1.Hazlitt has glanced at him in his notes on dissenters and dissent in thePolitical Essays, and has given a further taste of him in that very notable and gracious piece, ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’
1.Hazlitt has glanced at him in his notes on dissenters and dissent in thePolitical Essays, and has given a further taste of him in that very notable and gracious piece, ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’
2.In 1805 he produced his essay on the Principles of Human Action. Being no metaphysician, I have never read this work; but Mr. Leslie Stephen, who is a very competent person in these matters, I am told, assures me (D. N. B.) that it is ‘scrupulously dry,’ though ‘showing great acuteness.’ This, I take leave to say—this is Hazlitt all over. None has written of the workaday elements in life and time with a rarer taste, a finer relish, a stronger confidence in himself and them. Yet, in dealing with absolutes in life and time, he is ‘scrupulously dry.’ This, I take it, is to be a man of letters.
2.In 1805 he produced his essay on the Principles of Human Action. Being no metaphysician, I have never read this work; but Mr. Leslie Stephen, who is a very competent person in these matters, I am told, assures me (D. N. B.) that it is ‘scrupulously dry,’ though ‘showing great acuteness.’ This, I take leave to say—this is Hazlitt all over. None has written of the workaday elements in life and time with a rarer taste, a finer relish, a stronger confidence in himself and them. Yet, in dealing with absolutes in life and time, he is ‘scrupulously dry.’ This, I take it, is to be a man of letters.
3.Or rather bedgown: unction-soiled and laudanum-stained.
3.Or rather bedgown: unction-soiled and laudanum-stained.
4.John Hazlitt had been a pupil of Reynolds, and his miniatures were welcome at the Academy.
4.John Hazlitt had been a pupil of Reynolds, and his miniatures were welcome at the Academy.
5.Dans l’art il faut donner sa peau.
5.Dans l’art il faut donner sa peau.
6.He had a painter in him, whether imperfectly developed or not; for he would condescend upon none but Guido, Raphael, Titian.
6.He had a painter in him, whether imperfectly developed or not; for he would condescend upon none but Guido, Raphael, Titian.
7.One was a likeness of his father, of which he has written in eloquent and engaging terms; another, aWordsworth, which he destroyed; a third, the picture of Elia, ‘as a Venetian senator,’ now in the National Portrait Gallery; yet another, the presentment of an Old Woman, which is likened to a Rembrandt. Having seen none of these things, all I can say about them is that Hazlitt seems to have been passionately interested in colour; that he loved a picture because it was a piece of painting; and, if he knew not always bad (or rather third and fourth rate) work when he saw it, was as contemptuous of it, when he realised its status, as Fuseli himself.
7.One was a likeness of his father, of which he has written in eloquent and engaging terms; another, aWordsworth, which he destroyed; a third, the picture of Elia, ‘as a Venetian senator,’ now in the National Portrait Gallery; yet another, the presentment of an Old Woman, which is likened to a Rembrandt. Having seen none of these things, all I can say about them is that Hazlitt seems to have been passionately interested in colour; that he loved a picture because it was a piece of painting; and, if he knew not always bad (or rather third and fourth rate) work when he saw it, was as contemptuous of it, when he realised its status, as Fuseli himself.
8.There is an immense, even an insuperable difference between the two sorts of sensualists. To take an immediate instance: Lamb loved Hogarth, and found emotions in him, because he (Hogarth) was a novelist in paint; while Titian’sBacchus and Ariadnetouched his sense of letters, and, as Mr. Ainger has noted, suggested to him so much literature, or, at all events, so many literary possibilities, that Titian could not but be an arch-painter. Hazlitt felt his painter first, and thought not of the man-of-letters in his painter till his interest in his painter’s painting was—I won’t say extinguished but—allayed.
8.There is an immense, even an insuperable difference between the two sorts of sensualists. To take an immediate instance: Lamb loved Hogarth, and found emotions in him, because he (Hogarth) was a novelist in paint; while Titian’sBacchus and Ariadnetouched his sense of letters, and, as Mr. Ainger has noted, suggested to him so much literature, or, at all events, so many literary possibilities, that Titian could not but be an arch-painter. Hazlitt felt his painter first, and thought not of the man-of-letters in his painter till his interest in his painter’s painting was—I won’t say extinguished but—allayed.
9.‘The point in debate,’ he says, ‘the worth or the bad quality of the painting ... I am as well able to decide upon as any who ever brandished a pallette.’ I doubt not that he spoke the truth; yet the residuum of his criticisms of pictures, their after-taste, is mostly literary. And, as he was finally a man of letters, what else could one expect?
9.‘The point in debate,’ he says, ‘the worth or the bad quality of the painting ... I am as well able to decide upon as any who ever brandished a pallette.’ I doubt not that he spoke the truth; yet the residuum of his criticisms of pictures, their after-taste, is mostly literary. And, as he was finally a man of letters, what else could one expect?
10.Leigh Hunt said that he was the best art critic that ever lived: that to read him was like seeing a picture through stained glass, and so forth. But Leigh Hunt knew not much more about pictures than Coleridge knew about the books he talked of, but had not read.
10.Leigh Hunt said that he was the best art critic that ever lived: that to read him was like seeing a picture through stained glass, and so forth. But Leigh Hunt knew not much more about pictures than Coleridge knew about the books he talked of, but had not read.
11.The house had been the abode of Milton; for certain months it had harboured the eminent James Mill; it belonged to the celebrated Jeremy Bentham: so that in the matter of associations Hazlitt, a thorough-paced dissenter, was as well off as he could hope to be.
11.The house had been the abode of Milton; for certain months it had harboured the eminent James Mill; it belonged to the celebrated Jeremy Bentham: so that in the matter of associations Hazlitt, a thorough-paced dissenter, was as well off as he could hope to be.
12.Ten in number: on ‘The Rise and Progress of Modern Philosophy,’ as illustrated in the works of Hobbes, Locke and his followers, Hartley, Helvétius, and others. The lectures, Mr. Stephen says, were in part a reproduction of thePrinciples of Human Action.
12.Ten in number: on ‘The Rise and Progress of Modern Philosophy,’ as illustrated in the works of Hobbes, Locke and his followers, Hartley, Helvétius, and others. The lectures, Mr. Stephen says, were in part a reproduction of thePrinciples of Human Action.
13.Haydon says that Waterloo made him drunk for weeks. Then he pulled himself together, and for the rest of his life drank nothing but strong tea. He had, however, no sort of sympathy with those who held the ‘social glass’ to be Man’s safest introduction to the Pit. He only said that liquor did not agree with him, and looked on cheerfully while his friends—Lamb was as close as any—drank as they pleased.
13.Haydon says that Waterloo made him drunk for weeks. Then he pulled himself together, and for the rest of his life drank nothing but strong tea. He had, however, no sort of sympathy with those who held the ‘social glass’ to be Man’s safest introduction to the Pit. He only said that liquor did not agree with him, and looked on cheerfully while his friends—Lamb was as close as any—drank as they pleased.
14.Both theCharactersand theEnglish Poetswere reviewed by Gifford in theQuarterly. The style of these ‘reviews’ is abject; the inspiration venal; the matter the very dirt of the mind. Gifford hated Hazlitt for his politics, and set out to wither Hazlitt’s repute as a man of letters. For the tremendous reprisal with which he was visited, the reader is referred to theLetter to William Gifford, Esq., in the first volume of the present Edition. If he find it over-savage: probably, being of to-day, he will: let him turn to hisQuarterly, and consider, if he have the stomach, Gifford and the matter of offence.
14.Both theCharactersand theEnglish Poetswere reviewed by Gifford in theQuarterly. The style of these ‘reviews’ is abject; the inspiration venal; the matter the very dirt of the mind. Gifford hated Hazlitt for his politics, and set out to wither Hazlitt’s repute as a man of letters. For the tremendous reprisal with which he was visited, the reader is referred to theLetter to William Gifford, Esq., in the first volume of the present Edition. If he find it over-savage: probably, being of to-day, he will: let him turn to hisQuarterly, and consider, if he have the stomach, Gifford and the matter of offence.
15.He lived to rejoice in the Revolution of July; but of the great movement in the arts—ofHenri Trois et sa CourandHernani, of Delacroix and Barye, of Géricault and Bonington and de Vigny, and the rest of its heroes—he seems to have known nothing. That was his way. The new did not exist for him. A dissenter by birth and conviction, he yet cared only for the past, and the elder ‘glories of our blood and state’ were to him, not shadows but, the sole substantial things he could keep room for in the kingdom of his mind.
15.He lived to rejoice in the Revolution of July; but of the great movement in the arts—ofHenri Trois et sa CourandHernani, of Delacroix and Barye, of Géricault and Bonington and de Vigny, and the rest of its heroes—he seems to have known nothing. That was his way. The new did not exist for him. A dissenter by birth and conviction, he yet cared only for the past, and the elder ‘glories of our blood and state’ were to him, not shadows but, the sole substantial things he could keep room for in the kingdom of his mind.
16.’Tis a pleasure to remember that Lamb was with him to the end—was in his death-chamber in the very article of mortality. We have all read Carlyle on Lamb. The everlasting pity is that we shall never read Hazlitt on Carlyle.
16.’Tis a pleasure to remember that Lamb was with him to the end—was in his death-chamber in the very article of mortality. We have all read Carlyle on Lamb. The everlasting pity is that we shall never read Hazlitt on Carlyle.
17.Him Shelley calls ‘a solemn and unsexual man.’
17.Him Shelley calls ‘a solemn and unsexual man.’
18.Much as years afterwards, according to a certain Nicolardot, the expertest of their kind were ‘on the list’ of old Ste.-Beuve.
18.Much as years afterwards, according to a certain Nicolardot, the expertest of their kind were ‘on the list’ of old Ste.-Beuve.
19.His grandson describes him as ‘physically incapable’ of any but a transient fidelity to anybody.
19.His grandson describes him as ‘physically incapable’ of any but a transient fidelity to anybody.
20.He confessed that one day he told it half a dozen times or so to persons he had never seen before: once, twice over to the same listener.
20.He confessed that one day he told it half a dozen times or so to persons he had never seen before: once, twice over to the same listener.
21.It cost Hazlitt a crown, perhaps less; and he arranged—apparently with Mrs. Hazlitt—to be taken in the act! After this the knowledge that Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt took tea together,pendente lite, and that then and after his second espousals Hazlitt supplied this very reasonable woman with money, astonishes no more, but comes as a kind of anticlimax.
21.It cost Hazlitt a crown, perhaps less; and he arranged—apparently with Mrs. Hazlitt—to be taken in the act! After this the knowledge that Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt took tea together,pendente lite, and that then and after his second espousals Hazlitt supplied this very reasonable woman with money, astonishes no more, but comes as a kind of anticlimax.
22.That damsel presently married in her station. She seems to have been a decent woman according to her lights, and to have lived up honestly to her ideals, such as they were.
22.That damsel presently married in her station. She seems to have been a decent woman according to her lights, and to have lived up honestly to her ideals, such as they were.
23.There was a laughing devil in his sneerThat raised emotions both of rage and fear;And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
23.
There was a laughing devil in his sneerThat raised emotions both of rage and fear;And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
There was a laughing devil in his sneerThat raised emotions both of rage and fear;And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
There was a laughing devil in his sneerThat raised emotions both of rage and fear;And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
There was a laughing devil in his sneer
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope, withering, fled—and Mercy sighed farewell.
24.These details are Patmore’s, and, even if they be true, are not the whole truth. Hazlitt loved solitude and the country, had to write for a living, wrote with difficulty, and left no inconsiderable body of work.
24.These details are Patmore’s, and, even if they be true, are not the whole truth. Hazlitt loved solitude and the country, had to write for a living, wrote with difficulty, and left no inconsiderable body of work.
25.What I mean is, that I have heard the best, as I believe, the last of the old century and the first of the new have shown.
25.What I mean is, that I have heard the best, as I believe, the last of the old century and the first of the new have shown.
26.‘He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen half-sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears: and he probes a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, hare-brained vein of home-felt truth! What choice venom!’
26.‘He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen half-sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears: and he probes a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, hare-brained vein of home-felt truth! What choice venom!’
27.It filled the valley like a mist,And still poured out its endless chant,And still it swells upon the ear,And wraps me in a golden trance,Drowning the noisy tumult of the world.. . . . . .Like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove ...Contending with the wild winds as they roar ...And the proud places of the insolentAnd the oppressor fell ...Such and so little is the mind of Man!
27.
It filled the valley like a mist,And still poured out its endless chant,And still it swells upon the ear,And wraps me in a golden trance,Drowning the noisy tumult of the world.. . . . . .Like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove ...Contending with the wild winds as they roar ...And the proud places of the insolentAnd the oppressor fell ...Such and so little is the mind of Man!
It filled the valley like a mist,And still poured out its endless chant,And still it swells upon the ear,And wraps me in a golden trance,Drowning the noisy tumult of the world.. . . . . .Like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove ...Contending with the wild winds as they roar ...And the proud places of the insolentAnd the oppressor fell ...Such and so little is the mind of Man!
It filled the valley like a mist,And still poured out its endless chant,And still it swells upon the ear,And wraps me in a golden trance,Drowning the noisy tumult of the world.
It filled the valley like a mist,
And still poured out its endless chant,
And still it swells upon the ear,
And wraps me in a golden trance,
Drowning the noisy tumult of the world.
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
Like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove ...Contending with the wild winds as they roar ...And the proud places of the insolentAnd the oppressor fell ...Such and so little is the mind of Man!
Like sweetest warblings from a sacred grove ...
Contending with the wild winds as they roar ...
And the proud places of the insolent
And the oppressor fell ...
Such and so little is the mind of Man!
28.His summary of the fight between Hickman and Bill Neate is alone in literature, as also in the annals of the Ring. Jon Bee was an intelligent creature of his kind, and knew a very great deal more about pugilism than Hazlitt knew; but to contrast the two is to learn much. Badcock (which is Jon Bee) had seen (and worshipped) Jem Belcher, and had reported fights with an extreme contempt for Pierce Egan, the illiterate ass who gave usBoxiana. Hazlitt, however, looked on at the proceedings of Neate and the Gaslight Man exactly as he had looked on at divers creations of Edmund Kean. He saw the essentials in both expressions of human activity, and his treatment of both is fundamentally the same. In both he ignores the trivial: here the acting (in its lowest sense), there the hits that did not count. And thus, as he gives you only the vital touches, you know how and why Neate beat Hickman, and can tell the exact moment at which Hickman began to be a beaten man. ’Tis the same with his panegyric on Cavanagh, the fives-player. For a blend of gusto with understanding I know but one thing to equal with this: the note on Dr. Grace, which appeared inThe National Observer; and the night that that was written, I sent the writer back to Hazlitt’sCavanagh, and said to him ——! On the whole theDr. Graceis the better of the two. But it has scarce the incorruptible fatness of theCavanagh. Gusto, though, is Hazlitt’s special attribute: he glories in what he likes, what he reads, what he feels, what he writes. He triumphed in his Kean, his Shakespeare, his Bill Neate, his Rousseau, his coffee-and-cream andLove for Lovein the inn-parlour at Alton. He relished things; and expressed them with a relish. That is his ‘note.’ Some others have relished only the consummate expression of nothing.
28.His summary of the fight between Hickman and Bill Neate is alone in literature, as also in the annals of the Ring. Jon Bee was an intelligent creature of his kind, and knew a very great deal more about pugilism than Hazlitt knew; but to contrast the two is to learn much. Badcock (which is Jon Bee) had seen (and worshipped) Jem Belcher, and had reported fights with an extreme contempt for Pierce Egan, the illiterate ass who gave usBoxiana. Hazlitt, however, looked on at the proceedings of Neate and the Gaslight Man exactly as he had looked on at divers creations of Edmund Kean. He saw the essentials in both expressions of human activity, and his treatment of both is fundamentally the same. In both he ignores the trivial: here the acting (in its lowest sense), there the hits that did not count. And thus, as he gives you only the vital touches, you know how and why Neate beat Hickman, and can tell the exact moment at which Hickman began to be a beaten man. ’Tis the same with his panegyric on Cavanagh, the fives-player. For a blend of gusto with understanding I know but one thing to equal with this: the note on Dr. Grace, which appeared inThe National Observer; and the night that that was written, I sent the writer back to Hazlitt’sCavanagh, and said to him ——! On the whole theDr. Graceis the better of the two. But it has scarce the incorruptible fatness of theCavanagh. Gusto, though, is Hazlitt’s special attribute: he glories in what he likes, what he reads, what he feels, what he writes. He triumphed in his Kean, his Shakespeare, his Bill Neate, his Rousseau, his coffee-and-cream andLove for Lovein the inn-parlour at Alton. He relished things; and expressed them with a relish. That is his ‘note.’ Some others have relished only the consummate expression of nothing.
29.Listen, else, to Lamb himself: ‘Protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply; or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes, I should belie my own conscience if I said less than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding or expecting to find such another companion.’ Thus does one Royalty celebrate the kingship and enrich the immortality of another.
29.Listen, else, to Lamb himself: ‘Protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply; or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes, I should belie my own conscience if I said less than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding or expecting to find such another companion.’ Thus does one Royalty celebrate the kingship and enrich the immortality of another.
30.It is Steele’s; and the whole paper (No. 95) is in his most delightful manner. The dream about the mistress, however, is given to Addison by the Editors, and the general style of that number is his; though, from the story being related personally of Bickerstaff, who is also represented as having been at that time in the army, we conclude it to have originally come from Steele, perhaps in the course of conversation. The particular incident is much more like a story of his than of Addison’s.—H. T.
30.It is Steele’s; and the whole paper (No. 95) is in his most delightful manner. The dream about the mistress, however, is given to Addison by the Editors, and the general style of that number is his; though, from the story being related personally of Bickerstaff, who is also represented as having been at that time in the army, we conclude it to have originally come from Steele, perhaps in the course of conversation. The particular incident is much more like a story of his than of Addison’s.—H. T.
31.We had in our hands the other day an original copy of theTatler, and a list of the subscribers. It is curious to see some names there which we should hardly think of, (that of Sir Isaac Newton is among them), and also to observe the degree of interest excited by those of the different persons, which is not adjusted according to the rules of the Heralds’ College.
31.We had in our hands the other day an original copy of theTatler, and a list of the subscribers. It is curious to see some names there which we should hardly think of, (that of Sir Isaac Newton is among them), and also to observe the degree of interest excited by those of the different persons, which is not adjusted according to the rules of the Heralds’ College.
32.Pope also declares that he had a particular regard for an old post which stood in the court-yard before the house where he was brought up.
32.Pope also declares that he had a particular regard for an old post which stood in the court-yard before the house where he was brought up.
33.See also the passage in his prose works relating to the first design ofParadise Lost.
33.See also the passage in his prose works relating to the first design ofParadise Lost.
34.‘Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,That did not better for my life provide,Than public means which public manners breeds.Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,And almost thence my nature is subduedTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.’At another time, we find him ‘desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope’: so little was Shakspeare, as far as we can learn, enamoured of himself!
34.
‘Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,That did not better for my life provide,Than public means which public manners breeds.Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,And almost thence my nature is subduedTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.’
‘Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,That did not better for my life provide,Than public means which public manners breeds.Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,And almost thence my nature is subduedTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.’
‘Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,That did not better for my life provide,Than public means which public manners breeds.Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,And almost thence my nature is subduedTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.’
‘Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.’
At another time, we find him ‘desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope’: so little was Shakspeare, as far as we can learn, enamoured of himself!
35.See an Essay on the genius of Hogarth, by C. Lamb, published in a periodical work, called theReflector.
35.See an Essay on the genius of Hogarth, by C. Lamb, published in a periodical work, called theReflector.
36.‘A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it; it ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish, dull, and crudy vapours which environ it; and makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered over to the tongue, becomes excellent wit,’ etc.—Second Part of Henry IV.
36.‘A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it; it ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish, dull, and crudy vapours which environ it; and makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered over to the tongue, becomes excellent wit,’ etc.—Second Part of Henry IV.
37.We have an instance in our own times of a man, equally devoid of understanding and principle, but who manages the House of Commons by hismanneralone.
37.We have an instance in our own times of a man, equally devoid of understanding and principle, but who manages the House of Commons by hismanneralone.
38.Mr. Wordsworth, who has written a sonnet to the King on the good that he has done in the last fifty years, has made an attack on a set of gipsies for having done nothing in four and twenty hours. ‘The stars had gone their rounds, but they had not stirred from their place.’ And why should they, if they were comfortable where they were? We did not expect this turn from Mr. Wordsworth, whom we had considered as the prince of poetical idlers, and patron of the philosophy of indolence, who formerly insisted on our spending our time ‘in a wise passiveness.’ Mr. W. will excuse us if we are not converts to his recantation of his original doctrine; for he who changes his opinion loses his authority. We did not look for this Sunday-school philosophy from him. What had he himself been doing in these four and twenty hours? Had he been admiring a flower, or writing a sonnet? We hate the doctrine of utility, even in a philosopher, and much more in a poet: for the only real utility is that which leads to enjoyment, and the end is, in all cases, better than the means. A friend of ours from the North of England proposed to make Stonehenge of some use, by building houses with it. Mr. W.’s quarrel with the gipsies is an improvement on this extravagance, for the gipsies are the only living monuments of the first ages of society. They are an everlasting source of thought and reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of the progress of civilisation: they are a better answer to the cotton manufactories than Mr. W. has given in theExcursion. ‘They are a grotesque ornament to the civil order.’ We should be sorry to part with Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry, because it amuses and interests us: we should be still sorrier to part with the tents of our old friends, the Bohemian philosophers, because they amuse and interest us more. If any one goes a journey, the principal event in it is his meeting with a party of gipsies. The pleasantest trait in the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, is his interview with the gipsy fortune-teller. This is enough.
38.Mr. Wordsworth, who has written a sonnet to the King on the good that he has done in the last fifty years, has made an attack on a set of gipsies for having done nothing in four and twenty hours. ‘The stars had gone their rounds, but they had not stirred from their place.’ And why should they, if they were comfortable where they were? We did not expect this turn from Mr. Wordsworth, whom we had considered as the prince of poetical idlers, and patron of the philosophy of indolence, who formerly insisted on our spending our time ‘in a wise passiveness.’ Mr. W. will excuse us if we are not converts to his recantation of his original doctrine; for he who changes his opinion loses his authority. We did not look for this Sunday-school philosophy from him. What had he himself been doing in these four and twenty hours? Had he been admiring a flower, or writing a sonnet? We hate the doctrine of utility, even in a philosopher, and much more in a poet: for the only real utility is that which leads to enjoyment, and the end is, in all cases, better than the means. A friend of ours from the North of England proposed to make Stonehenge of some use, by building houses with it. Mr. W.’s quarrel with the gipsies is an improvement on this extravagance, for the gipsies are the only living monuments of the first ages of society. They are an everlasting source of thought and reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of the progress of civilisation: they are a better answer to the cotton manufactories than Mr. W. has given in theExcursion. ‘They are a grotesque ornament to the civil order.’ We should be sorry to part with Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry, because it amuses and interests us: we should be still sorrier to part with the tents of our old friends, the Bohemian philosophers, because they amuse and interest us more. If any one goes a journey, the principal event in it is his meeting with a party of gipsies. The pleasantest trait in the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, is his interview with the gipsy fortune-teller. This is enough.
39.The Dissenters in this country (if we except the founders of sects, who fall under a class by themselves) have produced only two remarkable men, Priestley and Jonathan Edwards. The work of the latter on the Will is written with as much power of logic, and more in the true spirit of philosophy, than any other metaphysical work in the language. His object throughout is not to perplex the question, but to satisfy his own mind and the reader’s. In general, the principle of dissent arises more from want of sympathy and imagination, than from strength of reason. The spirit of contradiction is not the spirit of philosophy.
39.The Dissenters in this country (if we except the founders of sects, who fall under a class by themselves) have produced only two remarkable men, Priestley and Jonathan Edwards. The work of the latter on the Will is written with as much power of logic, and more in the true spirit of philosophy, than any other metaphysical work in the language. His object throughout is not to perplex the question, but to satisfy his own mind and the reader’s. In general, the principle of dissent arises more from want of sympathy and imagination, than from strength of reason. The spirit of contradiction is not the spirit of philosophy.
40.The modern Quakers come as near the mark in these cases as they can. They do not go to plays, but they are great attenders of spouting-clubs and lectures. They do not frequent concerts, but run after pictures. We do not know exactly how they stand with respect to the circulating libraries. A Quaker poet would be a literary phenomenon.
40.The modern Quakers come as near the mark in these cases as they can. They do not go to plays, but they are great attenders of spouting-clubs and lectures. They do not frequent concerts, but run after pictures. We do not know exactly how they stand with respect to the circulating libraries. A Quaker poet would be a literary phenomenon.
41.We have made the above observations, not as theological partisans, but as natural historians. We shall some time or other give the reverse of the picture; for there are vices inherent in establishments and their thorough-paced adherents, which well deserve to be distinctly pointed out.
41.We have made the above observations, not as theological partisans, but as natural historians. We shall some time or other give the reverse of the picture; for there are vices inherent in establishments and their thorough-paced adherents, which well deserve to be distinctly pointed out.
42.Is all this a rhodomontade, or literal matter of fact, not credible in these degenerate days?
42.Is all this a rhodomontade, or literal matter of fact, not credible in these degenerate days?
43.One of the most interesting traits of the amiable simplicity of Walton, is the circumstance of his friendship for Cotton, one of the ‘swash-bucklers’ of the age. Dr. Johnson said there were only three works which the reader was sorry to come to the end of,Don Quixote,Robinson Crusoe, and thePilgrim’s Progress. Perhaps Walton’sAnglermight be added to the number.
43.One of the most interesting traits of the amiable simplicity of Walton, is the circumstance of his friendship for Cotton, one of the ‘swash-bucklers’ of the age. Dr. Johnson said there were only three works which the reader was sorry to come to the end of,Don Quixote,Robinson Crusoe, and thePilgrim’s Progress. Perhaps Walton’sAnglermight be added to the number.
44.Oxberry’s manner of acting this character is a very edifying comment on the text: he flings his arms about, like those of a figure pulled by strings, and seems actuated by a pure spirit of infatuation, as if one blast of folly had taken possession of his whole frame,‘And filled up all the mighty void of sense.’
44.Oxberry’s manner of acting this character is a very edifying comment on the text: he flings his arms about, like those of a figure pulled by strings, and seems actuated by a pure spirit of infatuation, as if one blast of folly had taken possession of his whole frame,
‘And filled up all the mighty void of sense.’
‘And filled up all the mighty void of sense.’
‘And filled up all the mighty void of sense.’
‘And filled up all the mighty void of sense.’
45.The following lines are remarkable for a certain cloying sweetness in the repetition of the rhymes:Titania.Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon beams from his sleeping eyes;’Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
45.The following lines are remarkable for a certain cloying sweetness in the repetition of the rhymes:
Titania.Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon beams from his sleeping eyes;’Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
Titania.Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon beams from his sleeping eyes;’Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
Titania.Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon beams from his sleeping eyes;’Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
Titania.Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,
And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise:
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moon beams from his sleeping eyes;’
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
46.The late ingenious Baron Grimm, of acute critical memory, was up to the merit of theBeggar’s Opera. In his Correspondence, he says, ‘If it be true that the nearer a writer is to Nature, the more certain he is of pleasing, it must be allowed that the English, in their dramatic pieces, have greatly the advantage over us. There reigns in them an inestimable tone of nature, which the timidity of our taste has banished from French pieces. M. Patu has just published, in two volumes,A selection of smaller dramatic pieces, translated from the English, which will eminently support what I have advanced. The principal one among this selection is the celebratedBeggar’s Operaof Gay, which has had such an amazing run in England. We are here in the very worst company imaginable; theDramatis Personæare robbers, pickpockets, gaolers, prostitutes, and the like; yet we are highly amused, and in no haste to quit them; and why? Because there is nothing in the world more original or more natural. There is no occasion to compare our most celebrated comic operas with this, to see how far we are removed from truth and nature, and this is the reason that, notwithstanding our wit, we are almost always flat and insipid. Two faults are generally committed by our writers, which they seem incapable of avoiding. They think they have done wonders if they have only faithfully copied the dictionaries of the personages they bring upon the stage, forgetting that the great art is to chuse the moments of character and passion in those who are to speak, since it is those moments alone that render them interesting. For want of this discrimination, the piece necessarily sinks into insipidity and monotony. Why do almost all M. Vade’s pieces fatigue the audience to death? Because all his characters speak the same language; because each is a perfect resemblance of the other. Instead of this, in theBeggar’s Opera, among eight or ten girls of the town, each has her separate character, her peculiar traits, her peculiar modes of expression, which give her a marked distinction from her companions.’—Vol. i. p. 185.
46.The late ingenious Baron Grimm, of acute critical memory, was up to the merit of theBeggar’s Opera. In his Correspondence, he says, ‘If it be true that the nearer a writer is to Nature, the more certain he is of pleasing, it must be allowed that the English, in their dramatic pieces, have greatly the advantage over us. There reigns in them an inestimable tone of nature, which the timidity of our taste has banished from French pieces. M. Patu has just published, in two volumes,A selection of smaller dramatic pieces, translated from the English, which will eminently support what I have advanced. The principal one among this selection is the celebratedBeggar’s Operaof Gay, which has had such an amazing run in England. We are here in the very worst company imaginable; theDramatis Personæare robbers, pickpockets, gaolers, prostitutes, and the like; yet we are highly amused, and in no haste to quit them; and why? Because there is nothing in the world more original or more natural. There is no occasion to compare our most celebrated comic operas with this, to see how far we are removed from truth and nature, and this is the reason that, notwithstanding our wit, we are almost always flat and insipid. Two faults are generally committed by our writers, which they seem incapable of avoiding. They think they have done wonders if they have only faithfully copied the dictionaries of the personages they bring upon the stage, forgetting that the great art is to chuse the moments of character and passion in those who are to speak, since it is those moments alone that render them interesting. For want of this discrimination, the piece necessarily sinks into insipidity and monotony. Why do almost all M. Vade’s pieces fatigue the audience to death? Because all his characters speak the same language; because each is a perfect resemblance of the other. Instead of this, in theBeggar’s Opera, among eight or ten girls of the town, each has her separate character, her peculiar traits, her peculiar modes of expression, which give her a marked distinction from her companions.’—Vol. i. p. 185.
47.He who speaks two languages has no country. The French, when they made their language the common language of the Courts of Europe, gained more than by all their subsequent conquests.
47.He who speaks two languages has no country. The French, when they made their language the common language of the Courts of Europe, gained more than by all their subsequent conquests.
48.There is, however, in the African physiognomy a grandeur and a force, arising from this uniform character of violence and abruptness. It is consistent with itself throughout. Entire deformity can only be found where the features have not only no symmetry or softness in themselves, but have no connection with one another, presenting every variety of wretchedness, and a jumble of all sorts of defects, such as we see in Hogarth or in the streets of London; for instance, a large bottle-nose, with a small mouth twisted awry.
48.There is, however, in the African physiognomy a grandeur and a force, arising from this uniform character of violence and abruptness. It is consistent with itself throughout. Entire deformity can only be found where the features have not only no symmetry or softness in themselves, but have no connection with one another, presenting every variety of wretchedness, and a jumble of all sorts of defects, such as we see in Hogarth or in the streets of London; for instance, a large bottle-nose, with a small mouth twisted awry.
49.The following version, communicated by a classical friend, is exact and elegant:‘He said; and strait the herald ArgicideBeneath his feet his winged sandals tied,Immortal, golden, that his flight could bearO’er seas and lands, like waftage of the air.His rod too, that can close the eyes of menIn balmy sleep, and open them again,He took, and holding it in hand, went flying:Till, from Pieria’s top the sea descrying,Down to it sheer he dropp’d; and scour’d awayLike the wild gull, that, fishing o’er the bay,Flaps on, with pinions dipping in the brine;—So went on the far sea the shape divine.’Odyssey, book v.——‘That was Arion crown’d:—So went he playing on the wat’ry plain.’Faerie Queen.There is a striking description in Mr. Burke’s Reflections of the late Queen of France, whose charms had left their poison in the heart of this Irish orator and patriot, and set the world in a ferment sixteen years afterwards. ‘And surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.’ The idea is in Don Quixote, where the Duenna speaks of the air with which the Duchess ‘treads, or rather seems to disdain the ground she walks on.’ We have heard the same account of the gracefulness of Marie Antoinette from an artist, who saw her at Versailles much about the same time that Mr. Burke did. He stood in one corner of a little antechamber, and as the doors were narrow, she was obliged to pass sideways with her hoop. She glided by him in an instant, as if borne on a cloud.
49.The following version, communicated by a classical friend, is exact and elegant:
‘He said; and strait the herald ArgicideBeneath his feet his winged sandals tied,Immortal, golden, that his flight could bearO’er seas and lands, like waftage of the air.His rod too, that can close the eyes of menIn balmy sleep, and open them again,He took, and holding it in hand, went flying:Till, from Pieria’s top the sea descrying,Down to it sheer he dropp’d; and scour’d awayLike the wild gull, that, fishing o’er the bay,Flaps on, with pinions dipping in the brine;—So went on the far sea the shape divine.’Odyssey, book v.
‘He said; and strait the herald ArgicideBeneath his feet his winged sandals tied,Immortal, golden, that his flight could bearO’er seas and lands, like waftage of the air.His rod too, that can close the eyes of menIn balmy sleep, and open them again,He took, and holding it in hand, went flying:Till, from Pieria’s top the sea descrying,Down to it sheer he dropp’d; and scour’d awayLike the wild gull, that, fishing o’er the bay,Flaps on, with pinions dipping in the brine;—So went on the far sea the shape divine.’Odyssey, book v.
‘He said; and strait the herald ArgicideBeneath his feet his winged sandals tied,Immortal, golden, that his flight could bearO’er seas and lands, like waftage of the air.His rod too, that can close the eyes of menIn balmy sleep, and open them again,He took, and holding it in hand, went flying:Till, from Pieria’s top the sea descrying,Down to it sheer he dropp’d; and scour’d awayLike the wild gull, that, fishing o’er the bay,Flaps on, with pinions dipping in the brine;—So went on the far sea the shape divine.’
‘He said; and strait the herald Argicide
Beneath his feet his winged sandals tied,
Immortal, golden, that his flight could bear
O’er seas and lands, like waftage of the air.
His rod too, that can close the eyes of men
In balmy sleep, and open them again,
He took, and holding it in hand, went flying:
Till, from Pieria’s top the sea descrying,
Down to it sheer he dropp’d; and scour’d away
Like the wild gull, that, fishing o’er the bay,
Flaps on, with pinions dipping in the brine;—
So went on the far sea the shape divine.’
Odyssey, book v.
Odyssey, book v.
——‘That was Arion crown’d:—So went he playing on the wat’ry plain.’Faerie Queen.
——‘That was Arion crown’d:—So went he playing on the wat’ry plain.’Faerie Queen.
——‘That was Arion crown’d:—So went he playing on the wat’ry plain.’
——‘That was Arion crown’d:—
So went he playing on the wat’ry plain.’
Faerie Queen.
Faerie Queen.
There is a striking description in Mr. Burke’s Reflections of the late Queen of France, whose charms had left their poison in the heart of this Irish orator and patriot, and set the world in a ferment sixteen years afterwards. ‘And surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.’ The idea is in Don Quixote, where the Duenna speaks of the air with which the Duchess ‘treads, or rather seems to disdain the ground she walks on.’ We have heard the same account of the gracefulness of Marie Antoinette from an artist, who saw her at Versailles much about the same time that Mr. Burke did. He stood in one corner of a little antechamber, and as the doors were narrow, she was obliged to pass sideways with her hoop. She glided by him in an instant, as if borne on a cloud.
50.In a fruit or flower-piece by Vanhuysum, the minutest details acquire a certain grace and beauty from the delicacy with which they are finished. The eye dwells with a giddy delight on the liquid drops of dew, on the gauze wings of an insect, on the hair and feathers of a bird’s nest, the streaked and speckled egg-shells, the fine legs of the little travelling caterpillar. Who will suppose that the painter had not the same pleasure in detecting these nice distinctions in nature, that the critic has in tracing them in the picture?
50.In a fruit or flower-piece by Vanhuysum, the minutest details acquire a certain grace and beauty from the delicacy with which they are finished. The eye dwells with a giddy delight on the liquid drops of dew, on the gauze wings of an insect, on the hair and feathers of a bird’s nest, the streaked and speckled egg-shells, the fine legs of the little travelling caterpillar. Who will suppose that the painter had not the same pleasure in detecting these nice distinctions in nature, that the critic has in tracing them in the picture?
51.We here allude particularly to Turner, the ablest landscape painter now living, whose pictures are, however, too much abstractions of aerial perspective, and representations not so properly of the objects of nature as of the medium through which they are seen. They are the triumph of the knowledge of the artist, and of the power of the pencil over the barrenness of the subject. They are pictures of the elements of air, earth, and water. The artist delights to go back to the first chaos of the world, or to that state of things when the waters were separated from the dry land, and light from darkness, but as yet no living thing nor tree bearing fruit was seen upon the face of the earth. All is ‘without form and void.’ Some one said of his landscapes that they werepictures of nothing, and very like.
51.We here allude particularly to Turner, the ablest landscape painter now living, whose pictures are, however, too much abstractions of aerial perspective, and representations not so properly of the objects of nature as of the medium through which they are seen. They are the triumph of the knowledge of the artist, and of the power of the pencil over the barrenness of the subject. They are pictures of the elements of air, earth, and water. The artist delights to go back to the first chaos of the world, or to that state of things when the waters were separated from the dry land, and light from darkness, but as yet no living thing nor tree bearing fruit was seen upon the face of the earth. All is ‘without form and void.’ Some one said of his landscapes that they werepictures of nothing, and very like.
52.Raphael not only could not paint a landscape; he could not paint people in a landscape. He could not have painted the heads or the figures, or even the dresses, of the St. Peter Martyr. His figures have always anin-doorlook, that is, a set, determined, voluntary, dramatic character, arising from their own passions, or a watchfulness of those of others, and want that wild uncertainty of expression, which is connected with the accidents of nature and the changes of the elements. He has nothingromanticabout him.
52.Raphael not only could not paint a landscape; he could not paint people in a landscape. He could not have painted the heads or the figures, or even the dresses, of the St. Peter Martyr. His figures have always anin-doorlook, that is, a set, determined, voluntary, dramatic character, arising from their own passions, or a watchfulness of those of others, and want that wild uncertainty of expression, which is connected with the accidents of nature and the changes of the elements. He has nothingromanticabout him.
53.A good-natured man will always have a smack of pedantry about him. A lawyer, who talks about law,certioraris,noli prosequis, and silk gowns, though he may be a blockhead, is by no means dangerous. It is a very bad sign (unless where it arises from singular modesty) when you cannot tell a man’s profession from his conversation. Such persons either feel no interest in what concerns them most, or do not express what they feel. ‘Not to admire any thing’ is a very unsafe rule. A London apprentice, who did not admire the Lord Mayor’s coach, would stand a good chance of being hanged. We know but one person absurd enough to have formed his whole character on the above maxim of Horace, and who affects a superiority over others from an uncommon degree of natural and artificial stupidity.
53.A good-natured man will always have a smack of pedantry about him. A lawyer, who talks about law,certioraris,noli prosequis, and silk gowns, though he may be a blockhead, is by no means dangerous. It is a very bad sign (unless where it arises from singular modesty) when you cannot tell a man’s profession from his conversation. Such persons either feel no interest in what concerns them most, or do not express what they feel. ‘Not to admire any thing’ is a very unsafe rule. A London apprentice, who did not admire the Lord Mayor’s coach, would stand a good chance of being hanged. We know but one person absurd enough to have formed his whole character on the above maxim of Horace, and who affects a superiority over others from an uncommon degree of natural and artificial stupidity.
54.‘Je crois que l’imagination étoit la première de ses facultés, et qu’elle absorboit même toutes les autres.’—P. 80.
54.‘Je crois que l’imagination étoit la première de ses facultés, et qu’elle absorboit même toutes les autres.’—P. 80.
55.‘Il avoit une grande puissance de raison sur les matieres abstraites, sur les objets qui n’ont de réalité que dans la pensée,’ etc.—P. 81.
55.‘Il avoit une grande puissance de raison sur les matieres abstraites, sur les objets qui n’ont de réalité que dans la pensée,’ etc.—P. 81.
56.He did more towards the French Revolution than any other man. Voltaire, by his wit and penetration, had rendered superstition contemptible, and tyranny odious: but it was Rousseau who brought the feeling of irreconcilable enmity to rank and privileges,above humanity, home to the bosom of every man,—identified it with all the pride of intellect, and with the deepest yearnings of the human heart.
56.He did more towards the French Revolution than any other man. Voltaire, by his wit and penetration, had rendered superstition contemptible, and tyranny odious: but it was Rousseau who brought the feeling of irreconcilable enmity to rank and privileges,above humanity, home to the bosom of every man,—identified it with all the pride of intellect, and with the deepest yearnings of the human heart.
57.We shall here give one passage as an example, which has always appeared to us the very perfection of this kind of personal and local description. It is that where he gives an account of his being one of the choristers at the Cathedral at Chambery: ‘On jugera bien que la vie de la maîtrise toujours chantante et gaie, avec les Musiciens et les Enfans de chœur, me plaisoit plus que celle du Séminaire avec les Peres de S. Lazare. Cependant, cette vie, pour être plus libre, n’en étoit pas moins égale et réglée. J’étois fait pour aimer l’indépendance et pour n’en abuser jamais. Durant six mois entiers, je ne sortis pas une seule fois, que pour aller chez Maman ou à l’Église, et je n’en fus pas même tenté. Cette intervalle est un de ceux où j’ai vécu dans le plus grand calme, et que je me suis rappelé avec le plus de plaisir. Dans les situations diverses où je me suis trouvé, quelques uns out été marqués par un tel sentiment de bien-être, qu’en les remémorant j’en suis affecté comme si j’y étois encore. Non seulement je me rappelle les tems, les lieux, les personnes, mais tous les objets environnans, la température de l’air, son odeur, sa couleur, une certaine impression locale qui ne s’est fait sentir que là, et dont le souvenir vif m’y transporte de nouveau. Par exemple, tout ce qu’on répétait a la maîtrise, tout ce qu’on chantoit au chœur, tout ce qu’on y faisoit, le bel et noble habit des Chanoines, les hasubles des Prêtres, les mitres des Chantres, la figure des Musiciens, un vieux Charpentier boiteux qui jouoit de la contrebasse, un petit Abbé biondin qui jouoit du violon, le lambeau de soutane qu’après avoir posé son épée, M. le Maître endossoit par-dessus son habit laïque, et le beau surplis fin dont il en couvrait les loques pour aller au chœur; l’orgueil avec lequel j’allois, tenant ma petite flûte à bec, m’établir dans l’orchestre, à la tribune, pour un petit bout de récit que M. le Maître avoit fait exprès pour moi: le bon diner qui nous attendoit ensuite, le bon appétit qu’on y portoit:—ce concours d’objets vivement retracé m’a cent fois charmé dans ma mémoire, autant et plus que dans la realité. J’ai gardé toujours une affection tendre pour un certain air duConditor alme syderumqui marche par iambes; parce qu’un Dimanche de l’Avent j’entendis de mon lit chanter cette hymne, avant le jour, sur le perron de la Cathédrale, selon un rite de cette eglise là. Mlle.Merceret, femme de chambre de Maman, savoit un peu de musique; je n’oublierai jamais un petit motetafferte, que M. le Maître me fit chanter avec elle, et que sa maîtresse écoutait avec tant de plaisir. Enfin tout, jusqu’à la bonne servantePerrine, qui étoit si bonne fille, et que les enfans de chœur faisoient tant endêver—tout dans les souvenirs de ces tems de bonheur et d’innocence revient souvent me ravir et m’attrister.’—Confessions,LIV.iii. p. 283.
57.We shall here give one passage as an example, which has always appeared to us the very perfection of this kind of personal and local description. It is that where he gives an account of his being one of the choristers at the Cathedral at Chambery: ‘On jugera bien que la vie de la maîtrise toujours chantante et gaie, avec les Musiciens et les Enfans de chœur, me plaisoit plus que celle du Séminaire avec les Peres de S. Lazare. Cependant, cette vie, pour être plus libre, n’en étoit pas moins égale et réglée. J’étois fait pour aimer l’indépendance et pour n’en abuser jamais. Durant six mois entiers, je ne sortis pas une seule fois, que pour aller chez Maman ou à l’Église, et je n’en fus pas même tenté. Cette intervalle est un de ceux où j’ai vécu dans le plus grand calme, et que je me suis rappelé avec le plus de plaisir. Dans les situations diverses où je me suis trouvé, quelques uns out été marqués par un tel sentiment de bien-être, qu’en les remémorant j’en suis affecté comme si j’y étois encore. Non seulement je me rappelle les tems, les lieux, les personnes, mais tous les objets environnans, la température de l’air, son odeur, sa couleur, une certaine impression locale qui ne s’est fait sentir que là, et dont le souvenir vif m’y transporte de nouveau. Par exemple, tout ce qu’on répétait a la maîtrise, tout ce qu’on chantoit au chœur, tout ce qu’on y faisoit, le bel et noble habit des Chanoines, les hasubles des Prêtres, les mitres des Chantres, la figure des Musiciens, un vieux Charpentier boiteux qui jouoit de la contrebasse, un petit Abbé biondin qui jouoit du violon, le lambeau de soutane qu’après avoir posé son épée, M. le Maître endossoit par-dessus son habit laïque, et le beau surplis fin dont il en couvrait les loques pour aller au chœur; l’orgueil avec lequel j’allois, tenant ma petite flûte à bec, m’établir dans l’orchestre, à la tribune, pour un petit bout de récit que M. le Maître avoit fait exprès pour moi: le bon diner qui nous attendoit ensuite, le bon appétit qu’on y portoit:—ce concours d’objets vivement retracé m’a cent fois charmé dans ma mémoire, autant et plus que dans la realité. J’ai gardé toujours une affection tendre pour un certain air duConditor alme syderumqui marche par iambes; parce qu’un Dimanche de l’Avent j’entendis de mon lit chanter cette hymne, avant le jour, sur le perron de la Cathédrale, selon un rite de cette eglise là. Mlle.Merceret, femme de chambre de Maman, savoit un peu de musique; je n’oublierai jamais un petit motetafferte, que M. le Maître me fit chanter avec elle, et que sa maîtresse écoutait avec tant de plaisir. Enfin tout, jusqu’à la bonne servantePerrine, qui étoit si bonne fille, et que les enfans de chœur faisoient tant endêver—tout dans les souvenirs de ces tems de bonheur et d’innocence revient souvent me ravir et m’attrister.’—Confessions,LIV.iii. p. 283.
58.Burns, when about to sail for America after the first publication of his poems, consoled himself with ‘the delicious thought of being regarded as a clever fellow, though on the other side of the Atlantic.’
58.Burns, when about to sail for America after the first publication of his poems, consoled himself with ‘the delicious thought of being regarded as a clever fellow, though on the other side of the Atlantic.’
59.This man (Burke) who was a half poet and a half philosopher, has done more mischief than perhaps any other person in the world. His understanding was not competent to the discovery of any truth, but it was sufficient to palliate a falsehood; his reasons, of little weight in themselves, thrown into the scale of power, were dreadful. Without genius to adorn the beautiful, he had the art to throw a dazzling veil over the deformed and disgusting; and to strew the flowers of imagination over the rotten carcass of corruption, not to prevent, but to communicate the infection. His jealousy of Rousseau was one chief cause of his opposition to the French Revolution. The writings of the one had changed the institutions of a kingdom; while the speeches of the other, with the intrigues of his whole party, had changed nothing but theturnspit of the King’s kitchen. He would have blotted out the broad pure light of Heaven, because it did not first shine in at the little Gothic windows of St. Stephen’s Chapel. The genius of Rousseau had levelled the towers of the Bastile with the dust; our zealous reformist, who would rather be doing mischief than nothing, tried, therefore, to patch them up again, by calling that loathsome dungeon the King’s castle, and by fulsome adulation of the virtues of a Court strumpet. This man,—but enough of him here.
59.This man (Burke) who was a half poet and a half philosopher, has done more mischief than perhaps any other person in the world. His understanding was not competent to the discovery of any truth, but it was sufficient to palliate a falsehood; his reasons, of little weight in themselves, thrown into the scale of power, were dreadful. Without genius to adorn the beautiful, he had the art to throw a dazzling veil over the deformed and disgusting; and to strew the flowers of imagination over the rotten carcass of corruption, not to prevent, but to communicate the infection. His jealousy of Rousseau was one chief cause of his opposition to the French Revolution. The writings of the one had changed the institutions of a kingdom; while the speeches of the other, with the intrigues of his whole party, had changed nothing but theturnspit of the King’s kitchen. He would have blotted out the broad pure light of Heaven, because it did not first shine in at the little Gothic windows of St. Stephen’s Chapel. The genius of Rousseau had levelled the towers of the Bastile with the dust; our zealous reformist, who would rather be doing mischief than nothing, tried, therefore, to patch them up again, by calling that loathsome dungeon the King’s castle, and by fulsome adulation of the virtues of a Court strumpet. This man,—but enough of him here.
60.This word is not English.
60.This word is not English.
61.Written in 1806.
61.Written in 1806.
62.Plato’s cave, in which he supposes a man to be shut up all his life with his back to the light, and to see nothing of the figures of men, or other objects that pass by, but their shadows on the opposite wall of his cell, so that when he is let out and sees the real figures, he is only dazzled and confounded by them, seems an ingenious satire on the life of a book-worm.
62.Plato’s cave, in which he supposes a man to be shut up all his life with his back to the light, and to see nothing of the figures of men, or other objects that pass by, but their shadows on the opposite wall of his cell, so that when he is let out and sees the real figures, he is only dazzled and confounded by them, seems an ingenious satire on the life of a book-worm.
63.The following lively description of this actress is given by Cibber in his Apology:—‘What found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha, inMarriage-à-la-mode. Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Montfort’s action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think she might naturally shew a little of the sex’s decent reserve, though never so slightly covered! No, sir; not a tittle of it; modesty is the virtue of a poor-soul’d country gentlewoman: she is too much a court-lady, to be under so vulgar a confusion: she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father’s commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once: and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty, diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it: Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which at last he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which sheswimsfrom him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.’—The Life of Colley Cibber, p. 138.
63.The following lively description of this actress is given by Cibber in his Apology:—
‘What found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha, inMarriage-à-la-mode. Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Montfort’s action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think she might naturally shew a little of the sex’s decent reserve, though never so slightly covered! No, sir; not a tittle of it; modesty is the virtue of a poor-soul’d country gentlewoman: she is too much a court-lady, to be under so vulgar a confusion: she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father’s commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once: and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty, diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it: Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which at last he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which sheswimsfrom him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.’—The Life of Colley Cibber, p. 138.
64.A few alterations and corrections have been inserted in the present edition.[Note by W. H. to Second Edition.]
64.A few alterations and corrections have been inserted in the present edition.
[Note by W. H. to Second Edition.]
65.See the passage, beginning—‘It is impossible you should see this, were they as prime as goats,’ etc.
65.See the passage, beginning—‘It is impossible you should see this, were they as prime as goats,’ etc.
66.‘Iago.Ay, too gentle.Othello.Nay, that’s certain.’
66.
‘Iago.Ay, too gentle.Othello.Nay, that’s certain.’
‘Iago.Ay, too gentle.Othello.Nay, that’s certain.’
‘Iago.Ay, too gentle.
‘Iago.Ay, too gentle.
Othello.Nay, that’s certain.’
Othello.Nay, that’s certain.’