«Собрание сочинений Уильяма Хэзлитта, том 6»

207. ‘Cannot command it,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

‘Monster’d.’ ‘To hear my nothings monster’d.’ Coriolanus, Act II. Scene 2.

‘Ducks to the learned fool.’ Timon of Athens, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘He that is but able,’ etc. Satire upon the Abuse of Human Learning, 67–70.

208. ‘’Twas mine,’ etc. Cf. ‘’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands.’ Othello, Act III. Scene 3.

The Cider-cellar. See ante, p. 199.

The Hole in the Wall. In Chancery Lane. See ante, note to p. 202.

209. The B— family. The Burneys.

‘In numbers numberless.’ Paradise Regained, III. 310.

The founder of it. Dr. Charles Burney (1726–1814), the friend of Johnson and author of A History of Music (4 vols. 1776–1789).

Madame D—. Frances Burney (1752–1840), Madame D’Arblay, Dr. Burney’s daughter, author of Evelina and Cecilia.

The rest have done nothing, etc. ‘The rest’ include Dr. Burney’s two sons, Charles Burney the younger (1757–1817), the Greek scholar, referred to by Hazlitt more than once, especially in connection with his Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton (1790), and James Burney (1750–1821), familiar to readers of Lamb’s Letters as Captain and Admiral Burney, author of A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (5 vols. 1803–1817), part of which is famous as The Buccaneers of America; Sarah Harriet Burney (1770–1844), Dr. Burney’s youngest daughter, author of Clarentine (1796) and other novels and tales; and Martin Charles Burney, Lamb’s friend, the son of Admiral Burney.

209. The most celebrated author, etc. Sir Walter Scott, created a baronet by George IV. in 1820.

Lord Byron complains. See the Preface to Marino Faliero (1820).

‘Let but a lord,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 420–1.

210. Decorum, which Milton declares, etc. On Education, Works, 1738, I. 140.

‘Bears a charmed reputation,’ etc.

‘I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.’

Macbeth, Act V. Scene 8.

‘Leave no rubs,’ etc. ‘To leave no rubs nor botches in the work.’ Ib. Act III. Scene 1.

That strange letter about Pope. Byron wrote two Letters to * * * *—* * * * * * [John Murray], on the Rev. Wm. L. Bowles’s Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope, the first of which (referred to by Hazlitt) was published in 1821. The second did not appear till 1835. Both letters and a full account of the whole controversy are given in Byron’s Letters and Journals (ed. Prothero), V. Appendix iii.

Why did he pronounce, etc. ‘These two writers [Pope and Cowper], for Cowper is no poet, come into comparison in one great work, the translation of Homer.’ Byron’s Letters and Journals (ed. Prothero), V. 557.

‘Finding out a borrowed line,’ etc. See The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. p. 346 and note.

A rich merchant, etc. Hazlitt perhaps refers to ‘Anastasius’ Hope, Rogers, Byron, and Burns.

‘What should such fellows,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

‘Coining our hearts,’ etc.

‘By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas,’ etc.

Julius Caesar, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘Sent back like hallowmas,’ etc. ‘Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day.’ Richard II., Act V. Scene 1.

211. ‘With wine of Attic taste,’

‘What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

Of Attic taste, with wine,’ etc.

Milton, Sonnet XX. (to Mr. Lawrence).

Poor Keats. See ante, p. 99.

‘The fairest flowers,’ etc.

‘the fairest flowers o’ the season

Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors.’

Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Scene 4.

‘Rue for remembrance,’ etc. ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance: pray you, love, remember: and there’s pansies, that’s for thoughts.’ Hamlet, Act IV. Scene 5.

211. ‘Nor could the Muse,’ etc.

‘nor could the Muse defend

Her son.’

Paradise Lost, VII. 37.

M—’s shop. The shop of John Murray, publisher of The Quarterly Review.

T—. Mr. W. Hazlitt, the younger, in his edition of Table Talk, filled up this blank with the name of Tom Hill (1760–1840), a well-known figure in the literary society of the time. The Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica (1815) was chiefly based on his collection of poets.

213. —, the responsible conductor, etc. Mr. W. Hazlitt, the younger, filled this blank with the name of John Britton (1771–1857), the antiquary and topographer, author or part author of many topographical works, of which The Beauties of England and Wales (1801–1816) and Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain (1805–1814) are the best known.

Learned lumber. ‘With loads of learned lumber in his head.’ Pope, Essay on Criticism, 613.

Jack T. of the Sun. John Taylor (1757–1832), proprietor of the Sun, author of Monsieur Tonson. In 1832 he published Records of my Life (2 vols.).

‘The Sun of our table.’ ‘This bottle’s the sun of our table.’ Sheridan, The Duenna, Act III. Scene 5.

Peter Pindar. Dr. John Wolcot (1738–1819), the Satirist.

Mr. Tomkins the penman. Thomas Tomkins (1743–1816), caligrapher.

Sir Joshua’s picture of him. Bequeathed by Tomkins to the City of London.

ЭССЕ XXII. О КРИТИКЕ

214. De omni scibile, etc. The origin of this saying seems obscure. See Notes and Queries, 7th Ser. IX. 500 and Larousse, Fleurs Latines, 94.

We may sometimes see articles of this sort. Hazlitt had himself suffered from this form of reviewing. See notes to Reply to Malthus, vol. IV. p. 399.

215. ‘As when a well-graced actor,’ etc. Richard II., Act V. Scene 2.

Much as Peter Pounce, etc. Joseph Andrews, Book III. Chap. 13.

‘Assumes the rod,’ etc.

‘Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.’

Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 39–41.

216. The most admired of our Reviews. The Edinburgh Review.

The Monthly Review. Founded by Ralph Griffiths in 1749. The Review ran through three series and came to an end in 1845.

‘Sole sovereign sway,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5.

‘Outdoing termagant,’ etc. ‘I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.’ Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

‘And of their port,’ etc. ‘And of his port as meke as is a mayde.’ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 69.

216. Drawcansir work. See the Duke of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal, Act V. Scene 1., where Drawcansir says:

‘Others may boast a single man to kill:

But I the blood of thousands daily kill,’ etc.

Tristram Shandy. Tristram Shandy was violently attacked by Griffiths in The Monthly Review.

Note. Rev. Dr. Kippis. Andrew Kippis (1724–1795), Nonconformist divine and editor of the 2nd edition of Biographia Britannica (5 vols. 1778–1793).

The Monthly Review for Feb. 1751 (Vol. IV. p. 309), in its ‘Monthly Catalogue’ contained the following notice: ‘An Elegy wrote in a country churchyard. 4to. Dodsley, 6d. Seven pages. The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity.’ A full review followed in June, 1753 (Vol. VIII. p. 477).

217. Dryden’s Prefaces. Dryden’s principal essays on literary subjects have recently been edited by Prof. Ker (2 vols. 1900). See also Prof. Saintsbury’s History of Criticism, vol. II. pp. 371–391.

Note. For Dryden’s comparison between Ovid and Virgil, see his Dedication of the Aeneid (1697—Essays, ed. Ker, II. 154 et seq.), and for his character of Shakespeare An Essay on Dramatic Poesy (1668—ib. I. 79–80). Cf. Lectures on the English Poets, vol. V. p. 82, note.

218. Dryden had no other way, etc. Dryden’s Opera The State of Innocence, founded upon Paradise Lost, was published in 1674.

‘Graces snatched,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Criticism, 155.

219. ‘Looks commercing with the skies.’ Il Penseroso, 39.

‘The limbs and flourishes,’ etc.

‘Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,’ etc.

Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

As Lord Byron asserts, etc. In his Letter to John Murray, referred to above (p. 210, note), Byron says: ‘The poet is always ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of art.’ (Letters and Journals, ed. Prothero, V. 553).

220. Mrs. Dickons. Maria Dickons (1770?–1833) made her first appearance in London in 1793. She sang at the Drury Lane oratorios in 1813 and 1815, and retired in 1820. Like Miss Stephens (see A View of the English Stage) she played Polly in The Beggar’s Opera.

Madame Catalani. Angelica Catalani (1779–1849), the most famous prima donna of her time. She was in England in 1821 and sang ‘God Save the King’ on the 16th of July, shortly before the King’s coronation.

‘Such sweet thunder.’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV. Scene 1.

‘The very milk of human kindness.’ ‘It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.’ Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5.

‘Beauty out of favour,’ etc. Hazlitt refers to Gifford’s lines on Mrs. Robinson. See A Letter to William Gifford, vol. I. p. 378 and note.

221. Like Justice Woodcock. In Bickerstaffe’s Love in a Village (1762).

Rifle the flowers, etc. See A Letter to William Gifford, vol. I.

The Great Cat Rodilardus. In Rabelais, Pantagruel, IV. 67.

‘Demure-looking,’ etc. ‘The grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers.’ Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 142.)

221. Note. Tom Jones, Book VI. chap. 14.

222. What silenced the masked battery, etc. It is now well known that Sir Walter Scott strongly disapproved of Lockhart’s connection with Blackwood’s Magazine long before the attacks of John Scott in The London Magazine for 1820 and 1821. See Mr. Lang’s Life of Lockhart (vol. I. chap, ix.), for an account of the whole matter.

‘Pilloried on infamy’s high stage.’ Cowper, Hope, 556.

223. The controversy about Pope. The controversy on the question as to whether or not Pope was a poet began with the publication of Bowles’s edition of Pope’s Works (10 vols. 1806) and had recently reached an acute stage in consequence of Byron’s letter to John Murray. See Byron’s Letters and Journals, ed. Prothero, V. 522–592, where a full account is given of the whole controversy. Hazlitt had contributed to The Edinburgh Magazine (Feb. 1818) an essay ‘On the question whether Pope was a poet’ reproduced with a few alterations in his lecture on Dryden and Pope (see vol. V. pp. 69 et seq.), and to The London Magazine (June, 1821) a long essay (republished for the first time in the present edition) entitled ‘Pope, Lord Byron, and Mr. Bowles.’

224. ‘Crib and cabin in,’ ‘Now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined.’ Macbeth, Act III. Scene 4.

‘Lack-lustre eye.’ As You Like It, Act II. Scene 7.

The late Joseph Fawcett. Hazlitt frequently refers to this early friend. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 75–79. Fawcett was well known as a Sunday evening lecturer at the old Jewry, and published some volumes of Sermons and Poems. He died in 1804, and it was at one time reported that Hazlitt intended to write his life.

‘I have heard my mother Circe,’ etc. Comus, ll. 252 et seq.

‘Heard others read their own.’ Hazlitt no doubt refers to Wordsworth and Coleridge.

225. He was not exceptious. Hazlitt elsewhere complains of Lamb for being what he here describes as ‘exceptious.’ See The Plain Speaker, ‘On the Conversation of Authors.’

‘That had I all knowledge,’ etc. See I Corinthians, xiii. 1 and 2.

The Occult School. Hazlitt clearly refers to Coleridge. See The Plain Speaker, (‘On the Conversation of Authors’), where he says: ‘C— [Coleridge] withholds his tribute of applause from every person in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least glimpse of understanding,’ etc.

226. ‘An ounce of sour,’ etc. ‘A dram of sweete is worth a pound of sowre,’ The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto III. Stanza 30.

Caviare to the multitude. ‘’Twas caviare to the general.’ Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

Verbal critics, etc. Such as Gifford. Cf. A Letter to William Gifford, vol. I. p. 368.

Note. See Ib. note to p. 368.

ЭССЕ XXII. О ВЕЛИКОМ И МАЛОМ

Опубликовано в «Новом ежемесячном журнале» (1822), том IV, стр. 127, под названием «Застольные беседы № II».

‘These little things,’ etc. Goldsmith, The Traveller, l. 42.

227. ‘Some trick not worth an egg.’ Coriolanus, Act IV. Scene 4. Paper in the Tatler. No. 79 (by Steele).

229. ‘Anon as patient,’ etc. Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

The swaggering of Pistol. See especially the Second Part of Henry IV.

King Cambyses’ vein. Henry IV., Part I. Act II. Scene 4.

230. Si Pergama dextra, etc. Aeneid, II. 291–2.

230. Note. That is, shortly before Napoleon’s death on May 5, 1821.

232. The maxim, which the wise man, etc. ‘For, as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, “That that is is,”’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act IV. Scene 2.

When L—’s farce, etc. Lamb’s farce Mr. H— was performed at Drury Lane on December 10, 1806.

Gentleman Lewis. William Thomas Lewis (1748?–1811), ‘Gentleman Lewis,’ belonged to ‘the other House,’ Covent Garden.

The Prologue. Spoken by Elliston who would have tried the farce again.

The Travellers. By Andrew Cherry (1762–1812), first produced at Drury Lane on January 22, 1806.

‘Wit-skirmishes.’ See ante, note to p. 193.

233. ‘Subject to all the skyey influences.’ ‘Servile to all the skyey influences.’ Measure for Measure, Act III. Scene 1,

234. ‘Pleased with a feather,’ etc. ‘Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.’ Pope’s Essay on Man, II. 276.

Will Wimble. See The Spectator, No. 108 (by Addison).

Some poets compose and sing their own verses. Moore, for example.

235. ‘Misfortune,’ etc. ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.’ The Tempest, Act II. Scene 2.

‘Take care of the pence,’ etc. Quoted by Lord Chesterfield (Letters to his Son, Nov. 6, 1747, and Feb. 5, 1750) as the saying of ‘a very covetous sordid fellow,’ William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury 1695–1724.

But shouldst thou ever, my Infelice, etc. An invocation to Sarah Walker. See Liber Amoris, vol. II.

236. Madame V—. Madame Vestris (1797–1856), the famous actress, afterwards the wife of the younger Mathews.

A gallery equal to Cowley’s. See Cowley’s The Chronicle, A Ballad.

Mr. Davison. Thomas Davison, of Whitefriars, printer of the first edition of Table Talk.

236. D’un pathétique, etc. ‘Nous nous écrivions d’un pathétique à faire fendre les rochers.’ Rousseau, Confessions, Liv. I.

‘Hunt the wind,’ etc. See ante, note to p. 97.

237. The Death of Clorinda. From a picture of Lodovic Lana. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Table Talk, p. 331) says that the copy was made in 1802. It is still in his possession.

238. They succeed best in fiction. Cf. Vol. III., note to p. 49.

Berenice’s locks and Ariadne’s crown. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt quotes:

‘We put on Berenice’s hair,

And sit in Cassiopeia’s chair.’

Dixon’s Canidia, or The Witches.

‘Ariadne’s crowne and Cassiopeia’s chayre.’

Randolph’s Poems, 1640, p. 14.

Cf. also:

‘Not Berenice’s locks first rose so bright.’

Pope, Rape of the Lock, v. 129.

‘Anthony Codrus Urceus,’ etc. This paragraph is taken from a paper in the Round Table Series (No. 9, The Examiner, Feb. 26, 1815) which was republished in Winterslow (1839) under the title of ‘Mind and Motive.’

239. The Story of Sir Isaac Newton. The story is familiar, but the dog’s name was ‘Diamond.’

240. ‘Like the fly on the wheel.’ Æsop’s Fables (No. 270).

241. Mr. Bone’s enamels. Henry Bone (1755–1834), the celebrated painter on enamel, elected R.A. in 1811. He executed eighty-five ‘Portraits of Illustrious Englishmen’ copied from pictures in the royal and other collections.

Denner. See ante, p. 133.

243. ‘First row of the rubric.’ See ante, note to p. 205 note.

ЭССЕ XXIV. О ФАМИЛЬЯРНОМ СТИЛЕ

Несколько вариантов текста из рукописи приведены в издании «Застольных бесед» мистера У. К. Хэзлитта.

245. His papers under the signature of Elia. In The London Magazine. The first, ‘Recollections of the South Sea House,’ appeared in August 1820.

Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist. The London Magazine, Feb. 1821.

‘A well of native English undefiled.’

‘Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,

On Fame’s eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.’

Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book IV. Canto ii. Stanza 32.

Erasmus’s Colloquies. The Colloquia, which appeared in 1519.

246. ‘What do you read?’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

Sermo humi obrepens. Cf.

‘Nec sermones ego mallem

Repentes per humum quam res componere gestas.’

Horace, Epistles, II. i. 250–1.

‘Ambition is more lowly.’ Cf.

‘My affections

Are then most humble; I have no ambition

To see a goodlier man.’

The Tempest, Act I. Scene 2.

‘Unconsidered trifles.’ A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘That strut,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Scene 5.

‘‘And on their pens,’ etc. Cf.

‘And on his crest

Sat Horror plumed.’

Paradise Lost, IV. 988–9.

247. ‘Nature’s own sweet,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Scene 5.

248. Cowper’s description.

‘’Twas transient in its nature, as in show

’Twas durable: as worthless as it seemed

Intrinsically precious; to the foot

Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.’

The Task, V. 173–6.

ЭССЕ XXV. ОБ ИЗНЕЖЕННОСТИ ХАРАКТЕРА

248. ‘The gossamer,’ etc.

‘the gossamer

That idles in the wanton summer air.’

Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene 6.

‘Rolls o’er Elysian flowers,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 359.

249. ‘Die of a rose,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, I. 200.

‘Oh, leave me to my repose.’ See ante, note to p. 71.

‘They shall discourse,’ etc. Cymbeline, Act III. Scene 3.

‘Bide the pelting,’ etc. King Lear, Act III. Scene 4.

‘They take no thought,’ etc. St. Matthew, vi. 34.

‘Get up to be hanged.’ Measure for Measure, Act IV. Scene 3.

250. ‘A cell of ignorance.’ Cymbeline, Act III. Scene 3.

‘Oh! blindness,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, I. 85–6.

251. ‘And let us muse,’ etc. Wordsworth, Lines written while sailing in a boat at evening (published in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798), ll. 13–16.

But oh thou! Hazlitt apostrophises Coleridge. See the essay, ‘My first acquaintance with Poets.’

253. ‘A dish of skimmed milk.’ Henry IV., Part I. Act II. Scene 3.

‘A generous friendship,’ etc. Pope, Homer’s Iliad, IX. 725–6.

254. ‘Calm, peaceable writers.’ Dryden. An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. (Essays, ed. Ker, I. 31.)

255. ‘‘Vernal delight and joy.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 155.

‘‘Like Maia’s son,’ etc. Ib., V. 285–6.

ЭССЕ XXVI. ПОЧЕМУ НРАВЯТСЯ ОТДАЛЕННЫЕ ОБЪЕКТЫ

‘Descry new lands,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 290–1.

Ethereal mould, sky-tinctured. Phrases borrowed without acknowledgment from Milton (Paradise Lost, II. 139, and V. 285).

‘But thou, oh Hope,’ etc. Collins, The Passions, 29–32.

256. I lived within sight, etc. At Wem, in Shropshire, within sight of the Welsh hills. Cf. a passage in the first paragraph of ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’

‘Yarrow unvisited.’ Wordsworth’s three poems, Yarrow Unvisited, Yarrow Visited, and Yarrow Revisited, were published in 1807, 1814, and 1835 respectively.

‘Unmould their essence.’ Cf. ‘Unmoulding reason’s mintage.’ Comus, 529.

‘A mighty stream of tendency.’ Wordsworth, The Excursion, IX. 87.

‘A tide in the affairs of men.’ Julius Caesar, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘With sails and tackle torn.’ ‘Though shrouds and tackle torn.’ Paradise Lost, II. 1044.

‘Such tricks hath,’ etc. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Scene 1.

257. ‘Hangs upon the beatings,’ etc. Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 54.

‘Come thronging soft desires.’ ‘Come thronging soft and delicate desires.’ Much Ado About Nothing, Act I. Scene 1.

‘Bring back the hour,’ etc. Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality.

‘That first garden of my innocence.’ ‘In that first garden of our simplenesse.’ Daniel, Hymen’s Triumph.

258. ‘Like the sweet south.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Scene 1.

W—m. Wem.

258. ‘Thing of life.’ ‘She walks the waters like a thing of life,’ Byron, The Corsair, Canto I. Scene 3.

‘Like some gay creature,’ etc. Comus, 299.

Mr. Leigh Hunt has treated it, etc. In an essay entitled ‘A nearer view of some of the shops,’ The Indicator (1850 edition), Part I. p. 81. The Indicator ran from Oct. 13, 1819, to March 21, 1821.

259. After an interval of thirty years. See Introduction, vol. I. p. 9.

‘How silver-sweet,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene 2.

Note. Wilkie’s Blind Fiddler. In the National Gallery.

260. ‘Like an exhalation,’ etc. ‘Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,’ Comus, 556.

Mr. Fearn’s Essay. See ante, pp. 63–65.

263. ‘There’s sympathy.’ The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Scene 1.

—, the editor of a Scotch magazine. The reference here and three lines below seems to be to Lockhart, who was accused of being editor of Blackwood’s Magazine. See Mr. Lang’s Life of Lockhart, vol. I. chap. ix.

‘Those faultless monsters,’ etc. John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Essay on Poetry.

‘The web of our lives,’ etc. All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Scene 3.

ЭССЕ XXVII. О КОРПОРАТИВНЫХ ОРГАНАХ

Многие примеры расхождений между рукописью и текстом этого эссе приведены мистером У. К. Хэзлиттом в его издании «Застольных бесед». «Рукопись и печатная копия» (говорит он, стр. 380) «едва ли совпадают в двух последовательных словах».

264. ‘Corporate bodies have no soul.’ ‘They [corporations] cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls.’ Sir Edward Coke, Case of Sutton’s Hospital, 10 Rep. 32.

‘Self-love and social.’ Pope, Essay on Man, IV. 396.

‘A pestilent fellow.’ Cf. ‘What a pestilent slave is this same!’ Romeo and Juliet, Act IV. Scene 5.

265. The town-hall reels, etc. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt says that ‘it appears from a rough memorandum on the back of one of the leaves of the MS. that the Mayor’s Feast at Basingstoke was in the writer’s mind when he wrote this,’

‘The very stones prate.’ Macbeth, Act II. Scene 1.

‘Dressed in a little brief authority.’ Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene 2.

266. ‘Compunctious visitings,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5.

‘Motley’s his proper wear.’ ‘Motley’s the only wear.’ As You Like It, Act II. Scene 7.

‘Diseases are turned,’ etc. Henry IV., Part II. Act I. Scene 2.

Note. ‘Sacred pity,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Scene 7.

267. ‘Disembowel himself,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 101).

268. Hitherto, etc. Job, xxxviii. 11.

‘In spite of,’ etc. ‘And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite.’ Pope, Essay on Man, I. 293.

270. The Barrys, etc. James Barry (1741–1806) quarrelled with his brother Academicians and was expelled in 1799; Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), to whom Hazlitt probably refers as ‘H—,’ also quarrelled with the Royal Academy, and was never made a member; Charles Cotton (1728–1798), coach-painter to George III., was by him nominated one of the foundation members of the Academy.

270. ‘Wipes out,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Scene 5.

‘The Raphael grace,’ etc. Cf. Tristram Shandy, III. 12.

‘Must live within,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Scene 5.

‘Dandled,’ etc. ‘I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legislator.’ Burke, A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 124).

Sir Thomas Lawrence, etc. Lawrence had been commissioned to paint the members of the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, and had afterwards visited Rome. He returned to England in 1820.

Mr. Dawe. George Dawe (1781–1829) who went to Russia in 1819 and painted for the Emperor a great number of portraits. Lamb contributed an account of him to The Englishman’s Magazine (Sept. 1831) entitled Recollections of A Late Royal Academician.

Mr. Canning somewhere, etc. See his Speeches on the occasion of his reelection at Liverpool, March, 1820.

271. ‘All honourable men.’ Julius Caesar, Act III. Scene 2.

ЭССЕ XXVIII. ДОЛЖНЫ ЛИ АКТЕРЫ СИДЕТЬ В ЛОЖАХ

‘By his so potent art.’ The Tempest, Act V. Scene 1.

272. ‘Pile millions,’ etc.

‘Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us,’ etc.

Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

273. Mr. Matthews, in his ‘At Home.’ Probably Hazlitt refers to ‘The Trip to Paris,’ by James Smith and John Poole, Mathews’s second At Home, produced in 1819.

‘O’er the stage,’ etc.

‘Dread o’er the scene, the ghost of Hamlet stalks;

Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns;

And Belvidera pours her soul in love.’

Thomson, The Seasons, Winter, 646–8.

‘No; let him pass,’ etc.

‘Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him

That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.’

King Lear, Act V. Scene 3.

Abel Drugger. In Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, one of Garrick’s great parts.

274. ‘Sir, do you think,’ etc. ‘Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?’ Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

‘With a bare bodkin.’ Ib., Act III. Scene 1.

‘Steal most guilty-like away.’ Othello, Act III. Scene 3.

Omne ignotum, etc. Tacitus, Agricola, XXX.

‘A voice potential.’ Othello, Act I. Scene 2.

‘Shuffled off,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

Aut Caesar, etc. The motto of Caesar Borgia.

‘That players may jet through.’ Adapted from Cymbeline, Act III. Scene 3.

The top-tragedian. John Philip Kemble.

274. Him with the falcon eye. Coriolanus, perhaps, one of Kemble’s most famous parts.

275. ‘The graves yawn,’ etc. A composite quotation from Much Ado About Nothing (Act V. Scene 3) and Macbeth (Act III. Scene 4).

The Copper Captain, etc. In Fletcher’s Rule a Wife and have a Wife; Bobadil, in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour; Ranger, in Hoadly’s The Suspicious Husband; Young Rapid, in Morton’s A Cure for the Heart-Ache; Lord Foppington, in Vanbrugh’s The Relapse.

‘My brain would have been,’ etc. ‘I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoke-jack!’ Tristram Shandy, vol. III. chap. 18.

‘Then sweet,’ etc. ‘Then sweet, now sad to mention.’ Paradise Lost, II. 820.

Mrs. Garrick. Mrs. Garrick died in 1822 at the age of 98.

276. ‘A little more than kin,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Scene 2.

277. ‘Instinct with fire.’ Paradise Lost, II. 937.

278. Sterne’s stop-watch. Tristram Shandy, vol. III. chap. 12.

‘Cried out upon,’ etc. Cf. ‘An eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question.’ Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

Note. See The Spectator, No. 235. Mr. Smirke, afterwards Sir Robert Smirke (1781–1867) rebuilt Covent Garden Theatre (1809), and Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775–1850?) rebuilt Drury Lane Theatre (1811). Hazlitt implies that at both theatres the galleries commanded an imperfect view of the stage. At Covent Garden this was one of the grievances which led to the O. P. riots of 1809.

279. Grimaldi. Joseph Grimaldi (1779–1837).

ЭССЕ XXIX. О НЕДОСТАТКАХ ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЬНОГО ПРЕВОСХОДСТВА

280. Petrarch complains, etc. In the sonnet lamenting the death of Laura, beginning ‘Gli occhi di ch’ io parlai si caldamente.’

‘To be honest,’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Scene 2.

‘How now,’ etc. Henry VI. Part II., Act IV. Scene 2.

‘Stand all astonied,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book vii. Canto VI. Stanza 28.

281. C—. Coleridge.

283. Otium cum dignitate. Cicero, Pro Publio Sextio, XLV.

‘I am nothing,’ etc. Othello, Act II. Scene 1.

284. In the —. The Quarterly Review.

‘This is the unkindest,’ etc. ‘This was the most unkindest cut of all!’ Julius Cæsar, Act III. Scene 2.

Prince Maurice’s Parrot, etc. These two papers were published in Political Essays, vol. III. pp. 101 and 305.

285. A motto from Butler.

‘Yet he that is but able to express

No sense at all in several languages,

Will pass for learneder than he that’s known, etc.

Butler, Satire upon the Abuse of Human Learning, ll. 65–7.

L—. Lamb.

L. H. Leigh Hunt.

A person of this over-weening turn. Probably Leigh Hunt, his friend S— being Shelley.

285. Count Stendhal. Marie-Henri Beyle (1783–1842).

‘Germane to the matter.’ Hamlet, Act V. Scene 2.

My answers to Vetus. Contributed to The Morning Chronicle in 1813 and republished in Political Essays. See vol. III.

286. Digito monstrari. Horace, Odes, IV. iii. 22.

Mr. Powell’s court. In St. Martin’s Street. Cf. ante, p. 88.

Mr. Knight’s performance of Filch. For reference to Edward Knight (‘Little Knight’) and for Hazlitt’s remark on Simmons’s Filch, see the volume containing dramatic criticisms. The article in The Examiner appeared on Nov. 6, 1815.

One Cavanagh. See ante, pp. 86–89.

A character of him. See Political Essays, vol. III. p, 325.

287. ‘Lively, audible,’ etc. ‘It’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.’ Coriolanus, Act IV. Scene 5.

The conversation between Angelica and Foresight. Love for Love, Act II. Scene 3.

‘So shalt thou find me,’ etc. Sardanapalus, Act IV. Scene 1.

288. Scholars should be sworn at Highgate. See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, II. 195. Part of the oath taken by the person sworn was ‘never to kiss the maid when he could kiss the mistress.’

‘Not pierceable,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto I. Stanza 7.

‘To succeed at the gaming-table,’ etc. The sentiment is Peachum’s. See The Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Scene 1.

‘To have a good face,’ etc. ‘To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.’ Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Scene 3.

ЭССЕ XXX. О ПОКРОВИТЕЛЬСТВЕ И РЕКЛАМЕ

289. ‘A gentle husher,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto iv. Stanza 13.

‘Puff direct.’ Sheridan, The Critic, Act I. Scene 2.

290. Groundling. ‘To split the ears of the groundlings.’ Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

291. Parolles and his drum. All’s Well that Ends Well.

Another friend of mine. Lamb.

Even Lord Byron, etc. Byron was said to have written puffs of Warren’s Blacking. See W. F. Deacon’s volume of parodies, Warreniana (1824).

‘Deathless date.’ Cf. ‘Short is my date, but deathless my renown.’ Pope, Homer’s Iliad, IX. 535.

292. When I formerly, etc. For the matters referred to in this and the two succeeding paragraphs, cf. the volume containing Hazlitt’s dramatic criticisms.

Poor Perry. James Perry (1756–1821), editor and proprietor of The Morning Chronicle. See Hazlitt’s A View of the English Stage for his article on Miss Stephens as Polly.

Mrs. Billington. Elizabeth Billington (1768–1818), the great singer.

‘Life knows no return of spring.’ The song (Act II. Scene 1) begins ‘Let us drink and sport to-day.’

‘My final hopes,’ etc. A characteristic reference to the fall of Napoleon.

293. ‘Hope, thou nurse,’ etc. Bickerstaffe’s Love in a Village, Act I. Scene 1.

‘Bought golden opinions,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Scene 7.

‘On such a day,’ etc. Merchant of Venice, Act I. Scene 3.

Note. Mr. M—. William Mudford. See ante, p. 111.

Note. ‘Liked you lean,’ etc. Cf. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.’ Julius Caesar, Act I. Scene 2.

294. Master Betty’s acting. See The Spirit of the Age, vol. IV. p. 233.

‘Some gay creature,’ etc. Comus, 299.

‘And in my mind,’ etc. Home’s Douglas, Act IV. Scene 1.

Enfield’s Speaker. William Enfield’s The Speaker, or Miscellaneous Pieces selected from the best English Writers, originally published in 1774 and frequently reprinted.

Mrs. Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest. See English Comic Writers, vol. VIII. p. 125.

Coleridge returned from Italy. In August, 1806.

295. Katterfelto.

‘And Katterfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.’

Cowper, The Task, IV. 86–87.

296. ‘It only is when,’ etc. ‘’Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.’ Goldsmith, Retaliation, 102.

‘Do me your offices.’ Henry IV., Part II., Act II. Scene 1.

Mr. N—. Northcote.

297. ‘The first row of the rubric.’ See ante, note to p. 205 note.

298. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Scene 7.

‘Some followers of mine own.’ Richard III., Act III. Scene 7.

299. ‘Holloa, you pampered jades,’ etc. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Part II., Act IV. Scene 4.

‘Cry him up,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 278.

Rari nantes, etc. Aeneid, I. 118.

300. ‘Aiery of children,’ etc. Cf. ante, note to p. 278.

301. Dr. Johnson was asked, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), IV. 116.

302. Beechey. Sir William Beechey (1753–1839), portrait painter to Queen Charlotte.

Note. Sharp. Michael William Sharp (d. 1840) a pupil of Beechey.

ЭССЕ XXXI. О ПОЗНАНИИ ХАРАКТЕРА

303. ‘Speech,’ said a celebrated wit, etc. Hazlitt probably refers to Voltaire (Le Chapon et la Poularde), but the saying is older.

Lord Chesterfield advises us, etc. See note to vol. I. p. 42.

Note. Othello, Act III. Scene 4.

304. A rude half-effaced outline, etc. The portrait of Donne by W. Marshall, taken from a painting in 1591, when Donne was 18.

The Duke of W—. The Duke of Wellington.

305. C—’s face. Coleridge.

‘Create a soul,’ etc. Comus, 562.

A little, demure, etc. Sarah Walker, the heroine of Liber Amoris.

306. I know a person. Hazlitt himself.

‘Compliments extern.’ Othello, Act I. Scene 1.

307. ‘If the French have a fault,’ etc. A Sentimental Journey, Character, Versailles.

309. Service is no inheritance. ‘Service is no heritage.’ All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I. Scene 3.

‘Subtle as the fox,’ etc. Cymbeline, Act III. Scene 3.

310. ‘Bitter bad judges.’ The Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Scene 1.

I never knew but one clever man, etc. Leigh Hunt?

310. ‘The way of woman’s will, etc.’ Cf. Samson Agonistes, 1011–13.

311. Oh! thou, etc. Sarah Walker.

312. The son, for instance, etc. Hazlitt is clearly speaking of his own experience.

‘Rembrandts,’ etc. ‘Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff.’ Goldsmith, Retaliation, 145.

‘Infinite agitation,’ etc. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book I., IV. 5.

314. ‘In the trade of war.’ Othello, I., 2.

‘So as with a difference.’ Cf. ante, note to p. 202.

‘Pure defecated evil.’ Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 141).

‘Whatever is, is right.’ Pope, Essay on Man, I., 294.

‘Amen stuck in his throat.’ Macbeth, Act II. Scene 2.

‘No malice in the case,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Scene 1.

Remorse. See Osorio, of which Remorse was a recast. Works, (ed. J. D. Campbell), p. 496.

315. ‘I count myself,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

316. ‘Who knew all qualities,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Scene 3.

ЭССЕ XXXII. О ЖИВОПИСНОМ И ИДЕАЛЬНОМ

318. Mr. Northcote’s study of Gadshill. Cf. Conversations of Northcote, ante, p. 403.

‘Of no mark,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I. Act III. Scene 2.

319. The Marriage of Cana. The Marriage at Cana in the Louvre.

Madame M—. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt fills this blank with the name of Mérimée. When Hazlitt went to Paris in 1802 he took with him a letter of introduction from Holcroft to Mérimée the painter, whose son Prosper was born in the following year, 1803.

320. ‘See how the moonlight,’ etc. Merchant of Venice, Act V. Scene 1.

321. ‘My bounty,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene 2.

ЭССЕ XXXIII. О СТРАХЕ ПЕРЕД СМЕРТЬЮ

‘And our little life,’ etc. The Tempest, Act IV. Scene 1.

322. When Bickerstaff wrote his essays. In The Tatler, 1709–11.

The firing at Bunker’s hill. June 17, 1775.

‘The gorge rises at.’ Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

323. ‘The wars,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto IX. Stanza 56.

‘The present eye,’ etc. ‘The present eye praises the present object.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene 3.

324. ‘Makes calamity,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

‘Oh! thou strong heart,’ etc. Webster’s The White Devil; or Vittoria Corombona, Act V. Scene 1.

‘Content man’s natural desire.’ ‘To be, contents his natural desire.’ Pope, Essay on Man, I. 109.

‘On this bank,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Scene 1.

‘This sensible,’ etc. Measure for Measure, Act III. Scene 1.

‘Turns to withered,’ etc. Paradise Lost, XI. 540.

Note. Young’s Night Thoughts, I. 424.

325. ‘The sear, the yellow leaf.’ Macbeth, Act V. Scene 3.

Gone into the wastes of time. ‘That thou among the wastes of time must go.’ Shakespeare, Sonnet No. XII.

326. Zanetto, etc. Rousseau’s Confessions, Part II. liv. 7.

326. I have never seen death but once. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 170.

At my breast. A paragraph in the MS. of this essay is here omitted:

‘I did not see my father after he was dead, but I saw death shake him by the palsied hand, and stare him in the face. He made as good an end as Falstaff; though different as became him. After repeating the name of his R(edeemer) often, he took my mother’s hand, and, looking up, put it in my sister’s, and so expired. There was something graceful and gracious in his nature, which showed itself in his last act.’

Chantry’s monument, etc. Chantrey’s ‘Sleeping Children’ in Lichfield Cathedral.

327. ‘Still from the tomb,’ etc. Gray’s Elegy, 91–2.

328. ‘A little rule,’ etc. Dyer’s Grongar Hill, 89–92.

‘A great man’s memory,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

329. ‘At a pin’s fee.’ Ib., Act I. Scene 4.

‘Sea-sick, weary bark,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Scene 3.

‘To lose it afterwards,’ etc.

‘To lose it, may be, at last in a lewd quarrel

For some new friend.’

Otway, Venice Preserved, Act IV. Scene 2.

БЕСЕДЫ МИСТЕРА НОРТКОТА

James Northcote (1746–1831), was the son of Samuel Northcote, a Plymouth watchmaker. He was brought to the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds by the Mudges of Plymouth (see note to p. 366). Sir Joshua befriended him and he sat as one of the figures in Ugolino. After study in London and abroad he began to acquire reputation as a portrait-painter. He exhibited at the Royal Academy first in 1781, and of that body he was elected an Associate in 1786, and an Academician on Feb. 13, 1787. He painted many historical and sacred subjects, but his reputation will rest upon his portraits, many of which may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery. He wrote the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1813–15) wherein several of the anecdotes which occur in the conversations first appear, and was helped in two other pieces of literary work by Hazlitt, viz., The Life of Titian, with Anecdotes of the Distinguished Persons of his Time (1830), and One Hundred Fables, Original and Selected (1828), the wood-cuts to which, by William Harvey, from Northcote’s designs, are of value with respect to the art of English wood-engraving. A Second Series was issued in 1833, after his death. He spoke Devonshire all his life and never married. See Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter (James Northcote): by Stephen Gwynn, 1898; Conversations of James Northcote, R.A., with James Ward on Art and Artists: edited by Ernest Fletcher, 1901; P. G. Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintances; Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the Old Age of Artists’ in The Plain Speaker; Ruskin’s Præterita; and The Examiner, May 4th, 1833.

The circumstances under which the ‘Conversations’ were reported and printed will be found set forth in the ‘Memoirs of William Hazlitt,’ vol. II. pp. 198–213. After six issues had appeared in The New Monthly Magazine a Mr. Rosdew protested on behalf of the Mudges against some remarks that appeared therein. The passages, which are given below in the Notes for the first time since they appeared in the Magazine (they were omitted when Hazlitt collected the papers for a volume), may explain this protest. The publication of further issues seems to have been stopped by the Editor, Thomas Campbell. Four Conversations (see note to p. 394), were contributed to Richardson’s London Weekly Review, and their existence there does not seem to have been noted until the present edition. Their publication was transferred to The Atlas (see note to p. 420), and finished therein. Unfortunately, the British Museum file of The Atlas is defective, and it has not so far been possible to check every ‘Conversation’ with its first appearance in magazine form. Where possible, however, this has been done, and a few passages are given below which were not reprinted by Hazlitt.

333. Conversations I.-VI. first appeared in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. They begin in vol. 17, 1826, Part II. ‘Original Papers,’ under the title of ‘Boswell Redivivus’ and may be found as follows:—

No. I. August vol. 17 No. 68

„ II. September „ „ „ 69

„ III. October „ „ „ 70

„ IV. November „ „ „ 71

„ V. February „ 19 „ 74 (1827, ‘Original

Papers,’ Part I.)

„ VI. March „ „ „ 75

The motto (‘The precepts here,’ etc.) appears at the head of No. I.

The following explanatory footnote was not reproduced when the Conversations were published in volume form:—

‘I differ from my great original and predecessor (James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck), in this, that whereas he is supposed to have invented nothing, I have feigned whatever I pleased. I have forgotten, mistaken, mis-stated, altered, transposed a number of things. All that can be relied upon for certain is a striking anecdote or a sterling remark or two in each page. These belong as a matter of right to my principal speaker: the rest I have made for him by interpolating or paraphrasing what he said. My object was to catch the tone and manner, rather than to repeat the exact expressions, or even opinions; just as it is possible to recognise the voice of an acquaintance without distinguishing the particular words he uses. Sometimes I have allowed an acute or a severe remark to stand without the accompanying softenings or explanations, for the sake of effect; and at other times added whole passages without any foundation, to fill up space. For instance, there is a dissertation on pp. 75–6, the particulars and the Tory turn of which are entirely my own. My friend Mr. N— is a determined Whig. I have, however, generally taken him as my lay-figure or model, and worked upon it, selon mon gré, by fancying how he would express himself on any occasion, and making up a conversation according to this preconception in my mind. I have also introduced little incidental details that never happened; thus, by lying, giving a greater air of truth to the scene—an art understood by most historians! In a word, Mr. N— is only answerable for the wit, sense, and spirit, there may be in these papers: I take all the dullness, impertinence, and malice upon myself. He has furnished the text—I fear I have often spoiled it by the commentary. Or (to give it a more favourable turn) I have expanded him into a book, as another friend[98] has continued the history of the Honeycombs down to the present period. My Dialogues are done much upon the same principle as the Family Journal: I shall be more than satisfied if they are thought to possess but half the spirit and verisimilitude,’

‘J. B. R.’

333. Cosway. Richard Cosway, R.A. (1740–1821), painter in water-colour, oil and miniature.

Miss Reynolds. Frances Reynolds (1729–1807), youngest sister of Sir Joshua. She also was an artist and wrote an ‘Essay on Taste’ of which Dr. Johnson thought highly.

Burying Lord Byron in Poet’s Corner. The application of Lord Byron’s relatives that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey was refused, and he lies in the church of Hucknall-Torkard, near Newstead. The Abbey would not receive even his statue by Thorwaldsen, which is now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

334. Hoppner. John Hoppner, R.A. (1758–1810). He and Sir Thomas Lawrence took the places of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Romney as fashionable portrait painters.

G—. William Godwin (1756–1836). ‘His daughter’ would probably be Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who returned to England after Shelley’s death. As the initial occurs constantly throughout the Conversations it will save some repetition in the notes if for G— Godwin is always understood, except where otherwise stated.

H—. Leigh Hunt. His Recollections of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries appeared in 1828, but this Conversation appeared in the New Monthly Magazine in 1826. In the Magazine the initial is F— not H—.

Mr. S—. Shelley.

Like the tree in Virgil. Aeneid, III. 37–40.

Mr. Moore has just written a book. Moore’s Life of Byron was published in 1830. This note was added when the Conversations were collected into a volume.

336. H—. For Benjamin Robert Haydon, historical painter (1786–1846) see the volume containing Hazlitt’s art criticism.

Fuseli. Heinrich Fuessly, or Henry Fuseli, portrait painter and art critic (1741–1825).

W—. Wordsworth. The name is given in full in the Magazine.

337. Armed all in proof. Richard III., Act V. Scene 3.

Stat nominis umbra. ‘Stat magni nominis umbra.’ Lucan, Pharsalia, I. 135.

Tom Paine. The opposition to Paine’s Rights of Man (1791–1792) was so great that it involved those circulating it in imprisonment. Paine’s escape to Paris saved him.

338. Dr. Watts ... the encomiums passed on him by Dr. Johnson. See Dr. Johnson’s Letter to Mr. Edward Dilly, July 7, 1777: ‘his name has long been held by me in veneration.... I wish to distinguish Watts, a man who never wrote but for a good purpose.’

339. Mr. Northcote ... a portrait of himself. A portrait of Northcote, painted by himself in 1821, is in the National Portrait Gallery. There are two or three others in existence.

340. West, Barry. Benjamin West (1738–1820), historical painter, and James Barry (1741–1806), whom Allan Cunningham described as ‘the greatest enthusiast in art which this country ever produced.’

341. Boaden. (B. in the Magazine.) James Boaden (1762–1839), dramatic critic and author of lives of Kemble and Mrs. Siddons.

341. Henderson. John Henderson (1747–1785), the ‘Bath Roscius.’

342. Master Betty. William Henry West Betty or the Young Roscius (1791–1874) who began to act at the age of eleven. Pitt adjourned the House of Commons to enable the members to see his impersonation of Hamlet. See Vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, p. 233 and note. Northcote painted his portrait.

Humphreys (the artist). The remark was probably made by Ozias Humphry (1742–1810); ‘Master Betty’ acted as a boy eight years before Humphry’s death, and the conversation is concerned with Betty’s acting when a boy. See also Conversations of James Northcote, R.A., with James Ward, page 86: ‘Can you tell me,’ said Ward, ‘if Betty the boy-actor—the young Roscius—was as extraordinary as some people have represented, for I myself never had an opportunity of seeing him act?’ ‘His gracefulness,’ replied Northcote, ‘was exquisite; I never saw anything like it before. When Humphry saw him, he cried out, “Oh, ’tis the young Apollo come down from his pedestal!”’ The only doubt lies in the fact that Humphry’s eyesight seems to have failed in 1797.

Mr. Harley. George Davies Harley (Davies was his real name), author and actor, who never rose above useful work, and who died in 1811. He wrote ‘An Authentic Biographical Sketch of the Life, Education, and Personal Character of William Henry West Betty, the Celebrated Young Roscius’ (1802).

Alexander the Great. The sub-title of Nat. Lee’s tragedy (1655–1692) The Rival Queens (1677).

Romney. George Romney (1734–1802), portrait painter. Lord Thurlow said that the town was divided into two factions—Romney and Reynolds.

343. Opie. John Opie (1761–1807), portrait and historical painter, of Cornish birth. He was discovered by Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar), himself a west-countryman.

Miss C—. Possibly Miss Cotterell. See note to p. 450.

345. Gandy. William Gandy (born second half seventeenth century, d. 1729), portrait painter. He was the son of James Gandy, also a portrait painter (1619–1689). See ante, p. 21 and note.

Hudson. Thomas Hudson, portrait painter (1701–1779), the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Mengs. Anton Rafael Mengs, of Bohemian birth (1728–1779), portrait and fresco painter.

The Duke of Ormond. James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde (1665–1746).

Stringer. Daniel Stringer, portrait painter, a student of the Royal Academy about 1770.

346. Cignani. Conte Carlo Cignani, a painter of the Lombard School (1628–1719).

Going with Wilkie to Angerstein’s. Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841). John Julius Angerstein (1735–1823), who acquired an immense fortune ‘in the city,’ and made the collection of pictures in his house in Pall-Mall which developed into the National Gallery by the purchase of them by the government after his death for some £60,000.

Edwards. Edward Edwards, historical painter (1738–1806).

Masaccio. Tommaso Guidi, or Masaccio (= Slovenly Tommy, from his careless manners) (1401–1428), Florentine painter, noted especially for his works on the walls of the Carmine church.

Note. ‘The blacksmith swallowing the tailor’s news.’ King John, Act IV. Scene 2.

347. Prince Hoare. Portrait and historical painter and dramatist (1755–1834), son of William Hoare, R.A. Haydon said of his timid expression of face, that ‘when he laughed heartily he seemed to be crying.’

347. Day. Alexander Day, miniature painter and picture-dealer (1772–1841). He brought from Italy several old masters which are now in the National Gallery.

349. Lord B— to dine with Dr. Johnson. In the Magazine the name is given in full as that of Lord Boringdon. John Parker (1735–1788), first Baron Boringdon, father of the first Earl of Morley.

One of the cages at Exeter-’Change. See vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, note to p. 223.

The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz. These Mémoires appeared in 1717, and English translations were published soon after. They throw much light on the time of the Wars of the Fronde, and are excellent in character-drawing.

350. F. Reynolds. Dramatist (1764–1841).

Matthews, the comedian. Charles Mathews (1776–1835), actor and, above all, mimic.

The Prince leaving Sheridan to die in absolute want. Although Sheridan was the ‘official mouthpiece’ of the Prince Regent, he was allowed to die in extreme poverty and with the bailiffs in his house.

351. Do you believe the modern periodicals. These are specified in the Magazine as ‘John Bull’ and ‘Blackwood,’ the former the Tory paper started in 1820 by Theodore Hook. See vol. IV. The Spirit of the Age, note to p. 217.

H—me. Probably Joseph Hume of the Pipe Office. See ante, note to p. 195.

352. Kelly’s ‘Reminiscences.’ Michael Kelly’s ‘Reminiscences, including a period of nearly half a Century; with Original Anecdotes of many Distinguished Personages,’ appeared in 1820. A second edition was published in 1826. It is a valuable store-house for the historian of the English theatre.

Mrs. Crouch. Anna Maria Crouch (1763–1805), the beautiful vocalist, whose ‘appearance was that of a meteor, it dazzled, from excess of brilliancy, every spectator.’

Love in a Village. Isaac Bickerstaffe’s operatic farce, with music by Arne (1762).

353. Canova. Antonio Canova, a sculptor and painter after the manner of the Venetian School (1757–1822).

Bernini. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, sculptor and architect (1598–1680).

Mandeville. Bernard de Mandeville, satirist (1670–1733), author of ‘The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices as Public Benefits’ (1705–1723), an ironical attack upon Shaftesbury’s theories of virtue, the fallacy of which, according to Dr. Johnson, consisted in that Mandeville defined neither vices nor benefits. He it was who described Addison as ‘a parson in a tye-wig.’

354. The Ireland controversy ... Dr. Parr. Dr. Samuel Parr (1747–1825), clergyman and schoolmaster, and possessed of an inexplicable reputation for scholarship, was one of the believers in the Shakespeare forgeries of Samuel William Henry Ireland (1777–1835). Northcote uses the same phrase about Dr. Parr in a conversation with James Ward. See his Conversations with James Ward, p. 88.

Tresham. Henry Tresham, painter and amateur picture dealer (1749–1814).

Caleb Whitefoord (1734–1810), wit and diplomatist. See the epitaph Goldsmith left among his papers for ‘Retaliation.’

357. Tongues in the trees, etc. As You Like It, Act II. Scene 1.

358. Mr. — the poet. Probably Tom Moore.

358. Start back with affright. After this sentence the following passage occurs in the Magazine:—‘This has often struck me in West, how happy it was for him that he lived and died in the belief that he was the greatest painter that had ever appeared on the face of the earth. Nothing could shake him in this opinion, nor did he ever lose sight of it. It was always “My Wolfe, my Wolfe”:—I do assure you literally, you could not be with him for five minutes at any time, without his alluding to this subject: whatever else was mentioned, he always brought it round to that. He thought Wolfe owed all his fame to the picture: it was he who had immortalized Wolfe, not Wolfe who had immortalized him.’

Woollett. William Woollett (1735–1785), a great engraver. He is said to have begun his career by a careful study of a Turk’s Head on a pewter-pot in his father’s public-house; he was also credited with the habit of firing a cannon from the roof of his house when he had finished a great plate. On his mean tombstone in Old St. Pancras churchyard some one wrote:—

‘Here Woollett rests, expecting to be saved;

He graved well, but is not well engraved.’

There is now a memorial to him in Westminster Abbey.

359. Dance. Sir Nathaniel Dance Holland, Bart. (1734–1811), portrait and landscape painter, son of George Dance, builder of the Mansion House. Since Angelica Kauffmann would not marry him, he married a rich widow, took the name of Holland, became a baronet, entered Parliament and gave up art.

Farington. Joseph Farington, landscape painter (1747–1821).

‘As you do sometimes?’ After this sentence the following passage occurs in the Magazine:—‘But the thing that provoked me was, I knew West was only thinking of the engraving of Wolfe, who had already a monument erected to him in the most select part of Westminster Abbey, and West thought, if he could get a monument to Woollett there also, he should come in between them.’

Round his gallery. Add the following from the Magazine:— ‘And yet,’ said N.—,’he thought in his pictures he had accumulated an invaluable property, and that they would be caught up at his death like so many Correggios. It was this that kept him alive. If he could have seen how much he wanted, he would, perhaps, have done nothing.’

360. The death of poor —. The Magazine gives the initial F, which indicates, in all probability, Thomas Foster, Irish portrait-painter (1798–1826), who committed suicide.

C—. John Wilson Croker (1780–1857), who was appointed Secretary of the Admiralty in 1809, for his services to the Duke of York.

Poor Bird. Edward Bird (1762 or 72–1819), genre painter, who began life as an ornamenter of tea-trays.

If — was likely to have succeeded. The Magazine gives the initial F. See first note to this page.

Mr. Locke (of Norbury Park). William Locke (1732–1810), a wealthy art amateur, on whose estate at Norbury, near Mickleham, Surrey, Fanny Burney built ‘Camilla Cottage.’ His son, William Locke (1767–1847), was an amateur artist, and his grandson also, William Locke the third (1804–1832).

Old Dr. Moore. Dr. John Moore (1729–1802), physician, and author of the novel, Zeluco: Various Views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic (1786), which suggested to Byron the idea of Childe Harold (see Preface to this latter).

361. The wrapt soul sitting in the eyes. Il Penseroso, 40 [rapt].

362. Old Alderman Boydell. John Boydell (1719–1804), engraver. His book of plates of views in England and Wales was the first book, so he said, that ever made a Lord Mayor of London. He was a good friend to young artists, and greatly furthered the art of engraving in England.

Sir R. P—. Sir Richard Phillips (1767–1840), author, bookseller and publisher. He established The Monthly Magazine in 1796.

363. Annibal Caracci. Annibal Caracci (1560–1609), the decorator of the Farnese Palace, Rome, and painter of the celebrated picture of ‘Christ being taken down from the Cross.’

Ludovico Caracci. Ludovico Caracci (1555–1619), uncle of the above.

Angelica Kauffmann. Maria Anna Angelica Catharina Kauffmann (1741–1807), portrait painter and etcher.

364. Simple Story ... Nature and Art. Elizabeth Inchbald’s (1753–1821) books were published in 1791 and 1796 respectively.

Mrs. Centlivre. Susannah Centlivre (c. 1667–1723), the authoress of nineteen vivacious plays. See The Dunciad, Book II. 411 and note: ‘wife to Mr. Centlivre, Yeoman of the Mouth to His Majesty. She writ many Plays, and a Song (says Mr. Jacob) before she was seven years old. She also writ a Ballad against Mr. Pope’s Homer before he began it. P.’

364. Old Baxter. Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist Divine (1615–1691). The same illustration is used in The Plain Speaker, p. 243.

A Dissenting Minister (a Mr. Fox of Plymouth). John Fox (1693–1763). He was given in charge of his father’s first cousin, Isaac Gilling, minister at Newton Abbot, to see if Gilling could remove his objections to the ministry. After many shifts he got his license on Oct. 17, 1717, and he began to preach, but apparently he was never ordained. He gave up the ministry after his father’s death, married Isaac Gilling’s daughter and turned biographer.