THE PERIODICAL PRESS
This essay is referred to by Brougham, who, on August 18, 1837, wrote to Macvey Napier (then editor of theEdinburgh Review): ‘I wish theNewspaper Presshad not been flattered so much; at any rate its glaring faults should have been pointed out. This was done, and very ill done, in 1823, when it had hardly any sins to answer for.’ (Selections from the Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 199).
Hazlitt here reviews the first two volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s (1775–1864)Imaginary Conversations, published in 1824. A second edition, ‘corrected and enlarged,’ appeared in 1826, and vol.III.completing the ‘first series,’ in 1828.Vols.IV.andV.constituting the ‘second series,’ were published in 1829. For an account of Hazlitt’s visit to Landor at Florence in 1825 see Forster’sWalter Savage Landor, a Biography,II.201–211, where a subsequent letter from Hazlitt to Landor is quoted, in which he says: ‘I am much gratified that you are pleased with theSpirit of the Age. Somebody ought to like it, for I am sure there will be plenty to cry out against it. I hope you did not find any sad blunders in the second volume; but you can hardly suppose the depression of body and mind under which I wrote some of those articles.’ This review of theImaginary Conversationsseems to have been cut about a good deal by Jeffrey.
‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bondOf erring faith conjoin’d.’Roderick, the Last of the Goths,I.18–19.
‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bondOf erring faith conjoin’d.’Roderick, the Last of the Goths,I.18–19.
‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bondOf erring faith conjoin’d.’Roderick, the Last of the Goths,I.18–19.
‘Persian and Copt and Tatar, in one bond
Of erring faith conjoin’d.’
Roderick, the Last of the Goths,I.18–19.
SHELLEY’S POSTHUMOUS POEMS
The volume here reviewed was published in 1824 by John and Henry L. Hunt. Hazlitt had little sympathy with Shelley either as a man or a poet. The grounds of his distrust of him as a man are given more than once, most fully, perhaps, in the essay ‘On Paradox and Common-Place’ (Table Talk,VI.148–150), which led to the quarrel between Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt in 1821. SeeMemoirs of William Hazlitt,I.304–315, andFour Generations of a Literary Family,I.130–135. As for Shelley’s poetry, P. G. Patmore suggests that Hazlitt knew little or nothing of it. ‘Though I have often,’ he says (My Friends and Acquaintance,III.136), ‘heard him speak disparagingly of Shelley as a poet, I never heard him refer to a single line or passage of his published writings.’ Hazlitt met Shelley at Leigh Hunt’s, and the two discussed Monarchy and Republicanism until three in the morning.’ See Mary Shelley’s journal of 1817, quoted in Professor Dowden’sLife,II.103.
LADY MORGAN’S LIFE OF SALVATOR
ThisLifeappeared in 1823. Sydney Owenson (1783?–1859), author ofThe Wild Irish Girlin (1806), and many other less known books, was the daughter of Robert Owenson, the actor, and in 1812 married Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, the physician and philosopher. Cf.The Spirit of the Age(vol.IV.), p. 308, andThe Plain Speaker(vol.VII.), p. 220. This review was republished inCriticisms on Art(1843–4) and inEssays on the Fine Arts(1873).
This review is stated to be Hazlitt’s in the volume ofSelections from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, p. 70 note. Jeffrey writes to Napier, Nov. 23, 1829 (Ibid.pp. 69–70): ‘Your American reviewer is not a first-rate man, a clever writer enough, but not deep or judicious, or even very fair. I have no notion who he is. If he is young he may come to good, but he should be trained to a more modest opinion of himself, and to take a little more pains, and go more patiently and thoroughly into his subject.’ Carlyle, on the other hand, writes, Jan. 27. 1830 (Ibid.p. 78): ‘I liked the last [number] very well; the review of Channing seemed to me especially good.’ It is very strange that Jeffrey should not have recognised Hazlitt’s manner. Procter (An Autobiographical Fragment, p. 261) quotes a letter from Jeffrey of May 12, 1826, in which he says, ‘Can you tell me anything of our ancient ally Hazlitt?’
A review of John Flaxman’s (1755–1826)Lectures on Sculpture(1829). The review was republished inCriticisms on Art(1843–4) and inEssays on the Fine Arts(1873). Flaxman had been professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy from 1810. In hisMemoirs of William Hazlitt(II.269) Mr. W. C. Hazlitt gives a number of marginal notes made by Hazlitt upon his copy of Flaxman’s Lectures probably with a view to this article.
Walter Wilson’s (1781–1847)Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoewas published in 3 vols. in 1830.
This was ostensibly a review ofCloudesley, published in 1830. Some years previously Sir James Mackintosh had suggested that Hazlitt should be asked to review Godwin’s novels. Towards the end of 1823 he wrote to Godwin: ‘I see your novels advertised to-day. Could you ask Mr. Hazlitt to review them in theEdinburgh Review. He is a very original thinker, and notwithstanding some singularities which appear to me faults, a very powerful writer. I say this, though I know he is no panegyrist of mine. His critique might serve all our purposes, and would, I doubt not, promote the interests of literature also.’ (C. Kegan Paul,William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries,II.289.) TheEdinburghhad reviewed Godwin’sFleetwood(vol.VI.p. 182), and had praisedCaleb Williamsvery highly in a review of theLives of Edward and John Philips(XXV.p. 485). Cf. Hazlitt’s sketch of Godwin inThe Spirit of the Age, vol.IV.pp. 200et seq., and notes.