"But then at intervals there comes a vision of delight, and the seer's eye kindles, and his spirit burns within him, and glowing are the words he speaks with his tongue. The power furtively secreted in some passages, the beauty latent in others, he elucidates; brings to light, with triumph and without toil; for he had insight into Shakspeare's mind and will, and in such a case a fellowfeeling makes us wondrous keen as well as kind.". - Bentley's Miscellany. 1838. Vol. 37. Prosings, by Monkshood about the Essayists and Reviewers." I. William Hazlitt, p. 490. -- "In its healthier action his metaphysical tendency proved an inspiration. To it we owe the masterly analysis of Shakespeare's Characters, which, though ostensibly dramatic criticism, is in point of fact a work on the philosophy of life and human nature, more suggestive and legitimate than many approved text-books on the subject."-Henry T. Tuckerman (U.S.): “Characteristics of Literature."] A View of the English Stage: or a Series of Dramatic Criticisms. 1818. [A second edition, edited by his son, appeared in 1851, with the title, "Criticisms and Dramatic Essays on the English Stage." The original edition contains 461 pages, and chiefly consists of criticisms on the performances of Kean, Siddons, O'Neill, Kemble, &c. The 2nd edition has 324 pages, 156 of which consist chiefly of new matter; and the remaining 168 are devoted to a selection from the 461 pages of the first edition. The contents are: On Actors and Acting-Modern Comedy-Dramatic Poetry-Play-going-Our Old ActorsMinor Theatres-Strolling Players-Adaptations from Scott's Novels-Vulgarity in Criticism-Conversations on the Drama with Coleridge-The Performances of Elliston-Mathews-Kean-Mrs. Siddons-Mr. Kemble-Miss O'Neill-Mr. Farren-Mr. Liston--Knowles's "Virginius,”—Mr. Macready, &c. "The finest criticisms," says his son, "are those in which their author illustrated the acting of Kean, whose wonderful powers he at once recognised on the first evening of his appearance, and whose reputation he was greatly instrumental in establishing, in spite of actors, managers, and critics." . "The strong sense of pleasure, both intellectual and physical, naturally produced in Hazlitt a rooted attachment to the theatre, where the delights of the mind and the senses are blended; where the grandeur of the poet's conceptions is, in some degree, made palpable; and luxury is raised and refined by wit, sentiment, and fancy. His dramatic criticisms are more pregnant with fine thoughts on that bright epitome of human life than any others which ever were written; yet they are often more successful in making us forget their immediate subjects than in doing them justice. He began to write with a rich fund of theatrical recollections; and, except when Kean, or Miss Stephens, or Liston supplied new and decided impulses, he did little more than draw upon this old treasury. The theatre to him was redolent of the past: images of Siddons, of Kemble, of Bannister, of Jordan, thickened the air: imperfect recognitions of a hundred evenings, when mirth or sympathy had loosened the pressure at the heart, and set the springs of life in happier motion, thronged around him, and 'more than echoes talked along the walls.' He loved the theatre for these associations, and for the immediate pleasure which it gave to thousands about him, and the humanising influences it shed among them, and attended it with constancy to the very last ;* and to those personal feelings and universal sympathies he gave fit expression; but his habits of mind were unsuited to the ordinary duties of the critic. The players put him out, He could not, like Mr. Leigh Hunt, who gave theatrical criticism a place in modern literature, apply his graphic powers to a detail of a performance, and make it interesting by the delicacy of his touch; encrystal the cobweb intricacies of a plot with the sparkling dew of his own fancy-bid the light plume wave in the fluttering grace of his style-or 'catch ere she fell the Cynthia of the Minute,' and fix the airy charm in lasting words. In criticism, thus just and picturesque, Mr. Hunt has never been approached; and the wonder is, that instead of falling off with the art of acting, he even grew richer; for the articles of the Tatler, equalling those of the Examiner in niceness of discrimination, are superior to them in depth and colouring. But Hazlitt required a more powerful impulse; he never wrote willingly, except on what was great in itself, or, forming a portion of his own past being, was great to him; and when both these felici * "See his article entitled 'The Free Admission,' in the New Monthly Magazine, vol. xxix., p. 93: one of his last, and one of his most characteristic effusions." (This article is not to be found in any of the volumes of his collected essays.) ties combined in the subject, he was best of all-as upon Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Mr. Kean satisfied the first requisite only, but in the highest possible degree. His extraordinary vigour struck Hazlitt, who attended the theatre for the Morning Chronicle on the night of his début, in the very first scene, and who, from that night, became the most devoted and efficient of his supporters."-Thoughts upon the Intellectual Character of the late William Hazlitt, by Sergeant Talfourd.] Lectures on the English Poets; delivered at the Surrey Institution. 1818. Second Edition. 1819. Third Edition, edited by his Son. 1841. With an Appendix. [On Poetry in general; Homer, the Bible, Dante, Ossian; Chaucer and Spenser ; Shakespeare and Milton; Dryden and Pope; Donne, Marvel, Waller, Butler, Rochester, Suckling, Denham, Cowley, and Withers; Thomson, Cowper, Crabbe, Bloomfield, "Walton's Angler," &c.; Swift, Rabelais, Voltaire ; Young, Gray, Collins, Gay, Goldsmith, Warton, Chatterton, &c.; Burns and the Old English Ballads; and the Living Poets-Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, &c.-The beautiful essay on "The Love of the Country," which appeared in the first collected edition of the "Round Table" (although not to be found in the original series of papers under that title in the Examiner), is included in this volume, and forms the concluding portion of the lecture on Cowper and Thomson. The Appendix to 3rd edition contains the following papers:-On Milton's "Lycidas"-On the Character of Milton's Eve-On Mr. Wordsworth's Poem, "The Excursion"-Pope, Lord Byron, and Mr. Bowles: being a criticism on Lord Byron's "Letter to on the Revd. W. L. Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope." "He restored the 'Beggar's Opera,' which had been long treated as a burlesque appendage to the Newgate Calendar,' to its proper station; showing how the depth of the design, and the brilliancy of the workmanship, had been overlooked in the palpable coarseness of the materials; and tracing instances of pathos and germs of morality amidst scenes which the world had agreed to censure and to enjoy as vulgar and immoral. This exquisite morsel of criticism (if that name be proper) first appeared in the Morning Chronicle, as an introduction to the account of the first appearance of Miss Stephens in Polly Peachum (her second character)—an occasion worthy to be so celebrated, but not exciting any hope of such an article. What a surprise it was to read it for the first time amidst the tempered patriotism and measured praise of Mr. Perry's columns! It was afterwards printed in the Round Table; and (being justly a favourite of its author) found fit place in his 'Lectures on the English Poets.' (See Lecture VI.)"-Sergeant Talfourd's Thoughts upon the Intellectual Character of William Hazlitt. "The 'Lectures on the English Poets' is perhaps one of the most generally interesting. He handles the subject with great gusto, metaphysical acuteness, and rich illustration. One remarkable quality in Hazlitt's writings is his extraordinary abundance, justness, beauty, and felicity of quotation."-Westminster Review. "On the first opening of the book, one sees that it contains a collection of the best things thought and said by a man of great taste, of piercing intellect, and a shining wit, chased in a rich setting of language rather than a systematic display of opinions. Mr. Hazlitt indeed seems to think that both more pleasure and more utility is gained by a quick and glancing opposition of ideas than by a continuous gradation or painful reconcilement of them. He is none of your belles lettres men, who give you a system of taste and composition according to the common sense and metaphysics of Reid, and who see no beauty in anything unless there be a corresponding reason for it in Dr. Blair. He spurns the trammels of logical method, and never submits to prose over the stupid expedients of drawling analysis. This is not out of either laziness or caprice, for we find in all his pages rather a compression of mind, talent, and observation, than the trivial display of shallow acquirements, or the array of fine talking. His chief talent as a thinker, and his great charm as a writer too, seem to be felicity of touch. Not that he does not show eloquence of the purest kind, and acuteness, and an exquisite sensitiveness to beauty of every sort; the tangible beauty of sounds and colours, faces and forms, states and stages of existence, as well as the shadowy and individual beauty of apprehension. His very phraseology and occasional capricious choices of expression, evince patient thinking with deep observation-and wisdom and philosophy as the result of these. It is no ordinary matter to peruse a book of Mr. Hazlitt's. There is a certain hurry of the spirits which never fails to accompany his fine show of reason and taste, and under which the mind is hardly at leisure to select beauties or start objections. But those who love a treat of strong meats, we refer to the rise and progress of the Lake School of Poetry-the account of Shakspere and Milton--or the reflections on poetry in general. Mr. Hazlitt has been said to be rather severe on the living poets; and it may be so. He has done ample justice to Scott for the case, the grace, the choice, the truth of outline, and the appropriate freedom and delicacy of his description. But we think he rather undervalues the range and character of Scott's genius."-[The reviewer finds fault with Hazlitt for his "singularly unkind and unjust" notice of Campbell.]—The Scotsman, May 16, 1818. In the Scotsman of 27th June, 1818, there is a second notice of the work, the chief object of the reviewer being a defence and vindication of Campbell against Hazlitt's estimate of him as a poet. From this article we give the following passages:-"The powers of Campbell, from his seldom obtruding himself or his remarks, are little seen in their operation; but they may be discovered in their consequences. The chords which are struck by him, though struck gently, do not soon cease to vibrate. He deals chiefly with the heart-strings; and the music which is drawn from them, is always interesting and valuable. He deals, it is true, chiefly in common affairs, and with the relations of domestic life; but is it not equally true that he has elevated and ennobled all these ordinary concerns, and thrown a charm round every subject which is touched by him? He has linked the pleasures of imagination to the duties of common life, and in this way done more for the happiness of his species than all the other living poets taken together. He is not the poet of an hour; he could not look for any gust of popularity; he has not sought notoriety by laying open the frailties or evil passions of his nature, nor by indulging in eccentricities, or pandering to a corrupted or temporary public taste: but while there remains in man any susceptibility to the beauties of nature-any love of woman or offspring-any filial or social affections, so long will the poetry of Campbell be read and admired. And for ourselves, notwithstanding the scepticism of Mr. Hazlitt, we have no more doubt that the fame of Campbell will be lasting, than that it it is placed on surer foundations than that of any other poet of the present day. For, like the Elegy of Gray, his writings abound in images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. We feel strongly tempted to quote freely from The Battle of the Baltic' and 'O'Connor's Child,' and to give the whole of that matchless Ode, that noble burst of warlike feeling, with which 'Gertrude of Wyoming' is concluded, that we might put to shame all the unbelievers in Campbell's power and genius. Had our limits permitted, we would also have run over the whole of Gertrude,' which is one of the richest, sweetest, and best of poems to be found in any language. What beautiful specimens does it present us with of all that is excellent in pastoral, descriptive, sentimental, and epic poetry! He has there given us a taste of everything which 'Above, below, in ocean, earth, and sky,' is to be seen in the 'fairy world of imagination.' And all is employed to ennoble or sweeten the condition of his species. Who like him has sung the beauties of rural scenery; the fascinations of childhood; the bliss of virtuous love; the pangs of an eternal separation from a beloved object; the struggle of strong earthly affections with heavenly hope and resignation? Who like him has invoked and roused the slumbering spirit of liberty and patriotism? Who like him has brightened futurity with a song of rational and pious hope? We say, without hesitation, NOT ONE. There is no poet of the present, nor in so far as we know of any preceding, day who is at once so pure and so elevated as Campbell: none that conceives in such a noble spirit; who invests his subject with so much simple grandeur; or who reaches so sublime a height. The intellect of Campbell is to be discovered not so much in what he writes, as in what he has left unwritten. It is to be seen in his selection of language and topics; in those noble qualities of soul which animate, enrich, and elevate all that flows from his pen.' The review closes with this generous and hearty tribute to Hazlitt's independence of character and brilliant abilities as a critic:-"Although we feel indignant at the treatment which Campbell has received from Hazlitt, we are not less indignant at the usage which the latter has experienced from some of his brother critics, who, because he has chosen to act an independent part both in politics and letters, wish to run him down as a man of no talents. His talents, however, are unquestionably of the very highest order; and we are not sure that a work of greater power than these lectures on poetry has appeared within these thirty years. Nay, it may be doubted whether we have any separate work in the belles lettres which is at all to be compared with it, either for originality, acuteness, or force of conception and expression."] Lectures on the English Comic Writers, delivered at the Surrey Institution. 1819.—Third Edition, with additions, edited by his Son, 1841. [On Wit and Humour; Shakespeare and Ben Jonson; Cowley, Butler, Donne, Suckling, Etherege, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar; the Periodical Essayists-Montaigne, Steele, Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith; the English Novelists-"Don Quixote," "Gil Blas," Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Sterne, Burney, Radcliffe, Godwin, Scott, &c. ; the Works of Hogarththe Grand and Familiar Style of Painting; the Comic Dramatists of the Last Century-Molière, Rabelais, &c. "These lectures on our great comic writers are worthy of being treasured up with the subjects of which they treat. How qualified he was to write on 'Wit and Humour,' how keen his relish, and how genuine his understanding of them! the rich traces of a mind, from whose fine critical perceptions few of the profounder truths that lurk under the light graces and gaieties of our best comic writers could be hidden, while it was equally alive to the playfulness of the humour, and the enjoyment of the wit, amidst which those deeper beauties lay to be detected. The volume, in its present compact form, should command many thousand readers; it will entertain them all.”—Examiner. "Hazlitt's relish for wit and humour, and his acute perception of the critical value of the good things he enjoyed, gave to these discourses a raciness and gusto. It is like reading our favourite authors over again, in company with one who not only laughs with us, but points out the felicitous thoughts that please. He was a fine critic, and always writes from the impulse of thought; and brilliant as his style, he never, like too many of our would-be brilliants, sacrifices sense to sound."-Spectator. "Hazlitt's essay on the Congreve and Wycherley group his pronounced by Leigh Hunt almost equal to Lamb's-almost in point of style, and even superior in beauty; which, with the advantage of having a far truer impression respecting them, as well as containing the best and most detailed criticism on their individual plays."-Bentley's Miscellany. 1855. Vol. 37. "Prosings by Monkshood about the Essayists and Reviewers." I. William Hazlitt, p. 491. "His knowledge of the drama, the fine arts, works of fancy and fiction, and other departments of polite literature, taken severally, may not equal that of some other persons, but, taken altogether, is certainly unrivalled. His writings are full of spirit and vivacity; he has the ease and gaiety of a man of the world; and, there is, at the same time, an intensity in his conceptions which embodies ideas that are so volatile and fugitive as to escape the grasp of a slower but profounder intellect, He professes to throw aside the formality and prudery of authorship, and to give his best thoughts to the world with the freedom and frankness of old Montaigne, without submitting to assume the mask of current opinions or conventional morality. He has sensibility, imagination, great acuteness of intellect, and singular powers of expression. His beauties are procured by a great expenditure of thinking; and some of his single strokes or flashes reveal more to the reader's understanding than whole pages of an ordinary writer The article on 'Novels' had previously appeared in the Edinburgh Review, but it is well worthy of being republished. It gives a masterly view of the character of the most celebrated novel writers. To Ben Jonson, who has too little fancy to please Mr. Hazlitt, justice has not been done; but Wycherly, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, are characterised with admirable skill and felicity. His account of these celebrated writers discovers profound views of the nature of dramatic excellence, and his comparisons, allusions, and illustrations, give us new ideas of the capabilities of prose composition. We may remark that the good things he scatters in his course by random bits and bye-play, as it were, are of more value than his formal judgments. By what appears to us a singular perversity of judgment, he ranks the Tatler above the Spectator, and Steele above Addison. Steele has, in some degree, the faults and excellences of Mr. Hazlitt himself. Though he is more unconstrained than Addison, and throws out his thoughts with less reserve, and less deference to existing opinions, his papers, upon the whole, are crude, hasty, and ill put together. His conceptions are often but half made out, his thoughts are piled together, rather than arranged, while their brilliancy does not always compensate for their want of order; his diction is often harsh and abrupt, and his efforts in general are rather careless than felicitous. Addison wrote perhaps as rapidly as Steele, but he retouched carefully; and if his labour is sometimes visible as a nice observer, we reap too many advantages from it, in perspicuity and completeness of effect to quarrel with it, or to wish to exchange it for the blundering frankness of his associate. Addison's papers are not only more finished on the whole, but they contain more good thoughts and happy strokes than those of Steele, and it is mere fastidiousness to maintain that the value of his matter is lessened by being more artfully disposed. But if we dispute our author's opinion of Steele and Addison, we concur entirely in his estimate of Johnson; and we cannot sufficiently express our admiration of the skill, truth, and felicity, with which he is characterised. His 'Essay on Hogarth,' and on the 'Comic Writers of the last Century,' are also excellent."-The Scotsman, April 17, 1822.] A Letter to William Gifford, Esq. 1819. [This "quint-essential salt of an epistle" consists of 87 pages, and exposes "the wretched cavillings, wilful falsehoods and omissions and servile malignity" of the well-known articles in the Quarterly Review upon Hazlitt's "Round Table," "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," and "Lectures on the English Poets." Talfourd says, "Hazlitt, in his 'Letter to Gifford,' after a series of just and bitter retorts on his maligner as the 'first link which connects literature with the police, &c., takes a fancy to teach that 'ultracrepidarian critic' his own theory of the disinterestedness of the human mind; and developes it, not in the dry, hard mathematical style in which it was first enunciated, but 'o'er informed' with the glow of sentiment, and terminating in an eloquent rhapsody. The latter portion of the letter is one of the noblest of his effusions."] Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters. 1819.-Second [This volume contains: Preface of 36 pages-Illustrations of "Vetus"-Prince Maurice's Parrot, &c.-Song of the Laureate (Southey)-Owen's New View of Society-Mr. Western and Mr. Brougham's Speeches on the Distress of the Country-Coleridge's Lay Sermon and the Statesman's Manual-Illustration of the Times Newspaper-On the Connection between Toad-Eaters and Tyrants-Facts Relating to the Fall of Murat, &c.-Southey's "Wat Tyler"— Southey's Letter to W. Smith-On the Effects of War and Taxes-Character of Mr. Burke-On Court Influence-On the Clerical Character-What is the People?-On the Regal Character-The Fudge Family in Paris-Character of Lord Chatham-Character of Mr. Fox-Character of Mr. Pitt- Pitt and Buonaparte Examination of Mr. Malthus's Doctrines-On the Originality of Mr. Malthus's Essay-On the Principle of Population as affecting the Schemes of Utopian Improvement-On the Application of Mr. Malthus's Principle to the Poor Laws-Queries Relating to the Essay on Population. The papers on the Character of Burke, Fox, Pitt, and Chatham were reprinted in Winterslow; Essays and Characters written there." 1850. 66 "The preface to this collection is in my mind the very finest and most manly exposition of high political principle that was ever put forth, and the whole of the volume breathes the noblest spirit of liberty and virtue."Biographical Sketch by his Son, in the "Literary Remains of William Hazlitt." 1836. "These political effusions are distinguished by a penetrating spirit, an analytical acuteness and insight into the springs of action, rarely found in temporary writings." Speaking of Hazlitt's character of Burke, the reviewer says:-"Hazlitt could have no personal animosity to Burke; yet this celebrated person is another instance of his commanding knowledge of the springs of character and the tendencies of actions, and of his stern inflexibility as a moral anatomizer. His hatred of the teeming mischiefs of which Burke was the cause, was in proportion to his perception of the intellectual power of the man, and the weight of his influence if thrown into the opposite scale. But, if the moral derelictions and political apostasy of Burke be confessed at all, how is it possible to overrate the amount of evil to mankind which rests upon the dishonoured head of that celebrated individualwho, falling himself at a most critical juncture in human affairs, drew half heaven after him? Hazlitt has spoken of Burke repeatedly-he was too conspicuous in far-spreading mischief to be forborne-and always with the same unmitigated detestation and contempt. He is no more melted |