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Notes Its Powers” [1823], and others). In his manner of exploring an idea by antitheses (for example, “On
the Past and the Future” [1821], “On the Picturesque and Ideal” [1821]), he contrasts the utmost
achievements of human mechanical skill with the nature of artistic creativity in “The Indian
Jugglers” [1821].
Hazlitt’s fascination with the extremes of human capability in any field led to his writing “The
Fight” (published in the February 1822 New Monthly Magazine).This essay never appeared in the
Table-Talk series or anywhere else in the author’s lifetime. A direct, personal account of a prize
fight, it was controversial in its time as depicting too “low” a subject.Written at a dismal time in
his life—Hazlitt’s divorce was pending, and he was far from sure of being able to marry Sarah
Walker—the article shows scarcely a trace of his agony. Not quite like any other essay by Hazlitt,
it proved to be one of his most popular and was frequently reprinted after his death.
Another article written in this period, “On the Pleasure of Hating” (1823; included in The Plain
Speaker), is a pure outpouring of spleen, a distillation of all the bitterness of his life to that point.
It concludes, “...have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not
having hated and despised the world enough”.
Not only do the “Table-Talk” essays frequently display “trenchant insights into human nature”,
they at times reflect on the vehicle of those insights and of the literary and art criticism that
constitute some of the essays. “On Criticism” (1821) delves into the history and purposes of
criticism itself; and “On Familiar Style” (1821 or 1822) reflexively explores at some length the
principles behind its own composition, along with that of other essays of this kind by Hazlitt and
some of his contemporaries, like Lamb and Cobbett.
In Table-Talk, Hazlitt had found the most congenial format for this thoughts and observations. A
broad panorama of the triumphs and follies of humanity, an exploration of the quirks of the mind,
of the nobility but more often the meanness and sheer malevolence of human nature, the collection
was knit together by a web of self-consistent thinking, a skein of ideas woven from a lifetime of
close reasoning on life, art, and literature.He illustrated his points with bright imagery and pointed
analogies, among which were woven pithy quotations drawn from the history of English literature,
primarily the poets, from Chaucer to his contemporaries Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats. Most
often, he quoted his beloved Shakespeare and to a lesser extent Milton. As he explained in “On
Familiar Style”, he strove to fit the exact words to the things he wanted to express and often
succeeded—in a way that would bring home his meaning to any literate person of some education
and intelligence.
These essays were not quite like anything ever done before. They attracted some admiration
during Hazlitt’s lifetime, but it was only long after his death that their reputation achieved full
stature, increasingly often considered among the best essays ever written in English. Nearly two
centuries after they were written, for example, biographer Stanley Jones deemed Hazlitt’s Table-
Talk and The Plain Speaker together to constitute “the major work of his life”, and critic David

Bromwich called many of these essays “more observing, original, and keen-witted than any others
in the language”.
In 1823 Hazlitt also published anonymously Characteristics: In the Manner of Rochefoucault’s Maxims,
a collection of aphorisms modelled explicitly, as Hazlitt noted in his preface, on the Maximes
(1665–1693) of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld. Never quite as cynical as La Rochefoucauld’s, many,
however, reflect his attitude of disillusionment at this stage of his life. Primarily, these 434 maxims
took to an extreme his method of arguing by paradoxes and acute contrasts.
There are some persons who never succeed, from being too indolent to undertake anything; and
others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent,
and give over the attempt.

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