Table-Talk by William Hazlitt (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📕

“The force of dullness could no farther go!”

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Sir Joshua Reynolds, being asked how long it had taken him to do a certain picture, made answer, “All my life!” ↩

The late Lord Thurlow used to say that Cobbett was the only writer that deserved the name of a political reasoner. ↩

Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes. The only time I ever saw him he seemed to me a very pleasant man⁠—easy of access, affable, clearheaded, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure is tall and portly. He has a good, sensible face⁠—rather full, with little grey eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy complexion, with hair grey or powdered; and had on a scarlet broadcloth waistcoat with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as was the custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or as we see it in the pictures of Members of Parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him. ↩

Quarto poetry, as well as quarto metaphysics, does not always sell. Going one day into a shop in Paternoster Row to see for some lines in Mr. Wordsworth’s Excursion to interlard some prose with, I applied to the constituted authorities, and asked if I could look at a copy of the Excursion? The answer was, “Into which country, sir?” ↩

These fantastic poets are like a foolish ringer at Plymouth that Northcote tells the story of. He was proud of his ringing, and the boys who made a jest of his foible used to get him in the belfry and ask him, “Well now, John, how many good ringers are there in Plymouth?”

“Two,” he would say, without any hesitation.

“Ay, indeed! and who are they?”

“Why, first, there’s myself, that’s one; and⁠—and⁠—”

“Well, and who’s the other?”

“Why, there’s⁠—there’s⁠—Ecod, I can’t think of any other but myself.”

Talk we of one Master Launcelot. The story is of ringers: it will do for any vain, shallow, self-satisfied egotist of them all. ↩

The celebrated Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot) first discovered and brought out the talents of the late Mr. Opie the painter. He was a poor Cornish boy, and was out at work in the fields when the poet went in search of him. “Well, my lad, can you go and bring me your very best picture?” The other flew like lightning, and soon came back with what he considered as his masterpiece. The stranger looked at it, and the young artist, after waiting for some time without his giving any opinion, at length exclaimed eagerly, “Well, what do you think of it?”

“Think of it?” said Wolcot; “Why, I think you ought to be ashamed of it⁠—that you, who might do so well, do no better!” The same answer would have applied to this artist’s latest performances, that had been suggested by one of his earliest efforts. ↩

If two persons play against each other at any game, one of them necessarily fails. ↩

Written at Winterslow Hut, January 18⁠–⁠19, 1821. ↩

Webster’s Duchess of Malfy. ↩

Shenstone and Gray were two men, one of whom pretended live to himself, and the other really did so. Gray shrunk from the public gaze (he did not even like his portrait to be prefixed to his works) into his own thoughts and indolent musings; Shenstone affected privacy that he might be sought out by the world; the one courted retirement in order to enjoy leisure and repose, as the other coquetted with it merely to be interrupted with the importunity of visitors and the flatteries of absent friends. ↩

Plutarch, “Of Banishment.” He compares those who cannot live out of their own country to the simple people who fancied the moon of Athens was a finer moon than that of Corinth.

“Labentem coelo quae ducitis annum.”

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When Bonaparte left the Chamber of Deputies to go and fight his last fatal battle, he advised them not to be debating the forms of Constitutions when the enemy was at their gates. Benjamin Constant thought otherwise. He wanted to play a game at cat’s-cradle between the Republicans and Royalists, and lost his match. He did not care, so that he hampered a more efficient man than himself. ↩

A thorough fitness for any end implies the means. Where there is a will, there is a way. A real passion, an entire devotion to any object, always succeeds. The strong sympathy with what we wish and imagine realises it, dissipates all obstacles, and removes all scruples. The disappointed lover may complain as much as he pleases. He was himself to blame. He was a half-witted, wishy-washy fellow. His love might be as great as he makes it out; but it was not his ruling passion. His fear, his pride, his vanity was greater. Let anyone’s whole soul be steeped in this passion; let him think and care for nothing else; let nothing divert, cool, or intimidate him; let the ideal feeling become an actual one and take possession of his whole faculties, looks, and manner; let the same voluptuous hopes and wishes govern his actions in the presence of his mistress that haunt his fancy in her absence, and I will answer for his success. But I will not answer for the success of “a dish of skimmed milk” in such a case.⁠—I could always get to see a fine collection of pictures myself. The fact is, I was set upon it. Neither the surliness of porters nor the impertinence of footmen could keep me back. I had a portrait of Titian in my eye, and nothing could put me out in my