Chapter XLVI: Part I: , 156-8

345. l. 5. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows: ‘The
new farce, _Laugh to Day and Cry Tomorrow_ [by E. P. Knight],
met as it deserved a very indifferent reception. It was a
series of awkward clap-traps about the glory of Old England,
and the good-nature of English audiences. Munden was the only
thing in it not _damnable_.’

_Mr. Kemble’s King John._ December 3, 1816.

‘_When we waked_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act III. Sc. 2.

346. _According to the book of arithmetic._ More commonly ‘according
to Cocker.’

‘_Man delight_’ [delights], _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

347. ‘_Bulk, the thews_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Henry IV._, Part
II., Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_Could Sir Robert_,’ _etc._ _King John_, Act I. Sc. 1.

_Coriolanus._ November 28 and 30, 1816. For the rest of this
article, except the last paragraph, see vol. i. pp. 214-6
(_Characters of Shakespear’s Plays_) and notes thereon.

350. l. 21. In _The Examiner_ the article concludes as follows:
‘There have been two new farces this week: one at each
house. One was saved and one was damned. One was justly
damned, and the other unjustly saved. _Nota Bene_, or _The
Two Dr. Fungus’s_, shot up and disappeared in one night,
notwithstanding the inimitable acting and well-oiled humour
of Oxberry in one scene, where he makes bumpkin forward
love to Mrs. Orger in a style equal to Liston. _Love and
Toothache_, though there is neither Love nor Toothache in it,
is as disagreeable as the one and as foolish as the other.
One farce consists of a succession of low incidents without a
plot, and the other is one tedious and improbable incident
without a plot. The changing of the two signs, or Nota Benes
of the two Fungus’s, barber and doctor, in the first, is
better than anything in the last. The only difference is,
that at the one house they contrive to have their pieces
cast, and get them condemned at the other. Yet this is a
saying without any meaning; for in the present case they were
both got up as well as they could be.—We almost despair of
ever seeing another good farce. Mr. H——, thou wert damned.
Bright shone the morning on the play-bills that announced thy
appearance, and the streets were filled with the buzz of
persons asking one another if they would go to see Mr. H——,
and answering that they would certainly; but before night the
gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the
town, was eclipsed, for thou wert damned! Hadst thou been
anonymous, thou mightst have been immortal! But thou didst
come to an untimely end, for thy tricks and for want of a
better name to pass them off (as the old joke of Divine Right
passes current under the _alias_ of Legitimacy)—and since
that time nothing worth naming has been offered to the
stage!’ Hazlitt refers again to Lamb’s farce ‘Mr. H——’ in his
essay ‘On Great and Little Things.’ See vol. VI. p. 232 and
notes. The passage above, beginning ‘Mr. H——, thou wert
damned’ down to ‘for want of a better name to pass them off’
was prefixed to the farce by Lamb, when he published it in
1818.

_The Man of the World._ Revived December 27, 1816.

_Mr. Henry Johnston._ Henry Erskine Johnston, (1777-1830?), the
‘Scottish Roscius.’

_Sir Archy Mac Sarcasm._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la-Mode_ (1793)
revived at Covent Garden, with Johnston as Sir Archy, on
December 10, 1816.

351. ‘_Die and leave_,’ _etc._ _Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 5.

352. ‘_Ever charming_,’ _etc._ Dyer, _Grongar Hill_, l. 103.

_Jane Shore._ January 2, 1817. Rowe’s tragedy was first
produced in 1713. In _The Examiner_ Hazlitt concludes this
article as follows:—‘We think the tragedy of _Jane Shore_,
which is founded on the dreadful calamity of hunger, is
hardly proper to be represented in these starving times; and
it ought to be prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain, on a
principle of decorum. Of Mrs. Alsop, who is said to have an
engagement at this theatre, we have spoken at the time when
she appeared at the other house. Those who have before
not witnessed her performance, will now probably have an
opportunity of seeing her in company with Mrs. Mardyn, and
may judge whether the laborious comparison we attempted
between her and that lady was well or ill-founded. We see
little alteration or improvement in her. Her figure and face
are against her; otherwise she is certainly a very spirited
little actress, and her voice is excellent. Her singing,
however, does not correspond with what you would expect from
her speaking tones. It wants volume and clearness. Mrs.
Alsop’s laugh sometimes puts us a little in mind of her
mother: and those parts of the character of _Violante_ in
which she succeeded best were the most joyous and exulting
ones: her expression of distress is truly distressing. Miss
Kelly played _Flora_; and it was the only time we ever
saw her fail. She seemed to be playing tricks with the
chambermaid: now those kind of people are as much in earnest
in their absurdities as any other class of people in the
world, and the great beauty of Miss Kelly’s acting in all
other instances is, that it is more in downright earnest than
any other acting in the world. We hope she does not think of
growing fantastical, and _operatic_. The new pantomime is
very poor.’

_The Theatrical Examiners_ of January 12 and January 19, 1817
are clearly Hazlitt’s. The first is a notice of Cherry’s _The
Soldier’s Daughter_, revived at Covent Garden, January 8, and
contains a severe criticism of Miss O’Neill as a comic
actress. The second is a notice of Cimarosa’s _Penelope_ and
the comic Ballet _Dansomanie_ at the King’s Theatre, and
concludes with a long quotation from Colley Cibber’s _Life_
on the introduction of opera into England.

353. _The Humorous Lieutenant._ In _The Examiner_ the article from
which this notice is taken begins with a long account
(probably by Hazlitt) of Southerne’s _Oroonoko_ revived at
Drury Lane January 20, 1817 with Kean as Oroonoko and Miss
Somerville as Imoinda. _The Humorous Lieutenant_ (January 18)
was ‘a bad alteration’ by Frederic Reynolds. Celia was played
by ‘a Young Lady, 1st appearance on any stage.’

‘_Whose utmost skirts_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, XI. 332-3.

l. 20. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of February 2, 1817 in which
are noticed John Philip Kemble’s farce _The Pannel_, revived
at Drury Lane January 29, 1816 and a melodrama (attributed to
Pocock) _The Ravens, or the Force of Conscience_, acted at
Covent Garden January 24, 1817, is clearly Hazlitt’s. The
article contains a comparison between the Drury Lane and
Covent Garden companies.

_Two New Ballets._ From a _Theatrical Examiner_ which begins
with an account of Mozart’s _Nozze di Figaro_ not at all in
Hazlitt’s manner.

_Like Virgil’s wood._ _Æneid_, III. 37-40.

‘_Whom lovely Venus_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 14 _et seq._

354. ‘_When you do dance_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

_Booth._ Junius Brutus Booth (1796-1852), whose first important
appearances in London are noticed in this and the two
following articles. The last years of his life were spent in
America.

‘_What does he_ [do they] _in the north._’ _Richard III._, Act
IV. Sc. 4.

355. ‘_A weak invention_,’ _etc._ Cf. ‘A thing devised by the
enemy.’ _Richard III._, Act V. Sc. 3.

_Figaro._ Holcroft’s _The Follies of a Day; or, the Marriage of
Figaro_ (1784).

356. ‘_The fell opposite._’ Vaguely Shakesperian. Cf. _Twelfth
Night_, Act III. Sc. 4, and _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2.

‘_I know my price no less._’ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 1.

‘_Give the world_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_My wit comes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _Othello_, Act II. Sc.
1.

357. _The O. P. rows._ The old price riots at the new Covent Garden
Theatre in 1809.

358. _Frightened to Death._ A musical farce by Oulton.

359. ‘_From which_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

l. 19. The _Theatrical Examiner_ for the following week (March
9, 1817) contains a notice (possibly by Hazlitt) of _The Heir
of Vironi, or Honesty the Best Policy_ (Covent Garden,
February 27), and of ‘Mr. Booth’s imitations of Mr. Kean.’
With this exception The _Theatrical Examiners_ down to March
13 are by Leigh Hunt.

_Cibber._ Cf. _ante_, pp. 160-2.

360. ‘_In hidden mazes_,’ _etc._ Misquoted from _L’Allegro_, 141-2.

361. ‘_Frontlet._’ _King Lear_, Act I. Sc. 4.

362. _The Inn-Keeper’s Daughter._ By George Soane (1790-1860).

363. ‘_Airs from heaven_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

364. ‘_And when she spake_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, II. iii.
24.

365. _Signor Ambrogetti._ Giuseppe Ambrogetti was in London
1817-1821.

‘_Sense of amorous delight._’ ‘The spirit of love and amorous
delight.’ _Paradise Lost_, VIII. 477.

_Signor Crivelli_, _etc._ Gaetano Crivelli (1774-1836), a
tenor; Violante Camporese (b. 1785), a soprano; Carlo
Angrisani (b. _circa_ 1760), a bass.

366. l. 6. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes with an ‘Anecdote
relating to the Overture of _Don Giovanni_’ and a reference
to _Elphi Bey_, ‘a tedious and insipid’ romantic drama (Drury
Lane, April 17).

_Ex uno omnes._ ‘Ab uno disce omnes.’ _Æneid_, II. 65-6.

367. ‘_With all appliances_,’ _etc._ _Henry IV._, Part II. Act III.
Sc. 1.

‘_The golden cadences_,’ _etc._ ‘Golden cadence of poesy.’
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

368. l. 29. The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 4, 1817, clearly by
Hazlitt, contains a notice of _Johnny Gilpin_ (Drury Lane,
April 28), and a brief reference to Mrs. Hill’s Lady Macbeth
(April 29). _Johnny Gilpin_ is described as ‘very poorly got
up.’

369. _Holland._ Charles Holland (1768-1849?) played at Drury Lane
1796-1820.

370. l. 14. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as follows: ‘We
have not room to say much of the new tragedy of _The
Apostate_,[74] for which we are not sorry, as we should have
little good to say of it. The poetry does not rise to the
merit of common-place, and the tragic situations are too
violent, frequent, and improbable. It is full of a succession
of self-inflicted horrors. Miss O’Neill played the heroine of
the piece, whose affectation and meddling imbecility occasion
all the mischief, and played it shockingly well. Mr. Young’s
_Malec_ was in his best and most imposing manner. The best
things in _The Apostate_ were the palpable hits at the
Inquisition and Ferdinand the Beloved, which were taken
loudly and tumultuously by the house, a circumstance which
occasioned more horror in that wretched infatuated devoted
tool of despotism, the Editor of _The New Times_,[75] than
all the other horrors of the piece. The Dungeons of the Holy
Inquisition, whips, racks, and slow fires, kindled by
legitimate hands, excite no horror in his breast; but that a
British public still revolt at these things, that that fine
word Legitimacy has not polluted their souls and poisoned
their very senses with the slime and filth of slavery and
superstition, this writhes his brain and plants scorpions in
his mind, and makes his flesh crawl and shrink in agony from
the last expression of manhood and humanity in an English
audience, as if a serpent had wound round his heart!’

The _Theatrical Examiner_ of May 18, 1817, in which is
described a second visit to _Don Giovanni_, and Kean’s
_Eustace de St. Pierre_ in _The Surrender of Calais_, is
clearly Hazlitt’s.

370. ‘_Something rotten_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 4.

_Mr. Sinclair._ John Sinclair (1791-1857), tenor singer.

‘_To split the ears_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

371. ‘_And of his port_,’ _etc._ _The Canterbury Tales_, Prologue,
69.

372. ‘_None but himself_,’ _etc._ Lewis Theobald, _The Double
Falsehood_.

l. 9. The article in _The Examiner_ concludes: ‘Drury Lane. The
farce of _The Romp_[76] was revived here, and we hope will be
continued, for we like to laugh when we can. Mrs. Alsop does
the part of _Priscilla Tomboy_, and is all but her mother in
it. Knight is clever enough as _Watty Cockney_; and the
piece, upon the whole, went off with great _éclat_, allowing
for the badness of the times, for our want of genius for
comedy, and of taste for farce.’

_Barbarossa._ By John Brown (1715-1766), author of _An
Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times_
(1757). _Barbarossa_ was produced in 1754, _Athelstane_,
the author’s other tragedy, in 1756.

_Paul and Virginia._ A musical drama by James Cobb (1756-1818),
produced in 1800.

‘_And when your song_,’ _etc._ _The Tatler_, No. 163 (by
Addison).

‘_In our heart’s core_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

last line. The _Theatrical Examiner_ concludes as
follows:—‘_Covent Garden._ Mr. Kemble played _Posthumus_ here
on Friday. At present, to use a favourite pun, all his
characters are posthumous; he plays them repeatedly after
_the last time_. We hate all suspense: and we therefore wish
Mr. Kemble would go, or let it alone. We had much rather, for
ourselves, that he staid; for there is no one to fill his
place on the stage. The mould is broken in which he was cast.
His _Posthumus_ is a very successful piece of acting. It
alternately displays that repulsive stately dignity of
manner, or that intense vehemence of action, in which the
body and the mind strain with eager impotence after a certain
object of disappointed passion, for which Mr. Kemble is
peculiarly distinguished. In the scenes with _Iachimo_ he was
particularly happy, and threw from him the imputations and
even the proofs of _Imogen’s_ inconstancy with a fine manly
graceful scorn. The burst of inconsolable passion when the
conviction of his treacherous rival’s success is forced upon
him, was nearly as fine as his smothered indignation and
impatience of the least suggestion against his mistress’s
purity of character, had before been. In the concluding scene
he failed. When he comes forward to brave _Iachimo_, and as
it were to sink him to the earth by his very presence—‘Behold
him here’—his voice and manner wanted force and impetuosity.
Mr. Kemble executes a surprise in the most premeditated and
least unexpected manner possible. What was said the other day
in praise of this accomplished actor, might be converted into
an objection to him: he has been too much used to figure “on
tesselated pavements, when a fall would be fatal” to himself
as well as others. He therefore manages the movements of his
person with as much care as if he were a marble statue, and
as if the least trip in his gait, or discomposure of his
balance, would be sure to fracture some of his limbs. Mr.
Terry was _Bellarius_, and recited some of the most beautiful
passages in the world like the bellman’s verses. His voice is
not “musical as is Apollo’s lute,” but “harsh and crabbed as
dull fools suppose.”[77] Mr. Young made a very respectable
_Iachimo_, and Miss Foote lisped through the part of _Imogen_
very prettily. The rest of the characters were very poorly
cast.—Oh! we had forgot Mr. Liston’s _Cloten_: a sign that it
is not so good as his _Lord Grizzle_, or _Lubin Log_, or a
dozen more exquisite characters that he plays. It would,
however, have been very well, if he had not _whisked_ off the
stage at the end of each scene, “to set on some quantity of
barren spectators to laugh.”[78] The serenade at _Imogen’s_
window was very beautiful, and was _encored_,—we suspect,
contrary to the etiquette of the regular drama. But we take a
greater delight in fine music than in etiquette.’

373. _Mrs. Siddons’s Lady Macbeth._ The _Theatrical Examiner_, from
which this notice is taken, opens with a notice (possibly by
Hazlitt) of Paer’s opera _Agnese_, at the King’s Theatre.
Mrs. Siddons played Lady Macbeth on June 5, 1817, with J. P.
Kemble as Macbeth and Charles Kemble as Macduff. After this
date the theatrical criticism of _The Examiner_ was taken
over by Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt began to write for _The
Times_.

374. ‘_Thank God_,’ _etc._ _The Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 1.

_Mr. Kemble’s retirement._ Covent Garden, June 23, 1817.

375. ‘_Like an eagle_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act V. Sc. 6.

‘_My mother bows_,’ _etc._ _Ibid._ Act V. Sc. 3.

376. ‘_Nothing extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

377. ‘_Is whispering_,’ _etc._ _A Winter’s Tale_, Act I. Sc. 2.

‘_Every_ [each] _corporal agent._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 7.

‘_There was neither variableness_,’ _etc._ _St. James_, i. 17.

‘_The fire i’ th’ flint_,’ _etc._ _Timon of Athens_, Act I. Sc.
1.

378. ‘_My way of life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 3.

‘_The fiery soul_,’ _etc._ Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1.
156-8.

‘_You shall relish_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Othello_, Act II. Sc. 1.

379. ‘_The tug and war._’ Cf. ‘Then was the tug of war.’ Lee,
_Alexander the Great_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

‘_Fate and metaphysical aid._’ _Macbeth_, Act I. Sc. 5.

_Invita Minerva._ Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 385.

ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA FROM _THE LONDON MAGAZINE_, 1820.

PAGE

383. _Semper varium et mutabile._ Virgil, _Æneid_, IV. 569.

‘_The stage, the inconstant stage._’ Cf. ‘The moon, the
inconstant moon.’ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

384. ‘_To dally with the wind_,’ _etc._ Cf. _Richard III._, Act I.
Sc. 3.

‘_With coy_ [sweet] _reluctant_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IV.
311.

385. ‘_Should God create_,’ _etc._ _Paradise Lost_, IX. 911-13.

386. ‘_Play the hostess._’ Cf. ‘Ourself will mingle with society,
and play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state,’ etc.
_Macbeth_, Act III. Sc. 4.

387. _Eclipsed the gaiety_, _etc._ Cf. _ante_, note to p. 270.

_Beau Mordecai._ In Macklin’s _Love à-la Mode_, brought out in
1760.

_Lord Sands._ In _King Henry VIII_.

‘_With nods and becks_,’ _etc._ _L’Allegro_, 28.

388. ‘_Secret Tattle._’ In Congreve’s _Love for Love_.

389. ‘_Made a sunshine_,’ _etc._ _The Faerie Queene_, 1. iii. 4.

‘_Talked far above singing._’ Beaumont and Fletcher,
_Philaster_, Act V. Sc. 5.

‘_Her bounty_,’ _etc._ _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

_Her Nell._ In Coffey’s _The Devil to Pay_ (1731).

392. ‘_Extenuate_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc. 2.

393. ‘_There were two_,’ _etc._ Cf. _St. Luke_, xvii. 31 _et seq._

‘_A consummation_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_To our moist vows denied._’ _Lycidas_, 159.

‘_Slippery turns_,’ _etc._ _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 4.

‘_Mr. Limberham_,’ _etc._ Dryden’s _The Kind Keeper; or, Mr.
Limberham_ (1680).

‘_With its worldly goods_,’ _etc._ _The Book of Common Prayer_,
Marriage Service.

‘_The list of weeds_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_,
Chap. 1. § 2.

‘_In monumental mockery._’ _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc.
3.

394. _The Surrey_, _etc._ The Surrey Theatre, in Blackfriars Road,
opened in 1782; The Cobourg Theatre, Waterloo Bridge Road,
opened in 1818; The Sans Pareil, better known as The Adelphi
Theatre, in the Strand, opened in 1806.

395. ‘_Gentle and low_,’ _etc._ _King Lear_, Act V. Sc. 3.

397. ‘_Like to another morn_, _etc._’ _Paradise Lost_, V. 310-11.

‘_Moody madness_,’ _etc._ Gray, Ode, _On a Distant Prospect of
Eton College_, 79-80.

398. ‘_Mar_ [scar] _that whiter skin_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act V. Sc.
2.

399. _Gallantry, or Adventures at Madrid._ Jan. 15, 1820; acted only
once.

‘_Had its brother_,’ _etc._ Cf. Pope, _Moral Essays_, IV.
117-8.

400. ‘_As it was set down for him._’ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2.

‘_The courtier’s or the lover’s melancholy._’ Cf. _As You Like
It_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

_Gilray._ James Gillray (1757-1815), the caricaturist.

_Mrs. Edwin._ Elizabeth Rebecca Richards (1771?-1854) first
appeared at Covent Garden 1789; married in 1791 John Edwin
the younger.

401. _Magis pares_, _etc._ Cf. ‘Similia omnia magis visa hominibus,
quam paria.’ Livy, XLV. 43.

Note 1. Pope’s _Essay on Criticism_, 1-2.

402. ‘_All is grace above_,’ _etc._ ‘Thus all below is strength, and
all above is grace.’

Dryden, _Epistle to Congreve_, 19.

‘_To relish all_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Sc. 1.

‘_I banish you._’ _Coriolanus_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_The most sweet voices._’ _Ibid._ Act II. Sc. 3.

403. ‘_Guns, drums_,’ _etc._ Pope, _Satires_, I. 26.

‘_Ample scope_ [room],’ _etc._ Gray, _The Bard_, 5.

404. ‘_Constrained by mastery._’ Cf. _post_, note to p. 479.

‘_Speculative_,’ _etc._ _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.

‘_There he arriving_,’ _etc._ _Muiopotmos_, St. XXII. and
XXVII.

405. ‘_Like greyhound on the slip._’ _Henry V._, Act III. Sc. 1.

‘_The full eyes_,’ _etc._ Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Dying_, Chap. 1.
§ 2.

‘_Embalmed with odours._’ _Paradise Lost_, II. 843.

‘_A wide O._’ Cf. ‘Why should you fall into so deep an O?’
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act III. Sc. 3.

‘_Come, let me clutch thee._’ _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 1.

‘_Those gay creatures_,’ _etc._ _Comus_, 299-301.

406. _W—m._ Wem.

_The Rev. Mr. J——s._ The author’s son fills this blank with the
name of Jenkins.

407. ‘_Of imagination all compact._’ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_,