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Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners

W >> William Hazlitt >> Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners




From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing;
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow, I with these did play.


I am not aware of any writer of Sonnets worth mentioning here till long
after Milton, that is, till the time of Warton and the revival of a
taste for Italian and for our own early literature. During the rage for
French models the Sonnet had not been much studied. It is a mode of
composition that depends entirely on _expression,_ and this the French
and artificial style gladly dispenses with, as it lays no particular
stress on anything--except vague, general common-places. Warton's
Sonnets are undoubtedly exquisite, both in style and matter; they are
poetical and philosophical effusions of very delightful sentiment; but
the thoughts, though fine and deeply felt, are not, like Milton's
subjects, identified completely with the writer, and so far want a more
individual interest. Mr. Wordsworth's are also finely conceived and
high-sounding Sonnets. They mouth it well, and are said to be sacred to
Liberty. Brutus's exclamation, 'Oh Virtue, I thought thee a substance,
but I find thee a shadow,' was not considered as a compliment, but as a
bitter sarcasm. The beauty of Milton's Sonnets is their sincerity, the
spirit of poetical patriotism which they breathe. Either Milton's or
the living bard's are defective in this respect. There is no Sonnet of
Milton's on the Restoration of Charles II. There is no Sonnet of Mr.
Wordsworth's corresponding to that of 'the poet blind and bold' 'On the
late Massacre in Piedmont.' It would be no niggard praise to Mr.
Wordsworth to grant that he was either half the man or half the poet
that Milton was. He has not his high and various imagination, nor his
deep and fixed principle. Milton did not worship the rising sun, nor
turn his back on a losing and fallen cause.

Such recantation had no charms for him!


Mr. Southey has thought proper to put the author of _Paradise Lost_ into
his late Heaven, on the understood condition that he is 'no longer to
kings and to hierarchs hostile.' In his lifetime he gave no sign of
such an alteration; and it is rather presumptuous in the poet-laureate
to pursue the deceased antagonist of Salmasius into the other world to
compliment him with his own infirmity of purpose. It is a wonder he did
not add in a note that Milton called him aside to whisper in his ear
that he preferred the new English hexameters to his own blank verse!

Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent
instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power
and fashion, as is the case with painters and musicians--things without
an opinion--and who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the
day. There are persons in common life who have that eager curiosity and
restless admiration of bustle and splendour, that sooner than not be
admitted on great occasions of feasting and luxurious display, they will
go in the character of livery-servants to stand behind the chairs of the
great. There are others who can so little bear to be left for any
length of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and
folly, that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their
characters as well as of a change of dress. Milton was not one of
these. He had too much of the _ideal_ faculty in his composition, a
lofty contemplative principle, and consciousness of inward power and
worth, to be tempted by such idle baits. We have plenty of chanting and
chiming in among some modern writers with the triumphs over their own
views and principles; but none of a patient resignation to defeat,
sustaining and nourishing itself with the thought of the justice of
their cause, and with firm-fixed rectitude. I do not pretend to defend
the tone of Milton's political writings (which was borrowed from the
style of controversial divinity), or to say that he was right in the
part he took,--I say that he was consistent in it, and did not convict
himself of error: he was consistent in it in spite of danger and
obloquy, 'on evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,' and therefore
his character has the salt of honesty about it. It does not offend in
the nostrils of posterity. He had taken his part boldly and stood to it
manfully, and submitted to the change of times with pious fortitude,
building his consolations on the resources of his own mind and the
recollection of the past, instead of endeavouring to make himself a
retreat for the time to come. As an instance of this we may take one of
the best and most admired of these Sonnets, that addressed to Cyriac
Skinner, on his own blindness:--

Cyriac, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun or moon or stars throughout the year,
Or man or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overply'd
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe talks from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask,
Content though blind, had I no better guide.


Nothing can exceed the mild, subdued tone of this Sonnet, nor the
striking grandeur of the concluding thought. It is curious to remark
what seems to be a trait of character in the two first lines. From
Milton's care to inform the reader that 'his eyes wore still clear, to
outward view, of spot or blemish,' it would be thought that he had not
yet given up all regard to personal appearance; a feeling to which his
singular beauty at an earlier age might he supposed naturally enough to
lead. Of the political or (what may be called) his _State-Sonnets,_
those to Cromwell, to Fairfax, and to the younger Vane are full of
exalted praise and dignified advice. They are neither familiar nor
servile. The writer knows what is due to power and to fame. He feels
the true, unassumed equality of greatness. He pays the full tribute of
admiration for great acts achieved, and suggests becoming occasion to
deserve higher praise. That to Cromwell is a proof how completely our
poet maintained the erectness of his understanding and spirit in his
intercourse with men in power. It is such a compliment as a poet might
pay to a conqueror and head of the state without the possibility of
self-degradation:

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd,
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud
Hast rear'd God's trophies and his work pursued
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war: new foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains;
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.


The most spirited and impassioned of them all, and the most inspired
with a sort of prophetic fury, is the one entitled, 'On the late
Massacre in Piedmont.'

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones,
Forgot not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.


In the Nineteenth Sonnet, which is also 'On his blindness,' we see the
jealous watchfulness of his mind over the use of his high gifts, and the
beautiful manner in which he satisfies himself that virtuous thoughts
and intentions are not the least acceptable offering to the Almighty:

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent,
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied,
I fondly ask: But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.


Those to Mr. Henry Lawes _on his Airs,_ and to Mr. Lawrence, can never
be enough admired. They breathe the very soul of music and friendship.
Both have a tender, thoughtful grace; and for their lightness, with a
certain melancholy complaining intermixed, might be stolen from the harp
of Aeolus. The last is the picture of a day spent in social retirement
and elegant relaxation from severer studies. We sit with the poet at
table and hear his familiar sentiments from his own lips afterwards:--

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well-touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He who of these delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.


In the last, 'On his deceased Wife,' the allusion to Alcestis is
beautiful, and shows how the poet's mind raised and refined his thoughts
by exquisite classical conceptions, and how these again were enriched by
a passionate reference to actual feelings and images. It is this rare
union that gives such voluptuous dignity and touching purity to Milton's
delineation of the female character:--

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined
So clear, as in no face with more delight:
But O as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.


There could not have been a greater mistake or a more unjust piece of
criticism than to suppose that Milton only shone on great subjects, and
that on ordinary occasions and in familiar life his mind was unwieldy,
averse to the cultivation of grace and elegance, and unsusceptible of
harmless pleasures. The whole tenor of his smaller compositions
contradicts this opinion, which, however, they have been cited to
confirm. The notion first got abroad from the bitterness (or vehemence)
of his controversial writings, and has been kept up since with little
meaning and with less truth. His Letters to Donatus and others are not
more remarkable for the display of a scholastic enthusiasm than for that
of the most amiable dispositions. They are 'severe in youthful virtue
unreproved.' There is a passage in his prose-works (the Treatise on
Education) which shows, I think, his extreme openness and proneness to
pleasing outward impressions in a striking point of view. 'But to
return to our own institute,' he says, 'besides these constant exercises
at home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won
from pleasure itself abroad. _In those vernal seasons of the year, when
the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against
Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing
with Heaven and earth._ I should not therefore be a persuader to them
of studying much then, but to ride out in companies with prudent and
well-staid guides, to all quarters of the land,' etc. Many other
passages might be quoted, in which the poet breaks through the
groundwork of prose, as it were, by natural fecundity and a genial,
unrestrained sense of delight. To suppose that a poet is not easily
accessible to pleasure, or that he does not take an interest in
individual objects and feelings, is to suppose that he is no poet; and
proceeds on the false theory, which has been so often applied to poetry
and the Fine Arts, that the whole is not made up of the particulars. If
our author, according to Dr. Johnson s account of him, could only have
treated epic, high-sounding subjects, he would not have been what he
was, but another Sir Richard Blackmore.--I may conclude with observing,
that I have often wished that Milton had lived to see the Revolution of
1688. This would have been a triumph worthy of him, and which he would
have earned by faith and hope. He would then have been old, but would
not have lived in vain to see it, and might have celebrated the event in
one more undying strain!



NOTES to ESSAY II


No notes for this essay



ESSAY III


ON GOING A JOURNEY


One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I
like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors,
nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when
alone.

The fields his study, nature was his book.


I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am
in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for
criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to
forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this
purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I
like more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I
give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for

a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do,
just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all
impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind much
more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little
breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation

May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd,

that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a
loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a
postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the
same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with
impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green
turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march
to dinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game
on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the
point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel
there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts
him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like 'sunken wrack
and sumless treasuries,' burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel,
think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by
attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence
of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns,
alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but
I sometimes had rather be without them. 'Leave, oh, leave me to my
repose!' I have just now other business in hand, which would seem idle
to you, but is with me 'very stuff o' the conscience.' Is not this wild
rose sweet without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set
in its coat of emerald? Yet if I wore to explain to you the
circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I
not better then keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over,
from here to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the
far-distant horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and
therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when
the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your
reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others,
and you are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party.
'Out upon such half-faced fellowship,' say I. I like to be either
entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be
silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased
with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that 'he thought it a bad French
custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to
do only one thing at a time.' So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in
melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits and starts. 'Let me
have a companion of my way,' says Sterne, 'were it but to remark how the
shadows lengthen as the sun declines.' It is beautifully said; but, in
my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the
involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment.
If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb show, it is insipid:
if you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You
cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the
trouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for this
synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am
content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise
them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of
the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the
briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it all my
own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in such company
as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a point with any one
for twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark
the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your
fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object,
perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at
it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud,
which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to account
for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it, and a
dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way. and in the end probably
produces ill-humour. Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my
own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them
against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord on
the objects and circumstances that present themselves before you--these
may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too delicate
and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to
cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from
the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems
extravagance or affectation; and, on the other hand, to have to unravel
this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an
equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to
which few are competent. We must 'give it an understanding, but no
tongue.' My old friend Coleridge, however, could do both. He could go
on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's
day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode.
'He talked far above singing.' If I could so clothe my ideas in
sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with
me to admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it
possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of
All-Foxden.[1] They had 'that fine madness in them which our first
poets had'; and if they could have been caught by some rare instrument,
would have breathed such strains as the following:--

Here be woods as green
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet
As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curled streams, with flow'rs as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest.[2]

Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake
the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening clouds:
but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up
its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on the spot:
I must have time to collect myself.

In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should he
reserved for Table-talk. Lamb is for this reason, I take it, the worst
company in the world out of doors; because he is the best within. I
grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey,
and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at
night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or friendly
altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the
road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it.
How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at
approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the
lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after
inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to 'take
one's ease at one's inn'! These eventful moments in our lives' history
are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered
and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would have them all to
myself, and drain them to the last drop: they will do to talk of or to
write about afterwards. What a delicate speculation it is, after
drinking whole goblets of tea--

The cups that cheer, but not inebriate--

and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we
shall have for supper--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in onions,
or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once fixed on
cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is not to be
disparaged. Then, in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean
contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen
[getting ready for the gentleman in the parlour]. _Procul, O procul
este profani!_ These hours are sacred to silence and to musing, to be
treasured up in the memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughts
hereafter. I would not waste them in idle talk; or if I must have the
integrity of fancy broken in upon, I would rather it were by a stranger
than a friend. A stranger takes his hue and character from the time and
place; he is a part of the furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a
Quaker, or from the West Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do
not even try to sympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. [How I
love to see the camps of the gypsies, and to sigh my soul into that sort
of life. If I express this feeling to another, he may qualify and spoil
it with some objection.] I associate nothing with my travelling
companion but present objects and passing events. In his ignorance of
me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself. But a friend reminds
one of other things, rips up old grievances, and destroys the
abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciously between us and our
imaginary character. Something is dropped in the course of conversation
that gives a hint of your profession and pursuits; or from having some
one with you that knows the less sublime portions of your history, it
seems that other people do. You are no longer a citizen of the world;
but your 'unhoused free condition is put into circumspection and
confine.' The incognito of an inn is one of its striking
privileges--'lord of one's self, uncumbered with a name.' Oh! it is
great to shake off the trammels of the world and of public opinion--to
lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting personal identity in the
elements of nature, and become the creature of the moment, clear of all
ties--to hold to the universe only by a dish of sweetbreads, and to owe
nothing but the score of the evening--and no longer seeking for applause
and meeting with contempt, to be known by no other title than _the
Gentleman in the parlour!_ One may take one's choice of all characters
in this romantic state of uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and
become indefinitely respectable and negatively right-worshipful. We
baffle prejudice and disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others,
begin to be objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are
no more those hackneyed common-places that we appear in the world; an
inn restores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society!
I have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns--sometimes when I
have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some
metaphysical problem, as once at Witham Common, where I found out the
proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas--at other
times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. Neot's (I
think it was), where I first met with Gribelin's engravings of the
Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn on the
borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some of Westall's
drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I had, not
for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had ferried me
over the Severn, standing up in a boat between me and the twilight--at
other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with a peculiar
interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night to read
_Paul and Virginia,_ which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, after
being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got through
two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's _Camilla._ It was on the 10th of April
1798 that I sat down to a volume of the _New Eloise,_ at the inn at
Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The letter I
chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as he first
caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de Vaud, which
I had brought with me as a _bon bouche_ to crown the evening with. It
was my birthday, and I had for the first time come from a place in the
neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The road to Llangollen
turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing a certain point you
come all at once upon the valley, which opens like an amphitheatre,
broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on either side, with 'green
upland swells that echo to the bleat of flocks' below, and the river Dee
babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The valley at this
time 'glittered green with sunny showers,' and a budding ash-tree dipped
its tender branches in the chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to
walk along the high road that overlooks the delicious prospect,
repeating the lines which I have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems!
But besides the prospect which opened beneath my feet, another also
opened to my inward sight, a heavenly vision, on which were written, in
letters large as Hope could make them, these four words, LIBERTY,
GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE; which have since faded into the light of common
day, or mock my idle gaze.

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