Wallis, A.: In his edition of Hawker's Poetical WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830), p. 1007 Works (1899). EDITIONS Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt, Collected Works, ed. by A. R. Waller and A. Glover, 12 vols. and an Index (London, Dent, 1902- Works, 4 vols. (Everyman's Library ed. New Selections, ed., with a Biographical and Critical In 1688, Sir Jonathan Trelawney, a native Hazlitt on English Literature, Selections of Criti of Cornwall, was imprisoned in the Tower of London with six other bishops, for resisting James II's Declaration of Indulgence. The refrain in Hawker's poem dates from that time, but the rest is original. It was first published anonymously, and Scott, Macaulay, and Dickens all thought it a genuine ballad. cal Essays, ed., with a Critical Introduction, by J. Zeitlin (Oxford Univ. Press, 1913). Dramatic Essays, ed., with an Introduction, by W. Archer and R. W. Lowe (London, Scott, 1894). "The rugged heights that line the sea-shore in the neighborhood of Tintadgel Castle and Church [on the coast of Cornwall] are crested with towers. Among these, that of Bottreaux, or, as it is now written, Boscastle, is without bells. The silence of this wild and lonely churchyard on festive or solemn occasions is not a little striking. On enquiry I was told that the bells once shipped for this church, but that when the vessel was within sight of the tower the blasphemy of her captain was punished in the manner related in the poem. The bells, they told me, still lie in the bay, and announce by strange sounds the approach of a storm."-Hawker's note. were 11. Chough. "This wild bird chiefly haunts the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. The common people believe that the soul of King Arthur inhabits one of these birds, and no entreaty or bribe would induce an old Tintadgel quarryman to kill me one."-Hawker's note. "PATER VESTER PASCIT ILLA" Birrell, A.: BIOGRAPHY William Hazlitt (English Men of Letters Series: New York and London, Macmillan, 1902). Douady, J.: Vie de William Hazlitt, l'Essayiste CRITICISM Blackwood's Magazine: July, 1822 (12:94); "Cockney Contributions," July, 1824 (16:67): "Hazlitt Cross- questioned," Aug., 1818 (3:550); “Jeffrey and Hazlitt," June, 1818 (3:303); "Lectures on English Poetry," Feb., 1818 (2:556); Mar., 1818 (2:679); April, 1818 (3:71); "Table-Talk," Aug., 1822 (12:157); "Works of the First Importance," March, 1825 (17:361). Dana, R. H.: "Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Fyvie, J.: Some Literary Eccentrics (New York, This poem is sometimes entitled A Sonnet Haydon, B. R.: Correspondence and Table Talk, of the Sea, 2 vols. (London, Chatto, 1876). pear to have been influenced so much by selfesteem as sensibility. He was naturally shy and despairing of his own powers, and his dogmatism was of that turbulent kind which comes from passion and self-distrust. He had little repose of mind or manner, and in his works almost always appears as if his faculties had been stung and spurred into action."-E. P. Whipple, in Essays and Reviews (1849). Howe, P. P.: "Hazlitt and liber amoris," The the hardihood of his paradoxes, he does not apFortnightly Review, Feb., 1916 (105 :300). Ireland, A.: William Hazlitt, Essayist and Critic, with a Memoir (London, Warne, 1889). Irwin, S. T.: "Hazlitt and Lamb," The Quarterly Review, Jan., 1906 (204:162). Jeffrey, F.: "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," The Edinburgh Review, Aug., 1817 (28:472); Contributions to The Edinburgh Review. Lucas, E. V.: The Life of Charles Lamb, 2 vols. (London, Methuen, 1905); 1 vol. (1910). More, P. E.: "The First Complete Edition of Hazlitt," Shelburne Essays, Second Series (New York and London, Putnam, 1905). Patmore, P. G.: My Friends and Acquaintance, 3 vols. (New York, Saunders, 1854). Patmore, P. G.: Rejected Articles (London, Col- on Hazlitt's limitations as a critic. Yet, after burn, 1826). Quarterly Review, The: "Characters of Shakes- "The Vagabond," Personal Forces in Stephen, L. Hours in a Library, 3 vols. (London, "If not the first, he was the most influential of those who bent the essay to this purely literary purpose, and he may be regarded as standing midway between the old essayists and the new. It was a fashion in his own time, and one that has often since been followed, to insist too strongly all has been said, his method was essentially the same as Sainte-Beuve's, and his essays cannot even now be safely neglected by students of the literary developments with which they deal. It is impossible to read them without catching something of the ardor of his own enthusiasm, and it says much for the soundness of his taste and judgment that the great majority of his criticisms emerged undistorted from the glowing crucible of his thought."-J. H. Lobban, in Introduction to English Essayists (1896). "Read a dozen of his essays, with their constant play of allusion, their apt-if over-abundantquotation; their fleeting glimpses of imagination, now august, now beautiful, now pathetic, but always vivid; their brilliant, half-earnest paradox; their mild tone of melancholy reflection; their flashes of cynical satire; all flowing in a rhythm, unstudied yet varied and musical-and then you understand why many of the best masters of modern prose-Macaulay, Walter Bagehot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Augustine Birrell-have given to the style of Hazlitt their praise and the better tribute of imitation. 'We are fine fellows,' said Steven Torrey, B.: Friends on the Shelf (Boston, Hough- son once, in despairing admiration, 'but we can't ton, 1906). write like William Hazlitt.'"-C. T. Winchester, in A Group of English Essayists of the Early Nineteenth Century (1910). Walker, H.: English Essay and Essayists (London, Dent, 1915; New York, Dutton), ch. 7. Whipple, E. P.: "British Critics," Essays and The numerous quotations in Hazlitt's writings Reviews, 2 vols. (1849; Boston, Osgood, 1878). Winchester, C. T.: A Group of English Essayists (New York, Macmillan, 1910). BIBLIOGRAPHY were quoted largely from memory and are very often inaccurate. Yet many of them were purposely changed by him in order to be more serviceable and applicable. Frequently he uses earlier phrases of his own, as if they were quotations from some other author. A number of the quotaDouady, J.: Liste Chronologique des œuvres de tions found in his writings have not yet been William Hazlitt (Paris, Hachette, 1906). Ireland, A.: List of the Writings of William and Leigh Hunt (London, Smith 1007. Hazlitt (1868). CRITICAL NOTES "The various critical writings of William Hazlitt are laden with original and striking thoughts, and indicate an intellect strong and intense, but narrowed by prejudice and personal feeling. He was an acute but somewhat bitter observer of life and manners, and satirized rather than described them. Though bold and arrogant in the expression of his opinions, and continually provoking opposition by identified. CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEAR'S PLAYS Hazlitt shares with Hunt the distinction of having introduced a type of theatrical criticism which is frank and honest, at the same time that it is keenly appreciative. His criticisms of Shakspere's plays usually appeared in the papers immediately after the performance of the plays. His criticism of Hamlet, a review of Kean's playing, appeared in The Morning Chronicle, March 14, 1814. The text here given is that of the first edi "In reading this essay and rereading it, one has the feeling that here are some of the best words ever written on the subject and written by a man who had thought of style and what it means."-Howe, in Selections from William Hazlitt (1913). Cf. Lamb's The Genteel Style of Writing. b. 9. "Tall, opaque words."-"I hate set dissertations-and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your reader's conception."-Sterne, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 3, 20, the Author's Preface. In his review of Miss O'Neill's Elwina, in A View of the English Stage (Collected Works, 8:257), Hazlitt uses the phrase as follows: "We should not have made these remarks, but that the writers in the above paper have a greater knack than any others, by putting a parcel of tall opaque words before them, to blind the eyes of their readers, and hoodwink their own understandings." With this essay compare Stevenson's Walking Tours (Works, Scribner ed., 9:138). 1027b. 43. Out of my country and myself I go.— This quotation has not yet been identified. 1028. MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH POETS "Any sketch of William Hazlitt may fitly begin with an extract from his most familiar essay the most delightful essay of personal reminiscence in the English language. It is the story of his spiritual birth."-C. T. Winchester, in A Group of English Essayists of the Early Nineteenth Century (1910). 1032a. 38. Prefer the unknown to the known. Cf. Hazlitt's remarks in On the Conversation of Authors (Collected Works, 7, 29): “Coleridge withholds his tribute of applause from every person, in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least glimpse of understanding. He would be thought to look farther into a millstone than anybody else. He would have others see with his eyes, and take their opinions from him on trust, in spite of their senses. The more obscure and defective the indications of merit, the greater his sagacity and candor in being the first to point them out. He looks upon what he nicknames a man of genius, but as the breath of his nostrils, and the clay in the potter's hands. If any such inert, unconscious mass, under the fostering care of the modern Prometheus, is kindled into life,-begins to see, speak, and move, so as to attract the notice of other people, our jealous patronizer of latent worth in that case throws aside, scorns, and hates his own handy-work; and deserts his intellectual offspring from the moment they can go alone and shift for themselves." 1034a. 21. Hear the loud stag speak.-This quotation has not yet been identified. 1036b. 28. Contempt of Gray.-See Biographia Literaria, ch. 2, note: "I felt almost as if I had been newly couched, when, by Mr. Wordsworth's conversation, I had been induced to re-examine with impartial strictness Gray's celebrated Elegy. I had long before detected the defects in The Bard; but the Elegy I had considered as proof against all fair attacks; and to this day I can not read either without delight, and a portion of enthusiasm. At all events whatever pleasure I may have lost by the clearer perception of the faults in certain passages, has been more than repaid to me by the additional delight with which I read the remainder." 28-29. Intolerance of Pope-See Biographia Literaria, ch. 1: "Among those with whom I conversed, there were, of course, very many who had formed their taste, and learned their notions of poetry, from the writings of Mr. Pope and his followers: or to speak more generally, in that school of French poetry, condensed and invigorated by English understanding, which had predominated from the last century. I was not blind to the merits of this school, yet, as from inexperience of the world, and consequent want of sympathy with the general subjects of these poems, they gave me little pleasure, I doubtless undervalued the kind, and with the presumption of youth withheld from its masters the legitimate name of poets. I saw that the excellence of this kind consisted in just and acute observations on men and manners in an artificial state of society, as its matter and substance, and in the logic of wit, conveyed in smooth and strong epigrammatic couplets, as its form; that even when the subject was addressed to fancy, or the intellect, as in The Rape of the Lock, or the Essay on Man; nay, when it was a consecutive narration, as in that astonishing product of matchless talent and in from actuality, but it quite lacks the creative energy of the great Romantics, and her fabrics are neither real substance nor right dreams. Her expression is spontaneously picturesque and spontaneously melodious; and both qualities captivated her public; but she never learned to modulate or to subdue her effects. She paints with few colors, all bright. Her pages are a tissue of blue genulty, Pope's Translation of the Iliad; still dead. Her imagination floats romantically aloof a point was looked for at the end of each second line, and the whole was, as it were, a sorites, or, if I may exchange a logical for a grammatical metaphor, a conjunction disjunctive, of epigrams. Meantime, the matter and diction seemed to me characterized not so much by poetic thoughts, as by thoughts translated into the language of poetry." 1037a. 54. Oh memory! etc.-This quotation has sky, golden corn, flashing swords and waving not yet been identified. Bancroft, G.: "Mrs. Hemans's Poems," "The Hamilton, Catherine J.: Women Writers: their Jeffrey, F.: "Records of Women : with Other Review. Quarterly Review, The, "Mrs. Hemans's Poems," banners, the murmur of pines, and the voices of children."-C. H. Herford, in The Age of Wordsworth (1897). See Wordsworth's Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg, 37-40 (p. 315). JAMES HOGG (1772-1835), p. 476 EDITIONS Works in Poetry and Prose, 2 vols., ed., with a Works (Centenary Illustrated ed., 1876). BIOGRAPHY Douglas, G. B. S.: James Hogg (Famous Scots Mackenzie, S.: "Life of the Ettrick Shepherd," CRITICISM Blackwood's Magazine, "Some Observations on the tival," Memoir of Robert Chambers (Edin- Dial, The, "The Real Ettrick Shepherd," March 16, 1900 (28:205). Hadden, J. C.: "The Ettrick Shepherd," The Gentleman's Magazine, Sept., 1892 (273:283). Walford, L. B.: Twelve English Authoresses (Lon- Hall, S. C. and Mrs. S. C.: "Memories of Authors don, Longmans, 1892). CRITICAL NOTES "Accomplishment without genius, and amiability without passion, reappear, translated into an atmosphere of lyric exaltation, in the once famous poetry of Mrs. Hemans. Of all the English Romantic poets, Mrs. Hemans expresses with the richest intensity the more superficial and transient elements of Romanticism. She is at the beck and call of whatever is touched with the pathos of the far away, of the bygone-scenes of reminiscence or farewell, laments of exile and dirges for the 1 A sorites is an abridged form of stating a series of syllogisms, arranged in such a way that the predicate of one member becomes the subject of the following member. of the Age, The Eclectic Magazine, Dec., 1866 Jeffrey, F. "The Queen's Wake," The Edinburgh Lang, A.: "Mystery of Auld Maitland," Black- Memorials of James Hogg, ed. by his daughter, Minto, W.: In Ward's The English Poets, Vol. Saintsbury, G.: Essays in English Literature, Stoddard, R. H.: Under the Evening Lamp (New Veitch, J.: The History and Poetry of the Scot. CRITICAL NOTES "No Scottish poet has dealt with the power and 482. realm of Fairy more vividly and impressively than the Bard of Ettrick. He caught up several of the floating traditions which actually localized the fairy doings, and this, as he haunted the hills and moors where they were said to have taken place, brought the old legend home to his everyday life and feeling. He was thus led to an accurate observation and description of the reputed scenes of the story, and of the haunts of the 483. Fairies. These had only received rare mention in the tradition itself, and little than this even when they had been put into verse in the older time. But all these spots he knew well; many of them were the daily round of the shepherd and his collie. The legends he had learned thus acquired something of the reality which he felt. Hence Hogg's poems of Fairy are remarkable for the fullness, the richness, and the accuracy of the description of the country-of hill, glen, and moor."-John Veitch in The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (1878). more The Queen's Wake consists of a group of fifteen poems supposed to have been sung by Scottish minstrels before Mary, Queen of Scots, at Christmastide, 1561, after her return to her native land. According to the story, she was so struck with the song of an aged minstrel who played to her as she rode from the pier of Leith to Holyrood, and by the reports she heard of the great body of tradition belonging to Scotland, that she straightway announced a poetical competition-the prize to be a beautiful harp. The fifteen songs were the result. "The Queen's Wake is a garland of fair forest-flowers, bound with a band of rushes from the moor. It is not a poem, not it; nor was it intended to be so; you might as well call a bright bouquet of flowers a flower, which, by-the-by, we do in Scotland. Some of the ballads are very beautiful; one or two even splendid; most of them spirited; and the worst far better than the best that ever was written by any bard in danger of being a blockhead. Kilmeny alone places our (ay, our) Shepherd among the Undying Ones."John Wilson, in Christopher North's Recrea tions: An Hour's Talk about Poetry (1831). Kilmeny is the story, common in Celtic folk-lore and still believed in by the Irish peasantry, of a maiden stolen by the fairies and brought back to earth after seven years, devoid of all human desires. M'KIMMAN This and the next poem are stirring national songs reminiscent of border conflicts between Scotland and England (the Saxons) during the 18th century. The persons named in the poems were probably actual participants in the conflicts. LOCK THE DOOR, LARISTON Cf. Scott's See note on M'Kimman, above. THE MAID OF THE SEA "This is one of the many songs which Moore caused me to cancel, for nothing that I know of, but because they ran counter to his. It is quite natural and reasonable that an author should claim a copyright of a senti ment; but it never struck me that it could be so exclusively his, as that another had not a right to contradict it. This, however, seems to be the case in the London law; for true it is that my songs were cancelled, and the public may now judge on what grounds, by comparing them with Mr. Moore's. I have neither forgot nor forgiven it; and I have a great mind to make him cancel Lalla Rookh for stealing it wholly from The Queen's Wake, which is so apparent in the plan, that every London judge will give it in my favor, although he ventured only on the character of one accomplished bard, and I on seventeen. He had better have let my few trivial songs alone."-Hogg's Introduction. THOMAS HOOD (1799-1845), p. 1135 EDITIONS Complete Works, 11 vols. (London, Ward and Poetical Works, ed. by W. M. Rossetti (London, Poems, 2 vols. (Miniature Poets ed.: London, Cas- Poems, ed. by A. Ainger, 2 vols. (New York, Macmillan, 1897). |