that I quite forgot I had to write my article on the Drama the next day; nor without his imaginary aid should I have been able to wind up my accounts for the year, as Mr. Matthews gets through his AT HOME by the help of a little awkward ventriloquism.
W. H.
November 21, 1820.
NOTES
LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS
These Lectures were delivered at the Surrey Institution, in Blackfriars Road, in 1818, after the completion of the course on the English Poets (see vol. V.). Some particulars as to their delivery will be found in Talfourd’s edition of Lamb’s Letters (see Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s reprint, Bohn, i. 38 et seq.), and in Patmore’s My Friends and Acquaintance. See also Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Four Generations of a Literary Family (vol. I. pp. 121-2), where the opinions of Beckford and Thackeray are referred to. In the third edition of the Lectures (see Bibliographical Note) several passages ‘collected by the author, apparently with a view to a reprint of the volume,’ were interpolated. Two of these passages are taken from a long letter (published in full in the Appendix to these notes) which Hazlitt contributed to The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 15, 1813. The rest are taken from prefatory notices which he contributed to William Oxberry’s The New English Drama (20 vols. 1818-1825), and are printed in the following notes.
LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY
PAGE [8]. The Tale of Slaukenbergius. Tristram Shandy, vol. IV. [9]. ‘There is something in the misfortunes,’ etc. Rochefoucault, Maximes et Réflexions Morales, CCXLI. ‘They were talking,’ etc. Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 1. Lord Foppington. In The Relapse of Vanbrugh. See post, p. 82. [10]. Aretine laughed himself to death, etc. The story is that while laughing at the jest Aretine fell from a stool and was killed. Sir Thomas More jested, etc. More bade the executioner stay till he had put aside his beard, ‘for that,’ he said, ‘had never committed treason.’ Rabelais and Wycherley. ‘When Rabelais,’ says Bacon (Apophthegms), ‘the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend came to him afterwards, and asked him how he did? Rabelais answered, “Even going my journey, they have greased my boots already.”’ But his last words, uttered ‘avec un éclat de rire,’ were: ‘Tirez le rideau, la farce est jouée.’ It is said that Wycherley, on the night before he died, made his young wife promise that she would never marry an old man again. See a letter from Pope to Blount, Jan. 21, 1715-6 (Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, VI. 366). Pope, after telling the story, adds: ‘I cannot help remarking that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour.’ The dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet. The Beaux’ Stratagem, Act III. Sc. 2. Mr. Emery’s Robert Tyke. In Thomas Morton’s School of Reform (1805). Cf. post, p. 391.
LECTURE II. ON SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON
[30]. Dr. Johnson thought, etc. See his Preface to Shakespeare (Works, Oxford, 1825, vol. V. p. 113). ‘Smit with the love of sacred song.’ Paradise Lost, III. 29. [31]. There is but one, etc. Hazlitt is recalling Dryden’s line, ‘within that circle none must walk but he.’ (Prologue to The Tempest.) ‘Not to speak it profanely.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2. ‘Like an unsubstantial pageant faded.’ The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1. [32]. ‘He is the leviathan,’ etc. Hazlitt adapts a passage of Burke’s: ‘The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the Crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty.’ A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, V. 129). ‘A consummation,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. The description of Queen Mab. In Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 4. ‘The shade of melancholy boughs.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. ‘Give a very echo,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘Oh! it came,’ etc. Ibid. Act I. Sc. 1. [33]. ‘Covers a multitude of sins.’ I. Peter, iv. 8. The ligament, etc. Cf. ‘And that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.’ Tristram Shandy, VI. 10. The Society for the Suppression of Vice. Cf. The Round Table, vol. I. p, 60 and note. ‘He has been merry,’ etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act V. Sc. 3. ‘Heard the chimes at midnight.’ Ibid., Act III. Sc. 2. [34]. ‘Come on, come on, etc. Ibid. [35]. ‘One touch of nature,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3. ‘It is apprehensive, etc. Henry IV., Part II., Act IV. Sc. 3. [36]. ‘Go to church,’ etc. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 3. Tattle and Sparkish. In Congreve’s Love for Love and Wycherley’s The Country Wife respectively. ‘All beyond Hyde Park,’ etc. Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode, Act V. Sc. 2. ‘Lay waste a country gentleman.’ Hazlitt uses this expression elsewhere. See his character of Cobbett in The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV. p. 334), where he says that Cobbett ‘lays waste a city orator or Member of Parliament.’ Lord Foppington. In Vanbrugh’s The Relapse. ‘The Prince of coxcombs,’ etc. ‘Fashion. Now, by all that’s great and powerful, thou art the prince of coxcombs. Lord Foppington. Sir—I am proud of being at the head of so prevailing a party.’