WILLIAM, a distinguished critic and miscellaneous writer, was born at Maidstone, April 10, 1778. His father was a Unitarian minister, who, after holding various livings in England and America, was finally settled at Wein in Shropshire, where the young Hazlitt was first sent to school. In due time he was sent to complete his studies at the Unitarian College at Hackney. He ought to have devoted himself to theology, as it was intended that he should adopt his father's profession; but finding political and moral philosophy more to his taste, he neglected the studies proper to the place, and ended by deciding on the choice of a new profession. He determined to become a painter; and about the beginning of the century visited Paris, where he studied with great diligence and some success at the Louvre. On his return home he began a tour of the provinces, and painted a large number of portraits. Finding, however, that he was not likely ever to reach the high standard of art which he had set for himself, he abandoned art, as he had abandoned the church, and began life once more as a litterateur. In 1805 he published his first important work,—the only one, as he himself said, on which he ever prided himself. It was an anonymous essay on the Principles of Human Action, and certainly displayed great ingenuity and acuteness, along with some of those crudities of composition that generally mark a first attempt. More notice was taken of his Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, published in the following year. In 1808 he married his first wife, the sister of Dr. afterwards Sir John Stoddart, and retiring with her into Wiltshire, supported himself there for several years by miscellaneous literary labour. By this lady he had several children, all of whom, with the exception of one son, died in early childhood. The marriage, however, was in some respects an unhappy one, and in 1823 the contracting parties were divorced. In the following year, Hazlitt married the widow of a Lieut.-Col. Bridgewater who brought him a considerable fortune.

In 1811 Hazlitt removed to London, where he rented the house at Westminster that had once been tenanted by Milton. This circumstance he commemorated on a small tablet which he erected in the yard at the back of the house, in his veneration for the poet and patriot. Mr. Bertham was his landlord, and on one occasion nearly drove him mad by proposing to cut down two beautiful trees that shaded this tablet, and to convert the little garden from an ornamental into a merely useful object. In 1813 Hazlitt delivered before the Russell Institution a series of lectures on the history and progress of English philosophy, some of which were published after his death among his Literary Remains. About this time also he became connected with the press, contributing political and theatrical criticisms to the leading journals, such as the Times, Examiner, Morning Chronicle, and others. His political articles were collected and republished in 1819 by Mr. Hone, who had been encouraged to take this step by the success that had attended the reprint of Hazlitt's theatrical criticisms, published by Stoddart in 1818, under the title of a View of the English Stage. One service Hazlitt did to the stage which should never be forgotten. He was the first to discover and proclaim the wonderful powers of Edmund Kean, which were at length, though not till after a severe struggle, recognized by the world. In 1818 he delivered a series of lectures at the Surrey Institution on the Comic Writers, the Poets of England, and the Dramatic Literature of the age of Elizabeth. These three courses have been published in separate volumes, and are well known to all students of English literature. His next acknowledged work was his Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, which displays a refined and philosophic taste, and abounds in occasional passages of rare eloquence. From this time to his death he continued to contribute very largely to the periodical press, from the Edinburgh Review downwards. Though his literary gains were considerable (averaging about L600 a year), yet his imprudence in money matters prevented him from making any provision against old age or infirmity. In 1830 his health gave way under the unabated pressure of literary toil, and after suffering for some weeks under a severe dysentery, he died on the 18th September.

Hazlitt was the author of many works besides those already mentioned. Of these the most important were his Spirit of the Age, in which he passes in review the leading notabilities of his day, and in his judgments of some of them at least, anticipated the verdict of posterity; his Plain Speaker, 1826; his Table Talk; the Round Table (some of the essays in which are from the pen of Leigh Hunt); the art, Fine Arts in the Encyclopedia Britannica; and the Life of Napoleon, which was published in 1830, shortly before his death. This last, though by no means the most popular of his works, is that on which he put out most of his mind. Napoleon was his great idol among men, and he strove by this History to raise a suitable monument to the glory of his hero. As a historian, indeed, Hazlitt has but small chance of being acknowledged by posterity. His political prejudices were too fierce and active; and his style, so well adapted for general literary composition, was on that account unsuited for history. His real title to remembrance is in his criticisms on art, literature, and literary men. As a writer, Hazlitt is forcible, terse, and lively. All his writings abound in passages of vehement eloquence, alternating with brief utterances, pregnant with thought, and striking from their simplicity and truth. Though, strictly speaking, the true sphere of his mind was criticism, it had yet some of the qualities of the poetic temperament. He had a fancy so fertile that he sometimes wearies with the wealth of his imagery and the copiousness of his illustration. He luxuriates in his command of style so as sometimes to make the reader wish that his power was less, or his self-control greater. The perusal of his works convinces his readers that he is a brilliant, sometimes even a splendid writer, but it would seem as if he strained himself too incessantly to produce effect, so that while he always dazzles, he does not always satisfy. As a man he was as much admired as liked. His temper, naturally irritable, had been soured by various causes, among others, by over-indulgence in wine. As soon as he came to know, however, the danger of too social habits he eschewed drinking altogether, and for the last sixteen years of his life used no stimulant but tea. His irritability often involved him in serious misunderstandings with his best friends, yet none was ever readier than he to hold out the hand when the storm had passed. He was a perfectly honest and brave man, and though a recantation of his political creed might have carried him on to wealth and station, he remained to the last as staunch a friend of the people and the people's interests as he had been in the heat of youth.