Chapter XXXIII: Introduction: To an Account of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses

Hazlitt contributed to _The Champion_ six papers on the ‘Character of Sir Joshua Reynolds.’ The first two of these (Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. 1814) were used in the author’s _Encyclopædia Britannica_ essay on ‘Fine Arts.’ See vol. IX. of the present edition, pp. 377 _et seq._, and the notes, where the omitted portions of the two articles are supplied. The last four (viz. the present essay and the three succeeding ones) are here reprinted for the first time. Hazlitt afterwards dealt with the same subject in the two essays entitled ‘On Certain Inconsistencies in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses’ (vol. VI. _Table Talk_, pp. 122–145).

208. Note. For Richardson see vol. VI. (_Table Talk_), p. 10 and note.
Charles Antoine Coypel (1694–1752) was Director of the Academy
from 1747. His Discourses on Art were republished in 1883 by H.
Jouin (_Conférences de l’Académie royale de peinture_).

ON GENIUS AND ORIGINALITY

211. _If Raphael, for instance, had only copied_, _etc._ See
Reynolds’s Twelfth Discourse.

212. ‘_Sole sitting_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Poems on the Naming of
Places_, IV.

‘_Beauty, rendered still more beautiful._’ Cf.

‘——And he would gaze till it became
Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain
The beauty, still more beauteous.’
Wordsworth, _Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree_, 35–37.

‘_Thrice happy fields_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, III.
569–570.

213. ‘_The tender mercies._’ ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel.’ _Proverbs_ xii. 10.

‘_Wandering through dry places_,’ _etc._ Cf. S. _Matthew_ xii.
43.

213. Note. Claude’s _Liber Veritatis_, now in the possession of the
Duke of Devonshire, is not a collection of original sketches,
but a record of his pictures with inscriptions showing for whom
they were painted.

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

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE

221. ‘_Blinking Sam._’ See Mrs. Piozzi’s _Anecdotes_, _etc._
(_Johnsonian Miscellanies_, ed. G. B. Hill, I. 313).

ON THE IDEAL

223. ‘_Might ascend_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._ Prologue.

224. ‘_Obscurity her curtain_,’ _etc._ From a poem _To the Honourable
and Reverend F. C._ in Dodsley’s _Collection of Poems_, vol.
VI. (1758), p. 138. The poem (anonymously published) was
written by Sneyd Davies (1709–1769), and was addressed to
Frederick Cornwallis, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. See
_The Gentleman’s Magazine_, vol. I. p. 174, and Nichols’s
_Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth
Century_, vol. I.

226. ‘_Whose end_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

228. _We have heard it observed_, _etc._ By Coleridge, probably. See
vol. IV. p. 217.

CHARLEMAGNE: OU L’ÉGLISE DÉLIVRÉE

230. _The brother of Buonaparte._ Lucien Buonaparte (1775–1840),
Prince of Canino. The present review of his _Charlemagne_,
_etc._ is signed ‘W. H.’

231. _Henriade._ Voltaire’s epic (1723).

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

235. _The true Florimel_, _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, III. viii.

236. _Another epic poem._ _La Cirnéide_ (1819).

LUCIEN BUONAPARTE’S COLLECTION, ETC.

This article is signed ‘W. H.’

237. ‘_Vile durance._’ Kenrick’s _Falstaff’s Wedding_ (1766), Act I.
Sc. 2.

‘_The mistress or the saint._’ Cf. Goldsmith, _The Traveller_,
152.

_Jocunda._ The portrait of Mona Lisa, wife of Francesco del
Giocondo.

239. ‘_Laborious foolery._’ Hazlitt seems to be quoting from himself.
See his Letter ‘On Modern Comedy’ (1813), vol. VIII. p. 554.

240. ‘_Come, then, the colours_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, II.
17–20.

_Watteau._ Antoine Watteau (1684–1721).

_Guerin._ Pierre Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833). The picture
referred to is now in the Louvre.

241. _The Deluge by Girodet._ This picture of Anne Louis Girodet’s
(1767–1824) is in the Louvre.

242. _Lefebre._ Hazlitt presumably refers to Robert Le Fèvre’s
(1756–1830) portrait of Napoleon now in the Gallery at
Versailles.

BRITISH INSTITUTION

These three notices of the Exhibition at the British Institution are signed ‘W. H.’

243. _C. L. Eastlake._ Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865), elected
President of the Royal Academy and knighted in 1850; Director
of the National Gallery from 1855.

‘_Antique Roman._’ _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.

_A hint from a high quarter._ Hazlitt presumably refers to the
fact that Canning had not been in office since his quarrel with
Castlereagh in 1809.

244. ‘_A great book is a great evil._’ A saying of Voltaire’s. Cf.
vol. V. (_Lectures on the English Poets_), p. 114.

‘_It is place_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act III. Sc. 3.

245. _G. Hayter._ George (afterwards Sir George) Hayter (1792–1871).
His ‘Ezra’ gained a prize of £200.

_Mr. Harlowe’s Hubert and Arthur._ By George Henry Harlow
(1787–1819), a pupil of Sir Thomas Lawrence.

‘_Deep scars_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 601.

_Miss Geddes._ Margaret Sarah Geddes (1793–1872), better known as
Mrs. Carpenter, and a portrait-painter.

_Chalon._ Alfred Edward Chalon (1781–1860).

_Burnetts_, _etc._ James M. Burnet (1788–1816) and John Burnet
(1784–1868); Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787–1855);
Thomas Christopher Hofland (1777–1843); John Glover
(1767–1849). Both the Nasmyths, Alexander (1758–1840) and Peter
(1787–1831), were represented at the Exhibition.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

246. _W. Collins._ William Collins (1788–1847).

247. _Bone._ Robert Trewick Bone (1790–1840).

_H. Howard._ Henry Howard (1769–1847).

_H. Singleton._ Henry Singleton (1766–1839).

_P. H. Rogers._ Philip Hutchins Rogers (1794–1853).

_J. Wilson._ John Wilson (1774–1855).

248. _The ablest landscape painter_, _etc._ Turner. Cf. vol. I. (_The
Round Table_), p. 76 note.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

248. _B. Barker._ Benjamin Barker (1776–1838).

_Ab. Cooper._ Abraham Cooper (1787–1868).

_W. Westall._ William Westall (1781–1850).

249. _J. Stark._ James Stark (1794–1859).

_P. Dewint._ Peter De Wint (1784–1849).

_A. Sauerweide._ Alexander Sauerweid (1782–1844).

‘_War is a game_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, V. 187–8.

ON MR. WILKIE’S PICTURES

This essay is signed ‘W. H.’

249. _Archbishop Herring’s letters._ Cf. vol. V. (_Lectures on the
English Poets_), p. 141 and note.

250. _The highest authority on art._ From this point the rest of the
essay was incorporated in the Lecture on Hogarth. See vol.
VIII. pp. 139–141.

251. ‘_To shew vice_ [virtue],’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_The very error_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘It is the very error of the
moon.’ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

252. ‘_Your lungs begin to crow_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II.
Sc. 7.

[CHARACTER OF MR. WORDSWORTH’S NEW POEM, THE EXCURSION]

Under this heading Hazlitt contributed to _The Examiner_ three papers which he afterwards partly republished with omissions and variations in two essays in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 111–125. These omissions and variations are given below.

At the beginning of the first essay as published in _The Round
Table_ add from the first (August 21, 1814) of _The Examiner_
articles the following passage:—

‘In power of intellect, in lofty conception, in the depth of
feeling, at once simple and sublime, which pervades every part
of it and which gives to every object an almost preternatural
and preterhuman interest, this work has seldom been surpassed.
If the subject of the Poem had been equal to the genius of the
Poet, if the skill with which he has chosen his materials had
accorded with the power exerted over them, if the objects
(whether persons or things) which he makes use of as the
vehicle of his feelings had been such as immediately and
irresistibly to convey them in all their force and depth to
others, then the production before us would indeed have “proved
a monument,” as he himself wishes it, worthy of the author and
of his country. Whether, as it is, this most original and
powerful performance may not rather remain like one of those
stupendous but half-finished structures, which have been
suffered to moulder into decay, because the cost and labour
attending them exceeded their use or beauty, we feel it would
be rather presumptuous in us to determine.’

At the end of the first paragraph on p. 112 add the following
note:—

‘Every one wishes to get rid of the booths and bridges in the
Park,[68] in order to have a view of the ground and water
again. Our Poet looks at the more lasting and serious works of
men as baby-houses and toys, and from the greater elevation of
his mind regards them much in the same light as we do the
Regent’s Fair and Mr. Vansittart’s “permanent erections.”’

For ‘He sees all things in himself’ (p. 112, l. 28) read ‘He sees
all things in his own mind; he contemplates effects in their
causes, and passions in their principles.’

To the words ‘our very constitution’ (p. 113, l. 8) Hazlitt in
_The Examiner_ appends, as a note, ‘“God knew Adam in the
elements of his chaos, and saw him in the great obscurity of
nothing.” _Sir Thomas Browne._’

For ‘The general and the permanent’ (p. 113, l. 12) read ‘The
common and the permanent.’

The words ‘interlocutions between Lucius and Caius’ (p. 113, l.
19) are not between quotation marks in the magazine.

_The Examiner_ for Aug. 28, 1814 contained a second essay on the
same subject, republished in _The Round Table_, except that the
opening paragraph was somewhat curtailed. In place of the
paragraph in _The Round Table_ ‘We could have wished,’ etc.
(vol. I. p. 113) read:—

‘We could have wished that Mr. Wordsworth had given to his work
the form of a philosophical poem altogether, with only
occasional digressions or allusions to particular instances.
There is in his general sentiments and reflections on human
life a depth, an originality, a truth, a beauty, and grandeur
both of conception and expression, which place him decidedly
at the head of the poets of the present day, or rather which
place him in a totally distinct class of excellence. But he
has chosen to encumber himself with a load of narrative and
description which, instead of assisting, hinders the progress
and effect of the general reasoning. Almost all this part of
the work, which Mr. Wordsworth has inwoven with the text,
would have come in better in plain prose as notes at the end.
Indeed, there is something evidently inconsistent, upon his
own principles, in the construction of the poem. For he
professes, in these ambiguous illustrations, to avoid all
that is striking or extraordinary—all that can raise the
imagination or affect the passions—all that is not every way
common and necessarily included in the natural workings of
the passions in all minds and in all circumstances. Then why
introduce particular illustrations at all which add nothing
to the force of the general truth, which hang as a dead
weight upon the imagination, which degrade the thought and
weaken the sentiment, and the connection of which with the
general principle it is more difficult to find out than to
understand the general principle itself? It is only by an
extreme process of abstraction that it is often possible to
trace the operation of the general law in the particular
illustration, yet it is to supply the defect of abstraction
that the illustration is given. Mr. Wordsworth indeed says
finely, and perhaps as truly as finely,’ etc.

Instead of saying that Wordsworth’s powers of description and
fancy seem to be little inferior to those of his classical
predecessor, Akenside (p. 114), Hazlitt, in _The Examiner_,
made the very different statement that ‘his powers of
description and fancy seem to be little inferior to those of
thought and sentiment.’

To the quotation on page 116, ‘Poor gentleman,’ etc. Hazlitt
adds, as a note, ‘Love in a Wood.’

After the words ‘any thing but dull’ (p. 116, l. 22) add, from
_The Examiner_, ‘_Rasselas_ indeed is dull; but then it is
privileged dulness.’

After ‘natural exercise of others’ (p. 117, l. 7) add ‘The
intellectual and the moral faculties of man are different; the
ideas of things and the feelings of pleasure and pain connected
with them.’ There are a few other trifling verbal alterations
in this paragraph. The note on the word ‘solitary’ on p. 117 is
not in _The Examiner_.

A third essay on the same subject was published in _The Examiner_
for October 2, 1814. This was reprinted with a few omissions
and additions in _The Round Table_ (see vol. I. pp. 120–125).

The opening paragraph in _The Round Table_ is condensed from the
following:—

‘Poetry may be properly divided into two classes; the poetry of
imagination and the poetry of sentiment. The one consists in
the power of calling up images of the most pleasing or striking
kind; the other depends on the strength of the interest which
it excites in given objects. The one may be said to arise out
of the faculties of memory and invention, conversant with the
world of external nature; the other from the fund of our moral
sensibility. In the combination of these different excellences
the perfection of poetry consists; the greatest poets of our
own or other countries have been equally distinguished for
richness of invention and depth of feeling. By the greatest
poets of our own country, we mean Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare
and Milton, who evidently possessed both kinds of imagination,
the intellectual and moral, in the highest degree. Young and
Cowley might be cited as the most brilliant instances of the
separation of feeling from fancy, of men who were dazzled by
the exuberance of their own thoughts and whose genius was
sacrificed to their want of taste. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other
hand, whose powers of feeling are of the highest order, is
certainly deficient in fanciful invention: his writings exhibit
all the internal power, without the external form of poetry. He
has none of the pomp and decoration and scenic effect of
poetry: no gorgeous palaces nor solemn temples awe the
imagination: no cities rise with glistering spires and
pinnacles adorned[69]: we meet with no knights pricked forth on
airy steeds: no hair-breadth scapes and perilous accidents[70]
by flood or field. Either from the predominant habit of his
mind, not requiring the stimulus of outward impressions, or
from the want of an imagination teeming with various forms, he
takes the common every-day events and objects of nature, or
rather seeks those that are the most simple and barren of
effect; but he adds to them a weight of interest from the
resources of his own mind, which makes the most insignificant
things serious and even formidable. All other interests are
absorbed in the deeper interest of his own thoughts, and find
the same level. His mind magnifies the littleness of his
subject, and raises its meanness; lends it his strength, and
clothes it with borrowed grandeur. With him a molehill, covered
with wild thyme, assumes the importance of “the great vision of
the guarded mount”[71]: a puddle is filled with preternatural
faces, and agitated with the fiercest storms of passion; and to
his mind, as he himself informs us, and as we can easily
believe,

“——The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”’[72]

After the words ‘among these northern Arcadians’ (vol. I. p. 121)
Hazlitt quotes ll. 411–439 of Book V. of _The Excursion_.

The short paragraph on p. 122 reads in _The Examiner_:—

‘We think it is pushing our love or admiration of natural
objects a good deal too far, to make it a set-off against a
story like the preceding, which carries that concentration
of self-interest and callousness to the feelings of others
to its utmost pitch, which is the general character of
those who are cut off by their mountains and valleys from
an intercourse with mankind, even more than of the country
people.’

In _The Examiner_, after the words ‘the beautiful poem of _Hart
Leap Well_,’ the essay concludes as follows:—

‘We conceive that about as many fine things have passed through
Mr. Wordsworth’s mind as, with five or six exceptions, through
any human mind whatever. The conclusion of the passage we refer
to is admirable, and comes in like some dying close in
music:—[_The Excursion_, Book VII., ll. 976–1007].

‘If Mr. Wordsworth does not always write in this manner, it is
his own fault. He can as often as he pleases. It is not in our
power to add to, or take away from, the pretensions of a poem
like the present, but if our opinion or wishes could have any
weight, we would take our leave of it by saying—_Esto_
perpetua!’

The first two of these _Examiner_ articles are referred to by
Lamb in a letter to Wordsworth of Sept. 19, 1814. See
_Letters_, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, I. 434–5. It is significant of
Hazlitt’s increasing bitterness (caused mainly, no doubt, by
the final downfall of Napoleon) that the passages omitted from
_The Round Table_ are for the most part of a highly eulogistic
character.

ON ROCHEFOUCAULT’S MAXIMS

This paper is signed ‘W. H.’ in _The Examiner_.

254. ‘_The web of our life_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act
IV. Sc. 3.

_The Practice of Piety._ See vol. III. (_Political Essays_), note
to p. 111.

_Grove’s Ethics._ Henry Grove’s (1684–1738) _A System of Moral
Philosophy_ (1749).

_De l’Esprit._ Helvétius’s famous book (1758).

Note. _Lines written while sailing in a boat at evening._

256. ‘_Make assurance_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

257. ‘_Gets the start_,’ _etc._ _Julius Cæsar_, Act I. Sc. 2.

ON THE PREDOMINANT PRINCIPLES, ETC.

This essay, the title of which has been taken from the Index to _The Examiner_, is No. IX. of the _Round Table_ series. It was republished in _Winterslow_ under the title of ‘Mind and Motive.’

259. ‘_Friends now fast sworn_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

260. ‘_The servile slave._’ _The Faerie Queene_, II. vii. 33.

261. ‘_The toys of desperation._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

262. _A fine observation_, _etc._ Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, A I. 980
a, 21.

THE LOVE OF POWER, ETC.

No. XIII. of the _Round Table_ series, republished in _Winterslow_ along with the former essay as ‘Mind and Motive.’

265. ‘_But for an utmost end_,’ _etc._ Hobbes, _Human Nature_, VII. 5,
6 (_Works_, ed. Molesworth, IV. 33).

266. ‘_He courted a statue_,’ _etc._ _Don Quixote_, Part I. Book II.
Chap. 13.

267. ‘_Catch glimpses_,’ _etc._ Cf. Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘The world is
too much with us,’ etc.

‘_I also was an Arcadian._’ Cf. vol. VI. (_Table Talk_), p. 27
and note.

268. ‘_Sithence no fairy lights_,’ _etc._ Sneyd Davies, _To the
Honourable and Reverend F. C._ See _ante_, note to p. 224.

_Happy are they_, _etc._ Hazlitt seems to have been fond of this
passage. See vol. IV. (_Reply to Malthus_), p. 104, and vol.
III. (_Political Essays_), note to p. 266.

ESSAY ON MANNERS

This essay, No. XVIII. of the _Round Table_ series, was republished in _Winterslow_. Part of it Hazlitt himself used in the essay ‘On Manner’ in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 44–7 and notes.

269. _The Flower and Leaf._ This poem is not now regarded as
Chaucer’s. Cf. vol. V. (_Lectures on the English Poets_), p. 27
and note.

271. ‘_The painted birds_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _The Flower and the Leaf_,
_etc._, ll. 46–53, 102–152.

272. _Lord Chesterfield’s character of the Duke of Marlborough_,
_etc._ The rest of the essay from this point is in vol. I. (see
pp. 44–7 and notes).

KEAN’S BAJAZET, ETC.

This theatrical notice is proved to be Hazlitt’s by the passage (p. 276) beginning ‘Happy age, when the utmost stretch of a morning’s study,’ etc., which is repeated in the Lecture ‘On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.’ See vol. VIII. p. 70. Rowe’s _Tamerlane_ was first produced in 1702.

274. _Miss Stephens’s reappearance in Polly._ Cf. vol. VIII. pp.
193–5.

275. ‘_Full of sound_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_A load to sink a navy._’ _Henry VIII._ Act III. Sc. 2.

_Ambition as the hunger of noble minds._ See _Tamerlane_, Act II.
Sc. 2.

276. _The Country Girl._ Produced originally in 1766, an adaptation by
Garrick of _The Country Wife_ of Wycherley. Cf. vol. VIII. p.
76. Mrs. Mardyn, Mrs. Alsop, and the actors here referred to
are dealt with by Hazlitt in _A View of the English Stage_.

DOCTRINE OF PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY

This paper, signed ‘W,’ is clearly Hazlitt’s. Cf. the Lecture on the same subject, _ante_, pp. 48–74. The essay is No. XXVII. of the _Round Table_ series.

277. ‘_For I had learnt_,’ _etc._ Cf. Wordsworth, _Lines composed a
few miles above Tintern Abbey_, 95–102.

278. ‘_Threshold of Jove’s throne._’ Cf. ‘Before the starry threshold
of Jove’s court,’ _Comus_, I.

279. ‘_Praise and blame_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, p. 56.

280. ‘_A good favour_,’ _etc._ Loosely quoted from _Much Ado About
Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 3.

282. _Marvell and his leg of mutton._ Hazlitt refers to the story of
Danby’s unsuccessful attempt to win over Marvell to the court.
One version of the story is that in Danby’s presence Marvell
summoned his servant and said to him, ‘Pray, what had I for
dinner yesterday?’ ‘A shoulder of mutton.’ ‘And what do you
allow me to-day?’ ‘The remainder hashed.’ Marvell then added to
Danby, ‘And to-morrow, my lord, I shall have the sweet
blade-bone broiled.’

‘_Allemagne_,’ _etc._ _De l’Allemagne_, Preface.

‘_But there is matter_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Hart-Leap Well_,
95–6.

PARALLEL PASSAGES IN VARIOUS POETS

No. XXVIII. of the Round Table series, and signed ‘W.’ The long passages from Voltaire, etc. have been indicated by the first and last line.

282. _Zaire._ 1732.

283. ‘_Soft you_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Vanished_ [melted] _into thin air_.’ _The Tempest_, Act IV. Sc.
1.

_Ducis._ Jean François Ducis (1733–1816), who adapted some of
Shakespeare’s plays for the stage.

283. _‘As flat,’ etc._ Cf. ‘He has crushed his nose, Susannah says, as
flat as a pancake to his face.’ _Tristram Shandy_, III. 27.

284. _Potter._ Robert Potter’s (1721–1804) translation of Æschylus
appeared in 1777.

_‘When I had gazed,’ etc._ _Poems on the Naming of Places_, II.
51 _et seq._

_We have once already attempted, etc._ In three articles in _The
Examiner_. Cf. _ante_, pp. 572–5, and vol. I. (_The Round
Table_), pp. 111–125.

_‘In my former days of bliss,’ etc._ From ‘The Shepherd’s
Hunting’ (1615).

_THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN_

In addition to the essays reprinted in the text from _The Examiner_ of 1815 there are four letters signed ‘Peter Pickthank’ on the Duke D’Enghien, to which reference should be made. These appeared on September 24, October 8, November 19, and December 10, and were written in reply to a correspondent signing himself ‘Fair Play.’ The controversy arose out of an article (September 3) entitled ‘Chateaubriand, The Quack,’ which contained a casual reference to the Duke D’Enghien, ‘whom Buonaparte is accused of having murdered because he was not willing that he, the said Royal Duke, should assassinate him.’ ‘Fair Play’ seized on this passage and protested (September 10) against the implied defence of the Duke D’Enghien’s execution. ‘Peter Pickthank’ replied (September 24), and the correspondence was kept up till near the end of the year, ‘Fair Play’ contributing letters on October 1, October 29, and November 26. ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ letters contain many of Hazlitt’s stock quotations and personal allusions (to Dr. Stoddart, for example); they embody exactly his political opinions, and altogether the internal evidence of their having been written by him is very strong. Inasmuch, however, as there is not absolute certainty in the matter, and a considerable part of the letters would have been unintelligible without including ‘Fair Play’s’ letters as well, the editors have felt justified in omitting the whole correspondence. An editorial note at the end of ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ third letter (November 19) states that ‘this article has been delayed in order to soften some of the asperities.’

MR. LOCKE A GREAT PLAGIARIST

No. XXXI. of the Round Table series, and signed ‘W.H.’

285. _‘The very head,’ etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_A justly exploded_ [decried] _author_.’ See _ante_, p. 167 and
note.

_Professor Stewart’s very elegant Dissertation._ Prefixed to the
Supplement to the 4th and 5th editions of the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_ (1816).

286. _‘Fame is no plant,’ etc._ _Lycidas_ 78–82.

287. _‘The greatest and as it were radical distinction,’ etc._ Bacon,
_Aphorisms_, LV.

‘_That strain I heard was of a higher mood._’ _Lycidas_, 87.

288. _What is most remarkable, etc._ This passage on wit will be found
in an expanded form in _Lectures on the English Comic Writers_.
See vol. VIII. pp. 18–21.

_Three papers, which we propose to write._ These papers do not
appear to have been written.

289. ‘_The laborious fooleries._’ See _ante_, note to p. 239.

290. _‘The tenth transmitter,’ etc._ Cf. ‘No tenth transmitter of a
foolish face.’ Savage, _The Bastard_, 8.

‘_The mind alone is formative._’ See _ante_, p. 176.

[THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED]

In _The Examiner_ for March 3, 1816 appeared the following note:—‘A correspondent who signs himself J.W. thinks we ought to bring proofs of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as the founder of a system. We recommend him, if he is curious on this subject, to read the first eighty pages of Hobbes’s _Leviathan_, if the name does not alarm him. After that, if he is not satisfied and repeats his request, perhaps we may attend to it.’ On March 31 (Round Table No. XXXIV.) Hazlitt brings forward his proofs in a long paper which consists chiefly of extracts from Locke, Hobbes and other philosophers. The essay begins as follows:—

‘We have been required to give proof of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as a metaphysical reasoner, and of the claims of Hobbes to be considered as the founder of the modern system of the philosophy of the human mind.

‘Here then it is. But at the same time we would observe, that we do not think ourselves bound to give this proof to those who have demanded it (somewhat impatiently) at our hands. It was sufficient for us to have stated our opinion on this subject, and to have referred the curious expressly to the sources from which they might satisfy themselves of the truth or hollowness of our assertion. To our readers in general we owe some apology for alluding to such subjects at all. But to the point.—We have said that the principles of the modern school of metaphysics are all to be found, pure, entire, connected, and explicitly stated, in the writings of Hobbes: that Mr. Locke borrowed the leading principle of that philosophy from Hobbes, without understanding or without admitting the system in general, concerning which he always seems to entertain two opinions: that succeeding writers have followed up Mr. Locke’s general principle into its legitimate consequences, and have arrived at exactly the same conclusions as Hobbes, but that being ignorant of the name and writings of Hobbes, they have with one accord and with great injustice attributed the merit of the original discovery of that system to Mr. Locke, as having made the first start, and having gone further in it than any one else before him.

‘The principles of the modern system, of which Mr. Locke is the reputed and Mr. Hobbes the real founder, are chiefly the following:—

1. That all our ideas are derived from external objects, by means of the senses alone, and are merely repetitions of our sensible impressions.

2. That as nothing exists out of the mind but matter and motion, so the mind itself, with all its operations, is nothing but matter and motion.

3. That thoughts are single, or that we can have only one idea at a time; in other words, that there are no complex ideas in the mind.

4. That we have no general or abstract ideas.

5. That the only principle of connection between one idea and another is _association_, or their previous connection in sense.

6. That reason and understanding are resolvable entirely into the mechanism of language.

7. and 8. That the sense of pleasure and pain is the sole spring of action, and self-interest the source of all our affections.

9. That the mind acts from necessity, and consequently is not a moral or accountable agent.

[_The manner of stating and reasoning on this last point, viz. the moral and practical consequences of the doctrine of necessity is the only circumstance of importance, in which the modern philosophers differ from Hobbes._]

10. That there is no such thing as genius, or a difference in the natural capacities or dispositions of men, the mind being originally alike passive to all impressions, and becoming whatever it is from circumstances &c., &c.

‘That these are the most striking positions of the moderns with respect to the human mind, is what every one, familiar with the writers since Locke, as Berkeley, Hartley, Hume, Priestley, Horne Tooke, Beddoes, among ourselves, and Helvetius, Condillac, Mirabaud, Condorcet &c., among the French, will readily allow: that most of them are to be found in the _Essay on Human Understanding_, mixed up in a state of inextricable confusion with common-place and common sense notions, now advanced, now retracted, the arguments on one side of the question now prevailing through an endless labyrinth of explanation, now those on the other, and now both opinions asserted and denied in the same sentence is what is equally well known to the readers of Locke and his commentators. That the same system came from the mind of Hobbes, not hesitating, stammering, puling, drivelling, ricketty, a sickly half birth, to be brought up by hand, to be nursed and dandled into common life and existence, but just the reverse of all this, full grown, completely proportioned and articulated, compact, stamped in all its lineaments, with the vigour and decision of the author’s mind, is what we have now to shew.’

The extracts follow, interspersed with brief comments by Hazlitt, and the essay concludes as follows:—

‘To what Mr. Hobbes has written on this subject [Liberty and Necessity] nothing has been added nor can be taken away. We agree to every word of it, and the more heartily, because it is the only one of all the points which have been stated on which we do. In speaking of the popular notions of liberty, in his controversy with a foolish Bishop of that day (Bramhall), he says, “In fine, that freedom which men commonly find in books, that which the poets chaunt in the theatres, and the shepherds on the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches, and the doctors in the universities, and that which the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto, namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will, is a question which it seems neither the Bishop nor they ever thought on.” Hobbes was as superior to Locke as a writer, as he was as a reasoner. He had great powers both of wit and imagination. In short he was a great man, not because he was a great metaphysician, but he was a great metaphysician because he was a great man.

‘It has been thought, that the neglect into which Hobbes’s metaphysical speculations have fallen was originally owing to the obloquy excited by the irreligious and despotical tendency of his other writings. But in this he has also been unfairly dealt with. Locke borrowed his fundamental ideas of government from him; and there is not a word directly levelled at religion in any of his works. At least, his aristocratical notions and his want of religion must have, in some measure, balanced one another; and Charles II. had his picture hanging in his bed-room, though the Bishops wished to have him burnt. The true reason of the fate which this author’s writings met with was, that his views of things were too original and comprehensive to be immediately understood, without passing through the hands of several successive generations of commentators and interpreters. Ignorance of another’s meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred: hence arose the rancour and suspicion of his adversaries, who, to quote some fine lines of Spenser,

——‘Stood all astonished like a sort of steers
’Mongst whom some beast of strange and foreign race
Unawares is chanced far straying from his peers;
So did their ghastly gaze betray their hidden fears.’[73]

_COLERIDGE’S ‘CHRISTABEL’_

On June 2, 1816, _The Examiner_ published a review of Coleridge’s _Christabel_, as to the authorship of which there has been some discussion. See _Notes and Queries_, 9th Ser. XI. pp. 171 and 271. Mr. Dykes Campbell (_The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, p. 606) is disposed to attribute the review to Hazlitt. As in the case of the _Edinburgh Review_ notice of _Christabel_ (see vol. X. of the present edition, pp. 411–418), Hazlitt’s authorship cannot be regarded as absolutely certain. The review is as follows:—

‘The fault of Mr. Coleridge is, that he comes to no conclusion. He is a man of that universality of genius, that his mind hangs suspended between poetry and prose, truth and falsehood, and an infinity of other things, and from an excess of capacity, he does little or nothing. Here are two unfinished poems, and a fragment. _Christabel_, which has been much read and admired in manuscript, is now for the first time confided to the public. The _Vision of Kubla Khan_ still remains a profound secret; for only a few lines of it ever were written.[74]

‘The poem of _Christabel_ sets out in the following manner:

“’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awaken’d the crowing cock;
Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She makes answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, moonshine or shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.”

‘We wonder that Mr. Murray, who has an eye for things, should suffer this “mastiff bitch” to come into his shop. Is she a sort of Cerberus to fright away the critics? But—gentlemen, she is toothless.

‘There is a dishonesty as well as affectation in all this. The secret of this pretended contempt for the opinion of the public, is that it is a sorry subterfuge for our self-love. The poet, uncertain of the approbation of his readers, thinks he shews his superiority to it by shocking their feelings at the outset, as a clown, who is at a loss how to behave himself, begins by affronting the company. This is what is called _throwing a crust to the critics_. If the beauties of _Christabel_ should not be sufficiently admired, Mr. Coleridge may lay it all to two lines which he had too much manliness to omit in complaisance to the bad taste of his contemporaries.

‘We the rather wonder at this bold proceeding in the author, as his courage has cooled in the course of the publication, and he has omitted, from mere delicacy, a line which is absolutely necessary to the understanding the whole story. The _Lady Christabel_, wandering in the forest by moonlight, meets a lady in apparently great distress, to whom she offers her assistance and protection, and takes her home with her to her own chamber. This woman,

——“beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree,”

is a witch. Who she is else, what her business is with _Christabel_, upon what motives, to what end her sorceries are to work, does not appear at present; but this much we know, that she is a witch, and that _Christabel’s_ dread of her arises from her discovering this circumstance, which is told in a single line, which line, from an exquisite refinement in efficiency,[75] is here omitted. When the unknown lady gets to _Christabel’s_ chamber, and is going to undress, it is said—

“Then drawing in her breath aloud
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe and inner vest
Dropt to her feet, and full in view
_Behold! her bosom and half her side_—
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
And she is to sleep by Christabel!”

‘The manuscript runs thus, or nearly thus:—

“Behold her bosom and half her side—
_Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue_.”

‘This line is necessary to make common sense of the first and second part. “It is the keystone that makes up the arch.”[76] For that reason Mr. Coleridge left it out. Now this is a greater physiological curiosity than even the fragment of _Kubla Khan_.

‘In parts of _Christabel_ there is a great deal of beauty, both of thought, imagery, and versification; but the effect of the general story is dim, obscure, and visionary. It is more like a dream than a reality. The mind, in reading it, is spell-bound. The sorceress seems to act without power—Christabel to yield without resistance. The faculties are thrown into a state of metaphysical suspense and theoretical imbecility. The poet, like the witch in _Spenser_, is evidently

“Busied about some wicked gin.”[77]

But we do not foresee what he will make of it. There is something disgusting at the bottom of his subject, which is but ill glossed over by a veil of Della Cruscan sentiment and fine writing—like moon-beams playing on a charnel-house, or flowers strewed on a dead body. Mr. Coleridge’s style is essentially superficial, pretty, ornamental, and he has forced it into the service of a story which is petrific. In the midst of moonlight, and fluttering ringlets, and flitting clouds, and enchanted echoes, and airy abstractions of all sorts, there is one genuine outburst of humanity, worthy of the author, when no dream oppresses him, no spell binds him. We give the passage entire:—’

[Here follow ll. 403–430 of _Christabel_, beginning ‘But when he heard the lady’s tale.’]

‘Why does not Mr. Coleridge always write in this manner, that we might always read him? The description of the Dream of Bracy the bard, is also very beautiful and full of power.

‘The conclusion of the second part of _Christabel_, about “the little limber elf,” is to us absolutely incomprehensible. _Kubla Khan_, we think, only shews that Mr. Coleridge can write better _nonsense_ verses than any man in England. It is not a poem, but a musical composition.

“A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play’d,
Singing of Mount Abora.”

‘We could repeat these lines to ourselves not the less often for not knowing the meaning of them.’

In a sketch of Coleridge which appeared in _The Examiner_ for Oct. 21, 1821, Leigh Hunt quotes the lines from _Kubla Khan_ (‘A damsel with a dulcimer,’ etc.) and says: ‘We could repeat such verses ... down a green glade, a whole summer’s morning’; but in spite of this and a few other verbal similarities, a comparison of the sketch with the review does not support the theory that the latter was written by Leigh Hunt. Possibly he wrote a few lines here and there, but the review as a whole is far more suggestive of Hazlitt.

SHAKESPEAR’S FEMALE CHARACTERS

No. XLIII. of the _Round Table_ series. It is partly reproduced in _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_. See especially the essays on _Cymbeline_ and _Othello_ (vol. I. 179 _et seq._ and 200 _et seq._ and notes).

290. _Miss Peggy._ See _ante_, p. 276.

291. ‘_Calls true love_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

295. ‘_Books, dreams_,’ _etc._ _Personal Talk_, ll. 33 _et seq._

_Tate._ Nahum Tate’s _King Lear_ was brought out in 1681.

‘_And her heart beats_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III.
Sc. 2.

296. ‘_Sir, the fairest flowers_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV.
Sc. 4.

_SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES_

Three papers appeared in _The Examiner_ for April 6, April 13, and April 20, 1817, under the heading of ‘Sketches of the History of the Good Old Times before the French Revolution, when Kings and Priests did what they pleased, by the grace of God.’ In these essays a French anti-Bourbon book, the title of which is not given, is made the text for a most unflattering review of the characters of a number of kings, from Hugh Capet to Louis XVI. The subject would naturally attract Hazlitt, and indeed it may be said that the essays are almost certainly his. As, however, the internal evidence, though very strong, does not prove his authorship to be absolutely certain, it has been thought better not to include the essays in the present edition.

MISS O’NEILL’S WIDOW CHEERLY

This and the five succeeding theatrical papers from _The Examiner_ of 1817 have been inserted in the text because the internal evidence seems to leave no room for doubt that they were written by Hazlitt. It is clear from _A View of the English Stage_ that he was writing theatrical notices for _The Examiner_ during the whole of the period in question (Jan.–May, 1817).

297. _The best actress ... with one great exception_, _etc._ For this
comparison of Miss O’Neill with Mrs. Siddons, cf. vol. VIII. p.
198, and for Miss O’Neill’s failure in comedy, _ibid._ p. 291.

297. _The Soldier’s Daughter._ By Andrew Cherry, produced in 1804.

298. ‘_The insipid levelling morality_,’ _etc._ See Lamb’s footnote to
Middleton and Rowley’s _A Fair Quarrel_. Hazlitt quotes the
passage elsewhere.

PENELOPE AND THE DANSOMANIE

299. ‘_Like to see the unmerited fall_,’ _etc._ Cf. Burke,
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed.
Payne, II. 164).

300. _The Gentleman who is understood_, _etc._ William Ayrton
(1777–1858), who was musical director at the King’s Theatre in
1817 and again in 1821.

_Of the Dansomanie_, _etc._ A comparison of this passage with a
reference to the ‘Dansomanie’ in vol. VIII. p. 437 is
conclusive as to Hazlitt’s authorship of this notice.

‘_Such were the joys_,’ _etc._ Bickerstaffe, _Love in a Village_,