PAGE [156]. ‘Leaving the world no copy.’ Twelfth Night, Act I. Scene 5. Colley Cibber’s account. See Chap. iv. of Cibber’s Apology. Miss O’Neill. Eliza O’Neill (1791–1872) made her last appearance on the stage on July 13, 1819, shortly before her marriage with Mr. Becher, who afterwards became a baronet. Hazlitt in an article on her retirement (see A View of the English Stage) said that ‘her excellence (unrivalled by any actress since Mrs. Siddons) consisted in truth of nature and force of passion.’ Mrs. Siddons. Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) appeared without success in London in 1775 and 1776, gained a great reputation in Manchester and Bath, and reappeared in London on October 10, 1782 in Garrick’s Isabella, a version of Southerne’s Fatal Marriage. After a long series of triumphs she made her farewell appearance on June 29, 1812, as Lady Macbeth. Hazlitt’s notices of her are confined to two of the occasional benefit performances which she gave before she finally retired in June 1819. See A View of the English Stage (June 15, 1816, and June 7, 1817).
‘——and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,’ etc.
Paradise Lost, II. 599 et seq.
WHY THE ARTS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE: A FRAGMENT
In The Morning Chronicle for January 11 and 15, 1814, Hazlitt published two papers entitled ‘Fragments on Art. Why the Arts are not progressive?’ Later in the year he contributed two papers to The Champion (August 28, 1814, and September 11, 1814) under the heading ‘Fine Arts. Whether they are promoted by Academies and Public Institutions?’ and in a letter (October 2) replied to the criticisms of a correspondent. The present ‘Fragment’ is composed of (1) the first of the articles in The Morning Chronicle and part of the second, and (2) part of the second article in The Champion. Much of the matter of the present essay is embodied in Hazlitt’s article on the Fine Arts, contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica.
PAGE [160]. ‘It is often made a subject,’ etc. The first three paragraphs are taken from The Morning Chronicle, January 11, 1814. In The Champion for August 28, 1814, the first two paragraphs appear as a quotation from a ‘contemporary critic.’ Antæus. The story of Antæus the giant is referred to by Milton (Paradise Regained, IV. 563 et seq.). [161]. Nothing is more contrary, etc. This paragraph and part of the next are repeated at the beginning of the Lecture on Shakspeare and Milton in Lectures on the English Poets. [162]. Guido. Substituted for Claude Lorraine, upon whom, in The Morning Chronicle, Hazlitt has the following note: ‘In speaking thus of Claude, we yield rather to common opinion than to our own. However inferior the style of his best landscapes may be, there is something in the execution that redeems all defects. In taste and grace nothing can ever go beyond them. He might be called, if not the perfect, the faultless painter. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another Raphael, before there was another Claude. In Mr. Northcote’s Dream of a Painter (see his Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds), there is an account of Claude Lorraine, so full of feeling, so picturesque, so truly classical, so like Claude, that we cannot resist this opportunity of copying it out.’ The passage quoted from Northcote is the paragraph beginning, ‘Now tired with pomp and splendid shew.’ See Northcote’s Varieties on Art (The Dream of a Painter) in his Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc. (1813–1815) p. xvi. ‘The human face divine.’ Paradise Lost, III. 44. ‘Circled Una’s angel face,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto iii. st. 4. Griselda. See The Canterbury Tales (The Clerk’s Tale). The Flower and the Leaf. This poem, a great favourite of Hazlitt’s, is not now attributed to Chaucer. [163]. The divine story of the Hawk. The Decameron (Fifth Day, Novel IX.). Hazlitt continually refers to the story. Isabella. The Decameron (Fourth Day, Novel V.). So Lear, etc. King Lear, Act II. Scene 4. Titian. The picture referred to is one of those which Hazlitt copied while he was studying in the Louvre in 1802. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 88. He frequently mentions it. Nicolas Poussin. ‘But, above all, who shall celebrate, in terms of fit praise, his picture of the shepherds in the Vale of Tempe going out in a fine morning of the spring, and coming to a tomb with this inscription:—Et ego in Arcadia vixi!’ (Table Talk, ‘On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin.’) In general, it must happen, etc. The two concluding paragraphs are taken from The Champion, September 11, 1814. Current with the world. The following passage in The Champion is here omitted: ‘Common sense, which has been sometimes appealed to as the criterion of taste, is nothing but the common capacity, applied to common facts and feelings; but it neither is nor pretends to be, the judge of anything else. To suppose that it can really appreciate the excellence of works of high art, is as absurd as to suppose that it could produce them.’ Count Castiglione. Baldassare Count Castiglione (1478–1529), whose famous Il Cortegiano was translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby under the title of ‘The Courtyer’ (1561).
CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEAR’S PLAYS
PAGE [171]. It is observed by Mr. Pope. Ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. X. pp. 534–535. A gentleman of the name of Mason. Neither George Mason (1735–1806), author of An Essay on Design in Gardening, 1768, nor John Monck Mason (1726–1809), Shakespearian commentator, is the author of the work alluded to by Hazlitt, but Thomas Whately (d. 1772) whose Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakespere was published after Thomas Whately’s death by his brother, the Rev. Jos. Whately, in 1785, as ‘by the author of Observations on Modern Gardening’ [1770]; a second edition was published in 1808 with the author’s name on the title-page, and a third in 1839, edited by Archbishop Whately, Thomas Whately’s nephew. Richardson’s Essays. Essays on Shakespeare’s Dramatic Characters. 1774–1812. By William Richardson (1743–1814). Schlegel’s Lectures on the Drama. A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. By A. W. von Schlegel. Delivered at Vienna in 1808. English translation, by John Black, in 1815. The quotation which follows will be found in Bohn’s one vol. edition, 1846, pp. 363–371, and the further references given in these notes are to the same edition. [174]. ‘to do a great right.’ Mer. Ven. IV. 1. ‘alone is high fantastical.’ Twelfth Night, I. 1. [175]. Dr. Johnson’s Preface to his Edition of Shakespear. 1765. ‘swelling figures.’ Dr. Johnson’s Preface. See Malone’s Shakespeare, 1821, vol. i. p. 75. [176]. Dover cliff in Lear, Act IV. 6. flowers in The Winter’s Tale, Act IV. 4. Congreve’s description of a ruin in the Mourning Bride, Act II. 1. [177]. the sleepy eye of love. Cf. ‘The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.’ Pope, Imit. 1st Epis. 2nd. Bk. Horace, l. 150. In his tragic scenes. Dr. Johnson’s Preface, p. 71. His declamations, etc. Ibid., p. 75. But the admirers, etc. Ibid., p. 75. [178]. in another work, The Round Table. See pp. 61–64.