William hazlitt essays

William hazlitt essays

Hazlitt was ambivalent about Rome, the farthest point of his journey. Really, his stance on Napoleon was his own, as he had idolised Napoleon for decades, and he prepared to return to Paris to undertake the research. He spent as much time, apparently, at Winterslow as he did in London. On the william hazlitt essays between Florence and Rome, william hazlitt essays, for example. This is the reason, according to Hazlitt, why neither Coleridge, nor Wordsworth, nor Byron could write effective drama. On 18 JuneNapoleon was defeated at Waterloo. The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and a narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over the actions and motives of others.

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William Hazlitt 10 April — 18 September was an English essayist, william hazlitt essays, drama and literary criticpainter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, [1] [2] placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canonincluding Charles and Mary LambStendhalSamuel Taylor ColeridgeWilliam Wordsworthand John Keats. The family of Hazlitt's father were Irish Protestants who moved from the county of Antrim to Tipperary in the early 18th century. Also named William Hazlitt, Hazlitt's father attended the University of Glasgow where he was taught by Adam Smith[9] receiving a master's degree in Not entirely satisfied with his Presbyterian faith, he became a Unitarian minister in England.

In he william hazlitt essays pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, where in he married Grace Loftus, daughter of a recently deceased ironmonger. Of their many children, only three survived infancy. The first of these, John later known as a portrait painterwas born in at Marshfield in Gloucestershire, william hazlitt essays the Reverend William Hazlitt had accepted a new pastorate after his marriage. Inthe elder Hazlitt accepted yet another position and moved with his family to MaidstoneKent, william hazlitt essays, where his first and only surviving daughter, Margaret usually known as "Peggy"was born that same year. William, the youngest of the surviving Hazlitt children, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, in Inwhen he was two, his family began a nomadic lifestyle that was to last several years.

From Maidstone his father took them to Bandon, County CorkIreland; and from Bandon in to the United Stateswhere the elder Hazlitt preached, lectured, and sought a ministerial call to a liberal congregation. His efforts to obtain a post did not meet with success, although he did exert a certain influence on the founding of the first Unitarian church in Boston. Hazlitt would william hazlitt essays little of his years in America, save the taste of william hazlitt essays. Hazlitt was educated at home and at william hazlitt essays local school.

At age 13 he had the satisfaction of seeing his writing appear in print for the first time, when the Shrewsbury Chronicle published his letter July condemning the riots in Birmingham over Joseph Priestley 's support for the French Revolution. The curriculum william hazlitt essays Hackney was very broad, including a grounding in the Greek and Latin classicswilliam hazlitt essays, mathematicshistory, government, william hazlitt essays, science, and, of course, religion. Priestley, whom Hazlitt had read and who was also one of his teachers, was an impassioned commentator on political issues of the day. This, along with the turmoil in the wake of the French Revolution, sparked in Hazlitt and his classmates lively debates on these issues, as william hazlitt essays saw their world being transformed around them.

Changes were taking place within the young Hazlitt as well. While, out of respect for his father, Hazlitt never openly broke with his religion, he suffered a loss of faith, and left Hackney before completing his preparation for the ministry. Although Hazlitt rejected the Unitarian theology[20] his time at Hackney left him with much more than religious scepticism. He had read widely and william hazlitt essays habits of independent thought and respect for the truth that would remain with him for life. The school had impressed upon him the importance of the individual's ability, working both alone and within a mutually supportive community, to effect beneficial change by adhering to strongly held principles.

The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the human mind had also laid a foundation for the young Hazlitt's own philosophical explorations along those lines. And, though harsh experience and disillusionment later compelled him to qualify some of his early ideas about human naturehe was left with a hatred of tyranny and persecution that he retained to his dying days, [22] as expressed a quarter-century afterward in the retrospective summing up of his political stance in his collection of Political Essays : "I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and I have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended.

Returning home, aroundhis william hazlitt essays were directed into more secular channels, encompassing not only politics but, increasingly, modern philosophy, which he had begun to read with fascination at Hackney. In Septemberhe had met William Godwin[24] the reformist thinker whose recently published Political Justice had taken English intellectual circles william hazlitt essays storm. Hazlitt was never to feel entirely in sympathy with Godwin's philosophy, william hazlitt essays, but it gave him much food for thought. His intense studies focused on man as a social and political animal and, in particular, on the philosophy of mind, a discipline that would later be called psychology.

It was in this period also that he came across Jean-Jacques Rousseauwho became one of the most important influences on the budding philosopher's thinking. He also familiarized william hazlitt essays with the works of Edmund Burkewhose writing style impressed him enormously. In the meantime the scope of his reading had broadened and new circumstances had altered the course of his career. Yet, to the end of his life, he would consider himself a philosopher. AroundHazlitt found new inspiration and encouragement from Joseph Fawcetta retired clergyman and prominent reformer, whose enormous breadth of taste left the young thinker awestruck. From Fawcett, in the words of biographer Ralph Wardle, he imbibed a love for "good fiction and impassioned writing", Fawcett being "a man of keen intelligence who did not scorn the products of the imagination or apologize for his tastes".

With him, Hazlitt not only discussed the radical thinkers of their day, but ranged comprehensively over all kinds of literature, from John Milton 's Paradise Lost to Laurence Sterne 's Tristram Shandy. This background is important for understanding the breadth and depth of Hazlitt's own taste in his later critical writings. Aside from residing with his father as he strove to find his own voice and work out his philosophical ideas, Hazlitt also stayed over with his older brother John, who had studied under Joshua Reynolds and was following a career as a portrait painter. He also spent evenings with delight in London's theatrical world[32] an aesthetic experience that would prove, somewhat later, of seminal importance to his mature critical work. In large part, william hazlitt essays, however, Hazlitt was then living a decidedly contemplative existence, one somewhat frustrated by his failure to express on paper the thoughts and feelings that were churning within him.

This encounter, a life-changing event, was subsequently to exercise a profound influence on his writing career that, in retrospect, Hazlitt regarded as greater than any other. On 14 JanuaryHazlitt, in what was to prove a turning point in his life, encountered Coleridge as the latter preached at the Unitarian chapel in Shrewsbury. A minister at the time, william hazlitt essays, Coleridge had as yet none of the william hazlitt essays that would later accrue to him as a poet, critic, and philosopher. Hazlitt, like Thomas de Quincey and many others afterwards, was swept off his feet by Coleridge's dazzlingly erudite eloquence.

Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion. In April, Hazlitt jumped at Coleridge's invitation to visit him at his residence in Nether Stoweyand that same day was taken to call in on William Wordsworth at his house in Alfoxton. While he was not immediately struck by Wordsworth's appearance, in observing the cast of Wordsworth's eyes as they contemplated a sunset, he reflected, "With what eyes these poets see nature! All three were fired by the ideals of liberty and the rights of man. Rambling across the countryside, they talked of poetry, philosophy, and the political movements that were shaking up the old order. This unity of spirit was not to last: Hazlitt himself would recall disagreeing with Wordsworth on the philosophical underpinnings of his projected poem The Reclusewilliam hazlitt essays, [40] just as he had earlier been amazed that Coleridge could dismiss David Humewilliam hazlitt essays, regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of that century, as a charlatan.

Meanwhile, william hazlitt essays, the fact remained that Hazlitt had chosen not to follow a pastoral vocation. Although he never abandoned his goal of writing a philosophical treatise on the disinterestedness of the human mind, it had to be put aside indefinitely. Still dependent on his father, he was now obliged to earn his own living. Artistic talent seemed to run in the family on his mother's side and, starting inhe became increasingly fascinated by painting. His brother, John, had by now become a successful painter of miniature william hazlitt essays. So it occurred to William that he might earn a living similarly, and he began to take lessons from John, william hazlitt essays.

Hazlitt also william hazlitt essays various picture galleries, and he began to get work doing portraits, painting somewhat in the style of Rembrandt. Byhis work was considered good enough that a portrait he had recently painted of his father was accepted for exhibition by the Royal Academy. Later inHazlitt was commissioned to travel to Paris and copy several works of the Old Masters hanging in The Louvre. This was one of the great opportunities of his life. Over a period of three months, he spent long hours rapturously studying the gallery's collections, [47] and hard thinking and close analysis would later inform a considerable body of his art criticism.

He also happened to catch sight of Napoleona man he idolised as the rescuer of the common man from the oppression of royal " Legitimacy ", william hazlitt essays. Back in England, Hazlitt again travelled up into the country, having obtained several commissions to paint portraits. One commission again proved fortunate, as it brought him back in touch with Coleridge and Wordsworth, both of whose portraits william hazlitt essays painted, as well as one of Coleridge's son Hartley. Hazlitt aimed to create the best pictures he could, whether they flattered their subjects or not, and neither poet was satisfied with his result, though Wordsworth and their mutual friend Robert Southey considered his portrait of Coleridge a better likeness than one by the celebrated James Northcote.

Recourse to prostitutes was unexceptional among literary—and other—men of that period, [50] and if Hazlitt was to differ from his contemporaries, the difference lay in his unabashed candour about such arrangements. He had however grossly misread her intentions and an altercation broke out which led to his precipitous retreat from the town under cover of darkness. This public blunder placed a further strain on his relations with both Coleridge and Wordsworth, which were already fraying for other reasons. On 22 Marchat a London dinner party held by William Godwin, Hazlitt met Charles Lamb and his sister Mary.

Their friendship, though sometimes strained by Hazlitt's difficult ways, lasted until the end of Hazlitt's life. With few commissions for painting, Hazlitt seized the opportunity to ready for publication his philosophical treatise, which, according to his son, he had completed by Godwin intervened to help him find a publisher, and the work, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mindwas printed in a limited edition of copies by Joseph Johnson on 19 July Although the treatise he valued above anything else he wrote was never, at least in his own lifetime, recognised for what he believed was its true worth, [60] it brought him william hazlitt essays as one who had a grasp of contemporary philosophy.

He therefore was commissioned to abridge and write a preface to a now obscure work of mental philosophy, The Light of Nature Pursued by Abraham Tucker originally published in seven volumes from towhich appeared in [61] and may have had some influence on his own later thinking. Slowly Hazlitt began to find enough work to eke out a bare living. His outrage at events then taking place in English politics in reaction to Napoleon's wars led to his writing and publishing, at his own expense though he had almost no moneya political pamphlet, Free Thoughts on Public Affairs[63] an attempt to mediate between private economic interests and a national application of the thesis of his Essay that human motivation is not, inherently, entirely selfish. Hazlitt also contributed three letters to William Cobbett 's Weekly Political Register at this time, all scathing critiques of Thomas Malthus 's Essay on the Principle of Population and later editions.

Here he replaced the dense, abstruse manner of his william hazlitt essays work with the trenchant prose style that was to be the hallmark of his later essays. Hazlitt's philippicdismissing Malthus's argument on population limits as sycophantic rhetoric to flatter the rich, since large swathes of uncultivated land lay all round England, has been hailed as "the most substantial, comprehensive, and brilliant of the Romantic ripostes to Malthus". In the prefaces to the speeches, he began to show a skill he would later develop to perfection, the art of the pithy character sketch.

He was able to find more work as a portrait painter as well. In Maywilliam hazlitt essays, Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart, [67] a friend of Mary Lamb and sister of John Stoddarta journalist who became editor of The Times newspaper in Shortly before the wedding, John Stoddart established a trust into which he began paying £ per year, for the benefit of Hazlitt and his wife—this was a very generous gesture, but Hazlitt detested being william hazlitt essays by his brother-in-law, whose political beliefs he despised. Miss Stoddart, an unconventional woman, accepted Hazlitt and tolerated his eccentricities just as he, with his own somewhat william hazlitt essays individualism, william hazlitt essays, accepted her.

Together they made an agreeable social foursome with the Lambs, who visited them when they set up a household in Winterslow william hazlitt essays, a village a few miles from SalisburyWiltshire, in southern England. He in turn fathered William Carew Hazlitt. As the head of a family, Hazlitt was now more than ever in need of money. Through William Godwin, with whom he was frequently in touch, he obtained a commission to write an English grammarpublished on 11 November as A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue. Though completed inwilliam hazlitt essays, this work did not see the light of day untiland so provided no financial gain to satisfy the needs of a young husband and father, william hazlitt essays. Hazlitt in the meantime had not forsaken his painterly ambitions.

His environs at Winterslow afforded him opportunities for landscape painting, and he spent considerable time in London procuring commissions for portraits. In January Hazlitt embarked on a sometime career as a lecturer, in this first instance by delivering a series of talks on the British philosophers at the Russell Institution in London. A central thesis of the talks was that Thomas Hobbeswilliam hazlitt essays, rather than John Locke, william hazlitt essays, had laid the foundations of modern philosophy. After a shaky beginning, Hazlitt attracted some attention—and some much-needed money—by these lectures, and they provided him with an opportunity to expound some of his own ideas. The year seems to have been the last in which Hazlitt persisted seriously in his ambition to make a career as a painter.

Although he had demonstrated some talent, the results of his most impassioned efforts always fell far short of the very standards william hazlitt essays had set by comparing his own work with the productions of such masters as Rembrandt, Titianand Raphael.

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He reacted to his sight of Paris like a child entering a fairyland: "The approach to the capital on the side of St. Germain's is one continued succession of imposing beauty and artificial splendour, of groves, of avenues, of bridges, of palaces, and of towns like palaces, all the way to Paris, where the sight of the Thuilleries completes the triumph of external magnificence He remained with his wife in Paris for more than three months, eagerly exploring the museums, attending the theatres, wandering the streets, and mingling with the people. He was especially glad to be able to return to the Louvre and revisit the masterpieces he had adored twenty years ago, recording for his readers all of his renewed impressions of canvases by Guido , Poussin, and Titian, among others.

He also was pleased to meet and befriend Henri Beyle, now better known by his nom de plume of Stendhal , who had discovered much to like in Hazlitt's writings, as Hazlitt had in his. Finally he and his wife resumed the journey to Italy. As they advanced slowly in those days of pre-railway travel at one stage taking nearly a week to cover less than two hundred miles , [] Hazlitt registered a running commentary on the scenic points of interest. On the road between Florence and Rome, for example,. Hazlitt, in the words of Ralph Wardle, "never stopped observing and comparing. He was an unabashed sightseer who wanted to take in everything available, and he could recreate vividly all he saw".

Yet frequently he showed himself to be more than a mere sightseer, with the painter, critic, and philosopher in him asserting their influence in turn or at once. A splendid scene on the shore of Lake Geneva , for example, viewed with the eye of both painter and art critic, inspired the following observation: "The lake shone like a broad golden mirror, reflecting the thousand dyes of the fleecy purple clouds, while Saint Gingolph , with its clustering habitations, shewed like a dark pitchy spot by its side; and beyond the glimmering verge of the Jura hovered gay wreaths of clouds, fair, lovely, visionary, that seemed not of this world No person can describe the effect; but so in Claude 's landscapes the evening clouds drink up the rosy light, and sink into soft repose!

Likewise, the philosopher in Hazlitt emerges in his account of the following morning: "We had a pleasant walk the next morning along the side of the lake under the grey cliffs, the green hills and azure sky the snowy ridges that seemed close to us at Vevey receding farther into a kind of lofty background as we advanced The speculation of Bishop Berkeley, or some other philosopher, that distance is measured by motion and not by the sight, is verified here at every step". He was also constantly considering the manners of the people and the differences between the English and the French and later, to a lesser extent, the Italians and Swiss. Did the French really have a "butterfly, airy, thoughtless, fluttering character"?

In some ways the French seemed superior to his countrymen. Unlike the English, he discovered, the French attended the theatre reverently, respectfully, "the attention like that of a learned society to a lecture on some scientific subject". Trying to be honest with himself, and every day discovering something new about French manners that confounded his preconceptions, Hazlitt was soon compelled to retract some of his old prejudices. As he had befriended Stendhal in Paris, so in Florence, besides visiting the picture galleries, he struck up a friendship with Walter Savage Landor. He also spent much time with his old friend Leigh Hunt, now in residence there. Hazlitt was ambivalent about Rome, the farthest point of his journey.

His first impression was one of disappointment. He had expected primarily the monuments of antiquity. But, he asked, "what has a green-grocer's stall, a stupid English china warehouse, a putrid trattoria , a barber's sign, an old clothes or old picture shop or a Gothic palace to do with ancient Rome? There were the "pride, pomp, and pageantry" of the Catholic religion, [] as well as having to cope with the "inconvenience of a stranger's residence at Rome You want some shelter from the insolence and indifference of the inhabitants You have to squabble with every one about you to prevent being cheated, to drive a hard bargain in order to live, to keep your hands and your tongue within strict bounds, for fear of being stilettoed, or thrown into the Tower of St.

Angelo, or remanded home. You have much to do to avoid the contempt of the inhabitants You must run the gauntlet of sarcastic words or looks for a whole street, of laughter or want of comprehension in reply to all the questions you ask Venice presented fewer difficulties, and was a scene of special fascination for him: "You see Venice rising from the sea", he wrote, "its long line of spires, towers, churches, wharfs stretched along the water's edge, and you view it with a mixture of awe and incredulity". Here there were numerous masterpieces by his favourite painter Titian, whose studio he visited, as well as others by Veronese , Giorgione , Tintoretto , and more. On the way home, crossing the Swiss Alps, Hazlitt particularly desired to see the town of Vevey, the scene of Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Héloïse , a love story that he associated with his disappointed love for Sarah Walker.

As he reported:. Hazlitt's time at Vevey was not passed entirely in a waking dream. As at Paris, and sometimes other stopping points such as Florence, he continued to write, producing one or two essays later included in The Plain Speaker , as well as some miscellaneous pieces. A side trip to Geneva during this period led him to a review of his Spirit of the Age , by Francis Jeffrey, in which the latter takes him to task for striving too hard after originality. Much of his time, however, was spent in a mellow mood. At this time he wrote "Merry England" which appeared in the December New Monthly Magazine. Intent upon the scene and upon the thoughts that stir within me, I conjure up the cheerful passages of my life, and a crowd of happy images appear before me". The return to London in October was a letdown.

The grey skies and bad food compared unfavorably with his recent retreat, and he was suffering from digestive problems these recurred throughout much of his later life , though it was also good to be home. As comfortable as Hazlitt was on settling in again to his home on Down Street in London in late where he remained until about mid , the reality of earning a living again stared him in the face. He continued to provide a stream of contributions to various periodicals, primarily The New Monthly Magazine. The topics continued to be his favourites, including critiques of the "new school of reformers", drama criticism, and reflections on manners and the tendencies of the human mind.

He gathered previously published essays for the collection The Plain Speaker , writing a few new ones in the process. He also oversaw the publication in book form of his account of his recent Continental tour. But what he most wanted was to write a biography of Napoleon. Now Sir Walter Scott was writing his own life of Napoleon, from a strictly conservative point of view, and Hazlitt wanted to produce one from a countervailing, liberal perspective. Really, his stance on Napoleon was his own, as he had idolised Napoleon for decades, and he prepared to return to Paris to undertake the research.

First, however, he brought to fruition another favourite idea. Always fascinated by artists in their old age see "On the Old Age of Artists" , [] Hazlitt was especially interested in the painter James Northcote , student and later biographer of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a Royal Academician. Hazlitt would frequently visit him—by then about 80 years old—and they conversed endlessly on men and manners, the illustrious figures of Northcote's younger days, particularly Reynolds, and the arts, particularly painting. Northcote was at this time a crochety, slovenly old man who lived in wretched surroundings and was known for his misanthropic personality.

Hazlitt was oblivious to the surroundings and tolerated the grumpiness. They were later collected under the title Conversations of James Northcote, Esq. But there was little in common between these articles and Boswell's life of Johnson. Hazlitt felt such a closeness to the old artist that in his conversations, Northcote was transformed into a kind of alter ego. Hazlitt made no secret of the fact that the words he ascribed to Northcote were not all Northcote's own but sometimes expressed the views of Hazlitt as much as Hazlitt's own words. Some of the conversations were little more than gossip, and they spoke of their contemporaries without restraint.

When the conversations were published, some of those contemporaries were outraged. Northcote denied the words were his; and Hazlitt was shielded from the consequences to a degree by his residing in Paris, where he was at work on what he thought would be his masterpiece. The last conversation originally published in The Atlas on 15 November , when Hazlitt had less than a year to live is especially telling. Whether it really occurred more or less as given, or was a construct of Hazlitt's own imagination, it provides perspective on Hazlitt's own position in life at that time.

In words attributed to Northcote: "You have two faults: one is a feud or quarrel with the world, which makes you despair, and prevents you taking all the pains you might; the other is a carelessness and mismanagement, which makes you throw away the little you actually do, and brings you into difficulties that way. Hazlitt justifies his own contrary attitude at length: "When one is found fault with for nothing, or for doing one's best, one is apt to give the world their revenge. All the former part of my life I was treated as a cipher; and since I have got into notice, I have been set upon as a wild beast. When this is the case, and you can expect as little justice as candour, you naturally in self-defence take refuge in a sort of misanthropy and cynical contempt for mankind.

He was perhaps overly self-disparaging in this self-portrait, [] but it opens a window on the kind of life Hazlitt was leading at this time, and how he evaluated it in contrast to the lives of his more overtly successful contemporaries. In August , Hazlitt and his wife set out for Paris again, so he could research what he hoped would be his masterpiece, a biography of Napoleon , seeking "to counteract the prejudiced interpretations of Scott's biography". This did not work out quite as planned. His wife's independent income allowed them to take lodgings in a fashionable part of Paris; he was comfortable, but also distracted by visitors and far from the libraries he needed to visit.

Nor did he have access to all the materials that Scott's stature and connections had provided him with for his own life of Napoleon. Hazlitt's son also came to visit, and conflicts broke out between him and his father that also drove a wedge between Hazlitt and his second wife: their marriage was by now in free fall. With his own works failing to sell, Hazlitt had to spend much time churning out more articles to cover expenses. Yet distractions notwithstanding, some of these essays rank among his finest, for example his "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth", published in The Monthly Magazine not to be confused with the similarly named New Monthly Magazine in March On returning to London with his son in August , Hazlitt was shocked to discover that his wife, still in Paris, was leaving him.

He settled in modest lodgings on Half-Moon Street , and thereafter waged an unending battle against poverty, as he found himself forced to grind out a stream of mostly undistinguished articles for weeklies like The Atlas to generate desperately needed cash. Relatively little is known of Hazlitt's other activities in this period. He spent as much time, apparently, at Winterslow as he did in London. But he also found himself struggling against bouts of illness, nearly dying at Winterslow in December This entailed even more financial difficulties for the author, and what little evidence we have of his activities at the time consists in large part of begging letters to publishers for advances of money. The easy life he had spoken of to Northcote had largely vanished by the time that conversation was published about a year before his death.

By then he was overwhelmed by the degradation of poverty, frequent bouts of physical as well as mental illness—depression [] caused by his failure to find true love and by his inability to bring to fruition his defence of the man he worshipped as a hero of liberty and fighter of despotism. Although Hazlitt retained a few devoted admirers, his reputation among the general public had been demolished by the cadre of reviewers in Tory periodicals whose efforts Hazlitt had excoriated in "On the Jealousy and the Spleen of Party". His four-volume life of Napoleon turned out to be a financial failure. Worse in retrospect, it was a poorly integrated hodgepodge of largely borrowed materials. Less than a fifth of his projected masterpiece consists of Hazlitt's own words. Hazlitt managed to complete The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte shortly before his death, but did not live to see it published in its entirety.

Few details remain of Hazlitt's daily life in his last years. There, he seems to have exchanged visits with some of his old friends, but few details of these occasions were recorded. Often he was seen in the company of his son and son's fiancée. In , Hazlitt found work reviewing for the theatre again for The Examiner. In playgoing he found one of his greatest consolations. One of his most notable essays, "The Free Admission", arose from this experience. In words written within his last few months, the possessor of a free admission to the theatre, "ensconced in his favourite niche, looking from the 'loop-holes of retreat' in the second circle views the pageant of the world played before him; melts down years to moments; sees human life, like a gaudy shadow, glance across the stage; and here tastes of all earth's bliss, the sweet without the bitter, the honey without the sting, and plucks ambrosial fruits and amaranthine flowers placed by the enchantress Fancy within his reach, without having to pay a tax for it at the time, or repenting of it afterwards.

He found some time to return to his earlier philosophical pursuits, including popularised presentations of the thoughts expressed in earlier writings. Some of these, such as meditations on "Common Sense", "Originality", "The Ideal", "Envy", and "Prejudice", appeared in The Atlas in early After a brief stay on Bouverie Street in , sharing lodgings with his son, [] Hazlitt moved into a small apartment at 6 Frith Street , Soho. Even at this time, however, he turned out a few notable essays, primarily for The New Monthly Magazine. Turning his suffering to advantage, [] he described the experience, with copious observations on the effects of illness and recovery on the mind, in "The Sick Chamber".

In one of his last respites from pain, reflecting on his personal history, he wrote, "This is the time for reading. A cricket chirps on the hearth, and we are reminded of Christmas gambols long ago. A rose smells doubly sweet and we enjoy the idea of a journey and an inn the more for having been bed-rid. But a book is the secret and sure charm to bring all these implied associations to a focus. If the stage [alluding to his remarks in "The Free-Admission"] shows us the masks of men and the pageant of the world, books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.

They are the first and last, the most home-felt, the most heart-felt of our enjoyments". Such respites from pain did not last, though news of The Three Glorious Days that drove the Bourbons from France in July raised his spirits. Or was it, as biographer Stanley Jones believes, more likely to have been a woman he had met more recently at the theatre? His last words were reported to have been "Well, I've had a happy life". William Hazlitt was buried in the churchyard of St Anne's Church, Soho in London on 23 September , with only his son William, Charles Lamb, P. Patmore, and possibly a few other friends in attendance.

In the late s his reputation was reasserted by admirers and his works reprinted. Two major works by others then appeared: The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style by Tom Paulin in and Quarrel of the Age: The Life and Times of William Hazlitt by A. Grayling in Hazlitt's reputation has continued to rise, and now many contemporary thinkers, poets, and scholars consider him one of the greatest critics in the English language, and its finest essayist. In , following a lengthy appeal initiated by Ian Mayes together with A.

Grayling, Hazlitt's gravestone was restored in St Anne's Churchyard , and unveiled by Michael Foot. The society publishes an annual peer-reviewed journal called The Hazlitt Review. One of Soho's fashionable hotels is named after the writer. Hazlitt's hotel located on Frith Street is the last of the homes William lived in and today still retains much of the interior he would have known so well. The Jonathan Bate novel The Cure for Love was based indirectly on Hazlitt's life. Other editors of Hazlitt include Frank Carr , D. Nichol Smith , Jacob Zeitlin , Will David Howe , Arthur Beatty ?

Wyatt , Charles Harold Gray , G. Hollingworth , Stanley Williams ? Jepson , Richard Wilson , Catherine Macdonald Maclean , William Archer and Robert Lowe , John R. Nabholtz , Christopher Salvesen , and R. White From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the English literary critic and essayist. For other persons named William Hazlitt, see William Hazlitt disambiguation. Essayist literary critic painter philosopher. Main article: The Spirit of the Age. Hazlitt is both a philosopher and one of the supreme literary critics in the language. Quoted in Philip French, Three Honest Men: Edmund Wilson, F. Leavis, Lionel Trilling Manchester, U.

Grayling notes that Kenneth Clark "described Hazlitt as the 'best critic of art before Ruskin'. See also Bromwich, p. He is not studied in most university English courses Hazlitt, Works , vol. Hereafter, references to Works will imply "Hazlitt, Works ". Howe, "the only reference to his stay in America is to the taste of the barberries picked on the hills". Howe, p. Albrecht, p. This Hackney College was a short-lived institution — with no connection to the current college by that name. Maclean, p. See Wardle, pp. See Kinnaird, pp.

Quoted in Gilmartin, pp. See Works , vol. See Bromwich pp. See also "A Letter to William Gifford" , in Works , vol. His meeting with Coleridge "was a revelation, and was to change him forever". Wu, p. Holmes , pp. Barker, p. See also Wardle, pp. See Grayling, p. For another account of this contretemps, see Maclean, pp. From that time onward, she writes, the two "had for each other the easy unstrained affection of brothers". Maclean, pp. They are pure egotists", "Characteristics", Hazlitt, Works , vol. Its thesis is that, contrary to the prevailing belief of the moral philosophy of the time, benevolent actions are not modifications of an underlying fundamental human selfishness.

The fundamental tendency of the human mind is, in a particular sense, disinterest. That is, an interest in the future welfare of others is no less natural to us than such an interest in our own future welfare. See Bromwich, pp. See Burley, p. On the argument of the Essay , see Grayling, pp. Gillian Beattie-Smith, Women's History Review 22 2 , April DOI: Beattie-Smith gives the date of the marriage as 12 May, Sarah Hazlitt's death year as she was born in According to Duncan Wu, they were married on 1 May and Sarah Hazlitt died in See Wu, pp.

The Independent. Retrieved 6 March According to David Bromwich, Hazlitt thought that "in The Excursion the two great impulses of romance, to tell a story and to give instruction, have thus separated out completely. See also Hazlitt, Works , vol. Yet it was to an extent a consciously applied device. See Gerald Lahey, "Introduction", Hazlitt, Letters , p. See also Paul Hamilton, "Hazlitt and the 'Kings of Speech'", in Natarajan, Paulin, and Wu, pp. we are obliged perpetually to witness, through frequent citation, the legitimacy and advantage of appropriating the language of others to promote our most intimate, private sense of self. Hazlitt is never repetitious in his ventriloquizing; he never turns quotations into tags, is never sententious. glory in the flower". Works , vol. Law, p. Wardle, p.

The relationship between Hazlitt and Keats is explored in depth in Bromwich, pp. See also Natarajan, pp. See also Jones, pp. See Maclean, pp. The book itself, or a reference book? Hazlitt's "Letter" was written in the hope that the his son "would not grow to form immediate prejudices of others but would rather mature into a well-rounded gentleman". Explanation of the essay "On the feeling of Immortality in youth". William Hazlitt: Selected Essays study guide contains a biography of William Hazlitt, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. William Hazlitt: Selected Essays essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of William Hazlitt: Selected Essays.

Remember me. Forgot your password? Which specific letter are you referring to? On the feeling of immortality in youth. Explanation of the essay "On the feeling of Immortality in youth". William Hazlitt: Selected Essays study guide contains a biography of William Hazlitt, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. William Hazlitt: Selected Essays essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of William Hazlitt: Selected Essays. Remember me. Forgot your password? Which specific letter are you referring to? On the feeling of immortality in youth. Study Guide for William Hazlitt: Selected Essays William Hazlitt: Selected Essays study guide contains a biography of William Hazlitt, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About William Hazlitt: Selected Essays William Hazlitt: Selected Essays Summary Character List Glossary Themes Read the Study Guide for William Hazlitt: Selected Essays…. Essays for William Hazlitt: Selected Essays William Hazlitt: Selected Essays essays are academic essays for citation.