PAGE 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 1. Marcella. Ibid. Part I., Book 1. chaps. 12 and 13. 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. his obligation to Le Sage. 113. Tom Jones. Published in 1749. In the Preface to Roderick Random he admitted 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 Edipus 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 Essaywriting,' 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 ... Hill), 11. 174. when he said, etc. Boswell's Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. 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 (17521840), published respectively in 1778, 1782, and 1796. PAGE 123. 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. 1. p. 171 and note. "There is nothing so true as habit. Windham, Speech on the Conduct of the Duke of York, Speeches, 111. 205, March 14, 1809. 125. Stand so [not] upon the order,' etc. Macbeth, Act ш. Sc. 4. The green silken threads, etc. Don Quixote, Part II. iv. Chap. 58. The Wanderer. 1814. 'The gossamer, etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act 11. 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. 6 128. His chamber, etc. The Faerie Queene, Book 11. 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. 1. pp. 25-31, and notes thereon. 133. Hogarth. William Hogarth (1697-1764). Instinct in every part. Cf. Instinct through all proportions low and high.' Other pictures we see, Hogarth's we read.' 'Other pictures we look at,-his Not long ago. In 1814. PA GE 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 1. Sc. 3. Vice loses half, etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select 137. All the mutually reflected charities. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, 11. 40). 'Frequent and full, etc. Paradise Lost, 1. 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. 140. Teniers. David Teniers, the younger (1610-1690). To shew vice, etc. Adapted from Hamlet, Act 111. Sc. 2. The very error of the time.' Cf. "The very error of the moon,' Othello, Act v. Sc. 2. "Your lungs, etc. Bagnigge Wells. As You Like It, Act 11. Sc. 7. 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), 1. 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. 144. The Charming Betsy Careless.' See the last of the series of "The Rake's Progress,' the scene in Bedlam. name on the bannisters. "Stray-gifts of love and beauty. One of the lunatics has scratched the 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 1. 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 in. Sc. 2. Temples not made with hands, etc. 2 Corinthians, v. I. 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 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. 1. pp. 10-14, and notes. PAGE 150. 'Where it must live, etc. Othello, Act 1. Sc. 4. To see ourselves, etc. Burns, To a Louse. 151. Present no mark to the foeman.' Henry IV., Part II., Act 11. Sc. 2. should be Shadow. 152. The authority of Sterne, etc. See Tristram Shandy, 1. 21. Wart 1. 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, 111. 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 Beppo, etc. Lord Byron's Beppo (1818), Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming 1. 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. 1. 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 11. 'Almost afraid to know itself. Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3. Mr. Farren. William Farren (1786-1861). Lord Ogleby in Colman and Note. See vol. 1. 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 11. Sc. 1. 156. In the third edition the following account of The Busy Body, taken from Oxberry's The New English Drama (Vol. v1.) 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 persone 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, 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 1 This was Godwin, who saw Venice Preserved at Norwich. See Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, 1. 10. |