ON MR KEAN’S IAGO
Mr. Examiner,—I was not at all aware that in the remarks which I offered on Mr. Kean’s Iago my opinions would clash with those already expressed by the respectable writer of the Theatrical Examiner: for I did not mean to object to ‘the gay and careless air which Mr. Kean threw over his representation of that arch villain,’ but to its being nothing but carelessness and gaiety; and I thought it perfectly consistent with a high degree of admiration of this extraordinary actor, to suppose that he might have carried an ingenious and original idea of the character to a paradoxical extreme. In some respects, your Correspondent seems to have mistaken what I have said; for he observes that I have entered into an analysis to shew, ‘that Iago is a malignant being, who hates his fellow-creatures, and doats on mischief and crime as the best means of annoying the objects of his hate.’ Now this is the very reverse of what I intended to shew; for so far from thinking that Iago is ‘a ruffian or a savage, who pursues wickedness for its own sake,’ I am ready to allow that he is a pleasant amusing sort of gentleman, but with an over-activity of mind that is dangerous to himself and others; that so far from hating his fellow-creatures, he is perfectly regardless of them, except as they may afford him food for the exercise of his spleen, and that ‘he doats on mischief and crime,’ not ‘as the best means of annoying the objects of his hate,’ but as necessary to keep himself in that strong state of excitement which his natural constitution requires, or, to express it proverbially, in perpetual hot water. Iago is a man who will not suffer himself or any one else to be at rest; he has an insatiable craving after action, and action of the most violent kind. His conduct and motives require some explanation; but they cannot be accounted for from his interest or his passions,—his love of himself, or hatred of those who are the objects of his persecution: these are both of them only the occasional pretext for his cruelty, and are in fact both of them subservient to his love of power and mischievous irritability. I repeat, that I consider this sort of unprincipled self-will as a very different thing from common malignity; but I conceive it also just as remote from indifference or levity. In one word, the malice of Iago is not personal, but intellectual. Mr. Kean very properly got rid of the brutal ferocity which had been considered as the principle of the character, and then left it without any principle at all. He has mistaken the want of moral feeling, which is inseparable from the part, for constitutional ease and general indifference, which are just as incompatible with it. Mr. Kean’s idea seems to have been, that the most perfect callousness ought to accompany the utmost degree of inhumanity; and so far as relates to callousness to moral considerations, this is true; but that is not the question. If our Ancient had no other object, or principle of action but his indifference to the feelings of others, he gives himself a great deal of trouble to no purpose. If he has nothing else to set him in motion, he had much better remain quiet than be broken on the rack. Mere carelessness and gaiety, then, do not account for the character. But Mr. Kean acted it with nearly the same easy air with which Mr. Braham sings a song in an opera, or with which a comic actor delivers a side-speech in an after-piece.
But the character of Iago, says your Correspondent, has nothing to do with the manner of acting it. We are to look to the business of the play. Is this then so very pleasant, or is the part which Iago undertakes and executes the perfection of easy comedy? I should conceive quite the contrary. The rest of what your Correspondent says on this subject is ‘ingenious, but not convincing.’ It amounts to this, that Iago is a hypocrite, and that a hypocrite should always be gay. This must depend upon circumstances. Tartuffe was a hypocrite, yet he was not gay: Joseph Surface was a hypocrite, but grave and plausible: Blifil was a hypocrite, but cold, formal and reserved. The hypocrite is naturally grave, that is, thoughtful, and dissatisfied with things as they are, plotting doubtful schemes for his own advancement and the ruin of others, studying far-fetched evasions, double-minded and double-faced.—Now all this is an effort, and one that is often attended with disagreeable consequences; and it seems more in character that a man whose invention is thus kept on the rack, and his feelings under painful restraint, should rather strive to hide the wrinkle rising on his brow, and the malice at his heart, under an honest concern for his friend, or the serene and regulated smile of steady virtue, than that he should wear the light-hearted look and easy gaiety of thoughtless constitutional good humour. The presumption therefore is not in favour of the lively, laughing, comic mien of hypocrisy. Gravity is its most obvious resource, and, with submission, it is quite as effectual a one. But it seems, that if Iago had worn this tremendous mask, ‘the gay and idle world would have had nothing to do with him.’ Why, indeed, if he had only intended to figure at a carnival or a ridotto, to dance with the women or drink with the men, this objection might be very true. But Iago has a different scene to act in, and has other thoughts in his contemplation. One would suppose that Othello contained no other adventures than those which are to be met with in Anstey’s Bath Guide,[[92]] or in one of Miss Burney’s novels. The smooth smiling surface of the world of fashion is not the element he delights to move in: he is the busy meddling fiend ‘who rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm,’[[93]] triumphing over the scattered wrecks, and listening to the shrieks of death. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Kean’s Iago must be wrong, for it seems to have abstracted your Correspondent entirely from the subject of the play. Indeed it is one great proof of Mr. Kean’s powers, but which at the same time blinds the audience to his defects, that they think of little else in any play but of the part he acts. ‘What! a gallant Venetian turned into a musty philosopher! Go away, and beg the reversion of Diogenes’ tub! Go away, the coxcomb Roderigo will think you mighty dull, and will answer your requests for money with a yawn; the cheerful spirited Cassio will choose some pleasanter companion to sing with him over his cups; the fiery Othello will fear lest his philosophic Ancient will be less valorously incautious in the day of battle, and that he will not storm a fort with the usual uncalculating intrepidity.’ Now, the coxcomb Roderigo would probably have answered his demands for money with a yawn, though he had been ever so facetious a companion, if he had not thought him useful to his affairs. He employs him as a man of business, as a dextrous, cunning, plotting rogue, who is to betray his master and debauch his wife, an occupation for which his good humour or apparent want of thought would not particularly qualify him. An accomplice in knavery ought always to be a solemn rogue, and withal a casuist, for he thus becomes our better conscience, and gives a sanction to the roguery. Cassio does not invite Iago to drink with him, but is prevailed upon against his will to join him; and Othello himself owes his misfortunes, in the first instance, to his having repulsed the applications of Iago to be made his lieutenant. He himself affects to be blunt and unmannerly in his conversation with Desdemona. There is no appearance of any cordiality towards him in Othello, nor of his having been a general favourite (for such persons are not usually liked), nor of his having ever been employed but for his understanding and discretion. He every where owes his success to his intellectual superiority, and not to the pleasantness of his manners. At no time does Othello put implicit confidence in Iago’s personal character, but demands his proofs; or when he founds his faith on his integrity, it is from the gravity of his manner: ‘Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more,’ etc.[[94]]
Your Correspondent appeals to the manners of women of the town, to prove that ‘there is a fascination in an open manner.’ I do not see what this has to do with Iago. Those who promise to give only pleasure, do not of course put on a melancholy face, or ape the tragic muse. The Sirens would not lull their victims by the prophetic menaces of the Furies. Iago did not profess to be the harbinger of welcome news. The reference to Milton’s Satan and Lovelace is equally misplaced. If Iago had himself endeavoured to seduce Desdemona, the cases would have been parallel. Lovelace had to seduce a virtuous woman to pleasure, by presenting images of pleasure, by fascinating her senses, and by keeping out of sight every appearance of danger or disaster. Iago, on the contrary, shews to Othello that he has ‘a monster in his thought’;[[95]] and it is his object to make him believe this by dumb show, by the knitting of his brows, by stops and starts, etc. before he is willing to commit himself by words. Milton’s devil also could only succeed by raising up the most voluptuous and delightful expectations in the mind of Eve, and by himself presenting an example of the divine effects produced by eating of the tree of knowledge. Gloom and gravity were here out of the question. Yet how does Milton describe the behaviour of this arch-hypocrite, when he is about to complete his purpose?
‘She scarce had said, though brief, when now more bold
The Tempter, but with shew of zeal and love
To man and indignation at his wrong,
New part puts on, and as to passion moved,
Fluctuates disturb’d yet comely and in act
Rais’d, as of some great matter to begin,
As when of old some orator renown’d
In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
Flourish’d, since mute, to some great cause address’d,
Stood in himself collected, while each part,
Motion, each act, won audience ere the tongue;
Sometimes in height began, as no delay
Of preface brooking through his zeal of right;
So standing, moving, or to height upgrown,
The Tempter all-impassion’d thus began:’[[96]]
If this impassioned manner was justifiable here, where the serpent had only to persuade Eve to her imagined good, how much more was it proper in Iago, who had to tempt Othello to his damnation? When he hints to Othello that his wife is unfaithful to him—when he tells his proofs, at which Othello swoons, when he advises him to strangle her, and undertakes to dispatch Cassio from his zeal in ‘wronged Othello’s service,’[[97]] should he do this with a smiling face, or a face of indifference? If a man drinks or sings with me, he may perhaps drink or sing much as Mr. Kean drinks or sings with Roderigo and Cassio: if he bids me good day, or wishes me a pleasant journey, a frank and careless manner will well become him; but if he assures me that I am on the edge of a precipice, or waylaid by assassins, or that some tremendous evil has befallen me, with the same fascinating gaiety of countenance and manner, I shall be little disposed to credit either his sincerity or friendship or common sense.
Your Correspondent accounts for the security and hilarity of Iago, in such circumstances, from his sense of superiority and his certainty of success. First, this is not the account given in the text, which I should prefer to any other authority on the subject. Secondly, if he was quite certain of the success of his experiment, it was not worth the making, for the only provocation to it was the danger and difficulty of the enterprise; and at any rate, whatever were his feelings, the appearance of anxiety and earnestness was necessary to the accomplishment of his purpose. ‘He should assume a virtue, if he had it not.’[[98]] Besides, the success of his experiment was not of that kind even which has been called negative success, but proved of a very tragical complexion both to himself and others. I can recollect nothing more to add, without repeating what I have before said, which I am afraid would be to no purpose. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
W. H.
Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable
[1]. A child that has hid itself out of the way in sport, is under a great temptation to laugh at the unconsciousness of others as to its situation. A person concealed from assassins, is in no danger of betraying his situation by laughing.
[2]. His words are—‘If in having our ideas in the memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts, in this of having them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from another, where there is but the least difference, consists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and clearness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason. For wit lying mostly in the assemblage of ideas, and putting them together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.’ (Essay, vol. i. p. 143.) This definition, such as it is, Mr. Locke took without acknowledgment from Hobbes, who says in his Leviathan, ‘This difference of quickness in imagining is caused by the difference of men’s passions, that love and dislike some one thing, some another, and therefore some men’s thoughts run one way, some another, and are held to and observe differently the things that pass through their imagination. And whereas in this succession of thoughts there is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by which is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that observe their differences and dissimilitudes, which is called distinguishing and discerning and judging between thing and thing; in case such discerning be not easy, are said to have a good judgment; and particularly in matter of conversation and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be discerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, fancy, without the help of judgment, is not commended for a virtue; but the latter, which is judgment or discretion, is commended for itself, without the help of fancy.’ Leviathan, p. 32.
[3]. Unforced.
[4]. See his Lives of the British Poets, Vol. I.
[5].
‘And have not two saints power to use
A greater privilege than three Jews?’
‘Her voice, the music of the spheres,
So loud it deafens mortals’ ears,
As wise philosophers have thought,
And that’s the cause we hear it not.’
[6].
‘No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.’
[7].
‘And in his nose, like Indian king,
He (Bruin) wore for ornament a ring.’
[8].
‘Whose noise whets valour sharp, like beer
By thunder turned to vinegar.’
[9].
‘Replete with strange hermetic powder,
That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder.’
‘His tawny beard was th’ equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and die so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile:
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether orange mixed with grey.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns;
With grisly type did represent
Declining age of government;
And tell with hieroglyphic spade
Its own grave and the state’s were made.’
‘This sword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so,
As dwarfs upon knight errants do.’
[10].
‘And straight another with his flambeau,
Gave Ralpho o’er the eyes a damn’d blow.’
‘That deals in destiny’s dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells.’
[11].
‘The mighty Tottipottimoy
Sent to our elders an envoy.’
[12].
‘For Hebrew roots, although they’re found
To flourish most in barren ground.’
[13].
‘Those wholesale critics that in coffee-
Houses cry down all philosophy.’
[14].
‘This we among ourselves may speak,
But to the wicked or the weak
We must be cautious to declare
Perfection-truths, such as these are.’
[15]. The following are nearly all I can remember.—
‘Thus stopp’d their fury and the basting
Which towards Hudibras was hasting.’
It is said of the bear, in the fight with the dogs—
‘And setting his right foot before,
He raised himself to shew how tall
His person was above them all.’
‘At this the knight grew high in chafe,
And staring furiously on Ralph,
He trembled and look’d pale with ire,
Like ashes first, then red as fire.’
‘The knight himself did after ride,
Leading Crowdero by his side,
And tow’d him if he lagged behind,
Like boat against the tide and wind.’
‘And rais’d upon his desperate foot,
On stirrup-side he gazed about.’
‘And Hudibras, who used to ponder
On such sights with judicious wonder.’
The beginning of the account of the procession in Part II. is as follows:—
‘Both thought it was the wisest course
To wave the fight and mount to horse,
And to secure by swift retreating,
Themselves from danger of worse beating:
Yet neither of them would disparage
By uttering of his mind his courage.
Which made ’em stoutly keep their ground,
With horror and disdain wind-bound.
And now the cause of all their fear
By slow degrees approach’d so near,
They might distinguish different noise
Of horns and pans, and dogs and boys,
And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub
Sounds like the hooping of a tub.’
[16]. Love in a Tub, and She Would if She Could.
[17]. Why Pope should say in reference to him, ‘Or more wise Charron,’ is not easy to determine.
[18]. As an instance of his general power of reasoning, I shall give his chapter entitled One Man’s Profit is another’s Loss, in which he has nearly anticipated Mandeville’s celebrated paradox of private vices being public benefits:—
‘Demades, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen, who furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price for his goods: and if he got an estate, it must be by the death of a great many people: but I think it a sentence ill grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be made, but at the expense of some other person, and that every kind of gain is by that rule liable to be condemned. The tradesman thrives by the debauchery of youth, and the farmer by the dearness of corn; the architect by the ruin of buildings, the officers of justice by quarrels and law-suits; nay, even the honour and function of divines is owing to our mortality and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his best friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the peace of his country; and so of the rest. And, what is yet worse, let every one but examine his own heart, and he will find that his private wishes spring and grow up at the expense of some other person. Upon which consideration this thought came into my head, that nature does not hereby deviate from her general policy; for the naturalists hold, that the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing is the decay and corruption of another:
Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit,
Continuo hoc mors est illius, quod fuit ante. i.e.
For what from its own confines chang’d doth pass,
Is straight the death of what before it was.’
Vol. 1. Chap. xxi.
[19]. No. 125.
[20]. The antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which Burke was so fond of, in which the epithet is a seeming contradiction to the substantive, such as ‘proud submission and dignified obedience,’ are, I think, first to be found in the Tatler.
[21]. It is not to be forgotten that the author of Robinson Crusoe was also an Englishman. His other works, such as the Life of Colonel Jack, &c., are of the same cast, and leave an impression on the mind more like that of things than words.
[22]. The Fool of Quality, David Simple, and Sidney Biddulph, written about the middle of the last century, belong to the ancient regime of novel-writing. Of the Vicar of Wakefield I have attempted a character elsewhere.
[23]. The Waiter drawing the cork, in the Rent-day, is another exception, and quite Hogarthian.
[24]. When Meg Merrilies says in her dying moments—‘Nay, nay, lay my head to the East,’ what was the East to her? Not a reality but an idea of distant time and the land of her forefathers; the last, the strongest, and the best that occurred to her in this world. Her gipsy slang and dress were quaint and grotesque; her attachment to the Kaim of Derncleugh and the wood of Warrock was romantic; her worship of the East was ideal.
[25]. I have only to add, by way of explanation on this subject, the following passage from the Characters of Shakspeare’s Plays: ‘There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying to those, who would impose on us for what they are not, even the merit which they have. This is the comedy of artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To this succeeds a state of society from which the same sort of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater knowledge of the world, or by their successful exposure on the stage; and which by neutralizing the materials of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves no comedy at all—but the sentimental. Such is our modern comedy. There is a period in the progress of manners anterior to both these, in which the foibles and follies of individuals are of nature’s planting, not the growth of art or study; in which they are therefore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who knows them, if they can but have their whim out; and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, the spectators rather receive pleasure from humouring the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, than wish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is the comedy which we generally find in Shakspeare.’ P. 256.
[26]. See Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees.
[27]. This ingenious and popular writer is since dead.
[28]. See the Fudge Family, edited by Thomas Brown, jun.
[29]. The defects in the upper tones of Mr. Kean’s voice were hardly perceptible in his performance of Shylock, and were at first attributed to hoarseness.
[30]. For a fuller account of Mr. Kean’s Othello, see one of the last articles in this volume.
[31]. An old gentleman, riding over Putney-bridge, turned round to his servant, and said, ‘Do you like eggs, John?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ Here the conversation ended. The same gentleman riding over the same bridge that day year, again turned round, and said, ‘How?’ ‘Poached, sir,’ was the answer.—This is the longest pause upon record, and has something of a dramatic effect, though it could not be transferred to the stage. Perhaps an actor might go so far, on the principle of indefinite pauses, as to begin a sentence in one act, and finish it in the next.
[32]. The Examiner.
[33]. It will be seen, that this severe censure of Munden is nearly reversed in the sequel of these remarks, and on a better acquaintance with this very able actor in characters more worthy of his powers.
[34]. In the last edition of the works of a modern Poet, there is a Sonnet to the King, complimenting him on ‘his royal fortitude.’ The story of the Female Vagrant, which very beautifully and affectingly describes the miseries brought on the lower classes by war, in bearing which the said ‘royal fortitude’ is so nobly exercised, is very properly struck out of the collection.
[35]. The scene where the screen falls and discovers Lady Teazle, is without a rival. Perhaps the discovery is delayed rather too long.
[36]. What Louis XVIII. said to his new National Guards.
[37]. It was about this time that Madame Lavalette assisted her husband to escape from prison.
[38]. A Mr. Bibby, from the United States.
[39].
‘’Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging ill.’
Pope.
[40]. This young lady has since acted Beatrice in ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ with considerable applause.
[41]. So the old song joyously celebrates their arrival:—
‘The beggars are coming to town,
Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in velvet gowns,’
[42]. The story of the Heart of Midlothian was, we understand, got up at the Surrey Theatre last year by Mr. Dibdin, in the most creditable style. A Miss Taylor, we hear, made an inimitable Jenny Deans, Miss Copeland was surprising as Madge Wildfire, Mrs. Dibdin as Queen Caroline, was also said to be a complete piece of royal wax-work, and Dumbydikes was done to the life. Would we had seen them so done; but we can answer for these things positively on no authority but our own. If they make as good a thing of Ivanhoe, they will do more than the author has done.
[43]. Miss Baillie has much of the power and spirit of dramatic writing, and not the less because, as a woman, she has been placed out of the vortex of philosophical and political extravagances.
[44]. We have given this sentence in marks of quotation, and yet it is our own. We should put a stop to the practices of ‘such petty larceny rogues’—but that it is not worth while.
[45]. Generosity and simplicity are not the characteristic virtues of poets. It has been disputed whether ‘an honest man is the noblest work of God.’ But we think an honest poet is so.
[46]. ‘Or mouth with slumbery pout.’ Keats’s Endymion.
The phrase might be applied to Miss Stephens: though it is a vile phrase, worse than Hamlet’s ‘beautified’ applied to Ophelia. Indeed it has been remarked that Mr. Keats resembles Shakspeare in the novelty and eccentricity of his combinations of style. If so, it is the only thing in which he is like Shakspeare: and yet Mr. Keats, whose misfortune and crime it is, like Milton, to have been born in London, is a much better poet than Mr. Wilson, or his Patroclus Mr. Lockart; nay, further, if Sir Walter Scott (the sly Ulysses of the Auld Reekie school,) had written many of the passages in Mr. Keats’s poems, they would have been quoted as the most beautiful in his works. We do not here (on the banks of the Thames) damn the Scotch novels in the lump, because the writer is a Sawney Scot. But the sweet Edinburgh wits damn Mr. Keats’s lines in the lump, because he is born in London. ‘Oh Scotland, judge of England, what a treasure hast thou in one fair son, and one fair son-in-law, neither of whom (by all accounts) thou lovest passing well!’
[47]. The Fancy is not used here in the sense of Mr. Peter Corcoran, but in a sense peculiar to Mr. Coleridge, and hitherto undefined by him.
[48]. This expression is borrowed from Dr. Johnson. However, as Dr. Johnson is not a German critic, Mr. C. need not be supposed to acknowledge it.
[49]. This was Godwin, who saw Venice Preserved at Norwich. See Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, I. 10.
[50]. She Stoops to Conquer, Act I.
[51]. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1.
[52]. Cf. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 5.
[53]. The Rivals, Act V. Sc. 3.
[54]. James William Dodd (1740?-1796).
[55]. The Rivals, Act III. Sc. 3.
[56]. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.
[57]. By Arthur Murphy (1756).
[58]. Elizabeth Pope (1744?-1797) wife of Alexander Pope the actor. She made her first appearance in 1768 and became famous in a wide range of parts.
[59]. Better known as Mrs. Barry. Ann Spranger Barry (1734-1801) first appeared at Drury Lane in 1767-8, and soon acquired a great reputation both in tragedy and comedy. She married Spranger Barry the actor in 1768.
[60]. See post, note to p. 184.
[61]. Cowley, Horace, Odes, III. 1.
[62]. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.
[63]. ‘His honours and his valiant parts.’ Ibid.
[64]. Ibid.
[65]. Pope, The Rape of the Lock, II. 17-18.
[66]. See Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, Life of Edmund Smith.
[67]. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.
[68]. William Dimond of Bath, the author of a great number of plays.
[69]. Cf. ante, pp. 411-12.
[70]. Cf. ‘In their trinal triplicities on bye.’ The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto I. St. 38.
[71]. Cf. ‘Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.’ Richard III., Act IV. Sc. 3.
[72]. A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.
[73]. L’Allegro, 14 et seq.
[74]. By Richard Lalor Shell.
[75]. Dr. John Stoddart, who had left The Times early in 1817, and started The Day and New Times, afterwards known as The New Times.
[76]. Founded on Bickerstaffe’s Love in the City, and first produced 1781.
[77]. Comus, 476-7.
[78]. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.
[79]. ‘Blasted with excess of light.’ Gray, The Progress of Poesy, III. 2, 7.
[80]. Cowper, The Task, IV. 486.
[81]. Pope, Moral Essays, II. 114.
[82]. The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Sc. 2.
[83]. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.
[84]. L’Allegro, 147.
[85]. As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2.
[86]. Pope, Moral Essays, III., 309-10.
[87]. Cf. the essay ‘Of persons one would wish to have seen.’
[88]. Horace, Ars Poetica, 343.
[89]. Hazlitt has omitted the number. The reference is perhaps to No. 42.
[90]. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.
[91]. Paradise Lost, III. 444-6.
[92]. Christopher Anstey’s (1724-1805) New Bath Guide (1766).
[93]. Addison, The Campaign, 292.
[94]. Act III. Sc. 3.
[95]. Ibid.
[96]. Paradise Lost, IX. 664-678.
[97]. Act III. Sc. 3.
[98]. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.