HAZLITT, hazlit, William, English critic and essayist: b. Maidstone, Kent, 10 April 1778; d. Westminster, 18 Sept. 1830. His father, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, was a Unitarian minister, and with his family was in the United States •1783-87, locating at Philadelphia and Boston. In 1793 William became a student in the Unitarian College at Hackney. He devoted more time, however, to literature and art than to theology, and upon leaving college resolved to become a painter. He painted portraits with only tolerable success and finally renounced art, and in 1805 opened his literary career with an essay the Principles of Human Action,' in which much metaphysical acumen was displayed. In 1811 he settled in London, deriving his prin cipal support from his contributions of political articles and theatrical and art criticisms to the newspapers, and his occasional lectures and publications. In 1813 he delivered at the Rus sell Institution a course of lectures on "English Philosophy," and subsequently delivered courses of lectures on the English poets generally, the comic poets and the Elizabethan poets. Later in life he contributed to the Edinburgh Re view and some smaller magazines. He was a good art critic, but his tendency to prejudice and paradox, and his almost contemptuous re gard for the productions of contemporary genius, render him a less safe authority than his knowl edge and talents would lead us to expect. It is said of him that he never altered an opinion after he had reached the age of 16, and never read any book through after the age of 30. It is as a literary critic and essayist that Hazlitt achieved his chief success. Saintsbury has said that °long before Sainte-Beuve, Hazlitt had shown a genius for real criticism." He has probably not been surpassed by any English critic. Yet his recognition, in view of this fact, has been singularly inadequate to his merits.
His judgment was, it is true, often marred by prejudice and by his paradoxes. But in the main it was discriminating and duly apprecia tive. His equipment might not now be thought adequate, but it was almost certainly in most respects superior to that of his Georgian con temporaries. He was able to write interestingly of a wide range of topics. He was bitterly at tacked, after the custom of the times, by writers, particularly journalists, of adverse po litical views. But as a controversialist he was more than the equal of any of these, bold in epigram and invective. His style has been highly praised for its combination of vigor and ease, its rhythm, its clearness and the aptness of its epithets. Not only in critical analysis but as well in narrative and description it is excel lent. Hazlitt lectured in 1818-21 at the Surrey Institute. Northcote states that had he contin ued his art work he would have become a great painter. The best of his essays for the Ex aminer appeared in 1817 under the title 'The Round Table.' The 'Spirit of the Age, or Con temporary Portraits,' also a significant work and by some critics considered his best, was published in 1825. Further essays are grouped in 'The Plain Dealer' and 'Sketches and Es says.' Among other well-known works of Haz litt are 'Characters of Shakspere's Plays' (1817) ; 'A View of the English Stage' (1818); 'Lectures on the English Poets' (1818) • 'Lec tures on the English Comic Writers' (1819) ; 'Lectures on the Elizabethan Age' (1821);