Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT IN TWELVE VOLUMES VOLUME EIGHT _All rights reserved_ [Illustration: _William Hazlitt._ _From a crayon drawing by W. Bewick executed in 1822._ ] THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT EDITED BY A. R. WALLER AND ARNOLD GLOVER WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. E. HENLEY ❦ Lectures on the English Comic Writers A View of the English Stage Dramatic Essays from ‘The London Magazine’ ❦ 1903 LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO. McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.: NEW YORK Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS PAGE LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 1 A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE 169 DRAMATIC ESSAYS FROM ‘THE LONDON MAGAZINE’ 381 NOTES 485 LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The first edition (here reprinted) was published in 1819 in one 8vo. volume (343 pp.), with the following title-page:—‘Lectures on the English Comic Writers. Delivered at the Surry Institution. By William Hazlitt. “It is a very good office one man does another, when he tells him the manner of his being pleased.” Steele. London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey, 93. Fleet Street. 1819.’ The volume was printed by J. Miller, Noble Street, Cheapside. The ‘third edition’ (the second having been presumably a mere re-print of the first), edited by the author’s son and published by Templeman, appeared in 1841, and included some additions collected from various sources. These additions are referred to in the notes to the present volume. The first edition was republished by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in Bohn’s Library in 1869, and the third edition has quite recently been included in the Temple Classics series ‘under the immediate editorial care of Mr. Austin Dobson’ (1900). CONTENTS LECTURE I. PAGE