Book II

. Canto VI.

_The philosopher of Malmesbury._ Hobbes.

250. _Horace’s ‘nine years.’_ ‘Nonumque prematur in annum.’ _Ars Poetica_, 388.

‘_Que, si sous Adam_,’ _etc._ A line in Boileau’s tenth satire. See the Conversation between the Abbé Delille and Walter Landor.

_General Mina._ The second volume of _Imaginary Conversations_ was dedicated to General Espoz y Mina (1784–1835), the Spanish patriot who opposed Napoleon, and, later, the tyranny of the restored Bourbons.

_Balasteros._ Francisco Ballasteros (1770–1832), the Spanish general, who had capitulated to the French invaders in 1823, and been banished for life.

251. _Caviare to the multitude_ [general]. _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

254. _Articles in The Friend._ See _The Friend_, February 8, 1810. Coleridge referred to this essay, and quoted passages from it in one of the articles he wrote in _The Courier_ in 1811. See _Essays on his own Times_, III. 829 _et seq._ These articles are probably alluded to by Hazlitt when he speaks of ‘strong allusions ... in a celebrated journal.’

255. ‘_Final hope_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, II. 143.

‘_To shut_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘She opened; but to shut excelled her power.’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 883–884.

_Bolivar._ Simon Bolivar (1783–1830), ‘the Liberator’ of South America. Landor dedicated to him the third volume of his _Imaginary Conversations_.

_Gebir._ Published anonymously in 1798. ‘Many parts of it,’ says Landor (Preface to 1831 edition), ‘were first composed in Latin; and I doubted in which language to complete it.’

‘_Pleased they remember_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Gebir_, I. 168–169.

_Count Julian._ Published anonymously in 1812.

SHELLEY’S POSTHUMOUS POEMS

The volume here reviewed was published in 1824 by John and Henry L. Hunt. Hazlitt had little sympathy with Shelley either as a man or a poet. The grounds of his distrust of him as a man are given more than once, most fully, perhaps, in the essay ‘On Paradox and Common-Place’ (_Table Talk_, VI. 148–150), which led to the quarrel between Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt in 1821. See _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, I. 304–315, and _Four Generations of a Literary Family_, I. 130–135. As for Shelley’s poetry, P. G. Patmore suggests that Hazlitt knew little or nothing of it. ‘Though I have often,’ he says (_My Friends and Acquaintance_, III. 136), ‘heard him speak disparagingly of Shelley as a poet, I never heard him refer to a single line or passage of his published writings.’ Hazlitt met Shelley at Leigh Hunt’s, and the two discussed Monarchy and Republicanism until three in the morning.’ See Mary Shelley’s journal of 1817, quoted in Professor Dowden’s _Life_, II. 103.

PAGE

256. ‘_Too fiery_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘You know the fiery quality of the duke.’ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_Beyond the visible_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Paradise Lost_, VII. 22.

‘_All air._’ Cf. ‘He is pure air and fire.’ _Henry V._, Act III. Sc. 7.

257. ‘_So divinely wrought_,’ _etc._ Cf. John Donne, _An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary_, 245–246.

‘_And dallies_,’ _etc._ _Richard III._, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_More subtle web_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_,