MERRY ENGLAND
First republished in Sketches and Essays.
[16]. ‘I have been merry,’ etc. Cf. 2 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. 3. ‘He chirped over his cups.’ Rabelais. See vol. I. (The Round Table), p. 52. ‘There were pippins,’ etc. Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. Sc. 2. ‘Continents,’ etc. Hobbes, Human Nature (Works, ed. Molesworth, IV. 50). ‘They ... amused themselves,’ etc. Cf. vol. I. (The Round Table), note to p. 100. ‘Eat,’ etc. S. Luke XII. 19. [17]. ‘Hair-breadth ‘scapes.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. Old Lord’s cricket-ground. Hazlitt refers to the original ‘Lord’s,’ established about 1782 by Thomas Lord, on the site now occupied by Dorset Square, where the game continued to be played till 1810. The present ‘Lord’s,’ dates from 1814. [18]. ‘A cry more tuneable,’ etc. Cf. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV. Sc. 1. Note. ‘The gentle and free passage of arms at Ashby.’ Described by Scott in Ivanhoe, chap. viii. [19]. ‘Brothers of the angle.’ The Compleat Angler, part I. chap. i. ‘The Cockney character,’ etc. This sentence was omitted in Sketches and Essays. [20]. ‘Book of Sports.’ James I.’s declaration (1618) authorising certain forms of recreation after divine service on Sundays. The declaration was republished by Charles I. in 1633. ‘And e’en on Sunday,’ etc. Burns, Tam O’Shanter. Gilray’s shop-window. Miss Humphrey’s shop, 29 St. James’s Street, where James Gilray (1757–1815), the caricaturist, spent the last years of his life, and where his works were on view. Sketches and Essays prints ‘Fore’s shop-window.’