THE LIFE OF BY P. P. HOWE A man in himself is always the same, though he may Eloquence of the British Senate. NEW YORK PRINTED IN ENGLAND PREFACE This book is an attempt to present in clear outline, and with reasonable attention to detail, a narrative of what has been termed the "rather imperfectly known life" of a great English man of letters. In seeking to render it a little less imperfectly known I have not spared any pains, and I have not, I believe, sought to evade any difficulties. Since a good deal which has hitherto been believed of Hazlitt has proved itself to be not altogether worthy of credence, and since a good deal more is told in these pages for the first time, I have thought it better not to recast the narrative in my own words, but to present it as far as possible in those of the various witnesses. If this method has disadvantages, of which I am conscious, it will be found also, I hope, to have certain advantages, not the least of which is that everything which appears in this book bears its own authority, good or less good, on its face. a life the groundwork of which has already been fixed this would not be a matter of so much importance, but a life of Hazlitt is still after a hundred years in the nature of a pioneer work. It is so, at least, that I have regarded it, and if on my groundwork a more attractive and lasting superstructure is one day erected I shall be the last to complain. In My acknowledgments for sympathy and encouragement are many, and are due first of all to Miss Hazlitt, greatgrand-daughter of my subject, who by freely and generously throwing open to me all the works of her father, the late Mr. William Carew Hazlitt, in which the rights are held by herself, has rendered me assistance with which I could not possibly have dispensed. Owing to the bequest to the British Museum of the whole of the late Mr. Hazlitt's materials which have remained in this country, I have been able to check his conclusions at nearly every point, and in one or two instances to put right errors into which I find he has unwittingly fallen. With the sanction of the Trustees of Dr. Williams' Library I have made my 416839 copy of Crabb Robinson's evidence direct from the diaries and letters in their charge, and to Mr. E. V. Lucas I am grateful for permission to make my Lamb quotations from his text. For reply to inquiries, involving research on my behalf in varying degrees, I am indebted, among others, to Professor Ernest Weekley, of Nottingham University; to the Public Librarians of Liverpool and Taunton; and to the Secretary of the Royal Academy. My collaborator in the matter of the illustrations has been Mr. J. H. Allchin of the Maidstone Museum, to whom, and to whose Committee, I tender my thanks. The portraits in this book, with a single exception (the self-portrait mentioned on p. 65, which is in the Maidstone Museum, but in a state of preservation which unfits it for reproduction) I believe to be complete, and the frontispiece is from a painting which has not hitherto been reproduced. Hazlitt, it may be remarked, was not by temperament a letter-writer, and to the forty-odd examples of his correspondence which have been hitherto known, (excluding the somewhat specialised Liber Amoris group), I have succeeded in adding eighteen. With the exception of the group mentioned, which may be conveniently studied in its own place, every letter of Hazlitt will be found, or will be found quoted, in the course of this book. I cannot conclude this note without an acknowledgment of the value of the work done in the same field by Mr. A. R. Waller and the late Arnold Glover, editors of the Collected Works, and that of M. Jules Douady, author of the best Hazlitt bibliography and of the French "Life." While I have accepted none of the conclusions of these writers without first going over the ground for myself, I have at many points been conscious of the assistance their labours have rendered me. P. P. H. |