Part I

, p. 125 (ed. G. A. Aitken).

P. 270. _give an echo_. "Twelfth Night," ii, 4, 21.

P. 271. _Our poesy_. "Timon of Athens," i, 1, 21.

P. 272. _all plumed_. Cf. 1 "Henry IV," iv, 1, 98:

"All plumed like estridges that with the wind Baited like eagles having lately bathed; Glittering in golden coats, like images; As full of spirits as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls."

_If we fly_. Psalms, cxxxix, 9.

P. 275. _Pope Anastatius_. "Inferno," xi, 8.

_Count Ugolino_. Ibid., xxxiii.

_Ossian_. James Macpherson (1736-1796) published between 1760 and 1765 what he alleged to be a translation of the ancient Gaelic hero-bard, Oisin or Ossian. The poems fed the romantic appetite of the generation and were translated into practically every European language. In Germany especially the influence of "Ossian" wrought powerfully through the enthusiasm it aroused in the young Goethe and in Schiller. In England, the poems, immediately upon their appearance, gave rise to a long controversy as to their authenticity, Dr. Johnson being among the first to attack the belief in their antiquity. The truth seems to be that, though there really is a legendary hero answering to Ossian, no such poems as Macpherson attributed to him were ever transmitted. The whole work is to all intents the original creation of Macpherson himself. The supposed Gaelic originals, which were published by the Highland Society of London in 1807, have been proved by philologists to be spurious, to be nothing in fact but translations into bad Gaelic from Macpherson's good English. This conclusion is further supported by the mass of borrowings from the Bible and the classics which have been found in "Ossian." See J. C. Smart: "James Macpherson, An Episode in Literature" (1905).

P. 276. _lamentation of Selma_. Lament of Colma in "Songs of Selma," Ossian, ed. William Sharp, p. 410.

_Roll on_. Cf. ibid., p. 417: "ye bring no joy on your course!"

MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS

[The identification of quotations has been omitted for this essay in order to allow students an opportunity to try it for themselves.]

The third and fourth paragraphs of this essay had appeared in a letter of Hazlitt's to the Examiner (Works, III, 152). The entire essay was first published in the third number of the Liberal (see note to p. 244).

P. 277. _W--m_. Wem.

P. 281. _Murillo_ (1617-1682) and _Velasquez_ (1599-1660) are the two greatest Spanish painters.

_nothing--like what he has done_. In the essay "On Depth and Superficiality" ("Plain Speaker"), Hazlitt characterizes Coleridge as "a great but useless thinker."

P. 282. _Adam Smith_ (1723-1790), founder of the science of political economy, author of "The Wealth of Nations" (1776).

_huge folios_. In the essay "On Pedantry" ("Round Table") Hazlitt writes: "In the library of the family where we were brought up, stood the _Fratres Poloni_; and we can never forget or describe the feeling with which not only their appearance, but the names of the authors on the outside inspired us. Pripscovius, we remember, was one of the easiest to pronounce. The gravity of the contents seemed in proportion to the weight of the volumes; the importance of the subjects increased with our ignorance of them."

P. 283, n. Hazlitt's father was the author of "Discourses for the Use of Families on the Advantages of a Free Enquiry and on the Study of the Scriptures" (1790) and of "Sermons for the Use of Families" in two volumes (1808).

P. 284. _Mary Wolstonecraft_ (1759-1797), author of the "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792).

_Mackintosh_, Sir James (1765-1832), wrote "Vindiciæ Gallicæ, a Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers against the Accusations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke." Hazlitt writes of Mackintosh in the "Spirit of the Age" as "one of the ablest and most accomplished men of the age, both as a writer, a speaker, and a converser," and comparing him with Coleridge, he remarks, "They have nearly an equal range of reading and of topics of conversation; but in the mind of the one we see nothing but _fixtures_, in the other every thing is fluid."

_Tom Wedgwood_ (1771-1805) was an associate of some of the literary men of his day.

P. 285. _Holcroft_, Thomas (1745-1809), actor, dramatist, novelist, a member of Godwin's group of radicals. His chief writings are "The Road to Ruin" (1792), "Anna St. Ives" (1792), and "Hugh Trevor" (1794-97). Holcroft's "Memoirs," written by himself, were edited and completed by Hazlitt and published in 1816 (Works, II).

P. 286. _Hume_, David (1711-1776), historian and sceptic philosopher, described by Hazlitt as "one of the subtlest and most metaphysical of all metaphysicians." His chief writings are "A Treatise on Human Nature, being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects" (1739-40), "Philosophical Essays" (1748), "Four Dissertations" (1757).

P. 287. _Essay on Vision_. Hazlitt calls this "the greatest by far of all his works and the most complete example of elaborate analytical reasoning and particular induction joined together that perhaps ever existed." (Works, XI, 108).

_Tom Paine_ (1737-1809), an influential revolutionary writer, author of "Common Sense" (1776), a pamphlet advocating American independence, "Rights of Man" (1791), a reply to Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," and "The Age of Reason" (1795). He also took an active part in both the American and French revolutions.

_prefer the unknown to the known_. Cf. the first essay "On the Conversation of Authors": "Coleridge withholds his tribute of applause from every person, in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least glimpse of understanding. He would be thought to look farther into a millstone than any body else. He would have others see with his eyes, and take their opinions from him on trust, in spite of their senses. The more obscure and defective the indications of merit, the greater his sagacity and candour in being the first to point them out. He looks upon what he nicknames _a man of genius_, but as the breath of his nostrils, and the clay in the potter's hands. If any such inert, unconscious mass, under the fostering care of the modern Prometheus, is kindled into life,--begins to see, speak, and move, so as to attract the notice of other people,--our jealous patroniser of latent worth in that case throws aside, scorns, and hates his own handy-work; and deserts his intellectual offspring from the moment they can go alone and shift for themselves."

_a discovery on the same subject_. Hazlitt's first publication, "On the Principles of Human Action."

P. 288. _I sat down to the task_, etc. Cf. "On Application to Study" ("Plain Speaker"): "If what I write at present is worth nothing, at least it costs me nothing. But it cost me a great deal twenty years ago. I have added little to my stock since then, and taken little from it. I 'unfold the book and volume of the brain,' and transcribe the characters I see there as mechanically as any one might copy the letters in a sampler. I do not say they came there mechanically--I transfer them to the paper mechanically." See also p. 345.

P. 289. _which ... he has somewhere told himself_. "Biographia Literaria," ch. 10.

_that other Vision of Judgment_. Byron's.

_Bridge-Street Junto_. "The Constitutional Association or, as it was called by its opponents, 'The Bridge Street Gang,' founded in 1821 'to support the laws for suppressing seditious publications, and for defending the country from the fatal influence of disloyalty and sedition.' The Association was an ill-conducted party organisation and created so much opposition by its imprudent prosecutions that it very soon disappeared. See an article in the Edinburgh Review for June, 1822." Waller-Glover, VI, 487.

P. 290. _at Tewkesbury_. In the essay "On Going a Journey," Hazlitt refers to this episode as occurring at Bridgewater: "I remember sitting up half the night to read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn in Bridgewater, after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got through two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla."

_Paul and Virginia_ (1788), a sentimental novel by Bernardin St. Pierre (1737-1814).

P. 291. _Camilla_ (1796), a novel by Fanny Burney (1752-1840).

_a friend of the poet's_. "This is a mistake. Wordsworth paid £23 a year for Alfoxden. The agreement is given in Mrs. Henry Sandford's 'Thomas Poole and His Friends,' I, 225." Waller-Glover.

P. 292. _In the outset of life_. Alongside of this paragraph should be read the essay "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth," Works, XII, 150.

P. 294. _Chantrey_, Sir Francis (1781-1842). His bust of Wordsworth is now at Cole-Orton.

_Haydon_, Benjamin Robert (1786-1846), a celebrated English painter who was intimate with many literary men. In the picture referred to Haydon also introduced a portrait of Hazlitt.

_Monk Lewis_. Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) wrote among other things a sensational novel, "The Monk" (1795), which gained him his nickname. "The Castle Spectre" was originally produced at the Drury Lane Theatre in 1797.

P. 295. _Tom Poole_ (1765-1837), friend and patron of Coleridge.

P. 296. _Sir Walter Scott's_, etc. Probably a reference to the banquet given to George IV by the Magistrates of Edinburgh and attended by Scott, August 24, 1822.

_Blackwood_, William (1776-1834), the Edinburgh publisher.

_Gaspar Poussin_ (1613-1675). His real name was Dughet, but he changed it out of respect to his brother-in-law, Nicholas Poussin.

_Domenichino_ or Domenico Zampieri (1581-1641), a painter of Bologna.

P. 297. _Death of Abel_ (1758), an idyllic-pastoral poem by Solomon Gessner (1730-1788), a German poet of the Swiss school who enjoyed a wide popularity in the eighteenth century.

P. 298. _since the days of Henry II_. As Henry II lived in the twelfth century, and as neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth ever refer to the language of Henry II as their standard, the statement in the text may probably be considered as a blunder of Hazlitt's.

_He spoke with contempt of Gray and with intolerance of Pope._ Cf. "Biographia Literaria," ch. 2: "I felt almost as if I had been newly couched, when, by Mr. Wordsworth's conversation, I had been induced to re-examine with impartial strictness Gray's celebrated Elegy. I had long before detected the defects in The Bard; but the Elegy I had considered as proof against all fair attacks; and to this day I can not read either without delight, and a portion of enthusiasm. At all events whatever pleasure I may have lost by the clearer perception of the faults in certain passages, has been more than repaid to me by the additional delight with which I read the remainder." In his "Table Talk," October 23, 1833, Coleridge says again: "I think there is something very majestic in Gray's Installation Ode; but as to the Bard and the rest of his lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and artificial." Of Pope and his followers he writes ("Biographia Literaria," ch. 1): "I was not blind to the merits of this school, yet, as from inexperience of the world, and consequent want of sympathy with the general subjects of these poems, they gave me little pleasure, I doubtless undervalued the kind, and with the presumption of youth withheld from its masters the legitimate name of poets. I saw that the excellence of this kind consisted in just and acute observations on men and manners in an artificial state of society, as its matter and substance, and in the logic of wit, conveyed in smooth and strong epigrammatic couplets, as its form; that even when the subject was addressed to the fancy, or the intellect, as in the Rape of the Lock, or the Essay on Man; nay, when it was a consecutive narration, as in that astonishing product of matchless talent and ingenuity, Pope's Translation of the Iliad; still a point was looked for at the end of each second line, and the whole was, as it were, a _sorites_, or, if I may exchange a logical for a grammatical metaphor, a conjunction disjunctive, of epigrams. Meantime, the matter and diction seemed to me characterized not so much by poetic thoughts, as by thoughts translated into the language of poetry."

_he thought little of Junius as a writer_. Cf. Coleridge's "Table Talk," July 3, 1833: "The style of Junius is a sort of metre, the law of which is a balance of thesis and antithesis. When he gets out of his aphorismic metre into a sentence of five or six lines long, nothing can exceed the slovenliness of the English."

_dislike for Dr. Johnson_. Cf. "Table Talk," July 4, 1833: "Dr. Johnson's fame now rests principally upon Boswell. It is impossible not to be amused with such a book. But his _bow-wow_ manner must have had a good deal to do with the effect produced.... As to Burke's testimony to Johnson's powers, you must remember that Burke was a great courtier; and after all, Burke said and wrote more than once that he thought Johnson greater in talking than in writing, and greater in Boswell than in real life."

_opinion of Burke_. Cf. "Table Talk," April 8, 1833: "Burke was indeed a great man. No one ever read history so philosophically as he seems to have done.... He would have been more influential if he had less surpassed his contemporaries, as Fox and Pitt, men of much inferior minds, in all respects."

_He liked Richardson, but not Fielding._ On this subject Coleridge evidently changed his mind. Cf. "Table Talk," July 5, 1834: "What a master of composition Fielding was! Upon my word, I think the OEdipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones the three most perfect plots ever planned. And how charming, how wholesome, Fielding always is! To take him up after Richardson is like emerging from a sickroom heated by stoves into an open lawn on a breezy day in May."

_Caleb Williams_, the chief novel of William Godwin.

P. 298, n. _He had no idea of pictures_. See p. 212.

_Buffamalco_. Cristofani Buonamico (1262-1351), also known as Buffalmacco, a painter of Florence.

P. 300. _Elliston_, Robert William (1774-1813), actor and later manager of the Drury Lane Theatre.

_still continues_. See p. 224 and n.

ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS

This is the title of Essays III and IV of the "Plain Speaker." Our selection begins with the last paragraph of the first, which forms a fitting introduction to the account of one of Lamb's celebrated Wednesday evenings. Lamb tells us that his sister was accustomed to read this essay with unmixed delight.

P. 301. _When Greek meets Greek_. Nathaniel Lee's "Alexander the Great," iv, 2.

_C----_. Coleridge.

P. 302. _small-coal man_. Thomas Britton (1654?-1714), a dealer in small coal, who on the floor of his hut above the coal-shop held weekly concerts of vocal and instrumental music, at which the greatest performers of the day, even Handel, were to be heard.

_And, in our flowing cups_. Cf. "Henry V," iv, 3, 51:

"then shall our names Familiar in his mouth as household words ... Be in their flowing cups freely remember'd."

P. 303. _the cartoons_. See Hazlitt's account of Raphael's cartoons in "The Pictures at Hampton Court" (Works, IX, 43).

_Donne_, John (1573-1631), poet and divine. Hazlitt in the "Lectures on the English Poets" confesses that he knows nothing of him save "some beautiful verses to his wife, dissuading her from accompanying him on his travels abroad (see p. 318), and some quaint riddles in verse, which the Sphinx could not unravel." V, 83.

P. 304. _Ned P----_. Edward Phillips. Lamb speaks of him as "that poor card-playing Phillips, that has felt himself for so many years the outcast of Fortune." (Works, ed. Lucas, VII, 972.)

_Captain ----_. Rear-Admiral James Burney (1750-1821), brother of Fanny Burney the novelist, author of a "Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean" in five volumes (1803-1817). "The captain was himself a character, a fine, noble creature--gentle, with a rough exterior, as became the associate of Captain Cook in his voyages round the world, and the literary historian of all these acts of circumnavigation." Crabb-Robinson's Diary, 1810.

_Jem White_. James White (1775-1820), of whom Lamb has left us a sketch in the essay "On the Praise of Chimney-Sweepers": "He carried away half the fun of the world when he died." He wrote, it is supposed with some cooperation from Lamb, the "Original Letters, etc., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends" (1796), which were described by Lamb as "without exception the best imitations I ever saw." (Works, ed. Lucas, VI, 2.) A review of this book by Lamb, consisting chiefly of specimens, appeared in the Examiner in 1819 (Works, ed. Lucas, I, 191 ff).

_turning like the latter end_. This phrase occurs in one of the extracts in Lamb's review of Falstaff's Letters just mentioned (p. 194).

_A----_. William Aryton (1777-1858), a musical critic and director of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket. In the letter of Elia to Robert Southey (Lamb's Works, I, 230) he is spoken of as "the last and steadiest left me of that little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble weekly, for so many years, at the Queen's Gate."

_Mrs. R-----_. Mrs. Reynolds, who had been Lamb's schoolmistress.

_M. B._ Martin Charles Burney, son of Admiral Burney. "Martin Burney is as odd as ever.... He came down here, and insisted on reading Virgil's 'Æneid' all through with me (which he did,) because a Counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a Court of Justice. A third time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very ill-favoredly, because 'we did not know how indispensable it was for a Barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were of more consequence than we supposed.' So he goes on, harassing about the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat wrong one--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one--: may be, he has tired him out." Lamb's Works, VII, 855.

_Author of the Road to Ruin_. Thomas Holcroft.

P. 305. _Critique of Pure Reason_, by Kant.

_Biographia Literaria_. Coleridge's account of his literary life, published in 1817.

_Those days are over!_ The event here referred to may be Waterloo. Mr. Lucas thinks that Hazlitt's share in Lamb's gatherings "ceased after an unfortunate discussion of Fanny Burney's Wanderer, which Hazlitt condemned in terms that her brother, the Admiral, could not forgive." (Lamb's Works, I, 482.) It is likely that Mr. Lucas has been led astray by the statement in Crabb-Robinson's Diary to the effect that Hazlitt used to attend Captain Burney's whist-parties "till he affronted the Captain by severe criticisms on the works of his sister," presumably by his article in the Edinburgh Review in 1814. Hazlitt commemorates Lamb's evenings in the "Pleasure of Hating" ("Plain Speaker"): "What is become of 'that set of whist players,' celebrated by Elia in his notable _Epistle to Robert Southey, Esq._ ... 'that for so many years called Admiral Burney friend?' They are scattered, like last year's snow. Some of them are dead--or gone to live at a distance--or pass one another in the street like strangers; or if they stop to speak, do it as coolly and try to _cut_ one another as soon as possible. Some of us have grown rich--others poor. Some have got places under Government--others a _niche_ in the Quarterly Review. Some of us have dearly earned a name in the world; whilst others remain in their original privacy. We despise the one, and envy and are glad to mortify the other."

_Like angels' visits_. Cf. Blair's "The Grave," 582: "Like those of angels, short and far between." Hazlitt was fond of pointing out this source for Campbell's famous line "Like angels' visits few and far between," and of insisting that the alteration spoiled the sense. Thereby he is said to have incurred Campbell's bitter hostility.

P. 306. _Mr. Douce_, Francis (1757-1834), Shakespearian scholar and keeper of the manuscripts in the British Museum.

_L. H----_. Leigh Hunt. There is a sketch of him in the "Spirit of the Age."

_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_. "He sometimes had to be checked." This is a quotation from Seneca which Ben Jonson in "Timber" (ed. Schelling, p. 23) had applied to Shakespeare.

P. 307. _The Indicator_. Leigh Hunt's most successful series of essays, which began their run in 1819.

_Mr. Northcote_, James (1746-1831), the painter of whose talk Hazlitt has left an entertaining record in the "Conversations of James Northcote" (1830), a book which inspired Crabb-Robinson to say, "I do not believe that Boswell gives so much good talk in an equal quantity of his life of Johnson."

P. 308. _Sir Joshua's_. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the famous English painter.

P. 309. _Horne Tooke_ (1736-1812), politician and author of a celebrated philological volume, "The Diversions of Purley" (1786, 1805). His portrait is included in the "Spirit of the Age": "He was without a rival (almost) in private conversation, an expert public speaker, a keen politician, a first-rate grammarian, and the finest gentleman (to say the least) of his own party. He had no imagination (or he would not have scorned it!)--no delicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments: his intellect was like a bow of polished steel, from which he shot sharp-pointed poisoned arrows at his friends in private, at his enemies in public."

_hear a sound so fine_. J. S. Knowles's "Virginius," v, 2.

P. 310. _silenced a learned professor_. Cf. "Spirit of the Age": "He used to plague Fuseli by asking him after the origin of the Teutonic dialects, and Dr. Parr, by wishing to know the meaning of the common copulative, _Is_."

_Curran_, John Philpot (1750-1817), member of Parliament from Ireland, orator and wit.

P. 311. _Mrs. Inchbald_, Elizabeth (1753-1821), a well-known actress, dramatist, and novelist. In literature she is associated with the group of William Godwin, and her best-known works are "A Simple Story" and "Nature and Art."

_from noon to dewy eve_. "Paradise Lost," I, 743.

_Mrs. M----_. Mrs. Montagu, wife of Basil Montagu. In the "Pleasure of Hating" ("Plain Speaker") there is another allusion to Mrs. Montagu "whose dark raven locks made a picturesque background to our discourse."

_H--t's_. Leigh Hunt's.

_N--'s_. Northcote's.

_H--yd--n's_. Haydon's.

_Doctor Tronchin_. Theodore Tronchin, a physician of Geneva, figures in Rousseau's "Confessions."

P. 312. _Sir Fopling Flutter_, a character in George Etherege's comedy, "The Man of Mode."

_For wit is like a rest_. "Master Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Jonson." For _players_ read _gamesters_.

_came down into the country_. Charles and Mary Lamb with a few of their friends paid a visit to Hazlitt at Winterslow in 1810.

_Like the most capricious poet_. "As You Like It," iii, 3, 8.

_walked gowned_. Lamb's "Sonnet Written at Cambridge, August 15, 1819."

P. 313. _the person I mean_. George Dyer (1755-1841), an amiable hack-writer and a friend of Lamb. He figures prominently in two of the Essays of Elia, "Oxford in the Vacation" and "Amicus Redivivus," and in many of Lamb's letters. "To G. D. a poem is a poem. His own as good as any bodie's, and god bless him, any bodie's as good as his own, for I do not think he has the most distant guess of the possibility of one poem being better than another. The Gods by denying him the very faculty itself of discrimination have effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom." Letter to Wordsworth (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, VI, 519).

OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN

This, like the preceding essay, is a record of one of Lamb's Wednesday evenings. It was originally published in the New Monthly Magazine for January, 1826, from which the present text is reproduced. It was republished by Hazlitt's son in "Literary Remains" (1836) and "Winterslow" (1850).

P. 315. _Come like shadows_. "Macbeth," iv, 1, 111.

_B----_. Lamb. The name is supplied in "Literary Remains."

_defence of Guy Faux_. See p. 224 and n.

_Never so sure_. Pope's "Moral Essays," II, 51.

_A----_. William Ayrton.

P. 316. _in his habit_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 135.

P. 317. _And call up him_. "Il Penseroso," 109.

_wished that mankind_. Browne's "Religio Medici,"