tual superiority which he perceived would result from the perfect organization of his brain, by means of which he would, in a little time, master the whole world. To remedy this, he took a mallet, and cracked his skull a little, to bring him nearer to the level of the rest of mankind. There is a story not altogether dissimilar, respecting the three kingdoms.

The immortal Jove, after creating all nations, at last with the advantage of the great experience thus acquired, sat down to finish his master work, in the composition of the Englishman, the Irishman, and the Scotsman. It has been generally boasted by the natives of Asia, that they were the last, best work of Jupiter, but this story contradicts them satisfactorily. When he had finished his work, his prescience enabled him to foresee, that such was the perfection, moral and physical, of the being thus created, that if suffered to go forth in his present perfect state, he would in time endanger the dynasty of Olympus, and depose the legitimate race of gods. Upon this he poured a little small beer into the skull of the Englishman, deposited a good sized potato near the brains of the Irishman, and wrapped those of the Scot in a salt herring. And this, whatever people may say to the contrary, is the veritable cause of that effervescence of conceit, which is continually oozing from the brain of your Englishman, as from the bung of a beer barrel. The propensity of the honest Irish to blunders, proceeds in like manner from the moisture exhaled from the potato, which, as it were, envelops the brain in a perpetual fog; and it is most certainly owing to the trick played the honest Scot, that the salt of the Edinburgh Review is not exactly attic salt, as it would be, were it not for this unlucky salt herring.

ART. II.-1. A View of the English Stage; or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms. By William Hazlitt, London 1818. 8vo. pp. 461. 2. Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. By William Hazlitt. London 1817. 8vo. pp. 352.

6. Lectures on the English Poets, delivered at the Surrey Institution. By William Hazlitt. First American edition. Philadelphia 1818. 8vo. pp. 331..

PLONDISH men,' saith an old chronicler,' will counterfete and liken himself to gentlemen, and arn besy to speke Frenshe, for to be more sette by.' The lapse of five hundred years has not altered either part of this preposition. Mr. Hazlitt, too, must liken himself to gentlemen, and affect to be acquainted with French. Employed successively, by the editors of all the most notorious newspapers in London, to write criticisms upon theatrical representations, he, at length, conceived himself qualified to draw the characters of Shakspeare's Plays; and, being praised for that work, beyond his expectations, or his merits, he has been emboldened to extend his views to the whole circle of English poetry. He has been rapidly promoted from a paragraphist to a bookmaker; and,

whenever he now takes up his pen, he will not probably stop short of three hundred pages, in octavo.

We do not deny Mr. Hazlitt's right to become a gentleman; but we do conceive, that, to acquire that enviable name, he must have something besides his own rights, or our condescension. What he achieves will be regulated by what he aims at. He must have the true mark; and never think, that he becomes a gentleman, because he avoids being a fop. Whether from a real or affected contempt of this character, he runs into the opposite extreme. He suffers his hose to fall about his heels: his coat is unbrushed, his hair is uncut, his beard unshaved: he wears the knot of his cravat under one ear, &c. We have sometimes doubted, whether all this is done by design;-whether Mr. Hazlitt would be thought one of those rare geniuses, whose brilliancy of talents must redeem the eccentricities of their demeanour; or whether, like Sly, in the play, become a duke from a drunkard, he unconsciously betrays the lowliness of his origin, by perpetually vociferating, 'small beer!'

We know not why we should have chosen this mode of illustration; but perhaps it will serve as well as any other, to give the reader a general idea of Mr. Hazlitt's character as a man of letters. He belongs to a knot of writers, who think there is such a thing as pure, unadulterated English; that Dr. Johnson is the great corrupter of our speech; that a language, of which nine parts in ten consist of foreign derivations, may be written by itself; and that it is only necessary to discard such words as are derived from the Greek and Roman, in order to exhibit English in its unalloyed and primitive purity. If any.thing can equal the absurdity of this object, it is the means by which these writers think to accomplish it. They seem to entertain an idea that pure English is composed of the most vulgar words, and of the most colloquial expressions in the language. They are weary of elegance and refinement; or, what is more likely, they are impatient of labour and care; and would seek an excuse for indolence, by pretending to act upon principle. They are enthusiasts for what they call nature. Every thing must be stript of all artificial ornament; and because clothes are a covering made with hands, our authors think they are to vindicate the rights of nature, by showing themselves naked in public.

Mr. Hazlitt, if not the head, is at least a very distinguished follower of the school. It is the great misfortune of this gentleman, that he ever read Shakspeare. The great poet is a genius, which such a man had not the power to withstand. He was struck, fascinated, and taken without resistance; and he is now swallowed up in admiration and delight. There is nothing wrong in Shakspeare: Shakspeare is his alpha and his omega: every thing must be compared to Shakspeare; and what is not like Shakspeare is not worth reading. Criticism upon such a writer, is almost out of the question. He is reduced to the most helpless impotency; and all the carelessness, grossness, and verbal trifling of his idol, are only

marks of genius, and themes of admiration. Our author goes even farther. What he adores, he strives to imitate. He would be a Shakspeare in prose; and, if low expressions, and slovenly composition can render him such, his wishes are undoubtedly fulfilled. He takes the concomitants of genius for its essence; and like all the servile herd of copyists, has only aped the defects of his model.

With all his servility of imitation, Mr. Hazlitt has not the least doubt himself, nor does he conceal the fact from others, that he is the master-spirit of the age. He has long been a critic for the theatres; and, taking his office to be one of the most dignified in the commonwealth of letters, he alludes to his achievements with all imaginable self-complacency. After remarking that the stage is not the best place to study the characters of Shakspeare, he adds, that it is too often filled with traditional common-place conceptions of the part, handed down from sire to son, and suited to the taste of the great vulgar and the small.-'Tis an unweeded garden: things rank and gross do merely engender in it! If a man of genius comes once in an age to clear away the rubbish, to make it fruitful and wholesome, they cry 'tis a bad school: it may be like nature, it may be like Shakspeare, but it is not like us.' Admirable critics!'

His school have a most singular idea of what they call Nature; and it would be clearing away rubbish,' indeed, if they could persuade mankind to discard all their common-place conceptions,' and adopt the new doctrines with which such men of genius' have deigned to enlighten the age. The first article in the creed, is, that man, by nature, is an innocent and virtuous being; and that all we hear, in satires and sermons, about his constitutional depravity, is only the effusion of spleen, or the raving of enthusiasm. Laws of every description are the great evils of the world. It is to the statutes of our legislatures, that we must attribute all the crimes, which they are designed to punish; and were it not for the ordinances of criticism, there could be no such thing as a bad style in composition. Has not God made man as he is? Did not he know what was best? And shall we be impious enough to meddle with his works?-to impose restraints upon those powers and propensities with which he has seen fit to endow the human race? Such is the logic by which these new illuminati would persuade us to take nature as our only guide; and to believe, that as long as we give ourselves no trouble about our state, every thought of the understanding will be just, and every suggestion of the heart be virtuous. Let the will have free scope. We must throw the reins upon the necks of our coursers; and though they may occasionally lead us astray, and sometimes overset us in the road, yet depend upon it, they will bring us out safe in the end.

This is a very convenient doctrine; and it is Shakspeare's contempt of law, which makes these writers so enamoured of his character. They follow him with tenfold adoration, for slighting all the rules which Aristotle and the rest had imposed upon lite

rary composition. It is for strong minds to break through laws; and for the weak to admire the trespass, and follow the example.

The trait which Mr. Hazlitt so much admires, and would fain imitate, in Shakspeare, is what he calls his careless grace and felicity,'-the heedless magnanimity of his wit.' To be graceful he thinks it is only necessary to be careless; and he has no doubt, that if he is only heedless enough, he shall be sufficiently witty. It is a common prejudice, that our first impressions, and our first thoughts, are apt to be erroneous; and that a prudent man will take a second look, and reflect once more, before he ventures to pronounce his judgment. This is a species of self-denial and restraint, which is not to be tolerated by men of genius.' They must speak the first thing which enters their minds; and, by saying any thing and every thing, they hope to produce good things enough to counterbalance the bad.

This is the sort of headlong prattle, which Mr. Hazlitt fancies to be like nature, and like Shakspeare:

'Death is a mighty abstraction,

-Chaucer knew this."

Lectures, p. 66.

If we were to cite all the instances in which Mr. Hazlitt undertakes to be smart and familiar, we should be obliged to copy nearly the half of every page. 'I say,' he tells us,' I say what I think;' and then supposing he must say something more to complete the sentence, he adds the nonsense, I think what I feel.' Of Troilus and Cressida, he observes, according to his heedless manner, it rambles on just as it happens;' and, then reflecting, that what 'rambles on' must overtake something, he tells us, 'it overtakes, together with some indifferent matter, a prodigious number of fine things in its way.' The thought strikes him, that Hamlet's character is an undulating line; and then he must observe, that Mr. Kemble plays it in a straight line, and Mr. Kean in a zigzag. After saying the action is desperate,' he must subjoin, and the reaction is dreadful.' These are examples of unusual care; for it is the general practice of our author to forget, in the last clause of a sentence, what he has said in the first. Speaking of Falstaff, he tells us, his very size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits;' and, then he turns round (Falstaff turns round) on the pivot of his convenience, with every occasion, and at a moment's warning.' Again, then fallows on the neck of her remorse and returning fondness, the wish treading almost on the brink of impiety.' In another place we have the felicitous' idea of floating triumphantly to the bottom. When Mr. Campbell lanches a sentiment, that you think will float him triumphantly for once to the bottom of the stanzas, he stops short at the end of the first or second line, and stands shivering on the brink of beauty, afraid to trust himself to the fathomless abyss.'

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One characteristic of this new literary sect, is to associate words, which are totally opposed to each other; to use them in an inverted sense, or give them a paradoxical meaning. Nothing can be farther apart, than palsy' and energy;' yet Mr. Godwin speaks of

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'a palsied energy.' Abruptness is the very opposite of monotony; yet Mr. Hazlitt speaks of the abruptness and monotony in the inferno.' Mr. Godwin talks of a thing being crushed by the operation of neglect.' Mr. Hazlitt has, the power of indifference;' calls slander 'a very potent piece of imbecility;' speaks of a deal of terrible beauty;' of a sage critical balance;' of satan's never flinching from self-love;' of awful beauty,' 'languid brilliancy,' 'soft silent lustre,'' sullen intricacy,' and a hundred other things equally incomprehensible. A lion is said to lash himself into rage by means of his own tail. The same word has been applied to waves, as they beat against the shore; and Mr. Hazlitt thus mixes the two things together: How Othello's passion lashes itself and swells and rages like a tide in its sounding course!' We should suppose, that walking on stilts is not the business of a lazy man; yet Mr. Hazlitt tells us, that Thompson mounts on stilts, not through vanity, but indolence.' It is commonly imagined, that reason and passion are directly opposed to each other; but Mr. Hazlitt is never weary of repeating the paradox, 'that nothing is so logical as passion.

up,

Mr. Hazlitt thinks it has, also, a pretty effect, and, above all, is Shakspearean, to make a play upon words. I may assume, without temerity,' he says, ' that poetry is more poetical than painting.' Clarissa, in Sir Charles Grandison, is said to be interesting in all that is uninteresting.' Spenser,' of all poets, is the most poetical.' These expressions are intended to emulate such lines as these in Shakspeare:

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit❜'That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword'

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'Starving poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,' &c.Our author has an idea, too, that he gives force to his composition by accumulating upon a single substantive, a multiplicity of adjectives and adverbs. Milton's Satan is 'gigantic, irregular, portentous, uneasy, and disturbed;' a string of epithets, which may have been made in imitation of Shakspeare's ' almighty, dreadful, little might.' We often observe, that a person, in the ardor of conversation, when at a loss for words, will contrive to keep up his discourse, by uttering a set of arbitrary syllables, and giving them signification and force by means of his countenance and gestures. Such are those clumsy expressions, 'lickity-split,' stripety-strain," 'nimminee-pimminee,' 'namby-pamby,' and a hundred others, which we might adduce. Mr. Hazlitt thinks, that such terms have acquired a determinate and classical meaning; and he is ever anxious to adorn his own chaste pages with as many of the kind as he can possibly crowd into a sentence. Della Cruscan poetry is a tortuous, tottering, wriggling, fidgity translation of every thing from the vulgar tongue, into the tantalizing, teazing, tripping, lisping, nimminee-pimminee of the highest brilliancy and fashion of poetical diction.' Burns, again, was not a sickly sentimentalist, a namby-pamby poet, a mincing, metre-ballad-monger, any more than