"the pimpled Hazlitt," which epithet, as it insinuated drunkenness and a bloated face, while the victim possessed a clear complexion and was a water drinker, was accepted by the literary world, and continually reiterated. "When first I met Hazlitt in 1815," wrote Talfourd, "he was staggering under the blow of Waterloo. The re-appearance of his imperial idol on the coast of France and his triumphant march to Paris had excited his sympathy to the utmost pitch; and though sturdily English in feeling, he could scarcely forgive the valour of the conquerors; and bitterly resented the captivity of the emperor at St. Helena as if he had sustained a personal wrong. On this subject only he was eaten up with passion;' on all others he was the fairest and most candid of reasoners. His countenance was then handsome, but marked by a painful expression; his black hair, which had curled stiffly over his temples, had scarcely received its first tints of grey; his gait was awkward, his dress was neglected; and in the company of strangers his bashfulness was almost painful; but when in the society of Lamb and one or two others, he talked on his favourite themes of old English books, or old Italian pictures, no one's conversation could be more delightful."

From the constitution of "The Round Table," it followed that many of its essays were by Leigh Hunt and others; these are not printed in this volume as not by Hazlitt, and one or two other ephemeral pieces are

purposely omitted, but all that is good and from the pen of the elegant and acute writer of "the Round Table" the reader has. The essays were gathered together, and issued in two volumes 12mo. in 1817; a second edition followed, and in 1841 a third edition was published. What the reader has here is "The Round Table," by William Hazlitt, not by Hazlitt and Company; his partners were both inferior and dissimilar to him.

The father of the essayist was the Rev. William Hazlitt, M.A., author of "Sermons for the use of Families," published by subscription in 1808, and, during a residence in America, of several Unitarian tracts. William Hazlitt was born at Maidstone, 1778, educated at the Unitarian College at Hackney, met with some success in London as a portrait painter, having visited Paris, and copied pictures at the Louvre in 1802; but soon plunged into literature, lectured at the Russell Institution, wrote for the "Examiner," the "Morning Chronicle," in which papers his theatrical criticisms were much admired, and are now considered classics in that style of writing. He contributed also to the "Edinburgh Review" and the "Encyclopædia Britannica ;" in the latter, articles on the Fine Arts and the Life of Titian are from his pen. He died at No. 6, Frith Street, Soho, on Saturday, 18th of September, 1830, aged fifty-two years, five months, and eight days. A sensuous, sympathetic, self-observant, and retired man, never fully appreciated, full of glorious feelings which had no out

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let, given to self-pity, that most dangerous feeling, Hazlitt was unhappy in his literary, and alas, unhappy in his domestic life. He himself speaks of marriages being brought about "by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination;" and his grandson adds to this sentence, never, I suppose, was there a worse assorted pair than my grandfather and grandmother." The Essayist married a Miss Stoddart, a well-read, elegant, and well-educated lady, one of the best letter writers of her time. With any one but Hazlitt she might have been happy; but authors of a nervous and sensitive nature require peculiar treatment, which Hazlitt did not get. In the autograph MS. of the "Table Talk," in the "Essay on the Fear of Death," he had written a passage omitted in the printed version, which is a key to his nature and to his unhappiness. "I want an eye to cheer me, a hand to guide me, a breast to lean on; all of which I shall never have, but shall stagger into my grave without them, old before my time, unloved, unlovely, unless. I would have some creature love me before I die. Oh! for the parting hand to ease the fall!" It is not worth while in this short sketch to pursue the subject further. If the inappreciation of the wife commenced the disagreement, the behaviour of the husband hastened its catastrophe. Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt were separated and sued for a divorce. But enough of this. Some time before his death he had written, in the midst of much work, trouble, and disappointment

too often the lot of literary life—" My public and private hopes have been left a ruin, or remain only to mock me. I would wish them to be re-edified. I should like to see some prospect of good to mankind, such as my life began with. I should like to leave some sterling work behind me. I should like to have some friendly hand to consign me to the grave. On these conditions

I am ready, if not willing, to depart. I shall then write on my tomb-GRATEFUL AND CONTENTED.

"But I have thought and suffered too much to be willing to have thought and suffered in vain."

Nearly two years' more work brought this reflective and graceful essayist wiser and gentler thoughts. He died without a murmur or a struggle, so quietly that his son, sitting by his bedside with his friend, Charles Lamb, did not know that life had passed away. His last words were "Well, I've had a happy life."

T is our intention, in the course of these papers, occasionally to expose certain vulgar errors, which have crept into our reasonings on men and manners. Perhaps one of the most interesting of these is that which relates to the source of our general attachment to life. We are not going to enter into the question, whether life is, on the whole, to be regarded as a blessing, though we are by no means inclined to adopt the opinion of that sage, who thought "that the best thing that could have happened to a man was never to have been born, and the next best to have died the moment after he came into existence. The common argument, however, which is made use of to prove the value of life, from the strong desire which almost every one feels for its continuance, appears to be altogether inconclusive. The wise and the foolish, the weak and the strong, the lame and the blind, the prisoner and the free, the prosperous and the wretched, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the

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