Book II

. 102.

_As when heaven’s fire._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 612–13.

64. _All is not lost._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 106–9.

_That intellectual being._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 147–8.

_Being swallowed up._ _Ibid._ II. 149–50.

_Fallen cherub._ _Ibid._ I. 157–8.

_Rising aloft_ [‘he steers his flight aloft’]. _Ibid._ I. 225–6.

65. _Is this the region._ _Ibid._ I. 242–63.

66. _His philippics against Salmasius._ In 1651 Milton replied in his _Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_ to _Defensio Regia pro Carolo I._ (1649) by Claudius Salmasius or Claude de Saumaise (1588–1658), a professor at Leyden. The latter work had been undertaken at the request of Charles II. by Salmasius, who was regarded as the leading European scholar of his day.

_With hideous ruin._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 46.

_Retreated in a silent valley._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 547–50.

_A noted political writer of the present day._ See _Political Essays_, vol. III. pp. 155, _et seq._ ‘Illustrations of the Times Newspaper,’ and notes thereto. Dr. Stoddart and Napoleon the Great are the persons alluded to. See also Hone’s ‘Buonapartephobia, or the Origin of Dr. Slop’s Name,’ which had reached a tenth edition in 1820.

_Longinus._ _On the Sublime_, IX.

67. _No kind of traffic._ Adapted from _The Tempest_, II. 1.

_The generations were prepared._ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, VI. 554–57.

_The unapparent deep._ _Paradise Lost_, VII. 103.

_Know to know no more._ Cf. Cowper, _Truth_, 327.

_They toiled not._ _St. Matthew_, VI. 28, 29.

_In them the burthen._ Wordsworth, ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,’ 38–41.

_Such as angels weep._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 620.

68. _In either hand._ _Paradise Lost_, XII. 637–47.

IV. ON DRYDEN AND POPE

The references throughout are to the _Globe_ Editions of Pope and Dryden.

69–71. _The question, whether Pope was a poet._ In a slightly different form these paragraphs appeared in _The Edinburgh Magazine_, Feb. 1818.

70. _The pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow._ _Romeo and Juliet_, III. 5.

71. _Martha Blount_ (1690–1762). She was Pope’s life-long friend, to whom he dedicated several poems, and to whom he bequeathed most of his property.

_In Fortune’s ray._ _Troilus and Cressida_, I. 3.

_The gnarled oak ... the soft myrtle._ _Measure for Measure_, II. 2.

_Calm contemplation and poetic ease._ Thomson’s _Autumn_, 1275.

72. _More subtle web Arachne cannot spin._ _Faerie Queene_, II. XII. 77.

_Not with more glories._ _The Rape of the Lock_, II. 1–22.

73. _From her fair head._ _Ibid._ III. 154.

_Now meet thy fate._ _Ibid._ V. 87–96.

_The Lutrin of Boileau._ Boileau’s account of an ecclesiastical dispute over a reading-desk was published in 1674–81. It was translated into English by Nicholas Rowe in 1708. _The Rape of the Lock_ was published in 1712–14.

_’Tis with our judgments._ _Essay on Criticism_, 9–10.

74. _Still green with bays._ _Ibid._ 181–92.

_His little bark with theirs should sail._ _Essay on Man_, IV. 383–6. [‘My little bark attendant sail.’]

_But of the two, etc._ _Essay on Criticism_, See the _Round Table_, vol. I. p. 41, for the first mention of these couplets by Hazlitt.

75. _There died the best of passions._ _Eloisa to Abelard_, 40.

76. _If ever chance._ _Ibid._ 347–8.

_He spins_ [‘draweth out’] _the thread of his verbosity_. _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, V. 1.

_The very words._ _Macbeth_, I. 3.

_Now night descending._ _The Dunciad_, I. 89–90.

_Virtue may chuse._ _Epilogue to the Satires_, Dialogue I., 137–172.

77. _His character of Chartres._ _Moral Essays_, Epistle III.

_Where Murray._ _Imitations of Horace_, Epistle VI., To Mr. Murray, 52–3. William Murray (1704–1793) was created Baron Mansfield in 1756.

_Why rail they then._ _Epilogue to the Satires_, Dialogue II. 138–9.

_Despise low thoughts_ [joys]. _Imitations of Horace_, Epistle VI., To Mr. Murray, 60–2.

78. _Character of Addison._ _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, 193–214.

_Alas! how changed._ _Moral Essays_, Epistle III. 305–8.

_Why did I write?_ _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, 125–146.

_Oh, lasting as those colours._ _Epistle to Mr. Jervas_, 63–78.

79. _Who have eyes, but they see not._ _Psalm_, CXV. 5, etc.

_I lisp’d in numbers._ _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, 128.

_Et quum conabar scribere, versus erat._ Ovid, _Trist._, IV. x. 25–26.

‘Sponte sua numeros carmen veniebat ad aptos; Et quod tentabam dicere, versus erat.’

80. _Besides these jolly birds._ _The Hind and the Panther_, III. 991–1025. [‘Whose crops impure.’]

81. _The jolly God._ _Alexander’s Feast, or the power of music: A song in honour of St. Cecilia’s Day_ 1697, 49–52. A few phrases from this criticism were used in the Essay on Mr. Wordsworth, _The Spirit of the Age_ (vol. IV. p. 276).

For _for, as piece_, read _for, as a piece_.

82. _The best character of Shakespeare._ Dryden’s _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, ed. Ker, I. 79–80.

_Tancred and Sigismunda._ _i.e._ Sigismonda and Guiscardo.

_Thou gladder of the mount._ _Palamon and Arcite_, III. 145.

83. _Donne._ John Donne (1573–1631), whose life was written by Izaak Walton, and whom Ben Jonson described as ‘the first poet in the world in some things,’ but who would not live ‘for not being understood.’

_Waller._ Edmund Waller’s (1605–1687) Saccharissa was Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester.

_Marvel._ Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), ‘poet, patriot, and friend of Milton.’

_Harsh, as the words of Mercury._ [‘The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.’] _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, V. 2.

_Rochester._ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–1680).

_Denham._ Sir John Denham (1615–1669). His _Cooper’s Hill_ was published in 1642.

_Wither’s._ George Wither (1588–1667). See Lamb’s Essay on the Poetical Works of George Wither. _Poems, Plays, and Essays_, ed. Ainger. The lines quoted by Hazlitt are from ‘The Shepheards’ Hunting,’ (1615). [‘To be pleasing ornaments.’ ‘Let me never taste of gladnesse.’]

V. ON THOMSON AND COWPER

85. _Dr. Johnson makes it his praise._ ‘It is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained “no line which, dying, he could wish to blot.“’ _Life of Thomson._

_Bub Doddington._ George Bubb Dodington (1691–1762), one of Browning’s ‘persons of importance in their day.’ His Diary was published in 1784.

_Would he had blotted a thousand!_ Said by Ben Jonson of Shakespeare, in his _Timber._

86. _Cannot be constrained by mastery._

‘Love will not submit to be controlled By mastery.’ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, VI.

_Come, gentle Spring!_ ‘Spring,’ 1–4.

_And see where surly Winter._ _Ibid._ 11–25.

88. _A man of genius._ Coleridge. See Hazlitt’s Essay, ‘My First Acquaintance with the Poets.’

_A burnished fly._ _The Castle of Indolence_, I. 64. [‘In prime of June.’]

_For whom the merry bells._ _Ibid._ I. 62.

_All was one full-swelling bed._ _Ibid._ I. 33.

_The stock-dove’s plaint._ _Ibid._ I. 4.

_The effects of the contagion._ ‘Summer,’ 1040–51.

_Of the frequent corse._ _Ibid._ 1048–9.

_Breath’d hot._ _Ibid._ 961–979.

89. _The inhuman rout._ ‘Autumn,’ 439–44.

_There through the prison._ ‘Winter,’ 799–809.

_Where pure Niemi’s fairy mountains rise._ _Ibid._ 875–6.

_The traveller lost in the snow._ _Ibid._ 925–35.

90. _Through the hush’d air._ _Ibid._ 229–64.

_Enfield’s Speaker._ _The Speaker_, or Miscellaneous Pieces selected from the best English Writers, 1775, and often reprinted. By William Enfield, LL.D., (1741–1797).

_Palemon and Lavinia._ ‘Autumn,’ 177–309.

_Damon and Musidora._ ‘Summer,’ 1267–1370.

_Celadon and Amelia._ _Ibid._ 1171–1222.

91. _Overrun with the spleen._ Cf. ‘The lad lay swallow’d up in spleen.’—Swift’s _Cassinus and Peter_, a Tragical Elegy, 1731.

_Unbought grace._ Burke’s _Reflections on the French Revolution_: Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89.

92. _His Vashti._ _The Task_, III. 715.

_Crazy Kate, etc._ _The Task_, I. 534, _et seq._

_Loud hissing urn._ _Ibid._ IV. 38.

_The night was winter._ _Ibid._ VI. 57–117.

94. _The first volume of Cowper’s poems._ This was published in 1782, and contained _Table Talk_, _The Progress of Error_, _Truth_, _Expostulation_, _Hope_, _Charity_, _Conversation_, _Retirement_, etc.

_The proud and humble believer._ _Truth_, 58–70.

_Yon cottager._ _Truth_, 317–36.

_But if, unblamable in word and thought._ _Hope_, 622–34.

95. _Robert Bloomfield_ (1766–1823). _The Farmer’s Boy_ was written in a London garret. It was published in 1800, and rapidly became popular.

96. _Thomson, in describing the same image._ _The Seasons_, ‘Spring,’ 833–45.

_While yet the year._ [‘As yet the trembling year is unconfirm’d.’] _The Seasons_, ‘Spring,’ 18.

97. _Burn’s Justice._ _Justice of the Peace_, by Richard Burn (1709–1785), the first of many editions of which was issued in two vols., 1755.

_Wears cruel garters._ _Twelfth Night_, II. 5. [‘Cross-gartered.’]

_A panopticon._ Jeremy Bentham’s name for his method of prison supervision. See _The Spirit of the Age_, vol. III., note to p. 197.

_The latter end of his Commonwealth_ [does not] _forget_[s] _the beginning_. _The Tempest_, II. 1.

98. _Mother Hubberd’s Tale._ _Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberd’s Tale._

98. _The Oak and the Briar._ ‘Februarie,’ in _The Shepheard’s Calender_.

_Browne._ William Browne (1591–?1643), pastoral poet. His chief work was _Britannia’s Pastorals_ (1613–6).

_Withers._ See note to p. 83, _ante_. The family name is occasionally spelt Withers though the poet is generally known as Wither.

_The shepherd boy piping._