Tory alike. In his historical appreciations remarkable insight, expressed in a style all the more original and individual for its lack of obvious mannerism, contrasts with a quantity of crass and bitter misjudgment, obviously due to political and social prejudice, or to the mere bilious whim of the moment, which is to be matched in amount and in acrimony in no other critic of the first class. Yet Hazlitt's merits so far surpass his defects that save for critical purpose and duty, these might be passed clean over without any notice at all. He has been ranked by some (with whom I desire to range myself) as, after all allowances are made, the greatest of English critics of literature-that is to say, the critic who, when he knows what he is talking about and is not diverted from his proper business by some casual burst of rage or prejudice, can see the whole of his author most clearly, can place him in his due relation to other authors most exactly, can formulate his idiosyncrasy in the most effective manner with the fewest words. He is a very consider able critic of art, perhaps the most considerable between Sir Joshua Reynolds on the one hand, and Mr. Ruskin on the other. Although his political utterances are hopelessly distorted by prejudice, his views of society by a total ignorance of what society really was and a jaundiced dislike of supposed superiorities, and his philosophical views by an extremely limited reading of philosophy, his natural mother-wit is so strong that even in these subjects he is not to be neglected. On life in the general and proper sense, though here again large allowances have to be made, he often goes to the very foundation of things. And on the not infrequent occasions on which he allows himself to be simply observant and descriptive-the passages on the Fight on Salisbury Plain, on Rackets, and on many other things-he displays a power of light and easy writing which outmatches Hunt or Dickens on their own ground, while it always betrays in the background a depth of thought and feeling to which neither of these can lay claim. The style of Hazlitt is peculiar from its apparent want of peculiarity. He himself denied himself a style; and false modesty was not one of Hazlitt's tolerably numerous weaknesses. In minor details he is more than careless; and the stop-watch critic might in an easy hour or so of reading compile against him a terrible list of slips. But he has everywhere force, bright ness, individuality; and every now and then he rises to passages of a singularly solemn and stately music. Still oftener, in detached phrases and sentences which seem thrown off without any particular premeditation, and still less with any idea of following them up, one discerns germs and notes of other styles subsequent to his and the property of men whom it is chronologically impossible for Hazlitt ever to have read, while it is probable if not certain that all of them had read Hazlitt. In short this great critic and writer is one of those who are even greater in suggestion than they are in execution, though they are great in execution too. With the faults he has the merits of manliness; with the weakness of sometimes setting himself capriciously against the fashion; he has the saving grace of never basely or idly condescending to it. Perhaps he exemplified both in life and in letters rather too much of the popular idea of a critic as of a cross-grained person who stets verneint—who is both a grudger and a denier. But he had the merits of the critic too, and that eminently; and what is more he would have been a great writer if he had not been a critic at all. GEORGE SAINTSBURY. COBBETT'S INCONSISTENCY He pays off both scores of old friendship and new-acquired enmity in a breath, in one perpetual volley, one raking fire of "arrowy sleet" shot from his pen. However his own reputation or the cause may suffer in consequence, he cares not one pin about that, so that he disables all who oppose, or who pretend to help him. In fact, he cannot bear success of any kind, not even of his own views or party; and if any principle were likely to become popular, would turn round against it to show his power in shouldering it on one side. In short, wherever power is, there he is against it: he naturally butts at all obstacles, as unicorns are attracted to oak-trees, and feels his own strength only by resistance to the opinions and wishes of the rest of the world. To sail with the stream, to agree with the company, is not his humour. If he could bring about a Reform in Parliament, the odds are that he would instantly fall foul of and try to mar his own handywork; and he quarrels with his own creatures as soon as he has written them into a little vogue—and a prison. I do not think this is vanity or fickleness so much as a pugnacious disposition, that must have an antagonist power to contend with, and only finds itself at ease in systematic opposition. If it were not for this, the high towers and rotten places of the world would fall before the battering-ram of his hard-headed reasoning; but if he once found them tottering, he would apply his strength to prop them up, and disappoint the expectations of his followers. He cannot agree to anything established, nor to set up anything else in its stead. When it is established, he presses hard against it, because it presses upon him, at least in imagination. Let it crumble under his grasp, and the motive to resistance is gone. He then requires some other grievance to set his face against, His principle is repulsion, his nature contradiction: he is made up of mere antipathies, an Ishmaelite indeed without a fellow. He is always playing at hunt the slipper in politics. He turns round on whoever is next him. The way to wean him from any opinion, and make him conceive an intolerable hatred against it, would be to place somebody near him who was perpetually dinning it in his ears. When he is in England, he does nothing but abuse the Boroughmongers, and laugh at the whole system: when he is in America, he grows impatient of freedom and a republic. If he had stayed there a little longer, he would have become a loyal and a loving subject of his Majesty King George IV. He lampooned the French Revolution when it was hailed as the dawn of liberty by millions: by the time it was brought into almost universal ill-odour by some means or other (partly no doubt by himself) he had turned, with one or two or three others, staunch Buonapartist. He is always of the militant, not of the triumphant party: so far he bears a gallant show of magnanimity; but his gallantry is hardly of the right stamp. It wants principle : for though he is not servile or mercenary, he is the victim of selfwill. He must pull down and pull in pieces; it is not his disposition to do otherwise. It is a pity; for with his great talents he might do great things, if he would go right forward to any useful object, make thorough stitchwork of any question, or join hand and heart with any principle. He changes his opinions as he does his friends, and much on the same account. He has no comfort in fixed principles; as soon as anything is settled in his own mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but in the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels, and the leaders perpetually at fault. (From Spirit of the Age.) THE EXORDIUM OF A FAREWELL TO ESSAY. WRITING FOOD, warmth, sleep, and a book; these are all I at present ask -the ultima Thule of my wandering desires. Do you not then wish for A friend in your retreat, Expected, well enough: gone, still better. Such attractions are strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress ? "Beautiful mask! I know thee!" When I can judge of the heart from the face, of the thoughts from the lips, I may again trust myself. Instead of these give me the robin redbreast, pecking the crumbs at the door, or warbling on the leafless spray, the same glancing form that has followed me wherever I have been, and "done its spiriting gently"; or the rich notes of the thrush that startle the ear of winter, and seem to have drunk up the full draught of joy from the very sense of contrast. To these I adhere, and am faithful for they are true to me; and, dear in themselves, are dearer for the sake of what is departed, leading me back (by the hand) to that dreaming world, in the innocence of which they sat and made sweet music, waking the promise of future years, and answered by the eager throbbings of my own breast. But now "the credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er," and I turn back from the world that has deceived me, to nature that lent it a false beauty, and that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I love to watch the clouds sailing from the west, and fancy that "the spring comes slowly up this way." In this hope, while "fields are dark and ways are mire," I follow the same direction to a neighbouring wood, where, having gained the dry, level greensward, I can see way for a mile before me, closed in on each side by copsewood, and ending in a point of light more or less brilliant, as the day is bright or cloudy. What a walk is this to me! I have no need of book or companion—the days, the hours, the thoughts of my youth are at my side, and blend with the air that fans my cheek. Here I can saunter for hours, bending my eye forward, stopping and turning to look back, thinking to strike off into some less trodden path, yet hesitating to quit the one I am in, afraid to snap the brittle threads of memory. I remark the shining trunks and slender branches of the birch trees, waving in the idle breeze; or a pheasant springs up on whirring wing; or I recall the spot where I once found a wood-pigeon at the foot of a tree weltering in its gore, and think how many seasons have flown since "it left its little life in air." Dates, names, faces come back-to what purpose? Or why think of them now? Or rather why not think of them oftener? We walk through life, as through a narrow path, with a thin curtain drawn around it; behind are ranged rich portraits, airy harps are strung-yet we will not stretch forth our hands and lift aside the veil, to catch the glimpses |