William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as an art critic, drama critic, social commentator, and philosopher. He was also a painter. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language.
Education
Hazlitt's time at Hackney left him with much more than religious scepticism. He had read widely and formed habits of independent thought and respect for the truth that remained with him for life.He had thoroughly absorbed a belief in liberty and the rights of man, and of the mind as an active force which, by disseminating knowledge, through both the sciences and the arts, could reinforce the natural tendency in humanity toward the good. He had had impressed upon him the ability of the individual, working both alone and within a mutually supportive community, to effect beneficial change by adhering to strongly held principles. The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the human mind had also laid a foundation for the young Hazlitt's own philosophical explorations along those lines. And, though harsh experience and disillusionment later compelled him to qualify some of his early ideas about human nature, he was left with a hatred of tyranny and persecution that he retained to his last days.
Career
William Hazlitt was the son of a Unitarian minister. He went to Paris in his youth with the aim of becoming a painter, but gradually convinced himself that he could not excel in this art. He then turned to journalism and literature, and came into close association with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Hunt, and others of the Romantic School.
He was, however, of a sensitive and difficult temperament, and sooner or later quarrelled with most of his friends. Though a worshiper of Napoleon, whose life he wrote, he was a strong liberal in politics, and supposed himself persecuted for his opinions.
Of all Hazlitt's voluminous writings, those which retain most value to-day are his literary criticisms and his essays on general topics. His clear and vivacious style rose at times to a rare beauty; and when the temper of his work was not marred by his touchiness and egotism he wrote with great charm and a delicate fancy.
The essay Of Persons One Should Wish To Have Seen shows in a high degree the tact and grace of Hazlitt's best writing, and his power of creating a distinctive atmosphere.
It would be difficult to find a paper of this length which conveys so much of the special quality of the literary circle which added so much to the glory of English letters in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
An Essay on the Principles of Human Action (1805),Free Thoughts on Public Affairs (1806), A Reply to the Essay on Population, by the Rev. T. R. Malthus (1807),The Round Table: A Collection of Essays on Literature, Men, and Manners (with Leigh Hunt; 1817),Lectures on the English Poets (1818),A View of the English Stage (1818), Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819),Political essays, with sketches of public characters (1819),Lectures Chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820), The Spirit of the Age. (1825),The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things (1826): Volume I and Volume II ,Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy (1826), The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte (four volumes; 1828–1830)
Politics
While in London Hazlitt became friends with a group of writers with radical political ideas. The group included Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth, Thomas Barnes, Henry Brougham, Leigh Hunt, Robert Southey and Lord Byron.Hazlitt published Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, an attack on William Pitt and his government's foreign policy. Hazlitt opposed England's war with France and its consequent heavy taxation. This was followed by a series of articles and pamphlets on political corruption and the need to reform the voting system.In 1813 Hazlitt was employed as the parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle, the country's leading Whig newspaper. However, in his articles, Hazlitt criticized all political parties.Hazlitt continued to write about politics and his most important books on this subject is Political Essays with Sketches of Public Characters (1819). In the book Hazlitt explains how the admiration of power turns many writers into "intellectual pimps and hirelings of the press."
Views
In this period he discovered Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who became one of the most important influences on the budding philosopher's thought, and Edmund Burke, whose writing style impressed him enormously.He was painstakingly working out a treatise on the "natural disinterestedness of the human mind",meant to disprove the idea that man is naturally selfish, a fundamental concept in most of the philosophy of the day.Hazlitt's treatise would not be published for a number of years, after further reading, and after other changes had occurred to alter the course of his career, but to the end of his life he would think of himself as a philosopher.
Hazlitt's fascination with the extremes of human capability in any field led to his writing "The Fight" (published in the February 1822 New Monthly Magazine).Not quite like any other essay by Hazlitt, it proved to be one of his most popular and was frequently reprinted after his death.
Quotations:
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
