Book VI
. Chap. 10).
307. _Mrs. Hill._ ‘From Belfast,’ her first appearance.
DON GIOVANNI AND KEAN’S EUSTACE DE ST. PIERRE
With this notice compare Hazlitt’s article on _Don Juan_ in _A View of the English Stage_, vol. VIII. pp. 362–366.
307. _Spenser’s description of Belphebe._ In his former notice Hazlitt had compared Madame Fodor with Spenser’s Belphebe. See vol. VIII. p. 364 and note.
308. _The Surrender of Calais._ By George Colman, Junior, originally produced at the Haymarket in 1791, and described by Genest as ‘a jumble of Tragedy, Comedy, and Opera.’
‘_A clout upon that head_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act. II. Sc. 2.
‘_Though we have seen this_,’ _etc. Ibid._
‘_Thunder, nothing but thunder._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Sc. 2.
_A new character_, _etc._ Achmet in _Barbarossa_. See vol. VIII. p. 372.
CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY PEOPLE
The internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship of this paper is overwhelmingly strong. Some of the main points are referred to in the following notes. The essay was probably written at Winterslow.
309. ‘_Here be truths._’ This is a saying, not of Dogberry, but of Pompey, in _Measure for Measure_, Act II. Sc. 1.
309. ‘_Mountain foreigner._’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act I. Sc. 1.
‘_Retired from public haunts._’ Cf. ‘This our life exempt from public haunt,’ etc. _As You Like It_, Act II. Sc. 1.
_Lord Foppington._ In Vanbrugh’s _The Relapse_.
_A philosophical poet_, _etc._ Coleridge, probably.
‘_Pelting villages._’ _King Lear_, Act II. Sc. 3.
‘_A crew of patches_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream_, Act III. Sc. 2.
_P—tt—n._ Probably Pitton, a small village near Winterslow.
_My friend C—— L——._ Lamb, no doubt, who went with Hazlitt from Winterslow to Oxford in August, 1810. Cf. vol. VI. (_Table Talk_), p. 188.
‘_Fearing no colours._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.
310. _They are feræ naturæ_, _etc._ Cf. a sentence in vol. I. (_The Round Table_), p. 124: ‘They [country people] are taken out of a state of nature, without being put in possession of the refinements of art.’
311. ‘_Be trampled in the mire_,’ _etc._ A favourite quotation of Hazlitt’s from Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 93).
_A mischievous wag_, _etc._ Perhaps Lamb’s schoolfellow, Bobbie Allen, who visited Scotland and the Lakes with Dr. Stoddart in 1802. Lamb describes him in ‘Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago.’ See also Lamb’s _Letters_ (ed. Ainger), I. 188.
‘_The spinsters_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act II. Sc. 4.
‘_May I not take mine ease at mine inn?_’ _1 Henry IV._, Act III. Sc. 3.
_A few odd volumes of old plays and novels._ It is known that Hazlitt was at the Hut at Winterslow during the summer and autumn of 1819, and that he had taken with him some volumes of the old dramatists in order to prepare for the course of lectures ‘On the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,’ delivered in the following year. See Barry Cornwall’s _Autobiographical Fragment_.
‘_Fleet the golden time_,’ _etc._ Cf. _As You Like It_, Act I. Sc. 1.
Note 1. Salisbury is only six miles from Winterslow.
312. ‘_Giving to airy nothing_,’ _etc._ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_,
## Act V. Sc. 1.
_To elevate and surprise._ Frequently quoted by Hazlitt from the Duke of Buckingham’s _The Rehearsal_, Act I. Sc. 1.
‘_But I told him_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act II. Sc. 3.
313. ‘_Sufficient to the day_,’ _etc._ _S. Matthew_, vi. 34.
‘_’Twould thin the land_,’ _etc._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act III. Sc. 4.
314. ‘_Anon as patient_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 1.
MR. MACREADY’S MACBETH
Macready played Macbeth for the first time on June 9, 1820. Cf. this with the notice of Kean’s Macbeth (vol. VIII. p. 204).
315. ‘_Air-drawn dagger_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.
‘_Thick-coming fancies._’ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.
‘_Docked and curtailed._’ Cf. ‘We know that they [bishops] hate to be dockt and clipt.’ Milton, _Reformation in England_, I.
‘_Twa lang Scotch miles._’ Cf. ‘We think na on the lang Scots miles.’ _Tam O’Shanter_, 7.
‘_Oh Hell-kite, all?_’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 3.
_David Rizzio._ See vol. VIII. p. 459.
315. _The Lord of the Manor._ A comic opera by General John Burgoyne (1722–1792), produced in 1780.
_The Libertine._ An opera attributed to Isaac Pocock, produced in 1817. See vol. VIII. p. 370.
_Mr. Contrast._ In _The Lord of the Manor_.
‘_A speaking face._’ Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of the lines in _Bombastes Furioso_ (Sc. 1):
‘——Fusbos, give place, You know you haven’t got a singing face.’
_Moll Flagon._ In _The Lord of the Manor_.
‘_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, Catullus, _The Vigil of Venus_.
317. _Mrs. Salmon._ Eliza Salmon (1787–1849), a well-known concert and oratorio singer. The references in this paragraph to Miss Stephens and the quotations are conclusive evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship of the notice.
_D’une pathétique_, _etc._ Rousseau, _Confessions_, Liv. I.
‘_Thoughts of which_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘Yet loss of thee would never from my heart,’ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 912.
‘_With other notes_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 17.
_The voice of Liberty_, _etc._ The Revolution in Spain had broken out early in 1820, and on March 10 King Ferdinand had proclaimed the Liberal Constitution of 1812.
‘_Had three ears again._’ Cf. ‘Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
‘_Know the return of spring._’ _The Beggar’s Opera_, Act II. Sc. 1.
GUY FAUX
See vol. IV. (_The Spirit of the Age_), p. 365 and note, and the essay ‘On Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen’ (republished in vol. XII. of the present edition), from which it appears that the subject was suggested to Hazlitt by Lamb. Lamb himself wrote an essay (not republished by him) on the same subject in _The London Magazine_ for November 1823. This essay, in which a chaffing reference is made to Hazlitt’s three papers, was partly founded on an earlier essay ‘On the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason,’ published in _The Reflector_, 1811. See _The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb_, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 236 and notes.
317. _Mr. Hogg’s Jacobite Relics._ Published in 2 vols. in 1819. In the Introduction Hogg says, ‘And now, when the horrors of the Catholic religion have ceased to oppress the minds of men, there is but one way of thinking on the rights of the Stuarts throughout the realm.’
_A Popish Priest._ Guy Fawkes (1570–1606) was not a priest.
318. _Which Mr. Hogg treats_, _etc._ Hazlitt seems to be referring to the general sense of the Introduction to _The Jacobite Relics_.
‘_The best of cut-throats._’ _Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.
319. _Regulus._ The stories of the self-sacrifice of Regulus and of Codrus, the last King of Athens, are familiar.
320. ‘_The compunctious visitings of nature._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.
‘_The spirit is willing_,’ _etc._ _S. Matthew_ xxvi. 41.
320. _The keys of the House of Commons_, _etc._ The allusion is to a passage in John Cam Hobhouse’s pamphlet, _A Trifling Mistake_, for which as a breach of privilege he was committed to Newgate in 1819.
_Margaret Lambrun._ This story is told as a ‘popular historical tradition’ by Miss Strickland in her _Lives of the Queens of England_.
321. _Sandt._ Karl Ludwig Sand (1795–1820), who had assassinated Kotzebue the dramatist (March 23, 1819).
‘_Well done_,’ _etc._ _S. Matthew_, xxv. 21.
‘_No dim doubts alloy._’ Lamb, Lines _On the Celebrated Picture by Lionardo da Vinci, called the Virgin of the Rocks_.
‘_Quiring_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act V. Sc. 1.
322. ‘_This night_,’ _etc._ Cf. _S. Luke_ xxiii. 43.
‘_Dross compared_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Romans_ viii. 18.
‘_Disembowelled_,’ _etc._ Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (_Select Works_, ed. Payne, II. 101).
_The Constitutional Association._ See vol. VI. (_Table Talk_), note to p. 190.
_The concealed Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine._ This question of the editorship of _Blackwood_ had recently (Feb. 16, 1821) led to the fatal duel between John Scott and Lockhart’s friend, Christie.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
323. ‘_The infinite agitation of wit._’ Bacon, _Advancement of Learning_,