Memoirs of William Hazlitt
Ch. IV 1822
William Hazlitt to Peter George Patmore; [7 April 1822]
[April 7, 1822.]
“My dear Friend,
“I received your letter this morning with gratitude.
I have felt somewhat easier since. It showed your interest in my vexations, and
also that you knew nothing worse than I did. I cannot describe the weakness of
mind to which she has reduced me. I am come back to Edinburgh about this cursed
business, and Mrs. H. is coming down
next week. . . . . A thought has struck me.
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| | CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. PATMORE. | 33 |
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Her father has a bill
of mine for 10l. unhonoured, about which I tipped her a
cavalier epistle ten days ago, saying I should be in town this week, and
‘would call and take it up,’ but nothing reproachful.
Now if you can get Colburn, who has a
deposit of 220 pp. of the new
volume, to come down with 10l., you might
call and take up the aforesaid bill, saying that I am prevented from coming to
town, as I expected, by the business I came about. . . . .
“P.S. Could you fill up two blanks for me in an
essay on Burleigh
House in Colburn’s
hands,—one, Lamb’s Description
of the Sports in the Forest:—see John
Woodvil,
To see the sun to bed, and to arise, &c.; |
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the other, Northcote’s
account of Claude Lorraine in his
Vision of a Painter at the end of his life of Sir Joshua? . . . .
“Final. Don’t go
at all. . . . . To think that I should feel as I have done for such a
monster!
“P. G. Patmore, Esq.,
“12, Greek Street, Soto, London.”
Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)
French painter whose idealized landscapes were much admired in Britain.
Henry Colburn (1785-1855)
English publisher who began business about 1806; he co-founded the
New
Monthly Magazine in 1814 and was publisher of the
Literary
Gazette from 1817.
Sarah Hazlitt [née Stoddart] (1774-1840)
The daughter of John Stoddart (1742-1803), lieutenant in the Royal Navy; she married
William Hazlitt in 1808 and was divorced in 1822.
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
James Northcote (1746-1831)
English portrait-painter and writer who exhibited at the Royal Academy; he wrote a
Life of Titian (1830).
