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title stands above, and yet we cannot avoid expressing the gratification we derived from the perusal of some of them. would particularly allude to those upon "liberty and necessity," and on "Locke's Essay," and commend them to the attention of the lovers of such abstruse reading. His objections to Locke's theory as embracing the whole compass and origin of our ideas, appear to us unanswerable. In fact, we are disposed to regard with peculiar favour whatever opinion tends to exalt the dignity of mind; to evince its distinct existence from the body, and its possession of capacities not altogether dependent upon, or derived from, its less noble companion.

The profession of a clergyman was soon found to be altogether unsuited to Hazlitt's turn of mind; indeed his piety, we should say, was not his peculiar characteristic. At seventeen, therefore, much to his father's disappointment, he abandoned Hackney, and returned home. A living of some kind was to be the result of his own labour; and indulging his natural tastes, he took up the profession of a painter. He devoted himself ardently to the prosecution of this favourite art, and his success was considered, by every one but himself, decisive. His own nicety of taste was, however, never gratified, and finally this also was given up. His pencil alone was not employed upon the art to which he was so partial, but he freely used his pen in the elucidation of her principles, and in criticisms upon the works of the great masters. For the virtuoso, his remarks upon "the fine arts," and on the "pleasure of painting," must possess much interest.

When about twenty years of age, chance introduced him to the acquaintance of one of the greatest men of his age, the poet Coleridge. The interchange of sentiment with this eminent genius seems to have influenced very much his future career. Hazlitt was fortunate in the acquisition of friends. Besides Coleridge; Wordsworth, Southey, Holcroft, and Lamb, honoured him with their friendship. With the latter, unfortunately, a slight disagreement arose, which disturbed their intimacy for some time. The blame was entirely attributable to Hazlitt. During the pendency of the quarrel, Southey undertook in a letter to Lamb to pay a compliment to him at the expense of his former friend. The noble heart of Lamb rejected the offering. We extract, as a beautiful specimen of Elia's fine head, and finer heart, the answer which he transmitted to Southey.

"From the other gentleman I neither expect nor desire (as he is well assured) any such concessions as L- H-made to C-. What hath soured him, and made him suspect his friends of infidelity towards him, when there was no such matter, I know not. I stood well with him for fifteen years (the proudest of my life), and have ever spoken my full mind of him to some to whom his panegyric must naturally be least tasteful. I never in thought swerved from him; I never betrayed him;

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I never slackened in my admiration of him; I was the same to him (neither better nor worse), though he could not see it, as in the days when he thought fit to trust me. At this instant he may be preparing for me some compliment, above my deserts, as he has sprinkled many such among his admirable books, for which I rest his debtor; or, for any thing I know or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth,) if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of sullenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do; judging him by his conversations which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply, or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes I should belie my own conscience, if I said less than that I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding or expecting to find, such another companion. But I forget my manners-you will pardon sir.-I return to the correspondence."

me,

Fortunately a reconciliation took place, and Hazlitt had the presence of Lamb to minister at his dying bed.

His first acquaintance with some of these distinguished men he has recorded in a delightful essay, from which we shall furnish some extracts.

It is known that Coleridge started in life as a clergyman of the Unitarian persuasion. Hazlitt's father lived at Wem, in Shropshire, and in the year 1798, Coleridge came down to Shrewsbury, to succeed a Mr. Rowe, who had charge of the church at that place. His arrival is thus described :—

"He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was to preach; and Mr. Rowe, who himself went down to the coach in a state of anxiety and expectation to look for the arrival of his successor, could find no one at all answering the description but a round-faced man in a short black coat (like a shooting jacket), which hardly seemed to have been made for him, but who seemed to be talking at a great rate to his fellow passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarce returned to give an account of his disappointment, when the round-faced man in black entered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject by beginning to talk. He did not cease while he stayed; nor has he since, that I know of. He held the good town of Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he remained there, 'fluttering the proud Salopians, like an eagle in a dove-cote;' and the Welsh mountains that skirt the horizon with their tempestuous confusion, agree to have heard no such mystic sounds since the days of

'High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay!'

As we passed along between Wem and Shrewsbury, and I eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak trees by the road side, a sound was in my ears as of a syren's song; I was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep; but I had no notion then that I should ever be able to express my admiration VOL. XX.-No. 40.

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to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, lifeless; but now, bursting from the deadly bands that bound them,

'With Styx nine times round them,'

my ideas float on winged words, and, as they expand their plumes, catch the light of other years. My soul has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and unsatisfied; my heart, shut up in the prison house of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it ever find, a heart to speak to; but that my understanding also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge."

Of his first sermon to the people of his charge, our author gives an animated description.

"It was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning before daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798,-Il y a des impressions que ni le tems ni les circonstances peuvent effacer. Dusse-je vivre des siècles entiers, le doux tems de ma jeunesse ne peut renaitre pour moi, ni s'effacer jamais dans ma memoire. When I got there, the organ was playing the 100th psalm, and when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, And he went up into the mountain to pray, HIMSELF, ALONE.' As he gave out his text, his voice 'rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes,' and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, 'of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey.' The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war; upon church and state-not their alliance, but their separation-on the spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had 'inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore.' He made a poetical and pastoral excursion,-and, to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, as though he should never behold,' and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the profession of blood.

'Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung.'

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And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together, Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and the cold dank drops of dew, that hung half melted on the beard of the this

tle, had something genial and refreshing in them; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature, that turned every thing into good. The face of nature had not then the brand of JUS DIVINUM on it:

'Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with wo.'"

We shall offer no apology to our readers for furnishing them with continued extracts from this interesting essay. All the persons introduced have excited the attention of the world. We will merely premise that Coleridge soon tired of his profession.

He was on a visit to our author's father

"His appearance was different from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, and in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wildness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with the small-pox. His complexion was at that time clear, and even bright,—

'As are the children of yon azure sheen.'

His forehead was broad and high, light as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them, like a sea with darkened lustre. 'Á certain tender bloom his face o'erspread,' a purple tinge as we see it in the pale thoughtful complexions of the Spanish portrait painters, Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was gross, volupuous, open, eloquent; his chin good-humoured and round; but, his nose, the rudder of the face, the index of the will, was small, feeble, nothing -like what he has done. It might seem that the genius of his face as from a height surveyed and projected him (with sufficient capacity and huge aspiration) into the world unknown of thought and imagination, with nothing to support or guide his veering purpose, as if Columbus had launched his adventurous course for the New World in a scallop, without oars or compass. So at least I comment on it after the event. Coleridge, in his person, was rather above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like Lord Hamlet, somewhat fat and pursy.' His hair (now alas! gray) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long pendulous hair is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heavenward; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a different colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ought to belong, as a character, to all who preach Christ crucified, and Coleridge was at that time one of those!"

His rambling, brilliant conversation is then well described. A visit, which Hazlitt paid to him soon after, afforded the former another opportunity of collecting some of his remarkable sayings. It also introduced him to Wordsworth.

"I returned home, and soon after set out on my journey with unworn heart and untried feet. My way lay through Worcester and Gloucester, and by Upton, where I thought of Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I remember getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at an inn (I think it was at Tewksbury) where I sat up all night to read 'Paul and Virginia.' Sweet were the showers in early youth that drenched my body, and sweet the drops of pity that fell upon the books I read. I recollect a remark of Coleridge upon this very book,-that nothing could show the gross indelicacy of French manners and the entire corruption of their imagination more strongly than the behaviour of the heroine

in the last fatal scene, who turns away from a person on board the sinking vessel, that offers to save her life, because he has thrown off his clothes to assist him in swimming. Was this a time to think of such a circumstance? I once hinted to Wordsworth, as we were sailing in his boat on Grasmere lake, that I thought he had borrowed the idea of his 'Poems on the naming of Places,' from the local inscriptions of the same kind in 'Paul and Virginia.' He did not own the obligation, and stated some distinction without a difference, in defence of his claim to originality. Any the slightest variation would be sufficient for this purpose in his mind; for whatever he added or altered would inevitably be worth all that any one else had done, and contain the marrow of the sentiment. I was still two days before the time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to set out early enough. I stopped these two days at Bridgewater, and when I was tired of sauntering on the banks of its muddy river, returned to the inn, and read Camilla.' So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy; but wanting that, have wanted every thing!

"I arrived and was well received. The country about Nether Stowey is beautiful, green and hilly, and near the sea shore. I saw it but the other day, after an interval of twenty years, from a hill near Taunton. How was the map of my life spread out before me, as the map of the country lay at my feet! In the afternoon, Coleridge took me over to All-Foxden, a romantic old family mansion of the St. Aubins, where Wordsworth lived. It was then in the possession of a friend of the poet, who gave him the free use of it. Somehow that period (the time just after the French revolution) was not a time when nothing was given for nothing. The mind opened, and a softness might be perceived coming over the heart of individuals, beneath the scales that fence' our self-interest. Wordsworth himself was from home, but his sister kept house, and set before us a frugal repast; and we had free access to her brother's poems, the 'Lyrical Ballads,' which were still in manuscript, or in the form of Sybilline Leaves.' I dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old room with blue hangings, and covered with the round-faced family-portraits of the age of George I. and II., and from the wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked my window, at the dawn of day, could

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'hear the loud stag speak.'

"In the outset of life (and particularly at this time I felt it so) our imagination has a body to it. We are in a state between sleeping and waking, and have indistinct but glorious glimpses of strange shapes, and there is always something to come better than what we see. As in our dreams the fulness of the blood gives warmth and reality to the coinage of the brain, so in youth our ideas are clothed, and fed, and pampered with our good spirits; we breathe thick with thoughtless happiness, the weight of future years presses on the strong pulses of the heart, and we repose with undisturbed faith in truth and good. As we advance, we exhaust our fund of enjoyment and of hope. We are no longer wrapped in lamb's-wool, lulled in Elysium. As we taste the pleasures of life, their spirit evaporates, the sense palls; and nothing is left but the phantoms, the lifeless shadows of what has been!

"That morning, as soon as breakfast was over, we strolled out into the park, and seating ourselves on the trunk of an old ash tree that stretched along the ground, Coleridge read aloud with a sonorous and

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