mental experience-the sowing of the first seed of the theatrical critic.

On Sunday morning, the 1st of May 1808, Hazlitt married Miss Stoddart. There were present at the ceremony Dr. and Mrs. Stoddart, also Charles and Mary Lamb. The newlywedded couple went to Winterslow, and resided in a cottage which belonged to the bride. Winterslow is a village in Wiltshire, between Andover and Salisbury. It became a favourite resort of Hazlitt's. He found there quiet times for composition. In later years, he took up his quarters at an old inn called Winterslow Hut. The London mails made a busy break in the day; there was Stonehenge to visit ; there were in view the "woods that crown the clear lone brow of Norman Court" and "the waving woods of Tuderley." The Lambs visited Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt in the autumn of the following year. On that occasion they went to Oxford. Hazlitt, in "On Going a Journey," refers to the circumstance :-"I once took a party to Oxford with no mean éclat." The visit was also described by Elia in "Vacation at Oxford." Of this, we speak at a more acceptable time.

Hazlitt, in 1812, fairly settled in London. This year, as Mr. Carew Hazlitt observes, marks "an important era in Hazlitt's life." He soon began to deliver a series of lectures at the Russell Institution, on the "English Philosophers and Metaphysicians." For a short time, he became Parliamentary reporter to the Morning Chronicle. Upon giving up this post he retained his connection with the newspaper as the writer of political articles and its theatrical critic. The political contributions were afterwards reprinted in Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters (1819), and the others in A View of the English Stage (1821). He was requested to contribute to the Edinburgh Review, and his first contribution appeared in November 1814. By this time, he had become acquainted with Leigh Hunt and his brother John, proprietors of the Examiner. Long ere this, Hazlitt was known as a passionate politician, and he remained consistent in his views, his acrimony, and his zeal, to the last. Napoleon was his idol. Therefore, the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, struck him severely. Talfourd says, that when he first met Hazlitt after the event, "he was staggering under the blow of Waterloo."

Let us now see Hazlitt, as found in the descriptions of those who were his admirers. He was of middle size, slight, but well formed; of handsome countenance-eager and pale, and rather worn with thought and pain; black hair, which curled stiffly

over his temples-in later years, plentifully sprinkled with grey; a sensitive mouth, a sunken, glancing eye. A man awkward in gait, negligent in dress, painfully bashful in the presence of strangers. He became a great drinker of fine tea, having given up a stronger stimulant. Tea with him, as Hunt quoted from Waller, "kept the palace of the soul serene." He rises at twelve or one o'clock, drinks his tea, and writes his articles till four or five o'clock. At night he holds an intellectual levée at the Southampton, Chancery Lane, where his brilliant talk charms the company, until the grey dawn peeps through the chinks of the shutters. He haunts the Fives Court, in St. Martin's Street, where he assiduously plays the game, rails at himself, and praises Cavanagh. In many ways he will

"Tear his pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the iron gates of life."

His temper is suspicious—is genial-he fights with a shadowhe shrinks from general society. He gives his hand as if it were the fin of a fish. Hunt noticed it, and reports that some friends wished to place a fish-slice against the hand of such a friend, but no one dared "bell the cat."

Upon his acquaintance with Leigh Hunt and his brother, the Round Table essays were commenced in the Examiner. The series were completed in 1817, and republished in two small volumes. His volume of Characters of Shakespere's Plays, dedicated to his friend, Charles Lamb, was published the same year. The Characters sold well. One edition went off in six weeks; but the Quarterly attacked it, and the sale was stopped. Almost every event in Hazlitt's life is alluded to in his essays, and he has not forgotten this. A reckoning with Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly, was now imminent. His attack followed on the heels of other wrongs. In 1818 were published the lectures delivered by him at the Surrey Institution on the English Poets. Then came his Letter to William Gifford, Esq., followed by lectures on the English Comic Writers, and the collection of Political Essays and Sketches of Public Characters. In 1820 the London Magazine was commenced, and Hazlitt was amongst the brilliant contributorsenumerated by Talfourd in his Memorials af Charles Lamb. The first volume of Table Talk (1821) was chiefly composed of essays reprinted from the London.

Other events, also, made this a memorable year. He took apartments at 9 Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, London,

where he fell in love with one of the daughters of the house. If a ladye-love was called Southampton Buildings, with Hazlitt this might have been "No. 9." He, as well as others of his friends, were rarely without a Dulcinea-the newer the better. From that genial true-heart of wedded life, Charles Cowden Clarke, we learn that, infatuated with Miss Mordaunt, "who was making her appearance at the Haymarket in the first bloom and freshness of her youth and beauty," Hazlitt performed the lunatic, the lover, if not the poet. On another occasion, Clarke, in comparing notes with Leigh Hunt and Vincent Novello, discovered that the whole three were enthralled by a Viola, that is by Miss A. M. Tree. Yea, Clarke confesses to Hunt and himself being woefully in love with-(a forgotten name)-a columbine. But then it was different with Hazlitt from his fellows. "No. 9," unfortunately, was in his home: was pretty and engaging. This Hebe brought him Nectar to each meal. Ever the child of passion, he declared his frenzy at all times, in all places. The results were that in two years he was divorced, and the Liber Amoris; or, the New Pygmalion, was published. In this transaction his jesses were not the dear heart-strings of the young lady, Miss Sarah Walker. She whistled him off, and let him down the wind to prey on fortune.

"Lost, was she, lost; nor could the sufferer say
That in the act of preference he had been
Unjustly dealt with:-but the maid was gone."

In 1820, were published his Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Queen Elizabeth, followed (1821) by A View of the English Stage. In 1821 Lord Byron and Shelley projected a periodical, afterwards named The Liberal. Shelley wrote for Leigh Hunt to go to Italy and share the labours and the profits. He went. Hazlitt was made home editor. The Liberal appeared in 1822. Four numbers were published. It then ceased to exist, Hazlitt having contributed four articles.

In the few years that remain to be spoken of, we shall name but the chief events. In 1823 he published Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims. The book hardly kept the promise of its title; but that is argument for other pages. He married a second time, in 1824, Isabella, widow of LieutenantColonel Bridgwater,- a lady of some property." With her he visited the Continent. During their wanderings he contributed to the Morning Chronicle, Notes of a Journey through France and Italy, which were afterwards collected and published in one volume. His life was a constant paradox. Mrs. Hazlitt

did not return to England with him. There is a great deal told of the journey; very little of the companionship. Hazlitt wrote to his wife; she replied that "they had parted for ever —a brief, but not bright intimacy.

In 1824 appeared his Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England, and in 1825, The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits, one of the finest volumes of personal and literary criticism, beginning with Jeremy Bentham, ending with Geoffrey Crayon. Hazlitt is searching in his inquisition, sweeping in his judgments, also piquant. Of the first he says, "He writes a language of his own that darkens knowledge. His works have been translated into French-they ought to be slated into English." Of Washington Irving, that his Vitings are literary anachronisms. . . Instead of tracing changes that have taken place in society since Addison Fielding wrote, he transcribes their account in a different nandwriting, and thus keeps us stationary. A flattering mode of turning fiction into history, or history into fiction. A pardonable error, giving us credit for the virtues of our forefathers." The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Men, Books, and Things (1826), was a compilation of essays of similar character to Table Talk.

He was now busy with the work on which his heart was set, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte. The first two volumes were published in 1828. That same year he wrote his "Farewell to Essay-Writing." It was not published then, nor was the title true; but, alas, it was too true in its ominous note. Two years afterwards (1830), broken in body and mind, he wrote his essays -"A Free Admission," "The Sick Chamber," and "Personal Politics," which was his last essay. His Napoleon Buonaparte was completed and published the same year. On Saturday, 30th September 1830, he died. Charles Lamb, his old friend, was in his room. Something of peacefulness and light came to him in his latest hours. Was that not gently said, as by a woman, to one who had been talking to him in a soothing undertone, during his illness?" My sweet friend, go into the next room, and sit there for a time, as quiet as is your nature, for I cannot bear talking at present."

The irritable, discontented temperament was chastened. He saw the past clearly and calmly. His last words were- -"Well, I've had a happy life." So confessed that once fiery, stormy spirit, recognising what joys and frequent periods of quiet and restoration had been vouchsafed him, in spite of his passions and his desires.

No writer of merit in this century has been subject to such stupid misrepresentations as William Hazlitt. He has had admirers, he has been a vitalising influence in some minds; but of the writers of our century, not one has suffered from such reckless distortion and misjudgment. At this moment, the post brings me a sample of those perversions, which affords me a base from which to operate. ... "The correctness of facts with Hazlitt is nearly in all cases subordinate to the striking construction of a sentence. . . ." This serves my purpose quite as well as though fulminated from an editorial throne. Error and truth, each preserves its native quality, no matter where, no matter by whom it be spoken. That passage is fairly representative of a certain style of criticism, of the mass of misjudgment, in regard to Hazlitt; it is no exaggeration of the manner in which he has been dealt with by his enemies, by those indifferent to him, and, in their ignorance, by some of his friends. So far as this special charge is concerned, I briefly say that Hazlitt was too passionate a man not to speak the truth sometimes. I do not discern that, as a Truth Speaker as well as a Plain Speaker, he fell beneath his own age, or the present. ... He was an admirer of Wordsworth's poetry, without degenerating into admiration of his change in politics: he recognised the beauties in the poems of Keats, without discovering the subtle music of Shelley's strains: he was separated from his wife, like a celebrated poet, without possessing the domesticity and self-sacrifice of Lamb: his appreciation of humour was as certain as that of Peter Pindar, without the faculty of turning it into human nature's daily food of smiles and tears, like Tom Hood: he loved a country inn, like Winterslow Hut, without losing his desire for city life, as in the Southampton he loved the theatre, without giving up his hopes for mankind he admired the tragic actor, without any diminution of his relish for the comedian: his affection for painters, from Raphael to Rubens and Poussin, was ecstatic, without losing his British taste for Hogarth: his writing displays passion, rapt contemplation, invective, without the serenity, the limpid sweetness, the patient cheerfulness of Leigh Hunt-and a great number of other things, without a great number of other things.

I have already said that the nature of Hazlitt's Essay was after the admiration of Montaigne. "I love a poetic march by leaps and skips: 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble, and a little maddish." He has a Bohemian manner, like his masters. Ever and anon, he breaks away it is not a mere diversion, but