Hazlitt on English Literature Part 34

"No longer now that Golden Age appears, When Patriarch-wits survived a thousand years: Now length of fame (our second life) is lost, And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast: Our sons their fathers' failing language see, And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be."

_with theirs should sail_, "attendant sail." "Essay on Man," IV, 383-6.

P. 126. _There died_. "Eloisa to Abelard," 40.

P. 127. _If ever chance_. Ibid., 347.

_Bolingbroke_. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751). "The Essay plainly appears the fabric of a poet: what Bolingbroke supplied could be only the first principles; the order, ill.u.s.tration, and embellishments must be all Pope's." Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, II, 264.

P. 128. _he spins_, "draweth out." "Love's Labour's Lost," v, 1, 18.

_the very words_. Cf. "Macbeth," i, 3, 88: "the selfsame tune and words."

_Now night descending_. "Dunciad," I, 89.

_Virtue may choose_. "Epilogue to the Satires," Dialogue I, 137.

P. 129. _character of Chartres_. "Moral Essays, Epistle III."

_his compliments_. See p. 322.

_Where Murray_. "Imitations of Horace, Epistle VI," 52. William Murray (1705-1793), Chief Justice of England, created Lord Mansfield in 1776.

_Why rail_. "Epilogue to Satires," Dialogue II, 138.

_Despise low joys_. "Epistle to Mr. Murray," 60.

P. 130. _character of Addison_. "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 193-214.

_Buckingham_. George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham (1628-1687), statesman, wit, and poet.

_Alas! how changed_. "Moral Essays," III, 305.

_Arbuthnot_, John (1667-1735), physician and man of letters, whom Thackeray introduced in attendance at the death-bed of Francis Esmond. "He had a very notable share in the immortal History of John Bull, and the inimitable and praiseworthy Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus.... Arbuthnot's style is distinguished from that of his contemporaries, even by a greater degree of terseness and conciseness. He leaves out every superfluous word; is sparing of connecting particles, and introductory phrases; uses always the simplest forms of construction; and is more a master of the idiomatic peculiarities and internal resources of the language than almost any other writer." "English Poets," Lecture VI.

_Charles Jervas_ (1675-1739) gave Pope lessons in painting. He is also known as a translator of "Don Quixote."

_Why did I write_. "Epistle to Arbuthnot," 125.

P. 131. _Oh, lasting as those colours_. "Epistle to Mr. Jervas," 63.

_who have eyes_. Psalms, cxv, 5; cx.x.xv, 16, etc.

_It will never do._ Hazlitt was fond of mimicking this phrase with which Jeffrey so unfortunately opened his well-known review of Wordsworth's "Excursion."

_I lisp'd in numbers._ "Epistle to Arbuthnot," 128.

_Et quum conabar scribere_. Cf. Ovid's "Tristia," IV, x, 26: "Et, quod tentabam dicere, versus erat."

PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS

The fifth lecture on the "Comic Writers."

P. 133. _the proper study_. Pope's "Essay on Man," II, 2.

_comes home_. Bacon's dedication of the Essays.

_Quicquid agunt homines_. "Whatever things men do form the mixed substance of our book." Juvenal's "Satires," I, 85. With occasional exceptions, this appears as the motto of the first 78 number of the Tatler.

_holds the mirror_. "Hamlet," iii, 2, 24.

_the act and practic_. Cf. "Henry V," i, 1, 51: "So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric."

P. 134. _the web of our life_. "All's Well That Ends Well," iv, 3, 83.

_Quid sit pulchrum_. "It tells us what is fair, what foul, what is useful, what not, more amply and better than Chrysippus and Crantor." Horace's "Epistles," I, ii, 3-4.

_Montaigne_, Michel (1533-1592). "Essays," Books I and II, 1580; Book III, 1588.

P. 135. _not one of the angles_. Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," Bk. III, Ch.

12.

P. 136. _pour out_. "Imitation of Horace, Satire I," 51.

P. 136, n. _more wise Charron_. See Pope's "Moral Essays," I, 87. Pierre Charron (1541-1603), a friend of Montaigne, author of "De la Sagesse"

(1601).

P. 137. _Pereant isti_. aelius Donatus: St. Jerome's _Commentary on the Eucharist_, ch. 1. Mr. Carr's translation of the sentence is "Confound the fellows who have said our good things before us." (Camelot Hazlitt.)

P. 138. _Charles Cotton's_ (1630-1687) translation of Montaigne was published in 1685. It was dedicated to George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695), who spoke of the essays as "the book in the world I am best entertained with."

_Cowley_, Abraham (1618-1667). "Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse" appeared in the edition of his works in 1668.

_Sir William Temple_ (1628-1699). His essays, ent.i.tled "Miscellanea," were published in 1680 and 1692.

_Lord Shaftesbury_ (1671-1713), author of "Characteristics" (1711).

P. 139. _the perfect spy_. "Macbeth," iii, 1, 130.

_The Tatler_ ran from April 12, 1709, to June 2, 1711. This paragraph and the larger portion of the next are substantially reproduced from the paper "On the Tatler" in the "Round Table."

_Isaac Bickerstaff_. Under the disguise of this name Swift had perpetrated an amusing hoax on an almanac-maker of the name of Partridge, and in launching his new periodical Steele availed himself of the notoriety of Bickerstaff's name and feigned his ident.i.ty with that personage.

P. 140. _the disastrous stroke_. Cf. "Oth.e.l.lo," i, 3, 157: "some distressful stroke that my youth suffered."

_the recollection of one of his mistresses_. Tatler, No. 107.