Of erring faith conjoin’d.’
Roderick, the Last of the Goths, I. 18–19.
SHELLEY’S POSTHUMOUS POEMS
The volume here reviewed was published in 1824 by John and Henry L. Hunt. Hazlitt had little sympathy with Shelley either as a man or a poet. The grounds of his distrust of him as a man are given more than once, most fully, perhaps, in the essay ‘On Paradox and Common-Place’ (Table Talk, VI. 148–150), which led to the quarrel between Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt in 1821. See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, I. 304–315, and Four Generations of a Literary Family, I. 130–135. As for Shelley’s poetry, P. G. Patmore suggests that Hazlitt knew little or nothing of it. ‘Though I have often,’ he says (My Friends and Acquaintance, III. 136), ‘heard him speak disparagingly of Shelley as a poet, I never heard him refer to a single line or passage of his published writings.’ Hazlitt met Shelley at Leigh Hunt’s, and the two discussed Monarchy and Republicanism until three in the morning.’ See Mary Shelley’s journal of 1817, quoted in Professor Dowden’s Life, II. 103.
PAGE [256]. ‘Too fiery,’ etc. Cf. ‘You know the fiery quality of the duke.’ King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘Beyond the visible,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, VII. 22. ‘All air.’ Cf. ‘He is pure air and fire.’ Henry V., Act III. Sc. 7. [257]. ‘So divinely wrought,’ etc. Cf. John Donne, An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–246. ‘And dallies,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 3. ‘More subtle web,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto XII. St. 77. [259]. ‘There the antics sit.’ Richard II., Act. III. Sc. 2. ‘Palsied eld.’ Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1. [260]. Mr. Shelley died, etc. When Shelley’s body was cast ashore near Via Reggio (July 18, 1822), a volume of Keats’s poems was found in one pocket, and a volume of Sophocles in the other. Two out of four poets, patriots, and friends. The four poets were presumably Shelley, Keats, Byron and Leigh Hunt. Keats died young, etc. Cf. vol. VI. (Table Talk) p. 99. A third has since been added, etc. Byron died at Mesolonghi, April 19, 1824. [261]. Mrs. Shelley. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797–1851) married to Shelley, Dec. 30, 1816. Alastor. Originally published in 1816. Translation of the May-day Night. Published in The Liberal. Julian and Maddalo. This poem, first published in Posthumous Poems, had been sent to Leigh Hunt in 1819 for publication by Ollier. [264]. ‘Made as flax.’ Cf. Judges, XV. 14. [267]. The Letter to a Friend in London. The Letter to Maria Gisborne presumably. ‘Toys of feathered cupid.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. [269]. ‘The sun is warm,’ etc. Stanzas written in dejection near Naples. [270]. Mr. Keats’s sounding lines. Endymion, Book I. 232 et seq. ‘Weakness and melancholy.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2. [271]. ‘To elevate and surprise.’ The Duke of Buckingham’s Rehearsal, Act I. Sc. 1. ‘Overstep the modesty.’ Hamlet, Act III., Sc. 2. ‘Good set terms.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. Lord Leveson Gower. Lord Francis Leveson Gower (1800–1857), son of the second Marquis of Stafford, inherited a large property from his uncle, Francis Henry Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, assumed the name of Egerton, and in 1846 was created Earl of Ellesmere. His translation of Faust appeared in 1823. [275]. Note. See vol. V. pp. 202–203, and notes.
LADY MORGAN’S LIFE OF SALVATOR
This Life appeared in 1823. Sydney Owenson (1783?–1859), author of The Wild Irish Girl in (1806), and many other less known books, was the daughter of Robert Owenson, the actor, and in 1812 married Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, the physician and philosopher. Cf. The Spirit of the Age (vol. IV.), p. 308, and The Plain Speaker (vol. VII.), p. 220. This review was republished in Criticisms on Art (1843–4) and in Essays on the Fine Arts (1873).
PAGE [278]. The miracle in Virgil. Æneid, III. 37–40. [279]. ‘Housing with wild men,’ etc. Coleridge, Zapolya, Act II. Sc. 1. [280]. ‘Their mind,’ etc. Sir Edward Dyer’s poem, beginning ‘My mind to me a kingdom is.’ ‘In measureless content.’ Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1. ‘Unjust tribunals,’ etc. Samson Agonistes, 695. [282]. ‘Pride, pomp,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3. [283]. The celebrated Lanfranco. Giovanni Lanfranco (1581–1647), the painter. ‘Skins and films,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. [287]. ‘Another moon,’ etc. Paradise Lost, V. 311. [291]. ‘According to Lord Bacon,’ etc. Advancement of Learning, Bk. II. iv. p. 2. ‘Burke, in a like manner,’ etc. See A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791 (Works, Bohn, II. p. 535, et seq.) [292]. ‘Moralizes,’ etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 1. Bernini. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), the sculptor. [296]. Passeri. Giovanni Battista Passeri (1610?–1679), author of Vite de’Pittori, Scultori, e Architetri, etc. (1772). Mrs. Radcliffe’s Italian. Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, 1797. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter (1776–1850), published in 1803. [298]. ‘Like a wounded snake,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Criticism (II.), 357. [300]. ‘Where universal Pan,’ etc. Paradise Lost, IV. 266–268. [301]. Massaniello. Tommaso Aniello—called Masaniello—(1623–1647), the fisherman leader of the Neapolitan revolt against the Spanish viceroy in 1647.
AMERICAN LITERATURE—DR. CHANNING
This review is stated to be Hazlitt’s in the volume of Selections from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, p. 70 note. Jeffrey writes to Napier, Nov. 23, 1829 (Ibid. pp. 69–70): ‘Your American reviewer is not a first-rate man, a clever writer enough, but not deep or judicious, or even very fair. I have no notion who he is. If he is young he may come to good, but he should be trained to a more modest opinion of himself, and to take a little more pains, and go more patiently and thoroughly into his subject.’ Carlyle, on the other hand, writes, Jan. 27. 1830 (Ibid. p. 78): ‘I liked the last [number] very well; the review of Channing seemed to me especially good.’ It is very strange that Jeffrey should not have recognised Hazlitt’s manner. Procter (An Autobiographical Fragment, p. 261) quotes a letter from Jeffrey of May 12, 1826, in which he says, ‘Can you tell me anything of our ancient ally Hazlitt?’