his branch of art.’ (_Letters and Journals_, ed. Prothero, V.
553).

220. _Mrs. Dickons._ Maria Dickons (1770?–1833) made her first
appearance in London in 1793. She sang at the Drury Lane
oratorios in 1813 and 1815, and retired in 1820. Like Miss
Stephens (see _A View of the English Stage_) she played Polly in
_The Beggar’s Opera_.

_Madame Catalani_. _Angelica Catalani_ (1779–1849), the most
famous prima donna of her time. She was in England in 1821 and
sang ‘God Save the King’ on the 16th of July, shortly before the
King’s coronation.

‘_Such sweet thunder._’ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act IV. Scene
1.

‘_The very milk of human kindness._’ ‘It is too full o’ the milk
of human kindness.’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Scene 5.

‘_Beauty out of favour_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt refers to Gifford’s lines
on Mrs. Robinson. See _A Letter to William Gifford_, vol. I. p.
378 and note.

221. _Like Justice Woodcock._ In Bickerstaffe’s _Love in a Village_
(1762).

_Rifle the flowers, etc._ See _A Letter to William Gifford_, vol.
I.

_The Great Cat Rodilardus._ In Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, IV. 67.

‘_Demure-looking_,’ _etc._ ‘The grave, demure, insidious,
spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers.’ Burke,
_Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 142.)

221. Note. _Tom Jones_, Book VI. chap. 14.

222. _What silenced the masked battery_, _etc._ It is now well known
that Sir Walter Scott strongly disapproved of Lockhart’s
connection with _Blackwood’s Magazine_ long before the attacks
of John Scott in _The London Magazine_ for 1820 and 1821. See
Mr. Lang’s _Life of Lockhart_ (vol. I. chap, ix.), for an
account of the whole matter.

‘_Pilloried on infamy’s high stage._’ Cowper, _Hope_, 556.

223. _The controversy about Pope._ The controversy on the question as
to whether or not Pope was a poet began with the publication of
Bowles’s edition of Pope’s _Works_ (10 vols. 1806) and had
recently reached an acute stage in consequence of Byron’s letter
to John Murray. See Byron’s _Letters and Journals_, ed.
Prothero, V. 522–592, where a full account is given of the whole
controversy. Hazlitt had contributed to _The Edinburgh Magazine_
(Feb. 1818) an essay ‘On the question whether Pope was a poet’
reproduced with a few alterations in his lecture on Dryden and
Pope (see vol. V. pp. 69 _et seq._), and to _The London
Magazine_ (June, 1821) a long essay (republished for the first
time in the present edition) entitled ‘Pope, Lord Byron, and Mr.
Bowles.’

224. ‘_Crib and cabin in_,’ ‘Now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined.’
_Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 4.

‘_Lack-lustre eye._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Scene 7.

_The late Joseph Fawcett._ Hazlitt frequently refers to this early
friend. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, I. 75–79. Fawcett was
well known as a Sunday evening lecturer at the old Jewry, and
published some volumes of Sermons and Poems. He died in 1804,
and it was at one time reported that Hazlitt intended to write
his life.

‘_I have heard my mother Circe_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, ll. 252 _et
seq._

‘_Heard others read their own._’ Hazlitt no doubt refers to
Wordsworth and Coleridge.

225. _He was not exceptious._ Hazlitt elsewhere complains of Lamb for
being what he here describes as ‘exceptious.’ See _The Plain
Speaker_, ‘On the Conversation of Authors.’

‘_That had I all knowledge_,’ _etc._ See _I Corinthians_, xiii. 1
and 2.

_The Occult School._ Hazlitt clearly refers to Coleridge. See _The
Plain Speaker_, (‘On the Conversation of Authors’), where he
says: ‘C— [Coleridge] withholds his tribute of applause from
every person in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least
glimpse of understanding,’ _etc._

226. ‘_An ounce of sour_,’ _etc._ ‘A dram of sweete is worth a pound of
sowre,’ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I. Canto III. Stanza 30.

_Caviare to the multitude._ ‘’Twas caviare to the general.’
_Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

_Verbal critics_, _etc._ Such as Gifford. Cf. _A Letter to William
Gifford_, vol. I. p. 368.

Note. See _Ib._ note to p. 368.

ESSAY XXII. ON GREAT AND LITTLE THINGS

Published in _The New Monthly Magazine_ (1822), vol. IV. p. 127, under the title of ‘Table Talk No. II.’

‘_These little things_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, l. 42.

227. ‘_Some trick not worth an egg._’ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Scene 4.
_Paper in the Tatler._ No. 79 (by Steele).

229. ‘_Anon as patient_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act V. Scene 1.

_The swaggering of Pistol._ See especially the Second Part of
_Henry IV._

_King Cambyses’ vein._ _Henry IV._, Part I. Act II. Scene 4.

230. _Si Pergama dextra_, _etc._ _Aeneid_, II. 291–2.

230. Note. That is, shortly before Napoleon’s death on May 5, 1821.

232. _The maxim, which the wise man_, _etc._ ‘For, as the old hermit of
Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece
of King Gorboduc, “That that is is,”’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_,