ESSAY XXXIII. ON THE FEAR OF DEATH
‘And our little life,’ etc. The Tempest, Act IV. Scene 1. [322]. When Bickerstaff wrote his essays. In The Tatler, 1709–11. The firing at Bunker’s hill. June 17, 1775. ‘The gorge rises at.’ Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1. [323]. ‘The wars,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto IX. Stanza 56. ‘The present eye,’ etc. ‘The present eye praises the present object.’ Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene 3. [324]. ‘Makes calamity,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1. ‘Oh! thou strong heart,’ etc. Webster’s The White Devil; or Vittoria Corombona, Act V. Scene 1. ‘Content man’s natural desire.’ ‘To be, contents his natural desire.’ Pope, Essay on Man, I. 109. ‘On this bank,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Scene 1. ‘This sensible,’ etc. Measure for Measure, Act III. Scene 1. ‘Turns to withered,’ etc. Paradise Lost, XI. 540. Note. Young’s Night Thoughts, I. 424. [325]. ‘The sear, the yellow leaf.’ Macbeth, Act V. Scene 3. Gone into the wastes of time. ‘That thou among the wastes of time must go.’ Shakespeare, Sonnet No. XII. [326]. Zanetto, etc. Rousseau’s Confessions, Part II. liv. 7.
‘To lose it, may be, at last in a lewd quarrel
For some new friend.’
Otway, Venice Preserved, Act IV. Scene 2.
MR. NORTHCOTE’S CONVERSATIONS
James Northcote (1746–1831), was the son of Samuel Northcote, a Plymouth watchmaker. He was brought to the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds by the Mudges of Plymouth (see note to p. 366). Sir Joshua befriended him and he sat as one of the figures in Ugolino. After study in London and abroad he began to acquire reputation as a portrait-painter. He exhibited at the Royal Academy first in 1781, and of that body he was elected an Associate in 1786, and an Academician on Feb. 13, 1787. He painted many historical and sacred subjects, but his reputation will rest upon his portraits, many of which may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery. He wrote the Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1813–15) wherein several of the anecdotes which occur in the conversations first appear, and was helped in two other pieces of literary work by Hazlitt, viz., The Life of Titian, with Anecdotes of the Distinguished Persons of his Time (1830), and One Hundred Fables, Original and Selected (1828), the wood-cuts to which, by William Harvey, from Northcote’s designs, are of value with respect to the art of English wood-engraving. A Second Series was issued in 1833, after his death. He spoke Devonshire all his life and never married. See Memorials of an Eighteenth Century Painter (James Northcote): by Stephen Gwynn, 1898; Conversations of James Northcote, R.A., with James Ward on Art and Artists: edited by Ernest Fletcher, 1901; P. G. Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintances; Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the Old Age of Artists’ in The Plain Speaker; Ruskin’s Præterita; and The Examiner, May 4th, 1833. The circumstances under which the ‘Conversations’ were reported and printed will be found set forth in the ‘Memoirs of William Hazlitt,’ vol. II. pp. 198–213. After six issues had appeared in The New Monthly Magazine a Mr. Rosdew protested on behalf of the Mudges against some remarks that appeared therein. The passages, which are given below in the Notes for the first time since they appeared in the Magazine (they were omitted when Hazlitt collected the papers for a volume), may explain this protest. The publication of further issues seems to have been stopped by the Editor, Thomas Campbell. Four Conversations (see note to p. 394), were contributed to Richardson’s London Weekly Review, and their existence there does not seem to have been noted until the present edition. Their publication was transferred to The Atlas (see note to p. 420), and finished therein. Unfortunately, the British Museum file of The Atlas is defective, and it has not so far been possible to check every ‘Conversation’ with its first appearance in magazine form. Where possible, however, this has been done, and a few passages are given below which were not reprinted by Hazlitt. [333]. Conversations I.-VI. first appeared in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. They begin in vol. 17, 1826, Part II. ‘Original Papers,’ under the title of ‘Boswell Redivivus’ and may be found as follows:—
No. I. August vol. 17 No. 68
„ II. September „ „ „ 69
„ III. October „ „ „ 70