THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN
In addition to the essays reprinted in the text from The Examiner of 1815 there are four letters signed ‘Peter Pickthank’ on the Duke D’Enghien, to which reference should be made. These appeared on September 24, October 8, November 19, and December 10, and were written in reply to a correspondent signing himself ‘Fair Play.’ The controversy arose out of an article (September 3) entitled ‘Chateaubriand, The Quack,’ which contained a casual reference to the Duke D’Enghien, ‘whom Buonaparte is accused of having murdered because he was not willing that he, the said Royal Duke, should assassinate him.’ ‘Fair Play’ seized on this passage and protested (September 10) against the implied defence of the Duke D’Enghien’s execution. ‘Peter Pickthank’ replied (September 24), and the correspondence was kept up till near the end of the year, ‘Fair Play’ contributing letters on October 1, October 29, and November 26. ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ letters contain many of Hazlitt’s stock quotations and personal allusions (to Dr. Stoddart, for example); they embody exactly his political opinions, and altogether the internal evidence of their having been written by him is very strong. Inasmuch, however, as there is not absolute certainty in the matter, and a considerable part of the letters would have been unintelligible without including ‘Fair Play’s’ letters as well, the editors have felt justified in omitting the whole correspondence. An editorial note at the end of ‘Peter Pickthank’s’ third letter (November 19) states that ‘this article has been delayed in order to soften some of the asperities.’
MR. LOCKE A GREAT PLAGIARIST
No. XXXI. of the Round Table series, and signed ‘W.H.’
[285]. ‘The very head,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3. ‘A justly exploded [decried] author.’ See ante, p. 167 and note. Professor Stewart’s very elegant Dissertation. Prefixed to the Supplement to the 4th and 5th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1816). [286]. ‘Fame is no plant,’ etc. Lycidas 78–82. [287]. ‘The greatest and as it were radical distinction,’ etc. Bacon, Aphorisms, LV. ‘That strain I heard was of a higher mood.’ Lycidas, 87. [288]. What is most remarkable, etc. This passage on wit will be found in an expanded form in Lectures on the English Comic Writers. See vol. VIII. pp. 18–21. Three papers, which we propose to write. These papers do not appear to have been written. [289]. ‘The laborious fooleries.’ See ante, note to p. 239. [290]. ‘The tenth transmitter,’ etc. Cf. ‘No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.’ Savage, The Bastard, 8. ‘The mind alone is formative.’ See ante, p. 176.
[THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED]
In The Examiner for March 3, 1816 appeared the following note:—‘A correspondent who signs himself J.W. thinks we ought to bring proofs of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as the founder of a system. We recommend him, if he is curious on this subject, to read the first eighty pages of Hobbes’s Leviathan, if the name does not alarm him. After that, if he is not satisfied and repeats his request, perhaps we may attend to it.’ On March 31 (Round Table No. XXXIV.) Hazlitt brings forward his proofs in a long paper which consists chiefly of extracts from Locke, Hobbes and other philosophers. The essay begins as follows:—
‘We have been required to give proof of Mr. Locke’s want of originality as a metaphysical reasoner, and of the claims of Hobbes to be considered as the founder of the modern system of the philosophy of the human mind.
‘Here then it is. But at the same time we would observe, that we do not think ourselves bound to give this proof to those who have demanded it (somewhat impatiently) at our hands. It was sufficient for us to have stated our opinion on this subject, and to have referred the curious expressly to the sources from which they might satisfy themselves of the truth or hollowness of our assertion. To our readers in general we owe some apology for alluding to such subjects at all. But to the point.—We have said that the principles of the modern school of metaphysics are all to be found, pure, entire, connected, and explicitly stated, in the writings of Hobbes: that Mr. Locke borrowed the leading principle of that philosophy from Hobbes, without understanding or without admitting the system in general, concerning which he always seems to entertain two opinions: that succeeding writers have followed up Mr. Locke’s general principle into its legitimate consequences, and have arrived at exactly the same conclusions as Hobbes, but that being ignorant of the name and writings of Hobbes, they have with one accord and with great injustice attributed the merit of the original discovery of that system to Mr. Locke, as having made the first start, and having gone further in it than any one else before him.
‘The principles of the modern system, of which Mr. Locke is the reputed and Mr. Hobbes the real founder, are chiefly the following:—