PAGE

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

349. commanded to shew the knight. Cf. Schlegel, p. 427.

350. some faint sparks. Hamlet, Act v. 1 [your flashes the table on a roar] to eat. 2 Henry IV., Act II. 1.

to be no more so familiarity. 2 Henry IV., Act 11. 1.

an honest, Act 1. 4.

very good discretions.

cholers, Act II. 1.

Cf. Act 1. I.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

352. How long hath this possession, Act v. 1.

353. They brought one Pinch, Act v. 1.

DOUBTFUL PLAYS OF SHAKESPEAR

353. All the editors, Schlegel, p. 442.

at the blackness, Schlegel, see above.

357. a lasting storm. Per., IV. I [whirring me from my friends].

358.

POEMS AND SONNETS

as broad and casing. Macbeth, Act . [broad and general as the casing air]. cooped. Cf. Macbeth, Act 111. 4 [cabined, cribbed, confined].

glancing from heaven. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. I.

359. Oh! idle words. Lucrece, ll. 1016-1122 [Out, idle words, be you mediators]. Round hoofd. Venus and Adonis, 11. 295-300.

And their heads. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv. I.

360. Constancy. Sonnet xxv.

Love's Consolation. Sonnet XXIX.

Novelty. Sonnet CI. [stops her pipe].

361. Life's Decay. Sonnet LXXIII.

A LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.

William Gifford (1756-1826), the son of a glazier, after a neglected childhood, during which he was at one time apprenticed to a shoemaker, entered Exeter College, Oxford, through the kindness of a friend, and graduated in 1782. His two satires, The Baviad (1791) and The Maviad (1795), were published together in 1797, and his translation of Juvenal, upon which he had been working since he left Oxford, in 1802. He became editor of The Anti-Jacobin (1797), and was the first editor (1809-1824) of The Quarterly Review. He published a translation of Persius in 1821, and editions of some of the old dramatists: Massinger (1805), Ben Jonson (1816), Ford (1827), and Shirley (completed by Dyce, 1833). In The Examiner for June 14, 1818, appeared a 'Literary Notice,' entitled "The Editor of the Quarterly Review,' which Hazlitt incorporated in the present 'Letter.'

PAGE

Paradise Lost, 11. 112 et seq.

366. False and hollow, etc. Ackerman's dresses for May. Rudolf Ackerman's (1764-1834) Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, etc., was issued periodically between 1809 and 1828.

Carlton House. The residence of the Prince Regent. It was pulled down in 1826.

367. A Jacobin stationer. Hazlitt refers to the case of William Paul Rogers, a Chelsea stationer, who for taking an active part in a petition for reform was deprived of the charge of a letter-box. Leigh Hunt referred to the case in The Examiner for February 7, 1819 (not February 9, as Hazlitt says), and opened a subscription list for Rogers. The two clergymen referred to took an active part against Rogers. Wellesley, a brother of the Duke of Wellington, was Rector of Chelsea, and Butler had a school there.

"The tenth transmitter."

"No tenth transmitter of a foolish face."

Richard Savage's The Bastard, 1. 7. 368. Ultra-Crepidarian. Leigh Hunt published a satire on Gifford entitled UltraCrepidarius in 1823, but the phrase was invented for Gifford, Leigh Hunt says in his preface, by a friend of mine . . . one of the humblest as well as noblest spirits that exist.' This was perhaps Lamb.

370. Your account of the first work. In The Quarterly Review, April 1817 (vol. xvii. P. 154).

Albemarle Street hoax. John Murray (1778-1843), the founder and publisher of The Quarterly Review, purchased No. 50 Albemarle Street in

1812.

372. 'Secret, sweet and precious.'

"The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi' secret favours, sweet and precious.'
Burns, Tam o' Shanter.

373. 'Two or three conclusive digs, etc. From a passage in Leigh Hunt's essay 'On Washerwomen' referred to by Gifford.

Note.

The milk of human kindness.' Macbeth, Act 1. Scene 5.

374. Earl Grosvenor. Gifford was for a time tutor in Lord Grosvenor's family. 'Their gorge did not rise.' Hamlet, Act v. Scene 1.

"You assume a vice, etc.

'Assume a virtue, if you have it not.'

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4.

In the Examiner.' February 25, 1816.

375. How little knew'st thou of Calista!

Anne Davies.

'O, thou hast known but little of Calista !'

Rowe's The Fair Penitent, Act iv. Scene 1. Gifford bequeathed £3000 to her relatives. In addition to the epitaph quoted in the text he wrote an elegy on her, beginning, 'I wish I was where Anna lies,' which is referred to in Hazlitt's character of Gifford in The Spirit of the Age.

376. Other such dulcet diseases.

As You Like It, Act v. Scene 4.

Compunctious visitings of Nature' Macbeth, Act 1. Scene 5.

"You are well tuned now, etc. Othello, Act 11. Scene 1.

Made of penetrable stuff. Hamlet, Act . Scene 4.

"Stuffed with paltry, blurred sheets.' Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, ii. 101).

Note I. "It is easier, etc. St. Matthew, xix. 24.

PAGE

377- The Admiralty Scribe. John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), who contributed two hundred and sixty articles to The Quarterly Review, was Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830.

Hu Feast of the Poets. Published in 1814.

378. Thus painters write their names at Co. From Prior's Protogenes and Apelles. Burke quoted the line in his Regicide Peace (Select Works, ed. Payne, p. 94)For this passage, etc. Leigh Hunt and his brother John were in prison for two years from February 1813 for a libel on the Prince Regent in Te Examiner (March 22, 1812). Leigh Hunt was sent, not to Newgate, but to the Surrey Gaol in Horsemonger Lane, where he wrote The Descent of Liberty: A Masque, and the greater part of The Story of Rimini. Gifford's review of Rimini appeared in The Quarterly Review for Jan. 1816 (vol. xiv. p. 473).

378. Yet you say sometonere. In the review of Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets (Quarterly Review, July 1818, vol. xix. at p. 430).

Note. Mary Robinson (1758-1800), known as Percita,' from her having captivated the Prince of Wales while she was acting in that part in 1778. On being deserted by him she devoted herself to literature, and became one of the Della Cruscan School ridiculed by Gifford. Hazlitt refers to Gifford's Baviad, II. 27-283—

"See Robinson forget her state, and move

On crutches tow'rds the grave, to “Light o' Love.”*

Put on the pannel, etc. If I can help it, he shall not be on the inquest of my quantum meruit.' Burke's A Letter to a Noble Lord (Werks, Bohn, v. 114). Note. Mr. Sheridan once spoke. See speech of March 7, 1788 (Parl. Hist., vol. xxvii.).

379. John Hoppner (1758-1810), the portrait-painter.

Charles Long (1761-1838), paymaster-general, created Baron Farnborough in 1826.

380. From slashing Bentley, etc. Pope, Prologue to the Satires, l. 164. 381. It was Caviare to the multitude.'

Act 11. Scene 2.

Note. Hamlet, Act 11. Scene 2.

'Twas caviare to the general.' Hamlet,

382. An Essay on the Ignorance of the Learned. Republished in Table Talk, from The Scots Magazine (New Series), iii. 55.

384. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine." Founded by William Blackwood (1-76

1834) in 1817.

You have tried it twice since. That is, in his reviews of Characters of Shakespear's Plays (January 1818, vol. xviii. p. 458) and of Lectures on the English Poets (July 1818, vol. xix. p. 424)

385. Be noticed in the Edinburgh Review." By Jeffrey, July 1817 (vol. xxviii. p. 472). 'Dedicate its weet leaves."

Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.'

'Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.'

Hamlet, Act 11. Scene 4. 387. The authority of Mr. Burke. Burke refers to Henry VIII. as one of the most decided tyrants in the rolls of history,' and speaks of his iniquitous proceedings when he resolved to rob the abbies.' Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, ii. 136-137). See also a passage in A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, v. 131 et seq).

With Mr. Coleridge in his late Lectures.

Hazlitt probably refers to The

Statesman's Manual (1816). See Political Essays.

'Truth to be a liar. Hamlet, Act 11. Scene 2.

Speak out, Grildrig.'

388. The insolence of office, Those who crook, etc.

See Swift's Gulliver's Travels (Voyage to Brobdingnag). etc. Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.

Hamlet, Act 1. Scene 2.

Spafields. Where the famous meeting of reformers had recently (December 2, 1816) been held.

A seditious Sunday paper. The Examiner was published on Sunday.

Mr. Coleridge's Conciones ad Populum.' Two anti-Pittite addresses published

in 1795.

389. The pride, pomp,' etc. Othello, Act 111. Scene 3.

"One murder makes a villain,' etc. From Bishop Porteus's prize poem Death (1759).

390. The still sad music of humanity. Wordsworth's Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

391. You have forgotten Mr. Burke, etc. See Letters on a Regicide Peace (Select Works, ed. Payne, iii. p. 50).

"Go to,' etc.

'Go to, Sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.'

Measure for Measure, Act iv. Scene 2. "The weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.' 2 Henry IV., Act II. Scene 4.

'Cinque-spotted,' etc. Cymbeline, Act II. Scene 3.

Note. Carnage is the daughter of humanity. See note to p. 214 and Notes and Queries, 9th series, ii. 309, 398; iii. 37.

392. Red-lattice phrases. Alehouse language. See Merry Wives of Windsor,

Act 1. Scene 2.

393. Such welcome and unwelcome things. Macbeth, Act iv. Scene 3.

394.

6

The objection to Romeo and Juliet. See ante, p. 249.

Hazlitt refers to the criticism of Paradise Lost in his Lecture on Shakspeare and Milton (Lectures on the English Poets).

Note. Quoted from a review by Jeffrey in The Edinburgh Review, August 1817 (vol. xxviii. at p. 473).

"One of the most perfect, etc. Quoted from Gifford's review of Characters of Shakespear's Plays (vol. xviii. p. 458).

Ends of verse, etc.

PAGE

394. The geometricians and chemists of France. Burke's A Letter to a Noble Lord (Works, Bohn, v. 142).

'Present to your mind's eye. Hamlet, Act 1. Scene 2.

"Holds his crown, etc. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, ii. 17).

395. The ingenious parallel, etc. See ante, p. 171.

The article in the last Review. Quarterly Review, July 1818 (vol. xix. p. 424)398. We must speak by the card, etc. Hamlet, Act v. Scene 1.

A knavish speech, etc. Hamlet, Act iv. Scene 2.

Shakespear says, etc. Othello, Act I. Scene 3.

400. The authority of Mr. Burke. Hazlitt quotes inaccurately a passage in Burke's essay 'On the Sublime and Beautiful,' Works (Bohn), i. 81.

Emelie that fayrer, etc. Canterbury Tales (The Knightes Tale, 1035-8). 401. The only mistake. The reference is probably to a passage in the first edition, where Hazlitt says, 'Prior's serious poetry, as his Alma, is as heavy, as his familiar style was light and agreeable.' Gifford quotes this passage and adds: Unluckily for our critic, Prior's Alma is in his lightest and most familiar style, and is the most highly finished specimen of that species of versification which our language possesses.' In the second edition Hazlitt substituted Solomon for Alma.

Mr. Coleridge. See Biographia Literaria, Chap. iii., note at the end. Coleridge had already in the first number of the Friend referred to this passage, which appeared in a footnote by the editor of The Beauties of the AntiJacobin, and not in The Anti-Jacobin itself. See Athenæum, May 31, 1900. Your predecessor. Gifford was himself editor of the Anti-Jacobin, er Weekly Examiner, which appeared from November 20, 1797, to July 9, 1798. 402. Dying, make a swan-like end.

403.

"Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.'

Being so majestical, etc.

Merchant of Venice, Act III. Scene 2.
Hamlet, Act 1. Scene 1.

'Love is not love, etc. Shakespeare, Sonnet cxvi.

'A writer of third-rate books. He is a mere quack, Mr. Editor, and a mere
bookmaker; one of the sort that lounge in third-rate book shops, and write
third-rate books. From a letter in Blackwood's Magazine, August 1818
(vol. iii. p. 550).

An Essay on the Principles of Human Action. Published in 1805.

408. Mirabaud. D'Holbach's Système de la Nature is wrongly attributed to
Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud (1675-1760), the translator of Tasso.
'On this bank and shoal of time.' Macbeth, Act 1. Scene 7.

409.

Printed by T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

1