NOTES
LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS
Any differences between the text quoted by Hazlitt and the texts used for the purposes of these notes which seem worth pointing out are indicated in square brackets.
For Sergeant Talfourd’s impressions of these lectures, and other matters of interest connected with their delivery, the reader may be referred to theMemoirs of William Hazlitt, vol. i., pp. 236et seq.
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1.Spreads its sweet leaves.Romeo and Juliet,I.1.
2.The stuff of which our life is made.Cf.The Tempest,IV.1.
Mere oblivion.As You Like It,II.7.
Man’s life is poor as beast’s.King Lear,II.4. [‘Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s.’]
There is warrant for it.Cf.Richard III.,I.4, andMacbeth,II.3.
Such seething brainsandthe lunatic.A Midsummer Night’s Dream,V.1.
3.Angelica and Medoro.Characters in Ariosto’sOrlando Furioso(1516).
Plato banished the poets.The Republic, BookX.
Ecstasy is very cunning in.Hamlet,III.4.
According to Lord Bacon.An adaptation of a passage in theAdvancement of Learning, BookII., Chap. xiii. (ed. Joseph Devey,Bohn, p. 97).
4.Our eyes are made the fools.Macbeth,II.1.
That if it would but apprehend.A Midsummer Night’s Dream,V.1.
The flame o’ the taper.Cymbeline,II.2.
For they are old.Cf.King Lear,II.4.
5.Nothing but his unkind daughters.King Lear,III.4. [‘Could have subdued nature to such a lowness.’]
The little dogs.King Lear,III.6.
So I am.King Lear,IV.7.
O now for ever.Othello,III.3.
6.Never, Iago.Othello,III.3.
But there where I have garner’d.Othello,IV.2.
Moore.Edward Moore (1712–1757), author ofThe Gamester(1753).
Lillo.George Lillo (1693–1739), author ofThe London Merchant, or the History of George Barnwell(1731).
7.As Mr. Burke observes.Sublime and Beautiful, PartI.§ 15.
Masterless passion.Merchant of Venice,IV.1.
[‘for affection,Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood.’]
[‘for affection,Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood.’]
[‘for affection,Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood.’]
[‘for affection,
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood.’]
Satisfaction to the thought.Cf.Othello,III.3.
8.Now night descending.Dunciad,I.89, 90.
8.Throw him on the steep.Ode to Fear.
[‘ridgy steepOf some loose hanging rock to sleep.’]
[‘ridgy steepOf some loose hanging rock to sleep.’]
[‘ridgy steepOf some loose hanging rock to sleep.’]
[‘ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep.’]
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend.King Lear,I.4. [‘More hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child.’]
Both at the first and now.Hamlet,III.2.
9.Doctor Chalmers’s Discoveries.Thomas Chalmers, D.D. (1780–1847), who sought in hisA Series of Discourses on the Christian Revelation, viewed in connection with Modern Astronomy(1817), to reconcile science with current conceptions of Christianity. SeeThe Spirit of the Age, vol.III.p. 228 and note.
10.Bandit fierce.Comus, l. 426.
Our fell of hair.Macbeth,V.5.
Macbeth ... for the sake of the music.Probably Purcell’s. It was written for D’Avenant’s version and produced in 1672 (Genest). Cf.The Round Table, vol.I.p. 138 and note.
Between the acting.Julius Caesar,II.1. [‘The Genius and the mortal instruments.’]
11.Thoughts that voluntary move.Paradise Lost,III.37, 38.
The words of Mercury.Love’s Labour’s Lost,V.11. [‘The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.’]
So from the ground.Faery Queene,I.vi. [‘With doubled Eccho.’]
12.The secret soul of harmony.L’Allegro, l. 144. [‘The hidden soul of harmony.’]
The golden cadences of poetry.Love’s Labour’s Lost,IV.2.
Sailing with supreme dominion.Gray’sProgress of Poesy,III.3.
13.Sounding always.Prologue to theCanterbury Tales, l. 275.
Addison’s Campaign.1705. Addison wrote it on Marlborough’s victory of Blenheim. For its description as a ‘Gazette in Rhyme,’ see Dr. Joseph Warton’s (1722–1800)An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope(1756–82).
14.Married to immortal verse.L’Allegro, l. 137.
Dipped in dews of Castalie.Cf. T. Heywood’s,
‘And Jonson, though his learned penWas dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.’
‘And Jonson, though his learned penWas dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.’
‘And Jonson, though his learned penWas dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.’
‘And Jonson, though his learned pen
Was dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.’
The most beautiful of all the Greek tragedies.Sophocles’sPhiloctetes.
As I walked about.Defoe’sRobinson Crusoe, Part I. p. 125, ed. G. A. Aitken.
15.Give an echo.Twelfth Night,II.4.
Our poesy.Timon of Athens,I.1. [‘Which oozes.’]
16.All plumed like ostriches.Adapted from the First Part ofKing Henry IV.,IV.1. [‘As full of spirit as the month of May.’]
If we fly into the uttermost parts of the earth.Cf.Psalms, cxxxix. 9–11.
18.Pope Anastasius the Sixth.Inferno,XI.
Count Ugolino.Inferno,XXXIII.Neither was Lamb satisfied with the conception. See his paper on ‘The Reynolds Gallery’ inThe Examiner, June 6, 1813.
The lamentation of Selma.Colma’s lament in theSongs of Selma.
The Chaucer and Spenser references throughout are to Skeat’sStudent’s Chaucer, and to theGlobeEdition ofSpenser(Morris and Hales).
19.Chaucer.Modern authorities date Chaucer’s birth from 1340. It is no longer held as true that he had an university education. The story of his plot against the king, his flight and his imprisonment, is also legendary.
20.Close pent up, and the next quotation.King Lear,III.2.
Flowery tenderness.Measure for Measure,III.1.
And as the new abashed nightingale.Troilus and Criseyde,III.177.
Thus passeth yere by yere.ll. 1033–9 [‘fairer of hem two’].
21.That stondeth at a gap.‘The Knightes Tale,’ 1639–42.
Have ye not seen.‘The Tale of the Man of Law,’ 645–51.
Swiche sorrow he maketh.‘The Knightes Tale,’ 1277–80.
22.Babbling gossip of the air.Twelfth Night,I.5.
There was also a nonne.‘The Prologue,’ 118–129 [‘Entuned in hir nose ful semely’]; 137–155 [‘And held after the newe world the space’]; 165–178; 189–207.
24.Lawyer Dowling.BookVIII., Chap. viii.
No wher so besy a man.‘The Prologue,’ 321–2.
Whose hous it snewed.Ibid.345.
Who rode upon a rouncie.Ibid.390.
Whose studie was but litel of the Bible.Ibid.438.
All whose parish.Ibid.449–52.
Whose parish was wide.Ibid.491.
A slendre colerike man.Ibid.587.
Chaucer, it has been said, numbered the classes of men.Cf. Wm. Blake’sDescriptive Catalogue, III. ‘As Newton numbered the stars, and as Linnaeus numbered the plants, so Chaucer numbered the classes of men.’
A Sompnoure.Ibid.623–41. [‘Children were aferd,’ ‘oynons, and eek lekes,’ ‘A fewe termes hadde he’]; 663–669.
25.Ther maist thou se.‘The Knightes Tale,’ 2128–2151; 2155–2178; 2185–6.
27.The Flower and the Leaf.Most modern scholars regard the evidence which attributes this poem to Chaucer as insufficient. The same few words of Hazlitt’s were originally used inThe Round Table, ‘Why the Arts are not Progressive?’ vol.I.p. 162.
28.Griselda.‘The Clerkes Tale.’ SeeThe Round Table, vol.I.p. 162.
The faith of Constance.‘The Tale of the Man of Law.’
29.Oh Alma redemptoris mater.‘The Prioress’s Tale.’
Whan that Arcite.‘The Knightes Tale,’ 1355–71. [‘His hewe falwe.’]
Alas the wo!ll. 2771–9.
30.The three temples, ll. 1918–2092.
Dryden’s version,i.e.his ‘Palamon and Arcite.’
Why shulde I not.‘The Knightes Tale,’ 1967–9, 1972–80. [‘In which ther dwelleth.’]
The statue of Mars.Ibid.2041–2, 2047–8.
That heaves no sigh.‘Heave thou no sigh, nor shed a tear,’ Prior:Answer to Chloe.
Let me not like a worm.‘The Clerkes Tale,’ l. 880.
31.Nought fer fro thilke paleis honourable.Ibid.197–245. [‘Sette his yë’]; 274–94 [‘Hir threshold goon’].
32.All conscience and tender heart.‘The Prologue,’ 150.
From grave to gay.Pope,Essay on Man, Ep.IV.380.
33.The Cock and the Fox.‘The Nonne Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen.’
January and May.‘The Marchantes Tale.’
The story of the three thieves.‘The Pardoners Tale.’
Mr. West.Benjamin West (1738–1820). See the article on this picture by Hazlitt inThe Edinburgh Magazine, Dec. 1817, where the same extract is quoted.
34.Ne Deth, alas.‘The Marchantes Tale,’ 727–38.
34.Occleve.Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (b. 1368), who expressed his grief at his ‘master dear’ Chaucer’s death in his version ofDe Regimine Principum.
‘Ancient Gower’ John Gower (1330–1408), who wroteConfessio Amantis(1392–3), and to whom Chaucer dedicated (‘O moral Gower’) hisTroilus and Criseyde. SeePericles, I.
Lydgate.John Lydgate (c.1370–c. 1440), poet and imitator of Chaucer.
Wyatt, Surry, and Sackville.Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), courtier and poet; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1518–1547), who shares with Wyatt the honour of introducing the sonnet into English verse; Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (c. 1536–1608), part author of the earliest tragedy in English,Ferrex and Porrex, acted 1561–2.
Sir John Davies(1569–1626), poet and statesman. Spenser was sent to Ireland in 1580 as private secretary to Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Davies was sent to Ireland as Solicitor-General in 1603, four years after Spenser’s death.
The bog of Allan.The Faerie Queene, Book II. CantoIX.
An ably written paper.‘A View of the Present State of Ireland,’ registered 1598, printed 1633.
An obscure inn.In King Street, Westminster, Jan. 13, 1599.
The treatment he received from Burleigh.It has been suggested that the disfavour with which Spenser was regarded by Burleigh—a disfavour that stood in the way of his preferment—was because of Spenser’s friendship with Essex, and Leicester’s patronage of him.
35.Clap on high.The Faerie Queene, III.XII.23.
In green vine leaves.I.IV.22.
Upon the top of all his lofty crest.I.VII.32.
In reading the Faery Queen.The incidents mentioned will be found in BooksIII.9,I.7,II.6, andIII.12, respectively.
36.And mask, and antique pageantry.L’Allegro, 128.
And more to lull him.I.I.41.
The honey-heavy dew of slumber.Julius Caesar,II.1.
Eftsoones they heard.II.XII.70–1. [‘To read what manner.’]
The whiles some one did chaunt.Ibid.74–8. [‘Bare to ready spoyl.’]
38.The House of Pride.I.IV.
The Cave of Mammon.II.VII.28–50.
The Cave of Despair.I.IX.33–35.
The wars he well remember’d.II.IX.56.
The description of Belphœbe.II.III.21.
Florimel and the Witch’s son.III.VII.12.
The gardens of Adonis.III.VI.29.
The Bower of Bliss.II.XII.42.
Poussin’s pictures.Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). See Hazlitt’sTable Talk, vol.VI.p. 168,et seq.
And eke that stranger knight.III.IX.20.
Her hair was sprinkled with flowers.II.III.30.
The cold icicles.III.VIII.35. [‘Ivory breast.’].
That was Arion crowned.IV.XI.line 3, stanza 23, and line 1, stanza 24.
39.And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony.I.IV.21–2. [‘In shape and life.’]
And next to him rode lustfull Lechery.Ibid.24–6.
40.Yet not more sweet.Carmen Nuptiale,The Lay of the Laureate(1816), xviii. 4–6.
The first was Fancy.III.XII.7–13, 22–3. [‘Next after her.’]
42.The account of Satyrane.I.VI.24.
Go seek some other play-fellows.Stanza 28. [‘Go find.’]
42.By the help of his fayre horns.III.X.47.
The change of Malbecco into Jealousy.III.X.56–60.
That house’s form.II.VII.28–9, 23.
That all with one consent.Troilus and Cressida,III.3.
43.High over hill.III.X.55.
Pope, who used to ask.In view of this remark, it may be of interest to quote the following passage from Spence’sAnecdotes(pp. 296–7, 1820; Section viii., 1743–4): ‘There is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one’s old age, as it did in one’s youth. I read theFaerie Queene, when I was about twelve, with infinite delight, and I think it gave me as much, when I read it over about a year or two ago.’
The account of Talus, the Iron Man.V.I.12.
The ... Episode of Pastorella.VI.IX.12.
44.In many a winding bout.L’Allegro, 139–140.
The references are to theGlobeEdition of Shakespeare, and Masson’s three-volume edition of Milton’sPoetical Works. SeeThe Round Table, ‘On Milton’s Versification,’ vol. i. pp. 36et seq., for passages used again for the purposes of this lecture. See alsoibid.‘Why the Arts are not Progressive?’ pp. 160et seq., and notes to those two Essays.
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46.The human face divine.Paradise Lost,III.44.
And made a sunshine in the shady place.Faerie Queene, I.III.4.
The fault has been more in their[is not in our]stars.Cf.Julius Caesar,I.2.
47.A mind reflecting ages past.See vol.IV.notes to p. 213.
All corners of the earth.Cymbeline,III.iv.
Nodded to him.A Midsummer Night’s Dream,III.1.
His so potent art.Tempest,V.1.
48.Subject[servile]to the same[all]skyey influences.Measure for Measure,III.1.
His frequent haunts[‘my daily walks’].Comus, 314.
Coheres semblably together.. Cf.2 Henry IV.,V.1.
Me and thy crying self.The Tempest,I.2.
What, man! ne’er pull your hat.Macbeth,IV.3.
Man delights not me, and the following quotation. Adapted fromHamlet,II.2. Rosencraus should be Rosencrantz.
A combination and a form.Hamlet,III.4.
49.My lord, as I was reading[sewing],Hamlet,II.1. [‘His stockings foul’d ... so piteous in purport ... loosed out of hell.’]
There is a willow[‘grows aslant’].Hamlet,IV.7.
50.He’s speaking now.Antony and Cleopatra,I.5.
It is my birth-day.Antony and Cleopatra,III.13.
51.Nigh sphered in Heaven.Collins’sOde on the Poetical Character, 66.
To make society the sweeter welcome.Macbeth,III.1.
52.With a little act upon the blood[burn]like the mines of sulphur.Othello,III.3. [‘Syrups of the world.’].
While rage with rage.Troilus and Cressida,I.3.
In their untroubled element.
‘That glorious starIn its untroubled element will shine,As now it shines, when we are laid in earthAnd safe from all our sorrows.’Wordsworth,The Excursion,VI.763–66.
‘That glorious starIn its untroubled element will shine,As now it shines, when we are laid in earthAnd safe from all our sorrows.’Wordsworth,The Excursion,VI.763–66.
‘That glorious starIn its untroubled element will shine,As now it shines, when we are laid in earthAnd safe from all our sorrows.’
‘That glorious star
In its untroubled element will shine,
As now it shines, when we are laid in earth
And safe from all our sorrows.’
Wordsworth,The Excursion,VI.763–66.
Wordsworth,The Excursion,VI.763–66.
52.Satan’s address to the sun.Paradise Lost,IV.31et seq.
53.O that I were a mockery king of snow[standing before]the sun of Bolingbroke.Richard II.,IV.1.
His form had not yet lost.Paradise Lost,I.591–4.
A modern school of poetry.The Lake School.
With what measure they mete.St. Mark, iv. 24;St. Luke, vi. 38.
It glances from heaven to earth.A Midsummer Night’s Dream,V.1.
Puts a girdle.Ibid.II.1.
54.I ask that I might waken reverence[‘and bid the cheek’].Troilus and Cressida,I.3.
No man is the lord of anything, and the following quotation.Ibid.III.3.
55.In Shakespeare.Cf. ‘On application to study,’The Plain Speaker.
Light thickens.Macbeth,III.2.
His whole course of love.Othello,I.3.
The business of the State.Ibid.IV.2.
Of ditties highly penned.1 King Henry IV.,III.1.
And so by many winding nooks.Two Gentlemen of Verona,II.7.
56.Great vulgar and the small.Cowley’sTranslation of Horace’s Ode,III.1.
His delights[were]dolphin-like.Antony and Cleopatra,V.2.
57.Blind Thamyris.Paradise Lost,III.35–6.
With darkness.Ibid.VII.27.
Piling up every stone.Ibid.XI.324–5.
For after ... I had from my first years.The Reason of Church Government, BookII.
58.The noble heart.Faerie Queene, I.V.1.
Makes Ossa like a wart.Hamlet,V.1.
59.Him followed Rimmon.Paradise Lost,I.467–9.
As when a vulture.Ibid.III.431–9.
The great vision.Lycidas, 161.
The Pilot.Paradise Lost,I.204.
The wandering moon.Il Penseroso, 67–70.
60.Like a steam.Comus, 556.
He soon saw within ken.Paradise Lost,III.621–44.
61.With Atlantean shoulders.Ibid.II.306–7.
Lay floating many a rood.Ibid.I.196.
That sea beast, Leviathan.Ibid.I.200–202.
What a force of imagination.Cf.Notes and Queries, 4th Series, xi. 174, where J. H. T. Oakley points out that Milton is simply translating a well-known Greek phrase for the ocean.
His hand was known.Paradise Lost,I.732–47.
62.But chief the spacious hall.Ibid.I.762–88.
Round he surveys.Ibid.III.555–67.
63.Such as the meeting soul.L’Allegro, 138–140.
The hidden soul.Ibid.144.
God the Father turns a school-divine.Pope, 1st Epistle,Hor.BookII.102.
As when heaven’s fire.Paradise Lost,I.612–13.
64.All is not lost.Paradise Lost,I.106–9.
That intellectual being.Paradise Lost,II.147–8.
Being swallowed up.Ibid.II.149–50.
Fallen cherub.Ibid.I.157–8.
Rising aloft[‘he steers his flight aloft’].Ibid.I.225–6.
65.Is this the region.Ibid.I.242–63.
66.His philippics against Salmasius.In 1651 Milton replied in hisDefensio proPopulo AnglicanotoDefensio Regia pro Carolo I.(1649) by Claudius Salmasius or Claude de Saumaise (1588–1658), a professor at Leyden. The latter work had been undertaken at the request of CharlesII.by Salmasius, who was regarded as the leading European scholar of his day.
With hideous ruin.Paradise Lost,I.46.
Retreated in a silent valley.Paradise Lost,II.547–50.
A noted political writer of the present day.SeePolitical Essays, vol.III.pp. 155,et seq.‘Illustrations of the Times Newspaper,’ and notes thereto. Dr. Stoddart and Napoleon the Great are the persons alluded to. See also Hone’s ‘Buonapartephobia, or the Origin of Dr. Slop’s Name,’ which had reached a tenth edition in 1820.
Longinus.On the Sublime,IX.
67.No kind of traffic.Adapted fromThe Tempest,II.1.
The generations were prepared.Wordsworth,The Excursion,VI.554–57.
The unapparent deep.Paradise Lost,VII.103.
Know to know no more.Cf. Cowper,Truth, 327.
They toiled not.St. Matthew,VI.28, 29.
In them the burthen.Wordsworth, ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,’ 38–41.
Such as angels weep.Paradise Lost,I.620.
68.In either hand.Paradise Lost,XII.637–47.
The references throughout are to theGlobeEditions of Pope and Dryden.
69–71.The question, whether Pope was a poet.In a slightly different form these paragraphs appeared inThe Edinburgh Magazine, Feb. 1818.
70.The pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.Romeo and Juliet,III.5.
71.Martha Blount(1690–1762). She was Pope’s life-long friend, to whom he dedicated several poems, and to whom he bequeathed most of his property.
In Fortune’s ray.Troilus and Cressida,I.3.
The gnarled oak ... the soft myrtle.Measure for Measure,II.2.
Calm contemplation and poetic ease.Thomson’sAutumn, 1275.
72.More subtle web Arachne cannot spin.Faerie Queene, II.XII.77.
Not with more glories.The Rape of the Lock,II.1–22.
73.From her fair head.Ibid.III.154.
Now meet thy fate.Ibid.V.87–96.
The Lutrin of Boileau.Boileau’s account of an ecclesiastical dispute over a reading-desk was published in 1674–81. It was translated into English by Nicholas Rowe in 1708.The Rape of the Lockwas published in 1712–14.
’Tis with our judgments.Essay on Criticism, 9–10.
74.Still green with bays.Ibid.181–92.
His little bark with theirs should sail.Essay on Man,IV.383–6. [‘My little bark attendant sail.’]
But of the two, etc.Essay on Criticism, See theRound Table, vol.I.p. 41, for the first mention of these couplets by Hazlitt.
75.There died the best of passions.Eloisa to Abelard, 40.
76.If ever chance.Ibid.347–8.
He spins[‘draweth out’]the thread of his verbosity.Love’s Labour’s Lost,V.1.
The very words.Macbeth,I.3.
Now night descending.The Dunciad,I.89–90.
Virtue may chuse.Epilogue to the Satires, DialogueI., 137–172.
77.His character of Chartres.Moral Essays, EpistleIII.
Where Murray.Imitations of Horace, EpistleVI., To Mr. Murray, 52–3. William Murray (1704–1793) was created Baron Mansfield in 1756.
Why rail they then.Epilogue to the Satires, DialogueII.138–9.
Despise low thoughts[joys].Imitations of Horace, EpistleVI., To Mr. Murray, 60–2.
78.Character of Addison.Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 193–214.
Alas! how changed.Moral Essays, EpistleIII.305–8.
Why did I write?Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 125–146.
Oh, lasting as those colours.Epistle to Mr. Jervas, 63–78.
79.Who have eyes, but they see not.Psalm,CXV.5, etc.
I lisp’d in numbers.Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 128.
Et quum conabar scribere, versus erat.Ovid,Trist.,IV.x. 25–26.