onclusion of a sketch of Southey in the "Spirit
of the Age." It illustrates, even more strikingly than the "Character of
Burke," Hazlitt's power of dissociating his judgments from his prejudices,
inasmuch as there had been exchanges of rancorous personalities between
the two men.

P. 216. _Like the high leaves_. Southey's "The Holly Tree."

_of any poet_. In an essay in the "Plain Speaker" "On the Prose Style of
Poets," Hazlitt elaborates his theory that poets turned out inferior
prose. "I have but an indifferent opinion of the prose-style of poets: not
that it is not sometimes good, nay, excellent; but it is never the better,
and generally the worse from the habit of writing verse."

_full of wise saws_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 156.

P. 217. _historian and prose-translator_. Southey wrote the "History of
Brazil," the "History of the Peninsular War," the "Book of the Church,"
and lives of Wesley, Cowper, and Nelson. He translated from the Spanish
the romances of "Amadis of Gaul," "Palmerin of England," and "The Cid."

P. 219. _Pindaric or Shandean_, i.e., whimsical. Pindaric should of course
be understood as a reference to Peter Pindar, the name under which John
Wolcot (1738-1819) wrote his coarse and whimsical satires. Hazlitt
mentions him at the end of his lectures "On the Comic Writers": "The bard
in whom the nation and the king delighted, is old and blind, but still
merry and wise:--remembering how he has made the world laugh in his time,
and not repenting of the mirth he has given; with an involuntary smile
lighted up at the mad pranks of his Muse, and the lucky hits of his pen."
Shandean is derived from Sterne's novel, "Tristram Shandy."

_And follows so_. "Henry V," iv, 1, 293.

_his political inconsistency_. This is the subject of Hazlitt's attacks on
Southey. See "Political Essays" (Works, III, 109-120, 192-232).

ELIA

The last essay in the "Spirit of the Age" is entitled "Elia and Geoffrey
Crayon." An edition published at Paris by Galignani in 1825 omits the
account of Washington Irving, and this text, as it is in all respects
unexceptionable, has been here adopted for the sake of coherence. In a
letter to Bernard Barton, February 10, 1825, Lamb refers to Hazlitt's
sketch: "He has laid too many colours on my likeness, but I have had so
much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as
much over-measure to 'Elia' as Gentlemen think proper to bestow."

P. 221. _shuffle off_.