Ulrich Middeldorf 
 
CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES NOETHCOTE, E.A. 
 
JAMES NORTHCOTE, R,A. 
 
 From a painting by himself ifi 1802. 
 
CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH AN ESSAY ON HAZLITT AS AN ART- CRITIC 
 AND A NOTE ON NORTHCOTE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST. 
 3|uMtsijers in ©rWnarg to get iffitajestg tfje &ueen 
 1894 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/conversationsofjOOnort 
 
PEEFAOE 
 
 This is the first reprint of Hazlitt's Conversations of 
 James Northcote which has been made since the 
 original publication of the work in 1830. The text 
 was at that time starred with incessant initials and 
 blank spaces, which may have offered no difficulty to 
 intelligence sixty years ago, but which would now 
 greatly delay the reader and distract his attention. 
 Whenever it has been possible, these lacunce have now 
 been filled up ; and in those cases when not even a 
 conjecture can be safely formed, it is not believed that 
 the omission will be found to interfere very much with 
 the reader's satisfaction in following the agreeable 
 pair of gossips. 
 
 The publisher and the editor desire to express 
 their thanks to Lord de Tabley for his very generous 
 offer of the unpublished portrait of Northcote, by the 
 painter himself, now in the Tabley Park collection, 
 an offer which they were only too glad to accept. 
 
 b 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 An Essay on Hazlitt as an Art- Critic. By the 
 
 Editor ...... ix 
 
 A Note on James Northcote. By the Editor . xxix 
 
 Conversations of James Northcote, E.A. . . 1 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CEITIC 
 
 The contributions of William Hazlitt to literary 
 criticism were so numerous and prominent, and were, 
 moreover, so characteristic of the central instincts of 
 his nature, that they have obscured his essays in the 
 criticism of fine art. The latter were, by their very 
 essence, of less durable interest; they soon were 
 superseded in their authority, and neglected as guides 
 to taste. They were comparatively few in number, and 
 were scattered through the series of his miscellaneous 
 writings. They discussed modern paintings which 
 are now of little importance to us, or else ancient 
 paintings about which we have become far more 
 exactly informed than Hazlitt was. 
 
 Yet if the art-criticisms of this brilliant writer are 
 no longer of eminent value as instructors or guides to 
 art, their function in illustrating a side of Hazlitt's own 
 genius is not easily to be overrated. In his attitude 
 towards plastic art, or, to speak more precisely, towards 
 the one art of painting, Hazlitt stood alone among the 
 prominent men of letters of his day. He had re- 
 ceived the technical training of an artist, he had 
 
X hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 cultivated the painter's eye in the observation of 
 nature, and he had mastered some of the professional 
 mysteries of the art. These were advantages which 
 gave his written views on pictures a weight wholly 
 wanting in those expressed, for example, by Landor 
 or by Leigh Hunt, in whom the enthusiasm of the 
 would-be connoisseur is lambent, perhaps, but exceed- 
 ingly thin and volatile. When Hazlitt spoke of art, 
 he spoke of that which had not merely entertained 
 his fancy, but occupied his thoughts as a probable 
 resource against poverty. 
 
 Before entering into any close examination of the 
 art-criticism of Hazlitt, it will be well to see what 
 share the practice of painting had in his education, 
 and what traces it left on his experience. His elder 
 brother John began to paint professionally in 1788, 
 when William was ten years old, and John continued 
 to make the art of miniature-painting his sole business 
 in life until some years after the critic died. The 
 practice of his brother, therefore, and his opinions — 
 which we are told that he expressed freely and with 
 good judgment — were familiar to William Hazlitt 
 during the whole of his intellectual life. It is prob- 
 able that his views were, to a great extent, those of 
 his brother, clothed in literary language. It is to be 
 remembered, too, that their sister Peggy was also an 
 artist, and practised flower-painting with some credit 
 and profit. The odour of megilp, the jargon of the 
 studio, were in the nostrils and the ears of Hazlitt 
 from childhood to old age. 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CRITIC 
 
 xi 
 
 John Hazlitt's earliest successes are now remem- 
 bered entirely in connection with a precocious letter 
 from his little ten-year-old brother at Wem. Already 
 William is at work — "I drew eyes and noses till 
 about a fortnight ago. I have drawn a little boy 
 since, a man's face, and a little boy's front face, taken 
 from a bust." For the moment, other educational 
 interests seem to have quenched this eagerness to 
 draw, and though we presently find him sitting for 
 his portrait to John, we hear no more at present 
 about his own artistic studies. But it is quite certain 
 that the artist's eye was very early awakened in him. 
 An instance of that optical sensitiveness has been 
 preserved from his childish clays, the language alone 
 belonging to his mature years : — 
 
 When I was quite a boy, my father used to take me 
 to the Montpelier tea-gardens at Walworth. ... I unlock 
 the casket of memory, and draw back the warders of the 
 brain ; and there the scene of my infant wanderings still 
 lives unfaded, or with fresher dyes. I see the beds of 
 larkspur with purple eyes ; tall hollyhocks, red and 
 yellow ; the broad sunflowers, caked in gold, with bees 
 buzzing round them ; wildernesses of pinks and hot-glow- 
 ing peonies ; poppies run to seed ; the sugared lily and 
 faint mignonette, all ranged in order, 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. 
 
 This is described in a painter's hand ; the palette, 
 with its bright pigments, seems sloping from his 
 
xii hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 thumb ; and it is an impression of infancy, trained 
 from the very first to see things plastically and 
 exactly. 
 
 It is supposed to have been at the age of about 
 seventeen that William Hazlitt made that visit to 
 Burleigh which left so vivid an imprint upon his mem- 
 ory. Thirty years later, in writing his Criticisms upon 
 the Picture Galleries of England, he recalled this early 
 ecstasy in a very fine piece of rhetoric: "Burleigh! 
 thy groves are leafless, thy walls are naked !" How 
 different, he reflects, from the aspect of this noble 
 storehouse of art when he saw it first, when the 
 youthful blood beat in his veins, and hope, fancy, and 
 curiosity coloured everything with the rainbow of 
 illusion. Hazlitt seems to have visited Burleigh again 
 about 1803, in the midst of his apprenticeship as a 
 practical painter. He tells us that he forgot the 
 discomforts of a miry road as he recalled the Bern- 
 brand ts which he was to see once more. " There, 
 within those cold gray walls, the painter of old age is 
 enshrined," he reminded his physical weariness. But 
 the Rembrandts disappointed him. " I could hardly 
 find a trace of the impression which had been inlaid 
 in my imagination and he proceeds, in a delightful 
 passage, to contrast the reality which hung on the 
 walls at Burleigh with the exquisite dream, the 
 heightened "heirloom in my mind." 
 
 Two other fragments of experience belong to the 
 art -training of Hazlitt's early wandering years of 
 youth. The one was his meeting at St. Neot's with 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CRITIC 
 
 xiii 
 
 a set of Gribelin's engravings of the Cartoons of 
 Kaphael ; the second was the discovery, in an inn on 
 the borders of Wales, of certain water-colour drawings 
 by Westall. This must have been Eichard, and not 
 William Westall, and the paintings must have been 
 certain of those pleasing country scenes which are 
 still admired when the historical and sacred pictures 
 of Eichard Westall have sunk into complete oblivion. 
 Hazlitt remained interested in this painter, though 
 without enthusiasm, and he is introduced into the 
 Conversations of Norihcote. 
 
 The Cartoons produced a very different effect upon 
 the boyish mind of Hazlitt. He often recurred to 
 them ; and he has discussed no body of artistic work 
 more broadly or more gracefully. In 1816 he 
 referred in these terms to the incident which has just 
 been recorded : — 
 
 It is many years ago since we first saw the prints of 
 the Cartoons hung round the parlour of a little inn 
 on the great north road. We were then very young. 
 . . . We had heard of the fame of the Cartoons, but 
 this was the first time that we had ever been admitted, 
 face to face, into the presence of those divine works. 
 "How were we then uplifted !" Prophets and apostles 
 stood before us, and the Saviour of the Christian world. 
 . . . We knew not how enough to admire them. 
 If from this transport and delight there arose in our 
 breasts a wish, a deep aspiration of mingled hope and 
 fear, to be able one day to do something like them, that 
 hope has long since vanished, but not with it the love of 
 
xiv hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 art, nor delight in works of art, nor admiration of the 
 genius that produces them, nor respect for fame which 
 rewards and crowns them. 
 
 It was in 1802, as his grandson surmises, that the 
 wish, the aspiration, of which William Hazlitt speaks, 
 took definite shape. His brother John was now 
 practising the profession of a painter at No. 12 Kath- 
 bone Place, and thither, it is believed, William pro- 
 ceeded to reside as a pupil. Here and now, too, he 
 formed the acquaintance of James Northcote, whose 
 name he was to link so firmly to his own. Northcote 
 was then approaching the age of sixty, and at the 
 height of a reputation laboriously won and strenuously 
 maintained. Northcote seems to have been interested 
 from the first in the ardent and original young critic, 
 whose revolutionary tendencies rather gratified than 
 scandalised him, and whose trenchant humour was 
 exactly to his taste. We should like to know more 
 about the circumstances leading to William's pro- 
 fessional study of art. So far as we can see, he was 
 stimulated by John's example ; and Northcote is 
 credited with having desired the lad to go to Paris, 
 and make copies for him in the Louvre " as well as 
 he could." Such a commission presupposes a training 
 at home, and we are to understand that he had already 
 served some species of apprenticeship in the studio of 
 his brother John. 
 
 In October 1802 he started for France on the 
 expedition which he has largely though somewhat 
 irregularly recorded in his notes and correspondence. 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CPJTIC 
 
 XV 
 
 He proceeded immediately to the Orleans Gallery. 
 In later years his references to this marvellous collec- 
 tion were frequent. " My first initiation," he says, 
 "in the mysteries of the art was at the Orleans 
 Gallery : it was there I formed my taste." He used 
 to go and look at certain favourite pictures by the 
 hour together, till his heart thrilled with their beauty, 
 and his eyes were flooded with tears. His first im- 
 pression of the works as a whole was even more over- 
 whelming. He was staggered, he tells us, when he 
 saw them, and looked with wondering and with 
 longing eyes. Scales seemed to fall from his sight, 
 and the heavens of fine art were revealed to him. 
 Before he went to the Louvre, he borrowed a copy of 
 the catalogue, and " the pictures, the names of the 
 painters, seemed to relish in the mouth." In those 
 days there was a great deal of jealousy about the Old 
 Masters in the Louvre, and foreigners were often 
 excluded from them. It was a long time before 
 Hazlitt could do more than peep at them through the 
 door. At last, "by much importunity," he was 
 admitted, and so escaped from what he calls " the 
 purgatory of the modern French gallery." He sat 
 down immediately, in the pride of youth, to copy 
 Titian's " Hippolito dei Medici " for Northcote. 
 
 In spite of his enthusiasm, his taste was not at 
 this time very pure. It could not, at all events, 
 resist the appeal of a literary association, and he 
 turned away from the Titians and the Vandykes, to 
 what he thought "the sweetest picture" in the 
 
xvi hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 Louvre, a florid seventeenth -century composition of 
 " The Death of Clarinda." He describes this work in 
 terms that recall the Fables of Dryden. In fifteen 
 mornings — for whatever his skill he was certainly 
 rapid — he had finished his copy of this picture, and 
 with delightful confidence he tells his father (10th Dec. 
 1802), "It is a very good copy; when I say this, I 
 mean that it has very nearly all the effect of the 
 picture." Some of the French artists he met now 
 commended him, although at first they had been very 
 impertinent ; and he records, with great complaisance, 
 that one person desired to know whether Hazlitt 
 taught painting in oils. So pleased does he seem to 
 grow with his talents that he almost forgets how 
 much he himself stands in need of training. Little 
 phrases about his rapidity, his dashing off a Titian in 
 a morning, give us the idea of rather an empty and 
 unconscientious style, doubtless not out of sympathy 
 with much of the English tradition of the moment. 
 
 Four delightful months were spent in this way in 
 Paris, and in January 1803 Hazlitt returned to Lon- 
 don and to his brother's studio. His grandson states 
 that " his next step was to undertake a professional 
 tour in the north of England." Among those who 
 sat to him were the poets Wordsworth and Hartley 
 Coleridge, the latter then a child of seven. Words- 
 worth, on the occasion of Hazlitt's death, stated that 
 this was the last time that he saw the critic, whose 
 loyal admiration for Wordsworth's poetry, however, 
 knew no abatement. Whether from impatience on 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CRITIC xvii 
 
 the part of the sitter or the artist's sense of incom- 
 petency to carry out so ambitious a task, the portrait 
 of Wordsworth was never finished. It was in 1803, 
 too, that William Hazlitt made the acquaintance of 
 Daniel Stringer at Knutsford. This painter is now 
 entirely forgotten; he was of dissipated habits, and was 
 accused of giving up to country squires and Cheshire 
 ale energies which were meant for mankind. But he 
 had at one time been conceived a possible rival to Sir 
 Joshua himself. Hazlitt, who had admired him, was 
 grieved to find him already indifferent and besotted. 
 
 Somewhat earlier than this it was, no doubt, that 
 he attempted his first free study from nature — the head 
 of an old woman, the upper part of the face shaded 
 by the bonnet. He laboured at this, he tells us, with 
 great perseverance, and his reflections throw light on 
 his preparation to be an art-critic. He says, in 
 1821 — 
 
 It took me numberless sittings to do it. I have it by 
 me still, and sometimes look at it with surprise, to think 
 how much pains were thrown away to little purpose ; yet 
 not altogether in vain, if it taught me to see good in 
 everything, and to know that there is nothing vulgar in 
 nature seen with the eye of science or true art. . . . The 
 picture was never finished, and I might have gone on with 
 it to the present hour. 
 
 It is difficult to know how Hazlitt subsisted during 
 these years of perambulatory portrait-painting. He 
 was often in great straits ; then a patron would 
 
xviii hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 appear, with his five guineas for a head; and the 
 hopeful artist dined once more on sausages and mashed 
 potatoes. In 1804 he painted his father, reading 
 Shaftesbury's Characteristics, and this was accepted 
 and hung in the Eoyal Academy. Here, then, some- 
 thing like practical success seemed to be dawning for 
 him, but at this very juncture his true profession 
 called him away. In 1804 was finished the earliest 
 of his writings, the Essay on the Principles of Human 
 Action. It was published the next year, and almost 
 at the same moment he painted the latest of his 
 portraits, that of Charles Lamb in the costume of a 
 Venetian senator. William Hazlitt the artist became 
 Hazlitt the critic and man of letters. 
 
 During these early years, and later, before he took 
 to writing upon art, Hazlitt must have come across 
 many artists, but he has left but faint and slight 
 memorials of any but Northcote. When he was him- 
 self painting, he seems to have seen something of 
 Opie in that painter's last exhausting struggle against 
 misfortune. He quotes, with respect, an opinion over- 
 heard from Eichard Collins, the admirable miniature- 
 painter, who was much his senior, but who was destined 
 to survive him. For the gifted and unhappy James 
 Barry, Hazlitt entertained a tempered enthusiasm. 
 Something in the rude independence and intellectual 
 arrogance of Barry was not distasteful to the critic ; 
 who may possibly have attended some of the painter's 
 too-famous lectures. When Barry died, in 1806, the 
 circumstances culminating in that tragedy had 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART- CRITIC xix 
 
 evidently greatly impressed Hazlitt, and coloured his 
 contemptuous resentment against the Boyal Academy. 
 Finally, Fuseli, who was working in the Louvre the 
 year that Hazlitt was there, seems to have been 
 known to the latter, and he had some admiration for 
 the man whom Wolcott called the " hobgoblin painter 
 in ordinary to the Devil." Eccentricity, violence, a 
 disregard of the conventions, were at no time in 
 themselves unsympathetic to Hazlitt. It was more 
 difficult for him to be patient with courtiers 
 like Beechey, or with industrious mediocrities like 
 George Dance. To these reputable Academicians it 
 is to be feared that he was sometimes downright 
 rude. 
 
 Art-criticism was scarcely a recognised branch of 
 journalism early in the present century. It does 
 not seem to have been until 1814 that it occurred to 
 Hazlitt to utilise his technical knowledge of art by 
 writing on the subject. But, in that year, he began 
 to contribute to the Morning Chronicle articles of this 
 appropriate class. This was the period of his first 
 general success, when, at the age of thirty-six, he at 
 length found himself the object of editorial solicitude. 
 Probably the very earliest of Hazlitt's articles on art 
 was that contributed in May 1814 to the Morning 
 Chronicle on the subject of Haydon's "Judgment of 
 Solomon." With the young and tempestuous painter 
 of this once-famous work, the critic had now been 
 personally acquainted for two years ; as is well known, 
 Haydon afterwards introduced into his great com- 
 
XX hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 position, " Christ entering into Jerusalem," the por- 
 traits of Hazlitt, Wordsworth, and Keats. The 
 criticism of the "Solomon" is kind and just, but 
 remarkable for its moderation. Hazlitt's desire to 
 please the sensitive Haydon did not make him un- 
 true, and the paper is one which is typical of its 
 author's broad independence of judgment. 
 
 It would be tedious to draw up a list, which 
 would necessarily be imperfect, of the desultory con- 
 tributions to art -criticism made by Hazlitt during 
 the sixteen remaining years of his life. Much atten- 
 tion was called, in 1816, to his lengthy essay in the 
 Examiner on " The Catalogue Eaisonne of the British 
 Institution." His articles in the Chronicle and in the 
 Champion, and in particular his series on " The Ideal" 
 in the latter journal for 1815, were far above the 
 average of such work at that day. In 1822 he pub- 
 lished his well-known essay on The Elgin Marbles. 
 The year 1824 was one of special activity as an art- 
 critic, for he then produced his elaborate disquisition 
 on 4 'The Fine Arts," in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
 published his important papers on the Picture 
 Galleries of England, and began his Notes of a 
 Journey through France and Italy. During the last 
 years of his life, his interest in art-criticism subsided. 
 His essay on Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture ap- 
 peared in 1829, and his latest act in this direction 
 was to welcome, a very short time before his own 
 death, the election of Martin Archer Shee to the 
 Presidency of the Royal Academy. 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CRITIC xxi 
 
 The art- criticism of Hazlitt, although to young 
 readers of to-day it may appear mild and anodyne 
 enough, struck his own contemporaries as revolu- 
 tionary. His was much the same attitude towards 
 the leaders of artistic fashion in 1815 as that of the 
 young men who cultivate the terrors of the initial 
 signature is towards the Academicians of to-day. To 
 comprehend Hazlitt in this connection we may con- 
 template Mr. George Moore. Each has tried to paint 
 professionally and has resigned the effort ; each has 
 been disturbed or disquieted by foreign study ; each 
 is, by nature, a man of letters, the slave of intellectual 
 rather than plastic ideas ; each is perfectly honest, 
 fearless, and unsympathetic. A parallel of this kind 
 has its obvious dangers, and must not be pushed too 
 far, but an allusion to it may serve to define the 
 position of Hazlitt to a modern reader. He had, of 
 course, a much wider sense of beauty, a much better- 
 balanced mind, than some of these merry swash- 
 bucklers of our own day. It is not to be conceived 
 that in his most frenzied moments he would have 
 talked about "the shoddy commercialism of the 
 Sistine Madonna." He venerated the past ; he wrote 
 pure English ; but so far as the mere attitude went, 
 he was wholly on the side of what was fresh and 
 eager and revolutionary. 
 
 In the first place, Hazlitt as an art-critic was boldly 
 non-academic. Among his earliest papers are two, 
 contributed in 1814 to the Champion, called "An 
 Inquiry whether the Fine Arts are promoted by 
 
 c 
 
xxii hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 Academies." Here his language was temperate if 
 stringent, but things went from bad to worse, and, 
 two years later, he published that essay on "The 
 Catalogue Baisonne of the British Institution " which 
 produced so wide a sensation and created for him so 
 many enemies. Here he lifts the lash high in air, 
 and brings it down with a will on the shoulders of 
 official art. He returned to the same favourite 
 theme in his graver monograph on The Fine Arts, 
 in 1824, still doubting, though no longer strenuously 
 denying, the service done to art by corporate institu- 
 tions of any kind. The English painting of that day 
 was a poor affair, bolstered into prominence by pre- 
 judice and flattery. The bolts of Hazlitt seem, at 
 this distance of time, almost ludicrously heavy. Why, 
 we may ask ourselves, expend powder and shot on 
 people like Beechey, and Westall, and Dance ? It must 
 not be forgotten, however, that to their own genera- 
 tion these seemed very great men. The arrogance of 
 Beechey, for instance, knew no bounds; and it showed 
 real courage in Hazlitt, and coolness of perception too, 
 to strike at these Court favourites of Somerset House. 
 
 Hazlitt was no less courageous in defending un- 
 popular merit. When the reputation of Eichard 
 Wilson was in the dust, when the compilers of trea- 
 tises on British painting felt secure in omitting his 
 name, Hazlitt insisted on the splendid merits of his 
 work, and even brought down censure on himself by 
 his persistent praise of Wilson. Of his wise and 
 wholesome championship of Haydon, mention has 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART- CRITIC 
 
 xxiii 
 
 already been made. Before Mr. Buskin was born, 
 Hazlitt had discovered that "in landscape Turner 
 has shown a knowledge of the effects of air, and of 
 powerful relief in objects, which was never surpassed." 
 To the genius of Hogarth, to the breadth and fulness 
 of his "epic pictures," Hazlitt drew back the atten- 
 tion of contemporaries, long seduced by the pretti- 
 nesses of Cosway and Beechey. He was not lavish 
 in his allusions to particular artists. He was more 
 interested in the principles of his contemporaries 
 than in their practice, but it will be difficult to point 
 to a single instance, in the most ephemeral of his essays, 
 where he has praised any painter because he was a 
 public favourite, or neglected one because he was out 
 of critical favour with the age. 
 
 The style of Hazlitt as an art-critic is of two kinds. 
 When he deals with the theory of art, he is strenuous, 
 close, and sententious. We observe him here to be 
 still a little under the influence of the eighteenth- 
 century theorists. He does not quite, like Burke, 
 tell us that sub-fuse hues are indispensable from the 
 sublime, but we find ourselves regretting that he had 
 not read Lessing more or to better purpose. Hazlitt 
 seems to have been conscious of the shortcomings of 
 Eeynolds's Discourses, but his own theoretical essays 
 on the same subject are no livelier in style, and, of 
 course, come to the reader with infinitely less tech- 
 nical authority. 
 
 The student of to-day, desirous of examining 
 this department of Hazlitt's work, can do no better 
 
xxiv hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 than to read the sensible and elegant essay On 
 the Judging of Pictures. It contains some re- 
 flections on "the exclusiveness of the initiated" 
 which may be wholesomely contrasted with certain 
 recent utterances. Hazlitt's elaborate excursus upon 
 The Fine Arts, published in 1824, is, on the other 
 hand, only to be skimmed through or dipped into. 
 It is ill constructed, and, what is worse, it is dull. But 
 the least effective of his theoretical essays, and that 
 in which the limitations of his judgment are most 
 clearly seen, is the review of Flaxmarts Lectures. 
 It is true that Flaxman was a very poor critic, and 
 Hazlitt has no difficulty in effectively pulling to pieces 
 his flashy truistic philosophy. But when he leaves 
 Flaxman the professor to deal with Flaxman the 
 sculptor, Hazlitt becomes insufferable. His training 
 had been limited ; of sculpture he knew less than 
 the least of Academy students ; and his views about 
 modern statuary, in spite of his enthusiasm for the 
 Elgin Marbles, are practically worthless. 
 
 But when we turn from Hazlitt on the principles 
 of art, to Hazlitt on particular pictures, the change is 
 extraordinary. We pass into a different order of 
 style. Here, so far from being abstruse or dry, he 
 errs a little in the other direction. His notices of 
 pictures are, indeed, wonderfully free from mere artistic 
 jargon. A reader of to-day may smile, it is true, at 
 a few such words as " gusto " and " vertu," but they 
 belonged to the age. For the rest, what Hazlitt 
 aims at, is nothing more nor less than a spiritual 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CKITIC 
 
 XXV 
 
 reproduction of a physical impression. He describes, 
 but with the design of producing, on the mental 
 retina, an image which shall create a like enthusiasm 
 on the mind as the sight of the picture does when 
 the physical eye regards it. This is not quite the 
 same thing as repeating the impression made on the 
 physical eye, because the critic endeavours, by subtly 
 heightening his effects, to compensate for the necessary 
 absence of colour and form. Hazlitt writes, to be short, 
 not so much for those who are about to see the 
 picture, as for those who will never have the chance 
 of seeing it, and his object is to give these latter as 
 much pleasure as the former will presently enjoy. 
 Hence his rich and sometimes over-luscious descrip- 
 tions can hardly be read side by side with the 
 paintings they deal with. 
 
 The most perfect type of this class of Hazlitt's 
 criticism is his Portrait by Vandyck. This is no 
 photographer's or auctioneer's catalogue of features, 
 and still less a technical examination of methods of 
 work, of facture ; it rather is an involved, amorous, 
 highly-coloured rhapsody, a communicated rapture. 
 Hazlitt thought it interesting to read of pictures he 
 himself would never see ; and in those days, when 
 facilities were rarer and public galleries fewer, he 
 believed that it would stimulate a great number of 
 sequestered lovers of the beautiful, to be supplied 
 with these materials for dream-compositions. 
 
 Sometimes Hazlitt's epithets were too much loaded 
 with sweetness; this error is exemplified in his essay 
 
xxvi hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 on William's Views. But the higher his theme, the more 
 noble and appropriate were his flights of ecstasy, the 
 more completely did he fulfil his purpose of stimulat- 
 ing the imagination. The process of his analysis was 
 always literary, and his trust in his optical memory 
 too confiding, so that sometimes, between poetry and 
 a confused recollection, we get a description of an 
 ancient master, which fits no recognised example. 
 Yet it is always true to the master. Hazlitt, so fiery 
 and fitful in real life, has no prejudices in art, 
 unless, indeed, it be against Poelemberg and against 
 the modern French. 
 
 In Pictures at Wilton Hazlitt says, "No one 
 ever felt a longing, a sickness of the heart, to see a 
 Dutch landscape twice; but those of Claude, after 
 an absence of years, have this effect, and produce a 
 kind of calenture." This is a remark which is highly 
 characteristic of its author. Although Hazlitt had 
 been, to some imperfect extent, trained in the 
 technical practice of a painter, the fragments of his 
 art-criticism do not show any great appreciation of 
 the niceties of execution. He is always led away 
 from the mode in which a picture is painted, to the 
 subject and the exposition. It is by no means 
 certain, indeed it is rather improbable, that a work of 
 art, very splendidly performed, but of no sentimental 
 interest, would attract his attention ; on the other 
 hand, a heroic or romantic theme, inadequately 
 treated, was only too likely to impose upon his fancy. 
 In other words, Hazlitt, the art -critic, wandering 
 
HAZLITT AS AN ART-CRITIC 
 
 xxvii 
 
 through a gallery of pictures, was always Hazlitt the 
 man of letters, steeped in poetical association, and 
 principally charmed with Titian because he reminded 
 him of Spenser and of Ariosto. 
 
 This literary bias will seem very contemptible to 
 those young newspaper despots of our own day, whose 
 first demand from art is that it should mean nothing 
 and suggest nothing. If it be true that to look for 
 " literature " in a picture be the worst of faults in an 
 art-critic, then, indeed, little can be said to palliate the 
 errors of Hazlitt. His system, we must allow, was 
 primitive, and his range of knowledge narrow. But, 
 in his own time and way, he also was a transmitter of 
 the sacred fire. He possessed, what so many of our 
 modern quidnuncs have absolutely lost the idea of, the 
 passion of beauty. His eye, as he finely says in 
 speaking of Titian, had gazed on lovely pigments till 
 it was "saturated " with their loveliness. 
 
 Hazlitt's criticism is transitional between the dry 
 and formal philosophy of the eighteenth century, 
 and the many-coloured enthusiasm of Mr. Euskin. 
 At a time when little real attention was paid to art- 
 criticism, when in England at least it was bound up 
 with an empty connoisseurship, and lost in the jargon 
 of the dilettanti, it is the glory of William Hazlitt 
 that he claimed for it the dignity of a branch of 
 literature, and expended on it the wealth of his own 
 fervid and impassioned imagination. 
 
 E. Gr. 
 
JAMES NORTHCOTE 
 
 A prominent and a respectable artist in his own day, 
 and one ambitious of the highest forms of notoriety, 
 James Northcote has, in late years, fallen into un- 
 merited obscurity. He was a Devonshire man, 
 claiming relationship with the family of the present 
 Earl of Iddesleigh, but if correctly, at least through 
 a poor and distant branch. He was born at Ply- 
 mouth on the 22nd of October 1746, and received 
 great kindness from the family of Dr. Zachary 
 Mudge. It was through the Mudges, no doubt, 
 that he first heard of the greatness of Keynolds. 
 Northcote himself records that when, in 1762, that 
 painter came down to Plymouth in company with Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, he pushed forward in the crowd to 
 touch the skirt of the coat of Eeynolds. 
 
 As a boy, he desired to become a painter, but his 
 father resolutely refused his consent. 
 
 At length, at the age of five-and-twenty, Northcote 
 broke away from home, walked up to London, and 
 succeeded in being received into Joshua Keynolds's 
 
XXX hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 studio. Here he was from the first industrious, but 
 continued for a while to be ignorant and to show 
 little aptitude for learning. Eeynolds, however, was 
 patient, and Northcote rewarded his kindness by en- 
 thusiastic attention. In 1773 he began to exhibit at 
 the Royal Academy. 
 
 After serving Reynolds for five years, he deter- 
 mined to set up as an artist on his own account, in 
 May 1776. He went down into Devonshire, whence 
 he started for France and Italy, settling finally at 
 Rome, and endeavouring, without the least success, 
 to discover the secret of the colouring of Titian. He 
 was in Italy from 1777 to 1780. Returning to 
 London, he lived for nine years at 2 Old Bond Street, 
 where he blossomed out into a historical painter 
 under the patronage of Boydell, and was made A.R. A. 
 in 1786, and full R.A. 13th February 1787. In 1791 
 he settled at 39 Argyll Street, where he continued 
 to live until 1822, when he removed round the 
 corner to 8 Argyll Place. 
 
 In 1802 Hazlitt was introduced to Northcote, 
 and the artist immediately conceived a considerable 
 sympathy for the caustic young critic. Doubtless, 
 they kept up one another's spirits by saying very 
 disagreeable things about the more valued of their 
 acquaintances. Hazlitt's description of Northcote, 
 and of his relations with Northcote, is picturesque, 
 besides being frank almost to excess. It is needful 
 to quote it here, for it is a luminous illustration to 
 the Conversations : — 
 
JAMES NOETHCOTE 
 
 xxxi 
 
 The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, 
 and quit with the most regret, never did me the smallest 
 favour. I once did him an unlooked-for service, and we 
 nearly quarrelled about it. If I were in the utmost dis- 
 tress, 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 the 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 at just 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 humanity is left at the 
 door, and the spirit, mellowed by time, resides within ! 
 
 The intellectual stimulus produced by these con- 
 versations was so great that Hazlitt was at last in- 
 duced to jot down some notes of them. He tells us 
 that he did not do so without asking and obtaining 
 Northcote's leave. This presupposes that the idea 
 in Hazlitt's mind was already that of publication. 
 He tells us that Northcote made the following 
 faint objections, which are not without their in- 
 terest : — 
 
xxxii hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 I do assure you [Northcote said] that you overrate 
 [these conversations]. You have not lived enough in 
 society to be a judge. What is new to you you think 
 will seem so to others. To be sure, there is one thing, I 
 have had the advantage of having lived in good society 
 myself. I not only passed a great deal of my younger 
 days in the company of Keynolds, Johnson, and that circle, 
 but I was brought up among the Mudges, of whom Sir 
 Joshua (who was certainly used to the most brilliant 
 society of the metropolis) thought so highly that he had 
 them at his house for weeks, and sometimes gave up his 
 own bedroom to receive them. Yet they were not thought 
 superior to several other persons at Plymouth, who were 
 distinguished, some for their satirical wit, others for their 
 delightful fancy, others for their information or sound 
 sense, and with all of whom my father was familiar when 
 I was a boy. 
 
 It is impossible not to believe that Hazlitt is 
 slightly satirical in reporting this remark of the old 
 provincial painter, on whom the Mudges, no doubt, 
 produced an effect of very substantial gentility. 
 
 It is scarcely, however, as authorities on the Quality 
 that we turn to-day either to Northcote or to Hazlitt. 
 Of the former, indeed, there may not be very much in 
 the volume which we re-edit to-day. Hazlitt con- 
 fessed that he took Northcote as his lay figure, attribut- 
 ing to him sentiments which he might have expressed, 
 had their subject happened to arise, and weaving 
 fictive reflections around genuine anecdotes. " In 
 a word," the only author and begetter says, "Mr. 
 
JAMES NORTHCOTE 
 
 xxxiii 
 
 Northcote is only answerable for the wit, sense, and 
 spirit there may be in these papers ; I take all the 
 dulness, impertinence, and malice upon myself. He 
 has furnished the text, — I fear I have often spoiled it 
 by the commentary." 
 
 There can be no question that Northcote, who 
 loved notoriety, was charmed at the opportunity 
 given him of being publicly witty without taking 
 either trouble or responsibility. In 1826 Hazlitt 
 began to publish the conversations in the New Monthly 
 Magazine, entitling them " Boswell Kedivivus." Four 
 instalments appeared ; they were much talked about, 
 and Northcote began to grow alarmed. He began to 
 repudiate his share in the Conversations, and we might 
 be allowed to believe that he did so justly, were it 
 not that Patmore, who knew both men, and was not 
 unfrequently present, vouches for Hazlitt's scrupulous 
 accuracy on the most debatable point. It was posi- 
 tively for what he said regarding his own sacred 
 Mudges, about whom Hazlitt could know little, that 
 Northcote was specially censured for ill-nature. 
 
 Northcote burst into a theatrical rage, sent for 
 Mr. Colburn, the publisher of the New Monthly Maga- 
 zine, abused the editor, desired that the publication 
 of "those awful papers" should abruptly cease, and 
 gave all the outward signs of being excessively in- 
 dignant and incensed. It was all stage-playing, how- 
 ever, and the biographer of Hazlitt relates that the 
 painter saw the critic as often and as amicably as 
 ever, that notes of the Conversations were still taken 
 
xxxiv hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 down in the presence of that scandalised inti- 
 mate of the Mudges, and that they continued to 
 appear in print. All the concession that was made 
 was that, instead of the New Monthly Magazine, the 
 Atlas newspaper became the vehicle of their publica- 
 tion. 
 
 The partnership of this strange pair of friends was 
 not confined to the Conversations, which came out as 
 a volume in 1830. Northcote was ambitious to be a 
 fabulist, and it is certain that Hazlitt helped him with 
 the two series of his Fables. At the very close of 
 the painter's life, the two friends combined in 
 the production of a work, The Life of Titian, which 
 bears Northcote's name, and does no great credit to 
 the talents of either. Their powers were by this 
 time impaired, in one case by illness, in the other by 
 old age, and neither was long to survive this per- 
 functory piece of partnership. William Hazlitt died 
 at 6 Frith Street, Soho, on the 18th of September 
 1830, in his fifty-third year, and James Northcote at 
 his house in Argyll Place, on the 13th of July 1831, 
 in his eighty-fifth year. 
 
 Northcote had, in his long and eccentric will, 
 made a legacy of £100 to Hazlitt, in case the latter 
 should be living after the death of the painter's 
 sister, Mary Northcote. His body is buried in the 
 vault under the New St. Marylebone Church, his 
 wish to be laid in St. Paul's Churchyard, " near his 
 lamented friend and master, Sir Joshua Eeynolds," 
 not being realised. 
 
JAMES NORTHCOTE XXXV 
 
 When the Conversations appeared in book form, 
 they were provided with no prefatory or explicatory 
 matter of any kind, and had the appearance of not 
 having received the author's final revision. An 
 effective steel engraving of Northcote in his eighty- 
 second year, by Thomas Wright, after a drawing by 
 Northcote's humble friend and fellow West-country- 
 man, Abraham Wivell, served as the frontispiece to 
 this original edition. 
 
 E. G. 
 
HAZLITT'S 
 CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FIRST 
 
 Called on Mr. Northcote ; had, as usual, an in- 
 teresting conversation. Spoke of some account of 
 Lord Byron in a newspaper, which he thought must 
 be like. " The writer says, he did not wish to be 
 thought merely a great poet. My sister asked, 
 < What then did he wish to be thought 1 ' Why, 111 
 tell you ; he wished to be something different from 
 everybody else. As to nobility, there were many 
 others before him, so that he could not rely upon 
 that; and then, as to poetry, there are so many 
 wretched creatures that pretend to the name, that he 
 looked at it with disgust ; he thought himself as 
 distinct from them as the stars in the firmament. 
 
 "It comes to what Sir Joshua used to say, that a man 
 who is at the head of his profession is above it. I 
 remember being at Cosway's, 1 where they were recom- 
 
 1 Richard Cosway, R.A. (1740-1821), perhaps the most 
 fashionable painter of the generation succeeding that of 
 Reynolds. [Ed.] 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 mending some charitable institution for the relief of 
 decayed artists ; and I said I would not be of it, for 
 it was holding out a temptation to idleness, and 
 bringing those into the profession who were not fit 
 for it. Some one who wanted to flatter me observed, 
 c I wonder you should talk in this manner, who are 
 under such obligations to the art ! ' I answered im- 
 mediately, 1 If I am to take your compliment as I 
 believe it is meant, I might answer, that it is the art 
 that is under obligations to me, not I to it. Do you 
 suppose that Eubens, Titian, and others were under 
 obligations to the art — they who raised it from ob- 
 scurity and made it all that it is ? What would the 
 art be without these % 9 
 
 "The world in general, as Miss Reynolds used 
 to say, with reference to her brother, think no 
 more of a painter than they do of a fiddler or a 
 dancing -master or a pianoforte -maker. And so of 
 a poet. I have always said of that dispute about 
 burying Lord Byron in Poets' Corner that he would 
 have resisted it violently if he could have known 
 of it. Not but there were many very eminent 
 names there, with whom he would like to be associ- 
 ated ; but then there were others that he would look 
 down upon. If they had laid him there, he would 
 have got up again. No; I'll tell you where they 
 should have laid him — if they had buried him with 
 the kings in Henry VII. 's Chapel, he would have had 
 no objection to that ! One cannot alter the names 
 of things, or the prejudices of the world respecting 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 3 
 
 them, to suit one's convenience. I once went with 
 Hoppner 1 to the hustings to vote for Home Tooke ; 
 and when they asked me what I was, I said, a 
 painter. At this Hoppner was very mad all the way 
 home, and said I should have called myself a portrait- 
 painter. I replied, the world had no time to trouble 
 their heads about such distinctions. I afterwards 
 asked Kemble, who agreed I was right, that he 
 always called himself a player," etc. 
 
 I then observed, I had been to the play with 
 G[odwin] 2 and his daughter, from the last of whom I 
 had learnt something about Lord Byron's conversa- 
 tion. " What ! " he said, " the beauty-daughter ? " I 
 said, " Do you think her a beauty, then 1 " — " Why 
 no, she rather thinks herself one, and yet there is 
 something about her that would pass for such. Girls 
 generally find out where to place themselves. She's 
 clever too; isn't she?"— "Oh! yes."— "What did 
 she tell you about Lord Byron ? because I am curious 
 to know all about him." — "I asked her if it was true 
 that Lord Byron was so poor a creature as H[unt] 
 represented him? 3 She at first misunderstood me, 
 and said, nothing could be meaner than he was, and 
 
 1 John Hoppner, R. A. (1758-1810), the portrait-painter. [Ed.] 
 
 2 William Godwin was at this time living in the Strand, en- 
 gaged on his History of the Commonwealth. His daughter 
 Mary, after the death of Shelley, had rejoined her father, and 
 was now his chief companion. [Ed.] 
 
 3 Leigh Hunt's most unfortunate work, Lord Byron and some 
 of his Contemporaries, had then (1828) just appeared, and was 
 causing great scandal. [Ed.] 
 
4 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 gave some instances of it. I said, that was not what 
 I meant ; that I could believe anything of that kind 
 of him ; that whatever he took in his head he would 
 carry to extremes, regardless of everything but the 
 feeling of the moment ; but that I could not con- 
 ceive him to be in conversation, or in any other way, 
 a flat and commonplace person. 1 ' Oh ! no,' she said, 
 ' he was not. H[unt] was hardly a fair judge. The 
 other had not behaved well to him, and whenever 
 they met, H[unt] always began some kind of argu- 
 ment, and as Lord Byron could not argue, they made 
 but a bad piece of business of it, and it ended un- 
 satisfactorily for all parties.' 
 
 "I said, H[unt] was too apt to put people to 
 their trumps, or to force them upon doing not 
 what they could do, but what he thought he could 
 do. He, however, not only gave his own opinion, 
 but said, Mr. S[helley] could only just endure 
 Lord Byron's company. This seemed to me odd ; 
 for though he might be neither orator nor 
 philosopher, yet anything he might say or only 
 stammer out in broken sentences, must be in- 
 teresting \ a glance, a gesture would be full of 
 meaning \ or he would make one look about one like 
 the tree in Virgil, that expressed itself by groans. 
 
 "To this she assented, and observed — 4 At least 
 S[helley] and myself found it so ; for we generally 
 sat with him till morning. He was perhaps a little 
 
 1 Mr. Moore has just written a book to prove the truth of 
 the contrary opinion. [Hazlitt.] 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 5 
 
 moody and reserved at first; but by touching on 
 certain strings, he began to unbend, and gave the 
 most extraordinary accounts of his own feelings and 
 adventures that could be imagined. Besides, he was 
 very handsome, and it was some satisfaction to look 
 at a head at once so beautiful and expressive ! ' 
 
 " I repeated what H[unt] told me, that when he and 
 Lord Byron met in Italy, they did not know one 
 another ; he himself from having grown so thin, and 
 Byron from having grown so fat, like a great chubby 
 schoolboy — a circumstance which shocked his lord- 
 ship so much, that he took to drinking vinegar at a 
 great rate, that he might recover the figure of the 
 stripling God. I mentioned some things that H[unt] 
 had reported of Lord Byron ; such as his saying, 6 He 
 never cared for anything above a day/ — which might 
 be merely in a fit of spleen, or from the spirit of con- 
 tradiction, or to avoid an imputation of sentimentality." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Northcote, " that will never do, to 
 take things literally that are uttered in a moment of 
 irritation. You do not express your own opinion, 
 but one as opposite as possible to that of the person 
 that has provoked you. You get as far from a 
 person you have taken a pique against as you can, 
 just as you turn off the pavement to get out of the 
 way of a chimnej^-sweeper ; but it is not to be sup- 
 posed you prefer walking in the mud, for all that ! 
 I have often been ashamed myself of speeches I 
 have made in that way, which have been repeated 
 to me as good things, when all I meant was that I 
 
6 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 would say anything sooner than agree to the non- 
 sense or affectation I heard. You then set yourself 
 against what you think a wrong bias in another, and 
 are not like a wall but a buttress — as far from the 
 right line as your antagonist j and the more absurd 
 he is, the more so do you become. Before you 
 attend to what any one says, you should ask, Was 
 he talking to a fool or a wise man ! No \ H[unt] 
 would make Lord Byron tributary to him, or would 
 make him out to be nothing. I wonder you admire 
 him as you do, and compare him to the wits of 
 Charles II. It isn't writing verses or painting a 
 picture — that, as Sir Joshua used to say, is what 
 everybody can do : but it is the doing something more 
 than anybody else can do that entitles the poet or the 
 artist to distinction, or makes the work live. But 
 these people shut themselves up in a little circle of 
 their own, and fancy all the world are looking at 
 them." 
 
 I said, H[unt] had been spoiled by flattery when 
 he was young. " Oh ! no," he said, ' 'it was not that. 
 Sir Joshua was not spoiled by flattery, and yet he 
 had as much of it as anybody need have ; but he was 
 looking out to see what the world said of him, or 
 thinking what figure he should make by the side of 
 Correggio or Vandyke, not pluming himself on being 
 a better painter than some one in the next street, or 
 being surprised that the people at his own table spoke 
 in praise of his pictures. It is a little mind that is 
 taken up with the nearest object, or puffed up with 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 7 
 
 immediate notice : to do anything great, we must 
 look out of ourselves and see things upon a broader 
 scale." 
 
 I told Northcote I had promised H[aydon] I would 
 bring him to see him \ and then, said I, you would 
 think as favourably of him as I do, and everybody 
 else that knows him. "But you didn't say anything 
 in my praise to induce him to cornel" — "Oh ! yes; 
 I exerted all my eloquence." — "That wasn't the way. 
 You should have said I was a poor creature, perhaps 
 amusing for half an hour or so, or curious to see like 
 a little dried mummy in a museum : but he would 
 not hear of your having two idols ! Depend upon it, 
 hell not come. Such characters only want to be sur- 
 rounded with satellites or echoes : and that is one 
 reason they never improve. True genius, as well as 
 wisdom, is ever docile, humble, vigilant, and ready to 
 acknowledge the merit it seeks to appropriate from 
 every quarter. 
 
 "That was Fuseli's mistake. Nothing was good 
 enough for him, that was not a repetition of 
 himself. So once when I told him of a very fine 
 Vandyke, he made answer — 'And what is it? A 
 little bit of colour. I wouldn't go across the way to 
 see it.' On my telling this to Sir Joshua, he said — 
 ' Ay, he'll repent it, he'll repent it ! ' W[ordsworth] 
 is another of those who would narrow the universe 
 to their own standard. It is droll to see how hard 
 you labour to prop him up too, and seem to fancy he'll 
 live." — " I think he stands a better chance than Lord 
 
8 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Byron. He has added one original feature to our 
 poetry, which the other has not \ and this, you know, 
 sir, by your own rule, gives him the best title.'' — 
 "Yes; but the little bit that he has added is not 
 enough. None but great objects can be seen at a 
 distance. If posterity looked at it with your eyes, 
 they might think his poetry curious and pretty. But 
 consider how many Sir Walter Scotts, how many 
 Lord Byrons, how many Dr. Johnsons there will be 
 in the next hundred years; how many reputations 
 will rise and sink in that time ; and do you imagine, 
 amid these conflicting and important claims, such 
 trifles as descriptions of daisies and idiot boys (how- 
 ever well they may be done) will not be swept away 
 in the tide of time, like straws and weeds by the 
 torrent % No ; the world can only keep in view the 
 principal and most perfect productions of human 
 ingenuity ; such works as Dryden's, Pope's, and a few 
 others, that from their unity, their completeness, their 
 polish have the stamp of immortality upon them, and 
 seem indestructible like an element of nature. There 
 are few of these : I fear your friend W[ordsworth] is 
 not one." 
 
 I said, I thought one circumstance against him 
 was the want of popularity in his lifetime. Few 
 people made much noise after their deaths who did 
 not do so while they were living. Posterity could, 
 not be supposed to rake into the records of past 
 times for the Illustrious Obscure ; and only ratified 
 or annulled the lists of great names hLided down to 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 9 
 
 them by the voice of common fame. Few people 
 recovered from the neglect or obloquy of their con- 
 temporaries. The public would hardly be at the 
 pains to try the same cause twice over, or did not 
 like to reverse its own sentence, at least when on the 
 unfavourable side. There was Hobbes, for instance : 
 he had a bad name while living, and it was of no use 
 to think at this time of day of doing him justice. 
 While the priests and politicians were tearing him in 
 pieces for his atheism and arbitrary principles, Mr. 
 Locke stole his philosophy from him ; and I would 
 fain see any one restore it to the right owner. Quote 
 the passages one by one, show that every principle of 
 the modern metaphysical system was contained in 
 Hobbes, and that all that succeeding writers have 
 done was to deduce from Mr. Locke's imperfect con- 
 cessions the very consequences, "armed all in proof," 
 that already existed in an entire and unmutilated 
 state in his predecessor ; and you shall the next day 
 hear Mr. Locke spoken of as the father of English 
 philosophy as currently and confidently as if not the 
 shadow of a doubt had ever been started on the 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. Hobbes, by the boldness and comprehensive- 
 ness of his views, had shocked the prejudices and 
 drawn down upon his head the enmity of his con- 
 temporaries : Mr. Locke, by going more cautiously to 
 work, and only admitting as much at a time as the 
 public mind would bear, prepared the way for the 
 rest of Mr. Hobbes's philosophy, and for a vast 
 
10 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 reputation for himself, which nothing can impugn. 
 Stat nominis umbra. The world are too far off to 
 distinguish names from things ; and call Mr. Locke 
 the first of English philosophers, as they call a star 
 by a particular name, because others call it so. They 
 also dislike to have their confidence in a great name 
 destroyed, and fear, that by displacing one of their 
 favoured idols from its niche in the Temple of Fame, 
 they may endanger the whole building. 
 
 Northcote. — "Why, I thought Hobbes stood as 
 high as anybody. I have always heard him spoken 
 of in that light. It is not his capacity that people 
 dispute, but they object to his character. The world 
 will not encourage vice, for their own sakes; and 
 they give a casting-vote in favour of virtue. Mr. 
 Locke was a modest, conscientious inquirer after 
 truth, and the world had the sagacity to see this and 
 to be willing to give him a hearing; the other, I 
 conceive, was a bully, and a bad man into the bargain, 
 and they did not want to be bullied into truth or to 
 sanction licentiousness. This is unavoidable; for 
 the desire of knowledge is but one principle of the 
 mind. 
 
 " It was the same with Tom Paine. Nobody can 
 deny that he was a very fine writer and a very 
 sensible man; but he flew in the face of a whole 
 generation, and no wonder that they were too much 
 for him, and that his name is become a byword with 
 such multitudes, for no other reason than that he did 
 not care what offence he gave them by contradicting 
 
WITH NOHTHCOTE 
 
 11 
 
 all their most inveterate prejudices. If you insult a 
 roomful of people, you will be kicked out of it. So 
 neither will the world at large be insulted with 
 impunity. If you tell a whole country that they are 
 fools and knaves, they will not return the compliment 
 by crying you up as the pink of wisdom and honesty. 
 Nor will those who come after be very apt to take 
 up your quarrel. It was not so much Paine's being 
 a republican or an unbeliever, as the manner in which 
 he brought his opinions forward (which showed self- 
 conceit and want of feeling) that subjected him to 
 obloquy. People did not like the temper of the 
 man : it falls under the article of moral virtue. 
 
 " There are some reputations that are great, merely 
 because they are amiable. There is Dr. Watts : look 
 at the encomiums passed on him by Dr. Johnson ; 
 and yet to what, according to his statement, does his 
 merit amount? Why only to this, that he did that 
 best which none can do well, and employed his 
 talents uniformly for the welfare of mankind. He 
 was a good man, and the voice of the public has 
 given him credit for being a great one. The world 
 may be forced to do homage to great talents, but 
 they only bow willingly to these when they are 
 joined with benevolence and modesty ; nor will they 
 put weapons into the hands of the bold and un- 
 principled sophist to be turned against their own 
 interests and wishes." 
 
 I said, there was a great deal in the manner of 
 bringing truth forward to influence its reception 
 
12 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 with the reader; for not only did we resent un- 
 welcome novelties advanced with an insolent and 
 dogmatical air; but we were even ready to give 
 up our favourite notions, when we saw them advo- 
 cated in a harsh and intolerant manner by those of 
 our own party, sooner than submit to the pretensions 
 of blindfold presumption. If anything could make 
 me a bigot, it would be the arrogance of the free- 
 thinker ; if anything could make me a slave, it would 
 be the sordid sneering fopperies and sweeping clauses 
 of the Liberal party. Eenegadoes are generally made 
 so, not by the overtures of their adversaries, but by 
 disgust at the want of candour and moderation in 
 their friends. Northcote replied — " To be sure, there 
 was nothing more painful than to have one's own 
 opinions disfigured or thrust down one's throat by 
 impertinence and folly ; and that once when a 
 pedantic coxcomb was crying up Eaphael to the 
 skies, he could not help saying — ' If there was 
 nothing in Eaphael but what you can see in him, we 
 should not now have been talking of him ! ' " 
 
CONVERSATION THE SECOND 
 
 When I called, I found Mr. Northcote painting a 
 portrait of himself. Another stood on an easel. He 
 asked me, which I thought most like ? I said, the one 
 he was about was the best, but not good enough. It 
 looks like a physician or a member of Parliament, 
 but it ought to look like something more — a Cardinal 
 or a Spanish Inquisitor ! I do not think you ought 
 to proceed in painting your own face as you do with 
 some others — that is, by trying to improve upon it : 
 you have only to make it like ; for the more like it is, 
 the better it will be as a picture. " Oh ! he tried to 
 make it like." 
 
 I found I had got upon a wrong scent. Mr. 
 Northcote, as an artist, was not bound to have a 
 fine head, but he was bound to paint one. I am 
 always a very bad courtier ; and think of what strikes 
 me, and not of the effect upon others. So I once 
 tried to compliment a very handsome brunette by tell- 
 ing her how much I admired dark beauties. " Oh ! " 
 said Northcote, "you should have told her she was 
 fair. She did not like Mack, though you did ! " After 
 
14 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 all, there is a kind of selfishness in this plain-speaking. 
 In the present case, it set us wrong the whole morn- 
 ing, and I had to stay longer than usual to recover 
 the old track. I was continually in danger of over- 
 setting a stand with a small looking-glass, which 
 Northcote particularly cautioned me not to touch; 
 and every now and then he was prying into the glass 
 by stealth, to see if the portrait was like. He had on 
 a green velvet cap, and looked very like Titian. 
 
 Northcote then turning round, said, " I wanted to 
 ask you about a speech you made the other day : you 
 said you thought you could have made something of 
 portrait, but that you never could have painted his- 
 tory. What did you mean by that?"— "Oh! all I 
 meant was, that sometimes when I see a fine Titian 
 or Eembrandt, I feel as if I could have done some- 
 thing of the same kind with the proper pains, but I 
 have never the same feeling with respect to Eaphael. 
 My admiration is there utterly unmixed with emula- 
 tion or regret. In fact, I see what is before me, but 
 I have no invention." 
 
 Northcote. — "You do not know till you try. 
 There is not so much difference as you imagine. 
 Portrait often runs into history, and history into 
 portrait, without our knowing it. Expression is 
 common to both, and that is the chief difficulty. 
 The greatest history-painters have always been able 
 portrait-painters. How should a man paint a thing 
 in motion, if he cannot paint it still 1 But the great 
 point is to catch the prevailing look and character : 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 15 
 
 if you are master of this, you can make almost what 
 use of it you please. If a portrait has force, it will 
 do for history ; and if history is well painted, it will 
 do for portrait. This is what gave dignity to Sir 
 Joshua : his portraits had always that determined 
 air and character that you know what to think of 
 them as if you had seen them engaged in the most 
 decided action. 
 
 "So Fuseli said of Titian's picture of Paul III. 
 and his two nephews, ' That is true history ! ' 
 Many of the groups in the Vatican, by Kaphael, 
 are only collections of fine portraits. That is why 
 West, Barry, and others pretended to despise 
 portrait, because they could not do it, and it would 
 only expose their want of truth and nature. No ! 
 if you can give the look, you need not fear painting 
 history. Yet how difficult that is, and on what slight 
 causes it depends ! It is not enough that it is seen, 
 unless it is at the same time felt. How odd it seems, 
 that often while you are looking at a face, and though 
 you perceive no difference in the features, yet you 
 find they have undergone a total alteration of ex- 
 pression ! 
 
 " What a fine hand then is required to trace what 
 the eye can scarcely be said to distinguish ! So I 
 used to contend against Sir Joshua, that Raphael 
 had triumphed over this difficulty in the Miracle of 
 Bolsena, where he has given the internal blush of the 
 unbelieving priest at seeing the wafer turned into 
 blood; the colour, to be sure, assists, but the look 
 
1G 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 of stupefaction and shame is also there in the most 
 marked degree. Sir Joshua said it was my fancy, 
 but I am as convinced of it as I am of my existence ; 
 and the proof is that otherwise he has done nothing. 
 There is no story without it ; but he has trusted to 
 the expression to tell the story, instead of leaving 
 the expression to be made out from the story. I 
 have often observed the same thing in myself, when 
 I have blamed any one as mildly as I could, not using 
 any violence of language, nor indeed intending to 
 hurt ; and I have afterwards wondered at the effect ; 
 my sister has said, ' You should have seen your look,' 
 but I did not know of it myself." — I said, " If you 
 had, it would have been less felt by others. 
 
 " An instance of this made me laugh not long ago. I 
 was offended at a waiter for very ill behaviour at an inn 
 at Calais ; and while he was out of the room I was 
 putting on as angry a look as I could, but I found 
 this sort of previous rehearsal to no purpose. The 
 instant he returned into the room, I gave him a look 
 that I felt made it unnecessary to tell him what I 
 thought." — " To be sure, he would see it immediately." 
 
 "And don't you think, sir," I said, "that this ex- 
 plains the difficulty of fine acting, and the difference 
 between good acting and bad — that is, between face- 
 making or mouthing and genuine passion? To give 
 the last, an actor must possess the highest truth of 
 imagination, and must undergo an entire revolution 
 of feeling. Is it wonderful that so many prefer an 
 artificial to a natural actor, the mask to the man, the 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 17 
 
 pompous pretension to the simple expression ? Not 
 at all ; the wonder rather is that people in general 
 judge so right as they do, when they have such 
 doubtful grounds to go upon ; and they would not, 
 but they trust less to rules or reasoning than to their 
 feelings." 
 
 Northcote. — "You must come to that at last. 
 The common sense of mankind (whether a good or a 
 bad one) is the best criterion you have to appeal to. 
 You necessarily impose upon yourself in judging of 
 your own works. Whenever I am trying at an ex- 
 pression, I hang up the picture in the room and ask 
 people what it means, and if they guess right, I 
 think I have succeeded. You yourself see the thing 
 as you wish it, or according to what you have been 
 endeavouring to make it. 
 
 "When I was doing the figures of Argyll in 
 prison and of his enemy who comes and finds 
 him asleep, I had a great difficulty to encounter 
 in conveying the expression of the last — indeed I 
 did it from myself — I wanted to give a look of 
 mingled remorse and admiration ; and when I 
 found that others saw this look in the sketch I had 
 made, I left off. By going on, I might lose it again. 
 There is a point of felicity which, whether you fall 
 short of or have gone beyond it, can only be deter- 
 mined by the effect on the unprejudiced observer. 
 You cannot be always with your picture to explain 
 it to others : it must be left to speak for itself. 
 Those who stand before their pictures and make fine 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 speeches about them, do themselves a world of harm : 
 a painter should cut out his tongue, if he wishes to 
 succeed. His language addresses itself not to the 
 ear, but the eye. He should stick to that as much 
 as possible. Sometimes you hit off an effect without 
 knowing it. Indeed the happiest results are fre- 
 quently the most unconscious. Boaden 1 was here 
 the other clay. You don't remember Henderson, 2 I 
 suppose?" — "No." — "He says his reading was the 
 most perfect he ever knew. He thought himself a 
 pretty good reader and a tolerable mimic; that he 
 succeeded tolerably well in imitating Kemble, Mrs. 
 Siddons, and others, but that there was something in 
 Henderson's reading so superior to all the rest, that 
 he never could come anything near it. I told him, 
 You don't know that : if you were to hear him now, 
 you might think him even worse than your own 
 imitation of him. We deceive ourselves as much 
 with respect to the excellences of others as we do 
 with respect to our own, by dwelling on a favourite 
 idea. In order to judge, you should ask some one 
 else who remembered him. 
 
 "I spoke to him about Kemble, whose life he 
 has been lately writing. I said, when he sat to 
 me for the Eichard III. meeting the children, 
 he lent me no assistance whatever in the expres- 
 
 1 James Boaden (1762-1839), the dramatic biographer and 
 Shakespearian critic. [Ed.] 
 
 2 John Henderson (1747-1785), called "The Bath Roscius," 
 the rival of Garrick. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 19 
 
 sion I wished to give, but remained quite im- 
 movable, as if he were sitting for an ordinary 
 portrait. Boaden said, This was his way : he never 
 put himself to any exertion, except in his professional 
 character. If any one wanted to know his idea of a 
 part or of a particular passage, his reply always was, 
 ' You must come and see me do it.' " 
 
 Northcote then spoke of the boy, as he always 
 calls him (Master Betty). He asked if I had ever 
 seen him act, and I said, Yes, and was one of his 
 admirers. He answered, " Oh ! yes, it was such a 
 beautiful eftusion of natural sensibility ; and then 
 that graceful play of the limbs in youth gave such an 
 advantage over every one about him. Humphreys 1 
 (the artist) said, ' He had never seen the little Apollo 
 off the pedestal before.' You see the same thing in 
 the boys at Westminster School. But no one was 
 equal to him." Mr. Northcote alluded with pleasure 
 to his unaffected manners when a boy, and mentioned 
 as an instance of his simplicity, his saying one day, 
 "If they admire me so much, what would they say 
 to Mr. Harley 1 " (a tragedian in the same strolling 
 company with himself). 
 
 We then spoke of his acting since he was grown 
 up. Northcote said, "He went to see him one 
 night with Fuseli, in Alexander the Great, and that 
 
 1 This can hardly be the well-known Ozias Humphrey, 
 although he had been Northcote's friend, for he had been dead 
 for twenty years ; William Humphreys, the engraver (1794- 
 1865), must be meant, unless Hazlitt made a mistake. [Ed.] 
 
20 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 he observed, coming out, they could get nobody 
 to do it better." — "Nor so well," said Fuseli. A 
 question being put, " Why then could he not succeed 
 at present?" — " Because," said Northcote, "the 
 world will never admire twice. The first surprise 
 was excited by his being a boy; and when that 
 was over, nothing could bring them back again to the 
 same point, not though he had turned out a second 
 Roscius. They had taken a surfeit of their idol, and 
 wanted something new. Nothing he could do could 
 astonish them so much the second time, as the youth- 
 ful prodigy had done the first time \ and therefore 
 he must always appear as a foil to himself, and seem 
 comparatively flat and insipid. Garrick kept up the 
 fever of public admiration as long as anybody ; but 
 when he returned to the stage after a short absence, 
 no one went to see him. 
 
 "It was the same with Sir Joshua: latterly 
 Eomney drew all his sitters from him. So they 
 say the Exhibition is worse every year, though it 
 is just the same : there are the same subjects and 
 the same painters. Admiration is a forced tribute, 
 and to extort it from mankind (envious and 
 ignorant as they are) they must be taken unawares." 
 I remarked, " It was the same in books ; if an 
 author was only equal to himself, he was always said 
 to fall off. The blow to make the same impression 
 must be doubled, because we are prepared for it. 
 We give him the whole credit of his first successful 
 production, because it was altogether unexpected ; 
 
WITH NOtlTHCOTE 
 
 21 
 
 but if he does not rise as much above himself in the 
 second instance, as the first was above nothing, we 
 are disappointed and say he has fallen off, for our 
 feelings are not equally excited." 
 
 "Just," said Northcote, "as in painting a portrait : 
 people are surprised at the first sitting, and wonder to 
 see how you have got on : but I tell them they will never 
 see so much done again ; for at first there was nothing 
 but a blank canvas to work upon, but afterwards you 
 have to improve upon your own design, and this at 
 every step becomes more and more difficult. It puts 
 me in mind of an observation of Opie's, that it was 
 wrong to suppose that people went on improving to 
 the last in any art or profession : on the contrary, 
 they put their best ideas into their first works (which 
 they have been qualifying themselves to undertake 
 all their lives before) ; and what they gain afterwards 
 in correctness and refinement, they lose in originality 
 and vigour." 
 
 I assented to this as a very striking and (as 
 I thought) sound remark. He said, "I wish 
 you had known Opie : 1 he was a very original- 
 minded man. Mrs. Siddons used to say, 6 1 like 
 to meet Mr. Opie ; for then I always hear some- 
 thing I did not know before.' I do not say that 
 he was always right; but he always put your 
 thoughts into a new track, that was worth follow- 
 ing. I was very fond of Opie's conversation ; and I 
 
 1 John Opie, R.A., a West-countryman like Northcote, had 
 died in 1807. [Ed.] 
 
22 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 remember once when I was expressing my surprise 
 at his having so little of the Cornish dialect ; ' Why/ 
 he said, 6 the reason is, I never spoke at all till I 
 knew you and Wolcott.' He was a true genius. 
 
 " Mr. is a person of great judgment ; but I do not 
 
 learn so much from him. I think this is the difference 
 between sense and genius ; — a man of genius judges 
 for himself, and you hear nothing but what is original 
 from him : but a man of sense or with a knowledge 
 of the world, judges as others do ; and he is on this 
 account the safest guide to follow, though not, per- 
 haps, the most instructive companion. I recollect 
 Miss Reynolds 1 making nearly the same observation. 
 She said — £ 1 don't know how it is ; I don't think 
 
 Miss C 2 a very clever woman, and yet, whenever 
 
 I am at a loss about anything, I always go to consult 
 her, and her advice is almost sure to be right.' The 
 reason was, that this lady, instead of taking her own 
 view of the subject (as a person of superior capacity 
 might have been tempted to do), considered only 
 what light others would view it in, and pronounced 
 her decision according to the prevailing rules and 
 maxims of the world. 
 
 "When old Dr. married his housemaid, 
 
 1 Frances Reynolds, the younger sister of Sir Joshua ; she 
 was a bad, but persistent painter, and her brother said of her 
 pictures, that ' 'they made everybody else laugh and him cry." 
 She died in 1807. [Ed.] 
 
 2 This may probably have been the elder daughter of 
 Admiral Cotterell, with whose family the Reynoldses were 
 intimate. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 23 
 
 Sterne, on hearing of it, exclaimed, 'Ay, I always 
 thought him a genius, and now I'm sure of 
 it ! ■ The truth was (and this was what Sterne 
 
 meant), that Dr. saw a thousand virtues in 
 
 this woman which nobody else did, and could give 
 a thousand reasons for his choice, that no one about 
 him had the wit to answer : but nature took its 
 usual course, and the event turned out as he had 
 been forewarned, according to the former experience 
 of the world in such matters. His being in the 
 wrong did not prove him to be less a genius, though 
 it might impeach his judgment or prudence. He 
 was, in fact, wiser, and saw more of the matter than 
 any one of his neighbours, who might advise him to 
 the contrary ; but he was not so wise as the collective 
 experience or common sense of mankind on the sub- 
 ject, which his more cautious friends merely echoed. 
 
 "It is only the man of genius who has any right or 
 temptation to make a fool of himself, by setting up 
 his own unsupported decision against that of the 
 majority. He feels himself superior to any individ- 
 ual in the crowd, and therefore rashly undertakes 
 to act in defiance of the whole mass of prejudice and 
 opinion opposed to him. It is safe and easy to travel 
 in a stage-coach from London to Salisbury : but it 
 would require great strength, boldness, and sagacity 
 to go in a straight line across the country." 
 
CONVERSATION THE THIRD 
 
 Northcote began by saying, "You don't much like 
 Sir Joshua, I know ; but I think that is one of your 
 prejudices. If I was to compare him with Vandyke 
 and Titian, I should say that Vandyke's portraits 
 are like pictures (very perfect ones, no doubt), Sir 
 Joshua's like the reflection in a looking-glass, and 
 Titian's like the real people. There is an atmosphere 
 of light and shade about Sir Joshua's, which neither 
 of the others has in the same degree, together with 
 a vagueness that gives them a visionary and romantic 
 character, and makes them seem like dreams or vivid 
 recollections of persons we have seen. I never could 
 mistake Vandyke's for anything but pictures, and I 
 go up to them to examine them as such ; when I 
 see a fine Sir Joshua, I can neither suppose it to be a 
 mere picture nor a man ; and I almost involuntarily 
 turn back to ascertain if it is not some one behind 
 me reflected in the glass : when I see a Titian, I am 
 riveted to it, and I can no more take my eye off 
 from it, than if it were the very individual in the 
 room. 
 
 "That," he said, "is, I think, peculiar to Titian, 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 25 
 
 that you feel on your good behaviour in the presence 
 of his keen-looking heads, as if you were before 
 company." I mentioned that I thought Sir Joshua 
 more like Rembrandt than like either Titian or 
 Vandyke : he enveloped objects in the same brilliant 
 haze of a previous mental conception. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " but though Sir Joshua borrowed 
 a great deal, he drew largely from himself : or rather, 
 it was a strong and peculiar feeling of nature working 
 in him and forcing its way out in spite of all impedi- 
 ments, and that made whatever he touched his own. 
 In spite of his deficiency in drawing, and his want of 
 academic rules and a proper education, you see this 
 breaking out like a devil in all his works. It is this 
 that has stamped him. There is a charm in his por- 
 traits, a mingled softness and force, a grasping at the 
 end with nothing harsh or unpleasant in the means, 
 that you will find nowhere else. He may go out of 
 fashion for a time : but you must come back to him 
 again, while a thousand imitators and academic 
 triflers are forgotten. This proves him to have been 
 a real genius. 
 
 "The same thing, however, made him a very bad 
 master. He knew nothing of rules which are alone 
 to be taught ; and he could not communicate his 
 instinctive feeling of beauty or character to others. 
 I learnt nothing from him while I was with him : 
 and none of his scholars (if I may except myself) 
 ever made any figure at all. He only gave us his 
 pictures to copy. Sir Joshua undoubtedly got his 
 
26 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 first ideas of the art from Gandy, 1 though he lost 
 them under Hudson ; but he easily recovered them 
 afterwards. That is a picture of Gandy's there 
 (pointing to a portrait of a little girl). If you look 
 into it, you will find the same broken surface and 
 varying outline, that was so marked a characteristic 
 of Sir Joshua. There was nothing he hated so much 
 as a distinct outline, as you see it in Mengs and the 
 French school. Indeed, he ran into the opposite 
 extreme ; but it is one of the great beauties of art to 
 show it waving and retiring, now losing and then 
 recovering itself again, as it always does in nature, 
 without any of that stiff, edgy appearance, which only 
 pedants affect or admire. 
 
 "Gandy was never out of Devonshire: but his 
 portraits are common there. His father was patron- 
 ised by the Duke of Ormond, and one reason why the 
 son never came out of his native county was, that 
 when the Duke of Ormond was implicated in the rebel- 
 lion to restore the Pretender in 1715, he affected to be 
 thought too deep in his Grace's confidence and a person 
 of too much consequence to venture up to London, so 
 that he chose to remain in a voluntary exile." 
 
 I asked Northcote if he remembered the name 
 of Stringer 2 at the Academy, when he first came 
 
 1 William Gandy, the portrait-painter, who died in 1729. 
 Northcote gives further particulars with regard to the effect 
 of Gandy's pictures on the mind of Sir J. Reynolds in the 
 Appendix to the Life of the latter. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Daniel Stringer, a Cheshire portrait-painter, who entered 
 the Royal Academy as a student about 1770. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 27 
 
 up to town. He said he did, and that he drew 
 very well, and once put the figure for him in 
 a better position to catch the foreshortening. He 
 inquired if I knew anything about him, and I 
 said I had once vainly tried to copy a head 
 of a youth by him admirably drawn and col- 
 oured, and in which he had attempted to give the 
 effect of double vision by a second outline accom- 
 panying the contour of the face and features. 
 Though the design might not be in good taste, it 
 was executed in a way that made it next to im- 
 possible to imitate. I called on him afterwards at 
 his house at Knutsforcl, where I saw some spirited 
 comic sketches in an unfinished state, 1 and a capital 
 female figure by Cignani. All his skill and love of 
 art had, I found, been sacrificed to his delight in 
 Cheshire ale and the company of country squires. 
 Tom Kershaw, of Manchester, used to say, that he 
 would rather have been Dan Stringer than Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds at twenty years of age. Kershaw, 
 like other North-country critics, thought more of the 
 executive power than of the cesthetical faculty; for- 
 getting that it signifies comparatively little how well 
 you execute a thing, if it is not worth executing. 
 
 In consequence of something that was said of the 
 egotism of artists, he observed, "I am sometimes 
 thought cold and cynical myself ; but I hope it is not 
 from any such overweening opinion of myself. — I 
 
 1 One of ' 'the blacksmith swallowing the tailor's news," 
 from Shakspeare. [Hazlitt.] 
 
28 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 remember once going with Wilkie to Angerstein's, 
 and because I stood looking and said nothing, he 
 seemed dissatisfied, and said, ' 1 suppose you are too 
 much occupied with admiring, to give me your 
 opinion ? ' And I answered hastily, ' No, indeed ! I 
 was saying to myself, "And is this all that the art 
 can do?" ' But this was not, I am sure, an expression 
 of triumph, but of mortification at the defects which 
 I could not help observing even in the most accom- 
 plished works. I knew they were the best, but I 
 could have wished them to be a hundred times better 
 than they were." 
 
 Northcote mentioned a conceited painter of the 
 name of Edwards, 1 who went with Eomney to Eome ; 
 and when they got into the Sistine Chapel, turn- 
 ing round to him, said, " 'Egad ! George, we're bit ! " 
 — He then spoke of his own journey to Eome, of 
 the beauty of the climate, of the manners of the 
 people, of the imposing effect of the Eoman Catholic 
 religion, of its favourableness to the fine arts, of the 
 churches full of pictures, of the manner in which he 
 passed his time, studying and looking into all the 
 rooms in the Vatican : he had no fault to find with 
 Italy, and no wish to leave it. " Gracious and sweet 
 was all he saw in her ! " 
 
 As he talked, he looked as if he saw the 
 different objects pass before him, and his eye 
 glittered with familiar recollections. He said, 
 
 1 Edward Edwards, A.R.A., who had died in 1806. His 
 visit to Rome took place in 1775. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 29 
 
 Eaphael did not scorn to look out of himself or 
 to be beholden to others. He took whole figures 
 from Masaccio to enrich his designs, because all he 
 wanted was to advance the art and ennoble human 
 nature. After he saw Michael Angelo, he improved 
 in freedom and breadth ; and if he had lived to see 
 Titian, he would have done all he could to avail 
 himself of his colouring. All his works are an 
 effusion of the sweetness and dignity of his own 
 character. He did not know how to make a picture ; 
 but for the conduct of the fable and the development 
 of passion and feeling (noble but full of tenderness) 
 there is nobody like him. This is why Hogarth can 
 never come into the lists. He does not lift us above 
 ourselves : our curiosity may be gratified by seeing 
 what men are, but our pride must be soothed by 
 seeing them made better. 
 
 Why else is Milton preferred to Hudibras, but 
 because the one aggrandises our notions of human 
 nature, and the other degrades it ? Who will 
 make any comparison between a Madonna of 
 Eaphael and a drunken prostitute by Hogarth ? 
 Do we not feel more respect for an inspired 
 Apostle than for a blackguard in the streets ? 
 Eaphael points out the highest perfection of which 
 the human form and faculties are capable, and 
 Hogarth their lowest degradation or most wretched 
 perversion. Look at his attempts to paint the good 
 or beautiful, and you see how faint the impressions 
 of these were in his mind. Yet these are what 
 
30 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 every one must wish to cherish in his own bosom, and 
 must feel most thankful for to those who lend him 
 the powerful assistance of their unrivalled conceptions 
 of true grandeur and beauty. Sir Joshua strove to 
 do this in his portraits, and this it was that raised 
 him in public estimation ; for we all wish to get 
 rid of defects and peculiarities as much as we can. 
 He then said of Michael Angelo, he did not wonder at 
 the fame he had acquired. You are to consider the 
 state of the art before his time, and that he burst 
 through the mean and little manner even of such 
 men as Leonardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino and 
 through the trammels that confined them, and gave 
 all at once a gigantic breadth and expansion that had 
 never been seen before, so that the world were struck 
 with it as with a display of almost supernatural 
 power, and have never ceased to admire since. We 
 are not to compare it with the examples of art that 
 have followed since, and that would never have 
 existed but for him, but with those that preceded it. 
 
 He found fault with the figure of the flying monk in 
 the St. Peter Martyr, as fluttering and theatrical, but 
 agreed with me in admiring this picture and in my 
 fondness for Titian in general. He mentioned his 
 going with Prince Hoare and Day 1 to take leave of 
 some fine portraits of Titian's that hung in a dark 
 corner of a gallery at Naples; and as Day looked 
 
 1 Alexander Day, a picture-dealer who lived in Italy, and 
 exported works of art into England. He survived until 
 1841. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 31 
 
 at them for the last time with tears in his eyes, he 
 said " Ah ! he was a fine old mouser /" — I said, I had 
 repeated this expression (which I had heard him 
 allude to before) somewhere in writing, and was 
 surprised that people did not know what to make of 
 it. Northcote said, " Why, that is exactly what I 
 should have thought. There is the difference between 
 writing and speaking. In writing, you address the 
 average quantity of sense or information in the 
 world; in speaking, you pick your audience, or at 
 least know what they are prepared for, or else pre- 
 viously explain what you think necessary. You 
 understand the epithet because you have seen a 
 great number of Titian's pictures, and know that cat- 
 like, watchful, penetrating look he gives to all his 
 faces, which nothing else expresses, perhaps, so well 
 as the phrase Day made use of : but the world in 
 general know nothing of this ; all they know or 
 believe is, that Titian is a great painter like Raphael 
 or any other famous person. Suppose any one was 
 to tell you, Eaphael was a fine old mouser : would 
 you not laugh at this as absurd ? And yet the other 
 is equally nonsense or incomprehensible to them. 
 No, there is a limit, a conversational licence which 
 you cannot carry into writing. This is one difficulty 
 I have in writing : I do not know the point of 
 familiarity at which I am to stop ; and yet I believe 
 I have ideas, and you say I know how to express 
 myself in talking." 
 
 I inquired if he remembered much of Johnson, 
 
32 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Burke, and that set of persons'? He said, Yes, a 
 good deal, as he had often seen them. Burke came 
 into Sir Joshua's painting -room one day, when 
 Northcote, who was then a young man, was sitting 
 for one of the children in Count Ugolino. (It is the 
 one in profile with the hand to the face.) He was 
 introduced as a pupil of Sir Joshua's, and, on his 
 looking up, Mr. Burke said, "Then I see that Mr. 
 Northcote is not only an artist, but has a head that 
 would do for Titian to paint." — Goldsmith and 
 Burke had often violent disputes about politics ; the 
 one being a staunch Tory, and the other at that time 
 a Whig and outrageous anti-courtier. One day he 
 came into the room, when Goldsmith was there, full 
 of ire and abuse against the late king, and went on in 
 such a torrent of the most unqualified invective that 
 Goldsmith threatened to leave the room. The 
 other, however, persisted; and Goldsmith went 
 out, unable to bear it any longer. So much for 
 Mr. Burke's pretended consistency and uniform 
 loyalty ! 
 
 When Northcote first came to Sir Joshua, he wished 
 very much to see Goldsmith ; and one day Sir Joshua, 
 on introducing him, asked why he had been so anxious 
 to see him ? " Because, " said Northcote, " he is a 
 notable 1 man." This expression, notable, in its 
 ordinary sense, was so contrary to Goldsmith's char- 
 acter, that they both burst out a -laughing very 
 heartily. Goldsmith was two thousand pounds in 
 1 That is, a remarkable man. [Hazlitt. ] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 33 
 
 debt at the time of his death, which was hastened by 
 his chagrin and distressed circumstances : and when 
 She Stoops to Conquer was performed, he was so 
 choked all dinner-time that he could not swallow a 
 mouthful. A party went from Sir Joshua's to 
 support it. The present title was not fixed upon till 
 that morning. Northcote went with Ralph, Sir 
 Joshua's man, into the gallery, to see how it went off ; 
 and after the second act, there was no doubt of its 
 success. Northcote says, people had a great notion of 
 the literary parties at Sir Joshua's. He once asked 
 
 Lord B to dine with Dr. J ohnson and the rest ; 
 
 but though a man of rank and also of good informa- 
 tion, he seemed as much alarmed at the idea as if you 
 had tried to force him into one of the cages at Exeter- 
 'Change. 
 
 Northcote remarked that he thought people of 
 talents had their full share of admiration. He had 
 seen young ladies of quality, Lady Marys and 
 Lady Dorothys, peeping into a room where Mrs. 
 Siddons was sitting, with all the same timidity and 
 curiosity as if it were some preternatural being — he 
 was sure more than if it had been the Queen. He then 
 made some observations on the respect paid to rank, 
 and said, " However ridiculous it might seem, it was 
 no more than the natural expression of the highest 
 respect in other cases. For instance, as to that of 
 bowing out of the King's presence backwards, would 
 you not do the same if you were introduced to Dr. 
 Johnson for the first time 1 You would contrive not 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 to turn your back upon him, till you were out of the 
 room." 
 
 He said, "You violent politicians make more rout 
 about royalty than it is worth : it is only the 
 highest place, and somebody must fill it, no matter 
 who : neither do the persons themselves think so 
 much of it as you imagine. They are glad to get into 
 privacy as much as . they can. Nor is it a sinecure. 
 The late King (I have been told) used often to have 
 to sign his name to papers, and do nothing else for 
 three hours together, till his fingers fairly ached, and 
 then he would take a walk in the garden, and come 
 back to repeat the same drudgery for three hours more. 
 So, when they told Louis XV. that if he went on with 
 his extravagance, he would bring about a Eevolution 
 and be sent over to England with a pension, he 
 merely asked, ' Do you think the pension would be a 
 pretty good one ? ' " 
 
 He noticed the Memoirs of Cardinal de Eetz, 
 and praised them for their extreme vivacity and 
 great insight into human nature. Once when the 
 mob had besieged the palace, and the Cardinal 
 was obliged to go and appease them, a brickbat 
 was flung at him and knocked him down, and one 
 of the assailants presenting a bayonet at his throat, 
 he suddenly called out, " Oh, you wretch ! if your 
 father could have seen you in this barbarous action, 
 what would he have said ? " The man immediately 
 withdrew, though, says the Cardinal, "I knew no 
 more of his father than the babe unborn." Northcote 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 35 
 
 then adverted to the talent of players for drollery and 
 sudden shifts and expedients, and said that by living 
 in an element of comic invention, they imbibed a 
 portion of it. 
 
 He repeated that jest of F. Eeynolds, who filled 
 up the blank in a militia paper that was sent 
 him with the description, "Old, lame, and a 
 coward;" and another story told of Mathews, the 
 comedian, who, being left in a room with an old 
 gentleman and a little child, and the former putting 
 the question to it, " Well, my dear, which do you like 
 best, the dog or the cat ? " by exercising his powers 
 of ventriloquism, made the child seem to answer, " I 
 don't care a damn for either," — to the utter confusion 
 of the old gentleman, who immediately took the 
 father to task for bringing up his son in such profane- 
 ness and total want of common humanity. 
 
 He then returned to the question of the incon- 
 sistent and unreasonable expectations of mankind as 
 to their success in different pursuits, and answered 
 the common complaint, " What a shame it was that 
 Milton only got thirteen pounds nine shillings and 
 sixpence for Paradise Lost" He said, "Not at all; 
 he did not write it to get money, he had gained what 
 he had proposed by writing it, not thirteen pounds 
 nine shillings and sixpence, but an immortal reputa- 
 tion. When Dr. Johnson was asked why he was not 
 invited out to dine as Garrick was, he answered, as 
 if it was a triumph to him, 4 Because great lords and 
 ladies don't like to have their mouths stopped ! ' But 
 
36 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 who does like to have their mouths stopped'? Did 
 he, more than others ? People like to be amused in 
 general; but they did not give him the less credit 
 for wisdom and a capacity to instruct them by his 
 writings. 
 
 " In like manner, it has been said, that the King 
 only sought one interview with Dr. Johnson ; whereas, 
 if he had been a buffoon or a sycophant, he would 
 have asked for more. No, there was nothing to 
 complain of : it was a compliment paid by rank to 
 letters, and once was enough. The King was more 
 afraid of this interview than Dr. Johnson was ; and 
 went to it as a schoolboy to his task. But he did 
 not want to have this trial repeated every day, nor 
 was it necessary. The very jealousy of his self-love 
 marked his respect : and if he had thought less of 
 Dr. Johnson, he would have been more willing to 
 risk the encounter. They had each their place to 
 fill, and would best preserve their self-respect, and 
 perhaps their respect for each other, by remaining in 
 their proper sphere. So they make an outcry about 
 the Prince leaving Sheridan to die in absolute want. 
 He had left him long before : was he to send every 
 day to know if he was dying 1 These things cannot 
 be helped, without exacting too much of human 
 nature." 
 
 I agreed to this view of the subject, and said, 
 I did not see why literary people should repine 
 if they met with their deserts in their own way, 
 without expecting to get rich; but that they often 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 37 
 
 got nothing for their pains but unmerited abuse and 
 party obloquy. — " Oh, it is not party-spite/ 7 said he, 
 " but the envy of human nature. Do you think to 
 distinguish yourself with impunity ? Do you imagine 
 that your superiority will be delightful to others ^ 
 Or that they will not strive all they can, and to the 
 last moment, to pull you down 1 I remember myself 
 once saying to Opie, how hard it was upon the poor 
 author or player to be hunted down for not succeed- 
 ing in an innocent and laudable attempt, just as if 
 they had committed some heinous crime ! And he 
 answered, 4 They have committed the greatest crime 
 in the eyes of mankind, that of pretending to a 
 superiority over them ! ' Do you think that party 
 abuse, and the running down particular authors is 
 anything new 1 Look at the manner in which Pope 
 and Dryden were assailed by a set of reptiles. Do 
 you believe the modern periodicals had not their 
 prototypes in the party - publications of that day % 
 Depend upon it, what you take for political cabal 
 and hostility is (nine parts in ten) private pique and 
 malice oozing out through those authorised channels. " 
 
 We now got into a dispute about nicknames ; and 
 H — me 1 coming in and sitting down at my elbow, 
 my old pugnacious habit seemed to return upon me. 
 Northcote contended, that they had always an appro- 
 priate meaning : and I said, " Their whole force 
 consisted in their having absolutely none but the 
 
 1 Perhaps Joseph Hume, then M.P. for the Border Burghs, 
 and prominent in Radical politics. [Ed. ] 
 
38 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 most vague and general." — "Why," said Northcote, 
 "did my father give me the name of 'Fat Jack/ but 
 because I was lean 1 " He gave an instance which I 
 thought made against himself, of a man at Plymouth, 
 a baker by profession, who had got the name of Tiddy- 
 doll — he could not tell how. "Then," said I, "it 
 was a name without any sense or meaning." — "Be 
 that as it may," said Northcote, "it almost drove him 
 mad. The boys called after him in the street, be- 
 sieged his shop windows ; even the soldiers took it 
 up, and marched to parade, beating time with their 
 feet, and repeating, Tiddydoll, Tiddydoll, as they passed 
 by his door. He flew out upon them at the sound 
 with inextinguishable fury, and was knocked down 
 and rolled in the kennel, and got up in an agony of 
 rage and shame, his white clothes covered all over 
 with mud. A gentleman, a physician in the neigh- 
 bourhood, one day called him in and remonstrated 
 with him on the subject. He advised him to take 
 no notice of his persecutors. 1 What,' he said, ' does 
 it signify ? Suppose they were to call me Tiddydoll ? ' 
 — 'There,' said the man, 'you called me so yourself ; 
 you only sent for me in to insult me ! ' and, after 
 heaping every epithet of abuse upon him, flew out of 
 the house in a most ungovernable passion." 
 
 I told Northcote this was just the thing I meant. 
 Even if a name had confessedly no meaning, by ap- 
 plying it constantly and by way of excellence to 
 another, it seemed as if he must be an abstraction 
 of insignificance : whereas, if it pointed to any posi- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 39 
 
 tive defect or specific charge, it was at least limited 
 to the one, and you stood a chance of repelling the 
 other. The virtue of a nickname consisted in its being 
 indefinable and baffling all proof or reply. 
 
 When H — me was gone, Northcote extolled his 
 proficiency in Hebrew, which astonished me not a 
 little, as I had never heard of it. I said, he was 
 a very excellent man, and a good specimen of the 
 character of the old Presbyterians, who had more 
 of the idea of an attachment to principle, and less 
 of an obedience to fashion or convenience, from 
 their education and tenets, than any other class of 
 people. Northcote assented to this statement, and 
 concluded by saying, that H — me was certainly a 
 very good man, and had no fault but that of not 
 being fat. 
 
CONVEESATION THE FOURTH 
 
 Northcote said, he had been reading Kelly's Re- 
 miniscences. I asked what he thought of them 1 He 
 said, they were the work of a well-meaning man, who 
 fancied all those about him good people, and every- 
 thing they uttered clever. I said, I recollected his 
 singing formerly with Mrs. Crouch, and that he used 
 to give great effect to some things of sentiment, such 
 as " Oh ! had I been by fate decreed," etc., in Love 
 in a Village. 1 Northcote said, he did not much like 
 him : there was a jerk, a kind of brogue in his sing- 
 ing ; though he had, no doubt, considerable advantages 
 in being brought up with all the great singers and 
 having performed on all the first stages in Italy. 
 
 I said, there was no echo of all that now. "No," said 
 Northcote, " nor in my time, though I was there just 
 after him. He asked me once, many years ago, if I 
 had heard of him in Italy, and I said no, though I 
 excused myself by stating that I had only been at 
 Rome, where the stage was less an object, the Pope 
 
 1 The comic opera by Isaac Bickerstaffe, brought out at 
 Covent Garden in 1762, and long extremely popular. [Ed.] 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 41 
 
 there performing the chief part himself. " I answered, 
 that I meant there was no echo of the fine singing at 
 present in Italy, music being there dead as well as 
 painting, or reduced to mere screaming, noise and 
 rant. "It is odd," he said, "how their genius seems 
 to have left them. Everything of that sort appears 
 to be at present no better than it is with us in a 
 country - town : or rather it wants the simplicity 
 and rustic innocence, and is more like the draggled- 
 tailed finery of a lady's waiting -maid. They have 
 nothing of their own : all is at second hand. Did 
 you see Thorwaldsen's things while you were there 1 
 A young artist brought me all his designs the other 
 day, as miracles that I was to wonder at and be 
 delighted with. But I could find nothing in them 
 but repetitions of the Antique, over and over, till I 
 was surfeited." — "He would be pleased at this." — 
 "Why, no ! that is not enough : it is easy to imitate 
 the Antique : — if you want to last, you must invent 
 something. The other is only pouring liquors from 
 one vessel into another, that become staler and staler 
 every time. 
 
 " We are tired of the Antique ; yet, at any rate, 
 it is better than the vapid imitation of it. The 
 world wants something new, and will have it. No 
 matter whether it is better or worse, if there is but 
 an infusion of new life and spirit, it will go down 
 to posterity ; otherwise, you are soon forgotten. 
 Canova, too, is nothing for the same reason — he is 
 only a feeble copy of the Antique ; or a mixture of 
 
42 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 two things the most incompatible, that and opera- 
 dancing. But there is Bernini ; he is full of faults ; 
 he has too much of that florid, redundant, fluttering 
 style, that was objected to Rubens ; but then he has 
 given an appearance of flesh that was never given 
 before. 
 
 " The Antique always looks like marble, you never 
 for a moment can divest yourself of the idea; but 
 go up to a statue of Bernini's, and it seems as if 
 it must yield to your touch. This excellence he was 
 the first to give, and therefore it must always remain 
 with him. It is true, it is also in the Elgin Marbles ; 
 but they were not known in his time ; so that he 
 indisputably was a genius. Then there is Michael 
 Angelo ; how utterly different from the Antique, and 
 in some things how superior ! For instance, there is 
 his statue of Cosmo de Medici, leaning on his hand, 
 in the chapel of St. Lorenzo at Florence ; I declare it 
 has that look of reality in it, that it almost terrifies 
 you to be near it. It has something of the same 
 effect as the mixture of life and death that is per- 
 ceivable in wax- work ; though that is a bad illustra- 
 tion, as this last is disagreeable and mechanical, and 
 the other is produced by a powerful and masterly 
 conception. 
 
 " It was the same with Handel too : he made 
 music speak a new language, with a pathos and a 
 power that had never been dreamt of till his time. 
 Is it not the same with Titian, Correggio, Raphael ! 
 These painters did not imitate one another, but were 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 43 
 
 as unlike as possible, and yet were all excellent. If 
 excellence were one thing, they must have been all 
 wrong. Still, originality is not caprice or affectation ; 
 it is an excellence that is always to be found in 
 nature, but has never had a place in art before. So 
 Romney said of Sir Joshua, that there was that in 
 his pictures which we had not been used to see in 
 other painters, but we had seen it often enough in 
 nature. Give this in your works, and nothing can 
 ever rob you of the credit of it. 
 
 " I was looking into Mandeville 1 since I saw you 
 (I thought I had lost it, but I found it among a 
 parcel of old books). You may judge by that of the 
 hold that anything like originality takes of the 
 world : for though there is a great deal that is 
 questionable and liable to very strong objection, yet 
 they will not give it up, because it is the very reverse 
 of commonplace ; and they must go to that source to 
 learn what can be said on that side of the question. 
 Even if you receive a shock, you feel your faculties 
 roused by it and set on the alert. Mankind do not 
 choose to go to sleep." 
 
 I replied, that I thought this was true, yet 
 at the same time the world seemed to have a 
 wonderful propensity to admire the trite and 
 traditional. I could only account for this from a 
 reflection of our self-love. We could few of us 
 
 1 The Fable of the Bees ; or, Private Vices Public Benefits, 
 a cynical and paradoxical treatise in ethics, published by Dr. 
 Bernard de Mandeville in 1725. [Ed.] 
 
44 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 invent, but most of us could imitate and repeat by 
 rote ; and as we thought we could get up and ride in 
 the same jog-trot machine of learning, we affected to 
 look up to this elevation as the post of honour. 
 Northcote said, "You are to consider that learning is 
 of great use to society ; and though it may not add 
 to the stock, is a necessary vehicle to transmit it to 
 others. Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, 
 not the fountain-heads. They are only wrong in 
 often claiming respect on a false ground, and mis- 
 taking their own province. They are so accustomed 
 to ring the changes on words and received notions, 
 that they lose their perception of things. I remember 
 being struck with this at the time of the Ireland 
 controversy : — only to think of a man like Dr. Parr 
 going down on his knees and kissing the pretended 
 Manuscript ! It was not that he knew or cared any- 
 thing about Shakspeare (or he would not have been 
 so imposed upon) ; he merely worshipped a name, as 
 a Catholic priest worships the shrine that contains 
 some favourite relic." 
 
 I said, the passages in Ireland's play that were 
 brought forward to prove the identity, were the 
 very thing that proved the contrary ; for they were 
 obvious parodies of celebrated passages in Shak- 
 speare, such as that on death in Richard II — " And 
 there the antic sits," etc. Now, Shakspeare never 
 parodied himself ; but these learned critics were only 
 struck with the verbal coincidence, and never thought 
 of the general character or spirit of the writer. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 45 
 
 "Or without that," said Northcote, "who that 
 attended to the common sense of the question 
 would not perceive that Shakspeare was a person 
 who would be glad to dispose of his plays as soon 
 as he wrote them? If it had been such a man as 
 Sir Philip Sidney, indeed, he might have written a 
 play at his leisure, and locked it up in some private 
 drawer at Penshurst, where it might have been found 
 two hundred years after : but Shakspeare had no 
 opportunity to leave such precious hoards behind 
 him, nor place to deposit them in. Tresham 1 made 
 me very mad one day at Cosway's, by saying they 
 had found a lock of his hair and a picture ; and Caleb 
 Whitefoord, who ought to have known better, asked 
 me if I did not think Sheridan a judge, and that he 
 believed in the authenticity of the Ireland papers? 
 I said, ' Do you bring him as a fair witness ? He 
 wants to fill his theatre, and would write a play him- 
 self, and swear it was Shakspeare's. He knows better 
 than to cry stale fish. 1 " 
 
 I observed, this was what made me dislike the con- 
 versation of learned or literary men. I got nothing 
 from them but what I already knew, and hardly 
 that : they poured the same ideas and phrases and 
 cant of knowledge out of books into my ears, as 
 apothecaries' apprentices made prescriptions out of 
 the same bottles ; but there were no new drugs or 
 simples in their materia medica. Go to a Scotch 
 
 1 Henry Tresham, R.A., the historical painter (1749-1814). 
 [Ed.] 
 
46 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 professor, and he bores you to death by an eternal 
 rhapsody about rent and taxes, gold and paper cur- 
 rency, population and capital, and the Teutonic Races 
 — all which you have heard a thousand times before : 
 go to a linen-draper in the city, without education 
 but with common sense and shrewdness, and you pick 
 up something new, because nature is inexhaustible, 
 and he sees it from his own point of view, when not 
 cramped and hoodwinked by pedantic prejudices. 
 A person of this character said to me the other day, 
 in speaking of the morals of foreign nations, "It's 
 all a mistake to suppose there can be such a difference, 
 sir : the world are, and must be moral ; for when 
 people grow up and get married, they teach their 
 children to be moral. No man wishes to have them 
 turn out profligate." I said I had never heard this 
 before, and it seemed to me to be putting society on 
 new rollers. Northcote agreed, it was an excellent 
 observation. I added, this self-taught shrewdness 
 had its weak sides too. The same person was arguing 
 that mankind remained much the same, and always 
 would do so. Cows and horses did not change : and 
 why then should men ? He had forgot that cows and 
 horses do not learn to read and write. 
 
 " Ay, that was very well too," said Northcote ; "I 
 don't know but I agree with him rather than with you. 
 I was thinking of the same thing the other day in 
 looking over an old Magazine, in which there was a long 
 debate on an Act of Parliament to license gin-drinking. 
 The effect was quite droll. There was one person who 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 47 
 
 made a most eloquent speech to point out all the 
 dreadful consequences of allowing this practice. It 
 would debauch the morals, ruin the health, and dis- 
 solve all the bonds of society, and leave a poor, puny, 
 miserable, Liliputian race, equally unfit for peace or 
 war. You would suppose that the w T orld was going 
 to be at an end. Why, no ! the answer would have 
 been, the world will go on much the same as before. 
 You attribute too much power to an Act of Parlia- 
 ment. Providence has not taken its measures so ill 
 as to leave it to an Act of Parliament to continue or 
 discontinue the species. If it depended on our wis- 
 dom and contrivances whether it should last or not, 
 it would be at an end before twenty years ! People 
 are wrong about this ; some say the world is getting 
 better, others complain it is getting worse, when, in 
 fact, it is just the same, and neither better nor worse." 
 — What a lesson, I said to myself, for our pragmatical 
 legislators and idle projectors ! 
 
 I said, I had lately been led to think of the little 
 real progress that was made by the human mind, and 
 how the same errors and vices revived under a 
 different shape at different periods, from observing 
 just the same humour in our Ultra -reformers at 
 present, and in their predecessors in the time of 
 J ohn Knox. Our modern wiseacres were for banishing 
 all the fine arts and finer affections, whatever was 
 pleasurable and ornamental, from the Commonwealth, 
 on the score of utility, exactly as the others did on 
 the score of religion. The real motive in either case 
 
48 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 was nothing but a sour, envious, malignant disposi- 
 tion, incapable of enjoyment in itself, and averse 
 to every appearance or tendency to it in others. 
 Our peccant humours broke out and formed into 
 what Milton called "a crust of formality" on the 
 surface ; and while we fancied we were doing God or 
 man good service, we were only indulging our spleen, 
 self-opinion, and self-will, according to the fashion of 
 the day. The existing race of free-thinkers and 
 sophists would be mortified to find themselves the 
 counterpart of the monks and ascetics of old ; but so 
 it was. The dislike of the Westminster Reviewers 
 to polite literature was only the old exploded Puri- 
 tanic objection to human learning. Names and 
 modes of opinion changed, but human nature was 
 much the same. 
 
 "I know nothing of the persons you speak of," 
 said Northcote; "but they must be fools if they 
 expect to get rid of the showy and superficial, 
 and let only the solid and useful remain. The 
 surface is a part of nature, and will always con- 
 tinue so. Besides, how many useful inventions owe 
 their existence to ornamental contrivances ! If the 
 ingenuity and industry of man were not tasked to 
 produce luxuries, we should soon be without neces- 
 saries. We must go back to the savage state. I 
 myself am as little prejudiced in favour of poetry as 
 almost any one can be ; but surely there are things 
 in poetry that the world cannot afford to do without. 
 What is of absolute necessity is only a part \ and the 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 49 
 
 next question is, how to occupy the remainder of our 
 time and thoughts (not so employed) agreeably and 
 innocently. 
 
 "Works of fiction and poetry are of incalculable 
 use in this respect. If people did not read the 
 Scotch novels, they would not read Mr. Ben- 
 tham's philosophy. There is nothing to me more 
 disagreeable than the abstract idea of a Quaker, 
 which falls under the same article. They object to 
 colours ; and why do they object to colours ? Do we 
 not see that Nature delights in them 1 Do we not 
 see the same purpose of prodigal and ostentatious 
 display run through all her works 1 Do we not find 
 the most beautiful and dazzling colours bestowed on 
 plants and flowers, on the plumage of birds, on fishes 
 and shells, even to the very bottom of the sea ? All 
 this profusion of ornament, we may be sure, is not in 
 vain. To judge otherwise is to fly in the face of 
 Nature, and substitute an exclusive and intolerant 
 spirit in the place of philosophy, which includes the 
 greatest variety of man's wants and tastes, and makes 
 all the favourable allowances it can. 
 
 " The Quaker will not wear coloured clothes ; 
 though he would not have a coat to his back if 
 men had never studied anything but the mortifi- 
 cation of their appetites and desires. But he takes 
 care of his personal convenience by wearing a piece 
 of good broadcloth, and gratifies his vanity, not 
 by finery, but by having it of a different cut 
 from everybody else, so that he may seem better 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 and wiser than they. Yet this humour, too, is 
 not without its advantages : it serves to correct 
 the contrary absurdity. I look upon the Quaker and 
 the fop as two sentinels placed by Nature at the two 
 extremes of vanity and selfishness, and to guard, as 
 it were, all the common sense and virtue that lie 
 between." 
 
 I observed that these contemptible narrow-minded 
 prejudices made me feel irritable and impatient. 
 " You should not suffer that," said Northcote ; 
 "for then you will run into the contrary mistake, 
 and lay yourself open to your antagonist. The 
 monks, for instance, have been too hardly dealt 
 with — not that I would defend many abuses and 
 instances of oppression in them — but is it not as well 
 to have bodies of men shut up in cells and monas- 
 teries, as to let them loose to make soldiers of them 
 and to cut one another's throats ? And out of that 
 lazy ignorance and leisure, what benefits have not 
 sprung 1 It is to them we owe those beautiful speci- 
 mens of Gothic architecture which can never be 
 surpassed • many of the discoveries in medicine and 
 in mechanics are also theirs ; and, I believe, the 
 restoration of classical learning is owing to them. 
 
 " Not that I would be understood to say that all or a 
 great deal of this could not have been done without 
 them ; but their leisure, their independence, and the 
 want of some employment to exercise their minds 
 were the actual cause of many advantages we now 
 enjoy ; and what I mean is, that Nature is satisfied 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 51 
 
 with imperfect instruments. Instead of snarling at 
 everything that differs from us we had better take 
 Shakspeare's advice, and try to find 
 
 " ' Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything/ " 
 
 It was at this time that Mr. Northcote read to me 
 the following letter, addressed by him to a very 
 young lady, who earnestly desired him to write a 
 letter to her : — 
 
 "My dear Miss K , What in the world can 
 
 make you desire a letter from me 1 Indeed, if I was 
 a fine Dandy of one-and-twenty, with a pair of stays 
 properly padded and also an iron busk, and whiskers 
 under my nose, with my hair standing upright on my 
 head, all in the present fashion, then it might be 
 accounted for, as I might write you a fine answer in 
 poetry about Cupids and burning hearts, and sighs 
 
 and angels and darts, such a letter as Mr. the 
 
 poet, might write. But it is long past the time for 
 me to sing love-songs under your window, with a 
 guitar, and catch my death in some cold night, and 
 so die in your service. 
 
 "But what has a poor gray-headed old man of 
 eighty got to say to a blooming young lady of eighteen, 
 but to relate to her his illness and pains, and tell her 
 that past life is little better than a dream, and that 
 he finds that all he has been doing is only vanity. 
 Indeed, I may console myself with the pleasure of 
 
 1 The omitted name is, doubtless, "Moore." [Ed.] 
 
52 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 having gained the flattering attention of a young 
 lady of such amiable qualities as yourself, and have 
 the honour to assure you, that I am your grateful 
 friend and most obliged humble servant, 
 
 " James Northcote. 
 
 "Argyll Place, 1826." 
 
 I said, the hardest lesson seemed to be to look 
 beyond ourselves. "Yes," said Northcote, "I re- 
 member when we were young and were making 
 remarks upon the neighbours, an old maiden aunt of 
 ours used to say, ' I wish to God you could see your- 
 selves ! ' And yet, perhaps, after all, this was not 
 very desirable. Many people pass their whole lives 
 in a very comfortable dream, who, if they could see 
 themselves in the glass, would start back with affright. 
 I remember once being at the Academy, when Sir 
 Joshua wished to propose a monument to Dr. Johnson 
 in St. Paul's, and West got up and said, that the 
 King, he knew, was averse to anything of the kind, 
 for he had been proposing a similar monument in 
 Westminster Abbey for a man of the greatest genius 
 and celebrity — one whose works were in all the 
 cabinets of the curious throughout Europe — one 
 whose name they would all hear with the greatest 
 respect — and then it came out, after a long preamble, 
 that he meant Woollett, 1 who had engraved his Death 
 of Wolfe. 
 
 1 William Woollett (1735-1785), one of the engravers who 
 worked for Boyclell. The- tablet in Westminster Abbey was not 
 merely proposed, but erected. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 53 
 
 " I was provoked, and I could not help exclaiming, 
 ' My God ! what, do you put him upon a footing 
 with such a man as Dr. Johnson — one of the greatest 
 philosophers and moralists that ever lived'? We 
 have thousands of engravers at any time ! ' — and 
 there was such a burst of laughter at this — Dance, 
 who was a grave gentlemanly man, laughed till the 
 tears ran down his cheeks ; and Farington used after- 
 wards to say to me, ' Why don't you speak in the 
 Academy, and begin with " My God ! " as you do 
 sometimes % " I said, I had seen in a certain painter 
 something of this humour, who once very good- 
 naturedly showed me a Rubens he had, and observed 
 with great nonchalance, "What a pity that this man 
 wanted expression ! " I imagined Eubens to have 
 looked round his gallery. " Yet," he continued, "it 
 is the consciousness of defect, too, that often stimu- 
 lates the utmost exertions. If Pope had been a fine, 
 handsome man, would he have left those master- 
 pieces that he has *? But he knew and felt his own 
 deformity, and therefore was determined to leave 
 nothing undone to extend that corner of power that 
 he possessed. He said to himself, They shall have 
 no fault to find there. I have often thought when 
 very good-looking young men have come here intend- 
 ing to draw, ' What ! are you going to bury yourselves 
 in a garret V And it has generally happened that 
 they have given up the art before long, and married 
 or otherwise disposed of themselves." 
 
 I had heard an anecdote of Nelson, that, when 
 
54 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 appointed post-captain, and on going to take pos- 
 session of his ship at Yarmouth, the crowd on 
 the quay almost jostled him, and exclaimed, " What ! 
 have they made that little insignificant fellow 
 a captain ? He will do much, to be sure ! " I 
 thought this might have urged him to dare as 
 he did, in order to get the better of their preju- 
 dices and his own sense of mortification. "No 
 doubt," said Northcote, "personal defects or disgrace 
 operate in this way. I knew an admiral who had 
 got the nickname of ' Dirty Dick ' among the sailors, 
 and, on his being congratulated on obtaining some 
 desperate victory, all he said was, ' I hope they'll call 
 me Dirty Dick no more ! ' 
 
 " There was a Sir John Grenville or Greenfield 
 formerly, who was appointed to convoy a fleet of 
 merchant-ships, and had to defend them against 
 a Spanish man-of-war, and did so with the utmost 
 bravery and resolution, so that the convoy got safe 
 off ; but after that, he would not yield till he was 
 struck senseless by a ball, and then the crew de- 
 livered up the vessel to the enemy, who, on coming 
 on board and entering the cabin where he lay, were 
 astonished to find a mere puny shrivelled spider of a 
 man, instead of the Devil they had expected to see. 
 He was taken on shore in Spain, and died of his 
 wounds there; and the Spanish women afterwards 
 used to frighten their children, by telling them ' Don 
 John of the Greenfield was coming ! ' " 
 
CONVERSATION THE FIFTH 
 
 Northcote mentioned the death of poor / who 
 
 had been with him a few days before, laughing and 
 in great spirits; and the next thing he heard was 
 that he had put an end to himself. I asked if there 
 was any particular reason? He said, "No; that he 
 had left a note upon the table, saying that his friends 
 had forsaken him, that he knew no cause, and that 
 he was tired of life. His patron, C[roker], of the 
 Admiralty, had, it seems, set him to paint a picture 
 of Louis the Eighteenth receiving the Order of the 
 Garter. He had probably been teased about that. 
 These insipid court-subjects were destined to be fatal 
 to artists. Poor Bird 2 had been employed to paint 
 a picture of Louis the Eighteenth landing at Calais, 
 and had died of chagrin and disappointment at his 
 
 1 There can be no question that this was the Irish artist, 
 Thomas Foster, who in March 1826, at the age of four-and- 
 twenty, committed suicide. He painted the portrait of John 
 Wilson Croker. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Edward Bird ; the event Northcote mentions took place in 
 1819. [Ed.] 
 
56 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 failure. Who could make anything of such a figure 
 and such a subject ? There was nothing to be done ; 
 and yet if the artist added anything of his own, he 
 was called to order by his would-be patrons, as falsi- 
 fying what appeared to them an important event in 
 history. It was only a person like Rubens who 
 could succeed in such subjects by taking what licenses 
 he thought proper, and having authority enough to 
 dictate to his advisers." 
 
 A gentleman came in, who asked if [Foster] 
 was likely to have succeeded in his art? North- 
 cote answered, "There were several things against 
 it. He was good-looking, good-natured, and a 
 wit. He was accordingly asked out to dine, and 
 caressed by those who knew him ; and a young 
 man after receiving these flattering marks of atten- 
 tion and enjoying the height of luxury and splendour, 
 was not inclined to return to his painting-room, to 
 brood over a design that would cost him infinite 
 trouble, and the success of which was at last doubt- 
 ful. Few young men of agreeable persons or con- 
 versation turned out great artists. It was easier to 
 look in the glass than to make a dull canvas shine 
 like a lucid mirror; and, as to talking, Sir Joshua 
 used to say, a painter should sew up his mouth. It 
 was only the love of distinction that produced 
 eminence ; and if a man was admired for one thing, 
 that was enough. We only work out our way to 
 excellence by being imprisoned in defects. It requires 
 a long apprenticeship, great pains, and prodigious 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 57 
 
 self-denial, which no man will submit to, except from 
 necessity, or as the only chance he has of escaping 
 from obscurity. 
 
 "I remember when Mr. Locke 1 (of Norbury 
 Park) first came over from Italy ; and old Dr. 
 Moore, who had a high opinion of him, was crying 
 up his drawings, and asked me, if I did not think he 
 would make a great painter ? I said, £ No, never ! ' 
 — 'Why not?' — 'Because he has six thousand a 
 year.' No one would throw away all the advantages 
 and indulgences this ensured him, to shut himself up 
 in a garret to pore over that which after all may 
 expose him to contempt and ridicule. Artists, to be 
 sure, have gone on painting after they have got rich, 
 such as Eubens and Titian, and indeed Sir Joshua ; 
 but then it had by this time become a habit and a 
 source of pleasure instead of a toil to them, and the 
 honours and distinction they had acquired by it 
 counterbalanced every other consideration. Their 
 love of the art had become greater than their love of 
 riches or of idleness : but at first this is not the case, 
 and the repugnance to labour is only mastered by the 
 absolute necessity for it. People apply to study 
 only when they cannot help it. No one was ever 
 known to succeed without this stimulus." 
 
 I ventured to say that, generally speaking, no one, I 
 
 1 William Locke (1732-1810) was a collector of pictures and 
 a tolerable amateur. Several good works from the Norbury 
 Park collection, brought from Rome by him, are now in the 
 National Gallery. [Ed.] 
 
58 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 believed, ever succeeded in a profession without great 
 application ; but that where there was a strong turn for 
 anything, a man in this sense could not help himself, 
 and the application followed of course, and was, in 
 fact, comparatively easy. Northcote turned short 
 round upon me, and said, "Then you admit 
 original genius? I cannot agree with you there." 
 I said, "Waiving that, and not inquiring how 
 the inclination comes, but early in life a fond- 
 ness, a passion for a certain pursuit is imbibed; 
 the mind is haunted by this object, it cannot rest 
 without it (any more than the body without food), 
 it becomes the strongest feeling we have, and then, I 
 think, the most intense application follows naturally, 
 just as in the case of a love of money or any other 
 passion — the most unremitting application without 
 this is forced and of no use ; and where this original 
 bias exists, no other motive is required." 
 
 " Oh ! but," said Northcote, " if you had to labour on 
 by yourself without competitors or admirers, you would 
 soon lay down your pencil or your pen in disgust. It 
 is the hope of shining, or the fear of being eclipsed, 
 that urges you on. Do you think if nobody took any 
 notice of what you did, this would not damp your 
 ardour?" — "Yes; after I had done anything that I 
 thought worth notice, it might considerably : but how 
 many minds (almost all the great ones) were formed 
 in secrecy and solitude, without knowing whether 
 they should ever make a figure or not ! All they 
 knew was, that they liked what they were about, and 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 59 
 
 gave their whole souls to it. There was Hogarth, 
 there was Correggio : what enabled these artists to 
 arrive at the perfection in their several ways, which 
 afterwards gained them the attention of the world ? 
 Not the premature applause of the bystanders, but 
 the vivid tingling delight with which the one seized 
 upon a grotesque incident or expression — ' the wrapt 
 soul sitting in the eyes ' of the other, as he drew a 
 saint or angel from the skies. If they had been 
 brought forward very early, before they had served 
 this thorough apprenticeship to their own minds (the 
 opinion of the world apart), it might have damped or 
 made coxcombs of them. It was the love and per- 
 ception of excellence (or the favouring smile of the 
 Muse) that in my view produced excellence and 
 formed the man of genius. Some, like Milton, had 
 gone on with a great work all their lives with little 
 encouragement but the hope of posthumous fame." 
 
 " It is not that," said Northcote ; " you cannot see 
 so far. It is not those who have gone before you or 
 those who are to come after you, but those who are 
 by your side, running the same race, that make you 
 look about you. What made Titian jealous of Tin- 
 toret Because he stood immediately in his way, 
 and their works were compared together. If there 
 had been a hundred Tintorets a thousand miles off, 
 he would not have cared about them. That is what 
 takes off the edge and stimulus of exertion in old age : 
 those who were our competitors in early life, whom 
 we wished to excel or whose good opinion we were 
 
60 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 most anxious about, are gone, and have left us in a 
 manner by ourselves, in a sort of new world, where 
 we know and are as little known as on entering a 
 strange country. Our ambition is cold with the 
 ashes of those whom we feared or loved. I remember 
 old Alderman Boydell 1 using an expression which 
 explained this. Once when I was in the coach 
 with him, in reply to some compliment of mine 
 on his success in life, he said, ' Ah ! there was one 
 who would have been pleased at it ; but her I have 
 lost!' The fine coach and all the city -trappings 
 were nothing to him without his wife, who re- 
 membered what he was and the gradations and 
 anxious cares by which he rose to his present affluence, 
 and was a kind of monitor to remind him of his 
 former self and of the different vicissitudes of his 
 fortune. " 
 
 Northcote then spoke of old Alderman Boydell 
 with great regret, and said, " He was a man of sense 
 and liberality, and a true patron of the art. His 
 nephew, who came after him, had not the same 
 capacity, and wanted to dictate to the artists what 
 they were to do. N. mentioned some instance of his 
 wanting him to paint a picture on a subject for which 
 he was totally unfit, and figures of a size which he had 
 never been accustomed to, and he told him £ he must 
 get somebody else to do it.'" I said, "Booksellers 
 
 1 John Boydell, Northcote's enthusiastic friend and patron, 
 who spent £350,000 on the encouragement of English art. He 
 fell into financial difficulties and died in 1804. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 61 
 
 and editors had the same infirmity, and always 
 wanted you to express their ideas, not your own. 
 Sir R[ichard] P[hillips] 1 had once gone up to Coleridge, 
 after hearing him talk in a large party, and offered 
 him £ nine guineas a sheet for his conversation ! ' He 
 calculated that the ' nine guineas a sheet ' would be 
 at least as strong a stimulus to his imagination as 
 the wasting his words in a room full of company. " 
 NORTHCOTE : u Ay, he came to me once, and wished 
 me to do a work which was to contain a history of 
 art in all countries and from the beginning of the 
 world. I said it would be an invaluable work if it 
 could be done ; but that there was no one alive who 
 could do it." 
 
 Northcote afterwards, by some transition, spoke 
 of the characters of women, and asked my opinion. 
 I said, " All my metaphysics leaned to the vulgar 
 side of these questions : I thought there was a differ- 
 ence of original genius, a difference in the character 
 of the sexes, etc. Women appeared to me to do 
 some things better than men ; and therefore I con- 
 cluded they must do other things worse." Northcote 
 mentioned Annibal Caracci, and said, " How odd it 
 was, that in looking at any work of his, you could 
 swear it was done by a man ! Ludovico Caracci had 
 a finer and more intellectual expression, but not the 
 same bold and workmanlike character. There was 
 Michael Angelo again — what woman would ever have 
 thought of painting the figures in the Sistine chapel 1 
 1 The popular bookseller. [Ed.] 
 
62 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 There was Dryden too, what a thorough manly 
 character there was in his style ! And Pope "— [I 
 interrupted, " seemed to me between a man and a 
 woman."] — "It was not," he continued, "that women 
 were not often very clever (cleverer than many men), 
 but there was a point of excellence which they never 
 reached. Yet the greatest pains had been taken 
 with several. Angelica Kauffman had been brought 
 up from a child to the art, and had been taken by 
 her father (in boy's clothes) to the Academy to learn 
 to draw ; but there was an effeminate and feeble look 
 in all her works, though not without merit. There 
 was not the man's hand, or what Fuseli used to call 
 a ' fist' in them ; that is, something coarse and clumsy 
 enough, perhaps, but still with strength and muscle. 
 Even in common things, you would see a carpenter 
 drive a nail in a way that a woman never would ; or 
 if you had a suit of clothes made by a woman, they 
 would hang quite loose about you and seem ready to 
 fall off. 
 
 "Yet it is extraordinary too," said Northcote, "that 
 in what has sometimes been thought the peculiar 
 province of men, courage and heroism, there have been 
 women fully upon a par with any men, such as Joan 
 of Arc, and many others, who have never been sur- 
 passed as leaders in battle." 
 
 I observed that of all the women I had ever seen 
 or known anything of, Mrs. Siddons struck me as 
 the grandest. He said, " Oh ! it is her outward form, 
 which stamps her so completely for tragedy, no less 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 63 
 
 than the mental part. Both she and her brother 
 were cut out by Nature for a tragedy-king and 
 queen. It is what Mrs. Hannah More has said of 
 her, ' Her's is the afflicted I ' " 
 
 I replied, that she seemed to me equally great in 
 anger or in contempt or in any stately part as she was 
 in grief, witness her Lady Macbeth. " Yes," he said, 
 "that, to be sure, was a masterpiece." I asked what 
 he thought of Mrs. Inchbald ? He said, " Oh ! very 
 highly : there was no affectation in her. I once took 
 up her Simple Story (which my sister had borrowed 
 from the circulating library) and looking into it, I 
 said, ' My God ! what have you got here 1 ? and I 
 never moved from the chair till I had finished it. 
 Her Nature and Art is equally fine — the very marrow 
 of genius." She seems to me, I added, like Venus 
 writing books. " Yes, women have certainly been 
 successful in writing novels ; and in plays too. I 
 think Mrs. Centlivre's are better than Congreve's. 
 Their letters, too, are admirable : it is only when 
 they put on the breeches and try to write like men, 
 that they become pedantic and tiresome. In giving 
 advice, too, I have often found that they excelled ; 
 and when I have been irritated by any trifling cir- 
 cumstance and have laid more stress upon it than it 
 was worth, they have seen the thing in a right point 
 of view and tamed down my asperities." 
 
 On this I remarked, that I thought, in general, it 
 might be said that the faculties of women were of a 
 passive character. They judged by the simple effect 
 
64 
 
 hazlitt's conveksations 
 
 upon their feelings, without inquiring into causes. Men 
 had to act ; women had the coolness and the advan- 
 tages of bystanders, and were neither implicated in 
 the theories nor passions of men. While we were 
 proving a thing to be wrong, they would feel it to be 
 ridiculous. I said, I thought they had more of common 
 sense, though less of acquired capacity than men. 
 They were freer from the absurdities of creeds and 
 dogmas, from the virulence of party in religion and 
 politics (by which we strove to show our sense and 
 superiority), nor were their heads so much filled with 
 the lumber of learned folios. 
 
 I mentioned as an illustration, that when old 
 Baxter (the celebrated casuist and nonconformist 
 divine) first went to Kidderminster to preach, he 
 was almost pelted by the women for maintaining 
 from the pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox 
 doctrine, that "Hell was paved with infants' skulls." 
 The theory, which the learned divine had piled up 
 on arguments and authorities, is now exploded : the 
 common - sense feeling on the subject, which the 
 women of that day took up in opposition to it as a 
 dictate of humanity, would be now thought the 
 philosophical one. 
 
 " Yes," said Northcote, " but this exploded doctrine 
 was knocked down by some man, as it had been set 
 up by one : the women would let things remain as 
 they are, without making any progress in error or 
 wisdom. We do best together : our strength and 
 our weakness mutually correct each other." North- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 65 
 
 cote then read me from a manuscript volume 
 lying by him, a character drawn of his deceased 
 wife by a Dissenting Minister (a Mr. Fox, of Ply- 
 mouth), which is so beautiful that I shall transcribe 
 it here. 
 
 " Written by Mr. John Fox, on the death of his 
 wife, who was the daughter of the Eev. Mr. Isaac 
 Gelling. 
 
 "My dear wife died, to my unspeakable grief, 
 Dec. 19th, 1762. With the loss of my dear com- 
 panion died all the pleasure of my life ; and no 
 wonder : I had lived with her forty years, in which 
 time nothing happened to abate the strictness of our 
 Friendship, or to create a coolness or indifference so 
 common and even unregarded by many in the world. 
 I thank God I enjoyed my full liberty, my health, such 
 pleasures and diversions as I liked, perfect peace and 
 competence during the time j which were all seasoned 
 and heightened every day more or less by constant 
 marks of friendship, most inviolable affection, and a 
 most cheerful endeavour to make my life agreeable. 
 Nothing disturbed me but her many and constant 
 disorders ; under all which I could see how her faith- 
 ful heart was strongly attached to me. And who 
 could stand the shock of seeing the attacks of Death 
 upon and then her final dissolution'? The conse- 
 quences to me were fatal. Old age rushed upon me 
 like an armed man : my appetite failed, my strength 
 was gone, every amusement became flat and dull ; 
 my countenance fell, and I have nothing to do but to 
 
 5 
 
66 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 drag on a heavy chain for the rest of my life ; which 
 I hope a good God will enable me to do without 
 murmuring, and in conclusion, to say, with all my 
 soul — 
 
 Te Deum Laudamus. 
 
 " This was written on a paper blotted by tears 
 and stuck with wafers into the first page of the family 
 Bible. 
 
 "Mr. John Fox died 22nd of October 1763. He 
 was born May 10th, 1693." 
 
CONVERSATION THE SIXTH 
 
 Northcote alluded to a printed story of his 
 having hung an early picture of H[aydon]'s out of 
 sight, and of Fuseli's observing on the occasion, 
 " By God, you are sending him to heaven before his 
 time ! " He said there was not the least foundation 
 for this story ; nor could there be, he not having been 
 hanger that year. He read out of the same publica- 
 tion a letter from Burke to a young artist of the name 
 of Barrow, full of excellent sense, advising him by no 
 means to give up his profession as an engraver till he 
 was sure he could succeed as a painter, out of idle 
 ambition and an unfounded contempt for the humbler 
 and more laborious walks of life. 
 
 "I could not have thought it of him," said North- 
 cote ; " I confess he never appeared to me so great a 
 man." I asked what kind of looking man he was ? 
 Northcote answered, "You have seen the picture*? 
 There was something I did not like ; a thinness in the 
 features, and an expression of hauteur, though mixed 
 with condescension and the manners of a gentleman. 
 I can't help thinking he had a hand in the Discourses ; 
 
68 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 that he gave some of the fine, graceful turns ; for Sir 
 Joshua paid a greater deference to him than to any- 
 body else, and put up with freedoms that he would 
 only have submitted to from some peculiar obligation. 
 Indeed, Miss Reynolds used to complain that when- 
 ever any of Burke's poor Irish relations came over, 
 they were all poured in upon them to dinner ; but 
 Sir Joshua never took any notice, but bore it all 
 with the greatest patience and tranquillity. To be 
 sure, there was another reason : he expected Burke 
 to write his Life, and for this he would have paid 
 almost any price. This was what made him submit 
 to the intrusions of Boswell, to the insipidity of 
 Malone, and to the magisterial dictation of Burke : 
 he made sure that out of these three one would 
 certainly write his Life, and ensure him immortality 
 that way. He thought no more of the person who 
 actually did write it afterwards than he would have 
 suspected his dog of writing it. Indeed, I wish he 
 could have known ; for it would have been of some 
 advantage to me, and he might have left me something 
 not to dwell on his defects ■ though he was as free 
 from them as any man ; but you can make any one 
 ridiculous with whom you live on terms of intimacy. 
 
 "I remember an instance of this that happened 
 with respect to old Mr. M[udge], whom you must have 
 heard me speak of, and who was esteemed an idol by 
 Burke, Dr. Johnson, and many others. Sir Joshua 
 wanted to reprint his Sermons and prefix a Life to 
 them, and asked me to get together any particulars I 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 69 
 
 could learn of him. So I gave him a manuscript 
 account of Mr. M[udge], written by an old school- 
 fellow of his (Mr. Fox, a dissenting minister in the 
 West of England) ; after which I heard no more 
 of the Life. Mr. M[udge] was in fact a man of ex- 
 traordinary talents and great eloquence ; and by 
 representing in a manner the High-Church notions 
 both of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua (for both were 
 inclined the same way) they came to consider him as 
 a sort of miracle of virtue and wisdom. There was, 
 however, something in Mr. Fox's plain account that 
 would strike Sir Joshua, for he had an eye for nature ; 
 and he would at once perceive it was nearer the truth 
 than Dr. Johnson's pompous character of him, which 
 was proper only for a tombstone — it was like one of 
 Kneller's portraits, — it would do for anybody ! 
 
 "That," said Northcote, "is old Mr. M[udge]'s 
 definition of beauty, which Sir Joshua has adopted 
 in the Discourses — that it is the medium of form. 
 For what is a handsome nose 1 A long nose is not a 
 handsome nose ; neither is a short nose a handsome 
 one : it must then be one that is neither long nor 
 short, but in the middle between both. Even Burke 
 bowed to his authority ; and Sir Joshua thought him 
 the wisest man he ever knew. Once when Sir 
 Joshua was expressing his impatience at some in- 
 novation, and I said, 4 At that rate, the Christian 
 Eeligion could never have been established : ' ' Oh ! ' 
 he said, ' Mr. M[udge] has answered that ! ' which 
 seemed to satisfy him." 
 
70 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 I made some remark that I wondered he did not 
 come up to London, though the same feeling seemed 
 to belong to other clever men born in Devonshire (as 
 Gandy) whose ambition was confined to their native 
 county, so that there must be some charm in the 
 place. "You are to consider," he replied, "it is 
 almost a peninsula, so that there is no thoroughfare, 
 and people are therefore more stationary in one spot. 
 It is for this reason they necessarily intermarry among 
 themselves, and you can trace the genealogies of 
 families for centuries back ; whereas in other places, 
 and particularly here in London, where everything 
 of that kind is jumbled together, you never know 
 who any man's grandfather was. There are country 
 squires and plain gentry down in that part of the 
 world, who have occupied the same estates long before 
 the Conquest (as the Suckbitches in particular, — not 
 a very sounding name), and who look down uj)on the 
 Courtneys and others as upstarts. 
 
 "Certainly, Devonshire for its extent has pro- 
 duced a number of eminent men, Sir Joshua, the 
 Mudges, Dunning, Gay, Lord Chancellor King, 
 Ealeigh, Drake, and Sir Richard Granville in Queen 
 Elizabeth's time, who made that gallant defence in 
 an engagement with the Spanish fleet, and was 
 the ancestor of Pope's Lord Lansdowne, ' What 
 Muse for Granville will refuse to sing/ etc. 
 Foster, the celebrated preacher, was also, I believe, 
 from the West of England. He first became popular 
 from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 71 
 
 porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower 
 of rain ; and thinking he might as well hear what 
 was going on, he went in, and was so well pleased 
 that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he 
 was run after as much as Irving has been in our time. 
 An old fellow-student from the country, going to wait 
 on him at his house in London, found a Shakspeare 
 on the window-seat ; and remarking the circumstance 
 with some surprise as out of the usual course of 
 clerical studies, the other apologised by saying that 
 he wished to know something of the world, that his 
 situation and habits precluded him from the common 
 opportunities, and that he found no way of supplying 
 the deficiency so agreeable or effectual as looking into 
 a volume of Shakspeare. Pope has immortalised him 
 in the well-known lines — 
 
 " ' Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 
 Ten Metropolitans in preaching well ! ' 
 
 "Dr. Mudge, 1 the son of Mr. Zachary Mudge, who 
 was a physician, was an intimate friend of my father's, 
 and I remember him perfectly well. He was one of 
 the most delightful persons I ever knew. Every one 
 was enchanted with his society. It was not wit that 
 he possessed, but such perfect cheerfulness and good 
 humour, that it was like health coming into the room. 
 He was a most agreeable companion, quite natural 
 and unaffected. His reading was the most beautiful 
 
 1 John Mudge, the friend of Johnson and Reynolds ; he died 
 in 1791. [Ed.] 
 
72 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 I have ever heard. I remember his once reading 
 Moore's 1 fable of the Female Seducers with such feel- 
 ing and sweetness that every one was delighted, and 
 Dr. Mudge himself was so much affected that he burst 
 into tears in the middle of it. The family are still 
 respectable, but derive their chief lustre from the 
 first two founders, like clouds that reflect the sun's 
 rays, after he has sunk below the horizon, but in time 
 turn gray and are lost in obscurity ! " 
 
 I asked Northcote if he had ever happened to meet 
 with a letter of Warburton's in answer to one of 
 Dr. Doddridge's, complimenting the author of the 
 Divine Legation of Moses on the evident zeal and 
 earnestness with which he wrote — to which the latter 
 candidly replied, that he wrote with great haste and 
 unwillingness; that he. never sat down to compose 
 till the printer's boy was waiting at the door for the 
 manuscript, and that he should never write at all 
 but as a relief to a morbid lowness of spirits, and to 
 drive away uneasy thoughts that often assailed him. 2 
 
 " That indeed," observed Northcote, " gives a 
 different turn to the statement ; I thought at first it 
 was only the common coquetry both of authors and 
 artists, to be supposed to do what excites the admira- 
 tion of others with the greatest ease and indifference, 
 and almost without knowing what they are about. If 
 what surprises you costs them nothing, the wonder is 
 
 1 Dr. John Moore, the author of Zeluco. [Ed. ] 
 
 2 This very interesting letter will be found in the Elegant 
 Epistles. [Hazlitt.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 73 
 
 so much increased. When Michael Angelo proposed 
 to fortify his native city, Florence, and he was desired 
 to keep to his painting and sculpture, he answered 
 that those were his recreations, but what he really 
 understood was architecture. That is what Sir J oshua 
 considers as the praise of Rubens, that he seemed to 
 make a plaything of the art. In fact, the work is 
 never complete unless it has this appearance : and 
 therefore Sir Joshua has laid himself open to criticism, 
 in saying that ' a picture must not only be done well, 
 it must seem to have been done easily.' It cannot 
 be said to be done well, unless it has this look. 
 
 " That is the fault of those laboured and timid pro- 
 ductions of the modern French and Italian schools ; 
 they are the result of such a tedious, petty, mechanical 
 process, that it is as difficult for you to admire as it has 
 been for the artist to execute them. Whereas, when a 
 work seems stamped on the canvas by a blow, you 
 are taken by surprise ; and your admiration is as 
 instantaneous and electrical as the impulse of genius 
 which has caused it. I have seen a whole-length 
 portrait by Velasquez, that seemed done while the 
 colours were yet wet ; everything was touched in, as 
 it were, by a wish ; there was such a power that it 
 thrilled through your whole frame, and you felt as if 
 you could take up the brush and do anything. 
 
 "It is this sense of power and freedom which de- 
 lights and communicates its own inspiration, just as 
 the opposite drudgery and attention to details is painful 
 and disheartening. There was a little picture of one of 
 
74 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 the Infants of Spain on horseback, also by Velasquez, 
 which Mr. Agar had, 1 and with which Gainsborough 
 was so transported, that he said in a fit of bravado 
 to the servant who showed it, 6 Tell your master I 
 will give him a thousand pounds for that picture.' 
 Mr. Agar began to consider what pictures he could 
 purchase with the money if he parted with this, and 
 at last, having made up his mind, sent Gainsborough 
 word he might have the picture; who not at all 
 expecting this result, was a good deal confused, and 
 declared, however he might admire it, he could not 
 afford to give so large a sum for it." 
 
 1 Now at the Dulwich Gallery. [Hazlitt.] 
 
CONVERSATION THE SEVENTH 
 
 Northcote complained of being unwell, though he 
 said he could hardly expect it to be otherwise at his 
 age. He must think of making up the accounts of 
 his life, such as it had been, though he added (check- 
 ing himself) that he ought not to say that, for he had 
 had his share of good as well as others. He had 
 been reading in Boccaccio, where it was frequently 
 observed, that "such a one departed this wretched 
 life at such a time ; " — so that in Boccaccio's time they 
 complained of the wretchedness of life as much as 
 we do. 
 
 He alluded to an expression of Coleridge's, which 
 he had seen quoted in a newspaper, and which he 
 thought very fine, " That an old Gothic cathedral 
 always seemed to him like a petrified religion ! " 
 Some one asked, Why does he not go and turn Black 
 Monk ^ Because, I said, he never does anything that 
 he should do. "There are some things," said N., 
 "with respect to which I am in the same state that 
 a blind man is as to colours. Homer is one of these. 
 I am utterly in the dark about it. I can make 
 
76 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 nothing of his heroes or his Gods. Whether this is 
 owing to my not knowing the language or to a 
 change of manners, I cannot say." 
 
 He was here interrupted by the entrance of the 
 beautiful Mrs. Gfwyn], 1 beautiful even in years. 
 She said she had brought him a book to look at. 
 She could not stop, for she had a lady waiting for 
 her below, but she would call in some morning and 
 have a long chat. After she was gone, I remarked 
 how handsome she still was ; and he said, " I don't 
 know why she is so kind as to come, except that I 
 am the last link in the chain that connects her with 
 all those she most esteemed when she was young, 
 Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith — and remind her of 
 the most delightful period of her life." 
 
 I said, Not only so, but you remember what she 
 was at twenty ; and you thus bring back to her the 
 triumphs of her youth — that pride of beauty which 
 must be the more fondly cherished as it has no 
 external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom of 
 its once lovely possessor. In her, however, the 
 Graces had triumphed over time ; she was one of 
 Mnon de l'Enclos' people, of the list of the Immortals. 
 I could almost fancy the shade of Goldsmith in the 
 room, looking round with complacency. 
 
 " Yes," said Northcote, " that is what Sir Joshua 
 used to mention as the severest test of beauty — 
 it was not then skin-deep only. She had gone 
 
 1 Mary Horneck, the u Jessamy Bride " of Goldsmith. 
 [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 77 
 
 through all the stages, and had lent a grace to each. 
 There are beauties that are old in a year. Take 
 away the bloom and freshness of youth, and there is 
 no trace of what they were. Their beauty is not 
 grounded in first principles. Good temper is one of 
 the great preservers of the features." I observed, it 
 was the same in the mind as in the body. There 
 were persons of premature ability who soon ran to 
 seed, and others who made no figure till they were 
 advanced in life. I had known several who were 
 very clever at seventeen or eighteen, but who had 
 turned out nothing afterwards. " That is what my 
 father used to say, that at that time of life the effer- 
 vescence and intoxication of youth did a great deal, 
 but that we must wait till the gaiety and dance of 
 the animal spirits had subsided to see what people 
 really were. 
 
 4 4 It is wonderful" (said Northcote, reverting to 
 the former subject) " what a charm there is in 
 those early associations, in whatever recalls that first 
 dawn and outset of life. Jack-the-Giant-Killer is the 
 first book I ever read, and I cannot describe the 
 pleasure it gives me even now. I cannot look into it 
 without my eyes filling with tears. I do not know 
 what it is (whether good or bad), but it is to me, 
 from early impressions, the most heroic of perform- 
 ances. I remember once not having money to buy 
 it, and I transcribed it all out with my own hand. 
 This is what I was going to say about Homer. I 
 cannot help thinking that one cause of the high 
 
78 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 admiration in which it is held is its being the first 
 book that is put into the hands of young people at 
 school : it is the first spell which opens to them the 
 enchantments of the unreal world. Had I been bred 
 a scholar, I daresay Homer would have been my 
 Jack-the-Griant-Killer ! — There is an innocence and 
 simplicity in that early age which makes everything 
 relating to it delightful. It seems to me that it is 
 the absence of all affectation or even of consciousness, 
 that constitutes the perfection of nature or art. That 
 is what makes it so interesting to see girls and boys 
 dancing at school — there is such natural gaiety and 
 freedom, such unaffected, unpretending, unknown 
 grace. That is the true dancing, and not what you 
 see at the Opera. And again, in the most ordinary 
 actions of children, what an ease, what a playfulness, 
 what flames of beauty do they throw out without 
 being in the smallest degree aware of it ! I have 
 sometimes thought it' a pity there should be such a 
 precious essence, and that those who possess it should 
 be quite ignorant of it : yet if they knew it, that 
 alone would kill it ! The whole depends on the 
 utter absence of all egotism, of the remotest reflection 
 upon self. 
 
 "It is the same in works of art — the simplest are 
 the best. That is what makes me hate those stuffed 
 characters that are so full of themselves that I think 
 they cannot have much else in them. A man who 
 admires himself prevents me from admiring him, 
 just as by praising himself he stops my mouth; 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 79 
 
 though, the vulgar take their cue from a man's opinion 
 of himself, and admire none hut coxcombs and 
 pedants. This is the best excuse for impudence and 
 quackery, that the world will not be gained without 
 it. The true favourites of Nature, however, have 
 their eyes turned towards the Goddess, instead of 
 looking at themselves in the glass. There is no pre- 
 tence or assumption about them. It seems difficult 
 indeed for any one who is the object of attention to 
 others not to be thinking of himself : but the greatest 
 men have always been the most free from this bias, 
 the weakest have been the soonest puffed up by self- 
 conceit. If you had asked Correggio why he painted 
 as he did, he would have answered, ' Because he 
 could not help it.' 
 
 "Look at Dryden's verses, which he wrote just 
 like a schoolboy who brings up his task without 
 knowing whether he shall be rewarded or flogged 
 for it. Do you suppose he wrote the description 
 of Cymon for any other reason than because he 
 could not help it, or that, he had any more power 
 to stop himself in his headlong career than the 
 mountain - torrent 1 Or turn to Shakspeare, who 
 evidently does not know the value, the dreadful 
 value (as I may say) of the expressions he uses. 
 Genius gathers up its beauties, like the child, with- 
 out knowing whether they are weeds or flowers : 
 those productions that are destined to give forth 
 an everlasting odour, grow up without labour or 
 design." 
 
80 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Mr. Pfatmore] 1 came in, and complimenting 
 Northcote on a large picture he was about, the latter 
 said, It was his last great work : he was getting too 
 old for such extensive undertakings. His friend 
 replied, that Titian went on painting till near a 
 hundred. "Ay," said Northcote, "but he had the 
 Devil to help him, and I have never been able to 
 retain him in my service. It is a dreadful thing to 
 see an immense blank canvas spread out before you 
 to commit sins upon." Something was said of the 
 Academy, and P[atmore] made answer, " I know 
 your admiration of corporate bodies." 
 
 N[orthcote] said, "They were no worse than others ; 
 they all began well and ended ill. When the Academy 
 first began, one would suppose that the Members were 
 so many angels sent from heaven to fill the different 
 situations, and that was the reason why it began : now 
 the difficult}^ was to find anybody fit for them, and 
 the deficiency was supplied by interest, intrigue, and 
 cabal. Not that I object to the individuals neither. 
 As Swift said, I like Jack, Tom, a*id Harry very well 
 by themselves ; but all together, they are not to be 
 endured. We see the effect of people acting in con- 
 cert in animals (for men are only a more vicious sort of 
 animals) : a single dog will let you kick and cuff him 
 as you please, and will submit to any treatment ; but 
 if you meet a pack of hounds, they will set upon you 
 and tear you to pieces with the greatest impudence." 
 
 1 P. G. Patmore, the father of the poet, and the author of 
 My Friends and Acquaintance, [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 81 
 
 P[atmore] : " The same complaint was made of the 
 Academy in Barry's time, which is now thirty or forty 
 years ago." 1 Northcote : " Oh ! yes, they very soon 
 degenerated. It is the same in all human institutions. 
 The thing is, there has been no way found yet to 
 keep the Devil out. It will be a curious thing to see 
 whether that experiment of the American Govern- 
 ment will last. If it does, it will be the first instance 
 of the kind." 
 
 P[atmore] : "I should think not. There is some- 
 thing very complicated and mysterious in the mode 
 of their Elections, which I am given to under- 
 stand are managed in an underhand manner by the 
 leaders of parties; and besides, in all governments 
 the great desideratum is to combine activity with a 
 freedom from selfish passions. But it unfortunately 
 happens that in human life, the selfish passions are 
 the strongest and most active ; and on this rock 
 society seems to split. There is a certain period in a 
 man's life when he is at his best (when he combines 
 the activity of youth with the experience of man- 
 hood), after which he declines ; and perhaps it may 
 be the same with states. Things are not best in the 
 beginning or at the end, but in the middle, which is 
 but a point." 
 
 Northcote : " Nothing stands still ; it there- 
 fore either grows better or worse. When a 
 thing has reached its utmost perfection, it then 
 
 1 Barry's Letter to the Dilettanti Society, enumerating his 
 grievances, was published in 1798. [Hazlitt.] 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 borders on excess; and excess leads to ruin and 
 decay." 
 
 Lord Gr. had bought a picture of Northcote's : an 
 allusion was made to his enormous and increasing 
 wealth. Northcote said he could be little the better 
 for it. After a certain point, it became a mere 
 nominal distinction. He only thought of that which 
 passed through his hands and fell under his imme- 
 diate notice. He knew no more of the rest than you 
 or I did : he was merely perplexed by it. This was 
 what often made persons in his situation tenacious of 
 the most trifling sums, for this was the only positive 
 or tangible wealth they had : the remote contingency 
 was like a thing in the clouds, or mountains of silver 
 and gold seen in the distant horizon. It was the 
 same with Nollekens: 1 he died worth £200,000: 
 but the money he had accumulated at his banker's 
 was out of his reach and contemplation — out of sight, 
 out of mind — he was only muddling about with what 
 he had in his hands, and lived like a beggar in actual 
 fear of want. 
 
 P[atmore] said, he was an odd little man, but 
 he believed clever in his profession. Northcote 
 assented, and observed " he was an instance of what 
 might be done by concentrating the attention on a 
 single object. If you collect the rays of the sun in a 
 
 1 Joseph Nollekens, R.A. (1737-1823), one of the most 
 gifted of English iconic sculptors. He was a man of eccentric 
 habits, and is the hero of a singularly caustic and entertaining 
 biography, by his assistant, John T. Smith. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 83 
 
 focus, you could set any object on fire. Great talents 
 were often dissipated to no purpose : but time and 
 patience conquered everything. Without them, you 
 could do nothing. So Giardini, when asked how 
 long it would take to learn to play on the fiddle, 
 answered, c Twelve hours a day for twenty years 
 together.' A few great geniuses may trifle with the 
 arts, like Rubens ; but in general nothing can be 
 more fatal than to suppose oneself a great genius." 
 P[atmore] observed, that in common business those who 
 gave up their whole time and thoughts to any pursuit 
 generally succeeded in it, though far from bright 
 men : and we often found those who had acquired a 
 name for some one excellence, people of moderate 
 capacity in other respects. After Mr. P[atmore] was 
 gone, Northcote said he was one of the persons of the 
 soundest judgment he had ever known, and like Mr. 
 P[rince] H[oare] 1 the least liable to be imposed upon 
 by appearances. Northcote made the remark that 
 he thought it improper in any one to refuse lending 
 a favourite picture for public exhibition, as it seemed 
 not exclusively to belong to one person. A jewel of 
 this value belongs rather to the public than to the 
 individual. Consider the multitudes you deprive of 
 an advantage they cannot receive again : the idle of 
 amusement, the studious of instruction and improve- 
 ment. 
 
 I said, this kind of indifference to the wishes of 
 the public was sending the world to Coventry/ We 
 
 1 Prince Hoare (1755-1834), the artist and dramatist. [Ed.] 
 
84 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 then spoke of a celebrated courtier, of whom I said I 
 was willing to believe everything that was amiable, 
 though I had some difficulty, while thinking of him, 
 to keep the valet out of my head. Northcote : " He 
 has certainly endeavoured to behave well ; but there 
 is no altering character. I myself might have been a 
 courtier if I could have cringed and held my tongue ; 
 but I could no more exist in that element than a fish 
 out of water. At one time I knew Lord E. and. Lord 
 
 H. S , who were intimate with the Prince, 
 
 and recommended my pictures to him. Sir Joshua 
 once asked me, ' What do you know of the Prince of 
 [Wales], that he so often speaks to me about you 1 7 
 I remember I made him laugh by my answer, for I 
 said, ' Oh ! he knows nothing of me, nor I of him — 
 it's only his bragging!' — 'Well,' said he, ' that is 
 spoken like a King ! ' ". . . 
 
 It was to-day I asked leave to write down one 
 or two of these Conversations : he said, " I might, 
 if I thought it worth while; but I do assure you 
 that you overrate them. You have not lived 
 enough in society to be a judge. What is new to 
 you, you think will seem so to others. To be sure, 
 there is one thing, I have had the advantage of 
 having lived in good society myself. I not only 
 passed a great deal of my younger days in the com- 
 pany of Eeynolds, Johnson, and that circle, but I 
 was brought up among the Mudges, of whom Sir 
 Joshua (who was certainly used to the most brilliant 
 society of the metropolis) thought so highly, that he 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 85 
 
 had them at his house for weeks, and even sometimes 
 gave up his own bedroom to receive them. Yet they 
 were not thought superior to several other persons at 
 Plymouth, who were distinguished, some for their 
 satirical wit, others for their delightful fancy, others 
 for their information or sound sense, and with all of 
 whom my father was familiar when I was a boy. 
 Really after what I recollect of these, some of the 
 present people appear to me mere wretched pre- 
 tenders, muttering out their own emptiness." 
 
 I said, We had a specimen of Lord Byron's Conversa- 
 tions. Northcote : " Yes • but he was a tyrant, and 
 a person of that disposition never learns anything, be- 
 cause he will only associate with inferiors. If, how- 
 ever, you think you can make anything of it and 
 can keep clear of personalities, I have no objection 
 to your trying ; only I think after the first attempt, 
 you will give it up as turning out quite differently 
 from what you expected." 
 
CONVEESATION THE EIGHTH 
 
 Northcote spoke again of Sir Joshua, and said, he 
 was in some degree ignorant of what might be called 
 the grammatical part of the art, or scholarship of 
 academic skill ; but he made up for it by an eye for 
 nature, or rather by a feeling of harmony and beauty. 
 Dance 1 (he that was afterwards Sir Nathaniel Holland) 
 drew the figure well, gave a strong likeness and a 
 certain studied air to his portraits ; yet they were so 
 stiff and forced that they seemed as if put into a vice. 
 Sir Joshua, with the defect of proportion and drawing, 
 threw his figures into such natural and graceful atti- 
 tudes, that they might be taken for the very people 
 sitting or standing there. An arm might be too long 
 or too short, but from the apparent ease of the position 
 he had chosen, it looked like a real arm and neither 
 too long nor too short. The mechanical measure- 
 
 1 Nathaniel Dance, R.A., who at the age of fifty-five married 
 a rich widow, resigned art and his membership, went in for 
 politics, and was made a baronet. He is said to have destroyed 
 all of his pictures that he could collect, being determined to 
 wipe out the stigma of having once been that low thing, an 
 artist. [Ed. ] 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 87 
 
 merits might be wrong : the general conception of 
 nature and character was right ; and this, which he 
 felt most strongly himself, he conveyed in a cor- 
 responding degree to the spectator. Nature is not 
 one thing, but a variety of things, considered under 
 different points of view ; and he who seizes forcibly 
 and happily on any one of these, does enough for 
 fame. He will be the most popular artist, who gives 
 that view with which the world in general sympathise. 
 A merely professional reputation is not very extensive, 
 nor will it last long. 
 
 W[est], who prided himself on his drawing, 
 had no idea of anything but a certain rigid outline, 
 never considering the use of the limbs in moving, 
 the effects of light and shade, etc., so that his 
 figures, even the best of them, look as if cut out of 
 wood. Therefore no one now goes to see them : 
 while Sir Joshua's are as much sought after as ever, 
 from their answering to a feeling in the mind, though 
 deficient as literal representations of external nature. 
 Speaking of artists who were said, in the cant of con- 
 noisseurship, to be jealous of their outline, he said, 
 " Eembrandt was not one of these. He took good 
 care to lose it as fast as he could." Northcote then 
 spoke of the breadth of Titian, and observed, that 
 though particularly in his early pictures, he had 
 finished highly and copied everything from nature, 
 this never interfered with the general effect, there 
 was no confusion or littleness : he threw such a broad 
 light on the objects, that everything was seen in 
 
88 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 connection with the masses and in its place. He then 
 mentioned some pictures of his own, some of them 
 painted forty years ago, that had lately sold very well 
 at a sale at Plymouth : he was much gratified at this, 
 and said it was almost like looking out of the grave 
 to see how one's reputation got on. 
 
 Northcote told an anecdote of Sir George B 
 
 to show the credulity of mankind. When a young 
 man, he put an advertisement in the papers to say 
 
 that a Mynheer , just come over from Germany, 
 
 had found out a method of taking a likeness much 
 superior to any other by the persons looking into a 
 mirror and having the glass heated so as to bake the 
 impression. He stated this wonderful artist to live 
 at a perfumer's shop in Bond Street, opposite to an 
 hotel where he lodged, and amused himself the next 
 day to see the numbers of people who nocked to have 
 their likenesses taken in this surprising manner. At 
 
 last, he went over himself to ask for Monsieur , 
 
 and was driven out of the shop by the perfumer in a 
 rage, who said there was no Monsieur nor Mon- 
 sieur Devil lived there. 
 
 At another time Sir G[eorge] was going in a 
 coach to a tavern with a party of gay young 
 men. The waiter came to the coach-door with a 
 light, and as he was holding this up to the others, 
 those who had already got out went round, and 
 
 1 Possibly Sir George Baker, the Devonshire physician, famous 
 for his successful raid against the leaden vessels used for cider- 
 making. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 89 
 
 getting in at the opposite coach-door came out again, 
 
 so that there seemed to be no end of the procession, 
 
 and the waiter ran into the house, frightened out of 
 
 his wits. The same story is told of Swift and four 
 
 clergymen dressed in canonicals. 
 
 Speaking of titles, Northcote said, "It was 
 
 strange what blunders were often made in this way. 
 
 R[eynolds] 1 (the engraver) had stuck Lord John 
 
 Boringdon under his print after Sir Joshua — it should 
 
 be John Lord Boringdon — and he calls the Earl of 
 
 Carlisle, Lord Carlisle — Lord Carlisle denotes only a 
 
 Baron. I was once dining at Sir John Leicester's, 
 
 and a gentleman who was there was expressing his 
 
 wonder what connection a Prince of Denmark and a 
 
 Duke of Gloucester could have with Queen Anne, that 
 
 prints of them should be inserted in a history that 
 
 he had just purchased of her reign. No other, I 
 
 said, than that one of them was her son, and the other 
 
 her husband. The boy died when he was eleven 
 
 years old of a fever caught at a ball dancing, or he 
 
 would have succeeded to the throne. He was a very 
 
 promising youth, though that indeed is what is said 
 
 of all princes. Queen Anne took his death greatly 
 
 to heart, and that was the reason why she never would 
 
 appoint a successor. She wished her brother to come 
 
 in, rather than the present family. That makes me 
 
 1 Samuel William Reynolds (1773-1835), who was alive 
 when this rather inept criticism on his manners was published, 
 was no relation of Sir Joshua, although he engraved almost all 
 that master's paintings, and closely identified himself with 
 him. [Ed.] 
 
90 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 wonder, after thrones have been overturned and 
 kingdoms torn asunder to keep the Catholics out, to 
 see the pains that are now taken to bring them in. 
 It was this that made the late King say it was incon- 
 sistent with his Coronation Oath. Not that I object 
 to tolerate any religion (even the Jewish), but they 
 are the only one that will not tolerate any other. 
 They are such devils (what with their cunning, their 
 numbers, and their zeal), that if they once get a 
 footing, they will never rest till they get the whole 
 power into their hands. It was but the other day 
 that the Jesuits nearly overturned the empire of 
 China ; and if they were obliged to make laws and 
 take the utmost precautions against their crafty 
 encroachments, shall we open a door to them, who 
 have only just escaped out of their hands % " 
 
 I said, I had thrown a radical reformer into a violent 
 passion lately by maintaining that the Pope and Car- 
 dinals of Eome were a set of as good-looking men as 
 so many Protestant Bishops or Methodist parsons, and 
 that the Italians were the only people who seemed to 
 me to have any faith in their religion as an object of 
 imagination or feeling. My opponent grew almost 
 black in the face, while inveighing against the 
 enormous absurdity of Transubstantiation \ it was in 
 vain I pleaded the beauty, innocence, and cheerfulness 
 of the peasant-girls near Eome, who believed in this 
 dreadful superstition, and who thought me damned 
 and would probably have been glad to see me burnt 
 at a stake as a heretic. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 91 
 
 At length I said, that I thought reason and 
 truth very excellent things in themselves; and 
 that when I saw the rest of the world grow as 
 fond of them as they were of absurdity and super- 
 stition, I should be entirely of his way of thinking ; 
 but I liked an interest in something (a wafer 
 or a crucifix) better than an interest in nothing. 
 What have philosophers gained by unloosing their 
 hold of the ideal world, but to be hooted at and 
 pelted by the rabble, and envied and vilified by one 
 another for want of a common bond of union and 
 interest between them ? I just now met the son of 
 an old literary friend in the street, who seemed 
 disposed to cut me for some hereditary pique, jealousy, 
 or mistrust. Suppose his father and I had been 
 Catholic priests (saving the bar-sinister) how different 
 would have been my reception ! He is short-sighted 
 indeed; but had I been a Cardinal, he would have 
 seen me fast enough : the costume alone would have 
 assisted him. Where there is no framework of 
 respectability founded on the esprit de corps and on 
 public opinion cemented into a prejudice, the jarring 
 pretensions of individuals fall into a chaos of element- 
 ary particles, neutralising each other by mutual 
 antipathy, and soon become the sport and laughter of 
 the multitude. Where the whole is referred to in- 
 trinsic, real merit, this creates a standard of conceit, 
 egotism, and envy in every one's own mind, lowering 
 the class, not raising the individual. 
 
 A Catholic priest walking along the street is looked 
 
92 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 up to as a link in the chain let down from heaven : a 
 poet or philosopher is looked down upon as a poor 
 creature, deprived of certain advantages, and with very 
 questionable pretensions in other respects. Abstract 
 intellect requires the weight of the other world to be 
 thrown into the scale, to make it a match for the 
 prejudices, vulgarity, ignorance, and selfishness of 
 this! "You are right," said Northcote. "It was 
 Archimedes who said he could move the earth if he 
 had a place to fix his levers on : the priests have 
 always found this purchase in the skies. After all, 
 we have not much reason to complain, if they give us 
 so splendid a reversion to look forward to. That is 
 what I said to G[odwin] when he had been trying to 
 unsettle the opinions of a young artist whom I knew. 
 Why should you wish to turn him out of one house, 
 till you have provided another for him'? Besides, 
 what do you know of the matter more than he does 
 His nonsense is as good as your nonsense, when both 
 are equally in the dark. 
 
 "As to what your friend said of the follies of 
 the Catholics, I do not think that the Protestants 
 can pretend to be quite free from them. So 
 when a chaplain of Lord Bath's was teasing a 
 Popish clergyman to know how he could make up his 
 mind to admit that absurdity of Transubstantiation, 
 the other made answer, ' Why, I'll tell you : when I 
 was young, I was taught to swallow Adam's Apple ; 
 and since that, I have found no difficulty with any- 
 thing else ! ' We may say what we will of the 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 93 
 
 Catholic religion ; but it is more easy to abuse than 
 to overturn it. I have for myself no objection to it 
 but its insatiable ambition, and its being such a dread- 
 ful engine of power. It is its very perfection as a 
 system of profound policy and moral influence, that 
 renders it so formidable. Indeed, I have been some- 
 times suspected of a leaning to it myself ; and when 
 Godwin wrote his Life of Chaucer, he was said to 
 have turned Papist from his making use of something 
 I had said to him about confession. I don't know 
 but unfair advantages may be taken of it for state 
 purposes ; but I cannot help thinking it is of signal 
 benefit in the regulation of private life. If servants 
 have cheated or lied or done anything wrong, they 
 are obliged to tell it to the priest, which makes them 
 bear it in mind, and then a certain penance is assigned 
 which they must go through, though they do not like 
 it. All this acts as a timely check, which is better 
 than letting them go on till their vices get head, and 
 then hanging them ! The Great indeed may buy 
 themselves off (as where are they not privileged ?) 
 but this certainly does not apply to the community 
 at large. 
 
 " I remember our saying to that old man (a Dom- 
 inican friar), whose picture you see there, that we 
 wished he could be made a Eoyal Confessor; to 
 which he replied, that he would not for the world be 
 Confessor to a King, because it would prevent him 
 from the conscientious discharge of his duty. In 
 former times, in truth, the traffic in indulgences was 
 
94 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 carried to great lengths ; and this it was that broke 
 up the system and gave a handle to the Protestants. 
 The excellence of the scheme produced the power, 
 and then the power led to the abuse of it. Infidel 
 Popes went the farthest in extending the privileges 
 of the Church ; and being held back by no scruples 
 of faith or conscience, nearly ruined it. When some 
 pious ecclesiastic was insisting to Leo X. on the 
 necessity of reforming certain scandalous abuses, he 
 pointed to a crucifix and said, £ Behold the fate of a 
 reformer ! The system, as it is, is good enough for 
 us ! ' They have taken the morality of the Grospel 
 and engrafted upon it a system of superstition and 
 priestcraft ; but still perhaps the former prevails over 
 the latter. Even that duty of humanity to animals 
 is beautifully provided for ; for on St. Antony's day, 
 the patron of animals, the horses, etc., pass under a 
 certain arch, and the priest sprinkles the Holy Water 
 over them, so that they are virtually taken under the 
 protection of the Church. We think we have a right 
 to treat them anyhow, because they have no souls. 
 
 " The Roman Catholic is not a barbarous religion ; 
 and it is also much milder than it was. This is a neces- 
 sary consequence of the state of things. When three 
 Englishmen were presented to Benedict XIV. (Lam- 
 bertini), who was a man of wit and letters, he observed 
 to them smiling, 6 1 know that you must look upon 
 our religion as false and spurious, but I suppose you 
 will have no objection to receive the blessing of an 
 old man ! ' When Fuseli and I were there, an English- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 95 
 
 man of the name of Brown had taken the pains to 
 convert a Eoman artist : the Englishman was sent 
 from Rome, and the student was taken to the Inquisi- 
 tion, where he was shown the hooks in the wall and 
 the instruments of torture used in former times, 
 reprimanded, and soon after dismissed." 
 
 I asked Northcote whereabouts the Inquisition was? 
 He said, "In a street behind the Vatican." He and 
 Mr. Prince Hoare once took shelter in the portico out 
 of a violent shower of rain, and considered it a great 
 piece of inhumanity to be turned out into the street. 
 He then noticed a curious mistake in Mrs. RadclifiVs 
 Italian, where some one is brought from Naples to 
 the Inquisition, and made to enter Rome through the 
 Porta di Popolo, and then the other streets on the 
 English side of Rome are described with great for- 
 mality, which is as if any one was described as coming 
 by the coach from Exeter, and after entering at White- 
 chapel, proceeding through Cheapside and the Strand 
 to Charing Cross. 
 
 JSTorthcote related a story told him by Nollekens 
 of a singular instance of the effects of passion that 
 he saw in the Trastevere, the oldest and most dis- 
 orderly part of Rome. 1 Two women were quarrel- 
 ling, when having used the most opprobrious 
 language, one of them drew a knife from her bosom, 
 and tried to plunge it into her rival's breast, 
 but missing her blow and the other retiring to a 
 
 1 These people are said to be the real descendants of the 
 ancient Romans. [Hazlitt.] 
 
96 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 short distance and laughing at her, in a fit of 
 impotent rage she struck it into her own bosom. 
 Her passion had been worked up to an uncontrollable 
 pitch, and being disappointed of its first object, must 
 find vent somewhere. I remarked it was what we did 
 every day of our lives in a less degree, according to the 
 vulgar proverb of cutting off one 7 s nose to spite one's face ! 
 
 Northcote then returned to the subject of the 
 sale of his pictures. He said it was a satisfaction, 
 though a melancholy one, to think that one's works 
 might fetch more after one's death than during one's 
 lifetime. He had once shown Farington 1 a landscape 
 of Wilson's, for which a gentleman had given three 
 hundred guineas at the first word ; and Farington 
 said he remembered Wilson's painting it, and how 
 delighted he was when he got thirty pounds for it. 
 Barrett rode in his coach, while Wilson nearly starved 
 and was obliged to borrow ten pounds to go and die 
 in Wales : yet he used to say that his pictures would 
 be admired, when the name of Barrett was forgotten. 2 
 
 Northcote said he also thought it a great hardship 
 upon authors, that copyright should be restricted to a 
 few years, instead of being continued for the benefit 
 of the family, as in the case of Hudibras, Paradise 
 Lost, and other works, by which booksellers made 
 fortunes every year, though the descendants of the 
 
 1 Joseph Farington, R. A., the landscape-painter. Farington, 
 who had died in 1821, had been a pupil of Wilson's. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Hazlitt had already forgotten how to spell the name of 
 George Barret, R. A. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 97 
 
 authors were still living in obscurity and distress. I 
 said that in France a successful drama brought some- 
 thing to the author or his heirs every time it was acted. 
 Northcote seemed to approve of this, and remarked 
 that he always thought it very hard upon Kichardson, 
 just at the time he had brought out his Pamela or 
 Clarissa, to have it pirated by an Irish bookseller 
 through a treacherous servant whom he kept in his shop, 
 and thus to lose all the profits of his immortal labours. 1 
 
 1 It must be remembered that copyright did not extend to 
 Ireland before the Union. Will the Irish under Home Rule 
 claim the right of piracy ? It is a question for Mr. Besant. [Ed. ] 
 
 7 
 
CONVERSATION THE NINTH 
 
 Northcote remarked to-day that artists were more 
 particular than authors as to character — the latter 
 did not seem to care whom they associated with. 
 He, Northcote, was disposed to attribute this to 
 greater refinement of moral perception in his own 
 profession. I said I thought it was owing to authors 
 being more upon the town than painters, who were 
 dependent upon particular individuals and in a manner 
 accountable to them for the persons they might be 
 seen in company with or might occasionally bring into 
 contact with them. For instance, I said I thought 
 H [ay don] was wrong in asking me to his Private 
 
 Day, where I might meet with Lord M , who was 
 
 so loyal a man that he affected not to know that such 
 a person as Admiral Blake had ever existed. On the 
 same principle this Noble Critic was blind to the 
 merit of Milton, in whom he could see nothing, though 
 Mr. Pitt had been at the pains to repeat several fine 
 passages to him. 
 
 Northcote said, " It's extraordinary how particular 
 the world sometimes are, and what prejudices they 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 99 
 
 take up against people, even where there is no 
 objection to character, merely on the score of 
 opinion. There is G[odwin], who is a very good 
 
 man; yet when Mr. H and myself wished to 
 
 introduce him at the house of a lady who lives in 
 a round of society, and has a strong tinge of the 
 blue-stocking, she would not hear of it. The sound of 
 the name seemed to terrify her. It was his writings 
 she was afraid of. Even Cosway made a difficulty 
 too." 
 
 I replied, "I should not have expected this of 
 him, who was as great a visionary and as violent a 
 politician as anybody could be." 
 
 Northcote. — "It passed off in Cosway as whim. 
 He was one of those butterfly characters that nobody 
 minded : so that his opinion went for nothing : but 
 it would not do to bring any one else there, whose 
 opinion might be more regarded and equally un- 
 palatable. G[odwin]'s case is particularly hard in 
 this respect : he is a profligate in theory, and a bigot in 
 conduct. He does not seem at all to practise what 
 he preaches, though this does not appear to avail him 
 anything." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " he writes against himself. He 
 has written against matrimony, and has been twice 
 married. He has scouted all the commonplace 
 duties, and yet is a good husband and a kind 
 father. He is a strange composition of contrary 
 qualities. He is a cold formalist, and full of ardour 
 and enthusiasm of mind ; dealing in magnificent 
 
100 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 projects and petty cavils ; naturally dull, and brilliant 
 by dint of study ; pedantic and playful ; a dry 
 logician and a writer of romances." 
 
 " You describe him," said Northcote, " as I remem- 
 ber Baretti once did Sir Joshua Reynolds at his 
 own table, saying to him, c You are extravagant and 
 mean, generous and selfish, envious and candid, proud 
 and humble, a genius and a mere ordinary mortal at 
 the same time.' I may not remember his exact 
 words, but that was their effect. The fact was, Sir 
 Joshua was a mixed character, like the rest of man- 
 kind in that respect ; but knew his own failings, and 
 was on his guard to keep them back as much as pos- 
 sible, though the defects would break out sometimes." 
 — "G[odwin], on the contrary," I said, " is aiming to 
 let his out and to magnify them into virtues in a kind 
 of hotbed of speculation. He is shocking on paper 
 and tame in reality." 
 
 " How is that ? " said Northcote. 
 
 4 4 Why, I think it is easy enough to be accounted 
 for ; he is naturally a cold speculative character, and 
 indulges in certain metaphysical extravagances as an 
 agreeable exercise for the imagination, which alarm 
 persons of a grosser temperament, but to which he 
 attaches no practical consequences whatever. So it 
 has been asked how some very immoral or irreligious 
 writers, such as Helveticus and others, have been 
 remarked to be men of good moral character *? and I 
 think the answer is the same. Persons of a studious, 
 phlegmatic disposition can with impunity give a 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 101 
 
 license to their thoughts, which they are under no 
 temptation to reduce into practice. The sting is 
 taken out of evil by their constitutional indifference, 
 and they look on virtue and vice as little more than 
 words without meaning or the black and white pieces 
 of the chess-board, in combining which the same skill 
 and ingenuity may be shown. More depraved and 
 combustible temperaments are warned of the danger 
 of any latitude of opinion by their very proneness to 
 mischief, and are forced by a secret consciousness to 
 impose the utmost restraint both upon themselves 
 and others. The greatest prudes are not always 
 supposed to be the greatest enemies to pleasure. 
 Besides, authors are very much confined by habit to 
 a life of study and speculation, sow their wild oats in 
 their books, and unless where their passions are very 
 strong indeed, take their swing in theory and conform 
 in practice to the ordinary rules and examples of the 
 world." 
 
 Northcote said, " Certainly people are tenacious of 
 appearances in proportion to the depravity of man- 
 ners, as we may see in the simplicity of country- 
 places. To be sure, a rake like Hodge in Love in a 
 Village gets amongst them now and then ; but in 
 general they do many gross things without the least 
 notion of impropriety, as if vice were a thing they 
 had no more to do with than children." He then 
 mentioned an instance of some young country-people 
 who had to sleep on the floor in the same room and 
 they parted the men from the women by some sacks 
 
102 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 of corn, which served for a line of demarcation and 
 an inviolable partition between them. I told North- 
 cote a story of a countrywoman who coming to an inn 
 in the West of England wanted a bed ; and being told 
 they had none to spare, still persisted till the landlady 
 said in a joke, " I tell you, good woman, I have none, 
 unless you can prevail with the ostler to give you 
 half of his." — "Well," said she, "if he is a sober, 
 prudent man, I should not mind ! " 
 
 Something was then said of the manners of people 
 abroad, who sometimes managed to unite an absence 
 of mauvaise honte with what could hardly be construed 
 into an ignorance -of vice. The Princess Borghese 
 (Buonaparte's sister) who was no saint, sat to Canova 
 for a model, and being asked, " If she did not feel a 
 little uncomfortable, " answered, " No, there was a fire 
 in the room." 
 
 "Custom," said Northcote, "makes a wonderful 
 difference in taking off the sharpness of the first 
 inflammable impression. People for instance were 
 mightily shocked when they first heard that the boys 
 at the Academy drew from a living model. But the 
 effect almost immediately wears off with them. It 
 is exactly like copying from a statue. The stillness, 
 the artificial light, the attention to what they are 
 about, the publicity even, draws off any idle thoughts, 
 and they regard the figure and point out its defects 
 or beauties, precisely as if it were of clay or marble." 
 I said I had perceived this effect myself, that the 
 anxiety to copy the object before one deadened every 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 103 
 
 other feeling ; but as this drew to a close, the figure 
 seemed almost like something coming to life again, 
 and that this was a very critical minute. He said, he 
 found the students sometimes watched the women 
 out, though they were not of a very attractive 
 appearance, as none but those who were past their 
 prime would sit in this way ; they looked upon it as 
 an additional disgrace to what their profession imposed 
 upon them, and as something unnatural. One in 
 particular (he remembered) always came in a mask. 
 Several of the young men in his time had however 
 been lured into a course of dissipation and ruined by 
 such connections ; one in particular, a young fellow of 
 great promise but affected, and who thought that 
 profligacy was a part of genius. I said, It was the 
 easiest part. This was an advantage foreign art had 
 over ours. A battered courtesan sat for Sir Joshua's 
 Iphigene ; innocent girls sat for Canova's Graces, as 
 I had been informed. 
 
 Northcote asked, if I had sent my son to school ? 
 I said, I thought of the Charter House, if I could 
 compass it. I liked those old-established places where 
 learning grew for hundreds of years, better than any 
 new-fangled experiments or modern seminaries. He 
 inquired if I had ever thought of putting him to 
 school on the Continent; to which I answered, No, 
 for I wished him to have an idea of home, before I 
 took him abroad; by beginning in the contrary 
 method, I thought I deprived him both of the habitual 
 attachment to the one and of the romantic pleasure 
 
104 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 in the other. Northcote observed there were very 
 fine schools at Eome in his time, one was an Italian, 
 and another a Spanish College, at the last of which 
 they acted plays of Voltaire's, such as Zara, Mahomet, 
 etc., at some of which he had been present. The hall 
 that served for the theatre was beautifully decorated ; 
 and just as the curtain was about to draw up, a 
 hatchway was opened and showered down playbills 
 on their heads with the names of the actors ; such a 
 part being by a Spanish Grandee of the first class, 
 another by a Spanish Grandee of the second class, and 
 they were covered with jewels of the highest value. 
 Several Cardinals were also present (who did not 
 attend the public theatres) and it was easy to gain 
 admittance from the attention always shown to 
 strangers. 
 
 Northcote then spoke of the courtesy and 
 decorum of the Roman clergy in terms of warm 
 praise, and said he thought it in a great measure 
 owing to the conclave being composed of dignitaries 
 of all nations, Spanish, German, Italian, which 
 merged individual asperities and national prejudices 
 in a spirit of general philanthropy and mutual for- 
 bearance. I said I had never met with a look from 
 a Catholic priest (from the highest to the lowest) that 
 seemed to reproach me with being a tramontane. 
 This absence of all impertinence was to me the first 
 of virtues. He repeated, " I have no fault to find with 
 Italy. There may be vice in Eome, as in all great 
 capitals (though I did not see it) — but in Parma and 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 105 
 
 the remoter towns, they seem all like one great and 
 exemplary family." Their kindness to strangers was 
 remarkable. He said he had himself travelled all the 
 way from Lyons to Genoa, and from Genoa to Eome 
 without speaking a word of the language and in the 
 power of a single person without meeting with the 
 smallest indignity ; and everywhere, both at the inns 
 and on the road, every attention was paid to his 
 feelings and pains taken to alleviate the uncomfort- 
 ableness of his situation. Set a Frenchman down in 
 England to go from London to York in the same 
 circumstances, and see what treatment he will be 
 exposed to. 
 
 He recollected a person of the name of Gogain 
 who had been educated in France and could not 
 speak English — on landing, he held out half-a-guinea 
 to pay the boatman who had rowed him only 
 about twenty yards from the vessel, which the fellow 
 put in his pocket and left him without a single 
 farthing. Abroad, he would have been had before 
 the magistrate for such a thing, and probably sent to 
 the galleys. There is a qualifying property in nature 
 that makes most things equal. In England they 
 cannot drag you out of your bed to a scaffold, or take 
 an estate from you without some reason assigned : 
 but as the law prevents any flagrant acts of 
 injustice, so it makes it more difficult to obtain 
 redress. 
 
 " We pay," continued Northcote, " for every ad- 
 vantage we possess by the loss of some other. Poor 
 
106 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Goblet, 1 the other day, after making himself a drudge 
 to Nollekens all his life, with difficulty recovered 
 eight hundred pounds compensation ; and though he 
 was clearly entitled, by the will, to the models which 
 the sculptor left behind him, he was afraid to risk 
 the law expenses, and gave it up." Some person had 
 been remarking, that every one had a right to leave 
 his property to whom he pleased. " Not," said North- 
 cote, "when he has promised it to another." I 
 
 asked if Mr. was not the same person I had 
 
 once seen come into his painting-room, in a rusty 
 black coat and brown worsted stockings, very much 
 with the air of a man who carries a pistol in an inside 
 pocket ? He said, " It might be : he was a dull man, 
 but a great scholar — one of those described in the 
 epigram — 
 
 " ' Oh ! ho, quoth Time to Thomas Hearne, 
 Whatever I forget, you learn. ? " 
 
 We then alluded to an attack of Cobbett's on some 
 spruce legacy -hunter, quoted in the last Sunday's 
 Examiner ; and Northcote spoke in raptures of the 
 power in Cobbett's writings, and asked me if I had 
 ever seen him. I said, I had for a short time ; that 
 he called rogue and scoundrel at every second word in 
 the coolest way imaginable, and went on just the 
 same in a room as on paper. 
 
 I returned to what Northcote lately said of his 
 
 1 Alexander Goblet, the head-workman in Nollekens's studio. 
 [Ed.] 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 107 
 
 travels in Italy, and asked if there were fine Titians 
 at Genoa or Naples. u Oh, yes !" he said, "heaps at 
 the latter place. Titian had painted them for one of 
 the Farnese family; and when the second son suc- 
 ceeded the eldest as King of Spain, the youngest, 
 who was Prince of Parma, went to Naples, and took 
 them with him. There is that fine one (which you 
 have heard me speak of) of Paul III. and his two 
 natural sons or nephews, as they were called. My 
 God ! what a look it has ! The old man is sitting in 
 his chair, and looking up to one of the sons, with his 
 hands grasping the arm-chair, and his long spider 
 fingers, and seems to say (as plain as words can 
 speak), ' You wretch ! what do you want now 1 ' — 
 while the young fellow is advancing with a humble 
 hypocritical air. It is true history, as Fuseli said, 
 and indeed it turned out so ; for the son (or nephew) 
 was afterwards thrown out of the palace-windows by 
 the mob, and torn to pieces by them." In speaking 
 of the different degrees of information abroad, he 
 remarked, " One of the persons where I lodged at 
 Rome did not even know the family name of the 
 reigning Pope, and only spoke of him as the Papa ; 
 another person, who was also my landlady, knew all 
 their history, and could tell me the names of the 
 Cardinals from my describing their coats of arms to 
 her." 
 
 Northcote related an anecdote of Mr. Moore 
 (brother of the General), who was on board an 
 English frigate in the American war, and coming in 
 
108 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 sight of another vessel which did not answer their 
 signals, they expected an action, when the Captain 
 called his men together, and addressed them in the 
 following manner: "You dirty, ill -looking black- 
 guards ! do you suppose I can agree to deliver up such 
 a set of scarecrows as you as prisoners to that smart, 
 frippery Frenchman ? I can't think of such a thing. 
 No ! by God, you must fight till not a man of you is 
 left, for I should be ashamed of owning such a raga- 
 muffin crew ! " This was received with loud shouts 
 and assurances of victory, but the vessel turned out 
 to be an English one. 
 
 I asked if he had seen the American novels, in 
 one of which (The Pilot) there was an excellent 
 description of an American privateer expecting the 
 approach of an English man-of-war in a thick fog, 
 when some one saw what appeared to be a bright 
 cloud rising over the fog, but it proved to be the top- 
 sail of a seventy-four. Northcote thought this was 
 striking, but had not seen the book. " Was it one of 
 I[rving]'s ? " Oh ! no, he is a mere trifler 1 — a filigree 
 man — an English litterateur at second hand \ but The 
 Pilot 2 gave a true and unvarnished picture of American 
 character and manners. The storm, the fight, the 
 whole account of the ship's crew, and in particular 
 
 1 If this was really Hazlitt's view, it shows strange want of 
 appreciation of Washington Irving, who had already published 
 several of the most elegant and finished of his works, and had 
 been before the public for twenty years. [Ed.] 
 
 2 James Fenimore Cooper's stirring romance, first published 
 in 1823, and the fourth of his works of fiction. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 109 
 
 of an old boatswain, were done to the life — every- 
 thing 
 
 " Suffered a sea-change 
 Into something new and strange." 
 
 On land he did not do so well. The fault of 
 American literature (when not a mere vapid imita- 
 tion of ours) was, that it ran too much into dry, 
 minute, literal description ; or if it made an effort to 
 rise above this ground of matter-of-fact, it was forced 
 and exaggerated, " horrors accumulating on horror's 
 head." They had no natural imagination. This was 
 likely to be the case in a new country like America, 
 where there were no dim traces of the past — no 
 venerable monuments — no romantic associations ; 
 where all (except the physical) remained to be 
 created, and where fiction, if they attempted it, 
 would take as preposterous and extravagant a shape 
 as their local descriptions were jejune and servile. 
 Cooper's novels and Brown's 1 romances (something 
 on the model of Godwin's) were the two extremes. 
 
 Some remark was made on the failure of a great 
 bookseller, and on the supposition that now we should 
 find out the author of the Scotch novels. "Ay," said 
 Northcote, " we shall find more than one." I said, 
 I thought not; to say nothing of the beauties, the 
 peculiarities of style and grammar in every page 
 proved them to be by the same hand. Nobody else 
 could write so well — or so ill, in point of mere 
 
 1 Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the author of 
 Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, and Clara Howard. [Ed.] 
 
110 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 negligence. Northcote said, " It was a pity he should 
 fling away a fortune twice. There were some people 
 who could not keep money when they had got it. It 
 was a kind of incontinence of the purse. Zoffani did 
 the same thing. He made a fortune in England by 
 his pictures, which he soon got rid of, and another 
 in India, which went the same way." 
 
 We somehow got from Sir Walter to the Queen's 
 trial, and the scenes at Brandenburg House. I said 
 they were a strong illustration of that instinct of ser- 
 vility — that hankering after rank and power, which 
 appeared to me to be the base part of human nature. 
 Here were all the patriots and Jacobins of London 
 and Westminster, who scorned and hated the King, 
 going to pay their homage to the Queen, and ready to 
 worship the very rags of royalty. The wives and 
 daughters of popular caricaturists and of forgotten 
 demagogues were ready to pull caps in the presence- 
 chamber for precedence, till they were parted by Mr. 
 Alderman Wood. Every fool must go to kiss hands ; 
 " our maid's aunt of Brentford " must sip loyalty from 
 the Queen's hand ! That was the true court to which 
 they were admitted : the instant there was the smallest 
 opening, all must rush in, tag-rag and boltail. All the 
 fierceness of independence and all the bristling preju- 
 dices of popular jealousy were smoothed down in a 
 moment by the velvet touch of the Queen's hand ! 
 No matter what else she was (whether her cause were 
 right or wrong) — it was the mock -equality with 
 sovereign rank, the acting in a farce of state, that 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 111 
 
 was the secret charm. That was what drove them 
 mad. 
 
 The world must have something to admire ; and 
 the more worthless and stupid their idol is, the 
 better, provided it is fine : for it equally flatters their 
 appetite for wonder, and hurts their self-love less. 
 This is the reason why people formerly were so fond 
 of idols : they fell down and worshipped them, and 
 made others do the same, for theatrical effect ; while, 
 all the while, they knew they were but wood and 
 stone painted over. We in modern times have got 
 from the dead to the living idol, and bow to hereditary 
 imbecility. The less of genius and virtue, the greater 
 our self-complacency. We do not care how high the 
 elevation, so that it is wholly undeserved. True 
 greatness excites our envy ; mere rank, our unquali- 
 fied respect. That is the reason of our antipathy to 
 new-made dynasties, and of our acquiescence in old- 
 established despotism. We think we could sit upon a 
 throne, if we had had the good luck to be born to one ; 
 but we feel that we have neither talent nor courage to 
 raise ourselves to one. If any one does, he seems to 
 have got the start of us ; and we are glad to pull him 
 back again. 
 
 I remember Mr. E , x of Liverpool (a very ex- 
 cellent man and a good patriot) saying, many years 
 ago, in reference to Buonaparte and George III., 
 that " the superiority of rank was quite enough for 
 him, without the intellectual superiority." That is 
 
 1 Probably William Roscoe. [Ed.] 
 
112 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 what has made so many renegadoes and furious Anti- 
 Buonapartists among our poets and politicians, be- 
 cause he got before them in the race of power. 
 Northcote : "And the same thing made you stick to 
 him, because you thought he was your fellow ! It is 
 wonderful how much of our virtues, as well as of our 
 vices, is referable to self. Did you ever read Boche- 
 foucaulf?" — Yes. "And don't you think he is 
 right ?" In a great measure : but I like Mandeville 
 better. He goes more into his subject. " Oh ! he is 
 a devil. There is a description of a clergyman's hand 
 he has given, which I have always had in my eye 
 whenever I have had to paint a fine gentleman's hand. 
 I thought him too metaphysical, but it is long since I 
 read him. His book was burnt by the common hang- 
 man ; was it not 1 " Yes ; but he did not at all like 
 this circumstance, and is always recurring to it. — 
 " No one can like this kind of condemnation, because 
 every sensible man knows he is not a judge in his 
 own cause ; and besides, is conscious, if the verdict 
 were on the other side, how ready he would be to 
 catch at it as decisive in his favour." 
 
 I said, it was amusing to see the way in which 
 he fell upon Steele, Shaftesbury, and other amiable 
 writers, and the terror you were in for your 
 favourites, just as when a hawk is hovering over 
 and going to pounce upon some of the more harm- 
 less feathered tribe. He added, "It was surprising 
 how Swift had escaped with so little censure; but 
 the Gulliver's Travels passed off as a story-book, 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 113 
 
 and you might say in verse what you would be 
 pelted for in plain prose. — The same thing you have 
 observed in politics may be observed in religion too. 
 You see the anxiety to divide and bring nearer to our 
 own level. The Creator of the universe is too high 
 an object for us to approach ; the Catholics there- 
 fore have introduced the Virgin Mary and a host of 
 saints, with whom their votaries feel more at their 
 ease and on a par. The real object of worship is 
 kept almost out of sight. Dignum the singer (who is 
 a Catholic) was arguing on this subject with some one, 
 who wanted to convert him, and he replied in his own 
 defence — ' If you had a favour to ask of some great 
 person, would you not first apply to a common friend 
 to intercede for you ? ' " 
 
 In some part of the foregoing conversation, 
 Northcote remarked that, "West used to say, you 
 could always tell the highest nobility at court, from 
 their profound humility to the King : the others 
 kept at a distance, and did not seem to care about 
 it. The more the former raised the highest person, 
 the more they raised themselves who were next in 
 point of rank. They had a greater interest in 
 the question ; and the King would have a greater 
 jealousy of them than of others. When B[eechey] 1 
 was painting the Queen, with whom he used to be 
 
 1 Sir William Beechey, R.A. (1753-1839). He painted 
 Queen Charlotte's portrait in 1793, and was, in consequence, 
 made her artist in ordinary, and knighted. He was the 
 fashionable portrait - painter till Lawrence took his place. 
 [Ed.] 
 
 8 
 
114 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 quite familiar, he was one day surprised, when the 
 Prince-Eegent came into the room, to see the pro- 
 found homage and dignified respect with which he 
 aj3proached her. 6 Good God ! ' said he to himself, 
 ' here is the second person in the kingdom comes into 
 the room in this manner, while I have been using the 
 greatest freedoms ! ' To be sure ! that was the very 
 reason : the second person in the kingdom wished to 
 invest the first with all possible respect, so much 
 of which was naturally reflected back upon himself. 
 B[eechey] had nothing to lose or gain in this game of 
 royal ceremony, and was accordingly treated as a 
 cypher.' 7 
 
CONVERSATION THE TENTH 
 
 Northcote showed me a printed circular from the 
 Academy, with blanks to be filled up by Academicians 
 recommending young students to draw. One of these 
 related to an assurance as to the moral character of 
 the candidate; Northcote said, "What can I know 
 about that ? This zeal for morality begins with in- 
 viting me to tell a lie. I know whether he can draw 
 or not, because he brings me specimens of his draw- 
 ings \ but what am I to know of the moral character 
 of a person I have never seen before? Or what 
 business have the Academy to inquire into it? I 
 suppose they are not afraid he will steal the Farnese 
 Hercules ; and as to idleness and debauchery, he will 
 not be cured of these by cutting him off from the 
 pursuit of a study on which he has set his mind, and 
 in which he has a fair chance to succeed. 
 
 " I told one of them, with as grave a face as I could, 
 that, as to his moral character, he must go to his god- 
 fathers and god-mothers for that. He answered very 
 simply, that they were a great way off, and that he had 
 nobody to appeal to but his apothecary ! The Academy 
 
116 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 is not an institution for the suppression of vice, but 
 for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. Why then 
 go out of their way to meddle with what was provided 
 for by other means — the law and the pulpit 1 It 
 would not have happened in Sir Joshua's time," con- 
 tinued Northcote, " nor even in Fuseli's : but the 
 present men are ' dressed in a little brief authority/ 
 and they wish to make the most of it, without per- 
 ceiving the limits. No good can possibly come of 
 this busybody spirit. The dragging morality into 
 everything, in season and out of season, is only giving 
 a handle to hypocrisy, and turning virtue into a by- 
 word for impertinence ! " 
 
 Here Northcote stopped suddenly, to ask if there 
 was not such a word as rivulet in the language 1 I 
 said it was as much a word in the language as it was 
 a thing in itself. He replied, it was not to be found 
 in Johnson ; the word was riveret there. I thought 
 this must be in some of the new editions ; Dr. John- 
 son would have knocked anybody down, who had 
 used the word riveret. It put me in mind of a story 
 of Y[ates] the actor, who being asked how he was, 
 made answer that he had been indisposed for some 
 days with a feveret The same person, speaking of 
 the impossibility of escaping from too great publicity, 
 related an anecdote of his being once in a remote part 
 of the Highlands, and seeing an old gentleman fish- 
 ing, he went up to inquire some particulars as to the 
 mode of catching the salmon at what are called 
 "salmon-leaps." — The old gentleman began his reply 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 117 
 
 — " Why, Mr. Y[ates]," at which the actor started 
 back in great surprise. " Good God ! " said North- 
 cote, "did he consider this as a matter of wonder, 
 that, after showing himself on a stage for a number of 
 years, people should know his face 1 If an artist or an 
 author were recognised in that manner, it might be a 
 proof of celebrity, because it would show that they had 
 been sought for ; but an actor is so much seen in public, 
 that it is no wonder he is known by all the world. 
 
 "I once went with Opie in the stage-coach to 
 Exeter ; and when we parted \ he to go on to 
 Cornwall and I to Plymouth, there was a young 
 gentleman in the coach who asked me, ' Who it was 
 that I had been conversing with % ? I said it was Mr. 
 Opie, the painter ; at which he expressed the greatest 
 surprise, and was exceedingly concerned to think he 
 had not known it before. I did not tell him who I 
 was, to see if my name would electrify him in the 
 same manner. That brings to my mind the story I 
 perhaps may have told you before, of a Mr. A[ston] 
 and Dr. Pennick of the Museum. They got into 
 some quarrel at the theatre \ and the former present- 
 ing his card, said with great pomposity, ' My name 
 is A[ston], sir ; ' to which the other answered, £ I hear 
 it, sir, and am not terrified ! ? " I asked if this was 
 the A[ston] 1 who fought the duel with F[itzgerald]. 
 He said he could not tell, but he was our ambassador 
 to some of the petty German States. 
 
 A country gentleman came in, who complimented 
 1 Aston Henry Aston, the duellist and diplomatist. [Ed.] 
 
118 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Northcote on his pictures of animals and birds, which 
 I knew he would not like. He muttered something 
 when he was gone, in allusion to the proverb of giving 
 snuff to a cat. Afterwards, a miniature-painter brought 
 some copies he had made of a portrait of a young lady 
 by Northcote. They were really very well, and we 
 learned he was to have five guineas for the larger 
 size, and two for the smaller ones. I could now 
 account for the humility and shabby appearance of 
 the artist. He paid his court better than his rustic 
 predecessor; for being asked by Northcote if the 
 portrait of the young lady was approved? he said 
 the mother had told him, before she engaged him to 
 copy it, that " it was one of the loveliest pictures (that 
 was her expression) that had ever been seen ! " This 
 praise was better relished than that of his dogs and 
 parrots. 
 
 I took notice to Northcote that the man had a 
 very good head ; but that he put me in mind of the 
 state and pretensions of the art before artists wrote 
 Esquire after their names. He said, Yes, he was like 
 Andrew Taffi, or some of those in Vasari. I observed 
 how little he was paid for what he really did so well ; 
 to which Northcote merely replied, "In all things 
 that are not necessary, those in the second class must 
 always be miserably paid. Copying pictures is like 
 plain-work among women, it is what anybody can do, 
 and, therefore, nothing but a bare living is to be got 
 by it." He added, that the young lady, whose por- 
 trait her family was so anxious to have copied, was 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 119 
 
 dead, and this was a kind of diversion to their grief. 
 It was a very natural mode of softening it down \ it 
 was still recurring to the object of their regret, and 
 yet dwelling on it in an agreeable point of view. "The 
 
 wife of General H he continued, " many years 
 
 ago, came to me to do a picture of her son, a lieutenant 
 in the navy, who was killed in battle, but whom I 
 had never seen. There was no picture of him to 
 go by, but she insisted on my doing one under her 
 direction. I attempted a profile as the easiest ; and 
 she sat behind me and sang in a soft manner to her- 
 self, and told me what I was to do. It was a wretched 
 business, as you may suppose, being made out from 
 description ; but she would have it to be a great like- 
 ness, and brought all the family and even the servants 
 to see it, who probably did not dare to be of a dif- 
 ferent opinion. I said to her, ' What a pity it was 
 Sir Joshua had not done a portrait of him in his 
 lifetime ! ' At this she expressed great contempt, 
 and declared she would not give twopence for all Sir 
 Joshua's pictures ; indeed, she had one which I was 
 very welcome to have if I chose to come for it. I 
 lost no time in going to her house, and when I came 
 there, she led me up into an old garret which was 
 used as a lumber-room, and taking it carefully out of 
 a shabby frame not worth a groat, said, ' There, take 
 it, I am not sorry to get it out of the house.' I asked 
 what it was that made her so indifferent about this 
 picture % and she answered, ' It was a likeness of a 
 young gentleman who had been kind enough to die, 
 
120 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 by which means the estate came to the General.' She 
 spoke in this unfeeling manner, though her own son 
 had just died in the same circumstances \ and she had 
 had a monument made for him, and strewed flowers 
 upon it, and made such a fuss about his death, that 
 she would hardly have known what to do if he had 
 come to life again ! 99 I asked what was her reason 
 for disliking Keynolds's pictures ? " Oh ! that was 
 her ignorance, she did not know why ! " 
 
 Northcote said, " G[odwin] called here with his 
 daughter. I asked her about Lord Byron ; she said 
 his temper was so bad that nobody could live with 
 him. The only way to pass the day tolerably well 
 with him was to contradict him the first thing in the 
 morning. I have known tempers of that kind myself ; 
 you must quarrel with them in order to be friends. 
 If you did not conquer them, they would conquer 
 you." Something was observed about Byron and 
 Tom Paine, as to their attacks upon religion; and 
 I said that sceptics and philosophical unbelievers 
 appeared to me to have just as little liberality or 
 enlargement of view as the most bigoted fanatic. 
 They could not bear to make the least concession to 
 the opposite side. They denied the argument that 
 because the Scriptures were fine they were therefore 
 of divine origin, and yet they virtually admitted it ; 
 for, not believing their truth, they thought themselves 
 bound to maintain that they were good for nothing. 
 I had once, I said, given great offence to a knot of 
 persons of this description, by contending that Jacob's 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 121 
 
 Dream was finer than anything in Shakspeare ; and 
 that Hamlet would bear no comparison with, at least, 
 one character in the New Testament. A young poet 
 had said on this occasion, he did not like the Bible, 
 because there was nothing about flowers in it ; and I 
 asked him if he had forgot that passage, " Behold the 
 lilies of the field," etc. 1 
 
 "Yes," said Northcote, "and in the Psalms 
 and in the book of Job, there are passages of 
 unrivalled beauty. In the latter there is the 
 description of the war-horse, that has been so often 
 referred to, and of the days of Job's prosperity ; 
 and in the Psalms, I think there is that passage, 
 ' He openeth his hands, and the earth is filled with 
 plenteousness ; he turneth away his face, and we are 
 troubled ; he hidath himself, and we are left in dark- 
 ness ; ' or, again, how fine is that expression, ' All the 
 beasts of the forests are mine, and so are the cattle 
 upon a thousand hills ! ' What an expanse, and what 
 a grasp of the subject ! Everything is done upon so 
 large a scale, and yet with such ease, as if seen from 
 the highest point of view. It has mightily a look of 
 inspiration or of being dictated by a superior intel- 
 ligence. They say mere English readers cannot 
 understand Homer, because it is a translation; but 
 why will it not bear a translation as well as the book 
 of Job, if it is as fine ? In Shakspeare, undoubtedly, 
 there is a prodigious variety and force of human 
 character and passion, but he does not take us out of 
 ourselves ; he has a wonderful, almost a miraculous 
 
122 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 fellow-feeling with human nature in every possible 
 way, but that is all. Macbeth is full of sublimity, but 
 the sublimity is that of the earth, it does not reach to 
 heaven. It is a still stronger objection that is made to 
 Hogarth ; he, too, gave the incidents and characters of 
 human life with infinite truth and ability ; but then it 
 was in the lowest forms of all, and he could not rise 
 even to common dignity or beauty. There is a faculty 
 that enlarges and beautifies objects, even beyond 
 nature. It is for this reason that we must, reluc- 
 tantly perhaps, give the preference to Milton over 
 Shakspeare ; for his Paradise (to go no further) is 
 certainly a scene of greater beauty and happiness 
 than was ever found on earth, though so vividly 
 described that we easily make the transition, and 
 transport ourselves there. It is the same difference 
 that there is between Raphael and Michael Angelo, 
 though Eaphael, too, in many of his works merited 
 the epithet of divine." 
 
 I mentioned some lines from Shakspeare I had 
 seen quoted in a translation of a French work, and 
 applied to those who adhered to Buonaparte in his 
 misfortunes : 
 
 " He that can endure 
 
 To follow with allegiance a fallen lord, 
 
 Does conquer him that did his master conquer, 
 
 And earns a place i' the story." 
 
 I said I was struck to see how finely they came in. 
 " Oh !" replied Northcote, " if they were Shakspeare's, 
 they were sure to be fine. What a power there 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 123 
 
 always is in any lit brought in from him or Milton 
 among other things ! How it shines like a jewel ! I 
 think Milton reads best in this way ; he is too fine for 
 a continuance. Don't you think Shakspeare and the 
 writers of that day had a prodigious advantage in 
 using phrases and combinations of style, which could 
 not be admitted now that the language is reduced to 
 a more precise and uniform standard, but which yet 
 have a peculiar force and felicity when they can be 
 justified by the privilege of age 1 ?" He said, he had 
 been struck with this idea lately, in reading an old 
 translation of Boccaccio (about the time of Queen 
 Elizabeth) in which the language, though quaint, had 
 often a beauty that could not well be conveyed in 
 any modern translation. 
 
 He spoke of Lord Byron's notions about Shak- 
 speare. I said T did not care much about his opinions. 
 Northcote replied, they were evidently capricious, and 
 taken up in the spirit of contradiction. I said, not 
 only so (as far as I can judge), but without any better 
 founded ones in his own mind. They appear to me 
 conclusions without premises or any previous process 
 of thought or inquiry. I like old opinions with new 
 reasons, not new opinions without any — not mere ipse 
 dixits. He was too arrogant to assign a reason to 
 others or to need one for himself. It was quite 
 enough that he subscribed to any assertion, to make 
 it clear to the world, as well as binding on his valet ! 
 
 Northcote said, there were people who could not 
 argue. Fuseli was one of these. He could throw 
 
124 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 out very brilliant and striking things ; but if you at 
 all questioned him, he could no more give an answer 
 than a child of three years old. He had no resources, 
 nor any corps de reserve of argument beyond his first 
 line of battle. That was imposing and glittering 
 enough. Neither was Lord Byron a philosopher, 
 with all his sententiousness and force of expression. 
 Probably one ought not to expect the two things 
 together ; for to produce a startling and immediate 
 effect, one must keep pretty much upon the surface ; 
 and the search after truth is a very slow and obscure 
 process. 
 
CONVERSATION THE ELEVENTH 
 
 As soon as I went in to-day, Northcote asked me if 
 that was my character of Shakspeare, which had been 
 quoted in a newspaper the day before? It was so 
 like what he had thought a thousand times that he 
 could almost swear he had written it himself. I said 
 no ; it was from Kendall's Letters on Ireland ; though 
 I believed I had expressed nearly the same idea in 
 print. I had seen the passage myself, and hardly 
 knew at first whether to be pleased or vexed at it. 
 It was provoking to have one's words taken out of 
 one's mouth as it were by another ; and yet it seemed 
 also an encouragement to reflect, that if one only 
 threw one's bread upon the waters, one was sure to 
 find it again after many days. The world, if they do 
 not listen to an observation the first time, will listen 
 to it at second hand from those who have a more 
 agreeable method of insinuating it, or who do not tell 
 them too many truths at once. 
 
 Northcote said, he thought the account undoubtedly 
 just, to whomever it belonged. 1 The greatest genius 
 
 1 ' ' Sliakspeare's verses are not exactly ' wood-notes wild. ' He 
 was indebted to a most extensive reading at the same time as 
 
126 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 (such as that of Shakspeare) implied the greatest 
 power, and this implied the greatest ease and uncon- 
 sciousness of effort, or of anything extraordinary 
 effected. As this writer stated, " He would as soon 
 think of being vain of putting one foot before another, 
 as of writing Macbeth or Hamlet." Or as Hudibras 
 has expressed it, poetry was to him 
 
 " — a thing no more difficile 
 Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle." 
 
 "This (said he) is what I have always said of 
 Correggio's style, that he could not help it : it was 
 his nature. Besides, use familiarises us to everything. 
 How could Shakspeare be expected to be astonished 
 at what he did every day % No ; he was thinking 
 
 to a most transcendent genius. He did not pique himself upon 
 originality, but sat down to write his plays for the simple pur- 
 pose of the moment, and without a glimpse or an ambition of 
 the immortality which they were to acquire. He made use of 
 whatever he recollected and thought desirable, with the con- 
 trivance of an ordinary play-writer, and only grew original and 
 vast and exquisite, in spite of himself. If it be true that ' he 
 wrote not for an age, but for all time,' still there was no one 
 who knew less of that fact than he ! He imagined himself 
 writing only for the day before him ; and it is to this very cir- 
 cumstance that we owe the ease, the flashes, and the soarings 
 of his spirit. He was never overpowered by the intended lofti- 
 ness of the occasion. He made no efforts that were laborious, 
 because his mind was always superior to his object, and never 
 bowed down to it. He possessed, too, that affluence of genius, 
 which rendered him not only prodigal in its use, but almost 
 unacquainted with its existence. He never stood upon its dig- 
 nity ; he was never fearful of its loss nor of its denial. The 
 swan of Avon, like the swans from which poets derive their title, 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 127 
 
 either merely of the subject before him, or of gaining 
 his bread. It is only upstarts or pretenders, who do 
 not know what to make of their good fortune or 
 undeserved reputation. It comes to the same thing 
 that I have heard my brother remark with respect to 
 my father and old Mr. Tolcher, whose picture you 
 see there. He had a great friendship for my father 
 and a great opinion of his integrity ; and whenever 
 he came to see him, always began with saying, ' Well, 
 honest Mr. Samuel Northcote, how do you?' This 
 he repeated so often, and they were so used to it, 
 that my brother said they became like words of 
 course, and conveyed no more impression of anything 
 peculiar than if he had merely said, ' Well, good Mr. 
 Northcote, et cetera,'' or used any common expression. 
 
 was all strength and grace and beauty, without a conscious- 
 ness of either. And this character of his genius accords with 
 that character of facility, of gentleness, and of unostentation, 
 which his biographer ascribes to the man. He knew of 
 nothing within himself, of which he felt it worth while to be 
 vain. He would as soon have been vain of his power to put 
 one foot before another, as of his power to write the Tempest or 
 Macbeth. It belongs, in the midst of abundance, to Genius 
 as Beauty, to be thoughtless of itself. It is only for the dull 
 and the ugly — or at least for those in whom the claims to 
 beauty or to genius are equivocal — to be for ever contemplating 
 either in themselves, or for ever demanding the acknowledg- 
 ments of others. With the plenary possessors, the luxury is 
 too common, too much of everyday wear, to fix their attention. 
 The restlessness of the remainder is the restlessness of poverty, 
 and contrasts itself with the carelessness of riches." — Kendall's 
 Letters on Ireland. [Hazlitt.] Letters to a Friend on the State 
 of Ireland had then (1826) just been published by Edward 
 Augustus Kendall, the editor of The Literary Chronicle. [Ed.] 
 
128 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 So Shakspeare was accustomed to write his fine 
 speeches till he ceased to wonder at them himself, 
 and would have been surprised to find that you 
 did." 
 
 The conversation now turned on an answer in a 
 newspaper to Canning's assertion, that " Slavery was 
 not inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, inas- 
 much as it was the beauty of Christianity to accom- 
 modate itself to all conditions and circumstances." 
 Did Canning mean to say, because Christianity accom- 
 modated itself to, or made the best of all situations, 
 it did not therefore give the preference to any? 
 Because it recommended mildness and fortitude under 
 sufferings, did it not therefore condemn the in- 
 fliction of them 1 Or did it not forbid injustice and 
 cruelty in the strongest terms 1 This were indeed a 
 daring calumny on its founder : it were an insolent 
 irony. Don Quixote would not have said so. It was 
 like the Italian banditti, who when they have cut off 
 the ears of their victims, make them go down on 
 their knees, and return thanks to an image of the 
 Virgin Mary for the favour they have done them. It 
 was because such things do exist, that Christ came to 
 set His face against them, and to establish the maxim, 
 " Do unto others as you would that they should do 
 unto you." 
 
 If Mr. Canning will say that the masters would 
 like to be treated as they treat their slaves, then 
 he may say that slavery is consistent with the 
 spirit of Christianity. No ; the meaning of those 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 129 
 
 maxims of forbearance and submission, which the 
 Quakers have taken too literally, is, that you are not 
 to drive out one devil by another ; it aims at dis- 
 couraging a resort to violence and anger, for if the 
 temper it inculcates could become universal, there 
 would be no injuries to resent. It objects against 
 the power of the sword, but it is to substitute a power 
 ten thousand times stronger than the sword — that 
 which subdues and conquers the affections, and strikes 
 at the very root and thought of evil. All that is 
 meant by such sayings, as that if a person " smites 
 us on one cheek, we are to turn to him the other," 
 is, that we are to keep as clear as possible of a dis- 
 position to retaliate and exasperate injuries ; or there 
 is a Spanish proverb which explains this, that says, 
 "It is he who gives the second blow that begins the 
 quarrel" 
 
 On my referring to what had been sometimes 
 asserted of the inefficacy of pictures in Protestant 
 churches, Northcote said he might be allowed to 
 observe in favour of his own art, that though they 
 might not strike at first from a difference in our own 
 belief, yet they would gain upon the spectator by the 
 force of habit. The practice of image-worship was 
 probably an afterthought of the Papists themselves, 
 from seeing the effects produced on the minds of the 
 rude and ignorant by visible representations of saints 
 and martyrs. The rulers of the Church at first only 
 thought to amuse and attract the people by pictures 
 and statues (as they did by music and rich dresses, 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 from which no inference was to be drawn) ; but when 
 these representations of sacred subjects were once 
 placed before the senses of an uninstructed but im- 
 aginative people, they looked at them with wonder 
 and eagerness, till they began to think they saw them 
 move ; and then miracles were worked ; and as this 
 became a source of wealth and great resort to the 
 several shrines and churches, every means was used 
 to encourage the superstition and a belief in the 
 supernatural virtues of the objects by the clergy and 
 government. So he thought that if pictures were set 
 up in our churches, they would by degrees inspire 
 the mind with all the feelings of awe or interest that 
 were necessary or proper. It was less difficult to 
 excite enthusiasm than to keep it under due restraint. 
 So in Italy, the higher powers did not much relish 
 those processions of naked figures, taken from scrip- 
 tural stories (such as Adam and Eve) on particular 
 holidays, for they led to scandal and abuse ; but they 
 fell in with the humour of the rabble, and were 
 lucrative to the lower orders of priests and friars, and 
 the Pope could not expressly discountenance them. 
 He said we were in little danger (either from our 
 religion or temperament) of running into those dis- 
 graceful and fanciful extremes ; but should rather do 
 everything in our power to avoid the opposite error 
 of a dry and repulsive asceticism. We could not give 
 too much encouragement to the fine arts. 
 
 Our talk of to-day concluded by his saying, that 
 he often blamed himself for uttering what might be 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 131 
 
 thought harsh things ; and that on mentioning this 
 once to Kemble, and saying it sometimes kept him from 
 sleep after he had been out in company, Kemble had 
 replied, " Oh ! you need not trouble yourself so much 
 about them : others never think of them afterwards ! " 
 
CONVERSATION THE TWELFTH 
 
 Northcote was painting from a little girl when I 
 
 went in. B 1 was there. Something was said of 
 
 a portrait of Dunning by Sir Joshua (an unfinished 
 
 head), and B observed, "Ah! my good friend, 
 
 if you and I had known at that time what those 
 things would fetch, we might have made our fortunes 
 now. By laying out a few pounds on the loose 
 sketches and sweepings of the lumber-room, we might 
 have made as many hundreds.' 7 — " Yes," said North- 
 cote, "it was thought they would soon be forgot, and 
 they went for nothing on that account : but they are 
 more sought after than ever, because those imperfect 
 hints and studies seem to bring one more in contact 
 with the artist, and explain the process of his mind 
 in the several stages. A finished work is, in a manner, 
 detached from and independent of its author, like a 
 child that can go alone : in the other case, it seems 
 
 1 Probably Beechey again ; and the conjecture may be 
 
 hazarded that, in spite of the attempt to conceal the fact, X 
 
 is still Beechey throughout this Conversation. Northcote was 
 very jealous of the fashionable Court painter. [Ed.] 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 133 
 
 to be still in progress, and to await his hand to finish 
 it ; or we supply the absence of well-known excel- 
 lences out of our own imagination, so that we have a 
 twofold property in it." 
 
 Northcote read something out of a newspaper 
 about the Suffolk Street Exhibition, in which his own 
 name was mentioned, and M[artin]'s, x the landscape- 
 painter. B said, his pictures were a trick — a 
 
 streak of red, and then a streak of blue. But, said 
 Northcote, there is some merit in finding out a new 
 trick. I ventured to hint, that the receipt for his 
 was, clouds upon mountains, and mountains upon 
 clouds — that there was number and quantity, but 
 neither form nor colour. He appeared to me an 
 instance of a total want of imagination ; he mistook 
 the character of the feelings associated with every- 
 thing, and I mentioned as an instance his Adam and 
 Eve, which had been much admired, but which was 
 a panoramic view of the map of Asia, instead of a 
 representation of our first parents in Paradise. 
 
 After B was gone, we spoke of X . I re- 
 gretted his want of delicacy towards the public as well 
 as towards his private friends. I did not think he had 
 failed so much from want of capacity, as from attempt- 
 ing to bully the public into a premature or over- 
 strained admiration of him, instead of gaining ground 
 
 1 John Martin (1789-1854). His " Adam's First Sight of 
 Eve," to which Hazlitt refers, was hung in the Royal Academy 
 for 1813. Martin quarrelled with the Academy, and exhibited 
 mainly at Suffolk Street between 1824 and 1838. [Ed.] 
 
134 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 upon them by improving on himself; and he now 
 felt the ill effects of the reaction of this injudicious 
 proceeding. He had no real love of his art, and 
 therefore did not apply or give his whole mind 
 sedulously to it ; and was more bent on bespeaking 
 notoriety beforehand by puffs and announcements of 
 his works, than on giving them that degree of perfec- 
 tion which would ensure lasting reputation. No one 
 would ever attain the highest excellence, who had so 
 little nervous sensibility as to take credit for it (either 
 with himself or others) without being at the trouble 
 of producing it. It was securing the reward in the 
 first instance ; and afterwards, it would be too much 
 to expect the necessary exertion or sacrifices. Un- 
 limited credit was as dangerous to success in art as 
 in business. "And yet he still finds dupes," said 
 Northcote ; to which I replied, it was impossible to 
 resist him, as long as you kept on terms with him : 
 any difference of opinion or reluctance on your part 
 made no impression on him, and unless you quarrelled 
 with him downright, you must do as he wished you. 
 — "And how then," said Northcote, "do you think 
 it possible for a person of this hard unyielding dis- 
 position to be a painter, where everything depends 
 on seizing the nicest inflections of feeling and the most 
 evanescent shades of beauty ? 
 
 " No, I'll tell you why he cannot be a painter. He 
 has not virtue enough. No one can give out to others 
 what he has not in himself, and there is nothing in 
 his mind to delight or captivate the world. I will not 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 135 
 
 deny the mechanical dexterity, but he fails in the 
 mental part. There was Sir Peter Lely : he is full 
 of defects ; but he was the fine gentleman of his age, 
 and you see this character stamped on every one of 
 his works ; — even his errors prove it ; and this is one 
 of those things that the world receive with gratitude. 
 Sir Joshua again was not without his faults : he had 
 not grandeur, but he was a man of a mild, bland, 
 amiable character; and this predominant feeling 
 appears so strongly in his works, that you cannot 
 mistake it ; and this is what makes them so delightful 
 to look at, and constitutes their charm to others, even 
 without their being conscious of it. There was such 
 a look of nature too. I remember once going through, 
 a suite of rooms where they were showing me several 
 fine Vandykes ; and we came to one where there 
 were some children, by Sir Joshua, seen through a 
 door — it was like looking at the reality, they were so 
 full of life — the branches of the trees waved over their 
 heads, and the fresh air seemed to play on their 
 cheeks — I soon forgot Vandyke ! 
 
 " So, in the famous St. Jerome of Correggio, Gar- 
 rick used to say, that the Saint resembled a Satyr, and 
 that the child was like a monkey ; but then there is 
 such a look of life in the last, it dazzles you with 
 spirit and vivacity ; you can hardly believe but it 
 will move or fly ; — indeed, Sir Joshua took his Puck 
 from it, only a little varied in the attitude." I said 
 I had seen it not long ago, and that it had remarkably 
 the look of a spirit or a faery or preternatural being, 
 
136 
 
 hazlitt's conveksations 
 
 though neither beautiful nor dignified. I remarked 
 to Northcote, that I had never sufficiently relished 
 Correggio; that I had tried several times to work 
 myself up to the proper degree of admiration, but 
 that I always fell back again into my former state of 
 lukewarmness and scepticism ; though I could not help 
 allowing, that what he did, he appeared to me to do 
 with more feeling than anybody else ; that I could 
 conceive Raphael or even Titian to have represented 
 objects from mere natural capacity (as we see them 
 in a looking-glass) without being absolutely wound up 
 in them, but that I could fancy Correggio's pencil to 
 thrill with sensibility : he brooded over the idea of 
 grace or beauty in his mind till the sense grew faint 
 with it ; and like a lover or a devotee, he carried his 
 enthusiasm to the brink of extravagance and affecta- 
 tion, so enamoured was he of his art ! Northcote 
 assented to this as a just criticism, and said, " That is 
 
 why his works must live : but X is a hardened 
 
 egotist, devoted to nothing but himself ! " Northcote 
 
 then asked about , 1 and if she was handsome ? 
 
 I said she might sit for the portrait of Rebecca in 
 Ivanhoe ! 
 
 He then turned the conversation to Brambletye 
 House. 2 He thought the writer had failed in Charles 
 II. and Rochester. Indeed, it was a daring attempt 
 to make bons mots for two such characters. The wit 
 
 1 Sir William Beechey's second wife, no doubt ; a very charm- 
 ing and accomplished person. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Horace Smith's historical romance. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 137 
 
 must be sharp and fine indeed, that would do to put 
 into their mouths : even Sir Walter might tremble to 
 undertake it ! He had made Milton speak too : this 
 was almost as dangerous an attempt as for Milton to 
 put words into the mouth of the Deity. The great 
 difficulty was to know where to stop, and not to 
 trespass on forbidden ground. Cervantes was one of 
 the boldest and most original inventors ; yet he had 
 never ventured beyond his depth. He had in the 
 person of his hero really represented the maxims 
 of benevolence and generosity inculcated by the 
 Christian religion : that was a law to him ; and by 
 his fine conception of the subject, he had miraculously 
 succeeded. Shakspeare alone could be said in his 
 grotesque creations to be above all law. Richardson 
 had succeeded admirably in Clarissa, because he had 
 a certain rule to go by or certain things to avoid, for 
 a perfect woman was a negative character ; but he had 
 failed in Sir Charles Grandison, and made him a lump 
 of odious affectation, because a perfect man is not a 
 negative, but a positive character ; and in aiming at 
 faultlessness, he had produced only the most vapid 
 effeminacy. After all, Brambletye House was about as 
 good as the Rejected Addresses. There was very little 
 difference between a parody and an imitation. The 
 defects and peculiarities are equally seized upon in 
 either case. 
 
 He did not know how Sir Walter would take it. 
 To have imitators seemed at first a compliment, yet 
 no one liked it. You could not put Fuseli in a 
 
138 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 greater passion than by calling Maria Cosway 1 an 
 imitator of his. Nothing made Sir Joshua so mad, as 
 Miss Keynolds's portraits, which were an exact imita- 
 tion of all his defects. Indeed, she was obliged to 
 keep them out of his way. He said, "They made 
 everybody else laugh, and himself cry." It is that 
 which makes every one dread a mimic. Your self- 
 love is alarmed, without being so easily reassured. 
 You know there is a difference, but it is not great 
 enough to make you feel quite at ease. The line of 
 demarcation between the true and the spurious is not 
 sufficiently broad and palpable. The copy you see is 
 vile or indifferent ; and the original, you suspect (but 
 for your partiality to yourself), is not perhaps much 
 better. 
 
 This is what I have often felt in looking at the 
 drawings of the students at the Academy, or when 
 young artists have brought their first crude attempts 
 for my opinion. The glaring defects, the abortive 
 efforts have almost disgusted me with the profession. 
 Good God ! I have said, is this what the art is 
 made up of? How do I know that my own pro- 
 ductions may not appear in the same light to others 1 
 Whereas the seeing the finest specimens of art, instead 
 of disheartening, gives me courage to proceed : one 
 cannot be wrong in treading in the same footsteps, 
 
 1 This extraordinary being was the wife of Richard Cosway, 
 R.A. She ran away from her husband, became the lady 
 superior of a French nunnery, and disappeared about 1822. 
 She had considerable talent both as an artist and as a musician. 
 [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 139 
 
 and to fall short of them is no disgrace, while the 
 faintest reflection of their excellence is glorious. It 
 was this that made Correggio cry out on seeing 
 Raphael's works, " I also am a painter " ; he felt a 
 kindred spirit in his own breast. — I said, I recollected 
 when I was formerly trying to paint, nothing gave 
 me the horrors so much as passing the old battered 
 portraits at the doors of brokers' shops, with the 
 morning-sun flaring full upon them. I was generally 
 inclined to prolong my walk, and put off painting for 
 that day ; but the sight of a fine picture had a con- 
 trary effect, and I went back and set to work with 
 redoubled ardour. 
 
 Northcote happened to speak of a gentleman 
 
 married to one of the , of whom a friend had 
 
 said, laughing, "There's a man that's in love with 
 his own wife ! " He mentioned the beautiful Lady 
 
 F P , and said her hair, which was in great 
 
 quantities and very fine, was remarkable for having 
 a single lock different from all the rest, which he 
 supposed she cherished as a beauty. I told him I 
 had not long ago seen the hair of Lucretia Borgia, 
 of Mi]ton, Buonaparte, and Dr. Johnson, all folded 
 up in the same paper. It had belonged to Lord 
 Byron. Northcote replied, one could not be sure 
 of that ; it was easy to get a lock of hair, and call 
 it by any name one pleased. In some cases, how- 
 ever, one might rely on its being the same. Mrs. 
 G[wyn] had certainly a lock of Goldsmith's hair, for 
 she and her sister [Miss Horneck] had wished to 
 
140 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 have some remembrance of him after his death ; and 
 though the coffin was nailed up, it was opened again 
 at their request (such was the regard Goldsmith was 
 known to have for them !), and a lock of his hair was 
 cut off, which Mrs. G[wyn] still has. Northcote said, 
 Goldsmith's death was the severest blow Sir Joshua 
 ever received — he did not paint all that day ! It was 
 proposed to make a grand funeral for him, but Rey- 
 nolds objected to this, as it would be over in a day, 
 and said it would be better to lay by the money to 
 erect a monument to him in "Westminster Abbey; 
 and he went himself and chose the spot. Goldsmith 
 had begun another novel, of which he read the first 
 chapter to the Miss Hornecks a little before his death. 
 
 Northcote asked, what I thought of the Vicar 
 of Wakefield ? And I answered, What everybody 
 else did. He said there was that mixture of the 
 ludicrous and the pathetic running through it, 
 which particularly delighted him : it gave a stronger 
 resemblance to nature. He thought this justified 
 Shakspeare in mingling up farce and tragedy together : 
 life itself was a tragi-comedy. Instead of being pure, 
 everything was chequered. If you went to an 
 execution, you would perhaps see an apple-woman in 
 the greatest distress, because her stall was overturned, 
 at which you could not help smiling. We then 
 spoke of Retaliation, and praised the character of 
 Burke in particular as a masterpiece. Nothing that 
 he had ever said or done but what was foretold in it; 
 nor was he painted as the principal figure in the fore- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 141 
 
 ground with the partiality of a friend, or as the great 
 man of the day, but with a background of history, 
 showing both what he was and what he might have 
 been. Northcote repeated some lines from the 
 Traveller, which were distinguished by a beautiful 
 transparency, by simplicity and originality. He 
 confirmed BoswelPs account of Goldsmith, as being 
 about the middle height, rather clumsy, and tawdry 
 in his dress. 
 
 A gentleman came in who had just shown his 
 good taste in purchasing three pictures of Northcote, 
 one a head of Sir Joshua by himself, and the other 
 two by Northcote, a whole-length portrait of an 
 Italian girl, and a copy of Omai, the South-Sea Chief. 
 I could hear the artist in the outer room expressing 
 some scruples as to the consistency of his parting with 
 one of them which he had brought from abroad, 
 according to the strict letter of his Custom House 
 oath — an objection which the purchaser, a Member 
 of Parliament, overruled by assuring him that " the 
 peculiar case could not be contemplated by the spirit 
 of the act." Northcote also expressed some regret at 
 the separation from pictures that had become old 
 friends. He however comforted himself that they 
 would now find a respectable asylum, which was 
 better than being knocked about in garrets and 
 auction-rooms, as they would inevitably be at his 
 death. " You may at least depend upon it," said Mr. 
 
 "that they will not be sold again for many 
 
 generations ! " 
 
142 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 This view into futurity brought back to my mind 
 the time when I had first known these pictures : 
 since then, my life was flown, and with it the 
 hope of fame as an artist (with which I had once 
 regarded them), and I felt a momentary pang. 
 Northcote took me out into the other room, when his 
 friend was gone, to look at them; and on my ex- 
 pressing my admiration of the portrait of the Italian 
 lady, he said she was the mother of Madame Bellochi, 
 and was still living; that he had painted it at 
 Rome about the year 1780 ; that her family was 
 originally Greek, and that he had known her, her 
 daughter, her mother, and grandmother. She and a 
 sister who was with her, were at that time full of the 
 most charming gaiety and innocence. The old woman 
 used to sit upon the ground without moving or 
 speaking, with her arm over her head, and exactly 
 like a bundle of old clothes. 
 
 Alas ! thought I, what are we but a heap of clay 
 resting upon the earth, and ready to crumble again 
 into dust and ashes ! 
 
CONVERSATION THE THIRTEENTH 
 
 Northcote spoke about the failure of some print- 
 sellers. He said, " He did not wonder at it ; it was 
 a just punishment of their presumption and ignorance. 
 They w r ent into an Exhibition, looked round them, 
 fixed upon some contemptible performance, and with- 
 out knowing anything about the matter or consulting 
 anybody, ordered two or three thousands pounds' 
 worth of prints from it, merely out of purse-proud 
 insolence, and because the money burnt in their pockets. 
 Such people fancied that the more money they laid 
 out, the more they must get ; so that extravagance 
 became (by the turn their vanity gave to it) another 
 name for thrift." 
 
 Having spoken of a living artist's pictures as mere 
 portraits that were interesting to no one except 
 the people who sat for them, he remarked, " There 
 was always something in the meanest face that a 
 great artist could take advantage of. That was 
 the merit of Sir Joshua, who contrived to throw 
 a certain air and character even over ugliness and 
 folly, that disarmed criticism and made you wonder 
 
144 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 how he did it. This, at least, is the case with his 
 portraits ; for though he made his beggars look like 
 heroes, he sometimes, in attempting history, made 
 his heroes look like beggars. Grandi, the Italian 
 colour-grinder, sat to him for King Henry VI. in the 
 £ Death of Cardinal Beaufort, 7 and he looks not much 
 better than a train-bearer or one in a low and mean 
 station : if he had sat to him for his portrait, he 
 would have made him look like a king ! That was 
 what made Fuseli observe in joke that ( Grandi 
 never held up his head after Sir Joshua painted 
 him in his Cardinal Beaufort ! ' But the pictures I 
 speak of are poor dry facsimiles (in a little timid 
 manner and with an attempt at drapery) of imbecile 
 creatures, whose appearance is a satire on themselves 
 and mankind. Neither can I conceive why L[aw- 
 rence] should be sent over to paint Charles X. 1 A 
 French artist said to me on that occasion, 1 We have 
 very fine portrait -painters in Paris, sir!' . . . The 
 poor engraver would be the greatest sufferer by these 
 expensive prints. Tradespeople nowadays did not 
 look at the thing with an eye to business, but ruined 
 themselves and others by setting up for would-be 
 patrons and judges of the art. 
 
 " ' Some demon whisper'd, Visto, have a taste ! ' " 
 
 I said I thought L[awrence]'s pictures might do 
 very well as mirrors for personal vanity to contemplate 
 itself in (as you looked in the glass to see how you 
 1 In 1825. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 145 
 
 were dressed), but that it was a mistake to suppose 
 they would interest any one else or were addressed 
 to the world at large. They were private, not public 
 property. They never caught the eye in a shop- 
 window ; but were (as it appeared to me) a kind of 
 lithographic painting, or thin, meagre outlines without 
 the depth and richness of the art. 
 
 I mentioned to Northcote the pleasure I had 
 formerly taken in a little print of Gadshill from a 
 sketch of his own, which I used at one time to pass a 
 certain shop- window on purpose to look at. He said, 
 " It was impossible to tell beforehand what would hit 
 the public. You might as well pretend to say what 
 ticket would turn up a prize in the lottery. It was 
 not chance neither, but some unforeseen coincidence 
 between the subject and the prevailing taste, that 
 you could not possibly be a judge of. I had once 
 painted two pictures ; one of a Fortune-teller (a boy 
 with a monkey), and another called 'The Visit to 
 the Grandmother ' ; and Eaphael Smith 1 came to me 
 and wanted to engrave them, being willing to give a 
 handsome sum for the first, but only to do the last 
 as an experiment. He sold ten times as many of the 
 last as of the first, and told me that there were not 
 less than five different impressions done of it in 
 Paris * and once when I went to his house to get one 
 to complete a set of engravings after my designs, 
 they asked me six guineas for a proof -impression ! 
 
 1 John Raphael Smith (1752-1812), the mezzotint engraver, 
 in the early part of his career an admirable artist. [Ed.] 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 This was too much, but I was delighted that I could 
 not afford to pay for my own work, from the value 
 that was set upon it ! " — I said, people were much 
 alarmed at the late failures, and thought there would 
 be a "blow-up," in the vulgar phrase. — "Surely you 
 can't suppose so ? A blow-up ! Yes, of adventurers 
 and upstarts, but not of the country, if they mean 
 that. This is like the man who thought that gin- 
 drinking would put an end to the world. Oh ! no — 
 the country will go on just as before, bating the dis- 
 tress to individuals. You may form an idea on the 
 subject if you ever go to look at the effects of a fire 
 the day after : you see nothing but smoke and ruins 
 and bare walls, and think the damage can never be 
 repaired ; but if you pass by the same way a week 
 after, you will find the houses all built up just as 
 they were before or even better, than ever ! No, 
 there is the same wealth, the same industry and in- 
 genuity in the country as there was before ; and till you 
 destroy that, you cannot destroy the country. These 
 temporary distresses are only like disorders in the 
 body, that carry off its bad and superfluous humours. 
 
 "My neighbour Mr. Eowe, the bookseller, in- 
 formed me the other day that Signora Cecilia Davies 
 frequently came to his shop, and always inquired 
 after me. Did you ever hear of her ? " No, never ! 
 "She must be very old now. 1 Fifty years ago, in 
 
 1 She must have been ninety, if it be correct that she was 
 born in 1740. She was a very famous singer in her day, and 
 lived on until 1836. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 147 
 
 the time of Garrick, she made a vast sensation. All 
 England rang with her name. I do assure you, that 
 in this respect Madame Catalani was not more talked 
 of. Afterwards she had retired to Florence, and was 
 the Prima Donna there, when Storace first came out. 
 This was at the time when Mr. Hoare and myself 
 were in Italy ; and I remember we went to call upon 
 her. She had then in a great measure fallen off, but 
 she was still very much admired. What a strange 
 thing a reputation of this kind is, that the person 
 herself survives, and sees the meteors of fashion rise 
 and fall one after another, while she remains totally 
 disregarded as if there had been no such person, yet 
 thinking all the while that she was better than any 
 of them ! I have hardly heard her name mentioned 
 in the last thirty years, though in her time she was 
 quite as famous as any one since." 
 
 I said, an Opera- reputation was after all but a 
 kind of Private Theatricals and confined to a small 
 circle, compared with that of the regular stage, 
 which all the world were judges of and took an 
 interest in. It was but the echo of a sound, or 
 like the blaze of phosphorus that did not com- 
 municate to the surrounding objects. It belonged 
 to a fashionable coterie, rather than to the public, 
 and might easily die away at the end of the 
 season. I then observed I was more affected by the 
 fate of players than by that of any other class of 
 people. They seemed to me more to be pitied than 
 anybody — the contrast was so great between the glare, 
 
148 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 the noise, and intoxication of their first success, and 
 the mortifications and neglect of their declining 
 years. They were made drunk with popular ap- 
 plause ; and when this stimulus was withdrawn, must 
 feel the insignificance of ordinary life particularly 
 vapid and distressing. There were no sots like the 
 sots of vanity. There were no traces left of what they 
 had been, any more than of a forgotten dream ; and 
 they had no consolation but in their own conceit, 
 which, when it was without other vouchers, was a 
 very uneasy comforter. I had seen some actors who 
 had been favourites in my youth and " cried up in 
 the top of the compass," treated, from having grown 
 old and infirm, with the utmost indignity and almost 
 
 hooted from the stage. I had seen poor come 
 
 forward under these circumstances to stammer out 
 an apology with the tears in his eyes (which almost 
 brought them into mine) to a set of apprentice-boys 
 and box-lobby loungers, who neither knew nor cared 
 what a fine performer and a fine gentleman he was 
 thought twenty years ago. Players were so far 
 particularly unfortunate. The theatrical public have 
 a very short memory. Every four or five years 
 there is a new audience, who know nothing but of 
 what they have before their eyes, and who pronounce 
 summarily upon this, without any regard to past obliga- 
 tions or past services, and with whom the veterans of 
 the stage stand a bad chance indeed, as their former 
 triumphs are entirely forgotten, while they appear as 
 living vouchers against themselves. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 149 
 
 "Do you remember," said Northcote, " Sheridan's 
 beautiful lines on the subject in his Monody on 
 Garrick ? " I said, I did; and that it was probably 
 the reading them early that had impressed this feel- 
 ing so strongly on my mind. Northcote then re- 
 marked, " I think a great beauty is most to be pitied. 
 She completely outlives herself. She has been used 
 to the most bewitching homage, to have the highest 
 court paid and the most nattering things said to her 
 by all those who approach her, and to be received 
 with looks of delight and surprise wherever she 
 comes; and she afterwards not only finds herself 
 deprived of all this and reduced to a cypher, but she 
 sees it all transferred to another, who has become the 
 reigning toast and beauty of the day in her stead. 
 It must be a most violent shock. It is like a king 
 who is dethroned and reduced to serve as a page 
 in his own palace. I remember once being struck 
 
 with seeing the Duchess of , the same that Sir 
 
 Joshua painted, and who was a miracle of beauty 
 when she was young, and followed by crowds where- 
 
 ever she went — I was coming out of Mrs. W 's ; 
 
 and on the landing-place, there was she standing by 
 herself, and calling over the bannister for her servant 
 to come to her. If she had been as she once was, a 
 thousand admirers would have flown to her assist- 
 ance; but her face was painted over like a mask, 
 and there was hardly any appearance of life left 
 but the restless motion of her eyes. I was really 
 hurt." 
 
150 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 I answered, the late Queen had much the same pain- 
 ful look that he described — her face highly rouged, and 
 her eyes rolling in her head like an automaton, but 
 she had not the mortification of having ever been a 
 great beauty. " There was a Miss , too," North- 
 cote added, " who was a celebrated beauty when she 
 was a girl, and who also sat to Sir Joshua. I saw 
 her not long ago and she was grown as coarse and 
 vulgar as possible ; she was like an apple-woman or 
 would do to keep the Three Tuns. The change must 
 be very mortifying. To be sure, there is one thing, 
 it comes on by degrees. The ravages of the small- 
 pox must formerly have been a dreadful blow ! " 
 He said, literary men or men of talent in general 
 were the best off in this respect. The reputation 
 they acquired was not only lasting, but gradually 
 grew stronger, if it was deserved. I agreed they 
 were seldom spoiled by flattery, and had no reason 
 to complain after they were dead. "Nor while they 
 are living," said Northcote, "if it is not their own 
 fault." 
 
 He mentioned an instance of a trial about an 
 engraving where he, West, and others had to 
 appear, and of the respect that was shown them. 
 Erskine, after flourishing away, made an attempt to 
 puzzle Stothard by drawing two angles on a piece of 
 paper, an acute and an obtuse one, and asking, " Do 
 you mean to say these two are alike 1 ?" — "Yes, I do," 
 was the answer. "I see," said Erskine, turning 
 round, "there is nothing to be got by angling here !" 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 151 
 
 West was then called upon to give his evidence, and 
 there was immediately a lane made for him to come 
 forward, and a stillness that you could hear a pin 
 drop. The Judge (Lord Kenyon) then addressed 
 him, "Sir Benjamin, we shall be glad to hear your 
 opinion ! " Mr. West answered, " He had never 
 received the honour of a title from His Majesty ; " 
 and proceeded to explain the difference between the 
 two engravings which were charged with being copies 
 the one of the other, with such clearness and know- 
 ledge of the art, though in general he was a bad 
 speaker, that Lord Kenyon said when he had done, 
 "I suppose, gentlemen, you are perfectly satisfied — 
 I perceive there is much more in this than I had any 
 idea of, and am sorry I did not make it more my 
 study when I was young ! " 
 
 I remarked that I believed corporations of art 
 or letters might meet with a certain attention ; but 
 it was the stragglers and candidates that were 
 knocked about with very little ceremony. Talent 
 or merit only wanted a frame of some sort or other 
 to set it off to advantage. Those of my way of 
 thinking were " bitter bad judges " on this point. 
 A Tory scribe who treated mankind as rabble and 
 canaille, was regarded by them in return as a fine 
 gentleman : a reformer like myself, who stood up for 
 liberty and equality, was taken at his word by the very 
 journeymen that set up his paragraphs, and could 
 not get a civil answer from the meanest shop-boy in 
 the employ of those on his own side of the question. 
 
152 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 Northcote laughed and said, I irritated myself 
 too much about such things. He said it was one 
 of Sir Joshua's maxims that the art of life consisted 
 in not being overset by trifles. We should look at 
 the bottom of the account, not at each individual 
 item in it, and see how the balance stands at the 
 end of the year. We should be satisfied if the 
 path of life is clear before us, and not fret at the 
 straws or pebbles that lie in our way. What you 
 have to look to is whether you can get what you 
 write printed, and whether the public will read it, 
 and not to busy yourself with the remarks of shop- 
 boys or printers' devils. They can do you neither 
 harm nor good. The impertinence of mankind is a 
 thing that no one can guard against. 
 
CONVEKSATION THE FOURTEENTH 
 
 Northcote showed me a poem 1 with engravings of 
 Dartmoor, which were too fine by half. I said I 
 supposed Dartmoor would look more gay and smiling 
 after having been thus illustrated, like a dull author 
 who has been praised by a Eeviewer. I had once 
 been nearly benighted there and was delighted to 
 get to the inn at Ashburton. "That," said North- 
 cote, " is the only good of such places that you are 
 glad to escape from them, and look back to them with 
 a pleasing horror ever after. Commend me to the 
 Valdarno or Vallambrosa, where you are never weary 
 of new charms, and which you quit with a sigh of regret. 
 I have, however, told my young friend who sent me 
 the poem, that he has shown his genius in creating 
 beauties where there were none, and extracting enthu- 
 siasm from rocks and quagmires. After that, he may 
 write a very interesting poem on Kamschatka ! " 
 
 He then spoke of the Panorama of the North 
 Pole which had been lately exhibited, of the ice- 
 
 1 This was, no doubt, the Dartmoor of the Devonshire poet, 
 Noel Thomas Carrington, which appeared in 1826. [Ed.] 
 
154 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 bergs, the seals lying asleep on the shore, and the 
 strange twilight as well worth seeing. He said, it 
 would be curious to know the effect, if they could get 
 to the Pole itself, though it must be impossible : the 
 veins, he should suppose, would burst, and the vessel 
 itself go to pieces from the extreme cold. 
 
 I asked if he had ever read an account of twelve 
 men who had been left all the winter in Greenland, 
 and of the dreadful shifts to which they were reduced ? 
 He said, he had not. — They were obliged to build two 
 booths of wood one within the other; and if they 
 had to go into the outer one during the severity of 
 the weather, unless they used great precaution, their 
 hands were blistered by whatever they took hold of 
 as if it had been red-hot iron. The most interesting 
 part was the account of their waiting for the return 
 of light at the approach of spring, and the delight 
 with which they first saw the sun shining on the tops 
 of the frozen mountains. 
 
 Northcote said, "This is the great advantage of 
 descriptions of extraordinary situations by unin- 
 formed men : Nature as it were holds the pen for 
 them ; they give you what is most striking in the 
 circumstances, and there is nothing to draw off 
 the attention from the strong and actual impres- 
 sion, so that it is the next thing to the reality. 
 Gr[odwin] was here the other day, and I showed him 
 the note from my bookseller about the Fables, 1 with 
 
 1 The joint production of Northcote, whose name they bore, 
 and Hazlitt himself. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 155 
 
 which you were so much pleased, but he saw nothing 
 in it." I then said Gr[odwin] is not one of those who 
 look attentively at nature or draw much from that 
 source. Yet the rest is but like building castles in 
 the air, if it is not founded in observation and experi- 
 ence. Or it is like the enchanted money in the 
 Arabian Nights, which turned to dry leaves when you 
 came to make use of it. It is ingenious and amusing, 
 and so far it is well to be amused when you can ; but 
 you learn nothing from the fine hypothesis you have 
 been reading, which is only a better sort of dream, 
 bright and vague and utterly inapplicable to the 
 purposes of common life. G[odwin] does not appeal 
 to nature, but to art and execution. There is another 
 thing (which it seems harsh and presumptuous to say, 
 but) he appears, to me not always to perceive the 
 difference between right and wrong. There are 
 many others in the same predicament, though not 
 such splendid examples of it. He is satisfied to make 
 out a plausible case, to give the pros and cons like a 
 lawyer ; but he has no instinctive bias or feeling one 
 way or other, except as he can give a studied reason 
 for it. Common sense is out of the question : such 
 people despise common sense, and the quarrel between 
 them is a mutual one. Caleb Williams, notwith- 
 standing, is a decidedly original work : the rest 
 are the sweepings of his study. That is but one 
 thing, to be sure ; but no one does more than one 
 thing. 
 
 Northcote said that Sir J oshua used to say that no 
 
156 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 one produced more than six original things. " I always 
 said it was wrong to fix upon this number — five out 
 of the six would be found upon examination to be 
 repetitions of the first. A man can no more produce 
 six original works than he can be six individuals at 
 once. Whatever is the strong and prevailing bent of 
 his genius, he will stamp upon some master -work; 
 and what he does else, will be only the same thing 
 over again, a little better or a little worse ; or if he 
 goes out of his way in search of variety and to avoid 
 himself, he will merely become a commonplace man 
 or an imitator of others. You see this plainly enough 
 in Cervantes — that he has exhausted himself in the 
 Don Quixote. He has put his whole strength into it ; 
 his other works are no better than what other people 
 could write. 
 
 " If there is any exception, it is Shakspeare : he 
 seems to have had the faculty of dividing himself 
 into a number of persons. His writings stand 
 out from everything else, and from one another. 
 Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Falstaff are striking and 
 original characters ; but they die a natural death at 
 the end of the fifth act, and no more come to life 
 again than the people themselves would. He is not 
 reduced to repeat himself or revive former inventions 
 under feigned names. This is peculiar to him : still 
 it is to be considered that plays are short works and 
 only allow room for the expression of a part. But in 
 a work of the extent of Don Quixote, the writer had 
 scope to bring in all he wanted ; and indeed there is 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 157 
 
 no point of excellence which he has not touched from 
 the highest courtly grace and most romantic enthusiasm 
 down to the lowest ribaldry and rustic ignorance, yet 
 carried off with such an air that you wish nothing 
 away, and do not see what can be added to it. 
 Every bit is perfect ; and the author has evidently 
 given his whole mind to it. That is why I believe 
 that the Scotch Novels are the production of several 
 hands. Some parts are careless, others straggling : 
 it is only where there is an opening for effect that the 
 master-hand comes in, and in general he leaves his 
 work for others to get on with it. But in Don Quixote 
 there is not a single line that you may not swear 
 belongs to Cervantes." 
 
 I inquired if he had read Woodstock? He 
 answered, No, he had not been able to get it. I 
 said, I had been obliged to pay five shillings for 
 the loan of it at a regular bookseller's shop (I 
 could not procure it at the circulating libraries), 
 and that from the understood feeling about Sir 
 Walter no objection was made to this proposal, 
 which would in ordinary cases have been construed 
 into an affront. I had well-nigh repented my 
 bargain, but there were one or two scenes that repaid 
 me (though none equal to his best), and in general it 
 was very indifferent. The plot turned chiefly on 
 English ghost - scenes, a very mechanical sort of 
 phantoms who dealt in practical jokes and personal 
 annoyances, turning beds upside down and sousing 
 you all over with water, instead of supernatural and 
 
158 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 visionary horrors. It was very bad indeed, but 
 might be intended to contrast the literal, matter-of- 
 fact imagination of the Southron with the loftier 
 impulses of Highland superstition. Charles II. was 
 not spared, and was brought in admirably (when in 
 disguise) as a raw, awkward Scotch lad, Master 
 Kerneguy. Cromwell was made a fine, bluff, over- 
 bearing blackguard, who exercised a personal superi- 
 ority wherever he came, but was put in situations 
 which I thought wholly out of character, and for 
 which I apprehended there was no warrant in the 
 history of the times. They were therefore so far 
 improper. A romance-writer might take an incident 
 and work it out according to his fancy or might build 
 an imaginary superstructure on the ground of history, 
 but he had no right to transpose the facts. 
 
 For instance, he had made Cromwell act as his own 
 tip-staff and go to Woodstock to take Charles II. in 
 person. To be sure, he had made him display con- 
 siderable firmness and courage in the execution of 
 this errand (as Lavender might in being the first to 
 enter a window to secure a desperate robber) — but 
 the plan itself, to say nothing of the immediate danger, 
 was contrary to Cromwell's dignity as well as policy. 
 Instead of wishing to seize Charles with his own hand, 
 he would naturally keep as far aloof from such a scene 
 as he could, and be desirous to have it understood 
 that he was anxious to shed as little more blood as 
 possible. Besides, he had higher objects in view, and 
 would, I should think, care not much more about 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 159 
 
 Charles than about Master Kerneguy. He would be 
 glad to let him get away. In another place, he had 
 made Cromwell start back in the utmost terror at 
 seeing a picture of Charles I. and act all the phrenzy 
 of Macbeth over again at the sight of Banquo's ghost. 
 This I should also suppose to be quite out of character 
 in a person of Cromwell's prosaic, determined habits 
 to fear a painted devil. 
 
 "No," said Northcote, "that is not the way 
 he would look at it ; it is seeing only a part : but 
 Cromwell was a greater philosopher than to act so. 
 The other story is more probable of his visit- 
 ing the dead body of Charles in a mask, and ex- 
 claiming in great agitation as he left the room, 
 Cruel necessity ! Yet even this is not sufficiently 
 authenticated. No; he knew that it was come to 
 this, that it was gone too far for either party to turn 
 back, and that it must be final with one of them. 
 The only question was whether he should give him- 
 self up as the victim, and so render all that had been 
 done useless, or exact the penalty from what he 
 thought the offending party. It was like a battle 
 which must end fatally either way, and no one 
 thought of lamenting, because he was not on the 
 losing side. In a great public quarrel there was no 
 room for these domestic and personal regards: all 
 you had to do was to consider well the justice of the 
 cause, before you appealed to the sword. Would 
 Charles I., if he had been victorious, have started at 
 the sight of a picture of Cromwell ? Yet Cromwell 
 
160 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 was as much of a man as he, and as firm as the other 
 was obstinate. " 
 
 Northcote said, he wished he could remember 
 the subject of a dispute he had with G[odwin] 
 to see if I did not think he had the best of it. I 
 replied, I should be more curious to hear some- 
 thing in which G[odwin] was right, for he generally 
 made it a rule to be in the wrong in speaking of any- 
 thing. I mentioned having once had a very smart 
 debate with him about a young lady, of whom I had 
 been speaking as very much like her aunt, a celebrated 
 authoress, and as what the latter, I conceived, might 
 have been at her time of life. G[odwin] said, when 
 
 Miss did anything like Evelina or Cecilia, he should 
 
 then believe she was as clever as Madame d'Arblay. 
 
 I asked him whether he did not think Miss 
 Burney was as clever before she wrote those novels 
 as she was after; or whether in general an author 
 wrote a successful work for being clever, or was 
 clever because he had written a successful work? 
 Northcote laughed and said, "That was so like 
 G[odwin]." I observed that it arose out of his 
 bigoted admiration of literature, so that he could see 
 no merit in . anything else ; nor trust to any evidence 
 of talent but what was printed. It was much the 
 same fallacy that had sometimes struck me in the 
 divines, who deduced original sin from Adam's eating 
 the apple, and not his eating the apple from original 
 sin or a previous inclination to do something, that he 
 should not. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 161 
 
 Northcote remarked, that speaking of Evelina 
 put him in mind of what Opie had once told him, 
 that when Dr. Johnson sat to him for his picture, 
 on his first coming to town, he asked him if it was 
 true that he had sat up all night to read Miss 
 Burney's new novel, as it had been reported ? And 
 he made answer, "I never read it through at all, 
 though I don't wish this to be known." Sir Joshua 
 also pretended to have read it through at a sitting, 
 though it appeared to him (Northcote) affectation 
 in them both, who were thorough-paced men of the 
 world, and hackneyed in literature, to pretend to be 
 so delighted with the performance of a girl, in which 
 they could find neither instruction nor any great 
 amusement, except from the partiality of friendship. 
 So Johnson cried up Savage, because they had slept 
 on bulks when they were young \ and lest he should 
 be degraded into a vagabond by the association, had 
 elevated the other into a genius. Such prevarication 
 or tampering with his own convictions was not con- 
 sistent with the strict and formal tone of morality 
 which he assumed on other and sometimes very trifling 
 occasions, such as correcting Mrs. Thrale for saying 
 that a bird flew in at the door, instead of the window. 
 
 I said, Savage, in my mind, was one of those 
 writers (like Chatterton) whose vices and mis- 
 fortunes the world made a set-off to their genius, 
 because glad to connect these ideas together. They 
 were only severe upon those who attacked their 
 prejudices or their consequence. Northcote replied, 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 " Savage the architect 1 was here the other day, 
 and asked me why I had abused his namesake, and 
 called him an impostor. I answered, I had heard 
 that character of him from a person in an obscure 
 rank of life, who had known him a little before his 
 death." 
 
 Northcote proceeded: " People in that class are 
 better judges than poets and moralists, who ex- 
 plain away everything by fine words and doubtful 
 theories. The mob are generally right in their 
 summary judgments upon offenders. A man is 
 seldom ducked or pumped upon or roughly handled 
 by them, unless he has deserved it. You see that in 
 the galleries at the play-house. They never let any- 
 thing pass that is immoral ; and they are even fas- 
 tidious judges of wit. I remember there was some 
 gross expression in Goldsmith's comedy the first 
 night it came out ; and there was a great uproar in 
 the gallery, and it was obliged to be suppressed. 
 Though rude and vulgar themselves, they do not 
 like vulgarity on the stage ; they come there to be 
 taught manners." 
 
 I said, they paid more attention than anybody 
 else ; and after the curtain drew up (though some- 
 what noisy before) were the best -behaved part 
 of the audience, unless something went wrong. As 
 the common people sought for refinement as a 
 treat, people in high life were fond of grossness and 
 
 1 James Savage (1779-1852), best known for his work at the 
 Middle Temple. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 163 
 
 ribaldry as a relief to their overstrained affectation 
 of gentility. I could account in no other way for 
 their being amused with the wretched slang in certain 
 magazines and newspapers. 
 
 I asked Northcote if he had seen the third series 
 
 of 1 He had not. I said they were like the 
 
 composition of a footman, and I believed greatly 
 admired in the upper circles, who were glad to see 
 an author arrange a sideboard for them over again 
 with servile alacrity. He said, " They delight in 
 low, coarse buffoonery, because it sets off their own 
 superiority : whereas the rabble resent it when 
 obtruded upon them, because they think it is meant 
 against themselves. They require the utmost elegance 
 and propriety for their money : as the showman says 
 in Goldsmith's comedy — ' My bear dances to none 
 but the genteelest of tunes, Water parted from the 
 Sea, or the minuet in Ariadne/' " 
 
 Northcote then alluded to a new novel he had 
 been reading. He said he never read a book so full 
 of words; which seemed ridiculous enough to say, 
 for a book was necessarily composed of words, but 
 here there was nothing else but words, to a 
 degree that was surprising. Yet he believed it was 
 sought after, and indeed he could not get it at the 
 common library. " You are to consider, there must be 
 books for all tastes and all ages. You may despise it, 
 but the world do not. There are books for children 
 till the time they are six years of age, such as Jack- 
 the-Giant-killer, the Seven Champions of Christendom, 
 
164 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Guy of Warwick, and others. 1 From that to twelve 
 they like to read the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson 
 Crusoe and then Fielding's Novels and Bon Quixote : 
 from twenty to thirty, books of poetry, Milton, Pope, 
 Shakspeare : and from thirty, history and philosophy 
 — what suits us then will serve us for the rest of our 
 lives. For boarding-school girls Thomson's Seasons 
 has an immense attraction, though I never could 
 read it. Some people cannot get beyond a news- 
 paper or a geographical dictionary. What I mean 
 to infer is that we ought not to condemn too hastily, 
 for a work may be approved by the public, though it 
 does not exactly hit our taste ; nay, those may seem 
 beauties to others which seem faults to us. Why 
 else do we pride ourselves on the superiority of our 
 judgment, if we are not more advanced in this 
 respect than the majority of readers ? But our very 
 fastidiousness should teach us toleration. You have 
 said very well of this novel, that it is a mixture of 
 genteel and romantic affectation. One objection to 
 the excessive rhodomontade which abounds in it is 
 that you can learn nothing from such extravagant 
 fictions : — they are like nothing in the known world. 
 
 "I remember once speaking to Eichardson 
 (Sheridan's friend) about Shakspeare's want of moral- 
 ity, and he replied — 6 What ! Shakspeare not moral 2 
 He is the most moral of all writers, because he is the 
 most natural ! ' And in this he was right : for though 
 Shakspeare did not intend to be moral, yet he could 
 
 1 See a paper on this subject in the Tatler. [Hazlitt.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 165 
 
 not be otherwise as long as he adhered to the path 
 of nature. Morality only teaches us our duty by 
 showing us the natural consequences of our actions ; 
 and the poet does the same while he continues to 
 give us faithful and affecting pictures of human life — 
 rewarding the good and punishing the bad. So far 
 truth and virtue are one. But that kind of poetry 
 which has not its foundation in nature, and is only 
 calculated to shock and surprise, tends to unhinge 
 our notions of morality and of everything else in the 
 ordinary course of Providence." 
 
 Something being said of an artist who had at- 
 tempted to revive the great style in our times, and 
 the question being put, whether Michael Angelo 
 and Kaphael, had they lived now, would not have 
 accommodated themselves to the modern practice, I 
 said, it appeared to me that (whether this was the 
 case or not) they could not have done what they did 
 without the aid of circumstances ; that for an artist 
 to raise himself above all surrounding opinions, cus- 
 toms, and institutions by a mere effort of the will, 
 was affectation and folly, like attempting to fly in 
 the air; and that, though great genius might exist 
 without the opportunities favourable to its de- 
 velopment, yet it must draw its nourishment 
 from circumstances, and suck in inspiration from 
 its native air. 
 
 There was Hogarth — he was surely a genius ; still 
 the manners of his age were necessary to him : 
 teeming as his works were with life, character, and 
 
166 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 spirit, they would have been poor and vapid without 
 the night-cellars of St. Giles's, the drawing-rooms of 
 St. James's ! Would he in any circumstances have 
 been a Eaphael or a Phidias ? I think not. But had 
 he been twenty times a Eaphael or a Phidias, I am 
 quite sure it would never have appeared in the cir- 
 cumstances in which he was placed. Two things are 
 necessary to all great works and great excellence, the 
 mind of the individual and the mind of the age 
 or country co-operating with his own genius. The 
 last brings out the first, but the first does not imply 
 or supersede the last. Pictures for Protestant 
 churches are a contradiction in terms, where they are 
 not objects of worship but of idle curiosity : — where 
 there is not the adoration, the enthusiasm in the 
 spectator, how can it exist in the artist ? The spark 
 of genius is only kindled into a flame by sympathy. 
 
 Northcote spoke highly of Vanbrugh and of the calm 
 superiority with which he bore the attacks of Swift, 
 Pope, and that set who made a point of decrying all 
 who did not belong to their party. He said Burke 
 and Sir Joshua thought his architecture far from con- 
 temptible ; and his comedies were certainly first-rate. 
 Richards 1 (the scene-painter) had told him, the players 
 thought the Provoked Husband the best acting play on 
 the stage ; and Godwin said the City Wives' Con- 
 federacy (taken from an indifferent French play) was 
 
 1 John Inigo Richards, R.A., who died in 1810 ; for many 
 years, in his youth, scene-painter to Covent Garden Theatre. 
 [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 167 
 
 the best written one. I ventured to add, that the 
 Trip to Scarborough (altered but not improved by 
 Sheridan) was not inferior to either of the others. I 
 should doubt whether the direction given at Sir 
 Tunbelly's castle on the arrival of Young Fashion — 
 "Let loose the greyhound, and lock up Miss Hoy- 
 den ! " — would be in Sheridan's version, who, like 
 most of his countrymen, had a prodigious ambition of 
 elegance. 
 
 Northcote observed, that talking of this put him 
 in mind of a droll speech that was made when the 
 officers got up a play on board the vessel that 
 went lately to find out the North- West passage : 
 — one of the sailors, who was admiring the perform- 
 ance, and saying how clever it was, was interrupted 
 by the boatswain, who exclaimed, "Clever! did 
 you say ? I call it philosophy, by God ! " 
 
 He asked, if he had ever mentioned to me 
 that anecdote of Lord Mansfield, who, when an 
 old woman was brought before him as a witch, 
 and was charged, among other improbable things, 
 with walking through the air, attended coolly 
 to the evidence, and then dismissed the complaint 
 by saying, " My opinion is that this good woman 
 be suffered to return home, and whether she shall 
 do this, walking on the ground or riding through 
 the air, must be left entirely to her own pleasure, 
 for there is nothing contrary to the laws of England 
 in either ! " 
 
 I mentioned a very fine dancer at the Opera 
 
168 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 (Mademoiselle Brocard) with whom I was much 
 delighted ; and Northcote observed that where 
 there was grace and beauty accompanying the 
 bodily movements, it was very hard to deny the 
 mental refinement or the merit of this art. He could 
 not see why that which was so difficult to do, and 
 which gave so much pleasure to others, was to be 
 despised. He remembered seeing some young people 
 at Parma (though merely in a country-dance) exhibit 
 a degree of perfection in their movements that seemed 
 to be inspired by the very genius of grace and gaiety. 
 Miss Reynolds used to say that perfection was much 
 the same in everything — nobody could assign the 
 limits. I said authors alone were privileged to sup- 
 pose that all excellence was confined to words. Till 
 I was twenty I thought there was nothing in the 
 world but books : when I began to paint I found there 
 were two things, both difficult to do and worth doing ; 
 and I concluded from that time there might be fifty. 
 At least I was willing to allow every one his own 
 choice. I recollect a certain poet 1 saying " he should 
 like to hamstring those fellows at the Opera " — I sup- 
 pose because the Great would rather see them dance 
 than read Kehama. Whatever can be done in such a 
 manner that you can fancy a God to do it, must have 
 something in its nature divine. The ancients had 
 assigned Gods to dancing as well as to music and 
 poetry, to the different attributes and perfections 
 both of body and mind ; and perhaps the plurality of 
 1 Southey. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 169 
 
 the heathen deities was favourable to a liberality of 
 taste and opinion. 
 
 Northcote : " The most wretched scribbler looks 
 down upon the greatest painter as a mere mechanic : 
 but who would compare Lord Byron with Titian 1 " 
 
CONVEKSATION THE FIFTEENTH 
 
 I went to Northcote in the evening to consult about 
 his Fables. He was downstairs in the parlour, and 
 talked much as usual : but the difference of the 
 accompaniments, the sitting down, the preparations 
 for tea, the carpet and furniture, and a little fat lap- 
 dog, interfered with old associations and took some- 
 thing from the charm of his conversation. He spoke of 
 a Mr. Laird who had been employed to see his Life of 
 Sir Joshua through the press, and whom he went to 
 call upon in an upper story in Peterborough Court, 
 Fleet Street, where he was surrounded by his books, 
 his implements of writing, a hand -organ, and his 
 coffee-pots ; and he said he envied him this retreat 
 more than any palace he had ever happened to enter. 
 
 Northcote was not very well, and repeated his com- 
 plaints. I said I thought the air (now summer was 
 coming on) would do him more good than physic. 
 His apothecary had been describing the dissection of 
 the elephant, which had just been killed at Exeter 
 'Change. It appeared that instead of the oil which 
 usually is found in the joints of animals, the inter- 
 stices were in this case filled up with a substance 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 171 
 
 resembling a kind of white paint. This Northcote 
 considered as a curious instance of the wise contrivance 
 of nature in the adaptation of means to ends ; for even 
 in pieces of artificial mechanism, though they use oil to 
 lubricate the springs and wheels of clocks and other 
 common-sized instruments, yet in very large and heavy 
 ones, such as steam engines, etc., they are obliged to 
 use grease, pitch, and other more solid substances, to 
 prevent the friction. If they could dissect a flea, 
 what a fine, evanescent fluid would be found to lubri- 
 cate its slender joints and assist its light movements ! 
 
 Northcote said the bookseller wished to keep the 
 original copy of the Fables to bind up as a literary 
 curiosity. I objected to this proceeding as un- 
 fair. There were several slips of the pen and slovenli- 
 nesses of style (for which I did not think him at all 
 accountable, since an artist wrote with his left hand, 
 and painted with his right) and I did not see why these 
 accidental inadvertences, arising from diffidence and 
 want of practice, should be as it were enshrined and 
 brought against him. He said, "Mr. P[rince] H[oare] 
 tasked me the hardest in what I wrote in the 
 Artist, He pointed out where I was wrong, and sent 
 it back to me to correct it. After all, what I did 
 there was thought the best ! " 
 
 I said Mr. H[oare] was too fastidious, and 
 spoiled what he did from a wish to have it 
 perfect. He dreaded that a shadow of objection 
 should be brought against anything he advanced, 
 so that his opinions at last amounted to a kind 
 
172 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 of genteel truisms. One must risk something in 
 order to do anything. I observed that this was re- 
 markable in so clever a man ; but it seemed as if 
 there were some fatality by which the most lively and 
 whimsical writers, if they went out of their own 
 eccentric path and attempted to be serious, became 
 exceedingly grave and even insipid. His farces were 
 certainly very spirited and original : No Song no 
 Supper 1 was the first pkty I had ever seen, and I felt 
 grateful to him for this. 
 
 Northcote agreed that it was very delightful ; and 
 said there was a volume of it when he first read it to 
 them one night at Mrs. Bundle's, and that the players 
 cut it down a good deal and supplied a number of 
 things. There was a great piece of work to alter the 
 songs for Madame Storace, who played in it and who 
 could not pronounce half the English terminations. 
 My Grandmother? too, was a laughable idea, very 
 ingeniously executed ; and some of the songs in this 
 had an equal portion of elegance and drollery, such 
 as that in particular — 
 
 " For alas ! long before I was born, 
 My fair one had died of old age ! v 
 
 Still some of his warmest admirers were hurt at their 
 being farces — if they had been comedies, they would 
 have been satisfied, for nothing could be greater than 
 
 1 A musical farce, by Prince Hoare and Storace, produced 
 with great success at Drury Lane in 1790. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Another of Prince Hoare's long-popular musical farces ; 
 this was first produced in 1796, at Drury Lane. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 173 
 
 their success. They were the next to O'Keefe's, who 
 in that line was the English Moliere. 
 
 Northcote asked if I remembered the bringing out 
 of any of O'Keefe's ? I answered, No. He said, " It 
 had the oddest effect imaginable — at one moment 
 they seemed on the point of being damned, and the 
 next moment you were convulsed with laughter. 
 Edwin was inimitable in some of them. He was one 
 of those actors, it is true, who carried a great deal off 
 the stage with him, that he would willingly have left 
 behind, and so far could not help himself. But his 
 awkward, shambling figure in Bowkitt the dancing- 
 master, was enough to make one die with laughing. 
 He was also unrivalled in Lingo, where he was admir- 
 ably supported by Mrs. Wells in Cowslip, when she 
 prefers 1 a roast duck ' to all the birds in the Heathen 
 Mythology — and in Peeping Tom, where he merely 
 puts his head out, the faces that he made threw the 
 audience into a roar." I said, I remembered no 
 
 further back than B \ who used to delight me 
 
 excessively in Lenitive in the Prize, 2 when I was a boy. 
 Northcote said, he was an imitator of Edwin, but at 
 a considerable distance. He was a good-natured, 
 agreeable man ; and the audience were delighted with 
 him, because he was evidently delighted with them. 
 In some respects he was a caricaturist : for instance, 
 in Lenitive he stuck his pigtail on end, which he had 
 
 1 Perhaps Baddeley. [Ed.] 
 
 2 A musical entertainment, by Prince Hoare, brought out at 
 Drury Lane in 1793. [Ed.] 
 
174 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 no right to do, for no one had ever done it but him- 
 self. I said, Liston appeared to me to have more 
 comic humour than any one in my time, though he 
 was not properly an actor. Northcote asked, if he 
 was not low-spirited; and told the story (I suspect 
 an old one) of his consulting a physician on the state 
 of his health, who recommended him to go and see 
 Liston. I said he was grave and prosing, but I did 
 not know there was anything the matter with him, 
 though I had seen him walking along the street the 
 other day with his face as fixed as if he had a lockjaw, 
 a book in his hand, looking neither to the right nor 
 the left, and very much like his own Lord Duberly. I 
 did not see why he and Mathews should both of them 
 be so hipped, except from their having the player's melan- 
 choly, arising from their not seeing six hundred faces on 
 the broad grin before them at all other times as well as 
 when they were acting. He was, however, exceedingly 
 unaffected, and remarkably candid in judging of other 
 actors. He always spoke in the highest terms of 
 Munden, whom I considered as overdoing his parts. 1 
 Northcote said, "Munden was excellent but an 
 artificial actor. You should have seen Weston," 
 he continued. "It was impossible, from looking 
 at him, for any one to say that he was acting. 
 You would suppose they had gone out and found 
 the actual character they wanted, and brought 
 
 1 The same praise may" be extended to Mathews. Those 
 who have seen this ingenious and lively actor only on the stage, 
 do not know half his merits. [Hazlitt. ] 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 175 
 
 him upon the stage without his knowing it. Even 
 when they interrupted him with peals of laughter 
 and applause, he looked about him as if he was not 
 at all conscious of having anything to do with it, and 
 then went on as before. In Scrub, Dr. Last, and 
 other parts of that kind, he was perfection itself. 
 Garrick would never attempt Abel Drugger after him. 
 There was something peculiar in his face ; for I knew 
 an old schoolfellow of his who told me he used to 
 produce the same effect when a boy, and when the 
 master asked what was the matter, his companions 
 would make answer — ' Weston looked at me, sir!' 
 Yet he came out in tragedy, as indeed they all did ! " 
 Northcote inquired if I had seen Garrick % I answered, 
 " No — I could not very well, as he died the same year 
 I was born ! " I mentioned having lately met with a 
 striking instance of genealogical taste in a family, 
 the grandfather of which thought nothing of Garrick, 
 the father thought nothing of Mrs. Siddons, and the 
 daughter could make nothing of the Scotch Novels, 
 but admired Mr. Theodore Hook's Sayings and Doings ! 
 
 Northcote then returned to the subject of his book 
 and said, " Sir Richard Phillips once wished me to do 
 a very magnificent work indeed on the subject of art. 
 He was like Curll, who had a number of fine title- 
 pages, if any one could have written books to answer 
 to them. He came here once with Godwin to show 
 me a picture which they had just discovered of 
 Chaucer, and which was to embellish Godwin's Life 
 of him. I told them it was certainly no picture of 
 
176 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Chaucer, nor was any such picture painted at that 
 time." I said, Godwin had got a portrait about a 
 year ago which he wished me to suppose was a like- 
 ness of President Bradshaw : I saw no reason for his 
 thinking so, but that in that case it would be worth 
 a hundred pounds to him ! Northcote expressed a 
 curiosity to have seen it, as he knew the descendants 
 of the family at Plymouth. He remembered one of 
 them, an old lady of the name of Wilcox, who used 
 to walk about in Gibson's Field, near the town, so 
 prim and starched, holding up her fan spread out 
 like a peacock's tail with such an air, on account of 
 her supposed relationship to one of the Regicides ! 
 They paid, however (in the vulgar opinion) for this 
 distinction ; for others of them bled to death at the 
 nose, or died of the bursting of a blood-vessel, which 
 their wise neighbours did not fail to consider as a 
 judgment upon them. 
 
 Speaking of Dr. M[udge], he said, he had such a 
 feeling of beauty in his heart, that it made angels of 
 every one around him. To check a person who was 
 running on against another, he once said, " You 
 should not speak in that manner, for you lead me to 
 suppose you have the bad qualities you are so prone 
 to dwell upon in others." 
 
 A transition was here made to Lord Byron, 
 who used to tell a story of a little red-haired 
 girl, who, when countesses and ladies of fashion 
 were leaving the room where he was in crowds 
 (to cut him after his quarrel with his wife), 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 177 
 
 stopped short near a table against which he was 
 leaning, gave him a familiar nod, and said, "You 
 should have married me, and then this would not 
 have happened to you ! " A question being started 
 whether Dr. M[udge] was handsome, Northcote 
 answered, " I could see no beauty in him as to his 
 outward person, but there was an angelic sweet- 
 ness of disposition that spread its influence over his 
 whole conversation and manner. He had not wit, 
 but a fine romantic enthusiasm which deceived him- 
 self, and enchanted others. I remember once his 
 describing a picture by Eosa de Tivoli (at Saltram) 
 of Two Bulls Fighting, and he gave such an account of 
 their rage and manner of tearing up the ground that 
 I could not rest till we went over to see it — when we 
 came there, it was nothing but a coarse daub like 
 what might be expected from the painter : but he 
 had made the rest out of a vivid imagination. So 
 my father told him a story of a bull-bait he had seen 
 in which the bull had run so furiously at the dog 
 that he broke the chain and pitched upon his 
 head and was killed. Soon after, he came and told 
 us the same story as an incident he himself had 
 witnessed. He did not mean to deceive, but the 
 image had made such an impression on his fancy, that 
 he believed it to be one that he had himself been an 
 eye-witness of." 
 
 I was much amused with this account, and I offered 
 to get him a copy of a whimsical production, of 
 which a new edition had been printed. I also 
 
 12 
 
178 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 recommended to him the Spanish Rogue, fine 
 mixture of drollery and grave moralising. He 
 spoke of Lazarillo de Tormes and of the Cheats of 
 Scapin, the last of which he rated rather low. The 
 work was written by Scarron, whose widow, the 
 famous Madame de Maintenon, afterwards became 
 mistress to Louis XIV. 
 
CONVEESATION THE SIXTEENTH 
 
 N. — That is your diffidence, which I can't help 
 thinking you carry too far. For any one of real 
 strength, you are the humblest person I ever knew. 
 H. — It is owing to pride. 
 
 N. — You deny you have invention too. But it is 
 want of practice. Your ideas run on before your 
 executive power. It is a common case. There was 
 Ramsay, of whom Sir Joshua used to say that he 
 was the most sensible among all the painters of his 
 time ; but he has left little to show it. His manner 
 was dry and timid. He stopped short in the middle 
 of his work, because he knew exactly how much it 
 wanted. Now and then we find hints and sketches 
 which show what he might have been, if his hand 
 had been equal to his conceptions. I have seen a 
 picture of his of the Queen, soon after she was 
 married — a profile, and slightly done ; but it was a 
 paragon of elegance. She had a fan in her hand : 
 Lord ! how she held that fan ! It was weak in 
 execution and ordinary in features — all I can say of 
 it is, that it was the farthest possible removed from 
 
180 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 everything like vulgarity. A professor might despise 
 it; but in the mental part, I have never seen any- 
 thing of Vandyke's equal to it. I could have looked 
 
 at it for ever. I showed it to J n ; 1 and he, I 
 
 believe, came into my opinion of it. I don't know 
 where it is now ; but I saw in it enough to convince 
 me that Sir Joshua was right in what he said of 
 Eamsay's great superiority. His own picture of the 
 King, which is at the Academy, is a finer composition 
 and shows greater boldness and mastery of hand ; 
 but I should find it difficult to produce anything of 
 Sir Joshua's that conveys an idea of more grace and 
 delicacy than the one I have mentioned. Eeynolds 
 would have finished it better : the other was afraid 
 of spoiling what he had done, and so left it a mere 
 outline. He was frightened before he was hurt. 
 
 H. — Taste and even genius is but a misfortune, 
 without a correspondent degree of manual dexterity 
 or power of language to make it manifest. 
 
 N. — W 2 was here the other day. I believe 
 
 you met him going out. He came, he said, to ask 
 me about the famous people of the last age, Johnson, 
 Burke, etc. (as I was almost the only person left who 
 remembered them), and was curious to know what 
 figure Sir Walter Scott would have made among 
 them. 
 
 H. — That is so like a North-Briton — "to make 
 
 1 Perhaps John Jackson, R.A. [Ed.] 
 
 2 Probably Professor John Wilson, from NTorthcote's gird, 
 presently, at the Lake Poets. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 181 
 
 assurance doubly sure," and to procure a signature 
 to an acknowledged reputation as if it were a receipt 
 for the delivery of a bale of goods. 
 
 N. — I told him it was not for me to pronounce 
 upon such men as Sir Walter Scott : they came 
 before another tribunal. They were of that height 
 that they were seen by all the world, and must stand 
 or fall by the verdict of posterity. It signified little 
 what any individual thought in such cases, it being 
 equally an impertinence to set one's self against or to 
 add one's testimony to the public voice ; but as far 
 as I could judge, I told him, that Sir Walter would 
 have stood his ground in any company : neither 
 Burke nor Johnson nor any of their admirers would 
 have been disposed or able to set aside his preten- 
 sions. These men were not looked upon in their 
 day as they are at present : J ohnson had his Lexi- 
 phaneSy and Goldsmith was laughed at — their merits 
 were to the full as much called in question, nay, 
 more so, than those of the author of Waverley have 
 ever been, who has been singularly fortunate in him- 
 self or in lighting upon a barren age : but because 
 their names have since become established, and as it 
 were sacred, we think they were always so ; and 
 
 W wanted me, as a competent witness and as 
 
 having seen both parties, to affix the same seal to his 
 countryman's reputation, which it is not in the power 
 of the whole of the present generation to do, much 
 less of any single person in it. No, we must wait 
 for this ! Time alone can give the final stamp : no 
 
182 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 living reputation can ever be of the same value or 
 quality as posthumous fame. We must throw lofty 
 objects to a distance in order to judge of them : if 
 we are standing close under the Monument, it looks 
 higher than St. Paul's. Posterity has this advantage 
 over us — not that they are really wiser, but they see 
 the proportions better from being placed farther off. 
 
 For instance, I liked Sir Walter, because he had an 
 easy, unaffected manner, and was ready to converse 
 on all subjects alike. He was not like your friends, 
 the L[ake] poets, who talk about nothing but their 
 own poetry. If, on the contrary, he had been stiff 
 and pedantic, I should, perhaps, have been inclined 
 to think less highly of the author from not liking the 
 man; so that we can never judge fairly of men's 
 abilities till we are no longer liable to come in con- 
 tact with their persons. Friends are as little to be 
 trusted as enemies : favour or prejudice makes the 
 votes in either case more or less suspected ; though 
 "the vital signs that a name shall live" are in some 
 instances so strong, that we can hardly refuse to put 
 faith in them, and I think this is one. I was much 
 pleased with Sir Walter, and I believe he expressed 
 a favourable opinion of me. I said to him, "I 
 admire the way in which you begin your novels. 
 You set out so abruptly, that you quite surprise me. 
 I can't at all tell what's coming." — "No!" says Sir 
 Walter, "nor I neither." I then told him, that when 
 I first read JVaverley, I said it was no novel : nobody 
 could invent like that. Either he had heard the 
 
WITH NORTHOOTE 
 
 183 
 
 story related by one of the surviving parties, or he 
 had found the materials in a manuscript concealed in 
 some old chest : to which he replied, " You're not so 
 far out of the way in thinking so." You don't know 
 him, do you 1 He'd be a pattern to you. Oh ! he 
 has a very fine manner. You would learn to rub off 
 some of your asperities. But you admire him, I 
 believe. 
 
 H. — Yes ; on this side of idolatry and Toryism. 
 N. — That is your prejudice. 
 
 H. — Nay, it rather shows my liberality, if I am a 
 devoted enthusiast, notwithstanding. There are two 
 things I admire in Sir Walter, his capacity and his 
 simplicity ; which indeed I am apt to think are much 
 the same. The more ideas a man has of other things, 
 the less he is taken up with the idea of himself. 
 Every one gives the same account of the author of 
 Waverley in this respect. When he was in Paris, and 
 went to Galignani's, he sat down in an outer room to 
 look at some book he wanted to see : none of the 
 clerks had the least suspicion who it was : when 
 it was found out, the place was in a commotion. 
 Cooper, the American, was in Paris at the same 
 time : his looks and manner seemed to announce a 
 much greater man. He strutted through the streets 
 with a very consequential air ; and in company held 
 up his head, screwed up his features, and placed him- 
 self on a sort of pedestal to be observed and admired, 
 as if he never relaxed in the assumption nor wished 
 it to be forgotten by others, that he was the American 
 
184 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. The real one never troubled him- 
 self about the matter. Why should he ? He might 
 safely leave that question to others. Indeed, by 
 what I am told, he carries his indifference too far : it 
 amounts to an implied contempt for the public, and 
 misprision of treason against the commonwealth of 
 letters. He thinks nothing of his works, although 
 "all Europe rings with them from side to side." — If 
 so, he has been severely punished for his infirmity. 
 
 N. — Though you do not know Sir Walter Scott, 
 I think I have heard you say you have seen him. 
 
 H. — Yes, he put me in mind of Cobbett, with his 
 florid face and scarlet gown, which were just like the 
 other's red face and scarlet waistcoat. The one is 
 like an English farmer, the other like a Scotch laird. 
 Both are large, robust men, with great strength and 
 composure of features ; but I saw nothing of the ideal 
 character in the romance- writer, any more than I 
 looked for it in the politician. 
 
 N. — Indeed ! But you have a vast opinion of 
 Cobbett too, haven't you ? Oh ! he's a giant ! He 
 has such prodigious strength ; he tears up a subject 
 by the roots. Did you ever read his Grammar ? Or 
 
 see his attack on Mrs. % It was like a hawk 
 
 pouncing on a wren. I should be terribly afraid to 
 get into his hands. And then his homely, familiar 
 way of writing — it is not from necessity or vulgarity, 
 but to show his contempt for aristocratic pride and 
 arrogance. He only has a kitchen-garden ; he could 
 have a flower-garden too if he chose. Peter Pindar 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 185 
 
 said his style was like the Horse Guards, only one 
 story above the ground, while Junius's had all the 
 airy elegance of Whitehall; but he could raise his 
 style just as high as he pleased ; though he does not 
 want to sacrifice strength to elegance. He knows 
 better what he is about. 
 
 H. — I don't think he'll set up for a fine gentleman 
 in a hurry, though he has for a Member of Parlia- 
 ment ; and I fancy he would make no better figure 
 in the one than the other. He appeared to me, when 
 I once saw him, exactly what I expected : in Sir 
 Walter I looked in vain for a million of fine things ! 
 I could only explain it to myself in this way, that 
 there was a degree of capacity in that huge double 
 forehead of his, that superseded all effort, made every- 
 thing come intuitively and almost mechanically, as if 
 it were merely transcribing what was already written, 
 and by the very facility with which the highest beauty 
 and excellence was produced, left few traces of it in 
 the expression of the countenance, and hardly any 
 sense of it in the mind of the author. Expression 
 only comes into the face as we are at a loss for words, 
 or have a difficulty in bringing forward our ideas ; 
 but we may repeat the finest things by rote without 
 any change of look or manner. 
 
 It is only when the powers are tasked, when 
 the moulds of thought are full, that the effect 
 or the wear -and -tear of the mind appears on the 
 surface. So, in general, writers of the greatest 
 imagination and range of ideas, and who might 
 
186 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 be said to have all nature obedient to their call, 
 seem to have been most careless of their fame and 
 regardless of their works. They treat their pro- 
 ductions not as children, but as "bastards of their 
 art " ; whereas those who are more confined in their 
 scope of intellect and wedded to some one theory or 
 predominant fancy, have been found to feel a pro- 
 portionable fondness for the offspring of their brain, 
 and have thus excited a deeper interest in it in the 
 minds of others. 
 
 We set a value on things as they have cost us 
 dear : the very limitation of our faculties or ex- 
 clusiveness of our feelings compels us to con- 
 centrate all our enthusiasm on a favourite subject ; 
 and strange as it may sound, in order to inspire a 
 perfect sympathy in others or to form a school, men 
 must themselves be egotists ! Milton has had fewer 
 readers and admirers, but I suspect more devoted 
 and bigoted ones, than ever Shakspeare had : Sir 
 Walter Scott has attracted more universal attention 
 than any writer of our time, but you may speak 
 against him with less danger of making personal 
 enemies than if you attack Lord Byron. Even 
 Wordsworth has half-a-dozen followers, who set him 
 up above everybody else from a common idiosyncrasy 
 of feeling and the singleness of the elements of which 
 his excellence is composed. Before we can take an 
 author entirely to our bosoms, he must be another 
 self; and he cannot be this, if he is "not one, but 
 all mankind's epitome." It was this which gave such 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 187 
 
 an effect to Rousseau's writings, that he stamped his 
 own character and the image of his self-love on the 
 public mind — there it is, and there it will remain in 
 spite of everything. Had he possessed more com- 
 prehension of thought or feeling, it would only have 
 diverted him from his object. But it was the excess 
 of his egotism and his utter blindness to everything 
 else, that found a corresponding sympathy in the 
 conscious feelings of every human breast, and shattered 
 to pieces the pride of rank and circumstance by the 
 pride of internal worth or upstart pretension. 
 
 When Rousseau stood behind the chair of the master 
 of the chateau of [the Count of Gouvon], and smiled to 
 hear the company dispute about the meaning of the 
 motto of the arms of the family [of Solar], which he 
 alone knew, and stumbled as he handed the glass of 
 wine to his young mistress, and fancied she coloured at 
 being waited upon by so learned a young footman — 
 then was first kindled that spark which can never be 
 quenched, then was formed the germ of that strong 
 conviction of the disparity between the badge on his 
 shoulder and the aspirations of his soul — the deter- 
 mination, in short, that external situation and ad- 
 vantages are but the mask, and that the mind is the 
 man — armed with which, impenetrable, incorrigible, 
 he went forth conquering and to conquer, and over- 
 threw the monarchy of France and the hierarchies 
 of the earth. 
 
 Till then, birth and wealth and power were all 
 in all, though but the framework or crust that 
 
188 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 envelops the man; and what there was in the 
 man himself was never asked, or was scorned and 
 forgot. And while all was dark and grovelling within; 
 while knowledge either did not exist or was confined 
 to a few, while material power and advantages were 
 everything, this was naturally to be expected. But 
 with the increase and diffusion of knowledge, this 
 state of things must sooner or later cease ; and 
 Eousseau was the first who held the torch (lighted at 
 the never-dying fire in his own bosom) to the hidden 
 chambers of the mind of man — like another Pro- 
 metheus, breathed into his nostrils the breath of a 
 new and intellectual life, enraging the Gods of the 
 earth, and made him feel what is due to himself and 
 his fellows. Before, physical force was everything : 
 henceforward, mind, thought, feeling was a new 
 element — a fourth estate in society. What ! shall a 
 man have read Dante and Ariosto, and be none 
 the better for it 1 Shall he be still judged of only 
 by his coat, the number of his servants in livery, 
 the house over his head 1 
 
 While poverty meant ignorance, that was ne- 
 cessarily the case; but the world of books over- 
 turns the world of things, and establishes a new 
 balance of power and scale of estimation. Shall 
 we think only rank and pedigree divine, when 
 we have music, poetry, and painting within us 1 ? 
 Tut ! we have read Old Mortality ; and shall it be 
 asked whether we have done so in a garret or a 
 palace, in a carriage or on footl Or knowing 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 189 
 
 them, shall we not revere the mighty heirs of fame, 
 and respect ourselves for knowing and honouring 
 them 3 This is the true march of intellect, and not 
 the erection of Mechanics' Institutions, or the printing 
 of twopenny trash, according to my notion of the matter, 
 though I have nothing to say against them neither. 
 
 N. — I thought you never would have done ; how- 
 ever, you have come to the ground at last. After 
 this rhapsody, I must inform you that Eousseau is a 
 character more detestable to me than I have power 
 of language to express : — an aristocrat filled with all 
 their worst vices, pride, ambition, conceit, and gross 
 affectation : and though endowed with some ability, 
 yet not sufficient ever to make him know right from 
 wrong : witness his novel of Eloisa. His name brings 
 to my mind all the gloomy horrors of a mob-govern- 
 ment, which attempted from their ignorance to banish 
 truth and justice from the world. I see you place 
 Sir Walter above Lord Byron. The question is not 
 which keeps longest on the wing, but which soars 
 highest : and I cannot help thinking there are essences 
 in Lord Byron that are not to be surpassed. He is 
 on a par with Dryden. All the other modern poets 
 appear to me vulgar in the comparison. As a lady 
 who comes here said, there is such an air of nobility 
 in what he writes. Then there is such a power in 
 the style, expressions almost like Shakspeare — "And 
 looked round on them with their wolfish eyes." 
 
 H. — The expression is in Shakspeare, somewhere 
 in Lear. 
 
190 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 N. — The line I repeated is in Don Juan, I do 
 not mean to vindicate the immorality or misan- 
 thropy in that poem — perhaps his lameness was to 
 blame for this defect — but surely no one can deny 
 the force, the spirit of it ; and there is such a fund 
 of drollery mixed up with the serious part. Nobody 
 understood the tragi -comedy of poetry so well. 
 People find fault with this mixture in general, be- 
 cause it is not well managed ; there is a comic story 
 and a tragic story going on at the same time, without 
 their having anything to do with one another. But 
 in Lord Byron they are brought together, just as 
 they are in nature. In like manner, if you go to an 
 execution at the very moment when the criminal is 
 going to be turned off, and all eyes are fixed upon 
 him, an old apple-woman and her stall are over- 
 turned, and all the spectators fall a-laughing. 
 
 In real life the most ludicrous incidents border on 
 the most affecting and shocking. How fine that is of 
 the cask of butter in the storm ! Some critics have 
 objected to it as turning the whole into burlesque ; 
 on the contrary, it is that which stamps the char- 
 acter of the scene more than anything else. What 
 did the people in the boat care about the rainbow, 
 which he has described in such vivid colours ; or even 
 about their fellow-passengers who were thrown over- 
 board, when they only wanted to eat them 1 No, it 
 was the loss of the firkin of butter that affected them 
 more than all the rest ; and it is the mention of this 
 circumstance that adds a hardened levity and a sort 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 191 
 
 of ghastly horror to the scene. It shows the master- 
 hand — there is such a boldness and sagacity and 
 superiority to ordinary rules in it ! I agree, however, 
 in your admiration of the Waverley Novels : they 
 are very fine. As I told the author, he and Cervantes 
 have raised the idea of human nature, not as Richard- 
 son has attempted, by affectation and a false varnish, 
 but by bringing out what there is really fine in it under 
 a cloud of disadvantages. Have you seen the last ? 
 H. — No. 
 
 N. — There is a character of a common smith or 
 armourer in it, which, in spite of a number of weak- 
 nesses and in the most ludicrous situations, is made 
 quite heroical by the tenderness and humanity it 
 displays. It is his best, but I had not read it when 
 I saw him. No; all that can be said against Sir 
 Walter is, that he has never made a whole. There 
 is an infinite number of delightful incidents and 
 characters, but they are disjointed and scattered. 
 This is one of Fielding's merits : his novels are regular 
 compositions, with what the ancients called a begin- 
 ning, a middle, and an end: every circumstance is 
 foreseen and provided for, and the conclusion of the 
 story turns round as it were to meet the beginning. 
 Gil Bias is very clever, but it is only a succession of 
 chapters. Tom Jones is a masterpiece, as far as 
 regards the conduct of the fable. 
 
 H. — Do you know the reason'? Fielding had a 
 hooked nose, the long chin. It is that introverted 
 physiognomy that binds and concentrates. 
 
192 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 N. — But Sir Walter has not a hooked nose, but 
 one that denotes kindness and ingenuity. Mrs. 
 Abington had the pug-nose, who was the perfection 
 of comic archness and vivacity : a hooked nose is 
 my aversion. 
 
CONVERSATION THE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 N. — I sometimes get into scrapes that way by con- 
 tradicting people before I have well considered the 
 subject, and I often wonder how I get out of them 
 so well as I do. I remember once meeting with Sir 
 
 , who was talking about Milton ; and as I 
 
 have a natural aversion to a coxcomb, I differed from 
 what he said, without being at all prepared with any 
 arguments in support of my opinion. 
 
 H. — But you had time enough to think of them 
 afterwards. 
 
 N. — I got through with it somehow or other. It 
 is the very risk you run in such cases that puts you 
 on the alert and gives you spirit to extricate yourself 
 from it. If you had full leisure to deliberate and to 
 make out your defence beforehand, you perhaps could 
 not do it so well as on the spur of the occasion. The 
 surprise and flutter of the animal spirits gives the 
 alarm to any little wit we possess, and puts it into a 
 state of immediate requisition. 
 
 H. — Besides, it is always easiest to defend a para- 
 dox or an opinion you don't care seriously about. I 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 hazlitt's conveesations 
 
 would sooner (as a matter of choice) take the wrong 
 side than the right in any argument. If you have a 
 thorough conviction on any point and good grounds 
 for it, you have studied it long, and the real reasons 
 have sunk into the mind ; so that what you can recall 
 of them at a sudden pinch, seems unsatisfactory and 
 disproportionate to the confidence of your belief and 
 to the magisterial tone you are disposed to assume. 
 Even truth is a matter of habit and professorship. 
 Reason and knowledge, when at their height, return 
 into a kind of instinct. We understand the grammar 
 of a foreign language best, though we do not speak it 
 so well. But if you take up an opinion at a venture, 
 then you lay hold of whatever excuse comes within 
 your reach, instead of searching about for and be- 
 wildering yourself with the true reasons; and the 
 odds are that the arguments thus got up are as good 
 as those opposed to them. 
 
 In fact, the more sophistical and superficial an 
 objection to a received or well-considered opinion 
 is, the more we are staggered and teased by it ; and 
 the next thing is to lose our temper, when we become 
 an easy prey to a cool and disingenuous adversary. 
 I would much rather (as the safest side) insist 
 on Milton's pedantry than on his sublimity, sup- 
 posing I were not in the company of very good 
 judges. A single stiff or obscure line would outweigh 
 a whole book of solemn grandeur in the mere flip- 
 pant encounter of the wits, and, in genera], the 
 truth and justice of the cause you espouse is rather an 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 195 
 
 encumbrance than an assistance ; or it is like heavy 
 armour which few have strength to wield. Anything 
 short of complete triumph on the right side is defeat : 
 any hole picked or flaw detected in an argument 
 which we are holding earnestly and conscientiously, 
 is sufficient to raise the laugh against us. This is the 
 greatest advantage which folly and knavery have. 
 We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove 
 others to be quite wrong ; and as all the world would 
 be thought to have some reason on their side, they 
 are glad of any loophole or pretext to escape from 
 the dogmatism and tyranny we would set up over 
 them. Absolute submission requires absolute proofs. 
 Without some such drawback, the world might be- 
 come too wise and too good, at least according to 
 every man's private prescription. In this sense 
 ridicule is the test of truth ; that is, the levity and in- 
 difference on one side balances the formality and pre- 
 sumption on the other. 
 
 N. — Horne Tooke used to play with his antagonists 
 in the way you speak of. He constantly threw Fuseli 
 into a rage, and made him a laughing-stock, by asking 
 him to explain the commonest things, and often what 
 Fuseli understood much better than he did. But in 
 general, I think it is less an indifference to truth than 
 the fear of finding yourself in the wrong, that carries 
 you through when you take up any opinion from 
 caprice or the spirit of contradiction. Danger almost 
 always produces courage and presence of mind. The 
 faculties are called forth with the occasion. You see 
 
196 
 
 hazlitt's conveksations 
 
 men of very ordinary characters, placed in extra- 
 ordinary circumstances act like men of capacity. The 
 late King of France was thought weak and imbecile, 
 till he was thrown into the most trying situations ; and 
 then he showed sense and even eloquence which no 
 one had ever suspected. Events supplied the want of 
 genius and energy ; the external impressions were so 
 strong, that the dullest or most indolent must have 
 been roused by them. 
 
 Indeed the wise man is perhaps more liable to 
 err in such extreme cases by setting up his own 
 preconceptions and self-will against circumstances, 
 than the commonplace character who yields to neces- 
 sity and is passive under existing exigencies. It 
 is this which makes kings and ministers equal 
 to their situations. They may be very poor 
 creatures in themselves; but the importance of the 
 part they have to act and the magnitude of their 
 responsibility inspire them with a factitious and 
 official elevation of view. Few people are found 
 totally unfit for high station, and it is lucky that 
 it is so. 
 
 Perhaps men of genius and imagination are the 
 least adapted to get into the state go-cart; Buona- 
 parte, we see, with all his talent, only drove to the 
 devil. When Eichard II. was quite a youth and he 
 went to suppress the rebellion of Wat Tyler in Smith- 
 field, and the latter was killed, his followers drew 
 their bows and were about to take vengeance on the 
 young king, when he stepped forward and said that 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 197 
 
 " now as their leader was dead, he would be their 
 leader." This instantly disarmed their rage, and they 
 received him with acclamations. He had no other 
 course left ; the peril he was in made him see his 
 place of safety. Courage has a wonderful effect : 
 this makes mad people so terrible, that they have no 
 fear. Even wild beasts or a mob (which is much the 
 same thing) will hardly dare to attack you if you 
 show no fear of them. 
 
 I have heard Lord Exmouth (Sir Edward Pellew) 
 say that once when he was out with his ship at 
 sea and there was a mutiny on board and no 
 chance of escape, he learned (from a spy he had 
 among them) the moment when the ringleaders 
 were assembled and about to execute their design 
 of putting the captain and all the officers to death, 
 when taking a pistol in each hand, he went down 
 into the cock -pit into the midst of them ; and 
 threatening to shoot the first man that stirred, 
 took them every one prisoners. If he had betrayed 
 the least fear or any of them had raised a hand, 
 he must have been instantly sacrificed. But he 
 was bolder than any individual in the group, and 
 by this circumstance had the ascendency over the 
 whole put together. A similar act of courage is 
 related of Peter the Great, who singly entered 
 the haunt of some conspirators, and striking down 
 the leader with a blow on the face, spread con- 
 sternation amongst the assassins, who were terrified 
 by his fearlessness. 
 
198 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 (A book of prints was brought in, containing Views of 
 Edinburgh.) 
 
 N. — It is curious to what perfection these things 
 are brought, and how cheap they are. It is that 
 which makes them sell and ensures the fortune of 
 those who publish them. Great fortunes are made 
 out of small profits, which allow all the world to be- 
 come purchasers. That is the reason the Colosseum 
 will hardly answer. There never was an example of 
 an exhibition in England answering at a crown a piece. 
 People look twice at their money before they will 
 part with it, if it be more than they are accustomed 
 to pay. It becomes a question, and perhaps a few 
 stragglers go ; whereas they ought to go in a stream 
 and as a matter of course. If people have to pay a 
 little more than usual, though a mere trifle, they con- 
 sider it in the light of an imposition, and resent it as 
 such ; if the price be a little under the mark, they 
 think they have saved so much money, and snap at it 
 as a bargain. 
 
 The publishers of the work on Edinburgh are 
 the same who brought out the Views of London; 
 and it is said, the success of that undertaking 
 enabled them to buy up Lackington's business. 
 
 E 1 the architect, I am told, suggested the plan, 
 
 but declined a share that was offered him in it, be- 
 cause he said nothing that he had been engaged in 
 
 1 The reference is probably to James Elmes, who about this 
 time was largely engaged in artistic literature. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 199 
 
 had ever succeeded. The event would not belie the 
 notion of his own ill luck. It is singular on what 
 slight turns good or ill fortune depends. Lackington 
 (I understood from the person who brought the Edin- 
 burgh Views here) died worth near half a million : no- 
 body could tell how he had made it. At thirty he 
 was not worth a shilling. The great difficulty is in 
 the first hundred pounds. 
 
 H. — It is sympathy with the mass of mankind, 
 and finding out from yourself what it is they want 
 and must have. 
 
 N. — It seems a good deal owing to the most 
 minute circumstances. A difference of sixpence in 
 the price will make all the difference in the sale of a 
 book. Sometimes a work lies on the shelf for a time, 
 and then runs like wild-fire. There was Drelincourt 
 on Death, which is a fortune in itself ; it hung on 
 hand ; nobody read it, till Defoe put a ghost-story into 
 it, and it has been a stock-book ever since. It is the 
 same in prints. A catching subject or name will 
 make one thing a universal favourite, while another 
 of ten times the merit is never noticed. I have 
 known this happen to myself in more than one 
 instance. 
 
 This is the provoking part in W[estall] and 
 some other painters, who, taking advantage of the 
 externals and accidents of their art, have run 
 away with nearly all the popularity of their time. 
 
 Jack T was here the other day to say that 
 
 W[estall] and his friends complained bitterly of the 
 
200 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 things I said about him. I replied that I had only 
 spoken of him as an artist, which I was at liberty to 
 do ; and that if he were offended, I would recommend 
 to him to read the story of Charles II. and the 
 Duchess of Cleveland, who came to the king with a 
 complaint, that whenever she met Nell Gwyn in the 
 street, the latter put her head out of the coach and 
 made mouths at her. " Well then," says Charles II. 
 " the next time you meet Nelly and she repeats the 
 offence, do you make mouths at her again ! " So if 
 Mr. W[estall] is hurt at my saying things of him, all 
 he has to do is to say things of me in return. 
 
 H. — I confess, I never liked W[estall]. It was 
 one of the errors of my youth that I did not think 
 him equal to Eaphael and Rubens united, as Payne 
 Knight contended ; and I have fought many a battle 
 with numbers (if not odds) against me on that point. 
 
 N. — Then you must have the satisfaction of seeing 
 a change of opinion at present. 
 
 H. — Pardon me, I have not that satisfaction; I 
 have only a double annoyance from it. It is no con- 
 solation to me that an individual was over-rated by 
 the folly of the public formerly, and that he suffers 
 from their injustice and fickleness at present. It is 
 no satisfaction to me that poor I[rving] is reduced to 
 his primitive congregation, and that the stream of 
 coronet- coaches no longer rolls down Holborn or 
 Oxford Street to his chapel. They ought never to 
 have done so, or they ought to continue to do so. 
 The world (whatever in their petulance and profligacy 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 201 
 
 they may think) have no right to intoxicate poor 
 human nature with the full tide of popular applause, 
 and then to drive it to despair for the want of it. 
 
 There are no words to express the cruelty, the 
 weakness, the shamelessness of such conduct, which 
 resembles that of the little girl who dresses up her 
 doll in the most extravagant finery, and then in mere 
 wantonness strips it naked to its wool and bits of 
 wood again — with this difference that the doll has no 
 feeling, whereas the world's idols are wholly sensitive. 
 
 (Of some one who preferred appearances to realities.) 
 
 N. — I can understand the character, because it is 
 exactly the reverse of what I should do and feel. It 
 is like dressing out of one's sphere, or any other 
 species of affectation and imposture. I cannot bear 
 to be taken for anything but what I am. It is like 
 what the country-people call " having a halfpenny head 
 and a farthing tail." That is what makes me mad 
 when people sometimes come and pay their court to 
 me by saying, " Bless me ! how sagacious you look ! 
 What a penetrating countenance ! " No, I say, that 
 is but the title-page — what is there in the book? 
 Your dwelling so much on the exterior seems to 
 imply that the inside does not correspond to it. 
 Don't let me look wise and be foolish, but let me be 
 wise though I am taken for a fool ! Anything else 
 is quackery : it is as if there was no real excellence 
 in the world, but in opinion. 
 
202 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 I used to blame Sir Joshua for this : he sometimes 
 wanted to get Collinses earth, but did not like to have 
 it known. Then there were certain oils that he made 
 a great fuss and mystery about. I have said to 
 myself, surely there is something deeper and nobler 
 in the art that does not depend on all this trick 
 and handicraft. Give Titian and a common painter 
 the same materials and tools to work with, and then 
 see the difference between them. This is all that is 
 worth contending for. If Sir Joshua had had no 
 other advantage than the using Collinses earth and 
 some particular sort of megilp, we should not now 
 have been talking about him. 
 
 When W was here the other day, he asked 
 
 about Mengs and his school; and when I told 
 him what I thought, he said, "Is that your own 
 opinion, or did you take it from Sir Joshua?" I 
 answered, that if I admired Sir J oshua, it was because 
 there was something congenial in our tastes, and not 
 because I was his pupil. I saw his faults, and 
 differed with him often enough. If I have any bias, 
 it is the other way, to take fancies into my head and 
 run into singularity and cavils. In what I said 
 to you about Bamsay's picture of the Queen, for 
 instance, I don't know that any one ever thought so 
 before, or that any one else would agree with me. 
 It might be set down as mere whim and caprice ; but 
 I can't help it, if it is so. All I know is, that such 
 is my feeling about it, which I can no more part 
 with than I can part with my own existence. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 203 
 
 It is the same in other things, as in music. There 
 was an awkward composer at the Opera many years 
 ago, of the name of Boccarelli ; what he did was stupid 
 enough in general, but I remember he sang an air one 
 day at Cosway's, which they said Shield had trans- 
 ferred into the Flitch of Bacon. I cannot describe the 
 effect it had upon me — it seemed as if it wound into 
 my very soul — I would give anything to hear it sung 
 again. So I could have listened to Dignum's singing 
 the lines out of Shakspeare — "Come unto these 
 yellow sands, and then take hands" — a hundred 
 times over. But I am not sure that others would be 
 affected in the same manner by it : there may be 
 some quaint association of ideas in the case. But at 
 least, if I am wrong, the folly is my own. 
 
 H. — There is no danger of the sort, except from 
 affectation, which I am sure is not your case. All 
 the real taste and feeling in the world is made up of 
 what people take in their heads in this manner. Even 
 if you were right only once in five times in these 
 hazardous experiments and shrewd guesses, that 
 would be a fifth part of the truth ; whereas, if you 
 merely repeated after others by rote or waited to 
 have all the world on your side, there could be 
 absolutely nothing gained at all. If any one had 
 come in and had expressed the same idea of Eamsay's 
 portrait of the Queen, this would doubtless be a con- 
 firmation of your opinion, like two persons finding 
 
 out a likeness ; but suppose W had gone away 
 
 with your opinion in his pocket, and had spread it 
 
204 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 about everywhere what a fine painter Eamsay was, I 
 do not see how this would have strengthened your 
 conclusion ; nay, perhaps the people whom he got as 
 converts would entirely mistake the meaning, and 
 come to you with the very reverse of what you had 
 said as a prodigious discovery. This is the way 
 in which these unanimous verdicts are commonly 
 obtained. You might say that Eamsay was not a 
 fine painter, but a man of real genius. The world, 
 not comprehending the distinction, would merely come 
 to the gross conclusion, that he was both one and the 
 other. Thus even truth is vulgarly debased into 
 commonplace and nonsense. So that it is not simply 
 as Mr. Locke observed, " That there are not so many 
 wrong opinions in the world as is generally imagined, 
 for most people have no opinion at all, but take up 
 with those of others or with mere hearsay and 
 echoes;" but these echoes are often false ones 
 and no more like the original idea than the rhym- 
 ing echoes in Hudibras or than Slender's Mum and 
 Budget. 
 
 N. — But don't you think the contrary extreme 
 would be just as bad, if every one set up to judge for 
 himself and every question was split into an endless 
 variety of opinions ? 
 
 H. — I do not see that this would follow. If 
 persons who are sincere and free to inquire differ 
 widely on any subject, it is because it is beyond their 
 reach, and there is no satisfactory evidence one way 
 or the other. Supposing a thing to be doubtful, why 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 205 
 
 should it not be left so ? But men's passions and 
 interests, when brought into play, are most tenacious 
 on those points where their understandings afford 
 them least light. Those doctrines are established which 
 need propping up, as men place beams against falling 
 houses. It does not require an act of Parliament to 
 persuade mathematicians to agree with Euclid, or 
 painters to admire Eaphael. 
 
 N. — And don't you think this the best rule for the 
 rest of the world to go by 1 
 
 H. — Yes; but not if the doctors themselves differed : 
 then it would be necessary to clench the nail with a 
 few smart strokes of bigotry and intolerance. What 
 admits of proof, men agree in, if they have no interest 
 to the contrary ; what they differ about in spite of all 
 that can be said, is matter of taste or conjecture. 
 
CONVEESATION THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 N. — Opie, I remember, used to argue, that there 
 were as many different sorts of taste as genius. He 
 said, "If I am engaged in a picture, and endeavour 
 to do it according to the suggestions of my employers, 
 I do not understand exactly what they want, nor they 
 what I can do, and I please no one : but if I do it 
 according to my own notions, I belong to a class, and 
 if I am able to satisfy myself, I please that class. 97 
 
 You did not know Opie 1 1 You would have admired 
 him greatly. I do not speak of him as an artist, but 
 as a man of sense and observation. He paid me the 
 compliment of saying, " that we should have been the 
 best friends in the world, if we had not been rivals." 
 I think he had more of this feeling than I had; 
 perhaps, because I had most vanity. We sometimes 
 got into foolish altercations. I recollect once in 
 particular, at a banker's in the City, we took up the 
 whole of dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy 
 about Milton and Shakspeare ; I am sure we neither 
 
 1 But Hazlitt does seem to have had a slight acquaintance 
 with Opie. [Ed.] 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 207 
 
 of us had the least notion which was right — and 
 when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen 
 who was present, added to my confusion by saying, 
 "Lord ! what would I give to hear two such men as 
 you talk every day ! " This quite humbled me : I 
 was ready to sink with vexation : I could have resolved 
 never to open my mouth again. But I can't help 
 
 thinking W was wrong in supposing I borrow 
 
 everything from others. It is not my character. I 
 never could learn my lesson at school. My copy was 
 hardly legible ; but if there was a prize to be obtained 
 or my father was to see it, then I could write a very 
 fine hand with all the usual flourishes. What I know 
 of history (and something about heraldry) has been 
 gathered up when I had to inquire into the subject 
 for a picture : if it had been set me as a task, I should 
 have forgotten it immediately. 
 
 In the same way, when Boydell came and pro- 
 posed a subject for a picture to me, and pointed 
 out the capabilities, I always said I could make 
 nothing of it : but as soon as he was gone and 
 I was left to myself, the whole then seemed to 
 unfold itself naturally. I never could study the 
 rules of composition or make sketches and 
 drawings beforehand ; in this, probably running into 
 the opposite error to that of the modern Italian 
 painters, whom Fuseli reproaches with spending their 
 whole lives in preparation. I must begin at once or 
 I can do nothing. When I set about the " Wat 
 Tyler," I was frightened at it : it was the largest work 
 
208 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 I had ever undertaken : there were to be horses and 
 armour and buildings and several groups in it : when 
 I looked at it, the canvas seemed ready to fall upon 
 me. But I had committed myself and could not 
 escape; disgrace was behind me — and every step I made 
 in advance was so much positively gained. If I had 
 stayed to make a number of designs and try different 
 experiments, I never should have had the courage to 
 go on. Half the things that people do not succeed in, 
 are through fear of making the attempt. Like the 
 recruit in Farquhar's comedy, you grow wondrous 
 bold, when you have once taken "list-money." When 
 you must do a thing, you feel in some measure that 
 you can do it. You have only to commit yourself 
 beyond retreat. It is like the soldier going into 
 battle or a player first appearing on the stage — the 
 worst is over when they arrive upon the scene of 
 action. 
 
 H. — I found nearly the same thing that you de- 
 scribe when I first began to write for the newspapers. 
 I had not till then been in the habit of writing at all, 
 or had been a long time about it ; but I perceived 
 that with the necessity, the fluency came. Something 
 I did, took ; and I was called upon to do a number of 
 things all at once. I was in the middle of the stream, 
 and must sink or swim. I had, for instance, often a 
 theatrical criticism to write after midnight, which 
 appeared the next morning. There was no fault 
 found with it — at least, it was as good as if I had had 
 to do it for a weekly paper. I only did it at once, 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 209 
 
 and recollected all I had to say on the spot, because 
 I could not put it off for three days, when perhaps I 
 should have forgotten the best part of it. Besides, 
 when one is pressed for time, one saves it. I might 
 set down nearly all I had to say in my mind, while 
 the play was going on. I know I did not feel at a 
 loss for matter — the difficulty was to compress and 
 write it out fast enough. When you are tied to time, 
 you can come to time. 
 
 I conceive in like manner more wonder is ex- 
 pressed at extempore speaking than it is entitled 
 to. Not to mention that the same well-known 
 topics continually recur, and that the speakers may 
 con their extempore speeches over beforehand and 
 merely watch their opportunity to slide them in 
 dexterously into the grand procession of the debate : 
 a man when once on his legs must say something, and 
 this is the utmost that a public speaker generally 
 says. If he has anything good to say, he can recollect 
 it just as well at once as in a week's literary leisure, 
 as well standing up as sitting down, except from 
 habit. We are not surprised at a man's telling us 
 his thoughts across a table : why should we be so at 
 his doing the same thing, when mounted on one? 
 But he excites more attention : that gives him a 
 double motive. A man's getting up to make a speech 
 in public will not give him a command of words or 
 thoughts if he is without them; but he may be 
 delivered of all the brilliancy or wisdom he actually 
 possesses, in a longer or a shorter space, according 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 to the occasion. The circumstance of the time is 
 optional; necessity, if it be not the mother of in- 
 vention, supplies us with the memory of all we 
 know. 
 
 N. — (after a pause) — There is no end of the 
 bigotry and prejudice in the world; one can only 
 shrug one's shoulders and submit to it. Have you 
 seen the copies they have got down at the club-house 
 in Pall Mall of the groups of horses from the Elgin 
 Marbles 1 Lord ! how inferior they are to Rubens's ! 
 So stiff, and poor, and dry, compared to his magnificent 
 spirit and bold luxuriance ! I should not know them 
 to be horses ; they are as much like anything else. 
 I was at Somerset House the other day. They talk 
 of the Dutch painters ; why, there are pictures there 
 of interiors and other subjects of familiar life, that 
 throw all the boasted chefs-d'oeuvre of the Dutch school 
 to an immeasurable distance. I do not speak of 
 history, which has not been fairly tried ; but in all 
 for which there has been encouragement, no nation 
 can go beyond us. We have resources and a richness 
 of capacity equal to any undertaking. 
 
 H. — Do you recollect any in particular that you 
 admired at the Exhibition 1 
 
 N. — No, I do not remember the names ; but it 
 was a general sense of excellence and truth of imita- 
 tion of natural objects. As to lofty history, our 
 religion scarcely allows it. The Italians had no more 
 genius for painting nor a greater love of pictures 
 than we ; but the Church was the foster-mother of the 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 211 
 
 fine arts ; being the most politic and powerful estab- 
 lishment in the world, they laid their hands on all 
 that could allure and impress the minds of the people 
 — music, painting, architecture, ceremonies ; and this 
 produced a succession of great artists and noble works, 
 till the churches were filled, and then they ceased. 
 The genius of Italian art was nothing but the genius 
 of Popery. God forbid we should purchase success 
 at the same price ! Everything at Kome is like a 
 picture — is calculated for show. I remember walking 
 through one of the by -streets near the Vatican, 
 where I met some procession in which the Pope was ; 
 and all at once I saw a number of the most beautiful 
 Arabian horses curveting and throwing out their 
 long tails, like a vision or a part of a romance. We 
 should here get one or two at most. 
 
 All our holiday pageants, even the Coronation, 
 are low Bartlemy-fair exhibitions compared with 
 what you see at Eome. And then to see the 
 Pope give the benediction at St. Peter's, raising 
 himself up and spreading out his hands in the 
 form of a cross, with an energy and dignity as 
 if he was giving a blessing to the whole world ! 
 No, it is not enough to see Popery in order to 
 hate it — it must be felt too. A poor man going 
 through one of the narrow streets where a similar 
 procession was passing, was fiercely attacked by a 
 soldier of the Swiss Guards, and ordered to stand 
 back. The man said he could retire no farther, for 
 he was close against the wall. " Get back, you and 
 
212 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 the wall too ! " was the answer of haughty servility 
 and mild despotism. It is this spirit peeping out 
 that makes one dread the fairest outside appearances ; 
 and with this spirit, and the power and determination 
 it implies to delude and lead the multitude blindfold 
 with every lure to their imagination and their senses, 
 I will answer for the production of finer historical 
 and Scripture-pieces in this country (let us be as far 
 north as we will) than we have yet seen. 
 
 H. — You do not think, then, that we are naturally 
 a dry, sour, Protestant set ? Is not the air of Ireland 
 Popish, and that of Scotland Presbyterian ? 
 
 N. — No : though you may have it so if you please. 
 
 K has been wanting my two copies of , 
 
 though I do not think he will bid high enough to 
 induce me to part with them. I am in this respect 
 like Opie, who had an original by Sir Joshua that he 
 much valued, and he used to say, " I don't know what 
 I should do in that case, but I hope to God nobody 
 will offer me £500 for it ! " It is curious, this very 
 picture sold for .£500 the other day. So it is that 
 real merit creeps on, and is sure to find its level. 
 The " Holy Family " sold among Lord Gwydir's 
 pictures for £1900. 
 
 H. — Is that fine'? 
 
 N. — Oh yes ! it's certainly fine. It wants the air 
 of history, but it has a rich colour and great simplicity 
 and innocence. It is not equal to the " Snake in the 
 Grass," which Mr. Peel gave 1600 guineas for. That 
 was his forte : nothing is wanting there. 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 213 
 
 A Stranger. — I thought Sir Joshua's colours did 
 not stand 
 
 N. — That is true of some of them : he tried ex- 
 periments, and had no knowledge of chemistry, and 
 bought colours of Jews : but I speak of them as they 
 came from the easel. As he left them and intended 
 them to be, no pictures in the world would stand by 
 the side of them. Colour seemed to exist substantively 
 in his mind. You see this still in those that have 
 not faded — in his later works especially, which were 
 also his best ; and this, with character, and a certain 
 sweetness, must always make his works invaluable. 
 You come to this at last — what you find in any one 
 that you can get nowhere else. If you have this 
 about you, you need not be afraid of time. 
 
 Gainsborough had the saving grace of origin- 
 ality ; and you cannot put him down for that 
 reason. With all their faults, and the evident 
 want of an early study and knowledge of the 
 art, his pictures fetch more every time they are 
 brought to the hammer. I don't know what it 
 was that his " View of the Mall in St. James's Park" 
 sold for not long ago. I remember Mr. P[rince] 
 H[oare] coming to me, and saying what an exquisite 
 picture Gainsborough had painted of the Park. You 
 would suppose it would be stiff and formal with the 
 straight rows of trees and people sitting on benches 
 — it is all in motion, and in a flutter like a lady's fan. 
 Watteau is not half so airy. His picture of young 
 Lord was a masterpiece — there was such a look 
 
214 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 of natural gentility. You must recollect his "Girl 
 feeding pigs " : the expression and truth of nature 
 were never surpassed. Sir Joshua was struck with 
 it, though he said he ought to have made her a 
 beauty. 
 
 H. — Perhaps it was as well to make sure of one 
 thing at a time. I remember being once driven by a 
 shower of rain for shelter into a picture dealer's shop 
 in Oxford Street, where there stood on the floor a 
 copy of Gainsborough's " Shepherd-boy " with the 
 thunderstorm coming pn. What a truth and beauty 
 was there ! He stands with his hands clasped, look- 
 ing up with a mixture of timidity and resignation, 
 eyeing a magpie chattering over his head, while the 
 wind is rustling in the branches. It was like a vision 
 breathed on the canvas. I have been fond of Gains- 
 borough ever since. 
 
 N. — Oh ! that was an essence : but it was only a 
 copy you saw*? The picture was finer than his 
 "Woodman," which has a little false glitter and 
 attempt at theatrical effect ; but the other is innocence 
 itself. Gainsborough was a natural gentleman ; and 
 with all his simplicity he had wit too. An eminent 
 counsellor once attempted to puzzle him on some trial 
 about the originality of a picture by saying, " I observe 
 you lay great stress on the phrase, the jpainter's eye ; 
 what do you mean by that*?" — "The painter's eye," 
 answered Gainsborough, "is to him what the lawyer's 
 tongue is to you." Sir Joshua was not fond of 
 Wilson, and said at one of the Academy dinners, 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 215 
 
 "Yes, Gainsborough is certainly the best landscape- 
 painter of the day." — " No," replied Wilson, who 
 overheard him, " but he is the best portrait-painter." 
 This was a sufficient testimony in Gainsborough's 
 favour. 
 
 H. — He did not make himself agreeable at Buck- 
 ingham House, any more than Sir Joshua, who kept a 
 certain distance and wished to appear as a gentleman ; 
 they wanted a buffoon whom they might be familiar 
 with at first, and insult the moment he overstepped 
 the mark, or as soon as they grew tired of him. Their 
 favourites must be like pet lapdogs or monkeys. 
 
 N. — C— — 1 went to court the other day after 
 a long absence. He was very graciously received, 
 notwithstanding. The K[ing] held out his hand for 
 him to kiss; he recollected himself in time to per- 
 ceive the object. He was struck with the manner 
 in which the great people looked towards the King, 
 and the utter insignificance of everything else ; 
 
 "and then," said C , "as soon as they are 
 
 out of the palace, they get into their carriages, and 
 ride over you with all the fierceness and insolence 
 imaginable." West used to say you could tell the 
 highest nobility at court by their being the most 
 abject. This was policy, for the most powerful 
 would be most apt to excite jealousy in the sovereign ; 
 
 1 Probably Augustus W. Calcott, R.A., the landscape-painter, 
 who was at all times a favourite at Court, and who shortly after 
 this date was knighted and put in charge of the Royal pictures. 
 [Ed.] 
 
216 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 and by showing an extreme respect, they thought 
 to prevent the possibility of encroachment or insult. 
 
 Garrick complained that when he went to 
 read before the court, not a look or a murmur 
 testified approbation ; there was a profound stillness 
 — every one only watched to see what the King 
 thought. It was like reading to a set of wax-work 
 figures : he who had been accustomed to the applause 
 of thousands, could not bear this assembly of mutes. 
 Marchant went to the late King about a cameo, who 
 was offended at his saying the face must be done in 
 full and not as a profile; "then," said the patron, 
 "I'll get somebody else to do it." Coming out at 
 the door, one of the pages asked the artist, "Why 
 do you contradict the K[ing] ? He is not used to be 
 contradicted ! " This is intelligible in an absolute 
 despotism, where the will of the sovereign is law, 
 and where he can cut off your head if he pleases; 
 but is it not strange in a free country 1 
 
 H. — It is placing an ordinary mortal on the top 
 of a pyramid, and kneeling at the bottom of it to the 
 "highest and mightiest." It is a trick of human 
 reason surpassing the grossness of the brute. 
 
CONVEESATION THE NINETEENTH 
 
 H. — Fashion is gentility running away from vul- 
 garity, and afraid of being overtaken by it. It is a 
 sign the two things are not very far asunder. 
 
 N. — Yes • Mr. used to say, that just before 
 
 the women in his time left off hoops, they looked 
 like bats. Going on from one affectation to another, 
 they at last wore them close under their arms, so 
 that they resembled wings growing out from their 
 shoulders ; and having reached the top of the 
 absurdity, they then threw them aside all at once. 
 If long waists are the fashion one season, they are 
 exploded the next ; as soon as the court adopts any 
 particular mode, the city follows the example, and as 
 soon as the city takes it up, the court lays it down. 
 The whole is caricature and masquerade. Nature only 
 is left out ; for that is either common, or what is fine 
 in it would not always be found on the fashionable 
 side of the question. It may be the fashion to paint 
 or not to paint ; but if it were the fashion to have a 
 fine complexion, many fashionable people must go 
 
218 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 without one, and many unfashionable ones would be 
 at the height of it. Deformity is as often the fashion 
 as beauty, yet the world in general see no other 
 beauty than fashion, and their vanity or interest or 
 complaisance bribes their understanding to disbelieve 
 even their senses. If cleanliness is the fashion, then 
 cleanliness is admired; if dirt, hair -powder, and 
 pomatum are the fashion, then dirt, hair-powder, 
 and pomatum are admired just as much, if not more, 
 from their being disagreeable. 
 
 H. — The secret is, that fashion is imitating in 
 certain things that are in our power and that are 
 nearly indifferent in themselves, those who possess 
 certain other advantages that are not in our power, 
 and which the possessors are as little disposed to 
 part with as they are eager to obtrude them upon 
 the notice of others by every external symbol at their 
 immediate control. We think the cut of a coat fine, 
 because it is worn by a man with ten thousand a 
 year, with a fine house, and a fine carriage : as we 
 cannot get the ten thousand a year, the house, or the 
 carriage, we get what we can — the cut of the fine 
 gentleman's coat, and thus are in the fashion. But 
 as we get it, he gets rid of it, which shows that he 
 cares nothing about it ; but he keeps his ten thousand 
 a year, his fine house, and his fine carriage. A rich 
 man wears gold buckles to show that he is rich : a 
 coxcomb gets gilt ones to look like the rich man, and 
 as soon as the gold ones prove nothing, the rich man 
 leaves them off. 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 219 
 
 So it is with all the real advantages that fashion- 
 able people possess. Say that they have more 
 grace, good manners, and refinement than the 
 rabble; but these do not change every moment at 
 the nod of fashion. Speaking correctly is not proper 
 to one class more than another : if the fashionable, 
 to distinguish themselves from the vulgar, affect a 
 peculiar tone or set of phrases, this is mere slang. 
 The difference between grace and awkwardness is the 
 same one year after another. This is the meaning of 
 natural politeness. It is a perception of and attention 
 to the feelings of others, which is the same thing, 
 whether it is neglected by the Great or practised by 
 the vulgar. The barrier between refinement and 
 grossness cannot be arbitrarily effaced. Nothing 
 changes but what depends on the shallow affectation 
 and assumption of superiority : real excellence can 
 never become vulgar. So Pope says in his elegant 
 way— 
 
 <£ Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 
 'Tis just the same to virtue and to me ; 
 Dwell in a monk or light upon a king, 
 She's still the same belov'd, contented thing. 
 Vice is undone if she forgets her birth, 
 And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.' ' 
 
 Pope's verse is not admired, because it was once 
 the fashion : it will be admired, let the fashion 
 change how it will. 
 
 N. — When Sir Joshua Eeynolds wanted to learn 
 what real grace was, he studied it in the attitudes of 
 
220 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 children, not in the school of the dancing-master, or 
 in the empty strut or mawkish languor of fashion. 
 A young painter asked me the other day whether I 
 thought that Guido was not chargeable with affectation ] 
 I told him that I thought not, or in a very trifling 
 degree. I could not deny that Guido sometimes 
 bordered on and reminded me of it; or that there 
 was that which in anybody else might be really so, 
 but that in him it seemed only an extreme natural 
 gentility. He puts his figures into attitudes that are 
 a little too courtly and studied, but he probably could 
 not help it. 
 
 H. — It was rather the excess of a quality or feel- 
 ing in his mind, than the aiming to supply the defect 
 of one. 
 
 N. — Yes ; there is no suspicion of what he is 
 doing. The odious part of affectation is when there 
 is an evident design to impose on you with counter- 
 feit pretensions. So in another point that might be 
 objected to him, the impropriety of his naked figures, 
 no mortal can steer clearer of it than he does. They 
 may be strictly said to be clothed with their own 
 delicacy and beauty. There is the " Venus attired by 
 the Graces " : what other painter durst attempt it 1 
 They are to be all beauties, all naked ; yet he has 
 escaped as if by miracle — none but the most vicious 
 can find fault with it — the very beauty, elegance, and 
 grace keep down instead of exciting improper ideas. 
 And then again, the "Andromeda chained to the 
 rock" — both are, I believe, in the drawing-room at 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 221 
 
 Windsor : but there is no possible offence to be taken 
 at them, nothing to shock the most timid or innocent, 
 because there was no particle of grossness in the 
 painter's mind. I have seen pictures by others 
 muffled up to the chin, that had twenty times as 
 much vice in them. It is wonderful how the cause is 
 seen in the effect. So we find it in Eichardson. 
 Clarissa is a story in the midst of temptation ; but he 
 comes clear and triumphant out of that ordeal, 
 because his own imagination is not contaminated by 
 it. If there had been the least hint of an immoral 
 tendency, the slightest indication of a wish to inflame 
 the passions, it would have been all over with him. 
 The intention always will peep out — you do not com- 
 municate a disease if you are not infected with it 
 yourself. Albano's nymphs and goddesses seem 
 waiting for admirers : Guido's are protected with a 
 veil of innocence and modesty. Titian would have 
 given them an* air of Venetian courtesans : Eaphael 
 would have made them look something more than 
 mortal : neither would have done what Guido has 
 effected, who has conquered the difficulty by the pure 
 force of feminine softness and delicacy. 
 
 H. — I am glad to hear you speak so of Guido. I 
 was beginning, before I went abroad, to have a 
 "sneaking contempt " for him as insipid and mono- 
 tonous, from seeing the same everlasting repetitions 
 of Cleopatras and Madonnas : but I returned a con- 
 vert to his merits. I saw many indifferent pictures 
 attributed to great masters \ but wherever I saw a 
 
222 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 Guido, I found elegance and beauty that answered to 
 the " silver " sound of his name. The mind lives on 
 a round of names ; and it is a great point gained not 
 to have one of these snatched from us by a sight of 
 their works. As to the display of the naked figure 
 in works of art, the case to me seems clear : it is only 
 when there is nothing but the naked figure that it is 
 offensive. In proportion as the beauty or perfection 
 of the imitation rises, the indecency vanishes. You 
 look at it then with an eye to art, just as the 
 anatomist examines the human figure with a view to 
 
 science. Other ideas are introduced. J. , of 
 
 Edinburgh, had a large, sprawling Danae hanging 
 over the chimney-piece of his office, where he received 
 Scotch parsons and their wives on law-business : he 
 thought it a triumph over Presbyterian prudery and 
 prejudice, and a sort of chivalrous answer to the 
 imputed barbarism of the North. It was certainly a 
 paradox in taste, a breach of manners. He asked me 
 if I objected to it because it was naked ? " No," I 
 said, " but because it is ugly : you can only have put 
 it there because it is naked, and that alone shows a 
 felonious intent. Had there been either beauty or 
 expression, it would have conducted off the objection- 
 able part. As it is, I don't see how you can answer 
 it to the kirk-sessions." 
 
 N. — I remember Sir W. W 1 employed Sir 
 
 Joshua and Dance, who was a very eminent designer, 
 to ornament a music-room which he had built. Sir 
 
 1 Perhaps Sir Williams Wynn. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 223 
 
 Joshua on this occasion painted his St. Cecilia, which 
 he made very fine at first, but afterwards spoiled it ; 
 and Dance chose the subject of Orpheus. When I 
 asked Miss Eeynolds what she thought of it, she said 
 she had no doubt of its being clever and well done, 
 but that it looked " like a naked man." This answer 
 was conclusive against it ; for if the inspiration of the 
 character had been given, you would have overlooked 
 the want of clothes. The nakedness only strikes and 
 offends the eye in the barrenness of other matter. It 
 is the same in the drama. Mere grossness or ribaldry 
 is intolerable ; but you often find in the old comedy 
 that the wit and ingenuity (as well as custom) carry 
 off what otherwise could not be borne. The laughter 
 prevents the blush. So an expression seems gross in 
 one person's mouth, which in another passes off with 
 perfect innocence. The reason is, there is something 
 in the manner that gives a quite different construc- 
 tion to what is said. Have you seen the Akides, the 
 two foreigners who perform such prodigious feats of 
 strength at the theatre, but with very little clothing 
 on 1 They say the people hardly know what to make 
 of it. They should not be too sure that this is any 
 proof of their taste or virtue. 
 
 H. — I recollect a remark of Coleridge's on the 
 conclusion of the story of Paul and Virginia by Ber- 
 nardin St. Pierre. Just before the shipwreck, and 
 when nothing else can save the heroine from perishing, 
 an athletic figure comes forward stripped, but with 
 perfect respect, and offers to swim with her to the 
 
224 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 shore ; but instead of accepting his proposal, she turns 
 away with affected alarm. This, Coleridge said, was 
 a proof of the prevailing tone of French depravity, 
 and not of virgin innocence. A really modest girl in 
 such circumstances would not have thought of any 
 scruple. 
 
 N. — It is the want of imagination or of an insight 
 into nature in ordinary writers ; they do not know 
 how to place themselves in the situations they de- 
 scribe. Whatever feeling or passion is uppermost, 
 fills the mind and drives out every other. If you 
 were confined in a vault, and thought you saw a 
 ghost, you would rush out, though a lion was at the 
 entrance. On the other hand, if you were pursued 
 by a lion, you would take refuge in a charnel-house, 
 though it was full of spirits, and would disregard the 
 dead bones and putrid relics about you. Both pas- 
 sions may be equally strong ; the question is, which 
 is roused first. But it is few who can get to the 
 fountain-head, the secret springs of Nature. Shak- 
 speare did it always ; and Sir Walter Scott frequently. 
 Gfodwin] says he always was pleased with my conversa- 
 tion before you broached that opinion ; but I do not 
 see how that can be, for he always contradicts and 
 thwarts me. When two people are constantly cross- 
 ing one another on the road, they cannot be very 
 good company. You agree to what I say, and often 
 explain or add to it, which encourages me to go on. 
 
 H. — I believe G[odwin] is sincere in what he says, 
 for he has frequently expressed the same opinion to me. 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 225 
 
 N. — That might be so, though he took great care 
 not to let me know it. People would often more 
 willingly speak well of you behind your back than 
 to your face ; they are afraid either of shocking your 
 modesty or gratifying your vanity. That was the 
 case with . If he ever was struck with any- 
 thing I did, he made a point not to let me see it : he 
 treated it lightly, and said it was very well. 
 
 H. — I do not think G[odwin]'s differing with you 
 was any proof of his opinion. Like most authors, he 
 has something of the schoolmaster about him, and 
 wishes to keep up an air of authority. What you 
 say may be very well for a learner ; but he is the 
 oracle. You must not set up for yourself ; and to 
 keep you in due subordination, he catechises and 
 contradicts from mere habit. 
 
 N. — Human nature is always the same. It was 
 so with Johnson and Goldsmith. They would allow 
 no one to have any merit but themselves. The very 
 attempt was a piece of presumption, and a trespass 
 upon their privileged rights. I remember a poem 
 that came out, and that was sent to Sir Joshua : his 
 servant, Ealph, had instructions to bring it in just 
 after dinner. Goldsmith presently got hold of it, 
 and seemed thrown into a rage before he had read a 
 line of it. He then said, "What wretched stuff is 
 here ! what cursed nonsense that is ! " and kept all 
 the while marking the passages with his thumb-nail, 
 as if he would cut them in pieces. At last, Sir 
 Joshua, who was provoked, interfered, and said, 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 "Nay, don't spoil my book, however." Dr. Johnson 
 looked down on the rest of the world as pigmies ; he 
 smiled at the very idea that any one should set up 
 for a fine writer but himself. They never admitted 
 C[olman] as one of the set ; Sir Joshua did not invite 
 him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Gold- 
 smith would have flown out of it as if a dragon had 
 been there. I remember Garrick once saying, 
 " Damn his dish-clout face ; his plays would never do 
 if it were not for my patching them up and acting in 
 them." Another time, he took a poem of C[olman]'s, 
 and read it backwards to turn it into ridicule. Yet 
 some of his pieces keep possession of the stage, so 
 that there must be something in them. 
 
 H. — Perhaps he was later than they, and they 
 considered him as an interloper on that account. 
 
 N. — No ; there was a prejudice against him : he 
 did not somehow fall into the train. It was the 
 same with Vanbrugh in Pope's time. They made a 
 jest of him, and endeavoured to annoy him in every 
 possible way ; he was a black sheep for no reason in 
 the world, except that he was cleverer than they; 
 that is, could build houses and write verses at the 
 same time. They laughed at his architecture; yet 
 it is certain that it is quite original, and at least a 
 question whether it is not beautiful as well as new. 
 He was the first who sank the window-frames within 
 the walls of houses — they projected before : he did 
 it as a beauty, but it has been since adopted by Act 
 of Parliament to prevent fire. Some gentleman was 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 227 
 
 asking me about the imposing style of architecture 
 with which Vanbrugh had decorated the top of 
 Blenheim House ; he had mistaken the chimneys for 
 an order of architecture, so that what is an eye-sore 
 in all other buildings, Vanbrugh has had the art to 
 convert into an ornament. And then his wit ! 
 Think what a comedy is the Provoked Husband! 
 What a scope and comprehension in the display of 
 manners from the highest to the lowest ! It was 
 easier to write an epigram on " Brother Van" than such 
 a play as this. I once asked Richards, the scene- 
 painter, who was perfectly used to the stage, and 
 acquainted with all the actors, what he considered as 
 the best play in the language? And he answered, 
 without hesitation, The Journey to London. 
 
 H. — Lord Foppington is also his, if he wanted 
 supporters. He was in the same situation as Rousseau 
 with respect to the wits of his time, who traces all 
 his misfortunes and the jealousy that pursued him 
 through life to the success of the Devin du Village. 
 He said Diderot and the rest could have forgiven his 
 popularity as an author, but they could not bear his 
 writing an opera. 
 
 N. — If you belong to a set, you must either lead 
 or follow ; you cannot maintain your independence. 
 Beattie did very well with the great folks in my 
 time, because he looked up to them, and he excited 
 no uneasy sense of competition. Indeed, he managed 
 so well that Sir Joshua nattered him and his book in 
 return in the most effectual manner. In his allegorical 
 
228 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 portrait of the doctor, he introduced the angel of 
 truth chasing away the demons of falsehood and 
 impiety, who bore an obvious resemblance to Hume 
 and Voltaire. This brought out Goldsmith's fine 
 reproof of his friend, who said that "Sir Joshua 
 might be ashamed of debasing a genius like Voltaire 
 before a man like Beattie, whose works would be 
 forgotten in a few years, while Voltaire's fame would 
 last for ever ! " Sir J. E. took the design of this 
 picture from one of a similar subject by Tintoret, 
 now in the Eoyal Collection in Kensington Palace. 
 He said he had no intention of the sort : Hume was 
 a broad -backed clumsy figure, not very like; but I 
 know he meant Voltaire, for I saw a French medal 
 of him lying about in the room. 
 
 Mrs. Beattie also came up with her husband 
 to London. I recollect her asking for "a little 
 paurter" in her broad Scotch way. It is like Cibber's 
 seeing Queen Anne at Nottingham when he was a 
 boy, and all he could remember about her was her 
 asking him to give her "a glass of wine and 
 water." She was an ordinary character, and 
 belonged to the class of good sort of people. So 
 the Margravine of Baireuth describes the Duchess 
 of Kendal, who was mistress to George L, to be a 
 quiet inoffensive character, who would do neither 
 good nor harm to anybody. 
 
 Did you ever read her Memoirs ? Lord ! what 
 an account she gives of the state of manners at 
 the old court of Prussia, and of the brutal despot- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 229 
 
 ism and cruelty of the king ! She was his daughter, 
 and he used to strike her, and drag her by the hair 
 of her head, and leave her with her face bleeding, 
 and often senseless, on the floor for the smallest 
 trifles; and he treated her brother, afterwards 
 Frederick II. (and to whom she was much attached), 
 no better. That might in part account for the 
 hardness of his character at a later period. 
 
 H. — I suppose Prussia was at that time a mere 
 petty state or sort of by-court, so that what they 
 did was pretty much done in a corner, and they were 
 not afraid of being talked of by the rest of Europe. 
 
 N. — No; it was quite an absolute monarchy 
 with all the pomp and pretensions of sovereignty. 
 Frederick (the father) was going, on some occasion 
 when he was displeased with him, to strike our 
 ambassador ; but this conduct was resented and put 
 a stop to. The Queen (sister to George II. and who 
 was imprisoned so long on a suspicion of conjugal 
 infidelity) appears to have been a violent-spirited 
 woman, and also weak. George I. could never learn 
 to speak English, and his successor, George II., spoke 
 it badly, and neither ever felt themselves at home in 
 this country; and they were always going over to 
 Hanover, where they found themselves lords and 
 masters, while here, though they had been raised so 
 much higher, their dignity never sat easy upon them. 
 They did not know what to make of their new 
 situation. 
 
 [Northcote here read me a letter I had heard him 
 
230 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 speak of relative to a distinguished character men- 
 tioned in a former Conversation.] 
 
 " A Letter to Mr. Northcote in London from his Brother 
 at Plymouth, giving an account of a Shipwreck. 
 
 "Plymouth, Jan. 28, 1796. 
 
 "We have had a terrible succession of stormy 
 weather of late. Tuesday, immediately after dinner, 
 I went to the Hoe to see the Dutton East Indiaman, 
 full of troops, upon the rocks, directly under the 
 flag -staff of the citadel. She had been out seven 
 weeks on her passage to the West Indies as a trans- 
 port, with 400 troops on board, besides women and 
 the ship's crew ; and had been just driven back by 
 distress of weather, with a great number of sick on 
 board. You cannot conceive anything so horrible as 
 the appearance of things altogether, which I beheld 
 when I first arrived on the spot. The ship was stuck 
 on sunken rocks, somewhat inclining to one side, and 
 without a mast or the bowsprit standing; and her 
 decks covered with the soldiers as thick as they could 
 possibly stand by one another, with the sea breaking 
 in a most horrible manner all around them ; and 
 what still added to the melancholy grandeur of the 
 scene was the distress-guns which were fired now and 
 then directly over our head from the Citadel. 
 
 " When I first came to the spot, I found that they 
 had by some means got a rope with one end of it 
 fixed to the ship, and the other was held by the people 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 231 
 
 on shore, by which means they could yield as the ship 
 swung. Upon this rope they had got a ring, which 
 they could by means of two smaller ropes draw for- 
 wards and backwards from the ship to the shore : to 
 this ring they had fixed a loop, which each man put 
 under his arms ; and by this means, and holding by 
 the ring with his hands, he supported himself, hang- 
 ing to the ring, while he was drawn to the shore by 
 the people there ; and in this manner I saw a great 
 many drawn on shore. But this proved a tedious 
 work ; and though I looked at them for a long time, 
 yet the numbers on the deck were not apparently 
 diminished ; besides, from the motion which the ship 
 had by rolling on the rocks, it was not possible to 
 keep the rope equally stretched, and from this cause, 
 as well as from the sudden rising of the waves, you 
 would at one moment see a poor wretch hanging ten 
 or twenty feet above the water, and the next you 
 would lose sight of him in the foam of a wave, though 
 some escaped better. 
 
 " But this was not a scheme which the women and 
 many of the sick could avail themselves of. 
 
 "I observed with some admiration the behaviour 
 of a Captain of a man-of-war, who seemed interested 
 in the highest degree for the safety of these poor 
 wretches. He exerted himself uncommonly, and 
 directed others what to do on shore, and endeavoured 
 in vain with a large speaking-trumpet to make him- 
 self heard by those on board; but finding that 
 nothing could be heard but the roaring of the wind 
 
232 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 and sea, he offered anybody five guineas instantly 
 who would suffer himself to be drawn on board with 
 instructions to them what to do. And when he found 
 that nobody would accept his offer, he gave an in- 
 stance of the highest heroism : for he fixed the rope 
 about himself and gave the signal to be drawn 
 on board. He had his uniform coat on and his 
 sword hanging at his side. I have not room to de- 
 scribe the particulars; but there was something 
 grand and interesting in the thing : for as soon as 
 they had pulled him into the wreck, he was received 
 with three vast shouts by the people on board ; and 
 these were immediately echoed by those who lined 
 the shore, the garrison-walls and lower batteries. 
 
 "The first thing he did was to rig out two other ropes 
 like the first : which I saw him most active in doing 
 with his own hands. This quickened the matter a 
 good deal, and by this time two large open row-boats 
 were arrived from the Dockyard, and a sloop had 
 with difficulty worked out from Plymouth Pool. He 
 then became active in getting out the women and the 
 sick, who were with difficulty got into the open 
 boats, and by them carried off to the sloop, which 
 kept off for fear of being stove against the ship or 
 thrown upon the rocks. He suffered but one boat to 
 approach the ship at a time, and stood with his 
 drawn sword to prevent too many rushing into the 
 boat. After he had seen all the people out of the 
 ship to about ten or fifteen, he fixed himself to the 
 rope as before and was drawn ashore, where he was 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 233 
 
 again received with shouts. Upon my inquiry who 
 this gallant officer was, I was informed that it was 
 Sir Edward Pellew, whom I had heard the highest 
 character of before, both for bravery and mercy. 
 
 "The soldiers were falling into disorder when Sir 
 Edward went on board. Many of them were drunk, 
 having broke into the cabin and got at the liquor. I 
 saw him beating one with the flat of his broadsword, 
 in order to make him give up a bundle he had made up 
 of plunder. They had but just time to save the men, 
 before the ship was nearly under water. I observed 
 a poor goat and a dog amongst the crowd, when the 
 people were somewhat thinned away. I saw the goat 
 marching about with much unconcern ; but the dog 
 showed evident anxiety, for I saw him stretching 
 himself out at one of the port-holes, standing partly 
 upon the port and partly upon a gun, and looking 
 earnestly towards the shore, where I suppose he knew 
 his master was. All these perished soon after, as 
 the ship was washed all over as the sea rose — she is 
 now in pieces." 
 
CONVERSATION THE TWENTIETH 
 
 N. — Have you seen the Life of Sir Joshua 1 just 
 published ? 
 H.— No. 
 
 N. — It is all, or nearly all, taken from my account, 
 and yet the author misrepresents or contradicts every- 
 thing I say, I suppose to show that he is under no 
 obligation to me. I cannot understand the drift of 
 his work; nor who it is he means to please. He 
 finds fault with Sir Joshua, among a number of 
 other things, for not noticing Hogarth. Why, it was 
 not his business to notice Hogarth any more than it 
 was to notice Fielding. Both of them were great 
 wits and describers of manners in common life, but 
 neither of them came under the article of painting. 
 What Hogarth had was his own, and nobody will ever 
 have it again in the same degree. But all that did 
 not depend on his own genius was detestable, both as 
 to his subjects and his execution. Was Sir Joshua to 
 recommend these as models to the student ? No, we 
 are to imitate only what is best, and that in which 
 
 1 By Allan Cunningham. [Ed. ] 
 
hazlitt's conversations with northcote 235 
 
 even failure is honourable; not that where only- 
 originality and the highest point of success can at all 
 excuse the attempt. 
 
 Cunningham (the writer of the Life) pretends to 
 cry up Hogarth as a painter ; but this is not true. 
 He moulded little figures and placed them to see 
 how the lights fell and how the drapery came in, 
 which gave a certain look of reality and relief ; but 
 this was not enough to give breadth or grace, and 
 his figures look like puppets after all, or like dolls 
 dressed up. Who would compare any of these little, 
 miserable, deformed caricatures of men and women 
 to the figure of St. Paul preaching at Athens ? "What 
 we justly admire and emulate is that which raises 
 human nature, not that which degrades and holds it 
 up to scorn. We may laugh to see a person rolled 
 in the kennel, but we are ashamed of ourselves for 
 doing so. 
 
 We are amused with Tom Jones; but we rise 
 from the perusal of Clarissa with higher feelings and 
 better resolutions than we had before. St. Giles's 
 is not the only school of art. It is nature, to be sure ; 
 but we must select nature. Ask the meanest person 
 in the gallery at the play-house which he likes best, 
 the tragedy or the farce ? And he will tell you, with- 
 out hesitation, the tragedy — and will prefer Mrs. 
 Siddons to the most exquisite buffoon. He feels an 
 ambition to be placed in the situations, and to be 
 associated with the characters, described in tragedy, 
 and none to be connected with those in a farce; 
 
236 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 because he feels a greater sense of power and dignity in 
 contemplating the one, and only sees his own weak- 
 ness and littleness reflected and ridiculed in the other. 
 Even the poetry, the blank verse, pleases the most 
 illiterate, which it would not do if it were not natural. 
 
 The world do not receive monsters. This was what 
 I used to contest with Sir Joshua. He insisted that 
 the blank verse in tragedy was purely artificial — a 
 thing got up for the occasion. But surely every one 
 must feel that he delivers an important piece of in- 
 formation, or asks a common question in a different 
 tone of voice. If it were not for this, the audience 
 would laugh at the measured speech or step of a 
 tragic actor as burlesque, just as they are inclined to 
 do at an Opera. Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of the 
 famous Pulteney, " My Lord Bath always speaks in 
 blank verse ! " The stately march of his ideas, no 
 doubt, made it natural to him. Mr. Cunningham 
 will never persuade the world that Hogarth is 
 superior to Eaphael or Eeynolds. Common sense 
 is against it. I don't know where he picked up the 
 notion. 
 
 H. — Probably from Mr. Lamb, who endeavours to 
 set up Hogarth as a great tragic as well as comic 
 genius, not inferior in either respect to Shakspeare. 
 
 N. — I can't tell where he got such an opinion ; but 
 I know it is great nonsense. Cunningham gives a 
 wrong account of an anecdote which he has taken from 
 me. Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, had said at a 
 meeting of the Society of Arts that " a pin-maker was 
 
WITH NOETHCOTE 
 
 237 
 
 a more important member of society than Kaphael." 
 Sir J oshua had written some remark on this assertion 
 in an old copy-book which fell into my hands, and 
 which nobody probably ever saw but myself. Cunning- 
 ham states that Sir Joshua was present when Dean 
 Tucker made the speech at the Society, and that 
 he immediately rose up, and with great irritation 
 answered him on the spot, which is contrary both to 
 the fact and to Sir Joshua's character. He would 
 never have thought of rising to contradict any one in 
 a public assembly for not agreeing with him on the 
 importance of his own profession. 
 
 In one part of the new Life, it is said that 
 Sir Joshua, seeing the ill -effects that Hogarth's 
 honesty and bluntness had had upon his pros- 
 pects as a portrait- painter, had learnt the art to 
 make himself agreeable to his sitters, and to mix 
 up the oil of flattery with his discourse as 
 assiduously as with his colours. This is far from the 
 truth. Sir Joshua's manners were indeed affable and 
 obliging, but he flattered nobody; and instead of 
 gossiping or making it his study to amuse his sitters, 
 minded only his own business. I remember being in 
 the next room the first time the Duchess of Cumber- 
 land came to sit, and I can vouch that scarce a word 
 was spoken for near two hours. 
 
 Another thing remarkable to show how little 
 Sir Joshua crouched to the Great is, that he 
 never even gave them their proper titles. I 
 never heard the words 11 your lordship" or "your 
 
238 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 ladyship" come from his mouth; nor did he ever 
 say Sir in speaking to any one but Dr. Johnson ; and 
 when he did not hear distinctly what the latter said 
 (which often happened) he would then say, "Sir?" 
 that he might repeat it. He was in this respect like 
 a Quaker, not from any scruples or affectation of 
 independence, but possibly from some awkwardness 
 and confusion in addressing the variety of characters 
 he met with, or at his first entrance on his profession. 
 
 His biographer is also unjust to Sir Joshua in stating 
 that his table was scantily supplied out of penurious- 
 ness. The truth is, Sir Joshua would ask a certain 
 number and order a dinner to be provided ; and then 
 in the course of the morning, two or three other 
 persons would drop in, and he would say, " I have 
 got so and so to dinner, will you join us ? " which they 
 being always ready to do, there were sometimes more 
 guests than seats, but nobody complained of this or 
 was unwilling to come again. If Sir Joshua had 
 really grudged his guests, they would not have 
 repeated their visits twice, and there would have been 
 plenty of room and of provisions the next time. Sir 
 Joshua never gave the smallest attention to such 
 matters ; all he cared about was his painting in the 
 morning, and the conversation at his table, to which 
 last he sacrificed his interest; for his associating 
 with men like Burke, who was at that time a 
 great oppositionist, did him no good at court. Sir 
 Joshua was equally free from meanness or ostenta- 
 tion and encroachment on others; no one knew 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 239 
 
 himself better or more uniformly kept his place in 
 society. 
 
 H. — It is a pity to mar the idea of Sir Joshua's 
 dinner-parties, which are one of the pleasantest in- 
 stances on record of a cordial intercourse between 
 persons of distinguished pretensions of all sorts. 
 But some people do not care what they spoil, so that 
 they can tell disagreeable truth. 
 
 N. — In the present case there is not even that 
 excuse. The statement answers no good end, while 
 it throws a very unfounded slur on Sir Joshua's 
 hospitality and love of good cheer. It is insinuated 
 that he was sparing of his wine, which is not true. 
 Again, I am blamed for not approving of Dr. Johnson's 
 speech to Sir Joshua at the Miss Cottrells', when the 
 Duchess of Argyll came in, and he thought himself 
 neglected — " How much do you think you and I could 
 earn in a week, if we were to work as hard as we 
 could 1 " This was a rude and unmerited insult. The 
 Miss Cottrells were the daughters of an Admiral and 
 people of fashion, as well as the Duchess of Argyll ; 
 and they naturally enough fell into conversation about 
 persons and things that they knew, though Dr. J ohn- 
 son had not been used to hear of them. He therefore 
 thought it affectation and insolence, whereas the 
 vulgarity and insolence were on his own side. 
 
 If I had any fault to find with Sir J oshua, it would 
 be that he was a very bad master in the art. Of all 
 his pupils, I am the only one who ever did anything at 
 all. He was like the boy teaching the other to swim. 
 
240 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 " How do you do when you want to turn ? " — " How 
 must you do when you turn ? Why, you must look 
 that way ! " Sir Joshua's instructions amounted to 
 little more. People talk of the instinct of animals as 
 if a blind reason were an absurdity : whereas whatever 
 men can do best, they understand and can explain 
 least. Your son was looking at that picture of the 
 lap-dog the other evening. There is a curious story 
 about that. The dog was walking out with me one 
 day, and was set upon and bit by a strange dog, for 
 all dogs know and hate a favourite. He was a long 
 time in recovering from the wound; and one day 
 when Mr. P[rince] H[oare] called, he ran up to him, 
 leaped up quite overjoyed, then lay down, began to 
 whine, patted the place where he had been hurt with 
 his paws, and went through the whole history of his 
 misfortune. It was a perfect pantomime. I will not 
 tell the story to G[odwin], for the philosopher would 
 be jealous of the sagacity of the cur. 
 
 H. — There was Jack Spines, the racket -player : 
 he excelled in what is called the half -volley. Some 
 amateurs of the game were one day disputing what 
 this term of art meant. Spines was appealed to. 
 " Why, gentlemen," says he, " I really can't say 
 exactly ; but I should think the half-volley is some- 
 thing between the volley and the half -volley." This 
 definition was not quite the thing. The celebrated 
 J ohn Da vies, the finest player in the world, could give 
 no account of his proficiency that way. It is a game 
 which no one thinks of playing without putting on a 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 241 
 
 flannel jacket ; and after you have been engaged in 
 it for ten minutes, you are just as if you had been 
 dipped in a mill-pond. John Davies never pulled off 
 his coat ; and merely buttoning it that it might not 
 be in his way, would go down into the Fives-court and 
 play two of the best players of the day, and at the end 
 of the match you could not perceive that a hair of his 
 head was wet. Powell, the keeper of the court (why 
 does not Sir B. Nash, among so many innovations, 
 rebuild it ?) said he never seemed to follow the ball, 
 but that it came to him — he did everything with 
 such ease. 
 
 N. — Then every motion of that man was perfect 
 grace : there was not a muscle in his body that did 
 not contribute its share to the game. So, when they 
 begin to learn the pianoforte, at first they use only 
 the fingers, and are soon tired to death : then the 
 muscles of the arm come into play, which relieves 
 them a little ; and at last the whole frame is called 
 into action, so as to produce the effect with entire 
 ease and gracefulness. It is the same in everything : 
 and he is indeed a poor creature who cannot do more, 
 from habit or natural genius, than he can give any 
 rational account of. 
 
 (Some remarks having been made on the foregoing con- 
 versation, Mr. Northcote, the next time I saw him, took up 
 the subject nearly as follows.) 
 
 N. — The newspaper critic asks with an air of 
 triumph as if he had found a mare's nest, "What! 
 are Sophia Western and Allworthy, St. Giles's V 9 Why, 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 they are the very ones : they are Tower-stamp ! Blifil, 
 and Black George, and Square are not — they have 
 some sense and spirit in them and are so far 
 redeemed, for Fielding put his own cleverness and 
 ingenuity into them ; but as to his refined characters, 
 they are an essence of vulgarity and insipidity. 
 Sophia is a poor doll ; and as to Allworthy he has not 
 the soul of a goose : and how does he behave to the 
 young man that he has brought up and pampered 
 with the expectations of a fortune and of being a fine 
 gentleman 1 Does he not turn him out to starve or 
 rob on the highway without the shadow of an excuse, 
 on a mere maudlin sermonising pretext of morality, 
 and with as little generosity as principle ? No, 
 Fielding did not know what virtue or refinement 
 meant. As Eichardson said, he should have thought 
 his books were written by an ostler; or Sir John 
 Hawkins has expressed it still better, that the virtues 
 of his heroes are the virtues of dogs and horses — he 
 does not go beyond that — nor indeed so far, for his 
 Tom Jones is not so good as Lord Byron's Newfound- 
 land dog. I have known Newfoundland dogs with 
 twenty times his understanding and good nature. 
 
 That is where Eichardson has the advantage over 
 Fielding — the virtues of his characters are not the 
 virtues of animals — Clarissa holds her head in the 
 skies, a " bright particular star " ; for whatever may 
 be said, we have such ideas — and thanks to those 
 who sustain and nourish them, and woe to those 
 critics who would confound them with the dirt under 
 
WITH NOKTHCOTE 
 
 243 
 
 our feet and Grub Street jargon ! No, that is what 
 we want — to have the line made as black and as 
 broad as possible that separates what we have in 
 common with the animals from what we pretend (at 
 least) to have above them. That is where the news- 
 paper critic is wrong in saying that the blackguard in 
 the play is equal to Mrs. Siddons. No, he is not equal 
 to Mrs. Siddons, any more than a baited bull or an 
 over-drove ox is equal to Mrs. Siddons. There is the 
 same animal fury in Tyke that there is in the mad- 
 dened brute, with the same want of any ideas beyond 
 himself and his own mechanical and coarse impulses 
 — it is the lowest stage of human capacity and feeling 
 violently acted upon by circumstances. Lady Macbeth, 
 if she is the demon, is not the brute ; she has the 
 intellectual part, and is hurried away no less by 
 the violence of her will than by a wide scope of 
 imagination and a lofty ambition. 
 
 Take away all dignity and grandeur from poetry and 
 art, and you make Emery equal to Mrs. Siddons, and 
 Hogarth to Eaphael, but not else. Emery's Tyke, in 
 his extremity, calls for brandy — Mrs. Siddons does not, 
 like Queen Dollalolla, call for a glass of gin. Why 
 not? Gin is as natural a drink as poison; but if 
 Capella Bianca, instead of swallowing the poison her- 
 self, when she found it was not given to her enemy, 
 had merely got drunk for spite, in the manner of 
 Hogarth's heroines, she would not have been recorded 
 in history. There is then a foundation for the dis- 
 tinction between the heroic and the natural, which I 
 
244 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 am not bound to explain any more than I am to 
 account why black is not white. 
 
 H. — If Emery is equal to Mrs. Siddons, Morton is 
 equal to Shakspeare ; though it would be difficult to 
 bring such persons to that conclusion. 
 
 N. — I'll tell you why Emery is not equal to Mrs. 
 Siddons • there are a thousand Emerys to one Mrs. 
 Siddons, the stage is always full of six or seven 
 comic actors at a time, so that you cannot tell which 
 is best, Emery, Fawcett, Munden, Lewis — but in my 
 time I have seen but Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, who 
 have left a gap behind them that I shall not live to 
 see filled up. Emery is the first blackguard or stage- 
 coach driver you see in a row in the street ; but if 
 you had not seen Mrs. Siddons, you could have no 
 idea of her; nor can you convey it to any one 
 who has not. She was like a preternatural being 
 descended to the earth. I cannot say Sir Joshua 
 has done her justice. I regret Mrs. Abington too — 
 she was the Grosvenor Square of comedy, if you 
 please. I am glad that Hogarth did not paint her ; 
 it would have been a thing to spit upon. 
 
 If the correspondent of the newspaper wants to 
 know where my Grosvenor Square of art is, he'll find it 
 in the Provoked Husband, in Lord and Lady Towneley, 
 not in the History of a Foundling, or in the pompous, 
 swag-bellied peer, with his dangling pedigree, or his 
 gawky son-in-law, or his dawdling malhin of a wife 
 from the city, playing with the ring like an idiot, in 
 the Manage a la Mode ! There may be vice and folly 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 245 
 
 enough in Vanbrugh's scenes ; but it is not the vice 
 of St. Giles's, it does not savour of the kennel. Not 
 that I would have my interrogator suppose that I 
 think all is vice in St. Giles's. On the contrary, I 
 could find at this moment instances of more virtue, 
 refinement, sense, and beauty there, than there are in 
 his Sophy. No, nature is the same everywhere ; there 
 are as many handsome children born in St. Giles's as 
 in Grosvenor Square ; but the same care is not taken 
 of them ; and in general they grow up greater beauties 
 in the one than the other. A child in St. Giles's is 
 left to run wild ; it thrusts its fingers into its mouth 
 or pulls its nose about ; but if a child of people of 
 fashion play any tricks of this kind, it is told 
 immediately, "You must not do this, unless you 
 would have your mouth reach from ear to ear ; you 
 must not say that ; you must not sit in such a 
 manner, or you'll grow double." 
 
 This seems like art ; but it is only giving nature 
 fair play. No one was allowed to touch the Prin- 
 cess Charlotte when a child. She was taken care 
 of like something precious. The sister of the 
 
 Duke of had her nose broke when a 
 
 child in a quarrel with her sister, who flung a tea- 
 basin at her ; but all the doctors were immediately 
 called in, and every remedy was applied, so that when 
 she grew up, there was no appearance of the accident 
 left. If the same thing had happened to a poor child, 
 she would have carried the marks of it to her grave. 
 So you see a number of crooked people and twisted 
 
246 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 legs among the lower classes. This was what made 
 Lord Byron so mad — that he had mis-shapen feet. 
 Don't you think so 1 
 
 H. — Yes ; T[om] M[oore] told a person I know 
 that that was the cause of all his misanthropy — he 
 wanted to be an Adonis, and could not. 
 
 N. — Ay, and of his genius too; it made him 
 write verses in revenge. There is no knowing the 
 effect of such sort of things, of defects we wish to 
 balance. Do you suppose we owe nothing to Pope's 
 deformity 1 ? He said to himself, "If my person be 
 crooked, my verses shall be strait." I myself have 
 felt this in passing along the street, when I have 
 heard rude remarks made on my personal appearance. 
 I then go home and paint : but I should not do this, 
 if I thought all that there is in art was contained in 
 Hogarth — I should then feel neither pride nor con- 
 solation in it. 
 
 But if I thought, instead of his doll-like figures 
 cut in two with their insipid, dough-baked faces, I 
 should do something like Sir Joshua's Iphigene, with 
 all that delights the sense in richness of colour 
 and luxuriance of form; or instead of the women 
 spouting the liquor in one another's faces, in the 
 Hake's Progress, I could give the purity, and grace, 
 and real elegance (appearing under all the encum- 
 brance of the fashionable dresses of the day) of Lady 
 Sarah Bunbury or of the Miss Hornecks, sacrificing 
 to the Graces, or of Lady Essex, with her long waist 
 and ruffles, but looking a pattern of the female char- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 247 
 
 acter in all its relations, and breathing dignity and 
 virtue, then I should think this an object worth living 
 for ; or (as you have expressed it very properly) should 
 even be proud of having failed. 
 
 This is the opinion the world have always enter- 
 tained of the matter. Sir Joshua's name is repeated 
 with more respect than Hogarth's. It is not for 
 his talents, but for his taste and the direction 
 of them. In meeting Sir Joshua (merely from a 
 knowledge of his works) you would expect to meet 
 a gentleman — not so of Hogarth. And yet Sir 
 Joshua's claims and possessions in art were not of 
 the highest order. 
 
 H. — But he was decent, and did not profess the 
 arts and accomplishments of a Merry- Andrew. 
 
 N". — I assure you, it was not for want for ability 
 either. When he was young, he did a number of 
 caricatures of different persons, and could have got 
 any price for them. But he found it necessary to 
 give up the practice. Leonardo da Vinci, a mighty 
 man, and who had titles manifold, had a great turn 
 for drawing laughable and grotesque likenesses of 
 his acquaintances ; but he threw them all in the fire. 
 It was to him a kind of profanation of the art. Sir 
 Joshua would almost as soon have forged as he would 
 have set his name to a caricature. 
 
 Gilray (whom you speak of) was eminent in 
 this way; but he had other talents as well. In 
 the Embassy to China, he has drawn the Emperor 
 of China a complete Eastern voluptuary, fat and 
 
248 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 supine, with all the effects of climate and situation 
 evident upon his person, and Lord Macartney- 
 is an elegant youth, a real Apollo; then, indeed, 
 come Punch and the puppet-show after him, to 
 throw the whole into ridicule. In the Revolutionists' 
 Jolly-boat, after the Opposition were defeated, he has 
 placed Fox, and Sheridan, and the rest escaping from 
 the wreck : Dante could not have described them as 
 looking more sullen and gloomy. He was a great 
 man in his way. Why does not Mr. Lamb write an 
 essay on the Twopenny Whist 1 Yet it was against 
 his conscience, for he had been on the other side, and 
 was bought over. The minister sent to ask him to 
 do them half a dozen at a certain price, which he 
 agreed to, and took them to the treasury ; but there 
 being some demur about the payment, he took them 
 back with some saucy reply. He had not been long 
 at home, before a messenger was sent after him with 
 the money. 
 
CONVEESATION THE TWENTY-FIKST 
 
 N. — G[odwin] and I had a dispute lately about the 
 capacity of animals. He appeared to consider them 
 as little better than machines. He made it the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of superiority in man that he is the 
 only animal that can transmit his thoughts to future 
 generations. "Yes," I said, "for future generations 
 to take no sort of notice of them." I allowed that 
 there were a few extraordinary geniuses that every 
 one must look up to — and I mentioned the names of 
 Shakspeare and Dryden. But he would not hear of 
 Dryden, and began to pull him in pieces immediately. 
 "Why, then," I answered, "if you cannot agree 
 among yourselves even with respect to four or five 
 of the most eminent, how can there be the vast and 
 overwhelming superiority you pretend to % " I ob- 
 served that instinct in animals answered very much 
 to what we call genius. I spoke of the wonderful 
 powers of smell, and the sagacity of dogs, and the 
 memory shown by horses in finding a road that they 
 have once travelled ; but I made no way with G[od- 
 win] ; he still went back to Lear and Othello. 
 
250 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 H. — I think he was so far right ; for as this is 
 what he understands best and has to imitate, it is 
 fit he should admire and dwell upon it most. He 
 cannot acquire the smell of the dog or the sagacity 
 of the horse, and therefore it is of no use to think 
 about them ; but he may, by dint of study and emu- 
 lation, become a better poet or philosopher. The 
 question is not merely what is best in itself (of that 
 we are hardly judges), but what sort of excellence 
 we understand best and can make our own ; for 
 otherwise, in affecting to admire we know not what, 
 we may admire a nonentity or a deformity. Abraham 
 Tucker has remarked very well on this subject, that 
 a swine wallowing in the mire may, for what he can 
 tell, be as happy as a philosopher in writing an essay, 
 but that is no reason why he (the philosopher) should 
 exchange occupations or tastes with the brute, unless 
 he could first exchange natures. 
 
 We may suspend our judgments in such cases 
 as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but that 
 is different from the habitual or practical feeling. 
 
 So I remember W being nettled at D 1 
 
 (who affected a fashionable taste) for saying, on 
 coming out of the Marquis of Stafford's gallery, "A 
 very noble art, very superior to poetry ! " If it were 
 
 so, W observed, he could know nothing about 
 
 it, who had never seen any fine pictures before. 
 It was like an European adventurer saying to an 
 
 1 These names may possibly be those of Wordsworth and De 
 Quincey. [Ed.] 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 251 
 
 African chieftain, "A very fine boy, sir, your black 
 son — very superior to my white one ! " This is mere 
 affectation ; we might as well pretend to be thrown 
 into rapture by a poem written in a language we are 
 not acquainted with. We may notwithstanding be- 
 lieve that it is very fine, and have no wish to hang up 
 the writer, because he is not an Englishman. A 
 spider may be a greater mechanic than Watt or 
 Arkwright ; but the effects are not brought home to 
 us in the same manner, and we cannot help estimat- 
 ing the cause by the effect. 
 
 A friend of mine teases me with questions, 
 " Which was the greatest man, Sir Isaac Newton 
 or a first-rate chess-player?" It refers itself to the 
 head of the Illustrious Obscure. A club of chess- 
 players might give it in favour of the Great Un- 
 known; but all the rest of the world, who have 
 heard of the one and not of the other, will give it 
 against him. We cannot set aside those prejudices 
 which are founded on the limitation of our faculties 
 or the constitution of society ; only that we need not 
 lay them down as abstract or demonstrable truths. 
 It is there the bigotry and error begin. The language 
 of taste and moderation is, / prefer this, because it is 
 best to me ; the language of dogmatism and intolerance 
 is, Because I prefer it, it is best in itself, and I will allow 
 no one else to be of a different opinion. 
 
 N. — I find in the last conversation I saw, you 
 make me an admirer of Fielding, and so I am ; but 
 I find great fault with him too. I grant he is one 
 
252 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 of those writers that I remember; he stamps his 
 characters, whether good or bad, on the reader's 
 mind. This is more than I can say of every one. 
 For instance, when G-[odwin] plagues me about my 
 not having sufficient admiration of W[ordsworth]'s 
 poetry, the answer I give is, that it is not my fault, 
 for I have utterly forgotten it ; it seemed to me like 
 the ravellings of poetry. But to say nothing of 
 Fielding's immorality, and his fancying himself a fine 
 gentleman in the midst of all his coarseness, he has 
 oftener described habits than character. For example, 
 Western is no character * it is merely the language, 
 manners, and pursuits of the country squire of that 
 day ; and the proof of this is, that there is no 
 'Squire Western now. Manners and customs wear 
 out, but characters last for ever. I remember 
 making this remark to Holcroft, and he asked me, 
 What was the difference % Are you not surprised 
 at that 1 
 
 H. — Not in him. If you mentioned the word 
 character, he stopped you short by saying, that it was 
 merely the difference of circumstances ; or if you 
 hinted at the difference of natural capacity, he said, 
 "Then, sir, you must believe in innate ideas." He sur- 
 rendered his own feelings and better judgment to a 
 set of cant-phrases, called the modern philosophy. 
 
 N. — I need not explain the difference to you. 
 Character is the groundwork, the natural stamina of 
 the mind, on which circumstances only act. You see 
 it in St. Giles's — there are characters there that in 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 253 
 
 the midst of filth, and vice, and ignorance retain some 
 traces of their original goodness, and struggle with 
 their situation to the last ; as in St. James's, you will 
 find wretches that would disgrace a halter. Gil Bias 
 has character. 
 
 H. — I thought he only gave professions and 
 classes, players, footmen, sharpers, courtesans, but 
 not the individual, as Fielding often does, though we 
 should strip Western of his scarlet hunting-dress and 
 jockey phrases. There is Square, Blifil, Black George, 
 Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Parson Adams; and a still greater 
 cluster of them in the one that is least read, the noble 
 peer, the lodging-house keeper, Mrs. Bennet, and 
 Colonel Bath. 
 
 N. — You mean Amelia. I have not read that, but 
 will get it. I allow in part what you say ; but in 
 the best there is something too local and belonging to 
 the time. But what I chiefly object to in Fielding 
 is his conceit, his consciousness of what he is doing, 
 his everlasting recommendation and puffing of his 
 own wit and sagacity. His introductory chapters 
 make me sick. 
 
 H. — Why, perhaps, Fielding is to be excused as a 
 disappointed man. All his success was late in life, 
 for he died in 1754; and Joseph Andrews (the first 
 work of his that was popular) was published in 1748. 1 
 All the rest of his life he had been drudging for the 
 booksellers, or bringing out unsuccessful comedies. 
 
 1 All this is founded on a slip of Hazlitt's memory, for 
 Joseph Andrews appeared in 1742. [Ed.] 
 
254 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 He probably anticipated the same result in his 
 novels, and wished to bespeak the favour of the 
 reader by putting himself too much forward. His 
 prefaces are like Ben Jonson's prologues, and from 
 the same cause, mortified vanity; though it seems 
 odd to say so at present, after the run his writings 
 have had; but he could not foresee that, and only 
 lived a short time to witness it. 
 
 N. — I can bear anything but that conscious look 
 — it is to me like the lump of soot in the broth, that 
 spoils the whole mess. Fielding was one of the 
 swaggerers. 
 
 H. — But he had much to boast of. 
 
 N. — He certainly was not idle in his time. Idle- 
 ness would have ruined a greater man. 
 
 H. — Then you do not agree to a maxim I have 
 sometimes thought might be laid down, that no one 
 is idle who can do anything 1 
 
 N. — No, certainly. 
 
 H. — I conceive it may be illustrated from Wilson, 
 who was charged with idleness, and who, after paint- 
 ing a little, used to say, as soon as any friend dropped 
 in, "Now let us go somewhere," — meaning to the 
 alehouse. All that Wilson could do, he did, and that 
 finely too, with a few well-disposed masses and 
 strokes of the pencil ; but he could not finish, or he 
 would have stayed within all the morning to work 
 up his pictures to the perfection of Claude's. He 
 thought it better to go to the alehouse than to 
 spoil what he had already done. I have in my own 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 255 
 
 mind made this excuse for that he could only 
 
 make a first sketch, and was obliged to lose the 
 greatest part of his time in waiting for windfalls of 
 heads and studies. I have sat to him twice, and 
 each time I offered to come again, and he said 
 he would let me know, but I heard no more of it. 
 The sketch went as it was — of course in a very un- 
 finished state. 
 
 N. — But he might have remedied this by diligence 
 and practice. 
 
 H. — I do not know that he could : one might say 
 that there is the same abruptness and crudity in his 
 character throughout, in his conversation, his walk, 
 and look — great force and spirit, but neither softness 
 nor refinement. 
 
 N. — If he had more humility, he might have seen 
 all that in the works of others, and have strove to 
 imitate it. 
 
 H. — What I mean is, that it was his not having the 
 sense of these refinements in himself that prevented 
 his perceiving them in others, or taking pains to 
 supply a defect to which he was blind. 
 
 N. — I do not think that under any circumstances 
 he would have made a Eaphael. But your reasoning 
 goes too much to what Dr. Johnson ridiculed in 
 poetry — fits of inspiration, and a greater flow of 
 ideas in the autumn than the spring. Sir Joshua 
 used to work at all times, whether he was in the 
 humour or not. 
 
 1 The reference is, perhaps, to Abraham Wivell. [Ed.] 
 
256 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 H. — And so would every one else with his motives 
 and ability to excel. Lawyers without fees are 
 accused of idleness, but this goes off when the briefs 
 pour in. 
 
 N. — Did you see the newspaper accounts of the 
 election of the new Pope 1 It appears that nothing 
 could exceed his repugnance to be chosen. He begged 
 and even wept to be let off. You are to consider, he 
 is an old man labouring under a mortal disease (which 
 is one circumstance that led to his elevation) — to be 
 taken from the situation of Cardinal (in itself a very 
 enviable one) and thrust violently into a mass of 
 business, of questions and cabals which will distract 
 him, and where he can get no thanks and may incur 
 every kind of odium. It is true, he has an oppor- 
 tunity of making the fortunes of his family ; and if 
 he prefers them to himself, it is all very well, but not 
 else. To persons of a restless and aspiring turn of 
 mind, ambition and grandeur are very fine things, 
 but to others they are the most intolerable tax. 
 
 There is our own King — there is no conceiving the 
 punishment that those processions and public show- 
 days are to him — and then as to all the pomp and 
 glitter that we so much admire, it is to those who are 
 accustomed to it and who see behind the curtain, like 
 so much cast-off rags and tinsel or Monmouth Street 
 finery. They hold it in inconceivable scorn, and yet 
 they can hardly do without it, from the slavery of 
 habit. Then the time of such people is never their 
 own — they are always performing a part (and gener- 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 257 
 
 ally a forced and irksome one) in what no way in- 
 terests or concerns them. 
 
 The late King, to whom rank was a real 
 drudgery, used to stand buried in a pile of papers, 
 so that you could not see those on the other side of 
 the table, which he had merely to sign. It is no 
 wonder kings are sometimes seen to retire to a 
 monastery where religion leaves this asylum open to 
 them, or are glad to return to their shepherd's crook 
 again. No situation can boast of complete ease or 
 freedom \ and even that would have its disadvantages. 
 And then again, look at those labourers at the top of 
 the house yonder, working from morning till night, 
 and exposed to all weathers for a bare pittance, with- 
 out hope to sweeten their toil, and driven on by hunger 
 and necessity ! 
 
 When we turn to others, whether those above 
 or below us, we have little reason to be dissatisfied 
 with our own situation in life. But in all cases 
 it is necessary to employ means to ends, be the 
 object what it may ; and where the first have not 
 been taken, it is both unjust and foolish to repine at 
 the want of success. The common expression, " For- 
 tune's Fools," may seem to convey a slur on the 
 order of Providence ; but it rather shows the equality 
 of its distributions. Are the men of capacity to have 
 all the good things to themselves % They are proud 
 of their supposed superiority : why are they not con- 
 tented with it % If a fool is not to grow rich, the 
 next thing would be, that none but men of genius 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 should have a coat to their backs, or be thought fit 
 to live. If it were left to them to provide food or 
 clothes, they would have none for themselves. It is 
 urged as a striking inequality that enterprising manu- 
 facturers, for instance, should rise to great wealth and 
 honours, while thousands of their dependants are 
 labouring hard at one or two shillings a day : but we 
 are to recollect that if it had not been for men like 
 these, the working classes would have been perishing 
 for want : they collect the others together, give a 
 direction and find a vent for their industry, and may 
 be said to exercise a part of sovereign capacity. 
 Everything has its place and due subordination. If 
 authors had the direction of the world, nothing 
 would be left standing but printing-presses. 
 
 N. — What do you think of that portrait ? 
 
 H. — It is very ladylike, and, I should imagine, a 
 good likeness. 
 
 N. — J said I might go on painting yet — he 
 
 saw no falling off. They are pleased with it. I have 
 painted almost the whole family, and the girls would 
 let their mother sit to nobody else. But Lord ! 
 everything one can do seems to fall so short of nature : 
 whether it is the want of skill or the imperfection of 
 the art that cannot give the successive movements of 
 expression and changes of countenance, I am always 
 ready to beg pardon of my sitters after I have done, 
 and to say I hope they'll excuse it. The more one 
 knows of the art, and indeed the better one can do, 
 the less one is satisfied. This made Titian write 
 
WITH NORTH COTE 
 
 259 
 
 under his pictures faciebat, signifying that they were 
 only in progress. 
 
 I remember Burke came in one day when Sir 
 Joshua had been painting one of the Lennoxes ; 
 he was quite struck with the beauty of the per- 
 formance, and said he hoped Sir Joshua would not 
 touch it again : to which the latter replied, that if 
 he had seen the original, he would have thought little 
 of the picture, and that there was a look which it was 
 hardly in the power of art to give. No ! all we can 
 do is to produce something that makes a distant 
 approach to nature, and that serves as a faint relic 
 of the individual. A portrait is only a little better 
 memorial than the parings of the nails or a lock of 
 the hair. 
 
 H. — Who is it? 
 
 N. — It is a Lady W : you have heard me 
 
 speak of her before. She is a person of great sense 
 and spirit, and combines very opposite qualities from 
 a sort of natural strength of character. She has 
 shown the greatest feeling and firmness united : no 
 one can have more tenderness in her domestic con- 
 nections, and yet she has borne the loss of some of 
 them with exemplary fortitude. Perhaps, the one is 
 a consequence of the other; for where the attach- 
 ment or even the regret is left, all is not lost. The 
 mind has still a link to connect it with the beloved 
 object. She has no affectation ; and therefore yields 
 to unavoidable circumstances as they arise. Incon- 
 solable grief is often mere cant, and a trick to impose 
 
260 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 on ourselves and others. People of any real strength 
 of character are seldom affected : those who have not 
 the clue of their own feelings to guide them, do not 
 know what to do, and study only how to produce an 
 effect. I recollect one of the Miss B[erry]s, Lord 
 Orford's favourites, whom I met with at a party 
 formerly, using the expression, " That seal of medi- 
 ocrity, affectation ! " Don't you think this strik- 
 ing? 
 
 H. — Yes ; but not quite free from the vice it 
 describes. 
 
 N. — Oh ! they had plenty of that : they were 
 regular blue-stockings, I assure you ; or they would not 
 have been so entirely to his lordship's taste, who was 
 a mighty coxcomb. But there is none of that in the 
 }3erson I have been speaking of : she has very delight- 
 ful, genteel, easy manners. 
 
 H. — That is the only thing I envy in people in 
 that class. 
 
 N. — But you are not to suppose they all have it : 
 it is only those who are born with it, and who would 
 have had it in a less degree in every situation of life. 
 Vulgarity is the growth of courts as well as of the 
 hovel. We may be deceived by a certain artificial or 
 conventional manner in persons of rank and fashion ; 
 but they themselves see plainly enough into the 
 
 natural character. I remember Lady W told me, 
 
 as an instance to this purpose, that when she was a 
 girl, she and her sister were introduced at court ; and 
 it was then the fashion to stand in a circle, and the 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 261 
 
 Queen came round and spoke to the different persons 
 in turn. There was some high lady who came in 
 after them, and pushed rudely into the circle so as 
 to get before them. But the Queen, who saw the 
 circumstance, went up and spoke to them first, and 
 then passed on (as a just punishment) without taking 
 any notice whatever of the forward intruder. I forget 
 how it arose the other day, but she asked me, " Pray, 
 Mr. Northcote, is Discretion reckoned one of the 
 cardinal virtues'?" — "No," I said, "it is not one of 
 them, for it is all ! " If we had discretion at all times, 
 we should never do wrong : but we are taken off our 
 guard by being thrown into new and difficult situa- 
 tions, and have not time to weigh the consequences 
 or to summon resolution to our aid. That is what 
 Opie used to say when he had been engaged in an 
 argument overnight, what excellent answers he could 
 give the next day — and was vexed with himself for 
 not having thought of them. No ! if we had sufficient 
 presence of mind to foresee the consequences of our 
 actions on the spot, we should very rarely have occa- 
 sion to repent of them afterwards. 
 
 H. — You put me in mind of Cicero's account of 
 the cardinal virtues, in his Offices, who makes them 
 out to be four ; and then says they are all referable 
 to the first, which is Prudence. 
 
 N. — Ay ; do you recollect what they are ? 
 
 H. — Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude. 
 
 N. — They are too much alike. The most distinct 
 is Fortitude. 
 
262 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 H. — I never could make much of Cicero, except 
 his two treatises on Friendship and Old Age, which 
 are most amiable gossiping. I see that Canning 
 borrowed his tautology from Cicero, who runs on 
 with such expressions as "I will bear, I will suffer, 
 I will endure any extremity." This is bad enough 
 in the original : it is inexcusable in the copy. Cicero's 
 style, however, answered to the elegance of his finely- 
 turned features ; and in his long, graceful neck you 
 may trace his winding and involuted periods. 
 
 N. — Do you believe in that sort of stuff? 
 
 H. — Not more than I can help. 
 
CONVERSATION THE TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 N. — I ought to cross myself like the Catholics, when 
 I see you. You terrify me by repeating what I sa}^. 
 But I see you have regulated yourself. There is 
 nothing personally offensive, except what relates to 
 Sir Walter. You make him swear too, which he did 
 not do. He would never use the expression Egad. 
 These little things mark the gentleman. I am afraid, 
 if he sees it, he'll say I am a babbler. That is what 
 they dread so at court, that the least word should 
 transpire. 
 
 H. — They may have their reasons for caution. At 
 least, they can gain nothing, and might possibly lose 
 equally by truth or falsehood, as it must be difficult 
 to convey an adequate idea of royalty. But authors 
 are glad to be talked about. If Sir W. Scott has an 
 objection to having his name mentioned, he is singu- 
 larly unlucky. Enough was said in his praise ; and 
 I do not believe he is captious. I fancy he takes the 
 rough with the smooth. I did not well know what to 
 do. You seemed to express a wish that the con versa- 
 tions should proceed, and yet you are startled at 
 
264 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 particular phrases, or I would have brought you what 
 I had done to show you. I thought it best to take 
 my chance of the general impression. 
 
 N. — Why, if kept to be published as a diary after 
 my death, they might do : nobody could then come 
 to ask me questions about them. But I cannot say 
 they appear very striking to me. One reason may 
 be, what I observe myself cannot be very new to me. 
 If others are pleased, they are the best judges. It 
 seems very odd that you who are acquainted with 
 some of the greatest authors of the day cannot find 
 anything of theirs worth setting down. 
 
 H. — That by no means pleases them. I under- 
 stand G[odwin] is angry at the liberty I take with 
 you. He is quite safe in this respect. I might 
 answer him much in the manner of the fellow in the 
 Country Girl when his friend introduces his mistress 
 and he salutes her, " Why, I suppose if I were to 
 introduce my grandmother to you " — " Sir," re- 
 plies the other, " I should treat her with the utmost 
 respect." So I shall never think of repeating any of 
 G[odwin]'s conversations. My indifference may arise 
 in part, as you say, from their not being very new to 
 me. G[odwin] might, I daresay, argue very well on 
 the doctrine of philosophical necessity or many other 
 questions ; but then I have read all this before in 
 Hume or other writers, and I am very little edified, 
 because I have myself had access to the same sources 
 that he has drawn from. But you, as an artist, have 
 been pushed into an intercourse with the world as 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 265 
 
 well as an observation of nature ; and combine a 
 sufficient knowledge of general subjects with living 
 illustrations of them. I do not like the conversation 
 of mere men of the world or anecdote-mongers, for 
 there is nothing to bind it together, and the other 
 sort is pedantic and tiresome from repetition, so that 
 there is nobody but you I can come to. 
 
 N. — You do not go enough into society, or you 
 would be cured of what I cannot help regarding as 
 a whim. You would there find many people of 
 sense and information whose names you never heard 
 of. It is not those who have made most noise in 
 the world who are persons of the greatest general 
 capacity. It is the making the most of a little, or 
 the being determined to get before others in some 
 one thing (perhaps for want of other recommend- 
 ations) that brings men into notice. Individuals 
 gain a reputation as they make a fortune, by appli- 
 cation and by having set their minds upon it. But 
 you have set out (like other people brought up 
 among books) with such exclusive notions of authors 
 and literary fame, that if you find the least glimmer- 
 ing of common sense out of this pale, you think it a 
 prodigy, and run into the opposite extreme. I do 
 not say that you have not a perception of character, 
 or have not thought as far as you have observed ; 
 but you have not had the opportunities. You turn 
 your back on the world, and fancy that they turn 
 their backs on you. This is a very dangerous 
 principle. You become reckless of consequences. 
 
266 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 It leads to an abandonment of character. By setting 
 the opinion of others at defiance, you lose your self- 
 respect. It is of no use that you still say, you will 
 do what is right ; your passions usurp the place of 
 reason, and whisper you, that whatever you are bent 
 upon doing is right. You cannot put this deception 
 on the public, however false or prejudiced their 
 standard may be; and the opinion of the world, 
 therefore, acts as a seasonable check upon wilfulness 
 and eccentricity. 
 
 H. — What you have stated is the best excuse I 
 could make for my own faults or blunders. When 
 one is found fault with for nothing, or for doing one's 
 best, one is apt to give the world their revenge. All 
 the former part of my life I was treated as a cipher ; 
 and since I have got into notice, I have been set 
 upon as a wild beast. When this is the case, and 
 you can expect as little justice as candour, you 
 naturally in self-defence take refuge in a sort of 
 misanthropy and cynical contempt for mankind. 
 One is disposed to humour them, and to furnish them 
 with some ground for their idle and malevolent 
 censures. 
 
 N. — But you should not. If you do nothing to 
 confirm them in their first prejudices, they will come 
 round in time. They are slow to admit claims, 
 because they are not sure of their validity \ and they 
 thwart and cross-examine you to try what temper 
 you are made of. Without some such ordeal or 
 difficulty thrown in the way, every upstart and 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 267 
 
 pretender must be swallowed whole. That would 
 never do. But if you have patience to stand the 
 test, justice is rendered at last, and you are stamped 
 for as much as you are worth. You certainly have 
 not spared others : why should you expect nothing 
 but " the milk of human kindness " 1 
 
 Look to those men behind you (a collection of 
 portraits on the same frame) — there is Pope and 
 Dryden — did they fare better than living authors'? 
 Had not Dryden his Shadwell, and Pope his Dennis, 
 who fretted him to a shadow, and galled him almost 
 to death? There was Dr. Johnson, who in his 
 writings was a pattern of wisdom and morality — 
 he declared that he had been hunted down as if he 
 had been the great enemy of mankind. But he had 
 strength of mind to look down upon it. Not to do 
 this, is either infirmity of temper, or shows a conscious 
 want of any claims that are worth carrying up to a 
 higher tribunal than the cabal and clamour of the 
 moment. 
 
 Sir Joshua always despised malicious reports ; he 
 knew they would blow over : at the same time, he as 
 little regarded exaggerated praise. Nothing you could 
 say had any effect, if he was not satisfied with him- 
 self. He had a great game to play, and only looked 
 to the result. He had studied himself thoroughly ; 
 and, besides, had great equanimity of temper, w T hich 5 
 to be sure, it is difficult to acquire, if it is not 
 natural. You have two faults : one is a feud or 
 quarrel with the world, which makes you despair, 
 
268 
 
 hazlitt's conversations 
 
 and prevents you taking all the pains you might : 
 the other is a carelessness and mismanagement, 
 which makes you throw away the little you actually 
 do, and brings you into difficulties that way. Sir 
 Joshua used to say it was as wrong for a man to 
 think too little as too much of himself : if the one 
 ran him into extravagance and presumption, the other 
 sank him in sloth and insignificance. You see the 
 same thing in horses : if they cannot stir a load at 
 the first effort, they give it up as a hopeless task ; 
 and nothing can rouse them from their sluggish 
 obstinacy but blows and ill-treatment. 
 
 H. — I confess all this, but I hardly know how to 
 remedy it; nor do I feel any strong inducement. 
 Taking one thing with another, I have no great 
 cause to complain. If I had been a merchant, a 
 bookseller, or the proprietor of a newspaper, instead 
 of what I am, I might have had more money or 
 possessed a town and country house, instead of 
 lodging in a first or second floor, as it may happen. 
 But what then ? I see how the man of business and 
 fortune passes his time. He is up and in the city by 
 eight, swallows his breakfast in haste, attends a 
 meeting of creditors, must read Lloyd's lists, consult 
 the price of consols, study the markets, look into 
 his accounts, pay his workmen, and superintend his 
 clerks : he has hardly a minute in the day to himself, 
 and perhaps in the four-and-twenty hours does not 
 do a single thing that he would do if he could help it. 
 
 Surely, this sacrifice of time and inclination 
 
WITH NORTHCOTE 
 
 269 
 
 requires some compensation, which it meets with. 
 But how am I entitled to make my fortune (which 
 cannot be done without all this anxiety and drud- 
 gery) who do hardly anything at all, and never any- 
 thing but what I like to do ? I rise when I please, 
 breakfast at length, write what comes into my head, 
 and after taking a mutton-chop and a dish of strong 
 tea, go to the play, and thus my time passes. Mr. 
 
 has no time to go to the play. It was but the 
 
 other day that I had to get up a little earlier than 
 usual to go into the city about some money trans- 
 action, which appeared to me a prodigious hardship : 
 if so, it was plain that I must lead a tolerably easy 
 life : nor should I object to passing mine over again. 
 
 Till I was twenty, I had no idea of anything but 
 books, and thought everything else was worthless 
 and mechanical. The having to study painting 
 about this time, and finding the difficulties and 
 beauties it unfolded, opened a new field to me, and I 
 began to conclude that there might be a number of 
 "other things between heaven and earth that were 
 never dreamt of in my philosophy." Ask G[odwin] 
 or any other literary man who has never been taken 
 out of the leading-strings of learning, and you will 
 perceive that they hold for a settled truth that the 
 universe is built of words. 
 
 G[odwin] has no interest but in literary fame, 
 of which he is a worshipper : he cannot believe 
 that any one is clever, or has even common sense, 
 who has not written a book. If you talk to him 
 
270 hazlitt's conversations with northcote 
 
 of Italian cities, where great poets and patriots 
 lived, he heaves a sigh ; and if I were possessed 
 of a fortune, he should go and visit the house 
 where Galileo lived or the tower where Ugolino was 
 imprisoned. He can see with the eyes of his mind. 
 To all else he is marble. It is like speaking to him 
 of the objects of a sixth sense ; every other language 
 seems dumb and inarticulate. 
 
 THE END 
 
 j. D. & Co. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 
 
in iMA oak. my tn&tuMw^jvi r J m^k -fa 
 
 Unpublished Letter of Northcote. 
 
7 
 
Hazlitt, W. Conversations of James N, R.A. by William H. , edited 
 with an essay on H. as an art critic and a note on Northcote by 
 Edmund Gosse . L 1894, 14x20, cloth, port, xxxv, 270p, fac. letter. 
 Reprint of the 1830 work with the initials and blank spaces 
 filled in. £10.50 
 
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