Livre VII

. chap x.

215. _Lord Nugent._ Presumably Robert, Earl Nugent (1702–1788), who retired from parliamentary life in 1784. It is odd that Hazlitt should refer to so well-known a man as a Lord Nugent.

_The Times Newspaper._ John Walter (1739–1812) in 1785 started _The Daily Universal Register_, the name of which was changed on Jan. 1, 1788 to _The Times or Daily Universal Register_, and on March 18, 1788 to _The Times_.

_A steam-engine._ See vol. III. _Political Essays_, p. 158.

216. ‘_Ever strong_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_Whiff and wind._’ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

‘_Aggravate its voice_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act I. Sc. 2.

217. _Mr. Walter._ John Walter the Second (1776–1847).

_A writer in his employ._ Hazlitt’s brother-in-law, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, who left _The Times_ in 1817 and started _The Day and New Times_, called from 1818 onwards _The New Times_. Hazlitt frequently attacks him.

‘_Champion’s Legitimacy_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 1.

219. _The late queen._ Queen Caroline, George IV.’s wife, who died in 1821, shortly after her trial.

_The Courier._ An evening paper bought in 1799 by Coleridge’s friend Daniel Stuart (1766–1846), under whose management it quickly gained a large circulation.

‘_The force of dulness_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘The force of nature could no farther go.’ Dryden, _Lines printed under the engraved portrait of Milton_.

_The ingenious editor._ William Mudford (1782–1848) was editor for some years before 1828.

220. _The Sun._ An evening paper started in 1792 by Pitt’s friend, George Rose.

_The Traveller._ Started about 1803 by Edward Quin (d. 1823). It was amalgamated with _The Globe_ in 1823.

_The Morning Post._ Founded in 1772.

_Cobbett._ William Cobbett (1762–1835) who started _The Weekly Political Register_ in 1802.

_We once tried, etc._ Jeffrey attacked Cobbett in the _Edinburgh_ (July 1807, vol. X. p. 386).

_The Examiner._ Founded by John and Leigh Hunt in 1808. Hazlitt had of course been intimately associated with the paper.

_The News._ A Sunday paper started in 1805.

_The Observer._ Another Sunday paper first made successful by William Innell Clement (d. 1852), who afterwards bought _The Morning Chronicle_.

221. _The Weekly Literary Journals, Gazettes._ Of which _The Literary Gazette_, founded in 1817 and edited for a long time by William Jerdan (1782–1869), was the chief. Others were _The Literary Journal_ (founded by James Mill in 1803) and _The Literary Chronicle_.

‘_Coming Reviews_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘And coming events cast their shadows before.’ Campbell, _Lochiel’s Warnings_, l. 56.

_The Scotsman._ Started in 1817 by Charles Maclaren (1782–1866), who was editor from 1820 to 1845.

_The Gentleman’s Magazine._ Founded in 1731 by Johnson’s first employer, Edward Cave (1691–1754).

_Mr. Blackwood’s._ Founded in April 1817 by William Blackwood (1776–1834) as _The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_. With the seventh number (Oct. 1, 1817) the title was changed to ‘Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.’ The thousandth number appeared in February, 1899.

_The European._ Founded by James Perry in 1782.

_The Lady’s._ _The Lady’s Magazine; or entertaining Companion for the fair sex_, 1717–1818. A new series began in 1820.

_The London._ _The London Magazine_ was started in January 1820, with John Scott (1723–1821) as editor, and for some years maintained a very high level of excellence. See Talfourd’s _Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_ (II. 1–9), and Mr. Bertram Dobell’s _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_. Hazlitt was a regular contributor.

_The Monthly._ _The Monthly Magazine_ founded in 1796 by Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) Phillips (1767–1840).

_The New Monthly._ _The New Monthly Magazine_ was started by Henry Colburn (d. 1855) in 1814, in opposition to Phillips’s magazine. A new series, edited by Thomas Campbell, began in 1821. Many of Hazlitt’s best-known essays were contributed to it. The working editor was Cyrus Redding (1785–1870).

_The head of Memnon._ Hazlitt might have seen a plate of this in _The London Magazine_ for February, 1821.

_Dr. Johnson’s dispute, etc._ See Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (ed. G. B. Hill), I. 154.

222. _Elia._ Lamb wrote many of his _Elia_ essays in _The London Magazine_, chiefly between 1820 and 1823.

_The author of Table Talk._ Hazlitt himself.

_The Confessions of an Opium-Eater._ Published in _The London Magazine_ for September and October, 1821.

_Tales of Traditional Literature._ A series of tales by Allan Cunningham (1784–1842), republished in 1822 as ‘Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry.’

_Mr. Geoffrey Crayon._ Washington Irving (1783–1859), whose _Sketch Book_, to which Hazlitt probably refers, appeared in New York, 1819–1820.

‘_With a blush_,’ _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act I. Sc. 3.

223. _The Editor, we are afraid, etc._ Talfourd, in his _Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_, gives a lively account of Campbell’s fastidious editorship of the _New Monthly_.

‘_Lively_’ [waking], _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 5.

‘_The sin_,’ _etc._ _Hebrews_, xii. 1.

225. _The Anti-Jacobin._ Cf. _ante_, p. 139 and note.

‘_The manna_,’ _etc._ Pulci’s _Morgante Maggiore_. See _ante_, p. 69.

‘_The pelting_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 4.

227. _A well-known paper._ _John Bull_, Oct. 27, 1822. On the previous Tuesday (Oct. 22) young Las Cases ‘applied a horsewhip to the shoulders’ of Sir Hudson Lowe, with a view, as he said, to provoke a duel. Lowe obtained a warrant for the apprehension of Las Cases, who, however, retired to France. The radical papers made great fun of the incident. See _The Examiner_, Nov. 3, 1822.

_A man of classical taste, etc._ Hazlitt refers to Leigh Hunt and _The Story of Rimini_. See vol. I. (_A Letter to William Gifford_), pp. 376–378 and notes.

228. _A young poet._ On Keats and his Critics see vol. VI. (_Table Talk_), p. 98 and note, and vol. IV. (_The Spirit of the Age_), pp. 302–307 and notes.

_Author of the Baviad, etc._ William Gifford.

229. _Such a paper was detected, etc._ This was _John Bull_, Theodore Hook’s weekly paper, which on August 18, 1822, accused Mr. Fyshe Palmer, member for Reading, of having said that ‘he should have a dinner at the Crown on the occasion, with a haunch of venison, and turtle, and _lots of punch_.’ The detection was quoted from _The Times_ in _John Bull_, Sep. 15, 1822.

LANDOR’S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

Hazlitt here reviews the first two volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s (1775–1864) _Imaginary Conversations_, published in 1824. A second edition, ‘corrected and enlarged,’ appeared in 1826, and vol. III. completing the ‘first series,’ in 1828. Vols. IV. and V. constituting the ‘second series,’ were published in 1829. For an account of Hazlitt’s visit to Landor at Florence in 1825 see Forster’s _Walter Savage Landor, a Biography_, II. 201–211, where a subsequent letter from Hazlitt to Landor is quoted, in which he says: ‘I am much gratified that you are pleased with the _Spirit of the Age_. Somebody ought to like it, for I am sure there will be plenty to cry out against it. I hope you did not find any sad blunders in the second volume; but you can hardly suppose the depression of body and mind under which I wrote some of those articles.’ This review of the _Imaginary Conversations_ seems to have been cut about a good deal by Jeffrey.

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231. ‘_Great wits_,’ _etc._ _Absalom and Achitophel_, I. 163.

233. ‘_It travels in a road_’ [strait], _etc._ _Troilus and Cressida_,

## Act III. Sc. 3.

235. _Dashed and brewed._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, I. 114.

‘_To every good word_,’ _etc._ _Epistle to Titus_, I. 16.

238. ‘_All in conscience_,’ _etc._ Chaucer, _Prologue_, 150.

Note. _Tâtar._ Cf., _e.g._,

‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bond Of erring faith conjoin’d.’ _Roderick, the Last of the Goths_, I. 18–19.

See also _Notes and Queries_, tenth Series, I. 11, 12.

242. ‘_The fairest princess under sky._’ _The Faerie Queene_, Introductory Stanzas, IV.

‘_Paint the lily_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

243. ‘_Famous poets’ verse._’ Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, I. XI. 27, and III. IV. 1.

‘_The spur_,’ _etc._ _Lycidas_, 70.

_Belvidera’s sorrows._ In Otway’s _Venice Preserved_.

245. _Occasion and Furor._ _The Faerie Queene_, Book II . Canto IV.

‘_Cymocles_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._,