Table-Talk by William Hazlitt (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📕

the modern reader un petit apercu of the tone of literary conversation about five or six and twenty years ago, I remember being present in a large party composed of men, women, and children, in which two persons of remarkable candour and ingenuity were labouring (as hard as if they had been paid for it) to prove that all prayer was a mode of dictating to the Almighty, and an arrogant assumption of superiority. A gentleman present said, with great simplicity and naivete, that there was one prayer which did not strike him as coming exactly under this description, and being asked what that was made answer, “The Samaritan’s⁠—‘Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ” This appeal by no means settled the sceptical dogmatism of the two disputants, and soon after the proposer of the objection went away; on which one of them observed with great marks of satisfaction and triumph⁠—“I am afraid we have shocked that gentleman’s prejudices.” This did not appear to me at that time quite the thing and this happened in the year 1794.⁠—Twice has the iron entered my soul. Twice have the dastard, vaunting, venal crew gone over it: once as they went forth, conquering and to conquer, with reason by their side, glittering like a falchion, trampling on prejudices and marching fearlessly on in the work of regeneration; once again when they returned with retrograde steps, like Cacus’s oxen dragged backward by the heels, to the den of Legitimacy, “rout on rout, confusion worse confounded,” with places and pensions and the Quarterly Review dangling from their pockets, and shouting, “Deliverance for mankind,” for “the worst, the second fall of man.” Yet I have endured all this marching and countermarching of poets, philosophers, and politicians over my head as well as I could, like “the camomile that thrives, the more ’tis trod upon.” By Heavens, I think, I’ll endure it no longer! ↩

Troja fuit. ↩

Mr. Canning’s Speech at the Liverpool Dinner, Given in Celebration of His Reelection, March 18, 1820. Fourth edition, revised and corrected. ↩

“If a European, when he has cut off his beard and put false hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike nature as he could possibly make it; and after having rendered them immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity; if when thus attired he issues forth, and meets with a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red ocher on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever of these two despises the other for this attention to the fashion of his country, whichever first feels himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian.” —⁠Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, Volume I, pp. 231⁠–⁠232 ↩

This name was originally spelt “Braughton” in the manuscript, and was altered to “Branghton” by a mistake of the printer. Branghton, however, was thought a good name for the occasion and was suffered to stand. “Dip it in the ocean,” as Sterne’s barber says of the buckle, “and it will stand!” ↩

A lady of quality, in allusion to the gallantries of a reigning prince, being told, “I suppose it will be your turn next?” said, “No, I hope not; for you know it is impossible to refuse!” ↩

Gertrude

For the passion of patience, look if Sir Petronel approach. That sweet, that fine, that delicate, that⁠—for love’s sake, tell me if he come. Oh, sister Mill, though my father be a low-capt tradesman, yet I must be a lady, and I praise God my mother must call me madam. Does he come? Off with this gown for shame’s sake, off with this gown! Let not my knight take me in the city cut, in any hand! Tear’t! Pox on’t (does he come?), tear’t off! Thus while she sleeps, I sorrow for her sake. Sings.

Mildred

Lord, sister, with what an immodest impatiency and disgraceful scorn do you put off your city-tire! I am sorry to think you imagine to right yourself in wronging that which hath made both you and us.

Gertrude

I tell you, I cannot endure it: I must be a lady: do you wear your coif with a London licket! your stamel petticoat with two guards! the buffin gown with the tuftafitty cap and the velvet lace! I must be a lady, and I will be a lady. I like some humours of the city dames well; to eat cherries only at an angel a pound; good: to dye rich scarlet black; pretty: to line a grogram gown clean through with velvet; tolerable: their pure linen, their smocks of three pound a smock, are to be borne withal: but your mincing niceries, taffity pipkins, durance petticoats, and silver bodkins⁠—God’s my life! as I shall be a lady, I cannot endure it.

Mildred

Well, sister, those that scorn their nest oft fly with a sick wing.

Gertrude

Bow-bell! Alas! poor Mill, when I am a lady, I’ll pray for thee yet i’faith; nay, and I’ll vouchsafe to call thee sister Mill still; for thou art not like to be a lady as I am, yet surely thou art a creature of God’s making, and may’st peradventure be saved as soon as I (does he come?). And ever and anon she doubled in her song.

Mildred

Now (lady’s my comfort), what a profane ape’s here!

Enter Sir Petronel Flash, Mr. Touchstone, and Mrs. Touchstone. Gertrude

Is my knight come? O the lord, my band! Sister, do my cheeks look well? Give me a little box o’ the ear, that I may seem to blush. Now, now! so, there, there! here he is! O my dearest