Hazlitt on English Literature Part 40

_John Huss_ (1373?-1415), Bohemian reformer and martyr.

_Jerome of Prague_, a follower of Huss who was burnt for heresy in 1416.

_Socinus_. Fausto Paulo Sozzini (1539-1604), an Italian theologian who sought to simplify the doctrine of the Trinity.

_John Zisca_ (1370?-1424), a leader of the extreme Hussite party.

_Neal's History_. Daniel Neal (1648-1743) published his "History of the Puritans" 1732-38.

_Calamy_, Edmund (1671-1732) published an "Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and Schoolmasters who were Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration of 1660" (1702 and 1713).

_Spinoza_, Baruch (1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher of Jewish parentage, the chief representative of Pantheism, "the doctrine of one infinite substance, of which all finite existences are modes or limitations."

_When he saw_. Cf. Coleridge's "Remorse," iv, 2, 100:

"When we saw nought but beauty; when we heard The voice of that Almighty One who loved us In every gale that breathed, and wave that murmur'd!"

_Proclus_ (410-485) and _Plotinus_ (204-270), philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school. In "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge refers to his "early study of Plato and of Plotinus, with the commentaries and the 'Theologia Platonica' of the ill.u.s.trious Florentine; of Proclus, and Gemistius Pletho."

_Duns Scotus_ (1265 or 1275-1308) and _Thomas Aquinas_ (1227-1274), two great theologians of the Catholic Church.

_Jacob Behmen_ or Bohme (1575-1624), a German religious mystic who exerted considerable influence on English religious thought in the eighteenth century. In the "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge writes: "A meek and shy quietist, his intellectual powers were never stimulated into feverous energy by crowds of proselytes, or by the ambition of proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast in the strictest sense, as not merely distinguished, but as contradistinguished from a fanatic.... The writings of these Mystics acted in no slight degree to prevent my mind from being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic system."

_Swedenborg_, Emanuel (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist and mystic from whom have sprung some of the modern theosophical cults.

_Religious Musings_, published in his "Poems on Various Subjects" (1796).

_the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor_. Cf. "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," Lecture VII: "In his writings, the frail stalk of human life reclines on the bosom of eternity. His Holy Living and Dying is a divine pastoral. He writes to the faithful followers of Christ, as the shepherd pipes to his flock. He introduces touching and heartfelt appeals to familiar life; condescends to men of low estate; and his pious page blushes with modesty and beauty. His style is prismatic. It unfolds the colours of the rainbow; it floats like the bubble through the air; it is like innumerable dew-drops that glitter on the face of morning, and tremble as they glitter. He does not dig his way underground, but slides upon ice, borne on the winged car of fancy. The dancing light he throws upon objects is like an Aurora Borealis, playing betwixt heaven and earth.... In a word, his writings are more like fine poetry than any other prose whatever; they are a choral song in praise of virtue, and a hymn to the Spirit of the Universe."

_Bowles_, William Lisle (1762-1850), published "Fourteen Sonnets" in 1789, and a second edition containing twenty-one in the same year. In the first chapter of the "Biographia Literaria," Coleridge credits the sonnets of Bowles with saving him from a premature absorption in metaphysics and theology and with introducing him to the excellences of the new school of poetry. In his enthusiasm he went about making proselytes for Bowles and "as my school finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within less than a year and a half, more than forty transcriptions, as the best presents I could offer to those, who had in any way won my regard.

And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following publications of the same author." Coleridge also addressed a "Sonnet to Bowles," opening

"My heart hath thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains, That on the still air floating tremblingly, Wak'd in me Fancy, Love, and Sympathy!"

P. 212. _John Bull_. Croker's John Bull was a scurrilous newspaper edited by Theodore Hook, the first number of which appeared December 17, 1820.

_Mr. Croker_, John Wilson (1780-1857), politician and man of letters, one of Hazlitt's pet aversions, and the same who comes in for such a severe chastis.e.m.e.nt in Macaulay's review of his edition of Boswell's "Johnson."

_Junius_, the mysterious author of a famous series of political letters which appeared in the London Public Advertiser from January 21, 1769, to January 21, 1772, collected as the "Letters of Junius" in 1772. The name of Sir Philip Francis is the one most persistently a.s.sociated with the composition of these letters.

_G.o.dwin_, William (1756-1836), leader of the philosophical radicals in England and a believer in the perfectibility of man, wrote "An Enquiry concerning Political Justice" (1793), "Caleb Williams" (1794), and other novels and miscellaneous works. G.o.dwin was the husband of Mary Wolstonecraft, and the father-in-law of Sh.e.l.ley. Hazlitt wrote a sketch of him in the "Spirit of the Age" and reviewed his last novel, "Cloudesley,"

in the Edinburgh Review. Coleridge has a Sonnet to William G.o.dwin:

"Nor will I not thy holy guidance bless, And hymn thee, G.o.dwin! with an ardent lay; For that thy voice, in Pa.s.sion's stormy day When wild I roam'd the bleak Heath of Distress, Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way-- And told me that her name was Happiness."

_Sorrows of Werter_, a sentimental novel of Goethe's, the work by which he was most generally known to English readers in Hazlitt's day.

_laugh'd with Rabelais_. Cf. Pope's "Dunciad," I, 22: "Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais easy chair."

_spoke with rapture of Raphael_. Coleridge had visited Italy in 1806 on his return from a stay in Malta, and had devoted his time there to a study of Italian art. See p. 298 n.

_Giotto_ (d. 1337), _Ghirlandaio_, whose real name was Domenico Bigardi (1449-1494), and _Ma.s.saccio_ (1402-1429) were early Florentine painters.

_wandered into Germany_. Coleridge's visit to Germany and his introduction to the leading German philosophers dates back to 1798-99.

_Kantean philosophy_. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the leader of modern philosophy. "The writings of the ill.u.s.trious sage of Konigsberg, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth, and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the logic; and I will venture to add--(paradox as it will appear to those who have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and Frenchmen)--the clearness and evidence, of the Critique of Pure Reason; and Critique of the Judgment; of the Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy; and of his Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason, took possession of me as with a giant's hand. After fifteen years' familiarity with them, I still read these and all his other productions with undiminished delight and increasing admiration." "Biographia Literaria,"

chap. IX.

_Fichte_, J. Gottlieb (1762-1814). "Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_, or Lore of Ultimate Science, was to add the key-stone of the arch" of Kant's system. Ibid.

_Sch.e.l.ling_, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1829). "In Sch.e.l.ling's _Natur-Philosophie_, and the _System des Transcendentalen Idealismus_, I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful a.s.sistance in what I had yet to do.... Many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German Philosopher; and I might indeed affirm with truth, before the most important works of Sch.e.l.ling had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same school; been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant; we had both equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordano Bruno; and Sch.e.l.ling has lately, and, as of recent acquisition, avowed that same affectionate reverence for the labors of Behmen, and other mystics, which I had formed at a much earlier period." Ibid.

_Lessing_, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-1781), German dramatist and critic.

_sang for joy_. Coleridge had in 1789 composed some stanzas "On the Destruction of the Bastille," but these were not published till 1834.

_would have floated his bark_. Coleridge and Southey with some other friends had in 1794 formed a plan for an ideal colony, the Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehanna.

_In Philharmonia's_. Cf. Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of Chatterton,"

140: "O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale."

P. 213. _Frailty_. Cf. "Hamlet," i, 2, 146: "thy name is woman."

_writing paragraphs_. Coleridge was connected with the staff of the Courier as a sort of a.s.sistant-editor for five months in 1811. His contributions during this period appeared as the "Essays on His Own Times"

in 1850.

_poet-laureate_ and _stamp-distributor_ are references respectively to Southey and Wordsworth.

_bourne from whence_. "Hamlet," iii, 1, 79.

_tantalized by useless resources_. Compare this with Coleridge's own lines of bitter self-reproach addressed "To a Gentleman":

"Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain."

P. 214. _one splendid pa.s.sage_. The lines beginning "Alas! they had been friends in youth" (408-426). The same pa.s.sage had been singled out for praise by Hazlitt in his lecture "On the Living Poets" and in the review of "Christabel" which had appeared in the Examiner of June 2, 1816. The authorship of this review has been disputed but should on internal evidence, despite its failure in appreciation, be ascribed to Hazlitt. See Works, XI, 580-582.

_Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein_, made by Coleridge in 1799-1800.

_Remorse_. This tragedy was played at the Drury Lane Theatre with considerable popular success in 1813. It was a recast of an early play ent.i.tled "Osorio," composed in 1797.

P. 215. _The Friend_; a literary, moral, and political weekly paper, excluding personal and party politics and the events of the day (1809-1810), was reissued in one volume in 1812, and with additions and alterations (rather a rifacimento than a new edition) in 1818.

The sketch in the Spirit of the Age concludes with a contrast between Coleridge and William G.o.dwin.

MR. SOUTHEY

This selection forms the conclusion of a sketch of Southey in the "Spirit of the Age." It ill.u.s.trates, even more strikingly than the "Character of Burke," Hazlitt's power of dissociating his judgments from his prejudices, inasmuch as there had been exchanges of rancorous personalities between the two men.