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

by William Hazlitt

LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS

These Lectures were delivered at the Surrey Institution, in Blackfriars Road, in 1818, after the completion of the course on the English Poets (see vol. V.). Some particulars as to their delivery will be found in Talfourd’s edition of Lamb’s Letters (see Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s reprint, Bohn, i. 38 et seq.), and in Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintance. See also Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Four Generations of a Literary Family (vol. I. pp. 121-2), where the opinions of Beckford and Thackeray are referred to. In the third edition of the Lectures (see Bibliographical Note) several passages ‘collected by the author, apparently with a view to a reprint of the volume,’ were interpolated. Two of these passages are taken from a long letter (published in full in the Appendix to these notes) which Hazlitt contributed to The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1813. The rest are taken from prefatory notices which he contributed to William Oxberry’s The New English Drama (20 vols. 1818-1825), and are printed in the following notes.

LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY

PAGE [8]. The Tale of Slaukenbergius. Tristram Shandy, vol. IV. [9]. ‘There is something in the misfortunes,’ etc. Rochefoucault, Maximes et Réflexions Morales, CCXLI. ‘They were talking,’ etc. Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 1. Lord Foppington. In The Relapse of Vanbrugh. See post, p. 82. [10]. Aretine laughed himself to death, etc. The story is that while laughing at the jest Aretine fell from a stool and was killed. Sir Thomas More jested, etc. More bade the executioner stay till he had put aside his beard, ‘for that,’ he said, ‘had never committed treason.’ Rabelais and Wycherley. ‘When Rabelais,’ says Bacon (Apophthegms), ‘the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend came to him afterwards, and asked him how he did? Rabelais answered, “Even going my journey, they have greased my boots already.”’ But his last words, uttered ‘avec un éclat de rire,’ were: ‘Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.’ It is said that Wycherley, on the night before he died, made his young wife promise that she would never marry an old man again. See a letter from Pope to Blount, Jan. 21, 1715-6 (Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, VI. 366). Pope, after telling the story, adds: ‘I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour.’ The dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet. The Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 2. Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke. In Thomas Morton’s School of Reform (1805). Cf. post, p. 391.

LECTURE II. ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON

[30]. Dr. Johnson thought, etc. See his Preface to Shakespeare (Works, Oxford, 1825, vol. V. p. 113). ‘Smit with the love of sacred song.’ Paradise Lost, III. 29. [31]. There is but one, etc. Hazlitt is recalling Dryden’s line, ‘within that circle none must walk but he.’ (Prologue to The Tempest.) ‘Not to speak it profanely.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Like an unsubstantial pageant faded.’ The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1. [32]. ‘He is the leviathan,’ etc. Hazlitt adapts a passage of Burke’s: ‘The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the Crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty.’ A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 129). ‘A consummation,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. The description of Queen Mab. In Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 4. ‘The shade of melancholy boughs.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. ‘Give a very echo,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘Oh! it came,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 1. [33]. ‘Covers a multitude of sins.’ I. Peter, iv. 8. The ligament, etc. Cf. ‘And that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.’ Tristram Shandy, VI. 10. The Society for the Suppression of Vice. Cf. The Round Table, vol. I. p, 60 and note. ‘He has been merry,’ etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act V. Sc. 3. ‘Heard the chimes at midnight.’ Ibid., Act III. Sc. 2. [34]. ‘Come on, come on, etc. Ibid. [35]. ‘One touch of nature,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3. ‘It is apprehensive, etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act IV. Sc. 3. [36]. ‘Go to church,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 3. Tattle and Sparkish. In Congreve’s Love for Love and Wycherley’s The Country Wife respectively. ‘All beyond Hyde Park,’ etc. Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘Lay waste a country gentleman.’ Hazlitt uses this expression elsewhere. See his character of Cobbett in The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV. p. 334), where he says that Cobbett ‘lays waste a city orator or Member of Parliament.’ Lord Foppington. In Vanbrugh’s The Relapse. ‘The Prince of coxcombs,’ etc. ‘Fashion. Now, by all that’s great and powerful, thou art the prince of coxcombs. Lord Foppington. Sir—I am proud of being at the head of so prevailing a party.’

The Relapse, Act III. Sc. 1.

LECTURE III. ON COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, ETC.

PAGE ‘The metaphysical poets,’ etc. Johnson, Life of Cowley in The Lives of the Poets. The father of criticism. Aristotle. See the Poetics. [50]. ‘Hitch into a rhyme.’ Pope, Imitations of Horace, Satires, Book II., Satire i. 78. [51]. ‘And though reclaim’d,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, IV. 723-5. Donne. John Donne (1573-1631). ‘Heaved pantingly forth.’ King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 3. ‘Buried quick again.’ Hamlet’s words ‘Be buried quick with her, and so will I’ (Act V. Sc. 1), were perhaps in Hazlitt’s mind. ‘Little think’st thou,’ etc. Poems (‘Muses’ Library,’ I. 63). [52]. A lame and impotent conclusion. Othello, Act II. Sc. 1. ‘Whoever comes,’ etc. Poems, i. 61. ‘I long to talk,’ etc. Ibid. I. 56. [53]. ‘Here lies,’ etc. Ibid. I. 86. To the pure, etc. Titus I. 15. Bishop Hall’s Satires. The Satires of Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Exeter (1627) and of Norwich (1641), were published in 1597 and 1598 under the title of Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes. For Pope’s admiration of him see Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, III. 423. Sir John Davies (1569-1626). His Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dancing, appeared in 1596, his Nosce Teipsum, a poem on the immortality of the soul, in 1599. Crashaw. Richard Crashaw (1612?-1649). The ‘celebrated Latin Epigram’ appeared in a volume of Latin poems and epigrams published in 1634. The line referred to by Hazlitt, ‘Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit,’ is the last of a four-line epigram. See Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. Croker, 1847, p. 598). ‘Seething brains.’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. 1. The contest between the Musician and the Nightingale. Musick’s Duel, a version from the Latin of the Roman Jesuit Strada, paraphrased also by Ford in The Lover’s Melancholy, Act. I. Sc. 1. Davenant’s Gondibert. The Gondibert of Sir William D’Avenant (1606-1668), published in 1651. [54]. ‘Yet on that wall,’ etc. Gondibert, Book II. Canto V. St. 33. Marvel. Cf. Lectures on the English Poets, vol. V. p. 83. ‘And sat not as a meat,’ etc. The Character of Holland, 1. 30. One whose praise, etc. Probably Lamb. Shadwell. Thomas Shadwell (1642?-1692). The Libertine appeared in 1676. Carew. Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?). The reference to him in Sir John Suckling’s Session of the Poets (1637) is as follows:—

‘Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault

That would not stand well with a laureat;

His Muse was hard bound, and th’ issue of’s brain

Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain.’

LECTURE IV. ON WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR

[70]. ‘Graceful ornament,’ etc. ‘Nobility is a graceful ornament,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 164). Waller’s Sacharissa. Lady Dorothy Sidney, eldest daughter of the second Earl of Leicester. Wycherley, etc. William Wycherley (1640?-1715), William Congreve (1670-1730), Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), and George Farquhar (1678-1707). Leigh Hunt in 1840 published an edition of the dramatic works of all these writers, with biographical and critical notices. With this lecture compare Lamb’s famous essay ‘On the Artificial Comedy of the last Century,’ contributed to The London Magazine, April 1822. [71]. ‘Whose jewels,’ etc. Collins’s Ode, The Manners, 55-6. In the dedication of one of his plays. Probably The Way of the World, though the dedication hardly bears out Hazlitt’s account of it. Love for Love. 1695. The Way of the World. 1700. Munden’s Foresight. See A View of the English Stage, ante, p. 278. [72]. ‘I never valued,’ etc. Love for Love, Act V. Sc. 12. ‘To divest him,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 7. The short scene with Trapland. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 5. ‘More misfortunes,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 9. ‘Sisters every way.’ Ibid. Act II. Sc. 9. ‘Nay, if you come to that,’ etc. Ibid. The Old Bachelor, brought out in January, 1692-3; The Double Dealer, in November 1693. ‘Dying Ned Careless.’ The Double Dealer, Act IV. Sc. 9. ‘Love’s thrice reputed [repured] nectar.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 2. [73]. ‘Ah! idle creature.’ The Way of the World, Act IV. Sc. 5. ‘Like Phœbus,’ etc. Ibid. Act IV. Sc. 4. ‘Come then,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle II., 17-20. ‘If there’s delight,’ etc. The Way of the World, Act III. Sc. 12. ‘Beauty the lover’s gift,’ etc. Ibid. Act II. Sc. 5. [74]. ‘Nature’s own sweet,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 5. ‘Wild wit,’ etc. Gray, Ode On a distant Prospect of Eton College, 46. ‘Blazons herself.’

‘Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon’st

In these two princely boys!’

Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 2.

LECTURE V. ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS

‘The proper study,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, II. 2. ‘Comes home to the business,’ etc. Bacon, dedication of the Essays. ‘Quicquid agunt homines,’ etc. These words of Juvenal (Sat. I. 85-6) formed the motto of the first 40 numbers of The Tatler. ‘Holds the mirror,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘The act [art] and practic part,’ etc. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 1. [92]. ‘‘The web of our life,’ etc. All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Sc. 3. ‘Quid sit pulchrum,’ etc. Horace, Epistles, I. 2, ll. 3-4. Montaigne. The Essais of Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592), were published, Books I. and II. in 1580, Book III. in 1588. [93]. ‘Pour out all as plain,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Sat. I. 51-2. Note.

‘What made (say Montaigne, or more sage Charron!)

Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon.’

Pope, Moral Essays, I. 87-8.

LECTURE VI. ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS

The whole of this Lecture down to the end of the paragraph on p. 125 is taken with but few variations from an article in The Edinburgh Review for Feb. 1815, on ‘Standard Novels and Romances,’ ostensibly a review of Madame D’Arblay’s The Wanderer.

PAGE [106]. ‘Be mine to read,’ etc. Gray, in a letter to Richard West, April 1742 (Letters, ed. Tovey, I. 97). ‘Something more divine in it.’ Hazlitt is perhaps recalling a passage in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (II. iv. 2): ‘So as poesy serveth and conferreth to delectation, magnanimity, and morality, ... it may seem deservedly to have some participation of divineness,’ etc. [107]. Fielding in speaking, etc. Joseph Andrews, Book III. chap. 1. The description ... given by Mr. Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 92-3). Echard ‘On the Contempt of the Clergy.’ John Eachard’s (1636?-1697) The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion enquired into, published in 1670 and frequently reprinted. ‘Worthy of all acceptation.’ 1 Timothy, 1. 15. The Lecture which Lady Booby reads, etc. Joseph Andrews, Book IV. chap. 3. Blackstone or De Lolme. Sir William Blackstone’s (1723-1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England appeared in 1765-9, John Louis De Lolme’s (1740?-1807) The Constitution of England, in French 1771, in English 1775. [108]. What I have said upon it, etc. In The Edinburgh Review. See ante, note to p. 106. Don Quixote. Part I., 1605; Part II., 1615. ‘The long-forgotten order of chivalry.’ ‘The long-neglected and almost extinguished order of knight-errantry,’ Don Quixote (trans. Jarvis), Part I., Book IV. chap. 28. ‘Witch the world,’ etc. Henry IV., Part I., Act IV. Sc. 1. [109]. ‘Oh, what delicate wooden spoons,’ etc. Don Quixote, Part II., Book IV. chap. 67. The curate confidentially informing Don Quixote, etc. Ibid. Our adventurer afterwards, etc. Ibid. [110]. ‘Still prompts,’ etc. Pope, Essay on Man, IV. 3-4. ‘Singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles.’ Don Quixote, Part II., Book I. chap. 9. Marcella. Ibid. Part I., Book I. chaps. 12 and 13. His Galatea, etc. Galatea, 1585; Persiles and Sigismunda, 1616. [111]. Gusman D’Alfarache. By Mateo Aleman, published in 1599. Lazarillo de Tormes. Attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575), published in 1553. Gil Blas. The Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane of Alain-René le Sage (1668-1747) appeared in 4 vols., 1715-1735. [112]. Smollett is more like Gil Blas. In the Preface to Roderick Random he admitted his obligation to Le Sage. [113]. Tom Jones. Published in 1749. [114]. ‘I was never so handsome,’ etc. Tom Jones, Book XVII. chap. 4. The story of Tom Jones, etc. Cf. the well-known dictum of Coleridge (Table Talk, July 5, 1834), ‘Upon my word, I think the Œdipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones, the three most perfect plots ever planned.’ Amelia and Joseph Andrews. Published in 1751 and 1742 respectively. Amelia, and the hashed mutton. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay ‘A Farewell to Essay-writing,’ from which it appears that the article in the Edinburgh Review from which this lecture is taken was the result of a ‘sharply-seasoned and well-sustained’ discussion with Lamb, kept up till midnight. [115]. Roderick Random. Published in 1748, when Smollett was 27; Tom Jones was published in 1749, when Fielding was 42. [116]. Intus et in cute. Persius, Satires, III. 30. [117]. Peregrine Pickle ... and Launcelot Graves. 1751 and 1762 respectively. Humphrey Clinker and Count Fathom. 1771 and 1753 respectively. Richardson. The three novels of Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) appeared as follows: Pamela in 1740; Clarissa Harlowe in 1747-8; Sir Charles Grandison in 1753. [119]. Dr. Johnson ... when he said, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 174. [120]. ‘Books are a real world,’ etc. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, St. 3. Sterne. Laurence Sterne’s (1713-1768) Tristram Shandy appeared in 9 vols. 1759-1767, and A Sentimental Journey (2 vols.) in 1768. [121]. Goldsmith ... should call him, etc. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), II. 222. [123]. ‘Have kept the even tenor of their way.’ Gray’s Elegy, 76. Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla. By Frances Burney, Madame D’Arblay (1752-1840), published respectively in 1778, 1782, and 1796. Mrs. Radcliffe. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1822), author of The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), etc. ‘Enchantments drear.’ Il Penseroso, 119. Mrs. Inchbald. Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), novelist, dramatist, and actress. Her Nature and Art appeared in 1796, A Simple Story in 1791. Miss Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849). Castle Rackrent appeared in 1800. Meadows. In The Wanderer. Note. The Fool of Quality, by Henry Brooke (1766); David Simple, by Sarah Fielding (1744); and Sidney Biddulph, by Mrs. Sheridan (1761). [124]. It has been said of Shakspeare, etc. By Pope. See Hazlitt’s Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 171 and note. ‘There is nothing so true as habit.’ Windham, Speech on the Conduct of the Duke of York, Speeches, III. 205, March 14, 1809. [125]. ‘Stand so [not] upon the order,’ etc. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4. The green silken threads, etc. Don Quixote, Part II. IV. Chap. 58. The Wanderer. 1814. ‘The gossamer,’ etc. Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 6. [127]. The Castle of Otranto. By Horace Walpole (1764). Quod sic mihi, etc. Horace, Ars Poetica, 188. The Recess, by Sophia Lee (1785); The Old English Baron, by Clara Reeve, originally published in 1777 under the title of ‘The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story.’ ‘Dismal treatises.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5. The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1795 as ‘Ambrosio, or the Monk.’ ‘All the luxury of woe.’ Moore, Juvenile Poems, stanzas headed ‘Anacreontic,’ beginning ‘Press the grape, and let it pour,’ etc. [128]. ‘His chamber,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto ix. St. 50. [129]. ‘Familiar in our mouths,’ etc. Henry V., Act IV. Sc. 3. [130]. The author of Caleb Williams. William Godwin (1756-1836). Caleb Williams appeared in 1794, St. Leon in 1799, Mandeville in 1817. ‘Action is momentary,’ etc. These lines are slightly misquoted from Wordsworth’s tragedy, The Borderer. See note to vol. IV., p. 276. [132]. Political Justice. An Inquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness, 1793. ‘Where his treasure,’ etc. St. Matthew, vi. 21.

LECTURE VII. ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH—ON THE GRAND AND FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAINTING

A great part of this lecture is taken from two papers in The Examiner, republished in The Round Table. See vol. I. pp. 25-31, and notes thereon.

[133]. Hogarth. William Hogarth (1697-1764). ‘Instinct in every part.’ Cf. ‘Instinct through all proportions low and high.’ Paradise Lost, XI. 562. ‘Other pictures we see, Hogarth’s we read.’ ‘Other pictures we look at,—his prints we read.’ Lamb’s Essay on the Genius and Character of Hogarth, referred to below, p. 138. Not long ago. In 1814.

LECTURE VIII. ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY

Much of the early part of this Lecture is taken from a paper in The Examiner (Aug. 20, 1815), republished in The Round Table. See vol. I. pp. 10-14, and notes.

PAGE [150]. ‘Where it must live,’ etc. Othello, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘To see ourselves,’ etc. Burns, To a Louse. [151]. ‘Present no mark to the foeman.’ Henry IV., Part II., Act III. Sc. 2. Wars should be Shadow. [152]. The authority of Sterne, etc. See Tristram Shandy, I. 21. l. 22. In the third edition a passage is interpolated from Hazlitt’s letter to The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1813. ‘The ring,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 309-10. Angelica, etc. All these characters are in Congreve’s Love for Love. The compliments which Pope paid to his friends. Cf. the essay ‘On Persons one would wish to have seen,’ where some of these compliments are quoted. [153]. The loves of the plants and the triangles. Erasmus Darwin’s poem ‘The Loves of the Plants’(1789) was the subject of Canning’s famous parody ‘The Loves of the Triangles’ in The Anti-Jacobin. Berinthias and Alitheas. Berinthia in Vanbrugh’s The Relapse; Alithea in Wycherley’s The Country Wife. Beppo, etc. Lord Byron’s Beppo (1818), Campbell’s Gertrude of Wyoming (1809), Scott’s Lady of the Lake (1810). Madame De Staël’s Corinne appeared in 1807. l. 17. In the third edition a long passage from Hazlitt’s letter to The Morning Chronicle is here inserted. ‘That sevenfold fence.’ See note to vol. I. p. 13, and cf. A Reply to Malthus, vol. IV. p. 101. [154]. ‘Mr. Smirk, you are a brisk man.’ Foote’s The Minor, Act II. ‘Almost afraid to know itself.’ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3. Mr. Farren. William Farren (1786-1861). Lord Ogleby in Colman and Garrick’s The Clandestine Marriage was one of his best parts. Note. See vol. I. p. 313. [155]. Jeremy Collier. Jeremy Collier’s (1650-1726) Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage appeared in March 1697-8. Mrs. Centlivre. Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723). The Busy Body appeared in 1709, The Wonder in 1714. [156]. The scene near the end. The Wonder, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘Roast me these Violantes.’ Ibid. Act II. Sc. 1. [156]. In the third edition the following account of The Busy Body, taken from Oxberry’s The New English Drama (Vol. VI.) is inserted: ‘“The Busy Body” is a comedy that has now held possession of the stage above a hundred years (the best test of excellence); and the merit that has enabled it to do so, consists in the ingenuity of the contrivance, the liveliness of the plot, and the striking effect of the situations. Mrs. Centlivre, in this and her other plays, could do nothing without a stratagem; but she could do everything with one. She delights in putting her dramatis personæ continually at their wit’s end, and in helping them off with a new evasion; and the subtlety of her resources is in proportion to the criticalness of the situation and the shortness of the notice for resorting to an expedient. Twenty times, in seeing or reading one of her plays, your pulse beats quick, and you become restless and apprehensive for the event; but with a fine theatrical sleight of hand, she lets you off, undoes the knot of the difficulty, and you breathe freely again, and have a hearty laugh into the bargain. In short, with her knowledge of chambermaids’ tricks, and insight into the intricate foldings of lovers’ hearts, she plays with the events of comedy, as a juggler shuffles about a pack of cards, to serve his own purposes, and to the surprise of the spectator. This is one of the most delightful employments of the dramatic art. It costs nothing—but a voluntary tax on the inventive powers of the author; and it produces, when successfully done, profit and praise to one party, and pleasure to all. To show the extent and importance of theatrical amusements (which some grave persons would decry altogether, and which no one can extol too highly), a friend of ours,[^[49]] whose name will be as well known to posterity as it is to his contemporaries, was not long ago mentioning, that one of the earliest and most memorable impressions ever made on his mind, was the seeing “Venice Preserved” acted in a country town when he was only nine years old. But he added, that an elderly lady who took him to see it, lamented, notwithstanding the wonder and delight he had experienced, that instead of “Venice Preserved,” they had not gone to see “The Busy Body,” which had been acted the night before. This was fifty years ago, since which, and for fifty years before that, it has been acted a thousand times in town and country, giving delight to the old, the young, and middle-aged, passing the time carelessly, and affording matter for agreeable reflection afterwards, making us think ourselves, and wish to be thought, the men equal to Sir George Airy in grace and spirit, the women to Miranda and Isabinda in love and beauty, and all of us superior to Marplot in wit. Among the scenes that might be mentioned in this comedy, as striking instances of happy stage effect, are Miranda’s contrivance to escape from Sir George, by making him turn his back upon her to hear her confession of love, and the ludicrous attitude in which he is left waiting for the rest of her speech after the lady has vanished; his offer of the hundred pounds to her guardian to make love to her in his presence, and when she receives him in dumb show, his answering for both; his situation concealed behind the chimney-screen; his supposed metamorphosis into a monkey, and his deliverance from thence in that character by the interference of Marplot; Mrs. Patch’s sudden conversion of the mysterious love letter into a charm for the toothache, and the whole of Marplot’s meddling and blunders. The last character is taken from Dryden and the Duchess of Newcastle; and is, indeed, the only attempt at character in the play. It is amusing and superficial. We see little of the puzzled perplexity of his brain, but his actions are absurd enough. He whiffles about the stage with considerable volubility, and makes a very lively automaton. Sir George Airy sets out for a scene or two in a spirited manner, but afterwards the character evaporates in the name; and he becomes as commonplace as his friend Charles, who merely laments over his misfortunes, or gets out of them by following the suggestions of his valet or his valet’s mistress. Miranda is the heroine of the piece, and has a right to be so; for she is a beauty and an heiress. Her friend has less to recommend her; but who can refuse to fall in love with her name? What volumes of sighs, what a world of love, is breathed in the very sound alone—the letters that form the charming name of Isabinda.’ [157]. ‘The one cries Mum,’ etc. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5. Sc. 2. Note. See first edition (1714), pp. 35-6. [158]. ‘‘Some soul of goodness,’ etc. Henry V., Act IV. Sc. 1. His Funeral. Produced in 1701. ‘All the milk of human kindness.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5. The Conscious Lovers. 1722. Hazlitt refers to Act III. Sc. 1. Parson Adams against me. See Joseph Andrews, Book III. chap. II. Addison’s Drummer. 1715. ‘An Hour after Marriage.’ Three Hours after Marriage (1717), the joint production of Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot. ‘An alligator stuff’d.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. 1. Gay’s What-d’ye-call-it. 1715. ‘Polly.’ Published in 1728. The representation was forbidden by the Court. Last line but one. In the third edition Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the Beggar’s Opera’ (see vol. I. pp. 65-6) is here introduced. [159]. The Mock Doctor. 1732. Tom Thumb. Afterwards called The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1730; additional Act, 1731). Lord Grizzle. In Tom Thumb. ‘‘Like those hanging locks,’ etc. Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess, Act I. Sc. 2. ‘Fell of hair,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5. ‘Hey for Doctor’s Commons.’ Tragedy of Tragedies, etc., Act II. Sc. 5. ‘From the sublime,’ etc. See ante, note to p. 23. Lubin Log. In James Kenney’s farce, Love, Law, and Physic, produced 1812. See ante, p. 192. The Widow’s Choice. Allingham’s Who Wins, or The Widow’s Choice, 1808. ‘Is high fantastical.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1. [160]. The hero of the Dunciad. Cibber was substituted for Theobald as the King of Dulness in consequence of his famous letter to Pope, published in 1742. ‘By merit raised,’ etc. Paradise Lost, II. 5-6. His Apology for his own Life. Published in 1740. Cf. The Round Table, vol. I. pp. 156-7. His account of his waiting, etc. An Apology, etc., 2nd ed. 1740, chap. III. pp. 59-60. Mr. Burke’s celebrated apostrophe. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89). Kynaston, etc. See vol. I. notes to pp. 156-7. [161]. His Careless Husband. 1704. His Double Gallant. 1707. The play was revived in 1817 and noticed by Hazlitt. See ante, pp. 359-362. ‘In hidden mazes,’ etc. Misquoted from L’Allegro, 141-2. [162]. His Nonjuror. 1717. Isaac Bickerstaff’s The Hypocrite was produced in 1768. Love’s Last Shift. Colley Cibber’s first play, produced in 1694. For Southerne’s remark to Cibber, see An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, p. 173. l. 34. In the third edition a great part of Hazlitt’s article on The Hypocrite (see A View of the English Stage, ante, p. 245) is inserted here. The passage is also in Oxberry’s New English Drama, vol. I. Love in a Riddle. 1729.

“Take him for all in all,

We shall not look upon his like again.”[^[56]]