‘I ALSO WAS AN ARCADIAN’ - “On the Past and Future”
Hazlitt observes, “The turbulence of action, and uneasiness of desire, must point to the future: it is only in the quiet innocence of shepherds, in the simplicity of pastoral ages, that a tomb was found with this inscription—'I ALSO WAS AN ARCADIAN!” The inscription abridges the shepherd’s striking former reality that would not be expunged by mortality. For the shepherd, being Arcadian was idyllic, therefore, it was imperious that the engraving be encompassed on the mausoleum. The deceased shepherd was not preoccupied with perverse immortality or the future for the past had bequeathed him the paradise of pastoralism. Had the shepherd been chagrined by the minimalism of Arcadianism, then the tomb would not have lodged the imprinting.
Pictures - “On The Ignorance Of The Learned”
Hazlitt applies archetypal art to particularize the scholars’ ignorance: “A mere scholar, who knows nothing but books, must be ignorant even of them…He sees no beauty in the face of nature or of art…He knows nothing of pictures,—'Of the colouring of Titian, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, the corregioscity of Correggio, the learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Caracci, or the grand contour of Michael Angelo,'—of all those glories of the Italian and miracles of the Flemish school, which have filled the eyes of mankind with delight, and to the study and imitation of which thousands have in vain devoted their lives.” The epic arts encompassed in Hazlitt’s explanation are not grounded on simulated concepts; they personify categorical intrinsic aptitude that is not based on scholarly attitudes. A scholar would diagnose the materiality and the exceptionality of these astounding artworks because they do not underwrite the artificial creeds which the scholars ratify.
