[306]. A celebrated line. See Coleridge’s Tragedy Osorio, Act iv., Sc. 1., written 1797, but not published in its original form until 1873. Coleridge’s Poetical Works, ed. Dykes Campbell, p. 498.
‘Drip! drip! drip! drip! in such a place as this
It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip!’
Recast and entitled Remorse, the tragedy was performed at Drury Lane, Jan. 23, 1813, and published in pamphlet form. In the Preface Coleridge relates the story of Sheridan reading the play to a large company, and turning it into ridicule by saying—
‘Drip! drip! drip! there’s nothing here but dripping.’
Hazlitt’s quotation is taken, of course, from this Preface to Remorse.
[307]. The milk of human kindness. Macbeth, I. 5.
[309]. Daniel. Samuel Daniel, 1562–1619.
[311]. Michael Drayton (1563–1631). His Polyolbion, or ‘chorographicall’ description of England in thirty books was issued in 1612–22. See the Spenser Society’s editions of Drayton’s works.
P. Fletcher’s Purple Island. Phineas Fletcher (1582–1650). The Purple Island, 1633. The poem has been topographically catalogued under ‘Man, Isle of’!