Hazlitt on English Literature - Part 30
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Part 30

_Under the shade_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 111.

P. 59. _See, boys_. "Stoop, boys," iii, 3, 2.

_Nay, Cadwell_. iv, 2, 255.

_Stick to your journal course_. iv, 2, 10.

_Your highness_. i, 5, 23.

MACBETH

P. 60. _The poet's eye_. "Midsummer Night's Dream," v, 1, 12.

_your only tragedy-maker_. An adaptation of "your only jig-maker,"

"Hamlet," iii, 2, 132.

_the air smells wooingly, the temple-haunting martlet_. i, 6, 4-6.

_blasted heath_. i, 3, 77.

_air-drawn dagger_. iii, 4, 62.

_the gracious Duncan_. iii, 1, 66.

P. 61. _blood-boultered Banquo_. iv, 1, 123.

_What are these_. i, 3, 39.

_bends up_. i, 7, 80.

P. 62. _The deed_. Cf. ii, 2, 11: "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

_preter_[super]_natural solicitings_. i, 3, 130.

_Bring forth_. i, 7, 73.

P. 63. _Screw his courage_. i, 7, 60.

_lost so poorly_. Cf. ii, 2, 71: "Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts."

_a little water_. ii, 2, 68.

_the sides of his intent_. i, 7, 26.

_for their future days and nights_. Cf. i, 5, 70: "To all our days and nights to come." The next five quotations are from the same scene.

P. 64. _Mrs. Siddons_. Sarah Siddons (1775-1831), "The Tragic Muse," the most celebrated actress in the history of the English stage. Hazlitt wrote this pa.s.sage for the Examiner (June 16, 1816) immediately after seeing a performance of the part by Mrs. Siddons. See Works, VIII, 312-373.

P. 65. _There is no art_. i, 4, 11.

_How goes the night_. ii, 1, 1.

P. 66. _Light thickens_. iii, 2, 50.

_Now spurs_. iii, 3, 6.

P. 67. _So fair and foul a day_. i, 3, 38.

_such welcome and unwelcome news together_. Cf. iv, 3, 138: "such welcome and unwelcome things at once."

_Men's lives are_. Cf. iv, 3, 171:

"and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken."

_Look like the innocent flower_. i, 5, 66.

_to him and all_, "to all and him." iii, 4, 91.

_Avaunt and quit my sight_. iii, 4, 93.

_himself again_. Cf. iii, 4, 107: "being gone, I am a man again."

_he may sleep_. iv, 1, 86.

_Then be thou jocund_. iii, 2, 40.

_Had he not resembled_. ii, 2, 13.

_should be women_. i, 3. 45.

_in deeper consequence_. i, 3, 126.

_Why stands_. iv, 1, 125.

P. 68. _He is as distinct a being_, etc. Cf. Pope (Nichol Smith's "Eighteenth Century Essays," p. 48): "Every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct." Beattie also had commented on "that wonderfully penetrating and plastic faculty, which is capable of representing every species of character, not as our ordinary poets do, by a high shoulder, a wry mouth, or gigantic stature, but by hitting off, with a delicate hand, the distinguishing feature, and that in such a manner as makes it easily known from all others whatsoever, however similar to a superficial eye." (Quoted in Drake's "Memorials of Shakespeare," 1828, p. 255.) Richard c.u.mberland had developed a parallel between Macbeth and Richard III in the Observer, Nos. 55-58, but it is to the suggestion of Thomas Whateley that Hazlitt is chiefly indebted. Both Richard III and Macbeth, says Whateley, "are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir. Perfidy, violence, and tyranny are common to both; and these only, their obvious qualities, would have been attributed indiscriminately to both by an ordinary dramatic writer. But Shakespeare, in conformity to the truth of history as far as it led him, and by improving upon the fables which have been blended with it, has ascribed opposite principles and motives to the same designs and actions, and various effects to the operation of the same events upon different tempers. Richard and Macbeth, as represented by him, agree in nothing but their fortunes." (See the Variorum edition of "Richard III,"

p. 549.) Hazlitt makes similar discriminations between the characters of Iago and Richard III, between Henry VI and Richard II, and between Ariel and Puck.

_the milk of human kindness_. i, 5, 18.

_himself alone_. Cf. 3 "Henry VI," v, 6, 83: "I am myself alone."

P. 69. _For Banquo's issue_. iii, 1, 65.

_Duncan is in his grave_. iii, 2, 22.

_direness is rendered familiar_. v, 5, 14.

_troubled with thick coming fancies_. v, 3, 38.