AESTHETICAL AND LITERARY.


I. _Of Literary Biography and Monuments_.

(_a_) A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, 1816.

(_b_) Letter to a Friend on Monuments to Literary Men, 1819.

(_c_) Letter to John Peace, Esq., of Bristol, 1844.

These naturally group themselves together. Of the first (_a_), perhaps
it is hardly worth while, and perhaps it is worth while, recalling that
WILLIAM HAZLITT, in his Lectures upon the English Poets, attacked
WORDSWORTH on this Letter with characteristic insolence and uncritical
shallowness and haste. Under date Feb. 24th, 1818, Mr. H. CRABB ROBINSON
thus refers to the thing: 'Heard part of a lecture by HAZLITT at the
Surrey Institution. He was so contemptuous towards WORDSWORTH, speaking
of his Letter about Burns, that I lost my temper. He imputed to
WORDSWORTH the desire of representing himself as a superior man' (vol.
i. p. 311, 3d ed.). The lecture is included in HAZLITT'S published
Lectures in all its ignorance and wrong-headedness; but it were a pity
to lose one's temper over such trash. His eyes were spectacles, not
'seeing eyes,' and jaundice-yellow, (_b_) and (_c_) are sequels to
(_a_), and as such accompany it.


II. UPON EPITAPHS.