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HAZLITT, WILLIAM (1778-1830)
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See also:HAZLITT, See also: When he returned to London he undertook commissions for portraits, but soon found he was not likely to excel in his See also:art; his last portrait, one of Charles Lamb as a Venetian senator (now in the See also:National Portrait See also:Gallery), was executed in 18o5. In that year he published his first See also:book, An See also:Essay on the Principles of Human See also:Action: being an See also:argument in favour of he Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind, which had occupied him at intervals for six or seven years. It attracted little See also:attention, but remained a favourite with its author. Other See also:works belonging to this See also:period are: See also:Free Thoughts on Public Affairs (18o6); An Abridgment of the See also:Light of Nature Revealed, by See also:Abraham See also:Tucker... (1807); The Eloquence of the British See also:Senate ... (2 vols., 1807); A Reply to See also:Malthus, on his Essay on See also:Population (18o7); A New and Improved See also:Grammar of the See also:English See also:Tongue ... (181o). Hazlitt married in 18o8. His domestic life was unhappy. His wife was an unromantic, business-like woman, while he him-self was fitful and See also:moody, and impatient of See also:restraint. The See also:dissolution of the See also:ill-assorted See also:union was nevertheless deferred for fourteen years, during which much of Hazlitt's best literary See also:work had been produced. Mrs Hazlitt had inherited a small See also:estate at Winterslow near See also:Salisbury, and here the Hazlitts lived until 1812, when they removed to 19 See also:York See also:Street, See also:Westminster, a See also:house that was once See also:Milton's. Hazlitt delivered in 1812 a course of lectures at the See also:Russell Institution on the Rise and Progress of See also:Modern See also:Philosophy. He soon abandoned philosophy, however, to give his whole attention to journalism. He was See also:parliamentary reporter and subsequently dramatic critic for the See also:Morning See also:Chronicle; he also contributed to the See also:Champion and The Times; but his closest connexion was with the Examiner, owned by John and See also:Leigh See also:Hunt. In See also:conjunction with Leigh Hunt he undertook the See also:series of articles called The See also:Round Table,a collection of essays on literature, men and See also:manners which were originally contributed to the Examiner. To this See also:time belong his View of the English See also:Stage (1818), and Lectures on the English Poets (1818), on the English Comic Writers (1819), and on the Dramatic Literature of the See also:Age of See also: Being enabled to select his own subjects, he escapes dependence upon others either for his See also:matter or his illustrations, and presents himself by turns as a metaphysician, a moralist, a humorist, a painter of manners and characteristics, but always, whatever his ostensible theme, deriving the essence of his commentary from himself. This See also:combination of intense subjectivity with strict adherence to his subject is one of Hazlitt's most distinctive and creditable traits. Intellectual truthfulness is a See also:passion with him. He steeps his topic in the hues of his own individuality, but never uses it as a means of self-display. The first reception of his admirable essays was by no means in accordance with their deserts. Hazlitt's See also:political sympathies and antipathies were vehement, and he had taken the unfashionable side. The Quarterly See also:Review attacked him with deliberate malignity, stopped the See also:sale of his writings for a time and blighted his See also:credit with publishers. Hazlitt retaliated by his See also:Letter to William See also:Gifford (1819), accusing the editor of deliberate misrepresentation. In downright abuse and hard-hitting, Hazlitt proved himself more than a match even for Gifford. By the writers in See also:Black-See also:wood's See also:Magazine Hazlitt was also scurrilously treated.l He had become estranged from his early See also:friends, the See also:Lake poets, by what he uncharitably but not unnaturally regarded as their political See also:apostasy; and he had no scruples about recording his often very unfavourable opinions of his contemporaries. He displayed; moreover, an exasperating facility in grounding his criticisms on facts that his victims were unable to deny. . His inequalities of See also:temper separated him for a time even from Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb, and on the whole the period of his most brilliant literary success was that when he was most soured and broken. Domestic troubles supervened; he had gone to live in See also:Southampton Buildings in See also:September 1819, and his See also:marriage, See also:long little more than nominal, was dissolved in consequence of the infatuated passion he had conceived for his landlord's daughter, Sarah See also: (183o). The respective shares of author and artist are not always easy to determine. During the See also:recent agitations of his life he had been See also:writing essays, collected in 1826 under the title of The See also:Plain See also:Speaker: opinions on Books, Men' and Things (1826). The Spirit of the Age; or Contemporary Portraits (1825), a series of criticisms on the leading intellectual characters of the See also:day, is in point of See also:style perhaps the most splendid and copious of his compositions. It is eager and animated to impetuosity, though without any trace of carelessness or disorder. He now undertook a work which was to have crowned his literary reputation, but which can hardly be said to have even enhanced it—The Life of See also:Napoleon Buonaparte (4 vols., 1828–1830). The undertaking was at best premature, and was inevitably disfigured by partiality to Napoleon as the representative of the popular cause, excusable in a Liberal politician.writing in the days of the See also:Holy See also:Alliance. Owing to the failure of his publishers Hazlitt received no recompense for this laborious work. Pecuniary anxieties and disappointments may have contributed to hasten his See also:death, which took place on the 18th of September 1830. Charles Lamb was with him to the last. Hazlitt had many serious defects of temper. His consistency was gained at the expense of refusing to revise his early impressions and prejudices. His estimate of a man's work was too See also:apt to be decided by sympathy or the See also:reverse with his politics. For See also:Scott, however, he had a See also:great admiration, although they were far enough apart in politics. He was a See also:compound of See also:intellect and passion, and the refinement of his See also:critical See also:analysis is associated with vehement eloquence and glowing imagery. He was essentially a critic, a dissector and, as Bulwer justly remarks, a much better See also:judge of men of thought than of men of action. The paradoxes with which his works abound never spring from affectation; they are in general the sallies of a mind so agile and ardent as to overrun its own See also:goal. His style is perfectly natural, and yet admirably calculated for effect. His diction, always See also:rich and masculine, seems to kindle as he proceeds; and when thoroughly animated by his subject, he advances with a See also:succession of energetic, hard-hitting sentences, each carrying his argument a step further, like a champion dealing out blows as he presses upon the enemy. Although, however, his grasp upon his subject is strenuous, his insight into it is rarely profound. He can amply satisfy men of See also:taste and culture; he cannot, like Coleridge or See also:Burke, dissatisfy them with them-selves by showing them how much they would have missed without him. He is a critic who exhibits, rather than reveals, the beauties of an author. But all shortcomings are forgotten in the genuineness and fervour of the writer's self-See also:portraiture. The intensity of his See also:personal convictions causes all he wrote to appear in a manner autobiographic. Other men have been said to speak like books, Hazlitt's books speak like men. To read his works in connexion with Leigh Hunt's and Charles Lamb's is to be introduced into one of the most attractive of English literary circles, and this alone will long preserve them from oblivion.
His son, WILLIAM HAZLTTT (1811–1893), was born on the 26th of September 1811. The separation between his parents did not prevent him from being on affectionate terms with both of them. He early began to write for the Morning Chronicle, and in 1833 married See also:Caroline Reynell. He was the author of many See also:translations, chiefly from the See also:French, and of some works on the law of See also:bankruptcy. He was called.to the See also:bar at the See also:Middle See also:Temple in 1844, and became registrar• in the See also:court ofbankruptcy. He held this position for more than See also:thirty years, retiring two years before his death, which took place at Addle-See also: See also: R. See also:Waller and See also:Arnold See also:Glover, and there are many modern reprints of isolated works. The most copious source of See also:information respecting Hazlitt is the See also:Memoirs of William Hazlitt, with Portions of his Correspondence (2 vols., 1867), by his grandson, W. C. Hazlitt, a medley rather than a memoir, yet full of interest. A slight but appropriate See also:sketch had previously been prefixed by his son to his Literary Remains . . . (2 vols., 1836), accompanied by estimates of his intellectual See also:character by Bulwer and by See also:Talfourd, who had been his fast friend. There is an excellent monograph on William Hazlitt (1902) by Mr See also:Augustine Birreil, in the " English Men of Letters " series, and one in French by J. Donady (Paris, 1907), who also published a bibliography of his works. Valuable See also:biographical particulars have been preserved in See also:Barry See also:Cornwall's memoirs of Lamb; in the My Friends and Acquaintances (1854) of Mr P. G. Patmore, Hazlitt's most intimate See also:associate in his later years; in Crabb See also:Robinson's See also:Diary; and in Lamb's correspondence. A full bibliographical list of his writings, with a collection of the most remarkable critical judgments upon them from all quarters, was prepared by Alexander Ireland (1868). Further information on the Hazlitt family is to be found in Mr W. C. Hazlitt's Four Generations of a Literary Family (2 vols., 1897). The chief interest of this desultory book is the considerable extracts from the diary of See also:Margaret [Peggy] Hazlitt, which describes the Hazlitt experiences in America. See also " William Hazlitt " in See also:Sir L. See also:Stephen's See also:Hours in a Library (ed. 1892, vol. ii.), and Lamb and Hazlitt, further Letters and Records hitherto unpublished (1900), by W. C. Hazlitt. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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