^^6 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3480995 WILLIAM HAZLITT jessai^ist anb Critic SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS TOitfi a iTOetnoir, ISiograpi^tcal anl( Critical ALEXANDER IRELAND -t AUTHOR OF "memoir AND RECOLLECTIONS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON," "the book -lover's enchiridion," etc. etc. LONDON FREDERICK WARNE AND CO AND NEW YORK f L. ^- . . , K. v^^^R 2- PREFACE. In the following Selections from the writings of William Hazlitt, it has been my aim to present to the reader what is most characteristic of him as a Critic of Literature, and an Essayist on Life, Manners, and Art. The selection has been made with much care and deliberation, and after a life-long acquaintance with his works, which extend over a period of twenty-seven years (1805 to 1830), and number about thirty- five volumes. The specimens selected include his remarks on, and gene- ral estimates of our greatest Poets, Dramatists, Novelists, and Essayists. Following these are given several of his best Essays on Men, Society, and Books, almost without abridgment, and from others-the most striking pages. Among these will be found occasional passages illustrative of his individual ex- periences, hopes, aspirations, and disappointments, which will help the reader to understand his peculiar character. Among the essays given entire are, " My First Acquaintance with Poets," " On Persons one would wish to have seen," " On Living to Oneself," " On Going a Journey," and " On the Fear of Death." The essays "A Farewell to Essay- writing " and " The Sick-chamber " will be read with pathetic interest. The latter was written only a few weeks before his death, and has been unaccountably omitted from the collected edition of his principal writings. His carefully-drawn and searching estimate of Burke, as well as of his great antagonist, Fox, are reprinted without abridgment. Almost the whole of the admirable In- VI PREFACE. troduction to the study of the Elizabethan Literature is given, in which he traces, with singular power, the causes which led to the remarkable awakening of genius and thought at that epoch of our history. Of his criticisms on Painters and Painting a sufficient number of specimens are given to enable readers on this subject to form some idea of the treasures of subtle thought and insight awaiting them in the numerous papers which he contributed to this department of the Fine Arts. Never, up to his time, had there been given to the world such appreciative criticism of the works of the great painters, or such masterly estimates of their genius. His " Character of Hamlet " is given unabridged, being one of his most characteristic pro- ductions. Those who have studied Hazlitt, as revealed in his books, must come to the conclusion that in this ingenious and original paper, in which he theorizes on the character of Hamlet, he has drawn largely from within, and that his imaginary Dane is probably a reproduction of his own thoughts and feelings. As specimens of the remarkable versatility of his genius I have given his essays entitled " The Fight " and "On the Conduct of Life; or, Advice to a School-Boy" (his son). The latter is written with earnest feeling, and expressed in a simple and unadorned style. Any reader of the former, not knowing it to be Hazlitt's, would suppose it to have been penned by a skilful professional reporter of pugilistic combats. I have also given some extracts from his " Life of Kapoleon " — a remarkable but unequal work — which show his philo- sophic insight into the causes of the French EevolutJon, as well as his powers of vivid description. To those who may wish to go farther afield among the plea- sant intellectual pasturages afforded by Hazlitt's voluminous writings, I may recommend the handy edition of his principal works in seven volumes (the "Life of Napoleon" is not included), published by Messrs. Bell & Sons, and a volume issued by Messrs. Beeves & Turner, containing exclusively his writings on the Fine Arts. This volume includes his excellent article on PREFACE. vii The Fine Arts contributed to the Eneylopxdia Britannica in 1824. Both of these collections are edited by Mr. "W. 0. Hazlitt. The seven volumes of reprints of his principal writings, just referred to, comprise seventeen of the thirty- five volumes which bear his name. The character of Hazlitt is one of deep interest, and deserving of careful study. With all his faults, he was a man to be loved and honoured. He was wayward, perverse, wilful, / at times unreasonable and splenetic — often in consequence of sr sense of his own intellectual superiority, and an impatience of mediocre and inferior minds. But against these failings and infirmities of temper — which belonged to the accidents of his nature, not to its essence — ^must be set his tenderness- of heartj his unselfishness, his sympathy with the suffering and oppressed, his candour towar3s~opponents, his rectitude and /fionesty of mind and p urpo se.. He was an ardent lover of truth "aHJ beauty, if ever one existed, and he never swerved from his fealty to the cause of liberty and huma,n progress. The highest eulogium that could be bestowed upon him is con- tained in one brief sentence of his friend Talfourd's : — " He had as passi onate a de sirejorjtruth, as others hayejorjwealth, or poweTj^rfome." He was, perhaps, the most hardly treated man of genius of his time, and when one takes into account the unmerited obloquy to which he was so long and system- atically subjected, it is not surprising that his sensitive nature was wounded, his temper soured, and his mind often darkened by fits of misanthropy which, for a time, overclouded the char- acteristic qualities of a noble, generous, and most unselfish nature. Herein lies the excuse, if not the justification, of those outbursts of fierce invective which he occasionally launched against his unscrupulous traducers. In the Introductory Memoir I have endeavoured to present Hazlitt in his habit as he lived, and as he was known and seen by his friends — passing over none of his frailties or errors, and not hesitating to use freely the recorded recollec- tions of those who were most intimate with him. These I viii PREFACE. have incorporated in my sketch, in order to add to the reality of the picture. The reader will thus be able to see, through many difFerent eyes, as it were, something of his personality and surroundings. I would particularly direct the attention of my readers to what was said of him by his earliest, dearest, wisest, and most considerate friend, Charles Lamb (" Memoir," p. Ivii.), whose beautiful words will live in our literature as one of the truest and most tender tributes ever paid by one man of genius to another. Should the following selections from his writings inspire in some thoughtful minds a desire to become better acquainted with a remarkable writer, too little known to the present generation, I shall feel amply rewarded for my labour of love. I can promise such minds a store of instruction and delightful mental invigoration. There is no better reading to be found than is afforded by his works. So happy a power of inspiring enthusiasm for genius, and of stimulating intellectual sympathy, has been exhibited by very few writers either of this or the last century. He has the supreme art of putting himself en rapport with his reader. He communicates the interest he feels. In his flowing and vigorous style he lays open the often stubborn thought, as the sharp ploughshare the glebe. The reader is never perplexed by ideas imperfectly grasped, or by thoughts which the writer cannot clearly express. What has been well said of Macaulay by Mr. Cotter Morison — " that his thought is- always within his reach, and is unfolded with complete mastery and ease to its utmost filament " — is equally applicable to Hnzlitt. ALEXANDER IRELAND. SonTHPOiiT, June 1885. CONTENTS. Pebfacb Contents Memoir of William Hazlitt Selections from his Weitings - the chabactek op bukke .... LATER remarks ON BIJRKE THE CHARACTER OF EOX TUCKER'S "LIGHT OE NATURE PURSUED" . THE LOVE OP LIPB . ' THE LOVE OP THE COUNTRY . ... THE TENDENCY OP, SECTS ..... ON "JOHN BUNCLE" . . ... THE CHARACTER OP ROUSSEAU .... GOOD-NATURE COUNTRY PEOPLE . ■ .... RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY / COMMONPLACE CRITICS ACTORS AND ACTING CHARACTERS OP SHAKSPEAEE'S PLAYS — "Macbeth' "Othello" xiii to Ixiii "Hamlet" " Romeo and Juliet ' "Lear" "Falstaff" .. THE ACTING OP KEAN .... MRS. SIDDONS . . ... DISSENTERS AND DISSENTING MINISTERS THE CHURCH AND ITS CLERGY THE ESTABLISHED CLERGY . A LETTER TO WILLIAM GIPPORD . ^ON POETRY IN GENERAL • I 14 18 27 29 32 37 40 46 SO 54 57 60 64 66 70 • 76 C7^ 82 dp 86 87 90 91 93 jj CONTENTS. Selections prom his Writings [continued]— ^| ClIAUCBK AND SPENSER '*^ SHAKSPBAEE AND MILTON ^f° MILTON'S CHARACTER OF " SATAN " (^jj^.- DETDEN AND POPE ^° 124. WITHER 7 THOMSON AND COWPEB '^5 SWIFT '^9 SWIFT— RABELAIS — VOLTAIRE '31 GEAT '33 GOLDSMITH '34 BURNS '35 ETEON '3^ SCOTT '37 WORDSWORTH 'CSf It WIT AND HUMOUR Cli^ ENGLISH COMEDY 141 t^l>THE PBEIODICAL ESSAYISTS '43 ■^/■MONTAIGNE '44 w STEELE AND ADDISON H^ THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS -pN. (jA^ CBEVANTES AND LE SAGE A/ , \ . . . -IS' FIELDING AND SMOLLETT . . - 1 56 RICHARDSON AND STEENB l6l SIR WALTER SCOTT 165 LITERATURE OP THE AGE OP ELIZABETH — INTRODUCTION 167 TEANSLATipN OF THE BIBLE 174 THE CHAEACTBE OF CHRIST . . . . . I7S WEBSTER AND DECREE . . 180 THB EARLY DRAMATISTS — WINTEESLOW HUTT . . . 181 BACON 183 SIR THOMAS BROWNE iSS .~ JEREMY TAYLOE 187 I THE PAST AND FUTURE I89 ■jt CAPACITY AND GENIUS — ORIGINALITY (J^ ON PEOPLE WITH ONE IDEA 201 ■ '•,^, THE INDIAN JUGGLEES . . ' 209 i. JOHN CAVANAGH, THE PIVBS-PLAYEE 2l6 '-..'ON LIVING TO one's SELF 219. ON THOUGHT AND ACTION . 228 ON VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION 229 -i-ON GOING A JOURNEY 232A ON COFFEE-HOUSE POLITICIANS 24O ON FAMILIAR STYLE— LAMB 243. CONTENTS. xl Selections peom his Wkitings (continued) — paqk ^0N EPFEMINACY OF CHAKACTBB . . . .^ ,__._._ . . '24^ WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLBASl) . .... 248 ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPBEIOEITT Z53 jf^ ON THE PEAK OP DEATH 257. ^J^THB PIGHT 266, ^ ON THE CONDUCT OP LIPB : OK, ADVICE TO A SCHOOLBOY 2S0 BUKKE'S STYLE A 293 COLEEIDGE'S STYLE \ 296 f LEIGH ^hunt's STYLE 296 |- Athb convbesation op authoes 297. CHAELES lamb's EVENINGS . 30O LEIGH hunt's conversation 303 MB. NOETHCOTB, the PAINTEE 304 CHABACTEE OP THE SCHOLAE 305 ' APPLICATION TO STUDY . 306 '-' THE SPIEIT OP OBLIGATIONS . * 311 WHETHEE GENIUS IS CONSCIOUS OP ITS POWEES . . 313 PEIDE . 315 — f-yON BEADING OLD BOOKS 317 - ON NOVELTY AND PAMILIAEITY 322 IDENTITY OP AN AUTHOR WITH HIS BOOKS . . . 327 "VIVIAN GEBY" and THE DANDY fiCHOOL . . . . 330 i ON BEADING NEW BOOKS 334 A ON CANT AND HYPOCEISY 339 WALTON'S " COMPLETE ANGLEE " 343 ON A SUN-DIAL . . 344 ON PEEJUDICE . .- 345 \ ON DISAGEBEABLE PEOPLE 349 SENSIBILITY* TO BBAL EXCELLENCE . . . . 3^2 ^^fMY PIEST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS .... 353; '' J^P PEESONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN . . . 369 z' TOLBBATION . ." . . 380 ON THE PEELING OP IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH . . . 38IV ^ fiA PABEWELL TO ESSAY- WEITINQ ... ^ . 387- THE SICK-CHAMBES. ^~ ^-"^-'391" -CHABACTBEISTICS •^'. . . 397 'commonplaces ^. . . . 397 ■' THE WOEKS OP HOGAETH . . .' . . , . 402 ^ON THE PLEASURE OP fAINTING 406 ^ ON THE IDEAL 415 ON JUDGING OP PICTUEBS 417 EXPRESSION 420 THE DULWICH GAiLEEY , 421 xu CONTENTS. Selections phom his Writings {continued)— paok INTBECOUKSB WITH PICTUKBS AND BOOKS .... 422 APOSTROPHE TO BITKLEIGH HOUSE 424 OXFORD 426 coleridge 428 coleridge and godwin 433 sir walter scott 435 lord btron ■ • 44' wordsworth 45' francis jeffrey 457 william cobbett 4^2 charles lamb 47^ leigh hunt 474 the louveb 47s Roman Catholicism 479 Conversations with Noethcote 481 Life op Napolbon Buonaparte— defence op napoleon 483 CAUSES of the FRENCH REVOLUTION .... 485 ENGLAND'S HOSTILITY 493 , BURKE'S WRITINGS "....'.... 494 THE HORRORS OF THE REVOLUTION 494 THE TAKING OP THE BASTILLE 496 THE BURNING OF MOSCOW . . .... 503 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT, BIOGEAPHICAL AND CEITICAL. The father of the suhject of this Memoir was William Hazlitt, of Shrone Hill, Tipperary, originally from the county of Antrim. He graduated at the University of Glasgow, where he was a contempo- rary of Adam Smith. Ahout the year 1761 he joined the English Preshyterian body, and became a minister of that denomination. His first appointment was at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, whither he went in 1764, at the age of twenty-seven. Two years later he married Grace Loftus, a farmer's daughter, who was twenty years old, very handsome, and also simple and good. The marriage took place upon his leaving Wisbeach for Marshfield, in Gloucestershire, where, in the following year, 1767, his eldest son, John, was born. A daughter, named Peggy, followed. He then left Marshfield for Maidstone, where more children were born, but none of them sur- vived except the youngest. He was named William after his father, and lived to make the name illustrious. He was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, on the loth of April 1778. His father, who knew Benjamin Franklin and corresponded with Dr. Priestley, left Maidstone when his youngest child was two years old, to take charge of a congregation of Unitarians at Bandon, in the county of Cork. In that town he was settled for three years. His . sympathy with the Americans in their struggle for independence led him to exert himself in behalf of the American prisoners con- fined at Kinsale, near Bandon. On the conclusion of the war, he went with his family to America, reaching New York in May 1783. He was fifteen months in Philadelphia, preaching occasionally, and delivering in the winter a course of lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. He made a short stay at Boston, where he founded xiv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. the first Unitarian Church there, and declined the degree of D.D. In 1786-87 he returned to England, and settled as a Unitarian minister at Wem, in Shropshire. He was then in his fiftieth year. His son John, then about twenty years old, was beginning the world as a miniature-painter, and in 1788 had some of his works exhibited at the Eoyal Academy. William, who was then a child of eight or nine, was educated at Wem under his father'? roof, as well as in a neighbouring school. He was by all accounts a docile pupil. From his earliest boyhood his father had impressed upon his mind the great principles of moral and political truth and the duty of asserting the rights of his fellow-creatures. Some of his letters written to his father and brother when he was away from home on visits, as at Liverpool in 1790, indicate a studious, inquiring mind, with a religious tone of thought in them. In a letter written to his father from Liver- pool when he was barely twelve years of age, he makes remarks which show a lively and shrewd observation of character. "Mrs. Barton asked us, as if she were afraid we would accept her invita- tion, if we would stay to tea .... I had rather one would tell one to go out of the house than ask one ,to stay, and at the same time be trembling all over for fear one should take a slice of meat or a dish of tea with them .... I spent a very agreeable day yester- day, as I read 160 pages of Priestley and heard two good sermons. . . . After I had sealed up my last letter to you, George asked me if I were glad the Test Act was not repealed. I told him. No. Then he asked me why ; and I told him because I thought that all the people who are inhabitants of a country, of whatever sect or denomination, should have the same rights with others. But, says he, then they would try to get their religion established, or some- thing to that purpose. Well, what if it should be so ? " Here is revealed the early dawning of his hatred of privilege and intolerance. It is evident that his boyhood was spent under happy infiuences. As a proof of this, here is a portion of his father's answer to the above letter, showing the excellent lessons which this unworldly man inculcated on his clever, eager, inquiring boy, who ever spoke of him in after years with the highest reverence and respect : — " Mt Dear William, .... Your brother said that your letter to him was very long, very clever, and very entertaining. On Wednesday evening we had your letter, which was finished on the preceding Monday. The piety displayed in the first part of it was MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xv a great refreshment to me ; continue to cherish those thoughts which then occupied your mind. Continue to be virtuous, and you will finally be that happy being whom you describe ; and, to this purpose, you have nothing more to do than to pursue that conduct which will always yield you the highest pleasures even in this present life. But he who once gives way to any known vice, in the very instant hazards his total depravity and total ruin. You must, therefore, fixedly resolve never, through ,any possible motives, to do anything which you believe to be wrong. This will be only resolving never to be miserable ; and this I rejoicingly expect will be the unwavering resolution of my William. Your conversation upon the Test Act did you honour. If we only think justly, we shall always easily foil all the advocates of tyranny. The inhospitable ladies whom you mention were perhaps treated by you with too great severity. We know not how people may be circumstanced at a particular moment, whose disposition is generally friendly. They may then happen to pass under a cloud which unfits them for social intercourse. We must see them more than once or twice to be able to form a tolerable judgment of their characters. I only wish to caution you against forming too hasty a judgment of characters, who can seldom be known at a single interview. ... I am glad you employed the last Sunday so well ; and that the employment afforded you so much satisfaction. Nothing else can truly satisfy us but the acquisition of knowledge and virtue. May these blessings be yours more and more every day ! " Strange to say, his first literary production made its appearance when he was only thirteen. The occasion was this. The Birming- ham mob, in an outburst of zeal for the supposed interests of the monarchy and the Christian religion, had burned the house of Dr. Priestley over his head, and had destroyed his valuable library. Fired by this insult to one who professed the religion in which he himself had been brought up, the boy wrote a letter to the editor of the Shrewsbury Chronicle on the subject. It is so remarkable a production for so young a writer, and so reveals his mental character and future opinions, that it is worth giving entire :— "Mr. Wood, — 'Tis really surprising that men — men, too, that aspire to the character of Christians — should seem to take such pleasure in endeavouring to load with infamy one of the best, one of the wisest, and one of the greatest of men. " One of your late correspondents, under the signature of 0TAEI2, seems desirous of having Dr. Priestley in chains, and indeed would xvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZILTT. not pertaps (from tlie gentleman's seemingly charitable disposi- tion) be greatly averse to seeing him in the flames also. This is the Christian ! "This the mild spirit its great Master taught. Ah! Chris- tianity, how art thou debased ! How am I grieved to see that universal benevolence, that love to all mankind, that love even to our enemies, and that compassion for the failings of our fellow-men, that thou art contracted to promote, contracted and shrunk up within the narrow limits that prejudice and bigotry mark out. But to return ;— supposing the gentleman's end to be intentionally good, supposing him indeed to desire all this, in order to extir- pate the Doctor's supposedly impious and erroneous doctrines and promote the cause of truth ; yet the means he would use are certainly wrong. For may I be allowed to remind him of this (which prejudice has hitherto apparently prevented him from seeing), that violence and force can never promote the cause of truth, but reason and argument or love, and whenever these fail, all other means are vain and ineffectual. And as the Doctor himself has said in his letter to the inhabitants of Birmingham, ' that if they destroyed him, ten others would arise, as able or abler than himself, and stand forth immediately to defend his principles ; and that were these destroyed, an hundred would appear ; for the God of truth will not suffer His cause to lie defenceless.' "This letter of the Doctor's also, though it throughout breathes the pure and genuine spirit of Christianity, is, by another of your correspondents, charged with sedition and heresy ; but indeed, if such sentiments as those which it contains be sedition and heresy, sedition and heresy would be an honour ; for all their sedition is that fortitude that becomes the dignity of man and the character of Christian : and their heresy, Christianity : the whole letter, indeed, far from being seditious, is peaceable and charitable, and far from being heretical, that is, in the usual acceptance of the word, furnishing proofs of that resignation so worthy of himself. And to be sensible of this, 'tis only necessary that any one, laying aside prejudice, read the letter itself with candour. What or who, then, is free from the calumniating pen of malice — malice concealed, perhaps, under the specious disguise of religion and a love of truth ? "Religious persecution is the bane of all religion, and the friends of persecution are the worst enemies religion has ; and of all persecutions, that of calumny is the most intolerable. Any other kind of persecution can affect our outward circumstances MKM®IR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xvii only, our properties, our lives ; but this may affect our characters for ever. And this great man has not only had his goods spoiled, his habitation burned, and his life endangered, but is also calum- niated, aspersed with the most malicious reflections, and charged with everything bad, for which a misrepresentation of the truth and prejudice can give the least pretence. And why all this? To the shame of some one, let it be replied, merely on account of particular speculative opinions, and not anything scandalous, shame- ful, or criminal in his moral character. 'Where I see,' says the great and admirable Eobinson, 'a spirit of intolerance, I think I see the great Devil.' And 'tis certainly the worst of devils. And here I shall conclude, staying only to remind your anti-Priestlian correspondents, that when they presume to attack the character of Dr. Priestley, they do not so much resemble the wren pecking at the eagle, as the owl attempting by the flap of her wings to hurl Mount Etna into the ocean ; and that while Dr. Priestley's name 'shall flourish in immortal youth,' and his memory be respected and revered by posterity, prejudice no longer blinding the understandings of men, theirs will be forgotten in obscurity, or only remembered as the friends of bigotry and persecution, the most odious of all characters. BAIASON." While at Liverpool, young Hazlitt acq^uired some knowledge of French and music. Afterwards he continued to read with his father, but does not appear to have devoted much time to writing. His father had a strong desii'e to see his son a Dissenting minister ; but to this destination the youth had an invincible repugnance. In his fifteenth year, however, he was sent to the Unitarian College at Hackney, where he was placed under the tutorship of a Mr. Corrie, who is reported to have said of his pupil that " he found him rather backward in many of the ordinary points of learning, and in general of a dry and intractable understanding." His mind was occupying itself with political and metaphysical ideas and projects. Philosophy gained more of his attention than Theology. In the ordinary routine of education for the Unitarian ministry, he was a backward student. His teacher found that this intractable pupil was not an idler, but that his head was full of arguments about the bounds of religious liberty, the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and a project for a new theory of civil and criminal juris- prudence. The latter scheme of political rights and general juris- prudence was afterwards (1828) set forth by him in the form which xviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. it takea in the Literary Remains (1836). Naturally enough, hia father wished that he should abandon this desultory essay-writing and devote himself to the work of the Oollege ; but to the expres- sion of this wish he replied with a dignified statement of his opinion that, " with respect to themes, he really thought them disserviceable than otherwise." How, when, and under what circumstances he quitted the Unitarian College is not recorded. It would seem, how- ever, that he entirely abandoned the notion of entering the Unitarian ministry, and that he returned to his father's house at Wem. It was at this time, 1798, when Hazlitt was twenty years old, that Coleridge, who was officiating at Shrewsbury for the Unitarian minister there, came over to Wem, according to the custom of courtesy among ministers, to pay a visit to the Rev. William Hazlitt. Foung Hazlitt had already walked to Shrewsbury, through ten miles of mud, to hear him preach ; and his recollections of what he then heard, and of Coleridge's visit to Wem a few days later, is too well known to be more than alluded to here. These recollections are given in his brilliant paper, entitled, " My First Acquaintance with Poets," which will be found in extenso in the present volume. Coleridge's brilliancy entirely captivated young Hazlitt, who was bitterly disappointed when, after three months' stay at Shrewsbury, Coleridge accepted Mr. Thomas Wedgwood's oflFer of an annuity of ;^iso to retire from the ministry, and devote himself to poetry and philosophy. This change did not break up their friend- ship. Coleridge invited the young thinker to visit him at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, where, some time later, he received him kindly, and took him to Alfoxden, two miles from Stowey, where Wordsworth was then living. The poet was then from home, but in a day or two after his return from Bristol, he called at Coleridge's cottage ; and there it was that Hazlitt first saw Wordsworth face to face. It was during this visit that Coleridge first encouraged young Hazlitt to write. The work he set himself to compose was An Ess(ni on the Principles of Human Action: being An Argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind; but it was not published until eight years afterwards, viz., in 1805. Sir James Mackintosh pronounced it "a work of great ability." Hazlitt himself said of it, that it was "the only thing I ever piqued myself upon writmg." It is remarkable as an instance of early development of the reasoning powers-the first rough draft or outline of the plan of the essay being made at the age of eighteen. The sale of the MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xix book was small, and he never received any profit from it. A valu- able friend made by him about this time was the Rev. Joseph Fawcett, who had a strong relish for all good literature, and for the catholicity of whose tastes he always expressed great admiration. " A heartier friend or honester critic I never coped withal. With him I passed some of the pleasantest days of my life. The con- versations I had with him on subjects of taste and philosophy gave me a delight such as I can never feel again." From 1798 to 1802 little is known of HazKtt and his doings. He had for some time definitely abandoned the notion of entering the Unitarian ministry, but had not settled on any plan of life. His time seems to have been spent in reading and thinking, but without any fixed object. A career was, however, indispensable. The income of his father was wholly insufficient to support him in practical idleness, so that he began to cast about for some means of living. At this time, his elder brother John, who had become a painter, came forward with a suggestion that he should embrace the pro- fession of painting. This notion was adopted, and in 1802 William took up his abode under his brother's roof, and began the study of art in earnest. In October of the same year he left England for Paris, where he continued his studies, occupying himself with copying some of the pictures in the Louvre. He remained four months in Paris, and during that time made copies and sketches from Titian, Guido, Raphael's Transfiguration, and Lana's Death of Clorinda — a kind of work for which he had sundry commissions from 'friends of his brother in London. He then returned to England, bringing with him, not merely his copies from the great masters, but a set of tastes and principles in art, very few of which he ever afterwards modified. Not long after his return, he made a professional tour in the North of England as a portrait- painter, and was not unsuccessful in obtaining sitters. Words- worth sat to him, but Hazlitt, dissatisfied with his work, destroyed the portrait. During this tour he visited a family in Liverpool called Railton, who were friends of his father's, and fell in love with an attractive daughter of the house, of whom he painted a minia- ture on ivory. The suit was not favoured by the young lady's family and the relations between the lovers were broken off. Somewhere about this time it is reported that he fell in love a second time — ^in this case, with a rustic beauty in Wordsworth's neighbourhood. According to Patmore, he narrowly escaped being ducked by the villagers for his unwelcome attentions. De Quincey reports that XX MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Hazlitt was smitten by the charms of Dorothy "Wordsworth, the poet's sister, but the story wants proof. At all events, if the passion ever existed, it came to nothing. Among other portraits, he painted one of his father — which was a labour of love both to artist and sitter — a half-length of Sir Joshua Eeynolds, and a head of Lear. One of his earliest attempts was the head of an old woman in deep shade, of which he makes mention in one of his essays. It was done after the manner of Kembrandt, and was said to have been a picture of considerable effect. He was a severe critic of his own performances, and his standard was a high one. He failed to satisfy his own sispirations and ideals, or to over- come the diffidence he felt in his own powers. He was often im- patient with himself, and when he could not produce the effect he desired, he has been known to cut the canvas into ribbons. At last he decisively relincLuished the pursuit he so much loved, and laid down his pencil for ever. It is difficult to say whether patience and perseverance would have overcome his difficulties. Northcote said he gave up the experiment too soon, and that he would have made a great painter had he devoted himself entirely to his art. Among the latest work from his hand was a portrait of his newly-made friend, Charles Lamb, in the dress of a Venetian senator. The discipline of this brief practice of art was no doubt of permanent advantage to him. It has been justly said that it made him better understand " the worth of beauty and the elements of character ; his perception was quickened, his insight deepened, and his powers as an observer and analyst enlarged." In connection with this phase of his life, his essays on " The Pleasure of Painting," " On a Portrait by Vandyok," "On a Landscape of Nicholas Poussin," "Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England," and his article " The Fine Arts," are well worth reading. In 1806 he published at his own expense a pamphlet entitled Free Thoughts on Public Affairs; or Advice to a Patriot. Although powerful in its language and breathing a warm spirit of freedom, it attracted little attention, and is now all but unknown. It is reprinted in the volume, containing "The Spirit of the Ace" in Messrs. Bell & Sons' edition of his chief works. In 1807 ap- peared An Abridgment of The Light of Nature Revealed, by Abraham Tucker, Esq., originally published in seven volumes, under the name of Edward Search, Esq. It was through the friendly offices of Charles Lamb (whose acquaintance he had about this time made through his brother John) that Johnson the publisher was induced to under- MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxi tal:e the issue of this work. In it the spirit of the seven volumes is felicitously condensed into one, in which are preserved entire all the singular turns of thought and striking illustrations of the original. " As to the pains and labour it has cost me, or the time I have devoted to it," he says, " I shall say nothing. However, if any one should be scrupulous on that head, I might answer, as Sir Joshua Reynolds is said to have done to some persons who cavilled at the price of a picture, and desired to know how long he had been doing it — ' All my life ' " In his " Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy,'' Sir James Mackintosh devotes a chapter to Tucker, and refers to Hazlitt's abridgment of it, and " his excellent preface to it." The learned Dr. Parr, who was a thorough master of the original work, said that he never could tell what had been omitted in the abridgment — a very happy compliment to the abridger. In the same year (1807) he issued a clever attempt to invalidate the theory of Malthus, under the title, Reply to the Essay on Population by the Rev. T. R. Malthus. In a Series of Letters : to which are added Extracts from the Essay, with Notes. This had been begun as a series of letters in a newspaper, and was advertised by Longman & Co. as in the- press "by a person of eminence." He also gave to the world this year The Eloquence of the British Senate ; or Select Specimens from, the Speeches of the most distinguished Parlia- mentary Speakers, from the beginning of the Reign of Gharles I. to the •present time; vnth Notes, Biographical, Critical, and Explanatory, 2 vols. This was a piece of honest taskwork. The speeches are illustrated by powerfully drawn characters of some of the more prominent orators — especially those of more recent date — Chatham, Pitt, Burke, and Fox. These portraits were afterwards reprinted in his Political Essays, i8ig. It was at the house of his brother John, at 1 2 Eathbone Place, that Hazlitt iirst met Dr. Stoddart and his sister Sarah. Stoddart, who was then, like John Hazlitt, an extreme Liberal in politics, was appointed King's Advocate at Malta. In 1807 Hazlitt became engaged to Miss Stoddart, who was about thirty-two years of age, he being twenty-nine. She had been on the point of marriage several times, but the various matches had been broken off, generally on account of pecuniary reasons. Miss Stoddart seems to have been intimate with Mary Lamb, and those who are curious to know more about the former lady will find a number of letters from Mary to her friend in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt's Memoir of his grandfather. The nian'iage, after some preparations, in which he exhibited much xxii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. eccentricity, was solemnised on Sunday, ist May 1808, at St. Andrew's, Holborn. The only persons present, besides the bride and bridegroom, were Dr. and Mrs. Stoddart, and Charles Lamb and his sister. The bride's property, which was worth about ;^ 120 per annum, had been, at her brother's instigation, and to Hazlitt's annoyance, settled upon herself. The ceremony over, they proceeded to the village of "Winterslow, in Wiltshire, where Mrs. Hazlitt's little property was situated. They lived in a cottage which formed part of the property. Here Hazlitt prepared a work which appeared in 1 8 10 under the following title — A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue; for the use of Schools. In which the Genius of our Speech is especially attended to, and the Discoveries of Mr. Horiie Tooke, and other Modern Writers on the Formation of Language are for the first time incorporated. To which is added a New Guide to the English Tongue, in a Letter to W. F. Mylius, author of the School Dictionary, ly Edward Baldwin, Esq. This work, although well received, was not a success. It never reached a second edition, and is now a bibliographical curiosity. It was afterwards abridged by Mr. Godwin, under the name of Baldwin. A critic of the day said, that although intended for the use of schools, "yet the advanced student would find in it much valuable information, the definitions being concise yet intelligible, the rules clear and important, and the examples selected perspicuous and appropriate." He also about this time prepared an abridgment into English of Bourgoing's "Tableau de I'Espagne moderne," but this was labour wasted, as no publisher would bring it out. It was never printed, and stiU remains in MS. In January 1809 a son was born, who was named WiUiam, but he died when six months old. In the following autumn the Lambs paid a visit to the Hazlitts in "Wiltshire, along with Martin Burney and Colonel Phillips. After a fashion which it is now difficult to under- stand, these guests appear to have paid for their board during their stay in Wiltshire. Hazlitt was about this time busy with a Memoir of Holcroft, which, however, did not appear vmtil 1816, under the title Memoirs of the late Thomas Holcroft, written by himself; and continued to the tim^e of his Death, from his Diary, Notes, and other Papers. The continuation is by Hazlitt. It was reprinted in 1852 in "The Traveller's Library." The materials for this work had been confided to him by Holcroft's family. It was humorously nicknamed by Mary Lamb "The Life Everiasting," from the way in which It was perpetually talked about by friends interested in MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxiii Holcroft, and from the iaordinate length of time during which it hung on hand. On 26th September 181 1 another son was born. Like the first, he was named "William, after his father and his grandfather. A few months afterwards the couple moved from Winterslow to London, where they settled down at No. 19 York Street, Westminster — a house which, according to tradition, had belonged to Milton, and which looked out upon one occupied by Jeremy Bentham. Hazlitt had no introductions, was shy, proud, and irritable, and had need, as Lamb hinted, of "something of a better temper," if not of " a smoother head of hair." He had ability enough to set up a score of popular authors, and a warm heart, but he was wanting in that open manner which goes so far in the way of attracting and winniug friends. He was then thirty-four years old. He had one or two intimates who understood and loved him — notably Charles Lamb and his sister. He began his London career by proposing to the Royal Institution to give a course of ten lectures on the English Philosophers and Metaphysicians. His name being in some repute, the offer was accepted. Some fragments of these lectures have been given in the volumes entitled Literary Remains. He also sought and obtained an engagement as a parliamentary reporter on the Morning Chronicle. He was not a good shorthand writer, and trusted much to his good memory. After a short experiment of this kind of life, he took to critical writing for the Chronicle, sometimes contributing political articles. Early in 18 14 he succeeded Mr. Mudford as theatrical critic on that paper. His dramatic experiences commenced with Bannister. His great favourites were Kean and Miss Stephens, and he was an enthusiastic admirer of Mrs. Siddons. His connection with the Chronicle was not of long continuance. About this time he also wrote for the Examiner and the Champion newspapers. In 18 14 Jeffrey asked him to write for the Edinbwgh Review. His second article embodied a brilliant series of sketches of the English Novelists (including remarks on Cervantes and Le Sage), which he afterwards reproduced in his Lectures on the English Comic Writers. The reader wLU find this delightful paper in the selections following this Memoir. For some years his contributions to the Edinburgh Review were tolerably numerous. Altogether nineteen articles from his pen appeared in its pages, ranging from 18 14 to 1830. His grandson gives a list of fourteen only. In a letter to Notes and Queries, March 1879, to which any reader curious in this matter is referred, I point out five additional artides, which may without doubt be attributed to him, one of them, XXIV MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. on "American Literature and Dr. Channing," of peculiar interest for reasons given in my commvmication. Mr. W. 0. Hazlitt* in his Memoir of Ms grandfather refers to the establishment in York Street, Westminster, and to the domestic mis- management and want of home comfort which characterised it. He gives a curious illustration of this, furnished by Haydon the artist, whom Hazlitt had invited to a christening entertainment. When Haydon arrived, Hazlitt was out endeavouring to find a parson, and his wife was sitting by the fire in a bedgown, — ^nothing ready for the guests, and everything wearing the appearance of neglect and indifference. The biographer, speaking of his grand-parents, says that " the marriage was certainly not one of choice (though it was in no way forced upon him), and the woman with whom he thus knit himself permanently was one of the least domestic of her sex. She was a lady of excellent disposition, an affectionate mother, and endowed with no ordinary intelligence and information. But for household economy she had not the slightest turn ; and she was selfish, iinsympathising, without an idea of management, and destitute of all taste in dress. She was fond of finery, but her finery was not always very congruous., A lady is living who recollects very well the first visit Mrs. Hazlitt paid to her family at Bayswater. It was a very wet day, and she had been to a walking match. She was dressed in a white muslin gown and black velvet spencer, and a leghorn hat with a white feather. Her clothes were perfectly saturated, and a complete change of things was necessary before she could sit down." With a wife of such "excellent dis- position" and habits as the mistress of his household, it was not likely that the wayward and unmethodical Hazlitt coiild lead a very happy or comfortable life. Later on it will be seen how the union of this ill-matched pair ended. Between January 1815 and January 1817 appeared a series of papers in the Examiner under the title, "The Round Table," which in the latter year were collected in two volumes, with some omissions and additions, and published under the title The Bound Table: A Collection of Essays on Literature, Men, and Manners. It was proposed that this series of papers should be in the manner of the early periodical essayists the Spectator and Tatler. Twelve * Grandson of William Hazlitt, author of " Memoir of William Hazlitt," "History of the Origin and Eise of the Venetian Republic," "A Hand- Book of Early English Literature," " Mary and Charles Lamb, Their Poems, Letters and Remains," editor of " The Shakespeare Jest-Books," &o. &c. MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxv of the essays were contributed by Leigh Hunt, and one by an anonymous writer. The rest were by Hazlitt. These papers are generally shorter than those he wrote later. They are distinguished by force of style and acuteness of observation, and deserve a place in the literature of the. earlier portion of this century. They possess all the ease and unstudied variety of conversation. In 1S17 Hazlitt gave to the world his Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. This work, although it professes to be dramatic criticism, is in reality a discourse on the philosophy of life and human nature, more suggestive than many approved treatises expressly devoted to that subject. It was very favourably criticised by Jeffrey in the Edinhurgh Review, who considered it a work of originality and genius. "What we chiefly look for in such a work," says he, "is a line sense of the beauties of the author, and an eloquent exposition of them : and all this, and more, we think may be found in the volume before us. There is nothing niggardly in his praises, and nothing affected in his raptures. He seems animated throughout with a full and hearty sympathy with the delight which his author should inspire, and pours himself gladly out in explanati,on of it, with a fluency and ardour, obviously much more akin to enthusiasm than affectation." In 1 8 18 his dramatic criticisms, contributed during the previous four years to the Morning Chronicle, the Champion, the Examiner, and the Times, were collected into a volume, under the title, A View of the English Stage, or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms. He had always been fond of the theatres, and frequented them to the last. His earliest admiration rested on Mrs. Siddons. He always held that she had touched the summit of perfection. " While the stage lasts," he used to say, "there never will be another Mrs. Siddons." One of the last essays he wrote, only a few months before his death, was called " The Free Admission," which is full of picturesque and striking thought. The finest criticisms in the above-named volume are those in which he illustrated the acting of Edmund Kean, whose matchless powers he recognised at once on the very first evening of his appearance, and whose reputation he did so much to establish, in spite of actors, managers, and critics. From that night he became the most devoted of Kean's supporters. " His dramatic criticisms," says Talfourd, " are more pregnant with fine thoughts on that bright epitome of human life than any other which ever were written. ... He began to write with a rich fund of theatrical recollections ; and except when Kean, or Miss xxvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Stephens, or Listen supplied new and decided impulses, he did little more than draw upon this old treasury. The theatre to him was redolent of the past— of images of Mrs. Siddons, of Kemble, of Bannister, of Jordan, . . . but his habits of mind were unsuited to the ordinary duties of a theatrical critic. . The players put him out. He could not, like Leigh Hunt, who gave theatrical criticism a place in modern literature, apply his graphic powers to the details of a performance, and make it interesting by the delicacy of his touch. ... In just and picturesque criticism, Hunt has never been approached." In the same year (1818) he gave a series of eight lectures on the English Poets at the Surrey Institution. These were followed by two other courses, on the English Comic Writers in 18 19, and on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth in 1821. With reference to his manner in lecturing, his friend Talfonrd says that he was not eloquent in the true sense of the term ; for his thoughts were too weighty to be moved along by the shallow stream of feeling which an evening's excitement can rouse. He wrote all his lectures, and read them as they were written ; but his deep voice and earnest maimer suited his matter well. He seemed to dig into his subject — and not in vain. In delivering his longer quotations, he had scarcely continuity enough for the versification of Shakespeare and Milton, " with linked sweetness long drawn out ; " but he gave Pope's brilliant satire and divine compliments, which are usually complete within the couplet, with an elegance and point which the poet himself would have felt as their highest praise. Talfourd mentions one or two instances in which he startled and shocked his audience with a fine audacity which put their prejudices and conventional feelings on edge. " When he read a weU-known extract from Cowper, comparing a poor villager with Voltaire, and had pronounced the line ' a truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew,' they broke into a joyous shout of seK-gratulation that they were so much wiser than a wicked Frenchman. When he passed by Mrs. Hannah More with observing that ' she had written a great deal which he had never read,' a voice gave expression to the general commiseration and surprise by calling out, 'More pity for you ! ' They were confounded at his reading, with more emphasis perhaps than discretion. Gay's epigrammatic lines on Sir Eichard Blackmore, in which scriptural persons are freely hitched into rhyme ; but he went doggedly on to the end, and, by his perseverance, baffled those who, if he had acknowledged himself wrong by stopping, would have hissed him without mercy. MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxvii He once had an edifying advantage over them. He was enumera- ting the humanities which endeared Dr. Johnson to his mind, and, at the close of an agreeable catalogue, mentioned, as last and noblest, his carrying the poor victim of disease and dissipation on his back through Fleet Street — at which a titter arose from some, who were struck by the picture as ludicrous, and a murmur from others, who deemed the allusion unfit for ears polite. He paused for an instant, and then added in his sturdiest and most impressive manner, ' An act which realises the parable of the good Samaritan,' at which his moral and delicate hearers shrunk rebuked into deep silence.'' The first coiirse of lectures was soon afterwards published, under the title, Lectures on the English Poets, delivered at the Swrrey Institution, and was well received — a second edition appearing in the following year. The volume is perhaps one of the most generally interesting of his critical works. He handles his subject with great gusto, acuteness, and felicity of touch ; you feel that much patient thinking must have been exercised by the writer before giving his final judgments on our great poets. Many of these judgments show a very delicate apprehension of the authors under notice, mingled with an exquisite sensitiveness to beauty of every kind, moral and material. The reader capable of enjoying an in- tellectual treat of a high order will linger over Reflections on Poetry in General, the Eemarks on Shakespeare and Milton, and his account of the Rise and Progress of the Lake School of Poetry. His Lectures on the English Comic Writers were delivered and published in the year following — 1819. They include a great variety of interesting subjects — the comic poets and dramatists, the perio- dical essayists, the great novelists of the last century — Fielding, Smollet, Sterne and Richardson — as well as some of the modern writers of fiction, such as Scott and Godwin. The works of Hogarth also come under review. The reader may not agree with him in his estimate of Steele, whom he places above Addison, but he should carefully read the critic's reasons for his opinion. In his criticism on Johnson there will be no difference of judgment. His remarks on the Congreve and Wycherley group of dramatists have been pro- nounced by, Leigh Hunt almost equal to Lamb's, leaving a truer impression respecting them, as well as containing the most detailed criticism on their individual plays. His opinions of Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Le Sage, which occur in the lectures on the Essayists and Novelists, ar& among the good things in this volume. xxviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. In 1817 and 1818 he contributed articles to the Champion, the Examitier, and the Yellow Dwarf, a periodical started by Mr. John Hunt, which only lived a few months. Most of these articles were afterwards reprinted in his collected volumes. An Edinburgh maga- zine about this date contained some of his lucubrations — one of them being on the question " Whether Pope was a Poet." In 1 8 1 9 appeared A Letter to William Oifford, Esq., from William Haditt, Esq. It con- sists of eighty-seven pages, and exposes "the wretched cavillings, wilful falsehoods and omissions, and servile malignity" of the disgraceful articles in the Quarterly Review on his Round Table, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, and Lectures on the English Poets. These attacks, as well as those in Blackwood's Magazine, will be spoken of more fully in a subsequent page. Talfonrd said that the latter portion of the Letter to Oifford was one of Hazlitt's noblest effusions. In 1 8 19 was published Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters. It was Mr. Hone's proposal to collect Hazlitt's poli- tical writings from the columns of the Morning Chronicle and other journals, and he was the publisher of the volume. It was dedi- cated to John Hunt, one of the sturdiest and most independent of Liberals, and a man of the highest probity. The preface to this collection runs to a considerable length — ^thirty-six pages. His son says of it, that in his mind it is " the very finest and most manly exposition o_f high political principle that was ever put forth, and the whole of the volume breathes the noblest spirit of liberty and virtue." His opening words are : " I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party man ; but I have a hatred for tyranny, and a contempt for its tools ; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could ; " and a few pages farther on, after defining his principles and politics : " This is the only politics I know ; the only patriotism I feel. The question with me is, whether I and all mankind are born slaves or free. That is the one thing necessary to know and to make good. The rest isflocci, nauci, nihili, pili. Secure this point, and all is safe ; lose this, and all is lost." It may be here mentioned that in this volume were rejDrinted Hazlitt's estimates of the characters of Burke, Fox, Chatham, and Pitt, from The Eloquence of the British Senate. One of the most important of Hazlitt's works was pubUshed in 1821, viz., Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, delivered at the Surrey Institution. After a general introductory view of the subject, .he criticises the dramatists and poets anterior to, contemporary with, and immediately succeeding MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxix Shakespeare— Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia" and the works of Bacon, Sir Thomaa Browne, and Jeremy Taylor, the Spirit of Ancient and Modern Literature, and the German drama contrasted with that of the Age of Elizabeth. This volume contains some of the best eriticisims from his pen. They display more than his usual strength, acuteness, and animation, with less of his usual acerbities of temper. An American critic justly says that " his stern, sharp analysis piercea and probes the subject down through the surface to the centre ; and it is exercised in a more kindly spirit than is common with him. He had a profound a ppre ciation of the elder dramatist3 r„tho.nff b- C.iai teellng for tliem" tlTaii 1 " less social feeling fo r them tlTa n Lamb ; and their characteristic excellences drew from him~sbme oT "his heartiest bursts of eloquent panegyric." Prom Hazlitt's criticisms and Lamb's " Specimens " the general reader will gain a more vivid notion of the intellectual era they commemorate than from any other sources except the originals themselves. The reader will find in the Edinburgh Review for 1820 an article on this volume from the pen of Talfourd, characterised by warm appreciation of the ability of Hazlitt, as well as by a discrimi- nating judgment of his deficiencies and limitations. " He possesses one noble quality at least," says his critic, " for the office which he has chosen, in the intense admiration and love which he feels for the great authors on whose excellences he chiefly dwells. His relish for their beauties is so keen, that while he describes them, the pleasures which they impart become almost palpable to the sense. He intro- duces us almost corporeally into the presence of the great of old time. He draws aside the veil of Time with a hand tremulous with mingled delight and reverence, and descants, with kindling enthusiasm, on all the delicacies of that picture of genius which he discloses. His intense admiration of intellectual beauty seems always to sharpen his critical faculties. He perceives it, by a kind of intuitive power, how deeply soever it may be buried in rubbish, and separates it in a moment from all that would encumber or deform it." The intro- ductory lecture is distinguished by a peculiar dignity and weight of style and observation, which makes it perhaps one of the best and most unexceptionable of his compositions. He shows that the general causes of that sudden and rich development of poetical feeling and of intellectual activity were mainly the mighty impulse given to thought by the Reformation, by the translation of the Bible, the discovery of the New World, and the new opening of the stores of classic lore. The translation of the Bible, he considers, was the chief infl uence in bringing about the great work. To use his own words, "It XXX MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. . . . The Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions ' to run and read,' with its wonderful table of contents, from Genesis to the Revelation. ... To leave more disputable points, and take only the more historical parts of the Old Testament or the moral sentiments of the New, there is nothing like them in the power of exciting awe and admiration or of riveting sympathy. . . . There is something in the character of Christ, too (leaving religious faith quite. out of the question), of more sweetness and majesty, and more likely to work a change in the mind of man, by the contemplation of its idea alone, than any to be found in history, whether actual or feigned. His character is that of a sublime humanity, such as was never seen on earth before our race. There shone manifestly both in His words and actions, ... in every act and word of His life, a grace, a mildness, a dignity and love, a patience and wisdom worthy of the Son of God. His whole life and being were imbued, steeped in the word Charity. . . . He taught the love of good for the sake of good, without regard to personal and remoter views, and made the affections of 'the heart the sole seat of morality, instead of the pride of the understanding or the sternness of the will. . . . He has done more to humanise the thoughts and tame the unruly passions than all who have tried to reform and benefit mankind." Before leaving this work, I must relate a circumstance in con- nection with it recorded by his friend Mr. Procter (Barry Cornwall). He says, "He had a very q\nok perception of the beauties and defects of books. When he was about to write his 'Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth,' he knew little or nothing of the dramatists of that time, with the exception of Shakespeare. He spoke to Charles Lamb and to myself, who were supposed by many to be well acquainted with those ancient writers. I lent him about a dozen volumes, comprehending the finest of the old plays; and he then went down to Winterslow Hut, in Wiltshire, and after a stay of six weeks came back to London, fully impregnated with the subject, with his thoughts fidly made up upon it, and with all his lectures written. Ai>d he then appeared to comprehend , the character and merits of the old writers more thoroughly than any other person, although he had so lately entered upon the subject." In 1820 was started a periodical called the London Magazine, MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxxi edited lay Mr. John Scott, formerly editor of the Ghavipion, a man of considerable ability and fine literary tastes, who secured as con- tributors some of the ablest writers of the day, among whom were Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, and Allan Cunningham, and a year or two later, Thomas Carlyle, whose " Life of Schiller " first appeared in its pages. Lamb's immortal " Essays of Elia " made their first appearance in this magazine. Hazlitt contributed to it about a dozen essays during the first two years of its existence. Two of these essays are included in the first volume of Table-Talh, or Original Essays, published in 1821. The others were afterwards included in another publication of Hazlitt's, called The Plain Speaker, which did not appear until some years later. A second volume of Table-Talh followed in 1822, and a second edition in 1824, with the additional title Original Essays on Men and Manners. Many of these essays were written at Winterslow Hut (spelled Hutt), a coaching- inn on the border of Salisbury Plain, to which he had been in the habit of resorting when he wished to get away from London. This solitary and desolately situated inn will always be re- membered with interest from the beautiful allusion to it in his Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, when speaking of the old drama- tists Decker and Webster. The passage will be found in the Selec- tions, p. 181. It was his favourite haunt when he wished to secure that entire solitude and seclusion from the world which he found so favourable to thought and quiet literary work. It was here that he drew upon his recollections of books and pictures, recalling what he had observed of men and things, probing his own character unshrinkingly, and extracting an infinite amount of self-knowledge from his own infirmities. It was here he would wander for hours over the bare, bleak pasturages and among the scantily-wooded hollows, and get home to his inn, miles from any other habitation, and set down the thoughts that had come to him on his solitary rambles, making the whole evening hours his own for steady and continuous work. Prompted by a wish to see this memorable resort of Hazlitt's — a wish " subdued and cherished long " — the writer of this Memoir at last realised his desire, and on a beautiful spring day — May Day of the present year — found himself at Winterslow Hutt. It is on the old coach-road between London and Salisbury, and near the sixth milestone from that cathedral town. In the old days, before railways, the London coach stopped here to change horses, and the traveller could find good cheer and accommoda- tion if required. Now it is a desolate place, fallen into decay, xxxii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. and tenanted by a labouring man and his family, cultivating a small farm of some thirty acres and barely able to make a living out of it. In winter two or three weeks will sometimes elapse without even a beggar or tramp or cart passing the door. On the ground-floor, looking out upon a horse-pond, flanked by two old lime-trees, is a little parlour, which was the one probably used by Hazlitt as his sitting-room. At the other end of the house is a large empty room, formerly devoted to cock-fighting matches and singlestick combats, in which he who first brought blood from his adversary's head was pronounced victor. It was with a strange and eerie feeling that I contemplated this little parlour, and pictured to myself the many solitary evenings during which Hazlitt sat in it, -enjoying copious libations of his favourite beverage, tea (for during the last fifteen years of his life he never tasted alcoholic drinks of any kind), perhaps reading " Tom Jones " for the tenth time, or enjoying one of Congreve's comedies, or Eousseau's "Confessions," or writing, in his large flowing hand, a dozen pages of the essay " On Persons one would Wish to have Seen," or " On Living to One's Self." One cannot imagine any retreat more consonant with the feelings of this lonely thinker, during one of his periods of seclusion, than the out- of-the-world place in which I stood. In winter-time it must have been desolate beyond description — on wild nights especially, — " heaven's chancel-vault " blind with sleet — the fierce wind sweep- ing down from the bare wolds around, and beating furiously against the doors and windows of the unsheltered hostelry. The essays in Tahle-Talh contain much vigorous thinking, many fine bursts of eloquence, and tender reminiscences of past days and bygone moods of mind. It is almost invidious to point out particular papers, but I cannot refrain from naming — " On Going a Journey," " The Love of Life," " The Fear of Death," " On People with One Idea," "Why Distant Objects Please," "The Past and Future," " The Indian Jugglers.'' ^he essay " On Living to One's SeliLJs jn.hisjbest_manner, and is s teepea~ttrT i i tCTiKe - r EcqftgcttCnroQj '^i P"-"^' Jife. The authorls-owa, early aspirations and_toil8__after_em.iD.fixiie in'art as a painter, are gathered"up' 555" embalmed in his essay 'IQu- the Pleasures of Painting," which is full -of pathos aiid tMdw^beauty ; the spirit of long-crushed hope breathes tbroudiou t its p agers, In 1820 Hazlitt's father 3S37aii old man of eighty-four. His son was not in London at the time, and his habits were so erratic and his movements so uncertain, that nobody knew where to address him, and he thus remained in ignorance of the event imtil after the MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxxiii funeral. About the same time, Mrs. Hazlitt the elder lost her mother, at the extreme age of ninety -nine. Her portrait was taken by John Hazlitt when she was ninety-six. The Rev. Mr. Hazlitt left ioTxi volumes of sermons. He was a correspondent of Dr. Priestley. His widow, born in 1746, lived to witness the accession of Queen Victoria. It is probable that Hazlitt had his good father in his mind when he wrote the striking passage, beginning, " But we have known some such in happier days," &c. (see Selections— " Dissenting Ministers," page 89.) The reception by the press and the public of Hazlitt's productions during the previous few years was highly favourable. An exception, however, must be made in the case of Blackwood's Magamne, the Quarterly Review (then edited by Giflford), and some of the Govern- ment journals of the period, which attacked him with an animosity and unscrupulous malignity almost incredible to the present genera- tion. His crime in the eyes of these writers was that he was an uncompromising reformer, and that in some of his political effusions he had exposed the abuses of the Government, denouncing things and systems to which he was conscientiously opposed in terms not to be mistaken. Granted that his political sympathies were ardent and the expression of them often vehement, and that he had taken the unfashionable side, wilfully placing himself from the first in collision with all the interests that were in the sunshine of the world, and with aU the persons that were then all-powerful in England ; surely the intrinsic ability of his purely literary works might have been acknowledged and their merits admitted. He himself never failed to do justice to the intellectual gifts of opponents, however keenly he may have attacked their political opinions and tergiversations. Witness what he always said of the genius of such men as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and Scott. It is never withoiat a sad feeling, akin to regret, that he attacks what he considers their backslidings, and launches against them his invective and sarcasm. But he never carried poisoned arrows into political conflict. In his bitterest remarks upon the changed opinions of Coleridge and Wordsworth, he makes you feel how much they were once rooted in his affection, and that, in spite of their differences, he can never cease to admire their genius. Such was his chivalrous sense of honour and justice. His example in this respect was not followed by his enemies and assailants. The merits of his works and the recognition of his literary powers were systematically ignored by the writers in the Government interest, xxxiv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT, and the author was deliberately held up to public odium and dis- gust. He was denounced as an incendiary, a Badical, a Bonapartist, a man of loose morals, and a Cockney scribbler, the friend and com- panion of Leigh Hunt, the editor of the Examiner, who was always attacking the Government — a man equally obnoxious and hateful, The object of this literary ruffianism was to disparage the writer and prevent the public from reading his works. These shameless attacks had the desired effect of blighting his credit with the publishers and seriously limiting the circulation of his books, and in one instance entirely stopping the sale of one of his works from the day on which the malignant article appeared. His friend Leigh Hunt was subjected to the same scandalous treatment, and with similar results. The public mind was in this way extensively poisoned with regard to these two writers and men of genius, thus causing a much tardier recognition of their merits in influential quarters than would otherwise have been the case. In order to justify the strong expressions used by me, it may be stated that I have carefully read the various articles referred to, and could, if necessary, produce a selection of passages which would stand unparalleled in the annals of criticism for their gross violation of the laws and decencies of literary warfare. To such lengths did party feeling go in those days ! Let us rejoice that this style of criticism has gone by, never to return. The most violent political partisan of the present day would shrink from using such weapons. It is with pleasure I record the fact that the Quarterly Review, nearly fifty years after the date of these attacks, gave utterance, through the pen of Bulwer, to a most generous recognition of the genius of Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. It may also be stated, in justice to Black- wood's Magazine, that, fifteen years later, Wilson made the amende honorable to Hunt in a graceful and touching passage in one of the " Noctes," the concluding words of which were : " The animosities are mortal, the humanities live for ever." He even invited him to write for the Magazine ; but Hunt declined the offer. Mention has already been made of the want of sympathy between Hazlitt and his wife, and of the qualities and peculiarities in each which stood in the way of their domestic happiness. "Never" says his grandson, " was there a worse-matched pair. If they had not happened to marry, if they had continued to meet at the Lambs', as of old, or at her brother's, they would have remained probably the best of friends. She would have appreciated better his attain- ments and genius, . . . but there was a sheer want of sympathy MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxxv from tlie first set-out. They married after studying eacli other's characters very little, and observing very little how their tempers were likely to harmonise. ... I believe that Mr. Hazlitt was physically incapable of giving his affections to a single object. . . . His wife had not much pretence for quarrelling with him on the ground of former attachments still lingering in his thoughts, and keeping his affections in a state of tangle, for she too had had her little love affairs, and accepted him only when her other suitors broke faith." This want of sympathy between them and alienation of feeling kept increasing, and their uncomfortable relations grew more and more distasteful to both. For some time they had been living apart — ^he often by himself at Winterslow Hutt, or in lodgings in town. About this time (1822) he became the subject of a singular and infatuated attachment. He was violently smitten with the beauty of Sarah Walker, daughter of a tailor in Southampton Buildings, at whose house he lodged. It was a sort of frenzy of platonic devotion. Hazlitt was in a state of hallucination about her beauty and moral excellence. The amazing thing about it was that his insane enthusiasm, so over-mastered him and carried him off his balance, that he could not help speaking about it to every one he knew. This unfortunate infatuation took entire possession of him, and he was completely carried away by it. He was really in a condition of mind in which he could scarcely be considered a responsible being. His son, in the biographical sketch prefixed to his father's "Literary Eemains," speaks of the divorce of his father and mother, and refers to the painful incident of this infatu- ated attachment in the following sensible words : — " It was in 1823 that a circumstance occurred, the influence of which on my father's public as well as private life obliges me to advert to it, although other reference than a bare record of the fact is as unnecessary to the reader as it would be painful to me. About this period, then, my father and mother were divorced under the law of Scotland. Their union had for some years past failed to produce that mutual happiness which was its object, owing in great measure to an imagined and most unfounded idea on my father's part of a want of sympathy on that of my mother. For some time previous to this my father had fallen into an infatuation which he has him- self illustrated in glowing and eloquent language in a regretted publication called 'Liber Amoris.' The subject is a painful one, and admits of but one cheerful consolation— that my father's name ixxvl MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. and character were but momentarily dimmed by what indeed was but a momentary delusion." The book referred to appeared in 1823 under the title of Liher Amoris, or the New Pygmalion. In it he records his conversations with this imaginary goddess of his admiration, who in the eyes of every one but himself was a very common-place person. One of his critics spoke of the book as a most remarkable psychological curiosity, and one of the most signal examples extant of the power of a genuine passion, not merely to palliate what was wrong, but to dignify what was ridiculous. A lady critic says of this passage in Hazlitt's life, that " it is enough that no vicious or sensual man could have fallen into such fascination, nor any decently hypocritical one have proclaimed it." De Quincey called it " an explosion of frenzy. He threw out his clamorous anguish to the clouds, and to the winds, and to the air ; caring not who might listen, who might sympathise, or who might sneer — the sole necessity for him was to empty his over-burdened spirit." A philosophical critic of the book calls it a novelty in the English language, and says that he is not aware of the publi- cation of anything so vindicatory of the ideal theory of Berkeley — nothing so approaching a demonstration that mind is the great creator, and matter a fable. Mrs. Jameson has a very eloquent passage on the subject in one of her volumes. The late Lord Houghton incidentally expressed his great admiration of the book in an article on Keats in the Fortnightly Review. Before leaving this painful subject, it will be well to give a few sentences from the pen of Bryan Waller Procter, better known by his nom de plume Barry Cornwall, who knew Hazlitt well, met him at this time, and who had seen the girl at his (H.'s) lodgings. " His intellect was completely subdued by an insane passion. He was, for a time, unable to think or talk of anything else. He abandoned criticism and books as idle matters, and fatigued every person whom he met by expressions of her love, of her deceit, and of his own vehement disappointment. This was when he lived in Southampton Build- ings, Holborn. Upon one occasion I know that he told the story of his attachment to five different persons in the same day, and at each time entered into minute details' of his love-story. 'I am a cursed fool,' said he to me. 'I saw J going into "Wills' Coffee-house yesterday morning ; he spoke to me. I followed him into the house, and whilst he lunched I told him the whole story. Then I wandered into the Eegent's Park, where I met one of M 's sons. I walked with him some time, and on his using MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxxvii some civil expression, by Jove, sir, I told him the whole story ! ' [Here he mentioned another instance which I forget.] 'Well, sir' (he went on), ' I then went and called on Haydon, but he was out. There was only his man, Salmon, there ; but by Jove ! I could not help myself. It all came out ; the whole cursed story. Afterwards I went to look at some lodgings at Pimlico. The landlady at one place, after some explanations as to rent, &c., said to me very kindly, " I am afraid you are not well, sir 1 " " No, ma'am," said I, " I am not well ; " and on inquiring further, the devil take me if I did not let out the whole story from beginning to end.' I used to see this girl, Sarah Walker, at his lodgings, and could not account for the extravagant passion of her admirer. She was the daughter of the lodging-house-keeper. Her face was round and small, and her eyes were motionless, glassy, and without any speculation (apparently) in them. Her movements in walking were very remarkable, for I never observed her to make a step. She went onwards in a sort of wavy, sinuous manner, like the movement of a snake. She was silent, or uttered monosyllables only, and was very demure. Her steady, unmoving gaze upon the person whom she was addressing was exceedingly unpleasant. The Germans would have extracted a romance from her, endowing her perhaps with some diabolic attribute. To this girl he gave all his valuable time, all his wealth of thought, and all the loving frenzy of his. heart. For a time I think that on this point he was substantially insane — certainly beyond self-control. To him she was a being full of witchery, full of grace, with all the capacity of tenderness. The retiring coquetry, which had also brought others to her, invested her in his sight with the attractions of a divinity.'' I have not given any extracts from this work, as, from the nature of its contents, it woiild be impossible to convey a correct idea of it by detached passages. With regard to the divorce mentioned by his son in the extract given above, both parties went to Edinburgh, swore that there was no collusion between them, and, after considerable delay, obtained their obj ect. A detailed account of the whole transaction, including extracts from Mrs. Hazlitt's diary, is given in his grandson's Memoir. It is difficult to understand how the affair was carried through with so much coolness, and how husband and wife, so soon to be divorced, could meet as they did on terms of apparent friendship ; how they could drink tea together, arrange as to the payment of her expenses, and deal with each other, all through, as if the matter about which they had met in Edinburgh was one of the most ordinary and everyday character. jcxxviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. In 1822-23 fi^e articles by Hazlitt appeared in the Liberal, a perio- dical started by Lord Byron and Shelley, and to which Leigh Hunt was also a contributor. It only extended to four numbers. Byron's " Vision of Judgment " and " Heaven and Earth, a Mystery," first appeared in it. Hazlitt's contributions were "My First Acquaintance with Poets," " Arguing in a Circle," " On the Scotch Character," "Pulpit Oratory — Chalmers and Irving," and "On the Spirit of Monarchy." In 1823 he issued a little volume called Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims. The book is less known than almost any of his writings. Mr. R. H. Home, in his introductory • remarks to the second edition (1837), says that it contains much that is cynical, though nothing malevolent. Some of his most bitter sarcasms are distinctly levelled at himself. In his most cutting truths it is a striking peculiarity with him that he always briags himself in for his fuU share. There is stuff alone in this little volume to make a reputation. To the latest edition of Charac- teristics, ( 1 871), are added "Common-Places," reprinted from Hunt's Literary Examiner (1823), and "Trifles Light as Air" from the Atlas newspaper (1829). In 1824 Mr. Hazlitt contributed to the seventh edition of the Encyclopcsdia Britannica an article on The Fine Arts, afterwards reprinted with the title Painting and the Fine Aris, being the articles contributed under these heads to the seventh edition of the Fncyclopcedia Britannica, by B. R. Eaydon, Esq., and WiUiam Hazlilt, Esq. A critic writing on this essay says, that if he wished to give any young or uninstructed individual a correct and exalted idea of what is meant by the term " The Arts " or " The Fine Arts," he would simply place it in his hands. The whole tendency of the paper is to show that the perfection attained by all the great masters arose from the study of the nature which surrounded them, and not from that imagined improvement upon nature which has been called the ideal. In the same year, 1824, appeared Sketches of the Principal Picture- Galleries in England-, with a Criticism on " Marriage-d-la-Mode." In no department of criticism did Hazlitt write with more insight, power, and picturesqueness, than on painting and pictures. Leigh Hunt considered him the greatest critic on art tha't ever appeared ("his writings on that subject casting a light like a painted window"). Some of the openuig sketches prefixed to his descrip- tions of the galleries of Dulwich, Stafl'ord House, Burleigh, and MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xxxix Blenheim are as cliarming as the best pictures they celebrate. The volume is full of beauties, although it seems to be written carelessly, and often in too dazzling language. The reader will find in it his account of the Cartoons of Raphael, of Eembrandt's picture of Joseph's Dream, his estimate of Holbein, of Poussin, and Watteau. His description of the Stafford Collection is prefaced by some striking observations on the duration of works of art. In his account of the pictures at Burleigh House there is a passage redolent with associations of the past, and embodying his recollections of a visit twenty years before, which may be pointed out as one of the iiiost tender and eloquent he ever wrote. It is only one of several to be found in this volume. It may be here mentioned that a volume containing almost all that Hazlitt has written on the Fine Arts, including his sketches of the English Picture-Galleries, has been edited by his grandson, Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, and published by Messrs. Reeves & Turner. Having got rid of his wife by divorce, according to the law of Scotland in those days, and having recovered from his mad infa- tuation for his lodging-house-keeper's daughter, who, it is almost superfluous to say, not long afterwards married a younger and less imaginative lover, he astonished his family and friends by very soon making a second marriage. In one of his many journey ings from and to London he made the acquaintance in a coach of a lady with some property, named Bridgwater. It is not reported how much time elapsed between the first meeting and their marriage, but the latter took place in the first half of 1824. In August of the same year they started on a trip to the Continent, during which his son, then a lad of about fourteen or fifteen, joined them. For some months they travelled about, visiting Paris, Turin, Florence, Rome, Venice, Milan, Geneva, and by the Rhine to Holland. During this tour he had opportunities of studying the Italian masters, and described them, as well as the places he visited, in a series of letters to the Morning Chronicle. He returned to London without his wife, who never afterwards rejoined him. Those who might be expected to give any information as to the cause of this abrupt termination of the brief period of his second married life are silent, and we are left to form our own conclusions. All we are told by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt is this : " Mr. Hazlitt and his son returned home alone. Mrs. Hazlitt had stopped behind. At the end of a fortnight he wrote to her, asking her when he should come to fetch her ; and the answer which he got was that she had proceeded to Switzerland with hei: xl MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. sister, and that they had parted for ever." A writer on Hazlitt — Mr. Saintsbury— says very justly of this matter, "When a man with such antecedents marries a woman of whom no one has anything bad to say, lives with her for a year, chiefly on her money, and is then quitted by her with the information that she will have nothing more to do with him, it is not, I think, uncharitable to conjecture that most of the fault is his." The letters he wrote while on his journey were published the following year (1826) in a volume entitled Notes of a Journey in France and Italy. This memorial of travel is full of enjoyment, observation, and thought. His conversation was described by one who fell in with him on the journey as being better than any book on the art pictorial he had ever read. His local descriptions — the passage across the Alps, his sketches of Swiss and Italian scenery, of Eome, Venice, and the Italian cities — are conspicuous for their vividness. The productions of some of the great Italian masters are criticised with his usual skill and felicity. The opinions of a man so eminently qualified to judge in such matters were read with attention and interest. This volume has never been reprinted. We get a glimpse of Hazlitt during this journey in a forgotten article in an early volume of Fraser's Magazine (March 1839). It is written by Captain Medwin, the friend and biographer of Shelley. The article is entitled " Hazlitt in Switzerland : A Conversation." Medwin, who does not tell us how he came to meet Hazlitt, begins by saying that he found him living in a cottage near Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva. He describes him as by no means striking in appearance, though not unprepossessing — ^his dress neglected, his face unshaven. His countenance bore the marks of intense applicatioi;, and there was such a habitual expression of melancholy, as though he was brooding over past miseries or indulging in hopeless views of the future. His figure was emaciated and his vital energy apparently very low. His body seemed only a tenement for spirit. A con- versation ensued, the substance of which is given in five or six pages. It was about Byron, Scott, Shakespeare, and other literary topics. At its conclusion he entered into a long history of lus own literary wrongs, his neglect by the public, and his bitter per- secution by the reviewers. The chord, thus touched, vibrated in every nerve, and he spoke for half an hour with much rapidity, and with an attempt at times to suppress his feelings, which was dis- tressing to both. At last, working himself up into a fury, he poured MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xli forth the fiercest diatribes against his assailants. Medwin tried to calm him, and then toot his leave. In 1824 he prepared a volume, Selections from the English Poets. In this he was assisted by Lamb and Procter. Some poets (chiefly- living), whose works were copyright, were included in the collection. An injunction being threatened, the volume was withdrawn from sale. A few, however, got into circulation, one of which is in my possession. In its original form, it extended to 822 royal octavo double columns. It was issued in 1825 with a new title and frontis- piece, and consisted of 562 pages, with his name on the title-page. The authors not included in the re-issue are Rogers, Campbell, Bloomfield, Crabbe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, Lamb, Montgomery, Byron, Moore, Hunt, Shelley, Thurlow, Keats, Milman, Bowles, and Barry Cornwall. The selections are preceded by brief, pithy, and comprehensive paragraphs, describing the characteristics of each poet. In his preface he says : " I have made it my aim to exhibit the characteristic and striking features of English poetry and English genius ; and with this view have endeavoured to give such specimens from each author as showed his peculiar powers of mind, and the peculiar style, in which he excelled." In 1825 was published in one volume The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits. This work is regarded by some of Hazlitt's critics as his best — the most matured in thought, the most impar- tial and deliberate in judgment, and the most finished in style. One calls it " The Harvest Home " of his mind ; another says that in the delicate discrimination of the finer shades of character, and in those evanescent forms of expression which an inferior artist might in vain attempt to catch, he is the Clarendon of his age. He gives portraits of Coleridge, Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, Brougham, and a dozen more of his distinguished contemporaries, both political and literary. The portrait of Byron is a masterpiece of analysis of that poet's wayward genius and character. The character of Cobbett, considered by many of Hazlitt's admirers as one of the best pieces he ever wrote, and which originally appeared in Tahle-Talk in 1820, is not given in the first edition of 27ie Spirit of the Age, but appears in the third, edited by his son, 1835, and in subse(5[uent editions. The Plain-Speaker; Opinions on Books, Men, and Things, 2 vols., 1826, was the next work which he gave to the public. These essays present a great variety of subjects discussed in Hazlitt's best manner, ^he titles of some of them have only to be named to whet the appetite of the reader. " Whether Genius is Conscious af its Powers," xlii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. " On Application to Study," " On Beading Old Books," " On People of Sense," " On Depth and Superficiality," " On Personal Character," " On the Qualifications Necessary to Success in Life," and many more. The volume includes the most of the articles he contributed to the London Magazine in 1820 and 1821. Talfourd has pronounced these as well as most his previous essays " to differ not so much in degree as in kind from that of all others of their class. There is a weight and substance about them which makes us feel that, amidst all their dexterous analysis, they are in no small measure creations. The quantity of thought which is accumulated upon his favourite subjects, the vS,riety and richness of the illustrations, and the strong sense of beauty and pleasure which pervades and animates the composition, give them a place, if not above, yet apart from, the writings of all other essayists. They have not, indeed, the dramatic charm of the old Spectator and Tatler, nor the airy touch with which Addison and Steele skimmed along the surface of many-coloured life ; but they disclose the subtle essence of char- acter, and trace the secret springs of the afl^ections, with a more learned and penetrating spirit of human dealing than either of these essayists." The work above described was the last collection of essays given by Mr. Hazlitt to the public. His son afterwards gathered together and published two volumes of essays contributed to various perio- dicals, and not included in Table-Talk or The Plain-Speaker. They will be found indispensable companions to these collections. It is well, therefore, to give a brief account of these before proceeding to describe the last two works from his pen, his Conversations with Northcote and the Life of Napoleon. The two collections of essays referred to are entitled Sketches and Essays, now first collected hy his son, 1839 ; Winterslow ; Essays and Characters, written there, collected by his son, 1850. In these two volumes will be found his memorable paper, "My First Acquaintance with Poets" (which, in its complete form, first appeared in " The Liberal " in 1 823), his brilliant record of a conversation at one of Lamb's evenings, under the title "Of Persons One would Wish to have Seen," and the touching essays entitled "On a Sun-Dial" and "A Farewell to Essay-Writing," written at Winterslow Hutt in 1828. There are also included his characters of Burke, Fox, Pitt, and Chatham, written in his earlier days, and reprinted from The Eloquence of the British Senate. Besides those na,med, there are twenty-seven other essays, each stamped with the mint-mark of his genius, and which will be welcome to aU lovers MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xliii of English literature. Indeed, these two volumes include specimens of Hazlitt as an essayist at his very best. In them we recognise the familiar hand of the acute, wUful, unselfish, benevolent philo- sopher, his unfailing sympathy with mankind at large, doing justice to the good as well as bad sides of a question, and heartily relishing beauty and genius wherever he found them, — enemies not excepted. It may here be stated that in Hazlitt's Literary Remains, edited by his son, 1836, will be found several essays not included in either of the posthumous volumes named, nor in any of those published during Hazlitt's lifetime. Among these is the memorable article " The Fight," describing the pugilistic encounter between Hickman and Neate in 1822 with marvellous vividness, and with an apparent skiU which would almost make one suppose that Hazlitt was an "old hand" in that line, — a professional desoriber of prize-fights for a sporting newspaper. I have been advised not to reprint this paper, but Hazlitt must be shown in every phase ; an ardent admirer pronounces it his chef-d'ceuvre. In 1827 Hazlitt contributed an article to the Examiner entitled "The Dandy School." It was written soon after the appearance of "Vivian Grey" (not then published with Disraeli's name as author), about which the fashionable world was then in ecstasies of admiration. As this article has never been reprinted, it is deserv- ing of notice here. In it he exposed the low aims of the novelist in his usual incisive style, indignantly protested against the degrada- tion of the functions of literature by such writers as the author of "Vivian Grey" and Theodore Hook, and treated with wholesome scorn the views of life and society embodied in the adventures and conversations of their tuft-hunting heroes. In 1826-27 a series of articles under the title of "Boswell Eedivivus " appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. These articles consist of a record of conversations with Mr. Northcote, the painter, then about eighty years of age, whom Hazlitt had known so far back as 1802 through his brother John. Northcote was a shrewd observer, and had seen and heard a great deal in the world of art and literature. He had great vivacity, plenty of anecdote, and many recollections of people whom he had known. These attractions drew Hazlitt frequently to his studio. He was generally considered an ill-conditioned, malevolent, and unamiable man, and it is rather singular that Hazlitt had so strong a relish for his society. He says : " The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with the most regret, never did me the smallest favour. I once did xllv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. him an iinoalled-for service, and we nearly quarrelled about it. If I were in tlie utmost distress, I should just as soon think of asking his assistance as of stopping a person on the highway. Practical benevolence is not his forte. . . . His hand is closed ; but what of that 1 His eye is ever open, and reflects the xmiverse. His silver accents, beautiful, venerable as his silver hairs, but not scanted, flow as a river. I never ate or drank in his house ; nor do I know or care how the flies or spiders fare in it, or whether a mouse can get a living. But I know that I can get there what I can get nowhere else — a welcome, as if one was expected to drop in just at that moment, a total absence of all respect of persons, and of airs of self -consequence, refined thoughts, made more striking by ease and simplicity of manner — the husk, the shell of humanity is left at the door, and the spirit, mellowed by time, resides within ! . . . I asked leave to write down one or two of these conversations ; he said I might if I thought it worth while ; ' but,' he said, ' I do assure you that you overrate them. You have not lived long enough in society to be a judge.' ... I have generally taken him as my lay-figure or model, and worked upon it, selon more gr^, by fancying how he would express himself on any occasion, and making up a conversation according to this preconception in my mind. I have also introduced little incidental details that never happened ; thus, by lying, giving a greater air of truth to the scene — an art understood by most historians ! In a word, Mr. Northcote is only answerable for the wit, sense, and spirit there may be in these papers ; I take all the dulness, the impertinence, and malice upon myself. He has furnished the text. I fear I have often spoiled it by the commentary." We are told by Mr. Patmore that' in one of these conversations Hazlitt reported something which Northoote said should not have been printed. Northcote was furious, and spoke of Hazlitt as "the diabolical Hazlitt," and wrote indignantly to the editor of the New Monthly, in which the articles were appear- ing. The editor replied that Hazlitt should never again write in the Magazine. Notwithstanding this explosion, they continued to meet as before, the latter taking notes with Northcote's knowledge, and the conversations continuing to appear in the Magazine. These conversations contain much fime thought and practical wisdom ; many of the thoughts are stalkingly original. The respective shares of author and artist are not always easy to determine. It was said by one critic of these conversations that all the ill-nature in the book is Northcote's, and all, or almost all, the talent Hazlitfs, MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xlv The. work was not published in volume form until 1830. Its title is Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., £.A. In the same year was issued The Life of Titian; with Anecdotes of the Distinguished Persons of his Time, by James Northcote, Esq., B.A. Although this work bears the name of Mr. Northcote on its title-page, the material furnished by him was of a very unconnected kind, and only made available (with the addition of a great many notes) by Hazlitt's manipulation. To sweU out the work into two volumes, a trans- lation of Ticozzi's Life of Titian, by Hazlitt and his son, was intro- duced. It now remains to speak of his last and largest work. The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, 4 vols. Vols. I. and II. 1828. Vols. III. and IV. 1830. New edition, revised by his son, 4 vols. 1852. This Life had loomed before his view for many years, and he meant it to be a monumental work. During 1827 he worked upon his cherished task at Winterslow Hutt. The first volume and the greater part of the second were finished and ready for printing, when he was taken ill, and had to return to London for medical advice. In the following year the first two volumes were issued, and the author went on perseveringly with the remaining two volumes. His strength was visibly declining, and he was anxious to complete his task. We are told that the finishing touches were put to the last two volumes under the roof of Mr. Whiting, the printer, of Beaufort House, in the Strand. The concluding volumes were sent forth to the public in 1830. The sale of the first two volumes had not been encouraging. Coming after Sir Walter Scott's work on the same subject was a serious disadvantage, and interfered with the success of the book. He was to have received ^500 for the copyright, but his publisher's affairs became involved, and the result was that he received no recompense for this laboriously and conscientiously per- formed work. This led to a pecuniary crisis, disastrous in its issue to Hazlitt, bringing with it the greatest inconvenience and annoyance. His health and spirits suffered much under this misfortune. In the beginning of 1830 he removed to 6 Frith Street, Soho, and there he was threatened with a recurrence of his previous serious illness. The Preface, which he intended to appear at the commencement of the Life, was for some reason or other omitted, but it found a place at the beginning of the third volume — not standing by itself, but incorporated with and forming part of the text. He himself, writing about this Preface, says in a letter to Mr. Charles Oowden Clarke : " In Paris the Preface was thought a masterpiece, the best xlvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. and only possible defence of Buonaparte, and quite new there." Talfourd, in his "Thoughts upon the Intellectual Character of William Hazlitt," devotes several pages to an ingenious explanation of his admiration of Napoleon. One of Hazlitt's reasons for justifying this predilection to himself was no doubt the revolutionary origin of his hero, and the contempt with which he trampled upon the claims of legitimacy and humbled the pride of kings ; but Talfourd points out other reasons, arising from the constitution of Hazlitt's mind, which help us to understand this idolatrous worship. He does not speak with unqualified admiration of the wgrk. He considers it as often confused and spiritless, although "redeemed by scattered thoughts of true originality and depth," and descriptions, " written with a master's hand," such as that of the disastrous retreat from Moscow. At times " the author's strength becomes concentrated, his narrative assumes an epic dignity and fervour, and glows with 'the long- resounding march and energy divine.' " Mr. Fonblanque, one of the most acute of our political writers, and whose judgments are always characterised by discrimination and fairness, in a review of this work in the Examiner, says, "With respect to the narrative, it is rapid, spontaneous, and abounding with the mental touches which so peculiarly distinguish this writer ; although it certainly wants something of form and due digestion regarded as the record of a series of great actions and important events. To Napoleon, as a man of commanding intellect, Mr. Hazlitt wiU, by some, be considered too favourable. It is much to say, however, that in no instance does he spare him when either his grand characteristics or his passions briag him into opposition to the great cause of liberty or the general benefit of mankind. . . . There is a noble and eloquent exposition of the inevitable results of a free press, which is admi- rably demonstrative of the utter inability, from the constitution and nature of the human mind, of an eternal resistance on the part of oppression and tyranny to the operation of the interchange of ideas which it produces. ... We will venture to assert that this work displays a deeper insight into the sources and principles of morals and politics, in brief, rapid, and lightning glances — often as it were en passant — than nine out of ten of the formal treatises which are regarded as profound authority. We would rather, for instance, be the author of the remarks therein on the character of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, than of the whole of Burke's great and high-wrought work." Before concluding the record of Hazlitt's works, I may direct MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xlvii attention to two papers of his, hitherto unreprinted, which appeared the year after his death. They may he of interest to those who wish to know his opinion on the subjects discussed, viz., " The Punishment of Death " and " The Emancipation of the Jews." The latter will be found in the Tatler, March 28, 1831, and the former in Fraser's Magazine, January 1831. I may also add that two articles from his pen were written a few months before his death, and appeared in the New Monthly Magazine. They were entitled "The Free Admission" and "The Sick Chamber." The latter will be found in the following Selections ; they have not been included in any of the volumes of his collected Essays. Pecuniary anxieties and disappointments bore heavily upon him during 1830, and he grew gradually feebler. The stirring events in France in July of that year seemed to give him new life for a while, and came to him in his shattered condition like a sudden and unexpected gleam of sunshine. By the tender care of some of his friends he seemed to rally slightly at times, but in the course of the summer he grew weaker and worse. Still he was able to think and write a little. His grandson tells us that he composed a paper on " Personal Politics," in view of the then recent deposition of Charles X. and the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. It was something to have lived to see that. "I saw him (once only)," says his friend Procter, " as he lay, ghastly, shrunk, and helpless, on the bed from which he never afterwards rose. His mind seemed to have weathered all the danger of extreme sickness, and to be safe and as strong as ever. But the physical portion had endured sad decay. He could not lift his hand from the coverlet ; and his voice was changed, and diminished to a hoarse whistle, resembling the faint scream that I have heard from birds. I never was so sensible of the power of Death before." All through the month of August he was struggling with death. He seemed to live on "by a pure act of volition." He asked those who were with him to fetch his mother to him, that he might see her once more before he died. But this was impossible ; she was in Devonshire and eighty-four years of age. His old and ever-dear friend, Charles Lamb, was beside him at the close, on the i8th of September. The end was so peaceful, that his son, who was sitting by his bedside, did not know that he had passed away till the breathing had ceased for a moment or two. The last words he uttered were, " Well, I've had a happy life." Let it be recorded to the honour of Francis Jeffrey that he sent Hazlilt ^50, in reply to an application made from hia xlviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Bick-bed, but the kiiid gift did not arrive until after his death. Mr. R. H. Home says that those who nursed him and cared for him during his last illness were Charles Lamb, Mr. Patmore (father of the poet), and Mr. Basil Montagu. " I brought an Italian artist, who took an admirable plaster cast from Hazlitt's face and the upper part of his head. The countenance was grandly taken. It had a latent smile, not unlike that which gradually dawns upon one after gazing for a time at some faces of the Egyptian sculptures." Wells, the author of " Joseph and his Brethren," went with Home to see the body. He had at one time been intimate with Hazlitt. He after- wards raised a tablet to his memory in the Church of St. Anne's, Soho, where he lies buried. The inscription on the tablet is a long one, and will be found in the " Literary Remains." " When Hazlitt died," said Bulwer, " he left no successor ; others may equal him, but none resemble. I confess that few deaths of the great writers of my time ever affected me more painfuUy than his. For of most of those who, with no inferior genius, have gone before him, it may be said that in their lives they tasted the sweets of their immortality, they had their consolations of glory ; and if fame can atone for the shattered nerve, the jaded spirit, the wearied heart of those 'who scorn delight and live laborious days,' verily they have their reward. But Hazlitt went down to the dust without having won the crown for which he so bravely struggled ; his reputation, great amongst limited circles, was stiU questionable to the world. He who had done so much for the propagation of thought, from whose wealth so many had filled their coffers, left no stir on the surface from which he sank to the abyss. ... A great man sinking amidst the twilight of his own renown, after a brilliant and un- clouded race, i^a solemn, is an inspiring and elating influence. But Nature has no sight more sad and cheerless than the sun of a genius which the clouds have so long and drearily overcast, that there are few to mourn and miss the luminary when it sinks from the horizon." Hazlitt as a Critic and Essayist. As a critic and essayist, Hazlitt takes a deservedly high place in English literature. His writings bear upon them the impress of a vigorous and original genius. They are characterised by genuine eloquence and iine perception of every kind of beautv, by sincerity and earnestness, and for the most part, when disturting influences MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. xlix ■were not present, by an unerring critical judgment ; and at times his page sparkles with epigrammatic brilliancy. His thoughts are expressed in v igorou s, idJ£taSic,' vivid, easy-flsTyinglanguage. It is to be regretted' tharso few readers of the present day'aie acquainted with his works. There are several reasons for this. One of these reasons — upon which I have enlarged in the previous part of this Memoir — is the hostility directed against him during his lifetime by an influential class of critics, who were at the head of powerful literary organs on the Government side of politics. Hazlitt was an uncompromising politician. He was on the popular side, and evinced the most strenuous opposition to the existing Governments, at home and abroad. His thorough integrity, his denunciation of corruption and official servility, and his unswerving consistency, rendered him an object of hatred to the supporters of "things as they are ; " and led to those personal attacks upon his works and literary character which undoubtedly injured his popularity as an author, and left behind them influences and prejudices which have not yet altogether ceased to act unfavourably upon his reputation. Another cause which has diminished his influence is the voluminous- ness of his vn-itings. An author who has left so much behind him is at a disadvantage compared with one of equal power whose works are contained within a moderate compass. For twenty years he was constantly writing for his livelihood, and thus often compelled to the act of composition when his health and surroundings were anything but favourable to thought. His consciousness of in- tellectual power, assisted by unusual command of language, induced him to draw continually on his mental resources, leading in some of his writings to repetition, and to a certain egotistical tone, which his enemies knew how to turn to his disadvantage, and for which the ability and originality of other portions were not allowed to atone. Hazlitt'a writings abound in acute and eloquently expressed opinions on literature, art, life, and manners. No critic so thoroughly imparts to his readers the sense of his own enjoyment of genius, as well as reveals the process of it with such success. His critical judgments are sometimes warped by personal and political prejudices ; but, with all their drawbacks, there are none superior to his in vigour and general ' truthfulness. Even when his judgments are at fault, they are hardly calculated to mislead the taste of the reader, from the ease with which it is perceived and re • ferred to its source in caprice or a momentary fit of spleen. Hazlitt D 1 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. infused an entirely new spirit into the criticism of his day. He showed that the way to comprehend a work was to enjoy it, and that just perception is closely allied to sympathy. If we trace the history of English criticism, we shall find that Hazlitt began a new era ; and whatever may be our opinion of his estimates of individual writers and artists, it must be allowed that his way of treating their productions — that is, sympathisingly, and not merely in a conven- tional or prescriptive manner — is a great advance upon the previous methods of treatment. The word " critical" hardly conveys a true idea of his mode of dealing with the works and genius of great writers. It is a kind of treatment which had never before been attempted, or even dreamed of. It has been described as not so much an art cultivated, as a new and beautiful sphere of literature created, ministering wholly to refined enjoyment. He is less a writer than an illustrator, and less an illustrator than an enthusiastic expositor and panegyrist, whose eulogium is the spontaneous overflow of an exquisite perception of, and an intense sympathy with, the beauties on which he expatiates. His appreciation of literature and art was more earnest, suggestive, and discriminating than that of any critic of his time or before him ; while his style was calculated to rivet attention by its remarkable clearness, fluency, and vigour, its warmth and richness of colouring. His knowledge of the fine arts, the drama, works of fancy and fiction, and other departments of literature, taken severally, may not equal that of some other writers, but taken altogether, is certainly unrivalled. His works are full of spirit and vivacity, and there is at the same time an intensity and vividness of conception which embodies ideas that are so volatile and fugitive as to escape the grasp of a slower, though even pro- founder intellect. He professes to throw aside the conventional for- mality of authorship, and to give his thoughts to the world with the freedom and frankness of Montaigne. He has fine sensibility, great imaginative power, remarkable acuteness of intellect^ anJaTmasterljs,- gift of expression. His beauties are procured by a gre4t eMiendi- ture of thinking, and some of his single strokes and 4ashes reveal more to the reader's understanding than whole pages o^ an ordinary author. He is one of the most suggestive of writers. There are few who make their readers think so much, and he is constantly putting us on the track of speculation or inteUectiual sympathy. He makes life interesting by hinting to us its latent significance, and he reveals the mysterious charm of character by analysing its elements and probing its inmost depth. Seldom have the inmost MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. li experiences of an author been more completely revealed than in the case of Hazlitt. There are few salient points and startling passages in his life that he has omitted to look upon or glance at in his --Essays. The processes and impressions of his own mind had such an interest for him, that he feels a delight in recording them and speculating on them. In treating of a work of art or a favourite author, he brought to bear on their interpretation all the sym- pathetic insight born of his own experience. He makes us ac- quainted with all his tastes and antipathies, his prejudices and passions. He reveals his errors and weaknesses, and is anything but a self-laudator. Indeed, authorship was to him a kind of con- fessional. It has been remarked that some of his best essays may be said to be in a sense autobiographical, because in them he recalls his enthusiasms and the passionate hopes on which he fed his spirit. Some of these apostrophes and references to his past life are not to be matched for tenderness and sad regret by anything in the range of literature. An American critic, alluding to this peculiarity of Hazlitt's — his indulgence in retrospective thought and self-revelation — says, " He was an epicurean in this regard, delighting to renew the vivid experience of the past by the glow of deliberate reminiscence, and to associate his best moods for work and his most genial studies with natural scenery and physical comfort. No writer ever more delicately fused sensation and sentiment, or drew from sunshine, fireside, landscape, air, viands, and vagabondage more delectable adjuncts." The extreme wilfulness of his character often led him into the indulgence of strong prejudices and induced a fondness for para- dox ; but even his paradoxes often serve as admirable stimulants to thought. In an unreprinted essay of his in a newspaper in 1828, "On the Causes of Popular Opinion,'' he explains his love of paradox in this way : " All abstract reasoning is in ex- tremes, or only takes up one view of a question, or what is called the principle of the thing ; and if you want to give thispopularity and effect, you are in danger of running into extravagance and hyperbole. I have had to bring out some obscure distinction, or to combat some strong prejudice, and in doing this with all my might, jnay have often overshot the mark. It was easy to correct the^reess of truth afterwards." ^ue possessed a deep a nd earnes t feelin g-£Qi~te*th, which was indeed the guiding-star oT all his thoughts and speculations. No truer words were ever spoken of him than those of Talfourd lii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. when he says that " he had as passionate a desire for truth as others have for wealth, or power, or fame." His purpose was always pure and earnest, and no temptation could induce him to pervert or to conceal the faith that was in him. One of the most profitable results accruing from his critical writings is the intellectual zeal which they communicate, sending us to the writers on whom he is discoursing with a whetted appetite, eager to relish their beauties. So keen is his enjoyment of every trait of beauty and truth in literature and in life which forcibly strikes his imagination, so warm the feeling that pervades his thought, and so rich the colour- ing in which the thought is invested, that he at once mates captive ourysympathies, and compels us "by his so potent art" to join in hjs admiration. One remarkable peculiarity in his writing js his love of quotation, ^vmch fsTtlwa^s^ just, striking, and unmistakably felicitous. Emerson says, " We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, and find a new and fervent sense." Some of Hazlitt's essays were so studded with rich gems of thought, that the pages shine like cloth of gold. To the charges made by some of his critics that he was inconsistent, that he had a narrow range of ideas and repeated himself, and that he made personal attacks on his friends, he gives the following answer in a newspaper article which has never been reprinted : — " I have been accused of in- consistency for writing an essay, for instance, on the Advantages of Pedantry, and another on the Ignorance of the Learned, as if ignorance had not its comforts as well as knowledge. The person- alities I have fallen into have never been gratuitous. If I have sacrificed my friends, it has always been to a theory. I have been found fault with for repeating myself, and for a narrow range of ideas. To a want of general reading I plead guilty, and am sorry for it ; but perhaps if I had read more, I might have thought less. As to my barrenness of invention, I have at least glanced over a number of subjects— painting, poetry, prose, plays, politics, parlia- mentary speakers, metaphysical lore, books, men and things. There is some point, some fancy, some feeling, some taste, shown in treat- ing of these. Which of my conclusions have been reversed % Is it what I said ten years ago of the Bourbons, which raised the war- whoop against me ? Surely all the world are of that opinion now. I have then given proof of some talent, and of more honesty ; if there is haste or want of method, there is no common-place, nor a line that licks the dust ; and if I do not appear to more advantage, MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. liii I at least appear such as I am. ... I hope to be accjnitted of an absolute dearth of resources, and -want of versatility in the direc- tion of my studies.'' Hazlitt's Personal Chaeactbeistios. We have one or two descriptive accounts of Hazlitt by friends wliich enable us to form some notion of his personal appearance and ways. Talfourd describes him to have been "of the middle size, with a handsome and eager countenance, worn by sickness and thought, and dark hair, which had curled stiffly over the temples, and was only of late years sprinkled with grey. His gait was slouching and awkward, and his dress neglected ; but when he began to talk, he could not be mistaken for a common man. In the company of persons with whom he was not familiar his bashfulness was painful ; but when he became entirely at ease, and entered on a favourite topic, no one's conversation was ever more delightful. He did not talk for eflfect, to -dazzle, or surprise, or annoy, hut with the most simple and honest desire to make his view of the subject entirely apprehended by his hearer. There was sometimes an obvious struggle to do this to his own satisfaction ; he seemed labouring to drag his thoiight to light from its deep lurking-place ; and, with modest distrust of that power of expression which he had found so late in life, he often betrayed a fear that he had failed to make himself understood, and recurred to the subject again and again, that he might be assured he had succeeded. In argu- ment he was candid and liberal ; there was nothing about him pragmatical or exclusive." For many years previous to his death he abstained entirely from the use of alcoholic liquors, having found indulgence in them to be injurious to his health. We are told that the cheerfulness with which he made this resolution and adhered to it was one of the most amiable traits in his character. To give Talfourd's words, "He had no censure for others, who, with the same motive, were less wise or less resolute ; nor did he think he had earned, by his own constancy, any right to intrude advice. . . . He avowed that he yielded to necessity ; and instead of avoiding the sight of that which he could no longer taste, he was seldom so happy as when he sat with friends at their wine, participating in the sociality of the time, and renewing his own past enjoyment in that of his companions, without regret and without liv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. envy. ... In society, as in politics, he was no flincher. He loved 'to hear the chimes at midnight,' without considering them as a summons to rise. At these seasons, when in his happiest mood, he used to dwell on the conversational powers of his friends, and live over again the delightful hours he had passed with them, repeat the pregnant puns that one had made, tell over again a story with which another had convulsed the room, or expand in the eloquence of a third ; always best pleased when he could detect some talent which was unregarded by the world, and giving aUke to the celebrated and the unknown due honour." Mr. Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall) saw a great deal of Hazlitt during the last twelve or thirteen years of his life, and has left on record his impressions of him. He first met him at supper at Leigh Hunt's. He expected to find a severe, defiant-looking being, instead of which he met a grave man, difiident, almost awkward in manner, whose appearance did not impress him with much respect. " He had a quick restless eye, however, which opened eagerly when any good or bright observation was made ; and he found at the conclusion of the evening, that whfen any question arose, the most sensible reply always came from him. He had nothing that was parsimonious or mean in his character, and never thought of eating or drinking except when hunger or thirst reminded him of these wants. With the exception of a very rare dinner or supper with a friend or intimate, his time was generally spent alone. After a late breakfast he took his quire of foolscap paper, and commenced writing, in a large hand, almost as large as text, his day's work. There never was any rough draft or copy. He wrote readily — not very swiftly, but easily, as if he had made up his mind ; and this was the manu- script that went to the printer. He was of the middle size, with eager, expressive eyes ; near which his black hair, sprinkled sparsely with grey, curled round in a wiry, resolute manner. His grey eyes, not remarkable in colour, expanded into great expression when occa- sion demanded it. Being very shy, however, they often evaded youi steadfast look. They never (as has been asserted by some one) had a sinister expression ; but they sometimes flamed with indignant glances, when their owner was moved to anger ; like the eyes of other angry men. At home his style of dress (or undress) was perhaps slovenly, because there was no one to please ; but he always pre- sented a very clean and neat appearance when he went abroad. His mode of walking was loose, weak, and unsteady, although his arms displayed strength, which he used to put forth when he played at MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Iv rackets with Martin Burney and others. He played in the old Fives Court (now puHed down), and occasionally exhibited impatience when the game went against him. The whole of many, and the half of more days, were consumed in this amusement. It was here that he witnessed the play at fives of the celebrated John Kavanagh, of whom he has written an account — at once an eulogy and an epitaph." Mr. P. G. Patmore, who knew Hazlitt during the last sixteen or seventeen years of his life, devotes a large portion of the three volumes called "My Friends and Acquaintances" to recollections of him. From these the following sentences are taken : — " For depth, force, and variety of intellectual expression, a finer head and face than Hazlitt's were never seen. I speak of them when his coun- tenance was not dimmed and obscured by illness, or clouded and deformed by those fearful indications of internal passion which he never even attempted to conceal. The expression of his face, when anything was said that seriously offended him, or when any pecu- liarly painful recollection passed across his mind, W£is truly awful — more so than can be conceived as within the capacity of the human countenance ; except perhaps by those who have witnessed Edmund Kean's last scene of Sir Giles Overreach from the front of the pit. But when he was in good health, and in a tolerable humour with himself and the world, his face was more truly and entirely answer- able to the intellect that spoke through it than any other I ever saw, either in life or on canvas ; and its crowning portion, the brow and forehead, was, to my thinking, quite unequalled for mingled capacity and beauty. . . . The forehead, as I have hinted, was mag- nificent ; the nose precisely that (combining strength with lightness and elegance) which physiognomists have assigned as evidence of a fine and highly cultivated taste ; though there was a peculiar char- acter about the nostrils, like that observable in those of a fiery and unruly horse. The mouth, from its ever-changing form and char- acter, could scarcely be described, except as to its astonishingly varied power of expression, which was equal to, and greatly re- sembled, that of Edmund Kean. ... He always lived (during the period of my intimacy with him) in furnished lodgings. ... He usually rose at from one to two o'clock in the day — scarcely ever before twelve ; and, if he had no work in hand, he would sit over his breakfast (of excessively strong black tea and a toasted French roll) tUl four or five in the afternoon — silent, motionless, and self- absorbed, as a Turk over his opium-pouch ; for tea served him pre- cisely in this capacity. It was the only stimulant he ever took, and Iviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. At this instant he may be preparing for me some compliment above my deserts, as lie has sprinkled such among Ms admirable books, for which I rest his debtor ; or, for anything I know or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble beartb), if they can divert a spleen or ventilate a fit of suUenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at tbe rate he does ; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do ; judging him by his conversations, which I enjoyed so long and relished so deeply, or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes — I should belie my own- conscience if I said less than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breath- ing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire ; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such another companion." Next among these records of opinion regarding Hazlitt I place the following desultory remarks by Bryan Waller Procter, known in literature by the worn de plume of Barry Cornwall, and as the father of the poetess, Adelaide Procter. Procter was the intimate and esteemed friend of Hazlitt for sixteen or seventeen years before his death, and the companion of Lamb, Hunt, and other men of letters of the time. These remarks are little more than a rough draft, jotted down between his seventy-fifth and seventy-ninth years — mere memoranda for a more complete portrait which he contem- plated. He died at the age of eighty-seven. He was a man of refined literary tastes and culture, and an accomplished writer both in prose and verse. He had a sound judgment and wide sympathies, and was capable of forming a sober and unexaggerated estimate of his contemporaries. Hence the value of his remarks on the subject of this Memoir. "Justice has never been done, I think, to the great and varied talents of William Hazlitt. The opinion of the dominant party (' public opinion,' as it is called) was directed against him during his life, and that opinion has continued to prevail, amongst the unthinking and easy multitude, ever since. . . . Hazlitt himself had strong passions and a few prejudices ; and his free manifes- tation of these were adduced as an excuse for the slander and animosity with which he was perpetually assailed. He attacked MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. lix others, indeed (a few only), and of these lie expressed his dislike in terms sometimes too violent perhaps. . . . Yet, when an oppor- tunity arose to require from him an unbiassed opinion, he was always just. . . . Subject to the faults arising out of this his warm temperament, he possessed qualities worthy of affection and respect. He was a simple, unselfish man, void of all deception and pretence ; and he had a clear, acute intellect, when not traversed by some temporary passion or confused by a strong prejudice. Almost all men come to the consideration of a subject (not mathematical) with some prejudice or predilection. And even a prejudice, as Burke says, has its kernel (which should be preserved) as well as its husk (which should be cast aside). Like many others, he was sometimes swayed by his affections. He loved the first Napoleon beyond the bounds of reason. He loved the worker better than the idler. He hated pretensions supported merely by rank or wealth or repute, or by the clamour of factions. And he felt love and hatred in an intense degree. But he was never dishonest. He never struck down the weak nor trod on the prostrate. He was never treache- rous, never tyrannical, never cruel. . . . The history of Hazlitt is like that of some of the scholars of former times, who were always face to face with misfortune. Merit (especially without prudence) is of insufficient strength to oppose injustice, which is always without pity. It seems to be a hopeless task to be always toiling up an ascent, where power and malignity united stand armed at the top. Then at one time he had ill-health, which added its weight to the constant obloquy with which he was assailed. To oppose this were the strength arising from a sense of injustice and the native vigour of his own soul. He had a grand masculine intellect, which conquered details as well as entireties, and rejected nothing which helped the understanding. . . . The decisions of a hostile majority pressed down (as I have said) the reputation of William Hazlitt, and no one has taken the trouble to elevate it to its proper position since. . . . Hazlitt's range of thought was very extensive. He wrote on books and men, on politics and manners. Metaphysics were not too remote from him, nor was the stage too trivial or too near. In his pages you may read of Berkeley and Hume, of Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne. You may recreate yourself with Shakespeare and Milton, with Wordsworth, with Pope, and Lord Byron. He has commented on philosophers and divines, on tragedy and comedy, on poetry and politics, on morals, on manners, on style, on reasoning. . . © MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Hazlitt's critical style, in all cases where he does not overwhelm it by elaborate eulogy, is strong, picturesque, and expressive. As a piece of eloquent writing, few passages in literature surpass his 'Introduction to the Literature of Elizabeth.' Leigh Hunt said, cleverly, that his 'criticisms on art threw a light on the subject as from a painted window.' ... No man was competent to write upon Hazlitt who did not know him personally. Some things of which he has been accused were referable merely to temporary humour or irritability, which was not frequent, and which was laid aside in an hour. At other times (by far the greater portion of his life) he was a candid and reasonable man. He felt the injuries and slanders, however, which were spit forth upon him, acutely, and resented them. He was not one of those easy, comfortable, and so-called 'good-natured' men, who are simply inaccessible to strong emotions, and from whom the minor ills of life fall off, without disturbing them, like rain from a pent-house top. . . . Hij^gssa ys are full of thought: fuH of dplicatp. p erceptions . They do not speak of matters which he h as mPTply sp.pu ni-xememi b'ered, but enter into the rights and w rongs nf per,s ^ : into t> m meaning an d logic flf-things ; intn causps and_results-; -into jnotives and indieatioii s_o£-chajaetei. Bte-4s,4n -short, not-a-Taeoniqf,RYer his ostensib le theine, deriving t he essence of his / con u»«ntary from hi s ow n bosom j This combination of-mtMse-ajJ>- Je ctivity w ith strict adherence tcHhis subject is one of Hazlitt's most distinctive and creditable traits. InJ allectual truthfulrig aa is a passion with him. He steeps his topic in the hues of his own individuality, but never uses it as a means of self-display. . . . With many serious defects both on the intellectual and the moral side. Hazlitt's character in both had at least themerit_ofji^erity and consistency. He was a compoUSj 'Tj f-intellect and p assion, and the refinement of his critical analysis is associated with vehement ftloquennR and flo wing imagery . He was essentially a critic, 9 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. (^Ixi]t3 dissector, and, as Bulwer justly remarks, a nracli better judge of men of thought than of men of action. But he also possessed many gifts in no way essential to the critical character, and transcending the cri tic's ordi nary sphere. These, while giving him rank~~as aiTTn^ dependent writer, Irequently perturbed the natural clearness of his critical j udgment, and seduced him intoTlie paradoxes with whicK/^«a hi3^"wor£ s abound. These paradoxes, however, never^pring frony <».^ attectation ; they are TiTgeiief arthe sallies" 3Fa mihd^Wagile^ancn^ ardent a s to overnnrrtr own"'^ah His" sTyle^iF perfectly hatu-/ ^^^ ral, and yet adnurablyljMlcinatS^^r^^iHecE^^ "~iMi'.1i a.i'ii1-Tfraar.n1inR, ap.p. ms to kindle a s he. proceeds,; and_wh£iL_ thoroughly an imated b y his subjeettjie advanc es with a succes sion o f eiierg e tic~hard-hittin g_sentene£S,_each carryin g his_argument_a s tep farthe r, like ^ champion d eajingjmtjjlaws-aa- he-presses-upen the en emy." The most recent opinion delivered on Hazlitt is from the pen of Mr. George Saintsbnry, and it is one with which every discriminating admirer of the essayist will in the main agree. It is characterised by that critical acumen and sound judgment which distinguish most of Mr. Saintsbury's literary estimates. It will be found in Macmillan's Magazine for 1887. It is only possible to give some sentences from the paper, which deserves a careful perusal by those who would wish to tinderstand Hazlitt. "There is indeed no doubt that Hazlitt is one of the most'- absolutely unequal writers in English, if not in any literature, Wilson being perhaps his only compeer. ... It could not indeed be otherwise, because the inequality itself is due less to an intellectual than to a moral defect. The clear sunshine of Hazlitt's admirably asnlejntellect is always there ; but it is constantly obscured by I driving clouds of furious preiudice. . . . He was, in literature, a / great man. I am myself disposed to think that, for all his access of -L hopelessly uncritical prejudice, he was the greatest critic that England /^ - has yet produced ; and there are some who think (though I do not^- "? agree with them) that he was even greater as a miscellaneous essayist^^^ than as a critic. Jt_is cprtjiiTily n poTi bis essays, critical and other, "^^i^ that his fame must rest. . . . These various drawbacks only set oflf tha^^ J^<; merits which almost every lover of literature must perceive in him. HCl. In most writers — ^in all save the very greatest — we look for one or '^'si; two or for a few special faculties and capacities, and we know JjJ^Ae perfectly well that other (generally many other) capacities and ^ faculties will not be found in |;hem at all, . . . But in Hazlitt you IxivJ MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. . ,^jc^ may find something of almost _g yerYthiiig. except the finer bursts of • wit and hnino ur ; to which lastj^ however, he makes a certain side- **'*«^ approach by dint of his appreciation of the irony of nature and fate. Almost every other grace in matter and form that can be found in prose may be found at times in his. . . . Most of the fine writing o f tliese latter days is but as crumpled_tarlatan to brocaded satin beside the pass age on Coleridge in the EnMshP oets. or the deserip- tion of Wintersiow and its neighbourhood in the ' Farewell to Essay- Writing,' or 'On a Landscape of Nicholas Poussin' in the Table-Talk. Read these pieces and nothing else^and an excusable impression mightbejlven_that t he writer was^^thing if not florid. But turn over a dozen pages, and the most admirable examples of the grave and chaste manner occur. He is an inveterate quoter, yet few men are more original. No man is his superior in lively, gossipy descrip- tion, yet he could, within his limits, reason closely and expound admirably. . . . TTaj^litt'ff PntKn^a inr . t.in nppiTP.i .id-^r.7^ p,f wh fi t J R_;^d in jetters. his combin ation nf ona to with so und thpory ah t.Q_w1iqt jg excellentjn p rose and verse, h is felicitons-nietliod.-oi-expresaioTi, ajid the acuteness that kept h mL-troni— thaLexcessiv e-and paradoxica l a dmiration which both Lamb and C oleridg e affected, and which h as gained many more^ pupils than his^owji moderations—are always ^es^tTTTothing better has ever been written than his generaT view of the subject as an introduction to the Lectures on Elizabethan Literature. Of the famous four treatments of the dramatists of the Restoration — Lamb's, HazUtt's, Leigh Hunt's, and Macaulay's — his seems to me by far the best. ... No one has written better on Pope. . . . His chapter on the English novelists (that is to say, those of the last century) is perhaps the best thing ever written on the subject. . . . The 'Character of Cobbett' is the best thing the writer ever did of the kind, and the best thing that has ever been written about Cobbett. . . . 'JfcLJiia t- Acquaintance with Poe ts' is a master piecg;_;_^^ A hap-hazard catalogue of the titles of essays may not be very succulent. But within moderate space there is really no other means of indicating the author's extraordinary range of subject, and at the same time the pervading excellence of his treatment. ... In criticism of English literature, he is for the critic a subject never to be wearied of, always to be profited by. His very aberrations are often more instructive than other men's right-goings ; and if he sometimes fails to detect or acknowledge a beauty, he never praises a defect. . . . The fact is that he was a born man of letters, and that he could not help turning everything MEMOIR OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. Ixv he touolied. into literature. . . . He was not, as it seems to me, quite at home in very short papers — in papers of the length of the average newspaper article. What he could do, as hardly any other man has ever done in England, was a causerie of about the same length as Sainte-Beuve's, or a little shorter, less limited in range, but also less artificially proportioned, than the great Frenchman's literary and historical studies, giving scope for considerable digression, but coming to an end before the author was wearied of his subject, or had exhausted the fresh thoughts and the happy borrowings and analogies which he had ready for it. . . . Hazlitt must have been one of the most uncomfortable of all English men of letters, who can be called great, to know as a friend. He is certainly, to those who know him only as readers, one of the most fruitful both in instruction and delight." SELECTIONS FKOM THE Writings of William Hazlitt. [TJie Eloquence of the British Senate ; or, Select Specimens from the Speeches of the Most Sistinguhhed Parliamentary Speakers, from the beginning of the Reign of Charles the First to the Present Time, with Notes, Bio- graphical, Critical, and Explanatory. In 2 vols., 1S07.] THE CHAEACTEE OF BUKKE. [Originally appeared in The Eloqvence of the British Senate, reprinted in Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters, 1819, with the following note : " This character was written in a fit of extravagant candour at a time when I thought I could do justice, or more than justice, to an enemy, without betraying a cause." It is included, along with the characters of Fox, Pitt, and Lord Chatham, in one of the volumes of Bell & Sons' edition of HazHtt's principal works, 1872.] There is no single speech of Mr. Burke which can convey a satis- factory idea of his powers of mind : to do him justice, it would be necessary to quote all his works ; the only specimen of Burke is, all that he wrote. With respect to most other speakers, a specimen is generally enough, or more than enough. When you are acquainted with their manner, and see what proficiency they have made in the mechanical exercise of their profession, with what facUity they can borrow a simile, or round a period, how dexterously they can argue, and object, and rejoin, you are satisfied ; there is no other difference in their speeches than what arises from the diBerence of the sub- jects. But this was not the case with Burke. He brought his ? WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Bubjeots along with him ;Jie_drewJiiajm:aterials from himself. The only limits which oiroumsGEJbed his-..varTety"'WerS"the stores of his Qwa mind. "His stock of ideas did not coiisist of a few meagre facts, meagrely stated, of half a dozen commonplaces tortured into a thousand different ways; but his mine of wealth was a profound understanding, inexhaustible as the human heart, and various as the sources of human nature. He therefore enriched every subject to which he applied himself, and new subjects were only the occasions of calling forth fresh powers of mind which had not been before exerted. It would therefore be in vain to look for the proof of his powers in any one of his speeches or writings : they all contain some additional proof of power. In speaking of Burke, then, I shall speak of ths wh^le,TO]n^!^,3ttdjeiisnit_of_his mind — not of that small part or section of him which I have been able to give ; to do otherwise would be like the story of the man who put the brick in his pocket, thinking to show it as the model of a house. I have been able to manage pretty well with respect to all my other speakers, and curtailed them down without remorse. It was easy to reduce them within certain limits, to fix their spirit, and condense their variety ; by having a certain quantity given, you might infer aU the rest ; it was only the same thing over again. But who can bind Proteus, or confine the roving flight of genius ? Burke's writings are better than his speeches, and indeed his speeches are writings. But he seemed to feel himself more at ease, to have a fuller possession of his faculties in addressing the public, than in addressing the House of Commons. Burke was raised into public life ; and he seems to have been prouder of this new dignity than became so great a man. For this reason, most of his speeches have a sort of parliamentary preamble to them : he seems fond of coquetting with the House of Commons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance a minuet with him before he begins. There is also something like an attempt to stimulate the superficial dulness of Ijis hearers by exciting their s mprige, by running into extrav agance : and he sometirfies demS^Tiimserf by condescending ' to what may be considered as bordering too much upon buffoonery, for the amusement of the company. Those lines of Milton were admirably applied to him by some one— "The elephant to make them sport wreathed his proboscis lithe." The truth is, that he was out of his place in the House of Commons ; he was eminently qualified to shine as a man of genius, as the instructor of mankind, as the brightest luminary of his age ; but he had nothing in common with that motley crew of knights, citizens, and burgesses. He could not be said to be " native and endued unto that element." He was THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 3 above it ; and never appeared like himself, but when, forgetful of the idle clamours of party, and of the little views of little men, he applied to his country and the enlightened judgment of mankind. I am not going to make an idle panegyric on Burke (he has no need of it) ; but I cannot help looking upon him as the chief boast and ornament of the English House of Commons. What has been said of him is, I think, strictly true, that " he was the most eloquent man of his time : his wisdom was greater than his eloquence." The only public man that in my opinion can be put in any competition with him, is Lord Chatham ; and he moved in a sphere so very remote, that it is almost impossible to compare them. But though it would perhaps be difficult to determine which of them excelled most in his particular way, there is nothing in the world more easy than to point out in what their peculiar excellences consisted. They were in every respect the reverse of each other. Chatham's eloquence was popular : his wisdom was altogether plain and practical. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet ; of the man of high and unbounded fancy: his wisdom was profound and contemplative. Chatham's eloquence was calcula,ted to make men act : Burke's was calculated to make them think. Chatham could have roused the fury of a multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he pleased : Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the mind of the retired and lonely student, opened the recesses of the human breast, and lighted up the face of nature around him. Chatham supplied his hearers with motives to immediate action : Burke furnished them with reasons for action which might have little effect upon them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser and better all their lives after. In research, in originality, in variety of knowledge, in richness of inven- tion, in depth and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the advantage of Lord Chatham as he was excelled by him in plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehe- mence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and energy of mind. Burke was the man of genius, of fine sense, and subtle reasoning; Chatham was a man of clear understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions. Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation : Chatham's was essentially active; it could not rest without an object. The power which governed Burke's mind was his Imagination ; that which gave its impetus to Chatham was "Will. The one was almost the creature of pure intellect, the other of physical temperament. There are two very different ends which a man of genius may pro- pose to himself, either in writing or speaking, and which will accord- ingly give birth to very different styles. He can have but one of these two objects; either to enrich or strengthen the mind; either to 4 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. furnish us with new ideas, to lead the mind into new trains of thought, to which it was before unused, and which it was incapable of strikiQg out for itself; or else to collect and embody what we already knew, to rivet our old impressions more deeply ; to make what was before plain still plainer, and to give to that which was familiar all the eflfect of novelty. In the one ease we receive an accession to the stock of our ideas; in the other, an additional degree of life and energy is infused into them : our thoughts con- tinue to flow in the same channels, but their pulse is quickened and invigorated. I do not know how to distinguish these different styles better than by calling them severally the inventive and refined, or the impressive and vigorous styles. It is only the subject-matter of eloquence, however, which is allowed to be remote or obscure. The things themselves may be subtle and recondite, but they must be dragged out of their obscurity and brought struggling to the light ; they must be rendered plain and palpable (as far as it is in the wit of man to do so), or they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark and difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which the imagination can shed no lustre, which can be clothed with no beauty, is not a subject for the orator or poet. At the same time it cannot be expected that abstract truths or profound observations should ever be placed in the same strong and dazzling points of view as natural objects and mere matters of fact. It is enough if they receive a reflex and borrowed lustre, like that which cheers the first dawn of morning, where the effect of surprise and novelty gilds every object, and the joy of beholding another world gradually emerging out of the gloom of night, " a new creation rescued from his reign," fills the mind with a sober rapture. Philosophical eloquence is in writing what chiaroscuro is in painting ; he would be a, fool who should object that the colours in the shaded part of a picture were not so bright as those on the opposite side ; the eye of the connoisseur receives an equal delight from both, balancing the want of brilliancy and effect with the greater delicacy of the tints, and difficulty of the execution. In judging of Burke, therefore, we are to consider, first, the style of eloquence which he adopted, and, secondly, the effects which he produced with it. If he did not pro- duce the same effects on vulgar minds as some others have done, it was not for want of power, but from the tiu?n and direction of his mind. It was because his subjects, his ideas, his arguments, were less vulgar. The question is not whether he brought certain truths equally home to us, but how much nearer he brought them than they were before. In my opinion, he united the two extremes of THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 5 refinement and strength in a higher degree than any other writer whatever. The subtlety of his mind was undoubtedly that which rendered Burke a less popular writer and speaker than he otherwise would have been. It weakened the impression of his observations upon others, but I cannot admit that it weakened the observations them- selves ; that it took anything from their real weight or solidity. Coarse minds think all that is subtle, futile : that because it is not gross and obvious and palpable to the senses, it is therefore light and frivolous, and of no importance in the real afi^airs of life ; thus nlaking their own confined understandings the measure of truth, and supposing that whatever they do not distinctly perceive, is nothing. Seneca, who was not one of the vulgar, also says, that subtle truths are those which have the least substance in them, and consequently approach nearest to nonentity. But for my own part I cannot help thinking that the most important truths must be the most refined and subtle ; for that very reason, that they must comprehend a great number of particulars, and instead of referring to any distinct or positive fact, must point out the com- bined effects of an extensive chain of causes, operating gradually, remotely, and collectively, and therefore imperceptibly. General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation ; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together, and holds the planets in their orbits. The very same persons who are the most forward to laugh at all systematic reasoning as idle and impertinent, you will the next moment hear exclaiming bitterly against the baleful effects of new-fangled systems of philosophy, or gravely descanting on the immense importance of instilling sound principles of morality into the mind. It would not be a bold con- jecture, but an obvious truism, to say, that all the great changes which have been brought about in the mortal world, either for the better or worse, have been introduced, not by the bare statement of facts, which are things already known, and which must always operate nearly in the same manner, but by the development of certain opinions and abstract principles of reasoning on life and manners, on the origin of society and man's nature in general, which being obscure and uncertain, vary from time to time, and produce corresponding changes in the human mind. They are the wholesome dew and rain, or the mildew and pestilence that silently destroy. To this principle of generalisation all wise law-givers, and the systems of philosophers, owe their influence. I 6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. It has always been with me a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man. Of all the persons of this description that I have ever known, I never met with above one or two who would make this concession ; whether it was that party feelings ran too high to admit of any real candour, or whether it was owing to an essential vulgarity in their habits of thinking, they all seemed to be of opinion that he was a wild enthusiast, or a hollow sophist, who was to be answered by bits of facts, by smart logic, by shrewd questions, and idle songs. They looked upon him as a man of dis- ordered intelleots, because he reasoned in a style to which they had not been used, and which confounded their dim perceptions. If you said that though you differed with him in sentiment, yet you thought him an admirable reasoner, and a close observer of human nature, you were answered with a loud laugh, and some hackneyed quotation. " Alas ! Leviathan was not so tamed ! " They did not know whom they had to contend with. The comer-stone, which the builders rejected, became the head-corner, though to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; for, indeed, I cannot discover that he was much better understood by those of his own party, if we may judge from the little adBBnity there is between his mode of reasoning and theirs. The simple clue to all his reasonings on politics is, I think, as follows. He did not agree with some writers that that mode of government is necessarily the best which is the cheapest. He saw in the construction of society other principles at work, and other capacities of fulfilling the desires, and perfecting the nature of man, besides those of securing the equal enjoyment of the means of animal life, and doing this at as little expense as possible. He thought that the wants and happi- ness of men were not to be provided for, as we provide for those of a herd of cattle, merely by attending to their physical necessities. He thought more nobly of his fellows. He knew that man had affections and passions and powers of imagination, as well as hunger and thirst, and the sense of heat and cold. He took his idea of poli- tical society from the pattern of private life, wishing, as he himself expresses it, to incorporate the domestic charities with the orders of the state, and to blend them together. He strove to establish an analogy between the compact that binds together the community at large, and that which binds together the several families that compose it. He knew that the rules that form the basis of private morality are not founded in reason, that is, in the abstract pro- perties of those things which are the subjects of them, but in the nature of man, and his capacity of being affected by certain things THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 7 from habit, from imagination, and sentiment, as well as from reason. Thus, the reason why a man ought to be attached to his wife and children is not, siirely, that they are better than others (for in this case every one else ought to be of the same opinion), but because he must be chiefly interested in those things which are nearest to him, and with which he is best acquainted, since his understanding cannot reach equally to everything ; because he must be most attached to those objects which he has known the longest, and which by their situation have actually aflfected him the most, not those which in themselves are the most affecting whether they have ever made any impression on him or no ; that is, because he is by his nature the creature of habit and feeling, and because it is reasonable that he should act in conformity to his nature. Burke — 1 was so far right in saying that it is no objection to an institution I that it is founded in prejudice, but the contrary, if that prejudice I | is natural and right ; that is, if it arises from those circumstances [ I which are properly subjects of feeling and association, not from any I \ defect or perversion of the understanding in those things which fall strictly under its jurisdiction. On this profound maxim he took his stand. Thus he contended, that the prejudice in favour of nobility was natural and proper, and fit to be encouraged by the positive institutions of society : not on account of the real or personal merit of the individuals, but because such an institution has a tendency to enlarge and raise the mind, to keep alive the memory of past greatness, to connect the different ages of the world together, to carry back the imagination over a long tract of time, and feed it with the contemplation of remote events : because it is natural to think highly of that which inspires us with high thoughts, which has been connected for many generations with splendour, and affluence, and dignity, and power, and privilege. He also conceived, that by transferring the respect from the person to the thing, and thus rendering it steady and permanent, the mind would be habitu- ally formed to sentiments of deference, attachment, and fealty, to whatever else demanded its respect : that it would be led to fix its view on what was elevated and lofty, and be weaned from that low and narrow jealousy which never willingly or heartily admits of any superiority in others, and is glad of every opportunity to bring down all excellence to a level with its own miserable standard. Nobility did not, therefore, exist to the prejudice of the other orders of the state, but by, and for them. The inequality of the different orders of society did not destroy the unity and harmony of the whole. The health and well-being of the moral world was to be promoted 8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. by the same means as the beauty of the natm:al world; by contrast, by change, by light and shade, by variety of parts, by order and proportion. To think of reducing all mankind to the same insipid level, seemed to him the same absurdity as to destroy the inequahties of surface in a coimtry, for the benefit of agriculture and conmierce. In short, he believed that the interests of men in society should be consulted, and their several stations and employments assigned, with a view to their nature^ not as physical, but as moral beings, so as to nouHsh their hopes, to lift their imagination, to enUven'Sieir fancy, to rouse their activity, to strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the greatest number of objects of pursuit, and means of enjoyment to beings constituted as man is, consistently with the order and stability of the whole. The same reasoning might be extended farther. I do not say that his arguments are conclusive ; but they are profound and true, as far as they go. There may be disadvantages and abuses neces- sarily interwoven with his scheme, or opposite advantages of in- finitely greater value, to be derived from another order of things and state of society. This, however, does not invalidate either the truth or importance of Burke's reasoning ; since the advantages he points out as connected with the mixed form of government are really and necessarily inherent in it : suioe they are compatible, in the same degree, with no other ; since the principle itself on which he rests his argument (whatever we may think of the application) is of the utmost weight and moment ; and since, on whichever side the truth lies, it is impossible to make a fair decision without having the opposite side of the question clearly and fully stated to us. This Burke has done in a masterly manner. He presents to you one view or face of society. Let him who thinks he can, give the reverse side with equal force, beauty, and clearness. It is said, I know, that truth is onsj but to this I cannot subscribe, for it appears to me that truth y, marm . There are as many truths as there are things and causes of action and contradictory principles at work in society. In making up the account of good and evil, indeed, the final result must be one way or the other ; but the particulars on which that result depends are infinite and various. It wiU be seen from what I have said, that I am very far from agreeing with those who think that Burke was a man without understanding, and a merely florid writer. There are two causes which have given rise to this calumny; namely, that narrowness of mind which leads men to suppose that the truth lies entirely on the side of their own opinions, and that whatever does not make THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 9 for them is absurd and irrational ; secondly, a trick we have of confounding reason with judgment, and supposing that it is merely the province of the understanding to pronounce sentence, and not to give evidence, or argue the case ; in short, that it is a passive, not an active faculty. Thus there are persons who never run into any extravagance, because they are so buttressed up with the opinions of others on all sides, that they cannot lean much to one side or the other ; they are so little moved with any kind of reason- ing, that they remain at an equal distance from every extreme, and are never very far from the truth, because the slowness of their facul- ties will not suffer them to make much progress in error. These are persons of great judgment. The scales of the mind are pretty sure to remain even, when there is nothing in them. In this sense of the word, Burke must be allowed to have wanted judgment, by all those who think that he was wrong in his conclusions. The accusation of want of judgment, in fact, only means that you your- self are of a different opinion. But if in arriving at one error he discovered a hundred truths, I should consider myself a hundred times more indebted to him than if, stumbling on that which I consider as the right side of the question, he had committed a hundred absurdities in striving to establish his point. I speak of him now merely as an author, or as far as I and other readers are concerned with him ; at the same time, I should not differ from any one who may be disposed to contend that the consequences of his writings as instruments of political power have been tremendous, fatal, such as no exertion of wit or knowledge or genius can ever , counteract or atone for. Burke also gave a hold to his antagonists by mixing up sentiment and image ry with his reasoning; so that, being unuse3~^Eo''such alight in ffie region of politics, they were deceived, and could not discern the fruit from .the flowers. Gravity is the cloak of wisdom ; and those whotave nothing else think it an instdt to affect the one without the other, because it destroys the only foundation on which their pretensions are buUt. The easiest part of reason is dulness ; the generality of the world are therefore concerned in discouraging any example of unnecessary brilliancy that might tend to show that the two things do not always go tqgether. Burke in some measure dissolved the spell. It was discovraed, that his gold was not the less valuable for being wrought into elegant shapes, and richly embossed with curious figures ; that the solidity of a bmlding is not destroyed by adding to it beauty and ornament ; and that the strength of a man's understanding is not always to be estimated in exact proportion to his want of imagination. His understand- 10 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ing was not the less real, because it was not the only faculty he possessed. He justified the description of the poet — " How ohtirming is divine philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute ! " Those who object to this luiion of grace and beauty with reason, are in fact weak-sighted people, who cannot distinguish the noble and majestic form of Truth from that of her sister Folly, if they are dressed both alike ! But there is always a difference even in the adventitious ornaments they wear, which is sufficient to distinguish them. Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer, that he was one of the severest writers we have. His words are the most like things ; his style is the most strictly suited to the subject. He unites every extreme and every variety of composition ; the lowest and the meanest words and descriptions with the highest. He exults in the display of power, in showing the extent, the force, and intensity of his ideas ; he is led on by the mere impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy conceits or pompous images. He was completely carried away by his subject. He had no other object but to pro- duce the strongest impression on his reader, by giving the truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and most forcible description of things, trusting to the power of his own mind to mould them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a splendid effect by setting fire to the light vapours that float in the regions of fancy, as the chemists make fine colours with phosphorus, but by the eagerness of his blows struck fire from the flint, and melted the hardest substances in the furnace of his imagination. The wheels of his imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness of the materials, but from the rapidity of their motion. One would suppose, to hear people talk of Burke, that his style was such as would have suited the Lady's Magazine; soft, smooth, showy, tender, insipid, full of fine words, without any meaning. The essence of the gaudy or glittering style consists in producing a momentary effect by fine words and images brought together, without order or connection. Burke most frequently produced an effect by the remoteness and novelty of his combinations, by the force of contrast, by the striking manner in which the most opposite and unpromising materials were harmoniously blended together ; not by laying his hands on all the fine things he could think of, but by bringing together those things which he knew would blaze out into glorious light by their THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. ii collision. The florid style is a mixture of aflfeotation and common- place. Burke's was an union of untameable vigour and originality. Burke was not a verbose writer. If he sometimes multiplies words, it is not for want of ideas, but because there are no words that fully express his ideas, and he tries to do it as well as he can by different ones. He had nothing of the set or formal style, the measured cadence, and stately phraseology of Johnson, and most of our modern vn-iters. This style, which is what we understand by the artificial, is all in one key. It selects a certain set of words to represent all ideas whatever, as the most dignified and elegant, and excludes all others as low and vulgar. The words are not fitted to the things, but the things to the words. Everything is seen through a false medium. It is putting a mask on the face of nature, which may indeed hide some specks and blemishes, but takes away all beauty, delicacy, and variety. It destroys all dignity or elevation^ because nothing can be raised where all is on a level, and completely destroys all force, expression, truth, and character, by arbitrarily confounding the differences of things, and reducing everything to the same insipid standard. To suppose that this stiff uniformity can add anything to real grace or dignity, is like supposing that the human body, in order to be perfectly graceful, should never deviate from its upright posture. Another mischief of this method is, that it confounds all ranks in literature. Where there is no room for variety, no discrimination, no nicety to be shown in matching the idea with its proper word, there can be no room for taste or elegance. A man must easily learn the art of writing, when every sentence is to be cast in the same mould : where he is only allowed the use of one word he cannot choose wrong, nor will he be in much danger of making himself ridiculous by affectation or false glitter, when, whatever subject he treats of, he must treat of it in the same way. This indeed is to wear golden chains for the sake of ornament. Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I have here endeavoured to expose. His style was as original, as expressive, as rich and varied,' as it was possible ; his combinations were as exquisite, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as bold and daring, as his fancy. If anything, he ran into the opposite extreme of too great an inequality, if truth and nature could ever be carried to an extreme. Those who are best acquainted with the writings and speeches of Burke will not think the praise I have here bestowed on them exaggerated. Some proof will be found of this in the following extracts. But the full proof must be sought in his works at large, 12 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. and particularly in the Thoughts on the Discontents y in his Reflections on the French Revolution; in his Letter to the Duhe of Bedford j and in the Regicide Peace. The two last of these are perhaps the most remarkable of all his writings, from the contrast they afford to each other. The one is the most delightful exhibition of wild and brilliant fancy that is to be found in English prose, but it is too much like a beautiful picture painted upon gauze; it wants something to support it : the other is without ornament, but it has all the sohdity, the weight, the gravity of a judicial record. It seems to have been written with a certain constraint upon himself, and to show those who said he could not reason, that his arguments might be stripped of their ornaments without losiug anything of their force. It is certainly, of all his works, that in which he has shown most power of logical deduction, and the only one in which he has made any important use of facts. In general he certainly paid little attention to them : they were the playthings of his mind. He saw them as he pleased, not as they were ; with the eye of the philosopher or the poet, regarding them only in their general principle, or as they might serve to decorate his subject. This is the natural consequence of much imagination : things that are probable are elevated into the I'ank of realities. To those who can reason on the essences of things, or who can invent according to nature, the experimental proof is of little value. This was the case with Burke. In the present instance, however, he seems to have forced his mind into the service of facts ; and he succeeded completely. His comparison between our connec- tion with France or Algiers, and his account of the conduct of the war, are as clear, as convincing, as forcible examples of this kind of reasoning, as are anywhere to be met with. Indeed I do not think there is anything in Fox (whose mind was purely historical) or in Chatham (who attended to feelings more than facts), that wiU bear a comparison with them. Burke has been compared to Cicero — I do not know for what reason. Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be. Burke had not the polished elegance, the glossy neatness, the artful regularity, the exquisite modulation of Cicero : he had a thousand times more richness and originality of mind, more strength and pomp of diction. It has been well observed, that the ancients had no word that properly expresses what we mean by the word genius. They perhaps had not the thing. Their minds appear to have been too exact, too retentive, too minute and subtle, too sensible to the external differ- ences of things, too passive under their impressions, to admit of those bold and rapid combmations, those lofty flights of fancy, which, THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 13 glancing from heaven to earth, unite the most opposite extremes, and draw the happiest illustrations from things the most remote. Their ideas were kept too confined and distinct by the material form or vehicle in which they were conveyed, to unite cordially together, or be melted down in the imagination. Their metaphors are taken from things of the same class, not from things of diBFerent classes ; the general analogy, not the individual feeling, directs them in their choice. Hence, as Dr. Johnson observed, their similes are either repetitions of the same idea, or so obvious and general as not to lend any additional force to it ; as when a huntress is compared to Diana, or a warrior rushing into battle to a lion rushing on his prey. Their /orte was exquisite art and perfect imitation. Witness their statues and other things of the same kind. But they had not that high and enthusiastic fancy which some of our ovm writers have shown. For the proof of this, let any one compare Milton and Shakspeare with Homer and Sophocles, or Burke with Cicero. It may be asked whether Burke was a poet. He was so only in the general vividness of his fancy, and in richness of invention. There may be poetical passages in his works, but I certainly think that his writings in general are quite distinct from poetry ; and that for the reason before given, namely, that the subject-matter of them is not poetical. The finest part of them are illustrations or per- sonifications of dry abstract ideas ; ^ and the union between the idea and the illustration is not of that perfect and pleasing kind as to constitute poetry, or indeed to be admissible, but for the effect intended to be produced by it ; that is, by every means in our power to give animation and attraction to subjects in themselves barren of ornament, but which at the same time are pregnant with the most important consequences, and in which the understanding and the passions are equally interested. I have heard it remarked by a person, to whose opinion I would sooner submit than to a general coimcil of critics, that the sound of Burke's prose is not musical ; that it wants cadence ; and that instead of being so lavish of his imagery as is generally supposed, he seemed to him to be rather parsimonious in the use of it, always expanding and making the most of his ideas. This may be true if we compare him with some of our poets, or perhaps with some of our early prose writers, but not if we compare him with any of our political writers or parliamentary speakers. There are some very fine things of Lord Bolingbroke's on the same subjects, but not I As in the comparison of the British Constitution to the "proud keep of Windsor," &c., the most splendid passage in his works. 14 WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. equal to Burke's. As for Junius, he is at the head of his class: but that class is not the highest.. He has been said to have more dignity than Burke. Yes— if the stalk of a giant is less dignified than the strut of a petit-maUre. I do not mean to speak disrespect- fully of Junius, but grandeur is not the character of his composition ; and if it is not to be found in Burke, it is to be found nowhere. LATER REMARKS ON BURKE. [The following, under the heading "Character of Mr. Burke," dated October s, 1817, appeared in Political Essays and Sketches of Puilic Char- acters, 1819.] It is not without reluctance that we speak of the vices and infir- mities of such a mind as Burke's : but the poison of high example has by far the widest range of destruction: and, for the sake of public honour and individual integrity, we think it right to say, that however it may be defended upon other grounds, the political career of that eminent individual has no title to the praise of con- sistency. Mr. Burke, the opponent of the American war, and Mr. Burke, the opponent of the French Revolution, are not the same person, but opposite persons — not opposite persons only, but deadly enemies. In the latter period, he abandoned not only all his prac- tical conclusions, but all the principles on which they were founded. He proscribed all his former sentiments, denounced all his former friends, rejected and reviled all the maxims to which he had formerly appealed as incontestable. In the American war, he constantly spoke of the rights of the people as inherent, and inalienable : after the French Revolution, he began by treating them with the chicanery of a sophist, and ended by raving at them with the fury of a maniac. In the former case, he held out the duty of resistance to oppression, as the palladium and only ultimate resource of natural liberty ; in the latter, he scouted, prejudged, vilified and nicknamed, all resistance in the abstract, as a foul and unnatural union of rebellion and sacrilege. In the one case, to answer the purposes of faction, he made it out, that the people are always in the right ; in the other, . to answer difierent ends, he made it out that they are always in the wrong — ^lunatics in the hands of their royal keepers, patients in the sick-wards of an hospital, or felons in the condemned cells of a prison. In the one, he considered that there was a constant tendency on the part of the prerogative to encroach on the rights of the people, which ought always to be the object of the most watchful jealousy, and of resistance, when necessary: in the other, he pretended to THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. ij regard it as the sole occupation and ruling passion of those in power, to watch over the liberties and happiness of their subjects. Tho burthen of all his speeches on the American war, was conciliation, concession, timely reform, as the only practicable or desirable alterna- tive of rebellion : the object of all his writings on the French Revolu- tion was, to deprecate and explode all concession and all reform, as encouraging rebellion, and as an irretrievable step to revolution and anarchy. In the one, he insulted Irings personally, as among the lowest and worst of mankind ; in the other, he held them up to the imagination of his readers, as sacred abstractions. In the one case, he was a partisan of the people, to court popularity ; in the other, to gain the favour of the Court, he became the apologist of all courtly abuses. In the one case, he took part with those who were actually rebels against his Sovereign : in the other, he denounced as rebels and traitors, all those of his own countrymen who did not yield 'sympathetic allegiance to a foreign Sovereign, whom we had always been in the habit of treating as an arbitrary tyrant. Nobody will accuse the principles of his present Majesty, or the general measures of his reign, of inconsistency. If they had no other merit, they have, at least, that of having been all along actuated by one uniform and constant spirit: yet Mr. Burke at one time vehemently opposed, and afterwards most intemperately extolled them : and it was for his recanting his opposition, not for his persevering in it, that he received his pension. He does not himself mention his flaming speeches on the American war, as among the public services which had entitled him to this remuneration. The truth is, that Burke was a man of fine fancy and subtle reflec- tion ; but not of sound and practical judgment, nor of high or rigid principles. — ^As to his understanding, he certainly was not a great philosopher ; for his works of mere abstract reasoning are shallow and inefficient : — nor was he a man of sense and business ; for, both in counsel and in conduct, he alarmed his friends as much at least as his opponents : — but he was an acute and accomplished man of letters — an iogeniovis political essayist. He applied the habit of reflection, which he had borrowed from his metaphysical studies, but which was not competent to the discovery of any elementary truth in that department, with great facility and success, to the mixed mass of human afiairs. He knew more of the political machine than a recluse philosopher; and ho speculated more profoundly on its principles and general results than a mere pohtician. He saw a number of fine distinctions and changeable aspects of things, the good mixed with the ill, and the ill mixed with the good ; and with a sceptical indifiference, in which the exercise of his own ingenuity F i6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. was obviously the governing principle, suggested various topics to qualify or assist the judgment of others. But for this very reason, he was Httle calculated to become a leader or a partisan in any important practical measure. For the habit of his mind would lead him to find out a reason for or against anything : and it is not on speculative refinements (which belong to everi/ side of a question), but on a just estimate of the aggregate mass and extended com- binations of objections and advantages, that we ought to decide or act. Burke had the power of throwing true or false weights into the scales of political casuistry, but not firmness of mind (or, shall we say, honesty enough) to hold the balance. When he took a side, his vanity or his spleen more frequently gave the casting vote than his judgment ; and the fieriness of his zeal was in exact proportion to the levity of his understanding, and the want of conscious sincerity. He was fitted by nature and habit for the studies and labours of the closet; and was generally mischievous when he came out; because the very subtlety of his reasoning, which, left to itself, would have counteracted its own activity, or found its level in the common sense of mankind, became a dangerous engine in the hands of power, which is always eager to make use of the most plausible pretexts to cover the most fatal designs. That which, if applied as a general observation on human affairs, is a valuable truth suggested to the mind, may, when forced into the interested defence of a particular measure or system, become the grossest and basest sophistry. Facts or consequences never stood in the way of this speculative politician. He fitted them to his preconceived theories, instead of conforming his theories to them. They were the playthings of his style, the sport of his fancy. They were the straws of which his imagination made a blaze, and were consumed, like straws, in the blaze they had served to kindle. The fine things he said about Liberty and Humanity, in his speech on the Begum's affairs, told equally well, whether Warren Hastings was a tyrant or not : nor did he care one jot who caused the famine he described, so that he described it in a way that no one else could. On the same principle, he represented the French priests and nobles imder the old regime as excellent moral people, very charitable and very religious, in the teeth of notorious facts, — to answer to the handsome things he had to say in favour of priesthood and nobility in general ; and, with similar views, he falsifies the records of our English Revolution, and puts an interpretation on the word abdication, of which a schoolboy would be ashamed. He constructed his whole theory of government, ia short, not on rational, but on picturesque and fanciful principles ; as if the king's crown were a painted gewgaw, to be looked at ou THE CHARACTER OF BURKE. 17 gala-days ; titles an empty sound to please the ear ; and the whole order of society a threatrioal procession. His lamentations over the age of chivalry, and his projected crusade to restore it, are about as wise as if any one, from reading the Beggar's Opera, should take to picking of pockets : or, from admirmg the landscapes of Salvator Rosa, should wish to convert the abodes of civilised life into the haunts of wild beasts and banditti. On this principle of false refine- ment, there is no abuse, nor system of abuses, that does not admit of an easy and triumphant defence ; for there is something which a merely speculative inquirer may always find out, good as weU as bad, in every possible system, the best or the worst ; and if we can once get rid of the restraints of common sense and honesty, we may easily prove, by plausible words, that liberty and slavery, peace and war, plenty and famine, are matters of perfect indifference. This is the school of politics, of which Mr. Burke was at the head ; and it is perhaps to his example, in this respect, that we owe the prevailing tone of many of those newspaper paragraphs, which Mr. Coleridge thinks so invaluable an accession to our political philosophy. Burke's Kterary talents were, after all, his chief excellence. His style has all the familiarity of conversation, and all the research of the most elaborate composition. He says what he wants to say, by any means, nearer or more remote, within his reach. He makes use of the most common or scientific terms, of the longest or shortest sentences, of the plainest and most downright, or of the most figvi- rative modes of speech. He gives for the most part loose reins to his imagination, and follows it as far as the language will carry him. As long as the one or the other has any resources in store to make the reader feel and see the thing as he has conceived it, in its nicest shades of difference, in its utmost degree of force and splendour, he never disdains, and never fails. to employ them. Yet, in the extremes of his mixed style, there is not much affectation, and but little either of pedantry or of coarseness. He everywhere gives the image he wishes to give, in its true and appropriate colomring : and it is the very crowd and variety of these images that have given to his lan- guage its peculiar tone of animation, and even of passion. It is his impatience to transfer his conceptions entire, living, in all their rapidity, strength, and glancing variety, to the minds of others, that constantly pushes him to the verge of extravagance, and yet supports him there in dignified security — " Never so sure our rapture to create, As when he treads the brink of all we hate." He is, with the exception of Jeremy Taylor, the most poetical of I8 WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ovr prose writers, and at the same time his prose never degenerates into the mere effeminacy of poetry; for he always aims at over- powering rather than at pleasing ; and consequently sacrifices beauty and delicacy to force and vividness. He has invariably a task to perform, a positive purpose to execute, an effect to produce. His only object is therefore to strike hard, and in the right place ; if he misses his mark, he repeats his blow ; and does not care how un- graceful the action, or how clumsy the instrument, provided it brings down his antagonist. THE CHAEACTER OF FOX. [Originally appeared in the Eloquence of the British Senate, 2 vols., 1S07, reprinted in Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characte:rs, 1819, and is included in one of the volumes of Bell & Sons' edition of Hazlitt's principal works 187J2.] I SHALi; begin with observing generally, that Mr. Fox excelled all his contemporaries in the extent of his knowledge, in the clearness and distinctness of his views, in quickness of apprehension, in plain practical common sense, in the full, strong, and absolute possession of his subject. A measure was no sooner proposed than he seemed to have an instantaneous and intuitive perception of its various bearings and consequences ; of the manner in which it would operate on the different classes of society, on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic or foreign policy ; of the difficulties attending its exe- cution ; in a word, of all its practical results, and the comparative advantages to be gained either by adopting or rejecting it. He was intimately acquainted with the interests of the different parts of the community, with the minute and complicated details of poUtioal economy, with our external relations, with the views, the resources, and the maxims of other states. He was master of all those facts and circumstances which it was necessary to know in order to judge fairly and determine wisely ; and he knew them not loosely or lightly, but in number, weight, and measure. He had also stored his memory by reading and general study, and improved his under- standing by the lamp of history. He was well acquainted with the opinions and sentiments of the best authors, with the maxims of the most profound politicians, with the causes of the rise and fall of states, with the general passions of men, with the characters of different nations, and the laws and constitution of his own coimtiy. THE CHARACTER OF FOX. ig He was a man of large, capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated intellect. No man could know more than he knew; no man's knowledge could be more sound, more plain and useful ; no man's knowledge could lie in more connected and tangible masses ; no man could be more perfectly master of his ideas, could reason upon them more closely, or decide upon them more impartially. His mind was full, even to overflowing. He was so habitually conversant with the most intricate and comprehensive trains of thought, or such was the natural vigour and exuberance of his mind, that he seemed to recall them without any effort. His ideas quarrelled for utterance. So far from ever being at a loss for them, he was obliged rather to repress and rein them in, lest they should overwhelm and confound, instead of informing the understandings of his hearers. If to this we add the ardour and natural impetuosity of his mind, his quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence of truth, and his impatience of everything that looked like trick or artifice or afieota- tion, we shall be able in some measure to account for the character of his eloquence. His thoughts came crowding in too fast for the slow and mechanical process of speech. What he saw in an instant, he could only express imperfectly, word by word, and sentence after sentence. He would, if he could, " have bared his swelling heart," and laid open at once the rich treasures of knowledge with which his bosom was fraught. It is no wonder that this difference between the rapidity of his feelings, and the formal round-about method of communicating them, should produce some disorder in his frame ; that the throng of his ideas should try to overleap the narrow boundaries which confined them, and tumultuously break down their prison-doors, instead of waiting to be let out one by one, and following patiently at due intervals and with mock dignity, like poor dependents, in the train of words ; that he should express him- self in hurried sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by vehement gestures, by sudden starts and bursts of passion. Everything showed the agitation of his mind. His tongue faltered, his voice became almost sufibcated, and his face was bathed in tears. He was lost in the magnitude of his subject. He reeled and staggered under the load of feeling which oppressed him. He roUed like the sea beaten by a tempest. Whoever, having the feelings of a man, compared him at these times with his boasted rival — his stiff, straight, upright figure, his gradual contortions, turning round as if moved by a pivot, his solemn pauses, his deep tones, " whose sound reverbed their own hoUowness," must have said. This is a man ; that is an automaton. If Fox had needed grace, he would have had it ; but it was not the character of his mind, nor woidd it have suited with the style of hia 20 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. eloquence. It was Pitt's object to smooth over the abruptness and intricacies of his argument by the gracefuhiess of his manner, and to fix the attention of his hearers on the pomp and sound of his words. Lord Chatham, again, strove to command others ; he did not try to convince them, but to overpower their understandings by the greater strength and vehemence of his own ; to awe them by a sense of personal superiority : and he therefore was obliged to assume a lofty and dignified manner. It was to him they bowed, not to truth ; and whatever related to himself, must therefore have a tendency to inspire respect and admiration. Indeed, he would never have at- tempted to gain that ascendant over men's minds that he did, if either his mind or body had been di6ferent from what they were ; if his temper had not urged him to control and command others, or if his personal advantages had not enabled him to secure that Hnd of authority which he coveted. But it would have been ridiculous in Fox to have aflected either the smooth plausibility, the stately gravity of the one, or the proud domineering, imposing dignity of the other ; or even if he could have succeeded, it would only have injured the effect of his speeches. What he had to rely on was the strength, the solidity of his ideas, his complete and thorough knowledge of his subject. It was his business therefore to fix the attention of his hearers, not on himself, but on his subject ; to rivet it there, to hurry it on from words to things : — the only circumstance of which they required to be convinced with respect to himself, was the sincerity of his opinions ; and this would be best done by the earnestness of his manner, by giving a loose to his feelings, and by showing the most perfect forgetf ulness of himself, and of what others thought oi him. The moment a man shows you either by affected words or Jooks or gestures, that he is thinking of himself, and you, that he is trying either to please or terrify you into compliance, there is an end at once to that kind of eloquence which owes its efiiect to the force of truth, and to your confidence in the sincerity of the speaker. It was, however, to the confidence inspired by the earnestness and simplicity of his manner, that Mr. Fox was indebted for more than half the eflfect of his speeches. Some others might possess nearly as much information, as exact a knowledge of the situation and interests of the country ; but they wanted that zeal, that animation, that enthusiasm, that deep sense of the importance of the subject, which removes all doubt or suspicion from the minds of the hearers, and communicates its own warmth to every breast. We may convince by argument alone ; but it is by the interest we discover in the suc- cess of our reasonings, that we persuade others to feel and act with us. There are two circumstances which Fox's speeches and Lord THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 21 Chatham's had in common : they are aUke distinguished by a kind of plain downright common sense, and by the vehemence of their manner. But still there is a great difference between them, in both these respects. Fox in his opinions was governed by facts — Chatham was more influenced by the feelings of others respecting those facts. Fox endeavoured to find out what the consequences of any measure would be ; Chatham attended more to what people would think of it. Fox appealed to the practical reason of mankind ; Chatham to popular prejudice. The one repelled the encroachments of power by supplying his hearers with arguments against it ; the other by rousing their passions and arming their resentment against those who would rob them of their birthright. Their vehemence and im- petuosity arose also from very different feelings. In Chatham it was pride, passion, self-will, impatience of control, a determination to have his own way, to carry everything before him ; in Fox it was pure, good nature, a sincere love of truth, an ardent attachment to what he conceived to be right ; an anxious concern for the welfare and liberties of mankind. Or it we suppose that ambition had taken a strong hold of both their minds, yet their ambition was of a very different kind : in the one it was the love of power, in the other it was the love of fame. Nothing can be more opposite than these two principles, both in their origin and tendency. The one originates in a selfish, haughty, domineering spirit ; the other in a social and generous sensibility, desirous of the love and esteem of others, and anxiously bent upon gaining merited applause. The one grasps at immediate power by any means within its reach ; the other, if it does not square its actions by the rules of virtue, at least refers them to a standard which comes the nearest to it — the disinterested applause of our country, and the enlightened judgment of posterity. The love of fame is consistent with the steadiest attachment to principle, and indeed strengthens and supports it ; whereas the love of power, where this, is the ruling passion, requires the sacrifice of principle, at every turn, and is inconsistent even with the shadow of it. I do not mean to say that Fox had no love of power, or Chatham no love of fame (this would be reversing all we know of human nature), but that the one principle predominated in the one, and the other in the other. My reader will do me great injustice if he supposes that in attempting to describe the characters of different speakers by contrasting their general qualities, I mean anything be- yond the more or less : but it is necessary to describe those qualities simply and in the abstract, in order to make the distinction intelli- gible. Chatham resented any attack made upon the cause of liberty, of which he was the avowed champion, as an indignity offered to 22 WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. himself. Fox felt it as a stain upon the honour of his country, and as an injury to the rights of his fellow-citizens. The one was swayed by his own passions and purposes, with very little regard to the con- sequences ; the sensibility of the other was roused, and his passions kindled into a generous flame, by a real interest in whatever related to the welfare of mankind, and by an intense and earnest contempla- tion of the consequences of the measures he opposed. It was this union of the zeal of the patriot with the enlightened knowledge of the statesman, that gave to the eloquence of Fox a more than mortal energy ; that warmed, expanded, penetrated every bosom. He relied on the force of truth and nature alone ; the refinements of philo- sophy, the pomp and pageantry of the imagination were forgotten, or seemed light and frivolous ; the fate of nations, the welfare of millions, hung suspended as he spoke ; a torrent of manly eloquence poured from his heart, bore down everything in its course, and surprised into a momentary sense of human feeling the breathing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the stuffed figures, the flexible machinery, the " deaf and dumb things " of a court. I find (I do not know how the reader feels) that it is difficult to write a character of Fox without running into insipidity or extrava- gance. And the reason of this is, there are no splendid contrasts, no striking irregularities, no curious distinctions to work upon ; no "jutting frieze, buttress, norcoigne of Vantage," for the imagination to take hold of. It was a plain marble slab, inscribed in plain legible characters, without either hieroglyphics or carving. There was the same dfreotness and manly simplicity in everything that he did. The whole of his character may indeed be summed up in two words — strength and simplicity. Fox was in the class of common men, but he was the first in that class. Though it is easy to describe the dififerences of things, nothing is more difficult than to describe their degrees or quantities. In what I am going to say, I hope I shall not be suspected of a design to underrate his powers of mind, when in fact I am only trying to ascertain their nature and du'ection. The degree and extent to which he possessed them can only be known by reading, or indeed by having heard his speeches. His mind, as I have already said, was, I conceive, purely historical; and having said this, I have, I believe, said all. But perhaps it wiU be necessary to explain a little further what I mean. I mean, then, that his memory was in an extraordinary degree tenacious of facts ; that they were crowded together in his mind without the least per- plexity or confusion ; that there was no chain of consequences too vast for his powers of comprehension ; that the different parts and ramifications of his subject were never so involved and intricate but THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 23 that they were easily disentangled in the clear prism of his under- standing. The basis of his wisdom was experience: he not only knew what had happened, but by an exact knowledge of the real state of things, he could always tell what in the common course of events would happen in futm:e. The force of his mind was exerted on facts : as long as he could lean directly upon these, as long as he had the actual objects to refer to, to steady himself by, he could analyse, he could combine, he could compare and reason upon them, with the utmost exactness ; but he could not reason mit of them. He was what is understood by a matter-of-fad reasoner. He was better acquainted with the concrete masses of things, their sub- stantial forms and practical connections, than with their abstract nature or general definitions. He was a man of extensive informa- tion, of sound knowledge, and clear imderstanding, rather than the acute observer or profound thinker. He was the man of business, the accomphshed statesman, rather than the philosopher. His reasonings were, generally speaking, calculations of certain positive results, which, the data being given, must follow as matters of course, rather than unexpected and remote truths drawn from a deep insight into human nature, and the subtle application of general principles to particular cases. They consisted chiefly in the detail and com- bination of a vase number of items in an account, worked by the known rules of political arithmetic ; not in the discovery of bold, comprehensive, and origmal theorems in the science. They were rather acts of memory, of continued attention, of a power of bring- ing all his ideas to bear at once upon a single point, than of reason or invention. He was the attentive observer who watches the varioxis effects and successive movements of a machine already con- structed, and can tell how to manage it while it goes on as it has always done ; but who knows little or nothing of the principles on which it is constructed, nor how to set it right, if it becomes dis- ordered, except by the most common and obvious expedients. Btttke was to Fox what the geometrician is to the mechanic. Much has been said of the "prophetic mind" of Mr. Fox. The same epithet has been applied to Mr. Burke, tUl it has become proverbial. It has, I think, been applied without much reason to either. Fox wanted the scientific part. Burke wanted the practical. Fox had too little imagination, Burke had too much : that is, he was careless of facts, and was led away by his passions to look at one side of a question only. He had not that fine sensibility to outward impressions, that nice tact of circumstances, which is necessary to the consummate politician. Indeed, his wisdom was more that of the legislator than of the active statesman. They both tried their Z4 WILUAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. strength in the Ulysses' bow of politicians, the French Eevolution : and they were both foiled. Pox indeed foretold the success of the French in combating with foreign powers. But this was no more than what every friend of the liberty of France foresaw or foretold as well as he. All those on the same side of the question were inspired with the same sagacity on the subject. Burke, on the other hand, seems to have been beforehand with the public in foreboding the internal disorders that would attend the Revolution, and its ul- timate failure ; but then it is at least a question whether he did not make good his own predictions : and certainly he saw into the causes and connection of events much more clearly after they had happened than before. He was, however, undoubtedly a profound commen- tator on that apocalyptical chapter in the history of human nature, which I do not think Fox was. Whether led to it by the events or not, he saw thoroughly into the priuoiples that operated to produce them ; and he pointed them out to others in a manner which could not be mistaken. I can conceive of Burke, as the genius of the storm, perched over Paris, the centre and focus of anarchy (so he would hare us believe), hovering " with mighty wings outspread over the abyss, and rendering it pregnant," watching the passions of men gradually unfolding themselves in new situations, penetrating those hidden motives which hurried them from one extreme into another, arrang- ing and analysing the principles that alternately pervaded the vast chaotic mass, and extracting the elements of order and the cement of social life from the decomposition of all society ; while Charles Fox in the meantime dogged the heels of the allies (all the while calling out to them to stop) with his sutler's bag, his muster-roll, and army estimates at his back. He said. Ton have only fifty thousand troops, the enemy have a hundred thousand : this place is dismantled, it can make no resistance : your troops were beaten last year, they must therefore be disheartened this. This is excellent sense and sound reasoniag, but I do not see what it has to do with philosophy. But why was it necessary that Fox should be a philosopher ? Why, in the first place, Burke was a philosopher, and Fox, to keep up with him, must be so too. In the second place, it was necessary in order that his indiscreet admirers, who have no idea of greatness but as it consists in certain names and pompous titles, might be able to talk big about their patron. It is a bad compliment we pay to our idol when we endeavour to make him out something different from him- self; it shows that we are not satisfied with what he is. I have laeard it said that he had as much imagination as Burke. To this extravagant assertion I shall make what I conceive to be a very cautious and moderate answer: that Burke was as superior to Fox THE CHARACTER OF FOX. 25 in this respect as Fox perhaps was to the first person you would meet in the street. There is, in fact, hardly an instance of imagina- tion to be met with in any of his speeches ; what there is, is of the rhetorical land. I may, however, be wrong. He might excel as much in profound thought, and richness of fancy, as he did in other things ; though I cannot perceive it. However, when any one publishes a book called The Beauties of Fox, containing the original reflections, brilliant passages, lofty metaphors, &c., to be found in his speeches, without the detail or connection, I shall be very ready to give the point up. In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt — indeed, in all the formalities of eloquence, in which the latter excelled as much as he was deficient in the soul of substance. When I say that Pitt was superior to Fox in logic, I mean that he excelled him in the formal division of the subject, in always keeping it in view, as far as he chose ; in being able to detect any deviation from it in others ; in the manage- ment of his general topics ; in being aware of the mood and figure in which the argrunent must move, with all its non-essentials, dilemmas, and alternatives ; in never committing himself, nor ever suffering his antagonist to occupy an inch of the plainest ground, but under cover of a syllogism. He had more of " the dazzling fence of argument," as it has been called. He was, in short, better at his weapon. But then, unfortunately, it was only a dagger of lath that \he wind could turn aside ; whereas Fox wore a good trusty blade, of solid metal, and real execution. I shall not trouble myseK to iaquire whether Fox was a man of strict virtue and principle ; or in other words, how far he was one of those who screw themselves up to a certain pitch of ideal perfection, who, as it were, set themselves in the stocks of morality, and make mouths at their own situation. He was not one of that tribe, and shall not be tried by their self-denying ordinances. But he was endowed with one of the most excellent natures that ever fell to the lot of any of God's creatures. It has been said, that " an honest man's the noblest work of God." There is indeed a purity, a rectitude, an integrity of heart, a freedom from every selfish bias and sinister motive, a manly simplicity and noble disinterestedness of feeling, which is in my opinion to be preferred before every other gift of nature or art. There is a greatness of soul that is superior to all the brilliancy of the understanding. This strength of moral char- acter, which is not only a more valuable but a rarer quality than strength of understanding (as we are oftener led astray by the narrowness of our feelings, than want of knowledge), Fox possessed in the highest degree. He was superior to every kind of jealousy, 26 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. of suspicion, of malevolence ; to every narrow and sordid motive. He was perfectly above every species of duplicity, of low art and cunning. He judged of everything in the downright sincerity of his nature, without being able to impose upon himself by any hollow disguise, or to lend his support to anything unfair or dis- honourable. He had an innate love of truth, of justice, of probity, of whatever was generous or liberal. Neither his education, nor his connections, nor his situation in life, nor the low intrigues and virulence of party, could ever alter the simplicity of his taste, nor the candid openness of his nature. There was an elastic force about his heart, a freshness of social feeling, a warm glowing humanity, which remained miimpaired to the last. He was by nature a gentleman. By this I mean that he felt a certain deference and respect for the person of every man ; he had an unaflFected frank- ness and benignity in his behaviour to others, the utmost liberality in judging of their conduct and motives. A refined humanity con- stitutes the character of a gentleman. He was the true friend of his country, as far as it is possible for a statesman to be so. But his love of his country did not consist in his hatred of the rest of mankind. I shall conclude this account by repeating what Burke said of him at a time when his testimony was of the most value. "To his great and masterly understanding he joined the utmost possible degree of moderation : he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition ; disinterested in the extreme ; of a temper mild and placable, even to a fault ; and without one drop of gall in his constitution." ( 27 ) TUCKEE'S "LIGHT OF NATURE PUESUED." [An abridgement of The Light of Nature Pursued, hy Abraham Tucker, Esq. , onginally published in seven volumes, under the name of Edward Search, Esq., 1807.] ... A GOOD abridgement ought to contain just as much as we should wish to recollect of a book ; it should give back (only in a more perfect manner) to a reader well acquainted with the original, "the image of his mind," so that he would miss no favourite passage, none of the prominent parts, or distinguishing features of the work. ... As to the pains and labour it has cost me, or the time I have devoted to it, I shall say nothing. However, if any one should be scrupulous on that head, I might answer, as Sir Joshua Reynolds is said to have done to some person who cavilled at the price of a picture, and desired to know how long he had been doing it, " All my life." Of the work itself, I can speak with more confidence. I do not know of any work in the shape of a philosophical treatise that con- tains so much good sense so agreeably expressed. The character of the work is, in this respect, altogether singular. Amidst all the abstruseness of the most subtle disquisitions, it is as familiar as Montaigne, and as wild and entertaining as John Buncle. To the ingenuity and closeness of the metaphysician, he unites the practical knowledge of the man of the world, and the utmost sprightliness, and even levity of imagination. He is the only philosopher who appears to have had his senses always about him, or to have possessed the enviable faculty of attending at the same time to what was passing in his own mind, and what was going on with- out him. He applied everything to the purposes of philosophy ; he could not see anything, the most familiar objects or the commonest events, without connecting them with the illustration of some diflS- cult problem. The tricks of a young kitten, or a little child at play, were sure to suggest to him some useful observation, or nice dis- tinction. To this habit he was, no doubt, indebted for what Paley 28 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. justly calls " his unrivalled power of illustration." To be convinced that he possessed this power in the highest degree, it is only necessary to look into almost any page of his writings. . . . The great merit of our author's writings is undoubtedly that sound, practical, comprehensive good sense, which is to be found in every part of them. What is, I believe, the truest test of fine sense, is that affecting simplicity in his observations, which proceeds from their extreme truth and liveliness. Whatever recalls strongly to our remembrance the common feelings of human nature, and marks distinctly the changes that take place in the human breast, must always be accompanied with some sense of emotion; for our own nature can never be indifferent to us. . . . Had our author been a vain man, his situation would not have been an enviable one. Even the sternest stoic of us all wishes at least for some person to enter into his views and feelings, and con- firm him in the opinion he entertains of himself. But he does not seem to have had his spirits once cheered by the animating cordial of friendly sympathy. Discouraged by his friends, neglected by the public, and ridiculed by the reviewers, he still drew sufficient encour- agement from the testimony of his own mind, and the inward con- sciousness of truth. He still purstied his inquiries with the same calmness and industry, and entered into the little round of his amusements with the same cheerfulness as ever. He rested satisfied with the' enjoyment of himself, and of his own faculties ; and was not disgusted with his simple employments, because they made no noise in the world. He did not seek for truth as the echo of loud folly; and he did not desist from the exercise of his own reason, because he could make no impression on ignorance and vulgarity. He could contemplate the truth by its own clear light, vrithout the aid of the false lustre and glittering appearance which it assumes in the admiring eyes of the beholders. He sought for his reward, where only the philosopher will find it, in the secret approbation of his own heart, and the clear convictions of an enlightened understand- ing. The man of deep reflection is not likely to gain much popular applause ; and he does not stand in need of it. He has learned to live upon his own stock, and can build his self-esteem on a better foundation than that of vanity. I cannot help mentioning, that though Mr. Tucker was blind when he wrote the last volumes of his work, which he did with a machine contrived by himself, he has not said a word of this circumstance : this would be with me a sufficient trait of his character. t 29 ) [The Bound Table; a Collection of Essays on Literature, Men and Manners, z vols., 1817. The chief portion of these Essays originally appeared in the Examiner, in 1815-1817. Twelye of the fifty-two were by Leigh Hunt. Three editions hare been published.] THE LOVE OF LIFE. It is our intention, in the course of these papers, occasionally to expose certain vul gar errors, which have crept into our reas onings o nrmeB-Mtd- gamiers^ Perhaps one of the mostjatni-psiting ^^f thnnr if that whicEfelaFes to the source of our general attachment to life. We are not goingto enter into the question, whether life is, onthe whotepfccBe^garded as a blessing, tEtbuglT wtTafe^byrio means in- clined to adopt the opinion of that sage who thought " that the best thing that could have happened to a man was never to have been born, and the next best to have died the moment after he came into existence." The common argument, however, which is made use of to prove the value of life, from the strong desire which almost every one feels for its continuance, appears to be altogether inconclusive. The wise and the foolish, the weak and the strong, the lame and the blind, the prisoner and the free, the prosperous and the wretched, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, from the little child who tries to leap over his own shadow to the old man who stumbles blindfold on his gravr — all feel this desire in common. Qur notions w ith respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to itTdepend on ap niieiplfr which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery.. TTiflnioveot_|ife is, jn general, the enectrnot of our ^ err jo yjrua ijt.a^ but o Tourpas sions. We a re not a ttached toitsoTiTV'''li fftr it° ■"■"fr, KakfriTrg^^jt^_tR ponnpntpri with ha pp iness ][as beMiuse_it is n^,caa=. sarf^fco-afitifin. Without life there can be no action— no objects of pursuit — ^no restless~clesires — no tormenting passion s. Hence it is cI^^^gOEJSj^mentjJbut, ot hogei_ The proof that our attach- ment to life is not absolutely owing to the immediate satisfaction we find in it is, that those pessons are commonly found most loth to part with it who have the least enjoyment of it. and who have 30 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. the greatest difficulties to struggle with, as losing gamesters are the most desperate. And further, there are not many persons who, with all their pretended love of life, would not, if it had been in their power, have melted down the longest life to a few hours. "The schoolboy," says Addison, "counts the time till the return of the holidays ; the minor longs to be of age ; the lover is im- patient till he is married." " Hope and fantastic expectations spend much of our lives ; and while with passion we look for a coronation, or the death of an enemy, or a day of joy, passing from fancy to possession without any intermediate notices, we throw away a precious year." — (Jeremy Taylor.) We would willingly, and without remorse, sacrifice not only the present moment, but all the interval (no matter how long) that separates us from any favourite object. "We chiefly look upon life, then, as the means to an end. Its common enjoyments and its daily evils are alike dis- regarded for any idle purpose we have in view. It should seem as if there were a few green sunny spots in the desert of life, to which we are always hastening forward; we eye them' wistfully in the distance, and care not what perils or suffering we endure, so that we arrive at them at last. However weary we may be of the same stale round — however sick of the past — ^however hopeless of the future — the mind still revolts at the thought of death, because the fancied possibility of good, which always remains with life, gathers strength as it is about to be torn from us for ever, and the dullest scene looks bright compared with the darkness of the grave. Our reluctance to part with existence evidently does not depend on the calm and even current of our lives, but on the force and impulse of the passions. Hence that indifierence to death which has been some- times remarked in people who lead a solitary and peaceful life in remote and barren districts. The pulse of life in them, does not beat strong enough to occasion any violent revulsion of the frame when it ceases. He who treads the green mountain turf, or he who sleeps beneath it, enjoys an almost equal quiet. The death of those persons has always been accounted happy who had attained their utmost wishes, who had nothing left to regret or desire. Our re- pugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain — to the violence of our efforts, and the keen- ness of our disappointments — and to our earnest desire to find in the future, if possible, a rich amends for the past. We may be said to nurse our existence with the greatest tenderness, according to the pain it has cost us ; and feel at every step of our varying progress the truth of that line of the poet — " An ounce of sweet is worth a pound of sour," THE LOVE OF LIFE. 31 The love of life is in fact the sum of all our passions and of all our enjoyments ; but these are by no means the same thing, for the vehemence of our passion' is irritated not less by disappointment than by the prospect of success. Nothing seems to be a match for this general tenaciousness of existence, but such an extremity either of bodily or mental suffering as destroys at once the power both of habit and imagination. In short, the question whether life is accompanied with a greater quantity of pleasure or pain, may be fairly set aside as frivolous, and of no practical utility ; for our attachment to life depends on oin? interest in it, and it cannot be denied that we have more interest in this moving busy scene, agitated with a thousand hopes and fears, and checkered with every diversity of joy and sorrow, than in a dreary blank. To be some- thing is better than to be nothing, because we can feel no interest in nothing. Passion, imagination, self-will, the sense of power, the very consciousness of our existence, bind us to life, and hold us fast in its chains, as by a magic spell, in spite of every other considera- tion. Nothing can be more philosophical than the reasoning which Milton puts into the mouth of the fallen angel — " And that must end us, that must be our cure — ■ To he no more. Sad cure ! For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being. Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night. Devoid of sense and motion ? " Nearly the same account may be given in answer to the question which has been asked, Wh2/ so few tyrants kill themselves ? In the first place, they are never satisfied with the mischief they have done, and cannot quit their hold of power after all sense of pleasure is fled. Besides, they absurdly argue from the means of happiness placed within their reach to the end itself ; and, dazzled by the pomp and pageantry of a throne, cannot relinquish the persuasion that they ought to be happier than other men. The prejudice of opinion, which attaches us to hfe, is in them stronger than in others, and incorrigible to experience. The great are life's fools— dupes of the splendid shadows that surround them, and wedded to the very mockeries of opinion. Whatever is our situation or pursuit in life, the result wiU be much the same. The strength of the passion seldom corresponds to the pleasure we find in its indulgence. The miser " robs himself to in- crease his store; the ambitious man toils up a slippery precipice only a 32 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CKIUU. to be tumbled headlong from its height ; the lover is infatuated with the charms of his mistress, exactly in proportion to the mor- tifications he has received from her. Even those who succeed io nothing — ^who, as it has been emphatically expressed, " Are made desperate by too quick a sense Of constant infelicity ; cut off From peace like exiles, on some barren rook, Their life's sad prison, with no more of ease Than sentinels between two armies set " — are yet as unwilling as others to give over the unprofitable strife : their harassed feverish existence refuses rest, and frets the languor of exhausted hope into the torture of unavailing regret. The exile, who has been unexpectedly restored to his country and to Uberty, often finds his courage fail with the accomplishment of all his wishes, and the struggle of life and hope ceases at the same instant. We once more repeat, that we do not, in the foregoing remarks, mean to enter into a comparative estimate of the value of human life, but merely to show that t^g^sfarngthof^our^ tachment to it js a very fallacious test of its happiness. j> ji^ .^ ../ , i / . -j, l:'0??icvi ^o^<^ ,lyf^^ ^74 f Ij^d -mji- m^^ LOVE OF THE COUNTEY. [This letter is incorporated in the critical remarks on Thomson and Cowper in Lectures on the English Poets, 1818.] TO THE EDITOR OF "THE EOTJlfD TABLE.'' SiK, — ^I do not know that any one has ever explained satisfactorily the true source of our attachment to natural objects, or of that soothing emotion which the sight of the country hardly ever fails to infuse into the mind. Some persons have ascribed this feeling to the natural beauty of the objects themselves ; others to the freedqm from care, the silence and tranquilhty, which scenes of retirement afford ; others to the healthy and innocent employments of a country life ; others to the simplicity of country manners, and others to dif- ferent causes ; but none to the right one. AH these causes may, I believe, have a share in producing this feeling ; but there is another more general principle, which has been left untouched, anc|. whicli I LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 33 shall here explain, endeavouring to be as little sentimental as tlie subject will admit. Eousseau, in his " Confessions " — the most valuable of all his works — relates that, when he took possession of his room at Annecy, at the house of his beloved mistress and friend, he found that he could see " a little spot of green " from his window, which endeared his situation the more to him, because, he says, it was the first time he had had this object constantly before him since he left Boissy, the place where he was at school when a child. Some such feeling as that here described will be found lurking at the bottom of aU our attachments of this sort. Were it not for the recollections habitually associated with them, natural objects could not interest the mind in the manner they do. No doubt the sky is beautiful ; the clouds sail majestically along its bosom; the sun is cheering; there is some- thing exquisitely graceful in the manner in which a plant or tree puts forth its branches ; the motion with which they bend and tremble in the evening breeze is soft and lovely ; there is music in the babbling of a brook ; the view from the top of a mountain is full of grandeur ; nor can we behold the ocean with indifference. Or, as the minstrel sweetly sings — " Oh, how can'st thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her vot'ry yields ? The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even ; All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of heaven — Oh, how can'st thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! " It is not, however, the beautiful and magnificent alone that we admire in Nature; the most insignificant and the rudest objects are often found connected with the strongest emotions ; we become attached to the most common and familiar images, as to the face of a friend whom we have long known, and from whom we have received many benefits. It is because natural objects have been associated with the sports of our childhood, with air and exercise, with our feel- ings in solitude, when the mind takes the strongest hold of things, and clings with the fondest interest to whatever strikes its atten- tion ; with change of place, the pursuit of new scenes, and thoughts of distant friends : it is because they have surrounded us in almost all situations, in joy and in sorrow, in pleasure and in pain — because they have been one chief source and nourishment of our feelings, and a part of our being, that we love them as we do ourselves. 34 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. There is, generally speaking, the same foundation for our love of Nature as for aU our habitual attachments, namely, association of ideas. But this is not all. That which distinguishes this attach- ment from others is the transferable nature of our feelings with respect to physical objects, the associations connected with any one object extending to the whole class. My having been attached to any particular person does not make me feel the same attachment to the next person I may chance to meet ; but if I have once associated strong feelings of delight with the objects of natural scenery, the tie becomes indissoluble, and I shall ever after feel the same attachment to other objects of the same sort. I remember, when I was abroad, the trees and grass and wet leaves rustling in the walks of the TuUeries seemed to be as much English, to be as much the same trees and grass that I had always been used to, as the sun shining over my head was the same sun which I saw in England ; the faces only were foreign to me. Whence comes this difference ? It arises from our always imperceptibly connecting the idea of the individual with man, and only the idea of the class with natural objects. In the one case, the external appearance or physical structure is the least thing to be attended to ; in the other, it is everything. The springs that move the human form, and make it friendly or adverse to me, lie hid within it. There is an infinity o£ motives, passions, and ideas contained in that narrow compass, of which I know nothing, and in which I have no share. Each indi- vidual is a world to himself, governed by a thousand contradictory and wayward impulses. I can, therefore, make no inference from one individual to another; nor can my habitual sentiments, with respect to any individual, extend beyond himself to others. But it is otherwise with respect to Nature. There is neither hypocrisy, caprice, nor mental reservation in her favours. Our intercourse with her is not liable to accident or change, interruption or disappoint- ment. She smiles on us still the same. Thus, to give an obvious instance, if I have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled into a deep repose by the sound of a brook running at its feet, I am sure that wherever I can find a tree and a brook I can enjoy the pleasure again. Hence, when I imagine these objects, I can easily form a mystic personification of the friendly power that in- habits them, dryad or naiad, offering its cool fountain or its tempting shade. Hence the origin of the Grecian mythology. All objects of the same kind being the same, not only in their appearance but in their practical uses, we habitually confound them together under the same general idea ; and whatever fondness we may have conceived for one is immediately placed to the common account. The most LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 35 opposite kinds and remote trains of feeling gradually go to enrich the same sentiment ; and in our love of Nature there is all the force of individual attachment combined with the most airy abstraction. It is this circumstance which gives that refinement, expansion, and wild interest to feelings of this sort, when strongly excited, which every one must have experienced who is a true lover of Nature. The sight of the setting sun does not affect me so much from the beauty of the object itself, from the glory kindled through the glowing skies, the rich broken columns of light, or the dying streaks of day, as that it indistinctly recalls to me numberless thoughts and feelings with which, through many a year and season, I have watched his bright descent in the warm summer evenings, or beheld him strugghng to cast a " farewell sweet " through the thick clouds of winter. I love to see the trees first covered with leaves in the spring, the primroses peeping out from some sheltered bank, and the innocent lambs running races on the soft green turf ; because at that birth-time of Nature I have always felt sweet hopes and happy wishes — which have not been fulfilled ! The dry reeds rustling on the side of a stream — the woods swept by the loud blast — ^the dark massy foliage of autumn — the grey trunks and naked branches of the trees in winter — the sequestered copse and wide-extended heath — the warm sunny showers and December snows — have all charms for me ; there is no object, however trifling or rude, that has not, in some mood or other, found the way to my heart ; and I might say, in the words of the poet : *' To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Thus Nature is a kind of universal home, and every object it pre- sents to us an old acquaintance with unaltered looks : " Nature did ne'er betray The heart that lov'd her, but through all the years Of this our life, it is her privilege To lead from joy to joy." For there is that consent and mutual harmony among all her works one undivided spirit pervading them throughout — ^that, if we have once knit ourselves in hearty fellowship to any of them, they will never afterwards appear as strangers to us, but, whichever way we turn, we shall find a secret power to have gone out before us, moulding them into such shapes as fancy loves, informing them with life and sympathy, bidding them put on their festive looks and gayest attire at our approach, and to pour all their sweets and choicest treasures at our feet. For him, then, who has well 36 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. acquainted himself with Nature's works, she wears always one face, and speaks the same well-known language, striking on the heart, amidst unquiet thoughts arid the tumult of the world, like the music of one's native tongue heard in some far-off country. We do not connect the same feelings with the works of Art as with those of Nature, because we refer them to man, and associate with them the separate interests and passions which we know be- long to those who are the authors or possessors of them. Never- theless, there are some such objects, as a cottage or a village church, which excite in us the same sensations as the sight of Nature, and which are, indeed, almost always included in descriptions of natural scenery. " Or from the mountain's sides View wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-disoover'd spires, And hear their simple bell." Which is in part, no doubt, because they are surrounded with natural objects, and, in a populous country, inseparable from them ; and also because the human interest they excite relates to manners and feelings which are simple, common, such as all can enter into, and which, therefore, always produce a pleasing effect upon the mind. THE TENDENCY OF SECTS. Thbeb is a natural tendency in sects to narrow the mind. The extreme stress laid upon differences of minor importance, to the neglect of more general truths and broader views of things, gives an inverted bias to the understanding ; and this bias is con- tinually increased by the eagerness of controversy, and captious hostility to the prevailing system. A party-feeling of this kind once formed will insensibly communicate itself to other topics ; and will be too apt to lead its votaries to a contempt for the opinions of others, a jealousy of every difference of sentiment, and a disposition to arrogate all sound principle as well as understanding to them- selves and those who think with them. We can readily conceive how such persons, from fixing too high a value on the practical pledge which they have given of the independence and sincerity of their opinions, come at last to entertain a suspicion of every one else as acting under the shackles of prejudice or the mask of hypo- crisy. All those who have not given in their unqualified protests THE TENDENCY OF SECTS. ^ 37 against received doctrines and established authority, are supposed to labour xmder an acknowledged incapacity to form a rational de- termination on any subject whatever. Any argument, not having the presumption of singularity in its favour, is immediately set aside as nugatory. There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. For this last implies not only the practical conviction that it is right, but the theoretical assumption that it cannot be wrong. From considering all objections as in this manner "null and void," the mind becomes so thoroughly satisfied with its own conclusions as to render any further examination of them superfluous, and confounds its exclusive pretensions to reason with the absolute possession of it. Those who, from their professing to submit everything to the test of reason, have acquired the name of Rational Dissenters, have their weak sides as well as other people ; nor do we know of any class of disputants more disposed to take their opinions for granted than those who call themselves Freethinkers. A long habit of ob- jecting to everything establishes a monopoly in the right of contra- diction — a prescriptive title to the privilege of starting doubts and difliculties in the common belief, without being liable to have our own called in question. There cannot be a more infallible way to prove that we must be in the right, than by maintaining roundl}' that every one else is in the wrong. Not only the opposition of sects to one another, but their unanimity among themselves, strengthens their confidence in their peculiar notions. They feel themselves invulnerable behind the double fence of sympathy with themselves and antipathy to the rest of the world. Backed by the zealous support of their followers, they become equally intolerant with respect to the opinions of others and tenacious of their own. They fortify themselves within the narrow circle of their new-fangled prejudices; the whole exercise of their right of private judgment is after a time reduced to the repetition of a set of watchwords, which have been adopted as the shibboleth of the party ; and their extremest points of faith pass as current as the bead-roll and legends of the Catholics, or St. Athanasius' Creed and the Thirty-nine Articles. We certainly are not going to recommend the estabhshment of articles of faith, or implicit assent to them, as favourable to the pro- gress of philosophy ; but neither has the spirit of opposition to them this tendency, as far as relates to its immediate effects, however useful it may be in its remote consequences. The spirit of contro- versy substitutes the irritation of personal feeling for the independent exertion of the understanding ; and when this irritation ceases, the mind flags for want of a sufficient stimulus to urge it on. It dis- 38 WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. charges all its energy with its spleen. Besides, this perpetual cavil- ling with the opinions of others, detecting petty flaws in their argu- ments, calling them to a literal account for their absurdities, and squaring their doctrines by a pragmatical standard of our own, is necessarily adverse to any great enlargement of mind or original freedom of thought.' The constant attention bestowed on a few contested points, by at once flattering our pride, our prejudices, and our indolence, supersedes more general inquiries ; and the bigoted controversialist, by dint of repeating a certain formxda of belief, shall not only convince himself that all those who difler from him are undoubtedly wrong on that point, but that their knowledge on all others must be comparatively slight and superficial. We have known some very worthy and well-informed Biblical critics, who, by virtue of having discovered that one was not three, or that the same body could not be in two places at once, would be disposed to treat the whole Council of Trent, with Father Paul at their head, with very little deference, and to consider Leo X., with aJl his court, as no better than drivellers. Such persons will hint to you, as an addi- tional proof of his genius, that Milton was a Nonconformist, and will excuse the faults of " Paradise Lost," as Dr. Johnson magnified them, because the author was a Republican. By the all-sufficiency of their merits in believing certain truths which have been " hid from ages," they are elevated, in their own imagination, to a higher sphere of intellect, and are released from the necessity of pursuing the more ordinary tracks of inquiry. Their faculties are imprisoned in a few favourite dogmas, and they cannot break through tbe trammels of a sect. Hence we may remark a hardness and setness in the ideas of those who have been brought up in this way, an aversion to those finer and more delicate operations of the intellect, of taste, and genius, which require greater flexibility and variety of thought, and do not afibrd the same opportunity for dogmatical assertion and controversial cabal. The distaste of the Puritans, Quakers, &c., to pictures, music, poetry, and the fine arts in general, may be traced to this source as much as to their afiected disdain of them, as not sufficiently spiritual and remote from the gross impurity of sense. 1 The Dissenters in this country (if we except the founders of sects, who fall under a class by themselves) have produced only two remarkable men, Priestley and Jonathan Edwards. The work of the latter on the Will ia written with as much power of logic, and more in the true spirit of philosophy, than any other metaphysical work in the language. His object throughout is not to perplex the question, but to satisfy his own mind and the reader's. In genoral, the principle of Dissent arises more from want of sympathy and imagination, than from strength of reason. The spirit of contradiction is not the spirit of philosophy. THE TENDENCY OF SECTS. 39 We learn from the interest we take in things, and according to the number of things in which we take an interest. Our ignorance of the real value of different objects and pursuits wiU in general keep pace with our contempt for them. To set out with denying common sense to every one else is not the way to be wise our- selves; nor shall we be likely to learn much if we suppose that no one can teach us anything worth knowing. Again, a contempt for the habits and manners of the world is as prejudicial as a con- tempt for its opinions. A puritanical abhorrence of everything that does not fall in with our immediate prejudices and customs must effectually cut us off, not only from a knowledge of the world and of human nature, but of good and evil, of vice and virtue — at least, if we can credit the assertion of Plato (which, to some degree, we do), that the knowledge of everything implies the knowledge of its opposite. " There is some soul of goodness in things evil." A most respectable sect among ourselves (we mean the Quakers) have carried this system of negative qualities nearly to perfection. They labour diligently, and with great success, to exclude all ideas from their minds which they might have in common with others. On the principle that "evil communications corrupt good manners," they retain a virgin purity of understanding and laudable ignorance of all liberal arts and sciences ; they take every precaution, and keep up a perpetual quarantine against the infection of other people's vices — • or virtues ; they pass through the world like figures cut out of paste- board or wood, turning neither to the right nor the left ; and their minds are no more affected by the example of the follies, the pursuits, the pleasures, or the passions of mankind, than the clothes which they wear. Their ideas want airing j they are the worse for not being used ; for fear of soiling them they keep them folded up and laid by in a sort of mental clothes-press through the whole of their hves. They take their notions on trust from one generation to another — like the scanty cut of their coats — and are so wrapped up in these traditional maxims, and so pin their faith on them, that one of the most in- telligent of this class of people, not long ago, assured us that " war was a thing that was going quite out of fashion." This abstract sort of existence may have its advantages, but it takes away all the ordinary sovirces of a moral imagination, as well as strength of intellect. Interest is the only link that connects them with the world. We can understand the high enthusiasm and religious devotion of monks and anchorites, who gave up the world and its pleasures to dedicate themselves to a sublime contemplation of a future state ; but the sect of the Quakers, who have transplanted the maxims of the desert into manufacturing towns and populous 40 WILLIAM HAZLITT—ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. cities — who have converted the solitary cells of the religioiis orders into counting-houses, their beads into ledgers, and keep a regulat " debtor and creditor " account between this world and the next- puzzle us mightily. The Dissenter is not vain, but conceited — ^that is, he makes up by his own good opinion for the want of the cordial admiration of others ; but this often stands their self-love in so good stead that they need not envy their dignified opponents who repose on lawn-sleeves and ermine. The unmerited obloquy and dislike to which they are exposed has made them cold and reserved in their intercourse with society. The same cause wiU account for the dryness and general homeliness of their style. They labour under a sense of the want of public sympathy. They pursue truth, for its own sake, into its private recesses and obsctu'e corners. They have to dig their way along a narrow underground passage. It is not their object to shine ; they have none of the usual incentives of vanity — light, airy, and ostentatious. Archiepiscopal sees and mitres do not glitter in their distant horizon. They are not wafted on the wings of fancy, fanned by the breath of popular applause. The voice of the world, the tide of opinion, is not with them. They do not, therefore, aim at Mat — at outward pomp and show. They have a plain ground to work upon, and they do not attempt to embeUisli it with idle ornaments. It would be in vain to strew the flowers of poetry round the borders of the Unitarian controversy. There is one quality common to all sectaries, and that is, a principle of strong fidelity. They are the safest partisans and the steadiest friends. Indeed, they are almost the only people who have any idea of an abstract attachment, either to a cause or to indi- viduals, from a sense of duty, independently of prosperous or adverse /circumstances, and in spite of opposition. ON "JOHN BUNGLE." John- Btjk-cle is the English Rabelais. This is an author with whom, perhaps, many of our readers are not acquainted, and whom we therefore wish to introduce to their notice. As most of our countrymen delight in English generals and in English admirals, in English courtiers and in English kings, so our great delight is in English authors. The soul of Francis Rabelais passed into John Amory, the author of " The Life and Adventures of John Buncle." Both were physicians, ON "yOHN BUNCLE." 41 Jind enemies of too much gravity. Tlieir great biisiness wus to enjoy life. Rabelais indulges his spirit of sensuality ia wine, in dried neats-tongues, in Bologna sausages, in botargos. John Buncle shows the same symptoms of inordinate satisfaction in tea and bread-and- butter. "While Rabelais roared with Friar John and the monks, John Buncle gossiped with the ladies, and with equal and uncon- trolled gaiety. These two authors possessed all the insolence of health, so that their works give a fillip to the constitution ; but they carried off the exuberance of their natural spirits in different ways. The title of one of Rabelais' chapters (and the contents answer to the title) is, " How they chirped over their cups." The title of a corresponding chapter in " John Buncle " would run thus : " The author is invited to spend the evening with the divine Miss Hawkins, and goes accordingly; with the delightful conversation that ensued." Natural philosophers are said to extract sunbeams from ice ; our author has performed the same feat upon the the cold quaint subtleties of theology. His constitutional alacrity over- comes every obstacle. He converts the thorns and briars of contro- versial divinity into a bed of roses. He leads the most refined and virtuous of their sex through the mazes of inextricable problems with the air of a man walking a minuet in a drawing-room ; mixes up in the most natural and careless manner the academy of com- pliments with the rudiments of algebra ; or passes with rapturous indifference from the First of St. John and a disquisition on the Logos to the no less metaphysical doctrines of the principle of self- preservation or the continuation of the species. " John Bimcle " is certainly one of the most singular productions in the language, and herein lies its peculiarity. It is a Unitarian romance, and one in which the soul and body are equally attended to. The hero is a great philosopher, mathematician, anatomist, chemist, philologist, and divine, with a good appetite, the best spirits, and an amorous constitution, who sets out on a series of strange adventures to pro- pagate his philosophy, his divinity, and his species, and meets with a constant succession of accomplished females, adorned with equal beauty, wit, and virtue, who are always ready to discuss all kinds of theoretical and practical points with him. His angels — and all his women are angels — have all taken their degrees in more than one science : love is natural to them. He is sure to find " A mistress and a saint in every grove." Pleasure and business, wisdom and mirth, take their turns with the most agreeable regularity: Ajocis ad seria, in seriis vicissim adjocos 42 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. transire. After a chapter of calculations in fluxions, or on the descent of tongues, the lady and gentleman fall from Platonics to hoydening, in a manner as truly edifying as anything in the scenes of Vanbrugh or Sir George Etherege. No writer ever understood so well the art of relief. The effect is like travelling in Scotland, and coming all of a sudden to a spot of habitable groimd. His mode of making love is admirable. He takes it quite easily, and never thinks of a refusal. His success gives him confidence, and his con- fidence gives him success. For example : in the midst of one of his rambles in the mountains of Cumberland he unexpectedly comes to an elegant country-seat, where, walking on the lawn with a book in her hand, he sees a most enchanting creature, the owner of the mansion. Our hero is on fire, leaps the har-ha which separates them, presents himself before the lady with an easy but respectful air, begs to know the subject of her meditation ; they enter into conversation, mutual explanations take place, a declaration of love is made, and the wedding-day is fixed for the following Tuesday. Our author now leads a life of perfect happiness with his beautiful Miss Noel, in a charming solitude, for a few weeks, till, on his return from one of his rambles in the mountains, he finds her a corpse. He " sits with his eyes shut for seven days," absorbed in sUent grief ; he then bids adieu to melancholy reflections — not being one of that sect of philoso- phers who think that " man was made to mourn " — takes horse, and sets out for the nearest watering-place. As he alights at the first inn on the road, a lady dressed in a rich green riding-habit steps out of a coach; John Bunole hands her into the iim, they drink tea together, they converse, they find an exact harmony of sentiment, a declaration of love follows as a matter of course, and that day week they are married. Death, however, contrives to keep up the ball for him : he marries seven wives in succession, and buries them all. In short, John Buncle's gravity sat upon him with the happiest indifierence possible. He danced the Hays with religion and morality with the ease of a man of fashion and of pleasure. He was deter- mined to see fair-play between grace and nature — ^between his im- mortal and his mortal part ; and, in case of any difficulty, upon the principle of " first come first served," made sure of the present hour. We sometimes suspect him of a little hypocrisy, but upon a closer inspection it appears to be only an affectation of hypocrisy. His fine constitution comes to his relief, and floats him over the shoals and quicksands that lie in his way, " most dolphin-like." You see him, from mere happiness of nature, chuckling with inward satis- faction in the midst of his periodical penances, his grave grimaces, his death's-heads and memento maris ; ON "yOHN BUNCLE." 43 ' ' And there the antic sits Mooking his state, and grinning at his pomp." As men make use of olives to give a relish to their wine, so John Bunole made use of philosophy to give a relish to life. He stops in a ball-room at Harrogate to moralise on the small number of faces that appeared there out of those he remembered some years before ; all were gone whom he saw at a still more distant period ; but this casts no damper on his spirits, and he only dances the longer and better for it. He suffers nothing unpleasant to remain long upon his mind. He gives, in one place, a miserable description of two emaciated valetudinarians whom he met at an inn, supping a little mutton-broth with difficulty ; but he immediately contrasts himself with them in fine relief. " While I beheld things with astonishment, the servant," he says, " brought in dinner — a pound of rump-steaks and a quart of green peas, two cuts of bread, a tankard of strong beer, and a pint of port wine ; with a fine appetite I soon despatched my mess, and over my wine, to help digestion, began to sing the following lines." The astonishment of the two strangers was now as great as his own had been. We wish to enable our readers to judge for themselves of the style , of our whimsical moralist, but are at a loss what to choose — whether his account of his man O'Fin, or of his friend Tom Fleming, or of his being chased over the mountains by robbers, " whisking before them like the wind away," as if it were high sport ; or his address to the sun, which is an admirable piece of serious eloquence ; or his char- acter of six Irish gentlemen — Mr. GoUogher, Mr. Gallaspy, Mr. Dunkley, Mr. Malrins, Mr. Monaghan, and Mr. O'Keefe — the last "descended from the Irish kings, and first-cousin to the great O'Keefe, who was buried not long ago in Westminster Abbey." He professes to give an account of these Irish gentlemen, "for the honour of Ireland, and as they were curiosities of humankind." Curiosities, indeed, but not so great as their historian ! — " Mr. Makins was the only one of the set who was not tall and handsome. He was a very low thin man, not four feet high, and had but one eye, with which he squinted most shockingly. But as he was matchless on the fiddle, sang well, and chatted agreeably, he was a favourite with the ladies. They preferred ugly Makins (as he was called) to many very handsome men. He was a Unitarian. "Mr. Monaghan was an honest and charming fellow. This gentleman and Mr. Dunkley married ladies they feU in love with at Harrogate Wells ; Dunkley had the fair Alcmena, Miss Cox of Northumberland; and Monaghan, Antiope with haughty charms 44 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Miss Pearson of Cumberland. They lived very happy many years, and their children, I hear, are settled in Ireland ! " Gentle reader, here is the character of Mr. Gallaspy : "Gallaspy was the tallest and strongest man I have ever seen, well-made, and very handsome: had wit and abilities, sang well, and talked with great sweetness and fluency, but was so extremely wicked that it were better for him if he had been a natural fool. By his vast strength and activity, his riches and eloquence, few things could withstand him. He was the most profane swearer I have known; fought everything, whored everything, and drank seven-in-hand— that is, seven glasses so placed between the fingers of his right hand that, in drinking, the liquor fell into the next glasses, and thereby he drank out of the first glass seven glasses at once. This was a common thing, I find from a book in my posses- sion, in the reign of Charles II., in the madness that followed the restoration of that profligate and worthless prince. But this gentle- man was the only man I ever saw who could or would attempt to do it ; and he made but one gulp of whatever he drank. He did not swallow a fluid like other' people, but if it was a quart, poured it in as from pitcher to pitcher. When he smoked tobacco, he' always blew two pipes at once, one at each corner of his mouth, and threw the smoke out at both his nostrils. He had killed two men in duels before I left Ireland, and would have been hanged, but that it was his good fortune to be tried before a judge who never let any man suffer for killing another in this manner. (This was the late Sir John St. Leger.) He debauched all the women he could, and many whom he could not corrupt" . . . The rest of this passage would, we fear, be too rich for the "Round Table," as we cannot insert it, in the manner of Mr. Buncle, in a sand- wich of theology. Sufiice it to say, that the candour is greater than the candour of Voltaire's " Candide," and the modesty equal to CoUey Gibber's. To his friend Mr. GoUogher he consecrates the following irre- sistible petit souvenir ; — "He might, if he had pleased, have married any one of the most illustrious and richest women in the kingdom ; but he had an aver- sion to matrimony, and could not bear the thoughts of a wife. Love and a bottle were his taste. He was, however, the most honourable of men in his amours, and never abandoned any woman in distress, as too many men of fortune do when they have gratified desire. All the distressed were ever sharers in Mr. GoUogher's fine estate, and especially the girls he had taken to his breast. He provided happily for them all, and left nineteen daughters he had ON "yOHN BUNCLE." 45 by several women a thousand pounds each. This was acting with a temper worthy of a man ; and to the memory of the benevolent Tom Gollogher I devote this memorandum." Lest our readers should form rather a coarse idea of our author from the foregoing passages, we wUl conclude with another list of friends in a different style : — " The Conniving-house (as the gentlemen of Trinity called it in my time, and long after) was a little public-house, kept by Jack Macklean, about a quarter of a mile beyond Ringsend, on the top of the beach, within a few yards of the sea. Here we used to have the finest fish at aU times ; and, in the season, green peas, and all the most excellent vegetables. The ale here was always extra- ordinary, and everything the best ; which, with its dehghtful situar tion, rendered it a delightful place of a summer's evening. Many a delightful evening have I passed in this pretty thatched house with the famous Larry Grogan, who played on the bagpipes ex- tremely well; dear Jack Lattin, matchless on the fiddle, and the most agreeable of companions ; that ever-charming yoxmg fellow. Jack Wall, the most worthy, the most ingenious, the most en- gaging of men, the son of Counsellor Maurice Wall ; and many other delightful fellows, who went in the days of their youth to the shades of eternity. When 1 think of them and their evening songs — ' We mil go to Johnny Machlean's, to try if his ale he good or no,' &c.- — and that years and infirmities begin to oppress me — what is life ? " We have another English author, very different from the last- mentioned one, but equal in naiveti, and in the perfect display of personal character ; we mean Izaak Walton, who wrote the " Com- plete Angler." That well-known work has an extreme simplicity, and an extreme interest, arising out of its very simplicity. In the description of a fishing-tackle you perceive the piety and humanity of the author's mind. This is the best pastoral in the language, not excepting Pope's or PhUips's. We doubt whether Sannazarius' " Piscatory Eclogues " are equal to the scenes described by Walton on the banks of the river Lea. He gives the feeling of the open air. We walk with him along the dusty roadside, or repose on the banks of the river under a shady tree, and in watching for the finny prey imbibe what he beautifully calls "the patience and simplicity of poor honest fishermen." We accompany them to their inn at night, and partake of their simple but delicious fare, whUe Maud, the pretty nullanaid, at her mother's desire, sings the classical ditties of Sir Walter Raleigh. Good cheer is not neglected in this work, any more than in "John Buncle," or any other history which sets a 46 WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. proper value on the good things of life. The prints in the "Com- plete Angler " give an additional reality and interest to the scenes it describes. "While Tottenham Cross shall stand, and longer, thy work, amiable and happy old man, shall last 1 THE CHAEACTEK OF KOUSSEAU. Madame db Stabl, in her " Letters on the Writings and Character of Eousseau," gives it as her opinion " that the imagination was the first faculty of his mind, and that this faculty even absorbed all the others." And she further adds, " Eousseau had great strength of reason on abstract questions, or with respect to objects which have no reality but m the mind." Both these opinions are radically \vrong. Neither imagination nor reason can properly be said to have been the original predominant faculty of his mind. The strength both of imagination and reason which he possessed was borrowed from the excess of another faculty ; and the weakness and poverty of reason and imagination which are to be found in his works may be traced to the same source — namely, that these faculties in him were artificial, secondary, and dependent, operating by a power not theirs, but lent to them. The only quality which he possessed in an eminent degree, which alone raised him above ordinary men, and which gave to his writings and opinions an influence greater, perhaps, than has been exerted by any individual in modern times, was extreme sensibility, or an acute and even morbid feeling of, all that related to his own impressions, to the objects and events of his life. He had the most intense conscious- ness of his own existence. No object that had once made an im- pression on him was ever after effaced. Every feeling in his mind became a passion. His craving after excitement was an appetite and a disease. His interest in his own thoughts and feelings was always wound up to the highest pitch, and hence the enthusiasm which he excited in others. He owed the power which he exercised over the opinions of all Europe, by which he created numberless disciples, and overturned established systems, to the tyranny which his feelings in the first instance exercised over himself. The dazzling blaze of his reputation was kindled by the same fire that fed upon his vitals.'^ His ideas differed from those of other men 1 He did more towards the French Eevolution than any other man. Voltaire, by his wit and penetration, had rendered superstition oontemptibls THE CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU. 47 only in their force and intensity. His genius was the effect of his temperament. He created nothing, he demonstrated nothing, by a pure efifort of the understanding. His fictitious characters are modifications of his own being, reflections and shadows of himself. His speculations are the obvious exaggerations of a mind giving a loose to its habitual impulses, and moulding all nature to its own purposes. Hence his enthusiasm and his elo- quence, bearing down all opposition. Hence the warmth and the luxuriance as well as the sameness of his descriptions. Hence the frequent verboseness of his style ; for passion lends force and reality to language, and makes words supply the place of imagination. Hence the tenaciousness of his logic, the acuteness of his observa- tions, the refinement and the inconsistency of his reasoning. Hence his keen penetration, and his strange want of comprehension of mind; for the same intense feeling which enabled him to discern the first principles of things, and seize some one view of a subject in all its ramifications, prevented him from admitting the operation of other causes which interfered with his favourite purpose, and involved him in endless wilful contradictions. Hence his excessive egotism, which filled all objects with himself, and would have oc- cupied the universe with his smallest interest. Hence his jealousy and suspicion of others ; for no attention, no respect or sympathy, could come up to the extravagant claims of his self-love. Hence his dissatisfaction with himself and with all around him ; for nothing could satisfy his ardept longings after good, his restless appetite of being. Hence his feelings, overstrained and exhausted, recoiled upon themselves, and produced his love of sUence and repose, his feverish aspirations after the quiet and solitude of nature. Hence in part also his quarrel with the artificial institutions and distinctions of society, which opposed so many barriers to the unrestrained m- dulgence of his will, and allured his imagination to scenes of pastoral simplicity or of savage life, where the passions were either not excited or left to follow their own impulse — where the petty vexations and irritating disappointments of common life had no place — and where the tormenting pursuits of arts and sciences were lost in pure animal enjoyment or indolent repose. Thus he describes the first savage wandering for ever under the shade of magnificent forests or by the side of mighty rivers, smit with the unquenchable love of nature ! and tyranny odious ; but it was Eousseau wlio brought the feeling of irre- concilable enmity to rank and privileges, above humanity, home to the bosom of every man — identified it with all the pride of intellect and with the deepest yearnings of the human heart. 48 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. The best of all his works is the " Confessions," though it is that which has been least read, because it contains the fewest set para- doxes or general opinions. It relates entirely to himself; and no one was ever so much at home on this subject as he was. From the strong hold which they had taken of his mind, he makes us enter into his feelings as if they had been our own, and we seem to remember every incident and, circumstance of his life as if it had happened to ourselves. We are never tired of this work, for it everywhere presents us with pictures which we can fancy to be counterparts of om? own existence. The passages of this sort are innumerable. There is the interesting account of his childhood, the constraints and thoughtless liberty of which are so well de- scribed ; of his sitting up all night reading romances with his father, till they were forced to desist by hearing the swallows twittering in their nests; his crossing the Alps, described with all the feelings belonging to it — ^his pleasure in setting out, his satisfaction in coming to his journey's end, the delight of " coming and going he knew not where;" his arriving at Turin; the figure of Madame Basile, drawn with such inimitable precision and elegance; the delightful adventure of the Chateau de Toune, where he passed the day with Mademoiselle Q- * * * * and Mademoiselle Galley; the story of his Zulietta, the proud, the charming Zialietta, whose last words, " Va Zanetto, e studia la Matematica," were never to be for- gotten ; his sleeping near Lyons in a niche of the wall, after a fine summer's day, with a nightingale perched above his head ; his first meeting with Madame Warens, the pomp of sound with which he has celebrated her name, beginning "Louise Eleonore de Warens 6toit une demoiselle de la Tour de Pil, noble et ancienne famille de Vevai, vUle du pays de Vaud" (sounds which we still tremble to repeat) ; his description of her person, her angelic smile, her mouth of the size of his own ; his walking out one day while the bells were chiming to vespers, and anticipating in a sort of waking dream the life he afterwards led with her, in which months and years, and life itself, passed away in undisturbed felicity; the sudden disappoint- ment of his hopes ; his transport thirty years after at seeing the same flower which they had brought home together from one of their rambles near Chambery ; his thoughts in that long interval of time ; his suppers with Grhnm and Diderot after he came to Paris ; the first idea of his prize dissertation on the savage state; his account of writing the "New Eloise," and his attachment to Madame d'Houdetot ; his literary projects, his fame, his misfortunes, his unhappy temper; his last solitary retirement in the lake and island of Bienne, with his dog and his boat; his reveries and = THE CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU. 49 delicious musings there — all these crowd into our minds with recol- lections which we do not choose to express. There are no passages in the " New Eloise " of equal force and beauty with the best descrip- tions in the " Confessions," if we except the excursion on the water, Julia's last letter to St. Preux, and his letter to her, recalling the days of their first loves. We spent two whole j'ears in reading these two works, and (gentle reader, it was when we were young) in shedding tears over them, " As fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gums." They were the happiest years of our life. We may well say of them, sweet is the dew of their memory, and pleasant the balm of their recollection ! There are, indeed, impressions which neither time nor circumstances can eflFace. Rousseau, in all his writings, never once lost sight of himself. He was the same individual from first to last. The springs that moved his passions never went down, the pulse that agitated his heart never ceased to beat. It was this strong feeling of interest, accumulating in his mind, which overpowers and absorbs the feel- ings of his readers. He owed all his power to sentiment. The writer who most nearly resembles him in our own times is the author of the "Lyrical Ballads." We see no other difference between them, than that the one wrote in prose and the other in poetry, and that prose is perhaps better adapted to express those local and personal feelings, which are inveterate habits in the mind, than poetry, which embodies its imaginary creations. We conceive that Rousseau's exclamation, " Ah, voild de lapervenche ! " comes more home to the mind than Mr. Wordsworth's discovery of the linnet's nest "with five blue eggs," or than his address to the cuckoo, beautiful as we think it is; and we will confidently match the citizen of Geneva's adventures on the Lake of Bienne against the Cumberland poet's floating dreams on the Lake of Grasmere. Both create an interest out of nothing, or rather out of their own feelings ; both weave numberless recollections into one sentiment ; both wind their own being round whatever object occurs to them. But Rousseau, as a prose-writer, gives only the habitual and per- sonal impression. Mr. Wordsworth, as a poet, is forced to lend the colours of imagination to impressions which owe all their force to . their identity with themselves, and tries to paint what is only to be felt. Rousseau, in a word, interests you in certain objects by interesting you in himself: Mr. Wordsworth would persuade you that the most insignificant objects are interesting in themselves, so WILLIAM HAZLITT-ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. because he is interested in them. If he had met with Bousseau's favoraite periwinkle, he would have translated it into the most beautiful of flowers. This is not imagination, but want of sense. If his jealousy of the sympathy of others makes him avoid what is beautiful and grand in nature, why does he undertake elaborately to describe other objects ? His nature is a mere Dulcinea del Toboso, and he would make a Vashti of her. Eubens appears to have been as extravagantly attached to his three wives as Raphael was to his Pomarina ; but their faces were not so classical. The three greatest egotists that we know of — that is, the three writers who felt their own being most powerfully and exclusively — are Rousseau, Words- worth, and Benvenuto Cellini. As Swift somewhere says, we defy the world to furnish out a fourth. GOOD-NATURE. LoKD Shajtesbuby somewhere remarks that a great many people pass for very good-natured persons for no other reason than because they care about nobody but themselves ; and consequently, as nothing annoys them but what touches their own interest, they never irritate themselves unnecessarily about what does not concern them, and seem to be made of the very milk of human kindness. Good-nature — or what is often considered as such — ^is the most seMsh of all the virtues ; it is, nine times out of ten, mere indolence of disposition. A good-natured man is, generally speaking, one who does not like to be put out of his way ; and, as long as he can help it — that is, till the provocation comes home to himself — ^he will not. He does not create fictitious uneasiness out of the distresses of others ; he does not fret and fume and make himself uncomfortable about things he cannot mend, and that no way concern biTn even if he could ; but then there is no one who is more apt to be discon- certed by what puts him- to any personal inconvenience, however trifling ; who is more tenacious of his selfish indulgences, however unreasonable ; or who resents more violently any interruption of his ease and comforts — the very trouble he is put to in resenting it being felt as an aggravation of the injury. A person of this char- acter feels no emotions of anger or detestation if you tell him of the devastation of a province, or the massacre of the inhabitants of a town or the enslaving of a people ; but if his dinner is spoiled by a GOOD-NATURE. Ji lump of soot falling down the chimney he is thrown into the utmost confusion, and can hardly recover a decent coimnand of his temper for the whole day. He thinks nothing can go amiss so long as he is at his ease, though a pain in his little finger makes him so peevish and quarrelsome that nobody can come near him. Knavery and injustice in the abstract are things that by no means rufHe his temper or alter the serenity of his countenance, unless he is to be the sufferer by them ; nor is he ever betrayed into a passion in answering a sophism, if he does not think it immediately directed against his own interest. On the contrary, we sometimes meet with persons who regularly heat themselves in an argument, and get out of humour on every occasion, and make themselves obnoxious to a whole company about nothing. This is not because they are iU-tempered, but because they are in earnest. Good-natm:e is a hypocrite ; it tries to pass off its love of its own ease, and indifference to everything else, for a particular softness and mildness of disposition. All people get in a passion and lose their temper if you offer to strike them or cheat them of their money — that is, if you interfere with that which they are really interested in. Tread on the heel of one of these good- natured persons — ^who do not care if the whole world is in flames — and see how he will bear it. If the truth were known, the most disagreeable people are the most amiable. They are the only persons who feel an interest in what does not concern them. They have as much regard for others as they have for themselves. They have as many vexations and causes of complaint as there are in the world. They are general righters of wrongs and redressers of grievances. They not only are annoyed by what they can help — ^by an act of inhumanity done in the next street, or in a neighbouring country by their own countrymen ; they not only do not claim any share in the glory, and hate it the more, the more brilliant the success ; but a piece of injustice done three thousand years ago touches them to the quick. They have an imfortunate attachment to a set of abstract phrases, such as liberty, truth, justice, humanity, honour, which are continually abused by knaves and misunderstood by fools ; and they can hardly contain themselves for spleen. They have something to keep them in perpetual hot water. No sooner is one question set at rest than another rises up to perplex them. They wear them- selves to the bone in the affairs of other people, to whom they can do no manner of service, to the neglect of their own business and pleasure. They tease themselves to death about the morality of the Turks or the politics of the French. There are certain words that afflict their ears and things that lacerate their souls, and remain 52 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. a plague-spot there for ever after. They have a fellow-feeling with all that has been done, said, or thought in the world. They have an interest in all science and in all art. They hate a lie as much as a wrong, for truth is the foundation of all justice. Truth is the first thing in their thoughts, then mankind, then their country, last themselves. They love excellence and bow to fame, which is the shadow of it. Above all, they are anxious to see justice done to the dead, as the best encouragement to the living and the lasting inheritance of future generations. They do not like to see a great principle undermined, or the fall of a great man. They would sooner forgive a blow in the face than a wanton attack on acknowledged reputation. The contempt in which the French hold Shakspeare is a serious evil to them ; nor do they think the matter mended when they hear an Englishman, who would be thought a profound one, say that Voltaire was a man without wit. They are vexed to see genius playing at Tom Fool and honesty turned bawd. It gives them a cutting sensation to see a number of things which, as they are unpleasant to see, we shall not here repeat. In short, they have a passion for truth ; they feel the same attachment to the idea of what is right that a knave does to his interest, or that a good-natured man does to his ease ; and they have as many sources of uneasiness as there are actual or Supposed deviations from this standard in the sum of things, or as there is a possibility of folly and mischief in the world. Principle is a passion for truth — an incorrigible attachment to a general proposition. Good-nature is humanity that costs nothing. No good-natured man was ever a martyr to a cause — in religion or politics. He has no idea of striving against the stream. He may become a good courtier and a loyal subject ; and it is hard if he does not, for he has nothing to do m that case but to consult his ease, interest, and outward appearances. The Vicar of Bray was a good-natured man. What a pity he was but a vicar ! A good- natured man is utterly unfit for any situation or oflSce in life that requires integrity, fortitude, or generosity — any sacrifice, except of opinion, or any exertion, but to please. A good-natured man will debauch his friend's mistress, if he has an opportunity, and betray his friend sooner than share disgrace or danger with him. He will not forego the smallest gratification to save the whole world. He makes his own convenience the standard of right and wrong. He avoids the feeling of pain in himself, and shuts his eyes to the sufferings of others. He will put a malefactor or an innocent person (no matter which) to the rack, and only laugh at the un- couthness of the gestures, or wonder that he is so unmannerly as GOOD-NATURE. S3 to cry out. There is no villainy to which he will not lend a helping hand with great coolness and cordiality, for he sees only the pleasant and profitable side of things. He will assent to a falsehood with a leer of complacency, and applaud any atrocity that comes recom- mended in the garb of authority. He will betray his country to please a Minister, and sign the death-warrant of thousands of wretches, rather than forfeit the congenial smUe, the well-known squeeze of the hand. The shrieks of death, the torture of mangled limbs, the last groans of despair, are things that shock his smooth humanity too much ever to make an impression on it ; his good- nature sympathises only with the smile, the bow, the gracious salutation, the fawning answer : vice loses its sting, and corruption its poison, in the oily gentleness of his disposition. He wiU not hear of anything wrong in Church or State. He wiU defend every abuse by which anything is to be got, every dirty job, every act of every Minister. In an extreme case, a very good-natured man indeed may try to hang twelve honester men than himself to rise at the Bar, and forge the seal of the realm to continue his colleagues a week longer in office. He is a slave to the will of others, a coward to their prejudices, a tool of their vices. A good-natured man is no more fit to be trusted in public afiairs than a coward or a woman is to lead an army. Spleen is the soul of patriotism and of public good. Lord Castlereagh is a good-natured man. Lord Eldon is a good-natured man, Charles Fox was a good-natured man. The last instance is the most decisive. The definition of a true patriot is a good haUr. A king who is a good-natured man is m a fair way of being a great tyrant. A king ought to feel concern for aU to whom his power extends ; but a good-natured man cares only about himself. If he has a good appetite, eats and sleeps well, nothing in the universe besides can disturb him. The destruction of the lives or liberties of his subjects will not stop him in the least of his caprices, but win concoct well with his bile, and " good digestion wait Dn appetite, and health on both." He will send out his mandate to kill and destroy with the same indifference or satisfaction that he performs any natural function of his body. The consequences are placed beyond the reach of liis imagination, or would not afiect him if they were not, for he is a fool and good-natured. A good-natured man hates more than any one else whatever thwarts his wUl or contradicts his prejudices ; and if he has the power to prevent it, depend upon it, he will use it without remorse and vidthout control. There is a lower species of this character which is what is usually understood by a well-meaning man. A well-meaning man is one who 54 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. often does a great deal of mischief without any kind of malice. He means no one any harm, if it is not for his interest. He is not a knave, nor perfectly honest. He does not easUy resign a good place. Mr. Vansittart is a well-meaning man. The Irish are a good-natured people; they have many virtues, but their virtues are those of the heart, not of the head. In their passions and aflfections they are sincere, but they are hypocrites in understanding. If they once begin to calculate the consequences, self-interest prevails. An Irishman who trusts to his principles and a Scotchman who yields to his impulses are equally dangerous. The Irish have wit, genius, eloquence, imagination, affections ; but they want coherence of understanding, and consequently have no standard of thought or action. Their strength of mind does not keep pace with the warmth of their feelings or the quickness of their concep- tions. Their animal spirits run away with them ; their reason is a jade. There is something crude, indigested, rash, and discordant in almost all that they do or say. They have no system, no abstract ideas. They are " everything by starts, and nothing long." They are a wild people. They hate whatever imposes a law on their tmderstandings or a yoke on their wills. To betray the principles they are most bound by their own professions and the expectations of others to maintain, is with them a reclamation of their original rights, and to fly in the face of their benefactors and friends, an assertion of their natural freedom of will. They want consistency and good faith. They unite fierceness with levity. In the midst of their headlong impulses they have an undercurrent of selfishness and cunning, which in the end gets the better of them. Their feelings, when no longer excited by novelty or opposition, grow cold and stagnant. Their blood, if not heated by passion, turns to poison. They have a rancour in their hatred of any object they have aban- doned proportioned to the attachment they have professed to it. Their zeal, converted against itself, is furious. COUNTEY PEOPLE. [From the Essay on Wordsworth's "Excursion."] All country people hate each other. They have so little comfort that they envy their neighbours the smallest pleasure or advantage, and nearly grudge themselves the necessaries of life. From not being accustomed to enjoyment, they become hardened and averse COUNTRY PEOPLE. 55 to it — stupid, for want of thought — selfish, for want of society. There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, it there is, they will not let you have it. They had rather injure themselves than oblige any one else. Their common mode of life is a system of wretchedness and self-denial, like what we read of among barbarous tribes. You live out of the world. You cannot get your tea and sugar without sending to the next town for it ; you pay double, and have it of the worst quality. The small-beer is sure to be sour — the milk skimmed — the meat bad, or spoiled in the cooking. You cannot do a single thing you like ; you cannot walk out, or sit at home, or write or read, or think or look as if you did, without being subject to impertinent curiosity. The apothecary annoys you with his complaisance ; the parson with his superciliousness. If you are poor, you are despised ; if you are rich, you are feared and hated. If you do any one a favour, the whole neighbourhood is up in arms ; the clamour is like that of a roqkery ; and the person himself, it is ten to one, laughs at you for your pains, and takes the first oppor- tunity of showing you that he labours under no uneasy sense of obligation. There is a perpetual round of mischief-making and backbiting, for want of any better amusement. There are no shops, no taverns, no theatres, no opera, no concerts, no pictures, no public buildings, no crowded streets, no noise of coaches or of courts of law — neither courtiers nor courtesans, no literary parties, no fashionable routs, no society, no books, or knowledge of books. Vanity and luxury are the civilisers of the world and sweeteners of human life. Without objects either of pleasure or action, it grows harsh and crabbed : the mind becomes stagnant, the affec- tions callous, and the eye dull. Man left to himself soon de- generates into a very disagreeable person. Ignorance is always bad enough ; but rustic ignorance is intolerable. Aristotle has observed, that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. If so, a company of tragedians should be established at the public expense in every village or hundred, as a better mode of education than either Bell's or Lancaster's. The benefits of knowledge are never so well understood as from seeing the efiects of ignorance, in their naked undisguised state, upon the common country people. Their selfishness and insensibility are perhaps less owing to. the hardships and privations, which make them, like people out at sea in a boat, ready to devour one another, than to their having no idea of anything beyond themselves and their immediate sphere of action. Ttey have no knowledge of, and consequently can take no interest in, anything which is not an object of their senses and of their daily pursuits. They hate all strangers, and have generally S6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. a nickname for the inhabitants of the next village. The two young noblemen in " Guzman d'Alf arache," who went to visit their mistresses only a league out of Madrid, were set upon by the peasants, who came round them calling out, "A wolf!" Those who have no en- larged or liberal ideas can have no disinterested or generous senti- ments. Persons who are in the habit of reading novels and romances are compelled to take a deep interest in, and to have their affections strongly excited by, fictitious characters and imaginary situations ; their thoughts and feelings are constantly carried out of themselves, to persons they never saw and things that never existed. History enlarges the mind, by familiarising us with the great vicissitudes of human affairs and the catastrophes of states and kingdoms ; the study of morals accustoms us to refer our actions to a general standard of right and vreong ; and abstract reasoning, in general, strengthens the love of truth, and produces an inflexibility of principle which cannot stoop to low trick and cunning. Books, in Bacon's phrase, are " a discipline of humanity.'' Country people have none of these advantages, nor any others to supply the place of them. Having no circulating Hbraries to exhaust their love of the marvellous, they amuse themselves with fancying the disasters and disgraces of their particular acquaintance. Having no hump- backed Richard to excite their wonder and abhorrence, they make themselves a bugbear of their own out of the first obnoxious person they can lay their hands on. Not having the fictitious distresses and gigantic crimes of poetry to stimulate their imagination and their passions, they vent their whole stock of spleen, malice, and invention on their friends and next-door neighbours. They get up a Uttle pastoral drama at home, with fancied events, but real char- acters. All their spare time is spent in manufacturing and propa- gating the lie for the day, which does its office and expires. The next day is spent in the same manner. It is thus that they embel- lish the simpHcity of rural lifel The common people in civihsed countries are a tend of domesticated savages. They have not the wild imagination, the passions, the fierce energies, or dreadful vicis- situdes of the savage tribes, nor have they the leisure, the indolent enjoyments, and romantic superstitions which belonged to the pas- toral life in milder climate and more remote periods of society. They are taken out of a state of nature, without being put in pos- session of the refinements of art. The customs and institutions of society cramp their imaginations without giving them knowledge. If the inhabitants of the mountainous districts described by Mr. Wordsworth are less gross and sensual than others, they are more selfish. Their egotism becomes more concentrated as they are more RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY. 57 insulated, and their purposes more inveterate as they have less com- petition to struggle with. The weight of matter which surrounds them crushes the iiner sympathies. Their minds become hard and cold, like the rooks which they cultivate. The immensity of their mountains makes the human form appear little and insignificant. Men are seen crawling between heaven and earth, like insects to their graves. Nor do they regard one another more than flies on a wall. Their physiognomy expresses the materialism of their char- acter, which has only one principle — frigid self-will. They move on with their eyes and foreheads fixed, looking neither to the right nor to the left, with a heavy slouch in their gait, and seeming as if nothing would divert them from their path. We do not admire this plodding pertinacity, always directed to the main chance. There is nothing which excites so little sympathy in our minds as exclusive selfishness. If our theory is wrong, at least it is taken from pretty close observation, and is, we think, confirmed by Mr. Wordsworth's own account. EELIGIOUS HYPOCEIST. Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretences to both. In the latter case, it makes them hypo- crites to themselves as well as others. Religion is, in the grosser minds, an enemy to seK-knowledge. The consciousness of the pre- sence of an all-powerful Being, who is both the witness and judge of every thought, word, and action, where it does not produce its proper efiect, forces the religious man to practise every mode of deceit upon himself with respect to his real character and motives • for it is only by being vfilfully blind to his own faults that he can suppose they will escape the eye of Omniscience. Consequently, the whole business of a religious man's hfe, if it does not conform to the strict line of his duty, may be said to be to gloss over his errors to himself, and to invent a thousand shifts and palliations in order to hoodwink the Almighty. Where he is sensible of his own de- linquency, he knows that it cannot escape the penetration of his invisible Judge ; and the distant penalty annexed to every ofience, though not sufficient to make him desist from the commission of it, will not suffer him to rest easy tiU he has made some compro- mise with his own conscience as to his motives for committing it. Ab far as relates to this world, a cunning knave may take a pride in the imposition he practises upon others ; and instead of striving to 58 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. conceal his true character from himself, may chuckle with inward satisfaction at the folly of those who are not wise enough to detect it. " But 'tis not so above." This shallow skin-deep hypocrisy will not serve the turn of the religious devotee, who is " compelled to give in evidence, against himself," and who must first become the dupe of his own imposture before he can flatter himself with the hope of concealment, as children hide their eyes with their hands, and fancy that no one can see them. Religious people often pray very heartily for the forgiveness of a " multitude of trespasses and sins," as a mark of humility, but we never knew them admit any one fault in particular, or acknowledge themselves in the wrong in any instance whatever. The natural jealousy of self-love is in them heightened by the fear of damnation, and they plead Not Ouilty to every charge brought against them with all the conscious terrors of a criminal at the bar. It is for this reason that the greatest hypo- crites in the world are religious hypocrites. This quality, as it has been sometimes found united with the clerical character, is known by the name of "priestcraft." The ministers of rehgion are perhaps more liable to this vice than any other class of people. They are obliged to assume a greater degree of sanctity, though they have it not, and to screw themselves up to an unnatural pitch of severity and self-denial. They must keep a constant guard over themselves, have an eye always to their own persons, never relax in their gravity, nor give the least scope to their inclinations. A single slip, if discovered, may be fatal to them. Their influence and superiority depend on their pretensions to virtue and piety; and they are tempted to draw liberally on the funds of credulity and ignorance allotted for their convenient support. All this cannot be very friendly to downright simplicity of character. Besides, they are so accustomed to inveigh against the vices of others that they naturally forget that they have any of their own to correct. They see vice as an object always out of themselves, with which they have no other concern than to denounce and stigmatise it. They are only reminded of it in the third person. They as naturally associate sin and its consequences with their flocks as a pedagogue associates a false concord and flogging with his scholars. If we may so express it, they serve as conductors to the lightning of Divine indignation, and have only to point the thunders of the law at others. They identify themselves with thaf perfect system of faith and morals of which they are the professed teachers, and regard any imputation on their conduct as an indireci attack on the function to which they belong, or as compromising the authority under which they act. It is only the head of the RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY. 59 Popish church who assumes the title of " God's Vicegerent upon Earth ; " but the feeling is nearly common to all the oracular in- terpreters of the will of Heaven — from the successor of St. Peter down to the simple unassuming Quaker, who, disclaiming the im- posing authority of title and office, yet fancies himself the imme- diate organ of a preternatural impulse, and affects to speak only as the Spirit moves him. There is another way in which the formal profession of religion aids hypocrisy : by erecting a secret tribunal, to which those who affect a more than ordinary share of it can (in case of need) appeal from the judgments of men. The religious impostor reduced to his last shift, and having no other way left to avoid the most " open and apparent shame," rejects the fallible decisions of the world, and thanks God that there is one who knows the heart. He is amenable to a higher jurisdiction, and while all is well with Heaven he can pity the errors and smile at the malice of his enemies. Whatever cuts men off from their dependence on common opinion or obvious appearances must open a door to evasion and cunning, by setting up a standard of right and wrong in every one's own breast, of the truth of which nobody can judge but the person himself. There are some fine instances in the old plays and novels (the best com- mentaries on human nature) of the effect of this principle in giving the last finishing to the character of duplicity. Miss Harris, in Fielding's " Amelia," is one of the most striking. Moli&re's Tartuffe is another instance of the facility with which religion may be per- verted to the purposes of the most flagrant hypocrisy. It is an impenetrable fastness, to which this worthy person, like so many others, retires without the fear of pursuit. It is an additional dis- guise, in which he wraps himself up like a cloak. It is a, stalking- horse, which is ready on all occasions — an invisible conscience, which goes about with him — his good genius, that becomes surety for him in aU difficulties — swears to the purity of his motives — extri- cates him out of the most desperate circumstances — baffles detec- tion, and furnishes a plea to which there is no answer. The same sort of reasoning will account for the old remark, that persons who are stigmatised as nonconformists to the established rehgion, Jews, Presbyterians, &c., are more disposed to this vice than their neighbours. They are inured to the contempt of the world and-steeled against its prejudices ; and the same indifference which fortifies them against the unjust censures of mankind may be converted, as occasion requires, into a screen for the most pitiful conduct. They have no cordial sympathy with others, and there- fore no sincerity in their intercourse with them. It is the necessity 6o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. of concealment, in the &st instance, that produces, and is in some measure an excuse for, the habit of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, as it is connected with cowardice, seems to imply weakr ness of body or want of spirit. The impudence and insensibility which belong to it ought to suppose robustness of constitution. There is certainly a very successful and formidable class of sturdy, jolly, able-bodied hypocrites, the Priar Johns of the profession. Baphael has represented Blymas the sorcerer with a hard iron visage and large uncouth figure, made up of bones and muscles ; as one not troubled with weak nerves or idle scruples — as one who repelled all sympathy with others — who was not to be jostled out of his course by their censures or suspicions, and who could break with ease through the cobweb snares which he had laid for the credulity of others, without being once entangled in his own delu- sions. His outward form betrays the hard, unimaginative, self- willed understanding of the sorcerer. COMMONPLACE CEITIGS. *' Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.*' We have already giveHBome account y6f commonplace people/ we shall noy attempt to .give a description of another class of the community, who may b^called (by way of distinction) commonplace critics. The former are^r^ of people who have no opinions ofl their own, and_^'not pretei)^ to have any; the latter a^a set of ; people who have no opinions of Jheir own, but who affeot to have ) one upon every subject you can nwntion. The former are a very ' lionest, good sort pi people, who are contented to pass for what they ar? ; the latter, are a very pragmatical, troublesome sort of people, who would pass for what they ar§ not,lind try'to put oflf then- commonplace notions in all companies afd on all subjects as some- , thing of their own. They are of both Species, the grave andjttie gay ; and it is hard to say which is the most tiresome. A commonplace^pritic has something to say upon every occasion, and he always tells you either what is not true, orjvKat you knew before, or what iS not worth knowing. He i^ a -person who thiii^ tiPi:^.affld-^lka.by rote. He diflera with you,, not because he ^a thinks you^are in the wrong, b^t bejswiSe he thinks somebody ejse \vn\\ think so. Nay, it woul^e well if he stopped here ; but he will COMMONPLACE CRITICS. 6l undertake to misrepresent jfou by anticipation lest others should mis- tmder^and you, and will set you right, not only in opinions which you haro, but in those which you mav^ supposed to have. Thus, if you say that Bottom tiie weaver is^ character that has liSt had justice done to it, he shakes his head, i?~afraid you will be thought extravagant, and wonders you should think the " Midsummer Night's Dream " the finest of all Shakspeare's plays. He judges of matters of taste and reasoning, as he do§B of dress and fashion, by the pre- vailing tone of good company ; and you would as soon persuade him to give up any sentiment that ft current there Igsto wear the hind-" part of his coat before. Bj_thg_t2fiatcompany,^oFwhich he S" per- petually talking, he means persons who live, on their owi i estates | and other people'si ideas. Ey_tlifl_Dpinion of the wotM, io which he pays and expeCTs yoii to pay, great deference, hgmeans that of ajittle\£u?ole^of his own, where he hears, .and is KeSrd. Again, good seri^ is a phrase constantly in his mouth, by which he does not mean his own sense or that of laaybody else, but the_ opinions of a number of persons who have agreed to take their opinions on trust from_others. f- If any one obsmves that there is^ something better than common sense, viz., uncommo'K sense, he thmks this a bad joke. ;t If you object to the opinions of fche majority, as often arising from ignorance or prejudice, he appeals from them to the sensible and well-informed ; ^'and if you say there may "Be other persons as sensible and v/ell-informed as\ himself and his friends, he smilek at your presumption, f If you attempt to prove anything to him, it K%i vain, f&r he Snot thinking of what you s^, but of what willbe'tte)^ht of it. The stronger your reasons the more iij.- corrigible ha^tninks you ; and he looks upon any attempt to expose his gratuitou s assumptions as the wanderirig of a disordered imagi- natij^fT His notions aife^ike plastered fjanres cast in a mould^as brittle as they ^« lioUow ; but they will creak before you can make ^hem give way. In fact, he i^ the representative of g^ large part of the comlnunity — the shallow, th^vain, and the indolent — of those who have time to talk and are not bound to think ; and he con- siders any deviation from the select forms of commonplace, or the accredited language of conventioilal impertinence, as compromising^ the authority" under which he acts in his diplomatic capacity. It is wonderful how this class of people agree with one anotherj how they herd together in all their opinions ; what a tact they have for ' folly; what an instiHCt for absurdity; what a sympathy in senti- ment ; how they find one another out by infallible sigp£jjke Free- masons ! The secret of thisjinanimity and strict accordj^tliat not any one of them ever admits any opinion that can cost the least 62 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. effort of mind in arriving at, or of courage in declaring it. Folly ' is as consistent with itself as wisdom; there is a certain level of thought and sentiment which the weakest minds, as well as the strongest, find out as best adapted to them ; and you ^s regularly ' come to the s^me conclusions by looking no farther tl^ the surface, ^BJf you dug to the centre of the earth ! You know beforehand what a critic of this class will say on almost every subject the first time he sees you, the next time, the time after that, and so on to the end of the chapter. The following list of his opinions may be relied on : — It is pretty certain that before you have been in the room with him ten minutes he will give you to underst^d that Shakspeare was a great but irregular genius. Again, he thinks it a question whether any one of his ^ays, if brought out now for the first time, would succeed. He thinks that " Macbeth " would oe the most likely, from the music which has been since introduced into it. He has some doubts as to jhe superiority of the French school over us in tragedy, and observes that Hume and Adam Smith wer^ both of that opinion.^ He thinKTMilton's pedantry a great blemish in his writings, and that " Paradise Lost " has many prosaic passages in it. V> He conceives that genius does not always imply taste, and that wit and judgment are very different faculties.lVHe considers Dr. Johnson as a great critic and moralist, and that his Dictionary was a work of prodigious erudition and vast industry, but that some of the anecdotes of him in " Boswell " are trifling. ^^He conceives that Mr. Locke was a very original and profound thinker. > "Be thi5is Gibbon's style vigorous but florid.-^ He wonders that the author of "Junius" was never found out.Ji He thinks Pope's translation of the " Iliad " an improvement on the simplicity of the original, which was necessary to fit it to the taste of modem readers.^T He thinks ttoe IS a great deal of grossness in the old comedies; and that .ttllre has been a great improvement in the^ morals of the higher classes since the reign of Charles II. ^^He thSiks the reign of Queen Anne the golden period of our literature, but that, upon_the whole, we have no English writer equal to Voltaire.^ He speaks of Boc- caccio as a very licentious writer, and thinks the wit in Rabelais quite extravagant, though he never r^d either of them.' "/ He cannot get through Spenser's " Fairy Queen," and pronounces all allegorical poetry tedious.'^ He prefer^^mollett to Fielding, and disco'vers more knowledge of the world in " Gil Bias " than in " Don Quixote." Richardson he thinks vei^: minute and tedious.*^ He thmS the French Revolution has done a great deal of harm to the cause of liberty ; and blames Buonaparte for being so anibitious.^'l He reads the Edinburgh and Quarterly Eeviews, and thin^ as they do.,.^He is COMMONPLACE CRITICS. 63 shy of having an opinion^n a new actor or a new singer, for the public do not alw^s agree with the newspapers.,, He thinks that the nnjoderns have^great advantages over the ancients in many respedis. ^ things Jeremy Bentham a greater man than Aristotle. He c^ se^io reason why artists of the present day should not paint as well as Raphael or Titian. 1 For instance, he thiKlg there i^some;bliing very elegant and clas^cal in Mr. Westall's drawings. He has no doubt that Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures wereTferitten by Burke. He considers Home Tooke's account of the conjunction Tliat very ingenious, and holds that no writer c^ be called elegant who us^ the present for the subjunctive mood, who says If it is for If it he. He thinKs Hogarth a great master of low comic humour, and Cobbett a coarse, vulgar writer. He often talks of/ men of liberal education, and inen without education, as if that made much difference. He judges of people by their pretensions; and pays attention, to their opinions according to, their dress and rank in life If he meBts with a fool, he does not find him out ; and if he me^ts with any one wiser/than himself, he does not kA^w what to make of him. He thififes that manners a?e of great consequence to the common intercourse of life. He thinks it difficult to prove the existence of any such thing as original genius, or to fix a general standard of taste. He does not thmk it pe^ible to define/what wit i4r^ In religion his opinions are liberal. He considers all enthusiasm as a degree of madness particularly to Ee guarded against by young minds ; and beliwes that truth lies iiythe middle, between the extremes of right and wrong. He thinks that the 'object of poetry iM;o please ;/4nd that astronomy i^a very pleasing and useful study. He thiriks all this and, a great deal more, that amounts to nothingVWe woiiaer we haive remeihbered one-half of it — ^' For true no-meaning puizlos more than wot." i- Though he has an aversion to all new ideas, he likes all new plans and matters of fact : the new Schools for All, the Penitentiary, the new Bedlam, the new steamboats, the gaslights, the new patent blacking— everything- of that sort but tbs Bible Society. The Society for the Supri|ession of Vice he thinks a great nuisance, as every honest man must. ^_ v v , In a word, aWmmon£la£e_jcriJicJ.sNthe pedant of polite conver- sation. He reSTto the opinion of Lord M. orJLady G. with the saine air of significance that the learned pedanKdofe to the authority of Cicero (ir Virgil ; retails the wisdom of the day, as the angcdote- msaiger d<^ the wit; and carri^ about with him the sentiments df people of a certain respectability in life, as the dancing-master daes their air or their valets their clothes. 64 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ACTOES AND ACTING. Players are " the abstracts and brief chronicles of the times," the motley representatives of human nature. They are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness. The height of their ambition is to be beside themselves. To-day kings, to-morrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing. Made up of mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the prompter's call, they wear the livery of other men's fortunes ; their very thoughts are not their own. They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a, glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them ; they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. The stage is an epitome, a bettered likeness, of the world, with the dull part left out ; and indeed, with this omission, it is nearly big enough to hold all the rest. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. How many fine gentlemen do we owe to the stage ! How many romantic lovers are mere Romeos in masquerade ! How many soft bosoms have heaved with Juliet's sighs ! They teach us when to laugh and when to weep, when to love and when to hate, upon principle and with a good grace. Wherever there is a playhouse the world will go on not amiss. The stage not only refines the manners, but it is the best teacher of morals, for it is the truest and most intelligible picture of life. It stamps the image of virtue on the mind by first softening the rude materials of which it is composed by a sense of pleasure. It regu- lates the passions by giving a loose to the imagination. It points out the selfish and depraved to our detestation, the amiable and generous to our admiration; and if it clothes the more seductive vices with the borrowed graces of wit and fancy, even those graces operate as a diversion to the coarser poison of experience and bad example, and often prevent or carry off the infection by inoculating the mind with a certain taste and elegance. . . . If the stage is useful as a school of instruction, it is no less so as a source of amusement. It is the source of the greatest enjoyment at the time, and a never-failing fund of agreeable reflection after- wards. The merits of a new play or of a new actor are always among the first topics of polite conversation. One way in which public exhibitions contribute to refine and humanise mankind is by supplying them with ideas and subjects of conversation and interest in common. The progress of civilisation is in proportion to the ACTORS AND ACTING. 6? number of commonplaces current in society. For instance, if we meet with a stranger at an inn or in a stage-coach, who knows nothing but liis own affairs, his shop, his customers, his farm, his pigs, his poultry, we can carry on no conversation with him on these local and personal matters, the only way is to let him have all the talk to himself. But if he has fortunately ever seen Mr. Liston act, this is an immediate topic of mutual conversation, and we agree together the rest of the evening in discussing the merits of that inimitable actor, with the same satisfaction as in talking over the affairs of the most intimate friend. If the stage thus introduces us familiarly to our contemporaries, it also brings us acquainted with former times. It is an interesting revival of past ages, manners, opinions, dresses, persons, and actions • — whether it carries us back to the wars of York and Lancaster, or half-way back to the heroic times of Greece and Rome, in some trans- lation from the French, or quite back to the age of Charles II. in the scenes of Congreve and of Btherege (the gay Sir George !) — happy age, when kings and nobles led purely ornamental lives; when the utmost stretch of a morning's study went no further than the choice of a sword-knot or the adjustment of a side-curl ; when the soul spoke out in all the pleasing eloquence of dress ; and beaux and belles, enamoured of themselves in one another's follies, flut- tered like gilded butterflies in giddy mazes through the walks of St. James's Park ! A good company of comedians, a theatre-royal judiciously managed, is your true Heralds' College — the only Antiquarian Society that is worth a rush. It is for this reason that there is such an air of romance about players, and that it is pleasanter to see them, even in their own persons, than any of the three learned professions. We feel more respect for John Kemble in a plain coat than for the Lord Chancellor on the woolsack. He is surrounded, to oui- eyes, with a greater number of imposing recollections ; he is a more reverend piece of formality — a more complicated tissue of costume. We do not know whether to look upon this accomplished actor as Pierre, or King John, or Coriolanus, or Cato, or Leontes, or the Stranger. But we see in him a stately hieroglyphic of humanity, a living monument of departed greatness, a sombre com- ment on the rise and fall of kings. We look after him till he is out of sight as we listen to a story of one of Ossian's heroes, to " a tale of other times !".... The most pleasant feature in the profession of a player, and which indeed is peculiar to it, is, that we not only admire the talents of those who adorn it, but we contract a personal intimacy with them. 66 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors. We greet them on the stage ; we like to meet them in the streets ; they almost always recall to us pleasant associations ; and we feel our gratitude excited without the uneasiness of a sense of obliga- tion. The very gaiety and popularity, however, which surround the life of a favourite performer make the retiring from it a very serious business. It glances a mortifying reflection on the shortness of human life and the vanity of human pleasures. Something reminds us that " all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." [Oharacters of Shahspeare's Plays, 1817. Fi'i^e Editions of this worh have appeared in England, and more than one in the United States.'\ MACBETH. " The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; And as imagination hodios forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." [^Midsummei- Night's Dream, v. i.] " Macbeth " and " Lear," " Othello " and " Hamlet," are usually reckoned Shakspeare's four principal tragedies. " Lear " stands first for the profound intensity of the passion ; " Macbeth " for the wildness of the imagination and the rapidity of the action ; " Othello " for the progressive interest and powerful alternations of feeling ; " Hamlet " for the refined development of thought and sentiment. If the force of genius shown in each of these works is astonishing, their variety is not less so. They are like diflferent creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. This distinct- ness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence of truth and nature. Shakspeare's genius alone appeared to possess the resources of nature. He is " your only tragedy-maker." His plays have the force of things upon the mind. What he represents is brought home to the bosom as a part of our experience, implanted in the memory as if we had known the places, persons, and things of which he treats. " Macbeth " is like a record of a preternatural and tragical event. It has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all that the imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The castle of Macbeth, round which " the air smells wooingly," and where " the temple-haunting martlet builds," has a real subsist- ence in the mind; the Weird Sisters meet us in person on "the blasted heath;" the "air-drawn dagger" moves slowly before o\vc SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— MACBETH. 67 eyes; the "gracious Duncan," the " blood-boltered Banquo," stand before us: all that passed through the mind of Macbeth passes without the loss of a tittle, through ours. All that could actually take place, and all that is only possible to be conceived, what was said and what was done, the workings of passion, the spells of magic, are brought before us with the same absolute truth and vividness. Shakspeare excelled in the openings of his plays : that of " Macbeth " is the most striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting of the situations and characters, the bustle, the expectations excited, are equally extraordinary. From the first entrance of the "Witches and the description of them when they meet Macbeth, ' " What are these So wither'd, and so wild in their attire, That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth And yet are on't ? " the mind is prepared for all that follows. Tliis tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination it dis- plays, and for the tumultuous vehemence of the action ; and the one is made the moving principle of the other. The overwhelming pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with re- doubled force. Macbeth himself appears driven along by the violence of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm : he reels to and fro like a drunken man ; he staggers under the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of others ; he stands at bay with his situation; and from the superstitious awe and breatUess suspense into which the communications of the Weird Sisters throw him, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify their predictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil which hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not equal to the struggle with fate and con- science. He now " bends up each corporal agent to this terrible feat ; " at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and abashed by his success. " The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us." His mind is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of "preternatural solicitings." His speeches and soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths. In thought he is absent and perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his own resolution. His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his feel- ings. This part of his character is admirably set oflf by being brought in connection with that of Lady Macbeth, whose obdurate 68 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. strength of will and masculine firmness give her the ascendency over her husband's faltering virtue. She at once seizes on the opportunity that offers for the accomplishment of all their wished- for greatness, and never flinches from her object till all is over. The magnitude of her resolution almost covers the magnitude of her guilt. She is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate. She does not excite our loathing and abhorrence like Regan and Goneril. She is only wicked to gain a great end, and is perhaps more distinguished by her commanding presence of mind and inexorable self-will, which do not suffer her to be diverted from a bad purpose, when once formed, by weak and womanly regrets, than by the hardness of her heart or want of natural affections. The impression which her lofty determination of character makes on the mind of Macbeth is well described where he exclaims, -" Bring forth men-children only ; For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males ! " Nor do the pains she is at to " screw his courage to the sticking- place," the reproach to him, not to be " lost so poorly in himself," the assurance that " a little water clears them of this deed," show anything but her greater consistency in depravity. Her strong- nerved ambition furnishes ribs of steel to the " sides of his intent ; " and she is herself wound up to the execution of her baneful project with the same unshrinking fortitude in crime, that in other cir- cumstances she would probably have shown patience in suffering. The deliberate sacrifice of all other considerations to the gaining "for their future days and nights sole sovereign sway and master- dom," by the murder of Duncan, is gorgeously expressed in her' invocation on hearing of "his fatal entrance under her battle- ments : " — ' Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here : And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood, Stop up th' access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th' effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers. Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief 1 Come, thick night I And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— MACBETH. 69 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor Ijeav'n peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold !— " When she first hears that " the king [Duncan] comes here to-night," she is so overcome by the news, which is beyond her utmost expec- tations, that she answers the messenger, " Thou'rt mad to say it : " and on receiving her husband's account of the predictions of the Witches, conscious of his instability of purpose, and that her pre- sence is necessary to goad him on to the consummation of his promised greatness, she exclaims — • " Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown'd withal." This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumph, this uncontrol- lable eagerness of anticipation, which seems to dilate her form and take possession of all her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh-and- blood display of passion, exhibit a striking contrast to the cold, abstracted, gratuitous, servile malignity of the Witches, who are equally instrumental in urging Macbeth to his fate for the mere love of mischief, and from a disinterested delight in deformity and cruelty. They are hags of mischief, obscene panders to iniquity, malicious from their impotence of enjoyment, enamoured of destruc- tion, because they are themselves unreal, abortive, half-existences : who become sublime from their exemption from all human sym- pathies and contempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbeth does by the force of passion ! Her fault seems to have been an excess of that strong principle of self-interest and family aggrandisement, not amenable to the common feelings of compassion and Justice, which is so marked a feature in barbarous nations and times. A passing reflection of this kind, on the resemblance of the sleeping king to her father, alone prevents her from slaying Duncan with her own hand. In speaking of the character of Lady Macbeth, we ought not to pass over Mrs. Siddons's manner of acting that part. We can conceive of nothing grander. It was something above nature. It seemed almost as if a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine ; she was tragedy personified. In coming on in the sleeping-scene, her eyes were open, but their sense was shut. She 70 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. was like a person bewildered and unconscious of what she did. Her lips moved involuntarily: all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical. She glided on and off the stage like an apparition To have seen her in that character was an event in every one's life, not to be forgotten. OTHELLO. It has been said that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. That is, it substitutes imaginary sympathy for mere selfishness. It gives us a high and permanent interest, beyond ourselves, in humanity as such. It raises the great, the remote, and the possible to an equality with the real, the little, and the near. It makes man a partaker with his kind. It subdues and softens the stubbornness of his wUl. It teaches him that there are and have been others like himself, by showing him as in a glass what they have felt, thought, and done. It opens the chambers of the human heart. It leaves nothing indifferent to us that can affect our common nature. It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passions wound up to the utmost pitch by the power of imagination or the temptation of circumstances; and corrects their fatal excesses in ourselves by pointing to the greater extent of sufferings and of crimes to which they have led others. Tragedy creates a balance of the affections. It makes us thoughtful spectators in the lists of life. It is the ' refiner of the species ; a discipline of humanity. The habitual study of poetry and works of imagination is one chief part of a well- grounded education. A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman. Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own im- - mediate, narrow interests. — "OtheUo" furnishes an illustration of these remarks. It excites our sympathy in an extraordinary degree. The moral it conveys has a closer application to the concerns of human life than that of almost any other of Shakspeare's plays. " It comes directly home to the bosoms and business of men." The pathos in "Lear" is indeed more dreadful and overpowering; but it is less natural, and less of every day's occurrence. We have not the same degree of sympathy with the passions described in " Macbeth." The interest in " Hamlet " is more remote and reflex. That of "Othello " is at once equally profound and affecting. The picturesque contrasts of character in this play are almost as remarkable as the depth of the passion. The Moor Othello, the gentle Desdemona, the villain lago, the good-natured Cassio, the SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— OTHELLO. 71 fool Roderigo, present a range and variety of character as strildng and palatable as that produced by the opposition of costume in apictme. Their distinguishing qualities stand out to the mind's eye, so that even when we are not thinking of their actions or sentiments, the idea of their persons is still as present to us as ever. These characters and the images they stamp upon the mind are the farthest asunder possible, the distance between them is immense ; yet the compass of knowledge and invention which the poet has shown in embodying these extreme creations of his genius is only greater than the truth and felicity with which he has identified each character with itself, or blended their different qualities together in the same story. What a contrast the character of Othello forms to that of lago ! At the same time, the force of conception with which these • two figures are opposed to each other is rendered stm more intense by the complete consistency with which the traits of each character are brought out in a state of the highest finishing. The making one black and the other white, the one unprincipled, the other unfortunate in the extreme, would have answered the common purposes of effect, and satisfied the ambition of an ordinary painter of character. Shakspeare has laboured the finer shades of difference in both with as much care and skill as if he had had to depend on the execution alone for the success of his design. On the other hand, Desdemona and Emilia are not meant to be opposed with anything like strong contrast to each other. Both are, to outward appear- ance, characters of common life, not more distinguished than women usually are, by difference of rank and situation. The diflerence of their thoughts and sentiments is, however, laid open, their minds are separated from each other by signs as plain and as little to be mistaken as the complexions of their husbands. The movement of the passion in Othello is exceedingly different from that of Macbeth. In Macbeth there is a violent struggle between opposite feelings, between ambition and the stings of conscience, almost from first to last : in Othello, the doubtful con- flict between contrary passions, though dreadful, continues only for a short time, and the chief interest is excited by the alternate ascendency of difierent passions, by the entire and unforeseen change from the fondest love and most unbounded confidence to the tortures of jealousy and the madness of hatred. The revenge of Othello, after it has once taken thorough possession of his mind, never quits it, but grows stronger and stronger at every moment of its delay. The nature of the Moor is noble, confiding, tender, and generous ; but his blood is of the most in- flammable kind ; and being once roused by a sense of his wrongs, 72 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. he is stopped by no considerations of remorse or pity till he has given a loose to all the dictates of his rage and his despair. It is in working his noble nature up to this extremity through rapid but gradual transitions, in raising passion to its height from the smallest beginnings and in spite of all obstacles, in painting the expiring conflict between love and hatred, tenderness and resent- ment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding the strength and the weakness of our nature, in imiting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motion the variotis im- pulses that agitate this our mortal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous lut majestic, that " flows on to the Propontic, and knows no ebb," that Shakspeare has shown the mastery of his genius and of his power over the human heart. The third act of "Othello" is his finest display, not of knowledge or passion separately, but of the two com- bined, of the knowledge of character with the expression of passion, of consummate art in the keeping up of appearances with the pro- fo>ind workings of nature, and the convulsive movements of uncon- trollable agony, of the power of inflicting torture and of suffering it. Not only is the tumult of passion in Othello's mind heaved up from the very bottom of the soul, but every the slightest undulation of feeling is seen on the surface, as it arises from the impulses of imagi- nation or the malicious suggestions of lago. The progressive pre- paration for the catastrophe is wonderfully managed from the Moor's first gallant recital of the story of his love, of " the spells and witch- craft he had used," from his unlooked-for and romantic success, the fond satisfaction with which he dotes on his own happiness, the mireserved tenderness of Desdemona and her innocent impor- tunities in favour of Oassio, irritating the suspicions instUled into her husband's naind by the perfidy of lago, and rankling there to poison, till he loses all command of himself, and his rage can only be appeased by blood. HAMLET. This is that Hamlet the Dane whom we read of in our youth, and whom we may be said almost to remember in our after-years ; he who made that famous soliloquy on life, who gave the 'advice to the players, who thought " this goodly frame, the earth," a sterile promontory, and "this brave o'erhanging firmament, the air, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire," " a foul and pestUeht con- gregation of vapours;" whom "man delighted not, nor woman neither ; " he who talked with the gravediggers, and moralised on SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— HAMLET. 73 Yoriok's skull; the schoolfellow of Eosencrantz and Guildenstem at Wittenberg; the friend of Horatio; the lover of Ophelia; he that was mad and sent to England ; the slow avenger of his father's death ; who lived at the court of HorwendUlus five hundred years before we were born, but all whose thoughts we seem to know as well as we do our own, because we have read them in Shakspeare. Hamlet is a name ; his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are they not real ? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own mishaps or those of others ; whoever has borne about wi'ih him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself "too much i' th' sun;" whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, and could find in the world before him only a dull blank with nothing left remarkable in it; whoever has known "the pangs of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes ; " he who has felt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a malady, who has had his hopes blighted and his youth staggered by the appari- tions of strange things ; who cannot be well at ease, while he sees evil hovering near him like a spectre ; whose powers of action have been eaten up by thought, he to whom the imiverse seems infinite, and himself nothing ; whose bitterness of soul makes him careless of consequences, and who goes to a play as his best resource to shove ofl", to a second remove, the evils of hfe by a mock represen- tation of them — this is the true Hamlet. We have been so used to this tragedy that we hardly know how to criticise it any more than we should know how to describe our own faces. But we must make such observations as we can. It is the one of Shakspeare's plays that we think of the oftenest, because it abounds most in striking reflections on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of humanity. Whatever happens to him we apply to ourselves, because he applies it so himself as a means of general reasoning. He is a grea t mor alise r : and_jgh^ makes hirn wnrti ti a.tt ftBdir|^ t.n is thathemoralises__on_^is_i)wn feelings and experience. HeisnoF^a commonplace pedant. If "Tl^F^lBTitstlngmsEed by the greatest depth of passion, " Hamlet " is the most remarkable for the ingenuity, originality, and unstudied development of character. Shakspeare had more magnanimity than any other poet, and he has shown more of it in this play than in 74 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. any other. There is no attempt to force an interest: everything is left for time and circumstances to unfold. The attention is excited without efifort, the incidents succeed each other as matters of course, the characters think and speak and act just as they might do if left entirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point. The observations are suggested by the passing scene — the gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Denmark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements in morals and manners we^e heard of. It would have been interesting enough to have tjcen admitted as a bystander in such a, scene, at such a time, to have heard and wit- nessed something of what was going on. But here we are more than spectators. We have not only "the outward pageants and the signs of grief ; " but " we have that within which passes show." We read the thoughts of the heart, we catch the passions living as they rise. Other dramatic writers give us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature ; but Shakspeare, together with his own comments, gives us the original text, that we may judge for our- selves. This is a very great advantage. The character of Hamlet stands quite by itself. It is not a char- acter marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refine- ment of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can well be ; but he is a young and princely novice, f uU of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility — the sport of circum- stances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from the natural bias of his disposition by the sti'ange- ness of his situation. He seems incapable of deliberate action, and is onlyhmried into_extremities on the spur of the bccasi6n,"when h e has n o~ti me~tcr reflect, as' in ite' seBn'S~-!rtie'reTie"EigsToIrauus, and agaj nPwhere be alters the "letters which SosenCTSgJa-and Guildensterif are "^king with' them to -Englaiidr'purp orting his death. At other t i mes, when h e is most bound to a^tf^ TBm ains p iw.7.]pd imdp,(; .idRd7^.nfi s;^^]^t?^gp^fTS.~;yrnr-Riyytyi^l.„pr'^^^ occasion is lost, and finds out some "pfeteflefe to relapse -iirtoTlrtlo- lence and thoughtfulness againi " Fot this reason he refuses gjrill thelGng wltm-betsat his"prayers,"and by a refineiuenfin malice, which is in truth only' aiiexcuseToi?" his own^wanToTreiolMOTi, defers his revenge to a more fatal opporttmity^when he shall be engagedin soine act "that has no relish of salvation in it." "Hsj s the prm ce of ;i)failosophical speculators;' and ^ecause_ho cannothaveTus' revenge perfect,' according to theinost TeSied idea SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— HAMLET. 7$ his wish can form, he declines it altogether. So he scruples to trust, the suggestions of the Ghost, contrives the scene of the play to have surer proof of his uncle's guilt, and then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions, and the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet he is sensible of his own weakness,' taxes himself with it, and tries to reason himself out of it. Still he does nothing; ar.d this very speculation on his own infirmity only aftbrds him another occasion for indulging it. It is not from any want of attachment to his father or of abhorrence of his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory ; but it is more to his taste to indulge his imagiaation in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act ; and any vague pretext that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from Ms previous purposes. The moral perfection of this character has been called hi question, we think, by those who did not understand it. It is more interest- ing than according to rules; amiable, though not faultless. The ethical delineations of " that noble and liberal casuist " (as Shak- speare has been well caUed) do not exhibit the drab-coloured quakerism of moraUty. His plays are not copied either from the " Whole Duty of Man " or from " The Academy of Compliments ! " We confess we are a Kttle shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The neglect of punctUious exactness in his behaviour either partakes of the " licence of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of intellectual refine- ment in the character, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose upon him. He may be said to be amenable only to the tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too much taken up with the airy world of contemplation to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circum- stances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the efiect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene around him ! Amidst the natural arid preternatural horrors of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy from carrying on a regular courtship. When " his father's spirit was in arms," it was not a time for the son to make love in. He could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind by explaining the cause of his alienation, which he durst hardly trust himself to think of. It would have taken him years to have come to a direct explanation on the point. In the harassed 76 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. state of his mind, he could not have done much otherwise than he did. His conduct does not contradict what he says when he sees her funeral : " I loved Ophelia : forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. " Nothing can be more aflFecting or beautiful than the Queen's apostrophe to Ophelia on throwing the (lowers into the grave : " Sweets to the sweet, farewell. [Scattering flowers. I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife ; I thought thy bride-bed to have deoli'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave." Shakspeare was thoroughly a master of the mixed motives of human character, and he here shows us the Queen, who was so criminal in some respects, not without sensibility and affection in other relations of life. — Ophelia is a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon. Oh rose of May, oh flower too soon faded ! Her love, her madness, her death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and pathos. It is a c haracter which_ Q ^ody but Shak3 pearg_coTJdJiavg_drawn in_tt(g. way -ihat "k©-ftas done, and to the conception of which tHire^is not even the smallest approach, except in some of the old romantic ballads. nebi EOMEO AND JULIET. "Romeo and Juliet" is the only tragedy which Shakspeare has written entirely on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his first play, and it deserves to stand in that proud rank. There is the buoyant spirit of youth in every line, in the rapturous intoxication of hope, and m the bitterness of despair. It has been said of "Eomeo and Juliet" by a great critic, that "whatever is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, is to be found in this poem." The description is true ; and yet it does not answer to our idea of the play. For if it has the sweet- ness of the rose, it has its freshness too ; if it has the languor of the nightingale's song, it has also its giddy transport ; if it has the soft- ness of a southern spring, it is as glowing and as bright. There is nothing of a sickly and sentimental cast. Eomeo and Juliet are in love, but they are not love-sick. Everything speaks the very soul of pleasure, the high and healthy pulse of the passions : the heart beats, the blood circulates and mantles throughout. Their courtship SHAKSPEARB'S CHARACTERS— ROMEO AND JULIET. 77 is not an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, learnt at second- hand from poems and plays, — made up of beauties of the most shadowy kind, of "fancies wan that hang the pensive head," of evanescent smiles, and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch, and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, truth, and nature ! It is the reverse of all this. It is Shak- speare all over, and Shakspeare when he was young. We have heard it objected to "Romeo and Juliet," that it is founded on an idle passion between a. boy and a girl, who have scarcely seen and can have but little sympathy or rational esteem for one another, who have had no experience of the good or ills of life, and whose raptures or despair must be therefore equally ground- less and fantastical. Whoever objects to the youth of the parties in this play as " too unripe and crude " to pluck the sweets of love, and "wishes to see a first-love carried on into a good old age, and the passions taken at the rebound, when their force is spent, may find all this done in " The Stranger " and in other German plays, where they do things by contraries, and transpose nature to inspire sen- timent and create philosophy. Shakspeare proceeded in a more straightforward and, we think, effectual way. He did not endea^ vour to extract beauty from wrinkles, or the wild throb of passion from the last expiring sigh of indifierence. fie did not "gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles." It was not his way. But he has given a picture of human life, such as it is in the order of nature. He has founded the passion of the two lovers not on the pleasures they had experienced, but on all the pleasures they had not experi- enced. All that was to come of life was theirs. At that untried source of promised happiness they slaked their thirst, and the first eager draught made them drunk with love and joy. They were in full possession of their senses and their affections. Their hopes were of air, their desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, because the heart is then first melted in tenderness from the touch of novelty, and kindled to rapture, for it knows no end of its enjoyments or its wishes. Desire has no limit but itself. Passion, .the love and expectation of pleasure, is infinite, extravagant, inexhaustible, till experience comes to check and kUl it. Juliet exclaims on her first interview with Romeo : " My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My lofe as deep." And why should it not ? What was to hinder the thrilling tide of pleasure, which had just gushed from her heart, from flowing on 78 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. without stint or measure but experience, which she was yet with- out ? "What was to abate the transport of the first sweet sense of pleasure, which her heart and her senses had just tasted, but in- difiference which she was yet a stranger to? What was there to check the ardour of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but disappointment which she had not yet felt P As are the desires and the hopes of youthful passion, such is the keenness of its disappointments, and their baleful effect. Such is the transi- tion in this play from the highest bliss to the lowest despair, from the nuptial couch to an untimely grave. The only evil that even in apprehension befalls the two lovers is the loss of the greatest possible felicity ; yet this loss is fatal to both, for they had rather part with life than bear the thought of surviving all that had made life dear to them. In all this, Shakspeare has but followed nature, which existed in his time, as well as now. The modern philosophy, which reduces the whole theory of the mind to habitual impressions, and leaves the natural impulses of passion and imagination out of the account, had not then been discovered ; or if it had, would have been little calculated for the uses of poetry. LEAR. We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it. AH that we can say must f aU far short of the subject ; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a descrip- tion of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mere im- pertinence : yet we must say something. It is, then, the best of all Sliakspeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own imagina^ tion. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart ; of which the bond is the hardest to be unloosed ; and the cancelling and tearing to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. This depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the elements of our being, this firm faith in fiHal piety, and the giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding this prop failing it, the contrast between the fixed, immovable basis of natural affection and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-places in the soul, this is what Shakspeare has given, and what nobody else but he could give. So we beheve. The mind of Lear, staggering between the weight of attachment and the hurried movements of passion, is like a tall ship driven about by the winds, buffeted by the furious waves, but SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— LEAR. 79 that still rides above the storm, having its anchor fixed in the bottom of the sea ; or'it is like the sharp rock circled by the edd3dng whirl- pool that foams and beats against it, or like the solid promontory pushed from its basis by the force of an earthquake. The character of Lear itself is very finely conceived for the pur- pose. It is the only ground on which such a story could be built with the greatest truth «,nd eSect. It is his rash haste, his violent impetuosity, his blindness to everything but the dictates of his passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes, that aggra- vates his impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him. The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful : the story is almost told in the first words she utters. We see at once the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his own extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacy in it), and the hoUowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost the first burst of that noble tide of passion which runs through the play is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on the injustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter : " Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad ! " This manly plainness, which draws down on him the displeasure of the unadvised king, is worthy of the fidelity vrith which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. The true character of the two eldest daughters, Regan and Goneril (they are so thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat their names), breaks out in their answer to OordeHa, who desires them to treat their father well : " Prescribe not us our duties "—their hatred of advice being in proportion to their determination to do wrong, and to their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Then? deliberate hypoc- risy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of their characters. It has been said, and we think justly, that the third act of " Othello " and the three first acts of " Lear " are Shakspeare's great masterpieces in the logic of passion : that they contain the highest examples not only of the force of individual passion, but of its dramatic vicissitudes and striking efi'eots arising from the difierent circimistances and characters of the persons speaking. We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its pauses and feverish starts, its im- patience of opposition, its accumulating force when it has time to recollect itself, the manner in which it avails itself of every pass- ing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, the alternate con- traction and dilatation of the soul, and all "the dazzling fence of controversy " in this mortal combat with poisoned weapons, armed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have seen in " Othello " how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions of the Moor 5 8o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity of lago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense of sympathy in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swollen heart of Lear, is the petrifying indifference, the cold, calculating, obdurate selfishness of his daughters. His keen passions seem whetted on their stony hearts. The contrast would be too painful, the shock too great, but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well-timed levity comes in to break the continuity of feeling when it can no longer be borne, and to bring into play again the fibres of the heart just as they are growing rigid from overstrained excitement. The imagination is glad to take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just as the mind under the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents itself in sallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of the barbarous times, in which alone the tragic groundwork of the story could be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as, while it is a diversion to the too great intensity of our disgust, it carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which it is capable, by showing the pitiable weak- ness of the old king's conduct and its irretrievable consequences in the most familiar point of view. Lear may well " beat at the gate which let his folly in," after, as the Fool says, " he has made his daughters his mothers." The character is dropped in the third act to make room for the entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well accords with the increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar's assumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of their distresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural affection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakspeare's mastery over his subject, if it was not art, was owing to a know- ledge of the connecting-links of the passions, and their effect upon the mind, still more wonderful than any systematic ad- herence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinctive by genius. . . . When Lear dies, indeed, we feel the truth of what Kent says on the occasion — " Vex not his ghost : let him pass ! he hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. " Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A better authority than either on any subject m which poetry and feelmg are SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS-LEAR. Si concerned— Mr. Charles Lamb— has given it in favour of Shakspeare, in some remarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude this account : — " The ' Lear ' of Shakspeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual ; the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano : they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on ; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage ; while we read it we see not Lear, but we are Lear ; — we are in his mind : we are sustained by a grandeur which baffles the malice of daughters and storms ; in the aberrations of his reason we discover a mighty, irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the \vind blows where it listeth, at vidU on the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of tlte heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children he reminds them that ' they them- selves are old ' ? What gesture shall we appropriate to this ? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things ? But the play is beyond aU art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony : it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the showmen of the scene, to draw it about more easily. A happy ending ! — as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gone through, — the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world's burden after, why all this pudder and preparation — why torment us with all this unnecessary sjrmpathy ? As if the childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over again his misused station, — as if at his years and with his experience, anything was left but to die." WILLUM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. FALSTAFF. If sRakspeare's fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case), he has made us amends by the character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, " we behold the fulness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily." We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or "lards the lean earth as he walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air, " into thin air ; " but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension : it lies " three fingers deep upon the ribs," it plays about the lungs and diaphragm with all the force of animal enjo3rment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute for pleasurable sensar tion ; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaflfs vrit is an emanation of a fine constitution ; an exuberance of good-humour and good-nature ; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment with himself and others. He would not be in character if he were not so fat as he is ; for there is the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence of his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes as he would a capon or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again, and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain " it snows of meat and drink." He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen. Yet we are not to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupefy his other faculties, but " ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes." His imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems to have SHAKSPEARE'S CHARACTERS— FALSTAFF. 83 even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions ,to eating and drinlring, but we never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself " a tun of man." His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggera- tion of his own vices, that it does not seem quite certain whether the account of his hostess's bill, found in his pocket, with such an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with only one halfpenny- worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious carica- ture of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, &c., and yet we are not ofiended but delighted with him ; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to show the humorous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of the police-offices. We only consider the number of pleasant hghts in which he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposed to the received rules and necessary restraints of society), and do not trouble ourselves about the consequences resulting from them, for no mischievous consequences do result. Sir John is old as well as fat, which gives a melancholy retrospective tinge to the character; and by the disparity between his inclinations and his capacity for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous and fantastical. tyfhe secret of Falstaffs wit is for the most .part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His repartees are involuntary suggestions of his seK-love; instinctive evasions of everything that threatens to interrupt the career of his triumphant jollity and self-complacency. His very size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with every occasion and at a moment's warning. His natural repugnance to every -unpleasant thought or circumstance, of itself makes light of objections, and provokes the most extravagant and licentious answers in his own justification. His indifference to truth puts no check unon his $4 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. invention, and the more improbable and unexpected his contriv- ances are, the more happily does he seem to be delivered of them, the anticipation of their effect acting as a stimulus to the gaiety of his fancy. The success of one adventurous sally gives him spirits to undertake another : he deals always in round numbers, and his exaggerations and excuses are "open, palpable, monstrous as the father that begets them." [A View of the English Stage ; or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms, 1818.] THE ACTING OF KEAJST. ... I WENT to see him the first night of his appearing in Shylocli. I remember it well. The boxes were empty, and the pit not half- fall: "some quantity of barren spectators and idle renters were thinly scattered to make up a show." The whole presented a dreary, hopeless aspect. I was in considerable apprehension for the result. From the first scene in which Mr. Kean came on my doubts were at an end. I had been told to give as favourable an account as I could : I gave a true one. I am not one of those who, when they see the sun breaking from behind a cloud, stop to ask others whether it is the moon. Mr. Kean's appearance was the first gleam of genius breaking athwart the gloom of the Stage, and the public have since gladly basked in its ray, in spite of actors, managers, and critics. . . . Mr. Kean (of whom report had spoken highly) last night ^ made his appearance at Drury Lane Theatre in the character of Shyloek. For voice, eye, action, and expression no actor has come out for many years at all equal to him. The applause, from the first scene to the last, was general, loud, and uninterrupted. Indeed, the very first scene in which he comes on with Bassanio and Antonio showed the master in his art, and at once decided the opinion of the audience. Perhaps it was the most perfect of any. Notwith- standing the complete success of Mr. Kean in the part of Shyloek we question whether he wiU not become a greater favourite in other parts. There was a lightness and vigour in his tread, a buoyancy and elasticity of spirit, a fire and animation, which would accord better with almost any other character than with the morose, sullen, inward, inveterate, inflexible malignity of Shyloek. The character of Shyloek is that of a man brooding over one idea, that ' January 26, 18 14. THE ACTING OF KEAN. 85 of its wrongs, and bent on one unalterable purpose, that of revenge. In conveying a profound impression of tliis feeling, or in embodying the general conception of rigid and uncontrollable seU-wUl, equally proof against every sentiment of humanity or prejudice of opinion, we have seen actors more successful than Mr. Kean ; but in giving effect to the conflict of passions arising out of the contrasts of situa/- tion, in varied vehemence of declamation, in keenness of sarcasm, in the rapidity of his transitions from one tone and feeling to another, in propriety and novelty of action, presenting a succession of strik- ing pictures, and giving perpetually fresh shocks of delight and surprise, it would be difficult to single out a competitor. The fault of his acting was (if we may hazard the objection) an over-display of the resources of the art, which gave too much relief to the hard, impenetrable, dark groundwork of the character of Shylock. It would be endless to point out individual beauties, where almost every passage was received with equal and deserved applause. We thought, in one or two instances, the pauses in the voice were too long, and too great a reliance placed on the expression of the countenance, which is a language intelligible only to a part of the house. . . . . . . Mr. Kean's Othello is his best character, and the highest effort of genius on the stage. We say this without any exception or reserve. Yet we wish it was better than it is. In parts, we think he rises as high as human genius can go: at other times, though powerful, the whole effort is thrown away in a wrong direc- tion, and disturbs our idea of the character. There are some tech- nical objections. Othello was tall ; but that is nothing : he was black ; but that is nothing. But he was not fierce, and that is every- thing. It is only iii the last agony of human suffering that he gives way to his rage and his despair, and it is in workiag his noble nature up to that extremity that Shakspeare has shown his genius and hig vast power over the human heart. It was in raising passion to its height, from the lowest beginnings and in spite of all obstacles, in showing the conflict of the soul, the tug and war between love and hatred, rage, tenderness, jealousy, remorse, in laying open the strength and the weaknesses of human nature, in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motion all the springs and impulses which make up this our mortal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestic, "that flows on to the Propontic and knows no ebb," that the great excellence of Shakspeare lay. Mr. Kean is in general all passion, all energy, all relentless will. He wants imagination, that faculty which contemplates 86 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. events, and broods over feelings with a certain calmness and gran- deur ; his feelings almost always hurry on to action, and hardly ever repose upon themselves. He is too often in the highest key of passion, too uniformly on the verge of extravagance, too constantly on the rack. This does very well in certain characters, as Zanga or Bajazet, where there is merely a physical passion, a boiling of the blood to be expressed, but it is not so in the lofty-minded and generous Moor. We make these remarks the more freely, because there were parts of the character in which Mr. Kean showed the greatest sublimity and pathos, by laying aside all violence of action. For instance, the tone of voice in which he delivered the beautiful apostrophe, " Then, oh, farewell ! " struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness. Why not all so, or aU that is like it ? Why not speak the affecting passage, " I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips " — ^why not speak the last speech, in the same manner P They are both of them, we do most strenuously contend, speeches of pure pathos, of thought and feeling, and not of passion, venting itself in violence of action or gesture. Again, the look, the action, the expression of voice, with which he accompanied the exclamation, " Not a jot, not a jot," was perfectly heart-rending. His vow of revenge against Oassio and his abandonment of his love for Desdemona were as fine as possible. The whole of the third act had an irresistible effect upon the house, and indeed is only to be paralleled by the murder-scene m " Macbeth." ... MRS. SIDD0N8. . . . The homage she has received is greater than that wliich is paid to Queens. The enthusiasm she excited had something idola- trous about it ; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. She raised Tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imagination the fables of mythology, of the heroic and deified mortals of elder time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was Tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind. She was not only the idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultuous shouts of the pit in DISSENTERS AND DISSENTING MINISTERS, 87 breathless expectation, and quenched the blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, through long years of solitude, her face has shone as if an eye had appeared from heaven ; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if ■ a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs. Siddons was an event in every one's life. . . . Mrs. Siddons's appearance in Lady Macbeth at this theatre on Thursday drew immense crowds to every part of the house. We should suppose that more than half the number of persons were compelled to return without gaining admittance. We succeeded in gaining a seat in one of the back-boxes, and saw this wonderful performance at a, distance, and consequently at a disadvantage. Though the distance of place is a disadvantage to a performance like Mrs. Siddons's Lady Macbeth, we question whether the distance of time at which we have formerly seen it is any. It is nearly twenty years since we &st saw her in this character, and certainly the impression which we have still left on our minds from that first exhibition is stronger than the one we received the other evening. The sublimity of Mrs. Siddons's acting is such, that the first impulse, which it gives to the mind can never wear out, and we doubt whether this original and paramount impression is not weakened, rather than strengthened, by subsequent repetition ; if we have seen Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth only once, it is enough. The impression is stamped there for ever, and any after-experiments and critical inquiries only serve to fritter away and tamper with the sacredness of the early recollection. [Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Cliaracters, 1819.] DISSENTERS AND DISSENTING MINISTERS. . . . Wb are told that the different sects are hot-beds of sedition, because they are nurseries of public spirit, and independence, and sincerity of opinion in all other respects. They are so necessarily, and by the supposition. They are Dissenters from the Established Church ; they submit voluntarily to certain privations, they incur a certain portion of obloquy and ill-will, for the sake of what they believe to be the truth : they are not time-servers on the face of the evidence, and that is sufficient to expose them to the instinctive hatred and ready ribaldry of those who think venality the first of S8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. virtues, and prostitution of principle the best sacrifice a man can make to the Graces or his Country. The Dissenter does not change liis sentiments with the seasons : he does not suit his conscience to his convenience. This is enough to condemn him for a pestilent fellow. He will not give up his principles because they are un- fashionable ; therefore he is not to be trusted. He speaks his mind bluntly and honestly ; therefore he is a secret disturber of the peace, a dark conspirator against the State. On the contrary, the diflferent sects in this country are, or have been, the steadiest supporters of its liberties and laws : they are checks and barriers against the in- sidious or avowed encroachments of arbitrary power, as effectual and indispensable as any others in the Constitution : they are depositaries of a principle as sacred and somewhat rarer than a devotion to Court- influence — we mean the love of truth. It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not bom and bred a Dissenter. Nothing else can sufficiently inure and steel a man against the prevailing pre- judices of the world but that habit of mind which arises from non- conformity to its decisions in matters of religion. There is a natural alliance between the love of civil and religious liberty, as much as between Church and State. Protestantism was the first school of political liberty in Europe : Presbyterianism has been one great support of it in England. The sectary in religion is taught to appeal to his own bosom for the truth and sincerity of his opinions, and to arm himself with stern indifierence to what others think of them. This will no doubt often produce a certain hardness of manner and cold repulsiveness of feeling in trifling matters, but it is the only sound discipline of truth, or inflexible honesty in poUtics as well as in religion. The same principle of independent inquiry and unbiassed conviction which makes him reject all undue inter- ference between his Maker and his conscience will give a character of uprightness and disregard of personal consequences to his conduct and sentiments in what concerns the most important relations be- tween man and man. He neither subscribes to the dogmas of priests nor truckles to the mandates of Ministers. He has a rigid sense of duty which renders him superior to the caprice, the prejudices, and the injustice of the world ; and the same habitual consciousness of rectitude of purpose which leads him to rely for his self-respect on the testimony of his own heart enables him to disregard the ground- less malice and rash judgments of his opponents. It is in vain for him to pay his court to the world, to fawn upon power ; he laboiirs under certain insurmountable disabilities for becoming a candidate for its favour : he dares to contradict its opinion and to condemn its usages in the most important article of all. The world will always DISSENTERS AND DISSENTING MINISTERS. 89 look cold and askance upon him ; and therefore he may defy it with less fear of its censures. Dissenters are the safest partisans and the steadiest friends. Indeed, they are almost the only people who have an idea of an abstract attachment to a cause or to individuals, from a sense of fidelity, independently of prosperous or adverse circumstances, and in spite of opposition. No patriotism, no public spirit, not reared in that inclement sky and harsh soil, in " the hortus siccus of Dissent," will generally last : it will either bend in the storm or droop in the sunshine. JVbra ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius. You cannot engraft a medlar on a crab-apple. A thoroughbred Dissenter will never make an accomplished courtier. . . . . . . We have known some such [Dissenting ministers] in happier days, who had been brought up and lived from youth to age in the one constant belief of God and of His Christ, and who thought all other things but dross compared with the glory hereafter to be re- vealed. Their youthful hopes and vanity had been mortified in them, even in their boyish days, by the neglect and supercilious regards of the world ; and they turned to look into their own minds for something else to build their hopes and confidence upon. They were true Priests. They set up an image in their own minds — it was truth : they worshipped an idol there — it was justice. They looked on man as their brother, and only bowed the knee to the Highest. Separate from the world, they walked humbly with their God, and lived in thought with those who had borne testimony of a good con- science, with the spirits of just men in all ages. They saw Moses when he slew the ^Egyptian, and the Prophets who overturned the brazen images, and those who were stoned and sawn asunder. They were with Daniel in the lions' den, and with the three children who passed through the fiery furnace, Meshech, Shadrach, and Abed- nego ; they did not crucify Christ tvrice over, or deny Him in their hearts, with St. Peter ; the " Book of Martyrs " was open to them , they read the story of William Tell, of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, and the old one-eyed Zisca ; they had Neale's " History of the Puritans" by heart, and Calamy's "Account of the Two Thousand Ejected Ministers," and gave it to their children to read, with the pictures of the polemical Baxter, the silver-tongued Bates, the mild- looking Calamy, and old honest Howe ; they believed in Lardner's "Credibility of the Gospel History; " they were deep-read in the works of the Fratres Poloni, Pripscovius, Crellius, Cracovius, who sought out truth in texts of Scripture, and grew blind over Hebrew points ; their aspiration after liberty was a sigh uttered from the towers, " time-rent," of the Holy Inquisition ; and their zeal for religious go WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. toleration was kindled at the fires of Smithfield. Their sympathy was not with the oppressors but the oppressed. They cherished in their thoughts — and wished to transmit to their posterity — those rights and privileges for asserting which their ancestors had bled on scafiblds, or had pined in dungeons or in foreign climes. Their creed, too, was " Glory to God, peace on earth, good-will to man.'' This creed, since profaned and rendered vile, they kept fast through good report and evil report. This belief they had, that looks at something out of itself, fixed as the stars, deep as the firmament, that makes of its own heart an altar to truth, a place of worship for what is right, at which it does reverence with praise and prayer like a holy thing, apart and content ; that feels that the greatest Being in the universe is always near it, and that all things work together for the good of His creatures, under His guiding hand. This covenant they kept, as the stars keep their courses ; this principle they stuck by, for want of knowing better, as it sticks by them to the last. It grew with their growth, it does not wither in their decay. It lives when the almond- tree flourishes, and is not bowed down with the tottering knees. It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, smiles in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to the grave. THE CHUKCH AND ITS CLEEGY. . . . The bane of all religions has been the necessity (real or sup- posed) of keeping up an attention and attaching a value to external forms and ceremonies. It was, of course, much easier to conform to these, or to manifest a reverence for them, than to practise the virtues or understand the doctrines of true religion, of which they were merely the outward types and symbols. The consequence has been, that the greatest stress has been perpetually laid on what was of the least value and most easily professed. The form of religion has superseded the substance ; the means have supplanted the end ; and the sterling coin of charity and good works has been driven out of the currency, for the base counterfeits of supersti- tion and intolerance, by aU the money-changers and dealers in the temples established to religion throughout the world. Vestments and chalices have been multiplied for the reception of the Holy Spirit ; the tagged points of controversy and lacquered varnish of hypocrisy have eaten into the solid substance and texture of piety; " and all the inward acts of worship, issuing from the native strength THE ESTABLISHED CLERGY. gi of the soul, ran out (as Milton expresses it) lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden into the crust of formality." Hence we have had such shoals of " Eremites and Friars White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery" — who have foisted their " idiot and embryo " inventions upon us for truth, and who have fomented all the bad passions of the heart, and let loose all the mischiefs of war, of fire and famine, to avenge the slightest difference of opinion on any one iota of their lying creeds, or the slightest disrespect to any one of those mummeries and idle pageants which they had set up as sacred idols for the world to wonder at. We do not forget, in making these remarks, that there was a time when the persons who will be most annoyed and scandalised at them would have taken a more effectual mode of showing their zeal and indignation ; when to have expressed a free opinion on a monk's cowl or a Cardinal's hat would have exposed the writer who had been guilty of such sacrilege to the pains and penalties of excommunication : to be burnt to an auto dafej to be consigned to the dungeons of the Inquisition, or doomed to the mines of Spanish America ; to have his nose slit, or his ears cut off, or his hand reduced to a stump. Such were the considerate and humane proceedings by which the priests of former times vindicated their own honour, which they pretended to be the honour of God. Such was their humility, when they had the power. . , . THE ESTABLISHED CLEEGY. . . . The Established Clergy of any religion are bound to conform their professions of religious belief to a certain popular and lucrative standard, and bound over to keep the peace by certain articles of faith. It is a rare felicity in any one who gives his attention fairly and freely to the subject, and has read the Scriptures, the Misnah, and the Talmud — the Fathers, the Schoolmen, the Sooinian divines, the Lutheran and Calvinistic controversy, with innumerable volumes appertaining thereto and illustrative thereof, to believe all the Thirty-nine Articles, " except one." If those who are destined for the episcopal office exercise their understandings honestly and openly upon every one of these questions, how little chance is there that they should come to the same conclusion upon them all ! If they do not inquire, what becomes of their independence of under- 92 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. standing? If they confonn to what they do not believe, what becomes of their honesty ? Their estimation in the world, as well as their livelihood, depends on their tamely submitting their under- standing to authority at first, and on their not seeing reason to alter their opinion afterwards. Is it likely that a man will intrepidly open his eyes to conviction when he sees poverty and disgrace staring him in the face as the inevitable consequence ? . . . Take one illustration of the truth of aU that has been here said, and of more that might be said, upon the subject. It is related in that valuable comment on the present reign and the existing order of things, Bishop Watson's Life, that the late Dr. Paley, having at one time to maintain a thesis in the University, proposed to the Bishop, for his approbation, the following: — "That the Eternity of Hell torments is contradictory to the goodness of God." The Bishop observed, that he thought this a bold doctrine to maintain in the face of the Church ; but Paley persisted in his determination. Soon after, however, having sounded the opinions of certain persons high in authority and well read in the orthodoxy of preferment, he came back in great alarm, said he found the thing woidd not do, and begged, instead of his first thesis, to have the reverse one sub- stituted in its stead, viz. — " That the Eternity of Hell torments is not contradictory to the goodness of God." What burning daylight is here thrown on clerical discipline and the bias of a University education ! This passage is worth all Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," Wood's "Athena? Oxonienses," and Mr. Coleridge's two " Lay Sermons." This same shuffling divine is the same Dr. Paley who afterwards employed the whole of his life, and his moderate second- hand abilities, in tampering with religion, morality, and politics, — in trimming between his convenience and his conscience, — in crawl- ing between heaven and earth, and trying to cajole both. His celebrated and popular work on Moral Philosophy is celebrated and popular for no other reason, than that it is a somewhat ingeni- ous and amusing apology for existing abuses of every description, by wliich anything is to be got. It is a very elaborate and con- solatory elucidation of the text, that men should not quarrel udih their bread and hatter. It is not an attempt to show what is right, but to palliate and find out plausible excuses for what is wrong. It is a work without the least value, except as a convenient common- place book or vade mecum for tyro politicians and young divines, to smooth their progress in the Church or the State. This work is a text-book in the University. . . . LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD. 93 [^Letter to William Gifford, Esq., i8ig.] [If ever an author was justified in attacking an unscrupulous critic, it was Hazlitt. The reader, after perusing what has been said on this subject in the Memoir prefixed to this volume, will not be surprised at the indignant tone of the letter. I have only given the introductory pages. The "bringing to book" of the slanderer is a fine specimen of trenchant exposure.] SiE, — You have an ugly trick of saying what is not true of any one you do not like ; and it will be the object of this letter to cure you of it. You say what you please of others : it is time you were told what you are. In doing this, give me leave to borrow the familiarity of your style : — for the fidelity of the picture I shall be answerable. You are a little person, but a considerable cat's-paw ; and so far worthy of notice. Your clandestine connection with persons high in office constantly influences your opinions, and alone gives impor- tance to them. You are the Oovernment Critic, a character nicely diflfering from that of a Government spy — the invisible link that connects literature with the police. It is your business to keep a strict eye over all writers who diflfer in opinion with His Majesty's Ministers, and to measure their talents and attainments by the standard of their servility and meanness. For this office you are well qualified. Besides being the Editor of the Quarterly Review, you are also paymaster of the band of Gentlemen Pensioners ; and when an author comes before you in the one capacity, with whom you are not acquainted in the other, you know how to deal with him. You have your cue beforehand. The distinction between truth and falsehood you make no account of : you mind only the distinction between Whig and Tory. Accustomed to the indulgence of your mercenary virulence and party-spite, you have lost all relish as well as capacity for the unperverted exercises of the understand- ing, and make up for the obvious want of ability by a barefaced want of principle. The same set of threadbare commonplaces, the same second-hand assortment of abusive nick-names, the same assumption of httle magisterial airs of superiority, are regularly repeated ; and the ready convenient lie comes in aid of the dearth of other resources, and passes ofi', with impunity, in the garb of religion and loyalty. If no one finds it out, why then there is no harm done — mug's the word; or if it should be detected, it is a good joke, shows spirit and invention in proportion to its grossness and impudence, and it is only a pity that what was so well meant in 94 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. so good a cause slioiild miscarry ! The end sanctifies the means ; and you keep no faith with heretics in religion or government. You are under the protection of the Gourty and your zeal for your king and country entitles you to say what you choose of every public writer who does not do all in his power to pamper the one into a tyrant, and to trample the other into a herd of slaves. You derive your weight with the great and powerful from the very cir- cumstance that takes away all real weight from your authority, viz., that it is avowedly, and upon every occasion, exerted for np one purpose hut to hold up to hatred and contempt whatever opposes in the slightest degree and in the most flagrant instances of abuse their pride and passions. You dictate your opinions to a party, because not one of your opinions is formed upon an honest conviction of the truth or justice of the case, but by collusion with the pre- judices, caprice, interest, or vanity of your employers. The mob of well-dressed readers who consult the Quarterly Review know that there is no offence in it. They put faith in it because they are aware that it is " false and hoUow, but will please the ear ; " that it will tell them nothing but what they would wish to believe. Your reasoning comes under the head of Court-news; your taste is a standard of the prevailing ton in certain circles, like Ackerman's dresses for May. When you damn an author, one knows that he is not a favourite at Carlton House. When you say that an author cannot write common sense or English, you mean that he does not believe in the doctrine of divine right. Of course, the clergy and gentry will not read such an author. Your praise or blame has nothing to do with the merits of a work, but with the party to which the writer belongs, or is in the inverse ratio of its merits. The dingy cover that wraps the pages of the Quarterly Review does not contain a concentrated essence of taste and knowledge, but is a receptacle for the scum and sediment of all the prejudice, bigotry, ill-will, ignorance, and rancour afloat in the kingdom. This the fools and knaves who pin their faith on you know, and it is on this account they pin their faith on you. They come to you for a scale not of literary talent, but of political subserviency. They want you to set your mark of approbation on a writer as a thorough-paced tool, or of reprobation as an honest man. Your fashionable readers, Sir, are hypocrites as well as knaves and fools ; and the watchword, the practical intelligence they want, must be conveyed to them without implied ofience to their candour and liberality, in the patois and gibberish of fraud of which you are a master. When you begin to jabber about common sense and English, they know what to be at, shut up the book, and wonder that any respectable publisher can LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD. 95 be found to let it lie on his counter, as much as if it were a Petition for Reform. . . . There is something in your nature and habits that fits you for the situation into which your good fortune has thrown you. In the first place, you are in no danger of exciting the jealousy of your patrons by a mortifying display of extraordinary talents, while your sordid devotion to their will and to your own interest at once ensures their gratitude and contempt. To crawl and lick the dust is all they expect of you, and all you can do. Otherwise they might fear your power, for they could have no dependence on your fidelity : but they take you with safety and with fondness to their bosoms ; for they know that if you cease to be a tool you cease to be anything. If you had an exuberance of wit, the unguarded use of it might sometunes glance at your employers ; if you were sincere yourself, you might respect the motives of others ; if you had suffi- cient understanding, you might attempt an argument, and fail in it. But luckily for yourself and your admirers, you are but the dull echo, "the tenth transmitter" of some hackneyed jest: the want of all manly and candid feeling in yourself only excites your suspicion and antipathy to it in others, as something at which your nature recoils ; your slowness to understand makes you quick to misrepre- sent ; and you infallibly make nonsense of what you cannot possibly conceive. What seem your wilful blunders are often the felicity of natural parts, and your want of penetration has all the appearance of an affected petulance ! Again, of an humble origin yourself, you recommend your per- formances to persons of fashion by always abusing low people, with the smartness of a lady's waiting-woman and the independent spirit of a travelling tutor. Raised from the lowest rank to your present despicable eminence in the world of letters, you are indignant that any one should attempt to rise into notice, except . by the same regular trammels and servile gradations, or should go about to separate the stamp of merit from the badge of sycophancy. The silent listener in select circles, and menial tool of noble families, you have become the oracle of Church and State. The purveyor to the prejudices or passions of a private patron succeeds, by no other title, to regulate the public taste. You have felt the inconveniences of poverty, and look up with base and grovelling admiration to the advantages of wealth and power : you have had to contend with the mechanical difficulties of a want of education, and you see nothing in learning but its mechanical uses. A self-taught man naturally becomes a pedant, and mistakes the means of knowledge for the end, uijless he is a man of genius ; and you, Sir, are not a man of genius. From having known nothing originally, you think L 95 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. it a great acquisition to know anything now, no matter what or how small it is — nay, the smaller and more insignificant it is, the more curious you seem to think it, as it is farther removed from common sense and human nature. The collating of points and commas is the highest game your literary ambition can reach to, and the squabbles of editors are to you infinitely more important than the meaning of an author. You think more of the letter than the spirit of a passage, and, in your eagerness to show your minute superiority over those who have gone before you, generally miss both. In comparing yourself with others, you make a considerable mistake. You suppose the common advantages of a liberal educa- tion to be something peculiar to yourself, and calculate your progress beyond the rest of the world from the obscure point at which you first set out. Yet your overweening self-complacency is never easy but in the expression of your contempt for others ; like a conceited mechanic in a village ale-house, you would set down every one who differs from you as an ignorant blockhead, and very fairly infer that any one who is beneath yourself must be nothing. You have been well called an ultra-Crepidarian critic. From the difficulty you yourself have in constructing a sentence of common grammar, and your frequent failures, you instinctively presume that no author who comes under the lash of your pen can xmderstand his mother-tongue: and again, you suspect every one who is not your "very good friend" of knowing nothing of the Greek or Latin, because you are surprised to think how you came by your own knowledge of them. There is an innate littleness and v\ilgarity in all you do. In combating an opinion, you never take a broad and liberal ground, state it fairly, allow what there is of truth or an appearance of truth, and then assert your own judgment by exposing what is deficient in it, and giving a more masterly view of the subject. No: this would be committing your powers and pretensions where you dare not trust them. You know yourself better. You deny the meaning alto- gether, misquote or misapply, and then plume yourself on your own superiority to the absurdity you have created. Your triumph over your antagonists is the triumph of your cunning and mean-spirited- ness over some nonentity of your own making ; and your wary self- knowledge shrinks from a comparison with any but the most puny pretensions, as the spider retreats fromthe caterpillar into its web. There cannot be a greater nuisance than a dull, envious, prag- matical, low-bred man, who is placed as you are in the situation of the Editor of such a work as the Quarterly Review. Conscious that his reputation stands on very slender and narrow grounds, he is naturally jealous of that of others. He insults imsuccessful LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD. 97 authors : he hates successful ones. He is angry at the faults of a work I more angry at its excellences. If an opinion is old, he treats it with supercilious indifference ; if it is new, it provokes his rage. Everything beyond his limited range of inquiry appears to him a paradox and an absurdity ; and he resents every suggestion of the kind as an imposition on the public and an imputation on his own sagacity. He cavils at what he does not comprehend, and misre- presents what he knows to be true. Bound to go through the nauseous task of abusing all those who are not, like himself, the abject tools of power, his irritation increases with the number of obstacles he encounters and the number of sacrifices he is obliged to make of common sense and decency to his interest and self-conceit. Every instance of prevarication he wilfully commits makes him more in love with hypocrisy, and every indulgence of his hired malignity makes him more disposed to repeat the insult and the injury. His understanding becomes daily more distorted, and his feelings more and more callous. Grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted impotence and shameless effrontery ; salves a meagre reputation for wit, by venting the driblets of his spleen and impertinence on others; answers their arguments by confuting himself; mistakes habitual obtuseuess of intellect for a particular acuteness, not to be imposed upon by shallow appear- ances ; unprincipled rancour for zealous loyalty ; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental imbecility for proofs of refinement of taste and strength of under- standing. Such, Sir, is the picture of which you have sat for the outline : — all that remains is to fill up the little, mean, crooked, dirty details. The task is to me no very pleasant one ; for I can feel very little ambition to follow you through your ordinary routine of pettifogging objections and barefaced assertions, the only difficulty of making which is to throw aside all regard to truth and decency, and the only difficulty in answering them is to overcome one's contempt for the writer. But you are a nuisance, and shovild be abated. 98 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. [Lectures on the English Poets, 1818. Second JBdition i8ig. Third Edition 1841. Fourth Edition 1S72.] ON POETRY IN GENERAL. The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and pro- ducing, by sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it. . . . Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. It comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but what so comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape can be a subject for poetry. Poetry is the imiversal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. It is not a mere frivolous accomplish- ment (as some persons have been led to imagine), the trifling amusement of a few idle readers or leisure hours : it has been the study and delight of mankind in all ages. Many people suppose that poetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of ten syllables with like endings; but wherever there is a sense of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in the growth of a flower that " spreads its sweet leaves to the air, and dedicates its beauty to the sun," there is poetry, in its birth. If history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the most part, of the cumbrous and unwieldy masses of things, the empty cases in which the aflfairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or war, in different states, and from century to century; but there is no thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man which he would be eager to communicate to others, or which they would listen to with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a branch of author- ship ; it is " the stufli of which our life is made." The rest is " mere oblivion," a dead letter : for all that is worth remembering in life is the poetry of it. Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry ; contempt, jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness are all poetry. Poetry is that fine particle within us that expands, rarefies, refines, raises our whole being: ON POETRY IN GENERAL. 99 without it " man's life is poor as beast's." Man is a poetical animal ; and those of us who do not study the principles of poetry act upon them all our lives, like Molifere's Bourgeois Oentilhomme, who had always spoken prose without knowing it. The child is a poet, in fact, when he first plays at hide-and-seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shepherd-boy is a poet when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman, when he stops to look at the rainbow ; the city apprentice, when he gazes after the Lord Mayor's show ; the miser, when he hugs his gold ; the courtier, who builds his hopes upon a smile ; the savage, who paints his idol with blood ; the slave, who worships a tyrant ; or the tyrant, who fancies himself a god ; the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, all live in a world of their own making ; and the poet does no more than describe what all the others think and act. . . . Poetry, then, is an imitation of nature, but the imagination and the passions are a part of man's nature. We shape things according to our wishes and fancies, without poetry ; but poetry is the most emphatical language that can be found for those creations of the mind " which ecstasy is very cunning in." Neither a mere descrip- tion of natural objects nor a mere delineation of natural feelings, however distinct or forcible, constitutes the ultimate end and aim of poetry, without the heightenings of the imagination. The light of poetry is not only a direct but also a reflected light, that, whUe it shows us the object, throws a sparkling radiance on all around it: the flame of the passions, communicated to the imagination, reveals to us, as with a flash of lightning, the inmost recesses of thought, and penetrates our whole being. Poetry represents forms cliiefiy as they suggest other forms : feehngs, as they suggest forms or other feelings. Poetry puts a spirit of life and motion into the universe. It describes the flowing, not the fixed. It does not define the limits of sense, or analyse the distinctions of the under- standing, but signifies the excess of the imagination beyond the actual or ordinary impression of any object or feeling. The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself, that is impatient of all limit, that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur, to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by the most striking examples of the same quality in other instances. Poetry, according to Lord Bacon, for this reason " has something 100 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. divine in it, because it raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity, by conforming the shows of things to the desires of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and history do." It is strictly the language of the imagination ; and the imagination is that faculty which represents objects, not as they are in them- selves, but as they are moulded by other thoughts and feelings^ into an infinite variety of shapes and combinations of power. This language is not the less true to nature because it is false in point of fact, but so much the more true and natural if it conveys the impression which the object under the influence of passion makes on the mind. Let an object, for instance, be presented to the senses in a state of agitation or fear, and the imagination wUl distort or magnify the object, and convert it into the likeness of whatever is most proper to encourage the fear. . . . One mode in which the dramatic exhibition of passion excites our sympathy without raising our disgust is, that in proportion as it sharpens the edge of calamity and disappointment it strengthens the desire of good. It enhances our consciousnoss of the blessing, by making us sensible of the magnitude of the loss. The storm of passion lays bare and shows us the rich depths of the human soul : the whole of our existence, the sum-total of our passions and pur- suits, of that which we desire and that which we dread, is brought before us by contrast ; the action and reaction are equal ; the keen- ness of immediate suffering only gives us a more intense aspiration after and a more intimate participation with the antagonist world of good : makes us drink deeper of the cup of human life : tugs at the heart-strings : loosens the pressure about them, and calls the springs of thought and feeling into play with tenfold force. . . . Poetry is in all its shapes the language of the imagination and the passions, of fancy and will. Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd than the outcry which has been sometimes raised by frigid and pedantic critics for reducing the language of poetry to the standard of common sense and reason; for the end and use of poetry, "both at the first and now, was and is to hold the mirror up to nature," seen through the medium of passion and imaginar tion, not divested of that medium by means of literal truth, or abstract reason. The painter of history might as well be required to represent the face of a person who has just trod upon a serpent with the stiU-life expression of a common portrait, as the poet to describe the most striking and vivid impressions which thino-s can be supposed to make upon the mind in the language of common conversation. Let who will strip nature of the colours and the shapes of fancy, the poet is not bound to do so ; the impressions of ON POETRY IN GENERAL. loi common sense and strong imagination, that is, of passion and indif- ference, cannot be the same, and they must have a separate language to do justice to either. Objects must strike differently upon the mind, independently of what they are in themselves, as long as we have a different interest in them, as we see them in a different point of view, nearer or at a greater distance (morally or physically speak- ing), from novelty, from old acquaintance, from our ignorance of them, from our fear of their consequences, from contrast, from un- expected likeness. We can no more take away the faculty of the imagination than we can see all objects without light or shade. Some things must dazzle us by their preternatural light; others must hold us in suspense, and tempt our curiosity to explore their obscurity. Those who would dispel these various illusions, to give us their drab-coloured creation in their stead, are not very wise. Let the naturalist, if he will, catch the glow-worm, carry it home with him in a box, and find it next morning nothing but a little grey worm : let the poet or the lover of poetry visit it at evening, when beneath the scented hawthorn and the orescent moon it has built itself a palace of emerald light. This is also one part of nature, one appearance which the glow-worm presents, and that not the least interesting; so poetry is one part of the history of the htunan mind, though it is neither science nor philosophy. It cannot be concealed, however, that the progress of knowledge and refine- ment has a tendency to circumscribe the limits of the imagination and to clip the wings of poetry. The province of the imagination is principally visionary, the unknown and undefined: the under- standing restores things to their natural boundaries, and strips them of their fanciful pretensions. . . . Wherever any object takes such a hold of the mind as to make us dweU. upon it and brood over it, melting the heart in tenderness, or kindling it to a sentiment of enthusiasm ; wherever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, to bring all other objects into accord with it, and to give the same movement of harmony, sustained and continuous, or gradually varied, according to the occasion, to the sounds that express it — ^this is poetry. The musical in sound is the sustained and continuous ; the musical in thought is the sustained and continuous also. There is a near connection between music and deep-rooted passion. Mad people sing. As often as articulation passes naturally into intonation, there poetry begins. Where one idea gives a tone and colour to others, where one feeling melts others into it, there can be no reason why the same principle should not be extended to the sounds by which the voice utters these 102 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. emotions of the soul, and blends syllables and Unes into each other. It is to supply the inherent defect of harmony in the customary mechanism of language, to make the sound an echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself — ^to mingle the tide of verse, " the golden cadences of poetry," with the tide of feeling, flowing and murmuring as it flows — in short, to take the language of the imagination from off the ground, and enable it to spread its wings where it may indulge its own impulses : " Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air " — without being stopped, or fretted, or diverted with the abruptnesses and petty obstacles, and discordant flats and sharps of prose, that poetry was invented. It is to common language what springs are to a carriage or wings to feet. . , . I will mention three works which come as near to poetry as pos- sible without absolutely being so ; namely, the " Pilgrim's Pro- gress," "Bobinson Crusoe," and the Tales of Boccaccio. Chaucer and Dryden have translated some of the last into English rhyme, but the essence and the power of poetry was there before. That which lifts the spirit above the earth, which draws the soul out of itself with indescribable longings, is poetry in kind, and generally fit to become so in name, by being " married to immortal verse." If it is of the essence of poetry to strike and fix the imagination, whether we will or no, to make the eye of childhood glisten with the starting tear, to be never thought of afterwards with indifference, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe may be permitted to pass for poets in their way. The mixture of fancy and reality in the " Pilgrim's Progress " was never equalled in any allegory. His pilgrims walk above the earth, and yet are on it. What zeal, what beauty, what truth of fiction! "What deep feeling in the description of Christian's swimming across the water at last, and in the picture of the Shining Ones within the gates, with wings at their backs and garlands on their heads, who are to wipe all tears from his eyes ! The writer's genius, though not " dipped in dews of Castalie," was baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The prints in this book are no small part of it. If the confinement of Philoctetes in the island of Lemnos was a subject for the most beautiful of all the Greek tragedies, what shall we say to Robinson Crusoe in his ? Take the speech of the Greek herb on leaving his cave, beautiful as it is, and compare it with the reflections of the English adventurer in his solitary place of confine- ment. The thoughts of home, and of all from which he is for ever cut off, swell and press against his bosom, as the heaving ocean rolls ON POETRY IN GENERAL. 103 its ceaseless tide against the rocky shore, and the very beatings of his heart become audible in the eternal silence that surrounds him. Thus he says : "As I walked about, either in my hunting, or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a, sudden, and my very heart would die within me to think of the woods, the mountains, and deserts I was in ; and how I was a prisoner, locked up vrith the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands, and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together, and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst into tears or vent myself in words, it would go off, and the grief having exhausted itself would abate." ... I shall conclude this general account with some remarks on four of the principal works of poetry in the world, at different periods of history — Homer, the Bible, Dante, and, let me add, Ossian. In Homer, the principle of action or life is predominant ; in the Bible, the principle of faith and the idea of Providence ; Dante is a per- sonification of blind wUl ; and in Ossian we see the decay of life and the lag-end of the world. Homer's poetry is the heroic : it is full of life and action ; it is bright as the day, strong as a river. In the vigour of his intellect, he grapples with all the objects of nature, and enters into all the relations of social life. He saw many countries, and the manners of many men ; and he has brought them all together in his poem. He describes his heroes going to battle with a prodigality of life, arising from an exuberance of animal spirits ; we see them before us, their number and their order of battle, poured out upon the plain '' all plumed like ostriches, like eagles newly bathed, wanton as goats, wild as young bulls, youthful as May, and gorgeous as the sun at midsummer," covered with glittering armour, with dust and blood ; while the gods quaff their nectar in golden cups or mingle in the fray; and the old men assembled on the walls of Troy rise up with reverence as Helen passes by them. The multitude of things in Homer is wonderful ; their splendour, their truth, their force and variety. His poetry is, like his religion, the poetry of number and form : he describes the bodies as well as the souls of men. The poetry of the Bible is that of imagination and of faith : it is abstract and disembodied : it is not the poetry of form, but of power; not of multitude, but of immensity. It does not divide 104 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. into many, but aggrandises into one. Its ideas of nature are lite its ideas of God. It is not the poetry of social life, but of solitude : each man seems alone in the world, with the original forms of nature, the rooks, the earth, and the sky. It is not the poetry of action or heroic enterprise, but of faith in a supreme Providence and resigna- tion to the power that governs the universe. As the idea of God was removed farther from humanity and a scattered polytheism, it became more profound and intense, as it became more universal, for the Infinite is present to everything : " If we fly into the uttermost parts of the earth, it is there also ; if we turn to the east or the west, we cannot escape from it." Man is thus aggrandised in the image of his Maker. The history of the patriarchs is of this kind ; they are founders of a chosen race of people, the inheritors of the earth ; they exist in the generations which are to come after them. Their poetry, like their religious creed, is vast, unformed, obscure, and infinite ; a vision is upon it ; an invisible hand is suspended over it. The spirit of the Christian religion consists in the glory hereafter to be revealed ; but in the Hebrew dispensation Providence took an im- mediate share in the affairs of this life. Jacob's dream arose out of this intimate communion between heaven and earth : it was this that let down, in the sight of the youthful patriarch, a golden ladder from the sky to the earth, with angels ascending and de- scending upon it, .and shed a light upon the lonely place, which can never pass away. The story of Ruth, again, is as if all the depth of natural aflection in the human race was involved in her breast. There are descriptions in the Book of Job more prodigal of imagery, more intense in passion, than anything in Homer ; as that of the state of his prosperity, and of the vision that came upon him by night. The metaphors in the Old Testament are more boldly figura- tive. Things were collected more into masses, and gave a greater momentum to the imagination. Dante was the father of modern poetry, and he may therefore claim a place in this connection. His poem is the first great step from Gothic darkness and barbarism ; and the struggle of thought in it to burst the thraldom in which the human mind had been so long held is felt in every page. He stood bewildered, not appalled on that dark shore which separates the ancient and the modem world, and saw the glories of antiquity dawning through the abyss of time, while revelation opened its passage to the other world. He was lost in wonder at what had been done before lum, and he dared to emulate it. Dante seems to have been indebted to the Bible for the gloomy tone of his mind, as well as for the prophetic fury which exalts and kindles his poetry ; but he is utterly unlike Homer. His ON POETRY IN GENERAL. 105 genius is not a sparlding flame, but the sullen heat of a furnace. He is power, passion, self-will personified. In all that relates to the descriptive or fanciful part of poetry, he bears no comparison to many who had gone before, or who have come after him ; hut there is a gloomy abstraction in his conceptions, which lies Hke a dead weight upon the mind — a benumbing stupor, a breathless awe, from the intensity of the impression — a terrible obscurity, like that which oppresses us in dreams — an identity of interest, which moulds every object to its own purposes, and clothes all things with the passions and imaginations of the human soul — that make amends for all other deficiencies. The immediate objects he presents to the mind are not much in themselves ; they want grandeur, beauty, and order ; but they become everything by the force of the character he impresses upon them. His mind lends its own power to the objects which it contemplates, instead of borrowing it from them. He takes advan- tage even of the nakedness and dreary vacuity of his subject. His imagination peoples the shades of death, and broods over the silent air. He is the severest of all writers, the most hard and impene- trable, the most opposite to the flowery and glittering ; [the writer] who relies most on his own power, and the sense of it in others, and who leaves most room to the imagination of his readers. Dante's only endeavour is to interest ; and he interests by exciting our sympathy with the emotion by which he is himself possessed. He does not place before us the objects by which that emotion has been created ; but he seizes on the attention, by showing us the effect they produce on his feelings ; and his poetry accordingly gives the same thrilling and overwhelming sensation which is caught by gazing on the face of a person who has seen some object of horror. The improbability of the events, the abruptness and monotony in the " Inferno " are excessive ; but the interest never flags, from the con- tinued earnestness of the author's mind. Dante's great power is in combining internal feelings with external objects. . . . Another writer whom I shall mention last, and whom I cannot persuade myself to think a mere modem in the groundwork, is Ossian. He is a feeling and a name that can never be destroyed in the minds of his readers. As Homer is the first vigour and lustihead, Ossian is the decay and old age of poetry. He lives only in the recollection and regret of the past. There is one impression which he conveys more entirely than all other poets; namely, the sense of privation, the loss of all things, of friends, of good name, of country ; he is even without God in the world. He converses only with the spirits of the departed ; with the motionless and silent clouds. The cold moonlight sheds its faint lustre on his io6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. head ; the fox peeps out of the ruined tower ; the thistle waves its beard to the wandering gale ; and the strings of his harp seem, as the hand of age, as the tale of other times, passes over them, to sigh and rustle like the dry reeds in the winter's wind ! The feeling of cheerless desolation, of the loss of the pith and sap of existence, of the annihilation of the substance, and the clinging to the shadow of all things, as in a mock-embrace, is here perfect. In this way, the lamentation of Selma for the loss of Salgar is the finest of all. If it were indeed possible to show that this writer was nothing, it would only be another instance of mutability, another blank made, another void left in the heart, another confirmation of that feeling which makes him so often complaki, " Roll on, ye dark brown years, ye bring no joy on your wing to Ossian ! " CHAUCER AND SPENSER. Chattcer (who has been very properly considered as the father of English poetry) preceded Spenser by two centuries. He is supposed to have been born in London, in the year 1328, during the reign of Edward III., and to have died in 1400, at the age of seventy-two. He received a learned education at one or at both of the Universi- ties, and travelled early into Italy, where he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit and excellences of the great Italian poets and prose-writers, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and is said to have had a personal interview with one of these, Petrarch. He was connected by marriage with the famous John of Gaunt, through whose interest he was introduced into several public employments. Chaucer was an active partisan, a religious reformer, and from the share he took in some disturbances on one occasion, he was obliged to fly the country. On his return he was imprisoned, and made his peace with Government, as it is said, by a discovery of his associates. Fortitude does not appear at any time to have been the distinguish- ing virtue of poets. There is, however, an obvious similarity between the practical turn of Chaucer's mind and restless impatience of his character and the tone of his ivritings. Yet it would be too much to attribute the one to the other as cause and efiect ; for Spenser, whose poetical temperament was as eflfeminate as Chaucer's was stern and masculine, was equally engaged in public aflfairs, and had mixed equally in the great world. So much does native disposition predominate over accidental circumstances, moulding them to its previous bent and purposes ! For while Chaucer's intercourse with the busy world, and collision with the actual passions and conflicting CHAUCER AND SPENSEJ!. 107 interest of others, seemed to brace the sinews of his understanding, and gave to his writings the air of a man who describes persons and things that he had known and been intimately concerned in, the same opportunities, operating on a diflferently constituted frame, only served to alienate Spenser's mind the more from the " close- pent-up " scenes of ordinary life, and to make him " rive their con- cealing continents," to give himself up to the unrestrained indulgence of " flowery tenderness." It is not possible for any two writers to be more opposite in this respect. Spenser delighted in luxurious enjoyment; Chaucer, in severe activity of mind. As Spenser was the most romantic and visionary, Chaucer was the most practical of all the great poets, the most a man of business and the world. His poetry reads like his- tory. Everything has a downright reality, at least in the relater's mind. A simile or a sentiment is as if it were given in upon evidence. . . . He speaks of what he wishes to describe vidth the accuracy, the discrimination of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be interesting to the persons really concerned : yet, as he never omits any material circumstance, he is proUx from the number of points on which he touches, without being diffuse on any one ; and is sometimes tedious from the fidelity with which he adheres to his subject, as other writers are from the freqiiency of their digressions from it. The chain of his story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, and riveted by a single blow. There is an instance of the minuteness which he introduces into his most serious descriptions in his account of Palamon when left alone in his cell : *' Swiche sorrow he maketh that the grete tour Resouned of his yelling and clamour : The pure fetters on his shinnes grete Were of his bitter salte teres wete." The mention of this last circumstance looks like a part of the in- structions he had to follow, which he had no discretionary power to leave out or introduce at pleasure. He is contented to find grace and beauty in truth. He exhibits for the most part the naked object, with little drapery thrown over it. His metaphors, which are few, are not for ornament but use, and as like as possible to the things themselves. He does not afiect to show his power over the reader's mind, but the power which his subject has over his own. io8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. The readers of Chaucer's poetry feel more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt than perhaps those of any other poet. His sentiments are not voluntary effusions of the poet's fancy, but [are] founded on the natural impulses and habitual prejudices of the characters he has to represent. There is an inveteracy of pur- pose, a sincerity of feeling, which never relaxes or grows vapid, in whatever they do or say. There is no artificial, pompous display, but a strict parsimony of the poet's materials, like the rude simplicity of the age in which he lived. His poetry resembles the root just springing from the ground, rather than the full-blown flower. His muse is no " babbling gossip of the air," fluent and redundant, but, like a stammerer or a dumb person, that has just found the use of speech, crowds many things together with eager haste, with anxious pauses, and fond repetitions to prevent mistake. His words point as an index to the objects, like the eye or finger. There were none of the commonplaces of poetic diction in our author's time, no reflected lights of fancy, no borrowed roseate tints ; he was obliged to inspect things for himself, to look narrowly, and almost to handle the object, as in the obscurity of morning we partly see and partly grope our way ; so that his descriptions have a sort of tangible character belonging to them, and produce the effect of sctdpture on the mind. Chaucer had an equal eye for truth of nature and dis- crimination of character ; and his interest in what he saw gave new distinctness and force to liis power of observation. The picturesque and the dramatic are in him closely blended together, and hardly distinguishable; for he principally describes external appearances as indicating character, as symbols of internal sentiment. There is a meaning in what he sees ; and it is this which catches his eye by sympathy. Thus the costume and dress of the Canterbury Pilgrims, of the Knight, the Squire, the Oxford Scholar, the Gap-toothed Wife of Bath, and the rest speak for themselves. . . . Chaucer's descriptions of natural scenery possess the same sort of characteristic excellence, or what might be termed gusto. They have a local truth and freshness, which gives the very feeling of the air, the coolness or moisture of the ground. Inanimate objects are thus made to have a feUow-feehng m the interest of the story, and render back the sentiment of the speaker's mind. One of the finest parts of Chaucer is of this mixed kind. It is the beginning of the " Flower and the Leaf," where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and listening, in the morning of the year, to the singmg of the nightingale ; while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of pleasure, and still increases, and repeats, CHAUCER AND SPENSER. 109 and prolongs itself, and knows no ebb. The coolness of the arbour, its retirement, the early time of the day, the sudden starting up of the birds in the neighbouring bushes, the eager dehght with which they devour and rend the opening buds and flowers, are ex- pressed with a truth and feeling which make the whole appear like the recollection of an actual scene. . . . The interval between Ohauoer and Spenser is long and dreary. There is nothing to iUl up the chasm but the names of Occleve, " ancient Gower," Lydgate, Wyatt, Surrey, and Sackville. Spenser flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was sent with Sir John Davies into Ireland, of which he has left behind him some tender recollections in his description of the bog of Allan, and a record in an ably written paper, containing observations on the state of that country and the means of improving it, which remain in full force to the present day. Spenser died at an obscure inn in London, it is supposed in distressed circumstances. The treat- ment he received from Burleigh is well known. Spenser, as well as Chaucer, was engaged in active life ; but the genius of his poetry was not active ; it is inspired by the love of ease and the relaxation from all the cares and business of life. Of all the poets, he is the most poetical. Though much later than Chaucer, his obligations to preceding writers were less. He has in some measure borrowed the plan of his poem (as a number of distinct narratives) from Ariosto ; but he has engrafted upon it an exuberance of fancy and an endless voluptuousness of sentiment which are not to be found in the Italian writer. Further, Spenser is even more of an inventor in the subject-matter. There is an originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages and fictions which almost vies with the splendom: of the ancient mythology. If Ariosto transports us into the regions of romance, Spenser's poetry is all fairy-land. In Ariosto, we walk upon the ground, in a company ^ay, fantastic, and adventurous enough. In Spenser, we wander in another world among ideal beings. The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we j expected to find it, and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. I He waves his wand of enchantment, and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veU over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and of fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination. His ideas, indeed, seem more distinct than his per- ceptions. He is the painter of abstractions, and describes them with dazzling minuteness. . . . The language of Spenser is full and copious to overflovring : it ia no WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. less pure and idiomatic than Chaucer's, and is enriched and adorned with phrases borrowed from the diflferent languages of Europe, both ancient and modem. He was, probably, seduced into a certain license of expression by the difficulty of filling up the moulds of his complicated rhymed stanza from the limited resources of his native language. This stanza, with alternate and repeatedly recurring rhymes, is borrowed from the Italians. It was peculiarly fitted to their language, which abounds in similar vowel terminations, and is as little adapted to ours, from the stubborn, unaccommodating re- sistance which the consonant endings of the northern languages make to this sort of endless sing-song. Not that I would, on that account, part with the stanza of Spenser. We are, perhaps, in- debted to this very necessity of finding out new forms of expression, and to the occasional faults to which it led, for a poetical language rich and varied and magnificent beyond all former, and almost all later, example. His versification is at once the most smooth and the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds, " in many a winding bout of Imked sweetness long drawn out," that would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation, dwelling on the pauses of the action, or flowing on in a fuller tide of harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It haa not the bold dramatic transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the high-raised tone of Milton's ; but it is the perfection of melting harmony, dissolving the soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of suspense. Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams ; and he has invented not only a language, but a music of his own for them. The imdulations are infinite, like those of the waves of the sea ; but the eflfect is still the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises of the world, from which we have no wish to be over recalled. SHAKSPBARE AND MILTON. In looking back to the great works of genius in former times, we are sometimes disposed to wonder at the little progress which has since been made in poetry, and in the arts of imitation in general. But this is perhaps a foolish wonder. Nothing can be more con- trary to the fact than the supposition that in what we understand by the fiiie arts as painting and poetry, relative perfection is only the result of repeated efforts in successive periods, and that what has been once well done constantly leads to something better. "What is mechanical, reducible to rule, or capable of demonstration, SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. ui is progressive, and admits of gradual improvement: what is not 'mechanical, or definite, but depends on feeling, taste, and genius, very soon becomes stationary or retrograde, and loses more than it gains by transfusion. The contrary opinion is a vulgar error which has grown up, like many others, from transferring an analogy of one kind to something quite distinct, without taking into account the difference in the nature of the things or attending to the dif- ference of the results. For most persons, finding what wonderful advances have been made in Bibhcal criticism, in chemistry, in mechanics, in geometry, astronomy, &c., i.e., in things depending on mere inquiry and experiment or on absolute demonstration, have been led hastily to conclude that there was a general tendency in the efforts of the human intellect to improve by repetition, and, in all other arts and institutions, to grow perfect and mature by time. We look back upon the theological creed of our ancestors, and their discoveries in natural philosophy, with a smile of pity : science, and the arts connected with it, have all had their infancy, their youth and manhood, and seem to contain in them no principle of limita- tion or decay ; and, inquiring no further about the matter, we infer, in the intoxication of our pride and the height of our self-congratu- lation, that the same progress has been made, and wiU continue to be made, in all other things which are the work of man. The fact, however, stares us so plainly in the face, that one would think the smallest reflection must suggest the truth, and overturn our sanguine theories. The greatest poets, the ablest orators, the best painters, and the finest sculptors that the world ever saw appeared soon after the birth of these arts, and lived in a state of society which was, in other respects, comparatively barbarous. Those arts, which depend on individual genius and incommunicable power, have always leaped at once from infancy to manhood, from the first rude dawn of in- vention to their meridian height and dazzling lustre, and have in general declined ever after. This is the peculiar distinction and privilege of each, of science and of art : of the one, never to attain its utmost limit of perfection ; and of the other, to arrive at it almost at once. Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dante, and Ariosto (Milton alone was of a later age, and not the worse for it) : Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Cervantes, and Boc- caccio : the Greek sculptors and tragedians : all lived near the be- ginning of their arts, perfected, and aU but created them. These giant-sons of genius stand indeed upon the earth, but they tower above their fellows; and the long line of their successors, in dif- ferent ages, does not interpose any object to obstruct their view or lessen their brightness. In strength and stature they are unrivalled; M 112 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. in grace and beauty they have not been surpassed. In after-ages and more refined periods (as they are called) great men have arisen, one by one, as it were by throes and at intervals ; though in general the best of these cultivated and artificial minds were of an inferior order, as Tasso and Pope among poets ; Guide and Vandyke among painters. But in the earlier stages of the arts, as soon as the first mechanical difficulties had been got over, and the language was suf- ficiently acquired, they rose by clusters and in constellations, never so to rise again ! The arts of painting and poetry are conversant with the world of thought within us, and with the world of sense around us — with what we know, and see, and feel intimately. They flow from the sacred shrine of our own breasts, and are kindled at the living lamp of nature. But the pulse of the passions assuredly beat as high, the depths and soundings of the human heart were as well understood, three thousand or three hundred years ago as they are at present : the face of nature and " the human face divine " shone as bright then as they have ever done. But it is their light, reflected by true genius on art, that marks out its path before it, and sheds a glory round the Muses' feet, like that which " Circled Una's angel face, And made a sunshine in the shady place.*" The four greatest names in English poetry are almost the four first we come to : Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. There are no others that can really be put in competition with these. The two last have had justice done them by the voice of common fame. Their names are blazoned in the very firmament of reputation; while the two first (though " the fault has been more in their stars than in themselves that they are underlings ") either never emerged far above the horizon or were too soon involved in the obscurity of time. In comparing these four writers together, it might be said that Chaucer excels as the poet of manners, or of real life ; Spenser, as the poet of romance; Shakspeare as the poet of nature (in the largest use of the term); and Milton, as the poet of morality. Chaucer most frequently describes things as they are ; Spenser, as we wish them to be ; Shakspeare, as they would be ; and Milton, as they ought to be. As poets, and as great -poets, imagination, that is, the power of feigning things according to nattire, was com- mon to them all ; but the principle or moving power to which this faculty was most subservient in Chaucer was habit or inveterate prejudice; in Spenser, novelty and the love of the marvellous; in SHAKSPEARB AND MILTON. 113 Shakspeare, it was the force of passion, combined with every variety of possible circumstances ; and in Milton, [combined] only with the highest. The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness ; of Milton, elevation ; of Shakspere, everything. It has been said by some critic, that Shakspeare was distinguished from the other dramatic writers of his day only by his wit ; that they had all his other qualities but that; that one writer had as much sense, another as much fancy, another as much knowledge of character, another the same depth of passion, and another as great a power of language. This statement is not true ; nor is the inference from it well foimded, even if it were. This person does not seem to have been aware that, upon his own showing, the great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its virtually including the genius of all the great men of his age, and not his differing from them in one acci- dental particular. But to have done with such minute and literal trifling. The striking peculiarity of Shakspeare's mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds, so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar bias or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself ; but he was all that others were, or that they could become. He not only had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them by anticipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict of passion, or turn of thought. He had " a mind reflecting ages past " and present : all the people that ever lived are there. There was no respect of persons with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar. " All corners of the earth, kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave," are hardly hid from his searching glance. He was like the genius of humanity, changing places with all of us at pleasure, and playing with our purposes as with his own. He turned the globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men, and the indivi- duals as they passed, with their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives — as well those that they knew as those which they did not know, or acknowledge to themselves. The dreams of childhood, the ravings of despair, were the toys of his fancy. Airy beings waited at his call and came at his bidding. Harmless fairies "nodded to him, and did him courtesies ;" and the night-hag bestrode the blast at the command of "his so potent 114 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. art." The world of spirits lay open to him, like the world of real men and women ; and there is the same truth in his delineations of the one as of the other ; for if the preternatural characters he de- scribes could be supposed to exist, they would speak, and feel, and act as he makes them. He had only to think of anjrthing in order to be- come that thing, with all the circumstances belonging to it. When he conceived of a character, whether real or imaginary, he not only entered into all its thoughts and feelings, but seemed instantly, and as if by touching a secret spring, to be surrounded with all the same objects, " subject to the same skyey influences," the same local, out- ward, and unforeseen accidents which would occur in reality. Thus the character of Caliban not only stands before us with a language and manners of its own, but the scenery and situation of the en- chanted island he inhabits, the traditions of the place, its strange noises, its hidden recesses, " his frequent haunts and ancient neigh- bourhood," are given with a miraculous truth of nature, and with all the familiarity of an old recollection. The whole " coheres semblably together " in time, place, and circumstance. In reading this author, you do not merely learn what his characters say : you see their per- sons. By something expressed or understood, you are at no loss to decipher their peculiar physiognomy, the meaning of a look, the grouping, the by-play, as we might see it on the stage. A word, an epithet, paints a whole scene, or throws us back whole years in the history of the person represented. . . . That which, perhaps, more than anything else distinguishes the dramatic productions of Shakspeare from all others is this wonder- ful truth and individuality of conception. Each of his characters is .as much itself, and as absolutely independent of the rest as well as of the author, as if they were living persons, not fictions of the mind. The poet may be said, for the time, to identify himself with the character he wishes to represent, and to pass from one to another, like the same soul successively animating dififerent bodies. By an art like that of the ventriloquist, he throws his imagination out of himself, and makes every word appear to proceed from the mouth of the person in whose name it is given. His plays alone are properly expressions of the passions, not descriptions of them. His characters are real beings of flesh and blood ; they speak like men, not like authors. One might suppose that he had stood by at the time, and overheard what passed. As in our dreams we hold conversations with ourselves, make remarks, or communicate intelli- gence, and have no idea of the answer which we shall receive, and which we ourselves make, till we hear it : so the dialogues in Shak- speare are carried on without any consciousness of what is to foUow, SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. 115 without any appearance of preparation or premeditation. The gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the wind. Nothing is made out by formal inference and analogy, by climax and antithesis: all comes, or seems to come, immediately from nature. Each object and circumstance exists in his mind, as it would have existed in reahty: each several train of thought and feeling goes on of itself, without confusion or effort. In the world of his imagination everything has a life, a place and being of its own ! . . . Shakspeare's imagination is of the same plastic kind as his con- ception of character or passion. " It glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven." Its movement is rapid and devious. It unites the most opposite extremes ; or, as Puck says, in boasting of his own feats, "puts a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." He seems always hurrying from his subject, even while describing it ; but the stroke, like the lightning's, is sure as it is sudden. He takes the widest possible range, but from that very range he has his choice of the greatest variety and aptitude of materials. He brings together images the most alike, but placed at the greatest distance from each other; that is, found in circum- stances of the greatest dissimilitude. From the remoteness of his combinations, and the celerity with which they are effected, they coalesce the more indissolubly together. The more the thoughts are strangers to each other, and the longer they have been kept asunder, the more intimate does their union seem to become. Their felicity is equal to their force. Their likeness is made more dazzUng by their novelty. They startle, and take the fancy prisoner in the same instant. . . . Shakspeare's language and versification are like the rest of him. He has a magic power over words ; they come winged at his bidding, and seem to know their places. They are struck out at a heat on the spur of the occasion, and have all the truth and vividness which arise from an actual impression of the objects. His epithets and single phrases are like sparkles, thrown off from an imagination fired by the whirling rapidity of its own motion. His language is hiero- glyphical. It translates thoughts into visible images. It abounds in sudden transitions and elliptical expressions. This is the source of his mixed metaphors, which are only abbreviated forms of speech. These, however, give no pain from long custom. They have, in fact, become idioms in the language. They are the building, and not the scaffolding to thought. We take the meaning and effect of a well- known passage entire, and no more stop to scan and speU out the particular words and phrases than the syllables of which they are Ii6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. composed. In trying to recollect any other author, one sometimes stumbles in case of failure, on a word as good. In Shakspeare, any other word but the true one is sure to be wrong. If any- body, for instance, could not recollect the words of the following description — Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood, he would be greatly at a loss to substitute others for them equally expressive of the feeling. . . . Shakspeare discovers in his writings little religious enthusiasm, and an indifference to personal reputation: he had none of the bigotry of his age ; and his political prejudices were not very strong. In these respects, as well as in every other, he formed a direct con- trast to Milton. Milton's works are a perpetual invocation to the Muses, a hymn to Fame. He had his thoughts constantly fixed on the contemplation of the Hebrew theocracy, and of a perfect com- monwealth ; and he seized the pen with a hand just warm from the touch of the ark of faith. His religious zeal infused its character into his imagination; so that he devotes himself with the same sense of duty to the cultivation of his genius as he did to the exercise of virtue or the good of his country. The spirit of the poet, the patriot, and the prophet vied with each other in his breast. His mind appears to have held equal communion with the inspired writers, and with the bards and sages of ancient Greece and Rome : " Blind Thamyris, and blind Mseonides, And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old." He had a high standard with which he was always comparing him- self, nothing short of which could satisfy his jealous ambition. He thought of nobler forms and nobler things than those he found about him. He lived apart in the solitude of his own thougMs, carefully excluding from his mind whatever might distract its pur- poses, or alloy its purity, or damp its zeal. " With darkness arid with dangers compassed round," he had the mighty models of antiquity always present to his thoughts, and determined to raise a monument of equal height and glory, " piling up every stone of lustre from the brook," for the delight and wonder of posterity. He had girded himself up, and, as it were, sanctified his genius to this service from his youth. " For after," he says, "I had from my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences as my age could sufier, SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. 117 by sundry masters and teachers, it was found that whether aught was imposed upon me by them, or betaken to o£ my own choice, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live; but much latelier, in the private academies of Italy, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at under twenty or there- about, met with acceptance above what was looked for, I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intense study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times as they should not willingly let it die. The accomplishment of these inten- tions, which have lived within me ever since I could conceive myself anything worth to my country, lies not but in a power above man's to promise ; but that none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with more unwearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine : like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His Seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases : to this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, and in- sight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs. Although it nothing content me to have disclosed thus much beforehand ; but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small wilKngness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and con- fident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes, from beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." So that of Spenser : " Tho noble heart that harbours virtuous thought, And is with child of glorious great intent, Can never rest until it forth have brought The eternal brood of glory excellent." Milton, therefore, did not write from casual impulse, but after a severe examination of his own strength, and with a rpsolution to Ii8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. leave notldng undone which it was in his power to do. He always labours, and almost always succeeds. He strives hard to say the finest things in the world, and he does say them. He adorns and dignifies his subject to the utmost : he surrounds it with every possible association of beauty or grandeur, whether moral, intel- lectual, or physical. He refines on his descriptions of beauty, loading sweets on sweets, tUl the sense aches at them, and raises his images of terror to a gigantic elevation, that " makes Ossa like a wart." In Milton, there is always an appearance of effort : in Shakspeare, scarcely any. . . . Milton's blank verse is the only blank verse in the language (except Shakspeare's) that deserves the name of verse. Dr. John- son, who had modelled his ideas of versification on the regular sing-song of Pope, condemns the "Paradise Lost" as harsh and unequal. I shall not pretend to say that this is not sometimes the case ; for where a degree of excellence beyond the mechanical rules of art is attempted, the poet must sometimes fail. But I imagine that there are more perfect examples in Milton of musical expres- sion, or of an adaptation of the sound and movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all our other writers, whether of rhyme or blank verse, put together (with the exception already mentioned). Spenser is the most harmonious of our stanza-writers, as Dryden is the most sounding and varied of our rhymists. But in neither is there anything like the same ear for music, the same power of approximating the varieties of poetical to those of musical rhythm, as there is in our great epic poet. The sound of his hues is moulded into the expression of the sentiment, almost of the very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry rapidly on, with exquisite art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems to require. MILTON'S CHARACTER OP " SATAN." Satan is the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem ; and the execution is as perfect as the design is lofty. He was the first of created beings who, for endeavouring to be equal with the highest, and to divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell. His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he lured after him with his counte- nance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest ; but not so his despair: for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His MILTON'S CHARACTER OF "SATAN." 119 strength oi mind was matchless as his strength of body ; the vast- ness of liis designs did not surpass the firm, inflexible determination with winch he submitted to his irreversible doom and final loss of all good. His power of action and of sufferiag was equal. He was the greatest power that was ever overthrown, with the strongest will left to resist or to endure. He was baflled, not confounded. He stood like a tower ; or As when heaven's fire Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines. " He was still surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who own him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathises as he views them round, far as the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof from them in his own mind, and holds supreme counsel only with his own breast. An outcast from heaven, hell trembles beneath his feet. Sin and Death are at his heels, and mankind are his easy prey : ' ' All is not lost ; th' unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what else is not to be overcome," are still his. The sense of his punishment seems lost in the magni- tude of it ; the fierceness of tormenting flames is qualified and made innoxious by the greater fierceness of his pride ; the loss of infinite happiness to himseK is compensated in thought by the power of inflicting infiinite misery on others. Yet Satan is not the principle of malignity, or of the abstract love of evil, but of the abstract love of power, of pride, of self-will personified, to which last principle all other good and evU, and even his own, are subordinate. From this principle he never once flinches. His love of power and con- tempt for suflering are never once relaxed from the highest pitch of intensity. His thoughts burn like a hell within him ; but the power of thought holds dominion in his mind over every other con- sideration. The consciousness of a determined purpose, of "that intellectual being, those thoughts that wander through eternity, though accompanied with endless pain, he prefers to nonentity, to " being swallowed up and lost in the wide womb of uncreated Tiight." He expresses the sum and substance of all ambition in one line: " Fallen cherub, to be weak as miserable, doing or suffering ! " After such a conflict as his and such a defeat, to retreat in order, to rally, to make terms, to exist at all, is something ; but he does more than this : Jie founds a new empire in hell, and from it conquers this 120 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. new world, whither he bends his undaunted flight, forcing his way through nether and surrounding fires. The poet has not in all this given us a mere shadowy oiitline ; the strength is equal to the magnitude of the conception. The Achilles of Homer is not more distinct; the Titans were not more vast; Prometheus chained to his rock was not a more terrific example of suflfering and of crime. Wherever the figure of Satan is introduced, whether he walks or flies, " rising aloft incumbent on the dusky air," it is illustrated with the most striking and appropriate images : so that we see it always before us, gigantic, irregular, portentous, uneasy, and disturbed ; but dazzling in its faded splendour, the clouded ruins of a god. The deformity of Satan is only in the depravity of his will ; he has no bodily deformity to excite our loathing or disgust. The horns and tail are not there, poor emblems of the unbending, unconquered spirit, of the writhing agonies within. Milton was too magnanimous and open an antagonist to support his argument by the by-tricks of a hump and cloven foot, to bring into the fair field of controversy the good old cathohc prejudices of which Tasso and Dante have availed themselves, and which the inystio German critics would restore. He relied on the justice of his cause, and did not scruple to give the devil his due. Some persons may think that he has carried his liberality too far, and injured the cause he professed to espouse by making him the chief person in his poem. Considering the natm'e of his subject, he would be equally in danger of running into this fault, from his faith in religion and his love of rebellion ; and perhaps each of these motives had its full share in determining the choice of his subject. DRYDEN AISTD POPE. The question, whether Pope was a poet, has hardly yet been settled, and is hardly worth settling ; for if he was not a great poet, he must have been a great prose-writer ; that is, he was a great writer of some sort. He was a man of exquisite faculties, and of the most refined taste ; and as he chose verse (the most obvious distinction of poetry) as the vehicle to express his ideas, he has generally passed for a poet, and a good one. If indeed by a great poet we mean one who gives the utmost grandeur to our conceptions of nature, or the utmost force to the passions of the heart. Pope was not in this sense a great poet ; for the bent, the characteristic power of his mind, lay the clean contrary waly ; namely, in representing things as they ap- pear to the indififerent observer, stripped of prejudice and passion, as in his " Critical Essays | " or in representing them in the most DRYDEN AND POPE. 121 contemptible and insignificant point of view, as in his " Satires ; " or in clothing the little with mock-dignity, as in his poems of " Fancy ; " or in adorning the trivial incidents and familiar relations of life with the utmost elegance of expression and all the flattering illusions of friendship or self-love, as in his " Epistles." He was not, then, dis- tinguished as a poet of lofty enthusiasm, of strong imagination, with a passionate sense of the beauties of nature, or a deep insight into the workings of the heart : but he was a wit and a critic, a man of sense, of observation, and the world, with a keen relish for the elegances of art, or of nature when embellished by art, a quick tact for propriety of thought and manners as established by the forms and customs of society, a refined sympathy with the sentiments and habitudes of human life, as he felt them within the little circle of his family and friends. He was, in a word, the poet, not of nature, but of art ; and the distinction between the two, as well - as I can make it out, is this. The poet of nature is one who, from tEe elements of beauty, of power, and of passion in his own breast, sympathises with whatever is beautiful, and grand, and impassioned in nature, in its simple majesty, in its immediate appeal to the senses, to the thoughts and hearts of all men ; so that the poet of nature, by the truth, and depth, and harmony of his mind, may be said to hold communion with the very soul of nature ; to be identi- fied with, and to foreknow, and to record the feelings of all men at all times and places, as they are liable to the same impressions, andj to exert the same power over the minds of his readers that nature/ does. He sees things in their eternal beauty, for he sees them as they are ; he feels them in their imiversal interest, for he feels then! as they aflfect the first principles of his and our common nature.! Such was Homer, such was Shakspeare, whose works will last asl long as nature, because they are a copy of the indestructible forms and everlasting impulses of nature, welUng out from the bosom as from a perennial spring, or stamped upon the senses by the hand of their Maker. The power of the imagination in them is the representative power of all nature. It has its centre in the human soul, and makes \ the circuit of the universe. Pope was not assuredly a poet of this class, or in the first rank of it. He saw nature only dressed by art ; he judged of beauty by fashion ; he sought for truth in the opinions of the world ; he judged of the feelings of others by his own. The capacious soul of Shak- speare had an intuitive and mighty sympathy with whatever could enter into the heart of man in all possible circumstances : Pope had an exact knowledge of aU that he himself loved or hated, wished or wanted. Milton has winged his daring flight from heaven to earth. 122 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. through Chaos and old Night. Pope's Muse never wandered with safety but from his library to his grotto, or from his grotto into his library back again. His mind dwelt with greater pleasure on his own garden than on the garden of Eden; he could describe the fautless whole-length mirror that reflected his own person better than the smooth surface of the lake that reflects the face of heaven, a piece of cut-glass or a pair of paste buckles with more brilliance and effect than a thousand dew-drops glittering in the sun. He would be more delighted with a patent lamp than with " the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow," that fills the skies with its soft, silent lustre, that trembles through the cottage-window, and cheers the watchful mariner on the lonely wave. In short, he was the poet of personality and of polished life. That which was nearest to him was the greatest : the fashion of the day bore sway in his mind over the immutable laws of nature. He preferred the artificial to the natural in external objects, because he had a stronger fellow- feeling with the self-love of the maker or proprietor of a gewgaw than admiration of that which was interesting to all mankind. He preferred the artificial to the natural in passion, because the in- voluntary and uncalculating impulses of the one hurried him away with a force and vehemence with which he could not grapple ; while he could trifle with the conventional and superficial modifications of mere sentiment at will, laugh at or admire, put them on or off like a masquerade dress, make much or little of them, indulge them for a longer or a shorter time, as he pleased ; and because, while they amused his fancy and exercised his ingenuity, they never once dis- turbed his vanity, his levity or indifference. His mind was the antithesis of strength and grandeur; its power was the power of indifference. He had none of the enthusiasm of poetry ; he was in poetry what the sceptic is in religion. . . . His Muse was on a peace-establishment, and grew somewhat effeminate by long ease and indulgence. He lived in the smiles of fortune, and basked in the favour of the great. In his smooth and polished verse we meet with no prodigies of nature, but with miracles of wit ; the thunders of his pen are whispered flatteries ; its forked lightniogs, pointed sarcasms; for "the gnarled oak " he gives us "the soft myrtle:" for rooks, and seas, and moimtains, artificial grass-plots, gravel-walks, and tinkling lills: for earth- quakes and tempests, the breaking of a flower-pot or the fall of a china-jar : for the tug and war of the elements or the deadly strife of the passions we have "Calm contemplation and poetic ease." DRYDEN AND POPE. 12-5 Yet within this retired and narrow circle how much, and that how exquisite, was contained! What discrimination, what wit, what delicacy, what fancy, what lurking spleen, what elegance of thought, what pampered refinement of sentiment ! It is like looking at the world through a microscope, where everything assumes a new character and a new consequence, where things are seen in their minutest circumstances and slightest shades of diflerence ; where the little becomes gigantic, the deformed beautiful, and the beauti- ful deformed. The wrong end of the magnifier is, to be sure, held to everything; but still the exhibition is highly curious, and we know not whether to be most pleased or surprised. Such, at least, is the best account I am able to give of this extraordinary man, without doing injustice to him or others. It is time to refer to particular instances in his works. . . . Dryden was a better prose-writer, and a bolder and more varied versifier than Pope. He was a more vigorous thinker, a more correct and logical declaimer, and had more of what may be called strength of mind than Pope ; but he had not the same refinement and delicacy of feeling. Dryden's eloquence and spirit were possessed in a higher degree by others, and in nearly the same degree by Pope himself ; but that by which Pope was distinguished was an essence which he alone possessed, and of incomparable value on that sole account. Dryden's " Epistles " are excellent, but inferior to Pope's, though they appear (particularly the admirable one to Congreve) to have been the model on which the latter formed his. His " Satires " are better than Pope's. His "Absalom and Achitophel " is superior, both in force of invective and discrimination of character, to anything of Pope's in the same way. The character of Achitophel is very fine, and breathes, if not a sincere love for virtue, a strong spirit of indignation against vice. MacFlecknoe is the origin of the idea of the " Dunciad ; " but it is less elaborately constructed, less feeble, and less heavy. The differ- ence between Pope's satirical portraits and Dryden's appears to be this in a good measure, that Dryden seems to grapple with his antagonists, and to describe real persons ; Pope seems to refine upon them in his own mind, and to make them out just what he pleases, I till they are not real characters, but the mere drivelling eflusions of I his spleen and malice. Pope describes the thing, and then goes on/ describing his own description, tUl he loses himself in verbal repetij tions. Dryden recurs to the object often, takes fresh sittings of nature, and gives us new strokes dt character as well as of his pencil] The " Hind and Panther " is an allegory as well as a satire, and so far it teUs less home ; the battery is not so point-blank. But otherwise 124 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC, it has more genius, vehemence, and strength of description than any other of Dryden's works, not excepting the "Absalom and Aohi- tophel." It also contains the finest examples of varied and sounding versification. . . . He has left the best character of Shakspeare that has ever been written : — " To begin, then, with Shakspeare : he was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient, poets had the largest and most com- prehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : when he describes anything you more than see it — you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature ; he looked inwards and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were he so, I should do him injury to com- pare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swell- ing into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him. . . . WITHER. Wither is a name now almost forgotten, and his works seldom read ; but his poetry is not infrequently distinguished by a tender and pastoral turn of thought ; and there is one passage of exquisite feeling, describing the consolations of poetry in the following terms : " She doth tell me where to borrow Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; Makes the desolatest place To her presence be a grace ; And the blackest discontents Be her fairest ornaments. In my former days of bliss Her divine skill taught me this, That from everything I saw, I could some invention draw ; And raise pleasure to her height. Through the meanest object's sight. By the murmur of a spring. Or the least bough's rusteling, By a daisy whose leaves spread, Shut when Titan goes to bed ; Or a shady buskor tree. She could more, mfuse in me, Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser m.in. THOMSON AND COWPER. 12? By her help I also now Make thia churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness. The dull loneness, the black shade, That these hanging vaults have made : The strange music of the waves, Beating on these hollow caves : This black den which rocks emboss, Overgrown with eldest moss : The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight : This my chamber of neglect, Wall'd about with disrespect : From all these and this dull air A fit object for despair. She hath taught me by her might To draw comfort and delight. Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, I will cherish thee for this. Poesie, thou sweet'st content That e'er Heav'n to mortals lent ; Though they as a trifle leave thee, Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive tliee : Though thou be to them a scorn. That to nought but earth are born : Let my life no longer be Than I am in love with thee. Though our wise ones call thee madness, Let me never taste of sadness, If I love not thy maddest fits, Above all their greatest wits. And though some too seeming holy. Do account thy raptures folly, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes knaves and fools of them. THOMSON AND COWPER. All that is admirable in Thomson's poem, "The Seasons/' is the emanation of a fine natural genius and sincere love of his subject, unforced, unstudied, that comes uncalled for and departs unbidden. But he takes no pains, uses no seU-correotion ; or if he seems to labour, it is worse than labour lost. His genius " cannot be con- strained by mastery." The feeling of nature, of the changes of the seasons, was in his mind; and he could not help conveying this feeling to the reader by the mere force of spontaneous expression ; but if the expression did not come of itself, he left the whole busi- 126 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ness to chance; or, willing to evade instead of encountering tlie difficulties of liis subject, fills up the intervals of true inspiration with the most vapid and worthless materials, pieces out a beautiful half-line with a bombastic allusion, or overloads an exquisitely natural sentiment or image with a cloud of painted, pompous, cumbrous phrases, like the shower of roses in which he represents the Spring, his own lovely, fresh, and innocent Spring, as descend- ing to the earth : " Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal Mildness ! come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend," Who, from such a flimsy, round-about, unmeaning commencement as this, would expect the delightful, unexaggerated, home-felt de- scriptions of natural scenery which are scattered in such uncon- scious profusion through this and the following cantos ? For in- stance, the very next passage is crowded with a set of strilring images : '' And see where surly Winter passes off Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts : His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale ; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost. The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed. And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless ; so that scarce The bittern knows his time with bill ingulpht To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath. And sing their wild notes to the list'ning waste." Thomson is the best of our descriptive poets ; for he gives most of the poetry of natural description. Others have been quite equal to him, or have surpassed him, as Cowper, for instance, in the pic- turesque part of his art, in marking the peculiar features and curious details of objects ; no one has yet come up to him in giving the sum- total of their effects, their varying influences on the mind. He does not go into the minutise of a landscape, but describes the vivid im- pression which the whole makes upon his own imagination, and thus transfers the same unbroken, unimpaired impression to the imaginar tion of his readers. The colours with wliich he paints seem yet wet and breathmg, like those of the living statue in the " Winter's Tale." THOMSON AND COWPER. 127 Nature in his descriptions is seen growing around us, fresh and lusty as in itself. We feel the eflfeot of the atmosphere, its humidity or clearness, its heat or cold, the glow of summer, the gloom of winter, the tender promise of the spring, the fuU overshadowing foHage, the declining pomp and deepening tints of autumn. He transports us to the scorching heat of vertical suns, or plunges us into the chilling horrors and desolation of the frozen zone. We hear the snow drifting against the broken casement without, and see the &e blazing on the hearth within. The first scattered drops of a vernal shower patter on the leaves above our heads, or the coming storm resounds through the leafless groves. In a word, he describes not to the eye alone, but to the other senses, and to the whole man. He puts his heart into his subject, writes as he feels, and humanises whatever he touches. He makes all his descriptions teem with life and vivif3dng soul. His faults were those of his style — of the author and the man ; but the original genius of the poet, the pith and marrow of his imagination, the fine natural mould in which his feelings were bedded, were too much for him to counteract by neglect, or affectation, or false ornaments. It is for this reason that he is, perhaps, the most popular of all our poets, treating of a subject that all can understand, and in a way that is interesting to all alike, to the ignorant or the refined, because he gives back the impression which the things themselves make upon us in nature. " That," said a man of genius, seeing a little shabby, soiled copy of Thomson's " Seasons " lying on the window-seat of an obscure coimtry alehouse, " That is true fame ! " . . . Cowper, whom I shall speak of in this connection, lived at a considerable distance of time after Thomson, and had some advan- tages over him, particularly in simplicity of stylo, in a certain pre- cision and minuteness of graphical description, and in a more careful and leisurely choice of such topics only as his genius and peculiar habits of mind prompted him to treat of. The " Task " has fewer blemishes than the " Seasons ; " but it has not the same capital ex- cellence, the " unbought grace " of poetry, the power of moving and infusing the warmth of the author's mind into that of the reader. If Cowper had a mere polished taste, Thomson had beyond comparison a more fertile genius, more impulsive force, a more entire forgetful- ness of himself in his subject. If in Thomson you are sometimes offended with the slovenliness of the author by profession, determined to get through his task at all events, in Cowper you are no less dissatisfied with the finioalness of the private gentleman, who does not care whether he completes his work or not, and in whatever he does is evidently more solicitous to please himself than the public. N 128 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. There is an effeminacy about him which shrinks from and repels common and hearty sympathy. With all his boasted simplicity and love of the country, he seldom launches out into general descriptions of nature; he looks at her over his clipped hedges and from hia well-swept garden-walks ; or if he makes a bolder experiment now and then, it is with an air of precaution, as if he were afraid of being caught in a shower of rain, or of not being able, in case of any un- toward accident, to make good his retreat home. He shakes hands with nature with a pair of fashionable gloves on, and leads "his Vashti " forth to public view with a look of consciousness and atten- tion to etiquette, as a fine gentleman hands a lady out to dance a minuet. He is delicate to fastidiousness, and glad to get back, after a romantic adventure with crazy Kate, a party of gipsies, or a little child on a common, to the drawing-room and the ladies again, to the sofa and the tea-kettle — no, I beg his pardon, not to the singing, well-scoured tea-kettle, but to the polished and loud-hissing um. His walks and arbours are kept clear of worms and snails with as much an appearance of petit-maUreship as of humanity. He has some of the sickly sensibility and pampered refinements of Pope ; but then Pope prided himself in them ; whereas Cowper affects to be all simplicity and plainness. He had neither Thomson's love of the unadorned beauties of nature nor Pope's exquisite sense of the elegances of art. He was, in fact, a nervous man, afraid of trusting himself to the seductions of the one, and ashamed of putting for- ward his pretensions to an intimacy with the other ; but to be a coward is not the way to succeed either in poetry, in war, or in love ! Still he is a genuine poet, and deserves aU his reputation. His worst vices are amiable weaknesses, elegant trifling. Though there is a frequent dryness, timidity, and jejuneness in his manner, he has left a number of pictures of domestic comfort and social refinement, as well as of natural imagery and feeling, which can hardly be forgotten but with the language itself. Such, among others, are his memorable description of the post coming in, that of the preparations for tea on a winter's evening in the country, of the unexpected fall of snow, of the frosty morning (with the fine satirical transition to the Empress of Russia's palace of ice), and, most of all, the winter's walk at noon. Every one of these may be considered as distinct studies, or highly-finished cabinet pieces, arranged with- out order or coherence, . . . SWIFT. 129 SWIFT. SwiFi's reputation as a poet lias been in a manner obscured by the greater splendour, by the natural force and inventive genius of his prose writings ; but if he had never written either the " Tale of a " Tub " or " Gulliver's Travels," his name merely as a poet would have come down to us, and have gone down to posterity with well-earned honours. His " Imitations of Horace," and still more his Verses on liis own Death, place him in the first rank of agreeable moralists in verse. There is not only a dry humour, an exquisite tone of irony, in these productions of his pen, but there is a touching, un- pretending pathos, mixed up with the most whimsical and eccentric strokes of pleasantry and satire. His " Description of the Morning in London," and of a " City Shower," which were first published in the Tatler, are among the most delightful of the contents of that very delightful work. Swift shone as one of the most sensible of the poets ; he is also distinguished as one of the most nonsensical of them. No man has written so many lackadaisical, slipshod, tedious, trifling, foolish, fantastical verses as he, which are so little an imputation on the wisdom of the writer, and which, in fact, only show his readiness to oblige others and to forget himself. He has gone so far as to invent a new stanza of fourteen and sixteen syllable lines for Mary the cookmaid to vent her budget of nothings, and for Mrs. Harris to gossip with the deaf old housekeeper. Oh, when shall we have such another Rector of Laracor ? The " Tale of a Tub " is one of the most masterly compositions in the language, whether for thought, wit, or style. It is so capital and undeniable a proof of the author's talents, that Dr. Johnson, who did not like Swift, would not allow that he wrote it. It is hard that the same per- formance should stand in the way of a man's promotion to a bishopric, as wanting gravity, and at the same time be denied to be his, as having too much wit. It is a pity the Doctor did not find out some graver author, for whom he felt a critical kindness, on whom to father this splendid but unacknowledged production. Dr. Johnson could not deny that " Gulliver's Travels " were his ; he therefore disputed their merits, and said that, after the first idea of them was conceived, they were easy to execute ; all the rest followed mechanically. I do not know how that may be ; but the mechanism employed is something very different from any that the author of " Easselas " was in the habit of bringing to bear on such occa- sions. There is nothing more futile, as well as invidious, than I30 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. this mode of criticising a work of original genius. Its greatest merit is supposed to be in the invention; and you say very wisely, that it is not in the execution. You might as well take away the merit of the invention of the telescope by saying that, after its uses were explained and understood, any ordinary eyesight could look through it. Whether the exoeUenoe of " Gulliver's Travels " is in the conception or the execution is of little consequence ; the power is somewhere, and it is a power that has moved the world. The power is not that of big words and vaunting commonplaces. Swift left these to those who wanted them, and has done what his aoute- ness and intensity of mind alone could enable any one to conceive or to perform. His object was to strip empty pride and grandeur of the imposing air which external circiimstances tlxrow around them ; and for this purpose he has cheated the imagination of the illusions which the prejudices of sense and of the world put upon it, by reducing everything to the abstract predicament of size. He enlarges or diminishes the scale, as he wishes to show the insignifi- cance or the grossness of our overweening self-love. That he has done this with mathematical precision, with complete presence of mind, and perfect keeping, in a manner that comes equally home to the understanding of the man and of the child, does not take away from the merit of the work or the genius of the author. He has taken a new view of human nature, such as a being of a higher sphere might take of it ; he has torn the scales from off his moral vision ; he has tried an experiment upon human life, and sifted its pretensions from the alloy of circumstances; he has measured it with a rule, has weighed it in a balance, and found it, for the most part, wanting and worthless — ii), substance and in show. Nothing solid, nothing valuable is left in Wif'aj^stem but virkie and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind ! What a convincing proof of misanthropy ! What presumption and what malice Apmse, to show men what they are, and to teach them what theyljught to be! Wliat a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory islthat unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and carrying ofi the whole fleet of Blefuscu ! After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right. What a shock to personal vanity is given in the account of Gulliver's nurse, Glumdal- clitch! Still, notwithstanding the disparagement to her personal charms, her good-nature remains the same amiable quality as before I cannot see the harm, the misanthropy, the immoral and degrading tendency of this. The moral lesson is as fine as the intellectual exhibition is amusing. It is an attempt to tear off the mask of im- posture from the world ; and nothing but imposture has a right to SWIFT— RABELAIS— VOLTAIRE. 131 complain of it. It is, indeed, the way with our quacks in morality to preach up the dignity of human nature, to pamper pride and hypocrisy with the idle mockeries of the virtues they pretend to, and which they have not; but it was not Swift's way to cant morality or anything else ; nor did his genius prompt him to write unmeaning panegyrics on mankind ! . . , SWIFT— RABELAIS— VOLTAIRE. Swift was not a Frenchman. In this respect he differed from Rabelais and Voltaire. They have been accounted the three greatest wits in modern times ; but their wit was of a peculiar kind in each. They are little beholden to each other ; there is some resemblance between Lord Peter in the " Tale of a Tub " and Rabelais' Friar John ; but in general they are all three authors of a substantive character in themselves. Swift's wit (particularly in his chief prose works) was serious, saturnine, and practical ; Rabelais' was fantastical and joyous ; Voltaire's was light, sportive, and verbal. Swift's wit was the wit of sense ; Rabelais', the wit of nonsense ; Voltaire's, of indif- ference to both. The ludicrous in Swift arises out of his keen sense of impropriety, his soreness and impatience of the least absurdity. He separates with a severe and caustic air truth from falsehood, folly from wisdom, " shows vice her own image, scorn her own feature ; " and it is the force, the precision, and the honest abruptness with which the separation is made that excites our surprise, our admira- tion, and laughter. He sets a mark of reprobation on that which offends good sense and good manners which cannot be mistaken, and which holds it up to our ridicule and contempt ever after. His occasional disposition to trifling (already noticed) was a relaxation from the excessive earnestness of his mind. Indignatio facit versus. His better genius was his spleen. It was the biting acrimony of his temper that sharpened his other faculties. The truth of his per- ceptions produced the pointed coruscations of his wit ; his playful irony was the result of inward bitterness of thought ; his imagina- tion was the product of the literal, dry, incorrigible tenaciousness of his understanding. He endeavoured to escape from the per- secution of realities into the regions of fancy, and invented his Liliputians and Brobdignagians, Yahoos and Houynhyms, as a diversion to the more painful knowledge of the world around him : they only made him laugh, while men and women made him angry. His feverish impatience made him view the infirmities of that great baby, the world, with the same scrutinising glance and jealous 132 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. irritability that a parent regards the failings of its offspring ; but, as Rousseau has well observed, parents have not on this account been supposed to have more aflfeotion for other people's children than their own. In other respects, and except from the sparkling effervescence of his gaU, Swift's brain was as " dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." He hated absurdity: Eabelais loved it, exaggerated it with supreme satisfaction, luxuriated in its endless varieties, rioted in nonsense, "reigned there and revelled." He dwelt on the absurd and ridiculous for the pleasure they gave him, not for the pain. He lived upon laughter, and died laughing. He indulged his vein, and took his full swing of folly. He did not balk his fancy or his readers. His wit was to him " as riches fine- less ; " he saw no end of his wealth in that way, and set no Umits to his extravagance : he was communicative, prodigal, boundless, and inexhaustible. His were the Saturnalia of wit, the riches and the royalty, the health and long life. He is intoxicated with gaiety, mad with folly. His animal spirits drown him in a iiood of mirth : his blood courses up and down his veins like wine. His thirst of enjoyment is as great as his thirst of drink : his appetite for good things of aU sorts is unsatisfied, and there is a never-ending supply. Discourse is dry/ so they moisten their words in their cups, and relish their dry jests with plenty of Botargos and dried neats'- tongues. It is like Camacho's wedding in "Don Quixote," where Sancho ladled out whole pullets and fat geese from the soup-kettles at a puU. The flagons are set a-running, their tongues wag at the same time, and their mirth flows as a river. How IViar John roars and lays about him in the vineyard ! How Panurge whines in the storm, and how dexterously he contrives to throw the sheep over- board I How much Pantagruel behaves like a wise king! How Gargantua mewls, and pules, and slabbers his nurse, and demeans himself most like a royal infant ! what provinces he devours ! what seas he drinks up ! How he eats, drinks, and sleeps — sleeps, eats, and drinks ! The style of Rabelais is no less prodigious than his matter. His words are of marrow — ^unctuous, dropping fatness. He was a mad wag, the king of good fellows, and prince of practical philosophers ! Rabelais was a Frenchman of the old school, Voltaire of the new. The wit of the one arose from an exuberance of enjoyment ; of the other, from an excess of indifference, real or assumed. Voltaire had no enthusiasm for one thing or another: he made light of everything. In his hands all things turn to chaff and dross, as the pieces of silver money m the "Arabian Nights" were changed by the hands of the enchanter into little dry crumbling leaves ! He is a Parisian. Ha never exaggerates, is never violent : he treats things with the most GRAY. 133 provoking sang-froid, and expresses his contempt by the most in- direct hints and in the fewest words, as if he hardly thought them -worth even his contempt. He retains complete possession of him- self and of his subject. He does not effect his purpose by the eagerness of his blows, but by the delicacy of his tact. The poisoned wound he inflicted was so fine as scarcely to be felt tUl it rankled and festered in its " mortal consequences." His callousness was an excellent foil for the antagonists he had mostly to deal with. He took knaves and fools on his shield well. He stole away its cloak from grave imposture. If he reduced other things below their true value, making them seem worthless and hoUow, he did not degrade the pretensions of tyranny and superstition below their true value, by making them seem utterly worthless and hollow, as contemptible as they were odious. This was the service he rendered to truth and mankind ! His " Candida " is a masterpiece of wit. It has been called " the dull product of a scoffer's pen." It is, indeed, " the product of a scoffer's pen ; " but after reading the " Excursion," few people will think it dull. It is in the most perfect keeping, and without ■ any appearance of effort. Every sentence tells, and the whole reads like one sentence. . . . GRAY. Gray's " Elegy in a Country Churchyard " is one of the most classical productions that ever was penned by a refined and thoughtful mind, moralising on human life. The ode on a " Distant Prospect of Eton College " is more mechanical and commonplace ; but it touches on certain strings about the heart, that vibrate in unison with it to our latest breath. No one ever passes by Windsor's "stately heights," or sees the distant spires of Eton College below, without thinking of Gray. He deserves that we should think of him ; for he thought of others, and turned a trembling, ever-watchful ear to " the stUl sad music of humanity." His Letters are inimitably fine. If his poems are some- times finical and pedantic, his prose is quite free from affectation. He pours his thoughts out upon paper as they arise in his mind ; and they arise in his mind without pretence or constraint, from the pure im- pulse of learned leisure and contemplative indolence. He is not here on stilts or in buckram, but smiles in his easy-chair, as he moralises through the loopholes of retreat, on the bustle and raree-show of the world, or on " those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools ! " He had nothing to do but to read and to think, and to tell his friends what he read and thought. His life was a luxurious, thoughtful dream. " Be mine," he says in one of his Letters, " to read eternal 134 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon." And in another, to show his contempt for action and the turmoils of ambition, he says to some one, " Don't you remember Lords and , who are now great statesmen, little dirty boys playing at cricket P For my part, I do not feel a bit wiser, or bigger or older, than I did then." What an equivalent for not being wise or great, to be always young ! What a happiness never to lose or gain anything in the game of human lite, by being never anything more than a looker-on 1 GOLDSMITH. The principal name of the period we are now come to is that of Goldsmith, than which few names stand higher or fairer in the annals of modern hterature. One should have his own pen to describe him as he ought to be described: amiable, various, and bland, with careless inimitable grace touching on every kind of excellence : with manners unstudied, but a gentle heart : perform- ing miracles of skiU from pure happiness of nature, and whose greatest fault was ignorance of his own worth. As a poet, he is the" most flowing and elegant of our versifiers since Pope, with traits of artless nature which Pope had not, and with a peculiar felicity in his turns upon words, which he constantly repeated with delightful effect, such as : " His lot, though small, He sees that little lot, the lot of all." "And tum'd and look'd, and tum'd to look again." As a novelist, his " Vicar of Wakefield " has charmed all Europe. What reader is there in the civilised world who is not the better for the story of the washes which the worthy Dr. Primrose demolished so deliberately with the poker— for the knowledge of the guinea which the Miss Primroses kept unchanged in their pockets — ^the adventure of the picture of the Vicar's family, which could not be got into the house — and that of the Plamborough family, all painted with oranges in their hands — or for the story of the case of shagreen spectacles and the cosmogony ? As a comic writer, his " Tony Lumpkin " draws forth new powers from Mr. Liston's face. That alone is praise enough for it. Poor Goldsmith ! how happy he has made others ! how unhappy he was in himself ! He never had the pleasure of reading his own works ! He had only the satisfaction of good-naturedly relieving the neces- sities of others, and the consolation of being harassed to death with his own ! He is the most amusing and interesting person in one BURNS. ,135 of the most amusing and interesting books in the world, Boswell's " Life of Johnson." His peach-coloured coat shall always bloom in Boswell's writings, and his fame survive in his own ! His genius was a mixture of originality and imitation: he could do nothing without some model before him, and he could copy nothing that he did not adorn with the graces of his own mind. Almost all the latter part of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and a great deal of the former, is taken from "Joseph Andrews ; " but the circumstances I have men- tioned above are not. The finest things he has left behind him in verse are his character of a country schoolmaster, and that prophetic description of Burke in the " EetaHation." His moral Essays in the " Citizen of the World " are as agreeable chit-chat as can be con- veyed in the form of didactic discourses. BURNS. BuKNS the poet had a strong mind, and a strong body, the fellow to it. He had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom — you can almost hear it throb. Some one said, that if you had shaken hands with him, his hands would have burnt yours. The Gods indeed " made him poetisal ; " but Nature had a hand in him first. His heart was in the right place. He did not " create a soul under the ribs of death," by tinkling siren sounds, or by piling up centos of poetical diction ; but for the artificial flowers of poetry, he plucked the mountain-daisy under his feet; and a field-mouse, hurrjdng from its ruined dwelling, could inspire him with the sentiments of terror and pity. He held the plough or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp ; nor did he cut out poetry as we cut out watch-papers, with finical dexterity, nor from the same flimsy materials. Bums was not like Shakspeare in the range of his genius; but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character about him. He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a namby- pamby poet, a mincing metre ballad-monger, any more than Shak- speare. He would as soon hear " a brazen candlestick tuned, or a dry wheel grate on the axletree." He was as much of a man, not a twentieth part as much of a poet, as Shakspeare. With but little of his imagination or inventive power, he had the same life of mind : within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthUy and vigorously. He had an eye to see, a heart to feel: — no more. His pictures of good- fellowship, of social glee, of quaint humour, are equal to anything ; they come up to nature, and they cannot go beyond it. The sly jest collected in his laughing eye at the sight of the grotesque and 136 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ludicrous in manners ; the large tear rolled down his manly cheek at the sight of another's distress. He has made us as weU acquainted with himself as it is possible to be, has let out the honest impulses of his native disposition, the unequal conflict of the passions in his breast, with the same frankness and truth of description. His strength is not greater than his weakness; his virtues were greater than his vices. His virtues belonged to his genius : his vices to his situation, which did not correspond to his genius. . . . One would think that nothing could surpass his songs in beauty of expression and in true pathos; and nothing does or can, but some of the old Scotch ballads themselves. There is in them a still more original cast of thought, a more romantic imagery — the thistle's glittering down, the gilliflower on the old garden-wall, the horse- man's silver bells, the hawk on its perch : a closer intimacy with nature, a firmer reliance on it, as the only stock of wealth which the mind has to resort to, a more infantine simplicity of manners, a greater strength of affection, hopes longer cherished and longer deferred, sighs that the heart dare hardly heave, and "thoughts that often lie too deep for tears." We seem to feel that those who wrote and sang them (the early minstrels) lived in the open air, wandering on from place to place with restless feet and thoughts, and lending an ever-open ear to the fearful accidents of war or love, floating on the breath of old tradition or common fame, and moving the strings of their harp with sounds that sank into a nation's heart. How fine an illustration of this is that passage in " Don Quixote " where the knight and Sanoho, goiug in search of Dulcinea, inquire their way of the countryman who was driving his mules to plovigh before break of day, " singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles 1 " BYRON. Lord Btron shuts himself up too much in the impenetrable gloom of his own thoughts, and buries the natural light of things in " nook monastic." The " Giaour," the " Corsair," " Ghilde Harold," are aU the same person, and they are apparently all himself. The everlasting repe- tition of one subject, the same dark ground of fiction, with the darker colours of the poet's mind spread over it, the unceasing accumula- tion of horrors on horror's head, steels the mind against the sense of pain, as inevitably as the unwearied Siren sounds and luxurious monotony of Mr. Moore's poetry make it inaccessible to pleasure. Lord Byron's poetry is as morbid as Mr. Moore's is careless and dissipated. He has more depth of passion, more force and im- SCOTT^ 137 petuosity, but the passion is always of tho same unaccomitablo character, at once violent and sullen, fierce and gloomy. It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune or the hopeless- ness of its desires, but of a mind preying upon itseK, and disgusted with, or indiffepent to, aU other things. There is nothing less poetical than this sort of unaccommodating selfishness. There is nothing more repulsive than this sort of ideal absorption of all the interests of others, of the good and ills of life, in the ruling passion and moody abstraction of a single mind, as if it would make itself the centre of the universe, and there was nothing worth cherishing but its intellectual diseases. It is like a cancer eating into the heart of poete-y. But still there is power; and power rivets attention and forces admiration. " He hath a demon ; " and that is the next thing to being full of the God. His brow collects the scattered gloom ; his eye flashes livid fire that withers and con- sumes. But still we watch the progress of the scathing bolt with interest, and mark the ruin it leaves behind with awe. Within the contracted range of his imagination, he has great unity and truth of keeping. He chooses elements and agents congenial to his mind : the dark and glittering ocean, the frail bark hurrying before the storm, pirates, and men that "house on the wild sea with wild usages." He gives the tumultuous eagerness of action and the fixed despair of thought. In vigour of style and force of concep- tion he in one sense surpasses every writer of the present day. His indignant apothegms are like oracles of misanthropy. He who wishes for " a curse to kill with " may find it in Lord Byron's writings. Yet he has beauty lurking underneath his strength, tenderness sometimes joined with the frenzy of despair. A flash of golden light sometimes follows from a stroke of his pencil, like a falling meteor. The flowers that adorn his poetry bloom over charnel-houses and the grave ! . . . SOOTT. Waiter Scott is the most popular of all the poets of the present day, and deservedly so. He describes that which is most easily and generally understood with more vivacity and effect than anybody else. He has no excellences, either of a lofty or recondite kind, which lie beyond the reach of the most ordinary capacity to find out ; but he has all the good qualities which all the world agree to understand. His style is clear, flowing, and transparent : his senti- ments, of which his style is an easy and natural medium, are com- mon to him with his readers. He has none of Mr. Wordsworth's 138 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ■ idiosyncrasy. He differs from his readers only in a greater range of knowledge and facility of expression. His poetry belongs to the class of impromsatore poetry. It has neither depth, height, nor breadth in it; neither uncommon strength nor uncommon refine- ment of thought, sentiment, or language. It has no originality. But if this author has no research, no moving power in his own breast, he relies with the greater safety and success on the force of his subject. He selects a story such as is sure to please, full of incidents, characters, peculiar manners, costume, and scenery ; and he tells it in a way that can offend no one. He never wearies or disappoints you. He is communicative and garrulous; but he is not his own hero. He never obtrudes himself on your notice to . prevent yoiu- seeing the subject. What passes in the poem, passes much as it would have done in reality. The author has little or nothing to do with it. Mr. Scott has great intuitive power of fancy, great vividness of pencil in placing external objects and events before the eye. The force of his mind is picturesque rathel . than moral. He gives more of the features of nature than the soul of passion. He conveys the distinct outlines and visible changes in outward objects, rather than "their mortal consequences." He is very inferior to Lord Byron in intense passion, to Moore in deUghtful fancy, to Mr. Wordsworth in profound sentiment; but he has more picturesque power than any of them ; that is, he places the objects themselves, about which they might feel and think, in a much more striking point of view, with greater variety of dress and attitude, and with more local truth of colouring. His imagery is Gothic and grotesque. The manners and actions have the interest and curiosity belonging to a wild country and a distant period of time. Few descriptions have a more complete reality, a more striking appearance of life and motion, than that of the warriors in the " Lady of the Lake," who start up at the command of Rhoderic Dhu from their concealment under the fern, and disappear again in an instant. The " Lay of the Last Minstrel " and " Marmion " are the first, and perhaps the best, of his works. . . . WORDSWORTH. Me. Wobdswoeth is the most original poet now living. He is the reverse of Walter Scott in his defects and excellences. He has nearly all that the other wants, and wants all that the other possesses. His poetry is not external, but internal; it does not depend upon tradition, or story, or old song ; he furnishes it from his own mind, and is his own subject. He is the poet of mere senti- WORDSWORTH. 139 tnent. Of many of the " Lyrical Ballads " it is not possible to speak in tenns of too high praise, such as " Hart-leap Well," the " Banks of the Wye," " Poor Susan," parts of the " Leech-gatherer," the " Lines t© a Cuckoo," " to a Daisy," the " Complaint," several of the Sonnets, and a hundred others of inconceivable beauty, of perfect originality and pathos. They open a finer and deeper vein of thought and feel- ing than any poet in modern times has done, or attempted. He has produced a deeper impression, and on a smaller circle, than any other of his contemporaries. His powers have been mistaken by the age, nor does he exactly understand them himself. He cannot form a whole. He has not the constructive faculty. He can give only the fine tones of thought, drawn from his mmd by accident or nature, like the sounds drawn from the .^Eolian harp by the wander- ing gale. He is totally deficient in all the machinery of poetry. His " Excursion," taken as a whole, notwithstanding the noble mate- rials thrown away in it, is a proof of this. The line labours, the sentiment moves slow ; but the poem stands stock-still. The reader makes no way from the first line to the last. It is more than any- thing in the world like Robinson Crusoe's boat, which would have been an excellent good boat, and would have carried him to the other side of the globe, but that he could not get it out of the Band where it stuck fast. I did what little I could to help to launch it at the time, but it would not do. I am not, however, one of those who laugh at the attempts or failures of men of genius. It is not my way to cry, " Long life to the conqueror ! " Success and desert are not with me synonymous terms ; and the less Mr. Words- worth's general merits have been understood, the more necessary is it to insist upon them. This is not the place to repeat what I have already said on the subject. The reader may turn to it in the " Round Table." I do not think, however, there is anything in the larger poem equal to many of the detached pieces in the " Lyrical Ballads." As Mr. Wordsworth's poems have been little known to the public, or chiefly through garbled extracts from them, I will here give an entire poem, " Hart-Leap Well " (one that has always been a favourite vidth me), that the reader may know what it is that the admirers of this author find to be delighted vsith in his poetry. Those who do not feel the beauty and the force of it may save themselves the trouble of inquiring further. 140 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. [Lectures on the English Comic Writers, 1819. Four Editions of thia work have been published.] I SHALL conclude this imperfect and desultory sketch of wit. and -humour with Barrow's celebrated description of*the 'same subject. He says : — "But first it may be demanded, what the th9i**ts speak of is, or what this facetiousness doth import ; to which question I might reply, as Demoorittis did to him that asked the definition of a man — His that which we all see and know ; and one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notice thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale : sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the aflBnity of their sound : sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of luminous expression : sometimes it lurketh under an odd simili- tude. Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer ; in a quirkish reason ; in a shrewd intimation ; in cunningly diverting or cleverly restoring an objection : sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech ; in a tart irony ; in a lusty hyperbole ; in a start- ling metaphor ; in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense : sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it ; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being ; sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange : sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose : often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly teU how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and knoweth things by), which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, showing in it some wonder, and breathing some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar : it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill ENGLISH COMEDY. 141 that he can dexterously accommodate them to a purpose before him, together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed ende^m, dexterous men and evrpotroi,, men of facile or - versafile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or • tftrn Slrohiogs^aJbheiuBeBtes.) It also prooureth delight by gratify- ing curioJJa,''^i its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for'thrar Dafcuty but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure) ; by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts ; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit ; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit, in way of emulation or complaisance, and by seasoning matter, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang." . . . ENGLISH COMEDY. Comedy is a " graceful ornament to the civil order ; the Corinthian capital of polished society." Like the mirrors which have been added to the sides of one of our theatres, it reflects the images of grace, of gaiety, and pleasure double, and completes the perspective of human life. To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, where the best things are said and the most amusing happen. The wittiest remarks are always ready on the tongue, and the luckiest occasions are always at hand to give birth to the happiest conceptions. Sense makes strange havoc of nonsense. Eefinement acts as a foil to aflTectation, and afiectation to ignorance. Sentence after sentence tells. We don't know which to admire most, the observation or the answer to it. We would give our flngers to be able to talk so ourselves, or to hear others talk so. In turning over the pages of the best comedies, we are almost transported to another world, and escape from this dull age to one that was all life, and whim, and mirth, and humour. The curtain rises, and a gayer scene presents itself, as on the canvas of Watteau. We are admitted behind the scenes like spectators at court, on a levee or birthday ; but it is the court, the gala-day of wit and pleasure, of gallantry and Charles II. ! What an air breathes from the name ! what a rustling of silks and waving of plumes ! what a sparkling of diamond earrings and shoe-buckles ! What bright eyes ! (Ai, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she passed!) what killing looks and graceful motions ! How the faces of the whole ring are dressed in smiles ! how the repartee goes round ! how wit and folly, elegance and awkward imitation of it, set one another off! Happy, thought- 142 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. less age, when kings and nobles led purely ornamental lives ; when the utmost stretch of a morning's study went no further than the choice of a sword-knot or the adjustment of a side-curl ; when the soul spoke out in all the pleasing eloquence of dress ; and beaux and belles, enamoured of themselves in one another's follies, fluttered like gilded butterflies, in giddy mazes, through the walks of St. Janies's Park ! The four principal writers of this style of comedy (which I think the best) are undoubtedly Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. The dawn was in Etherege, as its latest close was in Sheridan. It is hard to say which of these four is best, or in wliat eacli of them excels, they had so many and such great exceUenoes. Congreve is the most distinct from the others, and the most easily defined, both from what he possessed and from what he wanted. He had by far the most wit and elegance, with less of other things, of humour, character, incident, &c. His style is inimitable, nay, perfect. It is the highest model of comic dialogue. Every sentence is replete with sense and satire, conveyed in the most polished and pointed terms. Every page presents a shower of brilliant conceits, is a tissue of epigrams in prose, is a new triumph of wit, a new conquest over dulness. The fire of artful raillery is nowhere else so well kept up. This style, which he was almost the first to introduce, and which he carried to the utmost pitch of classical refinement, reminds one exactly of OoUins's description of wit as opposed to humour : " Whose jewels in his crisped hair Are placed each other's light to share.'' Sheridan will not bear a comparison with him in the regular anti- thetical construction of his sentences, and in the mechanical artifices of his style, though so much later, and though style in general has been so much studied, and in the mechanical part so much improved since then. It bears every mark of being what he himself in the dedication of one of his plays tells us that it was, a spirited copy taken off and carefully revised from the most select society of his time, exhibiting all the sprightliness, ease, and animation of familiar conversation, with the correctness and delicacy of the most finished composition. His works are a singular treat to those who have cultivated a taste for the niceties of English style : there is a peculiar flavour in the very words, which is to be found in hardly any other writer. To the mere reader his writings would be an irreparable loss : to the stage they are already become a dead letter, with the exception of one of them, " Love for Love." This play is as full of THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. 143 character, incident, and stage-eflfect as almost any of those of his contemporaries, and fuller of wit than any of his own, except perhaps the " Way of the World." It stiU acts, and is still acted well. The effect of it is prodigious on the well-informed spectator. . . . Wycherley was before Congreve; and his "Country Wife" will last longer than anything of Congreve's as a popular acting play. It is only a pity that it is not entirely his own, but it is enough so to do him never-ceasing honour, for the best things are his own. His humour is, in general, broader, his characters more natural, and his incidents more striking than Congreve's. It may be said of Con- greve, that the workmanship overlays the materials : in Wycherley, the casting of the parts and the fable are alone sufficient to ensure success. We forget Congreve's characters, and only remember what they say : we remember Wycherley's characters, and the incidents they meet with, just as if they were real, and forget what they say, Comparatively speaking. Miss Peggy (or Mrs. Margery Pinchwife) is a character that will last for ever, I should hope ; and even when the original is no more, if that should ever be, while self-will, curiosity, art, and ignorance are to be found in the same person, it will be just as good and as intelligible as ever in the description, because it is built on first principles, and brought out in the fullest and broadest manner. . . . THE PEEIODICAL ESSAYISTS. " The proper study of mankind is man." I NOW come to speak of that sort of writing which has been so successfully cultivated in this country by our periodical Essayists, and which consists in applying the talents and resources of the mind to all that mixed mass of human affairs which, though not included under the head of any regular art, science, or profession, falls under the cognisance of the writer, and " comes home to the business and bosoms of men." Quicquid agunt homines nostri farrago libelli, is the general motto of this department of literature. It does not treat of minerals or fossils, of the virtues of plants or the influence of planets ; it does not meddle with forms of belief or systems of o 144 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC philosophy, nor launch into the world of spiritual existences ; but it makes familiar with the world of men and women, records their actions, assigns their motives, exhibits their whims, characterises their pursuits in all their singular and endless variety, ridicules their absurdities, exposes their inconsistencies, "holds the mirror up to nature, and shows the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure ; " takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, words, thoughts, and actions ; shows us what we are, and what we are not ; plays the whole game of human life over before us, and by making us enlightened spectators of its many-coloured scenes, enables us (if possible) to become tolerably reasonable agents in the one in which we have to perform a part. " The act and practic part of life is thus made the mistress of our theorique." It is the best and most natural course of study. It is in morals and manners what the experimental is in natural philosophy, as opposed to the dogmatical method. It does not deal in sweeping clauses of proscription and anathema, but in nice distinctions and liberal constructions. It makes up its general accounts from details, its few theories from many facts. It does not try to prove all black or all white as it wishes, but lays on the intermediate colours (and most of them not unpleasing ones), as it finds them blended with "the web of our hfe, which is of a mingled yam, good and ill together." It inquires what human life is and has been, to show what it ought to be. It follows it into courts and camps, into town and country, into rustic sports or learned disputations, into the various shades of prejudice or ignorance, of refinement or barbarism, into its private haunts or public pageants, into its weaknesses and littlenesses, its professions and its practices : before it pretends to distinguish right from wrong, or one thing from another. How, indeed, should it do so other- wise? " Quid sit pulehrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Pleuius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dieit." The writers I speak of are, if not moral philosophers, moral historians, and that's better : or if they are both, they found the one character upon the other ; their premises precede their conclusions ; and we put faith in their testimony, for we know that it is true. MONTAIGNE. Montaigne was the first person who in his " Essays " led the way to this kind of writing among the moderns. The great merit of Montaigne, then, was that he may be said to have been the first MONTAIGNE. 145 who had the courage to say as an author what he felt as a man. And as courage is generally the effect of conscious strength, he was probably led to do so by the richness, truth, and force of his own observations on books and men. He was, in the truest sense, a man of original mind; that is, he had the power of looking at things for himself, or as they really were, instead of blindly trusting to and f6ndly repeating what others told him that they were. He got rid of the go-cart of prejudice and affectation, with the learned lumber that follows at their heels, because he could do without them. In taking up his pen he did not set up for a philosopher, wit, orator, or moralist, but he became all these by merely daring to tell us whatever passed through his mind, in its naked simplicity and force, that he thought anyways worth communicatiag. He did not, in the abstract character of an author, undertake to say all that could be said upon a subject, but what in his capacity as an inquirer after truth he happened to know about it. He was neither a pedant nor a bigot. He neither supposed that he was bound to know all things, nor that all things were bound to conform to what he had fancied or would have them to be. In treating of men and manners, he spoke of them as he found them, not according to perconceived notions and abstract dogmas ; and he began by teaching us what he himself was. In criticising books he did not compare them with rules and system's, but told us what he saw to like or dislike in them. He did not take his standard of excellence " according to an exact scale " of Aristotle, or fall out with a work that was good for any- thing because "not one of the angles at the four corners was a right one." He was, in a word, the first author who was not a bookmaker, and who wrote not to make converts of others to established creeds and prejudices, but to satisfy his own mind of the truth of things. In this respect we know not which to be most charmed with, the author or the man. There is an inexpressible frankness and sincerity, as well as power, in what he writes. There is no attempt at imposition or concealment, no juggling tricks or solemn mouthing, no laboured attempts at proving himself always in the right, and everybody else in the wrong; he says what is uppermost, lays open what floats at the top or the bottom of his mind, and deserves Pope's character of him, where he professes to " pour out all as plain As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." He does not converse with us like a pedagogue with his pupil, whom he wishes to make as great a blockhead as himself, but like a philo- sopher and friend who has passed through life with thought and 146 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. observation, and is willing to enable others to pass through it with pleasure and profit. A writer of this stamp, I confess, appears to me as much superior to a common bookworm as a library of real books is superior to a mere bookcase, painted and lettered on the outside with the names of celebrated works. As he was the first to attempt this new way of writing, so the same strong natural impulse which prompted the undertaking carried him to the end of his career. The same force and honesty of mind which urged him to throw oif the shackles of custom and prejudice would enable him to complete his triumph over them. He has left little for his successors to achieve in the way of just and original speculation on human life. Nearly all the thinking of the two last centitties of that kind which the French denominate morale ohservatrice is to be found in Montaigne's " Essays : " there is the germ, at least, and generally much more. He sowed the seed and cleared away the rubbish, even where others have reaped the fruit or cultivated and decorated the soil to a greater degree of nicety and perfection. There is no one to whom the old Latin adage is more appKcable than to Montaigne, " Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra dixerunt." There has been no new impulse given to thotight since his time. Among the specimens of criticisms on authors which he has left us are those on Virgil, Ovid, and Boccaccio, in the account of books which he thinks worth reading, or (which is the same thing) which he finds he can read in his old age, and which may be reckoned among the few criticisms which are worth reading at any age. , , , STEELE AND ADDTSON. I HAVE always preferred the " Tatler " to the " Spectator." Whether it is owing to my having been earlier or better ac- quainted vidth the one than the other, my pleasure in reading these two admirable works is not in proportion to their comparative reputation. The -" Tatler " contains only half the number of volumes, and, I will venture to say, nearly an equal quantity of sterHng wit and sense. " The first sprightly runnings " are there : it has more of the original spirit, more of. the freshness and stamp of nature. The indications of character and strokes of humour are more true and frequent ; the reflections that suggest themselves arise more from the occasion, and are less spun out into regular dissertations. They are more like the remarks which occur in sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. Something is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set STEELE AND ADDISON. 147 down what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study, and to have spun out and wiredrawn the hints which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. I am far from wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, but I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I think, upon the whole a less artificial and more original writer. The humorous descriptions of Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments of a comedy ; those of Addison are rather comments or ingenious para- phrases on the genuine text. The characters of the club, not only in the " Tatler," but in the " Spectator," were drawn by Steele. That of Sir Roger de Coverley is among the number. Addison has, however, gained himself immortal honour by his manner of filling up this last character. Who is there that can forget, or be insen- sible to, the inimitable nameless graces and varied traits of nature and of old English character in it : to his unpretending virtues and amiable weaknesses : to his modesty, generosity, hospitality, and eccentric whims : to the respect of his neighbours, and the afiection of his domestics : to his wayward, hopeless, secret passion for his fair enemy, the widow, in which there is more of real romance and true delicacy than in a thousand tales of knight-errantry (we per- ceive the hectic flush of his cheek, the faltering of his tongue in speaking of her bewitching airs and " the whiteness of her hand ") : to the havoc he makes among the game in his neighbourhood : to his speech from the bench, to show the Spectator what is thought of him in the country : to his unwillingness to be put up as a sign- post, and his having his own hkeness turned into the Saracen's head : to his gentle reproof of the baggage of a gipsy that tells him " he has a widow in his line of life : " to his doubts as to the exist- ence of witchcraft, and protection of reputed witches: to his account of the family pictures, and his choice of a chaplain : to his falling asleep at church, and his reproof of John Williams, as soon as he recovered from his nap, for talking in sermon-time ? The characters of Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb are not a whit behind their friend. Sir Roger, in delicacy and felicity. The delightful simplicity and good-humoured officiousness in the one are set ofi: by the grace- ful affectation and courtly pretension in the other. How long since I first became acquainted with these two characters in the " Spec- tator ! " What old-fashioned friends they seem, and yet I am not tired of them hke so many other friends, nor they of me ! How airy these abstractions of the poet's pen stream over the dawn of our acquaintance with human life! how they glance their fairest colours on the prospect before us ! how pure they remain in it to the last, like the rainbow in the evening-cloud, winch the rude hand 148 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. of time and experience can neither soil nor dissipate ! "What a pity that we cannot find the reality! And yet if we did, the dream would be over. . . . JOHNSON. The most triumphant record of the talents and character of Johnson is to be found in Boswell's Life of him. The man was superior to the author. When he threw aside his pen, which he regarded as an encumbrance, he became not only learned and thoughtful, but acute, witty, humorous, natural, honest; hearty and determined, '■ the king of good fellows and wale of old men." There are as many smart repartees, profound remarks, and keen invectives to be found in BosweU's " inventory of all he said " as are recorded of any cele- brated man. The life and dramatic play of his conversation forms a contrast to his written works. His natural powers and undisguised opinions were called out in convivial intercourse. In public, he practised with the foils on: in private, he unsheathed the sword of controversy, and it was " the Ebro's temper." The eagerness of opposition roused him from his natural sluggishness and acquired timidity; he returned blow for blow; and whether the trial were of argument or wit, none of his rivals could boast much of the encounter. Burke seems to have been the only person who had a chance with him ; and it is the unpardonable sin of Boswell's work, that he has purposely omitted their combats of strength and skill. Goldsmith asked, " Does he wind into a subject like a serpent, as Burke does ? " And when exhausted with sickness, he himself said, " If that fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me." It is to be observed that Johnson's colloquial style was as blunt, direct, and downright as his style of studied composition was involved and circuitous. As when Topham Beauclerc and Langton knocked him up at his chambers, at three in the morning, and he came to the door with the poker in his hand, but seeing them, exclaimed, ' Wliat, is it you, my lads P then I'll have a frisk with you ! " And he afterwards reproaches Langton, who was a literary milksop, for leaving them to go to an engagement " with some un-ideal girls." What words to come from the mouth of the great moralist and lexicographer ! His good deeds were as many as his good sayings. His domestic habits, his tenderness to servants, and readiness to oblige his friends ; the quantity of strong tea that he drank to keep down sad thoughts ; his many laboms reluctantly begun and irre- solutely laid aside; his honest acknowledgment of his own, and indulgence to the weaknesses of others ; his throwing himself back THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 149 in the post-ohaise with Boswell, and sajdng, "Now I think I am a good-humoured fellow," though nobody thought him so, and yet he was ; his quitting the society of Garriok and his actresses, and his reason for it ; his dining with Wilkes, and his kindness to Gold- smith ; his sitting with the young ladies on his knee at the Mitro, to give them good advice, in which situation, if not explained, he might be taken for Falstafif; and last and noblest, his carrjdng the unfortunate victim of disease and dissipation on his back up through Fleet Street (an act which realises the parable of the good Samaritan) — all these, and innumerable others, endear him to the reader, and must be remembered to his lasting honour. He had faults, but they lie biiried with him. He had his prejudices and his intolerant feel- ings ; but he suffered enough in the coniiict of his own mind with them. For if no man can be happy in the free exercise of his reason, no wise man can be happy without it. His were not time-serving, heartless, hjrpocritical prejudices, but deep, inwoven, not to be rooted out but with life and hope, which he found from old habit necessary to his own peace of mind, and thought so to the peace of mankind. I do not hate, but love him for them. They were between himself and his conscience; and should be left to that higher tribunal, " where they in trembling hope repose, the bosom of his Father and his God." In a word, he has left behind him few wiser or better men. THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS. [The greater portion of this paper originally appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1815.] Thekb is an exclamation in one of Gray's Letters — "Be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon ! " If I did not utter a similar aspiration at the conclusion of the last new novel which I read (I would not give offence by being more parti- cular as to the name), it was not from any want of affection for the class of writing to which it belongs ; for, without going so far as the celebrated French philosopher, who thought that more was to be learnt from good novels and romances than from the gravest treatises on history and morality, yet there are few works to which I am oftener tempted to turn for profit or delight than to the standard productions in this species of composition. We find there a close imitation of men and manners; we see the very web and texture of society as it really exists, and as we meet with it when we come into the world. If poetry has " something more divine in 150 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. it," this savours more of humanity. We are brought acquainted with the motives and characters of mankind, imbibe our notions of virtue and vice from practical examples, and are taught a knowledge of the world through the airy medium of romance. As a record of past manners and opinions, too, such writings afford the best and fullest information. For example, I should be at a loss where to find in any authentic documents of the same period so satisfactory an account of the general state of society, and of moral, political, and religious feeling in the reign of George II., as we meet with in the " Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams." This work, indeed, I take to be a perfect piece of statistics in its kind. In looking into any regular history of that period, into a learned and eloquent charge to a grand jury or the clergy of a diocese, or into a tract on controversial divinity, we should hear only of the ascendency of the Protestant succession, the horrors of Popery, the triumph of civil and religious liberty, the wisdom and moderation of the sovereign, the happiness of the subject, and the flourishing state of manufactures and commerce. But if we really vrish to know what all these fine-sounding names come to, we cannot do better than turn to the works of those who, having no other object than to imitate nature, could only hope for success from the fidelity of their pictures, and were bound (in self-defence) to reduce the boasts of vague theorists and the exaggerations of angry disputants to the mortifying standard of reality. Extremes are said to meet ; and the works of imagination, as they are called, sometimes come the nearest to truth and nature. Fielding, in speaking on this subject and vindicating the use and dignity of the style of writing in which he excelled against the loftier pretensions of professed historians, says that in their productions nothing is true but the names and dates, whereas in his everything is true but the names and dates. If so, he has the advantage on his side. I will here confess, however, that I am a little prejudiced on the point in question, and that the effect of many fine speculations has been lost upon me, from an early familiarity with the most striking passages in the work to which I have just alluded. Thus nothing can be more captivating than the description somewhere given by Mr. Burke of the indissoluble connection between learning and nobility, and of the respect universally paid by wealth to piety and morals. But the effect of this ideal representation has always been spoiled by my recollection of Parson Adams sitting over his cup of ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. Echard "On the Contempt of the Clergy" is, in like manner, a, very good book, and "worthy of all acceptation ; " but, somehow, an unlucky impression of the reality CERVANTES AND LE SAGE. 151 of Parson Tnilliber involuntarily checks the emotions of respect to which it might otherwise give rise ; while, on the other hand, the lecture which Lady Booby reads to Lawyer Scout on the immediate expulsion of Joseph and Fanny from the parish oasts no very favourable light on the flattering accounts of oxu: practical juris- prudence which are to be found in " Blackstone " or " De Lolme." The most moral writers, after all, are those who do not pretend to inculcate any moral. The professed moralist almost unavoidably degenerates into the partisan of a system ; and the philosopher is too apt to warp the evidence to his own purpose. But the painter of manners gives the facts of human nature, and leaves us to draw the inference : if we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at least it is our own fault. The first-rate writers in this class of course are few ; but those few we may reckon among the greatest ornaments and best bene- factors of our kind. There is a certain set of them who, as it were, take their rank by the side of reality, and are appealed to as evidence on all questions concerning human nature. The principal of these are Cervantes and Le Sage, who may be considered as having been naturalised among ourselves ; and, of native English growth, Field- ing, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne.'' As this is a department of criticism wliich deserves more attention than has been usually bestowed upon it, I shall here venture to recur (not from choice, but necessity) to what I have said upon it in a well-known periodical publication, and endeavour to contribute my mite towards settling the standard of excellence, both as to degree and kind, in these several writers. CERVANTES AND LE SAGE. I SHALL begin with the history of the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, who presents something more stately, more romantic, and at the same time more real to the imagination than any other hero upon record. His lineaments, his accoutrements, his paste- board vizor, are familiar to us ; and Mambrino's helmet still glitters in the sun ! We not only feel the greatest love and veneration for the knight himseK, but a certain respect for all those connected with hiTTi — the curate and Master Nicolas the barber, Sancho and Dapple, and even for Rosinante's leanness and his errors. Perhaps ■• It is not to be forgotten that the author of " Robinson Crusoe " was also an Englishman. His other works, such as the "Life of Colonel Jack," &c., are of the same oast, and leave an impression on the mind more like that of things than words. 152 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. there is no work which combines so much whimsical invention with such an air of truth. Its popularity is almost unequalled ; and yet its merits have not been sufficiently understood. The story is the least part of them ; though the blunders of Sancho, and the unlucky adventures of his master, are what naturally catch the attention of the majority of readers. The pathos and dignity «f the senti- ments are often disguised under the ludicrousness of the subject, and provoke laughter when they might well draw tears. The character of Don Quixote himself is one of the most perfect dis- interestedness. He is an enthusiast of the most amiable kind: of a nature equally open, gentle, and generous: a lover of truth and justice; and one who had brooded over the fine dreams of chivalry and romance, till they had robbed him of himself, and cheated his brain into a belief of their reality. There cannot be a greater mistake than to consider "Don Quixote" as a merely satirical work, or as a vulgar attempt to explode "the long-forgotten orfler of chivalry." There could be no need to explode what no longer existed. Besides, Cervantes himself was a man of the most sanguine and enthusiastic temperament ; and even through the crazed and battered figure of the knight, the spirit of chivalry shines out with undiminished lustre; as if the author had half- designed to revive the example of past ages, and once more " witch the world with noble horsemanship." Oh ! if ever the mouldering flame of Spanish liberty is destined to break forth, wrapping the tyrant and the tyranny in one consuming blaze, that the spark of generous sentiment and romantic enterprise, from which it must be kindled, has not been quite extinguished will perhaps be owing to thee, Cervantes, and to thy " Don Quixote ! " The character of Sancho is not more admirable in itself than as a relief to that of the knight. The contrast is as picturesque and striking as that between the figures of Rosinante and Dapple. Never was there so complete a partie quarreS : — they answer to one another at all pouits. Nothing need surpass the truth of physiog- nomy in the description of the master and man, both as to body and mind ; the one lean and taU, the other round and short ; the one heroical and courteous, the other selfish and servile ; the one full of high-flown fancies, the other a bag of proverbs; the one always starting some romantic scheme, the other trying to keep to the safe side of custom and tradition. The gradual ascendency, however, obtained by Don Quixote over Sancho is as finely managed as it is characteristic. Credulity and a love of the marvellous are as natural to ignorance as selfishness and cunning. Sancho by degrees becomec a kind of lay-brother of the order ; acquires a taste CERVANTES AND LB SAGE. 153 for adventures in his own way, and is made all but an entire con- vert, by the discovery of the hundred crowns in one of his most comfortless journeys. Towards the end, his regret at being forced to give up the pursuit of knight-errantry almost equals his master's ; and he seizes the proposal of Don Quixote for them to turn shepherds with the greatest avidity-rstill applying it in his own fashion ; for while the Don is ingeniously torturing the names of his humble acquaintance into classical terminations, and contriving scenes of gallantry and song, Sancho exclaims, " Oh, what delicate wooden spoons shall I carve ! what crumbs and cream shall I devour ! " — for- getting, in his milk and fruits, the pullets and geese at Oamacho's wedding. This intuitive perception of the hidden analogies of things, or, as it may be called, this instinct of the imagination, is, perhaps, what stamps the character of genius on the productions of art more than any. other circumstance ; for it works unconsciously like nature, and receives its impressions from a kind of inspiration. There is" as much of this indistinct keeping and involuntary unity of purpose in Cervantes as in any author whatever. Something of the same unsettled, rambUng humour extends itself to all the subordinate parts and characters of the work. Thus we find the curate confi- dentially informing Don Quixote, that if he could get the ear of the Government, he has something of considerable importance to propose for the good of the State ; and our adventurer afterwards (in the course of his peregrinations) meets with a young gentleman who is a candidate for poetical honours, with a mad lover, a forsaken damsel, a Mahometan lady converted to the Christian faith, Ac- all delineated with the same truth, wildness, and delicacy of fancy. The whole work breathes that air of romance, that aspiration after imaginary good, that indescribable longing after something more than we possess, that in all places and in all conditions of life, ' still prompts the eternal sigh, For which we wish to live, or dare to die ! ' The leading characters in "Don Quixote'' are strictly individuals; that is, they do not so much belong to as form a class by them- selves. In other words, the actions and manners of the chief dramatis personce do not arise out of the actions and manners of those around them, or the situation of life in which they are placed, but out of the peculiar dispositions of the persons themselves, operated upon by certain impulses of caprice and accident. Yet these impulses are so true to nature, and their operation so exactly described, that we not only recognise the fidelity of the representar 154 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. tion, but recognise it with all the advantages of novelty superadded. They are in the best sense originals, namely, in the sense in which nature has her originals. They are unlike anything we have seen before — may be said to be purely ideal, and yet identify themselves more readily with our imagination, and are retained more strongly in memory, than perhaps any others: they are never lost in the crowd. One test of the truth of this ideal painting is the number of allusions which "Don Quixote" has furnished to the whole of civilised Europe ; that is to say, of appropriate cases and striking illustrations of the universal principles of our nature. The detached incidents and occasional descriptions of human life are more familiar and obvious; so that we have nearly the same insight here given us into the characters of innkeepers, barmaids, hostlers, and puppet- show men that we have in Fielding. There is a much greater mix- ture, however, of the pathetic and sentimental with the quaint and humorous, than there ever is in Fielding. I might instance.the story of the countryman whom Don Quixote and Sancho met in their doubtful search after Dulcinea, driving his mules to plough at break of day, and " singing the ancient ballad of EoncesvaUes ! " The episodes which are frequently introduced are excellent, but have, upon the whole, been overrated. They derive their interest from their connection with the main story. We are so pleased with that, that we are disposed to receive pleasure from everything else. Compared, for instance, with the serious tales of Boccaccio, they are slight and somewhat superficial. That of Marcella the fair shepherdess is, I think, the best. I shall only add, that "Don Quixote" was, at the time it was published, an entirely original work in its kind, and that the author claims the highest honour which can belong to one, that of being the inventor o£ a new style of writing. I have never read his "Galatea," nor his "Loves of PersUes and Sigismunda," though I have often meant to do it, and I hope to do so yet. Perhaps there is a reason lurking at the bottom of this dUatoriness. I am quite sure the reading of these works could not make me think higher of the author of " Don Quixote," and it might, for a moment or two, make me think less. There is another Spanish novel, " Gusman D'AUarache," nearly of the same age as " Don Quixote," and of great genius, though it can hardly be ranked as a novel or a work of imagination. It is a series of strange, unconnected adventures, rather dryly told, but accom- panied by the most severe and sarcastic commentary. The satire, the wit, the eloquence and reasoning, are of the most potent kind ; but they are didactic rather than dramatic. They would suit a homily or a pasquinade as well [as] or better than a romance. CERVANTES AND LE SAGE. 155 Still there are in this extraordinary book occasional sketches of character and humorous descriptions to which it would be difficult to produce anything superior. This work, which is hardly known in this country except by name, has the credit without any reason of being the original of " GU. Bias." There is one incident the same, that of the unsavoury ragout which is served up for supper at the inn. In all other respects these two works are the very reverse of each other, both ia their excellences and defects. " Lazarillo de Tonnes" has been more read than the "Spanish Rogue," and is a work more readable, on this account among others, that it is contained in a duodecimo instead of a foHo volume. This, however, is long enough, considering that it treats of only one subject, that of eating, or rather the possibility of living without eating. Famine is here framed into an art, and feasting is banished far hence. The hero's time and thoughts are taken up in a thousand shifts to pro- cure a dinner ; and that failing, in tampering with his stomach till supper-time, when, being forced to go supperless to bed, he com- forts himself with the hopes of a breakfast the next morning, of which being again disappointed, he reserves his appetite for a luncheon, and then has to stave it off again by some meagre excuse or other till dinner ; and so on, by a perpetual adjournment of this necessary process, through the four-and-twenty hours round. The quantity of food proper to keep body and soul together is reduced to a TninimnTn ; and the most uninviting morsels with which Laza- rillo meets once a week as a God's-send are pampered into the most sumptuous fare by a long course of inanition. The scene of this novel could be laid nowhere so properly as in Spain, that land of priestcraft and poverty, where hunger seems to be the ruling passion, and starving the order of the day. " Gil Bias " has, next to " Don Quixote," been more generally read and admired than any other novel ; and in one sense deservedly so ; for it is at the head of its class, though that class is very dif- ferent from, and I should say inferior to, the other. There is little individual character in "Gil Bias." The author is a describer of manners, and not of character. He does not take the elements of human nature, and work them up into new combinations (which is the excellence of "Don Quixote"), nor trace the peculiar and shifting shades of folly and knavery as they are to be found in real life (like Fielding) ; but he takes off, as it were, the general, habitual impression which circumstances make on certain conditions of life, and moulds all his characters accordingly. All the persons whom he introduces carry about with them the badge of their profession ; and you see little more of them than their costume. He describes IS6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. men as belonging to distinct classes in society ; not as they are in themselves, or with the individual differences which are always to be discovered in nature. His hero, in particular, has no character but that of the successive circumstances in which he is placed. His priests are only described as priests: his valets, his players, his women, his courtiers and his sharpers, are all alike. Nothing can well exceed the monotony of the work in this respect, at the same time that nothing can exceed the truth and precision with which the general manners of these different characters are preserved, nor the felicity of the particular traits by which their common foibles are brought out. Thus the Archbishop of Granada will remain an everlasting memento of the weakness of human vanity; and the account of Gil Bias' legacy, of the uncertainty of human expecta- tions. This novel is also deficient in the fable as well as in the characters. It is not a regularly constructed story, but a series of amusing adventures told with equal gaiety and good sense, and in the most graceful style imaginable. It has been usual to class our own great novelists as imitators of one or other of these two' writers. Fielding, no doubt, is more like " Don Quixote " than " Gil Bias ; " Smollett is more like " GU Bias " than " Don Quixote ; " but there is not much resemblance in either case. Sterne's " Tristram Shandy " is a more direct instance of imitation; Richardson can scarcely be called an imitator of any one ; or if he is, it is of the sentimental refinement of Marivaux, or of the verbose gallantry of the writers of the seventeenth century. There is very little to warrant the common idea that Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes, except his own declaration of such an intention in the title-page of " Joseph Andrews," the romantic turn of the character of Parson Adams (the only romantic character in his works), and the proverbial humour of Partridge, which is kept up only for a few pages. Fielding's novels are, in general, thoroughly his own; and they are thoroughly English. What they are most remarkable for is neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor wit, nor even humour, though there is an immense deal of this last quality ; but profound knowledge of human nature, at least of English nature, and masterly pictures of the characters of men as he saw them exist- ing. This quality distinguishes all his works, and is shown almost equally in all of them. As a painter of real life, he was equal to Hogarth : as a mere observer of human nature, he was little infe- rior to Shakspeare, though without any of the genius and poetical qualities of his mind. His humour is less rich and laughable than Smollett's ; his wit as often misses as hits ; he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or Sterne; but he has brought together a FIELDING AND SMOLLETT. it^y greater variety of characters in common life, marked with more distinct peculiarities and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel-writer whatever. The extreme subtlety of observation on the springs of human conduct in ordinary characters is only equalled by the ingenuity of contrivance in bringing those springs into play, in such a manner as to lay open their smallest irregularity. The detection is always complete, and made with the certainty and skill of a philosophical experiment, and the obviousness and famili- arity of a casual observation. The truth of the imitation is indeed so great, that it has been argued that Fielding must have had his materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely a transcriber of local manners and individual habits. For this conjecture, however, there seems to be no foundation. His representations, it is true, are local and individual ; but they are not the less profound and conclusive. The feeling of the general principles of human nature, operating in particular circumstances, is always intense, and upper- most in his mind ; and he makes use of incident and situation only to bring out character. It is scarcely necessary to give any illustrations. Tom Jones is full of them. There is the accoimt, for example, of the gratitude of the elder Blifil to his brother, for assisting him to obtain the fortune of Miss Bridget Al worthy by marriage ; and of the gratitude of the poor in his neighbourhood to Alworthy hiniself, who had done so much good in the country that he had made every one in it his enemy. There is the account of the Latin dialogues between Partridge and his maid, of the assault made on him during one of these by Mrs. Partridge, and the severe bruises he patiently re- ceived on that occasion, after which the parish of Little Badding- ton rang with the story that the schoolmaster had killed his wife. There is the exquisite keeping in the character of" Blifil, and the want of it in that of Jones. There is the gradation in the lovers of Molly Seagrim ; the philosopher Square succeeding to Tom Jones, who again finds that he himself had succeeded to the accomplished WiU Barnes, who had the first possession of her person, and had still possession of her heart, Jones being only the instrument of her vanity, as Square was of her interest. Then there is the discreet honesty of Black George, the learning of Thwackum and Square, and the profundity of Squire Western, who considered it as a physical impossibility that his daughter should fall in love with Tom Jones. We have also that gentleman's disputes with his sister, and the inimitable appeal of that lady to her niece : — " I was never so handsome as you, Sophy : yet I had something of you formerly. I was called the cruel Parthenissa, Kingdoms and 158 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. states, as Tully Cicero says, undergo alteration, and so must the human form ! " The adventure of the same lady with the highway- man, who robbed her of her jewels while he complimented her beavity, ought not to be passed over, nor that of Sophia and her muff, nor the reserved coquetry of her cousin Fitzpatrick, nor the description of Lady Bellaston, nor the modest overtures of the pretty widow Hunt, nor the indiscreet babblings of Mrs. Honour. The moral of this book has been objected to without much reason; but a more serious objection has been made to the want of refine- ment and elegance in two principal characters. We never feel this objection, indeed, while we are reading the book ; but at other times we have something like a lurking suspicion that Jones was but an awkward fellow, and Sophia, a pretty simpleton. I do not know how to account for this effect, unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring us of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. The story of "Tom Jones" is allowed to be unrivalled; and it is this circmnstanoe, together with the vast variety of characters, that has given the " History of a Foundling " so decided a preference over Fielding's other novels. The characters themselves, both in "Amelia" and " Joseph Andrews," are quite equal to any of those in " Tom Jones." The account- of Miss Matthews and Ensign Hibbert, in the former of these ; the way in which that lady reconciles herself to the death of her father ; the inflexible Colonel Bath ; the insipid Mrs. James, the complaisant Colonel Trent, the demure, sly, intriguing, equivocal Mrs. Bennet, the lord who is her seducer, and who attempts after- wards to seduce Amelia by the same mechanical process of a con- cert-ticket, a book, and the disguise of a great-coat ; his little, fat, short-nosed, red-faced, good-humoured accomplice, the keeper of the lodging-house, who, having no pretensions to gallantry herself, has a disinterested delight in forwarding the intrigues and pleasures of others (to say nothing of honest Atkinson, the story of the miniature picture of Amelia, and the hashed mutton," which are in a different style), are masterpieces of description. The whole scene at the lodg- ing-house, the masquerade, &o., in " Amelia " are equal in interest to the parallel scenes in " Tom Jones," and even more refined in the know- ledge of character. For instance, Mrs. Bennet is superior to Mrs. Fitzpatrick in her own way. The uncertainty in which the event of her interview with her former seducer is left is admirable. Fielding was a master of what may be called the double entendre of character, and surprises you no less by what he leaves in the dark (hardly known to the persons themselves) than by the unexpected dis- coveries he makes of the real traits and circumstances in a character FIELDING AND SMOLLETT. 159 with which, till then, you find you were unacquainted. There is nothing at all heroic, however, in the usual style of his delineations. He does not draw lofty characters or strong passions ; all his per- sons are of the ordinary stature as to intellect, and possess little elevation of fancy or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after all. Parson Adams is his finest character. It is equally true to nature, and more ideal than any of the others. Its unsuspecting simphcity makes it not only more amiable, but doubly amusing, by gratif jong the sense of superior sagacity in the reader. Our laughing at him does not once lesson our respect for him. His declaring that he would willingly walk ten miles to fetch his sermon on vanity, merely to convince Wilson of his thorough contempt of this vice, and his consoling himself for the loss of his " .lEschylus " by suddenly recol- lecting that he could not read it if he had it, because it is dark, are among the finest touches of naivete. The night-adventures at Lady Booby's with Beau Didapper and the amiable Slipslop are the most ludicrous ; ahd that with the huntsman, who draws off the hounds from the poor Parson, because they would be spoiled by following vermin, the most profound. Fielding did not often repeat himself ; but Dr. Harrison, in " Amelia," may be considered as a variation of the character of Adams: so also is Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wake-' field ; " and the latter part of that work, which sets out so delight- fully, an almost entire plagiarism from "Wilson's account of himself, and Adams's domestic history. Smollett's first novel, " Roderick Random," which is also his best, appeared about the same time as Fielding's " Tom Jones ; " and yet it has a much more modern air with it ; but this may be accounted for from the circumstance that Smollett was quite a young man at the time, whereas Fielding's manner must have been formed long before. The style of " Roderick Random " is more easy and flowing than that of " Tom Jones ; " the incidents follow one another more rapidly (though, it must be confessed, they never come in such a throng, or are brought out with the same dramatic effect) ; the humour is broader and as effectual ; and there is very nearly, it not quite, an equal interest excited by the story. What, then, is it that gives the superiority to Fielding ? It is the superior insight into the springs of human character, and the constant development of that character through every change of circumstance. SmoUett's humom: often rises from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their external appearance, as from Roderick Random's carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles, or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow from it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all his productions. The incidents fre- p i6o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. quently resemble detached anecdotes taken from a newspaper or magazine ; and, lilre those in " Gil Bias/' might happen to a hundred other characters. He exhibits the ridiculous accidents and reverses to which human life is liable, not " the stuff" of which it is composed. He seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates beyond the surface; and therefore he leaves no stings in the minds of his readers, and in this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. His novels always enliven, and never tire us : we take them up with pleasure, and lay them down without any strong feeling of regret. "We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing scene, without closing in with the combatants or being made parties in the event. We read " Roderick Random " as an entertaining story ; for the particular accidents and modes of life which it describes have ceased to exist ; but we regard " Tom Jones " as a real history, because the author never stops short of those essential principles which lie at the bottom of all our actions, and in which we feel an immediate interest — intus et in cute. Smollett excels most as the lively cari- caturist, Kelding as the exact painter and profound metaphysician. I am far from maintaining that this account applies imiformly to the prodiictions of these two writers ; but I think that, as far as they essentially differ, what I have stated is the general distinction between them. " Roderick Random " is the purest of Smollett's novels: I mean in point of style and description. Most of the incidents and characters are supposed to have been taken from the events of his own life, and are therefore truer to nature. There is a rude conception of generosity in some of his characters, of which Fielding seems to have been incapable, his amiable persons being merely good-natured. It is owing to this that Strap is superior to Partridge, as there is a heartiness and warmth of feeling in some of the scenes between Lieutenant Bowling and his nephew, which is beyond Fielding's power of impassioned writing. The whole of the scene on ship-board is a most admirable and striking picture, and, I imagine, very little if at all exaggerated, though the interest it excites is of a very unpleasant kind, because the irritation and re- sistance to petty oppression can be of no avail. The picture of the little profligate French friar, who was Roderick's travelling com- panion, and of whom he always kept to the windward, is one of Smollett's most masterly sketches. " Peregrine Pickle " is no great favourite of mine, and " Launcelot Greaves " was not worthy of the genius of the author. "Humphry Clinker" and "Count Fathom'' are both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that ever was vsritten : that which gives the most RICHARDSON AND STERNE. l6i pleasure with the least efifort to the reader. It is quite as amusing as going the journey could have been ; and we have just as good an idea of what happened on the road as if we had been of the party. Humphry Clinker himself is exquisite ; and his sweetheart, Winifred Jenkins, not much behind him. Matthew Bramble, though not altogether original, is excellently supported, and seems to have been the prototype of Sir Anthony Absolute in the " Rivals." But Lismahago is the flower of the flock. His tenaciousness in argu- ment is not so delightful as the relaxation of liis logical severity, when he finds his fortune mellowing in the wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the best-preserved and most severe of all SmoUett's characters. The resemblance to " Don Quixote " is only just enough to make it interesting to the critical reader without giving ofienoe to anybody else. The indecency and filth in this novel are what must be allowed to all Smollett's writings. The sub- ject and characters in " Count Fathom " are, in general, exceedingly disgusting : the story is also spun out to a degree of tediousness in the serious and sentimental parts ; but there is more power of writing occasionally shown in it than in any of his works. I need only refer to the fine and bitter irony of the Count's address to the country of his ancestors on his landing in England ; to the robber- scene in the forest, which has never been surpassed ; to the Parisian swindler who personates a raw English country squire (Western is tame in the comparison) ; and to the story of the seduction in the west of England. It would be difficult to point out, in any author, passages written with more force and mastery than these. It is not a very diflicult tmdertaking to class Fielding or Smollett — the one as an observer of the characters of human life, the other as a describer of its various eccentricities. But it is by no means so easy to dispose of Richardson, who was neither an observer of the one nor a describer of the other, but who seemed to spin his materials entirely out of his own brain, as if there had been nothing existing in the world beyond the little room in which he sat writing. There is an artificial reality about his works, which is nowhere else to be met with. They have the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the literal minuteness of a common diary. The author had the strongest matter-of-fact imagination that ever existed, and wrote the oddest mixture of poetry and prose. He does not appear to have taken advantage of anything in actual nature, from one end of his works to the other ; and yet, throughout all his works, volu- minous as they are — and this, to be sure, is one reason why they are so — he sets about describing every object and transaction as if the whole had been given in on evidence by an eye-witness. This i62 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. kind of high finishing from imagination is an anomaly in the history of human genius ; and certainly nothing so fine was ever produced by the same accumulation of minute parts. There-is not the least distraction, the least f orgetf ulness of the end : every circumstance is made to tell. I cannot agree that this exactness of detail pro- duces heaviness ; on the contrary, itr gives an appearance of truth, and a positive interest to the story ; and we listen with the same attention as we should to the particulars of a confidential conunu- nication. I at one time used to think some parts of " Sir Charles Grandison " rather trifling and tedious, especially the long descrip- tion of Miss Harriet Byron's wedding-clothes, tUl I was told of two young ladies who had severally copied out the whole of that very description for their own private gratification. After that, I could not blame the author. The efieot of reading this work is like an increase of kindred. You find yourself all of a sudden introduced into the midst of a large famUy, with aunts and cousins to the third and fourth gene- ration, and grandmothers both by the father's and mother's side ; and a very odd set of people they are, but people whose real exist- ence and personal identity you can no more dispute than your own senses, for you see and hear aU that they do or say. What is still more extraordinary, all this extreme elaborateness in working out the story seems to have cost the author nothing ; for it is said that the published works are mere abridgments. I have heard (though this, I suspect, must be a pleasant exaggeration) that " Sir Charles Grandison " was originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes. Pamela is the first of Richardson's productions, and the very cliild of his brain. Taking the general idea of the character of a modest and beautiful country girl, and of the ordinary situation in which she is placed, he makes out all the rest, even to the smallest circumstance, by the mere force of a reasoning imagina- tion. It would seem as if a step lost would be as fatal here as in a mathematical demonstration. The development of the char- acter is the most simple, and comes the nearest to nature that it can do, without being the same thing. The interest of the story increases with the dawn of understanding and reflection in the heroine : her sentiments gradually expand themselves, like opening flowers. She writes better every time, and acquires a confidence in herself, just as a girl would do writing such letters in such circumstances; and yet it is certain that no girl would lorite such letters m such circumstances. What I mean is this — Richardson's nature is always the nature of sentiment and reflection, not of impulse or situation. He furnishes his characters, on every occasion. RICHARDSON AND STERNE. 163 with the presence of mind of the author. He makes them act, not as they would from the impulse of the moment, but as they might upon reflection, and upon a careful review of every motive and circumstance in their situation. They regularly sit down to write letters ; and if the business of life consisted in letter-writing, and was carried on by the post (like a Spanish game at chess), human nature would be what Richardson represents it. All actual objects and feelings are blunted and deadened by being presented through a medium which may be ture to reason, but is false in nature. He confounds his own point of view with that of the immediate actors in the scene, and hence presents yoii with a con- ventional and factitious nature, instead of that which is real. Dr. Johnson seems to have preferred this truth of reflection to the truth of nature, when he said that there was more knowledge of the human heart in a page of Richardson than in all Fielding. Fielding, however, saw more of the practical results, and understood the principles as well ; but he had not the same power of speculat- ing upon their possible results, and combining them in certain ideal forms of passion and imagination, which was Richardson's real excellence. It must be observed, however, that it is this mutual good un- derstanding, and comparing of notes between the author and the persons he describes : his infinite circumspection, his exact process of ratiocination and calculation, which gives such an appearance of coldness and formality to most of his characters — which makes prudes of his women, and coxcombs of his men. Everything is too conscious in his works. Everything is distinctly brought home to the mind of the actors in the scene, which is a fault undoubtedly ; but then it must be confessed everything is brought home in its full force to the mind of the reader also, and we feel the same interest in the story as if it were our own. Can anything be more beautiful or more aflecting than Pamela's reproaches to her " lumpish heart," when she is sent away from her master's at her own request : its lightness, when she is sent for back : the joy which the conviction of the sincerity of his love diffuses in her heart, like the coming on of spring ; the artifice of the stuff gown : the meeting with Lady Davers after her marriage : and the trial-scene with her husband ? Who ever remained insensible to the passion of Lady Clementina, ex- cept Sir Charles Grandison himself, who was the object of it.P Clarissa is, however, his masterpiece, if we except Lovelace. If she is fine in herself, she is still finer in his account of her. With that foil her purity is dazzling indeed ; and she who could triumph by her virtrie and the force of her love over the regality of Lovelace's mind, his i64 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. wit, his person, Ms accomplishments, and his spirit, conquers all hearts. I should suppose that never sympathy more deep or sincere was excited than by the heroine of Richardson's romance, except by the calamities of real life. The links in this wonderful chain of interest are not more finely wrought than their whole wejght is overwhelming and irresistible. "Who can forget the exquisite gradar tions of her long dying scene, or the closing of the coffin-M, when Miss Howe comes to take her last leave of her friend ; or the heart- breaking reflection that Clarissa makes on what was to have been her wedding-day ? Well does a certain writer exclaim — ■ " Books are a real world, both pure and good, Kound which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood. Our pastime and our happiness may grow ! " Richardson's wit was unlike that of any other writer : his humour was so too. Both were the efiect of intense activity of mind: laboured, and yet completely effectual. I might refer to Lovelace's reception and description of Hickman, when he calls out Death in his ear, as the name of the person with whom Clarissa had fallen in love,- and to the scene at the glove-shop. What can be more magnificent than his enumeration of his companions — "Etlt)i}, so pert and so pimply : TourvUle, so fair and so foppish," &c. ? In casuistry this author is quite at home ; and with a boldness greater even than his puritanical severity, [he] has exhausted every topic on virtue and vice. There is another peculiarity in Richardson not perhaps so uncommon, which is his systematically preferring his most insipid characters to his finest, though both were equally his own invention, and he must be supposed to have understood some- thing of their qualities. Thus he preferred the little, selfish, affected, insignificant Miss Byron to the divine Clementina, and, again. Sir Charles Grandison to the nobler Lovelace. I have nothing to say in favour of Lovelace's moraUty ; but Sir Charles is the prince of coxcombs, whose eye was never once taken from his own person, and his own virtues, and there is nothing which excites so little sympathy as this excessive egotism. It remains to speak of Sterne ; and I shall do it in few words. There is more of mannerism and affectation in him, and a more immediate reference to preceding authors ; but his excellences, where he is excellent, are of the first order. His characters are intellectual and inventive, like Richardson's, but totally opposite in the execu- tion. The one is made out by continuity and patient repetition of touches : the others, by glancing transitions and graceful apposition. His style is equally different from Richardson's : it is at times the SIR WALTER SCOTT. 165 most rapid, the most happy, the most idiomatic of any that is to be found. It is the pure essence of English conversational style. His works consist only of morceaux — of' brilliant passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have known better, should call him " a dull fellow." His wit is poignant, though artificial ; and his characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before) have yet invaluable original dififerences ; and the spirit of the execution, the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to name them : — Yoriok, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy, My Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow Wadman. In these he has contrived to oppose with equal felicity and originality two characters, one of pure intellect, and the other of pure good-nature, in My Father and My Uncle Toby. There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic humour, and of extreme tenderness of feeling ; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the tale of " Maria " and the apostrophe to the recording angel ; but at other times pure and without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's restlessness, both of body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from which all those despicable performances against modern philosophy ought to have been copied, if their authors had known anything of the subject they were writing about. My Uncle Toby is one of the finest compliments ever paid to human nature. He is the most unoffending of God's creatures ; or, as the French express it, ura tel petit hon homme! Of his bowling- green, his sieges, and his amours, who would say or think anything amiss ? . . . In knowledge, in variety, in facility, in truth of painting, in costume and scenery, in freshness of subject and in untired interest, in glancing lights and the graces of a style passing at wiU from grave to gay, from lively to severe, at once romantic and familiar, having the utm.ost force of imitation and apparent freedom of inven- tion, the Waverley novels have the highest claims to admiration. What lack they yetP The author has all power given him from without — he has not, perhaps, an equal power from within. The intensity of the feeling is not equal to the distinctness of the imagery. He sits Kke a magician in his cell, and conjures up all shapes and sights to the view ; and with a little variation we might apply to him what Spenser says of Fancy : — " His chamber was depainted all within With sundry colours, in ■which were writ Infinite shape of things dispersed thin ; Some such as in the world were never yet ; i65 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Some daily seen and knowen by their namea, Such as in idle fantasies do flit ; Infernal hags, centaurs, fiends, hippodaraes, Apes, liones, eagles, owls, fools, lovers, children, dames." In the midst of all this phantasmagoria, the author himself never appears to take part with his characters, to prompt our affection to the good or sharpen our antipathy to the bad. It is the perfection of art to conceal art ; and this is here done so completely, that while it adds to our pleasure in the work, it seems to take away from the merit of the author. As he does not thrust himself forward in the foreground, he loses the credit of the performance. The copies are so true to nature, that they appear like tapestry figures taken off by the pattern — the obvious patchwork of tradition and history. His characters are transplanted at once from their native soil to the page which we are reading, without any traces of their having passed through the hotbed of the author's genius or vanity. He leaves them as he found them ; but this is doing wonders. The Laird and the Bailie of Bradwardine, the idiot rhymer David Gellatly, Miss Rose Brad wardine and Miss Flora Mac Ivor, her brother the Highland Jaco- bite chieftain, Vich Ian Vohr, the Highland rover, Donald Bean Lean, and the worthy page Galium Beg, Bothwell and Balfour of Burley, Claverhouse and Macbriar, Elshie, the Black Dwarf, and the Bed Eeever of "Westbum Flat, Hobbie and Grace Armstrong, Lucy Bertram and Dominie Sampson, Dirk Hatteraick and Meg MerriHes, are at present " familiar in our mouths as household names," and whether they are actual persons or creations of the poet's pen is an impertinent inquiry. The picturesque and local scenery is as fresh as the lichen on the rock : the characters are a part of the scenery. If they are put in action, it is a moving picture : if they speak, we hear their dialect and the tones of their voice. If the humour is made out by dialect, the character by the dress, the interest by the facts and documents in the author's possession, we have no right to complain, if it is made out ; but sometimes it hardly is, and then we have a right to say so. For instance, in the " Tales of my Land- lord," Canny Elshie is not in himself so formidable or petrifio a person as the real Black Dwarf, called David Ritchie, nor are his acts or sayings so staggering to the imagination. Again, the first introduc- tion of this extraordinary personage, groping about among the hoary twilight ruins of the Witch of Micklestane Moor and her Grey Geese, is as full of preternatural power and bewildering effect (according to the tradition of the country) as can be ; while the last decisive scene, where the Dwarf, in his resumed character of Sir Edward Mauley, comes from the tomb in the chapel, to prevent the forced ELIZABETHAN LIXERAXJJRE— INTRODUCTORY. 167 marriage of the daughter of his former betrothed mistress with the man she abhors, is altogether powerless and tame. No situation could be imagined more finely calculated to call forth an author's powers of imagination and passion ; but nothing is done. The assembly is dispersed under circumstances of the strongest natural feeling and the most appalling preternatural appearances, just as if the effect had been produced by a peace-officer entering for the same purpose. These instances of a falling off are, however, rare ; and if this author should not be supposed by fastidious critics to have original genius in the highest degree, he has other qualities which supply its place so well : his materials are so rich and varied, and he uses them so lavishly, that the reader is no loser by the exchange. We are not in fear that he should publish another novel ; we are under no apprehension of his exhausting himself, for he has shown that he is inexhaustible. {Leotures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 1821. Second I Edition, 1821. Third Edition, 1840. Fourth Edition, 1873.] GENERAL VIEW OE THE SUBJECT. The age of Elizabeth was distinguished beyond, perhaps, any other in our history by a number of great men, famous in different ways, and whose names have come down to us vrith unblemished honours : states- men, warriors, divines, scholars, poets, and philosophers ; Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker, and — high and more sounding stiU, and still more frequent in our mouths — Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, men whom Fame has eternised in her long and lasting scroll, and who, by their words and acts, were . benefactors of their country and ornaments of human nature. Their \ attainments of difierent kinds bore the same general stamp, and it was sterling ; what they did had the mark of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great Britain never shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like itself, than at this period. Our writers and great men had something in them that savoured of the soil from which they grew : they were not French ; they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or Latin; they were truly English. They did not look out of themselves to see what they should be ; they sought for truth and nature, and found it in themselves. There was no tinsel, and but little art ; they were not the spoilt children of affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, inde- 8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. pendent race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with none but natural grace and heart-felt, unobtrusive deUca on the canvas, faded, seared, blighted, shrinking froiti the winter's • flaw, and makes the sight as true as touch " And visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each leaf and hang on every hough." The more ethereal, evanescent, more refined and sublime part of art is the sBfijiTg^jiaiTii-R_jthT""gh thgjr nedium o f sftntiment and passion, as each object is a symbol of the afiections and a link in the I cKSn'of our endless being. But the unraveUitig this mysterious web of thought and feeling is alone in the Muse's gift, namely, in the power of that trembling sensibility which is awake to every change and every modification of its ever-varying impressions, that "Thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line." This power is indifferently called geniugj ^ imagination, feeling , tastej but the manner in which it acts upon the mind can neither Bedefined by abstract rules, as is the case in science, nor verified by continual unvarying experiments, as is the case in mechanical performances. The mechanical excellence of the Dutch painters in colouring and handling is that which comes the nearest in fine art to the perfection of certain manual exhibitions of skill. The truth of the effect and the facility with which it is produced are equally admirable. Up to a certain point, everything is faultless. The hand and eye have done their part. There is only a want of taste and genius. It is after we enter upon that enchanted ground that the human mind begins to droop and flag as in a strange road or in a . thick mist, benighted and making little way 'with many attempts^nd many tailures, and that the best of us only escape with half a triumph. The undefined and the imaginary are the regions that we must pass like Satan, difficult and doubtful, " halt-flying, half on foot." The object in sense is a positive thing, and execution comes with practice. THE INDIAN JUGGLERS. 213 Cleverness is a certain knack or aptitude at doing certain things which depend more on a particular adroitness and off-hand readiness than on force or perseverance, such as making puns, making epi- grams, making extempore verses, mimicking the company, mimicking a style, &c. Cleverness is either liveliness and smartness, or some- thing answering to sleight-of-hand, like letting a glass fall sideways off a table, or else a trick, like knowing the secret spring of a watch. Accomplishments are certain external graces, which are to be learned from others, and which are easily displayed to the admiration of the beholder, viz., dancing, riding, fencing, music, and so on. These ornamental acquirements are only proper to those who are at ease in mind and fortune/l know an individual who, if he had been born to an estate of five thousand a year, would have been the most accomplished gentleman of the age. He would have been the delight and envy of the circle in which he moved — would have graced by his manners the liberality flowing from the openness of his heart, would have laughed with the women, have argued with the men, have said good things and written agreeable ones, have taken a hand at piquet or the lead at the harpsichord, and have set and sung his own verses — Jiuffw canorce — with tenderness and spirit ; a Rochester ^^•ithout the vice, a modem Surrey ! As it is, all these capabilities of excellence stand in his way. He is too versatile for a professional man, not duU enough for a political drudge, too gay to be happy, too thoughtless to be rich. He wants the enthusiasm of the poet, the severity of the prose-writer, and the application of the man of business. — Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry, such as writing a criticism, making a speech, studying the law. ' Talent differs from genius, as voluntary differs from involuntary power. Ingenuity is genius in trifles, greatness is genius in undertakings of much pith and moment. A clever or ingenious man is one who can do anything well, whether it is worth doing or not ; a great man is one who can do that which when done is of the highest importance. ' Themistocles said he could not play on the flute, but that he could make of a small city a great one. This gives one a pretty good idea of the distinction in question. Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must show it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid. He must fill up a certain idea in the public mind. I have no other notion of greatness than this twofold definition, great results springing from great inherent energy. The great in visible objects has relation to that which extends over space : the great in mental ones has to do 214 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. with space and time. • No man is truly great who is great only in his life-time. • The test of greatness is the page of history. Nothing can be said to be great that has a distinct limit, or that borders on something fevidently greater than itself. Besides, what is short- lived and pampered into mere notoriety is of a gross and vulgar quality in itself. A Lord Mayor is hardly a great man. A city orator or patriot of the day only show, by reaching the height of their wishes, the distance they are at from any true ambition. Popularity is neither fame nor greatness. A king (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his otsti. He merely wields the lever of the State, which a child, an idiot, or a . madman can do. It is the office, not the man, we gaze at. Any one else in the same situation would be just as much an object of abject curiosity. We laugh at the country girl who, having seen a king, expressed her disappointment by saying, " "Why, he is only a man ! " Yet, knowing this, we run to see a king as if he was some- thing more than a man. To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness. To throw a barleycorn through the eye of a needle, to multiply nine figures by nine in the memory, argues definite dexterity of body and capacity of mind, but nothing comes of either. There is a surprising power at work, but the eflfects are not propor- tionate, or such as take hold of the imagination. To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it. It must Mcommunicated to their understandings in the shaped an increase of knowledge, or it must subdue and overawe them by subjecting their wills. Admiration to be solid and lasting must be founded on proofs from which we have no means of escaping ; it is neither a slight nor a voluntary gift. A mathematician who solves a profound problem, a poet who creates an image of beauty in the mind that was not there before, imparts knowledge and power to others, in which his greatness and his fame consists, and on which it reposes. Jedediah Buxton will be forgotten ; but Napier's bones will live. Lawgivers, philosophers, founders of religion, conquerors and heroes, inventors and great geniuses in arts and sciences, are great men, for they are great public benefactors, or formidable scourges to mankind. Among ourselves, Shakspeare, Newton, Bacon, Milton, Cromwell, were great men, for they showed great power by acts and thoughts, which have not yet been consigned to oblivion. They must needs be men of lofty stature whose shadows lengthen out to remote posterity. A great farce-writer may be a great man ; for Molifere was but a great farce-writer. In my mind, the aathor of " Don Quixote " was a great man. So have there, been THE INDIAN JC/GGLE/JS. 215 many others. A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. 1 No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. • This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them. Is not an actor, then, a great man, because "he dies and leaves the world no copy " ? I must make an exception for Mrs. Siddons, or else give up my definition of greatness for her sake. A man at the top of his profession is not therefore a great man. He is great in his way, but that is aU, unless he shows the marks of a great moving intellect, so that we trace the master-mind, and can sympathise with the springs that urge him on. The rest is but a craft or mystery. John Hunter was a great man — that any one might see without the smallest sldll in surgery. His style and manner showed the man. He would set about cutting up the carcass of a whale with the same greatness of gusto that Michael Angelo would have hewn a block of marble. Lord Nelson was a great naval commander ; but for myself, I have not much opinion of a seafaring Ufe. Sir Humphry Davy is a great chemist, but I am not sure that he is a great man. I am not a bit the wiser for any of his discoveries, nor I never met with any one that was. But it is in the nature of greatness to propagate an idea of itself, as wave impels wave, circle without circle. It is a contradiction in terms for a c oxcomb to be a great man. A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself. I have observed that certain sectaries and polemical writers have no higher compli- ment to pay their most shining lights than to say that " such a one was a considerable man in his day." Some new elucidation of a text sets aside the authority of the old interpretation, and a "great scholar's memory outlives him half-a-century," at the utmost. A rich man is not a great man, except to his dependents and his steward. A lord is a great man in the idea we have of his ancestry, and probably of himself, if we know nothing of him but his title. I have heard a story of two bishops, one of whom said (speaking of St. Peter's at Borne) that when he first entered it he was rather awe-struck, but that as he walked up it his mind seemed to swell and dilate with it and at last to fill the whole building : the other said, that as he saw more of it he appeared to himself to grow less and less every step he took, and in the end to dwindle into nothing. This was in some respects a striking pictm:e of a great and little mind — for greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself. The one might have become a Wolsey; the other was only fit to become a Mendicant Friar — or there might 2i6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. have been court-reasons for making him a bishop. The French have to me a character of littleness in all about them ; but they have produced three great men that belong to every country, Molifere, Rabelais, and Montaigne. JOHN CAVANAGH. To return from this digression, and conclude the Essay. A singular instance of manual dexterity was shown in the person of the late John Cavanagh, whom I have several times seen. His death was celebrated at the time in an article in the Examiner newspaper (February 7, 18 19), written apparently between jest and earnest; but as it is pat to ovu? purpose, and falls in with my own way of con- sidering such subjects, I shall here take leave to quote it : — " Died at his house in Burbage Street, St. Giles's, John Cavanagh, the famous hand fives-player. "When a person dies who does any one thing better than any one else in the world, which so many others are trying to do well, it leaves a gap in society. It is not likely that any one will now see the game of fives played in its perfeo tion for many years to come — ^for Cavanagh is dead, and has not left his peer behind him. It may be said that there are things of more importance than striking a ball against a wall — there are things, indeed, that make more noise and do as little good, such as making war and peace, making speeches and answering them, making verses and blotting them, making money and throwing it away. But the game of fives is what no one despises who has ever played at it. It is the finest exercise for the body, and the best relaxation for the mind. The Roman poet said that ' Care mounted behind the horse- man and stuck to his sMrts.' But this remark would not have applied to the fives-player. He who takes to playing at fives is twice young. He feels neither the past nor future ' in the instant.' Debts, taxes, 'domestic treason, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.' He has no other wish, no other thought, from the moment the game begins, but that of striking the ball, of placing it, of making it ! This Cavanagh was sure to do. Whenever he touched the ball there was an end of the chase. His eye was certain, his hand fatal, his presence of mind complete. He could do what he pleased, and he always knew exactly what to do. He saw the whole game, and played it ; took instant advantage of Ms adversary's weakness, and recovered balls, as if by a miracle and from sudden thought, that every one gave for lost. He had equal power and skill, quickness and judgment. He could either outwit his yOHN CAVANAGH, THE FIVES-PLAYER. 217 antagonist by finesse, or beat him by main strength. Sometimes, when he seemed preparing to send the ball with the fuU swing of his arm, he would by a slight turn of his wrist drop it wifhin an inch of the line. In general, the ball came from his hand, as if from a racket, in a straight horizontal line ; so that it was in vain to attempt to overtake or stop it. As it was said of a great orator that he never was at a loss for a word, and for the properest word, so Cavanagh always could tell the degree of force necessary to be given to a ball, and the precise direction in which it should be sent. He did his work with the greatest ease, never took more pains than was necessary, and while others were fagging themselves to death, was as cool and collected as if he had just entered the court. His style of play was as remarkable as his power of execution. He had no affectation, no trifling. He did not throw away the game to show off an attitude or try an experiment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, who did what he could, but that was more than any one else could even affect to do. His blows were not undecided and ineffectual — ^lumbering like Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, nor waver- ing like Mr. Coleridge's lyric prose, nor short of the mark like Mr. Brougham's speeches, nor wide of it like Mr. Canning's wit, nor foul Mke the Quarterly, nor let balls like the Edinburgh Review. Cobbett and Junius together would have made a Cavanagh. He was the best uphill player in the world ; even when his adversary was four- teen, he would play on the same or better, and as he never flung away the game through carelessness and conceit, he never gave it up through laziness or want of heart. The one peculiarity of his play was that he never volleyed, but let the balls hop ; but if they rose an inch from the ground, he never missed having them. There was not only nobody equal, but nobody second to him. It is supposed that he could give any other player half the game, or beat them with his left hand. His service was tremendous. He once played Woodward and Meredith together (two of the best players in England) in the Fives-court, St. Martin's Street, and made seven- and-twenty aces following by services alone — a thing unheard of. He another time played Peru, who was considered a first-rate fives- player, a match of the best out of five games, and in the three first games, which of course decided the match, Peru got only one ace. Cavanagh was an Irishman by birth, and a house-painter by pro- fession. He had once laid aside liis working-dress, and walked up, in his smartest clothes, to the Rosemary Branch to have an after- noon's pleasure. A person accosted him, and asked him if he would have a game. So they agreed to play for half-a-crown a game and a bottle of cider. The first game began— it was seven, eight, ten, 2i8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. thirteen, fourteen, all. Cavanagh won it. The next was the same, They played on, and each game was hardly contested. ' There,' said the unconscious fives-player, 'there was a stroke that Cavanagh could not take : I never played better in my life, and yet I can't win a game. I don't know how it is ! ' However, they played on, Cavanagh winning every game and the bystanders drinking the cider and laugh- ing all the time. In the twelfth game, when Cavanagh was only four, and the stranger thirteen, a person came in and said, ' What ! are you here, Cavanagh ? ' The words were no sooner pronounced than the astonished player let the ball drop from his hand, and saying, 'What! have I been breaking my heart aU this time to beat Cavanagh ? ' refused to make another eflfort. ' And yet, I give you my word,' said Cavanagh, telling the story with some triimiph, ' I played all the while with my clenched fist.' — He used frequently to play matches at Copenhagen House for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they play is the same that supports the kitchen chimney, and when the wall resounded louder than usual, the cooks exc\j,imed, 'Those are the Irishman's balls,' and the joints trembled on the spit ! — Goldsmith consoled himself that there were places where he too was admired ; and Cavanagh was the admiration of all the fives-courts where he ever played. Mr. Powell, when he played matches in the court in St. Martin's Street, used to fill his gallery at half-a-crown a head, with amateurs and admirers of talent in whatever department it is shown. He could not have shown himself in any gromid in England but he would have been immediately surrounded with inquisitive gazers, trying to find out in what part of his frame his unrivalled skUl lay. He was a young fellow of sense, huniour, and courage. He once had a quarrel with a waterman at Hungerford Stairs, and, they say, served him out in great style. In a word, there are hundreds at this day who cannot mention his name without admiration, as the best fives-player that perhaps ever lived (the greatest excellence of which they have any notion) ; and the noisy shout of the ring happily stood him in stead of the unheard voice of posterity ! The only person who seems to have excelled as much in another way as Cavanagh did in his was the late John Davies, the racket-player. It was remarked of him that he did not seem to foUow the ball, but the ball seemed to foUow him. Give him a foot of wall, and he was sure to make the ball. The four best racket-players of that day were Jack Spines, Jem Harding, Armitage, and Church. Davies could give any one of these two hands a time, that is, half the game, and each of these, at their best, could give the best player now in London the same odds. Such are the gradations in all LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. 219 exertions of human skill and art. He once played four capital players together, and beat them. He was also a first-rate tennis- player and an excellent fives-player. In the Fleet or King's Bench he would have stood against Powell, who was reckoned the best open-ground player of his time. This last-mentioned player is at present the keeper of the Fives-court, and we might recommend to him for a motto over his door — ' Who enters here forgets him- self, his coimtry, and his friends.' And the best of it is, that by the calculation of the odds, none of the three are worth remember- ing ! — Cavanagh died from the bursting of a blood-vessel, which prevented him from playing for the last two or three years. This, he was often heard to say, he thought hard upon him. He was fast recovering, however, when he was suddenly carried off, to the regret of all who knew him. As Mr. Peel made it a qualification of the present Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, that he was an excel- lent moral character, so Jack Cavanagh was a zealous Catholic, and could not be persuaded to eat meat on a Friday, the day on which he died. We have paid this willing tribute to his nigmory. ' Let no rude hand deface it. And his forlorn "Sic Jacet." ' " ON LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. " Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow. Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po.'' I NEVER was in a better place or humour than I am at present for writing on this subject. I have a partridge getting ready for my supper, my fire is blaaing on the hearth, the air is mild for the season of the year, I have had but a slight fit of indigestion to-day (the only thing that makes me abhor myself), I have three hours good before me, and therefore I will attempt it. It is as well to do it at once as to have it to do for a week to come. If the writing on this subject is no easy task, the thing itself is a harder one. It asks a troublesome efiFort to ensure the admiration of others : it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's own thoughts. As I look from the window at the wide bare heath before me, and through the misty moonlight air see the woods that wave over the top of Winterslow, " While heav'n's ohanoel-vault is blind with sleet," my mind takes its flight through too long a series of years, supported 220 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. only by the patience of thought and secret yearnings after truth and good, for me to be at a loss to understand the feeling I intend to write about ; but I do not know that this will enable me to con- vey it more agreeably to the reader. . . . What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it ; it is as if no one knew there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it ; it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it ; to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it. It is such a life as a piu-e spirit might be supposed to lead, and such an interest as it might take in the affairs of men, calm, contemplative, passive, distant, touched with pity for their sorrows, smiling at, their follies without bitterness, sharing their affections, but not troubled by their passions, not seeking their notice, nor once dreamt of by them. He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart loofa at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingl^ in the fray. " He hears the tumult, and is still." He is not able to mend it, nor willing to mar it. He sees enough in the universe to interest him without putting himself forward to try what he can do to fix the eyes of the universe upon him. Vain the attempt ! He reads the clouds, he looks at the stars, he watches the return of the seasons, the falling leaves of autumn, the perfumed breath of spring, starts with delight at the note of a thrush in a copse near him, sits by the fire, listens to the moaning of the wind, pores upon a book, or discourses the freezing hours away, or melts down hours to minutes in pleasing thought. All this while he is taken up with other things, forgetting himself. He rehshes an author's style without thinldng of turning author. He is fond of looking at a print from an old picture in the room, without teasing himself to copy it. He does not fret himself to death with trying to be what he is not, or to do what he cannot. He hardly knows what he is capable of, and is not in the least concerned whether he shall ever make a figure in the world. He feels the truth of the lines — " The man whose eye is ever on himself Doth look one, the least of nature's works ; One who might move the wise man to that scorn Which wisdom holds unlawful ever." He looks out of himself at the wide-extended prospect of nature, and takes an interest beyond his narrow pretensions in general humanity. He is tree as air, and independent as the wind. Woe LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. 221 be to him when he first begins to think what others say of him. While a man is contented with himself and his own resources, all is well. When he undertakes to play a part on the stage, and to persuade the world to think more about him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where he wiU find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and disappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years of my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, or wander by the pebbled sea-side : '* To see the children sporting on the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'' I cared for nothing, I wanted nothing. I took my time to consider whatever occurred to me, and was in no hurry to give a sophistical answer to a question — there was no printer's devil waiting for me. I used to write a page or two perhaps in half a year, and remember laughing heartily at the celebrated experimentalist, Nicholson, who told me that in twenty years he had written as much as would make three hundred octavo volumes. If I was not a great author, I could read with ever-fresh delight, " never ending, still beginning," and had no occasion to write a criticism when I had done. If I could not paint like Claude, I could admire " the witchery of the soft blue sky " as I walked out, and was satisfied with the pleasure it gave me. If I was dull, it gave me little concern : if I was lively, I indulged my spirits. I wished well to the world, and believed as favourably of it as I could. I was like a stranger in a foreign land, at which I looked with wonder, curiosity, and delight, without ex- pecting to be an object of attention in return. I had no relations to the State, no duty to perform, no ties to bind me to others : I had neither friend nor mistress, wife nor child. I lived in a world of contemplation, and not of action. This sort of dreaming existence is the best. He who quits it to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated dis- appointments and vain regrets. His time, thoughts, and feelings are no longer at his own disposal. From that instant he does not survey the objects of nature as they are in themselves, but looks asquint at them to see whether he cannot make them the instru- ments of his ambition, interest, or pleasure; for a candid, unde- signing, undisguised simplicity of character, his views become jaundiced, sinister, and double : he takes no further interest in the great changes of the world but as he has a paltry share in produc- ing them : instead of opening his senses, his understanding, and his 222 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. heart to the resplendent fabric of the universe, he holds a crooked mirror before his face, in which he may admire his own person and pretensions, and just glance his eye aside to see whether others are not admiring him too. He no more exists in the impression which " the fair variety of things " makes upon him, softened and subdued by habitual contemplation, but in the feverish sense of his own upstart self-importance. By aiming to fix, he is become the slave of opinion. He is a tool, a part of a machine that never stands still, and is sick and giddy with the ceaseless motion. He has no satis- faction but in the reflection of his own image in the public gaze- but in the repetition of his own name in the public ear. He himself is mixed up with and spoils everything. . . . I have seen a celebrated talker of our own time turn pale and go out of the room when a showy-looking girl has come into it, who for a moment divided the attention of his hearers. Infinite are the mortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity; numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still tlie vicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success : "Whose top to olimb Is certain falling, or so slippery, that The fear's as bad as falling. " " Would to God," exclaimed Oliver Cromwell, when he was at any time thwarted by the Parliament, "that I had remained by my woodside to tend a flock of sheep, rather than have been thrust on such a government as this ! " When Buonaparte got into his carriage to proceed on his Russian expedition, carelessly twirling his glove and singing the air, "Malbrook to the war is going," he did not think of the tumble he has got since, the shock of which no one could have stood but himself. We see and hear chiefly of the favourites of Fortune and the Muse, of great generals, of first- rate actors, of celebrated poets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glittering eminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same tempting career, — not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants are in vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with " the insolence of ofiice, and the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes ; " how many half-starved strolling-players are doomed to penury and tattered robes in country places, dreaming to the last of a London engage- ment ; how many wretched daubers shiver and shake in the ague-fit of alternate hopes and fears, waste and pine away in the atrophy of genius, or else turn drawing-masters, picture-cleaners, or newspaper critics ; how many hapless poets have sighed out their souls to the LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. 223 Muse in vain, without ever getting their eflfusions further known than the Poet's Corner of a country newspaper, and looked and looked with grudging, wistful eyes at the envious horizon that bounded their provincial fame! — Suppose an actor, for instance, "after the heart-aches and the thousand natural pangs that flesh is heir to," does get at the top of his profession, he can no longer bear a rival near the throne ; to be second, or only equal to another, is to be nothing : he starts at the prospect of a successor, and retains the mimic sceptre with a convulsive grasp : perhaps, as he is about to seize the first place which he has long had in his eye, an unsuspected competitor steps in before him and carries off the prize, leaving biTin to commence his irksome toil again. He is in a state of alarm at every appearance or rumour of the appearance of a new actor : " a mouse that takes up its lodgings in a cat's ear " has a mansion of peace to him : he dreads every hint of an objection, and least of all can forgive praise mingled with censure : to doubt is to insult ; to discriminate is to degrade : he dare hardly look into a criticism unless some one has tasted it for him, to see that there is no offence in it : if he does not draw crowded houses every night, he can neither eat nor sleep ; or if all these terrible inflictions are removed, and he can " eat his meal in peace," he then becomes surfeited with applause and dissatisfied with his profession : he wants to be some- thing else, to be distinguished as an author, a collector, a classical scholar, a man of sense and information, and weighs every word he utters, and half-retracts it before he utters it, lest if he were to make the smallest slip of the tongue, it should get buzzed abroad that Mr. was only clever as an actor ! If ever there was a man who did not derive more pain than pleasure from his vanity, that man, says Rousseau, was no other than a fool. . . . Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others ! Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies or cold, uncomfortable acquaint- ance. Old companions are hke meats served up too often, that lose their relish and their wholesomeness. He who looks at beauty to admire, to adore it, who reads of its wondrous power in novels, in poems, or in plays, is not unwise ; but let no man fall in love, for from that moment he is " the baby of a girl." I like very well to repeat such lines as these in the play of " Mirandola : " " With what a waving air she goes Along the corridor ! How like a fawn ! Yet stateJier. Hark ! No sound, however soft, 224 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads, But erery motion of her shape doth seem Hallowed by silence. " How few out of the infinite number of those that marry and ara given in marriage wed with those they would prefer to all the world ! Nay, how far the greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not infrequently by the very fear of the event, by re- pugnance and a sort of fatal fascination! Yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or death : a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as mind") chained to another, in spite of himself : " Like life and death in disproportion met." If love at first sight were mutual, or to be conciliated by kind of&ces ; if the fondest affection were not so often repaid and chilled by indifference and scorn ; if so many lovers, both before and since the madman in " Don Quixote," had not " worshipped a statue, hunted the wind, cried aloud to the desert;'' if friendship were lasting; if merit were renown, and renown were health, riches, and long life ; or if the homage of the world were paid to conscious, worth and the true aspirations after excellence, instead of its gaudy signs and outward trappings; then, indeed, I might be of opinion that it is better to live to others than one's self : but as the case stands, I incline to the negative side of the question. " I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd To its idolatries a patient knee — Nor ooin'd my cheek to smiles — nor cried aloud In worship of an echo ; in the crowd They could not deem me one of sueh j I stood Among them, but not of them ; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filled my mind which thus itself subdued. I have not loved the world, nor the world me — But let us part fair foes ; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things — hopes which will not deceive, And virtues which are merciful nor weave Snares for the failing : I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve ; That two, or one, are almost what they seem — That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." Sw(!et verse embalms the spirit of sour misanthropy; but woe LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. 225 betide the ignoble prose-writer who should thus dare to compare notes with the world, or tax it roundly with imposture. If I had sufficient provocation to rail at the public, as Ben Jonson did at the audience in the Prologues to his plays, I think I should do it in good set terms, nearly as follows : — There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself. From its unwieldly, overgrown dimensions, it dreads the least opposition to it, and shakes like isinglass at the touch of a finger. It starts at its own shadow, like the man in the Hartz mountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has a lion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleep- less eyes. It stands " listening its fears." It is so in awe of its own opinion, that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it tUl it is deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at aU, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private Judg- ment ; so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all ; the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the " still, small voice " of reason. We may believe or know that what is said is not true; but we know or fancy that others believe it — we dare not contradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and therefore give up our internal, and, as we think, our solitary conviction to a sound without substance, with- out proof, and often without meaning. Nay, more ; we may believe and know not only that a thing is false, but that others believe and know it to be so, that they are quite as much in the secret of the imposture as we are, that they see the puppets at work, the nature of the machinery, and yet if any one has the art or power to get the management of it, he shall keep possession of the public ear by virtue of a cant phrase or nickname, and by dint of efirontery and perseverance make all the world believe and repeat what all the world know to be false. The ear is quicker than the judgment. We know that certain things are said ; by that circumstance alone we know that they produce a certain effect on the imagination of others, and we conform to their prejudices by mechanical sympathy, and for want of sufficient spirit to differ with them. So far, then, is public opinion from resting on a broad and solid basis, as the aggregate of thought and feeling in a community, that it is slight 226 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. and shallow and variable to the last degree — ^the bubble of the moment ; so that we may safely say the public is the dupe of public opinion, not its parent. The public is pusillanimous and cowardly, because it is weak. It knows itself to be a great dunce, and that it has no opinions but upon suggestion. Yet it is unwilling to appear in leading-strings, and would have it thought that its decisions are as wise as they are weighty. It is hasty in taking up its favourites, more hasty in laying them aside, lest it should be supposed deficient in sagacity in either case. It is generally divided into two strong parties, each of which will allow neither common-sense nor common honesty to the other side. It reads the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and believes them both — or if there is a doubt, malice turns the scale. Taylor and Hessey told me that they had sold nearly two editions of the " Characters of Shakspeare's Plays" in about three months, but that after the Quarterly review of them came out they never sold another copy. The public, enlightened as they are, must have known the meaning of that attack as well as those who made it. It was not ignorance then, but cowardice, that led them to give up their own opinion. A crew of mischievous critics at Edinburgh having aflnixed the epithet of the Cockney School to one or two writers born in the metropolis, all the people in London became afraid of looking into their works, lest they too should be convicted of cockneyism. Oh, brave public! . . . The public is as envious and ungrateful as it is ignorant, stupid, and pigeon-livered : " A huge-sized monster of ingratitudes.*' It reads, it admires, it extols, only, because it is the fashion, not from any love of the subject or the man. It cries you up or runs you down out of mere caprice and levity. If you have pleased it, it is jealous of its own involuntary acknowledgment of merit, and seizes the first opportunity, the first shabby pretext, to pick a quarrel with you and be quits once more. Every petty caviller is erected into a judge, every tale-bearer is implicitly believed. Every little low paltry creature that gaped and wondered only because others did so is glad to find you (as he thinks) on a level with him- self. An author is not then, after all, a being of another order. Public admiration is forced, and goes against the grain. Public obloquy is cordial and sincere : every individual feels his own im- portance in it. They give you up bound hand and foot into the power of your accusers. To attempt to defend yourself is a high crime and misdemeanour, a contempt of court, an extreme piece of LIVING TO ONE'S SELF. 227 impertinence. Or if you prove every charge unfounded, they never think of retracing their error or making you amends. It would be a compromise of their dignity; they consider themselves as the party injured, and resent your innocence as an imputation on their judgment. The celebrated Bub Doddington, when out of favour at Court, said "he would not justify before his sovereign: it was for Majesty to be displeased, and for him to believe himself in the wrong ! " The public are not quite so modest. People already begin to talk of the Scotch Novels as overrated. How, then, can common authors be supposed to keep their heads long above water.? As a general rule, all those who live by the public starve, and are made a by- word and a standing jest into the bargain. Posterity is no better (not a bit more enlightened or more liberal), except that you are no longer in their power, and that the voice of common fame saves them the trouble of deciding on your claims. The public now are the posterity of Milton and Shakspeare. Our posterity will be the hving public of a future generation. When a man is dead they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and cele- brate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living ? Ko ! — I was complain- ing of this to a Scotchman who had been attending a dinner and a subscription to raise a monument to B\irns. He replied he would sooner subscribe twenty pounds to his monument than have given it him while living ; so that if the poet were to come to life again, he would treat him just as he was treated in fact. This was an honest Scotchman. What he said, the rest would do. Enough : my soul, turn from them, and let me try to regain the obscurity and quiet that I love, " far from the madding strife," in some sequestered corner of my own, or in some far-distant land ! In the latter case, I might carry with me as a consolation the pas- sage in Bolingbroke's " Reflections on Exile " in which he describes in glowing colours the resources which a man may always find within himself, and of which the world cannot deprive him : — "Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order in the world, that of all which belongs to us, the least valuable parts can alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is best is safest ; lies out of the reach of human power ; can neither be given nor taken away. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such is the mind of man, which contemplates and ad- mires the world whereof it makes the noblest part. These are in- separably ours, and as long as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. Let us march, therefore, intrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what 228 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall feel the same revolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon will guide the course of our year. Tho same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will be everywhere spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, in different orbits round the same central sun ; from whence we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe, innumerable suns whose beams enlighten and cherish the unknown world which roll around them ; and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my soul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread upon." . . . ON THOUGHT AND ACTION. ... If there is a propensity in the vulgar to admire the achieve- ments of personal prowess or instances of fortunate enterprise too much, it cannot be denied that those who have to weigh out and dis- pense the meed of fame in books have been too much disposed, by a natural bias, to confine all merit and talent to the productions of the pen, or at least to those works which, being artificial or abstract representations of things, are transmitted to posterity and cried up as models in their kind. This, though unavoidable, is hardly just. Actions pass away and are forgotten, or are only discernible in their effects: conquerors, statesmen, and kings live but by their names stamped on the page of history. Hume says rightly that more people think about Virgil and Homer (and that continually) than ever trouble their heads about Csesar or Alexander. In fact, poets are a longer-lived race than heroes : they breathe more of the air of immortality. They survive more entire in their thoughts and acts. We have all that Virgil or Homer did, as much as if we had lived at the same time with them : we can hold their works in om: hands, or lay them on our pillows, or put them to our lips. Scarcely a trace of what the others did is left upon the earth, so as to be visible to common eyes. The one, the dead authors, are living men, still breathing and moving in their writings ; the others, the con- querors of the world, are but the ashes in an urn. The sympathy (so to speak) between thought and thought is more intimate and vital than that between thought and action. Thought is linked to thought as flame kindles into flame : the tribute of admiration to the manes of departed heroism is like burning incense in a marble VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION. 229 monument. "Words, ideas, feelings, with the progress of time harden mto substances : things, bodies, actions, moulder away or melt into a sound, into thin air ! — Yet though the Schoolmen in the Middle Ages disputed more about the texts of Aristotle than the battle of Arbela, perhaps Alexander's generals in his lifetime admired his pupil as much and liked him better. For not only a man's actions are effaced and vanish with him ; his virtues and generous qualities die with him also : — his intellect only is immortal and bequeathed unimpaired to posterity. Words are the only things that last for ever. . . . ON VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION. Few subjects are more nearly allied than these two — vulgarity and affectation. It may be said of them truly that " thin partitions do their bounds divide." There cannot be a sxirer proof of a low origin or of an innate meanness of disposition than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel. One must feel a strong tendency to that which one is always trying to avoid ; whenever we pretend, on all occasions, a mighty contempt for anything, it is a pretty clear sign that we feel ourselves very nearly on a level with it. Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgg:^£ingj^e genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. These two sets of persons are always thinking of one another ; the lower of the higher with envy, the more fortunate of their less happy neighbours with contempt. They are habitually placed in opposition to each other ; jostle in their pretensions at every turn ; and the same objects and train of thought (only re- versed by the relative situation of either party) occupy their whole time and attention. The one are straining every nerve and out- raging common-sense, to be thought genteel ; the others have no other object or idea in their heads than not to be thought vulgar. This is but poor spite, a very pitiful style of ambition. To be merely not that which one heartily despises is a very humble claim to superiority ; to despise what one reaUy is, is still worse. Gentility is only a more select and artificial kind of vulgarity. It cannot exist but by a sort of borrowed distinction. It plumes itself up and revels in the homely pretensions of the mass of man- kind. It judges of the worth of everything by name, fashion, and opinion ; and hence, from the conscious absence of real qualities or sincere satisfaction in itself, it builds its supercilious and fantastic 230 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. conceit on the wretchedness and wants of others. Violent anti- pathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity. The difference between the " Great Vulgar and the Small " is mostly in outward circumstances. The coxcomb criticises the dress of the clown, as the pedant cavils at the bad grammar of the illiterate, or the prude is shocked at the backslidings of her frail acquaintance. Those who have the fewest resources in themselves naturally seek the food of their self-love elsewhere. The most ignorant people find most to laugh at in strangers ; scandal and satire prevail most in country places ; and a propensity to ridicule every the slightest or most palpable deviation from what we happen to approve, ceases with the progress of common-sense and decency. True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies of others, as true refine- ment turns away from grossness and deformity, instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it. Raphael would not faint away at the daubing of a signpost, nor Homer hold his head the higher for being in the company of a Grub Street bard. Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority, nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse and homely. It reposes on itself, and is equally free from spleen and affectation. But the spirit of gentUity is the mere essence of spleen and affectation ; — of affected delight in its own wouldrbe qualifications, and of ineffable disdain poured out upon the involun- tary blunders or accidental disadvantages of those whom it chooses to treat as its inferiors. . . . Now, the essence of vulgarity, I imagine, consists in taking manners, actions, words, opinions, on trust from others, without examining one's own feelings or weighing the merits of the case. It is coarseness or shallowness of taste arising from want of indi- vidual refinement, together with the confidence and presumption inspired by example and numbers. It may be defined to be a prosti- tution of the mind or body to ape the more or less obvious defects of others, because by so doing we shall secure the suffrages of those we associate with. To affect a gesture, an opinion, a phrase, because it is the rage with a large number of persons, or to hold it in abhor- rence because another set of persons very little, if at all, better informed cry it down to distinguish themselves from the former, is in either case equal vulgarity and absurdity. — A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common. 'Tis common to breathe, to see, to feel, to live. Nothing is vulgar that is natural, spontaneous, un- avoidable. Grossness is not vulgarity, ignorance is not vulgarity, awkwardness is not vulgarity; but all these become vulgar when they are affected and shown off on the authority of others, or to fall VULGARITY AND AFFECTATION. 231 in with the fashion or the company we keep. Caliban is coarse enough, but surely he is not vulgar. We might as well spurn the clod under our feet, and call it vulgar. Cobbett is coarse enough, but he is not vulgar. He does not belong to the herd. Nothing real, nothing original, can be vulgar ; but I should think an imitator of Cobbett a vulgar man. . . . There is a well-dressed and an ill-dressed mob, both which I hate. Odi profanum milgus, et arceo. The vapid affectation of the one to me is even more intolerable than the gross insolence and brutality of the other. If a set of low-lived fellows are noisy, rude, and boisterous to show their disregard of the company, a set of fashion- able coxcombs are, to a nauseous degree, finical and effeminate to show their thorough breeding. The one are governed by their feel- ings, however coarse and misguided, which is something ; the others consult only appearances, which are nothing, either as a test of happiuess or virtue. Hogarth in his prints has trimmed the balance of pretension between the downright blackguard and the soi-disant fine gentleman tmanswerably. It does not appear in his moral demonstrations (whatever it may do in the genteel letter-writing of Lord Chesterfi.eld or the chivalrous rhapsodies of Burke) that vice by losing aU its grossness loses half its evil. It becomes more contemptible, not less disgusting. What is there in common, for instance, between his beaux and belles, his rakes and his coquets, and the men and women, the true heroic and ideal characters in Raphael ? But his people of fashion and quality are just upon a par with the low, the selfish, the unideal characters in the con- trasted view of human Mfe, and are often the very same characters, only changing places. If the lower ranks are actuated by envy and uncharitableness towards the upper, the latter have scarcely any feelings but of pride, contempt, and aversion to the lower. If the poor would pull down the rich to get at their good things, the rich would tread down the poor as in a wine-press, and squeeze the last shilling out of their pockets and the last drop of blood out of their veins. If the headstrong self-wiU and unruly turbulence of a common alehouse are shocking, what shall we say to the studied insincerity, the insipid want of common-sense, the callous insensi- bility of the drawing-room and boudoir ? I would rather see the feelings of our common nature (for they are the same at bottom) expressed in the most naked and unqualified way, than see every feeling of our nature suppressed, stifled, hermetically sealed under the smooth, cold, glittering varnish of pretended refinement and conventional poUteness. The one may be corrected by being better informed; the other is incorrigible, wilful, heartless depravity. I 232 WILLIAM HAZLIT r— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. cannot describe the contempt and disgust I have felt at the tone of what would be thought good company when I have witnessed the sleek, smiling, glossy, gratuitous assumption of superiority to every feeling of humanity, honesty, or principle, as a part of the etiquette, the mental and moral costume of the table, and every profession of toleration or favour for the lower orders, that is, for the great mass of our fellow-creatures, treated as an indecorum and breach of the harmony of well-regulated society. . . . ON GOING A JOURNEY. One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey j but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room ; but out of doors nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. " The fields his study, nature was his book." I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedgerows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room, and fewer encum- brances. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude ; nor do I ask for " a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet." The soul of a joiKney is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences ; to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breath- ing-space to muse on indifierent matters, where Contemplation " May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd," that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three ON GOING A yOURNEY. 233 hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking ! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the sunburnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or diill commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one hkes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do ; but I sometimes had rather be without them. " Leave, oh, leave me to my repose ! " I have just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me " very stuff o' the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment ? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald ? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better, then, keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon ? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. " Out upon such half-faced fellowship ! " say I. I like to be either entirely to myself or entirely at the disposal of others ; to talk or be silent, , to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that "he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time." So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation, by fits and starts. " Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, " were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declmes." It is beautifully said ; but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid : if you have to explam it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of translatmg it for the benefit of others. I am for this synthetical method on a journey m preference ~to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want 234 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it all my own way ; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to twenty mUes of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud, which hits your fancy, but the efiect of which you are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an un- easy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humour. Now, I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord on the objects and circum- stances that present themselves before you — these may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems extravagance or afiectation; and, on the other hand, to have to um:avel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to which few are competent. We must " give it an under- standing, but no tongue." My old friend Coleridge, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. " He talked far above singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling theme ; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of AU-Foxden. They had "that fine madness in them which our first poets had ; " and if they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains as the following : — ' Here be woods as green As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet Face of the curled streams, with flow'rs as many As the young spring gives, and as choice as any ; Here be all new delights, cool streams and wella, Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells ; ON GOING A yoURNBY. 235 Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing, Or gather rushes to make many a ring For thy long fingers ; tell thee tales of love, How the pale Pho3be, hunting in a grove, Fii-st saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies ; How she oonvey'd him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, To kiss her sweetest." ^ Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening clouds ; but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on the spot : — I must have time to collect myself. In general, a good thiog spoils out-of-door prospects : it should be reserved for Table-talk. Lamb is for this reason, I take it, the worst company in the world out of doors ; because he is the best within. I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey, and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conver- sation or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every naile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom ; and then after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to " take one's ease at one's inn ! " These eventful moments in our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt hap- piness, to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop : they will do to talk of or to \vrite about afterwards. What a deli- cate speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea, " The cups that cheer, but not inebriate," and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we shall have for supper — eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet ! Sancho in such a situation once fixed on cow-heel ; and his choice, though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged. Then, in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen (getting ready for the gentleman in the parlour). ^ Fletcher's " Faithful Shepherdess. " 236 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Procul, proeul este profani ! These hours are sacred to silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in idle talk • or it I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from the time and place ; he is a part of the furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to sympathise vdth him, and he breaks no squares. How I love to see the camps of the gipsies, and to sigh my soul into that sort of life ! If I express this feeling to another, he may quality and spoil it with some objec- tion. I associate nothing with my travelling companion but present objects and passing events. In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself. But a friend reminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, and destroys the abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciously between us and our imaginary character. Something is dropped in the course of conversation that gives a hint of your profession and pursuits ; or from having some one with you that knows the less sublime portions of your history, it seems that other people do. You are no longer a citizen of the world ; ■ but your " unhoused free condition is put into circumspection and confine." The incognito of an inn is one of its striking privileges — " lord of one's self, uncumbered with a name." Oh ! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion ; to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature of the moment, clear of all ties ; to hold to the universe only by a dish of sweetbreads and to owe nothing but the score of the evening ; and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt, to be known by no other title than the Oentleman in the parlour ! One may take one's choice of aU characters in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitely respectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice and disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more those hackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the world ; an inn re- stores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society ! I have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns, — sometimes when I have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some metaphysical problem, as once at Witham Common, where I found out the proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas, • — at other times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. Neot's (I think it was), where I first met with Gribelin's engrav- ON GOING A yOURNEY. 237 ings of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn on the borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some of Westall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried me over the Severn, standing up in a boat be- tween me and the twilight, — at other times I might mention luxuri- ating in books, with a peculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night to read "Paul and Virginia," which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after being drenched in the rain all day ; and at the same place I got through two volumes of Madame D'Arbla/s "Camilla." It was on the loth of April 1798 that I sat down to a volume of the " New Eloise," at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The letter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de Vaud, which I had brought with me as a hon louche to crown the evening with. It was my birthday, and I had for the first time come from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and "Wrexham ; and on pass- ing a certain point you come aU at once upon the valley, which opens like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on either side, with "green upland swells that echo to the bleat of flocks " below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The valley at this time " glittered green with sunny showers," and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the highroad that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which I have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems ! But besides the prospect which opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight, a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope could make them, these four words, Libbktt, Genius, Love, Vikttjb, which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idle gaze. " The beautiful is vanished, and returns not." Still, I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot ; but I would return to it alone. What other self could I find to share that influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which I could hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken and defaced ? I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice of years that separates me from what I then was. I was at that time going shortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. Where is he now ? Not only I myself have changed ; the 238 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. world, which was then new to me, has become old and incorrigible. Yet will I turn to thee in thought, O sylvan Dee, in joy, in youth and gladness, as thou then wert ; and thou shalt always be to me the river of Paradise, where I will drink of the waters of life freely! There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With change of place we change our ideas ; nay, our opinions and feelings. Wo can by an effort, indeed, transport ourselves to old and long- forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again ; but we forget those that we have just left. It seems that we can think but of one place at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of a certain extent, and if we paint one set of objects upon it, they immediately efface every other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions ; we only shift our point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the enraptured eye ; we take our fill of it, and seem as it we could form no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think no more of it : the horizon that shuts it from our sight also blots it from our memory like a dream. In travelling through a wild barren country, I can form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me that all the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we forget the town, and in town we despise the country. " Beyond Hyde Park," says Sir Topling Flutter, " all is a desert." All that part of the map that we do not see before us is blank. The world in owe conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not one prospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom to kingdom, land to seas, making an image voluminous and vast ; — the mind can form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a single glance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of arithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of that immense mass of territory and population known by the name of China to us ? An inch of paste- board on a wooden globe, of no more account than a China orange ! , Things near us are seen of the size of life: (things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding.) We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend tne texture of our own being only piecemeal. In this way, however, we remember an infinity of things and places. The mind is like4i mechanical instru- ment that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must play them in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at the same time excludes aU others. In trying to renew old recollections, we cannot as it were unfold the whole web of our existence ; we must pick out the single threads. So in coming to a place where we have formerly Hved, and with which we have intimate associations, every one must ON GOING A JOURNEY. 239 have found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach the spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression : we remember circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names that we had not thought of for years ; but for the time all the rest of the world is forgotten ! — To return to the question I have quitted above : — I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictm?es, in company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the former reason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and will bear talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but com- municable and overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will bear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. In setting out on a party of pleasure, the first consideration always is where we shall go to : in taking a solitary ramble, the question is what we shall meet with by the way. " The mind is its own place ; " nor are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself do the honours indifferently well to works of art and curiosity. I once took a party to Oxford with no mean iclat — showed them that seat of the Muses at a distance, " With glistering spires and pinnacles .adorn'd ; " descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quad- rangles and stone walls of halls and colleges ; was at home in the Bodleian ; and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered cicerone that attended us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to com- monplace beauties in matcliless pictures. As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear the sound of my own language. There is an involuntary antipathy in the mind of an Englishman to foreign manners and notions that requires tlie assistance of social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from home increases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a passion and an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find himself in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen : there must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome that claims the utterance of speech ; and I own that the Pyramids are too mighty for any single contemplation. In such situations, so opposite to all one's ordinary train of ideas, one seems a species by one's self, a limb torn off from society, unless one can meet with instant fellowship and support. Yet I did not feel this want or craving very pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing shores of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. The confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine u 240 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. poured into my ears ; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was sung from the top of an old crazy vessel in the harbour, as the sun went down, send an alien sound into my soul. I only breathed the air of general humanity. I walked over "the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France," erect and satisfied ; for the image of man was not cast down and chained to the foot of arbitrary thrones : I was at no loss for language, for that of all the great schools of painting was open to me. The whole is vanished lite a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom, all are fled ; nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people! — There is undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts that is to be had nowhere else ; but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It is too remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic of discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state of exist- ence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an eflbrt to exchange our actual for our ideal identity ; and to feel the pulse of our old transports revive very keenly, we must " jump " all our present comforts and connections. Our romantic and itinerant character is not to be domesticated. Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign travel added to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad. In fact, the time we have spent there is both dehghtful and, in one sense, instructive ; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial, downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not the same, but another, and perhaps more enviable, individual all the time we are out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves as well as our friends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings : " Out of my country and myself I go." Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent them- selves for a while from the ties and objects that recall them : but we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in traveUing abroad, if t could anywhere borrow another lite to spend afterwards at home ! ON COFFEE-HOUSE POLITICIANS. ... I LIKE very well to sit in a room where there are people talking on subjects I know nothing of, if I am only allowed to sit silent and as a spectator ; but I do not much like to join in the COFFEE-HOUSE POLITICIANS. 241 conversation, except with people and on subjects to my taste. Sympathy is necessary to society. To look on a variety of faces, humours, and opinions is sufficient : to mix with others, agreement as well as variety is indispensable. What makes good society ? I answer, in one word, real fellowship. Without a similitude of tastes, acquirements, and pursuits (whatever may be the difference of tempers and characters) there can be no intimacy or even casual intercourse worth the having. What makes the most agreeable party .P A number of people with a number of ideas in common, "yet so as with a difiference; " that is, who can put one or more subjects which they have all studied in the greatest variety of enter- taining or useful lights. Or in other words, a succession of good things said with good humour, and addressed to the understand- ings of those who hear them, make the most desirable conversation. Ladies, lovers, beaux, wits, philosophers, the fashionable or the vulgar, are the fittest company for one another. The discourse at Eandal's is the best for boxers ; that at Long's for lords and loungers. I prefer Hunt's conversation almost to any other person's, because, with a famihar range of subjects, he colours with a totally new and sparkling light, reflected from his own character. Elia, the grave and witty, says things not to be surpassed in essence; but the manner is more painful and less a relief to my own thoughts. Some one conceived he could not be an excellent companion because he was seen walking down the side of the Thames, passibus iniquis, after dining at Bichmond. The objection was not valid. I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom it may be said. Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your manners. He is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of him. He cannot outgo the apprehensions of the circle, and invariably acts up or down to the point of refinement or vulgarity at which they pitch him. He appears to take a pleasure in exaggerating the prejudice of strangers against him ; a pride in confirming the prepossessions of friends. In whatever scale of intel- lect he is placed, he is as lively or as stupid as the rest can be for their lives. If you think him odd and ridiculous, he becomes ruore and more so every minute, A la folie, till he is a wonder gazed [at] by all — set him against a good wit and a ready apprehension, and he brightens more and more — " Or like a gate of steel Fronting the sun, receives and renders back Its figure and its heat." 242 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. We had a pleasant party one evening at Procter's. A young literary bookseller who was present went away delighted with the elegance of the repast, and spoke'in raptures of a servant in green livery and a patent-lamp. I thought myself that the charm of the evening consisted in some talk about Beaumont and Fletcher and the old poets, in which every one took part or interest, and in a conscious- ness that we could not pay our host a better compliment than in thus alluding to studies in which he excelled, and in praising authors whom he had imitated with feeling and sweetness ! — I should think it may also be laid down as a rule on this subject, that to constitute good company a certain proportion of hearers and speakers is requi- site. Coleridge makes good company for this reason. He immediately establishes the principle of the division of labour in this respect, wherever he comes. He takes his cue as speaker, and the rest of the party theirs as listeners — a " Circean herd " — without any previous arrangement having been gone through. I will just add that there can be no good society without perfect freedom from affectation and constraint. If the unreserved communication of feeling or opinion leads to offensive familiarity, it is not well ; but it is no better where the absence of offensive remarks arises only from ^formality and an assmned respectfulness of manner. I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London : and that for the two following reasons. First, there is neighbourhood elsewhere, accidental or unavoidable acquaintance : people are thrown together by chance or grow together like trees ; but you can pick your society nowhere but in London. The very persons that of all others you would wish to associate with in almost every line of life (or at least of intellectual pursuit) are to be met with there. It is hard if out of a million of people you cannot find half-a-dozen to your liking. Individuals may seem lost and hid in the size of the place ; but, in fact, from this very cir- cumstance you are within two or three miles' reach of persons that without it you would be some hundreds apart from. Secondly, London is the only place in which each individual in company is treated according to his value in company, and to that only. In every other part of the kingdom he carries another character about with him, which supersedes the intellectual or social one. It is known in Manchester or Liverpool what every man in the room is worth in land or money ; what are his connections and prospects in life ; and this gives a character of servility or arrogance, of mercenar riness, or impertinence to the whole of provincial intercourse. You laugh not in proportion to a man's wit, but his wealth ; you have %o consider not what but whom you contradict. You speak by the FAMILIAR STYLE. 243 pound, and are heard by the rood. In the metropolis there is neither time nor inclination for these remote calculations. Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it. A member of Parliament soon finds his level as a commoner: the merchant and manufacturer cannot bring his goods to market here : the great landed proprietor shrinks from being the lord of acres into a pleasant companion or a dull f eUow. When a visitor enters or leaves a room, it is not inquired whether he is rich or poor, whether he lives in a garret or a palace, or comes in his own or a hackney-coach, but whether he has a good expression of countenance, with an unaffected manner, and whether he is a man of understanding or a blockhead. These are the circumstances by which you make a favourable impres- sion on the company, and by which they estimate you in the abstract. In the country, they consider whether you have a vote at the next election or a place in your gift, and measure the capacity of others to instruct or entertain them by the strength of their pockets and their credit with their banker. Personal merit is at a prodigious discount in the provinces. I like the country very well, if I want to enjoy my own company ; but London is the only place for equal society, or where a man can say a good thing or express an honest opinion without subjecting himself to being insulted, unless he first lays his purse on the table to back his pretensions to talent or independence of spirit. I speak from experience. ON FAJVULIAB, STYLE. . . . Mb. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure ; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors, that the idea of imitation is almost done away. Tliere is an inward unction, a marrowy vein both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaint- ness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps his ideas are altogether so marked and individual as to require their point and pungency to be neutralised by the affecta- tion of a singvilar but traditional form of conveyance. Tricked out in the prevailing costume, they would probably seem more startling and out of the way. The old EngHsh authors. Burton, Fuller, Coryat, Sir Thomas Brown, are a kind of mediators between us and the moi?e eccentric and whimsical modem, reconciling us to his pecu- liarities. I do not, however, know how far this is the case or not till 244 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. he condescends to write like one of us. I must confess that what I like best of his papers under the signature of Elia (still, I do not presume, amidst such excellence, to decide what is most excellent) is the account of " Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist," which is also the most free from obsolete allusions and turns of expression : "A well of native English undefiled." To those acquainted with his admired prototypes, these Essays of the ingenious and highly-gifted author have the same sort of charm and relish that Erasmus's Colloquies or a fine piece of modem Latin have to the classical scholar. Certainly, I do not know any borrowed pencil that has more power or felicity of execution than the one of which I have here been speaking. It is as easy to write a gaudy style without ideas as it is to spread a pallet of showy colours or to smear in a flaimting transparency. "What do you read?" — "Words, words, words." — "What is the miltter ? " — " Nothing," it might be answered. The florid s tyle is the rever se of the fa miliar. The last is employed as an unvarnished j medium t^convey ISeas ; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil/ to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine. Look through the Dio- tionary, and cull out a florilegium, rival the tulippomania. Eouge high enough, and never mind the natural complexion. The vulgar, who are not in the secret, wUl admire the look of preternatural health and vigour; and the fashionable, who regard only appear- ances, wHl be delighted with the imposition. Keep to your sound- ing generalities, your tinkling phrases, and all wiU be well. Swell out an unmeaning truism to a perfect tympany of style. A thought, a distinction, is the rock on which all this brittle cargo of verbiage splits at once. Such writers have merely verbal imaginar tions, that retain nothing but words. Or their puny thoughts have dragon-wings, all green and gold. They soar far above the vulgar failing of the Sermo humi oh'epens — their most ordinary speech is never short of an hyperbole, splendid, imposing, vague, incompre- hensible, magniloquent, a cento of sounding commonplaces. If some of \is,^whose "ambition is more lowly," pry a little too narrowly into nooks and corners to pick up a number of " uncon- sidered trifles," they never once direct their eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, tarnished, threadbare patch- work set of phrases, the lef t-off finery of poetic extravagance, trans- mitted down through successive generations of barren pretenders. If they criticise actors and actresses, a huddled phantasmagoria of feathers, spangles, floods of light, and oceans of sound float before FAMILIAR STYLE. 245 their morbid sense, which they paint in the style of Ancient Pistol. Not a glimpse can you get of the merits or defects of the per- formers : they are hidden in a profusion of barbarous epithets and wilful rhodo montad e. Our hypercritics are not thinking of these little fmtocSni beings, "That strut and fret thoir hour upon the stage," but of tall phantoms of words, abstractions, genera and species, sweeping clauses, periods that unite the Poles, forced alliterations, astounding antitheses : "And on their pens Fustian sits plumed." If they describe kings and queens, it is an Eastern pageant. The Coronation at either House is nothing to it. We get at four re- peated images — a curtain, a throne, a sceptre, and a footstool. These are with them the wardrobe of a lofty imagination ; and they turn their servile strains to servile uses. Do we read a description of pictures ? It is not a reflection of tones and hues which " nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on," but piles of precious stones, rubies, pearls, emeralds, Golconda's mines, and all the blazonry of art. Such persons are, in fact, besotted with words, and their brains are turned with the gUttering, but empty and sterile phan- toms of things. Personifications, capital letters, seas of sunbeams, visions of glory, shining inscriptions, the figures of a transparency, Britannia with her shield, or Hope leaning on an anchor, make up their stock-in-trade. They may be considered as hieroglyphical writers. Images stand out in their minds isolated and important merely in themselves, without any groundwork of feeling — there is no context in their imaginations. Words affect them in the same way, by the mere sound, that is, by their possible, not by their actual, application to the subject in hand. They are fascinated by first appearances, and have no sense of consequences. Nothing more is meant by them than meets the ear : they understand or feel nothing more than meets their eye. The web and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a mystery to them : they have no faculty that strikes a chord in unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mockery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. The categories_of such a mind are pride andjgjiQEance — ^pride in outsiSe^ow, to which they sacrifice everything, and ignorance of the true worth and hidden structure both of words and things. With a sovereign contempt for what is familiar and natural. 246 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. they are the slaves of vulgar affectation — of a routine of high-flown phrases. Scorning to imitate realities, they are unable to invent anything, to strike out one original idea. They are not copyists of nature, it is true ; but they are the poorest of all plagiarists, thgplariarjstsjaijaajrds. All is far-fetched, dear-bought, artificial, oriental, in subject and allusion : all is mechanical, conventional, vapid, formal, pedantic, in style and execution. They startle and confound the imderstanding of the reader by the remoteness and obscurity of their illustrations : they soothe the ear by the mono- tony of the same everlasting round of circuitous metaphors. They are the mock-school in poetry and prose. They flounder about be- tween fustianin, expression and bathos in sentiment. They tanta- lise the fancy, but neverlreacE'TEe head nor loucli~the heart. Their Temple of Fame is like a shadowy structure raised by Dulness to Vanity, or like Cowper's description of the Empress of Russia's palace of ice, " as worthless as in show 'twas glittering : " " It smiled, and it was cold 1 " ON EFFEMINACY OF CHARACTER. . . . But oh thou ! who didst lend me speech when I was dumb, to whom' I owe it that I have not crept on my belly all the days of my life like the serpent, but sometimes lift my forked crest or tread the empyrean, wake thou out of thy midday slumbers ! '■ Shake off the heavy honeydew of thy soul, no longer lulled with that Circean cup, drinking thy own thoughts with thy own ears, but start up in thy promised likeness, and shake the pillared rottenness of the world ! Leave not thy sounding words in air ; write them in marble, and teach the coming age heroic truths ! Up, and wake the echoes of Time ! Rich in deepest lore, die not the bed-rid churl of knowledge, leaving the survivors unblest ! Set, set as thou didst rise in pomp and gladness ! Dart like the sunflower one broad, golden flash of light ; and ere thou ascendest thy native sky, show us the steps by which thou didst scale the Heaven of philosophy, with Truth and Fancy for thy equal guides, that we may catch thy mantle, rainbow- dipped, and still read thy words dear to Memory, dearer to Fame ! There is another branch of this character, which is the trifling or dilatory character. Such persons are always creating difficulties, and unable or unwilling to remove them. They cannot brush aside a cobweb, and are stopped by an insect's wing. Their character ' Coleridge is the person here addressed. EFFEMINACY OF CHARACTER. 247 is imbecility, rather than efleminaoy. The want of energy and re- solution in the persons last described arises from the habitual and inveterate predominance of other feelings and motives ; in these it is a mere want of energy and resolution, that is, an inherent natural defect of vigour of nerve and voluntary power. There is a specific levity about such persons, so that you cannot propel them to any object or give them a decided momentum in any direction or pursuit. They turn back, as it were, on the occasion that should project them forward with manly force and vehemence. They shrink from in- trepidity of purpose, and are alarmed at the idea of attaining their end too soon. They vidll not act with steadiness or spirit, either for themselves or you. If you chalk out- a line of conduct for them, or commission them to execute a certain task, they are sure to conjure up some insignificant objection or fanciful impediment in the way, and are withheld from striking an eflfectual blow by mere feebleness of character. They may be officious, good-natin^ed, friendly, generous in disposition, but they are of no use to any one. They will put themselves to twice the trouble you desire, not to carry your point, but to defeat it; and in obviating needless objections, neglect the main business. If they do what you want, it is neither at the time nor in the manner that you wish. This timidity amounts to treachery ; for by always anticipating some misfortune or disgrace, they realise their unmeaning apprehensions. The little bears sway in their minds over the great : a small inconvenience outweighs a solid and indispensable advantage ; and their strongest bias is uni- formly derived from the weakest motive. They hesitate about the best way of beginning a thing till the opportunity for action is lost, and are less anxious about its being done than the precise manner of doing it. They will destroy a passage sooner than let an objec- tionable word pass, and are much less concerned about the truth or the beauty of an image than about the reception it wiU meet with from the critics. They alter what they write, not because it is, but because it may possibly be wrong, and in their tremulous solicitude to avoid imaguiary blunders, run into real ones. What is curious enough is, that with all this caution and delicacy, they are continuaUy liable to extraordinary oversights. They are, in fact, BO tnU of all sorts of idle apprehensions, that they do not know how to distinguish real from imaginary grounds of apprehension; and they often give some unaccountable ofience either from assuming a sudden boldness half in sport, or whUe they are secretly pluming themselves on their dexterity in avoiding everything exceptionable ; and the same distraction of motive and short-sightedness which gets them into scrapes hinders them from seeing their way out of them, 248 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. > Such persons (often of ingenious and susceptible minds) are A)n- stantly at cross-purposes with themselves and others ; will neitW^ do things nor let others do them ; and whether they succeed or fail, never feel confident or at their ease. They spoil the freshness and originality of their own thoughts by asking contradictory advice; and in befriending others, while they are about it and about it, you might have done the thing yourself a dozen times over. There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it ; who sees at once what is to be done in given circum- stances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends or to accomplish a useful object. If he can serve you, he will do so ; if he cannot, he will say so without keeping you in needless suspense or laying you imder pretended obHgations. The applying to him in any laudable tmdertaking is not like stirring " a dish of skimmed milk." There is stuff in him, and it is of the right, practicable sort. He is not all his life at hawk-and-buzzard whether he shall be a Whig or a Tory, a friend or a foe, a knave or a fool, but thinks that life is short, and that there is no time to play fantastic tricks in it, to tamper with principles or trifle with individual feelings. If he gives you a character, he does not add a damning clause to it : he does not pick holes in you lest others should, or anticipate objections lest he should be thought to be blinded by a chUdish partiality. His object is to serve you, and not to play the game into your enemies' hands. " A generous friendsliip no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows." WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE. Distant objects please because, in the first place, they imply an idea of space and magnitude, and because, not being obtruded too close upon the eye, we clothe them with the indistinct and airy colours of fancy. In looking at the misty mountain-tops that bound the horizon, the mind is, as it were, conscious of all the con- ceivable objectTaiid interests that lie between ; we imagine all sorts of adventures in the interim ; strain our hopes and wishes to reach the air-drawncirde, or to "descry new lands, rivers, and mountams," stretching far beyond it : our feelings, carried out of themselves, lose their grossness and their husk, are rarefied, expanded, melt into softness and brighten into beauty, turning to ethereal mould, WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE. 249 Blfy-tinctured. We drink the air before us, and borrow a more refiaad^xistence from objects that hover on the brink of nothing. Where the lanascape fades from the dull sight, we fill the thin viewless space with shapes of unknown good, and tinge the hazy prospect with hopes and wishes and more charming fears. " But thou, oh Hope ! with eyes so fair, Wliat was thy delighted measure ? Still it whisper'd promised pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! " AMiatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, what- ever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its leisure ; and all but t he present moment^J)irtJJie^present_spot, passion claims for its own,, and broo3mg]over it with wings outspreadj Stamps it with aajmage_of^it^lf." Passio n is lord of infinite space^ and distaiit^ objefcts please because they border on its confines and are moulded I by its touch. When I was a boy I lived within sight of a range of ( lofty hUls, whose blue tops blending with the setting sun had often tempted my longing eyes and wandering feet. At last I put my project in execution, and on a nearer approach, instead of glimmer- ing air woven into fantastic shapes, f oimd them huge lumpish heaps of discoloured earth. I learnt from this (in part) to leave " Yarrow unvisited," and not idly to disturb a dream of good ! Distance of time has much the same effect as distance of place. It is not surpnsmg that fancy colours the prospect of the future as it thinks good, when it even effaces the forms of memory. Time takes out the sting of pain ; our sorrows after a certain period have been so often steeped in a medium of thought and passion, that they " unmould their essence," and all that remains of our original im- pressions is what we would wish them to have been. Not only the untried steep ascent before us, but the rude, unsightly masses of our past experience presently resume their power of deception over the eye ; the golden cloud soon rests upon their heads, and the purple light of fancy clothes their barren sides ! Thus we pass on, while both ends of our existence touch upon heaven! There is (so to speak) " a mighty stream of tendency " to good in the human mind, upon which all objects float and are imperceptibly borne along ; and though in the voyage of life we meet with strong rebuffs, with rooks and quicksands, yet there is " a tide in the affairs of men," a heaving and a restless aspiration of the soul, by means of which, " with sails and tackle torn," the wreck and scattered fragments of our entire being drift into the port and haven of our desires ! In all that re- lates to the affections we put the wiU for the deed ; — so that the 250 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. instant the pressure of unwelcome circumstances is removed the mind recoils from their hold, recovers its elasticity, and reunites itself to that image of good, which is but a reflection and oon%ura- tion of its own nature. Seen in the distance, in the long perspective of waning years, the meanest incidents, enlarged and enriched by countless recollections, become interesting ; the most painful, broken and softened by time, soothe. How any object that unexpectedly brings back to us old scenes and associations startles the mind ! What a yearning it creates witliin us ! what a longing to leap the intermediate space ! How fondly we cHng to and try to revive the impression of all that we then were ! " Such tricks hath strong imagination ! " In truth, we impose upon ourselves, and know not what we wish. It is a cunning artifice, a quaint delusion, by which, in pretending to be what we were at a particvilar moment of time, we would fain be all that we have since been, and have our lives to come over again. It is not the little, glirngjeraag, almost annihilated speck in yC I the distance that rivets our atteition and " hangs upon the beating of our hearts ; " it is the interval that separates us from it, and of which it is the trembling boundary, that excites all this coil and mighty pudder in the breast. Into that great gap iii_our_being "come thronging soft desires'"- and infinite "regrets. It is the con- trast, the change from what we then were7 that arms the half- extinguished recollection with its giant strength and lifts the fabric of the aflections from its shadowy base. In contemplating its utmost verge we overlook the map of our existence, and retread, in appre- hension, the journey of life. So it is that in early youth we strain our eager sight after the pursuits of manhood, and as we are sliding off the stage, strive to gather up the toys and flowers that pleased our thoughtless childhood. When I was quite a boy my father used to take me to the Mont- pelier Tea-gardens at Walworth. Do I go there now ? No ; the place is deserted, and its borders and its beds o'ertumed. Is there, then, nothing that can " Bring back the hour Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower ? " Oh yes ! I unlock the casket of memory and draw back the warders of the brain, and there this scene of my infant wanderings still lives unfaded, or with fresher dyes. A new sense comes upon me, as in a dream ; a richer perfume, brighter colours start out ; my eyes dazzle ; my heart heaves with its new load of bliss, and I am a child again. WHY DISTANT OBysCTS PLEASE. 251 My sensations are all glossy, spruce, voluptuous, and fine : they wear a candied coat, and are in holiday trim. I see the beds of larkspur with purple eyes ; tall hollyhocks, red or yellow ; the broad sun- flowers, caked in gold, with bees buzzing round them ; wildernesses of pinks, and hot glowing peonies ; poppies run to seed ; the sugared lily and faint mignonette, all ranged in ordei-, and as thick as they can grow; the box-tree borders; the gravel-walks, the painted alcove, the confectionery, the clotted cream : — I think I see them now with sparkling looks ; or have they vanished while I have been writing this description of them ? No matter ; they will return again when I least think of them. All that I have observed since, of flowers and plants, and grass-plots, and of suburb delights, seems to me borrowed from " that first garden of my innocence^'— to be slips and scions stolen from that bed of memory. In this manner the darlings of our childhood burnish out in the eye of after years, and derive their sweetest perfume from the first heartfelt sigh of pleasure breathed upon them, ' ' Like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour ! " If I have pleasure in a flower-garden, I have in a kitchen-garden too, and for the same reason. If I see a row of cabbage-plants or of peas or beans coming up, I immediately think of those which I used so carefully to water of an evening at Wem, when my day's tasks were done, and of the pain with which I saw them droop and hang down their leaves in the morning's sun. Again, I never see a child's kite in the air but it seems to pull at my heart. It is to me " a thing of life." I feel the twinge at my elbow, the flutter and palpi- tation, with which I used to let go the string of my own, as it rose in the air and towered among the clouds. My little cargo of hopes and fears ascended with it ; and as it made a part of my own con- sciousness then, it does so still, and appears " like some gay creature of the element," my playmate when life was young, and twin-born with my earliest recollections. I could enlarge on this subject of chUdish amusements, but Mr. Leigh Hunt has treated it so well, in a paper in the Indicator on the productions of the toy-shops of the metropolis, that if I were to insist more on it I should only pass for an imitator of that ingenious and agreeable writer, and for an indifferent one into the bargain. Sounds, smells, and sometimes tastes are remembered longer than visible objects, and serve, perhaps, better for links in the chain of association. The reason seems to be this : they are in their nature 252 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. intermittent, and comparatively rare ; whereas objects of sight are always before us, and, by their contiauous succession, drive one another out. The eye is always open ; and between any given im- pression and its recurrence a second time, fifty thousand other im- pressions have, in all likelihood, been stamped upon the sense and on the brain. The other senses are not so active or vigilant. They are but seldom called into play. The ear, for example, is oftener courted by silence than noise ; and the sounds that break that silence sink deeper and more durably into the mind. I have a more present and lively recollection of certain scents, tastes, and sounds, for this reason, than I have of mere visible images, because they are more original, and less worn by frequent repetition. Where there is nothing mterposed between any two impressions, whatever the I distance of time that parts them, they naturally seem to touch ; and I the renewed impression recalls the former one in full force, without distraction or competitor. The taste of barberries which have hung out in the snow during the severity of a North American winter I have in my mouth still, after an interva' of thirty years ; ' for I have met with no other taste, in all that time, at all like it. It remains by itself, almost like the impression of a sixth sense. But the colour is mixed up indiscriminately with the colours of many other berries, nor should I be able to distinguish it among them. The smeU of a brickkiln carries the evidence of its own identity with it : neither is it to me (from peculiar associations) unpleasant. The colour of brickdust, on the contrary, is more common, and easily confounded with other colours. Raphael did not keep it quite distinct from his flesh-coloiu:. I will not say that we have a more perfect recollec- tion of the human voice than of that complex picture the human face, but I think the sudden hearing of a well-known voice has some- thing in it more aflfecting and striking than the sudden meeting with the face : perhaps, indeed, this may be because we have a more familiar remembrance of the one than the other, and the voice takes us more by surprise on that account. I am by no means certain (generally speaking) that we have the ideas of the other senses so accurate and weU made out as those of visible form : what I chiefly mean is, that the feelings belonging to the sensations of our other organs, when accidentally recalled, are kept more separate and pure. Musical sounds, probably, owe a good deal of their interest and romantic' eflFect to the principle here spoken of. Were they constant they would become indifferent, as we may find with respect to dis- agreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I Imow no 1 See " Memoirs of William Hazlitt," 1867, i. 6, 7.— Ed. DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY. 253 situation more pitiable than that of a bhnd fiddler, who has but one sense left (if we except the sense of snuff-taking '), and who has that stunned or deafened by his own villainous noises. Shakspeare says : "How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night ! " It has been observed in explanation of this passage, that it is because in the day-time lovers are occupied with one another's faces, but that at night they can only distinguish the sound of each other's voices. I know not how this may be ; but I have, ere now, heard a voice break so upon the silence, " To angels' 'twas most like, and charm the moonlight air with its balmy essence, that the bud- ding leaves trembled to its accents. Would i mignt have heard it once more whisper peace and hope (as erst when it was mingled with the breath of spring), and with its soft_p3ilsatipns lift winged fancy to heaven ! But it has ceased, or turned where I no more shall hear it ! — Hence, also, we see what is the charm of the shepherd's pastoral reed ; and why we hear him, as it were, piping to his flock, even in a picture. Our ears are fancy stung ! I remember once strolling along the margin of a stream, skirted with willows and plashy sedges, in one of those low sheltered valleys on Salisbury Plain where the monks of former ages had planted chapels and built hermits' cells. There was a little parish church near, but tall elms and quivering alders hid it from my sight, when, all of a sudden, I was startled by the sound of the full organ pealing on the ear, ac- companied by rustic voices and the vrilling choir of village maids and children. It rose, indeed, " like an exhalation of rich distilled perfumes." The dew from a thousand pastures was gathered in its softness ; the silence of a thousand years spoke in it. It came upon the heart like the calm beauty of death ; fancy caught the sound, and faith mounted on it to the skies. It filled the valley like a mist, and stiU poured out its endless chant, and still it swells upon the ear, and wraps me in a golden trance, drowning the noisy tumult of the world ! . . . ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPEBIORITY. The chief disadvantage of knowing more and seeing farther than others is not to be generally understood. A man is, in consequence 1 See Wilkie's "Blind Fiddler." 254 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. of this, liable to start paradoxes, which immediately transport him beyond the reach of the commonplace reader. A person speaking once in a slighting manner of a very original-minded man, received for answer — " He strides on so far before you that hg flwinrnoo ir ^ the distan ce ! " Petrarch complains, that " nature ha d mad e him different from other people "■ — singular' d'altri genti. ^he great happiness of life is, to be neither better nor worse thfflMhe general run of those you meet with. If you are beneath them, you are trampled upon ; if you are above them, you soon find a mortifying level in their indifference to what you particularly pique yourself upon^ What is the use of being moral in a night-cellar or wise in Be3^m? "To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand." So says Shakspeare; and the commentators have not added that, under these circumstances, a man is more likely to become the butt of slander than the mark of admiration for being so. " How now, thou particular fellow ? " is the common answer to all such out-of-the-way pretensions. By not doing [at Rome] as those-ttt-Rome do, we cut ourselves off from good-fellowship and society .^>^e_speak another language, have notions of our own, and are treated as of a different species. Nothing can be more awkward than to intrude with any such far-fetched ideas among the common hera!~~^ , ^noranoe of another's meaning is a sufficient cause of fear, and fear produces hatred : hence the suspicion and rancour entertained against all those who set up for greater refinement and wisdom than their neighbours. It is in vain to think of softening down this spirit of hostility by simplicity of manners, or by condescending to persons of low estate. The more you condescend, the more they will presume upon it ; they will fear you less, but hate you more, and will be the more determined to take their revenge on you for a superiority as to which they are entirely in the dark, and of which you yourself seem to entertain considerable doubt. AU the humility in the world will only pass for weakness and folly. They have no notion of such a thing. They always put their best foot forward, and argue that you would do the same if ypu had any such wonder- ful talents as people say. You had better^ therefore, play off the great man at once — hector, swagger, talk big, and ride the high horse over them: you may by this means extort outward respect or common civUity ; but you will get nothing (with low people) by forbearance and good-nature but open insult or silent contempt. C;^Seridge always talks to people about what they don't understand : V^or one, endeavpur to talk to them about what they do under- DISADVANTAGES OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY. 255 stand, and find I only get the more ill-will by it. They conceive I do not think them capable of anything better ; that I do not think it worth while, as the vulgar saying is, to throw a ward- to a dog> I once complained of this to Coleridge, thinking it hard I shouW be sent to Coventry for not making a prodigious display. He said, "As you assume a certain character, you ought to produce your credentials. It is a tax upon people's good-nature to admit supe- riority of any kind, even where there is the most evident proof of it ; but it is too hard a task for the imagination to admit it without any apparent ground at all." There is not a greater error than to suppose that you avoid the envy, malice, and uncharitableness so common in the world by going among people without pretensions. There are no people who have no pretensions ; or the fewer their pretensions, the less they can afford to acknowledge yours without some sort of value received. The more information individuals possess, or the more they have refined upon any subject, the more readUy can they conceive and admit the same kind of superiority to themselves that they feel over others. But from the low, dull, level sLak of ignorance and vulgarity no idea or love of excellence can arise. You think you are doing mighty well with them; that you are laying aside the buckram of pedantry and pretence, and getting the character of a plain, unassuming, good sort of fellow. It will not do. All the while that you are making these familiar advances, and wanting to be at your ease, they are trying to recover the wind of you. You may forget that you are an author, an artist, or what not — they do not forget that they are nothing, nor bate one jot of their desire to prove you in the same predicament. . . . Meanwhile, those things in which you may really excel go for nothing, because they cannot judge of them. They speak highly of some book which you do not like, and therefore you make no answer. You recommend them to go and see some picture in which they do not find much to admire. How are you to convince them that you are right ? Can you make them perceive that the fault is in them, and not in the picture, unless you could give them your knowledge ? They hardly distinguish the difference between a Correggio and a common daub. Does this bring you any nearer to an understanding ? The more you know of the difference, the more deeply you feel it, or the more earnestly you wish to convey it, the farther do you find yourself removed to an immeasurable distance from the possibiHty of making them enter into views and feelings of which they have not even the first rudiments<;;^Tou cannot make them see with your eyes, and they must judge forThemsclves! s 256 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Intellectual is not like bodily strength. You have no hold of the understanding of others but by their S3rmpathy. Your knowing, in fact, so much more about a subject does not give you a superiority, that is, a power over them, but only renders it the more impossible for you to make the least impression on them. Is it, then, an ad- vantage to you ? It may be, as it relates to your own private satis- faction, but it places a greater gulf between you and society. It throws stumbling-blocks in your way at every turn. All that you take most pride and pleasure in is lost upon the vulgar eye. What they are pleased with is a matter of indifference or of distasto to you. . . . It is recorded in the life of some wor thy (whose name I forget) that he was one of those " who loved hospitality and respecT: " auA I profess to belong to the same classification of mankind. Civility is with me a jewel. I like a little comfortable cheer and careless, indolent chat. I hate to be always wise, or aiming at wisdom. I have enough to do with literary cabals, questions, critics, actors, essay-writing, without taking them out with me for recreation and into all companies. I wish at these times to pass for a good- humoured fellow ; and good-wiU is all I ask in return to make good company. I do not desire to be always posing myself or others with the questions of fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, &c. rteust unbend sometimes. I must occasionally lie fallow. The kind of conversation that I affect most is what sort of a day it is, and whether it is likely to rain or hold up fine for to-morrow. This I consider as enjoying the otivm, cum, dignitate, as the end and privilege of a life of study. I would resign myself to this state of easy indifference, but I find 1 cannot. I must maintain a certain pretension, which is far enough from my wish. I must be put on my defence, I must take up the gauntlet continually, or I find I lose groimd. " I am nothing, if not critical." While I am thinking what o'clock it is, or how I came to blunder in quoting a well-known passage, as if I had done it on purpose, others are thinking whether I am not really as dull a fellow as I am sometimes said to be. If a drizzling shower patters against the windows, it puts me in mind of a mild spring rain from which I retired twenty years ago into a little public-house near Wem, in Shropshire, and while I saw the plants and shrubs before the door imbibe the dewy moisture, quaffed a glass of sparkling ale, and walked home in the dusk of evening, brighter to me than noonday suns at present are ! Would I indulge this feeling ? In vain. They ask me what news there is, and stare if I say I don't know. If a new actress has come out, why must I have seen her ? If a new novel has appeared, why must I THE FEAR OF DEATH. 257 hare read it? I, at one time, used to go and take a hand at cribbage with a friend, and afterwards discuss a cold sirloin of beef, and throw out a few lackadaisical remarks, in a way to please my- self, but it would not do long. !l set up little pretension, and there- fore the little that I did set up was taken from me. As I said _ nothing on that subject myself, itj(jas_contimM.lly thro wn in my y teeth thafe j^ was an author . From having me atTBteniisadvantage, ■pr^^end wanted'to peg' on a hole or two in the game, and was ~* displeased if I would not let him. If I won of him, it was hard he !_ should be beat by an author. If he won, it would be strange iE he did not imderstand the game better than I did. If I mentioned my T favourite game of rackets, there was a general siTence, as if this was my weak point. If I complained of being iU, it was asked why I 1 made myself so. If I said such an actor had played a part well, the § answer was, there was a diflferent account in one of the newspapers. [ If any allusion was made to men of letters, there was a suppressed jsmUe. yf I told a humorous story, it wass difficult to say whether, 1 the laugh was at me or at the narrative. ](The wife hated me for 'my ugly face; the servants because I could not always get them tickets for the play, and because they could not tell exactly what ^ an author meant. If a paragraph appeared against anything I had 5~written, I found it was ready there before me, and I was to undergo 1 a regular roasting. I submitted to all this till I was tired, and then I gave it up. . . . ON THE FEAB OF DEATH. "And our little life is rounded with a sleep." Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life Has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not : this gives us no concern — why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be f I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in the reign of Queen Anne : why should I regret and lay it so much to heart that I shall not be^aijve a hundred years hence, in the reign of I cannot tell whom ?~^ VV hen BickerstaflF wrote his Essays, I knew nothing of the sub- jects of them ; nay, much later, and but the other day, as it were, in the beginning of the reign of George III., when Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, used to meet at the Globe, when Garrick was in his glory, and Eeynolds was over head and ears with his portraits, and Sterne brought out the volumes of "Tristram Shandy" year by 258 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. j'ear, it was without consulting me : I had not the slightest intima- tion of what was going on : the debates in the House of Commons on the American war or the firing at Bunker's Hill disturbed not me: yet I thought this no evil — I neither ate, drank, nor was merry, yet I did not complain : I had not then looked out into this breathing world, yet I was -well ; and the world did quite as well without me as I did without it ! Why, then, should I make aU this outcry about parting with it, and being no worse off than I was before ? There is nothing in the recollection that at a certain time we were not come into the world, that " the gorge rises at " — why should we revolt at the idea that we must one day go out of it ? To die is only to be as we were before we were bom : yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea. It is rather a relief and disburdening of the mind: it seems to have been holiday-time vrith us then : we were not called to appear upon the stage of life, to wear robes or tatters, to laugh or cry, be hooted or applauded; we had lain perdus all this while, snug, out of harm's way ; and had slept out our thousands of centuries without wanting to be waked up ; at peace and free from care, in a long nonage, in a sleep deeper and calmer than that of infancy, wrapped in the softest and finest dust. And the worst that we dread is, after a short, fretful, feverish being, after vain hopes and idle fears, to sink to final repose again, and forget the troubled dream of life ! . . . Ye armed men, knights templars, that sleep in the stone aisles of that old Temple church, where all is silent above, and where a deeper silence reigns below (not broken by the pealing organ), are ye not contented where ye he ? Or would you come out of your long homes to go to the Holy War ? Or do you complain that pain no longer visits you ; that sickness has done its worst ; that you have paid the last debt to nature; that you hear no more of the thickening phalanx of the foe or your lady's waning love ; and that while this ball of earth rolls its eternal round, no sound shall ever pierce tlirough to disturb your lasting repose, fixed as the marble over your tombs, breathless as the grave that holds you ! And thou, oh ! thou, to whom my heart turns, and will tiurn while it has feeling left, who didst love in vain, and whose first was thy last sigh, wilt not thou too rest in peace (or wilt thou pry to me complaining from thy clay-cold bed ?) when that sad heart is no longer sad, and that sorrow is dead which thou wert only called into the world to feel ? It is certain that there is nothing in the idea of a pre-existent state that excites our longing like the prospect of a posthumous existence. We are satisfied to have begun life when we did; we THE FEAR OF DEATH. 259 have no ambition to have set out on our journey sooner ; and feel that we have had quite enough to do to battle our way through since. We cannot say, "The wars we well remember of King Nine, Of old Assaracus and Inaohus divine." Neither have we any wish : we are contented to read of them in story, and to stand and gaze at the vast sea of time that separates us from them. It was early days then : the world was not well-mred enough for us : we have no inclination to have been up and stirring. We do not consider the six thousand years of the world before we were bom as so much time lost to us : we are perfectly indififerent about the matter. We do not grieve and lament that we did not happen to be in time to see the grand mask and pageant of human life goiag on in all that period ; though we are mortified at being obhged to quit our stand before the rest of the procession passes. It may be suggested in explanation of this difference, that we know from various records and traditions what happened in the time of Queen Anne, or even in the reigns of the Assyrian monarohs ; but that we have no means of ascertaining what is to happen here- after but by awaiting the event, and that our eagerness and curiosity are sharpened in proportion as we are in the dark about it. This is not at all the case ; for at that rate we should be constantly wishing to make a voyage of discovery to Greenland or to the Moon, neither of which we have, in general, the least desire to do. Neither, in truth, have we any particular solicitude to pry into the secrets of futurity, but as a pretext for prolonging our own existence. It is not so much that we care to be alive a hundred or a thousand years hence, any more than to have been alive a, hundred or a thousand years ago : but the thing lies here, that we would all of us wish th e presen t moment to last for ev er. We would be as we are, and would have the w6rld remam just as it is, to please us. "The present eye catches the present object " — to have and to hold while it may ; and abhors, on any terms, to have it torn from us, and nothing left in its room. C^ is the pang of parting, the unloosing our grasp, the breaking asunder some strong tie, the leaving some cherished purpose unfulfilled, that creates tiifi repugnance to go, and " makes calamity of so long life," as it often^is^ " Oh ! thou strong heart ! There's such a covenant 'twixt the world and thee, They're loth to break ! " The love of life, then, is an habitual attachment, not an abstract ^ a6o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. grmcigle. Simply to be does not " content man's natural desire : " we long to be in a certain time, place, and circumstance. We would much rather be now, " on this bank and shoal of time," than have our choice of any future period, than take a sli ce of fifty or sixty years out of the Millennium, for instance. C^Th is shows that our attachment is not coniined either to being or to well-being, but that we have an inveterate prejudice in favour of our immediate exist- ence, such as it is^ The mountaineer will not leave his rock, nor the savage his hxit ; neither are we willing to give up our present mode of life, with all its advantages and disadvantages, for any other that could be substituted for it. No_manjvould^Itlmikj.fixchaage his exi stence with any qj ;^pr TT"", ^^"^°vqr frvrTjmn.f.0 We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves. There are some peRJOlis ' of that reach of tsoul that they would like to live two hundred and fifty years hence, to see to what height of empire America will have grown up in that period, or whether the English constitution will last so long. These are points beyond me. But I confess I should like to live to see the downfall of the Bourbons. That is a vital question with me ; and I shall like it the better the sooner it happens ! C -No"" yo ung man ever thinks he shall die. He may believe that others will, or assent to the doctrine that " all men are mortal " as an abstract propositi oii, b ut he is far enough from bringing it home to himself individually^ Youth, buoyant activity, and animal spirits hold absolute antlpati^ with old age as well as with death ; nor have we, in the heyday of life, any more than in the thought- lessness of childhood, the remotest conception how ' ' This sensible warm motion can become A kneaded clod " — • nor how sanguine, florid health and vigour shall "turn to withered, weak, and grey." Or if in a moment of idle speculation we indulge in this notion of the close of life as a theory, it is amazing at what a distance it seems; what a long, leisurely interval there is between; what a contrast its slow and solemn approach afibrds to our present gay dreams of existence ! We eye the farthest verge of the horizon, and think what a way we shall have to look back upon ere we arrive at our journey's end ; and without our in the least suspecting it, the mists are at our feet, and the shadows of age encompass us. The two divisions of our lives have melted into each other; the extreme points close and meet with none of that romantic interval stretching out between them that we had reckoned upon ; and for the rich, melancholy, solemn hues of age, "the sear, the yellow leaf," the deepening shadows of an autumnal evening, we only feel a THE FEAR OF DEATH. 261 dank, cold mist, encircling all objects, after the spirit o£ youth is fled. There is no inducement to look forward ; and what is worse, little interest in looking back to what has become so trite and common. The pleasures of our existence have worn themselves out, are "gone into the wastes of time," or have turned their indifferent side to us : the pains by their repeated blows have worn us out, and have left us neither spirit nor inclination to encounter them again in retrospect. We do not want to rip up old grievances, nor to renew our youth like the phoenix, nor to live our lives twice over. Once is enough. As the tree falls, so let it lie. Shut UDjlifi_book and close the account once for aU ! fit has been thought by some that Ufe is like the exploring of a passage tnat grows narrower and darker tne farther we adva nce^ without a pos sibility ot ever turning back , and where we are stilled for wailirbf breath at l ast, ^ 'or myself, 1 do not complam of the greattsr thickness ot the atmosphere as I approach the narrow house. I felt it more, formerly, when the idea alone seemed to suppress a thousand rising hopes and weighed upon the pulses of the blood. At present I rather feel a thinness and want of support, I stretch out my hand to some object and find none, I am too much in a I world of abstraction ; the naked map of life is spread out before me, and in the emptiness and desolation I see Death coming to meet me. ^omy youth I could not behold him for the crowd of objects and feelings, and Hopgstood always between us, saying, " Never mind that ol d fellow ! > ^ If I had lived indeed, I should not care to die. But I do not Kke a contract of pleasure broken off unfulfilled, a marriage with joy unconsummated, a promise of happiness rescinded. My public and private hopes have been left ^ ruin, or remain only to mock me. I would wish them to be cire-edified. I should like to see some prospect of good to mankind, ' ' •;7-such as my life began with. I should Kke to leave somg stfirling ;^^ work behind _ gie- I should like to have some friendly hand to consign me to the grave. On these conditions I am ready, if not w illing , to depart. I shall then write on my tomb — GKATBrni and CoNTEifTED ! But I have thought and suflTeredjQO much to be willing to have thought and sufl'ered in vain.— ^ilooking back, it \ sometimes appears to me as if I had in a manner sl^t out my life i ,^ in a dream or shadow on the side of the hill of knowledge, where j ^ I have fed on books, on thoughts, on pictures, and only heard in half- mur murs the trampling of busy feet or the noises of the throng below.~^ Waked out of this dim, twilight existence, and startled witli tlie passing scene, I have felt a wish to descend to the world of realities and join in the chase. But I fear too late, and 202 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. that I had batter return to my bookish chimeras and indolence once more ! Zanetto, lascia le donne, et studia la matematica. I will think of it. ^^t is not wonderful that the contemplation and fear of death KSeome more familiar to us as we approach nearer to it ; that Hfe seems to ebb with the decay of blood and youthful spirits ; and that as we find everything about us subject to chance and change, as our strength and beauty die, as our hopes and passions, our friends and our affections, leave us, we begin by degrees to feel ourselves mortalT) I have never seen death but once, and that was in an infant, It is years ago. The look was calm and placid, and the face was fair and firm. It was as if a waxen image had been laid out in the coffin, and strewed with innocent flowers. It was not like death, but more like an image of life ! No breath moved the lips, no pulse stirred, no sight or sound would enter those eyes or ears more. While I looked at it, I saw no pain was there ; it seemed to smile at the short pang of life which was over ; but I could not bear the coffin-lid to be closed — it seemed to stifle me; and still as the nettles wave in a corner of the churchyard over his little grave, the welcome breeze helps to refresh me and ease the tightness at my breast. [I did not see my father after he was dead, but I saw Death shake him by the palsied hand and stare him in the face. He made as good an end as Falstaff'; though different, as became him. After repeating the name of his E.(edeemer) often, he took my mother's hand, and, looking up, put it in my sister's, and so expired. There was something graceful and gracious in his nature, which showed itself in his last act.] An ivory or marble image, like Chantry's monument of the two children, is contemplated with pure delight. Why do we not grieve and fret that the marble is not alive, or fancy that it has a shortness of breath ? ^^ never was alive ; and it is the difficulty of making the transition from life to death, the struggle between the two in our imagination, that confounds their properties painfully together, and makes us conceive that the infant that is but just dead still wants to breathe, to enjoy, and look about it, and is prevented by the icy hand of death locking up its faculties and ^benumljmgits senses ; so that, if it could, it would complain of its own hards^^i. Perhaps religious considerations reconcile the mind to tliis cEange sooner than any others, by representing the spirit as fled to another sphere, and leaving the body behind it. So in reflecting on deat h generally, we mix up the idea of life with it, and thus make it the THE FEAR OF DEATH. ^as%moDsterj t i s. Wg 1 !1 J?l^. j'.??-'^ should feel, not " " Still from the tomb the voice of nature cries ; Even in our asnes live their wonted fires ! " There is an admirable passage on this subject in Tucker's " Light of Nature Pursued," which I shall transcribe, as by much the best ill ustra tion I can offer of it : — ooloured coat and breeches. It looks like an alteration in his style. An author and a wit should have a separate costume, a particular cloth ; he should present something positive and singular to the mind, like Mr. Douce of the Museum. Our faith in the religion of letters will not bear to be taken to pieces, and put together again by caprice or accident. Leigh Hunt goes there sometimes. He has a fine vinoaa . spirit about him, and tropical blood in his veins; but he is better at his own table. He has a great flow of pleasantry and delightful animal spirits ; but his hits do not tell like Lamb's ; you cannot repeat them the next day. He requires not only to be appreciated, but to have a select circle of admirers and devotees, to feel himself quite at home. He sits at the head of a party with great gaiety and grace ; has an elegant man- ner and turn of features ; is never at a loss — aliquando sufflami- nandus erat — has continual sportive sallies of wit or fancy ; tells a story capitally ; mimics an actor or an acquaintance to admiration ; laughs With great glee and good-humour at his own or other people's jokes; understands the point of an equivoque or an observation immediately; has a taste and knowledge of books, of music, of medals ; manages an argument adroitly ; is genteel and gallant, and has a set of by-phrases and quaint allusions always at hand to produce a laugh : — if he has a fault, it is that he does not listen BO well as he speaks, is impatient of interruption, and is fond of being looked up to, without considering by whom. I believe, how- 2 a 304 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ever, lie has pretty well seen the folly of this. Neither is his ready display of personal accomplishment and variety of resources an advantage to his writings. They sometimes present a desultory and slipshod appearance, owing to this very circumstance. The same things that tell, perhaps, best to a private circle round the fireside are not always intelligible to the public, nor does he take pains to make them so. He is too confident and secure of his audience. That which may be entertaining enough with the assist- ance of a certain liveliness of manner may read very flat on paper, because it is abstracted from all the circumstances that had set it oflf to advantage. A writer should recollect that he has only to trust to the immediate impression of words, like a musician Tcho sings without the accompaniment of an instrument. There is nothing to help out, or slubber over, the defects of the voice in the one case, nor of the style in the other. The reader may, if he pleases, get a very good idea of Leigh Hunt's conversation from a very agreeable paper he has lately published, called the Indicator, than which nothing can be more happily conceived or executed. The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard. Authors in general are not good listeners. Some of the best talkers are, on this account, the worst company ; and some who are very indifferent, but very great talkers, are as bad. It is sometimes wonderful to see how a person who has been entertaining or tiring a company by the hour together drops his countenance as it he had been shot, or had been seized with a sudden lockjaw, the moment any one interposes a single observation. The best converser I know is, however, the best listener. I mean Mr. Northcote, the painter. Painters by their profession are not bound to shine in conversation. and they shine the more. He lends his ear to an observation as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with as much avidity and earnestness as if it interested himself personally. If he repeats an old remark or story, it is with the same freshness and point as for the first time. It always arises out of the occasion, and has the stamp of originality. There is no parroting of himself. His look is a continual, ever-varying history-piece of what passes in his mind. His face is a book. There need no marks of interjection or interrogation to what he says. His manner is quite picturesque. There is an excess of character and naivetS that never tires. His thoughts bubble up and sparkle like beads on old wine. The fund of anecdote, the collection of curious particulars, is enough to set up any common retaUer of jests that dines out every day ; but these are not strung together like a row of galley-slaves, but are always iutrocluopd to illustrate some argument or bring out some fina CHARACTER OF THE SCHOLAR. 305 distinction of character. The mixture of spleen adds to the sharp- ness of the point, like poisoned arrows. Mr. Northcote enlarges with enthusiasm on the old painters, and tells good things of the new. The oiily thing he ever vexed me in was his liking the " Catalogue Baisonn^e." I had almost as soon hear him talk of Titian's pictures (which he does with tears in his eyes, and looking just like them) as see the originals, and I had rather hear him talk of Sir Joshua's than see them. He is the last of that school who knew Goldsmith and Johnson. How finely he describes Pope! His elegance of mind, his figure, his character, were not unlike his own. He does not resemble a modem Englishman, but puts one in mind of a Roman cardinal or a Spanish inquisitor. I never ate or drank with Mr. Northcote; but I have lived on his conversation with un- diminished relish ever since I can remember, — and when I leave it, I come out into the street with feelings lighter and more ethereal than I have at any other time. . . . There is a character of a gentleman ; so there is a character of a scholar, which is no less easily recognised. The one has an air of books about him, as the other has of good-breeding. The one wears his thoughts as the other does his clothes, gracefully ; and even if they are a little old-fashioned, they are not ridiculous : they have had their day. The gentleman shows, by his manner, that he has been used to respect from others : the scholar, that he lays claim to self-respect and to a certain independence of opinion. The one has been accustomed to the best company; the other has passed his time in cultivating an intimacy with the best authors. There is nothing forward or vulgar in the behaviour of the one; nothing shrewd or petulant in the observations of the other, as if he should astonish the bystanders, or was astonished himself at his own dis- coveries. Good taste and good sense, like common politeness, are, or are suppo.sed to be, matters of course. One is distinguished by an appearance of marked attention to every one present ; the other manifests an habitual air of abstraction and absence of mind. The one is not an upstart, with all the self-important airs of the founder of his own fortune ; nor the other a self-taught man, with the repul- sive seK-sufficienoy which arises from an ignorance of what hundreds have known before him. We must excuse, perhaps, a little conscious family pride in the one, and a little harmless pedantry in the other. As there is a class of the first character which sinks into the mere gentleman— that is, which has nothing but this sense of respectability and propriety to support it— so the character of a scholar not in- frequently dwindles down into the shadow of a shade, till nothing is left of it but the mere bookworm. There is often something 3o6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. amiable as well as enviable in this last character. I know one such instance, at least. The person I mean has an admiration for learn- ing, if he is only dazzled by its light. He lives among old authors, if he does not enter much into their spirit. He handles the covers, and turns over the page, and is familiar with the names and dates. He is busy apd self-involved. He hangs like a film and cobweb upon letters, "or is like the dust upon the outside of knowledge, which should not be rudely brushed aside. He follows learning as its shadow ; but as such, he is respectable. He browses on the husk and leaves of books, as the young fawn browses on the bark and leaves of trees. Such a one lives all his life in a dream of learning, and has never once had his sleep broken by a real sense of things. He believes implicitly in genius, truth, virtue, liberty, because he finds the names of these things in books. He thinks that love and friendship are the finest things imaginable, both in practice and theory. The legend of good women is to him no fiction. "When he steals from the twilight of his cell, the scene breaks upon him like an illuminated missal, and all the people he sees are but so many figures in a camera obscura. He reads the world, like a favourite volume, only to find beauties in it, or like an edition of some old work which he is preparing for the press, only to make emendations in it, and correct the errors that have inadvertently slipped in. He and his dog Tray are much the same honest, simple-hearted, faithful, affectionate creatures — if Tray could but read ! His mind cannot take the impression of vice ; but the gentleness of his nature turns gall to milk. He would not hurt a fiy. He draws the picture of mankind from the guileless simplicity of his own heart : and when he dies, his spirit will take its smiling leave, without having ever had an ill thought of others, or the consciousness of one in itself ! APPLICATION TO STUDY. ... I THINK there are two mistakes, common enough, on tliis sub- ject; viz., that men of genius, or of first-rate capacity, do little, except by intermittent fits, or per saltum, and that they do that little in a slight and slovenly manner. There may be instances of this; but they are not the highest, and they are the exceptions, not the rule. On the contrary, the greatest artists have in general been the most prolific or the most elaborate, as the best writers have been frequently the most voluminous as well as indefatigable. Wa have a great living instance among writers, that the quality of o man's productions is not to be estimated in the inverse ratio of APPLICATION TO STUDY. 307 their quantity— I mean in the author of " Waverley," the fecundity of whose pen is no less admirable than its feucity. Shakspeare is another instance of the same prodigality of genius; his materials being endlessly poured forth with no niggard or fastidious hand, and the mastery of the execution being (in many respects at least) equal to the boldness of the design. As one example among others that I might cite of the attention which he gave to his subject, it is sufficient to observe, that there is scarcely a word in any of his more striking passages that can be altered for the better. If any person, for instance, is trying to recollect a favourite line, and can- not hit upon some particular expression, it is in vain to think of substituting any other so good. That in the original text is not merely the best, but it seems the only right one. I will stop to illustrate this point a little. I was at a loss the other day for the line in Henry V. : " Wice customs curtsey to great kings." I could not recollect the word nice : I tried a number of others, such as old, grave, &o. — they would none of them do, but seemed all heavy, lumbering, or from the purpose : the word nice, on the con- trary, appeared to drop into its place, and be ready to assist in paying the reverence required. Again : " A jest's prospej'ity lies in the ear Of him that hears it." I thought, in quoting from memory, of " A jest's success," " A jest's reTwmi," &c. I then turned to the volume, and there found the very word that of all others expressed the idea. Had Shakspeare searched through the four quarters of the globe, he could not have lighted on another to convey so exactly what he meant — a casual, hollow, sounding success ! I could multiply such examples, but that I am sure the reader will easily supply them himself; and they show sufficiently that Shakspeare was not (as he is often repre- sented) a loose or clumsy writer. The bold, happy texture of his style, in which every word is prominent, and yet cannot be torn from its place without violence, any more than a limb from the body, is (one should think) the result either of vigilant painstaking or of unerring, intuitive perception, and not the mark of crude con- ceptions and " the random, blindfold blows of Ignorance." There cannot be a greater contradiction to the common prejudice that " Genius is naturally a truant and a vagabond " than the as- tonishing and (on this hypothesis) unaccountable number of chefs- 3o8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. d'cBu.vre left behind them by the old masters. The streain of their invention supplies the taste of successive generations like a river; they furnish a hundred galleries, and preclude competition, not more by the excellence than by the number of their performances. Take Raphael and Eubens alone. There are works of theirs in single collections enough to occupy a long and laborious Hte, and yet their works are spread through all the collections of Europe. They seem to have cost them no more labour than if they " had drawn in their breath and puffed it forth again." But we know that they made drawings, studies, sketches, of all the principal of these, with the care and caution of the merest tyros in the art ; and they remain equal proofs of their capacity and diUgence. The car- toons of Raphael alone might have employed many years, and made a life of Ulustrious labour, though they look as if they had been struck off at a blow, and are not a tenth part of what he produced in his short but bright career. Titian and Michael Angelo hved longer, but they worked as hard and did as well. Shall we bring in competition with examples like these some trashy caricaturist or idle dauber, who has no sense of the infinite resources of nature or art, nor, consequently, any power to employ himself upon them for any length of time or to any purpose, to prove that genius and regular industry are incompatible qualities ? In my opinion, the very superiority of the works of the great painters (instead of being a bar to) accounts for their multiphcity. Power is pleasure ; and pleasure sweetens pain. A fine poet thus describes the effect of the sight of nature on his ndnd : " The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rook, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms were then to me An appetite, a feeling, and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye." So the forms of nature, or the human form divine, stood before the great artists of old, nor required any other stimiilus to lead the eye to survey or the hand to embody them, than the pleasure derived from the inspiration of the subject, and " propulsive force " of the mimic creation. The grandeur of their works was an argument with them, not to stop short, but to proceed. They could have no higher excitement or satisfaction than in the exercise of their art and end- less generation of truth and beauty. Success prompts to exertion, and habit facilitates success. It is idle to suppose we can exhaust APPLICATION TO STUDY. 303 nature ; and the more we employ our own faculties, the more we strengthen them and enrich our stores of observation and invention. j The more we do, the more we can do. Not, indeed, if we get our ideas out of our own heads — that stock is soon exhausted, and we recur to tiresome, vapid imitations of ourselves. But this is the dififer- ence between real and mock talent, between genius and affectation. Nature is not limited, nor does it become effete, like our con- ceit and vanity. The closer we examine it, the more it refines upon us ; it expands as we enlarge and shift our view ; it " grows with our growth, and strengthens vpith our strength." The subjects are endless; and our capacity is invigorated as it is called out by occasion and necessity. He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing anything ; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. The principles are the same in all nature ; and we under- stand them better as we verify them by experience and practice. It is not as if there were a given number of subjects to work upon, or a set of innate or preconceived ideas in our minds which we en- croached upon with every new design ; the subjects, as I said before, are endless, and we acquire ideas by imparting them. Our expendi- ture of intellectual wealth makes us rich : we can only be liberal as we have previously accumulated the means. By lying idle, as by standing still, we are confined to the same trite, narrow round of topics : by continuing our efforts, as by moving forwards in a road, we extend om: views, and discover continually new tracts of country. Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use. Habit also gives promptness ; and the soul of despatch is decision. One man may write a book or paint a picture while another is deliberating about the plan or the title-page. The great pamters were able to do so much, because they knew exactly what they meant to do, and how to set about it. They were thoroughbred workmen, and were not learning their art while they were exercising it. One can do a great deal in a short time if one only knows how. Thus an author may become very voluminous who only employs an hour or two in a day in study. If he has once obtained, by habit and reflection, a use of his pen, with plenty of materials to work upon, the pages vanish before him. The time lost is in beginning, or in stopping after we have begun. If we only go forward with" spirit and confidence, we shall soon arrive at the end of our journey. A practised writer ought never to hesitate for a sentence from the moment he sets pen to paper, or think about the course he is to take. He must trust to his previous knowledge of the subject and to his immediate impulses, and he wiU get to the close of his task without accidents or loss of 310 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. time. I can easily understand how the old divines and controver- eialists produced their folios : I could write folios myself, if I rose early and sat up late at this kind of occupation. But I confess I should soon be tired of it, besides wearying the reader. In one sense, art is long and life is short. In another sense, this aphorism is not true. The best of us are idle half our time. It is wonderfiil how much is done in a short space, provided we set about it properly, and give our minds wholly to it. Let any one devote himself to any art or science ever so strenuously, and he will still have leisure to make considerable progress in half-a-dozen other acquirements. Leonardo da Vinci was a mathematician, a musician, a poet, and an anatomist, besides being one of the greatest painters of his age. The Prince of Painters was a courtipr, a lover, and fond of dress and company. Michael Angelo was a prodigy of versatility of talent — a writer of Sonnets (which Wordsworth has thought worth translating) and the admirer of Dante. Salvator was a lutenist and a satirist. Titian was an elegant letter-writer and a finished gentleman. Sir Joshua Reynolds's " Discourses " are more polished and classical even than any of his pictures. Let a man do all he can in any one branch of study, he must either exhaust himself and doze over it, or vary his pursuit, or else lie idle. AH our real labour lies in a nutshell. The mind makes, at some period or other, one herculean effort, and the rest is mechanical. We have to climb a steep and narrow precipice at first ; but after that the way is broad and easy, where we may drive several accomplish- ments abreast. Men should have one principal pursuit, which may be both agreeably and advantageously diversified with other lighter ones, as the subordinate parts of a picture may be managed so as to give effect to the centre group. It has been observed by a sensible man, that the having a regular occupation or professional duties to attend to is no excuse for putting forth an inelegant or inaccurate work; for a habit of industry braces and strengthens the mind, and enables it to wield its energies vrith additional ease and steadier purpose. Were I allowed to instance in myself, if what I write at present is worth nothing, at least it costs me nothing. But it cost me a great deal twenty years ago. I have added little to my stock since then, and taken little from it. I "unfold the book and volume of the brain," and transcribe the characters I see there as mechanically as any one might copy the letters in a sampler. I do not say they came there mechanically — I transfer them to the paper mechanically. After eight or ten years' hard study, an'author (at least) may go to sleep. . . . THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS. 311 THE SPIRIT OF OBLIGATIONS. ... I LIKE real good-nature and good-will, better than I do any ofl'ers of patronage or plausible rules for my conduct in life. I may suspect the soundness of the last, and I may not be quite sure of the motives of the first. People complain of ingratitude for benefits, and of the neglect of wholesome advice. In the first place, we pay little attention to advice, because we are seldom thought of in it. The person who gives it either contents himself to lay down (ex cathedrd) certain vague, general maxims and " wise saws," which we knew before, or, instead of considering what we ought to do, recom- mends what he himself would do. He merely substitutes his own will, caprice, and prejudices for ours, and expects us to be guided by them. Instead of changing places with us (to see what is best to be done in the given circumstances), he insists on our looking at the question from his point of view, and acting in such a manner as to please him. This is not at all reasonable ; for one man's meat, according to the old adage, is another man's poison. And it is not strange, that, starting from such opposite premises, we should seldom jump in a conclusion, and that the art of giving and taking advice is little better than a game at cross-purposes. I have observed that those who are the most inclined to assist others are the least forward or peremptory with their advice ; for, having our interest really at heart, they consider what can, rather than what cannot be done, and aid our views and endeavour to avert iU-consequences by moder- ating our impatience and allaying irritations, instead of thwarting our main design, which only tends to make us more extravagant and violent than ever. In the second place, benefits are often con- ferred out of ostentation or pride, rather than from true regard ; and the person obliged is too apt to perceive this. People who are fond of appearing in the light of patrons will perhaps go through fire and water to serve you, who yet would be sorry to find you no longer wanted their assistance, and whose friendship cools and their good-will slackens, as you are relieved by their active zeal from the necessity of being further beholden to it. Compassion and generosity are their favourite virtues ; and they countenance you as you aflbrd them opportunities for exercising them. The instant you can go alone, or can stand upon your own ground, you are discarded as imfit for their purpose. This is something more than mere good-nature or humanity. A thoroughly good-natured man, a real friend, is one who is pleased at 312 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. our good-fortune, as well as prompt to seize every occasion of reliev- ing our distress. We apportion our gratitude accordingly. We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive thau the quantum of favour received — a kind word or look is never for- gotten, while we cancel prouder and weightier obligations; and those who esteem us or evince a partiality to us are those whom we still consider as our best friends. Nay, so strong is this feeling, that we extend it even to those counterfeits in friendship — flatterers and sycophants. Our self-love, rather than our self-interest, is the master-key to our afiections. . . . There are different modes of obligation, and different avenues to our gratitude and favour. A man may lend his countenance who will not part with his money, and open his mind to us who will not draw out his purse. How many ways are there in which our peace may be assailed besides actual want ! How many com- forts do we stand in need of besides meat and drink and clothing ! Is it nothing to "administer to a mind diseased" — to heal a wounded spirit ? After all other difficulties are removed, we still want some one to bear with our infirmities, to impart our con- fidence to, to encourage us in our hobbies (nay, to get up and ride behind us), and to like us with all our faults. Tr ue friendship is selfJoye at second hand ; where, as in a flattering mirror, we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness. /He (of all the world) creeps closest to our bosoms, into our favour and esteem, who thinks of us most nearly as we do of ourselves^ Such a one is indeed the pattern of a friend, another self — and our gratitude for the blessing is as sincere as it is hollow in most other cases ! This is one reason why entire friend- ship is scarcely to be found except in love. There is a hardness and severity in our judgments of one another ; the spirit of com- petition also intervenes, unless where there is too great an inequaUty of pretension or difference of taste to admit of mutual sympathy and respect; but a woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry ; and in the intercourse with that sex, there is the finest balance and reflection of opposite and answering excellences imaginable ! . . . The difference of age, of situation in life, and an absence of all considerations of business have, I apprehend, something of the same effect in producing a refined and abstracted friendship. The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour. I once did him an uncalled-for service, and we nearly quarrelled about it. If I were in the utmost CONSCIOUSNESS OF GENIUS. 313 distress, I should just as soon think of asking his assistance as of stopping a person on the highway. Practical benevolence is not his forte. He leaves the profession of that to others. His habits his theory, are against it as idle and vulgar. His hand is closed, but what of that ? His eye is ever open, and reflects the universe : his silver accents, beautiful, venerable as his silver hairs, but not scanted, flow as a river. I never ate or drank in his house ; nor do I know or care how the flies or spiders fare in it, or whether a mouse can get a living. But I know that I can get there what I get nowhere else — a welcome, as if one was expected to drop in just at that moment, a total absence of all respect of persons and of airs of self-consequence, endless topics of discourse, refined thoughts, made more striking by ease and simplicity of manner — -the husk, the shell of htunanity is left at the door, and the spirit, mellowed by time, resides within! AH you have to do is to sit and listen ; and it is like hearing one of Titian's faces speak. To think of worldly matters is a profanation, like that of the money- changers in the Temple; or it is to regard the bread and wine of the Sacrament with carnal eyes. We enter the enchanter's cell, and converse with the divine inhabitant. To have this privilege always at hand, and to be circled by that spell whenever we choose with an " Enter Sessami," is better than sitting at the lower end of the tables of the great, than eating awkwardly from gold plate, than drinking fulsome toasts, or being thankful for gross favours, and gross insults ! WHBTHEB GENIUS IS CONSCIOUS OF ITS POWERS. . . . Thbkb are two persons who always appear to me to have worked under this involuntary, silent impulse more than any others; I mean Rembrandt and Correggio. It is not known that Correggio ever saw a picture of any great master. He lived and died obscurely in an obscure village. We have few of his works, but they are all perfect. What truth, what grace, what angelic sweetness are there ! Not one line or tone that is not divinely soft or exquisitely fair ; the painter's mind rejecting, by a natural process, all that is dis- cordant, coarse, or unpleasing. The whole is an emanation of pure thought. The work grew under his hand as if of itself, and came out without a flaw, like the diamond from the rock. He knew not what he did ; and looked at each modest grace as it stole from the canvas with anxious delight and wonder. Ah, gracious God I not he alone ; how many more in all time have looked at their works 314 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. with the same feelings, not knowing but they too may have done something divine, immortal, and finding in that sole doubt ample amends for pining solitude, for want, neglect, and an untimely fate ! Oh ! for one hour of that uneasy rapture, when the mind first thinks that it has struck out something that may last for ever ; when the germ of excellence bursts from nothing on the startled sight ! Take, take away the gaudy triumphs of the world, the long deathless shout of fame, and give, back that heartfelt sigh with which the youthful enthusiasts first wed immortality as his secret bride ! And thou too, Rembrandt ! Thou wert a man of genius, if ever painter was a man of genius ! — did this dream hang over you as you painted that strange picture of "Jacob's Ladder"? Did your eye strain over those gradual dusky clouds into futurity, or did those white- vested, beaked figures babble to you of fame as they approached? Did you know what you were about, or did you not paint much as it happened ? Oh ! if you had thought once about yourself or any- thing but the subject, it would have been all over with " the glory, the intuition, the amenity," the dream had fled, the spell had been broken. The hiUs would not have looked like those we see in sleep — ^that tatterdemalion figure of Jacob, thrown on one side, would not have slept as if the breath was fairly taken out of his body. So much do Rembrandt's pictures savour of the soul and body of reahty, that the thoughts seem identical with the objects — ^i£ there had been the least question what he should have done, or how he should do it, or how far he had succeeded, it would have spoiled everythuig. Lumps of light hung upon his pencil and fell upon his canvas Hke dewdrops : the shadowy veil was drawn over his backgrounds by the dull, obtuse finger of night, making darkness visible by still greater darkness that could only be felt ! . . . The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading, while we are young. 1 have had as much of this pleasure as perhaps any one. As I grow older it fades ; or else, the stronger stimulus of writing takes off the edge of it. At present, I have neither time nor inclination for it : yet I should like to devote a year's entire leisure to a course of the English Novelists; and perhaps clap on that sly old knave. Sir Walter, to the end of the list. It is astonishing how I used formerly to relish the style of certain authors, at a time when I myself de- spaired of ever writing a single line. Probably this was the reason. It is not in mental as in natural ascent — intellectual objects seem higher when we survey them from below, than when we look down from any given elevation above the common level. My tnree favourite writers about the time I speak of were Bmke, Junius, and Rousseau. I was never weary of admiring and wondering at the /\ PRIDE. 31S 'felicities of the style, the turns of expression, the refinements of thought and sentiment : I laid the boolv down to find out the secret of so much strength and beauty, and took it up again in despair, to read on and admire. So I passed whole days, months, and, I may add, years ; and have only this to say now, that as my life began, so I could wish that it may end. The last time I tasted this luxury in its full perfection was one day after a sultry day's walk in summer between Farnham and Alton. I was fairly tired out ; I walked into an inn-yard (I think at the latter place) ; I was shown by the waiter to what looked at first like common outhouses at the other end of it, but they turned out to be a suite of rooms, probably a hundred years old. The one I entered opened into an old-fashioned garden, embellished with beds of larkspur and a leaden Mercury ; it was wainscoted, and there was a grave-looking, dark-coloured por- trait of Charles II. hanging over the tiled chimmey-piece. I had " Love for Love " ^ in my pocket, and began to read ; coffee was brought in in a silver coffee-pot ; the cream, the bread and butter, everything was excellent, and the flavour of Congreve's style pre- vailed over aU. I prolonged the entertainment till a late hour, and relished this divine comedy better even than when I used to see it played by Miss Mellon, as Miss Prue; Bob Palmer, as Tattle; and Bannister, as honest Ben. This circumstance happened just five years ago, and it seems like yesterday. If I count my life so by lustres, it will soon glide away ; yet I shall not have to repine, if, while it lasts, it is enriched with a few such recollections 1 PBIDE. P'rom the Essay "On Egotism."] ... I CAN conceive of nothing so little or so ridiculous as pride. It is a mixture of insensibility and ill-nature, in which it is hard to say which has the largest share. If a man knows or excels in, or has ever studied, any two things, I wUl venture to affirm he wiU be proud of neither. It is perhaps excusable for a person who is ignorant of all but one thing, to think that the sole excellence, and to be full of himself as the possessor. The way to cure him of this folly is to give him something else to be proud of. Vanity is a building that falls to the ground as you widen its foundation, or strengthen the props that should support it. The greater a man is, the less he necessarily thinks of himself, for his knowledge enlarges with his attainments. In himself he feels that he is nothing, a point, a speck in the 1 Congreve's play. — Ed, 3i6 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. universe, except as his mind reflects that universe, and as he enters into the infinite variety of truth, beauty, and power contained in it. Let any one be brought up among books, and taught to think words the only things, and he may conceive highly of himself from the pro- ficiency he has made in language and in letters. Let him then be compelled to attempt some other pursuit — painting, for instance— and be made to feel the difficulties, the refinements of which it is capable, and the number of things of which he was utterly ignorant before, and there will be an end of his pedantry and his pride together. Nothing but the want of comprehension of view or generosity of spirit can make any one fix on his own particular acquirement as the limit of aU excellence. No one is (generally speaking) great in more than one thing — if he extends his pursuits, he dissipates his strength — yet in that one thing how small is the interval between him and the next in merit and reputation to him- self ! But he thinks nothing of, or scorns or loathes the name of his rival, so that all that the other possesses in common goes for nothing, and the fraction of a difference between them constitutes (in his opinion) the sum and substance of all that is excellent in the universe ! Let a man be wise, and then let us ask, WiU his wisdom make him proud ? Let him excel all others in the graces of the mind, has he also those of the body ? He has the advantage of fortune, but has he also that of birth ? or if he has both, has he health, strength, beauty, in a supreme degree ? Or have not others the same ? or does he think all these nothing because he does not possess them ? The proud man fancies that there is no one worth regarding but himself: he might as well fancy there is no other being but himself. The one is not a greater stretch of madness than the other. To make pride justifiable, there ought to be hut one proud man in the world, for if any one individual lias a right to be so, nobody else has. So far from thinking ourselves superior to all the rest of the species, we cannot be sure that we are above the meanest and most despised individual of it : for he may have some virtue, some excellence, some source of happiness or usefulness within himself, which may redeem all other disadvantages : or even if he is without any such hidden worth, this is not a subject of exultation, but of regret, to any one tinctured vrith the smallest humanity, and he who is totally devoid of the latter cannot have much reason to be proud of anything else. Arkwright, who invented the spinning-jenny, for many years kept a paltry barber's shop in a provincial town: yet at that time that wonderful ma- chinery was working in his brain, which has added more to the wealth and resources of this country than all the pride of ancestry READING OLD BOOKS. 317 or insolence of upstart nobility for the last hundred years. "VVe should be cautious whom we despise. If we do not know them, we can have no right to pronounce a hasty sentence: if we do, they may espy some few defects in us. No man is a hero to his valet-de- chamhre. "What is it, then, that makes the diflference ? The dress and pride. But he is the most of a hero who is least distinguished by the one and most free from the other. If we enter into conver- sation upon equal terms with the lowest of the people, unrestrained by circumstance, unawed by interest, we shall find in ourselves but Uttle superiority over them. If we know what they do not, they know what we do not. In general, those who do things for others, know more about them than those for whom they are done. A groom knows more about horses than his master. He rides them too: but the one rides behind, the other before! Hence the number of forms and ceremonies that have been invented to keep the magic circle of fancied self-importance inviolate. The late King sought but one interview with Dr. Johnson : his present Majesty is never tired of the company of Mr. Croker. ON EEADHSTG OLD BOOKS. ... I DO not think altogether the worse of a book for having survived the author a generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living. Contemporary writers may generally bo divided into two classes — one's friends or one's foes. Of the first we are compelled to think too well, and of the last we are disposed to think too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure from the perusal, or to judge fairly of the merits of either. One candi- date for literary fame, who happens to be of our acquaintance, writes finely, and like a man of genius; but unfortunately has a foohsh face, which spoils a delicate passage: — another inspires us with the highest respect for his personal talents and character, but does not quite come up to our expectations in print. All these contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm current of our reflections. If you want to know what any of the authors wre who lived before our time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke and noise of modem literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality. When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. When the entertainment is 3l8 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. altogether new, I sit down to it as I should to a strange dish,— tiirn and pick out a bit here and there, and am in doubt what to think of the composition. There is a want of confidence and security to second appetite. New-fangled books are also like made- dishes in this respect, that they are^ generally little else than hashes and rifammenti of what has been served up entire and in a more natural state at other times. Besides, in thus .turning to a .well- known author, there is not only an assurance that my time will not be thrown away, or my palate nauseated with the most insipid or vilest trash, — ^but I shake hands with, and look an old, tried, and valued friend in the face, — compare notes, and chat the hours away. It is true, we form dear friendships with such ideal guests — dearer, alas ! and more lasting, than those with our most intimate acquaint- ance. In reading a book which is an old favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only have the pleasure of imagina- tion and of a critical relish of the work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. It recalls the same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any other way. Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity. They are landmarks and guides in our joiu^ney through life. They are pegs and loops on which we can hang up, or from which we can take down, at pleasure, the wardrobe of a moral imagination, the relies of our best aflfections, the tokens and records of our happiest hovu^s. They are " for thoughts and for remembrance ! " They are like Fortu- natus's Wishing-Cap — they give us the best riches — those of Fancy; and transport us, not over half the globe, but (which is better) over half our lives, at a word's notice ! My father Shandy solaced himself with BruscambOle. Give me for this purpose a volume of " Peregrine Pickle " or " Tom Jones." Open either of them anywhere — at the " Memoirs of Lady Vane," or the adventures at the masquerade with Lady Bellaston, or the disputes between Thwackum and Square, or the escape of Molly Seagrim, or the incident of Sophia and her muff, or the edifying prolixity of her aunt's lecture — and there I find the same delightful, busy, bustling scene as ever, and feel myself the same as when I was first introduced into the midst of it. Nay, sometimes the sight of an odd volume- of these good old English authors on a stall, or the name lettered on the back among others on the shelves of a library, answers the purpose, revives the whole train of ideas, and sets "the puppets dallying." Twenty years are struck off the list, and I am a chUd again. A sage philosopher, who was not a very wise man, said, READING OLD BOOKS. 319 that he should like very well to be young again, if he could take his experience along with him. This ingenious person did not seem to be aware, by the gravity of his remark, that the great advantage of being young is to be without this weight of experience, which he would fain place upon the shoulders of youth, and which never comes too late with years. Oh ! what a privilege to be able to let this hump, like Christian's burthen, drop from off one's back, and transport oneself, by the help of a little musty duodecimo, to the time when " ignorance was bliss," and when we first got a peep at the raree-show of the world, through the glass of fiction — gazing at mankind, as we do at wild beasts in a menagerie, through the bars of their cages, — or at curiosities in a museum, that we must not touch ! For myself, not only are the old ideas of the contents of the work brought back to my mind in all their vividness, but the old associations of the faces and persons of those I then knew, as they were in their lifetime — ^the place where I sat to read the volume, the day when I got it, the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky — ^return, and all my early impressions with them. This is better to me — those places, those times, those persons, and those feelings that come across me as I retrace the story and devour the page are to me better far than the wet sheets of the last new novel from the Ballantyne press, to say nothing of the Minerva press in Leadenhall Street. It is like visiting the scenes of early youth. I think of the time "when I was in my father's house, and my path ran down with butter and honey," — when I was a little thoughtless child, and had no other wish or care but to con my daily task and be happy ! — " Tom Jones," I remember, was the first work that broke the spell. It came down in numbers once a fortnight, in Cooke's pocket-edition, embellished with cuts. I had hitherto read only in school-books, and a tiresome ecclesiastical history (with the exception of Mrs Radcliffe's " Eomance of the Forest ") : but this had a different relish with it,— « sweet in the mouth," though not "bitter in the belly." It smacked of the world I lived in, and in which I was to live— and showed me groups, " gay creatures " not " of the element," but of the earth; not "living in the clouds," but travelling the same road that I did;— some that had passed on before me, and others that might soon overtake me. My heart had palpitated at the thoughts of a boarding-school ball, or galarday at Midsummer or Christmas : but the world I had found out in Cooke's edition of the " British Novelists " was to me a dance through life, a perpetual gala- day. The sixpenny numbers of this work regularly contrived to leave off just in the middle of a sentence, and in the nick of a story. With what eagerness I used to look forward to the next number, / 320 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. an I open the prints ! Ah ! never again shall I feel the enthusiastic delight with which I gazed at the figures, and anticipated the story and adventures of Major Bath and Commodore Trunnion, of Trim and my Uncle Toby, of Don Quixote and Sancho and Dapple, of Gil Bias and Dame Lorenza Sephora, of Laura and the fair Lucretia, whose lips open and shut like biids of roses. To what nameless ideas did they give rise, — with what airy delights I filled up the outlines, as I himg in silence over the page ! — ^Let me still recall them, that they may breathe fresh life into me, and that I may live that birth- day of thought and romantic pleasure over again ! Talk of the ideal ! This is the only true ideal — the heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in the bubbles that float upon the spring-tide of human life. " Memory ! shield me from the world's poor strife, And give those scenes thine everlasting life ! " ... I remember, as long ago as the year 1798, going to a neigh- bouring town (Shrewsbury, where Farquhar has laid the plot of hia " Becruiting Officer "), and bringing home with me, " at one proud swoop," a copy of Milton's " Paradise Lost," and another of Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" — both which I have still; and I still recollect, when I see the covers, the pleasure with which I dipped into them as I returned with my double prize. I was set up for one while. That time is past "with all its giddy raptures:" but I am still anxious to preserve its memory, "embalmed with odours." . . . Again, as to the other work, Burke's " Reflections," I took a particular pride and pleasure in it, and read it to myself and others for months afterwards. I had reason for my prejudice in favour of this author. To understand an adversary is some praise : to admire him is more. I thought I did both : I knew I did one. From the first time I ever cast my eyes on anything of Burke's (which was an extract from his "Letter to a Noble Lord" in a three-times-a-week paper, the St. James's Ghronicle, in 1796), I said to myself, "This is true eloquence : this is a man pouring out his mind on paper." All other style seemed to me pedantic and impertinent. Dr. Johnson's was walking on stilts ; and even Junius's (who was at that time a favourite with me), with all his terseness, shrank up into little antithetic points and well- trimmed sentences. But Burke's style was forked and playful as the lightning, crested like the serpent. He delivered plain things on a plain ground; but when he rose, there was no end of his flights and circumgyrations — and in this very Letter, "he, like an eagle in a dovecot, fluttered his Volscians" (the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale) "in Corioli." I READING OLD BOOKS. 321 did not care for his doctrines. I was then, and am still, proof against their contagion; but I admired the author, and was con- sidered as not a very staunch partisan of the opposite side, though I thought myself that an abstract proposition was one thing — a masterly transition, a brilliant metaphor, another. I conceived, too, that he might be wrong in his main argument, and yet deliver fifty truths in arriving at a false conclusion. I remember Coleridge assuring me, as a poetical and political set-oflF to my sceptical ad- miration, that Wordsworth had written an " Essay on Marriage," which, for manly thought and nervous expression, he deemed incom- parably superior. As I had not, at that time, seen any specimens of Mr. Wordsworth's prose style, I could not express my doubts on the subject. If there are greater prose-writers than Burke, they either lie out of my course of study or are beyond my sphere of comprehension. I am too old to be a convert to a new mythology of genius. The niches are occupied, the tables are full. If such is stiU my admiration of this man's misapplied powers, what must it have been at a time when I myself was in vain trying, year after year, to write a single essay, nay, a single page or sentence ; when I regarded the wonders of his pen with the longing eyes of one who was dumb and a changeling ; and when to be able to convey the slightest conception of my meaning to others in words was the height of an almost hopeless ambition ! But I never measured others' excellences by my own defects : though a sense of my own incapacity, and of the steep, impassable ascent from me to them, made me regard them with greater awe and fondness. I have thus run through most of my early studies and favourite authors, some of whom I have since criticised more at large. Whether those observations wiU survive me, I neither know nor do I much care : but to the works themselves, '' worthy of all acceptation," and to the feelings they have always excited in me since I could distinguish a meaning in language, nothing shall ever prevent me from looking back with gratitude and triumph. To have lived in the cultivation of an intimacy with such works, and to have familiarly relished such names, is not to have lived quite in vain. There are other authors whom I have never read, and yet whom I have frequently had a great desire to read, from some circumstance relating to them. Among these is Lord Clarendon's " History of the Grand Rebellion," after which I have a hankering, from hearing it spoken of by good judges, from my interest in the events, and knowledge of the characters from other sources, and from having seen fine portraits of most of them. I like to read a well-penned character, and Clarendon is said to have been a master in his way. 322 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. I should like to read Froissart's " Chronicles," Holinshed and Stowe, and Fuller's "Worthies." I intend, whenever I can, to read Beaumont and Fletcher all through. There are fifty-two of their plays, and I have only read a dozen or fourteen of them. "A "Wife for a Month " and " Thierry and Theodoret" are, I am told, delicious, and I can believe it. I should like to read the speeches in " Thucy- dides," and Guicciardini's " History of Florence," and " Don Quixote" in the original. I have often thought of reading the "Loves of PersUes and Sigismunda," and the " Galatea " of the same author. But I somehow reserve them like " another Yarrow." 1 should also like to read the last new novel (if I could be sure it was so) of the author of " Waverley : " — no one would be more glad than I to find it the best ! ON NOVELTY AND FAMILIARITY. . , . The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come, or in fancying what may have happened in real or fictitious story to others. I have had more pleasure in reading the adventures of a novel (and perhaps changing situations with the hero) than I ever had in my own. I do not think any one can feel much happier — a greater degree of heart's ease — than I used to feel in reading " Tristram Shandy," and " Peregrine Pickle," and " Tom Jones," and the "Tatler," and " GU Bias of SantiUane," and "Werter," and " Boccaccio." It was some years after that I read the last, but his tales " Dallied with the innocence of love, Like the old Time." The story of Frederigo Alberigi affected me as if it had been my own case, and I saw his hawk upon her perch in the clear, cold air, " and how fat and fair a bird she was," as plain as ever I saw a picture of Titian's ; and felt that I should have served her up as he did, as a banquet for his mistress, who came to visit him at his own poor farm. I could wish that Lord Byron had employed him- self while in Italy in rescuing such a writer as Boccaccio from un- merited obloquy, instead of making those notable discoveries — that Pope was a poet, and that Shakspeare was not one ! Mrs. Inchbald was always a great favourite with me. There is the true soul of woman breathing from what she writes, as much as if you heard her voice. It is as it Venus had written books. I first read her " Simple Story " (of all places in the world) at M . No matter where it was ; for it transported me out of myself. I recollect walking out NOVELTY AND FAMILIARITY. 323 to escape from one of the tenderest parts, in order to return to it again with double relish. An old crazy hand-organ was playing " Bobin Adair ; " a summer-shower dropped manna on my head, and slaked my feverish thirst of happiness. Her heroine. Miss MUner, was at my side. My dream has since been verified : — ^how like it was to the reality ! In truth, the reality itself was but a dream. Do I not still see that " simple movement of her finger " with which Madam Basil beckoned Jean Jacques to the seat at her feet, the heightened colour that tinged her profile as she sat at her work netting, the bunch of flowers in her hair ? Is not the glow of youth and beauty in her cheek blended with the blushes of the roses in her hair ? Do they not breathe the breath of love ? And (what though the adventure was unfinished by either writer or reader ?) is not the blank filled up with the rare and subtle spirit of fancy, that imparts the fulness of delight to the air-drawn creations of brain ? I once sat on a sunny bank in a field in which the green blades of com waved in the fitfrd northern breeze, and read the letter in the " New Eloise " in which St. Preux describes the Pays de Vaud. I never felt what Shakspeare calls my " glassy essence " so much as then. My thoughts were pure and free. They took a tone from the objects before me, and from the simple manners of the inhabi- tants of mountain-scenery so well described in the letter. The style gave me the same sensation as the drops of morning dew before they are scorched by the sun ; and I thought Julia did well to praise it. I wished I could have written such a letter. That wish, enhanced by my admiration of genius and the feeling of the objects around me, was accompanied with more pleasure than if I had written fifty such letters, or had gained all the reputation of its immortal author! Of all the pictures, prints, or drawings I ever saw, none ever gave me such satisfaction as the rude etchings at the top of Rousseau's "Confessions." There is a necromatic spell in the outlines. Im- agination is a witch. It is not even said anywhere that such is the case, but I had got it into my head that the rude sketches of old- fashioned houses, stone-waUs, and stumps of trees represented the scenes at Annecy and Vevay, where he who relished all more sharply than others, and by his own mtense aspirations after good had nearly dehvered mankind from the yoke of evil, first drew the breath of hope. Here love's golden rigol bound his brows, and here fell from it. It was the partition-wall between life and death to him, and all beyond it was a desert ! . . . "And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail." I used to apply this line to the distant range of hiUs in a paltry 324 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. landscape, which, however, had a tender vernal tone and a dewy freshness. I could look at them till my eyes fiQled with tears and my heart dissolved in-faintness. Why do I recall the circumstance after a lapse of years with so much interest ? Because I felt it then. Those feeble outlines were linked in my mind to the purest, fondest yearnings after good ; that dim, airy space contained my Uttle all of hope, buoyed up by charming fears; the delight with which I dwelt upon it, enhanced by my ignorance of what was in store for me, was free from mortal grossness, familiarity, or disappointment, and I drank pleasure out of the bosom of the silent hills and gleaming valleys as from a cup filled to the brim with love-philtres and poisonous sweetness by the sorceress Fancy 1 ON OLD ENGLISH WBITBBS AND SPEAKERS. The expression in Holbein's pictures conveys a faithful but not very favourable notion of the literary character of that period. It is painful, dry, and laboured. Learning was then an ascetic, but recluse and profound. You see a weight of thought and care in the studious heads of the time of the Reformation, a sincerity, an in- tegrity, a sanctity of purpose, like that of a formal dedication to a religious life or the inviolability of monastic vows. They had their work to do ; we reap the benefits of it. We skim the surface, and travel along the high-road. They had to explore dark recesses, to dig through mountaius, and make their way through pathless wilder- nesses. It is no wonder they looked grave upon it. The seriousness, indeed, amounts to an air of devotion ; and it has to me something fine, manly, and old English about it. There is a heartiness and determined resolution; a willingness to contend with opposition; a superiority to ease and pleasure ; some sullen pride, but no trifling vanity. They addressed themselves to study as to a duty, and were ready to "leave all and follow it." In the beginning of such an era, the diflFerence between ignorance and learning, between what was commonly known and what was possible to be known, would appear immense ; and no pains or time would be thought too great to master the difficulty. Conscious of their own deficiencies and the scanty information of those about them, they would be glad to look out for aids and support, and to put themselves apprentices to time and nature. This temper would lead them to exaggerate rather than to make light of the difficulties of their undertaking, and would call forth sacrifices in proportion. Feeling how Uttle they knew, they would be anxious to discover all that others had OLD ENGLISH WRITERS AND SPEAKERS. 325 known, and instead of making a display of themselves, their first object would be to dispel the mist and darkness that surrounded them. They did not cuU the flowers of learning, or pluck a leaf of laurel for their own heads, but tugged at the roots and very heart of their subject, as the woodman tugs at the roots of the gnarled oak. The sense of the arduousness of their enterprise braced their courage, so that they left nothing haK-done. They inquired de omne sciiik et quibusdam aliis. They ransacked libraries, they ex- hausted authorities. They acquired languages, consulted books, and deciphered manuscripts. They devoured learning, and swallowed antiquity whole, and (what is more) digested it. They read inces- santly, and remembered what they read, from the zealous interest they took in it. Repletion is only bad when it is accompanied with apathy and want of exercise. They laboured hard, and showed great activity both of reasoning and speculation. Their fault was, that they were too prone to imlock the secrets of nattire with the key of learning, and often to substitute authority in the place of argument. They were also too polemical, as was but naturally to be expected in the first breaking-up of established prejudices and opinions. It is curious to observe the slow progress of the human mind in loosen- ing and getting rid of its trammels, Hnk by hnk, and how it crept on its hands and feet, and with its eyes bent on the ground, out of the cave of Bigotry, making its way through one dark passage after another ; those who gave up one half of an absurdity contending as strenuously for the remaining half, the lazy current of tradition stemming the tide of innovation, and making an endless struggle between the two. But in the dullest minds of this period there was a deference to the opinions of their leaders ; an imposing sense of the importance of the subject, of the necessity of bringing all the faculties to bear upon it ; a weight either of armour or of internal strength, a zeal either for or against y a head, a heart, and a hand, a holding out to the death for conscience' sake, a strong spirit of proselytism — no flippancy, no indifierence, no compromising, no pert, shallow scepticism, but truth was supposed indissolubly knit to good, knowledge to usefulness, and the temporal and eternal weKare of mankiad to hang in the balance. The piu-e springs of a lofty faith (so to speak) had not then descended by various gradations from their skyey regions and cloudy height, to find their level in the smooth, glittering expanse of modem philosophy, or to settle in the stagnant pool of stale hypocrisy ! A learned man of that day, if he knew no better than others, at least knew all that they did. He did not come to his subject, like some dapper barrister who has never looked at his brief, and trusts to the smartness of his wit and person for 326 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. the agreeable effect he means to produce, but like an old and practised counsellor, covered over with the dust and cobwebs of the law. If it was a speaker in Parliament, he came prepared to handle his subject, armed with cases and precedents, the constitu- tion and history of Parliament from the earliest period, a knowledge of the details of business and the local interests of the country ; in short, he had taken up the freedom of the House, and did not treat the question like a cosmopolite or a writer in a magazine. If it were a divine, he knew the Scriptures and the Fathers, and the Councils and the Commentators, by heart, and thundered them in the ears of his astonished audience. Not a trim essay or a tumid oration, patronising religion by modem sophisms, but the Law and the Prophets, the chapter and the verse. If it was a philosopher, Aristotle and the Schoolmen were drawn out in battle-array against you: — ^if an antiquarian, the Lord bless us ! There is a passage in Selden's notes on Drayton's " Poly-Olbion," in which he elucidates some point of topography by a reference not only to Stowe, and Holinshed, and Camden, and Saxo-Grammaticus, and Dugdale, and several other authors that we are acquainted with, but to twenty obscure names, that no modern reader ever heard of ; and so on through the notes to a folio volume, written apparently for relaxation. Such were the intellectual amusements of our ancestors ! Learning then ordinarily lay-in of folio volumes : now she litters octavos and duodecimos, and will soon, as in France, miscarry of haH-sheets! Poor Job Orton ! Why should I not record a jest of his (perhaps the only one he ever made), emblematic as it is of the living and the learning of the good old times P The Rev. Job Orton was a Dis- senting minister in the middle of the last century, and had grown heavy and gouty by sitting long at dinner and at his studies. He could only get downstairs at last by spreading the foHo volumes of Caryl's " Commentaries upon Job " on the steps and sliding down them. Surprised one day in his descent, he exclaimed, " You have often heard of Caryl upon Job — now you see Job upon Caryl ! " This same quaint-witted gouty old gentleman seems to have been one of those " superior, happy spirits " who slid through life on the rollers of learning, enjoying the good things of the world and laugh- ing at them, and turning his infirmities to a livelier account than his patriarchal namesake. Reader, didst thou ever hear either of Job Orton or of Caryl on Job ? I dare say not. Yet the one did not therefore slide down his theological staircase the less pleasantly; nor did the other compile his Commentaries in vain ! For myself, I should like to browse on folios, and have to deal chiefly with authors that I have scarcely strength to lift, that are as solid as IDENTITY OF THE AUTHOR WITH HIS BOOKS. 327 thoy are heavy, and if dull, are full of matter. It is delightful to repose on the wisdom of the ancients ; to have some great name at hand, hesides one's own initials always staring one in the face ; to travel out of oneself into the Chaldee, Hebrew, and Egjfptian char- acters ; to have the palm-trees waving mystically in the margin of the page, and the camels moving slowly on in the distance of three thousand years. In that dry desert of learning we gather strength and patience, and a strange and insatiable thirst of knowledge. The ruined momunents of antiquity are also there, and the frag- ments of buried cities (under which the adder lurks), and cool springs, and green sunny spots, and the whirlwind, and the lion's roar, and the shadow of angelic wings. To those who turn with supercilious disgust from the ponderous tomes of scholastic learning, who never felt the witchery of the Talmuds and the Cabbala, of the Commen- tators and the Schoolmen, of texts and authorities, of types and antitypes, hieroglyphics and mysteries, dogmas and contradictions, and endless controversies and doubtful labyrinths, and quaint tradi- tions, I would recommend the lines of Warton written in a blank leaf of Dugdale's " Monasticon : " " Deem not devoid of elegance the sage, By fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled, Of painful pedantry the poring child. Who turns of these proud tomes the historic page, Now sunk by time and Henry's fiercer rage, Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled On his lone hours ? Ingenious views engage His thoughts, on themes (unclassio falsely styled) Intent. While cloister'd piety displays Her mouldering scroll, the piercing eye explores New manners and the pomp of elder days ; Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers." IDENTITY OF THE AUTHOR WITH HIS BOOKS. [From the Essay " On the Jealousy and the Spleen of Party."] . . . Whatbv-ek the reader thinks fine in books assuredly existed before in the living volume of the author's brain : that which is a pass- ing and casual impression in the one case, a floating image, an empty sound, is in the other an heirloom of the mind, the very form into which it is warped and moulded, a deep and inward harmony that flows on for ever, as the springs of memory and imagination unlock 32S WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. their secret stores. "Thoughts that glow and words that bum'' are his daUy sustenance. He leads a spiritual life, and walks with God. The personal is, as much as may be, lost in the universal. He is Nature's high-priest, and his mind is a temple where she treasures up her fairest and loftiest forms. These he broods over, tiU he be- comes enamoured of them, inspired by them, and communicates some portion of his ethereal fires to others. For these he has given up everything, wealth, pleasure, ease, health ; and yet we are to be told he takes no interest in them, does not enter into the meaning of the words he uses, or feel the force of the ideas he imprints upon the brain of others. Let us give the devil his due. An author, I grant, may be deficient in dress or address, may neglect his person and his fortune — " But his soul is fair, Bright as the children of yon azure sheen : " he may be full of inconsistencies elsewhere, but he is himself in his books : he may be ignorant of the world we live in, but that he is not at home and enchanted with that fairy-world which hangs upon his pen, that he does not reign and revel in the creations of his own fancy, or tread with awe and delight the stately domes and empyrean palaces of eternal truth, the portals of which he opens to us, is what I cannot take Mr. Moore's word for. He does not "give us reason with his rhyme." An author's appearance or his actions may not square with his theories or descriptions, but his mind is seen in his writings, as his face is in the glass. AU the faults of the literary character, in short, arise out of the predominance of the professional ma/nia of such persons, and their absorption in those ideal studies and pursuits, their afiected regard to which the poet tells us is a mere mockery, and a barefaced insult to people of plain, straight- forward, practical sense and unadorned pretensions, like himself . . . . In turning to the "Castle of Indolence" for the lines quoted a little way back, I chanced to light upon another passage which I cannot help transcribing : " I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve : Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.'' Were the sentiments here so beautifully expressed mere affectation IDENTITY OF THE AUTHOR WITH HIS BOOKS. 329 in Thomson, or are we to make it a rule that as a writer Imparts to us a sensation of disinterested delight, he himself has none of the feeling he excites in us ? This is one way of showing our gratitude, and heing even with him. " Books, dreams are each a world, and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good ; Bound which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, I Our pastime and our happiness may grow." Let me, then, conjure the gentle reader, who has ever felt an attach- ment to hooks, not hastily to divorce them from their authors. Whatever love or reverence may be due to the one is equally owing to the other. The volume we prize may be little, old, shabbily bound, an imperfect copy, does not step down from the sheK to give us a graceful welcome, nor can it extend a hand to serve us in ex- tremity, and so far may be like the author ; but whatever there is of truth or good, or of proud consolation or of cheering hope, in the one, aU this existed in a greater degree in the imagination and the heart and brain of the other. To cherish the work and damn the author is as if the traveller who slakes his thirst at the running stream should revile the spring-head from which it gushes. I do not speak of the degree of passion felt by Rousseau towards Madame Warens, nor of his treatment of her, nor hers of him ; but that he thought of her for years with the tenderest yearnings of affection and regret, and felt towards her all that he has made his readers feel, this I cannot for a moment doubt. So far, then, he is no im- postor or juggler. Still less could he have given a new and personal character to the literature of Europe, and changed the tone of sentiment and the face of society, if he had not felt the strongest interest in persons and things, or had been the heartless pretender he is sometimes held out to us. . . . 330 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. "VIVIAN GEEY" AND THE DANDY SCHOOL. [Appeared in the Examiner, November i8, 1827, under the head of The Dandy School.l [It is a striking proof of Hazlitt's keen insight, that he so unerringly took the moral measure of the then unknown author of "Vivian Grrej." He detected at once the vulgar affectation of gentility-, the selfishness, and disbelief in unselfish motives of action, the worship of success, the absence of all conception of true greatness, and the general self-seeking spirit which pervades the novel — contrasting its aims and those of kindred productions by Theodore Hook with the nobler ideals of such manly and healthy writers as Scott.] ... It was formerly miderstood to be the business of literature to enlarge the bounds of knowledge and feeling ; to direct the mind's eye beyond the present moment and the present object ; to plunge us in the world of romance, to connect diflferent languages, manners, times together ; to wean us from the grossness of sense, the illusions of self-love ; — ^by the aid of imagination, to place us in the situations of others and enable us to feel an interest in all that strikes them; and to make books the faithful witnesses and interpreters of nature and the human heart. Of late, instead of this liberal and useful tendency, it has taken a narrower and more superficial tone. AH that we learn from it is the servility, egotism, and upstart preten- sions of the writers. Instead of transporting you to faery-land or into the middle ages, you take a turn down Bond Street or go through the mazes of the dance at Almack's. You have no new inlet to thought or feeling opened to you ; but the passing object, the topic of the day (however insipid or repulsive), is served up to you with a self-sufficient air, as if you had not already had enough of it. You dip into an essay or a novel, and may fancy yourself reading a collection of quack or fashionable advertisements : — Macas- sar Oil, Eau de Cologne, Hock and Seltzer Water, Otto of Eoses, Pomade Dwine, glance through the page in inextricable confusion, and make your head giddy. Far from extending your sympathies, they are narrowed to a single point, the admiration of the foUy, caprice, insolence, and affectation of a certain class ; — so that, with the exception of people who ride in their carriages, you are taught to look down upon the rest of the species with indifference, abhor- rence, or contempt. A schoolmaster in a black coat is a monster — a tradesman and his wife who eat cold mutton and pickled cab- THE DANDY SCHOOL. 331 bage are wretches to be hunted out of society. That is the end and moral of it : it is part and parcel of a system. The Dandy School give the finishing-touch to the principles of paternal government. First comes the political sycophant, and makes the people over to their rulers as a property in perpetuity ; but then they are to be handled tenderly, and need not complain, since the sovereign is the father of his people, and we are to be aU one family of love. So says the " Austrian Catechism." Then comes the literary sycophant to finish what the other had begun ; and the poor fools of people having been caught in the trap of plausible professions, he takes off the mask of paternity, treats them as of a difierent species instead of members of the same family, loads them with obloquy and insult, and laughs at the very idea of any fellow-feeling with or considera- tion towards them, as the height of bad taste, weakness, and vul- garity. So says Mr. Theodore Hook and the author of "Vivian Grey." So says not Sir Walter. Ever while you live, go to a man of genius in preference to a dunce ; for, let his prejudices or his party be what they may, there is still a saving grace about him, for he himself has something else to trust to besides his subserviency to greatness to raise him from insignificance. He takes you and places you in a cottage or a cavern, and makes you feel the deepest interest in it, for you feel all that its inmates feel. The Bandy School tell you aU that a dandy would feel in such circumstances, viz., that he was not in a drawing-room or at Long's. Or if he does forfeit his character for a moment, he at most brings himself to patronise humanity, condescends to the accidents of common life, touches the pathetic with his pen as if it were with a pair of tongs, and while he just deigns to notice the existence or endure the infirmities of his fellow-creatures, indemnifies his vanity by snatching a conscious glance at his own person and perfections. Whatever is going on, he himself is the hero of the scene; the distress (however excru- ciating) derives its chief claim to attention from the singular cir- cumstance of his being present ; and he manages the whole like a piece of private theatricals with an air of the most absolute nonchal- ance and decorum. The WTiole Duty of Man is turned into a butt and by-word, or like Mr. Martin's BUI for humanity to animals, is a pure voluntary, a caprice of effeminate sensibility: the great business of life is a kind of masquerade or melodrama got up for effect and by particular desire of the Great. We soon grow tired of nature so treated, and are glad to turn to the follies and fopperies of high life, into which the writer enters with more relish, and where he finds himself more at home. So Mr. Croker (in his place in the House of Commons) does not know where Bloomsbury Square is : 332 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. thus affecting to level all the houses in the metropolis that are not at the Court-end, and leaving them tenantless by a paltry sneer, as if a plague had visited them. It is no wonder that his proUgis and understrappers out of doors should echo this official impertinence-^ draw the line still closer between the East and West End — arrest a stray sentiment at the corner of a street, relegate elegance to a fashionable square — annihilate all other enjoyments, all other pre- tensions, but those of their employers — reduce the bulk of manMnd to a cipher, and make all but a few pampered favourites of fortune dissatisfied with themselves and contemptible to one another. The reader's mind is so varnished over with affectation that not an avenue to truth or feeling is left open, and it is stifled for want of breath. Send these people across the Channel who make such a fuss about the East and West End, and no one can find out the difference. The English are not a nation of dandies; nor can John Bull afford (whatever the panders to fashion and admirers of courtly graces may say to the contrary) to rest all his pretensions upon that. He must descend to a broader and more manly level to keep his ground at all. Those who would persuade him to build up his fame on frogged coats or on the embellishments of a snuff-box, he should scatter with one loud roar of indignation and trample into the earth like grasshoppers, as making not only a beast but an ass of him. A writer of this accomplished stamp comes forward to tell you, not how his hero feels on any occasion — for he is above that — but how he was dressed, and makes him a mere lay-figure of fashion with a few pert, current phrases in his mouth. The Sir Sedley Clarendels and Meadowses of a former age are become the real fine gentlemen of this. Then he gives you the address of his heroine's milliner, lest any shocking surmise should arise in your mind of the possibility of her dealing with a person of less approved taste, and also informs you that the quaJity eat fish with silver forks. This is all he knows about the matter : is this all they feel ? The fact is new to him : it is old to them. It is so new to him and he is so delighted with it, that, provided a few select persons eat fish with silver forks, he con- siders it a circumstance of no consequence if a whole country starves : but these privileged persons are not surely thinking all the time and every day of their lives of that which Mr. Theodore Hook has never forgotten since he first witnessed it, viz., that they eat their fish with a siher fork. What, then, are they thinking of in their intervals of leisure — what are their feelings that we can be supposed to know nothing ot? Will Mr. Theodore Hook, who, is "comforted with their bright radiance, though not in their sphere," condescend to give us a glimpse of these, that we may admire their real elegance THE DANDY SCHOOL. 333 and refinement as much as he does a f rogged coat or silver fork ? it is cruel in hiir not to do so. " The Court, as well as we, may chide him for it." He once criticised a city feast with great minute- ness and bitterness, in which (as it appears) the sideboard is ill- arranged, the footman makes a blunder, the cook has sent up a dish too little or too highly seasoned. Something is wanting, as Mr. Hook insinuates is necessarily the case whenever people in the neighbourhood of Russell Square give dinners. But that something is not the manners or conversation of gentlemen — this never enters his head — ^but something that the butler, the cook, or the valet of people of fashion could have remedied quite as well (to say the least) as their masters. It is here the cloven foot, the under-bred tone, the undue admiration of external circumstances, breaks out and betrays the writer. Mr. Hook has a fellow-feeliag with low life, or rather with vulgarity aping gentility, but he has never got beyond the outside of what he calls good society. He can lay the cloth or play the buffoon after dinner — but that is the utmost he can pretend to. We have in " Sayings and Doings " and in " Vivian Grey " abundance of Lady Marys and Lady Dorothys, but they are titles without characters, or the blank is filled up with the most trite impertinence. So a young linen-draper or attorney's clerk from the country, who had gained a thirty thousand pound prize in the lottery and wished to set up for a fine gentleman, might learn from these novels what hotel to put up at, what watering-place to go to, what hatter, hosier, tailor, shoemaker, friseur, to employ, what part of the town he should be seen in, what theatre he might frequent ; but how to behave, speak, look, feel, or think in his new and more aspiring character he would not find the most distant hint in the gross cari- catures or flimsy sketches of the most mechanical and shallow of all schools. It is really as if , in lieu of our royal and fashionable " Society of Authors," a deputation of tailors, cooks, lackeys, had taken pos- session of Parnassus, and had appointed some Abigail out of place perpetual Secretary. The Congreves, Wycherleys, and Vanbrughs of former days gave us some taste of gentility and courtly refinement in their plays : enchanted us with their Millamants, or made us bow with respect to their Lord Tovmleys. It would seem that the race of these is over, or that our modem scribes have not had access to them on a proper footing — ^that is, not for their talents or conversa- tion, but as mountebanks or poUtical drudges. At first it appears strange that persons of so low a station in life should be seized with such a rage to inveigh against themselves, and make us despise all but a few arrogant people, who pay them ill for what they do. But this is the natural process of servility, and we 334 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. see all valets and hangers-on of the Great do the same thing. The powdered footman looks down on the rabble that dog his master's coach as beneath his notice. He feels the one little above him, and the other (by consequence) infinitely below him. Authors at present would be thought gentlemen, as gentlemen have a fancy to turn authors. The first thing a dandy scribbler does is to let us know he is dressed in the height of the fashion (otherwise we might imagine him some miserable garreteer, distinguished only by his poverty and learning) — and the next thing he does is to make a supercilious allu- sion to some one who is not so well dressed as himself. He then proceeds to give us a sparkling account of his Champagne and of his box at the Opera. A newspaper hack of this description also takes care to inform us that the people at the Opera in general, the Mr, Smiths and the Mr. Browns, are not good enough for him, and that he shall wait to begin his critical lucubrations till the stars of fashion meet there in crowds and constellations! At present it should seem that a seat on Parnassus conveys a title to a box at the Opera, and that Helicon no longer runs water, but Champagne. Literature, so far from supplying us with intellectual resources to counterbalance immediate privations, is made an instrument to add to our impatience and irritability under them, and to nourish our feverish, childish admiration of external show and grandeur. This i-age for fashion and for fashionable writing seems becoming universal, and some stop must be put to it, unless it cures itself by its own excessive folly and insipidity. . . . ISketches and Essays {now first collected by his Son) — 1839. This volume consists of Essays contributed to various periodicals, but not previously published in a collective form. It may be regarded as a continuation of Table- Talk and The Plain Speaker. "i ON EEADING NEW BOOKS. " And what of this new book, that the whole world make such a rout about ? " — Stbene. I CAiwoT understand the rage manifested by the greater part of the world for reading New Books. If the public had read all those that have gone before, I can conceive how they should not wish to read the same work twice over; but when I consider the countless volumes that lie unopened, unregarded, unread, and unthought of, I cannot enter into the pathetic complaints that I hear made that READING NEW BOOKS. 335 Sir Walter writes no more — that the press is idle— that Lord Byron is dead. If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago. If it be urged that it has no modern, passing incidents, and is out of date and old-fashioned, then it is so much the newer ; it is farther removed from other works that I have lately read, from the familiar routine of ordinary life, and makes so much more addition to my knowledge. But many people would as soon think of putting on old armour as of taking up a book not published within the last month, or year at the utmost. There is a fashion in reading as well as in dress, which lasts only for the season. One would imagine that books were, like women, the worse for being old ; that they have a pleasure in being read for the first time ; that they open their leaves more cordially ; that the spirit of enjoyment wears out with the spirit of novelty ; and that, after a certain age, it is high time to put them on the shelf. This conceit seems to be fol- lowed up in practice. What is it to me that another — that hundreds or thousands have in aU ages read a work ? Is it on this account the less likely to give me pleasure, because it has delighted so many others ? Or can I taste this pleasure by proxy ? Or am I in any degree the wiser for their knowledge .'' Yet this might appear to be the inference. Their having read the work may be said to act upon us by sympathy, and the knowledge which so many other persons have of its contents deadens our curiosity and interest altogether. We set aside the subject as one on which others have made up their minds for us (as if we really could have ideas in their heads), and are quite on the alert for the next new work, teeming hot from the press, which we shall be the first to read, criticise, and pass an opinion on. Oh, delightful ! To cut open the leaves, to inhale the fragrance of the scarcely dry paper, to examine the type to see who is the printer (which is some clue to the value that is set upon the work), to launch out into regions of thought and invention never trod tiU now, and to explore characters that never met a human eye before — this is a luxury worth sacrificing a dinner-party or a few hours of a spare morning to. Who, indeed, when the work is critical and full of expectation, would venture 10 dine out, or to face a coterie of blue- stockings in the evening, without having gone through his ordeal, or at least without hastily turning over a few of the first pages, while dressing, to be able to say that the beginning does not promise much, or to tell the name of the heroine ? A new work is something in our power ; we mount the bench, and sit in judgment on it ; we can damn or recommend it to others at pleasure can decry or extol it to the skies and can give an answ^r 2C 336 Vf'ILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. to those who have not yet read it and expect an account of it ; and thus show our shrewdness and the independence of our taste before the world have had time to form an opinion. If we cannot write ourselves, we become, by busying ourselves about it, a kind of accessories after the fact. Though not the parent of the bantling that " has just come into this breathing world, scarce half made up," without the aid of criticism and puffing, yet we are the gossips and foster-nurses on the occasion, with all the mysterious significance and self-importance of the tribe. If we wait, we must take our report from others ; it we make haste, we may dictate ours to them. It is not a race, then, for priority of information, but for precedence in tattling and dogmatising. The work last out is the first that people talk and inquire about. It is the subject on the tapis — ^the cause that is pending. It is the last candidate for success (other claims have been disposed of), and appeals for this success to as, and us alone. Our predecessors can have nothing to say to this question, however they may have anticipated us on others ; future ages, in all probability, will not trouble their heads about it ; we are the panel. How hard, then, not to avail ourselves of oxa im- mediate privilege to give sentence of life or death — to seem in ignorance of what every one else is fuU of — to be behindhand with the polite, the knowing, and fashionable part of mankind — ^to be at a loss and dumb-founded, when all around us are in their glory, and figuring away, on no other ground than that of having read a work that we have not ! Books that are to be written^hereafter cannot be c ritisisgd. by us7~tEose'ThaFwefe^OTHten formerly have Teen criticised long ago ;,jMit |i^flejK.i«JBkjia>,tbLa..piQperty, the prey of ephemeral criticism, which it darts triumphantly upon; there is a raw, thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion ; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in — the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their granddaughters when a new novel is announced ? That mail-coach copies of the Edinburgh Review are or were coveted ? That the manuscript of the Waverley Romances is sent abroad in time for the French, German, or even Italian translation to appear on the same day as the original work, so that the longing Continental public may not be kept waiting an instant longer than their fellow-readers in the English metropolis, which would be as tantalising and insupportable as a little girl being kept without her new frock, when her sister's is just come home and is the talk and admiration of every one in READING NEW BOOKS. 337 the house? To be sure, there is something in the taste of the times ; a modern work is expressly adapted to modern readers. It appeals to our direct experience, and to well-known subjects ; it is part and parcel of the world aroimd us, and is drawn from the same sources as our daily thoughts. There is, therefore, so far, a natural or habitual sympathy between us and the literature of the day, though this is a different consideration from the mere circumstance of novelty. An author now alive has a right to calculate upon the living public; he cannot count upon the dead, nor look forward with much confidence to those that are imborn. Neither, however, is it true that we are eager to read all new books alike ; we turn from them with a certain feeling of distaste and distrust, unless they are recommended to us by some peculiar feature or obvious distinction. Only young ladies from the boarding-school or milliners' girls read aU the new novels that come out. It must be spoken of or against ; the writer's name must be well known or a great secret ; it must be a topic of discourse and a mark for criticism — that is, it must be likely to bring us into notice in some way — or we take no notice of it. There is a mutual and tacit understanding on this head. We can no more read all the new books that appear than we can read aU the old ones that have disappeared from time to time. A question maybe started here, and pursued as far as needful, whether, if an old and worm-eaten manuscript were discovered at the present moment, it would be sought after with the same avidity as a, new and hot-pressed poem or other popular work? Not generally, certainly, though by a few with perhaps greater zeal. For it would not affect present interests, or amuse present fancies, or touch on present manners, or fall in with the public egotism in any way ; it would be the work either of some obscure author — in which case it would want the principle of excitement — or of some illustrious name, whose style and manner would be already familiar to those most versed in the subject, and his fame established ; so that, as a matter of comment and controversy, it would only go to account on the old score ; there would be no room for learned feuds and heart-burnings. . . . I have been often struck by the unreasonableness of the complamt we constantly hear of the ignorance and barbarism of former ages, and the folly of restricting all refinement and literary elegance to our own. We are, indeed, indebted to the ages that have gone before us, and could not well do without them. But in all ages there wiU be found still others that have gone before with nearly equal lustre and advantage, though, by distance and the intervention of multiplied excellence, this lustre may be dimmed or forgotten. Had, it then, no existence ? We might, with the same reason, sup- 338 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. pose that the horizon is the last boundary and verge of the round earth. Still, as we advance, it recedes from us ; and so time from its storehouse pours out an endless succession of the productions of art and genius ; and the farther we explore the obscurity, other trophies and other landmarks rise up. It is only our ignorance that fixes a limit — as the mist gathered round the mountain's brow makes us fancy we are treading the edge of the universe ! Here was Eloise living at a period when monkish indolence and supersti- tion were at their height — in one of those that are emphatically called the dark agesj and yet, as she is led to the altar to make her last fatal vow, expressing her feelings in language quite natural to her, but from which the most accomplished and heroic of our modern females would shrink back with pretty q,nd affected wonder and affright. The glowing and impetuous lines which she mur- mured, as she passed on, with spontaneous and rising enthusiasm, were engraven on her heart, familiar to her as her daily thoughts ; her mind must have been full of them to overflowing, and at the same time enriched with other stores and sources of knowledge equally elegant and impressive ; and we persist, notwithstanding this and a thousand similar circumstances, in indulging our surprise how people could exist, and see, and feel, in those days, without having access to our opportunities and acquirements, and how Shak- speare wrote long after, in a barbarous age ! The mystery in this case is of our own making. We are struck with astonishment at finding a fine moral sentiment or a noble image nervously expressed in an author of the age of Queen Elizabeth ; not considering that, independently of nature and feeling, which are the same in all periods, the writers of that day, who were generally men of educa- tion and learning, had such models before them as the one that has been just referred to — were thoroughly acquainted with those mas- ters of classic thought and language, compared with whom, in all that relates to the artificial graces of composition, the most studied of the moderns are little better than Goths and Vandals. It is true we have lost sight of and neglected the former, because the latter have, in a great degree, superseded them, as the elevations nearest to us intercept those farthest off; but our not availing ourselves of this vantage-ground is no reason why our forefathers should not (who had not our superfluity of choice), and most assuredly they did study and cherish the precious fragments of antiquity, collected together in their time, " like sunken wreck and sumless treasuries ; " ' and while they did this, we need be at no loss to account for any examples of grace, or force, or dignity in their writings, if these 1 " Henry V.," i. 2 [Dyoe's edit., 1868, iv. 429]. CANT AND HYPOCRISY. 339 must always be traced back to a previous source. One age cannot understand how another could subsist without its lights, as one country thinks every other mvist be poor for want of its physical productions. This is a narrow and superficial view of the subject : we should by aU means rise above it. I am not for devoting the whole of our time to the study of the classics, or of any other set of writers, to the exclusion and neglect of nature ; but I think we should turn our thoughts enough that way to convince us of the existence of genius and learning before our time, and to cure us of an overweening conceit of ourselves, and of a contemptuous opinion of the world at large. Every civilised age and country (and of these there is not one, but a hundred) has its literature, its arts, its com- forts, large and ample, though we may know nothing of them ; nor is it (except for oxu: own sakes) important that we should: . . . CANT AKD HYPOCRISY. . . . The hypocrisy of priests has been a butt for ridicule in all ages; but I am not sure that there has not been more wit than philosophy in it. A priest, it is true, is obliged to aflfect a greater degree of sanctity than ordinary men, and probably more than he possesses ; and this is so far, I am willing to allow, hypocrisy and solemn grimace. But I cannot admit, that though he may exag- gerate or even make an ostentatious display of religion and virtue through habit and spiritual pride, this is a proof he has not these sentiments in his heart, or that his whole behaviour is the mere acting of a part. His character, his motives, are not altogether pure and sincere : are they therefore all false and hollow ? No such thing. It is contrary to all our observation and experience so to interpret it. "We all wear some disguise — make some professions — use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are ; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may endeavour to keep some others that we think less to our credit as much as pos- sible in the background ; — why, then, should we not extend the same favourable construction to monks and priests, who may be sometimes caught tripping as well as other men — with less excuse, no doubt ; but if it is also with greater remorse of conscience, wliich probably often happens, their pretensions are not all downright, barefaced imposture. Their sincerity, compared with that of other men, can only be judged of by the proportion between the degree of virtue they profess and that which they practise, or at least carefully seek to realise. To conceive it otherwise is to insist that characters must 340 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. be all perfect or all vicioiis — neither of which suppositions is even possible. . . . If a poor half-starved parish priest pays his court to an oUa podrida or a venison pasty with unoonunon gusto, shall we say that he has no other sentiments in offering his devotions to a cru- cifix, or in counting his beads ? I see no more ground for such an inference than for affirming that Handel was not in earnest when he sat down to compose a Symphony, because he had at the same time, perhaps, a bottle of cordials in his cupboard ; or that Eaphael was not entitled to the epithet of divine, because he was attached to the Fornarina. Everything has its turn in this chequered scene of things, unless we prevent it from taking its turn by over-rigid conditions, or drive men to despair or the most callous effrontery, by erecting a standard of perfection to which no one can conform in reality. . , . It has been frequently remarked that the most obstinate heretic or confirmed sceptic, witnessing the service of the Roman Catholic Church, the elevation of the host amidst the sounds of music, the pomp of ceremonies, the embellishments of art, feels himself spell- bound, and is almost persuaded to become a renegado to his reason or his religion. Even in hearing a vespers chanted on the stage, or in reading an account of a torchlight procession in a romance, a superstitious awe creeps over the frame, and we are momentarily charmed out of ourselves. When such is the obvious and in- voluntary influence of circumstances on the imagination, shall we say that a monkish recluse, surrounded from his childhood by all this pomp, a stranger to any other faith, who has breathed no other atmosphere, and all whose meditations are bent on this one subject both by interest and habit and duty, is to be set down as a rank and heartless mountebank in the professions he makes of belief in it, because his thoughts may sometimes wander to forbidden sub- jects, or his feet stumble on forbidden grovmd ? Or shaU not the deep shadows of the woods in Vallombrosa enhance the solemnity of this feeling, or the icy horrors of the Grand Chartreux add to its elevation and its purity ? To argue otherwise is to misdeem of human nature, and to limit its capacities for good or evil by some narrow-minded standard of our own. Man is neither a god nor a brute ; but there is a prosaic and a poetical side to everything con- cerning him, and it is as impossible absolutely and for a constancy to exclude either one or the other from the mind, as to make him live without air or food. The ideal, the empire of thought and aspiration after truth and good, is inseparable from the nature of an inteUeotual being — what right have we, then, to catch at every strife which in the mortified professors of religion the spirit wages with the flesh as grossly vicious ? or at every doubt, the ban sugges- CANT AND HYPOCRISY. 34, tion oJ -which fills them with consternation and despair, as a proof of the most glaring hypocrisy? The grossnesses of religion and its stickling for mere forms as its essence have given a handle, and a just one, to its impugners. At the feast of Ramadan (says Voltaire)' the Mussulmans wash and pray five times a day, and then faU to cutting one another's throats again with the greatest deliberation and good-will. The two things, I grant, are sufficiently at variance ; but they are, I contend, equally sincere in both. The Mahometans are savages, but they are not the less true beUevers— they hate their enemies as heartily as they revere the Koran. This, instead of showing the fallacy of the ideal principle, shows its universality and indestructible essence. Let a man be as bad as he will, as little refined as possible, and indulge whatever hurtful passions or gross vices he thinks proper, these cannot occupy the whole of his time ; and m the intervals between one scoundrel action and another he may, and must, have better thoughts, and may have recourse to those of religion (true or false) among the number, without in this bemg guilty of hypocrisy or of making a jest of what is considered as sacred. This, I take it, is the whole secret of Methodism, which is a sort of modem vent for the ebuUitions of the spirit through the gaps of unrighteousness. We often see that a person condemns in another the very thing he is guilty of himself. Is this hypocrisy ? It may, or it may not. If he really feels none of the disgust and abhorrence he expresses, this is quackery and impudence. But if he really expresses what he feels (and he easily may, for it is the abstract idea he contemplates in the case of another, and the immediate temptation to which he yields in his own, so that he probably is not even conscious of the identity or connection between the two), then this is not hypocrisy, but want of strength and keeping in the moral sense. All morality consists in squaring our actions and sentiments to our ideas of what is fit and proper; and it is the incessant struggle and alternate triumph of the two principles, the ideal and the physical, that keeps up this "mighty coil and pudder " about vice and virtue, and is one great source of all the good and evil in the world. The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up. The ideal principle is the master-key that winds it up, and without which it would come to a stand: the sensual and selfish feelings are the dead weights that pull it down to the gross and grovelling. TUl the intellectual faculty is destroyed (so that the mind sees nothing beyond itself or the present moment), it is impossible to have all brutal depravity ; till the material and physical are done away with (so that it shall contemplate every- 342 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. thing from a purely spiritual and disinterested point of view), it is impossible to have all virtue. There must be a mixture of the two, as long as man is compounded of opposite materials, a contradiction and an eternal competition for the mastery. I by no means think a single bad action condemns a man, for he probably condemns it as much as you do ; nor a single bad habit, for he is probably trying all his life to get rid of it. A man is only thoroughly profligate when he has lost the sense of right and wrong; or a thorough hypocrite when he has not even the vrish to be what he appears. The greatest offence against virtue is to speak iU of it. To recom- mend certain things is worse than to practise them. There may be an excuse for the last in the frailty of passion ; but the former can arise from nothing but an utter depravity of disposition. Any one may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love and aspiration after virtue ; but he who maintains vice in theory has not even the conception or capacity for virtue ui his mind. Men err : fiends only make a mock at goodness. . . . If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, -for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will — ^the very names of these de- spised qualities are better than anything else that could be substi- tuted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them. It is no small consideration that the mind is capable even of feigning such things. So I would contend against that reasoning which would have it thought that if religion is not true, there is no diflference between mankind and the beasts that perish ; — ^I should say that this distinction is equally proved if religion is supposed to be a mere fabrication of the Imman mind ; the capacity to conceive it makes the difference. The idea alone of an overruling Providence, or of a future state, is as much a distinctive mark of a superiority of nature as the invention of the mathematics, which are tnie — or of poetry, which is a fable. Whatever the truth or falsehood of our speculations, the power to make them is peculiar to ourselves. . . . Thus, though I think there is very little downright hypocrisy in the world, I do think there is a great deal of cant — " cant religious, cant political, cant literary," &c., as Lord Byron said. Though few people have the face to set up for the very thing they in their hearts despise, we almost all want to be thought better than we are, and affect a greater admiration or abhorrence of certain things than we really feel. Indeed, some degree of affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body ; we must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all. There was formerly WALTON'S " COMPLETE ANGLER." 343 the two hours' sermon, the long-winded grace, the nasal drawl, the uplifted hands and eyes ; all which, though accompanied with some corresponding emotion, expressed more than was really felt, and were in fact intended to make up for the conscious deficiency. As our interest in anything wears out with time and habit, we exaggerate the outward symptoms of zeal as mechanical helps to devotion, dwell the longer on our words as they are less felt, and hence the very origin of the term, cant. The cant of sentimentality has suc- ceeded to that of religion. There is a cant of humanity, of patriotism and loyalty — not that people do not feel these emotions, but they make too great a fuss about them, and drawl out the expression of them till they tire themselves and others. There is a cant about Shakspeare. There is a cant about Political Economy just now. In short, there is and must be a cant about everything that excites a considerable degree of attention and interest, and that people would be thought to know and care rather more about them than they actually do. Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment ; . hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for. There are people who are made up of cant, that is, of mawkish affectation and sensibility, but who have not sincerity enough to be hypocrites, that is, have not hearty dislike or contempt enough for anything, to give the lie to their puling professions of admiration and esteem for it. WALTON'S "COMPLETE ANGLER" [From the Essay, "Merry England."] ... I SHOtiXD suppose no other language than ours can show such a book as an often-mentioned one, "Walton's " Complete Angler "—so full of naivete, of unaffected sprightliness, of busy trifling, of dainty songs, of refreshing brooks, of shady arbours, of happy thoughts, and of the herb called Heart's Ease ! Some persons can see neither the wit nor wisdom of this genuine volume, as if a book as well as a man might not have a personal character belonging to it, amiable, venerable from the spirit of joy and thorough goodness it manifests, independently of acute remarks or scientific discoveries ; others ob- ject to the cruelty of Walton's theory and practice of trout-fishing —for my part, I should as soon charge an infant with cruelty for killing a fly, and I feel the same sort of pleasure in reading his book as I should have done in the company of this happy, child-like old man, watching his ruddy cheek, his laughing eye, the kindness of his heart, and the dexterity of his hand in seizing his finny prey ! . . . 344 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. ON A STIN-DIAL. . . . StTRBLT, if there is anything with which we should not mix up our vanity and self-consequence, it is with Time, the most independent of all things. All the sublimity, all the superstition, that hang upon this palpable mode of announcing its flight are chiefly attached to this circumstance. Time would lose its abstracted character, if we kept it like a curiosity or a jack-in-a-box : its prophetic warnings would have no effect, if it obviously spoke only at our prompting like a paltry ventriloquism. The clock that tells the coining, dreaded hour — the castle bell, that " with its brazen throat and iron tongue, sounds one unto the drowsy ear of night" — the curfew, " swinging slow with sullen roar " o'er wizard stream or fountain, are like a voice from other worlds, big with unknown events. The last sound, which is still kept up as an old custom in many parts of England, is a great favourite with me. I used to heat it when a boy. It tells a tale of other times. The days that are past, the generations that are gone, the tangled forest glades and hamlets brown of my native country, the woodsman's art, the Norman warrior armed for iihe battle or in his festive hall, the conqueror's iron rule and peasant's lamp extinguished, all start up at the clamorous peal, and fill my mind with fear and wonder. I confess, nothing at present interests me but what has been — ^the recollection of the impressions of my early life, or events long past, of which only the dim traces remain in a mouldering ruin or half-obsolete /.^custom. That things should be that are now no more, creates in my mind the most unfeigned astonishment. I cannot solve the mystery of the past, nor exhaust my pleasure in it. The years, the genera- tions to come, are nothing to me. We care no more about the world in the year 23c«d than we do about one of the planets. We might as well make a voyage to the moon as think of stealing a march upon Time with impunity. De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio. Those who are to come after us and push us from the stage seem like upstarts and pretenders, that may be said to exist in vacuo, we know not upon what, except as they are blown up with vanity and self-conceit by their patrons among the modems. But the ancients are true and bond fde people, to whom we are bound by aggregate knowledge and filial ties, and in whom, seen by the mellow light of history, we feel our own existence doubled and our pride consoled, as we ruminate on the vestiges of the past. The public in general, however, do not carry this specu- ON PREJUDICE. 345 lative indifference about the future to what is to happen to them- selves, or to the part they are to act in tlie busy scene. For my own part, I do ; and the only wish I can form, or that ever prompts the passing sigh, would be to Hve some of my years over again — they would be those in which I enjoyed and suffered most ! . . . For myself, I have never had a watch nor any other mode of keep- ing time in my possession, nor ever wish to learn how time goes. It is a sign I have had little to do, few avocations, few engagements. When I am in a tovm, I can hear the clock ; and when I am in the country, I can listen to the silence. What I like best is to lie whole mornings on a sunny bank on Salisbury Plain, without any object before me, neither knowing nor caring how time passes, and thus "with light-winged toys of feathered Idleness" to melt down homrs to moments. Perhaps some such thoughts as I have here set down float before me Kke motes before my half-shut eyes, or some vivid image of the past by forcible contrast rushes by me — " Diana and her fawn, and aU the glories of the antique world ; " then I start away to prevent the iron from entering my soul, and let fall some^ tears into that stream of time which separates me farther and farther from all I once loved ! At length I rouse myself from my reverie, and home to dinner, proud of killing time with thought, nay, even without thinking. Somewhat of this idle humour I inherit from my father, though he had not the same freedom from ennui, for he was not a metaphysician ; and there were stops and vacant intervals in his being which he did not know how to fill up. He used in these cases, and as an obvious resource, carefully to wind up his watch at night, and " with lack-lustre eye " more than once in the course of the day look to see what o'clock it was. Yet he had nothing else in his character in common with the elder Mr. Shandy. ON PREJUDICE. Pebjttdice, in its ordinary and literal sense, is prejudging any ques- tion without having sufficiently examined it, and adhering to our opinion upon it through ignorance, malice, or perversity, in spite of every evidence to the contrary. The little that we know has a strong alloy of misgiving and uncertainty in it ; the mass of things of which we have no means of judging, but of which we form a blind and confident opinion, as if we were thoroughly acquainted with them, is monstrous. Prejudice is the child of ignorance ; for as our actual knowledge falls short of our desire to know, or curiosity and interest in the world about us, so must we be tempted to decide upon a 346 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. greater number of things at a venture ; and having no check troni reason or inquiry, we shall grow raore obstinate and bigoted in our conclusions, according as we have been rash and presumptuous. The absence of proof, instead of suspending our judgment, only gives us an opportunity of making things out according to our wishes and fancies ; mere ignorance is a blank canvas, on which we lay what colours we please, and paint objects black or white, as angels or devils, magnify or diminish them at our option ; and in the vacuum either of facts or arguments, the weight of prejudice and passion falls with double force, and bears down everything before it. If we enlarge the circle of our previous knowledge ever so little, we may meet with something to create doubt and difficulty ; but as long as we remain confined to the cell of our native ignorance, while we know nothing beyond the routine of sense and custom, we shall refer everything to that standard, or make it out as we would have it to be, like spoiled children who have never been from home, and expect to find nothing in the world that does not accord with their wishes and notions. It is evident that the fewer things we know, the more ready we shall be to pronounce upon and condemn what is new and strange to us ; that is, the less capable we shall be of varying our conceptions, and the more prone to mistake a part for the whole. What we do not understand the meaning of must necessarily appear to us ridiculous and contemptible ; and we do not stop to inquire, till we have been taught by repeated experiments and warnings of our own fallibility, whether the absurdity is in ourselves, or in the object of our dislike and scorn. The most ignorant people are rude and insolent, as the most barbarous are cruel and ferocious. All our knowledge at first lying in a narrow compass (crowded by local and physical causes), whatever does not conform to this shocks us as out of reason and nature. The less we look abroad, the more our ideas are mtroverted, and our habitual impressions, from being made up of a few particulars always repeated, grow together into a kind of con- crete substance, which will not bear taking to pieces, and where the smallest deviation destroys the whole feeling. . . . This account of the concrete nature of prejudice, or of the manner in which our ideas by habit and the dearth of general information coalesce together into one indissoluble form, will show (what otherwise seems unac- countable) how such violent antipathies and animosities have been occasioned by the most ridiculous or trifling differences of opinion, or outward symbols of it ; for by constant custom, and the want of reflection, the most insignificant of these was as inseparably bound up with the main principle as the most important, and to give up any part was to give up the whole essence and vital interests of ON PRByuDICE. 347 religion, morals, and government. Hence we see all sects and parties mutually insist on their own technical distinctions as the essentials and fundamentals of religion and politics, and for the slightest variation in any of these, unceremoniously attack their opponents as atheists and blasphemers, traitors and incendiaries. . The most dangerous enemies to established opinions are those who, by always defending them, call attention to their weak sides. The priests and politicians, in former times, were therefore wise in preventing the first approaches of innovation and inquiry ; in preserving inviolate the smallest link in the adamantine chain _with which they had bound the souls and bodies of men ; in closing up every avenue or pore through which a doubt could creep in, for they knew that through the slightest crevice floods of irreligion and heresy would rush like a tide. Hence the constant alarm at free discussion and inquiry : hence the clamour against innovation and reform : hence our dread and detestation of those who difler with us in opinion, for this at once puts vis on the necessity of defending ourselves, or of owning ourselves weak or in the wrong, if we cannot ; and converts that which was before a bed of roses, while we slept undisturbed upon it, into a cushion of thorns ; and hence our natural tenaciousness of those points which are most vulner- able, and of which we have no proof to offer ; for as reason fails us, we are more annoyed by the objections, and require to be soothed and supported by the concurrence of others. . . . The great BtumbKng-block to candoiu- and liberality is the difficulty of being fully possessed of the excellence of any opinion or pursuits of our own, without proportionably condemning whatever is opposed to it ; nor can we admit the possibility that when our side of the shield is black, the other should be white. The largest part of our judgments is prompted by habit and passion ; but because habit is like a second nature, and we necessarily approve what passion suggests, we will have it that they are founded entirely on reason and nature, and that all the world must be of the same opinion, unless they wilfully shut their eyes to the truth. Animals are free from prejudice, because they have no notion or care about anything beyond them- selves, and have no wish to generalise or talk big on what does not concern them: man alone falls into absurdity and error by setting up a claim to superior wisdom and virtue, and to be a dictator and lawgiver to all around him, and on all things that he has the remotest conception of. . . . Those who think they can make a clear stage of it, and frame a set of opinions on all subjects by an appeal to reason alone, and without the smallest intermixture of custom, imagination, or passion, know 348 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. just as little of themselves as they do of human nature. The best way to prevent our running into the wildest excesses of pre- judice and the most dangerous aberrations from reason is, not to represent the two things as having a great gulf between them, which it is impossible to pass without a violent effort, but to show that we are constantly (even when we think ourselves most secure) treading on the brink of a precipice ; that custom, passion, imagination, in- sinuate themselves into and influence almost every judgment we pass or sentiment we indulge, and are a necessary help (as well as hindrance) to the human understanding ; and that to attempt to refer every question to abstract truth and precise definition, with- out allowing for the frailty of prejudice, which is the imavoidable consequence of the fraUty and imperfection of reason, would be to unravel the whole web and texture of human understanding and society. Such daring anatomists of morals and philosophy think that the whole beauty of the mind consists in the -skeleton; cut away, without remorse, aU sentiment, fancy, taste, as superfluous excrescences ; and in their own eager, unfeeling pursuit of scientific truth and elementary principles, they " murder to dissect." It is a mistake, however, to suppose that all prejudices are false, though it is not an easy matter to distinguish between true and false prejudice. Prejudice is properly an opinion or feeling, not for which there is no reason, but of which we cannot render a satisfac- tory account on the spot. It is not always possible to assign a " reason for the faith that is in us," not even if we take time and summon up all our strength ; but it does not therefore follow that our faith is hollow and unfounded. A false impression may be defined to be an effect without a cause, or without any adeqiiate one ; but the effect may remain and be true, though the cause is concealed or forgotten. The grounds of our opinions and tastes may be deep, and be scattered over a large surface ; they may be various, remote, and complicated ; but the result will be sound and true, if they have existed at all, though we may not be able to analyse them into classes, or to recall the particular time, place, and circumstances of each individual case or branch of the evidence. The materials of thought and feeling, the body of facts and experience, are infinite, are constantly going on around us, and acting to produce an impres- sion of good or evil, of assent or dissent to certain inferences ; but to require that we should be prepared to retain the whole of this mass of experience in our memory, to resolve it into its component parts, and be able to quote chapter and verse for every conclusion we unavoidably draw from it, or else to discard the whole together as unworthy the attention of a rational being, is to betray an utter DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE. 349 ignorance both of the limits and the several uses of the human capa- city. TUxe feeling of the truth of anything, or the soundness of the judgment formed upon it from repeated, actual impressions, is one thing ; the power of vindicating and enforcing it, by distinctly ap- pealing to or explaining those impressions, is another. The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers. . . . ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE. Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others. I do not here mean to speak of persons who offend in- tentionally, or are obnoxious to dislike from some palpable defect of mind or body, ugliness, pride, ill-humour, &c. ; but of those who are disagreeable in spite of themselves, and, as it might appear, with almost every qualification to recommend them to others. This want of success is owing chiefly to something in what is called their manner; and this again has its foundation in a certain cross- grained and unsociable state of feeling on their part, which in- fluences us, perhaps, without our distinctly adverting to it. The mind is a finer instrument than we sometimes suppose it, and is not only swayed by overt acts and tangible proofs, but has an instinctive feeling of the air of truth. We find many individuals in whose company we pass our time, and have no particular fault to find with their understandings or character, and yet we are never thoroughly satisfied with them : the reason will turn out to be, upon examination, that they are never thoroughly satisfied with themselves, but uneasy and out of sorts all the time ; and this makes us vmeasy with them, without our reflecting on or being able to discover the cause. Thus, for instance, we meet with persons who do us a number of kindnesses, who show us every mark of respect and good-will, who are friendly and serviceable — and yet we do not feel grateful to them, after aU. We reproach ourselves with this as caprice or in- sensibihty, and try to get the better of it ; but there is something in their way of doing things that prevents us from feeling cordial or sincerely obliged to them. We think them very worthy people, and would be glad of an opportunity to do them a good turn if it were in our power ; but we cannot get beyond this : the utmost we can do is to save appearances, and not come to an open rupture with them. The truth is, in all such cases, we do not sympathise (as we ought) with them, because they do not sympathise (as they ought) with us. They have done what they did from a sense of duty in a cold, dry manner, or from a meddlesome, busybody humour ; or to 350 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. show their superiority over us, or to patronise our infirmity ; or they have dropped some hint by the way, or blundered upon some topic they should not, and have shown, by one means or other, that they were occupied with anything but the pleasure they were affording us, or a delicate attention to our feelings. Such persons may be styled friendly grievances. They are commonly people of low spirits and disappointed views, who see the discouraging side of human hfe, and, with the best intentions in the world, contrive to make every- thing they have to do with uncomfortable. They are alive to your distress, and take pains to remove it ; but they have no satisfaction in the gaiety and ease they have communicated, and are on the look-out for some new occasion of signalising their zeal; nor are they backward to insinuate that you will soon have need of their assistance, to guard you against running into fresh difficulties, or extricate you from them. From large benevolence of soul and " discourse of reason, looking before and after," they are continually reminding you of something that has gone wrong in time past, or to that may do so in that which is to come, and are surprised that their awkward hints, sly innuendos, blunt questions, and solemn features do not excite all the complacency and mutual good under- standing in you which it is intended that they should. When they make themselves miserable on your account, it is hard that you will not lend them your countenance and support. This deplorable humour of theirs does not hit any one else. They are useful but not agreeable people ; they may assist you in your affairs, but they depress and tyrannise over your feelings. When they have made you happy, they will not let you be so — have no enjoyment of the good they have done — will on no account part with their melancholy and desponding tone — and, by their mawkish insensibiUty and dole- ful grimaces, throw a damp over the triumph they are called upon to celebrate. They would keep you in hot water, that they may help you out of it. They will nurse you in a fit of sickness (con- genial sufferers!) — arbitrate a law-suit for you, and embroil you deeper — procure you a loan of money ; — but all the while they are only delighted with rubbing the sore place, and casting the colour of your mental or other disorders. " The whole need not a physician j " and, being once placed at ease and comfort, they have no further use for you as subjects for their singular beneficence, and you are not sorry to be quit of their tiresome interference. The old pro- verb, A friend in need is a friend indeed, is not verified in them. The class of persons here spoken of are the very reverse of summer- friends, who court you in prosperity, flatter your vanity, are the humble servants of your follies, never see or allude to anything DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE. 351 wrong, minister to your gaiety, smooth over every difficulty, and with the slightest approach of misfortime or of anything unpleasant, take French leave — " As when, in prime of June, a burnish'd fly Sprung from the meads, o'er which he sweeps along, Cheer'd by the breathing bloom and vital sky. Tunes up, amid these airy halls, his song. Soothing at first the gay reposing throng'; And oft he sips their bowl, or, nearly drown 'd, He thence recovering drives their beds among. And scares their tender sleep with trump profound ; Then out again he flies, to wing his mazy round." However we may despise such triflers, yet we regret them more than those well-meaning friends on whom a duU melancholy vapour hangs, that drags them and every one about them to the ground. There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they.? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good-nature, of entertaining or useful quahties, that you com- plain of : on the contrary, they have probably many points of attrac- tion ; but they have one that neutralises all these — they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach ; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not suUermess, nor indifference, nor absence of mind ; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude ; and, however their brain works, their pulse beats neither faster nor slower for the common accidents of life. There is, therefore, something cold and repulsive in the air that is about them — like that of marble. In a word, they are modern philosophers ; and the modem philosopher is what the pedant was of old — a being who lives in a world of his own, and has no correspondence with this. It is not that such persons have not done you services — ^you acknow- ledge it ; it is not that they have said severe things of you — you submit to it as a necessary evil : but it is the cool manner in which the whole is done that annoys you — the speculating upon you, as if you were nobody — ^the regarding you, with a view to an experi- ment in corpore vili — ^the principle of dissection — the determination to spare no blemishes — to cut you down to your real standard ; — in short, the utter absence of the partiality of friendship, the blind enthusiasm of affection, or the delicacy of common decency, that whether they "hew you as a carcass fit for hounds, or carve you as a dish fit for the gods," the operation on your feelings and your 2d 3S2 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. sense of obligation is just the same ; and, whether they are demons or angels in themselves, you wish them equally at the devil! . . . To_please universallY ,. we must_be_rfeaBed with ourselveB and others. iherejhouM be ^ tinge of the cgxsQ^^^^^jjf self-com- pla<:encjL?n anticipation of^ success— ythere _ajiould be no gloom, no morosenesSjjnq^shyness — in short, there should -be very little of the Bnglishman, a,nd a good deal jof the Frenchman. But though, I believe, this is thereceipt, we are none the nearer making use of it. It is impossible for those who are naturally disagreeable ever to become otherwise. This is some consolation, as it may save a world ' of useless pains and anxiety. "Desire to please, and you will irir fallihly please" is a true maxim ; but it does not follow that it is in the power of all to practise it. A vain man, who thinks he is endeavouring to please, is only endeavouring to shine, and is still- farther from the mark. An irritable man, who puts a check upon himself, only grows dull, and loses spirit to be anything. Good temper and ti, happy turn of mind (which are the indispensable requisites) can no more be commanded than good health or good looks; and though the plain and sickly need not distort their features, and may abstain from excess, this is all they can do. The utmost a disagreeable person can do is to hope, by care and study, to become less disagreeable than he is, and to pass unnoticed in society. With this negative character he should be contented, and may build his fame and happiness on other things. . . . SENSIBILITY TO REAL EXCELLENCE. [Prom the Essay, " Oa Taste."] ... To be dazzled by admiration of the greatest excellence, and of the highest works of genius, is natural to the best capacities and the best natures ; envy and dulness are most apt to detect minute blemishes and unavoidable inequalities, as we see the spots in the sun by having its rays blunted by mist or smoke. It may be asked, then, whether mere extravagance and enthusiasm are proofs of taste. And I answer, no; where they are without reason and knowledge. Mere sensibility is not true taste, but sensibility to real excellence is. To admire and be wrapt up in what is trifling or absurd, is a proof of nothing but ignorance or aflfectation : on the contrary, he who admires most what is most worthy of admiration (let his raptures or his eagerness to express them be what they may) shows himself neither extravagant nor unwise. . . . The highest taste is shown in habitual sensibility to the greatest ilY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 353 beauties; the most general taste is shown in a perception of the greatest variety of excellence. Many people admire Milton, and as many admire Pope, while there are but few who have any relish for both. Ahnost all the disputes on this subject arise, not so much from false as from confined taste. We suppose that only one thmg can have merit ; and that, if we allow it to anything else, we deprive the favourite object of our critical faith of the honours due to it. We are generally right in what we approve ourselves, for liking pro- ceeds from a certain conformity of objects to the taste ; as we are generally wrong in condemning what others admire, for our dislike mostly proceeds from a want of taste for what pleases them. Our being totally senseless to what excites extreme delight in those who have as good a right to judge as we have, in all human probability, implies a defect of faculty in us rather than a limitation in the resources of nature or art. Those who are pleased with the fewest things, know the least ; as those who are pleased with everything, know nothing. . . , [Wmterdow ; Essays and Characters ■written there, 1850. This volume is a further collection, by his son, of miscellaneous essays, contributed by Hazlitt to various periodicals. The title is taken from the name of a village near Salisbury Plain, to a roadside inn near which he used frequently to resort. See Memoir p. xxxi. ; and Selections, p. 182.] MY FIRST ACQUAINTAifOE WITH POETS. [Tlie original germ of this memorable essay, considered by some of Hazlitl'a critics the best he ever wrote, first made its appearance in the " Examiner " in 1817, in the form of a short letter. This was reprinted in Political Essays, 1819. A few years later (1823) it appeared in its present extended form in " The Liberal," where it occupied 24 pages.] Mt father was a Dissenting minister at Wem, . in Shropshire ; and in the year 1798 Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Rowe in the spiritual charge of a Unitarian con- gregation there. He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was to preach; and Mr. Eowe, who himself went down to the coach, in a state of anxiety and expectation, to look for the arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering the description but a round-faced man, in a short black coat (like a shooting-jacket) which hardly seemed to have been made for him, but who seemed to be talking at a great rate 354 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. to his fellow-passengers. Mr. Bowe had scarce returned to give an account of his disappointment, when the round-faced man in black entered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject by beginniii" to talk. He did not cease while he stayed ; nor has he since, that I know of. He held the good town of Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he remained there "fluttering the proud Salopians, like an eagle in a dove-cote ; " and the Welsh mountains that skirt the horizon with their tempestuous confusion agree to have heard no such mystic sounds since the days of " High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay." As we passed along between Wem and Shrewsbury, and I eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak-trees by the roadside, a sound was in my ears as of a Syren's song ; I was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep ; but I had no notion then that I should ever be able to express my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the wayside, crushed, bleeding, lifeless ; but now, bursting the deadly bands that " bound them, " With Styx nine times round them," my ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their plumes', catch the golden light of other years. My soul has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and unsatisfied ; my heart, shut up in the prison-house of this rude clay, ( has never found, nor will it ever fiind, a heart to speak to ; but that 'my understanding also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge. But this is not to my purpose. My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, and was in the habit of exchanging visits with Mr. Rowe, and with Mr. Jenkins of Whitchurch, nine miles farther on, according to the custom of Dissenting ministers in each other's neighbourhood. A line of communication is thus established, by which the flame of civil and religious liberty is kept alive, and nourishes its smouldering fire un- quenchable, like the fires in the " Agamemnon " of jSsehylus, placed at dififerent stations, that waited for ten long years to announce with their blazing pyramids the destruction of Troy. Coleridge had agreed to come over and see my father, according to the courtesy of the country, as Mr. Howe's probable successor ; but in MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 355 the meantime, I had gone to hear him preach the Sunday after his arrival. A poet and a philosopher getting up into a Unitarian pulpit to preach the gospel was a romance in these degenerate days, a sort of revival of the primitive spirit of Christianity, which was not to be resisted. It was in January of 1798 that I rose one morning before day- light, to walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to Hve, shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798. 21 y a des impressions que ni le terns ni Us circonstances peuvmt effacer. Dusse-je vivre des siecles entiers, le doux terns de ma jeunesse ne pent renattre pour moi, ni s'effacer jamais dans ma memotre. When I got there, the organ was playing the looth Psahn, and when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text : " And he went up into the mountain to pray, himself, alone." As he gave out this text, his voice " rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes ; " and when he came to the two last words, which he pro- nounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, " of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey." The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war ; upon Church and State — not their alliance, but their separation — on the spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had " inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore." He made a poetical and pastoral excursion — and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking con- trast between the simple shepherd-boy, driving his team afield, or sitting imder the hawthorn, piping to his ilock, " as though he should never be old," and the same poor country lad, crimped, kid- napped, brought into town, made drunk at an ale-house, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the profession of blood : "Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung." And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together. * Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanc- tion of Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned 356 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. home well satisfied. The sun, that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and the cold dank drops of dew, that hung half-melted on the beard of the thistle, had something genial and refreshing in them ; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature, that turned everything into good. The face of nature had not then the brand of Jus Divlntjm on it : "Like to that sanguine flower insorib'd with woe.'' On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired speaker came. I was called down into the room where he was, and went half-hoping, half- afraid. He received me very graciously, and I listened for a long time without uttering a word. I did not suffer in his opinion by my silence. " For those two hours," he afterwards was pleased to say, "he was conversing with William Hazlitt's forehead!" His appearance was different from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, and in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wUdness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with the small-pox. His complexion was at that time clear, and even bright— r " As are the children of yon azure sheen." His forehead was broad and high, light as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them, Kke a sea with darkened lustre. " A certain tender bloom his face o'er- spread," a purple tinge as we see it in the pale, thoughtful com- plexions of the Spanish portrait-painters, MurUlo and Valasquea His mouth was gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent ; his chin good- humoured and round ; but his nose, the rudder of the face, the index of the will, was small, feeble, nothing — like what he has done. It might seem that the genius of his face as from a height surveyed and projected him (with sufficient capacity and huge aspiration) into the world unknown of thought and imagination, with nothing to support or guide his veering purpose, as if Columbus had launched his adventurous course for the New "World in a scallop, without oars or compass. So, at least, I comment on it after the event. Coleridge, in his person, was rather above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or, like Lord Hamlet, " somewhat fat and pursy." His hair (now, alas ! grey) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long pendulous hair is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heaven- ward ; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a different colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ought to belong, as a character, to MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 357 all who preach Christ crucified, and Coleridge was at that tune one of those ! It was curious to observe the contrast between him and my father, who was a veteran in the cause, and then declining into the vale of years. He had been a poor Irish lad, carefully brought up by his parents, and sent to the University of Glasgow (where he studied under Adam Smith) to prepare him for his future destination. It was his mother's proudest wish to see her son a Dissenting minister. So, if we look back to past generations (as far as eye can reach), we see the same hopes, fears, wishes, followed by the same disappoint- ments, throbbing in the human heart ; and so we may see them (if we look forward) rising up for ever, and disappearing, like vapourish bubbles, in the human breast ! After being tossed about from con- gregation to congregation in the heats of the Unitarian controversy and squabbles about the American war, he had been relegated to an obscure village, where he was to spend the last thirty years of his life, far from the only converse that he loved, the talk about disputed texts of Scripture, and the cause of civil and religious liberty. Here he passed his days, rep in ing, but resigned, in the study of the Bible and the perusal of the Commentators — ^huge folios, not easily got through, one of which would outlast a winter ! Why did he pore on these from mom to night (with the exception of a walk in the fields or a turn in the garden to gather broccoU-plants or kidney beans of his own rearing, with no small degree of pride and pleasure) ? Here were "no figures nor no fantasies" — neither poetry nor philosophy — ^nothing to dazzle, nothing to excite modem curiosity ; but to his lack-lustre eyes there appeared within the pages of the ponderous, unwieldy, neglected tomes the sacred name of JEHOVAH in Hebrew capitals : pressed down by the weight of the style, worn to the last fading thinness of the understanding, there were glimpses, glimmer- ing notions of the patriarchal wanderings, with palm-trees hovering in the horizon, and processions of camels at the distance of three thousand years; there was Moses with the Burning Bush, the number of the Twelve Tribes, tjrpes shadows, glosses on the law and the prophets ; there were discussions (dull enough) on the age of Methuselah (a mighty speculation !) there were outlines, rude guesses at the shape of Noah's Ark and of the riches of Solomon's Temple ; questions as to the date of the creation, predictions of the end of all things ; the great lapses of time, the strange mutations of the globe, were unfolded with the voluminous leaf, as it turned over; and and though he soul might slumber with an hieroglyphic veil of inscrutable mysteries drawn over it, yet it was in a slumber ill ex- changed for all the sharpened realities of sense, wit, fancy, or reason. 358 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. My father's life was comparatively a dream ; but it was a dream of infinity and eternity, of death, the resurrection, and a judgment to come ! No two individuals were ever more unlike than were the host and his guest. A poet was to my father a sort of nondescript; yet whatever added grace to the Unitarian cause was to him welcome. He could hardly have been more surprised or pleased if our visitor had worn wings. Indeed, h is thoughts had wings ; and as the silken somids rustled round our Ettle wainscoted parlour, my father threw back his spectacles over his forehead, his white hairs mixing with its sanguine hue; and a smile of delight beamed across his rugged, cordial face, to think that Truth had fotmd a new ally in Fancy!' Besides, Coleridge seemed to take considerable notice of me, and that of itself was enough. He talked very familiarly, but agreeably, and glanced over a variety of subjects. At dinner-time he grew more animated, and dilated in a very edifying manner on Mary Wolstonecraft and Mackintosh. The last, he said, he considered (on my father's speaking of his " Vindicice GaUicce " as a capital per- formance) as a clever, scholastic man — a master of the topics — or as the ready warehouseman of letters, who knew exactly where to lay his hand on what he wanted, though the goods were not his own. He thought him no match for Burke, either in style or matter. Burke was a metaphysician. Mackintosh a mere logician. Bm'ke was an orator (almost a poet) who reasoned in figures, because he had an eye for nature : Mackintosh, on the other hand, was a rhe- torician, who had only an eye to commonplaces. On this I ventured to say that I had always entertained a great opinion of Burke, and that (as far as I could find) the speaking of him with contempt might be made the test of a vulgar, democratical mind. This was the first observation I ever made to Coleridge, and he said it was a very just and striking one. I remember the leg of Welsh mutton and the turnips on the table that day had the finest flavour imagin- able. Coleridge added that Mackintosh and Tom Wedgwood (of whom, however, he spoke highly) had expressed a very indifferent opinion of his friend Mr. Wordsworth, on which he remarked to them, " He strides on so far before you, that he dwindles in J;he distance ! " Godwin had once boasted to him of having carried on an argument with Mackintosh for three hours with dubious success; ' My father was one of those *ho mistook his talent, after all. He used to be very much dissatisfied that I preferred his " Letters " to his " Sermons." The last were forced and dry ; the first came naturally from him. For ease, half -plays on words, and a supine, monkish, indolent pleasantry, I have never seen them equalled. MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 359 Coleridge told him, "If there had been a man of genius in the room he would have settled the question in five minutes." He asked me if I had ever seen Mary Wolstonecraft, and I said I had once for a few moments, and that she seemed to me to turn oflf Godwin's objections to something she advanced with qtute a playful, easy air. He rephed, that " this was only one instance of the ascendency which people of imagination exercised over those of mere intellect." He did not rate Godwin very high (this was caprice or prejudice, real or affected), but he had a great idea of Mrs. Wolstonecraft's powers of conversation ; none at all of her talent for book-making. We talked a little about Holcroft. He had been asked if he was not much struck vdth him, and he said, he thought himself in more danger of being struck by him. I complained that he would not let me get on at aU, for he required a definition of every the commonest word, exclaiming, " What do you mean by a sensation, sir ? What do you mean by an idea ? " This, Coleridge said, was barricadoing the road to truth ; it was setting up a turnpike-gate at every step we took. I forget a great number of things, many more than I re' member ; but the day passed oflf pleasantly, and the next momins Mr. Coleridge was to return to Shrewsbury. When I came down td breakfast, I found that he had just received a letter from his friend, T. Wedgwood, making him an offer of £150 a year if he chose to waive his present pursuit, and devote himself entirely to the study of poetry and philosophy. Coleridge seemed to make up his mind to close with this proposal in the act of tying on one of his shoes. It threw an additional damp on his departure. It took the way- ward enthusiast quite from us to cast him into Deva's winding vales, or by the shores of old romance. Instead of living at ten miles' distance, of being the pastor of a Dissenting congregation at Shrews- bury, he was henceforth to inhabit the Hill of Parnassus, to be a Shepherd on the Delectable Mountains. Alas ! I knew not the way thither, and felt very little gratitude for Mr. Wedgwood's bounty. I was pleasantly reheved from this dilemma; for Mr. Coleridge, asking for a pen and ink, and going to a table to write something on a bit of card, advanced towards me with undulating step, and giving me the precious document, said that that was his address, Mr. Coleridge, Nether-Stowey, Somersetshire; and that he should be glad to see me there in a few weeks' time, and, if I chose, would come half-way to meet me. I was not less surprised than the shepherd-boy (this simile is to be found in " Cassandra ") when he sees a thunderbolt fall close at his feet. I stammered out my acknowledgments and acceptance of this offer (I thought Mr. Wedgwood's annuity a trifle to it) as well as I could; and this 36o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. mighty business being settled, the poet;grfia^er took leave, and I accompanied him six miles on the road. It was a fine morning in the middle of winter, and he talked the whole way. The scholar in Chaucer is described as going "Sounding on his way." So Coleridge went on his. In digressing, in dilating, in passing from subject to subject, he appeared to me to float in air, to slide on ice. He told me in confidence (going along) that he should have preached two sermons before he accepted the situation at Shrewsbury, one on Infant Baptism, the other on the Lord's Supper, showing that he could not administer either, which would have efiectuaUy disqualified him for the object in view. I observed that he continually crossed me on the way by shifting from one side of the footpath to the other. This struck me as an odd movement ; but I did not at that time connect it with any instability of purpose or involuntary change of principle, as I have done since. He seemed unable to keep on in a straight line. He spoke slightingly of Hume (whose " Essay on Miracles " he said was stolen from an objection started in one of South's sermons — " Credat JudcBUs Appella /") I was not very much pleased at this account of Hume, for I had just been reading, with infinite relish, that completest of all metaphysical cholcepears, his "Treatise on Human Nature," to which the "Essays," in point of scholastic subtUty and close reasoning, are mere elegant trifling, light summer reading. Coleridge even denied the excel- lence of Hume's general style, which I think betrayed a want of taste or candour. He, however, made me amends by the manner in which he spoke of Berkeley. He dwelt particularly on his " Essay on Vision " as a masterpiece of analytical reasoning. So it undoubtedly is. He was exceedingly angry with Dr. Johnson for striking the stone with his foot, in allusion to this author's " Theory of Matter and Spirit," and saying, " Thus I confute him, sir." ■ Coleridge drew a parallel (I don't know how he brought about the connection) between Bishop Berkeley and Tom Paine. He said the one was an instance of a subtle, the other of an acute mind, than which no two things could be more distinct. The one was a shop- boy's quality, the other the characteristic of a philosopher. He considered Bishop Butler as a true philosopher, a profound and conscientious thinker, a genuine reader of nature and his own mind. He did not speak of his " Analogy," but of his " Sermons at the Rolls' Chapel," of which I had never heard. Coleridge somehow always contrived to prefer the unknown to the known. In this instance he was right. The "Analogy " is a tissue of sophistry, of wiredrawn. MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 361 theological special-pleading; the "Sermons" (with the preface to them) are in a fine vein of deep, matured reflection, a candid appeal to our observation of human nature, without pedantry and without bias. I told Coleridge I had written a few remarks, and was some- times foolish enough to believe that 1 had made a discovery on the same subject (the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind) — and I tried to explain my view of it to Coleridge, who listened with great willingness, but I did not succeed in making myself under- stood. I sat down to the task shortly afterwards for the twentieth time, got new pens and paper, determined to make clear work of it, wrote a few meagre sentences in the skeleton style of a mathema^ tical demonstration, stopped half-way down the second page ; and after trying in»vain to pump up any words, images, notions, appre- hensions, facts, or observations, from that gulf of abstraction in which I had plunged myself for four or five years preceding, gave up the attempt as labour in vain, and shed tears of helpless despondency on the blank, unfinished paper. I can write fast enough now. Am I better than I was then ? Oh no ! One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world. Would that I could go back to what I then was ! "Why can we not revive past times as we can revisit old places ? If I had the quaint Muse of Sir Philip Sidney to assist me, I would write a " Sonnet to the Road between Wem and Shrewsbury," and immortalise every step of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I would swear that the very mile- stones had ears, and that Harmer HUl stooped with all its pines to listen to a poet, as he passed ! I remember but one other topic of discourse in this walk. He mentioned Paley, praised the natural- ness and clearness of his style, but condemned his sentiments, thought him a mere time-serving casuist, and said that " the fact of his work on Moral and Political Philosophy being made a text-book in our Universities was a disgrace to the national character. We parted at the six-mile stone; and I returned homeward, pensive, bat much pleased. I had met with unexpected notice from » person whom I believed to have been prejudiced against me. "Kind and affable to me had been his condescension, and should be honoured ever with suitable regard." He was the first poet I had known, and he certainly answered to that inspired name. I had heard a great deal of his powers of conversation, and was not dis- appointed. In fact, I never met with anything at all like them, either before or since. I could easily credit the accounts which were circulated of his holding forth to a large party of ladies and gentlemen, an evening or two before, on the Berkeleian Theory, 362 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. when he made the whole material universe look like a transparency of fine words ; and another story (which I believe he has somewhere told himself) of his being asked to a party at Birmingham, of his smoking tobacco and going to sleep after dinner on a sofa, where the company foimd him, to their no small surprise, which was in- creased to wonder when he started up of a sudden, and rubbing his eyes, looked about him, and launched into a three hours' description of the third heaven, of which he had had a dream, very different from Mr. Southey's " Vision of Judgment," and also from that other "Vision of Judgment," which Mr. Murray, the Secretary of the Bridge Street Junta, took into his especial keeping. On my way back I had a sound in my ears — ^it was the voice of Fancy ; I had a light before me — it was the face o£ Poetry. The one still lingers there, the other has not quitted my side ! Coleridge, in truth, met me half-way on the ground of philosophy, or I should not have been won over to his imaginative creed. I had an uneasy, pleasurable sensation all the time, till I was to visit him. During those months the chill breath of winter gave me a welcoming ; the vernal air was balm and inspiration to me. The golden sunsets, the silver star of evening, lighted me on my way to new hopes and prospects. / was to visit Coleridge in the spring. This circumstance was never absent from my thoughts, and mingled with all my feel- ings. I wrote to him at the time proposed, and received an answer postponing my intended visit for a week or two, but very cordially urging me to complete my promise then. This delay did not damp, but rather increased my ardour. In the meantime I went to Llangollen Vale, by way of initiating myself in the mysteries of natural scenery ; and I must say I was enchanted with it. I had been reading Coleridge's description of England in his fine " Ode on the Departing Year," and I applied it, con amore, to the objects before me. That valley was to me (in a manner) the cradle of a new existence : in the river that winds through it, my spirit was baptized in the waters of Helicon ! I returned home, and soon after set out on my journey with unworn heart and untired feet. My way lay through "Worcester and Gloucester, and by Upton, where I thought of Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I remember getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at an inn (I think it was at Tewkes- bury), where I sat up aU night to read " Paul and Virginia." Sweet were the showers in early youth that drenched my body, and sweet the drops of pity that fell upon the books I read ! I recollect a remark of Coleridge's upon this very book, that nothing could show th"s gross indelicacy of French manners and the entire corruption of MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 363 their imagination more strongly than the behaviour of the heroine in the last fatal scene, who turns away from a person on board the sinking vessel, that offers to save her life, because he has thrown off his clothes to assist him in swimming. Was this a time to think of such a circumstance P I once hinted to Wordsworth, as we were sailing in his boat on Grasmere lake, that I thought he had bor- rowed the idea of his " Poems on the Naming of Places " from the local inscriptions of the same kind in "Paul and Virginia." He did not own the obligation, and stated some distinction without a difference in defence of his claim to originality. Any, the slightest variation would be sufficient for this purpose in his mind ; for what- ever he added or altered would inevitably be worth all that any one else had done, and contain the marrow of the sentiment. - It was stiU two days before the time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to set out early enough. I stopped these two days at Bridge- water; and when I was tired of sauntering on the banks of its muddy river, returned to the inn and read "Camilla." So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy ; but want ing that, have wanted everything ! I arrived, and was well received. The country about Nether Stowey is beautiful, green and hilly, and near the sea-shore. I saw it but the other day, after an inverval of twenty years, from a hill near Taunton. How was the map of my life spread out before me, as the map of the country lay at my feet! In the afternoon Coleridge took me over to All-Foxden, a romantic old family mansion of the St. Aubins', where Wordsworth lived. It was then in the possession of a friend of the poet's, who gave him the free use of it. Somehow, that period (the time just after the French Revolution) was not a time when nothing was given for nothing. The mind opened and a softness might be perceived coming over the heart of individuals, beneath " the scales that fence " our self- interest. Wordsworth himself was from home, but his sister kept house, and set before us a frugal repast ; and we had free access to her brother's poems, the "Lyrical Ballads," which were still in manuscript, or in the form of " Sybilline Leaves." I dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old room with blue hangings, and covered with the romid-f accd family portraits of the age of George I. and II., and from the wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked my window at the dawn of day, could " hear the loud stag speak." 364 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. In the outset of life (and particularly at this time I felt it so) our imagination has a body to it. We are in a state between sleeping and waking, and have indistinct but glorious glimpses of strange shapes, and there is always something to come better than what we see. As in our dreams the fulness of the blood gives warmth and reality to the coinage of the brain, so in youth our ideas are clothed, and fed, and pampered with our good spirits ; we breathe thick with thoughtless happiness, the weight of future years presses on the strong pulses of the heart, and we repose with undisturbed faith in truth and good. As we advance, we exhaust our fund of enjoyment and of hope. We are no longer wrapped in lamVs^ool, lulled in Elysium. As we taste the pleasures of life, their spirit evaporates, *jhe sense palls ; and nothing is left but the phantoms, the lifeless shadows of what has been ! That morning, as soon as breakfast was over, we strolled out into the park, and seating ourselves on the trunk of an old ash-tree that stretched along the ground, Coleridge read aloud with a sonorous and musical voice the ballad of " Betty Foy." I was not critically or sceptically inclined. I saw touches of truth and nature, and took the rest for granted. But in the " Thorn," the "Mad Mother," and the " Complaint of a Poor Indian Woman," I felt that deeper power and pathos which have been since acknowledged, " In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite," as the characteristics of this author ; and the sense of a new style and a new spirit in poetry came over me. It had to me something of the eflFeot that arises from the turning up of the fresh soil, or of the first welcome breath of Spring : " While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed." Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that evening, and his voice sounded high " Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy stream or waterfall, gleaming in the summer moonlight! He lamented that Words- worth was not prone enough to believe in the traditional supersti- tions of the place, and that there was a something corporeal, a matter-of-fact-^ess, a clinging to the palpable, or often to the petty, in his poetry, in consequence. His genius was not a spirit that descended to him through the air; it sprung out of the ground like a flower, or unfolded itself from a green spray, on which the MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 365 goldfinch sang. He said, however (if I remember right), that this objection must be confined to his descriptive pieces, that his philosophic poetry had a grand and comprehensive spirit in it, so that his soul seemed to mhabit the universe hke a paJace, and to discover truth by mtuition, rather than by deduction. The next day Wordsworth arrived from Bristol at Coleridge's cottage. I think I see him now. He answered in some degree to his friend's description of him, but was more gaimt and Don Quixote-hke. He was quaintly dressed (according to the costume of that unconstrained period) in a brown fustian jacket and striped pantaloons. There was somethmg of a roll, a lounge, in his gait, not unlike his own "Peter Bell." There was a severe, worn pressure of thought about his temples, a fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects more than the outward appearance), an intense, high, narrow forehead, a Boman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong purpose and feeling, and a convulsive inclination to laughter about the mouth, a good deal at variance with the solemn, stately expression of the rest of his face. Chantrey's bust wants the marking traits ; but he was teased into making it regular and heavy: Haydon's head of him, introduced into the " Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem," is the most like his drooping weight of thought and expression. He sat down and talked very naturally and freely, with a mixture of clear, gushing accents in his voice, a deep guttural intonation, and a strong tincture of the northern burr, like the crust on wine. He instantly began to make havoc of the half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and said, .triumphantly, that " his marriage with experience had not been so productive as Mr. Southe/s in teaching him a knowledge of the good things of this life." He had been to seethe " Castle Spectre," by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, and described it very well. He said "it fitted the taste of the audience like a glove." This ad captandum merit was, however, by no means a recommendation of it, according to the severe principles of the new school, which reject rather than court popular effect. Wordsworth, looking out of the low, latticed window, said, " How beautifully the sun sets on that yellow bank ! " I thought within myself, " With what eyes these poets see nature ! " and ever after, when I saw the sunset stream upon the objects facing it, conceived I had made a discovery, or thanked Mr. Wordsworth for having made one for me 1 We went over to All-Foxden again the day following, and Wordsworth read us the story of " Peter Bell " in the open air ; and the comment upon it by his face and voice was very different from that of some later critics! Whatever might be thought of the poem, "his face was as a book where men might read strange matters," and he an- 366 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. nounced tlie fate of his hero in prophetic tones. There is a cliautit in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgment. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full, animated, and varied; Wordsworth's more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be termed more dramatic, the other more lyrical. Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to compose in walking over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling branches of a copse-wood; whereas Wordsworth always wrote (if he could) walking up and down a straight gravel-walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his verse met with no collateral interruption. Returning that same evening, I got into a metaphysical argument with Wordsworth, while Coleridge was explaining the different notes of the nightingale to his sister, in which we neither of us succeeded in making ourselves perfectly clear and intelligible. Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey and in the neighbourhood, generally devoting the afternoons to a delightful chat in an arbour made of bark by the poet's friend, Tom Poole, sitting under two fine elm-trees, and listening to the bees humming round us, while we quaffed our flip. It was agreed, among other things, that we should make a jaunt down the Bristol Channel, as far as Linton. We set off together on foot, Coleridge, John Chester, and I. This Chester was a native of Nether Stowey, one of those who were attracted to Coleridge's discourse as flies are to honey, or bees in swarming-time to the sound of a brass pan. He " followed in the chase like a dog who hunts, not like one that made up the cry." He had on a brown cloth coat, boots, and corduroy breeches, was low in stature, bow-legged, had a drag in his walk like a drover, which he assisted by a hazel switch, and kept on a sort of trot by the side of Coleridge, like a running footman by a state- coach, that he might not lose a syllable or sound that fell from Coleridge's lips. He told me his private opinion, that Coleridge was a wonderful man. He scarcely opened his Hps, much less offered an opinion the whole way : yet of the three, had I to choose during that journey, I would be John Chester. He afterwards followed Coleridge into Germany, where the Kantean philosophers were puzzled how to bring him under any of their categories. When he sat down at table with his idol, John's felicity was complete; Sir Walter Scott's or Mr. Blackwood's, when they sat down at the same table with the King, was not more so. We passed Dunster on our right, a small town between the brow of a hill and the sea. I remember eyeing it wistfully as it lay below us : contrasted with the woody scene around, it looked as clear, as pure, as emirowned and MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS. 367 ideal as any landscape I have seen since, of Gaspar Poussin's or Domeniohino's. We had a long day's march (our feet kept time to the echoes of Coleridge's tongue) through Minehead and by the Blue Anchor, and on to Linton, which we did not reach till near midnight, and where we had some difficulty in making a lodgment. We, how- ever, knocked the people of the hox^e up at last, and we were repaid for our apprehensions and fatigue by some excellent rashers of fried bacon and eggs. The view in coming along had been splendid. We walked for miles and miles on dark brown heaths overlooking the Channel, with the Welsh hills beyond, and at times descended into little sheltered valleys close by the seaside, with a smuggler's face scowling by us, and then had to ascend conical hills with a path winding up through a coppice to a barren top, like a monk's shaven crown, from one of which I pointed out to Coleridge's notice the bare masts of a vessel on the very edge of the horizon, and within the red-orbed disc of the setting sim, like his own spectre-ship in the "Ancient Mariner." At Linton the character of the searcoast be- comes more marked and rugged. There is a place called the " Valley of Rocks " (I suspect this was only the poetical name for it), bedded among precipices overhanging the sea, with rocky caverns beneath, into which the waves dash, and where the sea-gull for ever wheels its screaming flight. On the tops of these are huge stones thrown transverse, as if an earthquake had tossed them there, and behind these is a fretwork of perpendicular rooks, something like the Giant's Causeway. A thunderstorm came on while we were at the inn, and Coleridge was running out bareheaded to enjoy the commotion of the elements in the " Valley of Rocks ; " but, as if in spite, the clouds only muttered a few angry soimds, and let fall a few refreshing drops. Coleridge told me that he and Wordsworth were to have made this place the scene of a prose tale, which was to have been in the manner of, but far superior to, the " Death of Abel," but they had re- linquished the design. In the morning of the second day, we break- fasted luxuriously in an old-fashioned parlour, on tea, toast, eggs, and honey, in the very sight of the bee-hives from which it had been taken, and a garden full of thyme and wild flowers that had pro- duced it. On this occasion Coleridge spoke of VkgU's " Georgics," but not well. I do not think he had much feeling for the classical or elegant. It was in this room that we found a little worn-out copy of the " Seasons," lying in a window-seat, on which Coleridge exclaimed, " That is true fame ! " He said Thomson was a great poet, rather than a good one ; his style was as meretricious as his thoughts were natural. He spoke of Cowper as the best modern poet. He said the " Lyrical Ballads " were an experiment about to be 368 WILLIAM HAZCITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. tried by him and Wordsworth, to see how far the public taste would endure poetry written in a more natural and simple style than had hitherto been attempted ; totally discarding the artifices of poetical diction, and making use only of such words as had probably been common in the most ordinary language since the days of Henry II. Some comparison was introduced between Shakspeare and Milton. He said " he hardly knew which to prefer. Shakspeare appeared to him a mere stripling in the art ; he was as tall and as strong, with infinitely more activity than Milton, but he never appeared to have come to man's estate ; or it he had, he would not have been a man, but a monster." He spoke with contempt of Gray, and with intoler- ance of Pope. He did not like the versification of the latter. He observed that "the ears of these couplet-writers might be charged with having short memories, that could not retain the harmony of whole passages." He thought little of Junius as a writer ; he had a dislike of Dr. Johnson ; and a much higher opinion of Burke as an orator and politician than of Fox or Pitt. He, however, thought him very inferior in richness of style and imagery to some of our elder prose- writers, particularly Jeremy Taylor. He liked Richard- son, but not Fielding ; nor could I get him to enter into the merits of " Caleb WiUiams." In short, he was profound and discriminat- ing with respect to those authors whom he Uked, and where he gave his judgment fair-play ; capricious, perverse, and prejudiced in his antipathies and distastes. We loitered on the " ribbed sea-sands," ia such talk as^this, a whole morning, and, I recollect, met with a curious seaweed, of which John Chester told us the country name ! A fisher- man give Coleridge an account of a boy that had been drowned the day before, and that they had tried to save him at the risk of their own lives. He said " he did not know how it was that they ven- tured, but, sir, we have a nature towards one another." This ex- pression, Coleridge remarked to me, was a fine illustration of that theory of disinterestedness which I (in common with Butler) had adopted. I broached to him an argument of mine to prove that likeness was not mere association of ideas. I said that the mark in the sand put one in mind of a man's foot, not because it was part of a former impression of a man's foot (for it was quite new), but be- cause it was like the shape of a man's foot. He assented to the justness of this distinction (which I have explained at length else- where for the benefit of the curious), and John Chester listened; not from any interest in the subject, but because hB was astonished that I should be able to suggest anything to Coleridge that he did not already know. We returned on the third morning, and Coleridge remarked the silent cottage-smoke curling up the yalleys, where, a PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 369 few evenings before, we had seen the lights gleaming through the dark. In a day or two after we arrived at Stowey we set out, I on my return home, and he for Germany. It was a Sunday morning, and he was to preach that day for Dr. Toulmin of Taunton. I asked him if he had prepared anything for the occasion. He said he had not even thought of the text, but should as soon as we parted. I did not go to hear him— this was a fault— but we met in the even- ing at Bridgewater. The next day we had a long day's walk to Bristol, and sat down, I recollect, by a well-side on the road, to cool ourselves and satisfy our thirst, when Coleridge repeated to me some descriptive lines of his tragedy of " Remorse," which I must say became his mouth and that occasion better than they, some years after, did Mr. EUiston's and the Drury Lane boards — " Oh memory ! shield me from the world's poor strife, And give those scenes thine everlasting life." I saw no more of him for a year or two, during which period he had been wandering in the Hartz Forest, in Germany ; and his return was cometary, meteorous, unlike his setting out. It was not tiU some time after that I knew his friends Lamb and Southey. The last always appears to me (as I first saw him) with a common- place-book under his arm, and the first with a bon-mot in his mouth. It was at Godwin's that I met him with Holcroft and Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which was the best — Man as he was, or man as he is to be. " Give me," says Lamb, " man as he is not to be." This saying was the beginning of a friendship between us, which I believe stUl continues. Enough of this for the present. " But there is matter for another rhyme. And I to this may add a second tale. " ^^F PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. "Come like shadows — so depart." Lamb it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, ho would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both, a task for which he would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the felicity of his pen : "Never so sure our rapture to create As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate.'" 370 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece of business of it ; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and, besides, I may avail myself of some hints of his in the process of it. I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox or mysticism ; the others I am not bound to follow further than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable. On the question being started, Ayrton said, " I suppose the two first persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in English literature. Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this Ayrton, as usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a-laughing at the expression of Lamb's face, in which impatience was restrained by courtesy. " Tes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, " but they were not persons — ^not per- sons." — " Not persons ? " said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be premature. "That is," rejoined Lamb, " not characters, you know. By Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton you mean the ' Essay on the Human Understanding ' and the ' Prinoipia,' which we have to this day. Beyond their con- tents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But what we want to see any one bodily for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton were very like KneUer's portraits of them. But who could paint Shakspeare ? " — " Ay," retorted Ayrton, " there it is ; then I suppose you would prefer seeing him and Milton instead ? " — " No," said Lamb, " neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on bookstalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I am quite tired of the everlasting repetition : and as to Milton's face, the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like ; it is too starched and puritanical ; and I should be afraid of losing some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his coimtenance and the precisian's band and gown." — " I shall guess no more," said Ayrton. " Who is it, then, you would like to see ' in his habit as he lived,' if you had your choice of the whole range of English htera- ture ? " Lamb then named Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this Ayrton laughed outright, and conceived Lamb was jesting with him ; but as no one followed his example, he thought there might be something in it, and waited for an expla- nation in a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well as I PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 371 can remember a conversation that passed twenty years ago — how time slips ! ) went on as follows : — " The reason why I pitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, and they them- selves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble the sooth- sayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles ; and I should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but them- selves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson : I have no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him ; he and Boswell together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit : my friends whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it in my power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable. " When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition, the ' Urn-burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure ; or it is like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like trees ! As to Fulke GrevUle, he is like nothing but one of his own ' Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly formidable and inviting personage : his style is apocaljrptical, cahalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie ; and for the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an encounter with so portentous a commentator ! " — " I am afraid, in that case," said Ayrton, " that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be lost ; " and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while Lamb continued to admire these old crabbed authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was, mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was often quite as uncomeatable, without a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. . . . Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from the _ window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; " and on his name beuig put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a general sensation in his favour in all but Ayrton, who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked "if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim twiUght and early dawn of English literature; to see the head round which 372 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. the visions of fancy must have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that ' lisped in numbers, for the numbers came'— as by a miracle, or as if the dumb should speak ? Nor was it alone that he had been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modem ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his age and striv- ing to advance it ; a pleasant hinnorist withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and would make as hearty a companion as mine host of the Tabard, fiis interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the 'Decameron,' and have heard them exchange their best stories together — the 'Squire's Tale ' against the ' Story of the Falcon,' the ' Wife of Bath's Pro- logue ' against the ' Adventures of Friar Albert.' How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, and by the courtesies of genius I Surely, the thoughts and feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers of learning, these Oadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have stamped an expression on their features as different from the modems as their books, and ~- well worth the perusal. Dante," I continued, " is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. There is a fiiie portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's ; light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the Mnd that has the effect of conversing with ' the mighty dead ; ' and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." Lamb put it to me if I x^ should like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer ; and I answered, without hesitation, " No ; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb of fancy ; and the bringing in the indi- vidual might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the melMuous cadence of his verse ; no form but of a winged angel could vie vpith the airy shapes he has described. He was (to my apprehension) rather a ' creature of the element, that lived in the rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like a dream or sound : PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 373 ' Thai was Anon orown'd : So went he playing on the wat'ry plain.' " Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and Martin Bumey hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the &st made over to the New World. "I should like," said Mrs. Reynolds, "to have seen Pope talk with Patty Bloimt ; and I have seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they could get a sight at Goldsmith. "Where," asked a harsh, croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years 1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any account of him in Boswell dming those two years. Was he in Scotland with the Pretender ? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the Highlands in company with Boswell, many years after, 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if they were fanuliar to him, or associated in his mind with interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional reason for my liking him; and I would give something to have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, and penning the Pro- clamation to all true subjects and adherents of the legitimate Government." " I thought," said Ayrton, turning short round upon Lamb, " that you of the Lake School did not like Pope ? " — " Not like Pope ! My dear sir, you must be under a mistake — I can read him over and over for ever ! " — " Why, certainly, the ' Essay on Man ' must be allowed to be a masterpiece." — " It may be so, but I seldom look into it." — " Oh ! then it's his Satires you admire .'' " — " No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his compliments." — " Compli- ments ! I did not know he ever made any." — " The finest," said Lamb, " that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of them is worth an estate for life — nay, is an immortality. There is that superb one to Lord Combury : ' Despise low joys, low gains ; Disdain whatever Combury disdains : Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise ? And then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however little deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds : ' Conspicuous scene ! another yet is nigh, (More silent far) where kings and poets lie ; Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde.' 374 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord Bolingbroke : ' Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, Oh ! all-aooomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine ? ' Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his eye glistening, " to his list of early friends : * But why then publish ? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write ; Well-natared Garth inflamed with early praise, And CongreVe loved, and Swift endured my lays : The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, Bv'n mitred Eoohester would nod the head ; And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before) Received with open arms one poet more. Happy my studies, if by these approved ! Happier their author, if by these beloved I From these the world vrill judge of men and books, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.' " Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he said, " Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a man as this ? " " What say you to Dryden P"- — " He rather made a show of him- ^ self, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of fame, a coffee- shop, so as in some measure to vulgarise one's idea of him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau ideal of what a poet's lite should be ; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward on this side of the tomb, who realised in friends, fortune, the esteem of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. Read Gay's verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after his trans- lation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall stairs." — "StUl," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I would rather have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ! " Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if Junius PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 375 would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead. " Yes," said Lamb, " provided he would agree to lay aside his mask." We were now at a stand for a short tiipe, when Fielding was mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded the proposi- tion. "Richardson?"— "By all means, but only to look at him through the glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author and his works) ; not to let him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn customer, or to go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the first manuscript of ' Sir Charles Grandison,' which was originally written m eight-and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out the letters of liis female correspondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low." There was but one statesman in the whole of EngHsh history that any one expressed the least desire to see — Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy ; and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal author of the " Pilgrim's Progress." It seemed that if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh- sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer. Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received^ with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Barron Field. He presently superseded both Hogarth nnd Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the play and the farce, " Lear " and " WUdair " and " Abel Drugger." What a sight for sore eyes that would be ! Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it ? Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he must bring with him! — the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he was young. This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our overstrained admiration of past excel- lence, that though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people could do at that period, and to con- firm the universal testimony to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our misgivings, as if he was probably, after all, little better than a Bartlemy Fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced cocked hat. For one, 376 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. I shoiild like to have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever moved by the true histrionic cesius, it was Garrick. When he followed the Ghost in " Hamlet," he did not drop the sword, as most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once, at a splendid dinner-party at Lord 's, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was become of him, tiU they were drawn to the window by the con- vulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who waa rolling on the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimick-i ing a turkey-cock in the courtyard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two persons present had seen the British Eosdus ; and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old favourite. We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful speculation by a grumbler in a comer, who declared it was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakspeare. Lamb said he had anticipated this objeo- tion when he had named the author of " Mustapha " and " Alaham ; " and, out of caprice, insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference to the wild, hare-brained enthusiast, Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads ; to Decker, who was but a garrulous proser ; to the voluminous Heywood ; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint ^ productions. Lord Brooke, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or, in Cowley's words, was " a vast species alone." Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled Lamb, but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to defend himself. "If he grows ._ disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, " there is Godwin can match him." At length his romantic visit to Drummond of Hawthomden was mentioned, and. turned the scale in his favour. Lamb inquired it there was any one that was hanged that I would -- choose to mention. And I answered, " Eugene Aram." The name of the " Admirable Crichton " was suddenly started as a splendid example of waste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 377 declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and ac- complishment, and said he had family plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. 0. — Admirable Crichton ! Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years. The last-named Mitre-courtier then wished to know whether there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the wizard spell. I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving the name — Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz, and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts man. As to the French, who talked fluently of having created this science, there was not a tittle in any of their writings that was not to be found literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Home Tooke, who might have a claim to come in under the head of Grammar, was still hving.] None of these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for the reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted by the abstracted nature of their studies for the present spiritual and disembodied state, and who, even wliile on this hving stage, were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As Ayrton, with an uneasy, fidgety face, was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by Martin Bumey, who observed, " If J was here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted socialists, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this might be fair enough in him who had read, or fancied he had read, the original works, but I did not see how we could have any right to call up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till we had looked into their writings. By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical deliberation had got wind, and had distiurbed the irritable genus in their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candi- dates that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invita- ,/ tion, though he had not yet been asked ; Gay ofiered to come, and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly ; Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Koger de Coverley; Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly ; Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay Charon his fare ; Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back again ; and Bums sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old companion of his, who had conducted him to the other world, to say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show, only to be made an excise- 378 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. man of, and that he would rather remain whore he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative — the hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously. The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters. While we were debating whether we should demand speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo, with his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him ; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the Fomarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with cahn, golden locks ; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on the table before him ; Correggio had an angel at his side ; Titian was seated with his mistress between himself and Giorgione ; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him ; Claude held a mirror in his hand ; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; "Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under firs, gold chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken ; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the same surface to the view. Not being hond-fide representations of living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at ^ the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghir- landaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see their illustrious successors — " Whose names on earth In Fame's eternal records live for aye ! " Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and mournfully withdrew. " Bgad ! " said Lamb, " these are the very fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to paint when all was dark around them." " But shall we have nothing to say ? " interrogated G. J , " to the ' Legend of Good Women P ' " — " Name, name, Mr. J ," cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please, without reserve or fear of molestation!" J was perplexed between so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiflf of his pipe; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs, Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this subject of PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN. 379 filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exem- plary as the best of them could be for their lives ! "I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de rBnelos," said that incomparable person ; and this immediately put us in mind that we had neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of the Channel : Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father of sen- timent ; Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit) ; MoHfere and that illustrious group that are collected round him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his comedy of the " Tartuffe " at the house of Ninon ; Racine, La Fontaine, Roche- foucauld, St. Evremont, &o. " There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, " I would rather see than all these — Don Quixote ! " "Come, come!" said Hunt; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb ? Are you for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius 0£Bsar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis Khan ? " — " Excuse me," said Lamb ; " on the subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve." — "No, no! come out with your worthies!" — "What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot ? " Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee. " Your most exquisite reason ! " was echoed on all sides ; and Ayrton thought that Lamb had now fairly entangled himself. " Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, " that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, surroxmded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is diflferent. I would fain see the face of him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray Him. I have no conception of such a thmg ; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it."— "You have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice." " Oh ! ever right, Menenius— ever right ! " "There is only one other person I can ever think of after this," continued Lamb ; but without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of mortality. " If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him ; but if that person was 38o WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. to come into it, we should all fall down and try to Mss the hem of Hia garment 1 " As a lady present seemed now to get- uneasy at the turn the conversation had taken, we rose up to go. The morning broke with that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must have seen to paint their earliest works ; and we parted to meet again and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night after that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same event, in truth, broke up our Uttle Congress that broke up the great one. But that was to meet again : our deliberations have never been resumed. TOLERATION. [From the Essay, "On Party Spirit."] We may be intolerant even in advoca.ting the cause of toleration, and so bent on making proselytes to freethinking as to allow no one to think freely but ourselves. The most boundless liberaUty in appearance may amount in reality to the most monstrous ostracism of opinion — not condemning this or that tenet, or standing up for this or that sect or party, but in a supercilious superiority to all sects and parties alike, and proscribing, in one sweeping clause, all arts, sciences, opinions, and pursuits but our own. TiU the time o£ Locke and Toland a general toleration was never dreamt of : it was thought right on all hands to punish and discountenance heretics and schismatics, but each party alternately claimed to be true Christians and orthodox believers. Daniel De Foe, who spent his whole life, and wasted his strength, in asserting the right of the Dissenters to a Toleration (and got nothing for his pains but the pillory), was scandalised at the proposal of the general prinoiploj and was equally strenuous in excluding Quakers, Anabaptists, Soci- nians. Sceptics, and all who did not agree in the essentials of Chris- tianity — ^that is, who did not agree with him — from the benefit of such an indulgence to ten,der consciences. We wonder at the cruelties formerly practised upon the Jews : is there anything wonderful in it ? They were at that time the only people to make a butt and a bugbear of, to set up as a mark of indignity, and as a foil to our self-love, for the ferce naturae principle that is within us, and always craving its prey to run down, to worry and make sport of at discre- tion, and without mercy — ^the unvarying uniformity and impUdt faith of the Catholic Church had imposed silence, and put a curb on our jarring dissensions, heart-burnings, and ill-blood, so that wo had THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. 381 no pretence for quarrelling among ourselves for the glory of God or the salvation of men :— a Jordantjs Bhuno, an Atheist or sorcerer once in a way, wo\ild hardly suffice to stay the stomach of our theological rancour ; we therefore fell with might and main upon the Jews as a, forlorn hope in tliis dearth of objects of spite or zeal; or when the whole of Europe was reconciled to the bosom of holy Mother Church, went to the Holy Land in search of a difference of opinion, and a ground of mortal offence ; but no sooner was there a division of the Christian world, than Papists fell on Protestants or Schismatics, and Schismatics upon one another, with the same loving fury as they had before fallen upon Turks and Jews. The disposition is always there, like a muzzled mastiff; the pretext only is wanting ; and this is furnished by a name, which, as soon as it is affixed to different sects or parties, gives us a licence, we think, to let loose upon them aU our malevolence, domineering humour, love of power, and wanton mischief, as if they were of different species. The sentiment of the pious English bishop was good, who, on seeing a criminal let to execution, exclaimed, " There goes my wicked self ! " ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a. saying of my brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. T° be _voung- is to be as one of the Immortals. One half of time indeed is spent — the other naif remains in store for us, with all its countless treasures, for there is no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the coming age our own — t **The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." Death, old age, are words without a meaning, a dream, a fiction, with which we have nothing to do. Others may have undergone, or may still undergo them — we " bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn aU such idle fancies. As, in setting out on a delightful journey, we strain our eager sight forward, " Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail," and see no end to prospect after prospect, new objects presenting themselves as we advance, so in the outset of life we see no end to our desires nor to the opportunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag, and it seems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world, full of 382 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. life and motion, and ceaseless progress, and feel in ourselves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present signs how we shall be left behind in the race, dechne into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity and, as it were, abstractedness of our feelings in youth that (so to speak) identifies us with nature and (our experience being weak and our passions strong) makes us fancy ourselves immortal hke it. Our short-lived connection with being, we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting imion. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our desires, and hushed into fancied security by the roar of the imiverse around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager thirst without draining it, and joy and hope seem ever mantling to the brim — objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that there is no room for the thoughts of death. We are too much dazzled by the gorgeousness and novelty of the bright waking dream about us to discern the dim shadow lingering for us in the distance. Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to detach our thoughts that way, even if we could. We are too much absorbed in present objects and pursuits. While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, ere "the wine of life is drunk," we are like people intoxicated or in a fever, who are hurried away by the violence of their own sensations : it is only as present objects begin to pall upon the sense, as we have been disappointed in our favourite pursuits, cut off from our closest ties, that we by degrees become weaned from the world, that passion loosens its hold upon futurity, and that we begin to contemplate as in a glass darkly the possibility of parting with it for good. Till then, the example of others has no effect upon us. Casualties we avoid ; the sbw approaches of age we play at hide-and-seek with. Like the foolish fat scullion in Sterne, who hears that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is, " So am not I ! " The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence, only seems to strengthen and enhance ovu- sense of the possession and enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves, or be mowed down by the scythe of Time like grass: these are but metaphors to the unreflecting, buoyant ears and overweening presumption of youth. It is not tiU we see the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy withering around us, that we give up the flattering delusions that before led us on, and that the emptiness and dreariness of the prospect before us reconciles us hypothetically to the silence of the grave. Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges are most mysterious. No wonder, when it is first granted to us, that our gratitude, our THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. 383 admiration, and our delight should prevent us from reflecting on our own notliingness, or from thinking it will ever be recalled. Our first and strongest impressions are borrowed from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we imconsciously transfer its durability as well as its splendour to ourselves. So newly found, we cannot think of parting with it yet, or at least put off that consideration sine die. Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know our existence only by ourselves, and confound our knowledge with the objects of it. We and Nature are therefore one. Other- wise the illusion, the " feast of reason and the flow of soul," to which we are invited, is a mockery and a cruel insult. We do not go from a play till the last act is ended and the lights are about to be ex- tinguished. But the fairy face of Nature still shines on : shall we be called away before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of what is going on ? Like children, our stepmother Nature holds us up to see the raree-show of the universe, and then, as if we were a burden to her to support, lets us fall down again. Yet what brave sublunary things does not this pageant present, like a ball or fUe of the universe ! To see the golden sun, the azure sky, the outstretched ocean ; to walk upon tha green earth, and be lord of a thousand creatures ; to look down yawning precipices or over distant sunny vales ; to see the world spread out imder one's feet on a map ; to bring the stars near ; to view the smallest insects through a microscope ; to read history, and consider the revolutions of empire and the successions of gene- rations ; to hear of the glory of Tyre, of Sidon, of Babylon, and of Susa, and to say all these were before me and are now nothing ; to say I exist in such a point of time, and in such a point of space ; to be a spectator and a part of its ever-moving scene ; to witness the change of season, of spring and autumn, of winter and summer ; to feel hot and cold, pleasure and pain, beauty and deformity, right and wrong ; to be sensible to the accidents of nature ; to consider the mighty world of eye and ear ; to listen to the stock-dove's notes amid the forest deep ; to journey over moor and mountain ; to hear the midnight sainted choir ; to visit lighted halls, or the cathedral's gloom, or sit in crowded theatres and see life itself mocked ; to study the works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony ; to worship fame, and to dream of immortality ; to look upon the Vatican, and to read Shakspeare; to gather up the wisdom of the ancients, and to pry into the f nture ; to listen to the trump of war, the shout of victory; to question history as to the movements of the human heart ; to seek for truth ; to plead the cause of humanity ; to over- 2 F 384 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. look the world as if time and Nature poured their treasures at our feet — to be and to do all this, and then in a moment to be nothing — to have it aU snatched from us by a juggler's trick or a phantas- magoria ! There is something in this transition from all to nothing that shocks us and damps the enthusiasm of youth new flushed with hope and pleasure, and we cast the comfortless thought as far from us as we can. In the first enjoyment of the estate of lite we discard the fear of debts and duns, and never think of the final payment of our great debt to Nature. Art, we know, is long ; life, we flatter our- selves, should be so too. We see no end of the difficulties and delays we have to encounter : perfection is slow of attainment, and we must have time to accomplish it in. The fame of the great names we look up to is immortal : and shall not we who contemplate it imbibe a por- tion of ethereal fire, the divines pariicula aurce, which nothing can extinguish ? A wrinkle in Rembrandt or in Nature takes whole days to resolve itself into its component parts, its softenings and its sharp- nesses ; we refine upon our perfections, and unfold the intricacies of Nature. What a prospect for the future ! What a task have we not begun! AndshaU we be arrested in the middle of it? We do not count our time thus employed lost, or our pains thrown away ; we do not flag or grow tired, but gain new vigour at our endless task. Shall Time, then, grudge us to finish what we have begun^ ani^irave formed a compact with NatMe to do P Why not fill up ihe blank that is left us in this manner ? I have looked for hours at a Eembrandt with- out being conscious of the flight of time, but with ever-new wonder and delight, have thought that not only my own but another exist- ence I could pass in the same manner. This rarefied, refined exist- ence seemed to have no end, nor stint, nor principle of decay in it. The print would remain long after I who looked on it had become the prey of worms. The thing seems in itself out of all reason : health, strength, appetite, are opposed to the idea of death, and we are not ready to credit it till we have found our illusions vanished and our hopes grown cold. Objects in youth, from novelty, &c., are stamped upon the brain with such force and integrity that one thinks nothing can remove or obliterate them. They are riveted there, and appear to us as an element of our nature. It must be a mere violence that destroys them, not a natural decay. In the very strength of this persuasion we seem to enjoy an age by anticipation. We melt down years into a single moment of intense sympathy, and by anticipating the fruits defy the ravages of time. It, then, a single moment of our lives is worth years, shall we set any limits to its total value and extent ? Again, does it not happen that so siecure do we think ourselves of an indefinite period of existence, that THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH. 385 at times, when left to ourselves, and impatient of novelty, we feel annoyed at what seems to us the slow and creeping progress of time, and argue that if it always moves at this tedious snail's-pace it will never come to an end ? How ready are we to sacrifice any space of time which separates us from a favovurite object, Kttle thinking that before long we shall find it move too fast ! For my part, I started in life with the French Revolution, and I have lived, alas ! to see the end of it. But I did not foresee this result. My sun arose with the first dawn of liberty, and I did not think how soon both must set. The new impulse to ardour given to men's minds imparted a congenial warmth and glow to mine ; we were strong to rvm a race together, and I little dreamed that long before mine was set the sun of liberty would turn to blood, or set once more in the night of despotism. Since then, I confess, I have no longer felt myself young, for with that my hopes fell. I have since turned my thoughts to gathering up some of the fragments of my early recollections, and putting them into a form to which I might occasionally revert. The future was barred to my progress, and I turned for consolation and encouragement to the past. It is thus that, while we find our personal and substantial identity v anishing from us, we strive to gain a reflected and vicarious one in our thoughts : we do not like to perish whoUy, and wish to bequeath our names, at least, to posterity. As long as we can make our cherished thoughts and nearest interests live in the minds of others, we do not appear to have retired altogether from the stage. We still occupy the breasts of others, and exert an influence and power over them, and it is only our bodies that are reduced to dust and powder. Our favourite speculations BtUl find encouragemeitt; and we make as great a figure in the eye of the world, or perhaps a greater, than in our lifetime. The demands of our self-love are thus satisfied, and these are the most imperious and unremitting. Besides, if by our intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this world, by our virtues and faith we may attain an interest in another and a higher state of being, and may thus be recipients at the same time of men and of angels. " E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our aahes live their wonted fires." As we grow old, our sense of the value of time becomes vivid. Nothing eke, indeed, seems of any consequence. We can never cease wondering that that which has ever been should cease to be. We find many things remain the same : why, then, should there be change in us ? This adds a conviilsive grasp of whatever is, a sense 386 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. of a fallacious hoUowness in all we see. Instead of the full, pulpy feeling of youth tasting existence and every object in it, all is flat and vapid, — a whited sepulchre, fair without, but full of ravening and all uncleanness within. The world is a witch that puts us off vidth false shows and appearances. The simplicity of youth, the confiding expectation, the boundless raptures, are gone: we only think of getting out of it as well as we can, and without any great mischance or annoyance. The flush of illusion, even the complacent retrospect of past joys and hopes, is over: if we can slip out of life Tiithout indignity, can escape with little bodily infirmity, and frame our minds to the calm and respectable composure of still-life before we return to physical nothingness, it is as much as we can expect. We do not die wholly at our deaths : we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment, disappear : we are torn from ourselves while living, year after year sees us no longer the same, and death only consigns the last fragment of what we were to the grave. That we should wear out by slow stages, and dwindle at last into nothing, is not wonderful, when even in our prime our strongest impressions leave little trace but for the moment, and we are the creatures of petty circumstance. How little eflfect is made on us in our best days by the books we have read, the scenes we have witnessed, the sensations we have gone through ! Think only of the feelings we experience in reading a fine romance (one of Sir Walter's, for instance) ; what beauty, what sublimity, what interest, what heart-rending emotions! You would suppose the feelings you then experienced would last for ever, or subdue the miad to their own harmony and tone: while we are reading, it seems as if nothing could ever put us out of our way or trouble us : ■ — the first splash of mud that we get on entering the street, the first twopence we are cheated out of, the feeling vanishes clean out of oiu" minds, and we become the prey of petty and annoying circumstance. The mind soars to the lofty : it is at home in the grovelling, the disagreeable, and the little. And yet we wonder that age should be feeble and querulous, — that the freshness of youth should fade away. Both worlds would hardly satisfy the extravagance of our desires and of our presumption^ [From the Essay, "Mind and Motive."] . . . Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds ; who walk by faith and hope ; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from A FAREWELL TO ESSAr-WRITING. 3S7 afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered ! They have not been "hurt by the archers," nor has the iron entered their souls. They live in the midst of arrows and of death, unconscious of harm. The evil things come not nigh them. The shafts of ridi- cule pass unheeded by, and malice loses its sting. The example of vice does not rankle in their breasts, Hke the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Evil impressions fall off from them like drops of water. The yoke of life is to them light and supportable. The world has no hold on them. They are in it, not of it ; and a dream and a glory is ever around them ! A FAREWELL TO ESSAY-WRITING. [Written at Winterslow Hutt, Feb. 20, 1828.] "This life is best, if quiet life is best." Food, 'warmth, sleep, and a book ; these are all I at present ask — the ultima Thule of my wandering desires. Do you not then wish for "A friend in your retreat, Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet " ? Expected, well enough : — gone, stiU better. Such attractions are strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress .^ "Beautiful mask! I know ^hee ! " When I can judge of the heart from the face, of the thougliits from the lips, I may again trust myself. ^Instead of these give line the robin red-breast, pecking the cruifibs at the door, or warbAing on the leafless spray, the same glancing form that has follfflWed me wherever I have been, and " done its spiriting gently ; " or tjie rich notes of the thrush that startle the ear of winter, and seeni to have drunk up the full draught of joy from the very sense of eontrast. To these I adhere, and am faithful, for they are true to me ; and, dear in themselves, are dearer for the sake of what is departed, leading me back (by the hand) to that dreaming world, in the iimocence of which they sat and made sweet music, waking the promise of future years, and answered by the eager throbbings of my own breast. But now " the credulous hope of mutual minds' is o'er," and I turn back from the world, that has deceived me, to Nature, that lent it a false beauty, and that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I love to watch the clouds sailing from the west, and fancy that " the spring comes slowly up this way." In this hope, while " fields are dank and ways axe mire," I follow the same direction to a neighbouring wood, where, having gained the dry, level greensward, I can see my way 388 WILLIAM HAZLITT— ESSAYIST AND CRITIC. /for a mile before me, closed iij on each side by copse-wood, and end- I ing in a point of light more or less brilliant, as the day is bright or ; cloudy. What a walk is this t o me I I have no need of book or [ c ompanion— -tEe"