Chapter XXXI: Canto X

_The Ghost of one of the old kings of Ormus._ Fulke Greville’s
_Alaham_.

_The Chiron of Achilles._ _Iliad_, XVI. 143, and XIX. 390.

_The priest in Homer._ _Iliad_, I. 8, _et seq._

_Why proffer’st thou light._ _Troilus and Criseyde_, Book III. 1461–2.

_The Travels of Anacharsis._ The Scythian who travelled far and wide
in quest of knowledge, in the times of Solon.

_Coryate’s Crudities._ _Hastily gobled up in Five Moneths Travells in
France, etc._ (1611), by Thomas Coryate (? 1577–1617).

256. _When we become men._ _1 Corinthians_, xiii. 11.

_The first time of my seeing Mrs. Siddons act._ See vol. I. _The Round
Table_, note to p. 156; _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_, p. 189
and note; and Hazlitt’s _Dramatic Essays_.

257. _Mr. Burke’s Refections._ These were published in 1790, not 1791.

_Lord John Russell’s Letter._ See _The Times_, August 5, 1820. It was
an appeal to Wilberforce to use his great influence in averting the
crisis caused by the appearance of the Queen.

260. _Grim-visaged, comfortless despair._ Gray’s _Ode on a Distant
Prospect of Eton College_. See also vol. VI. _Lectures on the
Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth_, note to p. 296.

261. _The glory hereafter to be revealed._ _Romans_, viii. 18.

ESSAY XXIV. ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WRITING
AND SPEAKING

From _The London Magazine_, July 1820, Vol. II. p. 22, ‘Table Talk II.,’ signed T.

262. ‘_Some minds_,’ _etc._ Bacon, _The Advancement of Learning_, Book
II., xxii. 4.

263. _F——._ Mr. W. C. Hazlitt states this was George Fletcher, who,
with his brother Joseph, came up from Nottingham about 1826, and
became a contributor to periodical literature.

_Wart his caliver._ _2 King Henry IV._, III. 2.

_Hear him but reason in divinity._ _King Henry V._, I. 1. [‘Is still’]

264. _Moved the very stones of Rome._ _Julius Cæsar_, III. 2.

_Fraught of aspic’s tongues._ _Othello_, III. 3.

_Wielded at will the fierce democracy._ _Paradise Regained_, IV. 269.

_Roared you in the ears of the groundlings._ Cf. ‘to split the ears of
the groundlings,’ _Hamlet_, III. 2; and _Midsummer Night’s Dream_,
I. 2.

264. _Create a soul._ Milton’s _Comus_, 561.

265. _Bottom! thou art translated!_ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, III. 1.

_Windham._ William Windham (1750–1810). Secretary of State for War
under Pitt, and again after Pitt’s death.

_Mr. Coleridge’s Conciones ad Populum._ Two addresses against Pitt,
1795, republished in _Essays on his Own Times_.

_Mr. Thelwal’s Tribune._ _The Tribune ... consisting chiefly of the
political lectures of J. Thelwall, taken in shorthand by W. Ramsay,
and revised by the lecturer_, 3 vols. 1795–6. Thelwall (1764–1834)
was a lecturer on elocution as well as a reformer.

_The self-same words._ _Macbeth_, I. 3.

_Those brave sublunary_ [translunary] _things_. Drayton, _Elegy to
Henry Reynolds, Esq._

_Fire and air._ _Antony and Cleopatra_, V. 2; and _King Henry V._,
III. 7.

_Sound and fury._ _Macbeth_, V. 5.

266. _A Commonplace, etc._ Cf. Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution
in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 103).

_With good emphasis and discretion._ Cf. ‘with good accent and good
discretion,’ _Hamlet_, II. 2.

_By most admired disorder._ _Macbeth_, III. 4.

_Lay the flattering unction._ _Hamlet_, III. 4.

_Hear a cat mew._

‘I had rather be a kitten and cry mew ...
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree.’
_1 King Henry IV._ III. 1.

_Not harsh and crabbed._ _Comus_, 477.

267. _A robusteous, periwig-pated fellow._ _Hamlet_, III. 2.

_Gives us pause._ _Hamlet_, III. I.

268. _He repeated the famous lines in Milton._ Though these words are
referred to admiringly by Burke in _The Sublime and Beautiful_ he
does not seem to have quoted them in the House of Commons. Is not
Hazlitt thinking of the occasion upon which Brougham used the
quotation with immense effect at the Queen’s trial, 1820? (See
Greville’s _Memoirs_, 1899 edit., I. 40.)

_What seem’d its head._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 672.

_Fell still-born._ Cf. vol. VI. _Table Talk_, p. 65 and note.

_Lord Liverpool._ Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool
(1770–1828), Premier of England 1812–1827.

_Mr. William Ward._ ? William Ward, financier (1787–1849), who was
returned to Parliament as a Tory in 1826 for the city of London.

_Native to_ [‘and endued unto’] _that element_. _Hamlet_, IV. 7.

_Subdued to the_ [‘even to the very’] _quality_. _Othello_, I. 3.

_The late Lord Chatham_ (1708–1778). He began life as a cornet of
dragoons (See p. 269).

_That Roan shall be my throne._ _1 King Henry IV._, II. 3.

269. _He spoke_ [taught] _as one having authority_. _S. Matthew_, vii.
29.

270. _A few termes coude_ [hadde] _he_. _The Prologue_, 639. But the
lines are told of the Somnour not the Monk.

_Will halt for it._ _Hamlet_, II. 2.

271. _Mr. Place of Charing Cross._ Francis Place (1771–1854) the
radical tailor.

_Trampled under the hoofs._ Burke’s _Reflections on the French
Revolution_.

_Sir Francis Burdett_ (1770–1844). He was the most popular politician
of his day.

271. _Dr. Johnson had a wish._ See Boswell’s _Life_, ed. G. B. Hill,
(II. 138–9).

_Sir William Curtis._ The ‘father’ of the corporation of London, for
which city he was M.P. for thirty-three years. He made his money in
the Greenland fisheries, and then became a member of the banking
firm of Robarts, Curtis and Co. (1752–1829).

_The Speaker (Onslow)._ Arthur Onslow (1691–1768) was elected Speaker
of the House of Commons in 1728 and re-elected in 1735, 1741, 1747
and 1754. He retired in 1761 with the reputation of being the
firmest and most dignified holder of his office and authority.

272. _Give his own little Senate laws._ Pope’s Prologue to Mr.
Addison’s _Cato_ and also _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, 209.

_They look only at the stop-watch._ Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_, Book
III. chap. 12.

_Hit the house between wind and water._ See vol. IV., _The Spirit of
the Age_, 227.

273. _Servile ministers._ _King Lear_, III. 2.

_Jack Davies._ See vol. VI. _Table Talk_, p. 89.

Note. _Making the worse appear the better reason._ _Paradise Lost_,
II. 113.

274. _An indifferent History of James II._ Charles James Fox’s _A
History of the early Part of the Reign of James the Second_ was
published by Lord Holland in 1808.

_A colleague of Lord Grenville._ Fox was Foreign Secretary in the
‘Broad-bottomed’ or ‘All the Talents’ ministry, formed by Lord
Grenville on the death of Pitt in 1806.

_Like proud seas under him._ _Two Noble Kinsmen_, II. 1.

_It was in the Louvre._ In 1802. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, I.
91, and vol. III. of the present edition, _The Eloquence of the
British Senate_, p. 421.

_Guercino._ Gianfrancesco Barbieri or Guercino da Cento, because of
his squint (1590–1666), of Bologna.

_Domenichino._ Domenicho Zampieri (1581–1641), also of Bologna.

275. _Does he wind into a subject like a serpent?_ Boswell’s
_Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill (II. 260).

_Letter to a Noble Lord._ Burke died two years after the publication
of his _Letter_, his only important further writing being the
_Letters on a Regicide Peace_, 1796.

Note. _Tom Paine._ Thomas Paine (1737–1809) the deist.

276. _The Leviathan._ _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (Bohn, V. 129).

_The Abbé Sieyes’s pigeon-holes._ _Ibid._, p. 142.

_The proud keep of Windsor._ _Ibid._, p. 137.

_Shut the gates of genius_ [mercy] _on mankind_. Gray’s _Elegy_, 17.

_To leave no rubs or botches._ _Macbeth_, III. 1.

277. _Learn to write slow._ Cf.

‘Take time enough—all other graces
Will soon fill up their proper places.’

Byron’s ‘Advice to the Messrs. H—— and H—— to preach slow,’ 8. And
also

‘Learn to read slow; all other graces
Will follow in their proper places.’
William Walker’s _Art of Reading_.

_The phrase of Ancient Pistol._ _2 King Henry IV._, and _King Henry
V._

278. _Fancies and good nights._ _2 King Henry IV._, III. 2.

_Dull as the lake that slumbers._ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, 312.

‘_Made fierce with dark keeping._’ Bacon, _The Advancement of
Learning_, Book I., iv. 7.

279. _Became his glittering bride._ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, III.
735–6.

_Dilettanti Society._ An association founded in 1734 to promote the
study of antique art in England.

Note. _Stentor._ _Iliad._ V. 783.

Note. _Political House that Jack Built._ A squib of William Hone’s,
published in 1819.

Note. _Mr. C. Wynne._ Charles Watkin Williams Wynne (1775–1850). He
was proposed for Speaker June 2, 1817, but Manners-Sutton was
preferred to him. Canning said that the only objection to him was
that ‘one would be sometimes tempted to say Mr. Squeaker,’ alluding
to his voice. See vol. III. _Political Essays_, note to p. 213.

ESSAY XXV. ON A PORTRAIT OF AN ENGLISH LADY,
BY VANDYKE

280. _Where all is conscience._ Chaucer’s _Prologue_, 150.

_Last recesses of the mind._ Dryden, _Translation of Second Satire of
Persius_, line 133.

282. _This hand of yours requires._ _Othello_, III. 4. [‘Sweating
devil.’]

283. _Qualified ... very craftily._ _Othello_, II. 3.

_Mind’s eye._ _Hamlet_, I. 2.

284. _Trod the primrose path._ _Hamlet_, I. 3.

285. _Stupidly good._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 465.

_An eye to threaten and command._ _Hamlet_, III. 4.

287. _Leave stings._ Cf.

‘Who, for the poor renown of being smart,
Would leave a sting within a brother’s heart?’
Young’s _Love of Fame_, II. 113.

290. _While by the power._ Wordsworth’s _Tintern Abbey_.

_Come then, the colours and the ground prepare._ Pope, _Moral Essays_,
Ep. II.

292. _The whole gallery at Fonthill._ ‘Vathek’ Beckford’s place. See
the volume of Hazlitt’s writings on art.

_The taste of the great in pictures._ The rest of the essay from this
point appeared in Hazlitt’s _Commonplaces_, taken from _The
Examiner_, 1823.

Note. _Day’s garish eye._ _Il Penseroso_, 141.

293. _Mr. Holwell Carr._ William Holwell Carr (1758–1830), art
connoisseur. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1797–1820 as an
honorary exhibitor.

_Sir George Beaumont._ Sir George Howard Beaumont, Bart. (1753–1827),
amateur painter and patron of artists.

_Bosoms and businesses of men._ Bacon, Dedication to Essays.

_Trifles light as air._ _Othello_, III. 3.

_Tintoret._ Jacopo Robusti or Tintoretto (from his father’s trade,
dyeing), (1518–1594), one of Ruskin’s ‘five supreme painters.’

ESSAY XXVI. ON NOVELTY AND FAMILIARITY

From _The New Monthly Magazine_, vol. XIII., No. 50, 1825, with additions.

294. _Custom hath made it in him._ _Hamlet_, V. 1.

295. _Give us pause._ _Hamlet_, III. 1.

297. _Send the hearers weeping._ _King Richard II._, V. 1.

298. _They best can paint them._ Pope’s _Eloisa and Abelard_.

_Talma._ François Joseph Talma (1763–1826). See _ante_, p. 83.

299. ‘_The Gamester._’ By Edward Moore (1753).

300. _Die of an encore in operatic pain._ ‘Die of a rose in aromatic
pain.’ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Ep. I. 200.

_L. ... M._ These blanks are filled in ‘Liston’ and ‘Mathews’ by Mr.
W. C. Hazlitt.

_Lamb’s wool._ A beverage of apple juice and spiced ale.

_Rosinante and Dapple._ Don Quixote’s steed and Sancho Panza’s donkey.

_There is no living with them._ Martial, _Epigrams_, Bk. XII. Ep. 70.
See Addison’s _Spectator_, No. 68.

_The late Mr. Kemble ... Richard III._ _Macbeth and King Richard III.,
an answer to_ [Whately’s] _Remarks on some of the Characters of
Shakespeare_ (1817). See vol. I. _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_,
note to p. 171. Kemble died in 1823.

301. _The silver-voiced Anna._ Cf. J. P. Kemble’s _Fugitive Pieces_,
York, 1780, the ‘Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Inchbald’s Husband,’
lines 14, 15,

‘... widow’d Anna’s voice,
Sweet as the harps of Heav’n....’

_Tamerlane._ Rowe’s tragedy (1702). Mrs. Siddons acted in it at Drury
Lane, Feb. 3, 1797.

_Alexander the Great._ The second title of Lee’s tragedy, _The Rival
Queens_ (1678).

302. _Hope travels through_ [‘when we die’]. Pope’s _Essay on Man_,
Ep. II. 273.

_The dregs of life._ Dryden, _Aureng-zebe_, IV. 1.

_Compacted of imagination._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, V. 1. ‘Of
imagination all compact.’

_Reason panders will._ _Hamlet_, III. 4.

303. _Dallied with the innocence of love._ _Twelfth Night_, II. 4.

_The story of Federigo Alberigi._ Boccaccio, _Decameron_ (Fifth Day,
Novel IX.).

_Those notable discoveries that Pope was a poet._ See vol. IV. _The
Spirit of the Age_, note to p. 259; vol. V. _Lectures on the English
Poets_, pp. 69–71; and vol. VI. _Table Talk_, notes to pp. 210 and
223. See also Hazlitt’s Essay ‘On the Question whether Pope was a
Poet’ in _The New Scots Magazine_, February 1818.

_Her Simple Story._ Elizabeth Inchbald’s (1753–1821) _A Simple Story_
was published in 1791. Cf. a letter of Hazlitt’s to Miss Stoddart,
_Memoirs of W. Hazlitt_, I. 153.

304. _Simple movement of her finger._ _Les Confessions_, Partie I.
Liv. II.

_The letter in the New Eloise._ _Première Partie_, Lettre XXIII.

_Glassy essence._ _Measure for Measure_, II. 2.

_Love’s golden rigol._ _2 King Henry IV._, IV. 4.

_And bade the lovely scenes._ Collins, _Ode on the Passions_, 32.

305. _Mr. Kean stamped himself the first night in Shylock._ See vol.
I. _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_, note to p. 298.

_Mrs. Siddons did not succeed the first time._ See vol. I. _The Round
Table_, note to p. 156.

306. _Old Dr. Chauncey._ Charles Chauncey, M.D., F.S.A. (1706–1777).

_Goodman’s Fields ... Richard._ See vol. I. _Characters of
Shakespear’s Plays_, note to p. 298.

_Queen Katherine._ In Shakespeare’s _King Henry VIII._

_Belvidera._ In Otway’s _Venice Preserved_ (1682).

306. _Jane Shore._ In N. Rowe’s tragedy (1713).

_Calista._ In N. Rowe’s _The Fair Penitent_ (1703).

_The Mourning Bride._ Congreve’s tragedy (1697).

_When I first came from Bath._ Mrs. Siddons was a member of the
Cheltenham Company when she was recommended to the notice of
Garrick, and then obtained an engagement at Drury Lane (1775).

_Lord Byron says._ See Medwin, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824 (p.
106).

_Sir Isaac Newton was not twenty._ He seems to have been twenty-four.
See Voltaire’s _Lettres sur les Anglais_.

_Harvey ... at eighteen._ The first lectures in which he set forth his
views were delivered in 1616, in his 38th year.

_Berkeley ... Essay on Vision._ Bishop Berkeley’s _Essay towards a New
Theory of Vision_ was published in 1709. He was born in 1685.

_Hartley’s great principle._ David Hartley’s (1705–1757) great work,
_Observations on Man_ (1749), was begun when he was about
twenty-five.

_Hume ... Treatise on Human Nature._ David Hume’s (1711–1776) Treatise
was published in 1739.

_Galileo._ Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was appointed mathematical
professor at Pisa when he was twenty-four.

_Leibnitz._ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716). He was refused a
Doctor’s Degree at Leipzig in his twentieth year on the ground of
his youth.

_Euler._ Leonard Euler (1707–1783), of Basel. At the age of nineteen
he was second in a competition projected by the Paris Academy for
the best treatise on the masting of ships.

307. _With heedless haste._ ‘With wanton heed and giddy cunning.’
_L’Allegro_, 141.

308. _Like the sweet south._ _Twelfth Night_, I. 1.

_Like poppies spread_ [‘the snow falls’]. Burns, _Tam o’ Shanter_.

_Mandeville._ Bernard Mandeville (1670?–1733), author of _The Fable of
the Bees_ (1714).

310. _Defoe’s romance_: _i.e._, _Robinson Crusoe_.

_Round which, with tendrils._ Wordsworth, _Personal Talk_, III.

ESSAY XXVII. ON OLD ENGLISH WRITERS AND SPEAKERS

From _The New Monthly Magazine_, vol. XIII., No. 49, 1825, with additions.

311. _Marmontel._ Jean François Marmontel (1723–1799), author of the
_Contes Moraux_ (1761).

_Crebillon._ Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674–1762), dramatic poet.

_Marivaux._ Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688–1763), author
of _Marianne_ (1731–1741), a romance and many comedies. Voltaire
said he knew all the bye-paths of the human heart, but not the
highway.

_La Harpe._ Jean François de la Harpe (1739–1803), whose works have
acted as a standard of literary criticism.

_To this obscure and wild._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 284.

_On that fair fountain._ _Hamlet_, III. 4.

Note. _A splendid edition of Goldsmith._ Washington Irving edited a
4–volume edition of _The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith_ in
1825 (Paris).

312. _The proper study of the French._ ‘The proper study of mankind is
man,’ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Ep. II.

_St. Evremont._ Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis Seigneur de
Saint-Evremond (1613–1703), one of the most brilliant of French
satirists. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

312. Note. _What’s he that wishes for more men from England._ _King
Henry V._, IV. 3.

313. _Marlowe’s._ Christopher Marlowe’s _Dr. Faustus_ (1604).

_Captain Medwin or his Lordship must have made a mistake._ See
_Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 105.

_Jonson’s ‘Every Man in his Humour.’_ Acted 1596.

_Massinger’s ‘A new Way to Pay old Debts.’_ (1633.)

_Ford’s ... ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore.’_ Printed 1633.

_Grows with our growth._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Epistle II. 136.

314. _Mr. Shee._ Sir Martin Archer Shee (1770–1850), portrait painter
from the age of 16 onwards. He was knighted upon being made
President of the Royal Academy in 1830.

_Burnt the Memoirs._ Moore sold the Byron Memoirs to Murray, November
1821, and in May 1824 rebought and burned them.

Note. _Tales of the Crusaders_, _i.e._ _The Betrothed and the
Talisman_, published in 1825.

315. _Leave all and follow it._ Cf. _S. Matthew_, xix. 21.

_De omne scibile et quibusdam aliis._ See vol. VI. _Table Talk_, note
to p. 214.

316. _Selden’s notes on Drayton’s Poly-Olbion._ ‘The learned John
Selden’ edited Drayton’s work in the folio of 1613–22.

_Stowe._ See _ante_, note to p. 229.

_Holinshed._ See _ante_, note to p. 229.

_Camden._ William Camden (1551–1623), whose _Britannia_ was published
in 1586.

_Saxo-Grammaticus._ The greatest of the early Danish chroniclers (fl.
end of 12th century).

_Dugdale._ Sir William Dugdale (1605–1686), antiquarian, whose
_Monasticon Anglicanum_ was published 1655–1673.

_Job Orton_, (1717–1783). His reputation rests on his Letters rather
than on his preaching.

317. _Caryl’s ‘Commentaries upon Job.’_ Probably the folio edition of
1676–7 of _An Exposition with Practical Observations on the Book of
Job_. By Joseph Caryl, 2 vols.; the 1648–1666 quarto edition was in
12 vols.

_The Cabbala._ See _ante_, note to p. 242.

_Warton._ Thomas Warton (1728–1790), author of _The History of English
Poetry_ (1774–1781). The same sonnet is quoted in vol. V. _Lectures
on the English Poets_, p. 120.

318. _Della-Cruscan._ See vol. V. _Lectures on the English Poets_,
note to p. 148.

_Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains._ Wordsworth’s _Laodamia_.

_Earth destroys those raptures._ _Ibid._

319. _Even to the crack of doom._ _Macbeth_, IV. 1.

_Poor Peter Peebles._ The litigious drunkard in _Redgauntlet_.

_The last and almost worst of them._ _Redgauntlet_ was published in
1824.

_Nanty Ewart._ Captain of the smuggler’s brig in _Redgauntlet_.

_And her whose foot._ _Redgauntlet_, Book II. chap. viii.

_Old true-penny._ Cf. ‘Art thou there, true-penny?’ etc. _Hamlet_, I.
5.

_The catch that blind Willie and his wife, etc._ _Redgauntlet_, Letter
X.

320. _Elysian beauty, melancholy grace._ Wordsworth’s _Laodamia_.

_At the birth of nature._ _Paradise Lost_, VII. 102.

_Pawing to get free._ _Paradise Lost_, VII. 464.

_Whose body nature was._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, Ep. I. 268 [‘and God
the soul’]

_Pym, Hampden, Sydney._ John Pym (b. 1584), one of the ‘five members’;
John Hampden (1594–1643), the opponent of ship-money; and Algernon
Sidney (1622–1682), executed for his share in the Rye-house Plot.

321. _Mr. Southey’s Book of the Church._ Published 1824.

_Pure well of English undefiled._ ‘Dan Chaucer, well of English
undefyled’ _The Faerie Queene_, IV. ii. 32.

_Baxter._ See _ante_, note to p. 243.

_Calamy’s Non-Conformist’s Memorial._ See vol. III. _Political
Essays_, note to p. 265.

Note. _The author of Virginius._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862).
Macready produced _Virginius_, his best play, in 1820, at Covent
Garden, after it had appeared in the provinces.

322. _Mr. Irvine._ Edward Irving.

_Prick-eared._ Cf. ‘prick-eared cur of Iceland,’ _King Henry V._, II.
1. The word was commonly applied to Roundheads because of the tight
black skull-cap drawn over the head, which left the ears exposed.

_Sir J. Suckling._ (1609–1641.)

_Wycherley, Congreve, Rochester, and Waller._ See vol. V. _Lectures on
the English Poets and Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth_.

323. _Mr. Tracey’s ‘Ideologie.’_ Antoine Louis Claude Comte Destutt de
Tracy (1754–1836), whose _Élémens d’ Idéologie_ was published in
1817–1818.

ESSAY XXVIII. MADAME PASTA AND MADEMOISELLE MARS

From the _New Monthly Magazine_, vol. XIII. No. 49, 1825.

324. _Mademoiselle Mars._ Anne Françoise Boutet-Monvel (1779–1847),
the clever impersonator of Molière’s heroines at the Théâtre
Français. Her father, Moutet, was an actor, and her mother, Mars, an
actress.

_Madame Pasta._ Giuditta Pasta, a Jewish opera-singer of Milanese
birth (1798–1865). Her greatest triumphs were in Paris and London
between 1825 and 1833.

325. _Nina._ An Italian opera, produced at Naples, May 1787, and
played at the King’s Theatre, London, May 26, 1825, with Pasta as
‘Nina.’

326. _Shepherdess._ _The Winter’s Tale_, IV. 3.

327. _Though that their art be nature._ ‘Though that his joy be joy,
etc.’ _Othello_, I. 1.

328. _Schiller’s Robbers._ 1781.

_Klopstock’s Messiah._ Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s (1724–1803) poem
was published in 1748–1773.

329. _Those noble outlines ... at Hampton Court._ The Cartoons of
Raphael.

_Chantry._ See _ante_, note to p. 89.

_Guiderius and Arviragus._ _Cymbeline_, III. 6, and IV. 2.

330. Note. _Valeria._ A comedy of Scribe’s, produced in 1822 with
Mlle. Mars in the title-rôle.

331. _Girodet._ Anne Louis Girodet-De-Roussy-Trioson, French
historical painter and writer (1767–1824), a pupil of David.

_Monsieur Chateaubriand._ François René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand
(1768–1848), of noble Breton extraction, Royalist and writer of
perfect prose.

333. _Merrimee._ J. F. L. Mérimée. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_,
I. 87, 89. See also vol. VI. _Table Talk_, note to p. 319.

334. _Foregone conclusion._ _Othello_, III. 3.

ESSAY XXIX. SIR WALTER SCOTT, RACINE, AND SHAKESPEAR

336. _The still small voice is wanting._ _1 Kings_ xix. 12.

337. _Four lagging winters._ _King Richard II._, I. 3. [‘End in a
word.’]

_Come home to the bosoms._ Bacon, _Dedication to Essays_.

_The perilous stuff._ _Macbeth_, V. 3.

_Give sorrow words._ _Macbeth_, IV. 3.

338. _Gabble most brutishly._ _The Tempest_, I. 2.

‘But wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish.’

339. _Sailing with supreme dominion._ Gray, _Progress of Poesy_, III.
3.

_David Ritchie._ See _ante_, note to p. 207.

_The Maid and the Magpye._ See vol. VIII. _A View of the English
Stage_, p. 244.

_Mrs. Inchbald’s ‘Nature and Art.’_ Published 1796.

340. _O’er informing power._ Cf. ‘And o’er-inform’d the tenement of
clay.’ Dryden, _Absolom and Achitophel_, I. 158.

341. _Globose._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, V. 753 and VII. 357.

_A Dukedom to a beggarly denier._ _King Richard III._, I. 2.

_The little dogs and all._ _King Lear_, III. 6.

_Chronicle of the line of Brute._ Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_, Book II.
canto X.

342. _Lay my head to the East._ ‘Na, na! Not that way, the feet to the
east.’ _Guy Mannering_, chap. XV.

_Nothing but his unkind daughters._ _King Lear_, III. 4.

_By making Madge Wildfire ascribe._ _The Heart of Midlothian_, ? vol.
II. chap. v. and vi.

_They are old like him._ Cf. _King Lear_, II. 4.

_The earth hath bubbles._ _Macbeth_, I. 3.

_And enjoin’d silence._

[‘You seem to understand me
By each at once,’ etc.]
_Macbeth_, I. 3.

_And then they melted into thin air._

[‘Whither are they vanished?
Into the air.’]
_Macbeth_, I. 3.

But cf. _The Tempest_, IV. 1.

‘Are melted into air, into thin air.’

343. _The geese of Micklestane Muir._ _The Black Dwarf_, chap. ii.

_Five editions deep in Captain Medwin’s Conversations._ Two editions
of Captain Thomas Medwin’s _Conversations of Lord Byron, noted
during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa in the years 1821 and
1822_, appeared in 1824, and editions followed in Paris, New York
and Germany.

_There’s magic in the web._ _Othello_, III. 4.

_All appliances and means to boot._ _2 King Henry IV._, III. 1.

_Sees Helen’s beauty._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, V. 1.

_’Tis common._ _Othello_, III. 3.

344. _Not a jot._ _Ibid._

344. _By yon marble heaven._ _Othello_, III. 3.

_Like the Propontic._ _Ibid._

_The dialogue between Hubert and Arthur._ _King John_, IV. 1.

_That between Brutus and Cassius._ _Julius Cæsar_, I. 2.

_Bertram._ In _Guy Mannering_.

ESSAY XXX. ON DEPTH AND SUPERFICIALITY

347. _A great but useless thinker._ ? _Coleridge._

_Dr. Spurzheim._ See _ante_, note to p. 17.

348. _Spin round on its soft axle._ ‘Spinning sleeps on her soft
axle,’ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 165.

350. _Compunctious visitings of nature._ _Macbeth_, I. 5.

_The ‘wicked’ Lord Lyttleton._ Thomas, Lord Lyttelton (1744–1779),
renowned for his profligacy. He seems to have died three days after
a nocturnal warning. See Chambers’s _Book of Days_, II. 625.

_Mother Brownrigg._ Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed in 1767 for
whipping an apprentice to death. See vol. III. _Political Essays_,
notes to pp. 220 and 238.

351. _Credo quia impossibile est._ A phrase of Tertullian’s.

353. _Sweet oblivious antidote._ Macbeth, V. 3.

354. _Unquenchable fire._ _S. Mark_, ix. 44.

Note. _Search’s ‘Light of Nature Pursued._’ See vol. IV. _The Spirit
of the Age_, note to p. 371.

ESSAY XXXI. ON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE

362. _Buys golden opinions._ _Macbeth_, I. 7.

_The learned pate ducks to the golden fool._ _Timon of Athens_, IV. 3.

_Otway was left to starve._ Thomas Otway, one of the greatest of
English tragedians, was choked by eating too ravenously bread bought
after a long fast.

_Spenser, kept waiting._ See Fuller’s _Worthies_. The story is that
Spenser petitioned Elizabeth thus:—

‘I was promis’d on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I receiv’d nor rhyme nor reason.’

363. _His favourite poet Butler._ Samuel Butler (1612–1680). He was
buried in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Covent Garden, at the expense of
his friend William Longueville of the Temple.

_The time gives evidence of it._ See _ante_, note to p. 136.

_Parson Adams drinking his ale._ _Joseph Andrews_, Book I. 2.

_Peter Pounce._ In _Joseph Andrews_.

_The character of Captain Blifil._ _Tom Jones_, Book II. 9.

_Pope somewhere exclaims._ [‘Or slaves or cowards’]. Pope’s _Essay on
Man_, Ep. IV. 215.

364. _All honourable men._ _Julius Cæsar_, III. 2.

ESSAY XXXII. ON THE JEALOUSY AND THE SPLEEN OF PARTY

365. _It is michin-malico._ _Hamlet_, III. 2.

_With the Levite, that ‘he is not one of those.’_ Cf. the story of the
Pharisee, _St. Luke_, xviii. 2.

_The snow-falls in the river._ Burns’ _Tam o’ Shanter_. Cf. _ante_,
note to P. 308.

_The mighty dead._ Thomson’s _Seasons, Winter_, 431.

366. _So shall their anticipation._ _Hamlet_, II. 2.

_The gaze and shew_ [‘show and gaze’] _of the time_. _Macbeth_, V. 7.

_Elysian beauty._ Wordsworth’s _Laodamia_.

367. _This, this is the unkindest cut of all._ _Julius Cæsar_, III. 2.

_Mr. Chantry._ See _ante_, note to p. 89.

_It will never do._ See vol. III. _Political Essays_, note to p. 361.

_Rash judgments._ Wordsworth, _Tintern Abbey_ (_Lyrical Ballads_,
1798).

368. _But ’tis the fall._ Pope, _Epilogue to Satires_, I. 143.

_Madame Guyon._ Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe Guyon, the French
Quietist (1648–1717).

_Canova’s marble._ See _ante_, note to p. 113.

_Guido’s canvas._ Guido Reni, of the school of Bologna (1575–1642).

_Thomas Little._ Thomas Moore’s (1779–1852) early erotic verses
appeared (1801) as the ‘Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little.’

_Now in glimmer._ Coleridge’s _Christabel_, 169.

369. _From Paraclete’s white walls._ Pope’s _Eloisa to Abelard_, 348.

_Swan-like end._ _Merchant of Venice_, III. 2.

_’Tis my vice_ [‘It is my nature’s plague’] _to spy into abuses_.
_Othello_, III. 3.

370. _Can the Ethiopian change his skin?_ _Jeremiah_, xiii. 23.

_Married to immortal verse._ _L’Allegro_, 137.

_Thoughts that glow_ [breathe]. Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_, III. 3.

_But his soul is fair._ Thomson, _Castle of Indolence_, II. 30.

371. _Give us reason with his rhyme._ See _ante_, note to p. 362.

_His dear Charmettes._ Where Rousseau’s happiest years were spent with
Madame de Warens.

_I care not, Fortune._ Thomson’s _Castle of Indolence_, canto II. 3.

_Books, dreams_ [dreams, books]. Wordsworth, _Personal Talk_, [will
grow].

Note. _Ah! voila de la pervenche._ Rousseau’s _Confessions_, part I.
book VI.

_Reveries of a Solitary Walker._ Published in 1777.

373. _A witchery in the soft blue sky._ Wordsworth’s _Peter Bell_,
part I. 15.

_Not by the sufferance of supernal power._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 241.

_Squeaked and gibbered in our streets._ _Hamlet_, I. 1.

_In his Treatise of Government._ Published in 1689–1690.

374. _Blackstone and De Lolme._ Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780),
whose _Commentaries on the Laws of England_ were published in
1765–1769, and John Louis Delolme, a Genevan (1740–1806), whose work
on _The Constitution of England_ was published in French in 1771,
and in English four years later.

_The right divine of kings._ Pope, _The Dunciad_, IV. 188.

_Age of chivalry._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
(_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

_Mr. Ricardo._ David Ricardo (1772–1823), stockbroker and political
economist.

_With the laurel wreath._ Southey was made poet-laureate in 1813.

374. _Carnage as ‘God’s Daughter.’_ See vol. I. _Characters of
Shakespear’s Plays_, note to p. 214.

_Written the Friend._ Coleridge’s Series of Essays (1809–1810), ‘to
aid in the formation of fixed principles in politics, morals and
religion.’

_Like a devilish engine._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 17.

_With looks commercing._ _Il Penseroso_, 39.

375. _Doth part the flux._ _As You Like It_, II. 1.

_The powers that be._ _Romans_, xiii. 1.

_Chop-fallen._ _Hamlet_, V. 1.

_For the good of the country._ Cf. ‘’Twas for the good of my country
that I should be abroad.’ Farquhar, _The Beaux’ Stratagem_, III. 2.

376. _The Bills of Mortality._ Weekly burial reports, first supplied
by parish clerks in 1592–3.

_Mr. Theodore Hook will cry ‘Cockney.’_ See vol. VI. _Table Talk_,
note to p. 98.

_One-eyed M——._ Probably John Murray, who had lost the sight of one
eye through an accident.

377. _When they censure the age._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Air XII.

_Done the State some service._ _Othello_, V. 2.

378. _Like poor Morgan._ _Roderick Random_, chap. xxxiv.

_Come betwixt the wind and their nobility._ _1 King Henry IV._, I. 3.

_The Liberal._ The quarterly review which lasted for four numbers
(1822–3). See vol. IV. _The Spirit of the Age_, the Essay on Lord
Byron, and notes to pp. 258 and 359.

_The John Bull._ Theodore Hook’s Tory paper.

_Mr. Jerdan._ William Jerdan (1782–1869), editor of the Tory _Sun_
(1813–17), and then identified for thirty-three years with the
_Literary Gazette_.

_The Examiner-Officer._ ? a misprint for _Examiner_ Office.

379. _Mr. Shelley’s father._ Hobhouse’s father, Sir Benjamin, was made
a baronet in 1812. The Shelley baronets of Castle Goring, Sussex,
were created in 1806.

_Illustrations of Childe Harold._ _Historical Illustrations of the
fourth canto of Childe Harold; containing Dissertations on the Ruins
of Rome, and an Essay on Italian Literature_ (1818).

_The member for Westminster._ Hobhouse was elected in 1820 by a large
majority.

_The Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy._ Hazlitt’s essay was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_.

_This gentleman wrote off to Lord Byron._ See Byron’s _Letters and
Journals_ (ed. Prothero), VI. 167. Cf. vol. IV. _The Spirit of the
Age_, p. 359 and note.

_His Vision of Judgment._ Byron’s poem was published in No. 1 of _The
Liberal_.

380. _I had spoken against Lalla Rookh._ Published in 1817. See vol.
V. _Lectures on English Poets_, p. 152.

‘_Fudge Family._’ Published in 1818.

_Hulling on the flood._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 840.

_Whistle me down the wind._ _Othello_, III. 3.

_Proved haggard_. _Ibid._

_Tricksy._ Cf. ‘My tricksy spirit.’ _The Tempest_, V. 1.

_To view with scornful._ Pope, _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, 199–200.

381. _The account of the ‘Characters of Shakespear’s Plays.’_ See vol.
I. Bibliographical Note on p. 166.

381. _The Gods ... had made me poetical._ _As You Like It_, III. 3.

_Not a true thing._ _Ibid._

_The first thing the Westminster Review did._ See _ante_, note to p.
183. In the very first number (Jan. 1824), the article being written
by James Mill, assisted by his son John Stuart Mill. See Sir Leslie
Stephen’s _The English Utilitarians_, vol. III. p. 18.

382. _As Mr. Place lost Mr. Hobhouse his first election._ Hobhouse
unsuccessfully contested Westminster as an advanced Liberal in 1818.

Note. _But not till then._ For this remark of Porson’s see vol. VII.,
_Lectures on the English Comic Writers_, p. 17.

AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION

Hazlitt had made the ‘discovery’ set forth in this essay and had begun to write the essay itself as early as 1798, when he had his memorable meeting with Coleridge. See the essay ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’ He did not, however, succeed in making himself understood by the poet, and when the book came to be published, its sale was slow and small, though Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (_Memoirs_, I. 112) relates that according to a tradition in the family it won the admiration of Mr. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger. Hazlitt himself was proud of the essay, and continually refers to it in his later writings. See especially _A Letter to William Gifford_, vol. I. pp. 403 _et seq._, where he explains the nature of the argument. Cf. also the essay on ‘Self-Love’ and the fragments of lectures on English Philosophy first published in _Literary Remains_. The variations made in the second edition from marginal notes in the author’s copy (see Bibliographical Note) are few and trifling.

395. _An airy, notional good._ Cf.

‘——fugitive theme
Of my pursuing verse, ideal shade,
Notional good, by fancy only made.’
Prior, _Solomon, or the Vanity of the World_, I. 15–7.

398. Note. _Usher._ James Usher’s (1720–1772) _An Introduction to the
Theory of the Human Mind_, was published in 1771.

409. Note. ‘_Eros, thou yet behold’st me_,’ _etc._ _Antony and
Cleopatra_, Act IV. Scene 14.

410. Note. _Rousseau ... not a Frenchman._ Rousseau was born at
Geneva, whither his ancestors had removed from Paris as far back as
1529.

415. Note. Berkeley’s _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_,
published in 1709.

427. _Junius has remarked, etc._ In his letter to George III. (Dec.
19, 1769).

429. ‘_Short-lived pleasure_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘——O fleeting joys
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes.’
_Paradise Lost_, X. 741–2.

Note. See Preface to _The Lyrical Ballads_ (2nd edition, 1801),
reprinted with variations in the succeeding editions of the poet’s
works. (_Poetical Works_, ed. T. Hutchinson, p. 940.)

430. _To add, etc._ This sentence, which seems obscure, should perhaps
begin ‘I may add that,’ etc.

_The Essay on the Inequality of Mankind._ Rousseau’s _Discours sur
l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes_, 1755.

‘_Faithful remembrancer._’ Cowper, _On the Receipt of My Mother’s
Picture_, 11.

‘_His high endeavour_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, V. 901.

_The System of Nature._ Hazlitt wrongly attributes to Jean Baptiste de
Mirabaud (1675–1760) the _Système de la Nature_ of Baron d’Holbach
(1723–1789), published in 1770.

REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMS OF HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS

434. _Hartley._ David Hartley (1705–1757), whose _Observations on
Man_, containing his famous principle of the Association of Ideas,
appeared in 1749.

_Helvetius._ Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), whose famous work
_De L’Esprit_ appeared in 1758.

Note. _Butler in the Preface to his Sermons._ The _Fifteen Sermons
preached at the Rolls Chapel_ were published in 1726.

441. _As has been explained, etc._ An imperfect sentence. Probably
Hazlitt wrote, ‘This has been explained,’ etc.

443. Note. Sir Kenelm Digby’s (1603–1665) _Observations upon Religio
Medici_ were published in 1643, and were afterwards frequently
reprinted in editions of that work.

446. Note. Published in 1780.

447. _Mr. Mac-Intosh._ Sir James Mackintosh’s lectures on ‘The Law of
Nature and Nations’ were delivered at Lincoln’s Inn Hall in 1799.

450. ‘_In subduing_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Scene 3.

453. ‘_Sentir est penser._’ This well-known aphorism of the
Sensational School is attributed to Destutt de Tracy. See _ante_,
note to p. 323.

_More drossy and divisible._ Dryden, _The Hind and the Panther_, I.
319.

454. Note. _Condillac._ Etienne de Condillac (1715–1780), whose
_Traité des Sensations_ appeared in 1754.

Note. _The book De l’Esprit._ See _ante_, note to p. 434.

Note. ‘_Me voici_,’ _etc._ _Émile_, Liv. IV. (_Profession de Foi du
Vicaire Savoyard_).

457. ‘_Discourse of reason._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene II.

464. ‘_Theory of Moral Sentiments._’ Published in 1759.

465. _Don Quixote._ See Part I., Book III., chaps. 25 and 26.

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 60, changed "limited, not does" to "limited, nor does". 2. P. 292, changed “outrè” to “outré”. 3. P. 372, changed “ma premiere connaissance” to “ma première connaissance”. 4. Did not correct “it’s” used in the possessive sense. 5. P. 410, changed “affections particuliéres celles” to “affections particulières celles”. 6. P. 416, added footnote number to the footnote on this page. 7. P. 455, changed “sont pas paralleles” to “sont pas parallèles”. 8. Silently corrected typographical errors and also variations in spelling. 9. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 10. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.