Hazlitt on English Literature Part 48

_Tales of my Landlord_. Scott's.

_Lady Morgan_ (1783?-1859), a writer of Irish stories, of which the best-known is "The Wild Irish Girl" (1806). She is also the author of certain miscellaneous productions, among which is a "Life of Salvator Rosa" reviewed by Hazlitt for the Edinburgh Review, July, 1824. Works, X, 276-310.

_Anastatius_, an Eastern romance by Thomas Hope (1770-1831).

_Delphine_ (1802), a novel by Madame De Stael (1766-1817), the celebrated French bluestocking.

_in their newest gloss_. "Macbeth," i, 7, 34.

_Andrew Millar_ (1707-1768), the publisher of Thomson's and Fielding's works.

_Thurloe's State Papers_. "A Collection of State Papers" (1742) by John Thurloe (1616-1668), Secretary of State under Cromwell.

_Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller_ (1648-1723), a portrait painter of German birth whose work and reputation belong to England.

P. 335. _for thoughts_. Cf. "Hamlet," iv, 5, 175: "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts."

_Fortunatus's Wis.h.i.+ng Cap_, in Dekker's play of "Old Fortunatus."

_Bruscambille_. "Tristram Shandy," Bk. III, ch. 35.

_the masquerade_. "Tom Jones," Bk. XIII, ch. 7.

_the disputes_. Bk. III, ch. 3.

_the escape of Molly_. Bk. IV, ch. 8.

_Sophia and her m.u.f.f_. Bk. V, ch. 4.

_her aunt's lecture_. Bk. VII, ch. 3.

_the puppets dallying_. "Hamlet," iii, 2, 257.

P. 336. _ignorance was bliss_. Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton."

_Ballantyne press_. The printing firm of John and James Ballantyne in Edinburgh with which Scott was a.s.sociated, and in whose financial ruin he was so disastrously involved.

_Minerva Press_. The sponsor of popular romances.

P. 337. _Mrs. Radcliffe_, Anne (1764-1823), a very popular writer of novels in which romance, sentiment, and terror are combined in cunning proportions. Her chief novels are "The Romance of the Forest" (1791), "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794) and "The Italian" (1797). Hazlitt writes of her in the lecture "On the English Novelists."

_sweet in the mouth_. Revelation, x, 9.

_gay creatures_. "Comus," 299.

_Tom Jones discovers Square_. Bk. V, ch. 5.

_where Parson Adams_. "Joseph Andrews," Bk. IV, ch. 14.

P. 338. _Chubb's Tracts_. Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), a tallow-chandler who devoted his leisure hours to the deistic controversy. His "Tracts and Posthumous Works" were published in six volumes in 1754.

_fate, free-will_. "Paradise Lost," II, 560.

_Would I had never seen_. Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," Scene 19.

P. 339. _New Eloise_. "Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise" (1760), a novel by the great French sentimentalist, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who was the most powerful personal force in the revolutionary movement of the eighteenth century and whose writings have left a deep impression on the political and educational systems of the nineteenth. His other important works are "The Social Contract" and "emile" (1762) and the "Confessions"

(1782). Hazlitt has a "Character of Rousseau" in the "Round Table" (see p. xliv, n.).

_scattered like stray-gifts_. Wordsworth's "Stray Pleasures."

_Sir Fopling Flutter_, in Sir George Etherege's comedy "The Man of Mode"

(1676).

P. 339, n. _a friend_. Charles Lamb.

P. 340. _leurre de dupe_, a decoy. The expression occurs in the fourth book of Rousseau's "Confessions."

_a load to sink a navy_. "Henry VIII," iii, 2, 383.

_Marcian Calonna is a dainty book._ Lamb's "Sonnet to the Author of Poems Published under the Name of Barry Cornwall."

P. 341. _Keats_. Hazlitt shared the popular conception of Keats as an effeminate poet. He concludes the essay "On Effeminacy of Character" in "Table Talk" with a reference to Keats: "I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr. Keats's poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style.

He had beauty, tenderness, delicacy, in an uncommon degree, but there was a want of strength and substance. His Endymion is a very delightful description of the illusions of a youthful imagination, given up to airy dreams--we have flowers, clouds, rainbows, moonlight, all sweet sounds and smells, and Oreads and Dryads flitting by--but there is nothing tangible in it, nothing marked or palpable--we have none of the hardy spirit or rigid forms of antiquity. He painted his own thoughts and character; and did not transport himself into the fabulous and heroic ages. There is a want of action, of character, and so far, of imagination, but there is exquisite fancy. All is soft and fleshy, without bone or muscle. We see in him the youth, without the manhood of poetry. His genius breathed 'vernal delight and joy.'--'Like Maia's son he stood and shook his plumes,' with fragrance filled. His mind was redolent of spring. He had not the fierceness of summer, nor the richness of autumn, and winter he seemed not to have known, till he felt the icy hand of death!" Again in the introduction to the "Select British Poets" (Works, V, 378), he says that Keats "gave the greatest promise of genius of any poet of his day. He displayed extreme tenderness, beauty, originality, and delicacy of fancy; all he wanted was manly strength and fort.i.tude to reject the temptations of singularity in sentiment and expression. Some of his shorter and later pieces are, however, as free from faults as they are full of beauties."

_Come like shadows_. "Macbeth," iv, 1, 111.

_Tiger-moth's wings_ and _Blushes with blood_. Keats's "Eve of St. Agnes."

_Words, words_. "Hamlet," ii, 2, 194.

_the great preacher_. Edward Irving.

_as the hart_. Psalms, xlii, 1.

_Giving my stock_ [sum]. "As You Like It," ii, 1, 48.

P. 342. _Valentine, Tattle and Prue_, characters in Congreve's "Love for Love" (1695).

_know my cue_. Cf. "Oth.e.l.lo," i, 2, 83.

_Intus et in cute_. See p. 163.

_Sir Humphry Davy_ (1778-1829), the celebrated chemist.

P. 343. _with every trick and line_ [line and trick]. "All's Well That Ends Well," i, 1, 107.

_the divine Clementina_, in Richardson's "Sir Charles Grandison."

_that ligament_. Sterne's "Tristram Shandy." Bk. VI, ch. 10.