3), the greatest French humorist, author of "Gargantua
and Pantagruel"; _Moliere_ (1622-1673), the master of French comedy;
_Racine_ (1639-1699), the master of French classic tragedy; _La Fontaine_
(1621-1695), author of the "Fables"; _La Rochefoucauld_ (1613-1680),
celebrated for his book of cynical "Maxims" which Hazlitt imitated in his
"Characteristics"; _St. Evremont_ (1610-1703), a critic.

P. 331. _Your most exquisite reason_. Cf. "Twelfth Night," ii, 3, 155.

_Oh, ever right_. "Coriolanus," ii, 1, 208.

_H----_. This speech is attributed to Lamb in "Literary Remains," but
wrongly so according to Waller and Glover "because, in the first place,
the speech seems more characteristic of Hunt than of Lamb, and, secondly,
because the volume of the New Monthly in which the essay appeared contains
a list of errata in which two corrections (one of them relating to
initials) are made in the essay and yet this 'H----' is left uncorrected."

ON READING OLD BOOKS

This essay was first published in the London Magazine for February, 1821,
and republished in the "Plain Speaker."

P. 333. _I hate to read new books._ It would take too long to recall all
the passages in which Hazlitt voices his sentimental attachment to the
writers with whom he first became acquainted. "The greatest pleasure in
life," he says in one essay, "is that of reading when we are young," and
at the conclusion of his lectures on the "Age of Elizabeth" he remarks:
"Were I to live much longer than I have any chance of doing, the books
which I read when I was young, I can never forget." Patmore's statement
concerning Hazlitt's later reading may be exaggerated, but it is
interesting in this connection: "I do not believe Hazlitt ever read the
half of any work that he reviewed--not even the Scotch novels, of which he
read more than of any other modern productions, and has written better
perhaps, than any other of their critics. I am certain that of many works
that he has reviewed, and of many writers whose general pretensions he has
estimated better than anybody else has done, he never read one tithe." "My
Friends and Acquaintances," III, 122.

_Tales of my Landlord_. Scott's.

_Lady Morgan_ (1783?-1859), a writer of Irish stories, of which the
best-known is "The Wild Irish Girl" (1806). She is also the author of
certain miscellaneous productions, among which is a "Life of Salvator
Rosa" reviewed by Hazlitt for the Edinburgh Review, July, 1824. Works, X,