Hazlitt on English Literature Part 23

[21] "What is the People?" in _Political Essays_, III, 292.

[22] He tells of an experience in crossing the Alps which he intends should be symbolic of his whole life. From a great distance he thought he perceived Mont Blanc, but as the driver insisted that it was only a cloud, "I supposed that I had taken a sudden fancy for a reality. I began in secret to take myself to task, and to lecture myself for my p.r.o.neness to build theories on the foundation of my conjectures and wishes. On turning round occasionally, however, I observed that this cloud remained in the same place, and I noticed the circ.u.mstance to our guide, as favoring my first suggestion; for clouds do not usually remain long in the same place.

We disputed the point for half a day, and it was not till the afternoon when we had reached the other side of the lake of Neufchatel, that this same cloud rising like a canopy over the point where it had hovered, 'in shape and station proudly eminent,' he acknowledged it to be Mont Blanc."

_Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy._ Works, IX, 296.

[23] Andrew Lang's _Life of Lockhart_, I, 63. 128-130.

[24] John Scott, the editor of the _London Magazine_, was killed in a duel arising from his retaliatory attacks on Lockhart and the Blackwood School of Criticism. See _London Magazine_, II, 509, 666; III, 76, and "Statement" prefatory to number for February, 1821.

[25] April, 1817.

[26] January, 1818.

[27] "I have been reading Frederick Schlegel.... He is like Hazlitt, in English, who _talks pimples_--a red and white corruption rising up (in little imitations of mountains upon maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, except their own humours." Byron's _Letters_, Jan.

28, 1821 (ed. Prothero, V, 191).

[28] Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke's _Recollections of Writers_, 147.

[29] Joseph Cottle: _Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 465.

[30] Haydon's _Correspondence and Table Talk_, II, 32.

[31] _Plain Speaker_.

[32] _Characteristics_, CCCVII.

[33] "Characteristics," in Carlyle's _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_ (Chapman and Hall, 1898), III, 32.

[34] "Letter of Elia to Robert Southey," Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, I, 233.

[35] "On Criticism," in _Table Talk_.

[36] Life of Pope, Johnson's Lives, ed. Birkbeck Hill, IV, 248.

[37] Boswell's Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, II, 89.

[38] _Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope_, I, 170.

[39] See an essay by John Foster on "Poetical Criticism," in _Critical Essays_, ed. Bohn, I, 144.

[40] Gibbon's Journal, October 3, 1762. Miscellaneous Works, ed. 1814, V, 263.

[41] Review of Mrs. Hemans's Poems, _Edinburgh Review_, October, 1829.

Jeffrey's Works, III, 296.

[42] _Blackwood's Magazine_, II, 670-79.

[43] I, 281 (March, 1820).

[44] _Spirit of the Age_, "William G.o.dwin."

[45] Works, ed. Shedd, IV, 35.

[46] Mr. Saintsbury has applied this phrase to Hazlitt himself, but we prefer to transfer the honor.

[47] "Savoir bien lire un livre en le jugeant chemin faisant, et sans cesser de le gouter, c'est presque tout l'art du critique." _Chateaubriand et son Groupe Litteraire_, I, 234.

[48] _Portraits Contemporains_, "Sonnet d'Hazlitt," II, 515.

[49] _Age of Elizabeth_, "On Miscellaneous Poems," V, 301.

[50] "Thoughts on Taste," XI, 460.

[51] _Conversations of Northcote_, VI, 457.

[52] Cf. Herford: _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 51.

[53] "On the Conduct of Life," XII, 427.

[54] Patmore: _My Friends and Acquaintances_, III, 122.

[55] "On the Conduct of Life," XII, 428. See also the paper "On the Study of the Cla.s.sics," in the _Round Table_.

[56] See a note to p. 329.

[57] See Wordsworth's sonnet, "Great men have been among us."

[58] "On Criticism," in _Table Talk_.

[59] "He is the most illuminating and the most thoughtful of all Rousseau's early English critics.... His essay 'On the Character of Rousseau' was not surpa.s.sed, or approached, as a study of the great writer until the appearance of Lord Morley's monograph nearly sixty years afterwards." E. Gosse: _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1912, p. 30.

[60] In the review of Schlegel's _Lectures on the Drama_, Works, X, 78.

[61] See the paper on "John Buncle," in the _Round Table_.

[62] _Correspondence of Macvey Napier_, p. 21.

[63] "On the Pleasure of Painting," in _Table Talk_.

[64] _Dramatic Essays_, VIII, 415.

[65] "On Shakespeare and Milton," p. 44.

[66] "The Periodical Press," X, 203.

[67] "On Criticism," in _Table Talk_.

[68] Cf. "On Reading Old Books," pp. 338-9, where this charge is curiously echoed by Hazlitt himself.