The first thing the Westminster Review did. See ante, note to p. 183. In the very first number (Jan. 1824), the article being written by James Mill, assisted by his son John Stuart Mill. See Sir Leslie Stephen’s The English Utilitarians, vol. III. p. 18.
[382]. As Mr. Place lost Mr. Hobhouse his first election. Hobhouse unsuccessfully contested Westminster as an advanced Liberal in 1818.
Note. But not till then. For this remark of Porson’s see vol. VII., Lectures on the English Comic Writers, p. 17.
AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION
Hazlitt had made the ‘discovery’ set forth in this essay and had begun to write the essay itself as early as 1798, when he had his memorable meeting with Coleridge. See the essay ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets.’ He did not, however, succeed in making himself understood by the poet, and when the book came to be published, its sale was slow and small, though Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, I. 112) relates that according to a tradition in the family it won the admiration of Mr. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger. Hazlitt himself was proud of the essay, and continually refers to it in his later writings. See especially A Letter to William Gifford, vol. I. pp. 403 et seq., where he explains the nature of the argument. Cf. also the essay on ‘Self-Love’ and the fragments of lectures on English Philosophy first published in Literary Remains. The variations made in the second edition from marginal notes in the author’s copy (see Bibliographical Note) are few and trifling.
[395]. An airy, notional good. Cf.
‘——fugitive theme
Of my pursuing verse, ideal shade,
Notional good, by fancy only made.’
Prior, Solomon, or the Vanity of the World, I. 15–7.