Chapter XXXIV: Act II: Sc. 1

‘_Roll on_,’ _etc._ Ossian, _The Songs of Selma_.

The notice concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber,
introduced by the following paragraph: ‘As the present season
may be considered as a sort of revival of the Opera, the
following particulars of its first introduction into this
country may not be unacceptable to the reader. They are taken
from _Colley Cibber’s Memoirs of himself_, p. 316.’

OROONOKO

This tragedy by Thomas Southerne (1660–1746) was produced in 1696. See _post_, note to p. 303 (on _Imogine_), for conclusive proof of Hazlitt’s authorship of this notice.

301. _The success of his Richard II._ This passage, though the
conclusion drawn by Hazlitt is somewhat different, may be
compared with his notice of Kean’s Richard II. (vol. VIII. p.
223).

‘_The melting mood._’ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

302. ‘_The devil has not_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc 3.

303. _Imogine._ In Maturin’s _Bertram_. Cf. the notice of that play in
_A View of the English Stage_ (vol. VIII. p. 307). In one of
Hazlitt’s theatrical papers in _The London Magazine_ (_ibid._
p. 391), he says of Miss Somerville’s (Mrs. Bunn’s) voice that
‘it resembles the deep murmur of a hive of bees in spring-tide,
and the words drop like honey from her lips.’

‘_The music of her honey-vows._’ Cf. ‘That suck’d the honey of
his music vows.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_He often has beguiled us_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

_Gray, the poet_, _etc._ See a letter to Horace Walpole,
September, 1737 (_Letters_, ed. Tovey, i. 8).

THE PANNEL AND THE RAVENS

A comparison of this paper with _A View of the English Stage_ and the other dramatic essays in vol. VIII., makes it perfectly clear that Hazlitt is the writer.

304. _The Pannel._ By John Philip Kemble, produced at Drury Lane in
1788.

‘_Balsam of fierabras._’ Described by Don Quixote. See _Don
Quixote_, I. I. 2.

304. _The howling of the rabble._ The Regent had been attacked on his
return to St. James’s Palace after opening Parliament on March
28, 1817.

_The wax figures at Mrs. Salmon’s._ See _ante_, p. 175.

‘_Circe and the Sirens three._’ _Comus_, 253.

_Miss Stephens._ Hazlitt had noticed her first appearance. See
vol. VIII. p. 192.

_Mr. Fawcett._ John Fawcett (1768–1837) was manager of Covent
Garden theatre.

_Till Miss O’Neill is tired_, _etc._ See vol. VIII. note to p.
308.

‘_The ravens are hoarse_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_Toujours perdrix._ See vol. IV. (_The Spirit of The Age_), p.
275 and note.

_Mr. Canning._ Cf. _post_, p. 336 note.

_The Ravens_, _etc._ See vol. VIII. note to p. 353.

_The Maid and Magpie_, _etc._ See vol. VIII. pp. 244 and 279.

‘_And choughs_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

_The Maid of Palisseau._ _The Magpie, or the Maid of Palaiseau_,
a version attributed to T. J. Dibdin of _La Pie Voleuse_,
produced at Dury Lane, Sept. 12, 1815.

_Reminded us of her mother’s._ Mrs. Alsop was daughter of Mrs.
Jordan.

JOHN GILPIN

305. ‘_And when he next_,’ _etc._ _John Gilpin_, St. 63.

306. ‘_The turnpike men_,’ _etc. Ibid._ St. 29 and 30.

‘_First, last, and midst._’ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, V. 165. Quoted
by Hazlitt more than once.

‘_That ligament_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt elsewhere quotes this passage
from _Tristram Shandy_ (Book VI. Chap. 10).

307. _Mrs. Hill._ ‘From Belfast,’ her first appearance.

DON GIOVANNI AND KEAN’S EUSTACE DE ST. PIERRE

With this notice compare Hazlitt’s article on _Don Juan_ in _A View of the English Stage_, vol. VIII. pp. 362–366.

307. _Spenser’s description of Belphebe._ In his former notice Hazlitt
had compared Madame Fodor with Spenser’s Belphebe. See vol.
VIII. p. 364 and note.

308. _The Surrender of Calais._ By George Colman, Junior, originally
produced at the Haymarket in 1791, and described by Genest as
‘a jumble of Tragedy, Comedy, and Opera.’

‘_A clout upon that head_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act. II. Sc. 2.

‘_Though we have seen this_,’ _etc. Ibid._

‘_Thunder, nothing but thunder._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act II.
Sc. 2.

_A new character_, _etc._ Achmet in _Barbarossa_. See vol. VIII.
p. 372.

CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY PEOPLE

The internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship of this paper is overwhelmingly strong. Some of the main points are referred to in the following notes. The essay was probably written at Winterslow.

309. ‘_Here be truths._’ This is a saying, not of Dogberry, but of
Pompey, in _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Sc. 1.

309. ‘_Mountain foreigner._’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act I. Sc.
1.

‘_Retired from public haunts._’ Cf. ‘This our life exempt from
public haunt,’ etc. _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 1.

_Lord Foppington._ In Vanbrugh’s _The Relapse_.

_A philosophical poet_, _etc._ Coleridge, probably.

‘_Pelting villages._’ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 3.

‘_A crew of patches_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream_, Act
III. Sc. 2.

_P—tt—n._ Probably Pitton, a small village near Winterslow.

_My friend C—— L——._ Lamb, no doubt, who went with Hazlitt from
Winterslow to Oxford in August, 1810. Cf. vol. VI. (_Table
Talk_), p. 188.

‘_Fearing no colours._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.

310. _They are feræ naturæ_, _etc._ Cf. a sentence in vol. I. (_The
Round Table_), p. 124: ‘They [country people] are taken out of
a state of nature, without being put in possession of the
refinements of art.’

311. ‘_Be trampled in the mire_,’ _etc._ A favourite quotation of
Hazlitt’s from Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
(_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 93).

_A mischievous wag_, _etc._ Perhaps Lamb’s schoolfellow, Bobbie
Allen, who visited Scotland and the Lakes with Dr. Stoddart in
1802. Lamb describes him in ‘Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty
Years Ago.’ See also Lamb’s _Letters_ (ed. Ainger), I. 188.

‘_The spinsters_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_May I not take mine ease at mine inn?_’ _1 Henry IV._, Act III.
Sc. 3.

_A few odd volumes of old plays and novels._ It is known that
Hazlitt was at the Hut at Winterslow during the summer and
autumn of 1819, and that he had taken with him some volumes of
the old dramatists in order to prepare for the course of
lectures ‘On the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,’
delivered in the following year. See Barry Cornwall’s
_Autobiographical Fragment_.

‘_Fleet the golden time_,’ _etc._ Cf. _As You Like It_, Act I.
Sc. 1.

Note 1. Salisbury is only six miles from Winterslow.

312. ‘_Giving to airy nothing_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_,