Essays on William Hazlitt

April 10, 1778, Maidstone, United Kingdom

September 18, 1830, Soho, London, United Kingdom

Essayist, Literary Critic, Painter, Philosopher

• Characters of Shakespear's Plays
• Table-Talk
• Liber Amoris
• The Spirit of the Age
• Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy
• The Plain Speaker

• "Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal."
• "Prejudice is the child of ignorance."
• "The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy."

10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830

William Hazlitt was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell.

Characters of Shakespear's Plays, Table-Talk, The Spirit of the Age

William Hazlitt was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, in 1778. Hazlitt was educated at home and at a local school. In 1793 his father sent him to a Unitarian seminary. In 1802 he turned to painting and traveled to Paris to work in the Louvre, though war between England and France compelled his return the following year. He studied for the ministry, but to remedy his poverty he became instead a prolific critic, essayist, and lecturer. He began contributing to journals, notably to The Examiner, and to essay collections, such as The Round Table (1817).

Hazlitt's essays are grave in nature. They are very serious and thought provoking. They show his philosophic bent of mind. A large number of his essays are on abstract ideas such as Egotism, Reason, Imagination, and the fear of Death etc.

William Hazlitt died on 18 September, 1830 in Soho, London. He is considered one of the most important critics of the English Romantic Period, who held and published highly developed views about the nature of the creative imagination, the function of criticism and what it means to be truly learned. His principles of thought and action and his thesis about style and structure in writing are highly relevant to contemporary discussions of what counts as genuine learning and teaching and the intellectual vocation of members of the educational academy.

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
“The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.”
“Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.”