fornia aal tJNIVERSn-Y of CM-'FORNIA A 1 LOS ANGEt-BS LIBRARY THE ROUND TABLE 2 97 THE ROUND TABLE: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS LITERATURE, MEN, AND MANNERS, By WILLIAM IIAZLITT. VOL. L EDINBURGH I'lii.VTED FDlt Ali( IIIRALD CONSTAIM.E ANO CO. AND I.ONC.'l \.\, IILHST, lti:LS, l)etween two armies set ;" are yet as unwilling as others to give over tlic un- proHtablc strife : their harassed feverish existence 26 ON TXiE LOVE OF LIFE. refuses rest, and frets the languor of exhausted hope into the torture of unavailing regret. The exile, wlio has been unexpectedly restored to his country and to liberty, often finds his courage fail with the accomplishment of all his wishes, and the struggle of life and hope ceases at the same instant. We once more repeat, that we do not, in the foregoing remarks, mean to enter into a compara- tive estimate of the value of human life, but merely to shew, that the strength of our attachment to it is a very fallacious test of its happiness. W. H. No. IV. ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION. The study of the Classics is less to be regarded as an exercise of the intellect, than as " a disci- pline of humanity." The peculiar advantage of this mode of education consists not so much in strengthening the understanding, as in softening and refining the taste. It gives men liberal views; ox CLASSICAL EDUCATION. 27 it accustoms the mind to take an interest in things foreign to itself ; to love virtue for its own sake ; to prefer fame to life, and glory to riches ; and to fix our thoughts on the remote and permanent, in- stead of narrow and fleeting objects. It teaches us to believe that there is something really great and excellent in the world, surviving all the shocks of accident and fluctuations of opinion, and raises us above that low and servile fear, which bows only to jiresent power and upstart authorit}^ Home and Athens tilled a place in the history of mankind, which can never be occupied again. They were two cities set on a hill, which could not be liid ; all e3'es have seen them, and their light shines like a mighty sea-mark into the abyss of time. " Still green with b:iy.s each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious liaiids ; Secure from flam is, from envy's fiercer rage, Detstruclive war, and all-involving age. Hiil, banls triumphant, born in happier days, Innnortal heirs of universal [)ralse I Whose honours \vi!h increase of ages grow. As streams roll down, enlarging as they How !" It is this feeling, more than any thing else, which produces a marked difference between the study of the ancient and modern languages, and which, 28 ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION. from the weight and importance of the consequences attached to the former, stamps every word with a monumental firmness. By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages. It is hard to find in minds otherwise form- ed, either a real love of excellence, or a be- lief that any excellence exists superior to their own. Every thing is brought down to the vulgar level of their own ideas and pursuits. Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation ; but they have no power of abstrac- tion, no general standard of taste, or scale of opi- nion. They see their objects always near, and never in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men, and which degenerates into obsti- nate prejudice or petulant fickleness of opinion, according to the natural sluggishness or activity ON CLASSICAL EDUCATION. 29 of their minds. For they either become bhndly bigotted to the first opinions they have struck out for themselves, and inaccessible to conviction ; or else (the dupes of their own vanity and shrewd- ness) are everlasting converts to every crude sug- gestion that presents itself, and the last opinion is always the true one. Each successive discovery flashes upon them with equal light and evidence, and every new fact overturns their whole system. It is among this class of persons, whose ideas never extend beyond the feeling of the moment, that we iiiul partisans, who are very honest men, with a total Mant of principle, and who unite the most hardened effrontery, and intolerance of opinion, to endless inconsistency and self-contra- diction. A celebrated ))olitical writer of the present day, who is a great enemy to classical education, is a remarkable instance both of what can and what cannot be done without it. It has been attempted of late to set up a distinc- tion between the education oftvonh, and the edu- cation (_)J tliiii^s, and to give the preference in all cases to tlie latter. But, in the first j)Iace, the knowledge of things, or of the realities of life, is not easily to Ije taught except by things themselves, and, even if it were, is not so absolutely indispen- 80 ON CLASSICAL EDUCATIOX. sable as it has been supposed. " The world is too much with us, early and late ;" and the fine dream of our youth is best prolonged among the vision- ary objects of antiquity. We owe many of our most amiable delusions, and some of our superiority, to the grossness of mere physical existence, to the strength of our associations with words. Lan- guage, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects. There can be no true elegance without taste in style. In the next place, we mean absolutely to deny the application of the principle of utility to the present question. By an obvious transposition of ideas, some persons have confounded a knowledge of useful things with useful knowledge. Know- ledge is only useful in itself, as it exercises or gives pleasure to the mind : the only knowledge that is of use in a practical sense, is professional knovr- Icdge. But knowledge, considered as a branch of general education, can be of use only to the mind of the person acquiring it. If the knowledge of language produces pedants, the other kind of knowledge (which is proposed to be substituted for it) can only produce quacks. There is no question, but that the knowledge of astronomy, of chemistry, and of agriculture, is highly useful to 10 0\ CLASSICAL EULCATION, SI the world, and absolutely necessary to be acquir- ed by perijons carrying on certain professions : but the practical utility of a knowledge of these subjects ends there. For example, it is of the ut- most importance to the navigator to know exactly in what degree of longitude and latitude such a rock lies : but to us, sitting here about our Round Table, it is not of the smallest consequence what- ever, whether the map-maker has placed it an incli to the right or to the left ; we are in no danger of running against it. So the art of making shoes is a highly useiul art, and very proper to be known and practised by some body : that is, by the shoe- maker. But to pretend that every one else should be thoroughly acquainted with the whole process of tliis ingenious handicraft, as one branch of use- ful knowledge, would be preposterous. It is some- times asked, What is the use of poetry ? and v>e have heard the argument carried on almost like a parody on Falslq//''s reasoning about Honour. " Can it set a leg ? No. Or an arm ? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? No. Poetry hath no skill in surgery then ? No." It is likely that the most enthusiastic lover of poetry would so far agree to the truth of this statement, that if he had just broken a leg, lie would send for a sur- geon, instead of a volume of poems from a library. 32 ON Tin; tatleh. But, " they that are whole need not a physician." The reasoning would be well founded, if we lived in an hospital, and not in the world. W. H. No. V. ON THE TATLEK. Of all the periodical Essayists, (our ingenious predecessors,) the Tatlcr has always appeared to us the most accomplished and agreeable. Montaigne, who was the father of this kind of personal author- ship among the moderns, in which the reader is admitted behind the curtain, and sits down with the writer in his gown and slippers, was a most magnanimous and undisguised egotist ; but Isaac BickerstafF, Esq. was the more disinterested gos- sip of the two. The French author is contented to describe the peculiarities of his own mind and person, which he does with a most copious and unsparing hand. The English journalist, good- naturedly, lets you into the secret both of his own affairs and those of his neighbours. A young lady, on the other side of Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass for half a day together, but Mr ON THE TATLER. 33 BickerstafF takes due notice of it ; and he has the first intelligence of" the symptoms of the belle pas- sion appearing in any young gentleman at the west end of the town. The departures and arrivals of widows with handsome jointures, either to bury their grief in the country, or to procure a second husband in town, are regularly recorded in his pages. He is well acquainted with the celebrated beauties of the last age at the Court of Charles II. and the old gentleman often grows romantic in re- counting the disastrous strokes which his youth suffered from the glances of their bright eyes and their unaccountable caprices. In particular, he dwells with a secret satisfaction on one of his mis- tresses who left him for a rival, and whose cn- stant reproach to her husband, on occasion of any quarrel between them, was, " I, that might have married the famous Mr Bickcrstaff, to be treated in this manner !" The club at the Trumpet con- bihts of a set of persons as entertaining as himself. The cavalcade of the justice of the peace, the knight of the shire, the country squire, and the young gentleman, his nephew, who waited on him at his chambers, in such form and ceremony, seem not to have settled the order of their prece- dence to this hour ; and we should hope the Up- holsterer and his companions in tlie Green Pari VOL. t. r. 34 ON THE TATLER. Stand as fair a chance for immortality as some mo- dern politicians. Mr BickerstafF himself is a gen- tleman and a scholar, a humourist and a man of the world ; with a great deal of nice easy na'ivett about him. \? he walks out and is caught in a shower of rain, he makes us amends for this un- lucky accident, by a criticism on the shower in Vir- gil, and concludes with a burlesque copy of verses on a city-shower. He entertains us, when he dates from his own apartment, with a quotation from Plutarch or a moral reflection ; from the Grecian coffeehouse with politics ; and from Will's or the Temple with the poets and players, the beaux and men of wit and pleasure about town. In reading the pages of the Tatler, we seem as if suddenly transported to the age of Queen Anne, of toupees and full-bottomed periwigs. The whole appearance of our dress and manners undergoes a delightful metamorphosis. We are surprised with the rustling of hoops and the glittering of paste buckles. The beaux and the belles are of a quite different species ; we distinguish the dappers, the smarts, and the pretty fellows, as they pass ; we are introduced to Betterton and Mrs Oldfield be- hind the scenes ; are made familiar with the per- sons of Mr Penkethman and Mr Bullock ; wc listen to a dispute at a tavern on the merits of the Duke 10 O.V THE TATLER. S5 of Marlborough or Marshal Turenne ; or are pre- sent at the first rehearsal of a play by Vanbrugh, or the reading of a new poem by Mr Pope. The privilege of thus virtually transporting ourselves to past times, is even greater than that of visiting distant places. London, a hundred years ago, would be better worth seeing than Paris at the present moment. It may be said that all this is to be found, in the same or a greater degree, in the Spectator. We do not think so ; or, at least, there is in the last work a much greater proportion of common-place matter. We have always preferred the Tatler to the Spectator. Whether it is owing to our hav- ing been earlier or better acquainted with the one than the other, our pleasure in reading the two works is not at all in proportion to their compara- tive reputation. The Tatler contains only half the number of volumes, and we will venture to say, at least an equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. " The first sprightly runnings" are there : it has more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature. The indications of character and strokes of humour are more true and frequent, the reflections that suggest themselves arise more from the occasion, and are less spun out into rcfrular dissertations. Thev are more 36 ON THE TATLER. like the remarks which occur in sensible conversa- tion, and less like a lecture. Something is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet only to set down what he observed out of doors ; Addison seems to have spun out and wire-drawn the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. We do not mean to depreciate Addison's talents, but we wish to do justice to Steele, who was, upon the whole, a less artificial and more ori- ginal writer. The descriptions of Steele resemble loose sketches or fragments of a comedy ; those of Addison are ingenious paraphrases on the ge- nuine text. The characters of the club, not only in the Tatler, but in the Spectator, were drawn by Steele. That of Sir Roger de Coverley is among them. Addison has gained himself eternal honour by his manner of filling up this last character. Those of Will. Wimble and Will. Honeycomb are not a whit behind it in delicacy and felicity. Many of the most exquisite pieces in the Tatler are also Addison's, as the Court of Honour, and the Personification of Musical Instruments. We do not know whether the picture of the family of an old acquaintance, in which the children run to let Mr Bickerstaff in at the door, and the one that ON THE TATLEH. 37 loses the race that way turns back to tell the fa- ther that he is come, with the nice gradation of incredulity in the little boy, who is got into Guy of JVarivick, and the Seven Champions, and who shakes his head at the veracity of JEsop's Fables^ is Steele's or Addison's. * The account of the two sisters, one of whom held her head up higher than ordinary, from having on a pair of flowered garters, and of the married lady who complained to the Toiler of the neglect of her husband, are unquestionably Steele's. If the Taller is not in- ferior to the Spectator in manners and character, it is very superior to it in the interest of many of the stories. Several of the incidents related by Steele have never been surpassed in the heart-rend- ing pathos of private distress. Wo might refer to those of the lover and his mistress when the * It is Steele's ; and llie whole paper (No. Do.) is in iiis 1110.^1 (]( liL'lili'iil manner. Tlie ciieain about the mistress, liovvt ver, i> ^iven to Addison by the Editors, and the gene- ral style of that number is his; thongli, fioni the story's be- in<^ related personally ol" Hick ei staff, who is also repreeenled as having been at that time in the atniy, wt> conclnde it to have ori::iiially come fiom Steele, perhaps in the course of conversation. The particidar incident is much more like a ?tory of his than of Addjsou's. H. T. 38 ON THE TAXLEK. theatre caught fire, of the bridegroom wlio, by ac- cident, kills his bride on the day of their marriage, the story of Mr Eustace and his wife, and the fine dream about his own mistress when a youth. What has given its superior popularity to the Spectator, is the greater gravity of its pretensions, its moral dissertations and critical reasonings, by which we confess we are less edified than by other things. Systems and opinions change, but nature is always true. It is the extremely moral and di- dactic tone of the Spectator which makes us apt to think of Addison (according to Mandeville's sarcasm) as *' a parson in a tie-wig." Some of the moral essays are, however, exquisitely beauti- ful and happy. Such are the reflections in West- minster Abbey, on the Royal Exchange, and some very affecting ones on the death of a young lady. These, it must be allowed, are the perfec- tion of elegant sermonizing. His critical essays we do not think quite so good. We prefer Steele's occasional selection of beautiful poetical passages, without any affectation of analysing their beauties, to Addison's fine spun theories. The best criti- cism in the Spectator, that on the Cartoons of Raphael, is by Steele. We owed this acknow- ledgment to a writer who has so often put us ON' COMMON-PLACE PEOPLE. 39 ill good humour with ourselves and every thing about us, when few things else could.* W. H. No. VI. ON COMMON-PLACE PEOPLE. Agreeably to our chivalrous as well as domes- tic character, and in order to shew further in what .sort of spirit we shall hereafter confer blame and praise, whom we shall cut up for the benefit of humanity, and to whom apply our healing balsams, we have tliought fit, in our present Number, to take the part of a very numerous and ill-treated body of persons, known by the various appellations of connnun-place people, dull fellows, or people who have nothing to say. It is perhaps wrong, indeed, to call these persons * Wo liiitl ill oui li.iiuls llic otliei daj a original copv of tlie Taller, and a list of the subscribeis. ll is cuiioiis to set; some n.mies there wliicli we should hardly think of, (liiat of Sir I.->aac New toiiis among theni,)aiid also to observe the f)::Dy. into the stage-coacli from Salisbury to London, it is more than probable we should not meet with the same number of odd accidents, or ludicrous distres- ses on the road, that befel Parson Adams ; but why, if we get into a common vehicle, and sub- mit to the conveniences of modern travelling, should we complain of the want of adventures ? Modern manners may be compared to a modern stage-coach : our limbs may be a little cramped with the confinement, and we may grow drowsy ; but we arrive safe, without any very amusing or very sad accident, at our journey's end. Again, the alterations which have taken place in conversation and dress in the same period, have been by no means favourable to Comedy. The present prevailing style of conversation is not personal, but critical and analytical. It consists almost entirely in the discussion of general topics, in dissertations on philosophy or taste : and Con- greve would be able to derive no better hints from the conversations of our toilettes or drawing- rooms, for the exquisite raillery or poignant re- partee of his dialogues, than from a deliberation of the Royal Society. In the same manner^ the extreme simplicity and graceful uniformity of mo- dern dress, however favourable to the arts, has certainly stript Comedy of one of its richest orna- ox MODERN COMEDY. 53 ments and most expressive symboJo. The sweep- ing pall and buskin, and nodding plume, were never more serviceable to Tragedy, than the enor- mous hoops and stiff stays worn by the belles of former days were to the intrigues of Comedy. They assisted wonderfully in heightening the mys- teries of the passion, and adding to the intricacy of the plot. Wycherley and Vanbrugh could not have spared the dresses of Vandyke. These strange fancy-dresses, perverse disguises, and counterfeit shapes, gave an agreeable scope to the imagina- tion. " That sevenfold fence" was a sort of foil to the lusciousness of the dialogue, and a barrier against the sly encroachments of double entendre. Tlie greedy eye and bold hand of indiscretion were repressed, which gave a greater licence to the tongue. The senses were not to be gratified in an instant. Love was entangled in the folds of the su'elliu}; handkerchief, and the desires might wander for ever round the circumference of a quilt- ed petticoat, or find a rich lodging in the flowers tA' a daina.-k stomaclur. 'inhere was room for years of patient contrivance, for a thousand thoughts, scheIne^, conjectures, hopes, fears, and wi-hes. 'Jlicrc seemed no end of difficulties and delays ; to overcome so many obstacles \^iis the ^\'ork of a^jc;. A mistress was an an- 54! ON ArODERN COMEDY. gel concealed behind whalebone, flounces, and brocade. What an undertaking to penetrate through the disguise ! What an impulse must it give to the blood, what a keenness to the inven- tion, what a volubility to the tongue ! " Mr Smirk, you are a brisk man," was then the most signifi- cant commendation. But now-a-days A woman can be but undressed ! The same account might be extended to Tra- gedy. Aristotle has long since said, that Tragedy purifies the mind by terror and pity ; that is, sub- stitutes an artificial and intellectual interest for real passion. Tragedy, like Comedy, must there- fore defeat itself; for its patterns must be drawn from the living models within the breast, from feeling or from observation ; and the materials of Tragedy cannot be found among a people, who are the habitual spectators of Tragedy, whose in- terests and passions are not their own, but ideal, re- mote, sentimental, and abstracted. It is for this rea- son chiefly, we conceive, that the highest efforts of the Tragic Muse are in general the earliest ; where the strong impulses of nature are not lost in the refinements and glosses of art ; where the writers themselves, and those whom they saw about them, had " warm hearts of flesh and blood beating in their bosoms, and were not embowelled of their OS MODERN COMEDY. 55 natural entrails, and stuffed with paltry blurted sheets of paper." Shakspeare, with all his genius, could not have written as he did, if he had lived in the present times. Nature would not have pre- sented itself to him in the same freshness and vi- gour ; he must have seen it through all the refrac- tions of successive dulness, and his powers would have languished in the dense atmosphere of logic and criticism. " Men's minds," he somewhere says, " are parcel of their fortunes ;" and his age was necessary to him. It was this which enabled him to grapple at once with nature, and which stamped his characters with her image and super- *>cription, W. H. No. VIII. ON MK KEAN's I ago. We certainly think Mr Kcan's performance of the part of lago one of the most extraordinary ex. hibitions on the stage. There is no one within our remembrance who has so completely foiled the critics as this celebrated actor : one sagacious person imagines that he must perform a part in a S6 ON MR KEy\N S lAGO. certain manner, another virtuoso chalks out a different path for him ; and when the time comes, he does the whole off in a way that neither of tliem had the least conception of, and which both of them are therefore very ready to condemn as en- tirely wrong. It was ever the trick of genius to be thus. We confess that Mr Kean has thrown us out more than once. For instance, we are very much inclined to adopt the opinion of a con- temporary critic, that his Richard is not gay enough, and that his lago is not grave enough. This he may perhaps conceive to be the mere ca- price of idle criticism ; but we will try to give our reasons, and shall leave them to Mr Kean's better judgment. It is to be remembered, then, that Richard was a princely villain, borne along in a sort of triumphal car of royal state, buoyed up with the hopes and privileges of his birth, re- posmg even on the sanctity of religion, trampling on his devoted victims without remorse, and who looked out and laughed from the high watch-tow- er of his confidence and his expectations on the desolation and misery he had caused around him. He held on his way, unquestioned, " hedged ia with the divinity of kings," amenable to no tribu- nal, and abusing his power i7i contempt of mankind. But as for lago, w;e conceive differently of him. ON MR kean's iauo. 57 He had not the same natural advantages.- He was a mere adventm-er in mischief, a pains-taking plodding knave, without patent or pedigree, who was obliged to work his up-hill way by wit, not by will, and to be the founder of his own fortune. He was, if we may be allowed a vulgar allusion, a sort of prototype of modern Jacobinism, who thought that talents ought to decide the place, a man of *' morbid sensibility," (in the fashion- able phrase,) full of distrust, of hatred, of anxious and corroding thoughts, and who, though he might assume a temporary superiority over others by su- perior adroitness, and pride himself in his skill, coidd not be supposed to assume it as a matter of course, as if he had been entitled to it from his birth. We do not here mean to enter into the characters of the two men, but something must be allowed to the difference of their situations. Tliere might be the same insensibility in both as to the end in view, but there could not well be t!ie same security as to the success of the means. lago had to pass through a different ordeal : he had no appliances and means to boot ; no royal road to the completion of his tragedy. His pre- tensions were not backed by authority ; they were not baptized at the font ; they were not holy-water ])roof. He had the whole to answer for in his 4 5& ON MR KEAn's IAGO. own person, and could not shift the responsihiiity to the heads of others. Mr Kean's Richard was, therefore, we think, deficient in something of that regal jollity and reeling triumph of success which the part would bear ; but this we can easily ac- count for, because it is the traditional common- place idea of the character, that he is to " play the dog to bite and snarl." The extreme unconcern and laboured levity of his lago, on the contrary, is a refinement and original device of the actor's own mind, and therefore deserves consideration. The character of Ingo, in fact, belongs to a class of characters common to Shakspeare, and at the same time peculiar to him, namel}', that of great intellectual activity, accompanied with a total want of moral principle, and therefore displaying itself at the constant expence of others, making use of reason as a pander to will employing its ingenuity and its resources to palliate its own crimes, antl aggravate the faults of others, and seek- ing to confound the practical distinctions of right and wrong, by referring them to some overstrained standard of speculative refinement. Some per- sons, more nice than wise, have thought the whole of the character of lago unnatural. Shakspeare, who was quite as good a philosopher as he was a poet, thought otherwise. He knew that tlie love ON MR KEAn's IAGO. 59 of power, which is another name for the love of mischief, was natural to man. He would know this as well or better than if it had been demon- strated to him by a logical diagram, merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt, or kill flies for sport. We might ask those who think the cha- racter of lago not natural, why they go to see it performed, but from the interest it excites, the sharper edge which it sets on their curiosity and imagination ? Why do we go to see tragedies in ge- neral ? Why do we always read the accounts in the newspapers of dreadful fires and shocking murders, but for the same reason ? Why do so many persons frequent executions and trials, or why do the lower classes almost universally take delight in barbarous sports and cruelty to animals, but because there is a natural tendency in the mind to strong excitement, a desire to have its faculties roused and stimulated to tlic utmost ? Whenever this principle is not under the restraint of humanity, or the sense of moral obligation, there are no excesses to which it will not of itself give rise, without the assistance of any other motive, either of passion or self-interest. lago is only an extreme instance of the kind ; that is, of diseased intellectual activity, with an almost perfect indif- ference to moral good or evil, or rather with a pre- 6"(T ON MR kean's iago. ference of the latter, because it falls more in with his favourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts, and scope to his actions. Be it observed, too, (for the sake of those who are for squaring all human actions by the maxims of Rochefoucault,) that he is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fate as to that of others ; that he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtful advantage : and is himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion an in- corrigible love of mischief an insatiable craving after action of the most difficult and dangerous kind. Our "Ancient" is a philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills, has more point in it than an alliteration or an antithesis ; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the heart of a flea in an air-pump ; w ho plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his understanding, and stabs men in the dark to prevent ounii. Now this, though it be sport, 3'et it is dreadful sport. There is no room for trifling and indifference, nor scarce- ly for the appearance of it ; the very object of his whole plot is to keep his faculties stretched on the rack, in a state of watch and ward, in a sort of breathless sui^pense, without a moment's interval of repose. He has a desperate stake to play for, like a man who fences with poisoned X)N MR KEAN S lAGO. 61 weapons, and has business enough on his hands to call for the whole sfock of his sober circumspec- tion, his dark duplicity, and insidious gravity. He resembles a man who sits down to plaj^ at chess, for the sake of the difficulty and complication of the game, and who immediately becomes absorbed in it. His amusements, if they are amusements, are severe and saturnine even his wit blisters. His gaiety arises from the success of his treach- ery ; his ease from the sense of the torture he has inflicted on others. Even, if other circumstances permitted it, the part he has to play with Othello requires that he should assume the most serious concern, and something of the plausibility of a confessor. " His cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o* Bedlam." He is repeat- edly called " honest lago," which looks as if there were something suspicious in his appearance, which admitted a different construction. The tone which he adopts in the scenes with Roderi- go, Dcsdcinona, and Cassia, is only a relaxation from the mure arduous business of the play. Yet there is in all his conversation an inveterate misan- thropy, alicentious keenness of perception, which is always sagacious of evil, and snuffs up the tainted scent of its cjuarry with rancorous delight. An exuberance of spleen is the essence of the charac- SQ on MR KEAN's IAGO. ter. The view which we have here taken of the subject ( if at all correct) will not therefore jus- tify the extreme alteration which Mr Kean has in- troduced into the part. Actors in general have been struck only with the wickedness of the cha- racter, and have exhibited an assassin going to the place of execution. INIr Kean has abstracted the wit of the character, and makes Ingo appear throughout an excellent good fellow, and lively bottle-companion. But though we do not wish him to be represented as a monster, or fiend, we see no reason why he should instantly be converted into a pattern of comic gaiety and good humour. The light which illumines the character should rather resemble the flashes of lightning in the mirky sky, which make the darkness more terrible. Mr Kean's lago is, we suspect, too much in the sun. His manner of acting the part would have suited better with the character of Edmund in King Lear, who, though in other respects much the same, has a spice of gallantry in his constitu- tion, and has the favour and countenance of the ladies, which always gives a man the smug appear- ance of a bridegroom ! \V. H. ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 65 No. IX. ON THE r.OVE OF THE COUNTRY. To the Editor of the Round Table. Sir, I DO not know that any one has ever ex- plained satisifactorily the true source of our attach- ment to natural objects, or of that soothing emo- tion which the sight of the country hardly ever fails to infuse into the mind. Some persons have ascribed this feeling to the natural beauty of the objects themselves, others to the freedom from care, the silence and tranquillity which scenes of retirement afford others to the healthy and in- nocent employments of a country life others to the simplicity of country manners and others to different causes ; but none to the right one. All these causes may, I believe, have a share in pro- ducing this feeling; but there is another more general principle, which has been left untouch- ed, and which I shall here explain, endeavour- ing to be as little sentimental as the subject will admit. Rousseau, in his Confessions, (the most valuable of all his works,) relates, that when he took 64 ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. possession of his room at Annecy, at the house of his beloved mistress and friend, he found that he could see " a little spot of green" from his win- dow, which endeared his situation the more to him, because, he says, it was the first time he had had this object constantly before him since he left Boissy, the place where he was at school when a child.* Some such feeling as that here describ- ed will be found lurking at the bottom of all our attachments of this sort. Were it not for the re- collections habitually associated with them, natural objects could not interest the mind in the manner they do. No doubt, the sky is beautiful ; the clouds sail majestically along its bosom ; the sun is cheering ; there is something exquisitely grace- ful in the manner in which a plant or tree puts forth its branches ; the motion with which they bend and tremble in the evening breeze is soft and lovely ; there is music in the babbling of a brook; the view from the top of a mountain is full of grandeur ; nor can we behold the ocean with indifference. .Or, as the Minstrel sweetly sings Pope also declares that he liail a particular regard for an old post which stood in ijie court-yard before the hoiise wliere he was brought up. ON' THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 65 " Oil how can'sl thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her votary yields ! Tlie warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fierds ; AH that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even. All that llie mountain's sheltering bosom shields. And all the dread magnificence of heaven. Oil how can'st thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven !" It is not, however, the beautiful and magnificent alone that we admire in Nature ; the most insigni- ficant and rudest objects are often found connect- ed with the strongest emotions ; we become at- tached to the most common and familiar images as to the face of a friend whom we have long known, and from whom we have received many benefits. It is because natural objects have been associated with the sports of our childhood, with air and exercise, with our feelings in solitude, when the mind takes the strongest hold of things, and clings with the fondest interest to whatever strikes its attention ; with change of place, the pursui.' of new scenes, and thoughts of distant friends ; it is because they have surrounded us in almost all situations, in joy and in sorrow, in pleasure and in pain ; because they have been one chief source and nourishment of our feelings^ VOL. I, F. 66 OV THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRYi and a part of our being, that we love them as we do ourselves. There is. generally speaking, the same founda- tion for our love of Nature as for all our habitual attachments, namely, association of ideas. But this is not all. That which distinguishes this at- tachment from others is the transferable nature of our feelings with respect to physical objects ; the associations connected with any one object ex- tending to the whole class. My having been at- tached to any particular person does not make me feel the same attachment to the next person I may chance to meet ; but, if I have once asso- ciated strong feelings of delight with the objects of natural scenery, the tie becomes indissoluble, and I shall ever after feel the same attachment to other objects of the same sort. I remember when I was abroad, the trees, and grass, and wet leaves, rustling in the walks of the Thuilleries, seemed to be as much English, to be as much the same trees and grass, that I had always been used to, as the sun shining over my head was the same sun which I saw in England ; the faces only were foreign to me. Whence comes this difference ? It arises from our always imperceptibly connecting the idea of the Individual with man, and only the idea of the class with natural objects. In the one case, 1 on THE LOVE OF THE COUXTRY. 6? the external appearance or physical structure is tlie least thing to be attended to ; in the other, it is every thing. The springs that move the human form, and make it friendly or adverse to me, lie hid within it. There is an infinity of motives, passions, and ideas, contained in that narrow compass, of which I know nothing, and in which I have no share. Each individual is a world to himself, governed by a thousand contradictory and wayward impulses. I can, therefore, make no inference from one individual to another ; nor can my habitual sentiments, with respect to any individual, extend beyond himself to others. But it is otherwise with respect to Nature. There is neither hypocrisy, caprice, nor mental reservation in her favours. Our inter- course with her is not liable to accident or change, interruption or disappointment. She smiles on us still the same. Thus, to give an obvious instance, if I have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled into a deej) repose by the sound of a l)rook running at its feet, I am sure that wherever I can find a tree and a brook, I can en- joy the same pleasure again. Hence, when I imagine these objects, I can easily form a mystic personification of the friendly power that inhabits them, Dryad or Naiad, offering its cool fountain 68 ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. or its tempting shade. Hence the origin of the Grecian mythology. All objects of the same kind being the same, not only in their appearance, but in their practical uses, we habitually confound them together under the same general idea ; and, whatever fondness we may have conceived for one, is immediately placed to the common account. The most opposite kinds and remote trains of feel- ing gradually go to enrich the same sentiment ; and in our love of Nature, there is all the force of individual attachment, combined with the most airy abstraction. It is this circumstance which gives that refinement, expansion, and wild interest to feelings of this sort, when strongly excited, which every one must have experienced who is a true lover of Nature. The sight of the setting sun does not affect me so much from the beauty of the object itself, from the glory kindled through the glowing skies, the rich broken columns of light, or the dying streaks of day, as that it indis- tinctly recals to me numberless thoughts and feelings with which, through many a year and season, I have watched his bright descent in the warm summer evenings, or beheld him struggling to cast a " farewel sweet" through the thick clouds of winter. I love to see the trees first co- vered with leaves in the spring, the primroses ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 69 peeping out from some sheltered bank, and the innocent lambs running races on the soft green turf; because, at that birth-time of Nature, I have always felt sweet hopes and happy wishes which have not been fulfilled ! The dry reeds rustling on the side of a stream, the woods swept by the loud blast, the dark massy foliage of autumn, the grey trunks and naked branches of the trees in winter, the sequestered copse and wide extended heath, the warm sunny showers, and December snows, have all charms for me ; there is no ob- ject, however trifling or rude, that has not, in some mood or other, found the way to my heart ; and I might say, in the words of the poet, " To ino tlie meanest flower that blows can give 'I'iiou'.'hts tliut do often lie too deep for tears." Thus Nature is a kind of universal home, and every object it presents to us an old acquaintance with unaltcreil looks. " Nature did ne'iT betray 1 lii^ Ik art lliat lov'd her, l)ut through all the years or this our life, it is. her piivilef^e To lead t'loin joy to joy." l'"or there is that consent and mutual harmony ;inioi)g all her works, one undivided spirit pervad- 70 ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTKY. ing them throughout, that, if we have once knit ourselves in hearty fellowship to any of them, they will never afterwards appear as strangers to us, but, which ever way we turn, we shall find a se- cret power to have gone out before us, moulding them into such shapes as fancy loves, informing them with life and sympathy, bidding them put on their festive looks and gayest attire at our ap- proach, and to pour all their sweets and choicest treasures at our feet. For him, then, who has well acquainted himself with Nature's works, she wears always one face, and speaks the same w ell- known language, striking on the heart, amidst un- quiet thoughts and the tumult of the world, like the music of one's native tongue heard in some far off country. We do not connect the same feelings with the works of art as with those of nature, because wc refer them to man, and associate with them the separate interests and passions which we know belong to those who are the authors or possessors of them. Nevertheless, there are some such ob- jects, as a cottage, or a village church, which ex- cite in us the same sensations as the sight of na- ture, and which are, indeed, almost always includ- ed in descriptions of natural scenery. ON THE LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. fl ^ Or from tiie luouiitain's sides View wilils aud swelling floods, And hami'. Is brown, and diiu-discover'd spires, And hear Ihcir simple bell." Which is in part, no doubt, because they are sur- rounded with natural objects, and, in a populous country, inseparable from them ; and also be- cause the human interest they excite relates to manners and feelings which are simple, common, such as all can enter into, and which, therefore, always produce a pleasing effect upon the mind. A. No. X. ON POSTHUMOUS FAME, IVJielhcr Shakspcare xkus injluoicedhij (i love (>f it? 1 1 lias been much disputed whether Shakspeare was actuated by thejove of fame, tliough the ques- tion lias been thought by others not to admit of any doubt, on tlie ground that it was impos- sible for aiiv man of great genius to be without this fueling. It was supposed, tliat that innnor- tality, which was the natural injieritance of men 72 ON POSTHUMOUS J/AME. of powerful genius, must be ever present to their minds, as the reward, the object, and the animating spring, of all their efforts. This conclusion does not appear to be well founded, and that for the following reasons : First, The love of fame is the offspring of taste, rather than of genius. The love of fame implies a knowledge of its existence. The men of the greatest genius, whether poets or philosophers, who lived in the first ages of society, only just emerging from the gloom of ignorance and bar- barism, could not be supposed to have much idea of those long trails of lasting glory which they were to leave behind them, and of which there were as yet no examples. But, after such men, inspired by the love of truth and nature, have struck out those lights which become the gaze and admiration of after times, when those who succeed in distant generations read with wonder- ing rapture the works which the bards and sages of antiquity have bequeathed to them, when they contemplate the imperishable power of intel- lect which sur\ ives the stroke of death and the re- volutions of empire, it is then that the passion for fame becomes an habitual feeling in the mind, and that men naturally wish to excite the same sentiments of admiration in others which they ON POSTHUMOUS FAME. 7S themselves have felt, and to transmit their names with the same honours to posterity. It is from the fond enthusiastic veneration with which we recal the names of the celebrated men of past times, and the idolatrous worship we pay to their memories, that we learn what a delicious thing fame is, and would willingly make any eftbrts or sacrifices to be thought of in the same way. It is in the true spirit of this feeling that a modern writer exclaims " Blessini.'s bo will) tliem, and eternal praise. The pucts who on eailii have made us heirs Of truth and pure dehglit in deathless iays ! Oh ! niiglit my name be nmnbcr'd amnnii; llieirs, Then gladly would I end my mortal days !" The love of fame is a species of enmlation ; or, in other words, tlie love of admiration is in pro- portion to the admiration with which the works of the highest genius have inspired us, to the delight we have received from their liabitual contempla- tion, and to our participation in the general en- thusiasm with uliich they have been regarded by mankind. Thus there is little of this feeling dis- coveral)le in the Greek writers, whose ideas of postiuimous fame seem to have been confined to the glory of heroic actions; whereas the Roman 74 OS POSTHUMOUS FAME. poets and orators, stimulated by the reputation which their predecessors had acquired, and hav- ing those exquisite models constantly before their eyes, are full of it. So Milton, whose capacious mind was embued with the rich stores of sacred and of classic lore, to whom learning opened her inmost page, and whose eye seemed to be ever bent back to the great models of antiquity, was, it is evident, deeply impressed with a feeling of lofty emulation, and a strong desire to produce some work of lasting and equal reputation : " Nor sometimes forget Those other two, eqiiall'd with me in fate. So were I equall'd witli tliem in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, And Tiiesias and Phiiieus prophets old." Spenser, who was a man of learning, had a high opinion of the regard due to " famous poets' wit ;" and Lord Bacon, whose vanity is as well known as his excessive adulation of that of others, asks, in a tone of proud exultation, " Have not the poems of Homer lasted five-and-twenty hundred years, and not a syllable of them is lost?" Chaucer seems to have derived his notions of fame more See also the passage in his prose works relating to the first design of Paradise Lost, ON POSTHUMOUS FAME. 7o immediately from the reputation acquired by the Italian poets, his contemporaries, which had at that time spread itself over Europe ; while the latter, who were the first to unlock the springs of ancient learning, and who slaked their thirst of knowledge at that pure fountain-head, would na- turally imbibe the same feeling from its highest source. Thus, Dante has conveyed the finest image that can perhaps be conceived of the power of this principle over the human mind, when he describes the heroes and celebrated men of anti- quity as " serene and smiling," though in the shades of death, " Because on earth their names In fame's eternal volume shine for aye." But it is not so in Shakspeare. There is scarce- ly the slightest trace of any sucii feeling in his writings, nor any appearance of anxiety for their fate, or of a desire to perfect them, or make them worthy of that immortality to which they were destined. And tliis indifference may be account- ed for from tlie very circumstance, that he was almost entirely a man of genius, or that in him this faculty l)ore sway over every other : he was either not intimately conversant with the produc- tions of the great writers who had gone before 76 ON POSTHUMOUS FAME. him, or at least was not much indebted to them : he revelled in the world of observation and of fancy ; and perhaps his mind was of too prolific and ac- tive a kind to dwell with intense and continued interest on the images of beauty or of grandeur presented to it by the genius of others. He seemed scarcely to have an individual existence of his own, but to borrow that of others at will, and to pass successively through ' every variety of untried being," to be now Hamlet, now Othel- lo, now Lear, now Fahtajf, now Ariel. In the mingled interests and feelings belonging to this Mide range of imaginary reality, in the tumult and rapid transitions of this waking dream, the author could not easily find time to think of him- self, nor wish to embody that personal identity in idle reputation after death, of which he was so little tenacious while living. To feel a strong de- sire that others should think highly of us, it is, in general, necessary that we should think highly of ourselves. There is something of egotism, and even pedantry, in this sentiment ; and there is no author who was so little tinctured with these as Shakspearc. The passion for fame, like other passions, requires an exclusive and exaggerated ,'Khniration of its object, and attaches more conse- rjitence to literary attainments and pursuits than ON POSTHUMOUS FAME. 77 f Iiey really possess. Shakspeare had looked too much abroad into the world, and his views of things were of too universal and comprehensive a cast, not to have taught him to estimate the importance of posthumous fame, according to its true value and relative proportions. Though he might have some conception of his future fame, he could not but feel the contrast between that and his actual situation ; and, indeed, he complains bitterly of the latter in one of his sonnets. * He would perhaps think, that, to be the idol of pos- terity, when we are no more, was hardly a full compensation for being the object of the glance and scorn of fools while we are living ; and that, in truth, this universal fame so much vaunted, was a vague phantom of blind enthusiasm ; for what is the amount even of Shakspeare's fame ? * " Oil ! for my sake do yoii with foilime cliidc, 'i'lie guilty jrodd.'ss of my Iianiilrss deeds, Tiiat (lid liol better lor my lite provide, Tli;i!i ])\d)lie means wliieli piihlie mar.nirs breeds. 'J'lience comes it tlia! my ii;ime receives a biaiul, And almost Ihrnee my nature is subdued 'I'o what it woiks in, like the dyer's hand." At another lime, we liii'l Mm " desiring this man'.s art, and ti.at man's scope;" so little was Shakspeare, as far as \vc ear, h tin, eiiumomxd of liimseU! 78 OS POSTHUMOUS FAME. That, in that very country which boasts his ge- nius and his birth, perhaps not one person in ten has ever heard of his name, or read a syllable of his writings ! We will add another observation connected with this subject, which is, that men of the greatest genius produce their works with too much facility (and, as it were, spontaneously) to require the love of fame as a stimulus to their exertions, or to make them seem deserving of the admiration of mankind as their reward. It is, indeed, one characteristic mark of the highest class of excel- lence to appear to come naturally from the mind of the author, without consciousness or effort. The work seems like inspiration to be the gift of some God, or of the Muse. But it is the sense of difficulty which enhances the admiration of power, both in ourselves and in others. Hence it is that there is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the Imman mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, pro- bably did not know that he had done any thing extraordinary. Z. ON HOGARTH S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 79 No. XI. ON HOGARTh's MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. The superiority of the pictures of Hogarth, which we have seen in the late collection at the British Institution, to the common prints, is con- fined chiefly to the Marriage a-la-Mode. We shall attempt to illustrate a few of their most striking excellencies, more particularly with refer- ence to the expression of character. Their merits are indeed so prominent, and have been so often discussed, that it may be thought difficult to point out any new beauties ; but they contain so much truth of nature, they present the objects to the eye under so many aspects and bearings, admit of so many constructions, and are so preg- nant with meaning, that the subject is in a man- ner inexhaustible. Boccacio, the most refined and sentimental of all the novel-writers, has been stigmatised as a mere inventor of licentious tales, because readers in ge- neral have only seized on those things in his works which were suited to their own taste, and have re- fieeted their own grossness back upon the writer. So it has happened that the majority of critics having been most struck with the strong and de- 80 ON nOGARTIl's MARUIAGE A-LA-MODE. cided expression in Hogarth, the extreme delica- cy and subtle gradations of character in his pic- tures have almost entirely escaped them. In the first picture of the Marriage a-Ia-Mode, the three figures of the young Nobleman, his intended Bride, and her inamorato, the Lawyer, shew how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression. They have, however, been less noticed than the other figures, which tell a plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. Nothing can be more finely managed than the dif- ferences of character in these delicate personages. The Beau sits smiling at the looking-glass, with a reflected simper of self-admiration, and a languish- ing inclination of the head, while the rest of his body is perked up on his high heels with a certain air of tip-toe elevation. He is the Narcissus of the reign of George II. whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and patches, divide his self-love unequally with his own person, the true Sir Plume of his day ; " Of aniber-lidded snuff-box justly vain, And tlie nice conduct of a clouded cane." There is the same felicity in the figure and atti- tude of the Bride, courted by the Lawyer. There is the utmost flexibility, and yielding softness in 6 ON noQARTH S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 81 her whole person, a listless languor and tremulous suspense in the expression of her face. It is the precise look and air which Pope has given to his favourite Belinda, just at the moment of the Rape of the Lock. The heightened glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened soul of love in the same face, in the assignation scene hefore the masque- rade, form a fine and instructive contrast to the delicacy, timidity, and coy reluctance expressed in the first. The Lawyer in hoth pictures is inuch the same perhaps too much so though even this urnnoved, unaltered appearance may be de- signed as characteristic. In both cases he has " a person, and a smooth dispose, framed to make women false." He is full of that easy good-hu- mour and easy good opinion of himself, with which the sex are delighted. There is not a sharp angle in his face to obstruct his success, or give a hint of doubt or difficulty. Ilis whole as- nect is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, liaj)py witliout the least ex|)enc'e of thought, care- less and inviting ; and conveys a perfect idea of the uninterrupted glide and pleasing nun-mur of the soft [)c;rio(ls tl);it How from his tongue. Tlif( xprL'.-<-ii)iiortlK' Hride in the .Morning Scene is the most highly seasoned, and at the same time the most \ulgar in the series. The figure, face, VOJ,. f. I' 82 ON IIOGARTIl's MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. and attitude of the Husband, are inimitable. Ho- garth has with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the husband with the yello\T whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece be- hind him, in such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendour of the view of the inner-room in this picture is probably not exceeded by any of the productions of the Flemish School. The Young Girl in the third picture, who is re- presented as the victim of fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the Artist's chef-d ceiivrcs. The exquisite delicacy of ihe painting is only sur- passed by the felicity and subtlety of the concep- tion. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her per- son, and the hardened indifference of her charac- ter. The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, the premature suppression of youthful sensibility, the doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which seems to have no other feeling but a sickly sense of pain, shew the deepest insight into human na- ture, and into the eft'ects of those refinements in depravity, by which it has been good-naturedly as- serted, that '' vice loses half its evil in losing all its grossness." The story of this picture is in some parts very obscure and enigmatical. It is ONT HOGARTH S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 8S certain that the Nobleman is not looking straitfor- ward to the Quack, whom he seems to have been threatening with his cane, but that his eyes are turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to the Procuress. The commanding attitude and size of this woman, the swelling circumference of her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock's feathers, the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, which hardly needs the com- ment of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose, are all admirable in themselves, and still more so, as they are opposed to the mute insensibility, the ele- gant negligence of the dress, and the childish fi- gure of the girl, who is supposed to be her prote- gee. As for the Quack, there can be no doubt entertained about him. His face seems as if it were composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos and confusion of the most gross, ig- norant, and impudent empiricism. The gradations of ridiculous affectation in tlie Music Scene are finely imagined and preserved. Tlie preposterous, overstrained admiration of the Lady of Quality, the sentimental, insipid, patient dflight of the Man, with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea, the pert, smirking, conceited, lialf-distorted ap])robation of the figure next to him, the transition to the total insensibility of the 84? ON HOGARTH S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the Negro-boy at the rapture of his Mistress, form a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-coloured hair of the female Virtuoso throw an additional light on the character. This is lost in the; print. The continuing the red colour of the hair into the back of the chair has been pointed out as one of those instances of alli- teration in colouring, of which these pictures are every where full. The gross bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well reheved by the hard features of the instrumental performer behind him, which might be carved of wood. The Negro- boy, holding the chocolate, both in expression, colour, and execution, is a masterpiece. The gay, lively derision of the other Negro-boy, play- ing with the Acteon, is an ingenious contrast to the profound amazement of the first. Some ac- count has already been given of the two lovers in this picture. It is curious to observe the infinite activity of mind which the artist displays on every occasion. An instance occurs in the present pic- ture. He has so contrived the papers in the hair of the Bride, as to make them look almost like a wreathe of half-blown flowers, while those which he has placed on the head of the musical Ama- teur very much resemble a cheveux-de-fris of horns, ON' Hogarth's marriage a-la-mode. 85 which adorn and fortify the lack-lustre expi'ession and mild resignation of the face beneath. The Night Scene is inferior to the rest of the series. The attitude of the Husband, who is just killed, is one in uliich it would be impossible for him to stand or even to fall. It resembles the loose pasteboard figures they make for children. The characters in the last picture, in which the Wife dies, arc all masterly. We would particu- larly refer to the captious, ])etulant self-sufficien- cy of the Apothecary, whose face and figure are constructed on exact piiysiognomical principles, and to the fine example of passive obedience and non-resistance in the Servant, whom he is tak- ing to task, and whose coat of green and yellow livery is as long and melanciioly as his face. The disconsolate look, tlie haggard eyes, the open mouth, the comb sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped teeth, which, as it were, hitch in an answer, every thing about him denotes the utmost perplexi- ty and dismay. The harmony and gradations of colour in tliis picture are unilbrmly preserved with tlic greatest nicety, and are well worthy the atten- tion of the artist. 86 ON Hogarth's marriage a-la-mode. No. XII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. It has been observed, that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unHke any other representations of the same kind of subjects that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to them- selves. It maybe worthwhile to consider in what this general distinction consists. In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, Historical pictures ; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones ought to be re- garded as an epic prose-poem, because it contain- ed a regular developement of fable, manners, cha- racter, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of Epic I'ictures, than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and tlieir characters by varied expres- sion. Every thing in his pictures has life and mo- tion in it. Not only docs the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is ON' HOGARTH S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 8? put into full play ; the exact feeling of the mo- ment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvass for ever. The expression is always taken cti 2Jassant, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. Besides the excellence of each individual face, the reflection of the expression from face to face, the contrast and struggle of particular motives and feelings in the different actors in the scene, as of anger, con- tempt, laughter, compassion, are conveyed in the happiest and most lively manner. His figures are not like the back-ground on which they are paint- ed : even the pictures on the wall have a pecu- liar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them vvith perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from all otiicrs of the same kind, that they are ctjually remote from caricature, and from mere still lile. It of course happens in subjects from conuiion life, that the painter can procure real mo- dels, and lu; can get them to sit as long as he pleases, Jlence, in general, tiio>e attitudes and expressions have been chosen which could be as- 88 ox Hogarth's marriage a-la-mode. sumed the longest; and inimitatingwhich,tlieartist, by taking pains and time, might produce almost as complete fac-similes as he could of a flower or a flower-pot, of a damask curtain, or a china vase. The copy was as perfect and as uninteresting in the one case as in the other. On the contrary, sub- jects of drollery and ridicule affording frequent ex- amples of strange deformity and peculiarity of features, these have been eagerly seized by an- other class of artists, vv'ho, without subjecting themselves to the laborious drudgery of the Dutch School and their imitators, have produced our po- pular caricatures, by rudely copying or exaggerat- ing the casual irregularities of the human counte- nance. Hogarth has equally avoided the faults of both these styles, the insipid tameness of the one, and the gross vulgarity of the otlier, so as to give to the productions of his pencil equal solidity and effect. For his faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it : they take the very widest latitude, and yet we always see the links which bind them to nature : they bear all the marks and carry all the conviction of reality with them, as if we hud seen the actual faces for the first time, from the precision, consistency, and good sense, with whicli liiC whole and every part is made out. OK Hogarth's MAnniACE a-la-mode. 89 They exhibit the most uncommon features with the most uncommon expressions, but which are yet as famihar and intelhgible as possible, because with all the boldness they have all the truth of nature. Hogarth has left beliind him as many of these me- morable faces, in their memorable moments, as per- liaps most of us remember hi the course of our lives, and has thus doubled the quantity of our ob- servation. We have, in a former paper, attempted to jioint out tlie I'und of obsurvatlon, physical and moral, contained in one set of these pictures, the Mar- r/n^c ii-/a-Mo(l('. 'J'he rest would furnish as many topics to descant upon, were the patience of the reader as inexhau.stible as the painter's invention. But as this is i\ot the case, we shall content our- selves with barely referring to some of those figures In the otiier pictures, which ajipear the most strik- ing, and which we see not only while we are look- ing at them, but whicii we have before us at all otiier times. lor instance, who having seen can casilv forget that excjuisite frost-piece of religion and morality, the anticpiated Prude in the Morn- ing Scene ; or that striking commentary on the potadcs their answer brings, Tliat not a blast was from his dungeon straj'd, Th(! air was calm, and on the level brine Kleek Panope with all her sistcis play'd." If tills is art, it is perfect art ; nor do we wish for any thing hetter. The measure of tlie verse, the very sound of the names, would almost pro- duce the effect here described. 'J'o ask the poet not to make use of such allusions as these, is to ask the painter not to dip in the colours of the rainbow, if he could.. In fact, it is the common cant of criticism to consider every allusion to the classics, and particularly iu a mind like Milton's, as pedantry and alf'ecfafion. Habit is a second nature ; and, in this sense, the pedantry (if it is to 96 ON Milton's lycidas. be called so) of the scholastic enthusiast, who Is constantly referring to images of which his mind is full, is as graceful as it is natural. It is not af- fectation in him to recur to ideas and modes of expression, with which he has the strongest asso- ciations, and in which he takes the greatest de- light. Milton was as conversant with the world of genius before him as with the world of nature about him ; the fables of the ancient mythology were as familiar to him as his dreams. To be a pedant, is to see neither the beauties of nature nor art. ^Miltiii saw both ; and he made use of the one only to adorn and give new interest to the other. He was a passionate admirer of nature ; and, in a single couplet of his, describing the moon, ' Like one llial iiud been led aslray 'llnongli tlic heaven's wide jialliless way," there is more intense observation, and intense feeling of nature, (as if he had gazed himself blind in looking at her,) than in twenty volumes of de- scriptive poetry. But he added to his own obser- vation of nature the splendid fictions of ancient genius, enshrined her in the mysteries of ancient religion, and celebrated her with the pomp of an- cient names. ON MILTON S LYCIDAS. 97 " Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought witli figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe. Oh ! who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge ? Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake." There is a wonderful correspondence in the rhythm of these lines to the ideas which they convey. This passage, which alludes- 4o the