The foremost man in all this world. Julius Caesar, Act IV. Sc. 3.
Monsieur Talleyrand. Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord, Prince de Bénévent (1754–1838), De Quincey’s ‘rather middling bishop, but very eminent knave.’
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[30]. The late Lord Castlereagh. Lord Castlereagh had committed suicide in a fit of insanity in 1822. See vol. III. Political Essays, pp. 102–3, and note to p. [36] etc.
[31]. Barry. James Barry (1741–1806). See Hazlitt’s article on him, p. [413] et seq.
Collins. Probably Richard Collins (1755–1831), who was chief miniature and enamel painter to George III.
And o’er-informed the tenement of clay. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 158.
[32]. Like an exhalation Comus, 556.
[33]. Which of you copied the other? Said of Menander by Aristophanes of Byzantium.
Note. Cleveland-House. Near Stable Yard, St. James’s, now called Bridgewater House. It was bought by the Duke of Bridgewater in 1730.