Who Was William Hazlitt?

The period now under review is very rich in critical and miscellaneous work. Of the writers of literary criticism Hazlitt may be taken as representative.

The son of a Unitarian minister, Hazlitt was born at Maidstone, and, after a brief stay in America, spent most of his youth in Shropshire. His early studies for the Unitarian ministry were soon abandoned. Shortly after he met Coleridge (1798), whose zeal for the ideals of the French Revolution he shared. His next ambition was to become a painter, but this, too he soon abandoned in favour of a literary career. The year 1812 saw him in London, where he was in turn lecturer, parliamentary reporter, and theatre critic. From 1814 until his death he contributed to The Edinburgh Review, while others of his articles appeared in The Examiner. The Times and The London Magazine. All though his life his unusual political views and headstrong temperament involved him in frequent quarrels.

Hazlitt’s earliest writings consisted of miscellaneous philosophical and political works, which are of interest for the light they throw upon his mind, but are now little read. His reputation rests on the lectures and essays on literary and general subjects all published between 1817 and 1825. Of the former we have his lectures on Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817), The English Poets (1818), The English Comic Writes (1819), and The Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820). His best essays were collected in The Round Table (1817), Table Talk; or, Original Essays on Men and Manners (1821-22), and The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits (1825). Between 1828 and 1830 he published an unsuccessful biography of Napoleon.

Modern opinion has endorsed the contemporary recognition of Hazlitt’s eminence as a critic. His writing is remarkable for its fearless expression of an honest and individual opinion, and, while he lacks the learned critical apparatus of more modern critics, he is unsurpassed in his ability to communicate his own enjoyment, and in his gift for evoking unnoticed beauties. His judgments are based on his emotional reactions rather than on objectively applied principles. Consequently, they are sometimes marred by personal bias, as in some of the portraits in The Spirit of the Age. But, for the most part, they show his enthusiasm guided by a strong commonsense. The catholicity of his taste embraces almost every major English author from Chaucer to his own day, most of them treated with a discrimination and sympathetic insight which are not blunted by his obvious enthusiasm.

In style, Hazlitt contrasts strongly with the elaborate orchestration of the complex sentences and the magic of the delicate word tracery which we have seen in De Quincey. His brief, abrupt sentences have the vigour and directness which his views demand. His lectures have a manly simplicity, and something of the looseness of organization which is typical of good conversation. Essays and lectures alike show a fondness for the apt and skillfully blended quotation, and for the balanced sentence, often embodying a contrast. Always his diction is pure and his expression concise. The following extract is of interest as showing his courageous exposition of an opinion, diametrically opposed to that generally accepted, on the relative merits of Addison and Steele:

It will be said, that all this is to be found, in the same or a greater degree, in The Spectator. For myself, I do not think so; or, at least, there is in the last work a much greater proportion of commonplace matter. I have, on this account, always preferred The Tattler to The Spectator. Whether it is owing to my having been earlier or better acquainted with the one than the other, may pleasure in reading these two admirable works is not all in proportion to their comparative reputation. The Tatler contains only half the number of volumes, and, I will venture to say, nearly an equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. “The first sprightly runnings” are there—it has more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature. The indications of character and strokes of humour are more true and frequent; the reflections that suggest themselves arise more from the occasion, and are spun out into regular dissertations. They are more like the remarks which occur in sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. Something is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study, and to have spun out and wiredrawn the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. I am far from wishing to depreciate Addison’s talents, but I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more original writer. The humorous descriptions of Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments of a comedy; those of Addison are rather comments, or ingenious paraphrases, on the genuine text.

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