with no inferior genius, have gone before him, it may be said that in their lives they tasted the sweets of their immortality, they had their consolations of glory; and if fame can atone for the shattered nerve, the jaded spirit, the wearied heart of those "who scorn delight and love laborious days,”-verily, they had their reward. But Hazlitt went down to dust without having won the crown for which he had so bravely. struggled; the shouts of applauding thousands echoed not to the sick man's bed; his reputation, great amongst limited circles, was still questionable to the world. He who had done so much for the propagation of thought-for the establishment of new sectaries and new schoolsfrom whose wealth so many had filled their coffers, left no stir on the surface from which he sank to the abyss :-he who had vindicated so nobly the fame of others-what critic to whom the herd would listen had vindicated his? Men with meagre talents and little souls could command the ear of thousands, but to the wisdom of the teacher it was deafened. Vague and unexamined prejudices, aided only by some trivial faults, or some haughty mannerism of his own, had steeled the public, who eagerly received the doctrines filched from him second-hand, to the wisdom and eloquence of the originator. A

great man sinking amidst the twilight of his own renown, after a brilliant and unclouded race, if a solemn, is an inspiring and elating spectacle. But Nature has no sight more sad and cheerless than the sun of a genius which the clouds have so long and drearily overcast that there are few to mourn and miss the luminary when it sinks from the horizon.

The faults of Hazlitt have been harshly judged, because they have not been fairly analysedthey arose mostly from an arrogant and lordly sense of superiority. It is to this that I resolve his frequent paradoxes-his bold assertions-his desire to startle. It was the royalty of talent which does not measure its conduct by the maxims of those whom it would rule. He was the last man to play the thrifty with his thoughtshe sent them forth with an insolent ostentation, and cared not much what they shocked or whom they offended. I suspect that half which the unobservant have taken literally, he meant, secretly, in sarcasm. As Johnson in conversation, so Hazlitt in books, pushed his own theories to the extreme, partly to show his power, partly perhaps, from contempt of the logic of his readers. He wrote rather for himself than others; and often seems to vent all his least

He

assured and most uncertain thoughts-as if they troubled him by the doubts they inspired, and his only anxiety was to get rid of them. He had a keen sense of the Beautiful and the Subtle; and what is more, he was deeply embued with sympathies for the Humane. ranks high amongst the social writers intuitive feeling was in favour of the multitude; -yet had he nothing of the demagogue in literature; he did not pander to a single vulgar passion. His intellectual honesty makes him the Dumont of letters even where his fiery eloquence approaches him to the Mirabeau.

his

Posterity will do him justice-the first interval of peace and serenity which follows our present political disputes, will revive and confirm his name. A complete collection of his works is all the monument he demands. To the next age he will stand amongst the foremost of the thinkers of the present; and that late and tardy retribution will assuredly be his, which compensates to others the neglect to which men of genius sometimes (though not so frequently as we believe) are doomed;-that retribution which, long after the envy they provoked is dumb, and the errors they themselves committed are forgotten-invests with interest every thing

that is associated with their names;-making it an honour even to have been their cotemporaries, and an hereditary rank to be their descendants.

6

THE AUTHOR OF EUGENE ARAM,' &c.

London, March 10, 1835.

THOUGHTS

UPON THE INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF THE LATE

WILLIAM HAZLITT.

BY MR SERGEANT TALFOURD, M.P.

As an author, Mr Hazlitt may be contemplated principally in three aspects, as a moral and political reasoner; as an observer of character and manners; and as a critic in literature and painting. It is in the first character only that he should be followed with caution. His metaphysical and political essays contain rich treasures, sought with years of patient toil, and poured forth with careless prodigality,-materials for thinking, a small part of which wisely employed will enrich him who makes them his own, but the choice is not wholly unattended with perplexity and danger. He had, indeed, as passionate a desire for truth as others have for wealth, or power, or fame. The purpose of his research was always steady and pure; and