Part 1

, v. 2.

_A Mad World, My Masters_, the title of a comedy by Middleton.

P. 19. _Music and painting are not our forte._ Cf. Hazlitt's review of the "Life of Reynolds" (X, 186-87): "Were our ancestors insensible to the charms of nature, to the music of thought, to deeds of virtue or heroic enterprise? No. But they saw them in their mind's eye: they felt them at their heart's core, and there only. They did not translate their perceptions into the language of sense: they did not embody them in visible images, but in breathing words. They were more taken up with what an object suggested to combine with the infinite stores of fancy or trains of feeling, than with the single object itself; more intent upon the moral inference, the tendency and the result, than the appearance of things, however imposing or expressive, at any given moment of time.... We should say that the eye in warmer climates drinks in greater pleasure from external sights, is more open and porous to them, as the ear is to sounds; that the sense of immediate delight is fixed deeper in the beauty of the object; that the greater life and animation of character gives a greater spirit and intensity of expression to the face, making finer subjects for history and portrait; and that the circumstances in which a people are placed in a genial atmosphere, are more favourable to the study of nature and of the human form."

_like birdlime_. "Othello," ii, 1, 126.

P. 20. _Materiam superabat opus_. Ovid's "Metamorphoses," II, 5.

_Pan is a God_. Lyly's "Midas," iv, 1.

SPENSER

This is the latter half of the lecture on Chaucer and Spenser from the "English Poets."

P. 21. _Spenser flourished_, etc. Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), served as secretary to Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland in 1577, and went again in 1580 as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the Queen's new deputy to Ireland. He was driven out by a revolt of the Irish in 1598. "A View of the State of Ireland, written dialogue-wise between Eudoxus and Irenæus ... in 1596" was first printed in 1633.

_description of the bog of Allan_. "Faërie Queene," II, ix, 16.

_Treatment he received from Burleigh_. Hazlitt refers to this treatment specifically in the essay "On Respectable People" (XI, 435): "Spenser, kept waiting for the hundred pounds which Burleigh grudged him 'for a song,' might feel the mortification of his situation; but the statesman never felt any diminution of his sovereign's favour in consequence of it." The facts, as they are recorded in the "Dictionary of National Biography," are as follows: "The queen gave proof of her appreciation by bestowing a pension on the poet. According to an anecdote, partly reported by Manningham, the diarist (Diary, p. 43), and told at length by Fuller, Lord Burghley, in his capacity of treasurer, protested against the largeness of the sum which the queen suggested, and was directed by her to give the poet what was reasonable. He received the formal grant of £50 a year in February 1590-1." Cf. Spenser's lines in "Mother Hubbard's Tale," 895 ff.

_Though much later than Chaucer_. The rest of this paragraph and most of the points elaborated in this lecture appeared in Hazlitt's review of Sismondi's "Literature of the South" in 1815 (X, 73 ff.).

_Spenser's poetry is all fairyland._ In a lecture delivered in February, 1818, three years after Hazlitt's remarks had appeared in the Edinburgh Review, Coleridge spoke as follows: "You will take especial note of the marvellous independence and true imaginative absence of all particular space or time in the Faery Queene. It is in the domains neither of history or geography; it is ignorant of all artificial boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in the land of Faery, that is, of mental space. The poet has placed you in a dream, a charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor have the power, to inquire where you are, or how you got there." Works, IV, 250.

P. 22. _clap on high_. "Faërie Queene," III, xii, 23.

_In green vine leaves_. I, iv, 22.

_Upon the top_. I, vii, 32.

P. 23. _In reading the Faërie Queene_, etc. See III, ix, 10; I, vii; II, vi, 5; III, xii.

_and mask_. "L'Allegro."

_And more to lull_. I, i, 41.

_honey-heavy dew of slumber_. "Julius Cæsar," ii, 1, 230.

_Eftsoons they heard_. II, xii, 70.

P. 25. _House of Pride_. I, iv, 4.

_Cave of Mammon_. II, vii, 28.

_Cave of Despair_. I, ix, 33.

_the account of Memory_. II, ix, 54.

_description of Belphoebe_. II, iii, 21.

_story of Florimel_. III, vii, 12.

_Gardens of Adonis_. III, vi, 29.

_Bower of Bliss_. II, xii, 42.

_Mask of Cupid_. III, xii.

_Colin Clout's Vision_. VI, x, 10-27.

P. 26. _Poussin_, Nicolas (1594-1665), French painter. See Hazlitt's delightful essay in "Table Talk" "On a Landscape by Nicholas Poussin."

_And eke_. III, ix, 20.

_the cold icicles_. III, viii, 35.

_That was Arion_. IV, xi, 23-24.

_Procession of the Passions_. I, iv, 16 ff.

P. 28. _Yet not more sweet_. Southey's "Carmen Nuptiale: Lay of the Laureate." In the "Character of Milton's Eve" in the "Round Table," Hazlitt remarks that Spenser "has an eye to the consequences, and steeps everything in pleasure, often not of the purest kind."

P. 30. _Rubens_, Peter Paul (1577-1640), Flemish painter. See the paper on "The Pictures at Oxford and Blenheim" (Works, IX, 71): "Rubens was the only artist that could have embodied some of our countryman Spenser's splendid and voluptuous allegories. If a painter among ourselves were to attempt a Spenser Gallery, (perhaps the finest subject for the pencil in the world after Heathen mythology and Scripture history), he ought to go and study the principles of his design at Blenheim."

_the account of Satyrane_. I, vi, 24.

_by the help_. III, x, 47.

_the change of Malbecco_. III, x, 56-60.

P. 31, n. _That all with one consent_. "Troilus and Cressida," iii, 3, 176.

P. 32. _High over hills_. III, x, 55.

_Pope who used to ask_. Pope is also quoted in Spence's "Anecdotes" (Section viii, 1743-4) as saying that "there is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it did in one's youth. I read the 'Faërie Queene,' when I was about twelve, with infinite delight, and I think it gave me as much, when I read it over about a year or two ago." Waller-Glover.

_the account of Talus_. V, i, 12.

_episode of Pastorella_. VI, ix, 12.

P. 33. _in many a winding bout_. "L'Allegro."

SHAKSPEARE

This selection is from the "Lectures on the English Poets." At the beginning of his lecture on Shakespeare and Milton, Hazlitt maintains that the arts reach their perfection in the early periods and are not continually progressive like the sciences--an idea which he frequently comes back to in his writings, notably in the "Round Table" paper, "Why the Arts are not Progressive."

P. 34. _the fault_, etc. Cf. "Julius Cæsar," i, 2, 140.

_Shakspeare as they would be_. Hazlitt may have had in mind Dr. Johnson's comment in his preface to Shakespeare's works: "the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its effect would probably be such as he had assigned; he has not only shewn human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found in trials to which it cannot be exposed." (Nichol Smith: "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," p. 117.)

P. 35. _its generic quality_. Coleridge applied the epithet "myriad-minded" to Shakespeare. See also Schlegel's "Lectures on the Drama." ed. Bohn, p. 363: "Never perhaps was there so comprehensive a talent for characterization as Shakespeare. It not only grasps the diversity of rank, age, and sex, down to the lispings of infancy; not only do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truthfulness ... his human characters have not only such depth and individuality that they do not admit of being classed under common names, and are inexhaustible even in conception; no, this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the magical world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghost, exhibits before us the witches with their unhallowed rites, peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs; and these beings, though existing only in the imagination, nevertheless possess such truth and consistency, that even with such misshapen abortions as Caliban, he extorts the assenting conviction, that were there such beings they would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries a bold and pregnant fancy into the kingdom of nature, on the other hand, he carries nature into the region of fancy, which lies beyond the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at the close intimacy he brings us into with the extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard-of."

_a mind reflecting ages past_. "These words occur in the first lines of a laudatory poem on Shakespeare printed in the second folio (1632). The poem is signed 'J. M. S.' and was attributed by Coleridge to 'John Milton, Student.' See his 'Lectures on Shakespeare' (ed. T. Ashe), pp. 129-130." Waller-Glover, IV, 411.

P. 36. _All corners_, etc. "Cymbeline." iii. 4, 39.

_nodded to him_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," iii, I, 177.

_his so potent art_. "Tempest," v, i, 50.

_When he conceived of a character_, etc. Cf. Maurice Morgann, "On the Character of Falstaff": "But it was not enough for Shakespeare to have formed his characters with the most perfect truth and coherence; it was further necessary that he should possess a wonderful facility of compressing, as it were, his own spirit into these images, and of giving alternate animation to the forms. This was not to be done _from without_; he must have _felt_ every varied situation, and have spoken thro' the organ he had formed. Such an intuitive comprehension of things and such a facility must unite to produce a Shakespeare." (Nichol Smith: "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," p. 247, n.)

_subject to the same skyey influences_. Cf. "Measure for Measure," iii, I, 9: "servile to all the skyey influences."

_his frequent haunts_. Cf. "Comus," 314: "my daily walks and ancient neighborhood."

P. 37. _coheres semblably together_. Cf. 2 "Henry IV," v, i, 72: "to see the semblable coherence."

_It has been ingeniously remarked_, by Coleridge, "Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton," p. 116: "The power of poetry is, by a single word perhaps, to instil that energy into the mind, which compels the imagination to produce the picture.... Here, by introducing a single happy epithet, 'crying,' a complete picture is presented to the mind, and in the production of such pictures the power of genius consists."

_me and thy crying self_. "Tempest," i, 2, 132.

_What! man_. "Macbeth," iv, 3, 208.

_Rosencrans_. The early editions consistently misspell this name Rosencraus.

_Man delights not me_. "Hamlet," ii, 2, 321.

_a combination and a form_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 60.

P. 39. _There is a willow_, etc. See "Hamlet," iv, 7, 167:

"There is a willow grows aslant a brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream."

_Now this is an instance_, etc. Hazlitt elsewhere ascribes this observation to Lamb. See p. 83, n.

_He's speaking now_. "Antony and Cleopatra," i, 5, 24.

_It is my birthday_. Ibid., iii, 13, 185.

P. 41. _nigh sphered in heaven_. Collins's "Ode on the Poetical Character."

_to make society_. "Macbeth," iii, 1, 42.

P. 42. _with a little act_. "Othello," iii, 3, 328.

P. 43. _while rage_. "Troilus and Cressida," i, 3, 52.

_in their untroubled elements_, etc. Cf. Wordsworth's "Excursion," VI, 763-766:

"That glorious star In its untroubled element will shine As now it shines, when we are laid in earth And safe from all our sorrows."

_Satan's address to the sun_. "Paradise Lost," IV, 31.

_Oh that I were_. "Richard II," iv, 1, 260.

P. 44. _His form_. "Paradise Lost," I, 591-594.

P. 45. _With what measure_. Mark, iv, 24; Luke, vi, 38.

_It glances_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 13.

_puts a girdle_. Ibid., ii, 1, 175.

_I ask_. "Troilus and Cressida," i, 3, 227.

_No man_. Ibid., iii, 3, 15.

P. 46. _Rouse yourself_. Ibid., iii, 3, 222.

_In Shakspeare, any other word_, etc. In the essay "On Application to Study," in the "Plain Speaker," Hazlitt gives further illustrations of this point.

P. 47. _Light thickens_. "Macbeth," iii, 2, 50.

_the business of the state_. "Othello," iv, 2, 166.

_Of ditties highly penned_. 1 "Henry IV," iii, 1, 209.

_And so_. "Two Gentlemen of Verona," ii, 7, 31.

_The universality of his genius_, etc. Cf. "On Gusto," "Round Table": "The infinite quality of dramatic invention in Shakspeare takes from his gusto. The power he delights to show is not intense, but discursive. He never insists on anything as much as he might, except a quibble."

P. 48. _He wrote for the great vulgar_, etc. The same remark had been made by both Pope and Johnson. See Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," pp, 49 and 141.

_the great vulgar and the small_. Cowley's "Translation of Horace's Ode III, i."

_his delights_. "Antony and Cleopatra," v, 2, 88.

P. 49. _His tragedies are better than his comedies._ Hazlitt is here deliberately opposing the view of Dr. Johnson expressed in the latter's preface to Shakespeare: "In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire." (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," p. 121.) In the second lecture of the "English Comic Writers," Hazlitt recurs to this opinion of Johnson's with the following comment: "For my own part, I so far consider this preference given to the comic genius of the poet as erroneous and unfounded, that I should say that he is the only tragic poet in the world in the highest sense, as being on a par with, and the same as Nature, in her greatest heights and depths of action and suffering. There is but one who durst walk within that mighty circle, treading the utmost bound of nature and passion, showing us the dread abyss of woe in all its ghastly shapes and colours, and laying open all the faculties of the human soul to act, to think, and suffer, in direst extremities; whereas I think, on the other hand, that in comedy, though his talents there too were as wonderful as they were delightful, yet that there were some before him, others on a level with him, and many close behind him.... There is not only nothing so good (in my judgment) as Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, or Macbeth, but there is nothing like Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, or Macbeth. There is nothing, I believe, in the majestic Corneille, equal to the stern pride of Coriolanus, or which gives such an idea of the crumbling in pieces of the Roman grandeur, 'like an unsubstantial pageant faded,' as the Antony and Cleopatra. But to match the best serious comedies, such as Molière's Misanthrope and his Tartuffe, we must go to Shakspeare's tragic characters, the Timon of Athens or honest Iago, where we shall more than succeed. He put his strength into his tragedies and played with comedy. He was greatest in what was greatest; and his _forte_ was not trifling, according to the opinion here combated, even though he might do that as well as any one else, unless he could do it better than anybody else." See also p. 99.

CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS

CYMBELINE

P. 51. _Dr. Johnson is of opinion_. "It may be observed that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented." (Nichol Smith: "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," p. 123.)

_It is the peculiar excellence_, etc. Cf. Coleridge's Works, IV, 75-76: "In Shakespeare all the elements of womanhood are holy, and there is the sweet, yet dignified feeling of all that _continuates_ society, a sense of ancestry and of sex, with a purity unassailable by sophistry, because it rests not in the analytic process, but in that sane equipoise of the faculties, during which the feelings are representative of all past experience,--not of the individual only, but of all those by whom she has been educated, and their predecessors even up to the first mother that lived. Shakespeare saw that the want of prominence which Pope notices for sarcasm, was the blessed beauty of the woman's character, and knew that it arose not from any deficiency, but from the exquisite harmony of all the parts of the moral being constituting one living total of head and heart. He has drawn it indeed in all its distinctive energies of faith, patience, constancy, fortitude,--shown in all of them as following the heart, which gives its results by a nice tact and happy intuition, without the intervention of the discursive faculty, sees all things in and by the light of the affections, and errs, if it ever err, in the exaggerations of love alone."

P. 52. _Cibber, in speaking_. See "Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber" (1740), I, iv.

_My lord_. i, 6, 112.

P. 53. _What cheer_. iii, 4, 41. The six quotations following are in the same scene.

P. 54. _My dear lord_. iii, 6, 14.

_And when with wild wood-leaves_. iv, 2, 389.

P. 55. _With fairest flowers_. iv, 2, 218.

_Cytherea, how bravely_. ii, 2, 14.

_Me of my lawful pleasure_. ii, 5, 9.

P. 56. _whose love-suit_. iii, 4, 136.

_the ancient critic_. Aristophanes of Byzantium, who lived in the third century before the Christian era.

_the principle of analogy_. This point is enforced by Hazlitt in connection with "Lear," "The Tempest," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "As You Like It." Coleridge had previously remarked, "A unity of feeling and character pervades every drama of Shakespeare" (Works IV, 61), and Schlegel had written in the same manner concerning "Romeo and Juliet": "The sweetest and the bitterest love and hatred, festive rejoicings and dark forebodings, tender embraces and sepulchral horrors, the fulness of life and self-annihilation, are here all brought close to each other; and yet these contrasts are so blended into a unity of impression, that the echo which the whole leaves behind in the mind resembles a single but endless sigh." (ed. Bohn, p. 401).

P. 57. _Out of your proof_. iii, 3, 27.

P. 58. _The game's afoot_. "The game is up," iii, 3, 107.

_Under the shade_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 111.

P. 59. _See, boys_. "Stoop, boys," iii, 3, 2.

_Nay, Cadwell_. iv, 2, 255.

_Stick to your journal course_. iv, 2, 10.

_Your highness_. i, 5, 23.

MACBETH

P. 60. _The poet's eye_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 12.

_your only tragedy-maker_. An adaptation of "your only jig-maker," "Hamlet," iii, 2, 132.

_the air smells wooingly, the temple-haunting martlet_. i, 6, 4-6.

_blasted heath_. i, 3, 77.

_air-drawn dagger_. iii, 4, 62.

_the gracious Duncan_. iii, 1, 66.

P. 61. _blood-boultered Banquo_. iv, 1, 123.

_What are these_. i, 3, 39.

_bends up_. i, 7, 80.

P. 62. _The deed_. Cf. ii, 2, 11: "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

_preter_[super]_natural solicitings_. i, 3, 130.

_Bring forth_. i, 7, 73.

P. 63. _Screw his courage_. i, 7, 60.

_lost so poorly_. Cf. ii, 2, 71: "Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts."

_a little water_. ii, 2, 68.

_the sides of his intent_. i, 7, 26.

_for their future days and nights_. Cf. i, 5, 70: "To all our days and nights to come." The next five quotations are from the same scene.

P. 64. _Mrs. Siddons_. Sarah Siddons (1775-1831), "The Tragic Muse," the most celebrated actress in the history of the English stage. Hazlitt wrote this passage for the Examiner (June 16, 1816) immediately after seeing a performance of the part by Mrs. Siddons. See Works, VIII, 312-373.

P. 65. _There is no art_. i, 4, 11.

_How goes the night_. ii, 1, 1.

P. 66. _Light thickens_. iii, 2, 50.

_Now spurs_. iii, 3, 6.

P. 67. _So fair and foul a day_. i, 3, 38.

_such welcome and unwelcome news together_. Cf. iv, 3, 138: "such welcome and unwelcome things at once."

_Men's lives are_. Cf. iv, 3, 171:

"and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken."

_Look like the innocent flower_. i, 5, 66.

_to him and all_, "to all and him." iii, 4, 91.

_Avaunt and quit my sight_. iii, 4, 93.

_himself again_. Cf. iii, 4, 107: "being gone, I am a man again."

_he may sleep_. iv, 1, 86.

_Then be thou jocund_. iii, 2, 40.

_Had he not resembled_. ii, 2, 13.

_should be women_. i, 3. 45.

_in deeper consequence_. i, 3, 126.

_Why stands_. iv, 1, 125.

P. 68. _He is as distinct a being_, etc. Cf. Pope (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays," p. 48): "Every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct." Beattie also had commented on "that wonderfully penetrating and plastic faculty, which is capable of representing every species of character, not as our ordinary poets do, by a high shoulder, a wry mouth, or gigantic stature, but by hitting off, with a delicate hand, the distinguishing feature, and that in such a manner as makes it easily known from all others whatsoever, however similar to a superficial eye." (Quoted in Drake's "Memorials of Shakespeare," 1828, p. 255.) Richard Cumberland had developed a parallel between Macbeth and Richard III in the Observer, Nos. 55-58, but it is to the suggestion of Thomas Whateley that Hazlitt is chiefly indebted. Both Richard III and Macbeth, says Whateley, "are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir. Perfidy, violence, and tyranny are common to both; and these only, their obvious qualities, would have been attributed indiscriminately to both by an ordinary dramatic writer. But Shakespeare, in conformity to the truth of history as far as it led him, and by improving upon the fables which have been blended with it, has ascribed opposite principles and motives to the same designs and

## actions, and various effects to the operation of the same events upon

different tempers. Richard and Macbeth, as represented by him, agree in nothing but their fortunes." (See the Variorum edition of "Richard III," p. 549.) Hazlitt makes similar discriminations between the characters of Iago and Richard III, between Henry VI and Richard II, and between Ariel and Puck.

_the milk of human kindness_. i, 5, 18.

_himself alone_. Cf. 3 "Henry VI," v, 6, 83: "I am myself alone."

P. 69. _For Banquo's issue_. iii, 1, 65.

_Duncan is in his grave_. iii, 2, 22.

_direness is rendered familiar_. v, 5, 14.

_troubled with thick coming fancies_. v, 3, 38.

P. 70. _subject to all_. "Measure for Measure," iii, 1, 9.

_My way of life_. v, 3, 22.

P. 71. _Lillo_, George (1693-1739), author of several "bourgeois" tragedies of which the best known is "George Barnwell" (1731).

_Specimens of Early English Dramatic Poets_ by Charles Lamb, 1808. (Works, ed. Lucas, IV, 144.)

IAGO

P. 73. _What a full fortune_ and _Here is her father's house_. i, 1, 66-74

P. 74. _I cannot believe_. i, 1, 254.

_And yet how nature_. iii, 3, 227.

_milk of human kindness_. "Macbeth," i, 5, 18.

_relish of salvation_. "Hamlet," iii, 3, 92.

_Oh, you are well tuned_. ii, 1, 202.

P. 75. _My noble lord_. iii, 3, 92.

_O grace_. iii, 3, 373.

P. 76. _How is it_. iv, 1, 60.

_Zanga_, in the "Revenge" (1721), a tragedy by Edward Young (1683-1765).

HAMLET

P. 76. _This goodly frame and Man delighted not_. ii, 2, 310-321.

P. 77. _too much i' th' sun_. i, 2, 67.

_the pangs_. iii, 1, 72.

P. 78. _There is no attempt to force an interest._ Professor Saintsbury ("History of Criticism," III, 258) calls this utterance an apex of Shakespearian criticism. Hazlitt makes a similar comment in the character of "Troilus and Cressida": "He has no prejudice for or against his characters: he saw both sides of a question; at once an actor and a spectator in the scene." Dr. Johnson had observed this attitude in Shakespeare, but he had seen in it a violation of the demands of poetic justice: "he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place." (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," p. 123.)

_outward pageant_. Cf. i, 2, 86: "the trappings and the suits of woe."

_we have that within_. i, 2, 85.

P. 79. _He kneels._ Cf. iii, 3, 73: "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying."

P. 80. _How all occasions_. iv, 4, 32.

P. 81. _that noble and liberal casuist_. Doubtless suggested by Lamb's description of the old English dramatists as "those noble and liberal casuists." (Works, ed. Lucas, I, 46.)

_The Whole Duty of Man_, a popular treatise of morals (1659).

_Academy of Compliments_, or the Whole Duty of Courtship, being the nearest or most exact way of wooing a Maid or Widow, by the way of Dialogue or Complimental Expressions (1655, 1669).

_The neglect of punctilious exactness_, etc. The entire passage follows pretty closely the interpretation of Lamb: "Among the distinguishing features of that wonderful character, one of the most interesting (yet painful) is that soreness of mind which makes him treat the intrusions of Polonius with harshness, and that asperity which he puts on in his interviews with Ophelia. These tokens of an unhinged mind (if they be not mixed in the latter case with a profound artifice of love, to alienate Ophelia by affected discourtesies, so to prepare her mind for the breaking off of that loving intercourse, which can no longer find a place amidst business so serious as that which he has to do) are parts of his character, which to reconcile with our admiration of Hamlet, the most patient consideration of his situation is no more than necessary; they are what we _forgive afterwards_, and explain by the whole of his character, but _at the time_ they are harsh and unpleasant.... [His behavior toward Ophelia] is not alienation, it is a distraction purely, and so it always makes itself to be felt by that object: it is not anger, but grief assuming the appearance of anger,--love awkwardly counterfeiting hate, as sweet countenances when they try to frown." "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare." (Works, ed. Lucas, I, 103-104)

_He may be said to be amenable_, etc. Cf. Coleridge (Works, IV, 145): "His thoughts, and the images of his fancy, are far more vivid than his actual perceptions, and his very perceptions, instantly passing through the _medium_ of his contemplations, acquire, as they pass, a form and a colour not naturally their own. Hence we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action, consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities."

P. 82. _his father's spirit_. i, 2, 255.

_I loved Ophelia_. v, 1, 292.

_Sweets to the sweet_. v, 1, 266.

P. 83. _There is a willow_. See p. 39.

_our author's plays acted_. See pp. 70, 87.

P. 84. _Kemble_, John Philip (1757-1823), younger brother to Mrs. Siddons and noted as the leader of the stately school in tragedy. Hazlitt often contrasted his manner with that of Kean: "We wish we had never seen Mr. Kean. He has destroyed the Kemble religion; and it is the religion in which we were brought up." Works, VIII, 345.

_a wave o' th' sea_. "Winter's Tale," iv, 4, 141.

_Kean_, Edmund (1787-1833), the great English tragic actor whom Hazlitt was instrumental in discovering for the London public. Shylock and Othello were his most successful roles. For accounts of his various performances, see "A View of the English Stage" (Works, VIII). Most of the points in this essay are reproduced from the notice of Kean's Hamlet (VIII, 185-189).

ROMEO AND JULIET

This extract is the opening paragraph of the sketch.

P. 84. _a great critic_, A. W. Schlegel. The passage alluded to by Hazlitt appears in Coleridge's Works (IV, 60-61) in what is little more than a free translation: "Read 'Romeo and Juliet';--all is youth and spring;--youth with its follies, its virtues, its precipitancies;--spring with its odors, its flowers, and its transiency; it is one and the same feeling that commences, goes through, and ends the play. The old men, the Capulets and the Montagues, are not common old men; they have an eagerness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring; with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash death, are all the effects of youth;--whilst in Juliet love has all that is tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of the spring; but it ends with a long deep sigh like the last breeze of the Italian evening."

P. 85. _fancies wan_. Cf. "Lycidas," "cowslips wan."

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

These extracts are the second and last paragraphs of the essay.

P. 85. _Lord, what fools_. iii, 2, 115.

P. 86. _human mortals_. ii, 1, 101.

_gorgons and hydras_. "Paradise Lost," II, 628.

_a celebrated person_, Sir Humphry Davy; see p. 342. Cf. Coleridge (Works, IV, 66): "Shakespeare was not only a great poet, but a great philosopher."

P. 87. _Poetry and the stage_. Cf. Lamb, "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare" (ed. Lucas, I, 110): "Spirits and fairies cannot be represented, they cannot even be painted,--they can only be believed. But the elaborate and anxious provision of scenery, which the luxury of the age demands, in these cases works a quite contrary effect to what is intended. That which in comedy, or plays of familiar life, adds so much to the life of the imitation, in plays which appeal to the higher faculties, positively destroys the illusion which it is introduced to aid."

HENRY IV

Hazlitt's interpretation of Falstaff is worth comparing with that of Maurice Morgann in "An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff," although Hazlitt does not allude to Morgann's essay and is supposed to have had no knowledge of it. "To me then it appears that the leading quality in Falstaff's character, and that from which all the rest take their colour, is a high degree of wit and humour, accompanied with great natural vigour and alacrity of mind.... He seems, by nature, to have had a mind free of malice or any evil principle; but he never took the trouble of acquiring any _good_ one. He found himself esteemed and beloved with all his faults; nay _for_ his faults, which were all connected with humour, and for the most part grew out of it. As he had, possibly, no vices but such as he thought might be openly confessed, so he appeared more dissolute thro' ostentation. To the character of wit and humour, to which all his other qualities seem to have conformed themselves, he appears to have added a very necessary support, _that_ of the profession of a _Soldier_.... Laughter and approbation attend his greatest excesses; and being governed visibly by no settled bad principle or ill design, fun and humour account for and cover all. By degrees, however, and thro' indulgence, he acquires bad habits, becomes an humourist, grows enormously corpulent, and falls into the infirmities of age; yet never quits, all the time, one single levity or vice of youth, or loses any of that cheerfulness of mind which had enabled him to pass thro' this course with ease to himself and delight to others; and thus, at last, mixing youth and age, enterprize and corpulency, wit and folly, poverty and expence, title and buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness as to practice; neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by cowardice, yet involved in circumstances productive of imputation in both; a butt and a wit, a humourist and a man of humour, a touchstone and a laughing stock, a jester and a jest, has Sir _John Falstaff_, taken at that period of life in which we see him, become the most perfect comic character that perhaps ever was exhibited." (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare," 226-7.)

P. 88. _we behold_. Cf. Colossians, ii, 9; "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

_lards the lean earth_. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 2, 116.

_into thin air_. "Tempest," iv, 1, 150.

_three fingers deep_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," iv, 2, 80: "three fingers on the ribs."

P. 89. _it snows_. Chaucer's Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," 345.

_ascends me_. 2 "Henry IV," iv, 3, 105.

_a tun of man_. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 4, 493.

P. 91. _open, palpable_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 4, 248: "These lies are like their father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable."

_By the lord_. Ibid., i, 2, 44.

_But Hal_. Ibid., i, 2, 91.

P. 92. _who grew_. Cf. ii, 4, 243: "eleven buckram men grown out of two."

_Harry, I do not_. ii, 4, 439.

P. 94. _What is the gross sum_. 2 "Henry IV," ii, 1, 91.

P. 95. _Would I were with him_. "Henry V," ii, 3, 6.

_turning his vices_. Cf. 2 "Henry IV," i, 2, 277: "I will turn diseases to commodity."

_their legs_. Ibid., ii, 4, 265.

_a man made after supper_. Ibid., iii, 2, 332.

_Would, Cousin Silence_. Ibid., iii, 2, 225.

_I did not think_. Ibid., v, 3, 40.

_in some authority_. Ibid., v, 3, 117.

_You have here_. Ibid., v, 3, 6.

TWELFTH NIGHT

P. 96. _It aims at the ludicrous._ Cf. Hazlitt's remark in the Characters on "Much Ado About Nothing": "Perhaps that middle point of comedy was never more nicely hit in which the ludicrous blends with the tender, and our follies, turning round against themselves in support of our affections, retain nothing but their humanity."

P. 97. _William Congreve_ (1670-1729), _William Wycherley_ (1640-1716), _Sir John Vanbrugh_ (1664-1726), the chief masters of Restoration Comedy.

P. 98. _high fantastical_. i, 1, 15.

_Wherefore are these things hid_. i, 3, 133.

_rouse the night-owl_. ii, 3, 60.

_Dost thou think_. ii, 3, 123.

P. 99. _We cannot agree with Dr. Johnson._ See p. 49 and n.

_What's her history_. ii, 4, 12.

_Oh it came o'er_. i, 1, 5.

P. 100. _They give a very echo_. ii, 4, 21.

_Blame not this haste_. iv, 3, 22.

The essay concludes with the quotation of one of the songs and Malvolio's reading of the letter.

MILTON

P. 101. _Blind Thamyris_. "Paradise Lost," III, 35.

P. 102. _with darkness_. VII, 27.

_piling up every stone_. XI, 324.

_For after I had from my first years_. "The Reason of Church Government,"

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