BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Or the essays in this volume some have already been published in Literary Remains, Sketches and Essays, or Winterslow (see Bibliographical Note to Vol. x1.), and the rest (with one exception) are now reprinted for the first time. The exception is 'The Sick Chamber' which was published by Mr. Ireland in his William Hazlitt Essayist and Critic, Selections from his Writings. Some of the essays now republished for the first time have been attributed to Hazlitt by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt (Memoirs, 1867, 1. xxii-xxxii-Chronological Catalogue), or by Mr. Ireland (List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt); others have not before been identified. The Editors, however, have not included any essay as to Hazlitt's authorship of which any reasonable doubt can exist. Reference may here be made to a few essays which, though they may have been written by Hazlitt, have been excluded from the present volume, because the evidence of their authorship was not sufficiently strong. They are arranged in the following list under the heading of the Magazine in which they first appeared. I. In The New Monthly Magazine. 1. Four papers entitled 'The Confessional' (1822, vol. Iv. pp. 349, 450; vol. v. pp. 54, 406) which read very much as if they were written by Hazlitt during the Liber Amoris period. 2. An essay entitled 'Social Grievances' (1822, vol. v. p. 412). 3. An essay on 'The Influence of Books on the Progress of Manners' (May, 1828, vol. xxii. p. 409). II. In The Liberal. 1. In The Liberal (vol. 11. 1823) appeared an essay entitled 'A Sunday's Fête at St. Cloud' which was reprinted (without mention being made of its source) under the title 'A Fête at St. Cloud' and attributed to Hazlitt in a volume of miscellanies called The Talisman; or Bouquet of Literature and the Fine Arts' (1831), edited by Mrs. Alaric A. Watts. The essay shows no trace of Hazlitt's handiwork, and seems to have been written 'under a foreign sky,' whereas Hazlitt did not start for his tour in France and Italy till after the publication of the essay in The Liberal. An editorial paragraph published in The London Magazine for October 1824, under the heading of 'The Lion's Head,' would seem to show that the writer of the sketch had sent it to that magazine for publication. The Fête of St. Cloud' (the paragraph runs), "though not unamusing, would not suit our pages. French subjects, . as all Editors and Kings can testify, are lively and dangerous. They are very irregular, or very poor.' The editor of The London Magazine, though he had at the time a grievance against Hazlitt (see Vol. xi. note to essay on Peveril of the Peak '), would hardly have spoken so patronisingly of one of his most distinguished contributors. III. In The London Weekly Review. 1. An essay entitled Brummelliana' (Feb. 2, 1828). IV. In The Atlas. 1. 'Manners make the man' (March 29, 1829). 2. Mr. Jeffrey's Resignation of the Editorship of the Edinburgh Review' (June 21, 1829). 3. Autographs' (June 28, 1829). Where there's a will, there's a way.-I said so to myself, as I I was going down Chancery-lane, thinking to ask at Jack Randall's where the fight was to be, when looking through the glass-door of the Hole in the Wall, I heard a gentleman asking the same question at Mrs. Randall, as the author of Waverley would express it. Now Mrs. Randall stood answering the gentleman's question, with the authenticity of the lady of the Champion of the Light Weights. Thinks I, I'll wait till this person comes out, and learn from him how it is. For to say a truth, I was not fond of going into this house of call for heroes and philosophers, ever since the owner of it (for Jack is no gentleman) threatened once upon a time to kick me out of doors for wanting a mutton-chop at his hospitable board, when the conqueror in thirteen battles was more full of blue ruin than of good manners. I was the more mortified at this repulse, inasmuch as I had heard Mr. James Simpkins, hosier in the Strand, one day VOL. XII.: A I |