206 
You'd scarce think gave such handsome wages ; 
But thus it is—the buck engages 
Attention, while his fellow clears 
Your pockets—I was of my fears, 
(I fear a pistol in light cause, 
My vis-a-vis), by one of laws 
Practitioner reliev’d, a scout 
Of Bow-street, he knows all about 
The gentleman, and ’gan describe 
I think police wished for a bribe 
To find his duty and my banana, 
For in this city never can a 
Mare be made to go sans money.—” 
Behold his learning.— 
Look! that’s the Opera House! survey 
Th’ entablature, while I display 
The inside: first the name, intent : 
By opera, th’ Italians meant 
First any work then any music, 
That's long enough. Of work they grew sick, 
So gave to play and sing that name; &c. 
More etymology; describing the Re- 
gent’s Park :— 
I'd better guide 
You to the Primrose-hill—Primroses 
Mean here prim cockney, he reposes 
At Chalk-Farm, up the hill then trots 
And sees a lake, &c, 
Powers of antithesis! speaking of the 
opera-folks— 
** We've girls athlete, as singing men !” 
A narrow escape from scandal, of which 
he has a most virtuous horror. Speaking 
of the Opera still— 
* *Tis quite the thing to go, between 
The acts see Mademoiselle—I vow 
’Tis not what’s seen, but those whogo—* 
That should be unseen, which shocks me. 
Who do you think? No, that would be 
To dish up scandal, and be one— 
ThereI was going to attack the ton ; 
The very cream of all we read now— 
But, Ned, I’ve seen (your heart will bleed now) 
A wedded one of beauty rare, 
Aye, beauteous as a thousand pearls. 
»Tis Sancho’s simile, how it curls 
About one’s heart—that simple valet 
Ne’er saw one it would suit as—shall 1? 
No, if her spouse will seek disgrace 
It is his loss—But, ah! I trace 
My England's downfall from the time 
Her chivalry turns from the prime 
Of the world’s beauty, her own daughters— 
Go! mountains cross—glide o’er the waters, 
Thy heart will no heart ever meet, 
More worthy love—If thou canst greet 
A beauty strange to Britain’s shore 
With half the soul you felt before, 
Why—Don’t you pity him? I do, 
But I run on too fast for you, 
Besides you know this loss to me, 
Because—Ned shall I go to sea?” &e. 
Again— 
I don’t like in the streets to stop men, 
But one so constantly ’s in my ways, 
It must. be he, ‘ Highways and Bye-ways.* 
He has a note-book, and he view’d me 
Last time. P’rhaps in his book he sew’d me. 
T hope he flatters.. Then I hear 
One talk loud as he walks:—’'Fis clear. 
Shh a 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Auc. 
He wants his ** Sayings” tobe known, 
His ‘‘ Doings”—Ah! how lam grown) 
A scandal-monger;, the book-trade, 
Must not be injur’d, so I’ve said 1 
Enough of him in saying nothing,” &c. 
4 
The Plain Speaker; Opinions on Books, 
Men, and Things. (2 vols. 1826,—We 
have read Mr. Ffazlitt before ;—oh, yes, 
we are quite sure we have read him be- 
fore ; but not a line, not a word, not a defi- 
nite sentiment lodges in our recollection in 
any recallable form. Our feelings with 
regard to him are, that there muses, and 
talks, and reads, and floats, somewhere 
about the skirts of the metropolis, a being 
of quick and rather happy pulses, whose 
genius, buoyant and glancing as mereury, 
mingles with, and passes through all crea- 
tion with equal rapidity. He seems to live 
in an atmosphere of his own—contem- 
plating not merely a few objects, or revolv- 
ing a few questions, but threading his way 
unpolluted through all sorts of contamina- 
tions, enshrined in his own gentle, and 
generally pure abstraction. With a per- 
fect insensibility of the ridiculous, he 
presses his cockney illustrations into the 
service of philosophy, and regards, with a 
complacency that is quite amusing, the 
strange miscellany he assembles of delicate 
acumen, of mild and liberal opinion—of 
poor and feeble abuse, of mawkish vul- 
garity, of lofty sentiment and inviolate 
truth. 
Clearly as he has “‘ wedded immortality 
as his secret bride,” we fear the connexion 
will only last till death do them part, if se 
long. His talents must always impress a 
degree of value on his communications, 
and ensure a transient attention; but, for 
immortality, more is wanting than he pos- 
sesses. His longing after a deathless 
name, though it be accompanied by all the 
self-supporting consciousness of ability, is 
but a vessel among the waters without a 
destination. The power to be great, and 
the will to be great—aye, even when 
united, are insufficient to enable us to fill 
a seat in the temple of Fame, unless 
among the elements of our being some 
pre-eminent. and overpowering quality 
points to the very niche we are to occupy, 
or rather takes unconscious possession of 
it. This is what Mr. Hazlitt wants. 
Plain speaking is not enough. ‘Truth 
is not enough, though unadulterated as an 
infant’s prattle—though eliciting esteem 
for the author, and ensuring pleasure: to 
the reader. Truth, indeed; stript) of all 
low accompaniments, is no other than the” 
purified offspring of genius—the elaborated 
production of patient thought ; but it must 
be intenser truth, or newer truth, or far 
more embellished truth, than the usual 
flow of Mr. H.’s thoughts, to carry his — 
name down to posterity. 
We have said, perhaps, more than we 
meant; if what we have said seem severe, ©. 
it is more than we mean. We seize his 
