freer play to his fancy:

"In turning over the pages of the best comedies, we are almost transported
to another world, and escape from this dull age to one that was all life,
and whim, and mirth, and humour. The curtain rises, and a gayer scene
presents itself, as on the canvas of Watteau. We are admitted behind the
scenes like spectators at court, on a levee or birthday; but it is the
court, the gala-day of wit and pleasure, of gallantry and Charles II.!
What an air breathes from the name! what a rustling of silks and waving of
plumes! what a sparkling of diamond ear-rings and shoe-buckles! What
bright eyes, (Ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she passed!) what
killing looks and graceful motions! How the faces of the whole ring are
dressed in smiles! how the repartee goes round! how wit and folly,
elegance and awkward imitation of it, set one another off! Happy,
thoughtless age, when kings and nobles led purely ornamental lives; when
the utmost stretch of a morning's study went no farther than the choice of
a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side-curl; when the soul spoke out in
all the pleasing eloquence of dress; and beaux and belles, enamoured of
themselves in one another's follies, fluttered like gilded butterflies, in
giddy mazes, through the walks of St. James's Park!"[111]

Sometimes, it is true, he allows his spirits to run away with his
judgment, although in such instances the manner is so obviously
exaggerated as to suggest deliberate mimicry. His account of the tawdry
sentimentality of Moore's poetry sounds like pure travesty:

"His verse is like a shower of beauty; a dance of images; a stream of
music; or like the spray of the water-fall, tinged by the morning-beam
with rosy light. The characteristic distinction of our author's style is
this continuous and incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining
allusions. He ought to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His
subject is set off by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of
flowers gemmed with innumerous dew-drops, that weep, tremble, and glitter
in liquid softness and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the
ear, and languid odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven's smiling
portals, Peris and nymphs peep through the golden glades, and an Angel's
wing glances over the glossy scene."[112]

One feature of Hazlitt's style concerning which much has been said both in
praise and in blame is his inveterate use of qu