WILLIAM HAZLETT.

Grey River Argus, 31 December 1927, Page 2

WILLIAM HAZLETT.

Prince of Literature. CHARACTER STUDY. In a letter to South jy one finds Charles Lamb paying a noble tribute to William Hazlitt: “I should belie my own conscience, if I said less than that I think William Hazlitt to be, in his natural state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathbig I think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such another states a writer in the “Melbourne Argus. ” When Hazlitt read these words he was busy writing an essay “On the Pleasure of Hating,” paused for a moment and said, “I think I must be friends with Lamb again.” It was significant that Lamb’s eulogium on his friend was qualified by such a phrase as “in his natural state.” He was cursed with a bad temper, a perverted tendency to melancholy and suffered a good deal from the attacks of persons whose political opinions were hostile. “I want to.know,” he once wrote, “whiy everybody has such a dislike to me.” He had the misfortune to be always “agin the Government,” an Irishman’s privilege in those days, and certainly he was a good hater and a notoriously irritable fellow. The gentle Elia said of him, “I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does.” He had not many friendships, his manners were bad 2 his temper uncertain, and Leigh Hunt said of him that in greeting you he gave you a hand like the fin of a fish. In a letter to a friend Coleridge said of Hazlitt, “His manners are 99 and 100 singularly repulsive, browhanging shoe-contemplative, strange.” One is not therefore surprised to read that when in Florence he called on Lander with “his trousers half-way up his legs.” The two got on rather well, because while Lander thought there were perhaps 30 people to whom the word vulgar did not apply, Hazlitt matched the assertion by declaring that the public was a meaty. stupid dastardly ungrateful animal. Gentlemen holding such complimentary ■ opinions of their contemporaries wore not likely to be genial and popular. Hazlitt pronounced Paris a beast of a city to be I in, and Rome a mass of tawdry com- ■ monplaces, with the smell of garlic prevailing over the odour of antiquity. UNHAPPINESS. It is in no wise astonishing therefore to fiind that Hizlitt’s two ventures in matrimony were dismal failures. After a course of study with a view to preparing for the ministry of the Unitarian Church, he gave it up and took to portrait painting, but afterwards found his true vocation in literatiure. In 1808, when 30 years of, age, he married Miss Stoddart, and lived for :» time at 19, York Street, Westminster, the house which once belonged to John Milton. About the end of 1819 ho separated from his wife, and they both agreed to endeavour to secure a dissolution of their “ill-advised connect.on in marrage. ” It was difficult to get this under English law, and a friend advised recourse to Scotland. While there he wrote a good deal of his famous “Table Talk.” In Edinburgh he met Jeffrey, “the great little man,” and found him very gracious. But Hazlitt was in ill-health, drank too much, and carried on negotiations with his wife regarding the desired divorce. There was a child of the marriage, and Mrs Hazlitt was anxious about the boy’s future. Hazlitt signed a document pledging him to pay her £l5O a year, and the divorce was but the sequel was extraordinary. About two years later a Mrs Bridgewater fell in love with him on account of his writings, and he married her. Fortunately she had iuheirted an income of about £3OO a year, and the two went to Paris, where Hazlitt was to gather material for his “Life of Napoleon.” There he met his divorced wife devoting herself to seeing the world. They chatted about his book and their son. Unfortunately, in marrying a second wife he did not cut himself off decisively from the first. Trouble arose. Hazlitt after the Italian trip returned to England, but his wife remained in Paris, and when he wrote asking when he could come to fetch her, she answered that she was going on to Switzerland with her sister, and he would never see her again. Neither he did. There are two theories about the cause of the breach. One is that the boy had felt deeply his father’s treatment of his mother and had said so to his stepmother. The other is that the second wife had serious doubts about the validity of the divorce, feared that the marriage was a bigamous one, and thought it better to leave him. SCURRILOUS ATTACKS. He always had to scribble for a living. As dramatic critic for the “Examiner” he made a great reputation, and other magazines were glad to publish anything from his pen. In 1829 we find him entering into an agreement with a new Sunday journal, the “Atlas,” and he contributed to its columns till he died. In those days journalistic manners were unimaginably coarse, and the references to Hazlitt in “Blackwood” almost defy belief. In 1823 it described him as “a small, fetid, bleareyed pug,” and in 1825 as “acknowledged scamp of the lowest order—a scamp by his own confession, steeped in ignorance and malice to his very ribald lips.’’ In 1826 the editor of the “New Monthly” is asked “Why is not Hazlitt kicked out of the concern?” In the following year one of the characters is told that he has “the face of a satyr—absolutely- getting like Hazlitt’s.’’ Another writer said of Hazlitt that he was “excommunicated from all decent society.” Incessant, furious, and scurrilous attacks were made upon the character and ability of Hazlitt. What was the reason?

Hazlitt was hasty, self-willed, caustic and he so raised the ire of “Blackwood” that its first 25 volumes ridiculed, belittled, and lampooned him; and made his fame nothing else than dangerous notoriety. Naturally, ho resented all this —and in his own way took a philosophical revenge. Some years earlier he had threatened to prosecute “Blackwood” for libel, and the publishers, rather than go to Ckurt, paid him all expenses and a certain sum for damages. The true explanation of the attacks is that Hazlitt was contri-

bating to opposition. journals certain articles showing m|"C original thinking than anything whiLh had yet appeared in “Blackwood.” tl'he proprietors were jealous of his reputation. Hazlitt would hhve saved himself a world of misery if lie had cultivated a sense of humour. He was nervous, lowspokety a strict te< totaller after a certain date, but given to over-indulgence in strong tea. Wh- n he became excited he looked like a mini inspired. His conversational powerj. never reached the level of his writings. Napoleon was his imperial idol, a id he was “eaten up with passion” whin the Great Emperor was sent to St H-lena. When Hazlitt heard of Waterloo he walked about unwashed* unshaven, (hardly sober by day and always druni at night, and for weeks after wakeiAng up he left off ail stimulating liquoil and never taH?ed

them again. To the very last he was fond of she theatres, and had boundless admiral ion for Mrs Siddons and her niece. He declared there never would be anol ier Mrs Siddons. The end came in l>3o, and was caused by an organic disc ise of the stomach. It is not true that he died in poverty and friendless. ’he Lambs were close by, and some re< mt works had brought him consider; bile sums of money. Lamb was with dm when he died. His last words were: t( 1 have had a happy life.” The truest word concerning his poJer as an author comes from StevemOni: “We are mighty fine fellows, but Ire cannoli write like William Hazlitt.’ I