Chapter XXXVII: Act V: Sc. 1

‘_Ignorant present._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

Note. ‘_Nay, nay_,’ _etc._ ‘Na, na! not that way, not that way,
the head to the east.’ _Guy Mannering_, chap. 55.

148. _It is many years since_, _etc._ About 1798, at St. Neots, in
Huntingdonshire. Cf. the essay ‘On Going a Journey’ in
_Table-Talk_, vol. VI. p. 185.

‘_How was I then uplifted._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III.
Sc. 2.

‘_Temples not made with hands_,’ _etc._ _2 Corinthians_, V. 1.

_In the Louvre._ In 1802, when the Louvre still contained the
spoils of Buonaparte’s conquests. Cf. _Table-Talk_, vol. VI.
pp. 15 _et seq._ and notes thereon.

‘_All eyes shall see me_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Romans_, xiv. 11.

149. _There ‘stood the statue,’_ _etc._ ‘So stands the statue that
enchants the world.’ Thomson, _The Seasons_, Summer, 1347.
The statue is the Venus of Medici.

‘_There was old Proteus_,’ _etc._ Wordsworth’s Sonnet, ‘The
world is too much with us,’ adapted.

_The stay, the guide_, _etc._ An unacknowledged quotation from
Wordsworth’s _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern
Abbey_, 109-110.

‘_Smoothed the raven down_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 251.

LECTURE VIII. ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY

Much of the early part of this Lecture is taken from a paper in _The
Examiner_ (Aug. 20, 1815), republished in _The Round Table_. See
vol. I. pp. 10-14, and notes.

PAGE

150. ‘_Where it must live_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 4.

‘_To see ourselves_,’ _etc._ Burns, _To a Louse_.

151. ‘_Present no mark to the foeman.’_ _Henry IV._, Part II., Act
III. Sc. 2. _Wars_ should be _Shadow_.

152. _The authority of Sterne_, _etc._ See _Tristram Shandy_, I. 21.

l. 22. In the third edition a passage is interpolated from
Hazlitt’s letter to _The Morning Chronicle_, Oct. 15, 1813.

‘_The ring_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Moral Essays_, III. 309-10.

_Angelica_, _etc._ All these characters are in Congreve’s _Love
for Love_.

_The compliments which Pope paid to his friends._ Cf. the essay
‘On Persons one would wish to have seen,’ where some of these
compliments are quoted.

153. _The loves of the plants and the triangles._ Erasmus Darwin’s
poem ‘The Loves of the Plants’(1789) was the subject of
Canning’s famous parody ‘The Loves of the Triangles’ in _The
Anti-Jacobin_.

_Berinthias and Alitheas._ Berinthia in Vanbrugh’s _The
Relapse_; Alithea in Wycherley’s _The Country Wife_.

_Beppo_, _etc._ Lord Byron’s _Beppo_ (1818), Campbell’s
_Gertrude of Wyoming_ (1809), Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_
(1810). Madame De Staël’s _Corinne_ appeared in 1807.

l. 17. In the third edition a long passage from Hazlitt’s
letter to _The Morning Chronicle_ is here inserted.

‘_That sevenfold fence._’ See note to vol. I. p. 13, and cf. _A
Reply to Malthus_, vol. IV. p. 101.

154. ‘_Mr. Smirk, you are a brisk man._’ Foote’s _The Minor_, Act
II.

‘_Almost afraid to know itself._’ _Macbeth_, Act IV. Sc. 3.

_Mr. Farren._ William Farren (1786-1861). Lord Ogleby in Colman
and Garrick’s _The Clandestine Marriage_ was one of his best
parts.

Note. See vol. I. p. 313.

155. _Jeremy Collier._ Jeremy Collier’s (1650-1726) _Short View of
the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_ appeared
in March 1697-8.

_Mrs. Centlivre._ Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723). _The Busy
Body_ appeared in 1709, _The Wonder_ in 1714.

156. _The scene near the end._ _The Wonder_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_Roast me these Violantes._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 1.

156. In the third edition the following account of _The Busy Body_,
taken from Oxberry’s _The New English Drama_ (Vol. VI.) is
inserted:

‘“The Busy Body” is a comedy that has now held possession
of the stage above a hundred years (the best test of
excellence); and the merit that has enabled it to do so,
consists in the ingenuity of the contrivance, the liveliness
of the plot, and the striking effect of the situations. Mrs.
Centlivre, in this and her other plays, could do nothing
without a stratagem; but she could do everything with one.
She delights in putting her _dramatis personæ_ continually at
their wit’s end, and in helping them off with a new evasion;
and the subtlety of her resources is in proportion to the
criticalness of the situation and the shortness of the notice
for resorting to an expedient. Twenty times, in seeing or
reading one of her plays, your pulse beats quick, and you
become restless and apprehensive for the event; but with a
fine theatrical sleight of hand, she lets you off, undoes the
knot of the difficulty, and you breathe freely again, and
have a hearty laugh into the bargain. In short, with her
knowledge of chambermaids’ tricks, and insight into the
intricate foldings of lovers’ hearts, she plays with the
events of comedy, as a juggler shuffles about a pack of
cards, to serve his own purposes, and to the surprise of the
spectator. This is one of the most delightful employments of
the dramatic art. It costs nothing—but a voluntary tax on the
inventive powers of the author; and it produces, when
successfully done, profit and praise to one party, and
pleasure to all. To show the extent and importance of
theatrical amusements (which some grave persons would decry
altogether, and which no one can extol too highly), a friend
of ours,[49] whose name will be as well known to posterity as
it is to his contemporaries, was not long ago mentioning,
that one of the earliest and most memorable impressions ever
made on his mind, was the seeing “Venice Preserved” acted in
a country town when he was only nine years old. But he added,
that an elderly lady who took him to see it, lamented,
notwithstanding the wonder and delight he had experienced,
that instead of “Venice Preserved,” they had not gone to see
“The Busy Body,” which had been acted the night before. This
was fifty years ago, since which, and for fifty years before
that, it has been acted a thousand times in town and country,
giving delight to the old, the young, and middle-aged,
passing the time carelessly, and affording matter for
agreeable reflection afterwards, making us think ourselves,
and wish to be thought, the men equal to Sir George Airy in
grace and spirit, the women to Miranda and Isabinda in love
and beauty, and all of us superior to Marplot in wit. Among
the scenes that might be mentioned in this comedy, as
striking instances of happy stage effect, are Miranda’s
contrivance to escape from Sir George, by making him turn his
back upon her to hear her confession of love, and the
ludicrous attitude in which he is left waiting for the rest
of her speech after the lady has vanished; his offer of the
hundred pounds to her guardian to make love to her in his
presence, and when she receives him in dumb show, his
answering for both; his situation concealed behind the
chimney-screen; his supposed metamorphosis into a monkey,
and his deliverance from thence in that character by the
interference of Marplot; Mrs. Patch’s sudden conversion of
the mysterious love letter into a charm for the toothache,
and the whole of Marplot’s meddling and blunders. The last
character is taken from Dryden and the Duchess of Newcastle;
and is, indeed, the only attempt at character in the play. It
is amusing and superficial. We see little of the puzzled
perplexity of his brain, but his actions are absurd enough.
He whiffles about the stage with considerable volubility, and
makes a very lively automaton. Sir George Airy sets out
for a scene or two in a spirited manner, but afterwards
the character evaporates in the name; and he becomes as
commonplace as his friend Charles, who merely laments over
his misfortunes, or gets out of them by following the
suggestions of his valet or his valet’s mistress. Miranda is
the heroine of the piece, and has a right to be so; for she
is a beauty and an heiress. Her friend has less to recommend
her; but who can refuse to fall in love with her name? What
volumes of sighs, what a world of love, is breathed in the
very sound alone—the letters that form the charming name of
Isabinda.’

157. ‘_The one cries Mum_,’ _etc._ _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act
5. Sc. 2.

Note. See first edition (1714), pp. 35-6.

158. ‘_‘Some soul of goodness_,’ _etc._ _Henry V._, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_His Funeral._ Produced in 1701.

‘_All the milk of human kindness._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_The Conscious Lovers._ 1722. Hazlitt refers to Act III. Sc. 1.

_Parson Adams against me._ See _Joseph Andrews_, Book III.
chap. II.

_Addison’s Drummer._ 1715.

‘_An Hour after Marriage._’ _Three Hours after Marriage_
(1717), the joint production of Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot.

‘_An alligator stuff’d._’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act V. Sc. 1.

_Gay’s What-d’ye-call-it._ 1715.

‘_Polly._’ Published in 1728. The representation was forbidden
by the Court.

Last line but one. In the third edition Hazlitt’s essay ‘On the
Beggar’s Opera’ (see vol. I. pp. 65-6) is here introduced.

159. _The Mock Doctor._ 1732.

_Tom Thumb._ Afterwards called _The Tragedy of Tragedies, or
the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great_ (1730; additional
Act, 1731).

_Lord Grizzle._ In _Tom Thumb._

‘_‘Like those hanging locks_,’ _etc._ Fletcher, _The Faithful
Shepherdess_, Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_Fell of hair_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Hey for Doctor’s Commons._’ _Tragedy of Tragedies_, _etc._,