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Notes reasoning applied as an answer...to Mr. Godwin’s book”.Most distasteful to Hazlitt was the
application of “Mr. Malthus’s ‘gospel’”, greatly influential at the time. Many in positions of power
had used Malthus’s theory to deny the poor relief in the name of the public good, to prevent their
propagating the species beyond the means to support it; while on the rich no restraints whatsoever
were imposed.
Yet, softening the asperities of his critique, Hazlitt rounds out his sketch by conceding that “Mr.
Malthus’s style is correct and elegant; his tone of controversy mild and gentlemanly; and the care
with which he has brought his facts and documents together, deserves the highest praise”.
His portraits of such Tory politicians as Lord Eldon are unrelenting, as might be expected. But
elsewhere his characterisations are more balanced, more even-tempered, than similar accounts in
past years. Notably, there are portraits of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, which are, to an
extent, essences of his former thoughts about these poets—and those thoughts had been profuse.
He had earlier directed some of his most vitriolic attacks against them for having replaced the
humanistic and revolutionary ideas of their earlier years with staunch support of the Establishment.
Now he goes out of his way to qualify his earlier assessments.
In “Mr. Wordsworth”, for example, Hazlitt notes that “it has been said of Mr. Wordsworth, that
‘he hates conchology, that he hates the Venus of Medicis.’...” (Hazlitt’s own words in an article
some years back). Indirectly apologising for his earlier tirade, Hazlitt here brings in a list of
writers and artists, like Milton and Poussin, for whom Wordsworth did show appreciation.
Coleridge, whom Hazlitt had once idolised, gets special attention, but, again, with an attempt to
moderate earlier criticisms. At an earlier time Hazlitt had dismissed most of Coleridge’s prose as
“dreary trash”. Much of The Friend was “sophistry”.The Statesman’s Manual was not to be read
“with any patience”. A Lay Sermon was enough to “make a fool...of any man”. For betraying their
earlier liberal principles, both Coleridge and Southey were “sworn brothers in the same cause of
righteous apostacy”.
Now, again, the harshness is softened, and the focus shifts to Coleridge’s positive attributes. One
of the most learned and brilliant men of the age, Coleridge may not be its greatest writer—but he
is its “most impressive talker”. Even his “apostacy” is somewhat excused by noting that in recent
times, when “Genius stopped the way of Legitimacy...it was to be...crushed”, regrettably but
understandably leading many former liberals to protect themselves by siding with the powers
that be.
Southey, whose political about-face was more blatant than that of the others, still comes in for a
measure of biting criticism: “not truth, but self-opinion is the ruling principle of Mr. Southey’s
mind”.Yet Hazlitt goes out of his way to admire where he can. For example, “Mr. Southey’s prose-
style can scarcely be too much praised”, and “In all the relations and charities of private life, he is
correct, exemplary, generous, just”.
Hazlitt contrasts Scott and Byron; he skewers his nemesis Gifford; he praises—not without his
usual strictures—Jeffrey; and goes on to portray, in one way or another, such notables as Mackintosh,
Brougham, Canning, and Wilberforce.
His praise of the poet Thomas Campbell has been cited as one major instance where Hazlitt’s
critical judgement proved wrong. Hazlitt can scarcely conceal his enthusiasm for such poems as
Gertrude of Wyoming, but neither the poems nor Hazlitt’s judgement of them have withstood the
test of time. His friends Hunt and Lamb get briefer coverage, and—Hazlitt was never one to mince

words—they come in for some relatively gentle chiding amid the praise. One American author
makes an appearance, Washington Irving, under his pen name of Geoffrey Crayon.
In this manner twenty-five character sketches combine to “form a vivid panorama of the age”.
Through it all, the author reflects on the Spirit of the Age as a whole, as, for example, “The present

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