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Prose

Notes In 1808, Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart, a friend of Mary Lamb and sister of John Stoddart, a
journalist who became editor of The Times newspaper in 1814. Shortly before the wedding, John
Stoddart established a trust into which he began paying £100 per year, for the benefit of Hazlitt
and his wife—this was a very generous gesture, but Hazlitt detested being supported by his
brother-in-law, whose political beliefs he despised.Although incompatibilities would later drive
the couple apart, at first the union seemed to work well enough. Miss Stoddart was an
unconventional woman who would be accepted by one as unconventional in his way as Hazlitt,
and would in turn tolerate his eccentricities. It was hardly a match of love, but at first there were
signs of a certain playful, affectionate behaviour between them. They made an agreeable social
foursome with the Lambs, who visited them when they set up a household in Winterslow, a
village a few miles from Salisbury, Wiltshire, in southern England. The couple had three sons over
the next few years, but only one survived infancy—William, born in 1811 (to be the father of
William Carew Hazlitt).
Now, as the head of a family, Hazlitt was more than ever in need of money. Through William
Godwin, with whom he was frequently in touch, he obtained a commission to write an English
grammar, published at the end of 1809 as A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue.
Another project that came his way was the work that was published as Memoirs of the Late Thomas
Holcroft, a compilation of autobiographical writing by the recently deceased playwright, novelist,
and radical political activist, together with additional material by Hazlitt himself. Though completed
in 1810, this work did not see the light of day until 1816, and so provided no financial gain to
satisfy the needs of a young husband and father. But Hazlitt had not abandoned his ambitions as
a painter. He found opportunities for landscape painting in the environs of Winterslow, and he
spent considerable time in London getting commissions for portraits.
In January 1812 Hazlitt embarked on a sometime career as a lecturer, in this first instance in a
series of talks on the British philosophers, at the Russell Institution in London. A central thesis of
the talks was that Thomas Hobbes, rather than John Locke, had laid the foundations of modern
philosophy. After a shaky beginning, Hazlitt gained some attention (as well as much-needed
money) by these lectures, and they gave him an opportunity to expound some of his own ideas.
The year 1812 also seems to have been the last in which Hazlitt entertained serious ambitions to
make a living as a painter. Although he had demonstrated some talent, the results of his most
impassioned efforts always fell far short of the standards he had set for himself by comparison
with such masters as Rembrandt, Titian, and Raphael. Nor did his commissioned portraits often
please their subjects, as he obstinately refused to sacrifice to flattery what he considered truth. But
other opportunities awaited him.

The journalist
In October 1812, Hazlitt was hired by The Morning Chronicle as a parliamentary reporter. Soon he
met John Hunt, publisher of The Examiner, and his younger brother Leigh Hunt, the poet and
essayist, who edited the weekly paper. Hazlitt admired both as champions of liberty, and befriended
especially the younger Hunt, who found work for him. He began to contribute miscellaneous
essays to The Examiner in 1813, and the scope of his work for the Chronicle was expanded to
include drama criticism, literary criticism, and political essays. In 1814 The Champion was added to
the list of periodicals that accepted Hazlitt’s by-now profuse output of literary and political criticism.
A critique of Joshua Reynolds’ theories about art appeared there as well, one of Hazlitt’s major
forays into art criticism.
Having by 1814 become established as a journalist, Hazlitt had begun to earn a satisfactory living.
A year earlier, with the prospect of a steady income, he had moved his family to a house at 19 York
Street, Westminster, which had been occupied by the poet John Milton, whom Hazlitt admired
above all other English poets except Shakespeare. As it happened, Hazlitt’s landlord was the

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