Chapter XXXVII: Act IV: Scene 2

_When L—’s farce_, _etc._ Lamb’s farce _Mr. H—_ was performed at
Drury Lane on December 10, 1806.

_Gentleman Lewis._ William Thomas Lewis (1748?–1811), ‘Gentleman
Lewis,’ belonged to ‘the other House,’ Covent Garden.

_The Prologue._ Spoken by Elliston who would have tried the farce
again.

_The Travellers._ By Andrew Cherry (1762–1812), first produced at
Drury Lane on January 22, 1806.

‘_Wit-skirmishes._’ See _ante_, note to p. 193.

233. ‘_Subject to all the skyey influences._’ ‘Servile to all the skyey
influences.’ _Measure for Measure_, Act III. Scene 1,

234. ‘_Pleased with a feather_,’ _etc._ ‘Pleased with a rattle, tickled
with a straw.’ Pope’s _Essay on Man_, II. 276.

_Will Wimble._ See _The Spectator_, No. 108 (by Addison).

_Some poets compose and sing their own verses._ Moore, for
example.

235. ‘_Misfortune_,’ _etc._ ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange
bed-fellows.’ _The Tempest_, Act II. Scene 2.

‘_Take care of the pence_,’ _etc._ Quoted by Lord Chesterfield
(_Letters to his Son_, Nov. 6, 1747, and Feb. 5, 1750) as the
saying of ‘a very covetous sordid fellow,’ William Lowndes,
Secretary of the Treasury 1695–1724.

_But shouldst thou ever, my Infelice_, _etc._ An invocation to
Sarah Walker. See _Liber Amoris_, vol. II.

236. _Madame V—._ Madame Vestris (1797–1856), the famous actress,
afterwards the wife of the younger Mathews.

_A gallery equal to Cowley’s._ See Cowley’s _The Chronicle, A
Ballad_.

_Mr. Davison._ Thomas Davison, of Whitefriars, printer of the
first edition of _Table Talk_.

236. _D’un pathétique_, _etc._ ‘Nous nous écrivions d’un pathétique à
faire fendre les rochers.’ Rousseau, _Confessions_, Liv. I.

‘_Hunt the wind_,’ _etc._ See _ante_, note to p. 97.

237. _The Death of Clorinda._ From a picture of Lodovic Lana. Mr. W. C.
Hazlitt (_Table Talk_, p. 331) says that the copy was made in
1802. It is still in his possession.

238. _They succeed best in fiction._ Cf. Vol. III., note to p. 49.

_Berenice’s locks and Ariadne’s crown._ Mr. W. C. Hazlitt quotes:

‘We put on Berenice’s hair,
And sit in Cassiopeia’s chair.’
Dixon’s _Canidia, or The Witches_.

‘Ariadne’s crowne and Cassiopeia’s chayre.’
Randolph’s _Poems_, 1640, p. 14.

Cf. also:

‘Not Berenice’s locks first rose so bright.’
Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, v. 129.

‘_Anthony Codrus Urceus_,’ _etc._ This paragraph is taken from a
paper in the Round Table Series (No. 9, _The Examiner_, Feb. 26,
1815) which was republished in _Winterslow_ (1839) under the
title of ‘Mind and Motive.’

239. _The Story of Sir Isaac Newton._ The story is familiar, but the
dog’s name was ‘Diamond.’

240. ‘_Like the fly on the wheel._’ Æsop’s _Fables_ (No. 270).

241. _Mr. Bone’s enamels._ Henry Bone (1755–1834), the celebrated
painter on enamel, elected R.A. in 1811. He executed eighty-five
‘Portraits of Illustrious Englishmen’ copied from pictures in
the royal and other collections.

_Denner._ See _ante_, p. 133.

243. ‘_First row of the rubric._’ See _ante_, note to p. 205 note.

ESSAY XXIV. ON FAMILIAR STYLE

A few variations of the text from the MS. are given in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition of _Table Talk_.

245. _His papers under the signature of Elia._ In _The London
Magazine_. The first, ‘Recollections of the South Sea House,’
appeared in August 1820.

_Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist._ _The London Magazine_, Feb.
1821.

‘_A well of native English undefiled._’

‘Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame’s eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.’
Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, Book IV. Canto ii. Stanza 32.

_Erasmus’s Colloquies._ The _Colloquia_, which appeared in 1519.

246. ‘_What do you read?_’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Scene 2.

_Sermo humi obrepens._ Cf.

‘Nec sermones ego mallem
Repentes per humum quam res componere gestas.’
Horace, _Epistles_, II. i. 250–1.

‘_Ambition is more lowly._’ Cf.

‘My affections
Are then most humble; I have no ambition
To see a goodlier man.’
_The Tempest_, Act I. Scene 2.

‘_Unconsidered trifles._’ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘_That strut_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Scene 5.

‘_‘And on their pens_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘And on his crest
Sat Horror plumed.’
_Paradise Lost_, IV. 988–9.

247. ‘_Nature’s own sweet_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 5.

248. _Cowper’s description._

‘’Twas transient in its nature, as in show
’Twas durable: as worthless as it seemed
Intrinsically precious; to the foot
Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.’
_The Task_, V. 173–6.

ESSAY XXV. ON EFFEMINACY OF CHARACTER

248. ‘_The gossamer_,’ _etc._

‘the gossamer
That idles in the wanton summer air.’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Scene 6.

‘_Rolls o’er Elysian flowers_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, III. 359.

249. ‘_Die of a rose_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 200.

‘_Oh, leave me to my repose._’ See _ante_, note to p. 71.

‘_They shall discourse_,’ _etc._ _Cymbeline_, Act III. Scene 3.

‘_Bide the pelting_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act III. Scene 4.

‘_They take no thought_,’ _etc._ _St. Matthew_, vi. 34.

‘_Get up to be hanged._’ _Measure for Measure_, Act IV. Scene 3.

250. ‘_A cell of ignorance._’ _Cymbeline_, Act III. Scene 3.

‘_Oh! blindness_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Essay on Man_, I. 85–6.

251. ‘_And let us muse_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Lines written while
sailing in a boat at evening_ (published in the Lyrical Ballads,
1798), ll. 13–16.

_But oh thou!_ Hazlitt apostrophises Coleridge. See the essay, ‘My
first acquaintance with Poets.’

253. ‘_A dish of skimmed milk._’ _Henry IV._, Part I. Act II. Scene 3.

‘_A generous friendship_,’ _etc._ Pope, Homer’s _Iliad_, IX.
725–6.

254. ‘_Calm, peaceable writers._’ Dryden. _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy._
(_Essays_, ed. Ker, I. 31.)

255. ‘_‘Vernal delight and joy._’ _Paradise Lost_, IV. 155.

‘_‘Like Maia’s son_,’ _etc._ _Ib._, V. 285–6.

ESSAY XXVI. WHY DISTANT OBJECTS PLEASE

‘_Descry new lands_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, I. 290–1.

_Ethereal mould, sky-tinctured._ Phrases borrowed without
acknowledgment from Milton (_Paradise Lost_, II. 139, and V.
285).

‘_But thou, oh Hope_,’ _etc._ Collins, _The Passions_, 29–32.

256. _I lived within sight_, _etc._ At Wem, in Shropshire, within sight
of the Welsh hills. Cf. a passage in the first paragraph of ‘My
First Acquaintance with Poets.’

‘_Yarrow unvisited._’ Wordsworth’s three poems, _Yarrow
Unvisited_, _Yarrow Visited_, and _Yarrow Revisited_, were
published in 1807, 1814, and 1835 respectively.

‘_Unmould their essence._’ Cf. ‘Unmoulding reason’s mintage.’
_Comus_, 529.

‘_A mighty stream of tendency._’ Wordsworth, _The Excursion_, IX.
87.

‘_A tide in the affairs of men._’ _Julius Caesar_, Act IV. Scene
3.

‘_With sails and tackle torn._’ ‘Though shrouds and tackle torn.’
_Paradise Lost_, II. 1044.

‘_Such tricks hath_,’ _etc._ _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act V.
Scene 1.

257. ‘_Hangs upon the beatings_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Lines composed a
few miles above Tintern Abbey_, 54.

‘_Come thronging soft desires._’ ‘Come thronging soft and delicate
desires.’ _Much Ado About Nothing_, Act I. Scene 1.

‘_Bring back the hour_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth, _Intimations of
Immortality_.

‘_That first garden of my innocence._’ ‘In that first garden of
our simplenesse.’ Daniel, _Hymen’s Triumph_.

258. ‘_Like the sweet south._’ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Scene 1.

_W—m._ Wem.

258. ‘_Thing of life._’ ‘She walks the waters like a thing of life,’
Byron, _The Corsair_, Canto I. Scene 3.

‘_Like some gay creature_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 299.

_Mr. Leigh Hunt has treated it_, _etc._ In an essay entitled ‘A
nearer view of some of the shops,’ _The Indicator_ (1850
edition), Part I. p. 81. _The Indicator_ ran from Oct. 13, 1819,
to March 21, 1821.

259. _After an interval of thirty years._ See Introduction, vol. I. p.
9.

‘_How silver-sweet_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Scene 2.

Note. _Wilkie’s Blind Fiddler._ In the National Gallery.

260. ‘_Like an exhalation_,’ _etc._ ‘Rose like a steam of rich
distilled perfumes,’ _Comus_, 556.

_Mr. Fearn’s Essay._ See _ante_, pp. 63–65.

263. ‘_There’s sympathy._’ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II. Scene
1.

_—, the editor of a Scotch magazine._ The reference here and three
lines below seems to be to Lockhart, who was accused of being
editor of _Blackwood’s Magazine_. See Mr. Lang’s _Life of
Lockhart_, vol. I. chap. ix.

‘_Those faultless monsters_,’ _etc._ John Sheffield, Duke of
Buckingham, _Essay on Poetry_.

‘_The web of our lives_,’ _etc._ _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act
IV. Scene 3.

ESSAY XXVII. ON CORPORATE BODIES

Many instances of variation between the MS. and the text of this essay are given by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his edition of _Table Talk_. ‘The MS. and the printed copy’ (he says, p. 380) ‘scarcely correspond in two consecutive words.’

264. ‘_Corporate bodies have no soul._’ ‘They [corporations] cannot
commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have
no souls.’ Sir Edward Coke, _Case of Sutton’s Hospital_, 10 Rep.
32.

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

‘_A pestilent fellow._’ Cf. ‘What a pestilent slave is this same!’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV. Scene 5.

265. _The town-hall reels_, _etc._ Mr. W. C. Hazlitt says that ‘it
appears from a rough memorandum on the back of one of the leaves
of the MS. that the Mayor’s Feast at Basingstoke was in the
writer’s mind when he wrote this,’

‘_The very stones prate._’ _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 1.

‘_Dressed in a little brief authority._’ _Measure for Measure_,