Book III

), 'Went sounding on a dim and perilous way,' but it seems clear that Hazlitt thought he was quoting Chaucer." Waller-Glover, IV, 412.

P. 208. _his own nothings_. "Coriolanus," ii, 2, 81.

_letting contemplation_. Cf. Dyer's "Grongar Hill," 26: "till contemplation have its fill."

_Sailing with supreme dominion_. Gray's "Progress of Poesy."

_He lisped_. Pope's "Prologue to the Satires," 128.

_Ode on Chatterton_. "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," written by Coleridge in 1790, at the age of eighteen.

P. 209. _gained several prizes_. "At Cambridge Coleridge won the Browne Gold Medal for a Greek Ode in 1792." Waller-Glover.

_At Christ's Hospital_, a London school which Leigh Hunt and Lamb attended about the same time as Coleridge. The former has left a record of its life in his "Autobiography," and Lamb has written of it, with special reference to Coleridge, in his "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago."

_Struggling in vain_. "Excursion," VI, 557.

P. 210. _Hartley_, David (1705-1757), author of "Observations on Man" (1749), and identified chiefly with the theory of association. Cf. Coleridge's "Religious Musings," 368: "and he of mortal kind Wisest, he first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain."

_Dr. Priestley_, Joseph (1733-1804), scientist and philosopher of the materialistic school, author of "The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated" (1777). "See! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage." "Religious Musings," 371.

_Bishop Berkeley's fairy-world_. George Berkeley (1685-1753), idealistic philosopher. Cf. p. 287.

_Malebranche_, Nicholas (1638-1715), author of "De la Recherche de la Vérité" (1674).

_Cudworth_, Ralph (1617-1688), author of "The True Intellectual System of the Universe" (1678).

_Lord Brook's hieroglyphical theories_. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628), friend and biographer of Sir Philip Sidney.

_Bishop Butler's Sermons_. Joseph Butler (1692-1752), author of "Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel" (1726), and "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature" (1736).

_Duchess of Newcastle_. Margaret Cavendish (1624?-1674), published about a dozen folio volumes of philosophical fancies, poems, and plays. In "Mackery End in Hertfordshire" Lamb refers to her as "the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle."

_Clarke_, Samuel (1675-1729), English theologian of latitudinarian principles.

_South_, Robert (1634-1716), controversial writer and preacher.

_Tillotson_, John (1630-1694), a popular theological writer of rationalistic tendency.

_Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony_. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716), a German philosopher, represented the world as consisting of an infinite number of independent substances or monads related to each other in such a way (by the pre-established harmony) as to form one universe. Cf. Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations," 38 ff.:

"Others boldlier think That as one body seems the aggregate Of atoms numberless, each organized; So by a strange and dim similitude Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds Are an all-conscious spirit, which informs With absolute ubiquity of thought (His own eternal self-affirming act!) All his involved Monads, that yet seem With various province and apt agency Each to pursue its own self-centering end."

P. 210, n. _And so by many_. "Two Gentlemen of Verona," ii, 7, 30.

P. 211. _hortus siccus_ [dry garden] _of Dissent_. Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," Works, ed. Bohn, II, 287.

_John Huss_ (1373?-1415), Bohemian reformer and martyr.

_Jerome of Prague_, a follower of Huss who was burnt for heresy in 1416.

_Socinus_. Fausto Paulo Sozzini (1539-1604), an Italian theologian who sought to simplify the doctrine of the Trinity.

_John Zisca_ (1370?-1424), a leader of the extreme Hussite party.

_Neal's History_. Daniel Neal (1648-1743) published his "History of the Puritans" 1732-38.

_Calamy_, Edmund (1671-1732) published an "Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and Schoolmasters who were Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration of 1660" (1702 and 1713).

_Spinoza_, Baruch (1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher of Jewish parentage, the chief representative of Pantheism, "the doctrine of one infinite substance, of which all finite existences are modes or limitations."

_When he saw_. Cf. Coleridge's "Remorse," iv, 2, 100:

"When we saw nought but beauty; when we heard The voice of that Almighty One who loved us In every gale that breathed, and wave that murmur'd!"

_Proclus_ (410-485) and _Plotinus_ (204-270), philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school. In "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge refers to his "early study of Plato and of Plotinus, with the commentaries and the 'Theologia Platonica' of the illustrious Florentine; of Proclus, and Gemistius Pletho."

_Duns Scotus_ (1265 or 1275-1308) and _Thomas Aquinas_ (1227-1274), two great theologians of the Catholic Church.

_Jacob Behmen_ or Böhme (1575-1624), a German religious mystic who exerted considerable influence on English religious thought in the eighteenth century. In the "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge writes: "A meek and shy quietist, his intellectual powers were never stimulated into feverous energy by crowds of proselytes, or by the ambition of proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast in the strictest sense, as not merely distinguished, but as contradistinguished from a fanatic.... The writings of these Mystics acted in no slight degree to prevent my mind from being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic system."

_Swedenborg_, Emanuel (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist and mystic from whom have sprung some of the modern theosophical cults.

_Religious Musings_, published in his "Poems on Various Subjects" (1796).

_the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor_. Cf. "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," Lecture VII: "In his writings, the frail stalk of human life reclines on the bosom of eternity. His Holy Living and Dying is a divine pastoral. He writes to the faithful followers of Christ, as the shepherd pipes to his flock. He introduces touching and heartfelt appeals to familiar life; condescends to men of low estate; and his pious page blushes with modesty and beauty. His style is prismatic. It unfolds the colours of the rainbow; it floats like the bubble through the air; it is like innumerable dew-drops that glitter on the face of morning, and tremble as they glitter. He does not dig his way underground, but slides upon ice, borne on the winged car of fancy. The dancing light he throws upon objects is like an Aurora Borealis, playing betwixt heaven and earth.... In a word, his writings are more like fine poetry than any other prose whatever; they are a choral song in praise of virtue, and a hymn to the Spirit of the Universe."

_Bowles_, William Lisle (1762-1850), published "Fourteen Sonnets" in 1789, and a second edition containing twenty-one in the same year. In the first chapter of the "Biographia Literaria," Coleridge credits the sonnets of Bowles with saving him from a premature absorption in metaphysics and theology and with introducing him to the excellences of the new school of poetry. In his enthusiasm he went about making proselytes for Bowles and "as my school finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within less than a year and a half, more than forty transcriptions, as the best presents I could offer to those, who had in any way won my regard. And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following publications of the same author." Coleridge also addressed a "Sonnet to Bowles," opening

"My heart hath thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains, That on the still air floating tremblingly, Wak'd in me Fancy, Love, and Sympathy!"

P. 212. _John Bull_. Croker's John Bull was a scurrilous newspaper edited by Theodore Hook, the first number of which appeared December 17, 1820.

_Mr. Croker_, John Wilson (1780-1857), politician and man of letters, one of Hazlitt's pet aversions, and the same who comes in for such a severe chastisement in Macaulay's review of his edition of Boswell's "Johnson."

_Junius_, the mysterious author of a famous series of political letters which appeared in the London Public Advertiser from January 21, 1769, to January 21, 1772, collected as the "Letters of Junius" in 1772. The name of Sir Philip Francis is the one most persistently associated with the composition of these letters.

_Godwin_, William (1756-1836), leader of the philosophical radicals in England and a believer in the perfectibility of man, wrote "An Enquiry concerning Political Justice" (1793), "Caleb Williams" (1794), and other novels and miscellaneous works. Godwin was the husband of Mary Wolstonecraft, and the father-in-law of Shelley. Hazlitt wrote a sketch of him in the "Spirit of the Age" and reviewed his last novel, "Cloudesley," in the Edinburgh Review. Coleridge has a Sonnet to William Godwin:

"Nor will I not thy holy guidance bless, And hymn thee, Godwin! with an ardent lay; For that thy voice, in Passion's stormy day When wild I roam'd the bleak Heath of Distress, Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way-- And told me that her name was Happiness."

_Sorrows of Werter_, a sentimental novel of Goethe's, the work by which he was most generally known to English readers in Hazlitt's day.

_laugh'd with Rabelais_. Cf. Pope's "Dunciad," I, 22: "Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais easy chair."

_spoke with rapture of Raphael_. Coleridge had visited Italy in 1806 on his return from a stay in Malta, and had devoted his time there to a study of Italian art. See p. 298 n.

_Giotto_ (d. 1337), _Ghirlandaio_, whose real name was Domenico Bigardi (1449-1494), and _Massaccio_ (1402-1429) were early Florentine painters.

_wandered into Germany_. Coleridge's visit to Germany and his introduction to the leading German philosophers dates back to 1798-99.

_Kantean philosophy_. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the leader of modern philosophy. "The writings of the illustrious sage of Königsberg, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth, and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the logic; and I will venture to add--(paradox as it will appear to those who have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and Frenchmen)--the clearness and evidence, of the Critique of Pure Reason; and Critique of the Judgment; of the Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy; and of his Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason, took possession of me as with a giant's hand. After fifteen years' familiarity with them, I still read these and all his other productions with undiminished delight and increasing admiration." "Biographia Literaria," chap. IX.

_Fichte_, J. Gottlieb (1762-1814). "Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_, or Lore of Ultimate Science, was to add the key-stone of the arch" of Kant's system. Ibid.

_Schelling_, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1829). "In Schelling's _Natur-Philosophie_, and the _System des Transcendentalen Idealismus_, I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do.... Many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German Philosopher; and I might indeed affirm with truth, before the most important works of Schelling had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same school; been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant; we had both equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordano Bruno; and Schelling has lately, and, as of recent acquisition, avowed that same affectionate reverence for the labors of Behmen, and other mystics, which I had formed at a much earlier period." Ibid.

_Lessing_, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-1781), German dramatist and critic.

_sang for joy_. Coleridge had in 1789 composed some stanzas "On the Destruction of the Bastille," but these were not published till 1834.

_would have floated his bark_. Coleridge and Southey with some other friends had in 1794 formed a plan for an ideal colony, the Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehanna.

_In Philharmonia's_. Cf. Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," 140: "O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale."

P. 213. _Frailty_. Cf. "Hamlet," i, 2, 146: "thy name is woman."

_writing paragraphs_. Coleridge was connected with the staff of the Courier as a sort of assistant-editor for five months in 1811. His contributions during this period appeared as the "Essays on His Own Times" in 1850.

_poet-laureate_ and _stamp-distributor_ are references respectively to Southey and Wordsworth.

_bourne from whence_. "Hamlet," iii, 1, 79.

_tantalized by useless resources_. Compare this with Coleridge's own lines of bitter self-reproach addressed "To a Gentleman":

"Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain."

P. 214. _one splendid passage_. The lines beginning "Alas! they had been friends in youth" (408-426). The same passage had been singled out for praise by Hazlitt in his lecture "On the Living Poets" and in the review of "Christabel" which had appeared in the Examiner of June 2, 1816. The authorship of this review has been disputed but should on internal evidence, despite its failure in appreciation, be ascribed to Hazlitt. See Works, XI, 580-582.

_Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein_, made by Coleridge in 1799-1800.

_Remorse_. This tragedy was played at the Drury Lane Theatre with considerable popular success in 1813. It was a recast of an early play entitled "Osorio," composed in 1797.

P. 215. _The Friend_; a literary, moral, and political weekly paper, excluding personal and party politics and the events of the day (1809-1810), was reissued in one volume in 1812, and with additions and alterations (rather a rifacimento than a new edition) in 1818.

The sketch in the Spirit of the Age concludes with a contrast between Coleridge and William Godwin.

MR. SOUTHEY

This selection forms the conclusion of a sketch of Southey in the "Spirit of the Age." It illustrates, even more strikingly than the "Character of Burke," Hazlitt's power of dissociating his judgments from his prejudices, inasmuch as there had been exchanges of rancorous personalities between the two men.

P. 216. _Like the high leaves_. Southey's "The Holly Tree."

_of any poet_. In an essay in the "Plain Speaker" "On the Prose Style of Poets," Hazlitt elaborates his theory that poets turned out inferior prose. "I have but an indifferent opinion of the prose-style of poets: not that it is not sometimes good, nay, excellent; but it is never the better, and generally the worse from the habit of writing verse."

_full of wise saws_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 156.

P. 217. _historian and prose-translator_. Southey wrote the "History of Brazil," the "History of the Peninsular War," the "Book of the Church," and lives of Wesley, Cowper, and Nelson. He translated from the Spanish the romances of "Amadis of Gaul," "Palmerin of England," and "The Cid."

P. 219. _Pindaric or Shandean_, i.e., whimsical. Pindaric should of course be understood as a reference to Peter Pindar, the name under which John Wolcot (1738-1819) wrote his coarse and whimsical satires. Hazlitt mentions him at the end of his lectures "On the Comic Writers": "The bard in whom the nation and the king delighted, is old and blind, but still merry and wise:--remembering how he has made the world laugh in his time, and not repenting of the mirth he has given; with an involuntary smile lighted up at the mad pranks of his Muse, and the lucky hits of his pen." Shandean is derived from Sterne's novel, "Tristram Shandy."

_And follows so_. "Henry V," iv, 1, 293.

_his political inconsistency_. This is the subject of Hazlitt's attacks on Southey. See "Political Essays" (Works, III, 109-120, 192-232).

ELIA

The last essay in the "Spirit of the Age" is entitled "Elia and Geoffrey Crayon." An edition published at Paris by Galignani in 1825 omits the account of Washington Irving, and this text, as it is in all respects unexceptionable, has been here adopted for the sake of coherence. In a letter to Bernard Barton, February 10, 1825, Lamb refers to Hazlitt's sketch: "He has laid too many colours on my likeness, but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to 'Elia' as Gentlemen think proper to bestow."

P. 221. _shuffle off_. "Hamlet," iii, 1, 67.

_The self-applauding bird_. Cowper's "Truth," 58.

P. 222. _New-born gauds_ and _give to dust_. "Troilus and Cressida," iii, 3, 176-79.

_do not in broad rumor lie_, and the two following quotations are free renderings of "Lycidas," 78-82.

_Mr. Lamb rather affects_. Hazlitt had Lamb in his eye when he described the Occult School in the essay "On Criticism" ("Table Talk"): "There is another race of critics who might be designated as the _Occult School--verè adepti_. They discern no beauties but what are concealed from superficial eyes, and overlook all that are obvious to the vulgar part of mankind. Their art is the transmutation of styles. By happy alchemy of mind they convert dross into gold--and gold into tinsel. They see farther into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly unreadable, they can read him for ever: his intricacies are their delight, his mysteries are their study. They prefer Sir Thomas Brown to the Rambler by Dr. Johnson, and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy to all the writers of the Georgian Age. They judge of works of genius as misers do of hid treasure--it is of no value unless they have it all to themselves. They will no more share a book than a mistress with a friend. If they suspected their favourite volumes of delighting any eyes but their own, they would immediately discard them from the list. Theirs are superannuated beauties that every one else has left off intriguing with, bed-ridden hags, a 'stud of night-mares.' This is not envy or affectation, but a natural proneness to singularity, a love of what is odd and out of the way. They must come at their pleasures with difficulty, and support admiration by an uneasy sense of ridicule and opposition. They despise those qualities in a work which are cheap and obvious. They like a monopoly of taste, and are shocked at the prostitution of intellect implied in popular productions. In like manner, they would chuse a friend or recommend a mistress for gross defects; and tolerate the sweetness of an actress's voice only for the ugliness of her face. Pure pleasures are in their judgment cloying and insipid--

'An ounce of sour is worth a pound of sweet!'

Nothing goes down with them but what is _caviare_ to the multitude. They are eaters of olives and readers of black-letter. Yet they smack of genius, and would be worth any money, were it only for the rarity of the thing!"

P. 223. _fine fretwork_. "Essays of Elia," "The South-Sea House."

_the chimes at midnight_. 2 "Henry IV," iii, 2, 228.

P. 224. _cheese and pippins_. Ibid., v, 3.

_inns and courts of law_. "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," in "Essays of Elia."

_a certain writer_. Hazlitt himself. It is known to everybody that the friendship of Lamb for Hazlitt suffered certain strains, and various attempts have been made to guess at the provocations. Mutual recriminations in regard to literary borrowings have been thought to be responsible for more than one breach. So Mr. Bertram Dobell, in his "Sidelights on Lamb," 212-14, imagines that the mystery is solved in a letter of Hazlitt's to the editor of the London Magazine (April 12, 1820) charging Lamb with appropriating his ideas: "Do you keep the Past and Future? You see Lamb argues the same view of the subject. That 'young master' will anticipate all my discoveries if I don't mind." The similarity of idea between Hazlitt's "Past and Future" and Lamb's "New Year's Eve," and the appearance in Lamb's essay of the phrase "young masters" makes it clear enough what Hazlitt is referring to, but that either man should have taken the matter very seriously is hard to believe. It is easier to look upon Hazlitt's expression as banter of the same kind that Lamb allowed himself in connection with the essay on "Guy Faux" alluded to in the present sketch. This subject had been proposed by Lamb, as we are informed in "Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen," and had been written up by Hazlitt in the Examiner in 1821 (Works, XI, 317-334). Two years later Lamb contributed a paper on the same subject to the London Magazine, founded partly on an essay in the Reflector (1811), entitled "On the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason." The essay in the London Magazine (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, I, 236 ff.) opens with a facetious thrust at Hazlitt: "A very ingenious and subtle writer, whom there is good reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M--th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he actually gained admission for his treatise into a London weekly paper, not

## particularly distinguished for its zeal towards either religion. But,

admitting Catholic principles, his arguments are shrewd and incontrovertible. [Then follows a quotation from Hazlitt setting forth the Catholic standpoint.] It is impossible, upon Catholic principles, not to admit the force of this reasoning; we can only not help smiling (with the writer) at the simplicity of the gulled editor, swallowing the dregs of Loyola for the very quintessence of sublimated reason in England at the commencement of the nineteenth century. We will just, as a contrast, show what we Protestants (who are a party concerned) thought upon the same subject, at a period rather nearer to the heroic project in question." This is the kind of resentment we would expect Lamb to show at the appropriation of his ideas. That there were not wanting grounds for real grievance against Hazlitt may be gathered from a letter to Wordsworth, September 23, 1816 (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, VI, 491): "There was a cut at me a few months back by the same hand.... It was a pretty compendium of observation, which the author has collected in my disparagement, from some hundred of social evenings which we had spent together,--however in spite of all, there is something tough in my attachment to H---- which these violent strainings cannot quite dislocate or sever asunder. I get no conversation in London that is absolutely worth attending to but his." To one of his quarrels with Lamb Hazlitt owes the finest compliment he ever received, and happily it marks the termination of all differences between them. It occurs in the well-known "Letter of Elia to Robert Southey" which Lamb published in the London Magazine when Southey reproached him with his friendship for Hazlitt (Works, I, 233): "I stood well with him for fifteen years (the proudest of my life), and have ever spoke my full mind of him to some, to whom his panegyric must naturally be least tasteful. I never in thought swerved from him, I never betrayed him, I never slackened in my admiration for him, I was the same to him (neither better nor worse) though he could not see it, as in the days when he thought fit to trust me. At this instant, he may be preparing for me some compliment, above my deserts, as he has sprinkled many such among his admirable books, for which I rest his debtor; or, for any thing I know, or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth), if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of sullenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply; or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes--I should belie my own conscience, if I said less, than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy, which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such another companion."

_Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy_ was published in 1621. Its quaint prose was often imitated by Lamb and had a direct effect on his style.

_Sir Thomas Browne_ (1605-1682), physician and essayist, author of "Religio Medici" (1642), "Pseudodoxia Epidemica" (1646), and "Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial" (1658).

_Fuller's Worthies_. The "History of the Worthies of England" (1662) is the best known work of Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), an English divine and writer on church history.

_does not make him despise Pope_. See p. 322.

_Parnell_, Thomas (1679-1717). In the sixth lecture on the "English Poets" Hazlitt says: "Parnell, though a good-natured, easy man, and a friend to poets and the Muses, was himself little more than an occasional versifier."

_Gay_, John (1685-1732), is best known by his "Beggar's Opera" (1728) and "Fables" (1727 and 1738). Hazlitt writes of Gay in the sixth lecture on the "English Poets" and has a paper on "The Beggar's Opera" in the "Round Table."

_His taste in French and German_. Cf. "On Old English Writers and Speakers" in the "Plain Speaker": "Mr. Lamb has lately taken it into his head to read St. Evremont, and works of that stamp. I neither praise nor blame him for it. He observed, that St. Evremont was a writer half-way between Montaigne and Voltaire, with a spice of the wit of the one and the sense of the other. I said I was always of the opinion that there had been a great many clever people in the world, both in France and England, but I had been sometimes rebuked for it. Lamb took this as a slight reproach; for he had been a little exclusive and national in his tastes."

P. 225. _His admiration of Hogarth_. See note to p. 158.

_Leonardo da Vinci_ (1452-1519). Italian painter, sculptor, architect.

_fine Titian head_. Hazlitt painted a portrait of Lamb in the costume of a Venetian senator. This portrait now hangs in the National Gallery.

P. 226. _to have coined_. Cf. "Julius Cæsar," iv, 3, 72: "I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas."

_Mr. Waithman_, Robert (1764-1833), was Lord Mayor in 1823.

_Rosamond Gray_, a tale, was published in 1798 and "John Woodvill," a tragedy, in 1802. The lines in the footnote are from the second act of "John Woodvill."

SIR WALTER SCOTT

This selection forms the latter half of the sketch of Scott in the "Spirit of the Age." The following dialogue between Northcote and Hazlitt, "Conversations of Northcote," XVI, represents Hazlitt's feelings for Scott: "N. 'You don't know him, do you? He'd be a pattern to you. Oh! he has a very fine manner. You would learn to rub off some of your asperities. But you admire him, I believe.' H. 'Yes; on this side of idolatry and Toryism.' N. 'That is your prejudice.' H. 'Nay, it rather shows my liberality, if I am a devoted enthusiast notwithstanding. There are two things I admire in Sir Walter, his capacity and his simplicity; which indeed I am apt to think are much the same.'"

P. 227. _more lively_. Cf. "Coriolanus," iv, 5, 237; "it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent."

_their habits_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 135.

P. 228. _Baron of Bradwardine_ and the others mentioned in this sentence appear in "Waverley."

_Paul Veronese_ (1528-1588), a painter of the Venetian school.

_Balfour of Burley_ and the others in this sentence appear in "Old Mortality." The quotation is from chapter 38.

_Meg Merilees_ to _Dominie Sampson_, in "Guy Mannering."

P. 229. _her head to the east_. Cf. "Guy Mannering," chap. 15; "Na, na! not that way, the feet to the east."

_Rob Roy_ to _Die Vernon_, in "Rob Roy."

_thick coming_. Cf. "Macbeth," v, 3, 38: "thick-coming fancies."

_Earl of Glenallan_, in "The Antiquary."

_Black Dwarf_ to _Grace Armstrong_, in the "Black Dwarf."

_Children of the Mist_, in "Legend of Montrose."

_Amy_ (Robsart) and _Varney_, in "Kenilworth."

_George of Douglas_, in "The Abbot."

P. 229, n. _the finest scene_. "Guy Mannering," chap. 51.

P. 231. _a consummation_. "Hamlet," iii, 1, 63.

_by referring to the authentic history_. At this point Hazlitt reproduces in a footnote one of Scott's historical quotations in "Ivanhoe."

_flints and dungs_. See "Ivanhoe," chap. 43.

P. 232. _calls backing_. 1 "Henry IV," ii, 4, 165.

_Mr. MacAdam_, John Loudon (1756-1836).

_Sixty years since_. The sub-title of "Waverley" was "'Tis Sixty Years Since."

_Wickliff_, John (c. 1320-1384), an important English forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, the first translator of the Bible into English.

_Luther_, Martin (1483-1546), led the first successful revolt against the authority of the Catholic Church.

_Hampden_, John (c. 1595-1643), an English patriot who by his refusal to pay ship-money precipitated the rebellion against Charles I which ended in the beheading of that monarch.

_Sidney_, Algernon (1622-1683), an English patriot who fought on the side of Parliament against Charles I, and who, in the reign of Charles II, was tried for treason by Jeffreys, the hanging judge, and condemned to execution without proof. Sidney is the author of "Discourses Concerning Government" in which he vindicates the right of resistance to the misrule of kings.

_Somers_, John (1651-1716), took an important part in bringing about the bloodless Revolution which drove James II from England in 1688.

P. 233. _Red Reiver_, in "The Black Dwarf."

_Claverhouse_, in "Old Mortality."

_Tristan the Hermit_ and _Petit André_, in "Quentin Durward."

_but himself_. Though Scott composed many of his own mottoes, he never quoted his own previous verse but pretended to be using an Old Play or an Old Poem.

P. 234. _born for the universe_. Goldsmith's "Retaliation," 31.

_winked and shut_. Marston's "Antonio's Revenge," Prologue.

P. 235. _Who would not grieve_. Cf. Pope's "Prologue to the Satires," 213:

"Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"

LORD BYRON

From the "Spirit of the Age." Discussions of Byron's poetry are also to be found in the review of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (Works, XI, 420-426) and in "Pope, Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles" (XI, 486-508).

P. 236. _As if a man_. "Coriolanus," v, 3, 36.

_cloud-capt_. "Tempest," iv, I, 152.

P. 237. _prouder than_. Cf. Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," i, 3, 380: "His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends."

_silly sooth_. "Twelfth Night," ii, 4, 47.

P. 239. _denotes a foregone conclusion_. "Othello." iii, 3, 428.

P. 240. _in cell monastic_. Cf. "As You Like It," iii, 2, 441: "To live in a nook merely monastic."

P. 241. _thoughts that breathe_. Gray's "Progress of Poesy," 110.

P. 242. _Lord Byron does not exhibit a new view of nature._ In the paper on "Pope, Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles," Hazlitt's tone is more generous: "His Lordship likes the poetry, the imaginative part of art, and so do we.... He likes the _sombre_ part of it, the thoughtful, the decayed, the ideal, the spectral shadow of human greatness, the departed spirit of human power. He sympathizes not with art as a display of ingenuity, as the triumph of vanity or luxury, as it is connected with the idiot, superficial, petty self-complacency of the individual and the moment (these are to him not 'luscious as locusts, but bitter as coloquintida'); but he sympathizes with the triumphs of Time and Fate over the proudest works of man--with the crumbling monuments of human glory--with the dim vestiges and countless generations of men--with that which claims alliance with the grave, or kindred with the elements of nature." Works, XI, 496.

_poor men's cottages_. "Merchant of Venice," i, 2, 14.

_reasons high_. "Paradise Lost," II, 558.

P. 243. _Till Contemplation_. Dyer's "Grongar Hill," 26.

_this bank_. "Macbeth," i, 7, 6.

P. 244. _The Liberal_: Verse and Prose from the South, a quarterly published in Italy by Leigh Hunt and Byron, 1822-23, to which Hazlitt also contributed. In the second of its four numbers appeared Byron's "Heaven and Earth: A Mystery."

_the deluge_, in "Heaven and Earth."

_his aversion_. See "Don Juan," III, stanza 94:

"A drowsy frowzy poem, called the Excursion, Writ in a manner which is my aversion."

_born in a garret_. In the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," Byron, speaking of Jeffrey, refers to "the sixteenth story, where himself was born."

_Letter to the Editor_. The Letter to William Roberts, editor of the British Review, appeared in the first number of the Liberal.

_Long's_, a restaurant in Bond Street.

P. 245. _the controversy about Pope_. See note to p. 118.

_Scrub_, in Farquhar's "Beaux' Stratagem."

_very tolerable_. "Much Ado About Nothing," iii, 3, 37.

P. 246. _a chartered libertine_. "Henry V," i, 1, 48.

P. 247. _Like proud seas_. "Two Noble Kinsmen," ii, 2, 23.

_Did the latter ever acknowledge the obligation?_ Scott wrote to Byron's publisher, John Murray, December 17, 1821: "I accept with feelings of great obligation, the flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to the very grand and tremendous drama of 'Cain.' I may be partial to it, and you will allow I have cause; but I do not think that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings."

_Farthest from them_. "Paradise Lost," I, 247.

P. 248. _the first Vision of Judgment_, the one composed by Southey on the occasion of the death of George III, celebrating that monarch's entry into heaven and provoking a spirited travesty from Byron.

_None but itself_. This line is quoted by Burke in the "Letters on a Regicide Peace," from a play written or adapted by Lewis Theobald, "The Double Falsehood" (1727). Waller-Glover.

_the tenth transmitter_. Richard Savage's "The Bastard."

P. 250. _Nothing can cover_. Beaumont and Fletcher's "The False One," ii, 1.

ON POETRY IN GENERAL

This is the first of the "Lectures on the English Poets."

P. 251. _spreads its sweet leaves_. "Romeo and Juliet," i, 1, 158.

P. 252. _the stuff_. "Tempest," iv, 1, 156.

_mere oblivion_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 166.

_man's life_. "King Lear," ii, 4, 270.

P. 253. _There is warrant_. "Richard III," i, 4, 112.

_such seething brains_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 4.

_Angelica and Medoro_. Characters in "Orlando Furioso."

P. 254. _which ecstacy is very cunning in_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 138.

_Poetry, according to Lord Bacon_. Cf. Bacon's "Advancement of Learning,"

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