PAGE

that might justify the encomiums passed upon them; as the following is one of the most memorable of Mr. Fox's speeches, I shall prefix to it a sort The speech of character, the best I can give, of this celebrated man.' referred to was on the War with France, delivered in 1794. Note. Craftily qualified. Othello, Act 11. Scene 3.

339. Whose sound, etc. King Lear, Act 1. Scene 1.

That is an automaton. In The Eloquence of the British Senate Hazlitt has the
following note to this passage: "I ought to beg pardon of the polite reader
for thus rudely contrasting these two celebrated men and leaders of parties
together. It has of late become more fashionable to consider them in the
light of the United Friends. But as I am no sign-painter, I hope I may be
excused for not adhering exactly to the costume of the times. This agreeable
idea might however, if skilfully executed, be improved into a very ap-
My Lord
propriate sign for the tap-room of the house of commons.
Howick the other day drew a pleasing picture of them shaking hands in
pretty and poetical. Happy, well
Elysium. It must be owned that this
assorted pair! Methinks I see you, bowing to one another, with repeated
assurances of friendship and esteem, but half believed, just like-lord
Grenville and lord Howick in the park! This was probably what his
lordship had in his mind at the time: but as our young orators generally
love to shew that they have read the classics, so perhaps his lordship was
willing to shew that he had not forgot them. It is pleasing to see great
men sweetening the cares of state with the flowers of poetical allusion;
condescending to turn with a benign countenance from the serious realities
of life, to the lighter scenes of fable and romance; still wandering, (as in
their boyish days) with Dido and Æneas, and taking an imaginary trip
from Downing Street to the Elysian Fields, and from the Elysian Fields
back again! After all, I do not know that it would be any disgrace to
Mr. Fox to associate with Mr. Pitt in the other world, if we recollect the
company he kept in this. Lord H-I believe, on the same occasion, quoted
Dryden, and compared the late duke of Brunswick to Darius. Really, his
lordship's researches in poetry are astonishing; they are almost as extensive
and profound as his knowledge of the affairs of Europe, or of the fate of
battles! There is some excuse, however, for this last mentioned quotation,
as though the passage quoted was by no means new in itself, yet the
particular application of it must certainly have been very new to his
lordship's mind, and one which the public might not have been disposed
to give him credit for without some positive evidence. To complete the
solemnity of the scene, nothing more was wanting but for the whole house
to have joined chorus in this affecting and well known specimen of elegiac
sadness, particularly as it had been already set to music, one would suppose
for this very purpose.'

Note 1.

Hazlitt refers to an article on Fox by William Godwin published in The Morning Chronicle, Nov. 22, 1806.

Note 2. John Upton published an edition of The Faerie Queen in 1758. Lord Shelburne, created Marquis of Lansdowne in 340. Lord Lansdown.

1784.

342. Jutting frieze, etc. Macbeth, Act 1. Scene 6.

344. With mighty wings, etc.

Paradise Lost, I. 20-2.

345. The dazzling fence of argument. Cf.

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.'

Comus, 11. 790-1.

PAGE

6

345. An honest man's the noblest work of God. Pope's Essay on Man, iv. 248. 346. What Burke said of him. In a speech on the Army Estimates (Feb. 9, 1790), in which he replied to Fox's eulogy of the French Revolution. See Works, Bohn, u. 273-4.

CHARACTER OF MR. PITT, 1806. See ante, pp. 14 et seq. and notes.

349. Note. The passage referred to is from Pitt's Speech on the Regency, delivered on January 16, 1789.

350. PITT AND BUONAPARTE. This essay by Coleridge is reprinted in Essays on His Own Times, vol. 11. pp. 319-329. The editor (Coleridge's daughter Sara, the wife of Henry Nelson Coleridge), referring to the essay, says (1. lxxxv. note), ""The character of Pitt" is given to my Father on the repeated testimony of Mr. Stuart, which indeed was scarcely needed to confirm the strong internal evidence of both style and matter.' See J. D. Campbell's Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 108.

356. AN EXAMINATION OF MR. MALTHUS'S DOCTRINES. From No. 14 (April 4, 1818) of The Yellow Dwarf. In these concluding papers Hazlitt repeats the substance of the more elaborate criticism which he had already published in 1807, under the title of A Reply to Malthus. See that work and Hazlitt's sketch of Malthus in The Spirit of the Age (vol. iv. of the present edition). 359. Major Torrens. Robert Torrens (1780-1864), who, after serving in the Royal Marines, retired on half-pay, and devoted himself to economical study.

361. This will never do. Perhaps this is a reference to the famous opening words of the Edinburgh Review article on Wordsworth's Excursion (xxiv. p. 1). The Edinburgh had defended Malthus.

ON THE ORIGINALITY OF MR. MALTHUS'S ESSAY. This essay does not seem to have been published in The Yellow Dwarf. 367. ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, ETC.

From Hazlitt's Reply to Malthus,

Letter III. See vol. iv. of the present edition. 371. 'What conjuration,' etc. Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. 373. These three bear record, etc. Cf. 1 John v. 7.

"Tis as easy as lying, etc. Hamlet, Act 11. Scene 2.

374. To this end,' etc. Malthus's Essay, etc. (2nd Ed. 1803), pp. 538-540. 375. Well answered by Mr. Cobbett. Cobbett addressed a letter 'To Parson Malthus' (Political Register, May 1819) beginning abruptly 'Parson.' 'No assemblage of words,' he says, 'can give an appropriate designation of you; and therefore, as being the single word which best suits the character of such a man, I call you Parson,' etc.

376. In a separate work. See his Reply to Malthus in vol. iv. of the present edition. 381. QUERIES RELating to the EssaAY ON POPULATION. No. 23 of The Round Table series in The Examiner (Oct. 29, 1815), which is in the form of a letter addressed to the President of the Round Table, and begins as follows:— 'Sir,-You some time ago inserted in your Paper [Round Table, No. 26, Feb. 15, 1815] a letter from A Mechanic, who seemed strangely puzzled by a learned friend of his, who thwarts him in all his notions, political, moral, domestic and economical, by interrogatories put to him out of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population. I do not know whether your Correspondent has got rid of his troublesome acquaintance; but if he has not, I think he will be able to do it by putting to him the following questions as to the merits of Mr. Malthus and his work, which I met with in the course of my reading this morning, and which it appears to me to be incumbent on the admirers of that gentleman to answer, Aye or No.'

383. Sicklied over, etc. Hamlet, Act 11. Scene 1.

PAGE

385. Neither married,' etc. 'Beware therefore, etc. 11. 2074 et seq.

St. Matthew xxii. 30.

Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Somnour's Tale,

ADVERTISEMENT, ETC., FROM

"THE ELOQUENCE OF THE BRITISH SENATE'

All the biographical and critical notes, introductory to the selected Speeches, are here reproduced, except (1) a few which consist merely of dates, and (2) the 'characters' of Chatham, Burke, Fox and Pitt. These were republished by Hazlitt in Political Essays, and will be found in the present reprint of that work (see ante, PP. 321-350). Where there are two notes on the same speaker, they have been printed together under the same heading. In cases where Hazlitt specially mentions a particular speech, a reference to that speech is given below. Hazlitt himself, in the Table of Contents, described the following as the 'principal biographical notices,' viz., in vol. 1., Cromwell, Whitlocke, Lord Belhaven, Mr. Pulteney, Lord Chesterfield, Sir John St. Aubin, and Sir Robert Walpole; and, in vol. 11., Lord Chatham, Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt.

"The things we know are neither rich nor rare.'

Pope, Prologue to the Satires, 171.

393. Sir Edward Coke. The speech selected by Hazlitt was delivered on a Motion for Supply, Aug. 5, 1625 (Parl. Hist. n. 11.). On a phrase of Coke's 'to petition the King rather for a logique than a rhetorique hand,' Hazlitt has the following note: "This mode of expression seems natural enough to any one who was familiar with Cicero's description of the difference between logic and rhetoric, and who knew that most of his hearers either were, or would be thought, equally learned. It was a convenient short-hand language to those who were hardly ever accustomed to think or speak but in classical allusions, and which no one could affect to misunderstand without first exposing his own ignorance :-it was a sort of word to the wise. So that its being abrupt and far-fetched would be a recommendation of it, and would even give it an air of simplicity with men of deep learning, as being more in the way of their habitual and favourite train of ideas. But this stile, which may be called the abstruse or pendantic, is soon exploded when knowledge becomes more generally diffused, and the pretension to it universal: when there are few persons who profess to be very learned, and none are contented to be thought entirely ignorant; when every one who can read is a critic; when the reputation of taste and good sense is not confined to an acquaintance with the Greek and Latin authors, and it is not thought necessary to a man's understanding an eloquent discourse, or even to his making one, that he should ever have read a definition either of logic or rhetoric.'

393. Mr. Burke's famous Bill. For the better security of the independence of Parliament and the economical reformation of the civil and other establishments. Hazlitt included in his selections Burke's great speech (Feb. 11, 1780) introducing the Bill.

PAGE

393. Sir Robert Cotton.
II. 14).

394. Dr. John Williams.
Hist., II. 39).

Sir Heneage Finch.

The speech was delivered on Aug. 6, 1825 Parl. Hist

Speech on opening Parliament, Feb. 26, 1626 (Pærl.

Speech on Feb. 6, 1626 (Parl. Hist., 11. 41).

Sir Dudley Carleton. Speech on May 12, 1626 (Parl. Hist., 11. 120).

395. Mr. Creskeld. Speech on the Detention of some Members of the House,
(Parl. Hist., 11. 240).

March 25, 1627

Sir Francis Rouse.
Sir John Elliott.
II. 380).

Speech on June 3, 1628 (Parl. Hist., II. 377).

Speech on Public Affairs, June 3, 1628 (Parl. Hist.,

Cobbett presumably.

A certain political writer.
Sir Benjamin Rudyard.
Hist., 11. 385).
Edmund Waller. The speech referred to in the first paragraph was a speech
on the Supply, April 22, 1640 (Parl. Hist., 11. 555); that referred to in
the second paragraph a speech praying for a mitigation of the sentence
passed upon him by Parliament, July 4, 1643 (Parl. Hist., 111. 140).
397. Dr. Joseph Hall. The speech which shews that 'passion makes men
eloquent' was a speech in defence of the Church and Clergy, 1641 (Parl.
Hist., 11.987).

Speech on the State of Religion, June 3, 1628 (Parl.

Bulstrode Whitlocke. The speech referred to in the second paragraph was
a speech on changing the old Law style, Feb. 1641 (Parl. Hist., 11. 1078).
398. William Lenthall. Speech on Nov. 13, 1646 (Parl. Hist., 111. 530).
Oliver Cromwell. Hazlitt gave the brief speech in the House of Commons on
Dec. 9, 1644, another small fragment, and Cromwell's speech dissolving
the second Protectorate Parliament (Feb. 4, 1658).

John Thurloe. Speech in vindication of the Bill to tax Royalists (1656).
399. Richard Cromwell. Speech on the Meeting of Parliament (1658).

Charles II. Speech on the second Meeting of Parliament, May 8, 1661
(Parl. Hist., Iv. 178).

Lord Bristol. Speech on the Test Act, March 15, 1672 (Parl. Hist.,
IV. 564).

400. Earl of Caernarvon. Speech on the impeachment of Lord Danby, Dec. 23,
1678 (Parl. Hist., IV. 1074).

Henry Booth. Speech on putting certain Justices out of commission (1681).
401. John, Lord Somers. Hazlitt gives the speeches of Somers, Lord Nottingham,
Sir George Treby and Sir Robert Howard on the Abdication of James II.
(1688).

In contempt of the people. See ante, note to p. 175.
402. Sir John Knight. Speech against the proposal for naturalising foreign pro-
testants, March 1694 (Parl. Hist., v. 851). Knight concluded his speech
with the motion 'that the serjeant be commanded to open the doors, and
let us first kick this Bill out of the house, and then foreigners out of the
kingdom.' Knight was member for Bristol 1692-1695, plotted for the
restoration of James and died in obscurity in 1718.

403.

'Metaphysical aid.' Macbeth, Act 1. Scene 5.
"Non bene,' etc. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 11. 846.
"Reason panders will.' Hamlet, Act 1. Scene 4.

The downright violence, etc. My downright violence and storm of fortunes."
Othello, Act 1. Scene 3.

Lord Belhaven. Speech in the Scottish Convention, against the Union,
printed in Appendix to Vol. vi. of Parl. Hist., p. cxlii.

PAGE

404. 'The melancholy madness,' etc. Junius, Letter vii.

405. George I. Speech on his accession.

Sir Thomas Hanmer. The first speech referred to was the Speaker's address to the Throne (1715), the second a speech on the Reduction of the Army (1717).

"Threads,' etc. Cowper, The Task, 111. 147.

Sir Richard Steele.

Speech on annual parliaments (1716).

406. The following speech. Speech on the Triennial Bill, March 13, 1734 (Parl. Hist., 1x. 471). Walpole having referred to some inconveniences of the democratical form of government, Hazlitt makes the following remarks in

a note :

'Sir Robert here, by entirely leaving out the consideration of the other parts of our constitution which are intended to operate as checks and correctives of the democratic part, very ingeniously models the house of commons according to his own wishes, and at the same time in such a manner as to answer the purposes of all the other parts, and in fact to render them unnecessary. It has always been pretended that the house of commons was but one branch of the legislative-the representative of the people; and that an antidote to any evils that might arise from this part of the system was wisely provided in the other branches, which were to represent property and power; but care has been taken to make sure of the remedy in the first instance, namely by inoculating the patient before the disease was caught, and making the house of commons itself never anything more than the representative of property and power.'

"The popular harangue,' etc. Cowper, The Task, iv. 31-32. 408. A niche in one of his satires. Moral Essays, 1. 174-209.

409. Earl of Strafford. Speech on the Mutiny Bill, Feb. 22, 1732 (Parl. Hist., VIII. 1008). Thomas Wentworth, third Earl of Strafford, ambassador extraordinary at the Hague during the critical years 1711-1714 (see Swift's History of the last four years of Queen Anne) was a great-nephew of 'the great lord Strafford.'

"The worse appear, etc. Paradise Lost, 11. 113-114.

410. To Heathcote's speech, which was on the Establishment of Excise Officers, Hazlitt has the following note: The introduction of the excise laws excited an immense ferment through the kingdom about this time. It was called by Pulteney, 'that monster, the Excise.' And Walpole had more difficulty in weathering the storm of opposition that rose on this occasion, than on any other. How tame are we grown! How familiar with that slavery and ruin, threatened us by so many succeeding prophets and politicians! We play with the bugbears, and handle them, and do not find that they hurt us. We look back and smile at the disproportionate resistance of our inexperienced forefathers to petty vexations and imaginary grievances, and are like the old horse in the fable, who wondered at the folly of the young horse, who refused even to be saddled, while he crouched patiently under the heaviest burthens.'

411. Mr. Campbell. Speech against a bill to prevent officers of Government from sitting in Parliament, commonly called the Place Bill, Feb. 26, 1734 (Parl. Hist., 1x. 367).

"'Twas mine,' etc. Othello, Act II. Scene 3.

Samuel Sandys. Speech in reply to Campbell. Sandys's principles' consisted of hostility to Walpole, after whose fall he became Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Sandys. In 1742 he opposed the introduction of his own Place Bill.

VOL. III.: 2 G

465