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Unit 14: Hazlitt-On Genius And Common Sense-Introduction

philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham. Hazlitt was to write considerably about both Notes
Milton and Bentham over the next few years.
His circle of friends expanded, though he never seems to have been particularly close with any but
the Lambs and to an extent Leigh Hunt and the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. His poor
tolerance for any who, he thought, had abandoned the cause of liberty, along with his frequent
outspokenness, even tactlessness, in social situations made it difficult for many to feel close to
him, and at times he tried the patience of even Charles Lamb. His criticism of Wordsworth’s poem
The Excursion lavished extreme praise on the poet—and equally extreme censure. Wordsworth,
who seems to have been unable to tolerate anything less than unqualified praise, was enraged,
and relations between the two became cooler than ever.
Though Hazlitt continued to think of himself as a “metaphysician” (less often as a painter; he had
by now given up his professional ambitions along those lines), he began to feel comfortable in the
role of journalist. His self-esteem received an added boost when in early 1815 he began to contribute
regularly to the quarterly The Edinburgh Review, the most distinguished periodical on the Whig
side of the political fence (its rival The Quarterly Review occupied the Tory side). Writing for so
highly respected a publication was considered a major step up from writing for weekly papers,
and Hazlitt was proud of this connection.
On 18 June 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Having idolised Napoleon for years, Hazlitt
took it as a personal blow. The event seemed to him to mark the end of hope for the common man
against the oppression of “legitimate” monarchy. Profoundly depressed, he took up heavy drinking
and was reported to have walked around unshaven and unwashed for weeks. He idolised and
spoiled his son, William Jr., but in most respects his household grew increasingly disordered over
the next year, his marriage deteriorated, and he spent more and more time away from home. As
a part-time drama critic, he found an excuse to spend evening after evening at the theatre.
Afterwards he spent time among those friends who could tolerate his irascibility, the number of
whom dwindled as a result of his sometimes outrageous behaviour.
Hazlitt continued to produce articles on miscellaneous topics for The Examiner and other periodicals,
including political diatribes against any whom he felt ignored or minimised the needs and rights
of the common man. Defection from the cause of liberty had become easier in light of the oppressive
political atmosphere in England at that time, in reaction to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars. Opposing this tendency, the Hunts were his primary allies. Lamb, who tried to remain
uninvolved politically, tolerated his abrasiveness, and that friendship managed to survive, if only
just barely in the face of Hazlitt’s growing bitterness, short temper, and propensity for hurling
invective at friends and foes alike.
For relief from all that weighed on his mind, Hazlitt became a passionate player at a kind of
racquet ball similar to the game of Fives (a type of handball of which he was a fan) in that it was
played against a wall. He played with savage intensity, dashing around the court like a madman,
drenched in sweat, and was accounted a good player. More than just a distraction from his woes,
this devotion led to musings on the value of competitive sports and on human skill in general,
expressed in writings like his notice of the “Death of John Cavanagh” (a celebrated Fives player)
in The Examiner on 9 February 1817, and the essay “The Indian Jugglers” in Table-Talk (1821).
Early in 1817, a series of Hazlitt’s essays that had appeared in The Examiner in a regular column
called “The Round Table” was collected in book form, including a few contributions by Leigh
Hunt. Hazlitt’s contributions to The Round Table were written somewhat in the manner of the
periodical essays of the day, a genre defined by such eighteenth-century magazines as The Tatler
and The Spectator.
Some essays blend Hazlitt’s social and psychological observations in a calculatedly thought-
provoking way, presenting to the reader the “paradoxes” of human nature. The first of the collected

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