WILLIAM HAZLITT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

WILLIAM HAZLITT.

A GREAT ESSAYIST.

CENTENARY TRIBUTE.

(By CHARLES WILSON.)

William Hazlitt died on September 18, 1830. Hβ died after a life of disappointment and often discomfiture, after trials many would have found unbearable, yet after over fifty years of living, worn out by what one writer has called his own "tempestuous railings," he could say "Well I've had a happy life." His , body was "ghastly, shrunk, and helpless," but the man's spirit was still there cheerful against the foe. William Hazlitt had fought against enemies all his life. He had ever been a fighter, but despite many failings he maintained a cheerful heart, and a passion for indi-, vidual liberty of conscience and independence of opinion. Hazlitt was of Irish extraction. His father, a Unitarian, was a contemporary of Adam Smith at the University of Glasgow. Joining the Unitarian body he went to America, where le founded the first Unitarian Church in Boston, but in 1786-7 returned to England and lived at Wem r in Shropshire. His .son, William, was bom at Maidstone, and scarcely seems to be aware in Ms essays of the existence of America. The future essayist was designed for the Unitarian ministry. At fifteen William weet ; to the Unitarian College at Hackney, where, however, he showed few signs of mental and educational eminence, eventually returning home to Wem, there to be for a time at what is called a loose end. Eventually William joined Ms elder brother, John, in London. John gave Mm some early instruction, and then packed him off to Paris, where William studied painting at the Louvre, and where he learned to idolise Jean Jacques Rousseau and Buonaparte.

Journalist and Author. Hazlitt became a member of the Lamb circle, and managed to make a living as reporter for the "Morning Chronicle" and the "Examiner." He wrote also for the "Edinburgh Review" and lectured The lectures were poorly attended, but his reputation grew, and he made a name for Mmself by the vigour and independence of his dramatic criticism. Early in life he had become a worshipper of Jean Jacques Rousseau whose "Confessions" a-od "Nouvelle Heloise" were long his favourite books. Hazlitt began to be recognised as a leading essayist, although the virulence of Ms political views made Mm. many enemies. He was wont at times to retire to Winterslow Hit, a lonely inn on the wolds on the verge of Salisbury Plain. His essays, many written there, are to be fouM ia "Tjhe

Round Table," "Table Talk," "Winter-1 slow," and "The Spirit of the Age."' His lectures also have been published ou "The English Poets," "The English Comic Writers," "The Characters of Shakespeare's Plays" and others. His matrimonial experiences were, to say the least of them, unfortunate. He and his first wife separated, Hazlitt contracting a violent attachment to the daughter of his. landlady, an experience with which he deals at length in "Liber Amoris." This lady married another, and Hazlitt for a time found consolation with a Miss Bridgewater, whom he married, but who soon afterwards left him. Hate and Love. Hazlitt and Lamb have often been contrasted, but there were great and salient differences between them. Hazlitt had small sense of humour, as anyone can see who reads his essays. Lamb, on the contrary, fairly bubbled over with mirth. Hazlitt avowed himself a "king of haters." Lamb never hated anybody. Tolerance was Hazlitt's bug- | bear. With him, what he disliked he hated and despised. To hate, says Mr. E. V. Lucas in his admirable "Life of Lamb," may be a virtue, but "to despise is a confession of failure as a philosopher and citizen of -f he world." Hazlitt's readiness to despise was his weakest point, it kept him out of. men's hearts as surely as Lamb's inability to depise has established Ms place there. "The word loyalty was not in Hazlitt's dictionary; it was in. italics in Lamb's. Hazlitt demanded, on the contrary, that his •friends should go with him all the way; hate where he hated, praise where he praised, cut where he cut. Lamb was too much interested in his fellows to forego their company because they held different views; he was in all the camps where whatever was interesting abode. Hazlitt had but one camp, his own." I have quoted thus far from Mr. ~E. V. Lucas. Let me, however, in justice to Hazlitt, go a little further, set down what Mr. Lucas says of Hazlitt: "Although Hazlitt may not reach the heart, his place in our heads is as secure as Lamb's. English literature possesses no acuter mind than Hazlitt's, no surer hand, yet for every reader of Hazlitt there are scores of readers of Lamb—a result which may be attributed to Hazlitt's lack of sympathetic companionship. He says the wisest, the truest things, but there is more friendliness in a page of Lamb than in all Hazlitt's writings; Hazlitt has no tendrils, he makes us think, but Jie never enfolds us."

Hazlitt and Scott. Hazlitt could and did write an eloquent tribute to Sir Walter Scott's splendid ability, as shown in the Waverley Novels." Augustine Birrell, I notice, says his essay on Scott and the Novels "is : the very best ever written on that magnificent subject"—but with Scott's political views Hazlitt haa no sympathy, and he never forgave him for his connection with the Tory "Quarterly Review," to the editor or which, Gifford, he administered ■ tae meet severe blow eve- aimed at a journalist. Not even that fellow untamable spirit, George Borrow, in his attack upon Scott (in so. appendix .to MS

"Romany Rye") went further than did Hazlitt "in his abuse or Scott's trend of political tnougnt. If ever there were a writer, says Hazlitt at the close of a superb eulogy of Scott's genius as a writer of romance, "who, born for the universe" —

Narrow'd his mind Ana to party save up what was meant for mankind—

it was Scott, and then, seeming to forget what his countrymen owed to Scott and his memory, he proceeds to belabour him with abuse, in which his enemies (Scott and the "Quarterly Review," by inrerence, being included) are charged with "nauseating the public mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang," and much more to the same effect. Alas, when political prejudice once gained dominance over Hazlitt, he could be as unfair as was the "Quarterly" to Keats, Coleridge (the earlier Coleridge), and all the company of the Reformers.

But Hazlitt, however unfair he could be to Scott on his political side, could not be excelled in his appreciation of the great literary genius displayed by Scott in his novele. After praising a number of Scott's characters he pays this tribute to their creator. "What a list ol names! What a host of- associations! What a thing is human life! What a power is that of genius! What a world of thought and feeling is thus rescued from oblivion! How many hours of heartfelt satisfaction has our author given to the gay and thoughtless! How many sad hearts has he soothed in pain and solitude! It is no wonder the public repay with lengthened applause and gratitude the pleasure they receive . . . This is indeed to be an author."

I can forgive all Hazlitt's abuse of Scott's political opinions, -which, are by this time quite dead and forgotten, for this fine tribute to his memory. The Breadth of Hazlitt's Appeal. Hazlitt's appeal is specially to the man who values liberality of thought. His essays sparkle with epigram, and as a master of burning invective he is unsurpassed. The trouble was that too often Ms judgment was clouded by prejudice. But of all the Georgian critics he was the best equipped and the most eloquent. As Mr. Birrell says: "He is always interesting and always writes about interesting things. His talk is of poets and players, or Shakespeare and Kean, of Fielding and Scott, of Burke and Cobbett, of prize fights and Indian jugglers. When he condescends to the abstract his subjects bring an appetite with them. The Shyness g of Scholars/ 'The Fear of Death/ "The Identity of an Author With His Books/ 'Effeminacy of Character, 'The Conversation of Lords,' 'On Reading New Books'-—the very titles make you lick your lips." Hazlitfs works run into many volumes. A new edition, published" by Messrs. Dent, is now in progress. There are to be 22 volumes, but = l can do very well with the best of Hazlitt in seven volumes, issued in the well printed and cheap "World's Classics," My only grumble is that this edition does not appear to include "The Round Table," but all the other principal essays are kere.