Chapter XXI: Book II

_Nothing can touch him further._ _Macbeth_, III. 2.

_Voltaire’s Traveller._ See _Histoire des Voyages de Scarmentado._

_Be wise to-day._ _Night Thoughts_, I. 390–433.

115. _Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it._ Cf. _Characters of
Shakespear’s Plays_, ‘Othello,’ vol. I. p. 209. Edward Young’s
(1683–1765) _Revenge_ was first acted in 1721.

116. _We poets in our youth._ Wordsworth, _Resolution and
Independence_, 8.

_Read the account of Collins._ See Johnson’s life of him in his
_English Poets_, where the eighth verse of the ‘Ode to Evening’ is as
follows:—

‘Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin ‘midst its dreary dells,
Whose Walls more awful nod,
By thy religious gleams.’

And the last:—

‘So long regardful of thy quiet rule,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentlest influence own,
And love thy favourite name!’

118. _Hammond._ James Hammond (1710–1741). See Johnson’s _Lives of the
Poets_. He seems to have died of love. His _Love Elegies_, in
imitation of Tibullus, were published posthumously.

_Mr. Coleridge_ (_in his Literary Life_). See ed. Bohn, p. 19. ‘[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.’

_The still sad music of humanity._ Wordsworth’s _Tintern Abbey_.

_Be mine ... to read eternal new romances._ Letter to Richard West,
Thursday, April 1742.

_Don’t you remember Lords —— and ——._ Letter to Richard West, May 27,
1742.

_Shenstone._ William Shenstone (1714–1763),the ‘water-gruel bard’ of
Horace Walpole.

119. _Akenside._ Mark Akenside (1721–1770), physician and poet. The
_Pleasures of the Imagination_ was begun in his eighteenth year, and
was first published in 1744.

_Armstrong._ John Armstrong (1709–1779), also physician and poet,
whose _Art of Preserving Health_, a poem in four books, was also
published in 1744.

_Churchill._ Charles Churchill (1731–1764), satirist. His _Rosciad_,
in which the chief actors of the time were taken off, was published in
1761. _The Prophecy of Famine_, a Scots Pastoral, inscribed to John
Wilkes, Esq., in which the Scotch are ridiculed, appeared in 1763.

_Green._ Matthew Green (1696–1737). _The Spleen_ (1737).

_Dyer._ John Dyer (?1700–1758), _Grongar Hill_ (1727). See Johnson’s
_Lives of the Poets_ and Wordsworth’s Sonnet to him.

_His lot_ [feasts] _though small_. _The Traveller._

_And turn’d and look’d._ _The Deserted Village_, 370. ‘Return’d and
wept and still return’d to weep.’

120. _Mr. Liston._ John Liston (1776–1846).

120. _His character of a country schoolmaster._ In _The Deserted
Village_.

_Warton._ Thomas Warton (1728–1790), author of _The History of English
Poetry_ (1774–81). He succeeded William Whitehead as poet laureate.

_Tedious and brief._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_, II. 3, etc.

122. _Chatterton._ Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770). The verse of
Wordsworth’s quoted is in _Resolution and Independence_.

_Dr. Milles, etc._ Dr. Jeremiah Milles (1713–1784), whom Coleridge
described as ‘an owl mangling a poor dead nightingale.’ See Sir
Herbert Croft’s (1751–1816) _Love and Madness_, Letter 51 (1780).
Vicesimus Knox, D.D. (1752–1821), author of many volumes of Essays,
Sermons, etc.

VII. ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH BALLADS

123. _Unslacked of motion._ See vol. IV., note to p. 42.

_Anderson._ Robert Anderson, M.D. (1751–1830), editor and biographer
of _British Poets_.

_Mr. Malone._ Edmond Malone (1741–1812), the Shakespearian editor. He
did not believe in the ‘antiquity’ of Chatterton’s productions. See
his ‘Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley,’
1782.

_Dr. Gregory._ George Gregory, D.D. (1754–1808), author of _The Life
of Thomas Chatterton, with Criticisms on his Genius and Writings, and
a concise view of the Controversy concerning Rowley’s Poems_. 1789.

124. _Annibal Caracci._ Annibale Caracci (1560–1609), painter of the
Farnese Gallery at Rome.

_Essays_, _p._ 144. The reference should be to Dr. Knox’s Essay, No.
CXLIV., not p. 144 (vol. iii. p. 206, 1787).

127. _He was like a man made after supper._ _2 King Henry IV._, III.
2.

_Some one said._ Cf. Hazlitt’s Essay, ‘Of Persons one would wish to
have seen,’ where Burns’s hand, held out to be grasped, is described
as ‘in a burning fever.’

_Made him poetical._ _As You Like It_, III. 2.

_Create a soul under the ribs of death._ _Comus_, 562.

128. _A brazen candlestick tuned._ _1 King Henry IV._, III. 1.

_In a letter to Mr. Gray._ January 1816.

_Via goodman Dull._ _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, V. 1.

129. _Out upon this half-faced fellowship._ _1 King Henry IV._, I. 3.

_As my Uncle Toby._ Tristram Shandy, Book VI., chap. xxxii.

_Drunk full after._ Chaucer’s _The Clerkes Tale_. ‘Wel ofter of the
welle than of the tonne she drank.’

_The act and practique part._ _King Henry V._, I. 1.

_The fly that sips treacle._ _The Beggar’s Opera_, II. 2.

131. _In a poetical epistle._ To a friend who had declared his
intention of writing no more poetry.

_Self-love and social._ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, IV. 396.

_Himself alone._ _3 King Henry VI._, V. 6.

_If the species were continued like trees._ Sir Thomas Browne’s
_Religio Medici_, Part II.

_This, this was the unkindest cut._ _Julius Caesar_, III. 2.

132. _Launce’s account of his dog Crabbe._ _Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
IV. 4.

135. _Tam o’ Shanter._ [For ‘light cotillon,’ read ‘cotillon, brent.’]

137. _The bosom of its Father._ Gray’s _Elegy_.

_The Cotter’s Saturday Night._ [For ‘carking cares,’ read ‘kiaugh and
care.’]

139. _The true pathos and sublime of human life._ Burns, ‘Epistle to
Dr. Blacklock.’

140. _O gin my love._ [‘O my luv’s like a red, red rose.’]

140. _Thoughts that often lie._ Wordsworth’s _Intimations of
Immortality_.

_Singing the ancient ballad of Roncesvalles._ Part II., Chap. IX.

141. _Archbishop Herring._ Thomas Herring (1693–1757), Archbishop of
Canterbury. _Letters to William Duncombe, Esq._, 1728–1757 (1777),