No More Learning

Coleridge was visiting a neighbor-
ing minister, and Hazlitt walked twelve
miles through the mud before daylight to
hear him. The sermon set him to thinking, not of theology but of
metaphysics. He gave up his studies, and having some talent for
painting, devoted himself from this time forth to his two passions,
art and metaphysics. And although he was destined to succeed in
neither, yet to his knowledge of both he owed his pre-eminence in
the career which he entered only by accident. "Nowhere," says one
of his critics, "is abstract thought so picturesquely bodied forth by
concrete illustration. "
WILLIAM HAZLITT
At the end of seven years, having come to the conclusion that he
could not be a Titian, he published his first book, 'An Essay on the
Principles of Human Action'; a book as dry as his favorite biscuit.
Thenceforth, he wrote on any subject for any employer. From
the first he seems to have been fairly paid, and to have gained a


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
hearing. He was at least sufficiently interesting to provoke the
implacable hostility of Blackwood and the Quarterly. For eighteen
years he was a regular contributor to the Edinburgh Review, the
London Review, and the New Monthly, while various daily and
weekly papers constantly employed him.
Hazlitt, like many persons of limited affections, had a capacity for
sudden passions; but finally, after many love affairs, he married at
the age of thirty a Miss Stoddard, with whom he lived for fourteen
unhappy years. He then met the somewhat mythical Sarah Walker,
the daughter of a lodging-house keeper, for whom he resolved to
leave his wife. As Mrs. Hazlitt was relieved to be rid of him, they
easily obtained a Scotch divorce. When, however, the mature lover
was free, Miss Walker had discreetly disappeared. Three months
afterwards he married a Mrs. Bridgewater, who took him on a Con-
tinental tour, but left him within the twelvemonth. Thackeray
describes the journey abroad as that of "a penniless student tramp-
ing on foot, and not made after the regular fashion of the critics of
the day, by the side of a young nobleman in a post-chaise »; but the
fact is that the bride of this second matrimonial venture paid the
bills. His other visit to the Continent was amply provided for by a
commission to copy pictures in the Louvre. Hazlitt lived only five
years after separating from his second wife. Pecuniary difficulties
and the failure of his publishers hastened his death, which occurred
in London September 18th, 1830. Only his son and his beloved
friend Charles Lamb were with him when he died.
The father of Coventry Patmore gives an interesting picture of
Hazlitt at thirty-five: "A pale anatomy of a man, sitting uneasily
on half a chair, his anxious, highly intellectual face looking upon
vacancy, emaciate, unstrung, inanimate. " But "the poor creature,"
as he used to call himself, was the launcher forth of the winged
word that could shake the hearts of princes and potentates. The
most unscrupulous biographer would hardly have dared to reveal Haz-
litt, the most reserved of men, as he reveals himself to the reader.
Every essay is autobiographical, and reflects his likes and dislikes.
In that strange book 'The New Pygmalion,' as in 'Liber Amoris,' he
invites the horrified British public to listen to his transports concern-
ing the lodging-house keeper's daughter. He abuses the Duke of
Wellington, idol of that public, as he abuses whoever may chance to
disagree with him on personal or impersonal subjects. The brilliant
iconoclast must have been the most uncomfortable of men to live
with. No wonder that Lamb used to sigh, pathetically, “I wish he
would not quarrel with everybody. " For he fell out with the amiable
Leigh Hunt, with the idol of his youth, Coleridge, whose poetry
he began at once to undervalue, and with Wordsworth and Southey,


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
7117
because they took a moderate view of the French Revolution. He
rated Shelley absurdly low for no better reason than that he was a
gentleman, and loaded Scott with bad names because he accepted
a baronetcy. De Quincey declared that "With Hazlitt, whatever is,
is wrong," and quotes an admirer of the critic who professed to
shudder whenever his hand went to his breast pocket, lest he should
draw out a dagger. What his politics were, except to worship the
genius of the French Revolution and abhor a something which he
called "the hag of legitimacy," no one knew. His heroes were the
first Napoleon and Rousseau.
Hazlitt says, with his usual indifference, that when he began to
write he left off reading. Much as he admired 'Waverley' and the
other "Scotch novels," as they were called, he never got through
more than half of any one, although it was his business to review
them. He gave a series of lectures on the Elizabethan dramatists,
and afterwards casually mentioned to Lamb that he had read only
about a quarter of Beaumont and Fletcher. And though he prided
himself on his metaphysics, he knew none of the metaphysicians but
the French and English philosophers of the eighteenth century. Pla-
tonists tell us that he went to Taylor the Platonist for his ideas. He
pretended to pride himself that he cared for no new book, and declared
that he neither corrected his own proof sheets nor read his work in
print. Of the beautiful 'Introduction to the Elizabethan Poets' Mr.
Saintsbury says, "All Hazlitt's faults to be found in it are due not
to prejudice, or error of judgment, but to occasional deficiency of
information. "
A bundle of inconsistencies, he had a sort of inexplicable con-
stancy, holding th same ideas at the end of his life that he had at
its beginning. While his egotism was as stupendous as that of Rous-
seau or Napoleon, he seemed to possess a double consciousness: with
one breath he blesses and curses. What he says of Burke sounds
like the ravings of a madman; yet he places Burke in his proper
place as the greatest of English political writers. He hacks and hews
the Lake School, while he discloses their choicest beauties.
« Were
the author of 'Waverley' to come into the room, I would kiss the
hem of his garment," he said; but Scott the man is to him "the
greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind. ” His judgment of an author
depended upon two circumstances: his private associations and his
sympathy with the writer.
Yet Hazlitt had something which is better than the capacity to
criticize fairly, to be consistent or learned, or to exercise the cardinal
virtues. He was an artist, and whatever he wrote is literature. His
choice of subject is of small importance if the reader is armed against
his prejudices. Some biographers rank him highest as a critic, others


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
(
as an essayist; but it is not easy to classify his work. Essay or crit-
icism, it is Hazlitt and the world that Hazlitt sees. His criticisms
are scattered through the seven volumes of his writings edited by
his son, but they are collected in the three volumes entitled 'The
Characters of Shakespeare,' 'Elizabethan Literature,' and 'The Eng-
lish Poets and the English Comic Writers. ' His essays are classed in
the volumes The Spirit of the Age,' The Plain Dealer,' The Round
Table,' and 'Sketches and Essays. ' In the essays we find the famous
Going to a Fight,' the beautiful and pathetic 'Farewell to Essay-
Writing, the 'Going on a Journey,' 'My First Acquaintance with
Poets,' On Taste,' 'On the Indian Jugglers,' 'On Londoners and
Country People. ' These are named not because they are special
efforts, for Hazlitt seldom tried himself in any direct flight, but as
specimens of the range of his subjects.
His style is as varied as his themes: gay, semi-sentimental, hitting
hard like his own pugilists, judicious, gossipy, richly embroidered as
mediæval tapestry, grave, and chaste. It has been already said that
Hazlitt is a man of letters, and that all he touched became literature.
It is fair to go further, and suggest that a certain amount of literary
temperament is necessary to enjoy him, and perhaps a certain matur-
ity of taste. He is the essayist of the traveler who has reached the
Delectable Mountains of middle age, from whose calm heights he
takes a wide and reasonable view; the essayist for the drawn curtain
and the winter fireside after the leisurely meal, when his pungent talk
is the after-taste of some rare cordial.
Shakespeare scholars agree that he knows nothing of Shakespeare
but the text, and that he has added nothing to the explanation of
difficult passages; but ey, Iwell as the general reader, turn to
him for noble enthusiasm and calm judgment. It is of Shakespeare's
characters that he writes, not of his plays; and it is Timon, Othello,
Antony and Cleopatra, - the doers, not the dreamers,-who interest
him, and whom he hates and loves. Strange to say, though he rated
himself so highly as a metaphysician, Hamlet is one of his least
successful portraitures; his artist's eye saw Shakespeare played, not
written, and Kean, whom he first ridiculed and then praised, said
that Hazlitt had taught him more than his stage manager.
What he did for the Elizabethan dramatists was to rediscover their
excellences and find them an audience. He shows Congreve's merits
with a force not possible to a calmer judgment. How discriminat-
ing, on the contrary, is his praise of the sweetness of Dekker and of
the beauties of The Beggar's Opera'! and though personal in its vin-
dictiveness, what a splendid assault he makes on Sidney's 'Arcadia'!
Hazlitt is accused of reversing the counsel of the proverb, and
speaking good only of the dead. He was certainly unlike the little


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
7119
members of the little mutual-admiration societies who half a century
later take themselves so seriously. It was his art which he found
serious. Mr. Saintsbury makes the important point that his work
molded the genius of his literary juniors. In 'The Spirit of the Age'
there are distinct intimations of Carlyle.
"Where the devil did you
get that style ? " Jeffrey asked Macaulay. It is easy to see where,
when one reads Hazlitt's contributions to Jeffrey's own Review.
another way, he furnished a model to Dickens and Thackeray; and
no one who is familiar with the essay on 'Nicholas Poussin' will fail
to add Ruskin to his "fair herd of literary children. "
In
It is almost incredible that with his spirit and temperament, Haz-
litt's last words should have been, "I have had a happy life. " But
literature was to him the wife and children and friends of whom per-
haps she robbed him, while becoming, as the poet promises, the solace
reserved for him who loves her for herself alone.
―――――
OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN
From Table Talk'
"Come like shadows-so depart. "
L
AMB it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the
defense of Guy Fawkes, which I urged him to execute. As
however he would undertake neither, I suppose I must do
both,
a task for which he would have been much fitter, no less
from the temerity than the felicity of his pen:-
"Never so sure our rapture to create
As when it touched the brink of all we hate. "
Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace
piece of business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely
lost, and besides, I may avail myself of some hints of his in the
progress of it.
I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of
the ideas of other people than expounder of my own. I pursue
the one too far into paradox or mysticism; the others I am not
bound to follow farther than I like, or than seems fair and
reasonable.
On the question being started, A
said, "I suppose the
two first persons you would choose to see would be the two
greatest names in English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr.
Locke? " In this A- as usual, reckoned without his host.
Every one burst out a-laughing at the expression of Lamb's face,
?


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
in which impatience was restrained by courtesy. "Yes, the great-
est names," he stammered out hastily, "but they were not per-
sons- not persons. " "Not persons? " said A—, looking wise
and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be pre-
mature. "That is," rejoined Lamb, "not characters, you know.
By Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the 'Essay on
the Human Understanding' and the 'Principia,' which we have
to this day. Beyond their contents there is nothing personally
interesting in the men. But what we want to see any one bodily
for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in the individ-
uals; more than we can learn from their writings, and yet are
curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton were very like
Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paint Shakespeare? "
"Ay," retorted A—, "there it is: then I suppose you would
prefer seeing him and Milton instead? » "No," said Lamb,
"neither. I have seen so much of Shakespeare on the stage and
on book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I am
quite tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face,
the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like,
-it is too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of
losing some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his
countenance and the precisian's band and gown. ”
"I shall guess no more," said A—. "Who is it, then, you
would like to see in his habit as he lived,' if you had your
choice of the whole range of English literature? " Lamb then
named Sir Thomas Browne and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the
greatest pleasure to encounter on the door of his apartment in
their nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting
with them. At this A laughed outright, and conceived Lamb
was jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he
thought there might be something in it, and waited for an ex-
planation in a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well
as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty years ago
-how time slips! ) went on as follows:-
"The reason why I pitch upon those two authors is, that their
writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious of
personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in
dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them
the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should sup-
pose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson,-I have no curiosity,
―――


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
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no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell together have
pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his
mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit:
my friends whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it
in my power), are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.
"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition
the Urn-Burial,' I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at
the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is
like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I
would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it.
Besides, who would not be curious to see the lineaments of a
man who, having himself been twice married, wished that man-
kind were propagated like trees?
"As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own
'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a
truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalypti-
cal, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and
for the unraveling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of
an encounter with so portentous a commentator! "
"I am afraid in that case," said A————, "that if the mystery
were once cleared up the merit might be lost;" and turning to
me, whispered a friendly apprehension that while Lamb contin-
ued to admire these old crabbed authors he would never become
a popular writer.
Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with
a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and
whose meaning was often quite as un-come-at-able without a per-
sonal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries.
The volume was produced; and while some one was expatiating
on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to
the old edition, A got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming
"What have we here? " read the following:-
"Here lies a She-sun, and a He-moon there;
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both and all, and so
They unto one another nothing owe. "
There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the volume,
turned to the beautiful 'Lines to his Mistress,' dissuading her
from accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused
features and a faltering tongue.
XII-446


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
His
Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from
the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used to take his
exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased
to find that there was a general sensation in his favor in all but
A, who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and
even objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed
at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its
own trite level, and asked "if he did not think it would be worth
while to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim
twilight and early dawn of English literature; to see the head
round which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams
of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that 'lisped
in numbers, for the numbers came' as by a miracle, or as if the
dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first
to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears);
but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his
age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humorist withal, who
has not only handed down to us the living manners of his time,
but had no doubt store of curious and quaint devices, and would
make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of the Tabard.
interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would
rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the
'Decameron,' and have heard them exchange their best stories
together, the Squire's Tale against the Story of the Falcon, the
Wife of Bath's Prologue against the Adventures of Friar Albert.
How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then
wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, by
the courtesies of genius! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which
passed through the minds of these great revivers of learning,
these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have
stamped an expression on their features as different from the
moderns as their books, and well worth the perusal! Dante," I
continued, "is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one
whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to
penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the Italian poets I should
care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less
a hand than Titian's: light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering
our idea. The same artist's large colossal profile of Peter Are
tino is the only likeness of the kind that has the effect of con-
versing with the mighty dead,' and this is truly spectral, ghastly,
necromantic. "


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Lamb put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well
as Chaucer; and I answered without hesitation: -"No; for his
beauties were ideal, visionary, not palpable or personal, and there-
fore connected with less curiosity about the man.
His poetry
was the essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb
of fancy; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve the
charm. No tones of voice could come up to the mellifluous
cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could vie
with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our appre-
hensions) rather a creature of the element, that lived in the
rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary
mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere
vision like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by
unquestioned like a dream or sound-
'That was Arion crowned:
So went he playing on the wat'ry plain! '»
Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and
Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was
set aside as spurious, and the first made over to the New World.
"I should like," says Mrs. Reynolds, "to have seen Pope talk-
ing with Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith. " Every one
turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they
too could get a sight of Goldsmith.
"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in
the years 1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of,
nor is there any account of him in Boswell during those two
years. Was he in Scotland with the Pretender? He seems to
have passed through the scenes in the Highlands in company
with Boswell many years after, 'with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if
they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with inter-
ests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional
reason for my liking him; and I would give something to have
seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain,
and penning the proclamation to all true subjects and adherents
of the legitimate government. "
>>
"I thought," said A—, turning short round upon Lamb, “that
you of the Lake School did not like Pope ? "Not like Pope!
My dear sir, you must be under a mistake: I can read him over
and over forever! "-"Why, certainly, the Essay on Man' must
be allowed to be a masterpiece. "—"It may be so, but I seldom


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
(
look into it. "—"Oh! then it's his 'Satires' you admire? "-"No,
not his Satires,' but his friendly epistles and his compliments.
"Compliments? I did not know he ever made any. "-"The
finest," said Lamb, "that were ever paid by the wit of man.
Each of them is worth an estate for life
- nay, is an immortal-
ity. There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury: -
-
-
'Despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. '
Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And
then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however
little deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds:
'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde! '
And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses
Lord Bolingbroke:-
'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine,
O all-accomplished St. John, deck thy shrine ? >
Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek and
his eye glistening, "to his list of early friends:
'But why then publish? — Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head;
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before)
Received with open arms one poet more.
Happy my studies, if by these approved!
Happier their author, if by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. '»
Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book
he said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends
with such a man as this? "


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
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"What say you to Dryden ? "-"He rather made a show of
himself, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame,
a coffee-house, so as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of
him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau-ideal of what
a poet's life should be; and his fame while living seemed to be
an emanation from that which was to circle his name after death.
He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have wit-
nessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only
poet and man of genius who met with his reward on this side
of the tomb; who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the
world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who
found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime
which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after
his death. Read Gray's verses to him on his supposed return
from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and
say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that wel-
comed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall stairs. "
"Still," said Mrs. Reynolds, "I would rather have
seen him
talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet coach with
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu! "
Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the
other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if
Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead.
"Yes," said Lamb, "provided he would agree to lay aside his
mask. "
We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding
was mentioned as a candidate; only one, however, seconded the
proposition. "Richardson? "-"By all means, but only to look
at him through the glass door of his back shop, hard at work
upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever
was presented between an author and his works): but not to let
him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn
customer; nor to go up-stairs with him, lest he should offer to
read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison,' which was
originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out
the letters of his female correspondents to prove that 'Joseph
Andrews' was low. "
There was but one statesman in the whole English history
that any one expressed the least desire to see,— Oliver Crom-
well, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy; —
and one enthusiast, -John Bunyan, the immortal author of the


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
'Pilgrim's Progress. ' It seemed that if he came into the room,
dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under
his golden cloud, "nigh sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange
and stately as any in Homer.
Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received
with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Baron Field.
He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been
talked of; but then it was on condition that he should act in
tragedy and comedy, in the play and farce Lear' and 'Wildair'
and 'Abel Drugger. ' What a sight for sore eyes that would be!
Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost with a
year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could
not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a
troop he must bring with him- the silver-tongued Barry, and
Quin, and Shuter, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Pritch-
ard, of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favor-
ite when he was young! This would indeed be a revival of the
dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable, as
such is the lurking skepticism mingled with our overstrained
admiration of past excellence, that though we have the speeches
of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith,
and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people could do at
that period, and to confirm the universal testimony to the merits.
of Garrick, yet as it was before our time, we have our misgiv
ings, as if he was probably after all little better than a Bartlemy-
fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced
cocked hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with
my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any was
ever moved by the true histrionic @stus, it was Garrick. When
he followed the Ghost in Hamlet' he did not drop the sword, as
most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the
whole way round; so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so
anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once at a
splendid dinner party at Lord's they suddenly missed Gar-
rick, and could not imagine what was become of him till they
were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals
of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground
in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in
the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seem-
ing flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two
persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed as


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WILLIAM HAZLITT
7127
willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old
favorite.
We were interrupted in the heyday and mid-career of this
fanciful speculation by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it
was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and
farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old drama-
tists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakespeare. Lamb said he
had anticipated this objection when he had named the author of
'Mustapha and Alaham'; and out of caprice insisted upon keep-
ing him to represent the set, in preference to the wild, hare-
brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's,
Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to
Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Hey-
wood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might
offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint produc-
tions. Lord Brook on the contrary stood quite by himself, or in
Cowley's words, was "a vast species alone. "
a vast species alone. " Some one hinted at
the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled Lamb;
but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette,
on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided
our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin
to traduce Shakespeare, who was not present to defend himself.
"If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, "there is
Godwin can match him. At length his romantic visit to Drum-
mond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in
his favor.
Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I
would choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram. The
name of the "Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a
splendid example of waste talents, so different from the general-
ity of his countrymen. The choice was mightily approved by a
North-Briton present, who declared himself descended from that
prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family
plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials.
A. C. -Admirable Crichton! Hunt laughed, or rather roared, as
heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years.
The last-named mitre-courtier then wished to know whether
there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted
to apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in
modern times deserving the name,- Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler,
Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a


## p. 7128 (#526) ###########################################

7128
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Massachusetts man. As to the French, who talked fluently of
having created this science, there was not a tittle in any of their
writings that was not to be found literally in the authors I had
mentioned. Horne [Horne Tooke], who might have a claim to
come in under the head of Grammar, was still living. None of
these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead
for the reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted
by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present spir-
itual and disembodied state, and who even while on this living
stage were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As
A-
with an uneasy fidgety face, was about to put some ques-
tion about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by
Martin Burney, who observed, "If J was here, he would
undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted
scholiasts Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. " I said this might
be fair enough in him, who had read or fancied he had read the
original works; but I did not see how we could have any right
to call up those authors to give an account of themselves in per-
son, till we had looked into their writings.
"
By this time it should seem that some rumor of our whimsi-
cal deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile
genus in their shadowy abodes; for we received messages from
several candidates that we had just been thinking of. Gray
declined our invitation, though he had not yet been asked; Gay
offered to come, and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton,
the original Polly; Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain
Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley; Swift came in and sat down
without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly;
Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side
of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay
Charon his fare; Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed
back again; and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn,
-an old companion of his who had conducted him to the other.
world, to say that he had during his lifetime been drawn out
of his retirement, as a show, only to be made an exciseman of,
and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired,
however, to shake hands by his representative; the hand thus
held out was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.
The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent
painters. While we were debating whether we should demand
speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features
――――――――


## p. 7129 (#527) ###########################################

WILLIAM HAZLITT
7129
were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided
from their frames, and seated themselves at some little distance
from us.
There was Leonardo, with his majestic beard and
watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; next him
was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the Fornarina; and
on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm golden locks;
Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on the table
before him; Correggio had an angel at his side; Titian was
seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido
was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from.
him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beauti-
ful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared
as his own Paris; and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold
chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his
hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and
as we rose to do them homage they still presented the same sur-
face to the view. Not being bond fide representations of living
people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb
show. As soon as they had melted into thin air there was a
loud noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cima-
bue, and Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by
their earnest desire to see their illustrious successors
"Whose names on earth
In Fame's eternal records live for aye! "
Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them,
and mournfully withdrew. "Egad! " said Lamb, "those are the
very fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know
how they could see to paint when all was dark around them! "
"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J
"to the Legend of Good Women? " "Name, name, Mr. J—,"
cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation; "name
as many as you please, without reserve or fear of molestation! "
Jwas perplexed between so many amiable recollections that
the name of the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of
his pipe; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of New-
castle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she car-
ried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on
this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as
there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all
respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their
lives! "I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos, "


## p. 7130 (#528) ###########################################

7130
WILLIAM HAZLITT
said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us in
mind that we had neglected to pay honor due to our friends on
the other side of the Channel: Voltaire the patriarch of levity,
and Rousseau the father of sentiment; Montaigne and Rabelais,
great in wisdom and in wit; Molière, and that illustrious group
that are collected around him (in the print of that subject) to
hear him read his comedy of the 'Tartuffe' at the house of
Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucauld, St. Evremont, etc.
"There is one person," said a shrill querulous voice, "I would
rather see than all these - Don Quixote! "
«<
"Come, come! " said Hunt, "I thought we should have no
heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb? are you
for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander,
Julius Cæsar, Tamerlane, or Ghenghis Khan? "
"Excuse me,"
said Lamb; "on the subject of characters in active life, plotters
and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which
I beg leave to reserve. ". "No, no! come, out with your wor-
thies! " "What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscar-
iot ? »
Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but
cordial and full of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason! "
was echoed on all sides; and A- — thought that Lamb had now
fairly entangled himself. Why, I cannot but think," retorted
he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor flut-
tering annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman.
I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated,
surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and
expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise
for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that
fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas
Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see the face of
him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son
of Man, could afterwards betray him. I have no conception of
such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leo-
nardo's very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it. ". "You
have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice. "
-
"Oh! ever right, Menenius,-ever right! "
"There is only one other person I can ever think of after
this," continued Lamb, but without mentioning a Name that
once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to
come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if
that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try
to kiss the hem of his garment! "


## p. 7131 (#529) ###########################################

7131
LAFCADIO HEARN
(1850-)
AFCADIO HEARN is a painter with the pen. He has the rare
gift of sympathetic observation, and the rarer gift of words
to express what he sees and feels. It is no exaggeration
to say that he is a great colorist, filling his canvas sometimes with
glowing hues, again with mists of pearl or opaline lights, and always
showing Nature's esoteric as well as her physical charms.
Although he is classed as an American author, Lafcadio Hearn was
born in Santa Maura, Ionian Islands, - the ancient Leucadia,- June
27th, 1850; the son of an Englishman and a
native Greek. After receiving his education
in England he came to America, and be-
came engaged in journalism in Cincinnati
and New Orleans. His first long story was
'Chita: A Memory of Last Island' (1889), a
marvelous description of the destruction
of L'Île Dernière, the fashionable watering-
place of the aristocratic families of Lou-
isiana. The book is full of remarkable
descriptive passages; as for example:-

LAFCADIO HEARN
"On the Gulf side of these islands you may
observe that the trees-when there are any trees
-all bend away from the sea; and even on bright
hot days, when the wind sleeps, there is some-
thing grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks
at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes
in line against the horizon line, fleeing women with streaming garments and
wind-blown hair,- bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately
northward so as to save themselves from falling. And they are being pur-
sued, indeed,- for the sea is devouring the land. "
Mr. Hearn had published previously Stray Leaves from Strange
Literatures,' a collection of stories from various sources, including
Egyptian, Indian, the Kalevala, and Talmud traditions. This was fol-
lowed by 'Some Chinese Ghosts,' which like the 'Stray Leaves' con-
sists of gems artistically cut and reset by a literary lapidary. In the
preface the author calls himself "a humble traveler, who, entering


## p. 7132 (#530) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7132
the pleasure grounds of Chinese fancy, culls a few of the marvelous
flowers there growing,-a self-luminous hwa-wang, a black lily, a
phosphoric rose or two,-as souvenirs of his curious voyage. "
After Two Years in the West Indies' and 'Youma'— a story of
the fidelity of the "da" (nurse or bonne) to her little white charge
during the insurrection of Martinique-were published in 1890, Mr.
Hearn went to Japan, where he has since lived. He has taught in
various colleges, and has traveled extensively in remote places, giv-
ing the results of his thought, study, and observation in 'Out of the
East' (1894), Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan' (1895), and 'Kokovo'
(1896), the latter title meaning "the heart" in its most extended inter-
pretation. In all of these books Mr. Hearn shows his comprehension
of and sympathy with Oriental philosophy and art, myth, and tradition,
and paints in tender and vivid fashion the scenes and landscapes of
his adopted country.
Of mixed race, a fact which by modern theory is conducive to
rare gifts in the individual; one who has absorbed impressions from
picturesque lands and civilizations, and looked, as well, beneath the
surface to the deep sources of human action and feeling, and who
is able to express the romantic and the mystic, the brilliantly exotic,
with rare literary power,- Mr. Hearn is a striking figure in the Eng-
lish literature of the late nineteenth century.
THE STORM
From 'Chita: A Memory of Last Island. › Copyright 1889, by Harper &
Brothers
THR
HIRTY years ago, Last Island lay steeped in the enormous light
of even such magical days. July was dying: for weeks no
fleck of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eter-
nity; winds held their breath; slow wavelets caressed the bland
brown beach with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one
who found himself alone, beyond the limits of the village and
beyond the hearing of its voices, the vast silence, the vast light,
seemed full of weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies,
do not always inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens
sometimes-omens of coming tempest. Nature,-incomprehensi-
ble Sphinx! -before her mightiest bursts of rage ever puts forth
her divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty.
But in that forgotten summer the witchery lasted many
long days,- days born in rose-light, buried in gold. It was the


## p. 7133 (#531) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7133
height of the season. The long myrtle-shadowed village was
thronged with its summer population; the big hotel could hardly
accommodate all its guests; the bathing-houses were too few
for the crowds who flocked to the water morning and evening.
There were diversions for all: hunting and fishing parties, yacht-
ing excursions, rides, music, games, promenades. Carriage wheels
whirled flickering along the beach, seaming its smoothness noise-
lessly, as if muffled. Love wrote its dreams upon the sand.
Then one great noon, when the blue abyss of day seemed to
yawn over the world more deeply than ever before, a sudden
change touched the quicksilver smoothness of the waters— the
swaying shadow of a vast motion. First the whole sea circle
appeared to rise up bodily at the sky; the horizon curve lifted to
a straight line; the line darkened and approached,- a monstrous
wrinkle, an immeasurable fold of green water, moving swift as a
cloud shadow pursued by sunlight. But it had looked formidable
only by startling contrast with the previous placidity of the
open: it was scarcely two feet high; it curled slowly as it neared
the beach, and combed itself out in sheets of woolly foam with a
low, rich roll of whispered thunder. Swift in pursuit another
followed- a third a feebler fourth; then the sea only swayed
a little, and stilled again. Minutes passed, and the immeasur-
able heaving recommenced-one, two, three, four-seven long
swells this time; and the Gulf smoothed itself once more. Irreg-
ularly the phenomenon continued to repeat itself, each time with
heavier billowing and briefer intervals of quiet, until at last the.
whole sea grew restless, and shifted color and flickered green;
the swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon
to shore ran one uninterrupted heaving, one vast green swarming
of snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand.
Yet no single cirrus speck revealed itself through all the violet
heights; there was no wind! You might have fancied the sea
had been upheaved from beneath.
And indeed, the fancy of a seismic origin for a windless surge
would not appear in these latitudes to be utterly without founda-
tion. On the fairest days a southeast breeze may bear you an
odor singular enough to startle you from sleep,-a strong, sharp
smell as of fish-oil; and gazing at the sea, you might be still
more startled at the sudden apparition of great oleaginous patches
spreading over the water, sheeting over the swells. That is, if
you had never heard of the mysterious submarine oil wells, the
―――――――
______


## p. 7134 (#532) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7134
volcanic fountains, unexplored, that well up with the eternal
pulsing of the Gulf Stream.
But the pleasure-seekers of Last Island knew there must have
been a "great blow" somewhere that day. Still the sea swelled;
and a splendid surf made the evening bath delightful. Then
just at sundown a beautiful cloud bridge grew up and arched
the sky with a single span of cottony pink vapor, that changed
and deepened color with the dying of the iridescent day. And
the cloud bridge approached, stretched, strained, and swung round
at last to make way for the coming of the gale,-even as the
light bridges that traverse the dreamy Têche swing open when
luggermen sound through their conch-shells the long, bellowing
signal of approach.
Then the wind began to blow, with the passing of July. It
blew from the northeast,- clear, cool. It blew in enormous sighs,
dying away at regular intervals, as if pausing to draw breath.
All night it blew; and in each pause could be heard the answer-
ing moan of the rising surf,- as if the rhythm of the sea molded
itself after the rhythm of the air,-as if the waving of the water
responded precisely to the waving of the wind,-a billow for
every puff, a surge for every sigh.
The August morning broke in a bright sky; the breeze still
came cool and clear from the northeast. The waves were run-
ning now at a sharp angle to the shore; they began to carry
fleeces, an innumerable flock of vague green shapes, wind-driven
to be despoiled of their ghostly wool. Far as the eye could fol-
low the line of the beach, all the slope was white with the great
shearing of them. Clouds came, flew as in a panic against the
face of the sun, and passed. All that day and through the night
and into the morning again the breeze continued from the north-
east, blowing like an equinoctial gale.
Then day by day the vast breath freshened steadily, and the
waters heightened. A week later sea-bathing had become peril-
ous; colossal breakers were herding in, like moving leviathan
backs, twice the height of a man. Still the gale grew, and the
billowing waxed mightier, and faster and faster overhead flew the
tatters of torn cloud. The gray morning of the 9th wanly lighted
a surf that appalled the best swimmers: the sea was one wild
agony of foam, the gale was rending off the heads of the waves
and veiling the horizon with a fog of salt spray. Shadowless and
gray the day remained; there were mad bursts of lashing rain.


## p. 7135 (#533) ###########################################

LAFCADIO HEARN
7135
Evening brought with it a sinister apparition, looming through a
cloud-rent in the west-a scarlet sun in a green sky.
His san-
guine disk, enormously magnified, seemed barred like the body
of a belted planet. A moment, and the crimson spectre van-
ished, and the moonless night came.
Then the wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it
became a voice moaning across the world, hooting, uttering
nightmare sounds,-Whoo! -whoo! -whoo! -and with each stu-
pendous owl-cry the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen,
more and more abysmally, through all the hours of darkness.
From the northwest the breakers of the bay began to roll high
over the sandy slope, into the salines; the village bayou broad-
ened to a bellowing flood. So the tumult swelled and the turmoil
heightened until morning-a morning of gray gloom and whis-
tling rain. Rain of bursting clouds and rain of wind-blown brine
from the great spuming agony of the sea.
The steamer Star was due from St. Mary's that fearful morn-
ing. Could she come? No one really believed it,— no one. And
nevertheless men struggled to the roaring beach to look for her,
because hope is stronger than reason.
Even to-day, in these Creole islands, the advent of the steamer
is the great event of the week. There are no telegraph lines,
no telephones: the mail packet is the only trustworthy medium of
communication with the outer world, bringing friends, news, let-
ters. The magic of steam has placed New Orleans nearer to
New York than to the Timbaliers, nearer to Washington than to
Wine Island, nearer to Chicago than to Barataria Bay. And
even during the deepest sleep of waves and winds, there will
come betimes to sojourners in this unfamiliar archipelago a feel-
ing of lonesomeness that is a fear, a feeling of isolation from the
world of men,- totally unlike that sense of solitude which haunts
one in the silence of mountain heights, or amid the eternal
tumult of lofty granitic coasts: a sense of helpless insecurity.
The land seems but an undulation of the sea-bed; its highest
ridges do not rise more than the height of a man above the
salines on either side; the salines themselves lie almost level with
the level of the flood-tides; the tides are variable, treacherous,
mysterious. But when all around and above these ever-changing
shores the twin vastnesses of heaven and sea begin to utter the
tremendous revelation of themselves as infinite forces in conten-
tion. then indeed this sense of separation from humanity appalls.


## p. 7136 (#534) ###########################################

7136
LAFCADIO HEARN
Perhaps it was such a feeling which forced men, on the tenth
day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, to hope against
hope for the coming of the Star, and to strain their eyes towards
far-off Terrebonne. "It was a wind you could lie down on,” said
my friend the pilot.
"Great God! " shrieked a voice above the shouting of the
storm, "she is coming! " It was true. Down the Atchafalaya, and
thence through strange mazes of bayou, lakelet, and pass, by a
rear route familiar only to the best of pilots, the frail river craft
had toiled into Caillou Bay, running close to the main shore;
and now she was heading right for the island, with the wind aft,
over the monstrous sea. On she came, swaying, rocking, plun-
ging, with a great whiteness wrapping her about like a cloud, and
moving with her moving,-a tempest-whirl of spray; ghost-white
and like a ghost she came, for her smoke-stacks exhaled no visi-
ble smoke the wind devoured it!
The excitement on shore became wild; men shouted them-
selves hoarse; women laughed and cried. Every telescope and
opera-glass was directed upon the coming apparition; all won-
dered how the pilot kept his feet; all marveled at the madness.
of the captain.
But Captain Abraham Smith was not mad. A veteran Ameri-
can sailor, he had learned to know the great Gulf as scholars
know deep books by heart; he knew the birthplace of its tem-
pests, the mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While.