L.

No. XI

_[December, 1820._

‘At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.’

Why was not this No. XII. instead of No. XI. of the Acted Drama in London? Had we but seen No. XII. at the head of our article for December, we had been happy, ‘as broad and casing as the general air, whole as the marble, founded as the rock,’ but now we are ‘cooped and cabined in by saucy doubts and fears.’ Had No. XI. been ready in time, we should have been irreproachable ‘in act and complement extern,’ which is with us every thing. Punctuality is ‘the immediate jewel of our souls.’ We leave it to others to be shrewd, ingenious, witty and wise; to think deeply, and write finely; it is enough for us to be exactly dull. The categories of _number_ and _quantity_ are what we chiefly delight in; for on these depend (by arithmetical computation) the pounds, shillings, and pence. We suspect that those writers only trouble their heads about fame, who cannot get any thing more substantial for what they write; and are in fact equally at a loss for ‘solid pudding or for empty praise.’ That is not the case with us. We have money in our purse, and reputation—to spare. Nothing troubles us but that our article on the drama was wanting for November—on this point we are inconsolable. No more delight in regularity—no more undisturbed complacency in the sense of arduous duty conscientiously discharged—no more confidence in meeting our Editors—no more implicit expectation of our monthly decisions on the part of the public! As the Italian poet for one error of the press, in a poem presented to the Pope, died of chagrin, so we for one deficiency in this series of Dramatic Criticisms (complete but for that) must resign! We have no other way left to appease our scrupulous sense of critical punctilio. That there was but one link wanting, is no matter—

‘Tenth or ten thousandth break the chain alike.’

There was one Number (the eleventh) of the LONDON MAGAZINE, of which the curious reader turned over the pages with eager haste, and found no Drama—a thing never to be remedied! It was no fault of ours that it was so. A friend hath done this. The author of the Calendar of Nature (a pleasing and punctual performance) has spoiled our Calendar of Art, and robbed us of that golden rigol of periodical praise, that we had in fancy ‘bound our brows withal.’ With the month our contribution to the stock of literary amusement and scientific intelligence returned without fail. In January, we gave an account of all the actors we had ever seen or heard of. In February, we confined ourselves to Miss O’Neill. In March, we expatiated at large on the Minor Theatres, and took great delight in the three Miss Dennetts. In April (being at Ilminster, a pretty town in the Vale of Taunton, and thence passing on to the Lamb at Hindon, a dreary spot), we proved at these two places, sitting in an arm-chair by a sea-coal fire, very satisfactorily, and without fear of contradiction,—neither Mr. Maturin, Mr. Shiel, nor Mr. Milman being present,—that no modern author could write a tragedy. In May, we wrote an article which filled the proper number of columns, though we forget what it was about. In June, we had to show that a modern author had written a tragedy (Virginius)—an opinion, which, though it overset our theory, we are by no means desirous to retract. We still say, that that play is better than Bertram, though Mr. Maturin, in the Preface to Melmoth, says it is not. As in June we were not dry, neither in July were we droughty. We found something to say in this and the following month without being much indebted to the actors or actresses, though, if Miss Tree came out in either of those months, we ought to recollect it, and mark the event with _a white stone_. We had rather hear her sing in ordinary cases than Miss Stephens, though not in extraordinary ones. By the bye, when will that little pouting[46] slut, with crystalline eyes and voice, return to us from the sister island? The Dublin critics hardly pretend to keep her to themselves, on the ground that they (like the Edinburgh wags) are better judges and patrons of merit, than we of famous London town.—The Irish are impudent: but they are not so impudent as the Scotch. This is a digression. To proceed.—In August, we had a skirmish with the facetious and biting Janus, of versatile memory, on his assumed superiority in dramatic taste and skill, when we corrected him for his contempt of court—and the Miss Dennetts, our wards in criticism. In September, we got an able article written for us; for we flatter ourselves, that we not only say good things ourselves, but are the cause of them in others. In October, we called Mr. Elliston to task for taking, in his vocation of manager, improper liberties with the public. But in November, (may that dark month stand aye accursed in the Calendar!) we failed, and failed, as how? Our friend, the ingenious writer aforesaid (one of the most ingenious and sharp-witted men of his age, but not so remarkable for the virtue of _reliability_ as Mr. Coleridge’s friend, the poet-laureate), was to take a mutton-chop with us, and afterwards we were to go to the play, and club our forces in a criticism—but he never came, _we_ never went to the play (The Stranger with Charles Kemble as the hero, and a new Mrs. Haller), and the criticism was never written. The Drama of the LONDON MAGAZINE for that month is left a blank!—We were in hopes that our other contributors might have been proportionably on the alert; but, on the contrary, we were sorry to hear it remarked by more than one person, that the Magazine for November was, on the whole, dull. There was no TABLE-TALK, for instance, an article which we take up immediately after we have perused our own, and seldom lay it down till we get to the end of it, though we think the papers too long. We are glad to see the notice from the redoubtable LION’S HEAD of No. V. for the present Number, for we understand that a Cockney, in clandestine correspondence with Blackwood, on looking for it in the last, and finding it _missing_, had sent off instant word, that the writer ‘was expelled’ from the LONDON MAGAZINE. We are sure we should be sorry for that.

If theatrical criticisms were only written when there is something worth writing about, it would be hard upon us who live by them. Are we not to receive our quarter’s salary (like Mr. Croker in the piping time of peace) because Mrs. Siddons has left the stage, and ‘has not left her peer;’ or because John Kemble will not return to it with renewed health and vigour, to prop a falling house, and falling art; or because Mr. Kean has gone to America; or because Mr. Wallack has arrived from that country? No; the duller the stage grows, the gayer and more edifying must we become in ourselves: the less we have to say about that, the more room we have to talk about other things. Now would be the time for Mr. Coleridge to turn his talents to account, and write for the stage, when there is no topic to confine his pen, or, ‘constrain his genius by mastery.’ ‘With mighty wings outspread, his imagination might brood over the void and make it pregnant.’ Under the assumed head of the Drama, he might unfold the whole mysteries of Swedenborg, or ascend the third heaven of invention with Jacob Behmen: he might write a treatise on all the unknown sciences, and finish the Encyclopedia Metropolitana in a pocket form:—nay, he might bring to a satisfactory close his own dissertation on the difference between the Imagination and the Fancy,[47] before, in all probability, another great actor appears, or another tragedy or comedy is written. He is the man of all others to swim on empty bladders in a sea, without shore or soundings: to drive an empty stage-coach without passengers or lading, and arrive behind his time; to write marginal notes without a text; to look into a millstone to foster the rising genius of the age; to ‘see merit in the chaos of its elements, and discern perfection in the great obscurity of nothing,’ as his most favourite author, Sir Thomas Brown, has it on another occasion. Alas! we have no such creative talents: we cannot amplify, expand, raise our flimsy discourse, as the gaseous matter fills and lifts the round, glittering, slow-sailing balloon, to ‘the up-turned eyes of wondering mortals.’ Here is our bill of fare for the month, our list of memoranda—_The French dancers_—_Farren’s Deaf Lover_—_Macready’s Zanga_—_Mr. Cooper’s Romeo_. _A new farce, not acted a second time—Wallace, a tragedy,—_and_ Mr. Wallack’s Hamlet._ Who can make any thing of such a beggarly account as this? Not we. Yet as poets at a pinch invoke the Muse, so we, for once, will invoke Mr. Coleridge’s better genius, and thus we hear him talk, diverting our attention from the players and the play.

‘The French, my dear H——,’ would he begin, ‘are not a people of imagination. They have so little, that you cannot persuade them to conceive it possible that they have none. They have no poetry, no such thing as genius, from the age of Louis XIV. It was that, their boasted Augustan age, which stamped them French, which put the seal upon their character, and from that time nothing has grown up original or luxuriant, or spontaneous among them; the whole has been cast in a mould, and that a bad one. Montaigne and Rabelais (their two greatest men, the one for thought, and the other for imaginative humour,—for the distinction between imagination and fancy holds in ludicrous as well as serious composition) I consider as Franks rather than Frenchmen, for in their time the national literature was not _set_, was neither mounted on stilts, nor buckramed in stays. Wit they had too, if I could persuade myself that Moliere was a genuine Frenchman, but I cannot help suspecting that his mother played his reputed father false, and that an Englishman begot him. I am sure his genius is English; and his wit not of the Parisian cut. As a proof of this, see how his most extravagant farces, the Mock-doctor, Barnaby Brittle, &c. take with us. What can be more to the taste of our _bourgeoisie_, more adapted to our native tooth, than his Country Wife, which Wycherly did little else than translate into English? What success a translator of Racine into our vernacular tongue would meet with, I leave you to guess. His tragedies are not poetry, are not passion, are not imagination: they are a parcel of set speeches, of epigrammatic conceits, of declamatory phrases, without any of the glow, and glancing rapidity, and principle of fusion in the mind of the poet, to agglomerate them into grandeur, or blend them into harmony. The principle of the imagination resembles the emblem of the serpent, by which the ancients typified wisdom and the universe, with undulating folds, for ever varying and for ever flowing into itself,—circular, and without beginning or end. The definite, the fixed, is death: the principle of life is the indefinite, the growing, the moving, the continuous. But every thing in French poetry is cut up into shreds and patches, little flowers of poetry, with tickets and labels to them, as when the daughters of Jason minced and hacked their old father into collops—we have the _disjecta membra poetæ_—not the entire and living man. The spirit of genuine poetry should inform the whole work, should breathe through, and move, and agitate the complete mass, as the soul informs and moves the limbs of a man, or as the vital principle (whatever it be) permeates the veins of the loftiest trees, building up the trunk, and extending the branches to the sun and winds of heaven, and shooting out into fruit and flowers. This is the progress of nature and of genius. This is the true poetic faculty; or that which the Greeks literally called ποιησις. But a French play (I think it is Schlegel, who somewhere makes the comparison, though I had myself, before I ever read Schlegel, made the same remark) is like a child’s garden set with slips of branches and flowers, stuck in the ground, not growing in it. We may weave a gaudy garland in this manner, but it withers in an hour: while the products of genius and nature give out their odours to the gale, and spread their tints in the sun’s eye, age after age—

“Outlast a thousand storms, a thousand winters, Free from the Sirian star, free from the thunder stroke,”

and flourish in immortal youth and beauty. Every thing French is, in the way of it, frittered into parts: every thing is therefore dead and ineffective. French poetry is just like chopped logic: nothing comes of it. There is no life of mind: neither the birth nor generation of knowledge. It is all patch-work, all sharp points and angles, all superficial. They receive, and give out sensation, too readily for it ever to amount to a sentiment. They cannot even dance, as you may see. There is, I am sure you will agree, no expression, no grace in their dancing. Littleness, point, is what damns them in all they do. With all their vivacity, and animal spirits, they dance not like men and women under the impression of certain emotions, but like puppets; they twirl round like _tourniquets_. Not to feel, and not to think, is all they know of this art or any other. You might swear that a nation that danced in that manner would never produce a true poet or philosopher. They have it not in them. There is not the principle of cause and effect. They make a sudden turn because there is no reason for it: they stop short, or move fast, only because you expect something else. Their style of dancing is difficult: would it were impossible.’[48] (By this time several persons in the pit had turned round to listen to this uninterrupted discourse, and our eloquent friend went on, rather raising his voice with a _Paulo majora canamus_.) ‘Look at that Mademoiselle Milanie with “the foot of fire,” as she is called. You might contrive a paste-board figure, with the help of strings or wires, to do all, and more, than she does—to point the toe, to raise the leg, to jerk the body, to run like wild-fire. Antics are not grace: to dance is not to move against time. My dear H——, if you could see a dance by some Italian peasant-girls in the Campagna of Rome, as I have, I am sure your good taste and good sense would approve it. They came forward slow and smiling, but as if their limbs were steeped in luxury, and every motion seemed an echo of the music, and the heavens looked on serener as they trod. You are right about the Miss Dennetts, though you have all the cant-phrases against you. It is true, they break down in some of their steps, but it is like “the lily drooping on its stalk green,” or like “the flowers Proserpina let fall from Dis’s waggon.” Those who cannot see grace in the youth and inexperience of these charming girls, would see no beauty in a cluster of hyacinths, bent with the morning dew. To shew at once what is, and is not French, there is Mademoiselle Hullin, she is Dutch. Nay, she is just like a Dutch doll, as round-faced, as rosy, and looks for all the world as if her limbs were made of wax-work, and would take in pieces, but not as if she could move them of her own accord. Alas, poor tender thing! As to the men, I confess’ (this was said to me in an audible whisper, lest it might be construed into a breach of confidence) ‘I should like, as Southey says, to have them _hamstrung_!’—(At this moment Monsieur Hullin _Pere_ looked as if this charitable operation was about to be performed on him by an extra-official warrant from the poet-laureate.)

‘Pray, H——, have you seen Macready’s Zanga?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what do you think of it?’

‘I did not like it much.’

‘Nor I.—Macready has talents and a magnificent voice, but he is, I fear, too improving an actor to be a man of genius. That little ill-looking vagabond Kean never improved in any thing. In some things he could not, and in others he would not. The only parts of M.’s Zanga that I liked (which of course I only half-liked) were some things in imitation of the _extremely natural manner_ of Kean, and his address to Alonzo, urging him, as the greatest triumph of his self-denial, to sacrifice

“A wife, a bride, a mistress unenjoyed—”

where his voice rose exulting on the sentiment, like the thunder that clothes the neck of the war-horse. The person that pleased me most in this play was Mrs. Sterling: she did justice to her part—a thing not easy to do. I like Macready’s Wallace better than his Zanga, though the play is not a good one, and it is difficult for the actor to find out the author’s meaning. I would not judge harshly of a first attempt, but the faults of youthful genius are exuberance, and a continual desire of novelty: now the faults of this play are tameness, common-place, and clap-traps. It is said to be written by young Walker, the son of the Westminster orator. If so, his friend, Mr. Cobbett, will probably write a Theatrical Examiner of it in his next week’s Political Register. What, I would ask, can be worse, more out of character and costume, than to make Wallace drop his sword to have his throat cut by Menteith, merely because the latter has proved himself (what he suspected) a traitor and a villain, and then console himself for this voluntary martyrdom by a sentimental farewell to the rocks and mountains of his native country! This effeminate softness and wretched cant did not belong to the age, the country, or the hero. In this scene, however, Mr. Macready shone much; and in the attitude in which he stood after letting his sword fall, he displayed extreme grace and feeling. It was as if he had let his best friend, his trusty sword, drop like a serpent from his hand. Macready’s figure is awkward, but his attitudes are graceful and well composed.—Don’t you think so?’—

I answered, yes; and he then ran on in his usual manner, by inquiring into the metaphysical distinction between the grace of form, and the grace that arises from motion (as for instance, you may move a square form in a circular or waving line), and illustrated this subtle observation at great length and with much happiness. He asked me how it was, that Mr. Farren in the farce of the Deaf Lover, played the old gentleman so well, and failed so entirely in the young gallant. I said I could not tell. He then tried at a solution himself, in which I could not follow him so as to give the precise point of his argument. He afterwards defined to me, and those about us, the merits of Mr. Cooper and Mr. Wallack, classing the first as a respectable, and the last as a second-rate actor; with large grounds and learned definitions of his meaning on both points; and, as the lights were by this time nearly out, and the audience (except his immediate auditors) going away, he reluctantly ‘ended,’

‘But in Adam’s ear so pleasing left his voice,’

that I quite forgot I had to write my article on the Drama the next day; nor without his imaginary aid should I have been able to wind up my accounts for the year, as Mr. Matthews gets through his AT HOME by the help of a little awkward ventriloquism.

W. H.

_November 21, 1820._

NOTES

LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS

These Lectures were delivered at the Surrey Institution, in Blackfriars Road, in 1818, after the completion of the course on the English Poets (see vol. V.). Some particulars as to their delivery will be found in Talfourd’s edition of Lamb’s _Letters_ (see Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s reprint, Bohn, i. 38 _et seq._), and in Patmore’s _My Friends and Acquaintance_. See also Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s _Four Generations of a Literary Family_ (vol. I. pp. 121-2), where the opinions of Beckford and Thackeray are referred to. In the third edition of the Lectures (see Bibliographical Note) several passages ‘collected by the author, apparently with a view to a reprint of the volume,’ were interpolated. Two of these passages are taken from a long letter (published in full in the Appendix to these notes) which Hazlitt contributed to _The Morning Chronicle_, Oct. 15, 1813. The rest are taken from prefatory notices which he contributed to William Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (20 vols. 1818-1825), and are printed in the following notes.

LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY

PAGE

8. _The Tale of Slaukenbergius._ _Tristram Shandy_, vol. IV.

9. ‘_There is something in the misfortunes_,’ _etc._ Rochefoucault, _Maximes et Réflexions Morales_, CCXLI.

‘_They were talking_,’ _etc._ Farquhar’s _Beaux’ Stratagem_,

## Act III. Sc. 1.

_Lord Foppington._ In The _Relapse_ of Vanbrugh. See _post_, p. 82.

10. _Aretine laughed himself to death_, _etc._ The story is that while laughing at the jest Aretine fell from a stool and was killed.

_Sir Thomas More jested_, _etc._ More bade the executioner stay till he had put aside his beard, ‘for that,’ he said, ‘had never committed treason.’

_Rabelais and Wycherley._ ‘When Rabelais,’ says Bacon (Apophthegms), ‘the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend came to him afterwards, and asked him how he did? Rabelais answered, “Even going my journey, they have greased my boots already.”’ But his last words, uttered ‘avec un éclat de rire,’ were: ‘Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.’ It is said that Wycherley, on the night before he died, made his young wife promise that she would never marry an old man again. See a letter from Pope to Blount, Jan. 21, 1715-6 (_Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, VI. 366). Pope, after telling the story, adds: ‘I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour.’

_The dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet._ _The Beaux’ Stratagem_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke._ In Thomas Morton’s _School of Reform_ (1805). Cf. _post_, p. 391.

11. _The Liar._ By Samuel Foote (1762).

_The Busy Body._ By Susannah Centlivre (1709).

_The history of hobby-horses._ See _Tristram Shandy_, vol. I. especially chaps. XXIV. and XXV.

‘_Ever lifted leg._’ Cf. ‘A better never lifted leg.’ _Tam o’ Shanter_, 80.

12. _Malvolio’s punishment_, _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

_Christopher’s Sly’s drunken transformation._ _The Taming of the Shrew_, Induction, Sc. 2.

_Parson Adams’s fall_, _etc._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III. Chap. 7, Book IV. Chap. 14, and Book II. Chap. 12.

_Baltimore House._ In what is now Russell Square.

14. _The author of the Ancient Mariner._ Cf. a passage in the essay ‘On Dreams’ (_Plain Speaker_, vol. VII. pp. 23-24).

_Bishop Atterbury._ See Pope’s _Works_ (ed. Elwin and Courthope), IX. 21-4. As Mr. Austin Dobson, however, points out, it is not clear that the _Arabian Nights_ are referred to. Atterbury speaks of ‘Petit de la Croix’ as ‘the pretended author’ of the tales, from which it would appear that the tales he found so hard to read were not the _Arabian Nights_, but the _Contes Persans_ of Petit de la Croix, a translation of which Ambrose Philips had published in 1709.

‘_Favours secret_,’ _etc._ Burns, _Tam o’ Shanter_, 48.

‘_The soldiers_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Horner_, _etc._ Horner, in Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_; Millamant, in Congreve’s _The Way of the World_; Tattle and Miss Prue, in Congreve’s _Love for Love_; Archer and Cherry, in Farquhar’s _The Beaux’ Stratagem_; Mrs. Amlet, in Vanbrugh’s _The Confederacy_ (see Act III. Sc. 1); Valentine and Angelica, in _Love for Love_; Miss Peggy, in Garrick’s _The Country Girl_, adapted from _The Country Wife_; Anne Page, in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (See Act III. Sc. 1).

15. ‘_The age of comedy_,’ _etc._ An adaptation of Burke’s famous ‘But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.’ (_Reflections on the Revolution in France, Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89.)

‘_Accept a miracle_,’ _etc._ By the poet Young. See Spence’s _Anecdotes_, p. 378.

16. ‘_The sun had long since_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part II., Canto II. 29-38.

‘_By this the northern waggoner_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_,

## Book I., Canto II. St. 1.

‘_At last_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Book I., Canto V. St. 2.

17. ‘_But now a sport_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part I., Canto I. 675-688.

_Mr. Sheridan’s description_, _etc._ In his speech on the Definitive Treaty of Peace, May 14, 1802.

‘_The sarcastic reply of Porson._’ According to Rogers (Dyce, _Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers_, p. 330), the ‘not till then’ was the comment of Byron on a remark of Porson’s (_Porsoniana_) that ‘_Madoc_ will be read, when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.’

18. ‘_Compound for sins_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part I., Canto I., 215-216.

‘_There’s but the twinkling_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Part II., Canto III., 957-964.

‘_Now night descending_,’ _etc._ _The Dunciad_, I. 89-90.

19. _Harris._ James Harris (1709-1780), author of _Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Universal Grammar_ (1751).

20. ‘_A foregone conclusion._’ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Comes in such_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

‘_Soul-killing lies_,’ _etc._ Lamb, _John Woodvil_, Act II.

21. ‘_The instance might be painful_,’ _etc._ _Letters of Junius_, Letter XLIX.

‘_And ever_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 135-6.

_The reply of the author_, _etc._ This was Richard Owen Cambridge (1717-1802), contributor to Edward Moore’s _The World_ (1753-1756).

‘_Full of sound and fury_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_For thin partitions_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, Part I. 164.

_Mr. Curran._ Curran had died on October 14, 1817.

22. _Hæret lateri_, _etc._ _Æneid_, IV. 73.

_The Duke of Buckingham’s saying._ ‘And give me leave to tell your lordships, by the way, that statutes are not like women, for they are not one jot the worse for being old.’ Speech on the Dissolution of Parliament, 1676. The speech was included by Hazlitt in his _Eloquence of the British Senate_. See vol. III. p. 399.

_Mr. Addison, indeed_, _etc._ _The Spectator_, No. 61.

_Mandrake._ In Farquhar’s _The Twin Rivals_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Sir Hugh Evans._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act I. Sc. 1.

23. ‘_From the sublime_,’ _etc._ ‘Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas.’ Attributed to Napoleon. Thomas Paine had, however, said the same thing in his _Age of Reason_, Part II.

24. _Mr. Canning’s Court Parodies_, _etc._ In the _Anti-Jacobin_ (1797-1798). Southey was the victim of two of the best known of these parodies, the _Inscription for the door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the Prentice-cide, was confined previous to her execution_, and _The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder_.

_The Rejected Addresses._ By James and Horace Smith, published in 1812. The parody of Crabbe was by James Smith.

_Lear and the Fool._ The references in this paragraph are to _King Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.

‘_’Tis with our judgments_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 9-10.

25. ‘_He is the cause_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.’ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_That perilous stuff_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Imitate humanity_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

26. _Barrow’s celebrated description._ See Isaac Barrow’s (1630-77) sermon ‘Against Foolish Talking and Jesting.’

27. ‘_Who did essay_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book II., Canto VI., St. 7.

28. _Barnaby Brittle._ See _post_, note to p. 481.

29. _The strictures of Rousseau._ Lettre à M. D’Alembert. _Petits Chefs-d’œuvre_ (ed. Firmin-Didot), pp. 405 _et seq._

_An exquisite ... defence._ See _La Critique de l’École des Femmes_, Sc. 6.

‘_An equal want_,’ _etc._ ‘But equally a want of books and men.’ Wordsworth, _Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty_, XV., Sonnet beginning ‘Great men have been among us; hands that penned,’ etc.

LECTURE II. ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON

30. _Dr. Johnson thought, etc._ See his _Preface to Shakespeare_ (_Works_, Oxford, 1825, vol. V. p. 113).

‘_Smit with the love of sacred song._’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 29.

31. _There is but one_, _etc._ Hazlitt is recalling Dryden’s line, ‘within that circle none must walk but he.’ (Prologue to _The Tempest_.)

‘_Not to speak it profanely._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Like an unsubstantial pageant faded._’ _The Tempest_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

32. ‘_He is the leviathan_,’ _etc._ Hazlitt adapts a passage of Burke’s: ‘The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the Crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty.’ _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 129).

‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_The description of Queen Mab._ In _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

‘_The shade of melancholy boughs._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

‘_Give a very echo_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_Oh! it came_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 1.

33. ‘_Covers a multitude of sins._’ I. _Peter_, iv. 8.

_The ligament_, _etc._ Cf. ‘And that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.’ _Tristram Shandy_, VI. 10.

_The Society for the Suppression of Vice._ Cf. _The Round Table_, vol. I. p, 60 and note.

‘_He has been merry_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Heard the chimes at midnight._’ _Ibid._, Act III. Sc. 2.

34. ‘_Come on, come on_, _etc._ _Ibid._

35. ‘_One touch of nature_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_It is apprehensive_, _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act IV. Sc. 3.

36. ‘_Go to church_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 3.

_Tattle and Sparkish._ In Congreve’s _Love for Love_ and Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_ respectively.

‘_All beyond Hyde Park_,’ _etc._ Sir George Etherege’s _The Man of Mode_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Lay waste a country gentleman._’ Hazlitt uses this expression elsewhere. See his character of Cobbett in _The Spirit of the Age_ (vol. IV. p. 334), where he says that Cobbett ‘lays waste a city orator or Member of Parliament.’

_Lord Foppington._ In Vanbrugh’s _The Relapse_.

‘_The Prince of coxcombs_,’ _etc._

‘_Fashion._ Now, by all that’s great and powerful, thou art the prince of coxcombs.

_Lord Foppington._ Sir—I am proud of being at the head of so prevailing a party.’

_The Relapse_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_Manners damnable_,’ _etc._ See the dialogue between Touchstone and Corin in _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 2.

37. ‘_Airy nothing._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_Love’s golden shaft_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_There the mind_,’ _etc._ ‘Therein the patient must minister to himself.’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Of solitude_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Of solitude and melancholy born.’ Beattie, _The Minstrel_, Canto I. St. 56.

38. ‘_In the crust of formality._’ Hazlitt elsewhere attributes this phrase to Milton.

_To wanton in the idle summer air._ Cf. ‘That idles in the wanton summer air.’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 6.

39. ‘_Does mad and fantastic execution_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act V. Sc. 5.

_Schlegel observes_, _etc._ In his _Lectures on Dramatic Literature_ (No. XXVII.) the English version of which was reviewed by Hazlitt in _The Edinburgh Review_ for Feb. 1816.

‘_Lively, audible_,’ _etc._ ‘Waking, audible, and full of vent.’ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 5.

40. _Captain Otter._ In _The Silent Woman_ (1609).

‘_Bless’d conditions._’ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_If to be wise_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.’ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Sc. 3.

41. ‘_The gayest_,’ _etc._ Akenside, _Pleasures of the Imagination_, I. 30.

_Aliquando sufflaminandus erat._ See Ben Jonson’s _Timber: or, Discoveries_, LXIV., and note to _The Spirit of the Age_, vol. IV. p. 336.

_Howel’s Letters._ See the _Familiar Letters_ of James Howell, 10th ed., 1737, pp. 323-4.

42. _Jamque opus_, _etc._ Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XV. 871.

_Exegi monumentum_, _etc._ Horace, _Odes_, III. 30, 1.

_O fortunatam_, _etc._ Cicero, _De Suis Temporibus_, quoted by Juvenal, _Satire_ X. 122.

_A detailed account._ In _Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_ (1817).

l. 23. In the third edition the following sentence is interpolated: ‘It has been observed of this author, that he painted not so much human nature as temporary manners; not the characters of men, but their humours; that is to say, peculiarities of phrase, modes of dress, gesture, etc., which becoming obsolete, and being in themselves altogether arbitrary and fantastical, have become unintelligible and uninteresting.’ Hazlitt probably refers to Schlegel. See _Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature_ (trans. John Black, ed. 1900, p. 464).

_The meeting between Morose and Epicene._ Act II. Sc. 3.

43. _O’er step_, _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_The scene between Sir Amorous La Foole and Sir John Daw_, _etc._ See _The Silent Woman_, Act IV. Sc. 2, and _Twelfth Night_, Act III. Sc. 4.

_Decorum ... which Milton says_, _etc._ _On Education_ (_Works_, 1738, 1. p. 140).

_Truewit._ In _The Silent Woman._

_Thus Peregrine, in Volpone_, _etc._ Act II. Sc. 1. _Volpone_ was first acted in 1605.

_This play was Dryden’s favourite._ Hazlitt refers to _The Silent Woman_, of which Dryden gives an ‘Examen’ in his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ (_Select Essays_, ed. Ker, I. 83 _et seq._).

_Truewit says._ _The Silent Woman_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_Even though we should hold_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_The directions for making love._ _The Silent Woman_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

44. ‘_Hood an ass_,’ _etc._ _Volpone_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_Every Man in his Humour._ First acted in 1598, this play held the stage until Hazlitt’s time. Cf. his notice of Kean’s Kitely in _A View of the English Stage_, _post_, p. 310. Dickens played the part of Bobadil in 1845.

‘_As dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

_His well-known proposal_, _etc._ _Every Man in his Humour_,

## Act IV. Sc. 5.

45. _The scene in which Brainworm_, _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 2.

_Bartholomew Fair._ Produced in 1614.

_The Alchymist._ Produced in 1610.

_One glorious scene._ Act II. Sc. 1.

48. _Beaumont and Fletcher._ Cf. vol. V., p. 261 and note.

_The Inconstant._ Farquhar’s comedy (1703).

49. _Mrs. Jordan._ Mrs. Jordan had died on May 24, 1817.

LECTURE III. ON COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, ETC.

PAGE

‘_The metaphysical poets_,’ _etc._ Johnson, Life of Cowley in _The Lives of the Poets_.

_The father of criticism._ Aristotle. See the _Poetics_.

50. ‘_Hitch into a rhyme._’ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Satires,

## Book II., Satire i. 78.

51. ‘_And though reclaim’d_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _The Task_, IV. 723-5.

_Donne._ John Donne (1573-1631).

‘_Heaved pantingly forth._’ _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_Buried quick again._’ Hamlet’s words ‘Be buried quick with her, and so will I’ (Act V. Sc. 1), were perhaps in Hazlitt’s mind.

‘_Little think’st thou_,’ _etc._ _Poems_ (‘Muses’ Library,’ I. 63).

52. _A lame and impotent conclusion._ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_Whoever comes_,’ _etc._ _Poems_, i. 61.

‘_I long to talk_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ I. 56.

53. ‘_Here lies_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ I. 86.

_To the pure_, _etc._ _Titus_ I. 15.

_Bishop Hall’s Satires._ The Satires of Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Exeter (1627) and of Norwich (1641), were published in 1597 and 1598 under the title of _Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes_. For Pope’s admiration of him see _Works_, ed. Elwin and Courthope, III. 423.

_Sir John Davies_ (1569-1626). His _Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dancing_, appeared in 1596, his _Nosce Teipsum_, a poem on the immortality of the soul, in 1599.

_Crashaw._ Richard Crashaw (1612?-1649). The ‘celebrated Latin Epigram’ appeared in a volume of Latin poems and epigrams published in 1634. The line referred to by Hazlitt, ‘Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit,’ is the last of a four-line epigram. See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. Croker, 1847, p. 598).

‘_Seething brains._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_The contest between the Musician and the Nightingale._ _Musick’s Duel_, a version from the Latin of the Roman Jesuit Strada, paraphrased also by Ford in _The Lover’s Melancholy_, Act. I. Sc. 1.

_Davenant’s Gondibert._ The _Gondibert_ of Sir William D’Avenant (1606-1668), published in 1651.

54. ‘_Yet on that wall_,’ _etc._ _Gondibert_, Book II. Canto V. St. 33.

_Marvel._ Cf. _Lectures on the English Poets_, vol. V. p. 83.

‘_And sat not as a meat_,’ _etc._ _The Character of Holland_, 1. 30.

_One whose praise_, _etc._ Probably Lamb.

_Shadwell._ Thomas Shadwell (1642?-1692). _The Libertine_ appeared in 1676.

_Carew._ Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?). The reference to him in Sir John Suckling’s _Session of the Poets_ (1637) is as follows:—

‘Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault That would not stand well with a laureat; His Muse was hard bound, and th’ issue of’s brain Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain.’

_His masque._ Performed in Feb. 1633-4.

55. _Milton’s name_, _etc._ Johnson, in his _Life of Cowley_, says: ‘Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson, the carrier.’

‘_Aggregation of ideas._’ ‘Sublimity,’ says Johnson (_Life of Cowley_), ‘is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion.’

‘_Inimitable on earth_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 508-9.

_Suckling._ Sir John Suckling (1609-1642). Johnson refers to him in his _Life of Cowley_ as one of the ‘immediate successors’ of the metaphysical poets, but adds: ‘Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.’

57. _Cowley._ Cf. vol. V. p. 372.

‘_The Phœnix Pindar_,’ _etc._ _The Praise of Pindar_, l. 2.

‘_Sailing with supreme dominion_,’ _etc._ Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_, III. 3.

58. _He compares Bacon to Moses._ ‘Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last.’ _To the Royal Society._

60. _Cowley’s Essays._ Published in 1668.

61. _Cutter of Coleman Street._ _The Guardian_ acted at Cambridge in 1641 and printed in 1650, afterwards re-written and produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields as ‘Cutter of Coleman Street’ in 1661.

62. ‘_Call you this backing your friends?_’ _Henry IV._, Part I.,

## Act II. Sc. 4.

_Butler’s Hudibras._ The three Parts of _Hudibras_ appeared in 1662, 1663, and 1678 respectively.

_Dr. Campbell._ Dr. George Campbell (1719-1796) published his _Philosophy of Rhetoric_ in 1776.

‘_Narrow his mind_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith’s _Retaliation_, 31-2.

_Dr. Zachary Grey._ Zachary Grey’s (1688-1766) edition of _Hudibras_ appeared in 1744.

63. Note. (1) Part II., Canto II. 297-8; and II., I. 617-20; (2) II., I. 273-4; (3) I., II. 255-6; (4) I., II. 109-10; (5) I., II. 225-6; I., I. 241-252; and I., I. 375-8.

64. Note. (1) Part II. Canto II. 831-2, and II. III. 107-8; (2) II. II. 421-2; (3) I. I. 59-60; (4) II. III. 809-10; (5) I. II. 1099-1102.

65. ‘_Pilloried_,’ _etc._ Cowper, _Hope_, 556.

‘_As one grain of wheat_,’ _etc._ _Merchant of Venice_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_The account of Sidrophel and Whackum._ _Hudibras_, Part II.

## Canto III.

Note. ‘_Thus stopp’d_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part I. Canto III. 951-2. ‘_And setting his right foot_,’ _etc._ I. III. 82-4. ‘_At this the knight_,’ _etc._ II. II. 541-4. ‘_The knight himself_,’ _etc._ I. II. 1123-6. ‘_And raised_,’ _etc._ I. II. 95-6. ‘_And Hudibras_,’ _etc._ II. II. 661-2. ‘_Both thought_,’ _etc._ II. II. 577-90.

67. _The burlesque description_, _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part I. Canto II. 1129, _et seq._

‘_As when an owl_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ I. III. 403-6.

‘_The queen of night_, _etc._ _Ibid._ III. I. 1321-6.

_Butler’s Remains. The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler_, not published till 1759.

‘_Reduce all tragedy_,’ _etc._ Butler, _Upon Critics_, 17-42.

68. _Etherege._ Sir George Etherege (1635?-1691) wrote three comedies, _The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub_ (1664), _She Would if she Could_ (1667), and _The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter_ (1676). The last was a great favourite of Hazlitt’s, and is constantly referred to by him.

‘_Tames his wild heart_,’ _etc._ _Much Ado About Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_Like the morn_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310-11.

_The Wild Gallant._ First performed February 1662-3. See Act II. Sc. 1.

69. _Sir Martin Mar-all._ Produced in 1667, and founded on a translation by the Duke of Newcastle of Molière’s _L’Étourdi_. _The Busy Body_, by Mrs. Centlivre, appeared in 1709.

_Otway’s comedies._ _The Cheats of Scapin_ (adapted from Molière) (1677), _Friendship in Fashion_ (1678), _The Soldier’s Fortune_ (1681), and _The Atheist_ (1684).

_Rehearsal._ The Duke of Buckingham’s (1628-1687) _The Rehearsal_, first published in 1672.

_Knight of the Burning Pestle._ Written about 1611 and published in 1613.

_Sir Robert Howard._ _The Committee_, by Sir Robert Howard (1626-1698), was produced in 1662. Thomas Knight’s _The Honest Thieves_, an adaptation, was acted at Covent Garden in 1797.

‘_Mitigated into courtiers_ [companions],’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 90).

_The great bed of Ware._ Referred to by Shakespeare (_Twelfth Night_, Act III. Sc. 2), and now at Rye House.

LECTURE IV. ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR

70. ‘_Graceful ornament_,’ _etc._ ‘Nobility is a graceful ornament,’ etc. Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 164).

_Waller’s Sacharissa._ Lady Dorothy Sidney, eldest daughter of the second Earl of Leicester.

_Wycherley_, _etc._ William Wycherley (1640?-1715), William Congreve (1670-1730), Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), and George Farquhar (1678-1707). Leigh Hunt in 1840 published an edition of the dramatic works of all these writers, with biographical and critical notices. With this lecture compare Lamb’s famous essay ‘On the Artificial Comedy of the last Century,’ contributed to _The London Magazine_, April 1822.

71. ‘_Whose jewels_,’ _etc._ Collins’s Ode, _The Manners_, 55-6.

_In the dedication of one of his plays._ Probably _The Way of the World_, though the dedication hardly bears out Hazlitt’s account of it.

_Love for Love._ 1695.

_The Way of the World._ 1700.

_Munden’s Foresight._ See _A View of the English Stage_, _ante_, p. 278.

72. ‘_I never valued_,’ _etc._ _Love for Love_, Act V. Sc. 12.

‘_To divest him_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 7.

_The short scene with Trapland._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_More misfortunes_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 9.

‘_Sisters every way._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 9.

‘_Nay, if you come to that_,’ _etc._ Ibid.

_The Old Bachelor_, brought out in January, 1692-3; _The Double Dealer_, in November 1693.

‘_Dying Ned Careless._’ _The Double Dealer_, Act IV. Sc. 9.

‘_Love’s thrice reputed_ [repured] _nectar._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 2.

73. ‘_Ah! idle creature._’ _The Way of the World_, Act IV. Sc. 5.

‘_Like Phœbus_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 4.

‘_Come then_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, Epistle II., 17-20.

‘_If there’s delight_,’ _etc._ _The Way of the World_, Act III. Sc. 12.

‘_Beauty the lover’s gift_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 5.

74. ‘_Nature’s own sweet_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_Wild wit_,’ _etc._ Gray, Ode _On a distant Prospect of Eton College_, 46.

‘_Blazons herself._’

‘Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon’st In these two princely boys!’

_Cymbeline_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

_Mrs. Abington’s Millamant._ Frances Abington (1737-1815) practically retired from the stage in 1790, though she re-appeared for a season as late as 1799.

_Declaim._ Disclaim.

‘_He’s but his half-brother._’ _The Way of the World_, Act I. Sc. 6.

75. _The description of the ruins_, _etc._ _The Mourning Bride_,

## Act II. Sc. 3. For Johnson’s praise of this passage see

Boswell’s _Life_ (ed. G. B. Hill, II. 85).

‘_Be every day_,’ _etc._ _The Mourning Bride_, Act I. Sc. 3.

76. _Bolingbroke’s entry into London._ _Richard II._, Act V. Sc. 2.

_Country Wife._ Produced in 1672 or 1673, published in 1675, this play was partly founded on Molière’s _L’École des Femmes_ and _L’École des Maris_.

_Agnes._ In Molière’s _L’École des Femmes_.

77. _Moody._ In Garrick’s adaptation _The Country Girl_ (1766).

‘_With him a wit_,’ _etc._ ‘A wit to me is the greatest title in the world.’ _The Country Wife_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_The Plain Dealer._ Produced in 1674, published in 1677. The passage in which Wycherley refers to _The Country Wife_ is in

## Act II. Sc. 1.

78. ‘_A discipline of humanity._’ Bacon’s Essays, ‘Of Marriage and Single Life.’

‘_Go! You’re a censorious ill woman._’ ‘Let us begone from this censorious ill woman.’ _The Plain Dealer_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_The Gentleman Dancing Master._ Produced about 1671, published in 1673.

_Love in a Wood._ Produced in 1671. It was Wycherley’s first play.

79. ‘_Had I the tediousness_,’ _etc._ _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 5.

_The treatment he received from Pope._ See Elwin and Courthope’s edition of Pope’s Works, vol. V. 73-5. Wycherley’s letters to Pope are printed in Appendix I. to that volume.

_The Provoked Wife._ Produced by Betterton and published in 1697.

_The Relapse._ Produced and published in 1697.

80. _The Confederacy._ Produced and published in 1705.

_This last scene._ _The Confederacy_, Act III. Sc. 2.

81. ‘_It does somewhat smack._’ Cf. ‘My father did something smack.’ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Old Palmer._ See _ante_, p. 388.

82. ‘_The best company in the world._’ _The Man of Mode_, Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_Now, for my part_,’ _etc._ _The Relapse_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Let loose the greyhound_,’ _etc._ See _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

83. ‘_It’s well they’ve got me a husband_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_A devilish girl at the bottom._’ _The Confederacy_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_Proud to be at the head_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 36.

_Garrick’s favourite part._ A portrait of Garrick as Sir John Brute, by Zoffany, is in the Garrick Club.

_The drunken scene._ See Act IV. Scenes 1 and 3 of _The Provoked Wife_. When the play was revived in 1725 Vanbrugh himself changed Sir John Brute’s disguise, and made him appear before the justice in his wife’s ‘short cloak and sack.’

84. ‘_Hair-breadth ‘scapes._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_Any relish of salvation._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 3.

85. ‘_O’erstep the modesty of nature._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_God Almighty’s gentlemen._’ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_,

## Part I. 645.

_He somewhere prides himself_, _etc._ In the dedication of _The Inconstant_.

_The Trip to the Jubilee._ _The Constant Couple; or, a Trip to the Jubilee_, produced in 1700.

85. _Mr. Burke’s courtly and chivalrous observation._ ‘That chastity of honour ... under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.’ _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

86. ‘_Now, dear madam_,’ _etc._ _Sir Harry Wildair_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

88. _The dialogue between Cherry and Archer._ See _The Beaux’ Stratagem_ (produced 1707), Act II. Sc. 3.

89. _The Recruiting Officer._ 1706.

_Catastrophe of this play._ See Farquhar’s Dedication.

_Love and a Bottle_, 1699; _The Twin Rivals_, 1702.

_Farquhar’s Letters._ Originally published in 1702 under the title of ‘Love and Business.’

_Dennis’s Remarks_, _etc._ Dennis’s _Remarks upon Cato_ appeared in 1713.

_His View of the English Stage._ Jeremy Collier’s _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_ (1697-8).

90. ‘_Shews vice_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘To show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Denote a foregone conclusion._’ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

_Colley Cibber’s Life_, _etc._ Cf. the second essay ‘On Actors and Acting’ in _The Round Table_, vol. I. p. 156.

91. ‘_Let no rude hand_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Ellen Irwin_, St. 7.

‘_Die and leave the world no copy._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.

LECTURE V. ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS

‘_The proper study_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, II. 2.

‘_Comes home to the business_,’ _etc._ Bacon, dedication of the _Essays_.

‘_Quicquid agunt homines_,’ _etc._ These words of Juvenal (_Sat._ I. 85-6) formed the motto of the first 40 numbers of _The Tatler_.

‘_Holds the mirror_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_The act_ [art] _and practic part_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act I. Sc. 1.

92. ‘_‘The web of our life_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_,

## Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_Quid sit pulchrum_,’ _etc._ Horace, Epistles, I. 2, ll. 3-4.

_Montaigne._ The _Essais_ of Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592), were published, Books I. and II. in 1580, Book III. in 1588.

93. ‘_Pour out all as plain_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Sat. I. 51-2.

Note.

‘What made (say Montaigne, or more sage Charron!) Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon.’

Pope, _Moral Essays_, I. 87-8.

_De la Sagesse_, the chief work of Montaigne’s friend Pierre Charron (1541-1603), appeared in 1601.

94. ‘_Pereant isti_,’ _etc._ Ælius Donatus, St. Jerome, _Commentary on Ecclesiastes_, Cap. I.

_Charles Cotton._ Cotton’s translation of Montaigne was published in three volumes in 1685, and has frequently been reprinted, the latest edition being that of Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (republished 1902). The earlier version by John Florio (1603) has been included in the _Tudor Translations_ (1893) and in the _Temple Classics_ (1897).

‘_The book in the world_,’ _etc._ Cotton’s translation was dedicated to George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, who, in his reply, addressed to Cotton, spoke of the _Essays_ as ‘the

## book in the world I am best entertained with.’

_Cowley_, _etc._ Abraham Cowley’s _Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse_ were appended to the collected edition of his works in 1668; Sir

William Temple’s (1628-1699) essays entitled _Miscellanea_ were published in 1680 and 1692; Lord Shaftesbury’s (1671-1713) _Moralists_ in 1709, and _Characteristics_ in 1711.

94. Note. _Nam quodcumque_, _etc._ Lucretius, III. 752-3.

95. ‘_The perfect spy o’ th’ time._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_The Tatler._ The first number of the _Tatler_ appeared on April 12, 1709, the last on January 2, 1711. The papers were re-issued in two forms, one in 8vo., one in 12mo., in 1710-11. Nearly the whole of this paragraph and the next is taken from an essay in _The Examiner_ (March 5, 1815), reprinted in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 7-10, and the notes thereon.

96. Note. No. 86, not No. 125, of _The Tatler_.

_Mr. Lilly’s shop-windows._ Charles Lillie, the perfumer’s at the corner of Beaufort Buildings in the Strand.

_Will Estcourt or Tom D’urfey._ Richard Estcourt (1668-1712), actor and dramatist, and Tom D’Urfey (1653-1723), the dramatist and song-writer, are constantly referred to in _The Tatler_.

97. _The Spectator._ _The Spectator_ ran from March I, 1711, to December 6, 1712, and from June 18, 1714, to December 20, 1714. The collected edition appeared in 8 vols., 1712-15.

‘_The whiteness of her hand._’ ‘She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world.’ _The Spectator_, No. 113.

98. ‘_He has a widow in his line of life._’ _The Spectator_, No. 130.

_His falling asleep in church_, _etc._ _The Spectator_, No. 112. John Williams should be ‘one John Matthews.’

99. _The Guardian._ March 12, 1713, to October 1713. Of the 176 numbers Steele contributed 82, and Addison 53, papers.

100. _The Rambler._ March 20, 1749-50, to March 14, 1752.

‘_Give us pause._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

101. ‘_The elephant_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 345-7.

102. ‘_If he were to write_,’ _etc._ Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 231. _Abused Milton and patronised Lauder._ See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), I 228-31.

103. ‘_The king of good fellows_,’ _etc._ Burns, _Auld Rob Morris_, l. 2.

‘_Inventory of all he said._’ Cf. ‘And ta’en an inventory of what they are.’ Ben Jonson, _The Alchemist_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Does he wind_, _etc._ Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 260.

‘_If that fellow Burke_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ II. 450.

‘_What, is it you_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ I. 250.

‘_Now I think I am_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ II. 362.

_His quitting the society_, _etc._ _Ibid._ I. 201.

_His dining with Wilkes._ _Ibid._ III. 64 _et seq._

_His sitting with the young ladies._ _Ibid._ II. 120.

_His carrying the unfortunate victim_, _etc._ _Ibid._ IV. 321.

104. _An act which realises the parable of the good Samaritan._ Sergeant Talfourd, in his account of these Lectures, speaks of the insensibility of the bulk of the audience, and adds: ‘He [Hazlitt] once had a more edifying advantage over them. He was enumerating the humanities which endeared Dr. Johnson to his mind, and at the close of an agreeable catalogue mentioned as last and noblest “his carrying the poor victim of disease and dissipation on his back through Fleet Street,” at which a titter arose from some who were struck by the picture as ludicrous, and a murmur from others who deemed the allusion unfit for ears polite: he paused for an instant, and then added, in his sturdiest and most impressive manner—“an act which realizes the parable of the Good Samaritan”—at which his moral, and his delicate hearers shrank, rebuked, into deep silence.’ _Lamb’s Letters_ (ed. W. C. Hazlitt), I. 39-40.

104. ‘_Where they_,’ _etc._ Gray’s _Elegy_, The Epitaph.

_The Adventurer._ Nov. 7, 1752, to March 9, 1754. John Hawkesworth (1715-1773) was the chief contributor.

_The World._ Jan. 4, 1753, to Dec. 30, 1756.

_The Connoisseur._ Jan. 31, 1754, to Sept. 30, 1756.

_One good idea_, _etc._ Hazlitt refers to a paper by Edward Moore which appeared in _The World_ (No. 176), not, as he says, in _The Connoisseur_.

_Citizen of the World._ Republished (from the _Public Ledger_ and elsewhere) in 2 vols., 1762.

‘_Go about to cozen_,’ _etc._ _Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 9.

_The Persian Letters._ Lord Lyttelton’s _Letters from a Persian in England to his friend at Ispahan_, 1735.

‘_The bonzes_,’ _etc._ _The Citizen of the World_, Letter X.

105. ‘_Edinburgh. We are positive_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Letter V.

_Beau Tibbs._ _Ibid._ Letters XXIX., LIV., LV., and LXXI.

_The Lounger and The Mirror._ _The Mirror_ appeared in Edinburgh from Jan. 23, 1779, to May 27, 1780; _The Lounger_ from Feb. 5, 1785, to Jan. 6, 1786. Henry Mackenzie was the chief contributor to both.

_La Roche._ _The Mirror_, Nos. 42, 43, and 44.

_Le Fevre._ _Tristram Shandy_, VI. chaps. 6 _et seq._

_The Man of the World._ By Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), published in 1773.

_Julia de Roubigné._ Published in 1777.

_Rosamund Gray._ See Lamb’s _Poems, Plays, and Essays_, ed. Ainger, Notes to _Rosamund Gray_, p. 391.

_The Man of Feeling._ Published in 1771.

LECTURE VI. ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS

The whole of this Lecture down to the end of the paragraph on p. 125 is taken with but few variations from an article in _The Edinburgh Review_ for Feb. 1815, on ‘Standard Novels and Romances,’ ostensibly a review of Madame D’Arblay’s _The Wanderer_.

PAGE

106. ‘_Be mine to read_,’ _etc._ Gray, in a letter to Richard West, April 1742 (_Letters_, ed. Tovey, I. 97).

‘_Something more divine in it._’ Hazlitt is perhaps recalling a passage in Bacon’s _Advancement of Learning_ (II. iv. 2): ‘So as poesy serveth and conferreth to delectation, magnanimity, and morality, ... it may seem deservedly to have some

## participation of divineness,’ etc.

107. _Fielding in speaking_, _etc._ _Joseph Andrews_, Book III. chap. 1.

_The description ... given by Mr. Burke._ _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 92-3).

_Echard ‘On the Contempt of the Clergy.’_ John Eachard’s (1636?-1697) _The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion enquired into_, published in 1670 and frequently reprinted.

‘_Worthy of all acceptation._’ _1 Timothy_, 1. 15.

_The Lecture which Lady Booby reads_, _etc._ _Joseph Andrews_,

## Book IV. chap. 3.

_Blackstone or De Lolme._ Sir William Blackstone’s (1723-1780) _Commentaries on the Laws of England_ appeared in 1765-9, John Louis De Lolme’s (1740?-1807) _The Constitution of England_, in French 1771, in English 1775.

108. _What I have said upon it_, _etc._ In _The Edinburgh Review_. See _ante_, note to p. 106.

_Don Quixote._ Part I., 1605; Part II., 1615.

‘_The long-forgotten order of chivalry._’ ‘The long-neglected and almost extinguished order of knight-errantry,’ _Don Quixote_ (trans. Jarvis), Part I., Book IV. chap. 28.

‘_Witch the world_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act IV. Sc. 1.

109. ‘_Oh, what delicate wooden spoons_,’ _etc._ _Don Quixote_, Part II., Book IV. chap. 67.

_The curate confidentially informing Don Quixote_, _etc._ _Ibid._

_Our adventurer afterwards_, _etc._ _Ibid._

110. ‘_Still prompts_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, IV. 3-4.

‘_Singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles._’ _Don Quixote_,

## Part II., Book I. chap. 9.

_Marcella._ _Ibid._ Part I., Book I. chaps. 12 and 13.

_His Galatea_, _etc._ _Galatea_, 1585; _Persiles and Sigismunda_, 1616.

111. _Gusman D’Alfarache._ By Mateo Aleman, published in 1599.

_Lazarillo de Tormes._ Attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575), published in 1553.

_Gil Blas._ The _Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane_ of Alain-René le Sage (1668-1747) appeared in 4 vols., 1715-1735.

112. _Smollett is more like Gil Blas._ In the Preface to _Roderick Random_ he admitted his obligation to Le Sage.

113. _Tom Jones._ Published in 1749.

114. ‘_I was never so handsome_,’ _etc._ _Tom Jones_, Book XVII. chap. 4.

_The story of Tom Jones_, _etc._ Cf. the well-known dictum of Coleridge (_Table Talk_, July 5, 1834), ‘Upon my word, I think the Œdipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones, the three most perfect plots ever planned.’

_Amelia and Joseph Andrews._ Published in 1751 and 1742 respectively.

_Amelia, and the hashed mutton._ Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘A Farewell to Essay-writing,’ from which it appears that the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ from which this lecture is taken was the result of a ‘sharply-seasoned and well-sustained’ discussion with Lamb, kept up till midnight.

115. _Roderick Random._ Published in 1748, when Smollett was 27; _Tom Jones_ was published in 1749, when Fielding was 42.

116. _Intus et in cute._ Persius, _Satires_, III. 30.

117. _Peregrine Pickle ... and Launcelot Graves._ 1751 and 1762 respectively.

_Humphrey Clinker and Count Fathom._ 1771 and 1753 respectively.

_Richardson._ The three novels of Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) appeared as follows: _Pamela_ in 1740; _Clarissa Harlowe_ in 1747-8; _Sir Charles Grandison_ in 1753.

119. _Dr. Johnson ... when he said_, _etc._ Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 174.

120. ‘_Books are a real world_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Personal Talk_, St. 3.

_Sterne._ Laurence Sterne’s (1713-1768) _Tristram Shandy_ appeared in 9 vols. 1759-1767, and _A Sentimental Journey_ (2 vols.) in 1768.

121. _Goldsmith ... should call him_, _etc._ Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 222.

123. ‘_Have kept the even tenor of their way._’ Gray’s _Elegy_, 76.

_Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla._ By Frances Burney, Madame D’Arblay (1752-1840), published respectively in 1778, 1782, and 1796.

_Mrs. Radcliffe._ Ann Radcliffe (1764-1822), author of _The Romance of the Forest_ (1791), _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ (1794), etc.

‘_Enchantments drear._’ _Il Penseroso_, 119.

_Mrs. Inchbald._ Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), novelist, dramatist, and actress. Her _Nature and Art_ appeared in 1796, _A Simple Story_ in 1791.

_Miss Edgeworth._ Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849). _Castle Rackrent_ appeared in 1800.

_Meadows._ In _The Wanderer_.

Note. _The Fool of Quality_, by Henry Brooke (1766); _David Simple_, by Sarah Fielding (1744); and _Sidney Biddulph_, by Mrs. Sheridan (1761).

124. _It has been said of Shakspeare_, _etc._ By Pope. See _Hazlitt’s Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_, vol. I. p. 171 and note.

‘_There is nothing so true as habit._’ Windham, Speech on the Conduct of the Duke of York, _Speeches_, III. 205, March 14, 1809.

125. ‘_Stand so_ [not] _upon the order_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

_The green silken threads_, _etc._ _Don Quixote_, Part II. IV. Chap. 58.

_The Wanderer._ 1814.

‘_The gossamer_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 6.

127. _The Castle of Otranto._ By Horace Walpole (1764).

_Quod sic mihi_, _etc._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 188.

_The Recess_, by Sophia Lee (1785); _The Old English Baron_, by Clara Reeve, originally published in 1777 under the title of ‘The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story.’

‘_Dismal treatises._’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

_The Monk_, by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1795 as ‘Ambrosio, or the Monk.’

‘_All the luxury of woe._’ Moore, _Juvenile Poems_, stanzas headed ‘Anacreontic,’ beginning ‘Press the grape, and let it pour,’ etc.

128. ‘_His chamber_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book II. Canto ix. St. 50.

129. ‘_Familiar in our mouths_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Sc. 3.

130. _The author of Caleb Williams._ William Godwin (1756-1836). _Caleb Williams_ appeared in 1794, _St. Leon_ in 1799, _Mandeville_ in 1817.

‘_Action is momentary_,’ _etc._ These lines are slightly misquoted from Wordsworth’s tragedy, _The Borderer_. See note to vol. IV., p. 276.

132. _Political Justice._ _An Inquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness_, 1793.

‘_Where his treasure_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, vi. 21.

LECTURE VII. ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH—ON THE GRAND AND FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAINTING

A great part of this lecture is taken from two papers in _The Examiner_, republished in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 25-31, and notes thereon.

133. _Hogarth._ William Hogarth (1697-1764).

‘_Instinct in every part._’ Cf. ‘Instinct through all proportions low and high.’ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 562.

‘_Other pictures we see, Hogarth’s we read._’ ‘Other pictures we look at,—his prints we read.’ Lamb’s _Essay on the Genius and Character of Hogarth_, referred to below, p. 138.

_Not long ago._ In 1814.

134. ‘_Of amber-lidded snuff-box_,’ _etc._ Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, IV. 123.

134. ‘_A person, and a smooth dispose_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_Vice loses half_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

137. ‘_All the mutually reflected charities._’ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 40).

‘_Frequent and full_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 795-7.

138. _Mr. Lamb’s Essay._ Published in _The Reflector_ (1811) and reprinted in _Poems, Plays and Essays_ (ed. Ainger).

_What distinguishes_, _etc._ The remainder of the lecture from this point had not appeared in _The Examiner_ or _The Round Table_.

139. _Mr. Wilkie._ David Wilkie (1785-1841), Royal Academician 1811, knighted 1836.

_Teniers._ David Teniers, the younger (1610-1690).

‘_To shew vice_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

140. ‘_The very error of the time._’ Cf. ‘The very error of the moon,’ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Your lungs_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

_Bagnigge Wells._ Sadler’s Wells. Hazlitt refers to Hogarth’s ‘Evening,’ one of the four ‘Times of Day.’

142. _Parson Ford._ Johnson’s cousin, Cornelius Ford. See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), i. 49. The figure in Hogarth’s picture has also been identified with ‘Orator’ Henley.

143. ‘_Die of a rose_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, 1, 200.

_In the manner of Ackerman’s dresses for May._ _Moore, Horace, Ode XI., Lib. 2._ _Freely translated by the Pr—ce R—g—t._

144. ‘_The Charming Betsy Careless._’ See the last of the series of ‘The Rake’s Progress,’ the scene in Bedlam. One of the lunatics has scratched the name on the bannisters.

‘_Stray-gifts of love and beauty._’ Wordsworth, _Stray Pleasures_.

145. _Sir Joshua Reynolds._ See _Table-Talk_, vol. VI. p. 131 _et seq._

146. ‘_Conformed to this world_,’ _etc._ _Romans_, xii. 2.

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

## Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_Ignorant present._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

Note. ‘_Nay, nay_,’ _etc._ ‘Na, na! not that way, not that way, the head to the east.’ _Guy Mannering_, chap. 55.

148. _It is many years since_, _etc._ About 1798, at St. Neots, in Huntingdonshire. Cf. the essay ‘On Going a Journey’ in _Table-Talk_, vol. VI. p. 185.

‘_How was I then uplifted._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Temples not made with hands_,’ _etc._ _2 Corinthians_, V. 1.

_In the Louvre._ In 1802, when the Louvre still contained the spoils of Buonaparte’s conquests. Cf. _Table-Talk_, vol. VI. pp. 15 _et seq._ and notes thereon.

‘_All eyes shall see me_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Romans_, xiv. 11.

149. _There ‘stood the statue,’_ _etc._ ‘So stands the statue that enchants the world.’ Thomson, _The Seasons_, Summer, 1347. The statue is the Venus of Medici.

‘_There was old Proteus_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘The world is too much with us,’ adapted.

_The stay, the guide_, _etc._ An unacknowledged quotation from Wordsworth’s _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_, 109-110.

‘_Smoothed the raven down_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 251.

LECTURE VIII. ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY

Much of the early part of this Lecture is taken from a paper in _The Examiner_ (Aug. 20, 1815), republished in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 10-14, and notes.

PAGE

150. ‘_Where it must live_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_To see ourselves_,’ _etc._ Burns, _To a Louse_.

151. ‘_Present no mark to the foeman.’_ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Sc. 2. _Wars_ should be _Shadow_.

152. _The authority of Sterne_, _etc._ See _Tristram Shandy_, I. 21.

l. 22. In the third edition a passage is interpolated from Hazlitt’s letter to _The Morning Chronicle_, Oct. 15, 1813.

‘_The ring_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III. 309-10.

_Angelica_, _etc._ All these characters are in Congreve’s _Love for Love_.

_The compliments which Pope paid to his friends._ Cf. the essay ‘On Persons one would wish to have seen,’ where some of these compliments are quoted.

153. _The loves of the plants and the triangles._ Erasmus Darwin’s poem ‘The Loves of the Plants’(1789) was the subject of Canning’s famous parody ‘The Loves of the Triangles’ in _The Anti-Jacobin_.

_Berinthias and Alitheas._ Berinthia in Vanbrugh’s _The Relapse_; Alithea in Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_.

_Beppo_, _etc._ Lord Byron’s _Beppo_ (1818), Campbell’s _Gertrude of Wyoming_ (1809), Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_ (1810). Madame De Staël’s _Corinne_ appeared in 1807.

l. 17. In the third edition a long passage from Hazlitt’s letter to _The Morning Chronicle_ is here inserted.

‘_That sevenfold fence._’ See note to vol. I. p. 13, and cf. _A Reply to Malthus_, vol. IV. p. 101.

154. ‘_Mr. Smirk, you are a brisk man._’ Foote’s _The Minor_, Act II.

‘_Almost afraid to know itself._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 3.

_Mr. Farren._ William Farren (1786-1861). Lord Ogleby in Colman and Garrick’s _The Clandestine Marriage_ was one of his best parts.

Note. See vol. I. p. 313.

155. _Jeremy Collier._ Jeremy Collier’s (1650-1726) _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_ appeared in March 1697-8.

_Mrs. Centlivre._ Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723). _The Busy Body_ appeared in 1709, _The Wonder_ in 1714.

156. _The scene near the end._ _The Wonder_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Roast me these Violantes._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 1.

156. In the third edition the following account of _The Busy Body_, taken from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. VI.) is inserted:

‘“The Busy Body” is a comedy that has now held possession of the stage above a hundred years (the best test of excellence); and the merit that has enabled it to do so, consists in the ingenuity of the contrivance, the liveliness of the plot, and the striking effect of the situations. Mrs. Centlivre, in this and her other plays, could do nothing without a stratagem; but she could do everything with one. She delights in putting her _dramatis personæ_ continually at their wit’s end, and in helping them off with a new evasion; and the subtlety of her resources is in proportion to the criticalness of the situation and the shortness of the notice for resorting to an expedient. Twenty times, in seeing or reading one of her plays, your pulse beats quick, and you become restless and apprehensive for the event; but with a fine theatrical sleight of hand, she lets you off, undoes the knot of the difficulty, and you breathe freely again, and have a hearty laugh into the bargain. In short, with her knowledge of chambermaids’ tricks, and insight into the intricate foldings of lovers’ hearts, she plays with the events of comedy, as a juggler shuffles about a pack of cards, to serve his own purposes, and to the surprise of the spectator. This is one of the most delightful employments of the dramatic art. It costs nothing—but a voluntary tax on the inventive powers of the author; and it produces, when successfully done, profit and praise to one party, and pleasure to all. To show the extent and importance of theatrical amusements (which some grave persons would decry altogether, and which no one can extol too highly), a friend of ours,[49] whose name will be as well known to posterity as it is to his contemporaries, was not long ago mentioning, that one of the earliest and most memorable impressions ever made on his mind, was the seeing “Venice Preserved” acted in a country town when he was only nine years old. But he added, that an elderly lady who took him to see it, lamented, notwithstanding the wonder and delight he had experienced, that instead of “Venice Preserved,” they had not gone to see “The Busy Body,” which had been acted the night before. This was fifty years ago, since which, and for fifty years before that, it has been acted a thousand times in town and country, giving delight to the old, the young, and middle-aged, passing the time carelessly, and affording matter for agreeable reflection afterwards, making us think ourselves, and wish to be thought, the men equal to Sir George Airy in grace and spirit, the women to Miranda and Isabinda in love and beauty, and all of us superior to Marplot in wit. Among the scenes that might be mentioned in this comedy, as striking instances of happy stage effect, are Miranda’s contrivance to escape from Sir George, by making him turn his back upon her to hear her confession of love, and the ludicrous attitude in which he is left waiting for the rest of her speech after the lady has vanished; his offer of the hundred pounds to her guardian to make love to her in his presence, and when she receives him in dumb show, his answering for both; his situation concealed behind the chimney-screen; his supposed metamorphosis into a monkey, and his deliverance from thence in that character by the interference of Marplot; Mrs. Patch’s sudden conversion of the mysterious love letter into a charm for the toothache, and the whole of Marplot’s meddling and blunders. The last character is taken from Dryden and the Duchess of Newcastle; and is, indeed, the only attempt at character in the play. It is amusing and superficial. We see little of the puzzled perplexity of his brain, but his actions are absurd enough. He whiffles about the stage with considerable volubility, and makes a very lively automaton. Sir George Airy sets out for a scene or two in a spirited manner, but afterwards the character evaporates in the name; and he becomes as commonplace as his friend Charles, who merely laments over his misfortunes, or gets out of them by following the suggestions of his valet or his valet’s mistress. Miranda is the heroine of the piece, and has a right to be so; for she is a beauty and an heiress. Her friend has less to recommend her; but who can refuse to fall in love with her name? What volumes of sighs, what a world of love, is breathed in the very sound alone—the letters that form the charming name of Isabinda.’

157. ‘_The one cries Mum_,’ _etc._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act 5. Sc. 2.

Note. See first edition (1714), pp. 35-6.

158. ‘_‘Some soul of goodness_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_His Funeral._ Produced in 1701.

‘_All the milk of human kindness._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_The Conscious Lovers._ 1722. Hazlitt refers to Act III. Sc. 1.

_Parson Adams against me._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III. chap. II.

_Addison’s Drummer._ 1715.

‘_An Hour after Marriage._’ _Three Hours after Marriage_ (1717), the joint production of Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot.

‘_An alligator stuff’d._’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_Gay’s What-d’ye-call-it._ 1715.

‘_Polly._’ Published in 1728. The representation was forbidden by the Court.

Last line but one. In the third edition Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the Beggar’s Opera’ (see vol. I. pp. 65-6) is here introduced.

159. _The Mock Doctor._ 1732.

_Tom Thumb._ Afterwards called _The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great_ (1730; additional Act, 1731).

_Lord Grizzle._ In _Tom Thumb._

‘_‘Like those hanging locks_,’ _etc._ Fletcher, _The Faithful Shepherdess_, Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_Fell of hair_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Hey for Doctor’s Commons._’ _Tragedy of Tragedies_, _etc._,

## Act II. Sc. 5.

‘_From the sublime_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 23.

_Lubin Log._ In James Kenney’s farce, _Love, Law, and Physic_, produced 1812. See _ante_, p. 192.

_The Widow’s Choice._ Allingham’s _Who Wins, or The Widow’s Choice_, 1808.

‘_Is high fantastical._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 1.

160. _The hero of the Dunciad._ Cibber was substituted for Theobald as the King of Dulness in consequence of his famous letter to Pope, published in 1742.

‘_By merit raised_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 5-6.

_His Apology for his own Life._ Published in 1740. Cf. _The Round Table_, vol. I. pp. 156-7.

_His account of his waiting_, _etc._ _An Apology_, _etc._, 2nd ed. 1740, chap. III. pp. 59-60.

_Mr. Burke’s celebrated apostrophe._ _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

_Kynaston_, _etc._ See vol. I. notes to pp. 156-7.

161. _His Careless Husband._ 1704.

_His Double Gallant._ 1707. The play was revived in 1817 and noticed by Hazlitt. See _ante_, pp. 359-362.

‘_In hidden mazes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _L’Allegro_, 141-2.

162. _His Nonjuror._ 1717. Isaac Bickerstaff’s _The Hypocrite_ was produced in 1768.

_Love’s Last Shift._ Colley Cibber’s first play, produced in 1694. For Southerne’s remark to Cibber, see _An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber_, p. 173.

l. 34. In the third edition a great part of Hazlitt’s article on _The Hypocrite_ (see _A View of the English Stage_, _ante_, p. 245) is inserted here. The passage is also in Oxberry’s _New English Drama_, vol. I.

_Love in a Riddle._ 1729.

163. _The Suspicious Husband_, 1747, _The Jealous Wife_, 1761, _The Clandestine Marriage_, 1766.

l. 15. In the third edition the following passage on _The Jealous Wife_, taken from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. I.) is here inserted:—

‘Colman, the elder, was the translator of Terence: and the “Jealous Wife” is a classical play. The plot is regular, the characters well supported, and the moral the best in the world. The dialogue has more sense than wit. The ludicrous arises from the skilful development of the characters, and the absurdities they commit in their own persons, rather than from the smart reflections which are made upon them by others. Thus nothing can be more ridiculous or more instructive than the scenes of which Mrs. Oakly is the heroine, yet they are all serious and unconscious: she exposes herself to our contempt and ridicule by the part she acts, by the airs she gives herself, and the fantastic behaviour in the situations in which she is placed. In other words, the character is pure comedy, not satire. Congreve’s comedies for the most part are satires, in which, from an exuberance of wit, the different speakers play off the sharp-pointed raillery on one another’s foibles, real or supposed. The best and most genuine kind of comedy, because the most dramatic, is that of character or humour, in which the persons introduced upon the stage are left to betray their own folly by their words and actions. The progressive winding up of the story of the present comedy is excellently managed. The jealousy and hysteric violence of Mrs. Oakly increase every moment, as the pretext for them becomes more and more frivolous. The attention is kept alive by our doubts about Oakly’s wavering (but in the end triumphant) firmness; and the arch insinuations and well-concerted home-thrusts of the Major heighten the comic interest of the scene. There is only one circumstance on which this veteran bachelor’s freedom of speech might have thrown a little more light, namely, that the married lady’s jealousy is in truth only a pretence for the exercise of her domineering spirit in general; so that we are left at last in some uncertainty as to the turn which this humour may take, and as to the future repose of her husband, though the affair of Miss Russet is satisfactorily cleared up. The under-plot of the two lovers is very ingeniously fitted into the principal one, and is not without interest in itself. Charles Oakly is a spirited, well-meaning, thoughtless young fellow, and Harriet Russet is an amiable romantic girl, in that very common, but always romantic situation—in love. Her persecution from the addresses of Lord Trinket and Sir Harry Beagle fans the gentle flame which had been kindled just a year before in her breast, produces the adventures and cross-purposes of the plot, and at last reconciles her to, and throws her into the arms of her lover, in spite of her resentment for his misconduct and apparent want of delicacy. The figure which Lord Trinket and Lady Freelove make in the piece is as odious and contemptible as it is possible for people in that class of life (and for no others) to make. The insolence, the meanness, the affectation, the hollowness, the want of humanity, sincerity, principle, and delicacy, are such as can only be found where artificial rank and station in society supersede not merely a regard to propriety of conduct, but the necessity even of an attention to appearances. The morality of the stage has (we are ready to hope) told in that direction as well as others, has, in some measure suppressed the suffocating pretensions and flaunting affectation of vice and folly in “persons of honour,” and, as it were, humanised rank and file. The pictures drawn of the finished depravity of such characters in high life, in the old comedies and novels, can hardly have been thrown away upon the persons themselves, any more than upon the world at large. Little Terence O’Cutler, the delicious _protégé_ of Lord Trinket and Lady Freelove, is a fit instrument for them to use, and follows in the train of such principals as naturally and assuredly as their shadow. Sir Harry Beagle is a coarse, but striking character of a thorough-bred fox-hunting country squire. He has but one idea in his head, but one sentiment in his heart—and that is his stud. This idea haunts his imagination, tinges or imbues every other object, and accounts for his whole phraseology, appearance, costume, and conduct. Sir Harry’s ruling passion is varied very ingeniously, and often turned to a very ludicrous account. There is a necessary monotony in the humour, which arises from a want of more than one idea, but the obviousness of the jest almost makes up for the recurrence of it; if the means of exciting mirth are mechanical, the effect is sure; and to say that a hearty laugh is cheaply purchased, is not a serious objection against it. When an author is terribly conscious of plagiarism, he seldom confesses it; when the obligation does not press his conscience, he sometimes does. Colman, in the advertisement to the first edition of the “Jealous Wife,” apologises for the freedom which he has used in borrowing from “Tom Jones.” In reading this modest excuse, though we have seen the play several times, we could not imagine what part of the plot was taken from Fielding. We did not suspect that Miss Russet was Sophia Western, and that old Russet and Sir Harry Beagle between them somehow represented Squire Western and young Blifil. But so it is! The outline of the plot and some of the characters are certainly the same, but the filling up destroys the likeness. There is all in the novel that there is in the play, but there is so much in the novel that is not in the play, that the total impression is quite different, and loses even an appearance of resemblance. In the same manner, though a profile or a shade of a face is exactly the same as the original, we with difficulty recognise it from the absence of so many other particulars. Colman might have kept his own secret, and no one would have been the wiser for it.’

163. _The elder Colman’s translation of Terence._ Published in 1765.

_Bickerstaff’s plays._ _Love in a Village_, 1763, _The Maid of the Mill_, 1765, and _The Hypocrite_ are the best known.

_Mrs. Cowley’s comedy_, _etc._ Hannah Cowley’s (1743?-1809) _The Belle’s Stratagem_ appeared in 1780, _Who’s the Dupe?_ in 1779.

164. _Goldsmith’s Good-natured Man_, 1768; _She Stoops to Conquer_, 1773.

In the third edition the following account of _She Stoops to Conquer_ from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. IV.) is here inserted:—

‘It, however, bears the stamp of the author’s genius, which was an indefinable mixture of the original and imitative. His plot, characters, and incidents are all apparently new; and yet, when you come to look into them, they are all old, with little variation or disguise: that is, the author sedulously avoided the beaten, vulgar path, and sought for singularity, but found it rather in the unhackneyed and eccentric inventions of those who had gone before him, than in his own stores. The “Vicar of Wakefield,” which abounds more than any of his works in delightful and original traits, is still very much borrowed, in its general tone and outline, from Fielding’s “Joseph Andrews.” Again, the characters and adventures of Tony Lumpkin, and the ridiculous conduct of his mother, in the present comedy, are a counterpart (even to the incident of the theft of the jewels) of those of the Widow Blackacre and her booby son in Wycherley’s “Plain Dealer.”

‘This sort of plagiarism, which gives us a repetition of new and striking pictures of human life, is much to be preferred to the dull routine of trite, vapid, every-day common-places; but it is more dangerous, as the stealing of pictures or family plate, where the property can be immediately identified, is more liable to detection than the stealing of bank-notes, or the current coin of the realm. Dr. Johnson’s sarcasm against some writer, that his “singularity was not his excellence,” cannot be applied to Goldsmith’s writings in general; but we are not sure whether it might not in severity be applied to “She Stoops to Conquer.” The incidents and characters are many of them exceedingly amusing; but they are so, a little at the expense of probability and _bienseance_. Tony Lumpkin is a very essential and unquestionably comic personage; but certainly his absurdities or his humours fail of none of their effect for want of being carried far enough. He is in his own sex what a hoyden is in the other. He is that vulgar nickname, a _hobbety-hoy_, dramatised; forward and sheepish, mischievous and idle, cunning and stupid, with the vices of the man and the follies of the boy; fond of low company, and giving himself all the airs of consequence of the young squire. His vacant delight in playing at cup and ball, and his impenetrable confusion and obstinate gravity in spelling the letter, drew fresh beauties from Mr. Liston’s face. Young Marlow’s bashfulness in the scenes with his mistress is, when well acted, irresistibly ludicrous; but still nothing can quite overcome our incredulity as to the existence of such a character in the present day, and in the rank of life, and with the education which Marlow is supposed to have had. It is a highly amusing caricature, a ridiculous fancy, but no more. One of the finest and most delicate touches of character is in the transition from the modest gentleman’s manner with his mistress, to the easy and agreeable tone of familiarity with the supposed chambermaid, which was not total and abrupt, but exactly such in kind and degree as such a character of natural reserve and constitutional timidity would undergo from the change of circumstances. Of the other characters in the piece, the most amusing are Tony Lumpkin’s associates at the Three Pigeons; and of these we profess the greatest partiality for the important showman who declares that “his bear dances to none but the genteelest of tunes, ‘Water parted from the Sea,’ or the minuet in ‘Ariadne’!”[50] This is certainly the “high-fantastical”[51] of low comedy.’

164. _Murphy’s plays_, _etc._ Arthur Murphy’s (1730-1805) _All in the Wrong_, 1761, and _Know Your Own Mind_, 1778.

_Both his principal pieces_, _etc._ There seems to be some inaccuracy here. Colman’s _Jealous Wife_ was produced in February 1761, Murphy’s _All in the Wrong_ in June of the same year. _The School for Scandal_, however, appeared a month later than Murphy’s _Know Your Own Mind_, viz., in May 1777.

_The School for Scandal_, 1777, _The Rivals_, 1775, _The Duenna_, 1775, and _The Critic_, 1779.

_Cumberland._ Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), the dramatist, whose _West Indian_ (1771) and _The Wheel of Fortune_ (1795) are referred to below, p. 166.

‘_Dragged the struggling_,’ _etc._ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, l. 190.

165. _Miss Farren._ Elizabeth Farren (1759?-1829), Countess of Derby. She played Lady Teazle on the occasion of her last appearance, April 8, 1797.

_Matthew Bramble and his sister._ In _Humphry Clinker_.

‘_He had damnable iteration in him._’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act I. Sc. 2.

165, l. 36. In the third edition Hazlitt’s description of _The Rivals_, from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. I.) is inserted here:—

‘The “Rivals” is one of the most agreeable comedies we have. In the elegance and brilliancy of the dialogue, in a certain animation of moral sentiment, and in the masterly _dénouement_ of the fable, the “School for Scandal” is superior; but the “Rivals” has more life and action in it, and abounds in a greater number of whimsical characters, unexpected incidents, and absurd contrasts of situation. The effect of the “School for Scandal” is something like reading a collection of epigrams, that of the “Rivals” is more like reading a novel. In the first you are always at the toilette or in the drawing-room; in the last you pass into the open air, and take a turn in King’s Mead. The interest is kept alive in the one play by smart repartees, in the other by startling rencontres: in the one we laugh at the satirical descriptions of the speakers, in the other the situation of their persons on the stage is irresistibly ludicrous. Thus the interviews between Lucy and Sir Lucius O’Trigger, between Acres and his friend Jack, who is at once his confidant and his rival; between Mrs. Malaprop and the lover of her niece as Captain Absolute, and between the young lady and the same person as the pretended Ensign Beverley, tell from the mere _double entendre_ of the scene, and from the ignorance of the parties of one another’s persons and designs. There is no source of dramatic effect more complete than this species of practical satire (in which our author seems to have been an adept), where one character in the piece is made a fool of and turned into ridicule to his face, by the very person whom he is trying to over-reach.

‘There is scarcely a more delightful play than the “Rivals” when it is well acted, or one that goes off more indifferently when it is not. The humour is of so broad and farcical a kind, that if not thoroughly entered into and carried off by the tone and manner of the performers, it fails of effect from its obtrusiveness, and becomes flat from eccentricity. The absurdities brought forward are of that artificial, affected, and preposterous description, that we in some measure require to have the evidence of our senses to see the persons themselves “jetting under the advance plumes of their folly,”[52] before we can entirely believe in their existence, or derive pleasure from their exposure. If the extravagance of the poet’s conception is not supported by the downright reality of the representation, our credulity is staggered and falls to the ground.

‘For instance, Acres should be as odd a compound in external appearance as he is of the author’s brain. He must look like a very notable mixture of the lively coxcomb and the blundering blockhead, to reconcile us to his continued impertinence and senseless flippancy. Acres is a mere conventional character, a gay, fluttering automaton, constructed upon mechanical principles, and pushed, as it were, by the logic of wit and a strict keeping in the pursuit of the ridiculous, into follies and fopperies which his natural thoughtlessness would never have dreamt of. Acres does not say or do what such a half-witted young gentleman would say or do of his own head, but what he might be led to do or say with such a prompter as Sheridan at his elbow to tutor him in absurdity—to make a butt of him first, and laugh at him afterwards. Thus his presence of mind in persisting in his allegorical swearing, “Odds triggers and flints,”[53] in the duel scene, when he is trembling all over with cowardice, is quite out of character, but it keeps up the preconcerted jest. In proportion, therefore, as the author has overdone the part, it calls for a greater effort of animal spirits, and a peculiar aptitude of genius in the actor to go through with it, to humour the extravagance, and to seem to take a real and cordial delight in caricaturing himself. Dodd[54] was the only actor we remember who realised this ideal combination of volatility and phlegm, of slowness of understanding with levity of purpose, of vacancy of thought and vivacity of gesture. Acres’ affected phrases and apish manners used to sit upon this inimitable actor with the same sort of bumpkin grace and conscious self-complacency as the new cut of his clothes. In general, this character is made little of on the stage; and when left to shift for itself, seems as vapid as it is forced.

‘Mrs. Malaprop is another portrait of the same overcharged description. The chief drollery of this extraordinary personage consists of her unaccountable and systematic misapplication of hard words. How she should know the words, and not their meaning, is a little odd. In reading the play we are amused with such a series of ridiculous blunders, just as we are with a series of puns or cross-readings. But to keep up the farce upon the stage, besides “a nice derangement of epitaphs,”[55] the imagination must have the assistance of a stately array of grave pretensions, and a most formidable establishment of countenance, with all the vulgar self-sufficiency of pride and ignorance, before it can give full credit to this learned tissue of technical absurdity.

‘As to Miss Lydia Languish, she is not easily done to the life. She is a delightful compound of extravagance and _naïveté_. She is fond and froward, practical and chimerical, hot and cold in a breath. She is that kind of fruit which drops into the mouth before it is ripe. She must have a husband, but she will not have one without an elopement. This young lady is at an age and of a disposition to throw herself into the arms of the first handsome young fellow she meets; but she repents and grows sullen, like a spoiled child, when she finds that nobody hinders her. She should have all the physiognomical marks of a true boarding-school, novel-reading Miss about her, and some others into the bargain. Sir Anthony’s description hardly comes up to the truth. She should have large, rolling eyes; pouting, disdainful lips; a pale, clear complexion; an oval chin, an arching neck, and a profusion of dark ringlets falling down upon it, or she will never answer to our ideas of the charming sentimental hoyden, who is the heroine of the play.

‘Faulkland is a refined study of a very common disagreeable character, actuated by an unceasing spirit of contradiction, who perversely seizes every idle pretext for making himself and others miserable; or querulous enthusiast, determined on disappointment, and enamoured with suspicion. He is without excuse; nor is it without some difficulty that we endure his self-tormenting follies, through our partiality for Julia, the amiable, unresisting victim of his gloomy caprice.

‘Sir Anthony Absolute and his son are the most sterling characters of the play. The tetchy, positive, impatient, overbearing, but warm and generous character of the one, and the gallant, determined spirit, adroit address, and dry humour of the other, are admirably set off against each other. The two scenes in which they contend about the proposed match, in the first of which the indignant lover is as choleric and rash as the old gentleman is furious and obstinate, and in the latter of which the son affects such a cool indifference and dutiful submission to his father, from having found out that it is the mistress of his choice whom he is to be compelled to marry, are masterpieces both of wit, humour, and character. Sir Anthony Absolute is an evident copy after Smollett’s kind-hearted, high-spirited Matthew Bramble, as Mrs. Malaprop is after the redoubted linguist, Mrs. Tabitha Bramble; and, indeed the whole tone, as well as the local scenery of the “Rivals,” reminds the reader of “Humphry Clinker.” Sheridan had a right to borrow; and he made use of this privilege, not sparingly, both in this and in his other plays. His Acres, as well in the general character as in particular scenes, is a _mannered_ imitation of Sir Andrew Ague-cheek.

‘Fag, Lucy, and Sir Lucius O’Trigger, though subordinate agents in the plot of the “Rivals,” are not the less amusing on that account. Fag wears his master’s wit, as he does his lace, at second-hand; Lucy is an edifying specimen of simplicity in a chambermaid, and Sir Lucius is an honest fortune-hunting Hibernian, who means well to himself, and no harm to anybody else. They are also traditional characters, common to the stage; but they are drawn with all the life and spirit of originals.

‘This appears, indeed, to have been the peculiar _forte_ and the great praise of our author’s genius, that he could imitate with the spirit of an inventor. There is hardly a character, we believe, or a marked situation in any of his works, of which there are not distinct traces to be found in his predecessors. But though the groundwork and texture of his materials was little more than what he found already existing in the models of acknowledged excellence, yet he constantly varied or improved upon their suggestions with masterly skill and ingenuity. He applied what he thus borrowed, with a sparkling effect and rare felicity, to different circumstances, and adapted it with peculiar elegance to the prevailing taste of the age. He was the farthest possible from a servile plagiarist. He wrote in imitation of Congreve, Vanbrugh, or Wycherley, as those persons would have written in continuation of themselves, had they lived at the same time with him. There is no excellence of former writers of which he has not availed himself, and which he has not converted to his own purposes, with equal spirit and success. He had great acuteness and knowledge of the world; and if he did not create his own characters, he compared them with their prototypes in nature, and understood their bearings and qualities, before he undertook to make a different use of them. He had wit, fancy, sentiment at command, enabling him to place the thoughts of others in new lights of his own, which reflected back an added lustre on the originals: whatever he touched, he adorned with all the ease, grace, and brilliancy of his style. If he ranks only as a man of second-rate genius, he was assuredly a man of first-rate talents. He was the most classical and the most popular dramatic writer of his age. The works he has left behind him will remain as monuments of his fame, for the delight and instruction of posterity.

‘Mr. Sheridan not only excelled as a comic writer, but was also an eminent orator, and a disinterested patriot. As a public speaker, he was distinguished by acuteness of observation and pointed wit, more than by impassioned eloquence, or powerful and comprehensive reasoning. Considering him with reference to his conversational talents, his merits as a comic writer, and as a political character, he was perhaps the most accomplished person of his time.

“Take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again.”[56]

165. ‘_Had I a heart_,’ _etc._ _The Duenna_, Act I. Sc. 5.

166. ‘_Half thy malice_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 1.

_That on the Begum’s affairs._ June 3, 6, 10, 13, 1788.

_One who has all the ability_, _etc._ Hazlitt refers to Thomas Moore, whose _Life of Sheridan_, however, did not appear till 1825.

_Macklin’s Man of the World._ Charles Macklin’s (1697?-1797) _The Man of the World_, first produced in London in 1781. For George Frederick Cooke’s (1756-1811) acting in the part of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant see Leigh Hunt’s _Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres_ (1807), pp. 220-1.

_Mr. Holcroft._ See Hazlitt’s _Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Holcroft_, vol. II. pp. 121-4 of the present edition.

l. 38. In the third edition the following account of _The West Indian_ from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. I.) is interpolated:—

‘As to the “West Indian,” it is a play that from the time of its first appearing has continued to hold possession of the stage, with just enough merit to keep it there, and no striking faults to drive it thence. It is above mediocrity. There is an agreeable vein of good humour and animal spirits running through it that does not suffer it to sink into downright insipidity, nor ever excites any very high degree of interest or delight. Wit there is none, and hardly an attempt at humour, except in the character of Major O’ Flaherty, who would not be recognised as a genuine Irishman but by virtue of his representative on the stage. His blunders and conduct are not such as would proceed from the good-natured unthinking impetuosity of such a person as O’ Flaherty is intended to be: but they are such as the author might sit down and try to invent for him. It is not an Irish character, but a character playing the Irishman; not a hasty, warm-hearted, hair-brained fellow, stumbling on mistakes by accident either in his words and actions, but a very complaisant gentleman, looking out for them by design, to humour the opinion which you entertain of him, and who is to make himself a national butt for the audience to laugh at. The “West Indian” himself (Belcour) is certainly the support of the piece. There is something interesting in the idea of seeing a young fellow of high animal spirits, a handsome fortune, and considerable generosity of feeling, launched from the other side of the world (with the additional impetus that the distance would give him) to run the gauntlet of the follies and vices of the town, to fall into scrapes only to get out of them, and who is full of professions of attachment to virtues which he does not practise, and of repentance for offences which he has not committed. It is the same character as Charles Surface in the “School for Scandal,” with an infusion of the romantic from his transatlantic origin, and an additional excuse for his extravagances in the tropical temperature of his blood.

‘The language of this play is elegant but common-place: the speakers seem in general more intent on adjusting their periods than on settling their affairs. The sentiments aspire to liberality. They are amiably mawkish, and as often as they incline to paradox, have a rapid sort of petulance about them, which excites neither our sympathy nor our esteem. The plot is a good plot. It is well laid, decently distributed through the course of five acts, and wound up at last to its final catastrophe in a single sentence.’

_The Mayor of Garratt._ Samuel Foote’s (1720-1777), produced in 1764. John O’Keeffe’s (1747-1833) _The Agreeable Surprise_, 1781.

167. _Mother Cole_, _etc._ Mrs. Cole and Smirk are both in _The Minor_ (1760). Hazlitt may have been thinking of Puff in _Taste_ (1752).

_The acting of Dowton_, _etc._ See _A View of the English Stage_, _ante_, p. 317, from which this passage is taken.

‘_‘Pigeon-livered_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

168. _Peter Pindar._ John Wolcot (1738-1819). _Sir Joseph Banks and the Emperor of Morocco_ was published in 1788. The first of his _Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians_ appeared in 1782, and his _Ode upon Ode, or a Peep at St. James’s and Instructions to a celebrated Laureat, being a Comic Account of the Visit of the Sovereign to Whitbread’s Brewery_, in 1787.

‘_Faint picture_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_Like his own expiring taper._ Hazlitt seems to refer to some verses of Wolcot’s, entitled ‘To My Candle.’ See _Pindar’s Works_ (1816), vol. II. p. 399.

A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE

In this work, published in 1818, Hazlitt collected the greater part of the theatrical criticisms which he had contributed successively to _The Morning Chronicle_, _The Champion_, _The Examiner_, and _The Times_. His first article in _The Morning Chronicle_ appeared on October 18, 1813 (see _ante_, p. 192), and the last on May 27, 1814 (see _ante_, p. 195). In his essay, ‘On Patronage and Puffing’ (_Table Talk_, vol. V. pp. 292, _et seq._), Hazlitt gives an account of his theatrical criticisms in the _Chronicle_. He thought himself that they were the best articles in the series (see _ante_, p. 174), and they are at any rate of exceptional interest inasmuch as they deal for the most part with the first appearances of Edmund Kean in London. His first article in _The Champion_, then edited by John Scott, appeared on August 14, 1814 (see p. 196), and the last on January 8, 1815 (see p. 208). Early in 1815 he became the regular dramatic critic of _The Examiner_. Leigh Hunt, the editor, had intended to resume theatrical criticism after his release from prison in February, but his attention was diverted to politics by the return of Buonaparte from Elba. Hazlitt’s first article (except for two notices of Kean’s _Iago_, July 24 and August 7, 1814) appeared on March 19, 1815 (see p. 221), the last on June 8, 1817 (see p. 373). By far the greater part of Hazlitt’s articles in _The Morning Chronicle_, _The Champion_, and _The Examiner_ were included by him in _A View of the English Stage_. Some passages, however, and, we think, some articles, he did omit (especially from _The Examiner_ of 1817). In the following notes passages omitted from articles included in _A View_ are printed in full; articles omitted from _A View_ are shortly summarised, if it is pretty clear from internal evidence that they were written by Hazlitt. Owing to want of space these articles cannot be printed in the present volume, but those which are clearly Hazlitt’s will be found among fugitive writings in a later volume, together with some notices (deemed certainly his) from _The Times_. Hazlitt seems to have been the dramatic critic, or one of the dramatic critics, of _The Times_ from the summer of 1817 till the spring of 1818, but only two of his articles (pp. 374, _et seq._) were included in _A View of the English Stage_. These appeared in September 1817, near the beginning of his term of office. Hazlitt’s reason for including so few of his _Times_ articles is not known. An examination of the dramatic notices in _The Times_ during the period in question suggests (1) that there were at least two regular dramatic critics on the staff, (2) that Hazlitt chiefly confined himself to Shakespearian and other plays of established reputation, and (3) that he practically ceased to write at the end of 1817. The following may be mentioned among the more important articles, which may, with varying degrees of probability, be ascribed to Hazlitt:— _School for Scandal_ (Munden as Sir Peter Teazle), September 8, 1817; Young’s Hamlet, September 9; _As You Like It_ (Miss Brunton as Rosalind), September 20; Maywood’s Zanga, October 3; Cibber’s _The Refusal, or The Ladies’ Philosophy_, October 6; Kean’s Richard III., October 7; _The Wonder, or A Woman Keeps a Secret_, October 9; _Venice Preserved_, October 10; Kean’s Macbeth, October 21; _Othello_ (Kean as Othello, Maywood as Iago), October 27; _Venice Preserved_ (Miss O’Neill as Belvidera), December 2; _The Honey Moon_, December 3; Fisher’s Hamlet, December 11; Kean’s Macbeth, December 16; _King John_ (Miss O’Neill as Constance), December 18.

Reference should be made (1) to Mr. William Archer’s Introduction to a Selection of Hazlitt’s _Dramatic Essays_ (ed. Archer and Lowe, 1895), and (2) to the companion-volume of Leigh Hunt’s _Dramatic Essays_ (ed. Archer and Lowe, 1894).

PAGE

173. _Rochefoucault_, _etc._ _Maximes et Réflexions Morales_, cccxii.

‘_The brief chronicles of the time._’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_Hold the mirror_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act. III. Sc. 2.

‘_Imitate humanity_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

_Zoffany’s pictures._ John Zoffany (1733-1810), a native of Ratisbon, came to England in 1758, and soon became noted for his pictures of Garrick and other actors in character. Several of these are preserved at the Garrick Club.

_Colley Cibber’s Life._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 160-1.

174. _A perverse caricature._ Hazlitt refers to the character of Marmozet in _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751). The quarrel between Garrick and Smollett was afterwards made up.

_In different newspapers._ See _ante_, introductory note to p. 169.

‘_The secrets of the prison-house._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_The editor of which_, _etc._ Thomas Barnes was editor of _The Times_ when Hazlitt was theatrical critic, but the reference is probably to the proprietor, John Walter the Second.

_Too prolix on the subject of the Bourbons._ Hazlitt probably refers to his brother-in-law, Dr., afterwards Sir John Stoddart, who was dismissed from the editorship of _The Times_ early in 1817, in consequence of the violence of his writings on French affairs. Stoddart immediately started _The Day and New Times_, the title of which was altered in 1818 to _The New Times_.

‘_One who loved_, _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

175. ‘_‘Some quantity_,’ _etc._ A composite quotation from _Hamlet_,

## Act III. Sc. 2, and _Romeo and Juliet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_Mr. Perry._ James Perry (1756-1821), proprietor and editor of _The Morning Chronicle_.

‘_Screw the courage_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 7.

176. ‘_Pritchard’s genteel_,’ _etc._ Churchill, _The Rosciad_, 852, the reference being to Hannah Pritchard (1711-1768), the actress who played Johnson’s Irene.

_Swiss bodyguards._ The famous corps, constituted in 1616, who had shown such fidelity to Louis XVI. during the attack on the Tuileries on August 10, 1792.

‘_Pigmy body_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, I. 157-8.

_The Fudge family in Paris_ (1818), Letter II. 116-123.

177. ‘_A master of scholars._’ Cf. _ante_, p. 167.

178. _The Characters of Shakespear’s Plays._ A second edition had just been published. Hazlitt certainly availed himself to the full of the license which he frankly claims in this paragraph. An attempt has been made in the present edition to indicate the source of his essays and criticisms, and also the various publications into which they were afterwards transferred.

179. _Mr. Kean’s Shylock._ Edmund Kean (1787-1833) had already acted many important parts in the provinces. At Dorchester one of his performances had been witnessed by Arnold, the stage manager of Drury Lane, through whom an engagement was made with the management of that theatre. Kean insisted on playing Shylock, and though the management and his fellow-actors were incredulous as to his powers, his success was undisputed. Henceforward his many triumphs in London were associated with the Drury Lane Theatre, except for a short period from 1827 to 1829, when his services were transferred to Covent Garden. For a later account of his Shylock, see _ante_, pp. 294-6.

180. l. 8. In _The Morning Chronicle_ Hazlitt adds: ‘After the play we were rejoiced to see the sterling farce of _The Apprentice_[57] revived, in which Mr. Bannister was eminently successful.’

_Miss Smith._ The assumed maiden name of the actress who married George Bartley, the actor, on August 24, 1814. She made her first appearance in London in 1805. She suffered by comparison with Mrs. Siddons, and later with Miss O’Neill.

_Rae._ Alexander Rae (1782-1820), after acting for a season at the Haymarket in 1806, made his first appearance at Drury Lane on November 12, 1812. Kean quickly eclipsed him in tragedy, though he maintained the reputation of being a good Hamlet.

_‘Far-darting’ eye._

‘And covetous of Shakspeare’s beauty seen In every flash of his far-beaming eye.’

COWPER, _The Task_, III. 601-2.

181. ‘_But I was born so high_,’ _etc._ _Richard III._, Act I. Sc. 3.

_The miserable medley acted for Richard III._ The work chiefly of Colley Cibber, published in 1700.

_Cooke._ George Frederick Cooke (1756-1811). His first appearance in London (Covent Garden, October 31, 1801) was in this part, which remained one of his best impersonations.

‘_Stand all apart_,’ _etc._ _Richard III._ (Cibber’s version).

182. ‘_The golden rigol_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Interpolated from _Henry IV._, Part II. Act IV. Sc. 5:

‘—— ——This is a sleep That from this golden rigol hath divorced So many English kings.’

‘_Chop off his head._’ See _post_, note to p. 201.

last line. In _The Morning Chronicle_ Hazlitt proceeds: ‘His fall, however, was too rapid. Nothing but a sword passed through the heart could occasion such a fall. With his innate spirit of _Richard_ he would struggle with his fate to the last moment of ebbing life. But on the whole the performance was the most perfect of any thing that has been witnessed since the days of Garrick. The play was got up with great skill. The scenes were all painted with strict regard to historic truth. There had evidently been research as to identity of place, for the views of the Tower, of Crosby House, etc. were, in the eye of the best judges, considered as faithful representations according to the descriptions handed down to us. The cast of the play was also good. Green-room report says that Miss Smith refused the part of the _Queen_, as not great enough _forsooth_ for her superior talents, although Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Pope,[58] Mrs. Crauford[59] and others felt it to their honour to display their powers in the character. In the present case the absence of Miss Smith was not a misfortune, for Mrs. Glover[60] gave to the fine scene with her children, a force and feeling that drew from the audience the most sympathetic testimonies of applause. Miss Boyce made a very interesting and elegant representative of _Lady Anne_. We sincerely congratulate the public on the great accession to the theatrical art which they have obtained in the talents of Mr. Kean. The experience of Saturday night convinces us that he acts from his own mental resources, and that he has organs to give effect to his comprehension of character. We never saw such admirable use made of the eye, of the lip, and generally of the muscles. We could judge of what he would have been if his voice had been clear from hoarseness; and we trust he will not repeat the difficult part till he has overcome his cold. We understand, he is shortly to appear in _Don John_, in _The Chances_. We know no character so exactly suited to his powers.’

183. ‘_I am myself alone._’ _Richard III._ (Cibber’s version).

‘_I am not i’ the vein._’ _Richard III._ Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_His grace looks cheerfully_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 4.

184. ‘_Take him for all in all_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Wroughton._ Richard Wroughton (1748-1822), the main part of whose career closed in 1798. He returned to the stage two years later, and continued to act till 1815.

_Mrs. Glover._ Julia Glover (1779-1850), the daughter of an actor named Betterton, a favourite actress who had made her first appearance in London in 1797.

‘_For in the very torrent_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Shakespeare Gallery._ Hazlitt refers to the well known Shakespeare Gallery projected and carried out by Alderman Boydell between 1786 and 1802.

185. _Mr. Kean’s Hamlet._ Drury Lane, March 12, 1814.

‘_A young and princely novice._’ _Richard III._, Act I. Sc. 4.

186. ‘_That has no relish_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_That noble and liberal casuist._’ Charles Lamb refers to the old English Dramatists as ‘those noble and liberal casuists.’ _Poems, Plays and Essays_ (ed. Ainger), p. 248.

‘_Out of joint._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_Come then_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 17-20.

187. ‘_A wave of the sea._’ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

‘_That within_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_Weakness and melancholy._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_’Tis I, Hamlet the Dane._’ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 1.

188. ‘_I’ll call thee_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 4.

‘_The rugged Pyrrhus._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_Bordered on the verge_,’ _etc._ Cf. Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 51-2.

189. _Mr. Raymond’s Representation_, _etc._ For Raymond, at this time acting manager at Drury Lane, see Leigh Hunt’s _Critical Essays_ (1807), pp. 29-32.

_Mr. Dowton._ William Dowton (1764-1851), one of the chief comedians of the Drury Lane company, made his first appearance in London in 1796 and retired in 1840.

‘_Flows on to the Propontic_,’ _etc._ This and the other quotations in this notice are from _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

_The rest of the play_, _etc._ Pope played Iago, Miss Smith Desdemona and Mrs. Glover Emilia.

190. ‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Antony and Cleopatra._ This version was attributed to Kemble.

191. ‘_The barge_,’ _etc._ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act II. Sc. 2.

192. ‘_He’s speaking now_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_It is my birth-day_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 13.

_Mrs. Faucit._ Harriet Faucit, the mother of Helen Faucit, had made her first appearance, on October 7, as Desdemona.

_Mr. Terry._ Daniel Terry (1780?-1829), who appeared in Edinburgh in 1809 and in London in 1813. He is chiefly remembered as an intimate friend and correspondent of Sir Walter Scott, many of whose novels he adapted for the stage.

_Artaxerxes._ By Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), originally produced in 1762. The words were translated from Metastasio’s ‘Artaserse.’

_Miss Stephens._ Catherine Stephens (1794-1882), a great favourite with Hazlitt who here notices her first important appearance on the stage. She was popular not only on the stage but in the concert-room. She retired in 1835 and in 1838 married the fifth earl of Essex.

193. _Catalani._ Angelica Catalani (1779-1849), the greatest _prima donna_ of her time.

_Mr. Liston’s acting_, _etc._ See _ante_, pp. 159-60.

_The Beggar’s Opera._ See the essay ‘On Patronage and Puffing’ in _Table-Talk_ (Vol. VI. pp. 292-3), where Hazlitt gives an interesting account of the writing of this article, ‘the last,’ he says, ‘I ever wrote with any pleasure to myself.’ Cf. also _The Round Table_, (Vol. I. pp. 65-6) for an account of _The Beggar’s Opera_, which Hazlitt was never tired of praising.

‘_O’erstepping_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

194. ‘_Woman is_ [Virgins are] _like_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_,

## Act I.

‘_There is some soul_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_Hussey, hussey_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act I.

‘_Cease your funning._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 2.

195. _Described by Molière._ In _La Critique de l’École des Femmes_, Sc. 6.

_Mrs. Liston’s person._ Miss Tyer (d. 1854), who married Liston in 1807, was of diminutive stature. She retired from the stage when her husband left Covent Garden in 1822.

_Richard Cœur de Lion._ The version (1786) by General Burgoyne of Sedaine’s _Richard Cœur de Lion_, produced in Paris in 1784.

_Oh, Richard!_ _etc._ This song in the original opera ‘O Richard! O mon Roi!’ had enjoyed great popularity in France before the Revolution.

196. _Miss Foote._ Maria Foote (1797?-1867), ‘a very pretty woman and a very pleasing actress,’ according to Genest. Some circumstances of her private life, alluded to by Hazlitt elsewhere, increased her popularity with the public. She retired in 1831, and in the same year married the fourth Earl of Harrington.

_Amanthus._ In Mrs. Inchbald’s _Child of Nature_. ‘_Youthful poet’s fancy_,’ _etc._ Rowe, _The Fair Penitent_, Act III. Sc. 1.

197. _Madame Grassini._ Josephina Grassini (1773-1850), a contralto singer who first appeared in London in 1803. Cf. De Quincey’s _Confessions of an English Opium Eater_ (_Works_, ed. Masson, III. 389).

_Signor Tramezzani._ A favourite Italian tenor. ‘To a beautiful voice he joined delicate apprehension, intense feeling and rich expression.’ (_Dictionary of Musicians_, 1824.)

‘_Might create_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 562.

198. _The Genius of Scotland._ Hazlitt is perhaps thinking of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant in Macklin’s _The Man of the World_, who ‘always booed, and booed, and booed, as it were by instinct.’ (Act III. Sc. 1.)

_M. Vestris._ _The Champion_ reads: ‘M. Vestris, who made an able-bodied representative of _Zephyr_ in the ballet, appears to us to be the Conway among dancers.’

_Miss O’Neill’s Juliet._ For Eliza O’Neill (1791-1872), afterwards Lady Becher, see _The Round Table_, vol. I., note to p. 156, and many references in the present volume.

_The Gamester_, _etc._ Edward Moore’s tragedy, first produced in 1753.

199. _Palmer._ John Palmer (1742?-1798), ‘Plausible Jack,’ the original Joseph Surface. See Lamb’s Essay ‘On Some of the Old Actors.’

_Isabella._ In _Isabella; or the Fatal Marriage_ (1758), Garrick’s version of Thomas Southerne’s _The Fatal Marriage_ (1694).

‘_Sweet is the dew_,’ _etc._ Cf. vol. I. p. 91 (_The Round Table_).

200. ‘_And Romeo banished._’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Festering in his shroud._’ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_The last scene_,’ _etc._ In Garrick’s version (1750) of _Romeo and Juliet_.

‘_I have forgot_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Jones’s Mercutio._ Richard Jones (1779-1851), known as ‘Gentleman Jones,’ a good actor of farces.

_Mr. Conway’s Romeo._ William Augustus Conway (1789-1828) first appeared in London in 1813, when he captivated Mrs. Piozzi, who is said to have offered to marry him. He continued to act in London and at Bath (sometimes playing important parts) till 1821, when he was driven from the English stage by an anonymous attack. In 1823 he went to America where, after

## acting with success and delivering religious discourses, he

drowned himself in 1828. Hazlitt has somewhat softened the asperities of this paragraph. See _The Champion_, October 16, 1814.

‘_The very beadle_,’ _etc._ ‘A very beadle to a humorous sigh.’ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Mr. Coates’s absurdities._ Robert Coates (1772-1848), the wealthy ‘Amateur of Fashion,’ who was known as ‘Romeo Coates’ from his representations of Romeo, the first of which took place at Bath in 1810.

_Mr. Kean’s Richard._ Drury Lane, October 3, 1814.

201. ‘_Chop off his head._’ ‘Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!’ Act IV. Sc. 3 of Cibber’s ‘miserable medley.’ See _ante_, p. 181.

‘_I fear no uncles_,’ _etc._ _Richard III._, Act III. Sc. 1.

203. ‘_Inexplicable dumb show and noise._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Captain Barclay._ Robert Barclay Allardice (1779-1854), generally known as ‘Captain Barclay,’ famous for his feats of pedestrianism, the most remarkable of which was walking one mile in each of 1000 successive hours, which he accomplished in the summer of 1809 at Newmarket. Bets amounting in the aggregate to £100,000 are said to have been made in connection with this feat.

204. ‘_With her best nurse_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 377-80.

_Mr. Kean’s Macbeth._ November 5, 1814.

205. ‘_Real hearts_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 101).

‘_Fate and metaphysical aid._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

206. ‘_Direness is thus_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Troubled with thick-coming fancies._’ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Subject_ [servile] _to all the skyey influences._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Sc. 1.

207. ‘_Lost too poorly in himself._’ _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_My way of life_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Then, oh farewell_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_To consider too curiously._’ _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

208. _Mr. Kean’s Romeo._ January 2, 1815.

‘_Added a cubit_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, VI. 27.

‘_As musical_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 477.

_Luke._ In Sir James Bland Burgess’s _Riches; or, The Wife and Brother_, founded on Massinger’s _The City Madam_, and produced in 1810.

209. _Garrick and Barry._ Garrick and Spranger Barry (1719-1777) were rival Romeos. In 1750 the play was acted twelve consecutive nights both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. See Dr. Doran’s _Annals of the English Stage_ (ed. Lowe), II. 122-3, where the remark quoted by Hazlitt is attributed to ‘a lady who did not pretend to be a critic, and who was guided by her feelings.’

‘_The silver sound_,’ _etc._ ‘How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

210. ‘_What said my man_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.

211. _Mrs. Beverley._ In Edward Moore’s _The Gamester_.

‘_As one_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

l. 36. In _The Champion_ Hazlitt proceeded as follows: ‘To return to Mr. Kean. We would, if we had any influence with him, advise him to give one thorough reading to Shakspeare, without any regard to the promptbook, or to his own cue, or to the effect he is likely to produce on the pit or gallery. If he does this, not with a view to his profession, but as a study of human nature in general, he will, we trust, find his account in it, quite as much as in keeping company with “the great vulgar, or the small.”[61] He will find there all that he wants, as well as all that he has:—sunshine and gloom, repose as well as energy, pleasure mixed up with pain, love and hatred, thought, feeling, and action, lofty imagination, with point and accuracy, general character with particular traits, and all that distinguishes the infinite variety of nature. He will then find that the interest of _Macbeth_ does not end with the dagger scene, and that _Hamlet_ is a fine character in the closet, and might be made so on the stage, _by being understood_. He may then hope to do justice to Shakspeare, and when he does this, he need not fear but that his fame will last.’

_Mr. Kean’s Iago._ Cf. _ante_, p. 190.

212. ‘_Hedged in_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Hamlet_, Act IV. Sc. 5.

_In contempt of mankind._ Hazlitt refers to a passage of Burke’s. See _Political Essays_, vol. III. p. 32 and note.

213. ‘_Play the dog_,’ _etc._ _Henry VI._, Part III., Act V. Sc. 6.

214. _Plausibility of a confessor._ _The Examiner_ has the following note on this passage: ‘Iago is a Jesuit out of orders, and ought to wear black. Mr. Kean had on a red coat (certainly not “the costume of his crime,” which is hypocrisy), and conducted the whole affair with the easy intrepidity of a young volunteer officer, who undertakes to seduce a bar-maid at an inn.’

214. ‘_His cue_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act I. Sc. 2.

215. ‘_Who has that heart so pure_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

216. ‘_What a full fortune_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_Here is her father’s house_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 1.

_Ode to Indifference._ By Mrs. Frances Greville, Fanny Burney’s godmother.

‘_What is the reason_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

217. ‘_I cannot believe_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_And yet how nature_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Nearly are allied_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, I. 163-4.

‘_Who knows all quantities_ [qualities], _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3. In _The Examiner_ the following note is appended to this passage:—

‘If _Desdemona_ really “saw her husband’s visage in his mind,”[62] or fell in love with the abstract idea of “his virtues and his valiant parts,”[63] she was the only woman on record, either before or since, who ever did so. Shakespeare’s want of penetration in supposing that those are the sort of things that gain the affections, might perhaps have drawn a smile from the ladies, if honest _Iago_ had not checked it by suggesting a different explanation. It should seem by this, as if the rankness and gross impropriety of the personal connection, the difference in age, features, colour, constitution, instead of being the obstacle, had been the motive of the refinement of her choice, and had, by beginning at the wrong end, subdued her to the amiable qualities of her lord. _Iago_ is indeed a most learned and irrefragable doctor on the subject of love, which he defines to be “merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the will.”[64] The idea that love has its source in moral or intellectual excellence, in good nature or good sense, or has any connection with sentiment or refinement of any kind, is one of those preposterous and wilful errors, which ought to be extirpated for the sake of those few persons who alone are likely to suffer by it, whose romantic generosity and delicacy ought not to be sacrificed to the baseness of their nature, but who treading securely the flowery path, marked out for them by poets and moralists, the licensed artificers of fraud and lies, are dashed to pieces down the precipice, and perish without help.’ In the following number of _The Examiner_ (August 14, 1814) Leigh Hunt, then in Surrey Gaol, wrote a long reply to this characteristic passage. In the number for September 4, the dramatic critic of _The Examiner_ replied to Hazlitt’s article on the character of Iago. A letter from Hazlitt by way of rejoinder appeared on September 11 (see Appendix to these notes). The critic replied (closing the controversy) on September 18.

218. ‘_Oh gentle lady_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_The milk of human kindness._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_Least relish of salvation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Oh, you are well tuned now_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_Though in the trade of war_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 2.

219. ‘_My noble lord_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_It is not written in the bond._’ _The Merchant of Venice_,

## Act IV. Sc. 1.

220. ‘_Though I perchance_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_O grace_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_This may do something_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_I did say so_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

221. ‘_Work on_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_How is it, General_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_Look on the tragic loading_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Kean’s Richard II._ Shakespeare’s play with considerable alterations and additions (by Wroughton), produced March 9, 1815, and acted thirteen times. This is the first paper which Hazlitt wrote as regular dramatic critic of _The Examiner_. Leigh Hunt, the editor, who was released from prison in February 1815, had intended to take up this work, and had begun the year (while still in Surrey gaol) by contributing a series of articles on the principal actors and actresses of the day. He had also written one ‘Theatrical Examiner’ (February 26, on Kean’s Richard III.) before he was compelled by the stirring events of the ‘hundred days’ to devote all his attention to politics. Thus the work of dramatic critic, as well as the carrying out of the ‘Round Table’ scheme, fell to Hazlitt. Cf. the advertisement to _The Round Table_ (Vol I. p. xxxi.).

_We are in the number_, _etc._ Cf. Lamb’s essay ‘On the tragedies of Shakspeare considered with reference to their fitness for stage representation,’ originally published in _The Reflector_ (1811).

222. ‘_Inexpressible_ [inexplicable] _dumb-show and noise._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Segnius per aures_,’ _etc._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 180.

_Mr. Kean ... in very many passages_, _etc._ Cf. Coleridge’s well-known saying (_Table Talk_, April 27, 1823): ‘To see him [Kean] act, is like reading Shakspeare by flashes of lightning.’

223. ‘_Overdone or come tardy of_ [off]’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

224. ‘_Why on thy knee_,’ _etc._ _Richard II._, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Oh that I were a mockery king_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.

_The Editor of this Paper._ Leigh Hunt first saw Kean as Richard III., and wrote a criticism in _The Examiner_ (February 26, 1815) to which Hazlitt refers.

_Mr. Pope._ Alexander Pope (1763-1835) from 1785 till 1827 acted an immense number of parts both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

_Mr. Holland._ Charles Holland (1768-1849?), nephew of the better known Charles Holland (1733-1769), Garrick’s friend, first appeared at Drury Lane in 1796.

_Idly tacked on to the conclusion._ ‘For Mrs. Bartley to rant and whine in,’ _The Examiner_ adds.

_The Unknown Guest._ Produced on March 29, 1815, and attributed to Arnold, the manager.

_Mr. Arnold._ Samuel James Arnold (1774-1852) in 1809 opened the Lyceum Theatre as the English Opera House, of which he was manager for many years. He was manager at Drury Lane from 1812 to 1815.

225. ‘_More honoured_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

_Mr. Kelly._ Michael Kelly (1764?-1826), after singing abroad chiefly in Italy and Vienna, first appeared in 1787 at Drury Lane of which he became musical director.

_Mr. Braham._ See vol. VII., note to p. 70.

226. _Mr. Phillips._ Thomas Phillipps (1774-1841), the composer, who first appeared in London in 1796.

_Mrs. Dickons._ Maria Dickons (1770?-1833) appeared at Covent Garden as Miss Poole (her maiden name) in 1793. She joined the Drury Lane company in 1811 and retired about 1820.

_Miss Kelly._ Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882), a niece of Michael Kelly, appeared at Drury Lane as early as 1798 and was chiefly associated with that theatre during her long career as an actress. She retired in 1835 and devoted herself to the training of young actresses. She was a great friend of the Lambs and the heroine of Elia’s _Barbara S——_. The present volume shows how greatly Hazlitt admired her acting.

_Mr. Knight._ Edward Knight (1774-1826), ‘Little Knight,’ a regular member of the Drury Lane company from 1812.

227. _Love in Limbo._ Attributed to Millingen.

_Zembuca._ _Zembuca, or the Net-Maker and his Wife_, by Pocock.

_Mr. Kean’s Zanga._ At Drury Lane, May 24, 1815.

_The Revenge._ By Edward Young, produced in 1721.

228. ‘_I knew you could not bear it._’ Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_And so is my revenge._’ Act V. Sc. 2.

_Oxberry._ _William Oxberry_ (1784-1824), one of the regular Drury Lane comedians. His _Dramatic Biography_ (5 vols. 1820-1826) was edited after his death by his widow.

229. _Mr. Bannister’s Farewell._ June 1, 1815. Hazlitt had already published part of this article in _The Round Table_, (vol. I. p. 155).

_The World._ By James Kenney, produced in 1808.

_The Children in the Wood._ By Thomas Morton, music by Dr. Samuel Arnold, produced in 1793.

_Mr. Gattie._ Henry Gattie (1774-1844), a member of the Drury Lane company from 1813 till his retirement in 1833.

_The Honey-Moon._ By John Tobin (1770-1804), produced in 1805.

_Mrs. Davison._ Maria Rebecca Davison (1780?-1858) appeared at Drury Lane (as Miss Duncan) in 1804, and was chiefly associated with that theatre for a number of years.

_Decamp._ See _post_, note to p. 247.

_We do not wonder_, _etc._ This passage to the end is in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 155-6 and notes.

230. _Comus._ Produced April 28, 1815, and acted fourteen times.

231. ‘_Of mask and antique pageantry._’ _L’Allegro_, 128.

‘_A marvellous proper man._’ _Richard III._, Act I. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Duruset._ J. B. Durusett, ‘an agreeable tenor singer’ at Covent Garden. He was regarded as the principal male singer during the absence of John Sinclair from that theatre.

‘_Magic circle._’

Cf. ‘But Shakespear’s magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.’

Dryden, Prologue to _The Tempest_, 19-20.

‘_This evening late_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 540 _et seq._

232. ‘_Two such I saw_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ 291 _et seq._

233. ‘_Royal fortitude._’

‘—— ——whose mind ensued, Through perilous war, with regal fortitude.’

Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘November, 1813,’ published in 1815. In the note Hazlitt probably refers to the omission of _The Evening Walk_ (1793), which was not republished till 1837.

_Mr. Kean’s Leon._ June 20, 1815.

_Leon._ In Fletcher’s _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_.

234. _Mr. Bartley._ George Bartley (1782?-1858) first appeared at Drury Lane in 1802, and became manager of Covent Garden in 1829.

‘_Double deafness._’ Cf. ‘But yield to double darkness nigh at hand,’ _Samson Agonistes_, 593.

_The Shakespeare Gallery._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 184.

235. ‘_The gay creatures_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 299.

_Messrs. Young_, _etc._ Charles Mayne Young (1777-1856), who succeeded Kemble as the chief tragedian at Covent Garden, and retired in 1832; William Abbott (1789-1843), a member of the Covent Garden company for many years from 1812; John Emery (1777-1822), one of the best actors of his time, especially in rustic parts, associated almost entirely with Covent Garden from 1798 till his death; Sarah Booth (1793-1867), who first appeared at Covent Garden in 1810.

_’Tis much.’_ _Cymbeline_, Act I. Sc. 6.

236. _Airy shapes_, _etc._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, I. 775 _et seq._

_Mr. Grimaldi’s Orson._ In _Valentine and Orson_, the part in which Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837) made his first appearance (1806) at Covent Garden.

‘_Tricksy spirit._’ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.

237. _Mrs. Bland._ Maria Theresa Bland (1769-1838), who made her first appearance at Drury Lane (as Miss Romanzini) in 1786. Hazlitt heard her in Liverpool in 1792. See vol. vii. p. 193.

‘_After the songs of Apollo._’ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V. Sc. 2.

_My Wife! What Wife?_ By Barrett, produced July 25, 1815.

‘_Keep such a dreadful pudder_ [pother].’ _etc._ _King Lear_,

## Act III. Sc. 2.

238. ‘_Good Mr. Tokely_ [Master Brook],’ _etc._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_In the likeness of a sigh._’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 1.

239. _Mr. Meggett._ This actor from Edinburgh made his first appearance at the Haymarket on July 19, 1815. Genest (VIII. 486) says that he was ‘cruelly used by the bigotted admirers of Kean.’

_The Mountaineers._ By George Colman the younger, produced in 1795.

_Mr. Harley’s Fidget._ In _The Boarding House_, a musical farce by Samuel Beazley (1786-1851), first produced on August 26, 1811.

_Mr. Harley._ John Pritt Harley (1786-1858) made his first appearance in London at the English Opera House in July, 1815. Soon afterwards he joined the company at Drury Lane, where he remained till 1835, and made a great reputation as a comic actor and singer.

_The Blue Stocking._ Moore’s _M.P., or the Blue-Stocking_ (1811).

240. _Mr. Wallack._ James William Wallack (1791?-1864), a versatile actor well known for many years both in London and America.

_Mrs. Harlowe._ Sarah Harlowe (1765-1852), a low comedy actress who first appeared at Covent Garden in 1790.

‘_Warbled_, _etc._ Cf. ‘In amorous ditties all a summer’s day.’ _Paradise Lost_, I. 449.

‘_As one incapable_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Sc. 7.

_The Iron Chest._ By George Colman the younger, produced by Kemble in 1796.

241. _The Squire of Dames._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book III. Canto VII. The giantess was Argante.

_Mr. Capel Lofft._ Capell Lofft (1751-1824), a well-known politician and miscellaneous writer, the patron of the poet Bloomfield and Napoleon. The letter referred to by Hazlitt appeared in _The Morning Chronicle_, August 3, 1815.

_Mr. Foote._ An actor from Edinburgh who had made his first appearance in London on July 18, 1815.

242. _Mr. Gyngell._ Gyngell’s ‘Exhibition of the original Fantoccini, the Microcosm, the Moving Panorama,’ etc. was on view at this time at the theatre in Catherine Street.

_Living in London._ Attributed to Jameson, produced August 5, 1815.

‘_Want of decency_,’ _etc._ The Earl of Roscommon’s _Essay on Translated Verse_,

114.

243. _Quod sit_, _etc._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 188.

_The King’s Proxy._ By Samuel James Arnold.

_Plato._ _The Republic_, Book VII.

244. _Mr. and Mrs. T. Cooke._ Thomas Simpson Cooke (1782-1848), who composed the music for _The King’s Proxy_.

l. 23. _The Examiner_ proceeds to quote from _The Morning Chronicle_ a favourable notice of a new musical farce (by E. P. Knight) entitled _A Chip of the Old Block, or, The Village Festival_, and adds: ‘This account is from the _Chronicle_. It is much too favourable. The piece is one of the most wretched we have seen. A statute fair would be more entertaining. The political claptraps were so barefaced as to be hissed. Matthews sung a song with that kind of humour and effect of which our readers will easily form an idea.’

_The Maid and the Magpie._ Arnold’s version, produced August 21, 1815.

245. _The Hypocrite._ By Isaac Bickerstaffe, first produced in 1768.

246. ‘_Sleek o’er his rugged looks._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Major Sturgeon._ In Foote’s _The Mayor of Garratt_.

_Mrs. Sparks._ See Leigh Hunt’s _Dramatic Essays_ (ed. Archer and Lowe), p. 177.

_Mrs. Orger._ Mary Ann Orger (1788-1849) appeared at Drury Lane in 1808. She was the wife of Thomas Orger, a Quaker.

247. ‘_Has honours_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Some have greatness thrust upon ’em.’ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 5.

_Mr. Decamp._ De Camp (Mrs. Charles Kemble’s brother) had played Isidore in Coleridge’s _Remorse_ (January 23, 1813). For another failure of his see Lamb’s _Letters_ (ed. W. C. Hazlitt), I. 377.

_Mr. Edwards’s Richard III._ September 25, 1815.

‘_Sole sway and sovereignty._’ Cf. ‘Give solely sovereign sway.’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

248. _Mr. Incledon._ Charles Incledon (1763-1826), the tenor, a good singer but a bad actor, appeared at Covent Garden from 1790 till 1815.

249. _Lovers’ Vows._ Mrs. Inchbald’s version of Kotzebue’s _Natural Son_, first produced at Covent Garden, 1798, revived at Drury Lane, September 26, 1815.

_Mrs. Mardyn._ Mrs. Mardyn had been very successful in Dublin. A false report was afterwards spread that she had eloped with Byron. See Byron’s _Letters and Journals_ (ed. Prothero), III. 217, and Mrs. Baron Wilson’s _Our Actresses_, I. 198-207.

_Mr. Dowton ... for the first time._ October 5, 1815.

‘_Merry jest._’ _Titus Andronicus_, Act V. Sc. 2.

250. _Mr. Lovegrove._ William Lovegrove (1778-1816), who made his reputation at Bath, and appeared in London in 1810.

_Wewitzer._ Ralph Wewitzer (1748-1825), who had had a long career, chiefly in secondary parts. This was one of his last appearances.

l. 18. _The Examiner_ article continues: ‘The new farce [at Covent Garden, October 5, 1815], called _The Farce-Writer_, has been very successful; we wish we could add deservedly so. It is a happy instance of lively dulness. The wit consists entirely in the loco-motion of the actors. It is a very badly written pantomime.’

250. _The School for Scandal._ September 27, 1815.

_Little Simmons._ Samuel Simmons (1777?-1819), a regular member of the Covent Garden company from 1796, and very successful as a comedian. Moses in _The School for Scandal_ was one of his parts.

‘_Cast some longing_,’ _etc._ Gray’s _Elegy_, St. 22.

251. _Fawcett._ John Fawcett (1768-1837), for many years manager of Covent Garden.

_Mrs. Gibbs._ For an account of this actress, said to have been the wife of George Colman the younger, see Mrs. Baron Wilson’s _Our Actresses_, I. 83-90.

_Mr. Blanchard._ William Blanchard (1769-1835), one of the Covent Garden comedians. See Leigh Hunt’s _Critical Essays_, p. 122.

_Mr. Farley._ Charles Farley (1771-1859), actor, dramatist, and stage-manager.

last line. _The Examiner_ continues: ‘Miss O’Neill has resumed her engagement at this house, and plays her usual characters to crowded audiences with even increased effect. We should attempt to describe her excellency in some of them, but that we feel ourselves unable to do her even tolerable justice.’

252. _Mrs. Alsop’s Rosalind._ Covent Garden, October 18, 1815. Mrs. Alsop did not continue long on the stage. She was the daughter of Mrs. Jordan and Richard Daly, the Irish theatrical manager.

‘_No more like_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 2.

_Her Nell._ In _The Devil to Pay_.

_The Will._ By F. Reynolds, produced in 1797.

253. _John Du Bart._ October 25, 1815. The piece, attributed to Pocock, seems to have been founded on an exploit of the French naval hero, Jean Barth (1651-1702).

_That which took place in Hyde Park._ Hazlitt refers to the extraordinary thanksgiving jubilee, which took place in London on August 1, 1814, and following days. Part of the programme consisted of a sham fight on the Serpentine.

254. _Mr. Bishop._ Afterwards Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1786-1855), the composer.

‘_Guns, drums_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Satires_, I. 26.

_The Beggar’s Opera._ October 28, 1815. Cf. _ante_, pp. 193-5.

_Miss Nash._ Miss Nash had played Polly at Bath, November 4, 1813, a performance described by Genest as ‘very good.’

255. _Mrs. Davenport._ Mary Ann Davenport (1765?-1843) first appeared at Covent Garden in 1794.

256. l. 15. _The Examiner_ adds: ‘A new farce has been brought out at Drury-Lane in the course of the week, called _Twenty per Cent_. It has succeeded very well. A voluble lying knave of a servant in it by Mr. Harley, who plays this class of characters well, is its chief attraction. It is deficient in plot, but not without pleasantry. It is improbable, lively, and short.’ The farce was by T. Dibdin.

_Miss O’Neill’s Elwina._ Covent Garden, November 11. Hannah More’s _Percy_ was produced in 1778.

l. 15. _The Theatrical Examiner_ for November 12, 1815, on Kean’s Bajazet, and Mrs. Mardyn and Mrs. Alsop in _The Country Girl_, is clearly Hazlitt’s.

257. _There is one short word_, _etc._ ‘Fudge.’ See _The Vicar of Wakefield_, chap. xi.

258. l. 24. _The Examiner_ continues: ‘Miss Stephens has appeared twice in _Polly_, and once in _Rosetta_. She looks better than she did last year, and, if possible, sings better. Of the new Farce at Drury-Lane [_Who’s Who? or The Double Imposture_], we have only room to add, that there is one good

## scene in it, in which Munden and Harley made a very grotesque

contrast, with some tolerable equivoques; all the rest is a tissue of the most tedious and gross improbabilities. The author’s wit appeared to have been _elicited and expended_ in the same moment.’

_Where to Find a Friend._ By Leigh, produced at Drury Lane November 23, 1815.

260. _Johnstone._ John Henry Johnstone (1749-1828), a member of the Drury Lane company from 1803 to 1820. He began his career as a singer.

‘_The milk of human kindness._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. v.

261. _Cymon._ Garrick’s play was produced in 1767.

‘_Sweet Passion of Love_,’ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_It is silly sooth_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_Now I am seventy-two._’ _Cymon_, Act II. Sc. 3.

‘_Split the ears_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

262. _What’s a Man of Fashion?_ ‘An indifferent farce’ (according to Genest) by Reynolds.

263. ‘_With pleased attention_,’ _etc._ Collins, _Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer_, 59-63. Collins is referring to Fletcher.

‘_Where did you rest last night?_’ _The Orphan_, Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_A cubit from his stature._’ Cf. _St. Matthew_, vi. 27.

_The Honey-Moon._ By John Tobin (1805).

‘_He still plays the dog._’ Cf. _Henry VI._, Part III. Act V. Sc. 6.

last line. _The Examiner_ adds: ‘Mrs. Marden [Mardyn] played _Miss Hoyden_ on Wednesday in the admirable comedy of the _Trip to Scarborough_. She seemed to consult her own genius in it less than the admonitions of some critics. There was accordingly less to find fault with, but we like her better when she takes her full swing.

‘If to her share some trifling errors fall, Look in her face, and you’ll forget them all.’[65]

Mr. Penley’s _Lord Foppington_ had very considerable merit.

264. _The Merchant of Bruges._ A version by Douglas Kinnaird, Byron’s friend, of Fletcher’s comedy, _The Beggar’s Bush_.

‘_That every petty lord_,’ _etc._ For this and the other passages quoted see _The Beggar’s Bush_, Act II. Sc. 3.

266. l. 17. In _The Examiner_ the article continued as follows: ‘The new musical farce, _My Spouse and I_, continues to be acted with deserved applause. It is by much the best thing brought out this season. It has a great deal of all that is necessary to a good farce, point, character, humour, and incident. It was admirably supported. Harley played a lively character of the bustling Fawcett-cast very happily. He may now stick very comfortably in the skirts of public favour, if he does not chuse to fling himself out of them. The only faults of this piece are, that it is too long in the second act, and that Miss Kelly continues somewhat too long in breeches, for the purposes of decorum. Mr. Barnard, as a country lad, played very well, and was deservedly encored in a song, “But not for me the merry bells.” This piece is described by Genest as “an indifferent musical farce by C. Dibdin, Jun.”’

_Smiles and Tears._ By Mrs. Charles Kemble (Maria Theresa De Camp, 1774-1838), produced December 12, 1815.

268. _Lucy Lockitt._ In _The Beggar’s Opera_.

_Deaf and Dumb._ A version (1801) of Bouilly’s _Abbé de l’Épée_.

_Father and Daughter._ Mrs. Opie’s (1769-1853) first publication (1801).

l. 29. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt adds: ‘Mr. Liston spoke an indifferent epilogue inimitably well.’

_George Barnwell._ Cf. _The Round Table_, vol. I. p. 154.

‘_A custom more honoured_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act. I. Sc. 4.

269. ‘_These odds more even._’ Cf. _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_A good hater._’ See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), I. 190, u. 1.

‘_He is the fitter for heaven._’ _George Barnwell_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Could he lay_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.

270. l. 10. _The Examiner_ concludes: ‘Both Pantomimes are indifferent. That at Drury-Lane consists in endless flights of magpies up to the ceiling, and that at Covent-Garden stays too long in China. The latter part was better where Mr. Grimaldi comes in, and lets off a culverin at his enemies, and sings a serenade to his mistress in concert with _Grimalkin_. We were glad, right glad, to see Mr. Grimaldi again. There was (some weeks back) an ugly report that Mr. Grimaldi was dead. We would not believe it; we did not like to ask any one the question, but we watched the public countenance for the intimation of an event which “would have eclipsed the gaiety of nations.”[66] We looked at the faces we met in the street, but there were no signs of general sadness; no one stopped his acquaintance to say, that a man of genius was no more. Here indeed he is again, safe and sound, and as pleasant as ever. As without the gentleman at St. Helena, there is an end of politics in Europe; so without the clown at Sadler’s Wells, there must be an end of pantomimes in this country!’

_The Busy Body._ Mrs. Centlivre’s comedy (1709).

‘_His voice_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

271. _Barnes._ ‘Mrs. Barnes from Exeter.’ December 29, 1815.

‘_The divine Desdemona._’ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_That flows on_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

_Zanga or Bajazet._ In Young’s _The Revenge_ and Rowe’s _Tamerlane_ respectively.

272. ‘_Then, oh, farewell!_’ For this and the other _Othello_ quotations see _ante_, p. 189.

_A New Way to Pay Old Debts._ Sir Giles Overreach was one of Kean’s greatest parts. See Doran’s _Annals of the English Stage_ (ed. Lowe), III. 390-1.

_It has been considered_, _etc._ Part of this passage was repeated in _The Round Table_. See vol. I. pp. 156-7, and notes.

273. ‘_Two at a time_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act III. Sc. 4.

_Edwin._ John Edwin, the elder (1749-1790), one of the great comedians of his day.

274. ‘_His fortune swells him_,’ _etc._ _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_Come hither, Marall_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_I’m feeble_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

_A Midsummer Night’s Dream._ As altered by Reynolds, and produced January 17, 1816.

_We hope we have not been_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably refers to the concluding paragraph of one of his _Round Table_ essays. See vol. I. p. 64.

275. ‘_Injurious Hermia_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act III. Sc. 2.

277. ‘_Is he not moved_,’ _etc._ _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_Lord,—Right Honourable Lord._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 1, and Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Do themselves homage._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_It came twanging off._’ _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, Act III. Sc. 2.

278. _Love for Love._ January 23, 1816.

_Munden’s Foresight._ Cf. _ante_, p. 71.

_Parsons._ William Parsons (1736-1795), ‘the comic Roscius.’ Foresight was one of his best parts.

‘_School’s up_,’ _etc._ An interpolation apparently.

279. ‘_A great sea-porpoise._’ ‘You great sea-calf,’ Miss Prue says to him (Act III. Sc. 7).

‘_And pray sister_,’ _etc._ Act II. Sc. 9.

_The Anglade Family._ _Accusation, or The Family of D’Anglade_, adapted from the French by J. H. Payne, and produced February 1, 1816.

_The Maid and the Magpye._ Cf. _ante_, p. 244.

280. note. Lavalette, after the second Bourbon restoration in 1815, was, along with Ney, condemned to death, but escaped by changing clothes with his wife. Cf. vol. III. p. 157 and note.

281. _The same drama._ The Covent Garden version (February 1) was by James Kenney.

_Mathews._ Charles Mathews (1776-1835), one of the best comedians, and the greatest mimic of his time. Hazlitt’s admiration of him was not enthusiastic.

_Charles Kemble._ Charles Kemble (1775-1854), the younger brother of Mrs. Siddons and John Philip Kemble, first appeared in London in 1794, and retired in 1840.

_Measure for Measure._ Covent Garden, February 8, 1816.

_Lectures on Dramatic Literature_, _etc._ Cf. vol. I. (_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_), p. 346 and note.

282. ‘_The cowl_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘All hoods make not monks.’ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_If I do lose thee_,’ _etc._ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Sc. 1.

283. ‘_To lie in cold obstruction_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

‘_Careless_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_He has been drinking hard_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_A dish of some three-pence._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_There is some soul_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_Society for the Suppression of Vice._ See vol. I. p. 60, and note.

284. ‘_The enemies of the human race._’ The phrase was applied to Buonaparte. Cf. vol. IX. p. 321.

‘_Oh fie, fie._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Vetus._ See vol. III. pp. 57 _et seq._, and notes.

‘_Marall, come hither, Marall._’ See _ante_, note to p. 274.

285. l. 35. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes: ‘_Rosina_ has been acted at this theatre to introduce the two Miss Halfords in the characters of _Rosina_ and _Phœbe_. They have both of them succeeded, and equally well. If they are not a pair of Sirens, they are very pretty singers. Miss E. Halford is the tallest, and Miss S. Halford the fattest of the two.’

286. ‘_The mob are so pleased_,’ _etc._ _The Recruiting Officer_,

## Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_Oh, the wonderful works of Nature._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.

‘_Well, Tummy._’ _Ibid._

287. l. 6. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘The new farce of _What Next?_ is very broad, very improbable, but if better managed, might have been made very laughable. The plot turns entirely on the disguise assumed by a nephew to personate his uncle, which leads to several ridiculous surprises and blunders, and the carrying on and the disentangling of the plot is effected with much more violence than art. It was once or twice in danger, but it hurried on so rapidly from absurdity to absurdity, that it at last distanced the critics. Even as a farce, it is too crude and coarse ever to become a very great favourite.’ ‘A moderate Farce by T. Dibdin’ (Genest), produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 29.

287. _The Fair Penitent._ By Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), produced in 1703. On the present occasion Charles Kemble played Lothario.

‘_A Muse of fire_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Prologue.

‘_An awkward imitator of Shakespear._’ See _Tom Jones_, Book IX. chap. 1.

288. ‘_Which to be hated_,’ _etc._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, II. 218.

‘_It was the day_,’ _etc._ _The Fair Penitent_, Act III. Sc. 1.

Last line. The article in _The Examiner_ concludes with a brief reference to the re-appearance of Braham in _Israel in Egypt_, and gives the speech addressed by him to the audience, who had received him with some signs of disapprobation.

289. _The Duke of Milan._ Published in 1623.

‘_Which felt a stain_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 89).

290. ‘_Proud to die_,’ _etc._ _The Duke of Milan_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Some widow’s curse_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 274.

‘_By orphans’ tears._’ See _ante_, note to p. 277.

291. l. 5. Add: ‘Mr. Bartley spoke a new prologue on the occasion, which was well received.’

_Miss O’Neill’s Lady Teazle._ In _The Examiner_ this article begins as follows: ‘Miss O’Neill [we beg pardon of the Board of Green Cloth, and are almost afraid that this style of theatrical criticism may not be quite consistent with the principles of subordination and the scale of respectability about to be established in Europe; for we read in the _Examiner_ of last week the following paragraph: “At Berlin, orders have been given by the police to leave out the titles of Mr., Mrs., and Miss, prefixed to the names of public actors. The females are to take the name of _frou_. Accordingly we see the part of Desdemona, in Shakespeare’s tragedy of _Othello_, is given out to be played by _frou_ (woman) Schrok.” This is as it should be, and legitimate. But to proceed till further orders in the usual style].’

_Miss Farren._ Elizabeth Farren (1759-1829), who first played in London in 1777, retired in 1797, and in the same year married the 12th Earl of Derby. Cf. _ante_, p. 389. Her last appearance was in the character of Lady Teazle.

292. _Mrs. Egerton._ Sarah Egerton (1782-1847) first appeared in London in 1811, and retired in 1835. Mrs. Baron Wilson (_Our Actresses_, I. 79) relates that on the occasion here referred to by Hazlitt she played Meg Merrilies in place of Emery, who ‘refused to put on petticoats.’

_The late Mr. Cooke._ George Frederick Cooke (1756-1811) was frequently too intoxicated to appear on the stage. See _ante_, note to p. 207.

293. ‘_The web of our life_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_,

## Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_Like the giddy sailor_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Richard III._, Act III. Sc. 4.

294. ‘_Deep than loud._’ Cf. ‘Curses, not loud, but deep.’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

295. _The following account._ See _ante_, pp. 179-80.

296. ‘_I would not have parted with it_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 1.

297. ‘_Exhaling to the sky._’ Cf. ‘No natural exhalation in the sky.’ _King John_, Act III. Sc. 4.

_Madame Mainville Fodor._ Josephine Fodor-Mainvielle (b. 1793). This was her first, or one of her first appearances in London. She retired from the stage in 1833.

‘_Has her exits_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

298. ‘_Till the moon_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 607 _et seq._

‘_Hope told a flattering tale._’ An anonymous song set to music by Paisiello.

_Mons. Drouet._ Louis François Philippe Drouet (1792-1873).

l. 29. _The Examiner_ continues: ‘_Drury-Lane._—A young lady has appeared at this theatre in the character of _Cecilia_ in the _Chapter of Accidents_: but from the insipidity of the character in which she chose to appear, we know no more of her powers of acting than before we saw her. Both her face and voice are pleasing.’ The lady was Miss Murray. Sophia Lee’s comedy _The Chapter of Accidents_ was produced in 1780.

_Mr. Cobham._ April 15, 1816. Thomas Cobham (1786-1842) failed on this occasion, but became ‘a hero to transpontine audiences.’

‘_Made of penetrable stuff._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

299. ‘_Unhousell’d_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 5.

_Sir Pertinax MacSycophant._ In Macklin’s _The Man of the World_ (1781). Bibby appeared on April 16, 1816.

_Egerton._ Daniel Egerton (1772-1835), ‘long the performer of “cruel uncles” and “flinty-hearted fathers”’ at Covent Garden. He married Sarah Fisher, for whom see _ante_, p. 292.

300. _Miss Grimani._ Miss Grimani from Bath played Juliet, April 23, 1816.

‘_How silver sweet_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_The midnight bell_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Gentle tassel._’ ‘To lure this tassel-gentle back again.’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

301. _Garrick’s Ode on Shakespear._ Written for the famous Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford in 1769.

‘_Vesuvius in an eruption_,’ _etc._ Gray, Letter to Warton, August 8, 1749. See _Letters_ (ed. Tovey), I. 201.

‘_I was ready to sink for him_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

302. l. 20. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt continues as follows: ‘But any one who chuses may see the celebration of the centenary of Shakspeare’s death to-day, (which is Thursday) on Saturday or on Tuesday next, at Covent-Garden Theatre. They kill him there as often as the town pleases.——We cannot speak favourably of either of the new after-pieces, _Who wants a Wife?_ and _Pitcairn’s Island_. The one is contrived for Mr. Liston to make foolish love in; and the other for Mr. Smith to play that land-monster, a singing, swaggering, good-natured, honest, blackguard English Jack Tar, a sort of animal that ought never to come ashore, or as soon as it does, ought to go to sea again.’

‘_Doubtless the pleasure_,’ _etc._ _Hudibras_, Part II., Canto III., 1-2.

‘_Full volly home._’ Cf. ‘But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,’ Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_, 628. Cf. _King Lear_,

## Act V. Sc. 3, l. 174.

303. _Madame Sacchi._ Madame Sacchi’s ‘astonishing performances’ on the tight rope were introduced ‘for the accommodation of the crowds of applicants’ who desired to witness them.

‘_So fails_,’ _etc._ See _The Excursion_, Book VII., 975 _et seq._

‘_Affecting a virtue._’ ‘Assume a virtue, if you have it not.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_They two can be made one flesh._’ Cf. _Genesis_ ii. 24.

_Dame Hellenore._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book III. Canto X.

‘_Aggravated_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act I. Sc. 2.

304. ‘_There is some fury_,’ _etc._ _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_,

## Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_A word of naught._’ Cf. ‘You must say “paragon”; a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_So stands the statue_,’ _etc._ Thomson, _The Seasons_, Summer, 1347.

l. 24. Hazlitt concluded his article in _The Examiner_ as follows: ‘He must be sent to Coventry or St. Helena!’

305. _Bertram._ By the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824), author of _Melmoth the Wanderer_ (1820). _Bertram_ had previously been recommended by Scott to Kemble who declined it. Coleridge attacked it in _The Courier_ and in _Biographia Literaria_. See Dykes Campbell’s _Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, p. 223, note 1.

_Aristotle_, _etc._ Part of the famous definition of tragedy in the _Poetics_.

‘_Yes, the limner’s art_,’ _etc._ _Bertram_, Act I. Sc. 5.

306. ‘_And yet some sorcery_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

307. ‘_Yea, thus they live_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_By heaven_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.

_The speech of Bertram._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_The wretched have no country._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.

_Miss Somerville._ Margaret Agnes Somerville (1799-1883), whose first appearance Hazlitt notices here. In 1819 she married Alfred Bunn, the theatrical manager. Her subsequent appearances were fitful, and she retired at an early age.

308. ‘_Decked in purple_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_Beholds that lady_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._

l. 13. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt adds: ‘Covent-Garden. We have seen Miss O’Neill’s _Mrs. Oakley_. It is much better than her _Lady Teazle_, and yet it is not good. Her comedy is only tragedy _diluted_. It wants the true spirit.’

_Adelaide, or the Emigrants._ The first play of Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851). It had been brought out at Dublin in 1814.

309. ‘_Throw it to the dogs_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

_Mr. Murray._ Charles Murray (1754-1821), after acquiring considerable reputation in the provinces, appeared at Covent Garden in 1796.

310. ‘_Where did you rest last night._’ See _ante_, note to p. 263.

l. 22. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes with a long account of the plot of _Bertram_.

_It has been observed of Ben Jonson_, _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 42.

311. ‘_As dry_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

‘_Like a man_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Sc. 2.

312. ‘_The baby of a girl._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_Rather than so_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 1.

313. _The Princess Charlotte._ The only daughter of the Prince Regent, and a great favourite of the nation’s. She married (May 2, 1816) Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and died November 5, 1817.

‘_Leave me to my repose._’ ‘Leave me, leave me to repose.’ Gray. _The Vegtam’s Kivitha; or the Descent of Odin_.

‘_The line too labours_,’ _etc._ Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_, 371.

‘_I tell you_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 1.

314. ‘_Go, go._’ In the banquet scene presumably, Act III. Sc. 4.

_Mr. Horace Twiss._ Horace Twiss (1787-1849), the biographer of Lord Eldon, was a nephew of Mrs. Siddons and wrote for her an address which she delivered on taking her farewell of the stage, June 29, 1812.

‘_Himself again._’ _Richard III._ (Cibber’s version).

‘_Tomorrow and tomorrow._’ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

_Printed by a steam-engine._ See vol. III., p. 158 (_Political Essays_).

315. _Up all Night, or the Smuggler’s Cave._ By Matthew Peter King (1773-1823) first produced in 1809 (words by S. J. Arnold).

_Mr. Russell from Edinburgh._ Hazlitt distinguishes him from Samuel Thomas Russell (1769?-1845), great as Jerry Sneak.

_The Beehive._ A musical farce by John Gideon Millingen (1782-1862), produced in 1811.

_Wrench._ Benjamin Wrench (1778-1843), after playing at Bath and York, appeared in London in 1809 and became a well-known comedian at Drury Lane, The Lyceum and Covent Garden.

_The School of Reform._ By Thomas Morton, produced in 1805.

316. _The Irish Widow._ By Garrick, produced in 1772.

l. 10. Hazlitt, in concluding his article in _The Examiner_, declares his disbelief of the rumours relating to Mrs. Mardyn (see _ante_, note to p. 249), and publishes a long letter from her addressed to the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, indignantly denying them.

_The Jealous Wife._ By George Colman the elder, produced in 1761.

_Sylvester Daggerwood._ By George Colman the younger, first acted in 1795 as ‘New Hay at the Old Market.’

‘_Like angels’ visits_,’ _etc._ See vol. IV., note to p. 346 (_The Spirit of the Age_).

_Wild Oats._ O’Keeffe’s comedy, produced in 1794.

317. _The acting of Dowton and Russell._ This paragraph is repeated in _Lectures on the Comic Writers_. See _ante_, pp. 167-8.

319. _The Poor Gentleman._ By George Colman the younger, produced in 1802.

_The Agreeable Surprise._ Cf. Hazlitt’s account of this farce, _ante_, pp. 166-7.

320. l. 4. Hazlitt continues in _The Examiner_: ‘We saw Miss Matthews’s name in the bills, but as it was her benefit night at Covent-Garden, her entrance in the afterpiece was an agreeable surprise to us.—_English Opera_. A gentleman of the name of Horn has re-appeared with much and deserved applause at this Theatre, in the part of the _Seraskier_. His voice and style of singing are good, and his action spirited and superior to that of singers in general. We hope soon to say more of him.’ Charles Edward Horn (1786-1849), the composer of ‘Cherry Ripe,’ ‘I know a bank,’ etc.

_Artaxerxes._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 192-3.

321. _Exit by Mistake._ ‘A pretty good comedy in 3 acts, by Jameson’ (Genest).

322. _John Dennis._ Hazlitt probably refers to John Dennis’s ‘Remarks upon Cato.’ 1713.

_The editor of a modern journal._ Probably Hazlitt’s brother-in-law, Dr., afterwards Sir John Stoddart.

323. _The Beggar’s Opera._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 193-5. Polly’s famous song, ‘Oh, ponder well! be not severe,’ etc. (Act I.), is said to have turned the tide in favour of the opera at its first representation, January 29, 1728.

324. _Schlegel’s work on the Drama._ See Lecture IV. _Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature_ (trans. John Black, ed. 1900), p. 64.

325. _Selon la coutume de notre pays._ See vol. I. note to p. 100.

_Cosi fan Tutti._ Mozart’s Opera, 1788.

_Dansomanie._ By Étienne Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817), produced in Paris, 1800.

326. ‘_To draw three souls_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 3.

_Mr. Naldi._ Giuseppe Naldi (1770-1820), who first appeared in London in 1806.

_Pandarus._ In _Troilus and Cressida_.

_Signor Begri._ Presumably Pierre Ignace Begrey (1783-1863), who appeared in London, 1815-1822.

‘_Floats upon the air_,’ _etc._ Loosely quoted from _Comus_, 249-251.

‘_And silence_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ 557-560.

327. _Madame Vestris._ Lucia Elizabeth Bartolozzi (1797-1856), granddaughter of the engraver, and the wife, first (1813) of Armand Vestris, a dancer at the King’s Theatre, and second (1838), of Charles James Mathews. She first appeared in London in 1815, and retired in 1854. Mrs. Baron Wilson (_Our Actresses_, II. 184) describes her as ‘the fair Syren, who, for nearly a quarter of a century, has fascinated the whole kingdom by her talent and beauty.’

_Miss L. Kelly._ The younger sister of Frances Maria Kelly, born 1795.

328. l. 13. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘_Love in a Village_ is put off till Thursday next, and Mr. Incledon is to perform in _Artaxerxes_ on Tuesday. Mr. Horn played the _Seraskier_ in the _Siege of Belgrade_ on Friday, and sung the songs, particularly ‘My heart with love is beating’ with great truth and effect. Mr. Russell’s _Leopold_ was very lively. It is not necessary to say that Miss Kelly’s _Lilla_ was good, for all that she does is so. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were present, and were very cordially greeted by the audience. After the play, God save the King was repeatedly called for, and at length sung, with an additional, occasional, and complimentary verse by Mr. Arnold:—

“Long may the Royal Line, Proud Star of Brunswick shine; While thus we sing, Joy may thy Daughter share, Blest by a Nation’s pray’r, Blest be the Royal Pair; God save the King.”

‘At the Haymarket, where the same Illustrious Personages appeared for the first time in public (since their marriage) the night before, the following stanza was introduced:—

‘“Great George! thy people’s voice Now hails thy daughter’s choice Till echoes ring: This shout still rends the air, May she prove blest as fair! Long live the noble pair! God save the King.”’

_My Landlady’s Night-Gown._ _My Landlady’s Gown_ (August 10, 1816), by Walley Chamberlain Oulton (1770?-1820?).

‘_Its own place._’ _Paradise Lost_, 1. 254.

329. l. 4. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt proceeds: ‘A Miss Ives played a little plump chambermaid prettily enough. _The Jealous Wife_ was acted at this Theatre on Monday. Mr. Meggett played _Mr. Oakley_ but indifferently. He seemed to be at hawk and buzzard between insipid comedy and pompous tragedy. It was not the thing. Mr. Terry’s _Major Oakley_ we like very much. Mrs. Glover, who played _Mrs. Oakley_, is really too big for this little theatre. The stage cannot contain her, and her violent airs. Miss Taylor was _Miss Russet_, and looked like a very nice, runaway school-girl. Barnard played her lover, and got through the part very well.’

_Rosetta._ In Bickerstaffe’s _Love in a Village_.

_Mr. Chatterley._ William Symonds Chatterley (1787-1822). Justice Woodcock was his best character.

_Castle of Andalusia._ A comic opera by O’Keeffe, produced in 1782.

330. l. 36. The article in _The Examiner_ continues: ‘_Haymarket-Theatre_. The new farce in one act, called _The Fair Deserter_, succeeds very well here. It preserves the unities of time, place, and action, with the most perfect regularity. The merit of it is confined to the plot, and to the pretended changes of character by the changes of dress, which succeed one another with the rapidity and with something of the ingenuity of a pantomime. Mr. Duruset, a young officer of musical habits, wishes to release Miss MacAlpine from the power of her guardian, who is determined to marry her the next day. The young lady is kept under lock and key, and the difficulty is to get her out of the house. For this purpose Tokely, servant to Duruset, contrives to make the cook of the family drunk at an alehouse, where he leaves him, and carries off his official paraphernalia, his night-cap, apron, and long knife, in a bundle to his master. The old guardian (Watkinson) comes out with his lawyer from the house, and Tokely, presenting himself as the drunken cook, is let in. He, however, takes the key of the street door with him, which he shuts to, and as this intercepts the return of the old gentleman to his house, Tokely is forced to get out of the window by a ladder to fetch a blacksmith. He presently returns himself, in the character of the blacksmith, unlocks the door, but on the other’s refusing him a guinea for his trouble, locks it again, and walks off in spite of all remonstrances. The guardian is now compelled to ascend the ladder himself as well as he can: and while he is engaged in this ticklish adventure, the young Gallant and his mischievous Valet return with a couple of sentries whom Duruset orders to seize the poor old Guardian as a robber, and upon his declaring who and what he is, he is immediately charged by the lover with concealing a Deserter in his house, who is presently brought out, and is in fact his ward, disguised in a young officer’s uniform, which Tokely had given to her for that purpose. Tokely now returns dressed as an officer, and pretending to be the father of the young gentleman, with much blustering and little probability, persuades the guardian to consent to the match between his (adopted) son and the young lady, who has just been arrested as the Deserter, and who, upon this, throwing aside her disguise, the affair is concluded, to the satisfaction of every body but the old guardian, and the curtain drops. The bustle of this little piece keeps it alive: there is nothing good either in the writing or the acting of it.’

331. ‘_Gone like a crab_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Terry last week_, _etc._ At the Haymarket, on August 27, 1816.

_The Surrender of Calais._ By George Colman the younger (1791).

‘_The line too labours_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 313.

‘_He resembles a person_,’ _etc._ Schlegel on Dryden. See _Lectures on Dramatic Literature_ (trans. John Black, ed. 1900), p. 479.

332. ‘_Not to be hated._’ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 288.

_The Wonder._ Mrs. Centlivre’s (1714), Covent Garden, Sep. 13, 1816.

_The Busy Body._ 1709.

333. ‘_Trippingly from_ [on] _the tongue._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_A Scotsman is not ashamed_,’ _etc._ _The Wonder_, Act V. Sc. 1.

334. _The Distressed Mother._ Originally produced in 1712. Hazlitt here notices the first appearance in London of William Charles Macready (1793-1873), Covent Garden, Sep. 16, 1816.

335. _The epithet in Homer._ Κάρη κομδωντες Ἀξαϡολ.

_Lovers’ Vows._ Sep. 14, 1816. Cf. _ante_, p. 249.

_Writer in the Courier._ Coleridge. See _ante_, note to p. 305.

336. ‘_Pointing to_ [at] _the skies._’ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III. 339.

‘_A vaporous drop profound._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 5.

_Miss Boyle’s Rosalind._ October 2, 1816.

‘_How silver sweet_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Lady Townley._ In Vanbrugh and Cibber’s _The Provoked Husband_.

337. ‘_Our poesy_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_The Italian Lover._ Robert Jephson’s (1736-1803) _Julia, or the Italian Lover_ (1787), revived at Covent Garden, Sep. 30, 1816.

338. l. 10. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘_Drury Lane._—O’Keeffe’s farce of the _Blacksmith of Antwerp_ was brought out here on Thursday [Oct. 3, 1816], Mr. Munden being sufficiently recovered from his indisposition. It is founded on the old story of _Quintin Matsys_ and the Citizen of Antwerp, who would marry his daughter to no one but a painter. It is full of pleasant incidents and situations, which succeed one another with careless rapidity, without fatiguing the attention or exciting much interest. It is one of the least striking of O’Keeffe’s productions. It however went off very well, and we dare say will have a run. The music is pleasing enough.’

_Mr. Macready’s Othello._ October 10, 1816.

‘_Let Afric_,’ _etc._ Young, _The Revenge_, Act V. Sc. 2.

339. ‘_I do agnise_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_No, not much moved._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Othello’s occupation’s gone._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Yet, oh the pity of it_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_Swell, bosom_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Like to the Pontic sea_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Horror on horror’s head_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Pride, pomp_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

340. _Mr. Stephen Kemble._ Stephen Kemble (1758-1822), brother of Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble.

_Sir John Falstaff._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ was played at Drury Lane, October 10, 1816.

‘_Had guts in his brains._’ Cf. ‘Who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head.’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_How he cuts up_,’ _etc._ Burke, _A Letter to a Noble Lord_ (_Works_, Bohn, V. 145).

‘_The gods have not made_,’ _etc._ Cf. _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 3.

_The writer in the Courier._ Hazlitt is plainly referring to Coleridge. The poet’s contributions to _The Courier_ during 1816 have not been republished. Cf. _ante_, notes to pp. 305 and 335.

_Sir Richard Steele tells us_, _etc._ See a paper ‘On the Death of Peer, the Property Man,’ in _The Guardian_ (No. 82), June 15, 1713.

342. _Mr. Kemble’s Cato._ October 25, 1816.

l. 5. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt continues: ‘Owing to the early filling of the house, we were prevented from seeing _Othello_ on Tuesday; but we understand that Mr. Young played Othello like a great humming-top, “full of sound, but signifying nothing,”[67] and that Mr. Macready in Iago was like a mischievous boy whipping him; and that Miss Boyle did not play Desdemona as unaffectedly as she ought. But we hope we have been misinformed: and shall be glad to say so, if possible, in our next.’ The article concludes with an account of Kean quoted from _The Edinburgh Courant_.

342. ‘_Being mortal._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act II. Sc. 1.

l. 27. In _The Examiner_ the article continues as follows: ‘After the play, we saw the _Broken Sword_, which is a melodrame of some interest, for it has a dumb boy, a murderer, and an innocent person suspected of being the perpetrator of the crime, in it: but it is a very ill-digested and ill-conducted piece. The introduction to the principal events is very tedious and round about, and the incidents themselves, when they arrive, come in very great disorder, and shock from their improbability and want of necessary connection as much as from their own nature. Mr. Terry played the part of a murderer with considerable gravity. We do not know at all how he came to get into so awkward a situation. The piece is, we understand, from common report, by Mr. Dimond.[68] It is by no means one of his best. For he is a very impressive as well as a prolific writer in this way, and would do still better, if he would mind his fine writing less, and get on faster to the business of the story. Mr. Farley was highly interesting as _Estevan_, the servant who is unjustly accused of the murder of his master; in fact, he always plays this class of characters admirably, both as to feeling and effect; and Miss Lupino played the dumb _Florio_ very prettily. In the first act, there was a dance by the Miss Dennetts.[69] If our readers have not seen this dance, we hope they will, and that they will _encore_ it, which is the etiquette. Certainly, it is the prettiest thing in the world, except the performers in it. They are quite charming. They are three kindred Graces cast in the same mould: a little Trinity of innocent delights, dancing in their “trinal simplicities below.”[70] They are like “three red roses on a stalk;”[71] and in the _pas de trois_ which they dance twice over, they are as it were twined and woven into garlands and festoons of blushing flowers, such as “Proserpine let fall from Dis’s waggon.”[72] You can hardly distinguish them from one another, they are at first so alike in shape, age, air, look: so that the pleasure you receive from one is blended with the delight you receive from the other two, in a sort of provoking, pleasing confusion. Milton was thinking of them when he wrote the lines:—

‘Whom lovely Venus at a birth, With two Sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.”[73]

Yet after all we have a preference, but we will not say which it is, whether the tallest or the shortest, the fairest or the darkest, of this lovely, laughing trio, more gay and joyous than _Mozart’s_.—“But pray, dear sir, could you not give us a little bit of a hint which of us it is you like the very, very best?”—Yes, yes, you rogue, you know very well it’s you, but don’t say a word of it to either of your sisters.’ The theatrical criticisms during November were written by Leigh Hunt.

_The Iron Chest._ By George Colman the younger (1796), revived at Drury Lane, November 23, 1816.

343. _Adam Winterton._ A character in _The Iron Chest_.

_Mr. Colman was enraged_, _etc._ He wrote an angry preface which was suppressed after the first edition.

344. ‘_Wears his heart_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_The fiery soul_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_,

## Part I., 156-8.

345. l. 5. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘The new farce, _Laugh to Day and Cry Tomorrow_ [by E. P. Knight], met as it deserved a very indifferent reception. It was a series of awkward clap-traps about the glory of Old England, and the good-nature of English audiences. Munden was the only thing in it not _damnable_.’

_Mr. Kemble’s King John._ December 3, 1816.

‘_When we waked_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act III. Sc. 2.

346. _According to the book of arithmetic._ More commonly ‘according to Cocker.’

‘_Man delight_’ [delights], _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

347. ‘_Bulk, the thews_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Henry IV._, Part II., Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Could Sir Robert_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_Coriolanus._ November 28 and 30, 1816. For the rest of this article, except the last paragraph, see vol. i. pp. 214-6 (_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_) and notes thereon.

350. l. 21. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘There have been two new farces this week: one at each house. One was saved and one was damned. One was justly damned, and the other unjustly saved. _Nota Bene_, or _The Two Dr. Fungus’s_, shot up and disappeared in one night, notwithstanding the inimitable acting and well-oiled humour of Oxberry in one scene, where he makes bumpkin forward love to Mrs. Orger in a style equal to Liston. _Love and Toothache_, though there is neither Love nor Toothache in it, is as disagreeable as the one and as foolish as the other. One farce consists of a succession of low incidents without a plot, and the other is one tedious and improbable incident without a plot. The changing of the two signs, or Nota Benes of the two Fungus’s, barber and doctor, in the first, is better than anything in the last. The only difference is, that at the one house they contrive to have their pieces cast, and get them condemned at the other. Yet this is a saying without any meaning; for in the present case they were both got up as well as they could be.—We almost despair of ever seeing another good farce. Mr. H——, thou wert damned. Bright shone the morning on the play-bills that announced thy appearance, and the streets were filled with the buzz of persons asking one another if they would go to see Mr. H——, and answering that they would certainly; but before night the gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the town, was eclipsed, for thou wert damned! Hadst thou been anonymous, thou mightst have been immortal! But thou didst come to an untimely end, for thy tricks and for want of a better name to pass them off (as the old joke of Divine Right passes current under the _alias_ of Legitimacy)—and since that time nothing worth naming has been offered to the stage!’ Hazlitt refers again to Lamb’s farce ‘Mr. H——’ in his essay ‘On Great and Little Things.’ See vol. VI. p. 232 and notes. The passage above, beginning ‘Mr. H——, thou wert damned’ down to ‘for want of a better name to pass them off’ was prefixed to the farce by Lamb, when he published it in 1818.

_The Man of the World._ Revived December 27, 1816.

_Mr. Henry Johnston._ Henry Erskine Johnston, (1777-1830?), the ‘Scottish Roscius.’

_Sir Archy Mac Sarcasm._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la-Mode_ (1793) revived at Covent Garden, with Johnston as Sir Archy, on December 10, 1816.

351. ‘_Die and leave_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.

352. ‘_Ever charming_,’ _etc._ Dyer, _Grongar Hill_, l. 103.

_Jane Shore._ January 2, 1817. Rowe’s tragedy was first produced in 1713. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt concludes this article as follows:—‘We think the tragedy of _Jane Shore_, which is founded on the dreadful calamity of hunger, is hardly proper to be represented in these starving times; and it ought to be prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain, on a principle of decorum. Of Mrs. Alsop, who is said to have an engagement at this theatre, we have spoken at the time when she appeared at the other house. Those who have before not witnessed her performance, will now probably have an opportunity of seeing her in company with Mrs. Mardyn, and may judge whether the laborious comparison we attempted between her and that lady was well or ill-founded. We see little alteration or improvement in her. Her figure and face are against her; otherwise she is certainly a very spirited little actress, and her voice is excellent. Her singing, however, does not correspond with what you would expect from her speaking tones. It wants volume and clearness. Mrs. Alsop’s laugh sometimes puts us a little in mind of her mother: and those parts of the character of _Violante_ in which she succeeded best were the most joyous and exulting ones: her expression of distress is truly distressing. Miss Kelly played _Flora_; and it was the only time we ever saw her fail. She seemed to be playing tricks with the chambermaid: now those kind of people are as much in earnest in their absurdities as any other class of people in the world, and the great beauty of Miss Kelly’s acting in all other instances is, that it is more in downright earnest than any other acting in the world. We hope she does not think of growing fantastical, and _operatic_. The new pantomime is very poor.’

_The Theatrical Examiners_ of January 12 and January 19, 1817 are clearly Hazlitt’s. The first is a notice of Cherry’s _The Soldier’s Daughter_, revived at Covent Garden, January 8, and contains a severe criticism of Miss O’Neill as a comic actress. The second is a notice of Cimarosa’s _Penelope_ and the comic Ballet _Dansomanie_ at the King’s Theatre, and concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber’s _Life_ on the introduction of opera into England.

353. _The Humorous Lieutenant._ In _The Examiner_ the article from which this notice is taken begins with a long account (probably by Hazlitt) of Southerne’s _Oroonoko_ revived at Drury Lane January 20, 1817 with Kean as Oroonoko and Miss Somerville as Imoinda. _The Humorous Lieutenant_ (January 18) was ‘a bad alteration’ by Frederic Reynolds. Celia was played by ‘a Young Lady, 1st appearance on any stage.’

‘_Whose utmost skirts_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 332-3.

l. 20. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of February 2, 1817 in which are noticed John Philip Kemble’s farce _The Pannel_, revived at Drury Lane January 29, 1816 and a melodrama (attributed to Pocock) _The Ravens, or the Force of Conscience_, acted at Covent Garden January 24, 1817, is clearly Hazlitt’s. The article contains a comparison between the Drury Lane and Covent Garden companies.

_Two New Ballets._ From a _Theatrical Examiner_ which begins with an account of Mozart’s _Nozze di Figaro_ not at all in Hazlitt’s manner.

_Like Virgil’s wood._ _Æneid_, III. 37-40.

‘_Whom lovely Venus_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 14 _et seq._

354. ‘_When you do dance_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

_Booth._ Junius Brutus Booth (1796-1852), whose first important appearances in London are noticed in this and the two following articles. The last years of his life were spent in America.

‘_What does he_ [do they] _in the north._’ _Richard III._, Act IV. Sc. 4.

355. ‘_A weak invention_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘A thing devised by the enemy.’ _Richard III._, Act V. Sc. 3.

_Figaro._ Holcroft’s _The Follies of a Day; or, the Marriage of Figaro_ (1784).

356. ‘_The fell opposite._’ Vaguely Shakesperian. Cf. _Twelfth Night_, Act III. Sc. 4, and _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_I know my price no less._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_Give the world_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_My wit comes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

357. _The O. P. rows._ The old price riots at the new Covent Garden Theatre in 1809.

358. _Frightened to Death._ A musical farce by Oulton.

359. ‘_From which_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

l. 19. The _Theatrical Examiner_ for the following week (March 9, 1817) contains a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of _The Heir of Vironi, or Honesty the Best Policy_ (Covent Garden, February 27), and of ‘Mr. Booth’s imitations of Mr. Kean.’ With this exception The _Theatrical Examiners_ down to March 13 are by Leigh Hunt.

_Cibber._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 160-2.

360. ‘_In hidden mazes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _L’Allegro_, 141-2.

361. ‘_Frontlet._’ _King Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.

362. _The Inn-Keeper’s Daughter._ By George Soane (1790-1860).

363. ‘_Airs from heaven_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

364. ‘_And when she spake_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, II. iii. 24.

365. _Signor Ambrogetti._ Giuseppe Ambrogetti was in London 1817-1821.

‘_Sense of amorous delight._’ ‘The spirit of love and amorous delight.’ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 477.

_Signor Crivelli_, _etc._ Gaetano Crivelli (1774-1836), a tenor; Violante Camporese (b. 1785), a soprano; Carlo Angrisani (b. _circa_ 1760), a bass.

366. l. 6. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes with an ‘Anecdote relating to the Overture of _Don Giovanni_’ and a reference to _Elphi Bey_, ‘a tedious and insipid’ romantic drama (Drury Lane, April 17).

_Ex uno omnes._ ‘Ab uno disce omnes.’ _Æneid_, II. 65-6.

367. ‘_With all appliances_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II. Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_The golden cadences_,’ _etc._ ‘Golden cadence of poesy.’ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

368. l. 29. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 4, 1817, clearly by Hazlitt, contains a notice of _Johnny Gilpin_ (Drury Lane, April 28), and a brief reference to Mrs. Hill’s Lady Macbeth (April 29). _Johnny Gilpin_ is described as ‘very poorly got up.’

369. _Holland._ Charles Holland (1768-1849?) played at Drury Lane 1796-1820.

370. l. 14. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as follows: ‘We have not room to say much of the new tragedy of _The Apostate_,[74] for which we are not sorry, as we should have little good to say of it. The poetry does not rise to the merit of common-place, and the tragic situations are too violent, frequent, and improbable. It is full of a succession of self-inflicted horrors. Miss O’Neill played the heroine of the piece, whose affectation and meddling imbecility occasion all the mischief, and played it shockingly well. Mr. Young’s _Malec_ was in his best and most imposing manner. The best things in _The Apostate_ were the palpable hits at the Inquisition and Ferdinand the Beloved, which were taken loudly and tumultuously by the house, a circumstance which occasioned more horror in that wretched infatuated devoted tool of despotism, the Editor of _The New Times_,[75] than all the other horrors of the piece. The Dungeons of the Holy Inquisition, whips, racks, and slow fires, kindled by legitimate hands, excite no horror in his breast; but that a British public still revolt at these things, that that fine word Legitimacy has not polluted their souls and poisoned their very senses with the slime and filth of slavery and superstition, this writhes his brain and plants scorpions in his mind, and makes his flesh crawl and shrink in agony from the last expression of manhood and humanity in an English audience, as if a serpent had wound round his heart!’

The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 18, 1817, in which is described a second visit to _Don Giovanni_, and Kean’s _Eustace de St. Pierre_ in _The Surrender of Calais_, is clearly Hazlitt’s.

370. ‘_Something rotten_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

_Mr. Sinclair._ John Sinclair (1791-1857), tenor singer.

‘_To split the ears_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

371. ‘_And of his port_,’ _etc._ _The Canterbury Tales_, Prologue, 69.

372. ‘_None but himself_,’ _etc._ Lewis Theobald, _The Double Falsehood_.

l. 9. The article in _The Examiner_ concludes: ‘Drury Lane. The farce of _The Romp_[76] was revived here, and we hope will be continued, for we like to laugh when we can. Mrs. Alsop does the part of _Priscilla Tomboy_, and is all but her mother in it. Knight is clever enough as _Watty Cockney_; and the piece, upon the whole, went off with great _éclat_, allowing for the badness of the times, for our want of genius for comedy, and of taste for farce.’

_Barbarossa._ By John Brown (1715-1766), author of _An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_ (1757). _Barbarossa_ was produced in 1754, _Athelstane_, the author’s other tragedy, in 1756.

_Paul and Virginia._ A musical drama by James Cobb (1756-1818), produced in 1800.

‘_And when your song_,’ _etc._ _The Tatler_, No. 163 (by Addison).

‘_In our heart’s core_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

last line. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as follows:—‘_Covent Garden._ Mr. Kemble played _Posthumus_ here on Friday. At present, to use a favourite pun, all his characters are posthumous; he plays them repeatedly after _the last time_. We hate all suspense: and we therefore wish Mr. Kemble would go, or let it alone. We had much rather, for ourselves, that he staid; for there is no one to fill his place on the stage. The mould is broken in which he was cast. His _Posthumus_ is a very successful piece of acting. It alternately displays that repulsive stately dignity of manner, or that intense vehemence of action, in which the body and the mind strain with eager impotence after a certain object of disappointed passion, for which Mr. Kemble is peculiarly distinguished. In the scenes with _Iachimo_ he was

## particularly happy, and threw from him the imputations and

even the proofs of _Imogen’s_ inconstancy with a fine manly graceful scorn. The burst of inconsolable passion when the conviction of his treacherous rival’s success is forced upon him, was nearly as fine as his smothered indignation and impatience of the least suggestion against his mistress’s purity of character, had before been. In the concluding scene he failed. When he comes forward to brave _Iachimo_, and as it were to sink him to the earth by his very presence—‘Behold him here’—his voice and manner wanted force and impetuosity. Mr. Kemble executes a surprise in the most premeditated and least unexpected manner possible. What was said the other day in praise of this accomplished actor, might be converted into an objection to him: he has been too much used to figure “on tesselated pavements, when a fall would be fatal” to himself as well as others. He therefore manages the movements of his person with as much care as if he were a marble statue, and as if the least trip in his gait, or discomposure of his balance, would be sure to fracture some of his limbs. Mr. Terry was _Bellarius_, and recited some of the most beautiful passages in the world like the bellman’s verses. His voice is not “musical as is Apollo’s lute,” but “harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose.”[77] Mr. Young made a very respectable _Iachimo_, and Miss Foote lisped through the part of _Imogen_ very prettily. The rest of the characters were very poorly cast.—Oh! we had forgot Mr. Liston’s _Cloten_: a sign that it is not so good as his _Lord Grizzle_, or _Lubin Log_, or a dozen more exquisite characters that he plays. It would, however, have been very well, if he had not _whisked_ off the stage at the end of each scene, “to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh.”[78] The serenade at _Imogen’s_ window was very beautiful, and was _encored_,—we suspect, contrary to the etiquette of the regular drama. But we take a greater delight in fine music than in etiquette.’

373. _Mrs. Siddons’s Lady Macbeth._ The _Theatrical Examiner_, from which this notice is taken, opens with a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of Paer’s opera _Agnese_, at the King’s Theatre. Mrs. Siddons played Lady Macbeth on June 5, 1817, with J. P. Kemble as Macbeth and Charles Kemble as Macduff. After this date the theatrical criticism of _The Examiner_ was taken over by Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt began to write for _The Times_.

374. ‘_Thank God_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Mr. Kemble’s retirement._ Covent Garden, June 23, 1817.

375. ‘_Like an eagle_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Sc. 6.

‘_My mother bows_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.

376. ‘_Nothing extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

377. ‘_Is whispering_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_Every_ [each] _corporal agent._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 7.

‘_There was neither variableness_,’ _etc._ _St. James_, i. 17.

‘_The fire i’ th’ flint_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Sc. 1.

378. ‘_My way of life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_The fiery soul_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1. 156-8.

‘_You shall relish_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

379. ‘_The tug and war._’ Cf. ‘Then was the tug of war.’ Lee, _Alexander the Great_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_Fate and metaphysical aid._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_Invita Minerva._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 385.

ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM _THE LONDON MAGAZINE_, 1820.

PAGE

383. _Semper varium et mutabile._ Virgil, _Æneid_, IV. 569.

‘_The stage, the inconstant stage._’ Cf. ‘The moon, the inconstant moon.’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

384. ‘_To dally with the wind_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Richard III._, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_With coy_ [sweet] _reluctant_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 311.

385. ‘_Should God create_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 911-13.

386. ‘_Play the hostess._’ Cf. ‘Ourself will mingle with society, and play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state,’ etc. _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

387. _Eclipsed the gaiety_, _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 270.

_Beau Mordecai._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la Mode_, brought out in 1760.

_Lord Sands._ In _King Henry VIII_.

‘_With nods and becks_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 28.

388. ‘_Secret Tattle._’ In Congreve’s _Love for Love_.

389. ‘_Made a sunshine_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, 1. iii. 4.

‘_Talked far above singing._’ Beaumont and Fletcher, _Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Her bounty_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Her Nell._ In Coffey’s _The Devil to Pay_ (1731).

392. ‘_Extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

393. ‘_There were two_,’ _etc._ Cf. _St. Luke_, xvii. 31 _et seq._

‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_To our moist vows denied._’ _Lycidas_, 159.

‘_Slippery turns_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

‘_Mr. Limberham_,’ _etc._ Dryden’s _The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham_ (1680).

‘_With its worldly goods_,’ _etc._ _The Book of Common Prayer_, Marriage Service.

‘_The list of weeds_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1. § 2.

‘_In monumental mockery._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 3.

394. _The Surrey_, _etc._ The Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road, opened in 1782; The Cobourg Theatre, Waterloo Bridge Road, opened in 1818; The Sans Pareil, better known as The Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand, opened in 1806.

395. ‘_Gentle and low_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act V. Sc. 3.

397. ‘_Like to another morn_, _etc._’ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310-11.

‘_Moody madness_,’ _etc._ Gray, Ode, _On a Distant Prospect of Eton College_, 79-80.

398. ‘_Mar_ [scar] _that whiter skin_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

399. _Gallantry, or Adventures at Madrid._ Jan. 15, 1820; acted only once.

‘_Had its brother_,’ _etc._ Cf. Pope, _Moral Essays_, IV. 117-8.

400. ‘_As it was set down for him._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_The courtier’s or the lover’s melancholy._’ Cf. _As You Like It_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_Gilray._ James Gillray (1757-1815), the caricaturist.

_Mrs. Edwin._ Elizabeth Rebecca Richards (1771?-1854) first appeared at Covent Garden 1789; married in 1791 John Edwin the younger.

401. _Magis pares_, _etc._ Cf. ‘Similia omnia magis visa hominibus, quam paria.’ Livy, XLV. 43.

Note 1. Pope’s _Essay on Criticism_, 1-2.

402. ‘_All is grace above_,’ _etc._ ‘Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.’

Dryden, _Epistle to Congreve_, 19.

‘_To relish all_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_I banish you._’ _Coriolanus_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_The most sweet voices._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.

403. ‘_Guns, drums_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Satires_, I. 26.

‘_Ample scope_ [room],’ _etc._ Gray, _The Bard_, 5.

404. ‘_Constrained by mastery._’ Cf. _post_, note to p. 479.

‘_Speculative_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_There he arriving_,’ _etc._ _Muiopotmos_, St. XXII. and XXVII.

405. ‘_Like greyhound on the slip._’ _Henry V._, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_The full eyes_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1. § 2.

‘_Embalmed with odours._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 843.

‘_A wide O._’ Cf. ‘Why should you fall into so deep an O?’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Come, let me clutch thee._’ _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_Those gay creatures_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 299-301.

406. _W—m._ Wem.

_The Rev. Mr. J——s._ The author’s son fills this blank with the name of Jenkins.

407. ‘_Of imagination all compact._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_,

## Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_Their mind to them_,’ _etc._ Sir Edward Dyer’s ‘My mynde to me a kyngdome is,’ set to music by Byrd in 1588.

‘_Of all earth’s bliss_,’ _etc._ From Lamb’s version of Thekla’s song in _Wallenstein_ (Part I., The Piccolomini). See Coleridge’s _Poetical Works_ (ed. J. D. Campbell), 648.

408. ‘_By his so potent art._’ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_Happy alchemy of mind._’ See vol. V., note to p. 107.

‘_Severn’s sedgy side._’ ‘Gentle Severn’s sedgy bank.’ _Henry IV._, Part I., Act I. Sc. 3.

‘Note. ‘_The beggars are coming_,’ _etc._ From the old song beginning, ‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,’ etc.

409. ‘_Alas! how changed_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III. 305-6.

‘_Made of penetrable stuff._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

410. ‘_See the puppets dallying._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

_Mr. Stanley._ Stanley had been well known at Bath, and had appeared for a short time at Drury Lane. Genest (VIII. 693) describes him as ‘a very good actor for a provincial theatre, and a fair actor for London.’

411. _Panopticon._ Cf. vol. IV., note to p. 197.

‘_My soul turn from them._’ Goldsmith, _The Traveller_, 165.

‘_Her, lovely Venus_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 14-16.

‘_Vernal airs_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 264-6.

‘_Three red roses_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Richard III._, Act IV. Sc. 3.

‘_The witchery_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Peter Bell_ (Part I.), l. 265.

412. _Mr. Reeve._ John Reeve (1799-1838), a mimic and comedian, chiefly associated with the Adelphi.

‘_Our hint to speak._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

413. _Mr. Peter Moore._ Peter Moore (1753-1828), member of parliament and company promoter. He was at one time one of the managers of Drury Lane Theatre.

_The Antiquary._ A musical play in three acts by Daniel Terry, Jan. 25, 1820.

‘_Warbled._’ ‘Come, warble, come.’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 5.

Note. _The Surrey Theatre._ The Surrey Theatre had been taken by Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841) in 1816.

414. ‘_Perplexed in the extreme._’ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Horror sat plumed._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 989.

‘_Of one that loved_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Turbaned Turk._’ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_I cannot think_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_The glorious triumph_ [trial],’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 961.

415. ‘_The high and palmy state._’ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 1.

416. _Mr. Milman’s Fazio._ Produced at Covent Garden, Feb. 5, 1818.

‘_Look abroad_,’ _etc._ Bacon, _The Advancement of Learning_,

## Book I., III. 6.

417. ‘_Are embowelled_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 101).

_The Upholsterer._ Cf. _ante_, p. 96.

‘_A counterfeit presentment._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

418. ‘_To relish_,’ _etc._ Cf. _ante_, p. 402.

419. ‘_Unfeathered, two-legged thing._’ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, I. 170.

‘_You may wear_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Sc. 5.

‘_He sits in the centre_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 382-3.

420. _Mr. Wordsworth’s hankering after the drama._ Wordsworth’s tragedy, _The Borderers_, composed in 1795-6, and soon afterwards refused by the Covent Garden management, was not published till 1842.

‘_The daily intercourse_,’ _etc._ Quoted vaguely from Wordsworth’s _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_.

note. Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), whose _Plays on the Passions_ had appeared in 3 vols. 1798-1812.

421. ‘_Like a wild overflow_,’ _etc._ Beaumont and Fletcher, _Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_’Tis three feet long_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _The Thorn_, (l. 33), as published in _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798).

422. ‘_What? if one reptile_,’ _etc._ _Remorse_, Act III. Sc. 2.

423. _The Hebrew._ By George Soane (1790-1860).

‘_I had as lief_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Instinct with fire._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 937.

_Disjecta_ [disjecti] _membra poetae._ Horace, _Satires_, I. 4, 62.

425. ‘_His affections_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_Holds sovereign sway._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_A far cry to Lochiel._’ ‘It’s a far cry to Lochow.’ See _Rob Roy_, note to chap. 29.

‘_Hitherto shalt thou come_,’ _etc._ _Job_, xxxviii. 11.

‘_Like kings_,’ _etc._ Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_, 64-5.

427. ‘_Like to that sanguine flower_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, 106.

‘_Unkindness_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

_Three Weeks after Marriage._ Arthur Murphy’s comedy, produced in 1776.

_Mr. Connor._ Charles Connor (d. 1826), Irish comedian.

428. _The Manager in Distress._ By George Colman the elder.

‘_Too Late for Dinner._’ A farce by Richard Jones the actor.

429. ‘_Great heir of fame._’ Milton, _On Shakespeare_. l. 5.

‘_Strange that_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Don Quixote’s throwing open the cages_, _etc._ _Don Quixote_,

## Part II., Book I. Chap. 17.

‘_Tasteless monster_,’ _etc._ ‘A faultless monster whom the world ne’er saw.’ John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, _Essay on Poetry_.

‘_If that they love_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘But that I love the gentle Desdemona,’ etc. _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 2.

_Berlin and Milan decrees._ Of Napoleon, 1806 and 1807.

430. _Like the lady in the lobster._ Cf. Herrick’s _Hesperides_, No. 224 (The Faerie Temple).

‘_As if he would confine_,’ _etc._ _Samson Agonistes_, 307.

‘_A beard so old and white._’ ‘’Gainst a head so old and white as this.’ _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 2.

_Nahum Tate’s Lear._ Produced in 1681.

431. ‘_There’s sympathy._’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II. Sc. 1.

432. ‘_Applauds you_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

433. ‘_He must live to please_,’ _etc._ Johnson, Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747, l. 54.

‘_Lard the lean earth_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._ Part I., Act II. Sc. 2.

434. ‘_First, midst, and last._’ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, V. 165.

435. _Shakspear versus Harlequin._ An alteration of _Harlequin’s Invasion_ produced in 1759.

‘_Charge on heaps_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 2.

436. _Quod sic mihi_, _etc._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 188.

‘_See o’er the stage_,’ _etc._ Cf. Thomson, _The Seasons_, winter, 646.

‘_But thou, oh Hope_,’ _etc._ Collins, Ode, _The Passions_, 29-32.

439. _Sir Hugh Middleton’s Head._ The sign of this inn, opposite Sadler’s Wells, figures in Hogarth’s _Evening_.

440. ‘_Shut their blue-fringed lids_,’ _etc._ Coleridge, _Fears in Solitude_, 84-6.

_Mr. Booth’s Lear._ Covent Garden, April 13, 1820.

‘_I am every inch a King._’ _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.

‘_The fiery Duke._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.

441. _Henri Quatre._ A musical romance in three acts by Thomas Morton.

‘_’Twas Lancelot_,’ _etc._ Leigh Hunt, _The Story of Rimini_.

‘_Ah! brilliant land_,’ _etc._ To this quotation the Editor of _The London Magazine_ prints the following note: ‘Does our Correspondent here refer to the ink he has himself shed in severe criticism of the French National Character.’

442. ‘_The invincible knights of old._’ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘It is not to be thought of,’ etc.

_Miss M. Tree._ Ann Maria Tree (1801-1862), afterwards Mrs. Bradshaw, made her first appearance at Covent Garden in 1818.

_The present crisis of affairs._ Hazlitt alludes to the Revolution in Spain, in 1820.

445. ‘_Accumulate horrors_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_That has outlasted_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Tore it to tatters_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Hear, Nature, hear_,’ _etc._ The quotations from _King Lear_ in this paragraph are from Act I. Sc. 4.

446. ‘_Compunctious visitings of nature._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

‘_Like a phantasma_,’ _etc._ _Julius Caesar_, Act II. Sc. 1.

447. ‘_Dear daughter_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_Beloved Regan_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.

448. ‘_Appal the guilty_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_Create a soul_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 562.

‘_The fiery quality_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_I will do such things_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 4.

449. ‘_Blow winds_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_More germane_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_How dost_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Didst thou give all_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_What, have his daughters_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Was set down._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

450. ‘_Aye, every inch a king._’ _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 6.

‘_When I do stare_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 6.

‘_Pray do not mock me._’ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 6.

‘_Which sacred pity_, _etc._’ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 7.

‘_False gallop._’ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Honest sonsy_,’ _etc._ Burns, _Address to a Haggis_, I.

451. _Artaxerxes._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 192-3.

452. ‘_Concords of sweet sounds._’ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V. Sc. 1.

453. l. 15. In _The London Magazine_ the article concludes with a notice (signed ‘X.’) of a new after-piece at Drury Lane, entitled _The Lady and the Devil_, and a flattering notice of _Virginius_ at Covent Garden. Neither of these notices is written in Hazlitt’s manner, and it is evident from his later account of Knowles’s tragedy (see pp. 455, _et seq._) that the notice of _Virginius_ at any rate is the work of another hand. It would seem that after seeing Kean in _King Lear_ Hazlitt retired for a time to Winterslow.

_The only article_, _etc._ Hazlitt probably refers to his third article, published in the March number (_ante_, pp. 403, _et seq._), which was probably written while the theatres were closed in consequence of the deaths of the Duke of Kent (d. January 23, 1820) and George III. (d. January 29, 1820).

_Mr. Weathercock._ Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1852), afterwards well known as a forger and murderer, was at this time a regular contributor to _The London Magazine_, chiefly under the pseudonym of Janus Weathercock. His contributions were for the most part on the Fine Arts, but in the number for June 1820 (_Janus’s Jumble_, chap, III.) he wrote some remarks on the theatres, in the course of which he chaffed ‘Mr. Drama’ (_i.e._ Hazlitt) on some of his theatrical criticisms, and especially on his article on the minor theatres published in March. To these remarks Hazlitt replies in the present essay. For Wainewright himself see the biographical introduction to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition (1880) of his contributions to _The London Magazine_, and Mr. Bertram Dobell’s _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_ (1903).

454. ‘_Odious in satin_,’ _etc._ ‘Odious! in woollen! ’twould a saint provoke.’ Pope, _Moral Essays_, I. 246.

‘_Like little wanton boys_,’ _etc._ _Henry VIII._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Inexpressive three._’ Cf. ‘Unexpressive she.’ _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Written in our heart’s tables._’ _All’s Well that Ends Well_,

## Act I. Sc. 1.

455. ‘_Entire affection scorneth_ [hateth],’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book I. Canto VIII. St. 40.

‘_A man’s mind_,’ _etc._ ‘Men’s judgements are a parcel of their fortunes.’ _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act III. Sc. 13.

‘_Diamond rings_,’ _etc. etc._ Hazlitt quotes from Wainewright’s article.

‘_We came_,’ _etc._ A hasty adaptation, presumably, of the famous ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’

_Virginius._ James Sheridan Knowles’s (1784-1862) _Virginius_ was produced at Covent Garden on May 17, 1820.

‘_Strike his lofty head_,’ _etc._ ‘Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.’ Horace, _Odes_, I. I. 36.

456. _The Virginius and the David Rizzio_, _etc._ Another _Virginius_, with Kean in the title _role_, was produced at Drury Lane on May 29, 1820. _David Rizzio_, an opera by Colonel Hamilton, appeared at the same theatre on June 17.

_A former article._ See _ante_, note to p. 453.

‘_I never saw you_,’ _etc._ _Virginius_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_The lie_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_To be sure she will_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_Let the forum wait for us!_’ _Ibid._ Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_The freeborn Roman maid._’ Varied slightly from phrases applied to Virginia in the play.

457. ‘_Lest the courtiers_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_Let the galled jade_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

458. ‘_Why are those things hid_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 3.

_Mr. Kean at his benefit._ June 12, 1820. The play was _Venice Preserved_, followed by _The Admirable Crichton_.

_Educated in the fourth form_, _etc._ A gibe at Elliston, who was educated at St. Paul’s School.

_Cast in the antique mould_, _etc._ The reference is to Kemble.

note. ‘_An honest man_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, IV. 248.

459. ‘_In this expectation_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked.’ _Twelfth Night_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Nothing can come of nothing._’ ‘De nihilo nihil.’ Persius, _Satires_, III. 84.

460. _Miss Povey._ Born in 1804, and appeared first at Drury Lane in 1817.

461. ‘_Softly sweet in Lydian measures._’ Dryden, _Alexander’s Feast_, 97.

_Giovanni in London._ By William Thomas Moncrieff (1794-1857), originally produced at the Olympic on December 26, 1817.

462. ‘_She forgot to be a woman_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Cymbeline_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_Like a new ta’en sparrow._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Like marigolds_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,’ etc. _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

463. _The ‘Great Vulgar and the Small.’_ Cowley, Horace, _Odes_, III. 1.

‘_Raised so high_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘High throned above all highth.’ _Paradise Lost_, III. 58.

‘_Such tricks_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V. Sc. 1.

464. ‘_‘Present no mark._’ _Henry IV._, Part II. Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_You may as well_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_One bubble_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1. § 1.

_Her Yarico._ In Colman’s _Inkle and Yarico_ (1787).

‘_We had rather_,’ _etc._ Adapted from _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act I. Sc. 1.

465. ‘_In the catalogue_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_To curl her hair_,’ _etc._ See Congreve’s _The Way of the World_, Act. II. Sc. 5.

465. ‘_Who rant and fret_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Vine-covered hills._’ ‘From the vine-cover’d hills and gay valleys of France.’ From lines ‘written in 1788’ by William Roscoe (1753-1831). The lines were partly parodied by Canning and Frere in _The Anti-Jacobin_ (‘La Sainte Guillotine’): ‘From the blood-bedew’d valleys and mountains of France.’ Cf. vol. VI. p. 189 (_Table Talk_).

‘_And murmur_,’ _etc._ Landor, _Gebir_, Book I.

466. ‘_Sigh his soul_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents.’ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V. Sc. 1.

467. ‘_A brother of the groves._’ Hazlitt perhaps recalls Wordsworth’s line, ‘A brother of the dancing leaves’ (_The Green Linnet_, 34). As originally published (_Poems_, 1807, II. 81), the line ran, ‘A Brother of the Leaves he seems,’ which is still nearer to Hazlitt’s phrase.

468. _Crockery and Peter Pastoral._ In _Exit by Mistake_ and _Teazing Made Easy_ respectively.

‘_His tears_,’ _etc._

Cf. ‘The tears which came to Matthew’s eyes Were tears of light, the oil of gladness.’

Wordsworth, _Matthew_, as published in _Lyrical Ballads_, 1800, vol. II. p. 121.

‘_Sic transit_,’ _etc._ Thomas à Kempis, _De Imitatione Christi_, I. 3, 6.

469. ‘_Stands on end_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Let those laugh_,’ _etc._

Cf. ‘Let those love now, who never lov’d before; Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.’

Parnell, _The Vigil of Venus_.

470. ‘_Compunctious visitings._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc, 5.

_Little Pickle._ In _The Spoilt Child_.

471. _The great cat, Rodilardus._ In Rabelais. See _Pantagruel_, IV. 67.

‘_Dressed in a little brief authority_,’ _etc._ _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Sc. 2.

472. ‘_You take my house_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

‘_Cleansed_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_Flesh is heir to._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

473. ‘_Not a jot_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_But never more_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.

‘_Never so sure_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 51-2.

‘_In medio_,’ _etc._ Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, II. 137.

_They hiss the Beggar’s Opera in America._ _The Times_ of Dec. 10, 1817, quotes from New York papers dated Oct. 27 an account of the refusal of a New York audience to hear _The Beggar’s Opera_.

474. _The Vampyre._ By James Robinson Planché (1796-1880), adapted from ‘Le Vampire.’

_The celebrated story._ ‘The Vampyre,’ by John William Polidori (1795-1821), was published in 1819. Byron had intended to write a story on the same subject. See _Letters and Journals_, ed. Prothero, III. 446-453, and IV. 286 and 296.

‘_See how the moon_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V. Sc. 1.

475. ‘_The Diamond Ring._’ Adapted by Theodore Hook from _He would be a Soldier_ (1786), and produced Aug. 12, 1820.

476. ‘_Misery_,’ _etc._ _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_A load_,’ _etc._ _Henry VIII._, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Palsied eld._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Sc. 1.

477. ‘_At last he rose_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, 192-3.

‘_As broad_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_In act_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_The immediate jewel_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Solid pudding_,’ _etc._ Pope, _The Dunciad_, I. 54.

‘_Tenth_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 246.

_The Calendar of Nature._ Hazlitt seems to refer to Leigh Hunt’s _The Months_, originally published in the _Literary Pocket Book_, 1819-20, and there described as a ‘Calendar of the Seasons.’

‘_Bound our brows withal._’ ‘To grace thy brows withal.’ _Richard III._, Act V. Sc. 5.

_In January_, _etc._ It will be noticed that Hazlitt does not give an accurate account of the dates and subjects of his articles.

478. ‘_Being at Illminster_,’ _etc._ Possibly on a visit to John Hunt, who had retired to the neighbourhood of Taunton. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt mentions (_Memoirs_, I. xviii.) a report that Hazlitt contributed for a short time to the _Taunton Courier_.

Note. ‘_Or mouth_,’ _etc._ _Endymion_, II. 405-6.

Note. ‘_Beautified._’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

Note. ‘_Oh Scotland_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘O Jephthah, judge of Israel,’ etc. _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

479. _An able article written for us._ No. X., published in the October (not September) number.

_No Table-Talk._ The _Table-Talks_ were of course the work of Hazlitt himself.

_The Lion’s Head._ The name given to two or three editorial paragraphs prefixed to _The London Magazine_. In the number for November, 1820, the editor announced for the next number ‘a _chef d’œuvre_ of a _Table Talk_—the best yet, we think.’ This was No. V. ‘On the Pleasure of Painting.’

‘_Has not left her peer._’ _Lycidas_, 9.

‘_Constrain his genius_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘That Love will not submit to be controlled by mastery.’ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, VI. 163-4.

‘_With mighty wings_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 20-22.

480. _Encyclopædia Metropolitana._ The publication of this work began in 1817. Coleridge drew up the scheme, and contributed the ‘Preliminary Treatise on Method.’

Note. Hazlitt refers to _The Fancy: a Selection from the Poetical Remains of the late Peter Corcoran, of Gray’s Inn, Student at Law_, a ‘jeu d’esprit’ by John Hamilton Reynolds, reviewed in _The London Magazine_, July 1820.

‘_The up-turned eyes_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

481. _Barnaby Brittle._ Founded on Moliere’s _George Dandin_, and produced at Covent Garden in 1791.

_Disjecta membra poetæ._ ‘Disjecti membra poëtæ.’ Horace, _Satires_, I. 4-62.

‘_Outlasts a thousand storms_,’ _etc._ Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 3.

482. _Paulo majora canamus._ Virgil, _Eclogues_, IV. 1.

‘_The lily drooping_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene.’ _The Canterbury Tales_, The Knighte’s Tale, 1036.

‘_The flowers_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

Note. See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill, II. 409 n.

483. _Macready’s Zanga._ Macready first appeared as Zanga in Young’s _Revenge_ on October 30, 1820.

‘_A wife_,’ _etc._ _The Revenge_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_Wallace._ By C. E. Walker, November 14, 1820.

484. _The Deaf Lover._ By Frederick Pilon (1750-1788), originally produced in 1780 and revived at Covent Garden in 1819.

‘_But in Adam’s ear_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 1-2.

APPENDIX I

(_See introductory note on p. 487_)

ON MODERN COMEDY

_To the EDITOR of the MORNING CHRONICLE._

SIR,—I believe it seldom happens that we confess ourselves to be in the dark on any subject, till we are pretty well persuaded that no one else is able to dispel the gloom in which we are involved. Convinced, that where our own sagacity has failed, all further search must be vain, we resign ourselves implicitly to all the self-complacency of conscious ignorance, and are very little obliged to any one, who comes to disturb our intellectual repose. Something of this kind appears to have happened to your Correspondent on the subject of the Drama. Indeed, Sir, I should have been very cautious of attempting to remove the heap of doubts and difficulties which seemed to oppress him, but that I thought so obvious a truth as the connection between the manners of the age and comedy could not startle ‘the plainest understanding;’ but the moment this obvious truth is pointed out to him, he complains that he is ‘dazzled with excess of light,’[79] and puts a ready moveable screen of common places before him to keep it out. And then, Sir, I observe, that to fortify himself in his scruples, and lest he should be forced to give up his sceptical solution of sceptical doubts, he has confounded characters with you, Sir, by a dextrous ventriloquism puts his sentiments into your mouth, and has contrived to get the balance into his own hands, and ‘smiles delighted with the eternal poise.’[80]

After complimenting the writer of a former article, by saying that ‘_his_ powers have not languished in the dense atmosphere of logic and criticism,’ (a compliment which I am ready to return with equal sincerity), your Correspondent proceeds—‘We confess it did not occur to us, that it is because so many excellent comedies have been written that so few are written at present. To our plain understanding, on the first statement of this circumstance, a conclusion directly the reverse would have presented itself. We should have been inclined to apply in this instance the analogy which we find to hold in almost every other, that relative perfection is only the result of repeated efforts, and that, as in the case of an individual artist, till his powers are impaired by age, every successive attempt is in general an improvement on the preceding, so in the art itself what has once been well done, usually leads to something better.’—On this passage I might observe, first, that I am always apt to distrust these modest pretensions to plain understanding. They signify nothing more than that an opinion is contrary to our own, and that we will not take the trouble to examine it. And besides, we all of us refine as much and as well as we are able; only we are not willing that others should refine more than we do. Secondly, Sir, the analogy to which your Correspondent appeals in support of his hypothesis, that the arts are uniformly progressive, totally fails; it applies to science, and not to art.

Farther, your Correspondent observes, ‘That the production of many good comedies should render us more severe towards bad ones, and bad poets more averse from exposing themselves, would appear much more likely than that exactly the reverse of all this should happen. We naturally expect from a landlord, who at the commencement of a repast regales us with elegant wines, that he will not place homely ale or insipid porter before us towards the end of it. It was D’Alembert, we believe, who suggested as a great improvement in modern literature, that all our books should be collected together every fifty years, for the purpose of making a bonfire of them,’ &c. All this may be very true, but I really do not see what it has to do with the question.

‘For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.’[81]

I am afraid he will think I am at cross-purposes with his theories, but it is really because they appear to me at cross-purposes with facts. For instance, the bad poets do not in the present case seem very backward to expose themselves; but what is it that hinders the good ones (rising like so many Phœnixes out of the ashes of their predecessors) from claiming the admiration that is due to them? Surely, if every succeeding writer improved upon the last, and ‘what was once well done always led to something better,’ the managers would not damp the rising flame. The progress of comedy among us appears to have been just the reverse of what your Correspondent would have anticipated; namely, from elegant wines to insipid porter, and our critic (if I mistake him not), would make the matter still worse by diluting this insipid stuff with water, in order that it may become still more tasteless, and according to him, more elegant and refined. Our elder comic writers provided choice wines, strong liquors and rich viands of all kinds for the entertainment of the public, while our author, seated at the full banquet, like Christopher Sly at the Duke’s table, calls out incessantly for ‘a pot of the smallest ale.’[82] As to the project of D’Alembert, I have no great objection to it. Only I would propose as a compromise that we should let our present stock remain on hand, and that nothing but reviews and newspaper criticisms should be written for the next fifty years, by which means I shall keep possession of Jonson, Farquhar, Wycherley, Congreve, and Smollett, and in the mean time your correspondent may take a surfeit of Mr. Tobin’s _Honey Moon, The Duenna_ (for whom I have a great respect), and Madame de Stael. I cannot, however, agree with him in the building up of his chronological ladder of taste. Congreve did not improve upon Wycherley, because he was not indebted to him, and Sheridan was indebted to Congreve without improving upon him. Your Correspondent, Sir, writes very well about these authors, but as if he had not read them. As to the hardship of which he complains, that our fathers should have laughed for themselves and for us too, it is but the common course of nature. It is not a misfortune peculiar to ourselves. Even Madame de Stael is forced to go a hundred and fifty years back, for an author to insult the English with, on their want of comic genius, and of the knowledge of those traits peculiar to the refinements of French manners, but which _yet paint human nature in every country_. I agree with your Correspondent in his first letter, that though we cannot write good Comedies, we can assign good reasons why they are not written; and I think we have, between us, made out the reason of the present want of dramatic writers, though I doubt if we should, both of us together, make even half a Menander. But he will have all the advantages on his side, and be as merry as he is wise. Why, after he has laughed folly out of countenance, is he determined to laugh at her as much as ever, and to make good sense or absurdity equally subservient to his spleen? He is bent on laughing at all events—at every thing or nothing; and if he does not find things ridiculous, he will make them so. The fantastic resolution of _Biron_, ‘to laugh a twelvemonth in an hospital,’[83] does not exceed the preposterous ambition of your Correspondent, to extract the soul of mirth out of the schools of philosophy. We cannot expect to reconcile opposite things. If he or I were to put ourselves into the stage, to go from Salisbury to London, I dare say we should not meet with the same number of odd accidents or ludicrous distresses on the road, that befel _Parson Adams_; but why, if we get into a common vehicle, and submit to the conveniences of modern travelling, do we complain of the want of adventures? Modern manners may be compared to a modern stage-coach: our limbs may be a little cramped with the confinement, and we may grow drowsy; but we arrive safe, without any very amusing or any very sad accident, at out journey’s end. But your Correspondent sees nothing in the progress of modern manners and characters but a vague, abstract progression from grossness to refinement, marked on a graduated scale of human perfectibility. This sweeping distinction appears to him to explain satisfactorily the whole difference between all sorts of manners, and all kinds and degrees of dramatic excellence. These two words stand him instead of other ideas on the texture of society, or the nature of the dramatic art. He is not, however, quite consistent on this subject, for in one place he says, that ‘the stock of folly in the world is in no danger of being diminished,’ and in the next sentence, that there is a progression in society, an age of grossness and an age of refinement, and he only wonders that the progress of the stage does not keep pace with it. Now the reason why I do not share his wonder is, that though I think the quantity of dull, dry, serious, incorrigible folly in the world is in no danger of being diminished, yet I think the stock of lively, dramatic, entertaining, laughable folly is, and necessarily must be, diminished by the progress of that _mechanical_ refinement which consists in throwing our follies, as it were, into a common stock, and moulding them in the same general form. Our peculiarities have become insipid sameness; our eccentricity servile imitation; our wit, wisdom at second-hand; our prejudices indifference; our feelings not our own; our distinguishing characteristic the want of all character. We are become a nation of authors and readers, and even this distinction is confounded by the mediation of the reviewers. We all follow the same profession, which is criticism, each individual is every thing but himself, not one but all mankind’s epitome, and the gradations of vice and virtue, of sense and folly, of refinement and grossness of character, seem lost in a kind of intellectual _hermaphroditism_. But on this _tabula rasa_, according to your Correspondent, the most lively and sparkling hues of comedy may be laid. His present reasoning gives a very different turn to the question he at first proposed. He appears to have set out with a theory of his own about the production of comic excellence, in which it was entirely regulated by the state of the market, and to have supposed that as long as authors continued to write plays, and managers to accept them, that is, so long as the thing answered in the way of trade, Comedy would go on pretty much as it had hitherto done, to the end of the world. But finding that this was not exactly the case, he takes his stand near the avenues leading to the manager’s door, and happening to see a young man of worth and talents, with great knowledge of the world, and of the refinements of polished society, come out with his piece in his hand, and a face of disappointment, he is no longer at a loss for the secret of the decline of Comedy among us, and proceeds cautiously to hint his discovery to the world. But it being suggested to him that the change of manners, produced partly by the stage itself, and the total disappearance of the characters which before formed the very life and soul of Comedy, might have something to do with the decline of the Stage, he will not hear a word of it, but says, that this circumstance, so far from shewing why our modern Comedies _are not so good_ as the old ones, proves that they _ought to be better_; that the more we are become like one another, or like nothing, the less distinction of character we have, the greater discrimination must it require to bring it out; that the less ridiculous our manners become, the more scope do they afford for art and ingenuity in discovering our weak sides and shades of infirmity; and that the greatest sameness and monotony must in the end produce the most exquisite variety. For a plain man, this is very well. It is on the same principle, that some writers have contended that Scotland is more fertile than England, the excellence of the crop being in proportion to the barrenness of the soil. What a pity it is, that so ingenious a theory should not have the facts on its side; and that the perfection of satire should not be found to keep pace with the want of materials. It is rather too much to assume on a mere hypothesis, that the present manners are equally favourable to the production of the highest comic excellence, till they do produce it. Even in France, where encouragement is given to the noblest and most successful exertions of genius by the sure prospect of profit to yourself or your descendants, every time your piece is acted in any corner of the empire, to the latest posterity, we find the best critics going back to the grossness and illiberality of the age of Louis XIV. for the production of the best comedies; which is rather extraordinary, considering the infinitely refined state of manners in France, and the infinite encouragement given to dramatic talent. But has it never occurred to your Correspondent, as a solution of this difficulty, that there is a difference between refinement and imbecility, between general knowledge and personal elegance, between metaphysical subtlety and stage-effect? Does he think all manners, all kinds of folly, and all shades of character equally fit for dramatic representation? Does he not perceive that there is a point where minuteness of distinction becomes laborious foolery, and where the slenderness of the materials must baffle the skill and destroy the exertions of the artist? He insists, indeed, on pulling off the mask of folly, by some ingenious device, though she has been stripped of it long ago; and forced to compose her features into a decent appearance of gravity; and he next proceeds to apply a microscope of a new construction, to detect the freckles on her face and inequalities in her skin, in order to communicate his amusing discoveries to the audience, as some philosophical lecturer does the result of his chemical experiments on the decomposition of substances to the admiring circle. There is no end of this. Your Correspondent confesses that ‘we are drilled into a sort of stupid decorum and apparent uniformity,’ but this he converts into an advantage. His penetrating eye is infinitely delighted with the picturesque appearance of so many imperceptible deviations from a right line, and mathematical inclinations from the perpendicular. The picture of the Flamborough Family, painted with each an orange in his hand, must have been a masterpiece of nice discrimination and graceful inflection. Upon this principle of going to work the wrong way, and of making something out of nothing, we must reverse all our rules of taste and common sense. No Comedy can be perfect till the _dramatis personæ_ might be reversed without creating much confusion: or the ingredients of character ought to be so blended and poured repeatedly from one vessel into another that the difference would be perceptible only to the finest palate. Thus, if Molière had lived in the present day, he would not have drawn his Avare, his Tartuffe and his Misanthrope with those strong touches and violent contrasts which he has done, but with those delicate traits which are common to human nature in general, that is, his Miser without avarice, his Hypocrite without design, and his Misanthrope without disgust at the vices of mankind. Or instead of the heroines of his _School for Women_ (_Alithea_ and _Miss Peggy_, which Wycherley has contrived to make the English understand) we should have had two sentimental young ladies brought up much in the same way, with nice shades of difference, which we should have been hardly able to distinguish, subscribing to the same circulating library, reading the same novels and poems, one preferring Gertrude of Wyoming to The Lady of the Lake, and the other The Lady of the Lake to Gertrude of Wyoming, differing in their opinions on points of taste or systems of mineralogy, and delivering dissertations on the arts with Corinna of Italy.

Considering the difficulty of the task which by our author’s own account is thus imposed upon modern writers, may we not suppose this very difficulty to have operated to deter them from the pursuit of dramatic excellence. But I suspect that your Correspondent has taken up his complaint of the deficiency of refined Comedy too hastily, and that he need not despair of finding some modelled upon his favourite principles. Guided by his theory he should have sought them out in their remote obscurity, and have obtruded them on the public eye. He might have formed a new era of criticism, and have claimed the same merit as Voltaire, when he discovered that the English had one good Tragedy, Cato. Your Correspondent, availing himself of the idea that frivolity, taste, and elegance are the same, might have shewn how much superior _The Heiress_ of Burgoyne was to _The Confederacy_, or _The Way of the World_, and _The Basil_ of _Miss Bailey_, to _Romeo and Juliet_. He would have found ample scope in the blooming desert for endless discoveries—of beauties of the most shadowy kind, of fancies ‘wan that hang the pensive head,’[84] of evanescent smiles, and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch, and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of all thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, wit and character! I can assure your Correspondent, there has been no want of Comedies to his taste; but the taste of the public was not so far advanced. It was found necessary to appeal to something more palpable: and so, in this interval of want of characters in real life, the actors amuse themselves with taking off one another.

But your Correspondent will have it that there are different degrees of refinement in wit and pleasantry, and he seems to suppose that the best of our old Comedies are no better than the coarse jests of a set of country clowns—a sort of _comedies bourgeoises_, compared with the admirable productions which might and ought to be written. Even our modern dramatists, he suspects, are not so familiar with high life as they ought to be. ‘They have not seen the Court, and if they have not seen the Court their manner must be damnable.’[85] Leaving him to settle this last point with the poetical Lords and Ladies of the present day, I am afraid he has himself fallen into the very error he complains of, and would degrade genteel Comedy from a high Court Lady into a literary prostitute. What does he mean by refinement? Does he find none in _Millamant_, and her morning dreams, in _Sir Roger de Coverly_ and his widow? Did not Congreve, Wycherley, and Suckling approach tolerably near ‘the ring of mimic Statesmen, and their merry King?’[86] Does he suppose that their fine ladies were mere rustics, because they did not compose metaphysical treatises, or their fine gentlemen inexperienced tyros, because they had not been initiated into the infinitely refined society of Paris and of Baron Grimm? Is there no distinction between an Angelica, and a Miss Prue, a Valentine, a Tattle, and a Ben? Where in the annals of modern literature will he find anything more refined, more deliberate, more abstracted in vice than the Nobleman in Amelia? Are not the compliments which Pope paid to his friends,[87] to St. John, Murray, and Cornbury, equal in taste and elegance to those which passed between the French philosophers and their patrons?—Are there no traits in Sterne?—Is not Richardson minute enough?—Must we part with Sophia Western and Clarissa for the loves of the plants and the triangles?—The beauty of these writers in general was, that they gave every kind and gradation of character, and they did this, because their portraits were taken from life. They were true to nature, full of meaning, perfectly understood and executed in every part. Their coarseness was not mere vulgarity, their refinement was not a mere negation of precision. They refined _upon_ characters, instead of refining them _away_. Their refinement consisted in working out the parts, not in leaving a vague outline. They painted human nature as it was, and as they saw it with individual character and circumstances, not human nature in general, abstracted from time, place and circumstance. Strength and refinement are so far from being incompatible, that they assist each other, as the hardest bodies admit of the finest touches and the brightest polish. But there are some minds that never understand any thing, but by a negation of its opposite. There is a strength without refinement, which is grossness, as there is a refinement without strength or effect, which is insipidity. Neither are grossness and refinement of manners inconsistent with each other in the same period. The grossness of one class adds to the refinement of another, by circumscribing it, by rendering the feeling more pointed and exquisite, by irritating our self-love, &c. There can be no great refinement of character where there is no distinction of persons. The character of a gentleman is a _relative term_. The diffusion of knowledge, of artificial and intellectual equality, tends to level this distinction, and to confound that nice perception and high sense of honour, which arises from conspicuousness of situation, and a perpetual attention to personal propriety and the claims of personal respect. Your Correspondent, I think, mistakes refinement of individual character for general knowledge and intellectual subtlety, with which it has little more to do than with the dexterity of a rope-dancer or juggler. The age of chivalry is gone with the improvements in the art of war, which superseded personal courage, and the character of a gentleman must disappear with those refinements in intellect which render the advantages of rank and situation common almost to any one. The bag-wig and sword followed the helmet and the spear, when these outward insignia no longer implied a real superiority, and were a distinction without a difference. Even the grossness of a state of mixed and various manners receives a degree of refinement from contrast and opposition, by being defined and implicated with circumstances. The _Upholsterer_ in _The Tatler_ is not a mere vulgar politician. His intense feeling of interest and curiosity about what does not at all concern him, displays itself in the smallest things, assumes the most eccentric forms, and the peculiarity of his absurdity masks itself under various shifts and evasions, which the same folly, when it becomes epidemic and universal as it has since done, would not have occasion to resort to. In general it is only in a state of mere barbarism or indiscriminate refinement that we are to look for extreme grossness or complete insipidity. Our modern dramatists indeed have happily contrived to unite both extremes. _Omne tulit punctum._[88] On a soft ground of sentiment they have daubed in the gross absurdities of modern manners void of character, have blended metaphysical waiting maids with jockey noblemen, and the humours of the four in hand club, and fill up the piece by some vile and illiberal caricature of particular individuals known on the town.

To return once more to your Correspondent, who condemns all this as much as I do. He is for refining Comedy into a pure intellectual abstraction, the shadow of a shade. Will he forgive me if I suggest, as an addition to his theory, that the drama in general might be constructed on the same abstruse and philosophical principles. As he imagines that the finest Comedies may be formed without individual character, so the deepest Tragedies might be composed without real passion. The slightest and most ridiculous distresses might be improved by the help of art and metaphysical aid, into the most affecting scenes. A young man might naturally be introduced as the hero of a philosophic drama, who had lost the gold medal for a prize poem; or a young lady, whose verses had been severely criticized in the reviews. Nothing could come amiss to this rage for speculative refinement; or the actors might be supposed to come forward, not in any character, but as a sort of Chorus, reciting speeches on the general miseries of human life, or reading alternately a passage out of Seneca’s Morals or Voltaire’s Candide. This might by some be thought a great improvement on English Tragedy, or even on the French.

In fact, Sir, the whole of our author’s reasoning proceeds on a total misconception of the nature of the Drama itself. It confounds philosophy with poetry, laboured analysis with intuitive perception, general truth with individual observation. He makes the comic muse a dealer in riddles, and an expounder of hieroglyphics, and a taste for dramatic excellence, a species of the second sight. He would have the Drama to be the most remote, and it is the most substantial and real of all things. It represents not only looks, but motion and speech. The painter gives only the former, looks without action or speech, and the mere writer only the latter, words without looks or

## action. Its business and its use is to express the thoughts and

character in the most striking and instantaneous manner, in the manner most like reality. It conveys them in all their truth and subtlety, but in all their force and with all possible effect. It brings them into action, obtrudes them on the sight, embodies them in habits, in gestures, in dress, in circumstances, and in speech. It renders every thing overt and ostensible, and presents human nature not in its elementary principles or by general reflections, but exhibits its essential quality in all their variety of combination, and furnishes subjects for perpetual reflection.

But the instant we begin to refine and generalise beyond a certain point, we are reduced to abstraction, and compelled to see things, not as individuals, or as connected with action and circumstances, but as universal truths, applicable in a degree to all things, and in their extent to none, which therefore it would be absurd to predicate of individuals, or to represent to the senses. The habit, too, of detaching these abstract species and fragments of nature, destroys the power of combining them in complex characters, in every degree of force and variety. The concrete and the abstract cannot co-exist in the same mind. We accordingly find, that to genuine comedy succeed satire and novels, the one dealing in general character and description, and the other making out particulars by the assistance of narrative and comment. Afterwards come traits, and collections of anecdotes, bon mots, topics, and quotations, &c. which are applicable to any one, and are just as good told of one person as another. Thus the trio in the Memoirs of M. Grimm, attributed to three celebrated characters, on the death of a fourth, might have the names reversed, and would lose nothing of its effect. In general these traits, which are so much admired, are a sort of systematic libels on human nature, which make up, by their malice and _acuteness_, for their want of wit and sense.

I have already taken notice of the quotation from Madame de Stael, with which your Correspondent concludes. I can only oppose to it the authority of Sterne and Sir Richard Steele, who thought that the excellence of the English in comedy was in a great measure owing to the originality and variety of character among them [See Sentimental Journey, and Tatler, No. .][89] With respect to that extreme refinement of taste which the fair Author arrogates to the French, they are neither entirely without it, nor have they so much as they think. The two most refined things in the world are the story of the Falcon in Boccacio, and the character of Griselda in Chaucer, of neither of which the French would have the smallest conception, because they do not depend on traits, or minute circumstances, or turns of expression, but in infinite simplicity and truth, and an everlasting sentiment. We might retort upon Mad. de Stael what she sometimes says in her own defence, That we understand all in other writers that is worth understanding. As to Moliere, he is quite out of the present question; he lived long before the era of French philosophy and refinement, and is besides almost an English author, quite a _barbare_, in all in which he excels. He was unquestionably one of the greatest comic geniuses that ever lived, a man of infinite wit, gaiety, and invention, full of life and laughter, the very soul of mirth and whim. But it cannot be denied, that his plays are in general mere farces, without real nature or refined character, totally void of probability. They could not be carried on a moment without a perfect collusion between the parties, to wink at impossibilities, by contradicting and acting in defiance of all common sense. For instance, take the _Medecin malgre lui_, in which a common wood-cutter voluntarily takes upon himself, and supports through a long play, the character of a learned physician, without exciting the least suspicion, but which is, notwithstanding the absurdity of the plot, one of the most laughable and truly comic things that can be imagined. The rest of his lighter pieces are of the same description—mere gratuitous fictions and exaggerations of nature. As to his serious Comedies, as the _Tartuffe_ and _Misanthrope_, nothing can be more objectionable, and the chief objection to them is that nothing is more hard than to read them through. They have all the improbability and extravagance of the rest, united with all the tedious common-place prosing of French declamation. What can exceed the absurdity of the _Misanthrope_, who leaves his mistress after every proof of her attachment and constancy, merely because she will not submit to the _technical formality_ of going to live with him in a desert? The characters which she gives of her friends in the beginning of the play are very admirable satires, but not Comedy. The same remarks apply in a greater degree to the _Tartuffe_. The long speeches and reasonings in this Play may be very good logic, or rhetoric, or philosophy, or any thing but Comedy. They are dull pompous casuistry. The improbability is monstrous. This play is indeed invaluable, as a lasting monument of the credulity of the French to all verbal professions of virtue or wisdom, and its existence can only be accounted for from that astonishing and tyrannical predominance which words exercise over things in the mind of every Frenchman.

In short, Sir, I conceive, that neither M. de Stael nor your Correspondent has hit upon the true theory of refinement. To suppose that we can go on refining for ever with vivacity and effect, embodying vague abstractions, and particularising flimsy generalities,—‘shewing the very body of the age, its form and pressure,’[90] though it has neither form nor pressure left,—seems to me the height of speculative absurdity. That undefined ‘frivolous space,’ beyond which Madame de Stael regards as ‘the region of taste and elegance,’ is, indeed, nothing but the very Limbo of Vanity, the land of chiromancy and occult conceit, and paradise of fools, where, according to your correspondent,

‘None yet, but store hereafter from the earth Shall, like aerial vapours, upward rise Of all things transitory and vain.’[91]

I am, Sir, your humble servant, H.

APPENDIX II

(_See note to p. 217._)

ON MR KEAN’S IAGO

MR. EXAMINER,—I was not at all aware that in the remarks which I offered on Mr. Kean’s _Iago_ my opinions would clash with those already expressed by the respectable writer of the Theatrical Examiner: for I did not mean to object to ‘the gay and careless air which Mr. Kean threw over his representation of that arch villain,’ but to its being nothing but carelessness and gaiety; and I thought it perfectly consistent with a high degree of admiration of this extraordinary actor, to suppose that he might have carried an ingenious and original idea of the character to a paradoxical extreme. In some respects, your Correspondent seems to have mistaken what I have said; for he observes that I have entered into an analysis to shew, ‘that _Iago_ is a malignant being, who hates his fellow-creatures, and doats on mischief and crime as the best means of annoying the objects of his hate.’ Now this is the very reverse of what I intended to shew; for so far from thinking that _Iago_ is ‘a ruffian or a savage, who pursues wickedness for its own sake,’ I am ready to allow that he is a pleasant amusing sort of gentleman, but with an over-activity of mind that is dangerous to himself and others; that so far from hating his fellow-creatures, he is perfectly regardless of them, except as they may afford him food for the exercise of his spleen, and that ‘he doats on mischief and crime,’ not ‘as the best means of annoying the objects of his hate,’ but as necessary to keep himself in that strong state of excitement which his natural constitution requires, or, to express it proverbially, in _perpetual hot water_. Iago is a man who will not suffer himself or any one else to be at rest; he has an insatiable craving after action, and action of the most violent kind. His conduct and motives require some explanation; but they cannot be accounted for from his interest or his passions,—his love of himself, or hatred of those who are the objects of his persecution: these are both of them only the occasional pretext for his cruelty, and are in fact both of them subservient to his love of power and mischievous irritability. I repeat, that I consider this sort of unprincipled self-will as a very different thing from common malignity; but I conceive it also just as remote from indifference or levity. In one word, the malice of _Iago_ is not _personal_, but _intellectual_. Mr. Kean very properly got rid of the brutal ferocity which had been considered as the principle of the character, and then left it without any principle at all. He has mistaken the want of moral feeling, which is inseparable from the part, for constitutional ease and general indifference, which are just as incompatible with it. Mr. Kean’s idea seems to have been, that the most perfect callousness ought to accompany the utmost degree of inhumanity; and so far as relates to callousness to moral considerations, this is true; but that is not the question. If our Ancient had no other object, or principle of action but his indifference to the feelings of others, he gives himself a great deal of trouble to no purpose. If he has nothing else to set him in motion, he had much better remain quiet than be broken on the rack. Mere carelessness and gaiety, then, do not account for the character. But Mr. Kean acted it with nearly the same easy air with which Mr. Braham sings a song in an opera, or with which a comic actor delivers a side-speech in an after-piece.

But the character of _Iago_, says your Correspondent, has nothing to do with the manner of acting it. We are to look to the business of the play. Is this then so very pleasant, or is the part which _Iago_ undertakes and executes the perfection of easy comedy? I should conceive quite the contrary. The rest of what your Correspondent says on this subject is ‘ingenious, but not convincing.’ It amounts to this, that _Iago_ is a hypocrite, and that a hypocrite should always be gay. This must depend upon circumstances. _Tartuffe_ was a hypocrite, yet he was not gay: _Joseph Surface_ was a hypocrite, but grave and plausible: _Blifil_ was a hypocrite, but cold, formal and reserved. The hypocrite is naturally grave, that is, thoughtful, and dissatisfied with things as they are, plotting doubtful schemes for his own advancement and the ruin of others, studying far-fetched evasions, double-minded and double-faced.—Now all this is an effort, and one that is often attended with disagreeable consequences; and it seems more in character that a man whose invention is thus kept on the rack, and his feelings under painful restraint, should rather strive to hide the wrinkle rising on his brow, and the malice at his heart, under an honest concern for his friend, or the serene and regulated smile of steady virtue, than that he should wear the light-hearted look and easy gaiety of thoughtless constitutional good humour. The presumption therefore is not in favour of the lively, laughing, comic mien of hypocrisy. Gravity is its most obvious resource, and, with submission, it is quite as effectual a one. But it seems, that if _Iago_ had worn this tremendous mask, ‘the gay and idle world would have had nothing to do with him.’ Why, indeed, if he had only intended to figure at a carnival or a ridotto, to dance with the women or drink with the men, this objection might be very true. But _Iago_ has a different scene to

## act in, and has other thoughts in his contemplation. One would

suppose that _Othello_ contained no other adventures than those which are to be met with in _Anstey’s Bath Guide_,[92] or in one of _Miss Burney’s_ novels. The smooth smiling surface of the world of fashion is not the element he delights to move in: he is the busy meddling fiend ‘who rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm,’[93] triumphing over the scattered wrecks, and listening to the shrieks of death. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Kean’s _Iago_ must be wrong, for it seems to have abstracted your Correspondent entirely from the subject of the play. Indeed it is one great proof of Mr. Kean’s powers, but which at the same time blinds the audience to his defects, that they think of little else in any play but of the part he acts. ‘What! a gallant Venetian turned into a musty philosopher! Go away, and beg the reversion of Diogenes’ tub! Go away, the coxcomb _Roderigo_ will think you mighty dull, and will answer your requests for money with a yawn; the cheerful spirited _Cassio_ will choose some pleasanter companion to sing with him over his cups; the fiery _Othello_ will fear lest his philosophic Ancient will be less valorously incautious in the day of battle, and that he will not storm a fort with the usual uncalculating intrepidity.’ Now, the coxcomb _Roderigo_ would probably have answered his demands for money with a yawn, though he had been ever so facetious a companion, if he had not thought him useful to his affairs. He employs him as a man of business, as a dextrous, cunning, plotting rogue, who is to betray his master and debauch his wife, an occupation for which his good humour or apparent want of thought would not particularly qualify him. An accomplice in knavery ought always to be a solemn rogue, and withal a casuist, for he thus becomes our better conscience, and gives a sanction to the roguery. _Cassio_ does not invite _Iago_ to drink with him, but is prevailed upon against his will to join him; and _Othello_ himself owes his misfortunes, in the first instance, to his having repulsed the applications of _Iago_ to be made his lieutenant. He himself affects to be blunt and unmannerly in his conversation with _Desdemona_. There is no appearance of any cordiality towards him in _Othello_, nor of his having been a general favourite (for such persons are not usually liked), nor of his having ever been employed but for his understanding and discretion. He every where owes his success to his intellectual superiority, and not to the pleasantness of his manners. At no time does _Othello_ put implicit confidence in _Iago’s_ personal character, but demands his proofs; or when he founds his faith on his integrity, it is from the gravity of his manner: ‘Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more,’ _etc._[94]

Your Correspondent appeals to the manners of women of the town, to prove that ‘there is a fascination in an open manner.’ I do not see what this has to do with _Iago_. Those who promise to give only pleasure, do not of course put on a melancholy face, or ape the tragic muse. The Sirens would not lull their victims by the prophetic menaces of the Furies. _Iago_ did not profess to be the harbinger of welcome news. The reference to Milton’s _Satan_ and _Lovelace_ is equally misplaced. If _Iago_ had himself endeavoured to seduce _Desdemona_, the cases would have been parallel. _Lovelace_ had to seduce a virtuous woman to pleasure, by presenting images of pleasure, by fascinating her senses, and by keeping out of sight every appearance of danger or disaster. _Iago_, on the contrary, shews to _Othello_ that he has ‘a monster in his thought’;[95] and it is his object to make him believe this by dumb show, by the knitting of his brows, by stops and starts, _etc._ before he is willing to commit himself by words. Milton’s devil also could only succeed by raising up the most voluptuous and delightful expectations in the mind of Eve, and by himself presenting an example of the divine effects produced by eating of the tree of knowledge. Gloom and gravity were here out of the question. Yet how does Milton describe the behaviour of this arch-hypocrite, when he is about to complete his purpose?

‘She scarce had said, though brief, when now more bold The Tempter, but with shew of zeal and love To man and indignation at his wrong, New part puts on, and as to passion moved, Fluctuates disturb’d yet comely and in act Rais’d, as of some great matter to begin, As when of old some orator renown’d In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence Flourish’d, since mute, to some great cause address’d, Stood in himself collected, while each part, Motion, each act, won audience ere the tongue; Sometimes in height began, as no delay Of preface brooking through his zeal of right; So standing, moving, or to height upgrown, The Tempter all-impassion’d thus began:’[96]

If this impassioned manner was justifiable here, where the serpent had only to persuade Eve to her imagined good, how much more was it proper in _Iago_, who had to tempt _Othello_ to his damnation? When he hints to _Othello_ that his wife is unfaithful to him—when he tells his proofs, at which _Othello_ swoons, when he advises him to strangle her, and undertakes to dispatch _Cassio_ from his zeal in ‘wronged Othello’s service,’[97] should he do this with a smiling face, or a face of indifference? If a man drinks or sings with me, he may perhaps drink or sing much as Mr. Kean drinks or sings with _Roderigo_ and _Cassio_: if he bids me good day, or wishes me a pleasant journey, a frank and careless manner will well become him; but if he assures me that I am on the edge of a precipice, or waylaid by assassins, or that some tremendous evil has befallen me, with the same fascinating gaiety of countenance and manner, I shall be little disposed to credit either his sincerity or friendship or common sense.

Your Correspondent accounts for the security and hilarity of _Iago_, in such circumstances, from his sense of superiority and his certainty of success. First, this is not the account given in the text, which I should prefer to any other authority on the subject. Secondly, if he was quite certain of the success of his experiment, it was not worth the making, for the only provocation to it was the danger and difficulty of the enterprise; and at any rate, whatever were his feelings, the appearance of anxiety and earnestness was necessary to the accomplishment of his purpose. ‘He should assume a virtue, if he had it not.’[98] Besides, the success of his experiment was not of that kind even which has been called _negative_ success, but proved of a very tragical complexion both to himself and others. I can recollect nothing more to add, without repeating what I have before said, which I am afraid would be to no purpose. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. H.

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE

-----

Footnote 1:

A child that has hid itself out of the way in sport, is under a great temptation to laugh at the unconsciousness of others as to its situation. A person concealed from assassins, is in no danger of betraying his situation by laughing.

Footnote 2:

His words are—‘If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts, in this of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason. For wit lying mostly in the assemblage of ideas, and putting them together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.’ (_Essay_, vol. i. p. 143.) This definition, such as it is, Mr. Locke took without acknowledgment from Hobbes, who says in his Leviathan, ‘This difference of quickness in imagining is caused by the difference of men’s passions, that love and dislike some one thing, some another, and therefore some men’s thoughts run one way, some another, and are held to and observe differently the things that pass through their imagination. And whereas in this succession of thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning and judging between thing and thing; in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment; and particularly in matter of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, fancy, without the help of judgment, is not commended for a virtue; but the latter, which is judgment or discretion, is commended for itself, without the help of fancy.’ _Leviathan_, p. 32.

Footnote 3:

Unforced.

Footnote 4:

See his Lives of the British Poets, Vol. I.

Footnote 5:

‘And have not two saints power to use A greater privilege than three Jews?’

* * * * *

‘Her voice, the music of the spheres, So loud it deafens mortals’ ears, As wise philosophers have thought, And that’s the cause we hear it not.’

Footnote 6:

‘No Indian prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows.’

Footnote 7:

‘And in his nose, like Indian king, He (Bruin) wore for ornament a ring.’

Footnote 8:

‘Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer By thunder turned to vinegar.’

Footnote 9:

‘Replete with strange hermetic powder, That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder.’

* * * * *

‘His tawny beard was th’ equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face; In cut and die so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile: The upper part thereof was whey, The nether orange mixed with grey. This hairy meteor did denounce The fall of sceptres and of crowns; With grisly type did represent Declining age of government; And tell with hieroglyphic spade Its own grave and the state’s were made.’

* * * * *

‘This sword a dagger had his page, That was but little for his age; And therefore waited on him so, As dwarfs upon knight errants do.’

Footnote 10:

‘And straight another with his flambeau, Gave Ralpho o’er the eyes a damn’d blow.’

* * * * *

‘That deals in destiny’s dark counsels, And sage opinions of the moon sells.’

Footnote 11:

‘The mighty Tottipottimoy Sent to our elders an envoy.’

Footnote 12:

‘For Hebrew _roots_, although they’re found To flourish most in barren ground.’

Footnote 13:

‘Those wholesale critics that in coffee- Houses cry down all philosophy.’

Footnote 14:

‘This we among ourselves may speak, But to the wicked or the weak We must be cautious to declare Perfection-truths, such as these are.’

Footnote 15:

The following are nearly all I can remember.—

‘Thus stopp’d their fury and the basting Which towards Hudibras was hasting.’

It is said of the bear, in the fight with the dogs—

‘And setting his right foot before, He raised himself to shew how tall His person was above them all.’

* * * * *

‘At this the knight grew high in chafe, And staring furiously on Ralph, He trembled and look’d pale with ire, Like ashes first, then red as fire.’

* * * * *

‘The knight himself did after ride, Leading Crowdero by his side, And tow’d him if he lagged behind, Like boat against the tide and wind.’

* * * * *

‘And rais’d upon his desperate foot, On stirrup-side he gazed about.’

* * * * *

‘And Hudibras, who used to ponder On such sights with judicious wonder.’

* * * * *

The beginning of the account of the procession in Part II. is as follows:—

‘Both thought it was the wisest course To wave the fight and mount to horse, And to secure by swift retreating, Themselves from danger of worse beating: Yet neither of them would disparage By uttering of his mind his courage. Which made ’em stoutly keep their ground, With horror and disdain wind-bound. And now the cause of all their fear By slow degrees approach’d so near, They might distinguish different noise Of horns and pans, and dogs and boys, And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub Sounds like the hooping of a tub.’

Footnote 16:

Love in a Tub, and She Would if She Could.

Footnote 17:

Why Pope should say in reference to him, ‘Or _more wise_ Charron,’ is not easy to determine.

Footnote 18:

As an instance of his general power of reasoning, I shall give his chapter entitled _One Man’s Profit is another’s Loss_, in which he has nearly anticipated Mandeville’s celebrated paradox of private vices being public benefits:—

‘Demades, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen, who furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price for his goods: and if he got an estate, it must be by the death of a great many people: but I think it a sentence ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be made, but at the expense of some other person, and that every kind of gain is by that rule liable to be condemned. The tradesman thrives by the debauchery of youth, and the farmer by the dearness of corn; the architect by the ruin of buildings, the officers of justice by quarrels and law-suits; nay, even the honour and function of divines is owing to our mortality and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his best friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the peace of his country; and so of the rest. And, what is yet worse, let every one but examine his own heart, and he will find that his private wishes spring and grow up at the expense of some other person. Upon which consideration this thought came into my head, that nature does not hereby deviate from her general policy; for the naturalists hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing is the decay and corruption of another:

_Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit, Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante._ i.e.

For what from its own confines chang’d doth pass, Is straight the death of what before it was.’

_Vol._ 1. _Chap._ xxi.

Footnote 19:

No. 125.

Footnote 20:

The antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which Burke was so fond of, in which the epithet is a seeming contradiction to the substantive, such as ‘proud submission and dignified obedience,’ are, I think, first to be found in the Tatler.

Footnote 21:

It is not to be forgotten that the author of Robinson Crusoe was also an Englishman. His other works, such as the Life of Colonel Jack, &c., are of the same cast, and leave an impression on the mind more like that of things than words.

Footnote 22:

The Fool of Quality, David Simple, and Sidney Biddulph, written about the middle of the last century, belong to the ancient _regime_ of novel-writing. Of the Vicar of Wakefield I have attempted a character elsewhere.

Footnote 23:

The Waiter drawing the cork, in the Rent-day, is another exception, and quite Hogarthian.

Footnote 24:

When Meg Merrilies says in her dying moments—‘Nay, nay, lay my head to the East,’ what was the East to her? Not a reality but an idea of distant time and the land of her forefathers; the last, the strongest, and the best that occurred to her in this world. Her gipsy slang and dress were quaint and grotesque; her attachment to the Kaim of Derncleugh and the wood of Warrock was romantic; her worship of the East was _ideal_.

Footnote 25:

I have only to add, by way of explanation on this subject, the following passage from the Characters of Shakspeare’s Plays: ‘There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those, who would impose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To this succeeds a state of society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world, or by their successful exposure on the stage; and which by neutralizing the materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all—but _the sentimental_. Such is our modern comedy. There is a period in the progress of manners anterior to both these, in which the foibles and follies of individuals are of nature’s planting, not the growth of art or study; in which they are therefore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can but have their whim out; and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasure from humouring the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, than wish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is the comedy which we generally find in Shakspeare.’ P. 256.

Footnote 26:

See Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees.

Footnote 27:

This ingenious and popular writer is since dead.

Footnote 28:

See the Fudge Family, edited by Thomas Brown, jun.

Footnote 29:

The defects in the upper tones of Mr. Kean’s voice were hardly perceptible in his performance of Shylock, and were at first attributed to hoarseness.

Footnote 30:

For a fuller account of Mr. Kean’s Othello, see one of the last articles in this volume.

Footnote 31:

An old gentleman, riding over Putney-bridge, turned round to his servant, and said, ‘Do you like eggs, John?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ Here the conversation ended. The same gentleman riding over the same bridge that day year, again turned round, and said, ‘How?’ ‘Poached, sir,’ was the answer.—This is the longest pause upon record, and has something of a dramatic effect, though it could not be transferred to the stage. Perhaps an actor might go so far, on the principle of indefinite pauses, as to begin a sentence in one act, and finish it in the next.

Footnote 32:

The Examiner.

Footnote 33:

It will be seen, that this severe censure of Munden is nearly reversed in the sequel of these remarks, and on a better acquaintance with this very able actor in characters more worthy of his powers.

Footnote 34:

In the last edition of the works of a modern Poet, there is a Sonnet to the King, complimenting him on ‘his royal fortitude.’ The story of the Female Vagrant, which very beautifully and affectingly describes the miseries brought on the lower classes by war, in bearing which the said ‘royal fortitude’ is so nobly exercised, is very properly struck out of the collection.

Footnote 35:

The scene where the screen falls and discovers Lady Teazle, is without a rival. Perhaps the discovery is delayed rather too long.

Footnote 36:

What Louis XVIII. said to his new National Guards.

Footnote 37:

It was about this time that Madame Lavalette assisted her husband to escape from prison.

Footnote 38:

A Mr. Bibby, from the United States.

Footnote 39:

‘’Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill Appear in writing, or in judging ill.’

_Pope._

Footnote 40:

This young lady has since acted Beatrice in ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ with considerable applause.

Footnote 41:

So the old song joyously celebrates their arrival:—

‘The beggars are coming to town, Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in velvet gowns,’

Footnote 42:

The story of the Heart of Midlothian was, we understand, got up at the Surrey Theatre last year by Mr. Dibdin, in the most creditable style. A Miss Taylor, we hear, made an inimitable Jenny Deans, Miss Copeland was surprising as Madge Wildfire, Mrs. Dibdin as Queen Caroline, was also said to be a complete piece of royal wax-work, and Dumbydikes was done to the life. Would we had seen them so done; but we can answer for these things positively on no authority but our own. If they make as good a thing of Ivanhoe, they will do more than the author has done.

Footnote 43:

Miss Baillie has much of the power and spirit of dramatic writing, and not the less because, as a woman, she has been placed out of the vortex of philosophical and political extravagances.

Footnote 44:

We have given this sentence in marks of quotation, and yet it is our own. We should put a stop to the practices of ‘such petty larceny rogues’—but that it is not worth while.

Footnote 45:

Generosity and simplicity are not the characteristic virtues of poets. It has been disputed whether ‘an honest man is the noblest work of God.’ But we think an honest poet is so.

Footnote 46:

‘Or mouth with slumbery pout.’ _Keats’s Endymion._

The phrase might be applied to Miss Stephens: though it is a vile phrase, worse than Hamlet’s ‘beautified’ applied to Ophelia. Indeed it has been remarked that Mr. Keats resembles Shakspeare in the novelty and eccentricity of his combinations of style. If so, it is the only thing in which he is like Shakspeare: and yet Mr. Keats, whose misfortune and crime it is, like Milton, to have been born in London, is a much better poet than Mr. Wilson, or his Patroclus Mr. Lockart; nay, further, if Sir Walter Scott (the sly Ulysses of the Auld Reekie school,) had written many of the passages in Mr. Keats’s poems, they would have been quoted as the most beautiful in his works. We do not here (on the banks of the Thames) damn the Scotch novels in the lump, because the writer is a _Sawney Scot_. But the sweet Edinburgh wits damn Mr. Keats’s lines in the lump, because he is born in London. ‘Oh Scotland, judge of England, what a treasure hast thou in one fair son, and one fair son-in-law, neither of whom (by all accounts) thou lovest passing well!’

Footnote 47:

The Fancy is not used here in the sense of Mr. Peter Corcoran, but in a sense peculiar to Mr. Coleridge, and hitherto undefined by him.

Footnote 48:

This expression is borrowed from Dr. Johnson. However, as Dr. Johnson is not a German critic, Mr. C. need not be supposed to acknowledge it.

Footnote 49:

This was Godwin, who saw _Venice Preserved_ at Norwich. See Kegan Paul, _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, I. 10.

Footnote 50:

_She Stoops to Conquer_, Act I.

Footnote 51:

_Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 1.

Footnote 52:

Cf. _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 5.

Footnote 53:

_The Rivals_, Act V. Sc. 3.

Footnote 54:

James William Dodd (1740?-1796).

Footnote 55:

_The Rivals_, Act III. Sc. 3.

Footnote 56:

_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 2.

Footnote 57:

By Arthur Murphy (1756).

Footnote 58:

Elizabeth Pope (1744?-1797) wife of Alexander Pope the actor. She made her first appearance in 1768 and became famous in a wide range of parts.

Footnote 59:

Better known as Mrs. Barry. Ann Spranger Barry (1734-1801) first appeared at Drury Lane in 1767-8, and soon acquired a great reputation both in tragedy and comedy. She married Spranger Barry the actor in 1768.

Footnote 60:

See _post_, note to p. 184.

Footnote 61:

Cowley, Horace, _Odes_, III. 1.

Footnote 62:

_Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

Footnote 63:

‘His honours and his valiant parts.’ _Ibid._

Footnote 64:

_Ibid._

Footnote 65:

Pope, _The Rape of the Lock_, II. 17-18.

Footnote 66:

See Johnson’s _Lives of the Poets_, Life of Edmund Smith.

Footnote 67:

_Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

Footnote 68:

William Dimond of Bath, the author of a great number of plays.

Footnote 69:

Cf. _ante_, pp. 411-12.

Footnote 70:

Cf. ‘In their trinal triplicities on bye.’ _The Faerie Queene_,

## Book I. Canto I. St. 38.

Footnote 71:

Cf. ‘Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.’ _Richard III._,

## Act IV. Sc. 3.

Footnote 72:

_A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

Footnote 73:

_L’Allegro_, 14 _et seq._

Footnote 74:

By Richard Lalor Shell.

Footnote 75:

Dr. John Stoddart, who had left _The Times_ early in 1817, and started _The Day and New Times_, afterwards known as _The New Times_.

Footnote 76:

Founded on Bickerstaffe’s _Love in the City_, and first produced 1781.

Footnote 77:

_Comus_, 476-7.

Footnote 78:

_Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

Footnote 79:

‘Blasted with excess of light.’ Gray, _The Progress of Poesy_, III. 2, 7.

Footnote 80:

Cowper, _The Task_, IV. 486.

Footnote 81:

Pope, _Moral Essays_, II. 114.

Footnote 82:

_The Taming of the Shrew_, Induction, Sc. 2.

Footnote 83:

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act V. Sc. 2.

Footnote 84:

_L’Allegro_, 147.

Footnote 85:

_As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 2.

Footnote 86:

Pope, _Moral Essays_, III., 309-10.

Footnote 87:

Cf. the essay ‘Of persons one would wish to have seen.’

Footnote 88:

Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 343.

Footnote 89:

Hazlitt has omitted the number. The reference is perhaps to No. 42.

Footnote 90:

_Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

Footnote 91:

_Paradise Lost_, III. 444-6.

Footnote 92:

Christopher Anstey’s (1724-1805) _New Bath Guide_ (1766).

Footnote 93:

Addison, _The Campaign_, 292.

Footnote 94:

## Act III. Sc. 3.

Footnote 95:

_Ibid._

Footnote 96:

_Paradise Lost_, IX. 664-678.

Footnote 97:

## Act III. Sc. 3.

Footnote 98:

_Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Pp. 28 & 159, changed “Medecin malgrè lui” to “Médecin malgré lui”. 2. P. 135, changed “protegée” to “protégé”. 3. P. 143, changed “elégantes” to “élégantes”. 4. P. 151, changed “haute litérature” to “haute littérature”. 5. P. 166, changed “comedie larmoyante” to “comédie larmoyante”. 6. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 7. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 8. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 9. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.