POETRY
Now republished for the first time. Some of the essays now first republished from The Atlas are identified as Hazlitt’s in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc. (see I. xxix. and xxx.). The others have been included on the strength of the internal evidence of authorship. A short paper, attributed to Hazlitt by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, I. xxix.), and entitled ‘Richesse de la Langue,’ had appeared in The Atlas for Jan. 25, 1829. It runs as follows:—
‘How should one convey by a single word an expression of face which having arisen from some strong passion, uneasiness or emotion, is converted into an habitual character, and remains without any immediate object to excite it? In the English language there are above thirty ways of doing this, or else approaching to, and hovering round the point. As for instance, we may express this look by the following epithets, more or less pointedly, and with various inflections of meaning attached to them:—wild, scared, startled, haggard, harassed, hunted, nervous, agitated, apprehensive, terrified, dismayed, abstracted, stunned, panick-struck, odd, strange, wayward, flighty, uncouth, unaccountable, eccentric, embarrassed, unsettled, uneasy, overconscious, morbid, careworn, blighted, scare-crow, hang-dog, ghastly, wilful, dogged, staring, fierce, etc. All these come tolerably near the mark, and differ from each other; yet none of them is the very word that is wanted to express the thing in question, though we have no doubt there is such a word in the English language, and that it might be suggested by some one who has a greater command of its resources. The above remarks may serve to guard the student of English, whether a foreigner or merely a stranger to his native tongue, against unmeaning synonymes or monotonous common-place.’
PAGE [339]. ‘Daffodils,’ etc. A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4. [340]. ‘That fine madness,’ etc. Cf. Drayton, Elegy, To Henry Reynolds, Esq. [341]. ‘Cowslips wan,’ etc. Lycidas, 147. Lowly children, etc. Cf. ‘With all the lowly children of the shade.’ Thomson, The Seasons, Spring, 450. [342]. ‘To elevate and surprise.’ The Duke of Buckingham, The Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1.