ON NICKNAMES
[442]. ‘Hæ nugæ,’ etc. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, 451–2. [443]. ‘The priest,’ etc. The Beggar’s Opera, Act I. Sc. 1. ‘As infidels,’ etc. Hazlitt alludes to a note in the ‘Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin,’ denouncing Coleridge, Lamb, and Southey. See vol. X. (Contributions to the Edinburgh Review), p. 139. [444]. ‘Sound them,’ etc. Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. 2. An eminent character. Probably Stoddart, late editor of The Times. See post, p. 448. ‘Hath Britain all the sun,’ etc. Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 4. [445]. ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’ Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2. ‘The unbought grace of life,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89). [446]. ‘Leave the will puzzled,’ etc. Ibid., II. 103. ‘Bring but a Scotsman,’ etc. Burns, The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer, etc. Postscript, St. 4.
THOUGHTS ON TASTE
[450]. ‘He had found a few pearls,’ etc. Œuvres, L. 58. July 19, 1776. ‘Rich as the oozy bottom,’ etc. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 2. ‘Or like a gate of steel,’ etc. Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 3. [451]. ‘Damns [condemns] him,’ etc. Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV. Sc. 3. ‘Lay their choppy fingers,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 3. [452]. ‘Have built high towers,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 749. ‘Majestic though in ruin.’ Paradise Lost, II. 305. Innocence ‘likest heaven.’ ‘O innocence deserving Paradise.’ Ibid., V. 445–6. ‘In tones,’ etc. Paradise Regained, IV. 255. The author of the ‘Friend,’ etc. Coleridge may have said this to Hazlitt himself. He described Pope’s writings as ‘a conjunction disjunctive of epigrams’ (Biographia Literaria, chap. I.). For his views on French Tragedy, see ibid., Satyrane’s Letters, Letter II. The author of the ‘Excursion,’ etc. See The Excursion, II. 484. Cf. vol. I. (The Round Table), p. 116 and note. Note. Non satis est, etc. Horace, Ars Poetica, 99. [453]. ‘Not to admire,’ etc. ‘Not to admire is all the art I know,’ quoted by Pope from Creech’s translation of Horace. See Imitations of Horace, Book I. Epistle vi. I.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
[454]. ‘Hope told a flattering tale.’ An anonymous song sung to Paisiello’s famous air, ‘Nel cor più non mi sento,’ from La Molinara. [455]. ‘Pierceable.’ ‘Not perceable with any power of any starr’ (The Faerie Queene, I. I. 7) is quoted elsewhere by Hazlitt. ‘The drops,’ etc. As You Like It, Act. II. Sc. 7. [456]. ‘Swept and garnished.’ S. Matthew xii. 44. ‘Knowledge at each entrance,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 50. Note. Mr. Allston. See ante, note to p. 189. Note. ‘A temple,’ etc. Cf. 2 Corinthians, v. 1. [457]. ‘Nor seem’d’ [appeared], ‘etc. Paradise Lost, I. 592–4. Better than nothing. At this point in the Magazine there is a footnote by the editor, protesting against the view that Rogers’s Human Life is ‘nothing,’ and the Lyrical Ballads only ‘something.’ He adds ‘Who told this lively writer that Mr. Southey ever preferred the Excursion to Paradise Lost?’ The preference given, etc. A review of Human Life by Jeffrey in The Edinburgh Review (XXXI. 325) contains a contemptuous reference to ‘a Lakish ditty.’
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
This conclusion of ‘Thoughts on Taste’ does not appear to have been published in the Edinburgh Magazine, or, so far as the editors have been able to discover, in any Magazine. In the Edinburgh Magazine the second essay is described as ‘a conclusion of some thoughts on the same subject, in our Number for October 1818.’ This third essay is reprinted from Sketches and Essays, where it was perhaps printed from a MS. or proof.
[460]. Mr. Pratt. Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749–1814), whose ‘Sympathy, a Poem,’ was published anonymously in 1788. ‘That come’ etc. A Winter’s Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4. [461]. ‘And fit audience find,’ etc. Paradise Lost, VII. 31.