INTRODUCTORY NOTE WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830) was the son of a Unitarian minister. He went to Paris in his youth with the aim of becoming a painter, but gradually convinced himself that he could not excel in this art. He then turned to journalism and literature, and came into close association with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hunt, and others of the Romantic School. He was, however, of a sensitive and difficult temperament, and sooner or later quarreled with most of his friends. Though a worshiper of Napoleon, whose life he wrote, he was a strong liberal in politics, and supposed himself persecuted for his opinions. Of all Hazlitt's voluminous writings, those which retain most value to-day are his literary criticisms and his essays on general topics. His clear and vivacious style rose at times to a rare beauty; and when the temper of his work was not marred by his touchiness and egotism he wrote with great charm and a delicate fancy. The following essay shows in a high degree the tact and grace of Hazlitt's best writing, and his power of creating a distinctive atmosphere. It would be difficult to find a paper of this length which conveys so much of the special quality of the literary circle which added so much to the glory of English letters in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. OF PERSONS ONE WOULD L WISH TO HAVE SEEN' "Come like shadows-so depart." AMB it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the defence 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 touch'd the brink of all we hate." 2 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, Ayrton 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 Ayrton, as usual, reckoned without his host. Everyone burst out a-laughing at the expression on Lamb's face, in which impatience was restrained by courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily; "but they were not persons-not persons." "Not 1 Originally published in the "New Monthly Magazine," January, 1826. The conversation described is supposed to take place at one of Charles Lamb's "Wednesdays," at 16 Mitre Court Buildings, London. 3 William Ayrton, a musician. 2 Pope," Moral Essays," II., 51. persons," said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be premature. "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 anyone bodily for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in the individuals, 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 Ayrton, “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 Ayrton. "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 floor of his apartment in their nightgowns and slippers and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this Ayrton 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 explanation 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 these 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 suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson: I have no curiosity, 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. "And call up him who left half-told The story of Cambuscan bold.'4 "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 mankind were propagated like trees!5 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 apocalyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an encounter with so portentous a commentator!" "I am afraid, in that case," said Ayrton, “that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be lost;" and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while Lamb continued 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 "uncomeatable," without a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while someone was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, Ayrton 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 Milton, "Il Penseroso," 109. 5" Religio Medici," II., ix. Or each is both and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe.' "6 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: "By our first strange and fatal interview, Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me, Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love, Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. Fair ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery, That absent lovers one in th' other be. Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change Richly-cloath'd apes are call'd apes, and as soon Love's fuellers, and the rightest company Of players, which upon the world's stage be, O stay here! for thee England is onely a worthy gallerie, To walke in expectation; till from thence 6" Epithalamion on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine." |