ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS WILLIAM HAZLITT BY AUGUSTINE BIRRELL c A mans life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuf of the candle THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON MACMILLAN CO., LTD. 1902 All rights reserved COPYBIGHT, 1902, BY THE MAOMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electro typed June, 1902. 5-S. Gushing Co. Berwick Smith Norwood Mass. XT. S. A. PREFACE THE chief authorities for this Life of Hazlitt are the following 1 Hazlitt 7 s own books. 2 Literary Remains of the late William Hazlitt With a Notice of his Life by his Son, and Thoughts on his Genius and Writings, by E. L. Bulwer, Esq., M. P., and Mr. Serjeant Talfourd. In two volumes, Saunders and Ottley, 1836. 3 Memoirs of William Hazlitt, by W. Carew Hazlitt grandson. Two volumes, Richard Bentley, 1867. This book is cited as Life. 4 Four Generations of a Literary Family, by W. Carew Hazlitt. Two volumes. George Bed way, 1897. This book is cited as Hazlitt Memoirs. 5 Lamb and Hazlitt. Edited by W. Carew Haz litt. Elkin Matthews, 1900. 6 List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, chronologically arranged and with notes, by Alexander Ireland. John Eussell Smith, 1868. vi PREFACE 7 William Hazlitt, Essayist and Critic. With. Memoir by Alexander Ireland. Frederick Warne and Co., 1889. 8 A privately printed edition of the Liber Amoris, containing Mrs. Hazlitts Journal of my Trip to Scotland. 1894. With regard to 3, 4, and 5, I have to thank Hazlitts grandson, Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, for his permission, most cordially extended to me, to make such use as I have done of these authorities. With out that permission I should not have felt at ease in handling the valuable materials they contain. A. B. 3 NEW SQUARE, LINCOLNS INN, November23, 1901. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I PAGB PARENTAGE BIRTH AND THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 1 CHAPTER II WEM 17 CHAPTER III COLERIDGE 38 CHAPTER IV THE LOUVRE 56 CHAPTER V FIRST BOOKS, MARRIAGE, AND LONDON .... 73 CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNING OF STRIFE 95 CHAPTER VII LIFE AND LECTURES 115 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII PAGE QUARRELS, ESSAYS, DELUSIONS, AND PICTURE GALLERIES 143 CHAPTER IX MAXIMS, TRAVELS, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE . . 181 CHAPTER X THE END op STRIFE 206 CHAPTER XI CHARACTER AND GENIUS 226 WILLIAM WILLIAM HAZLITT CHAPTER I JPAKENTAGffi BIBTH AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IT was the belief of Hazlitts son, an amiable and ac complished Registrar of the old Court of Bankruptcy, that the name his father made illustrious was of Dutch origin, and originally spelt Haesluyt. The diligent researches of the grandson, Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, would not, however, justify the most conscientious of biographers in crossing a stormy sea to explore the ancient burying places of Haarlem and Leyden in search of the progenitors of the writer and critic whose passage through life has here to be shortly recorded. Cross the sea, however, that biographer must, but with his face turned to the west for it is in a lone churchyard in the county of Tipperary that the bones lie of John Hazlitt and Margaret his wife, the grand parents of the famous writer, and farther back one cannot safely go. Tradition tells us of Hazlitts, or Hasletts, or even it may be of Haesluyts, who shortly after the days of Dutch William were to be found in Antrim and Coleraine and other northern parts of Ireland, pur-B 1 2 WILLIAM HAZLITT CHAP. suing various vocations, and adhering to the dominant Protestant religion, though affectingthe Presbyterian colour. Whether these possible ancestors were the noble, silent men about whom Carlyle, that prince of biographers, loved to discourse in his early chapters, scattered here and there, each in his department silently thinking, silently working, or the most arrant chatterboxes in all Ireland, nobody now knows. For us, at all events, they are as silent as even Carlyle could wish...