(1) Two letters from Hazlitt under the heading ‘Historical Illustrations of Shakespeare’ appeared in the number for January 1819 (vol. IV. p. 39) and ran as follows: ‘Mr. Editor, I daresay you will agree with me in thinking, that whatever throws light on the dramatic productions of Shakespeare, deserves to be made public. I have already, in the volume called Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,[[81]] shewn, by a reference to the passages in North’s translation of Plutarch, his obligations to the historian in his Coriolanus, and the noble way in which he availed himself of the lights of antiquity in composing that piece. I shall, with your permission, pursue the subject in the present and some future articles. The parallel is even more striking between the celebrated trial-scene in Henry VIII., and the following narrative of that event, as it actually took place, which is to be found in Cavendish’s Negociations of Cardinal Wolsey,’

ON THE PRESENT STATE OF PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE

Many of Hazlitt’s numerous contributions to The London Magazine have been included in former volumes of the present edition. Of those printed in this volume, the essay ‘On the Spirit of Partisanship’ was reprinted in Sketches and Essays (1839), that ‘On Consistency of Opinion’ in Winterslow (1850). The remaining five are now republished for the first time.

Some interesting particulars about The London Magazine will be found in Mr. Bertram Dobell’s Sidelights on Charles Lamb (1903).

The essay ‘On the Present State of Parliamentary Eloquence’ is signed ‘T.’ and is No. IV. of the series entitled ‘Table Talk.’ Cf. the Bibliographical and Critical Notes to The Eloquence of the British Senate, vol. III. p. 389, to which this essay may be regarded as supplementary. Hazlitt had been a parliamentary reporter on The Morning Chronicle in 1813. The exact period does not seem to be ascertainable, but the present essay shows that he heard Plunket’s great speech on Catholic Emancipation (Feb. 25, 1813), and Sir James Mackintosh’s maiden speech (Dec. 14, 1813). With regard to Plunket’s speech there is a tradition that Hazlitt was so fascinated by it that he omitted to take any notes of it. See Memoirs, etc. (1867), I. 196. Most of the speakers here described are referred to more than once by Hazlitt elsewhere.

[464]. ‘Such a one,’ etc. The Letters of the younger Pliny, I. 20. [465]. ‘Domestic treason,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2. [466]. ‘Make a wanton.’ Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 2. [468]. ‘Plays round the head,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 254. [469]. ‘Kindle them,’ etc. Comus, 794–5. [470]. ‘Ample scope,’ etc. Cf. Gray, The Bard, 51. [471]. ‘Would lengthen [stretch] out,’ etc. Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1. [472]. ‘Grove nods to grove,’ etc. Pope, Moral Essays, IV. 117–8. Roubilliac. Louis François Roubiliac (1695–1762), many of whose monuments are in Westminster Abbey. His remark quoted by Hazlitt was made to Reynolds. See Northcote’s Life of Sir J. Reynolds, p. 44. Note 1. ‘It is a custom,’ etc. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 4. Note 2. Mr. Phillips. Hazlitt presumably refers to Charles Phillips (1787?–1859), a florid Irish barrister, called to the English bar in 1821. Note 3. ‘Like Juno’s swans,’ etc. As You Like It, Act I. Sc. 3. [473]. Mr. Banks. Henry Bankes (1757–1834), M.P. for Corfe Castle (1780–1826). Mr. Charles Yorke. Charles Philip Yorke (1764–1834), who had been conspicuous in the stormy privilege debates of 1810. He was at this time M.P. for Liskeard. Mr. Secretary Peele. Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), then Chief Secretary for Ireland and a strong opponent of Catholic Emancipation. ‘Without o’erflowing, full.’ Sir John Denham, Cooper’s Hill, 192. It was but indifferently reported, etc. As to Hazlitt’s own difficulty in reporting it, see ante, introductory note to the essay. [474]. ‘Come then, expressive silence,’ etc. Thomson, A Hymn, 118. Note 2. ‘That speech,’ etc. This famous saying is usually credited to Talleyrand, but Voltaire had said much the same thing (Dialogues, XIV. Le Chapon et la Poularde). Note 2. Isabey. Jean Baptiste Isabey’s (1767–1855) picture of The Congress of Vienna is at Windsor Castle. [475]. ‘In many a winding bout,’ etc. L’Allegro, 139–140. ‘But ’tis the fall,’ etc. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, I. 144–5. [476]. ‘Out upon such half-faced fellowship.’ 1 Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3. Summum jus, etc. Cicero, De Officiis, I. 10. [477]. ‘The punto,’ etc. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. 3, and Act II. Sc. 1; and Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 4. ‘No further seek,’ etc. Misquoted from Gray’s Elegy, 125–6.

[MR. CRABBE]

To The London Magazine for May 1821, Hazlitt contributed an essay on Crabbe, under the heading ‘Living Authors, No. V.’ The greater part of this essay was republished in The Spirit of the Age (see vol. IV. pp. 348 et seq.), but some passages were omitted which are here supplied.

In the Magazine the first paragraph (which differs to some extent from the opening of the Spirit of the Age essay) runs as follows:

‘The object of Mr. Crabbe’s writings seems to be, to show what an unpoetical world we live in: or rather, perhaps, the very reverse of this conclusion might be drawn from them; for it might be said, that if this is poetry, there is nothing but poetry in the world. Our author’s style might be cited as an answer to Audrey’s inquiry, “Is poetry a true thing?” If the most feigning poetry is the truest, Mr. Crabbe is of all poets the least poetical. There are here no ornaments, no flights of fancy, no illusions of sentiment, no tinsel of words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serves him in the place of invention; he assumes importance by a number of petty details; he rivets attention by being prolix. He not only deals in incessant matters of fact, but in matters of fact of the most familiar, the least animating, and most unpleasant kind; but he relies for the effect of novelty on the microscopic minuteness with which he dissects the most trivial objects—and, for the interest he excites on the unshrinking determination with which he handles the most painful. His poetry has an official and professional air. He is called out to cases of difficult births, of fractured limbs, or breaches of the peace; and makes out a parish register of accidents and offences. He takes the most trite, the most gross and obvious, and revolting part of nature, for the subject of his elaborate descriptions; but it is nature still, and Nature is a great and mighty goddess. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”[[82]] It is well for the reverend author that it is so. Individuality is, in his theory, the only definition of poetry. Whatever is, he hitches into rhyme. Whoever makes an exact image of any thing on the earth below, however deformed or insignificant, according to him, must succeed and he has succeeded. Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired of our living writers. That he is so, can be accounted for on no other principle than the strong ties that bind us to the world about us and our involuntary yearnings after whatever in any manner powerfully and directly reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of the daughters of Memory, but the old toothless mumbling dame herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting, totidem verbis et literis, what happens in every place in the kingdom every hour in the year, and fastening always on the worst as the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination, harping on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as they happened, and giving us a local interest in all she knows and tells. The springs of Helicon are, in general, supposed to be a living stream, bubbling and sparkling, and making sweet music as it flows; but Mr. Crabbe’s fountain of the Muses is a stagnant pool, dull, motionless, choked up with weeds and corruption; it reflects no light from heaven, it emits no cheerful sound:—his Pegasus has not floating wings, but feet, cloven feet that scorn the low ground they tread upon;—no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring here, or they bloom only to wither in a moment; our poet’s verse does not put a spirit of youth in every thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency and decay; it is not an electric spark to kindle and expand, but acts like the torpedo touch to deaden and contract: it lends no rainbow tints to fancy, it aids no soothing feelings in the heart; it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish; in its view the current of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited, half-underground, muddy, and clogged with all creeping things. The world is one vast infirmary; the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary; to read him is a penance; yet we read on! Mr. Crabbe is a fascinating writer. He contrives to “turn diseases to commodities,” and makes a virtue of necessity. He puts us out of conceit with this world, which perhaps a severe divine should do; yet does not, as a charitable divine ought, point to another. His morbid feelings droop and cling to the earth; grovel, where they should soar; and throw a dead weight on every aspiration of the soul after the good or beautiful. By degrees, we submit and are reconciled to our fate, like patients to a physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying, as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this thoroughly, with the hand of a master; and we forgive all the rest!’—