[P. 219.] Pindaric or Shandean, i.e., whimsical. Pindaric should of course be understood as a reference to Peter Pindar, the name under which John Wolcot (1738-1819) wrote his coarse and whimsical satires. Hazlitt mentions him at the end of his lectures “On the Comic Writers”: “The bard in whom the nation and the king delighted, is old and blind, but still merry and wise:—remembering how he has made the world laugh in his time, and not repenting of the mirth he has given; with an involuntary smile lighted up at the mad pranks of his Muse, and the lucky hits of his pen.” Shandean is derived from Sterne’s novel, “Tristram Shandy.”
And follows so. “Henry V,” iv, 1, 293.
his political inconsistency. This is the subject of Hazlitt’s attacks on Southey. See “Political Essays” (Works, III, 109-120, 192-232).
ELIA
The last essay in the “Spirit of the Age” is entitled “Elia and Geoffrey Crayon.” An edition published at Paris by Galignani in 1825 omits the account of Washington Irving, and this text, as it is in all respects unexceptionable, has been here adopted for the sake of coherence. In a letter to Bernard Barton, February 10, 1825, Lamb refers to Hazlitt’s sketch: “He has laid too many colours on my likeness, but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to ‘Elia’ as Gentlemen think proper to bestow.”
[P. 221.] shuffle off. “Hamlet,” iii, 1, 67.
The self-applauding bird. Cowper’s “Truth,” 58.
[P. 222.] New-born gauds and give to dust. “Troilus and Cressida,” iii, 3, 176-79.
do not in broad rumor lie, and the two following quotations are free renderings of “Lycidas,” 78-82.
Mr. Lamb rather affects. Hazlitt had Lamb in his eye when he described the Occult School in the essay “On Criticism” (“Table Talk”): “There is another race of critics who might be designated as the Occult School—verè adepti. They discern no beauties but what are concealed from superficial eyes, and overlook all that are obvious to the vulgar part of mankind. Their art is the transmutation of styles. By happy alchemy of mind they convert dross into gold—and gold into tinsel. They see farther into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly unreadable, they can read him for ever: his intricacies are their delight, his mysteries are their study. They prefer Sir Thomas Brown to the Rambler by Dr. Johnson, and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy to all the writers of the Georgian Age. They judge of works of genius as misers do of hid treasure—it is of no value unless they have it all to themselves. They will no more share a book than a mistress with a friend. If they suspected their favourite volumes of delighting any eyes but their own, they would immediately discard them from the list. Theirs are superannuated beauties that every one else has left off intriguing with, bed-ridden hags, a ‘stud of night-mares.’ This is not envy or affectation, but a natural proneness to singularity, a love of what is odd and out of the way. They must come at their pleasures with difficulty, and support admiration by an uneasy sense of ridicule and opposition. They despise those qualities in a work which are cheap and obvious. They like a monopoly of taste, and are shocked at the prostitution of intellect implied in popular productions. In like manner, they would chuse a friend or recommend a mistress for gross defects; and tolerate the sweetness of an actress’s voice only for the ugliness of her face. Pure pleasures are in their judgment cloying and insipid—