The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 08 (of 12)

by William Hazlitt

A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE

In this work, published in 1818, Hazlitt collected the greater part of the theatrical criticisms which he had contributed successively to The Morning Chronicle, The Champion, The Examiner, and The Times. His first article in The Morning Chronicle appeared on October 18, 1813 (see ante, p. 192), and the last on May 27, 1814 (see ante, p. 195). In his essay, ‘On Patronage and Puffing’ (Table Talk, vol. V. pp. 292, et seq.), Hazlitt gives an account of his theatrical criticisms in the Chronicle. He thought himself that they were the best articles in the series (see ante, p. 174), and they are at any rate of exceptional interest inasmuch as they deal for the most part with the first appearances of Edmund Kean in London. His first article in The Champion, then edited by John Scott, appeared on August 14, 1814 (see p. 196), and the last on January 8, 1815 (see p. 208). Early in 1815 he became the regular dramatic critic of The Examiner. Leigh Hunt, the editor, had intended to resume theatrical criticism after his release from prison in February, but his attention was diverted to politics by the return of Buonaparte from Elba. Hazlitt’s first article (except for two notices of Kean’s Iago, July 24 and August 7, 1814) appeared on March 19, 1815 (see p. 221), the last on June 8, 1817 (see p. 373). By far the greater part of Hazlitt’s articles in The Morning Chronicle, The Champion, and The Examiner were included by him in A View of the English Stage. Some passages, however, and, we think, some articles, he did omit (especially from The Examiner of 1817). In the following notes passages omitted from articles included in A View are printed in full; articles omitted from A View are shortly summarised, if it is pretty clear from internal evidence that they were written by Hazlitt. Owing to want of space these articles cannot be printed in the present volume, but those which are clearly Hazlitt’s will be found among fugitive writings in a later volume, together with some notices (deemed certainly his) from The Times. Hazlitt seems to have been the dramatic critic, or one of the dramatic critics, of The Times from the summer of 1817 till the spring of 1818, but only two of his articles (pp. 374, et seq.) were included in A View of the English Stage. These appeared in September 1817, near the beginning of his term of office. Hazlitt’s reason for including so few of his Times articles is not known. An examination of the dramatic notices in The Times during the period in question suggests (1) that there were at least two regular dramatic critics on the staff, (2) that Hazlitt chiefly confined himself to Shakespearian and other plays of established reputation, and (3) that he practically ceased to write at the end of 1817. The following may be mentioned among the more important articles, which may, with varying degrees of probability, be ascribed to Hazlitt:— School for Scandal (Munden as Sir Peter Teazle), September 8, 1817; Young’s Hamlet, September 9; As You Like It (Miss Brunton as Rosalind), September 20; Maywood’s Zanga, October 3; Cibber’s The Refusal, or The Ladies’ Philosophy, October 6; Kean’s Richard III., October 7; The Wonder, or A Woman Keeps a Secret, October 9; Venice Preserved, October 10; Kean’s Macbeth, October 21; Othello (Kean as Othello, Maywood as Iago), October 27; Venice Preserved (Miss O’Neill as Belvidera), December 2; The Honey Moon, December 3; Fisher’s Hamlet, December 11; Kean’s Macbeth, December 16; King John (Miss O’Neill as Constance), December 18.

Reference should be made (1) to Mr. William Archer’s Introduction to a Selection of Hazlitt’s Dramatic Essays (ed. Archer and Lowe, 1895), and (2) to the companion-volume of Leigh Hunt’s Dramatic Essays (ed. Archer and Lowe, 1894).

PAGE [173]. Rochefoucault, etc. Maximes et Réflexions Morales, cccxii. ‘The brief chronicles of the time.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2. ‘Hold the mirror,’ etc. Ibid. Act. III. Sc. 2. ‘Imitate humanity,’ etc. Ibid. Zoffany’s pictures. John Zoffany (1733-1810), a native of Ratisbon, came to England in 1758, and soon became noted for his pictures of Garrick and other actors in character. Several of these are preserved at the Garrick Club. Colley Cibber’s Life. Cf. ante, pp. 160-1. [174]. A perverse caricature. Hazlitt refers to the character of Marmozet in Peregrine Pickle (1751). The quarrel between Garrick and Smollett was afterwards made up. In different newspapers. See ante, introductory note to p. 169. ‘The secrets of the prison-house.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5. The editor of which, etc. Thomas Barnes was editor of The Times when Hazlitt was theatrical critic, but the reference is probably to the proprietor, John Walter the Second. Too prolix on the subject of the Bourbons. Hazlitt probably refers to his brother-in-law, Dr., afterwards Sir John Stoddart, who was dismissed from the editorship of The Times early in 1817, in consequence of the violence of his writings on French affairs. Stoddart immediately started The Day and New Times, the title of which was altered in 1818 to The New Times. ‘One who loved, etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2. [175]. ‘‘Some quantity,’ etc. A composite quotation from Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2, and Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 1. Mr. Perry. James Perry (1756-1821), proprietor and editor of The Morning Chronicle. ‘Screw the courage,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7. [176]. ‘Pritchard’s genteel,’ etc. Churchill, The Rosciad, 852, the reference being to Hannah Pritchard (1711-1768), the actress who played Johnson’s Irene. Swiss bodyguards. The famous corps, constituted in 1616, who had shown such fidelity to Louis XVI. during the attack on the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. ‘Pigmy body,’ etc. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 157-8. The Fudge family in Paris (1818), Letter II. 116-123. [177]. ‘A master of scholars.’ Cf. ante, p. 167. [178]. The Characters of Shakespear’s Plays. A second edition had just been published. Hazlitt certainly availed himself to the full of the license which he frankly claims in this paragraph. An attempt has been made in the present edition to indicate the source of his essays and criticisms, and also the various publications into which they were afterwards transferred. [179]. Mr. Kean’s Shylock. Edmund Kean (1787-1833) had already acted many important parts in the provinces. At Dorchester one of his performances had been witnessed by Arnold, the stage manager of Drury Lane, through whom an engagement was made with the management of that theatre. Kean insisted on playing Shylock, and though the management and his fellow-actors were incredulous as to his powers, his success was undisputed. Henceforward his many triumphs in London were associated with the Drury Lane Theatre, except for a short period from 1827 to 1829, when his services were transferred to Covent Garden. For a later account of his Shylock, see ante, pp. 294-6. [180]. l. 8. In The Morning Chronicle Hazlitt adds: ‘After the play we were rejoiced to see the sterling farce of The Apprentice[^[57]] revived, in which Mr. Bannister was eminently successful.’ Miss Smith. The assumed maiden name of the actress who married George Bartley, the actor, on August 24, 1814. She made her first appearance in London in 1805. She suffered by comparison with Mrs. Siddons, and later with Miss O’Neill. Rae. Alexander Rae (1782-1820), after acting for a season at the Haymarket in 1806, made his first appearance at Drury Lane on November 12, 1812. Kean quickly eclipsed him in tragedy, though he maintained the reputation of being a good Hamlet. ‘Far-darting’ eye.

‘And covetous of Shakspeare’s beauty seen

In every flash of his far-beaming eye.’

Cowper, The Task, III. 601-2.

‘—— ——This is a sleep

That from this golden rigol hath divorced

So many English kings.’

Cf. ‘But Shakespear’s magic could not copied be;

Within that circle none durst walk but he.’

Dryden, Prologue to The Tempest, 19-20.

‘—— ——whose mind ensued,

Through perilous war, with regal fortitude.’

‘If to her share some trifling errors fall,

Look in her face, and you’ll forget them all.’[^[65]]

“Long may the Royal Line,

Proud Star of Brunswick shine;

While thus we sing,

Joy may thy Daughter share,

Blest by a Nation’s pray’r,

Blest be the Royal Pair;

God save the King.”

‘“Great George! thy people’s voice

Now hails thy daughter’s choice

Till echoes ring:

This shout still rends the air,

May she prove blest as fair!

Long live the noble pair!

God save the King.”’

‘Whom lovely Venus at a birth,

With two Sister Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.”[^[73]]

ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM THE LONDON MAGAZINE, 1820.

PAGE [383]. Semper varium et mutabile. Virgil, Æneid, IV. 569. ‘The stage, the inconstant stage.’ Cf. ‘The moon, the inconstant moon.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 2. [384]. ‘To dally with the wind,’ etc. Cf. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 3. ‘With coy [sweet] reluctant,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 311. [385]. ‘Should God create,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IX. 911-13. [386]. ‘Play the hostess.’ Cf. ‘Ourself will mingle with society, and play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state,’ etc. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4. [387]. Eclipsed the gaiety, etc. Cf. ante, note to p. 270. Beau Mordecai. In Macklin’s Love à-la Mode, brought out in 1760. Lord Sands. In King Henry VIII. ‘With nods and becks,’ etc. L’Allegro, 28. [388]. ‘Secret Tattle.’ In Congreve’s Love for Love. [389]. ‘Made a sunshine,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, 1. iii. 4. ‘Talked far above singing.’ Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, Act V. Sc. 5. ‘Her bounty,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 2. Her Nell. In Coffey’s The Devil to Pay (1731). [392]. ‘Extenuate,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2. [393]. ‘There were two,’ etc. Cf. St. Luke, xvii. 31 et seq. ‘A consummation,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. ‘To our moist vows denied.’ Lycidas, 159. ‘Slippery turns,’ etc. Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. 4. ‘Mr. Limberham,’ etc. Dryden’s The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham (1680). ‘With its worldly goods,’ etc. The Book of Common Prayer, Marriage Service. ‘The list of weeds,’ etc. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, Chap. 1. § 2. ‘In monumental mockery.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3. [394]. The Surrey, etc. The Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road, opened in 1782; The Cobourg Theatre, Waterloo Bridge Road, opened in 1818; The Sans Pareil, better known as The Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand, opened in 1806. [395]. ‘Gentle and low,’ etc. King Lear, Act V. Sc. 3. [397]. ‘Like to another morn, etc.’ Paradise Lost, V. 310-11. ‘Moody madness,’ etc. Gray, Ode, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 79-80. [398]. ‘Mar [scar] that whiter skin,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2. [399]. Gallantry, or Adventures at Madrid. Jan. 15, 1820; acted only once. ‘Had its brother,’ etc. Cf. Pope, Moral Essays, IV. 117-8. [400]. ‘As it was set down for him.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘The courtier’s or the lover’s melancholy.’ Cf. As You Like It, Act IV. Sc. 1. Gilray. James Gillray (1757-1815), the caricaturist. Mrs. Edwin. Elizabeth Rebecca Richards (1771?-1854) first appeared at Covent Garden 1789; married in 1791 John Edwin the younger. [401]. Magis pares, etc. Cf. ‘Similia omnia magis visa hominibus, quam paria.’ Livy, XLV. 43. Note 1. Pope’s Essay on Criticism, 1-2. [402]. ‘All is grace above,’ etc. ‘Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.’ Dryden, Epistle to Congreve, 19. ‘To relish all,’ etc. The Tempest, Act V. Sc. 1. ‘I banish you.’ Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 3. ‘The most sweet voices.’ Ibid. Act II. Sc. 3. [403]. ‘Guns, drums,’ etc. Pope, Satires, I. 26. ‘Ample scope [room],’ etc. Gray, The Bard, 5. [404]. ‘Constrained by mastery.’ Cf. post, note to p. 479. ‘Speculative,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. ‘There he arriving,’ etc. Muiopotmos, St. XXII. and XXVII. [405]. ‘Like greyhound on the slip.’ Henry V., Act III. Sc. 1. ‘The full eyes,’ etc. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, Chap. 1. § 2. ‘Embalmed with odours.’ Paradise Lost, II. 843. ‘A wide O.’ Cf. ‘Why should you fall into so deep an O?’ Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 3. ‘Come, let me clutch thee.’ Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1. ‘Those gay creatures,’ etc. Comus, 299-301. [406]. W—m. Wem. The Rev. Mr. J——s. The author’s son fills this blank with the name of Jenkins. [407]. ‘Of imagination all compact.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1. ‘Their mind to them,’ etc. Sir Edward Dyer’s ‘My mynde to me a kyngdome is,’ set to music by Byrd in 1588. ‘Of all earth’s bliss,’ etc. From Lamb’s version of Thekla’s song in Wallenstein (Part I., The Piccolomini). See Coleridge’s Poetical Works (ed. J. D. Campbell), 648. [408]. ‘By his so potent art.’ The Tempest, Act V. Sc. 1. ‘Happy alchemy of mind.’ See vol. V., note to p. 107. ‘Severn’s sedgy side.’ ‘Gentle Severn’s sedgy bank.’ Henry IV., Part I., Act I. Sc. 3. ‘Note. ‘The beggars are coming,’ etc. From the old song beginning, ‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,’ etc. [409]. ‘Alas! how changed,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 305-6. ‘Made of penetrable stuff.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. [410]. ‘See the puppets dallying.’ Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2. Mr. Stanley. Stanley had been well known at Bath, and had appeared for a short time at Drury Lane. Genest (VIII. 693) describes him as ‘a very good actor for a provincial theatre, and a fair actor for London.’ [411]. Panopticon. Cf. vol. IV., note to p. 197. ‘My soul turn from them.’ Goldsmith, The Traveller, 165. ‘Her, lovely Venus,’ etc. L’Allegro, 14-16. ‘Vernal airs,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 264-6. ‘Three red roses,’ etc. Cf. Richard III., Act IV. Sc. 3. ‘The witchery,’ etc. Wordsworth, Peter Bell (Part I.), l. 265. [412]. Mr. Reeve. John Reeve (1799-1838), a mimic and comedian, chiefly associated with the Adelphi. ‘Our hint to speak.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. [413]. Mr. Peter Moore. Peter Moore (1753-1828), member of parliament and company promoter. He was at one time one of the managers of Drury Lane Theatre. The Antiquary. A musical play in three acts by Daniel Terry, Jan. 25, 1820. ‘Warbled.’ ‘Come, warble, come.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 5. Note. The Surrey Theatre. The Surrey Theatre had been taken by Thomas John Dibdin (1771-1841) in 1816. [414]. ‘Perplexed in the extreme.’ Othello, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘Horror sat plumed.’ Paradise Lost, IV. 989. ‘Of one that loved,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘Turbaned Turk.’ Ibid. Act V. Sc. 2. ‘I cannot think,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 3. ‘The glorious triumph [trial],’ etc. Paradise Lost, IX. 961. [415]. ‘The high and palmy state.’ Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1. [416]. Mr. Milman’s Fazio. Produced at Covent Garden, Feb. 5, 1818. ‘Look abroad,’ etc. Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, Book I., III. 6. [417]. ‘Are embowelled,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 101). The Upholsterer. Cf. ante, p. 96. ‘A counterfeit presentment.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. [418]. ‘To relish,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 402. [419]. ‘Unfeathered, two-legged thing.’ Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 170. ‘You may wear,’ etc. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 5. ‘He sits in the centre,’ etc. Comus, 382-3. [420]. Mr. Wordsworth’s hankering after the drama. Wordsworth’s tragedy, The Borderers, composed in 1795-6, and soon afterwards refused by the Covent Garden management, was not published till 1842. ‘The daily intercourse,’ etc. Quoted vaguely from Wordsworth’s Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey. note. Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), whose Plays on the Passions had appeared in 3 vols. 1798-1812. [421]. ‘Like a wild overflow,’ etc. Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, Act V. Sc. 3. ‘’Tis three feet long,’ etc. Wordsworth, The Thorn, (l. 33), as published in Lyrical Ballads (1798). [422]. ‘What? if one reptile,’ etc. Remorse, Act III. Sc. 2. [423]. The Hebrew. By George Soane (1790-1860). ‘I had as lief,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Instinct with fire.’ Paradise Lost, II. 937. Disjecta [disjecti] membra poetae. Horace, Satires, I. 4, 62. [425]. ‘His affections,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. ‘Holds sovereign sway.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5. ‘A far cry to Lochiel.’ ‘It’s a far cry to Lochow.’ See Rob Roy, note to chap. 29. ‘Hitherto shalt thou come,’ etc. Job, xxxviii. 11. ‘Like kings,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 64-5. [427]. ‘Like to that sanguine flower,’ etc. Lycidas, 106. ‘Unkindness,’ etc. Othello, Act IV. Sc. 2. Three Weeks after Marriage. Arthur Murphy’s comedy, produced in 1776. Mr. Connor. Charles Connor (d. 1826), Irish comedian. [428]. The Manager in Distress. By George Colman the elder. ‘Too Late for Dinner.’ A farce by Richard Jones the actor. [429]. ‘Great heir of fame.’ Milton, On Shakespeare. l. 5. ‘Strange that,’ etc. Cf. ‘Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. Don Quixote’s throwing open the cages, etc. Don Quixote, Part II., Book I. Chap. 17. ‘Tasteless monster,’ etc. ‘A faultless monster whom the world ne’er saw.’ John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, Essay on Poetry. ‘If that they love,’ etc. Cf. ‘But that I love the gentle Desdemona,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 2. Berlin and Milan decrees. Of Napoleon, 1806 and 1807. [430]. Like the lady in the lobster. Cf. Herrick’s Hesperides, No. 224 (The Faerie Temple). ‘As if he would confine,’ etc. Samson Agonistes, 307. ‘A beard so old and white.’ ‘’Gainst a head so old and white as this.’ King Lear, Act III. Sc. 2. Nahum Tate’s Lear. Produced in 1681. [431]. ‘There’s sympathy.’ The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. 1. [432]. ‘Applauds you,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3. [433]. ‘He must live to please,’ etc. Johnson, Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747, l. 54. ‘Lard the lean earth,’ etc. Henry IV. Part I., Act II. Sc. 2. [434]. ‘First, midst, and last.’ Cf. Paradise Lost, V. 165. [435]. Shakspear versus Harlequin. An alteration of Harlequin’s Invasion produced in 1759. ‘Charge on heaps,’ etc. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 2. [436]. Quod sic mihi, etc. Horace, Ars Poetica, 188. ‘See o’er the stage,’ etc. Cf. Thomson, The Seasons, winter, 646. ‘But thou, oh Hope,’ etc. Collins, Ode, The Passions, 29-32. [439]. Sir Hugh Middleton’s Head. The sign of this inn, opposite Sadler’s Wells, figures in Hogarth’s Evening. [440]. ‘Shut their blue-fringed lids,’ etc. Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, 84-6. Mr. Booth’s Lear. Covent Garden, April 13, 1820. ‘I am every inch a King.’ King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6. ‘The fiery Duke.’ Ibid. Act II. Sc. 4. [441]. Henri Quatre. A musical romance in three acts by Thomas Morton. ‘’Twas Lancelot,’ etc. Leigh Hunt, The Story of Rimini. ‘Ah! brilliant land,’ etc. To this quotation the Editor of The London Magazine prints the following note: ‘Does our Correspondent here refer to the ink he has himself shed in severe criticism of the French National Character.’ [442]. ‘The invincible knights of old.’ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘It is not to be thought of,’ etc. Miss M. Tree. Ann Maria Tree (1801-1862), afterwards Mrs. Bradshaw, made her first appearance at Covent Garden in 1818. The present crisis of affairs. Hazlitt alludes to the Revolution in Spain, in 1820. [445]. ‘Accumulate horrors,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3. ‘That has outlasted,’ etc. Misquoted from Beaumont and Fletcher’s Philaster, Act V. Sc. 3. ‘Tore it to tatters,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Hear, Nature, hear,’ etc. The quotations from King Lear in this paragraph are from Act I. Sc. 4. [446]. ‘Compunctious visitings of nature.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5. ‘Like a phantasma,’ etc. Julius Caesar, Act II. Sc. 1. [447]. ‘Dear daughter,’ etc. King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘Beloved Regan,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 4. [448]. ‘Appal the guilty,’ etc. Misquoted from Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2. ‘Create a soul,’ etc. Comus, 562. ‘The fiery quality,’ etc. King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘I will do such things,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 4. [449]. ‘Blow winds,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2. ‘More germane,’ etc. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘How dost,’ etc. King Lear, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Didst thou give all,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 3. ‘What, have his daughters,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 3. ‘Was set down.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. [450]. ‘Aye, every inch a king.’ King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6. ‘When I do stare,’ etc. Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 6. ‘Pray do not mock me.’ Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 6. ‘Which sacred pity, etc.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. ‘False gallop.’ Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Honest sonsy,’ etc. Burns, Address to a Haggis, I. [451]. Artaxerxes. Cf. ante, pp. 192-3. [452]. ‘Concords of sweet sounds.’ The Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1. [453]. l. 15. In The London Magazine the article concludes with a notice (signed ‘X.’) of a new after-piece at Drury Lane, entitled The Lady and the Devil, and a flattering notice of Virginius at Covent Garden. Neither of these notices is written in Hazlitt’s manner, and it is evident from his later account of Knowles’s tragedy (see pp. 455, et seq.) that the notice of Virginius at any rate is the work of another hand. It would seem that after seeing Kean in King Lear Hazlitt retired for a time to Winterslow. The only article, etc. Hazlitt probably refers to his third article, published in the March number (ante, pp. 403, et seq.), which was probably written while the theatres were closed in consequence of the deaths of the Duke of Kent (d. January 23, 1820) and George III. (d. January 29, 1820). Mr. Weathercock. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1852), afterwards well known as a forger and murderer, was at this time a regular contributor to The London Magazine, chiefly under the pseudonym of Janus Weathercock. His contributions were for the most part on the Fine Arts, but in the number for June 1820 (Janus’s Jumble, chap, III.) he wrote some remarks on the theatres, in the course of which he chaffed ‘Mr. Drama’ (i.e. Hazlitt) on some of his theatrical criticisms, and especially on his article on the minor theatres published in March. To these remarks Hazlitt replies in the present essay. For Wainewright himself see the biographical introduction to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition (1880) of his contributions to The London Magazine, and Mr. Bertram Dobell’s Sidelights on Charles Lamb (1903). [454]. ‘Odious in satin,’ etc. ‘Odious! in woollen! ’twould a saint provoke.’ Pope, Moral Essays, I. 246. ‘Like little wanton boys,’ etc. Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Inexpressive three.’ Cf. ‘Unexpressive she.’ As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Written in our heart’s tables.’ All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I. Sc. 1. [455]. ‘Entire affection scorneth [hateth],’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto VIII. St. 40. ‘A man’s mind,’ etc. ‘Men’s judgements are a parcel of their fortunes.’ Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Sc. 13. ‘Diamond rings,’ etc. etc. Hazlitt quotes from Wainewright’s article. ‘We came,’ etc. A hasty adaptation, presumably, of the famous ‘Veni, vidi, vici.’ Virginius. James Sheridan Knowles’s (1784-1862) Virginius was produced at Covent Garden on May 17, 1820. ‘Strike his lofty head,’ etc. ‘Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.’ Horace, Odes, I. I. 36. [456]. The Virginius and the David Rizzio, etc. Another Virginius, with Kean in the title role, was produced at Drury Lane on May 29, 1820. David Rizzio, an opera by Colonel Hamilton, appeared at the same theatre on June 17. A former article. See ante, note to p. 453. ‘I never saw you,’ etc. Virginius, Act IV. Sc. 1. ‘The lie,’ etc. Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 2. ‘To be sure she will,’ etc. Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 2. ‘Let the forum wait for us!’ Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 1. ‘The freeborn Roman maid.’ Varied slightly from phrases applied to Virginia in the play. [457]. ‘Lest the courtiers,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act II. Sc. 2. ‘Let the galled jade,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. [458]. ‘Why are those things hid,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 3. Mr. Kean at his benefit. June 12, 1820. The play was Venice Preserved, followed by The Admirable Crichton. Educated in the fourth form, etc. A gibe at Elliston, who was educated at St. Paul’s School. Cast in the antique mould, etc. The reference is to Kemble. note. ‘An honest man,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, IV. 248. [459]. ‘In this expectation,’ etc. Cf. ‘This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked.’ Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Nothing can come of nothing.’ ‘De nihilo nihil.’ Persius, Satires, III. 84. [460]. Miss Povey. Born in 1804, and appeared first at Drury Lane in 1817. [461]. ‘Softly sweet in Lydian measures.’ Dryden, Alexander’s Feast, 97. Giovanni in London. By William Thomas Moncrieff (1794-1857), originally produced at the Olympic on December 26, 1817. [462]. ‘She forgot to be a woman,’ etc. Misquoted from Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 4. ‘Like a new ta’en sparrow.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Like marigolds,’ etc. Cf. ‘The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,’ etc. A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4. [463]. The ‘Great Vulgar and the Small.’ Cowley, Horace, Odes, III. 1. ‘Raised so high,’ etc. Cf. ‘High throned above all highth.’ Paradise Lost, III. 58. ‘Such tricks,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1. [464]. ‘‘Present no mark.’ Henry IV., Part II. Act III. Sc. 2. ‘You may as well,’ etc. Ibid. Act III. Sc. 2. ‘One bubble,’ etc. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, Chap. 1. § 1. Her Yarico. In Colman’s Inkle and Yarico (1787). ‘We had rather,’ etc. Adapted from All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I. Sc. 1. [465]. ‘In the catalogue,’ etc. Cf. ‘Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.’ Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1. ‘To curl her hair,’ etc. See Congreve’s The Way of the World, Act. II. Sc. 5. [465]. ‘Who rant and fret,’ etc. Misquoted from Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5. ‘Vine-covered hills.’ ‘From the vine-cover’d hills and gay valleys of France.’ From lines ‘written in 1788’ by William Roscoe (1753-1831). The lines were partly parodied by Canning and Frere in The Anti-Jacobin (‘La Sainte Guillotine’): ‘From the blood-bedew’d valleys and mountains of France.’ Cf. vol. VI. p. 189 (Table Talk). ‘And murmur,’ etc. Landor, Gebir, Book I. [466]. ‘Sigh his soul,’ etc. Cf. ‘And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents.’ The Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1. [467]. ‘A brother of the groves.’ Hazlitt perhaps recalls Wordsworth’s line, ‘A brother of the dancing leaves’ (The Green Linnet, 34). As originally published (Poems, 1807, II. 81), the line ran, ‘A Brother of the Leaves he seems,’ which is still nearer to Hazlitt’s phrase. [468]. Crockery and Peter Pastoral. In Exit by Mistake and Teazing Made Easy respectively. ‘His tears,’ etc.

Cf. ‘The tears which came to Matthew’s eyes

Were tears of light, the oil of gladness.’

Cf. ‘Let those love now, who never lov’d before;

Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.’

Parnell, The Vigil of Venus.

APPENDIX
I

(See introductory note on p. [487])