THE OPERA
[426]. ‘The glass of fashion,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. ‘The fool of the senses.’ Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1. ‘How happy,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act II. Sc. 2. [428]. ‘With some sweet,’ etc. Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3. ‘The cloister’d heart,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 268 and note. [429]. ‘The flower of Britain’s warriors,’ etc. Southey, Carmen Nuptiale, 16. [430]. A contemporary critic. Hazlitt perhaps refers to Schlegel. See vol. VIII. (A View, etc.) p. 324.
ON THE QUESTION WHETHER POPE WAS A POET
Hazlitt was for a time a fairly frequent contributor to The Edinburgh Magazine (New Series), otherwise known as The New Scots Magazine. Two of his contributions, ‘Remarks on Mr. West’s Picture of Death on the Pale Horse,’ and ‘On the Ignorance of the Learned,’ have been published in vols. IX. and VI. respectively. The essays ‘On Fashion,’ ‘On Nicknames’ and ‘Thoughts on Taste’ in the present volume were first reprinted with omissions and variations in Sketches and Essays (1839); those ‘On the Question whether Pope was a Poet,’ (signed W. H.), and ‘On Respectable People,’ are now reprinted for the first time.
[431]. ‘The pale reflex.’ Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 5. [432]. ‘In fortune’s ray,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3. ‘Gnarled oak.’ Shakespeare uses this phrase (Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2), but Hazlitt probably meant a ‘knotted oak’ which is the expression used in the passage he had just written down. ‘Calm contemplation,’ etc. Thomson, The Seasons, Autumn, 1277.
ON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE
Signed ‘A. Z.’ in the Magazine.
[434]. ‘Buys golden opinions.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7. ‘The learned pate,’ etc. Timon of Athens, Act IV. Sc. 3. [435]. Otway, etc. Otway, according to the familiar but probably untrue account first given by T. Cibber in The Lives of the Poets, was choked by the first mouthful of a roll which he bought with money given to him by a gentleman in a coffee-house. ‘For a song.’ The story of Lord Burghley’s ungenerous treatment of Spenser was first recorded by Fuller. ‘The time gives evidence of it.’ Cf. ‘This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. [436]. ‘What can ennoble sots,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 215–6. ‘All honourable men.’ Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 2. [437]. ‘Lives and fortunes men.’ For the old formula of ‘lives and fortunes’ see Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 18 and note.)
ON FASHION
[437]. ‘Born of nothing,’ etc. Cf. ante, note to p. 421. ‘His garment,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, III. xii. 8. ‘The great vulgar and the small.’ Cowley, Horace’s Odes, III. 1. [439]. ‘The sign of an inward,’ etc. Misquoted from the Catechism. [440]. ‘And are, when unadorned,’ etc. Thomson, The Seasons, Autumn, 206. ‘The city madam’ [woman], etc. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7. ‘The age is grown so picked,’ etc. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 1. [441]. The story in Peregrine Pickle. Chap, lxxxvii. ‘Lisping and ambling,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. [442]. ‘In a high or low degree.’ Cf. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, 1. 137. ‘And thin partitions,’ etc. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 164. ‘Kings are naturally,’ etc. Burke, Speech on Economical Reform (Works, Bohn, II. 106).