Editing William Hazlitt (section)

===Return to London, trip to Paris, and last years (1825–1830)===

===="The old age of artists"====
As comfortable as Hazlitt was on settling in again to his home on Down Street in London in late 1825 (where he remained until about mid-1827), the reality of earning a living again stared him in the face. He continued to provide a stream of contributions to various periodicals, primarily ''The New Monthly Magazine''. The topics continued to be his favourites, including critiques of the "new school of reformers", drama criticism, and reflections on manners and the tendencies of the human mind. He gathered previously published essays for the collection ''The Plain Speaker'', writing a few new ones in the process. He also oversaw the publication in book form of his account of his recent Continental tour.<ref>Wardle, pp. 431–32.</ref>

But what he most wanted was to write a biography of Napoleon. Now Sir Walter Scott was writing his own life of Napoleon, from a strictly conservative point of view, and Hazlitt wanted to produce one from a countervailing, liberal perspective. Really, his stance on Napoleon was his own, as he had idolised Napoleon for decades, and he prepared to return to Paris to undertake the research. First, however, he brought to fruition another favourite idea.

Always fascinated by artists in their old age (see "On the Old Age of Artists"),<ref>''Works'', vol. 12, pp. 88–97.</ref> Hazlitt was especially interested in the painter [[James Northcote]], student and later biographer of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a Royal Academician. Hazlitt would frequently visit him—by then about 80 years old—and they conversed endlessly on men and manners, the illustrious figures of Northcote's younger days, particularly Reynolds, and the arts, particularly painting.

Northcote was at this time a crochety, slovenly old man who lived in wretched surroundings and was known for his misanthropic personality. Hazlitt was oblivious to the surroundings and tolerated the grumpiness.<ref>Wardle, p. 434.</ref> Finding congeniality in Northcote's company, and feeling many of their views to be in alignment, he transcribed their conversations from memory and published them in a series of articles entitled "Boswell Redivivus" in ''The New Monthly Magazine''. (They were later collected under the title ''Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A.'') But there was little in common between these articles and Boswell's life of Johnson. Hazlitt felt such a closeness to the old artist that in his conversations, Northcote was transformed into a kind of alter ego. Hazlitt made no secret of the fact that the words he ascribed to Northcote were not all Northcote's own but sometimes expressed the views of Hazlitt as much as Hazlitt's own words.<ref>As Hazlitt explained in an introductory note: "I differ from my great and original predecessor ... James Boswell ... in ... that whereas he is supposed to have invented nothing, I have feigned whatever I pleased". ''Works'', vol. 11, p. 350. On the other hand, as Catherine Macdonald Maclean reminds us, "there is much in the 'Conversations' which could only have come from Northcote, like the 'divine chit-chat' about Johnson and Burke and Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds, in which Hazlitt delighted". Maclean, p. 551.</ref>

Some of the conversations were little more than gossip, and they spoke of their contemporaries without restraint. When the conversations were published, some of those contemporaries were outraged. Northcote denied the words were his; and Hazlitt was shielded from the consequences to a degree by his residing in Paris, where he was at work on what he thought would be his masterpiece.<ref>Not the least of those who took personal offence was William Godwin. See Jones, p. 377. Also outraged was the family of [[Zachariah Mudge (clergyman)|Zachariah Mudge]], which resulted in the omission of several passages when the conversations were published in book form. See Wardle, pp. 481–82.</ref>

The last conversation (originally published in [[The Atlas (newspaper)|''The Atlas'']] on 15 November 1829, when Hazlitt had less than a year to live) is especially telling. Whether it really occurred more or less as given, or was a construct of Hazlitt's own imagination, it provides perspective on Hazlitt's own position in life at that time.

In words attributed to Northcote: "You have two faults: one is a ''feud'' or quarrel with the world, which makes you despair, and prevents you taking all the pains you might; the other is a carelessness and mismanagement, which makes you throw away the little you actually do, and brings you into difficulties that way."

Hazlitt justifies his own contrary attitude at length: "When one is found fault with for nothing, or for doing one's best, one is apt to give the world their revenge. All the former part of my life I was treated as a cipher; and since I have got into notice, I have been set upon as a wild beast. When this is the case, and you can expect as little justice as candour, you naturally in self-defence take refuge in a sort of misanthropy and cynical contempt for mankind."

And yet on reflection, Hazlitt felt that his life was not so bad after all:

<blockquote>
:The man of business and fortune ... is up and in the city by eight, swallows his breakfast in haste, attends a meeting of creditors, must read Lloyd's lists, consult the price of consols, study the markets, look into his accounts, pay his workmen, and superintend his clerks: he has hardly a minute in the day to himself, and perhaps in the four-and-twenty hours does not do a single thing that he would do if he could help it. Surely, this sacrifice of time and inclination requires some compensation, which it meets with. But how am I entitled to make my fortune (which cannot be done without all this anxiety and drudgery) who do hardly any thing at all, and never any thing but what I like to do? I rise when I please, breakfast ''at length'', write what comes into my head, and after taking a mutton-chop and a dish of strong tea, go to the play, and thus my time passes.<ref>''Works'', vol. 11, pp. 318–19.</ref>
</blockquote>

He was perhaps overly self-disparaging in this self-portrait,<ref>See his editor's note to the last conversation, ''Works'', vol. 11, p. 376.</ref> but it opens a window on the kind of life Hazlitt was leading at this time, and how he evaluated it in contrast to the lives of his more overtly successful contemporaries.

====Hero worship====
In August 1826, Hazlitt and his wife set out for Paris again, so he could research what he hoped would be his masterpiece, a biography of [[Napoleon]], seeking "to counteract the prejudiced interpretations of Scott's biography".<ref>In the words of biographer Ralph Wardle, p. 446.</ref> Hazlitt "had long been convinced that Napoleon was the greatest man of his era, the apostle of freedom, a born leader of men in the old heroic mould: he had thrilled to his triumphs over 'legitimacy' and suffered real anguish at his downfall".<ref>Wardle, p. 446.</ref>

This did not work out quite as planned. His wife's independent income allowed them to take lodgings in a fashionable part of Paris; he was comfortable, but also distracted by visitors and far from the libraries he needed to visit. Nor did he have access to all the materials that Scott's stature and connections had provided him with for his own life of Napoleon. Hazlitt's son also came to visit, and conflicts broke out between him and his father that also drove a wedge between Hazlitt and his second wife: their marriage was by now in free fall.<ref>Wardle, p. 438.</ref>

With his own works failing to sell, Hazlitt had to spend much time churning out more articles to cover expenses. Yet distractions notwithstanding, some of these essays rank among his finest, for example his "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth", published in ''The Monthly Magazine'' (not to be confused with the similarly named ''New Monthly Magazine'') in March 1827.<ref>''Works'', vol. 17, pp. 189–99. See also Wardle, p. 438.</ref> The essay "On a Sun-Dial", which appeared late in 1827, may have been written during a second tour to Italy with his wife and son.<ref>That this journey was undertaken is not certain, but Jones believes that it probably took place and lay behind the exacerbation of tensions between Hazlitt and his wife. Jones, p. 375.</ref>

On returning to London with his son in August 1827, Hazlitt was shocked to discover that his wife, still in Paris, was leaving him. He settled in modest lodgings on [[Half Moon Street, London|Half-Moon Street]], and thereafter waged an unending battle against poverty, as he found himself forced to grind out a stream of mostly undistinguished articles for weeklies like ''The Atlas'' to generate desperately needed cash. Relatively little is known of Hazlitt's other activities in this period. He spent as much time, apparently, at Winterslow as he did in London.<ref>Jones, p. 378.</ref> Some meditative essays emerged from this stay in his favourite country retreat, and he also made progress with his life of Napoleon. But he also found himself struggling against bouts of illness, nearly dying at Winterslow in December 1827.<ref>Wardle, p. 441.</ref> Two volumes—the first half—of the Napoleon biography appeared in 1828, only to have its publisher fail soon thereafter. This entailed even more financial difficulties for the author, and what little evidence we have of his activities at the time consists in large part of begging letters to publishers for advances of money.<ref>See Maclean, p. 552, Jones, pp. 373–75.</ref>

The easy life he had spoken of to Northcote had largely vanished by the time that conversation was published about a year before his death. By then he was overwhelmed by the degradation of poverty, frequent bouts of physical as well as mental illness—depression<ref>Maclean writes of "the blighting effect of the melancholy which had by this time had become habitual with Hazlitt", p. 538.</ref>—caused by his failure to find true love and by his inability to bring to fruition his defence of the man he worshipped as a hero of liberty and fighter of despotism.

Although Hazlitt retained a few devoted admirers, his reputation among the general public had been demolished by the cadre of reviewers in Tory periodicals whose efforts Hazlitt had excoriated in "On the Jealousy and the Spleen of Party".<ref>Written probably at Vevey in 1825. ''Works'', vol. 12, pp. 365–82, 427.</ref> According to John Wilson of ''Blackwood's Magazine'', for example, Hazlitt had already "been excommunicated from all decent society, and nobody would touch a dead book of his, any more than they would the body of a man who had died of the plague".<ref>Quoted in Maclean, p. 555.</ref>

His four-volume life of Napoleon turned out to be a financial failure. Worse in retrospect, it was a poorly integrated hodgepodge of largely borrowed materials. Less than a fifth of his projected masterpiece consists of Hazlitt's own words.<ref>This was established at length by Robert E. Robinson in 1959; cited in Wardle, pp. 448–49.</ref> Here and there, a few inspired passages stand out, such as the following:

<blockquote>
:I have nowhere in any thing I may have written declared myself to be a Republican; nor should I think it worth while to be a martyr and a confessor to any form or mode of government. But what I have staked health and wealth, name and fame upon, and am ready to do so again and to the last gasp, is this, that there is a power in the people to change its government and its governors.<ref>''Works'', vol. 14, p. 236. Quoted in Wardle, p. 450.</ref>
</blockquote>

Hazlitt managed to complete ''The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte'' shortly before his death, but did not live to see it published in its entirety.

====Last years====

[[File:William Hazlitt plaque.JPG|thumb|Plaque in Bouverie Street, London, marking the site of William Hazlitt's house]]
[[File:William Hazlitt memorial.JPG|thumb|The site of Hazlitt's grave in the churchyard of [[St Anne's, Soho]], with a new memorial commissioned following a campaign led by [[Tom Paulin]]]]

Few details remain of Hazlitt's daily life in his last years.<ref>"Nothing more clearly shows our essential ignorance of Hazlitt's life in his last years than the silence which closes around his second marriage after his wife's defection. ... A comparable reticence marks the whole of the succeeding period". Jones, p. 376.</ref> Much of his time was spent by choice in the bucolic setting of Winterslow, but he needed to be in London for business reasons. There, he seems to have exchanged visits with some of his old friends, but few details of these occasions were recorded. Often he was seen in the company of his son and son's fiancée.<ref>Wardle, pp. 465–66.</ref> Otherwise, he continued to produce a stream of articles to make ends meet.

In 1828, Hazlitt found work reviewing for the theatre again (for ''The Examiner''). In playgoing he found one of his greatest consolations. One of his most notable essays, "The Free Admission", arose from this experience.<ref>Wardle, p. 481.</ref> As he explained there, attending the theatre was not merely a great solace in itself; the atmosphere was conducive to contemplating the past, not just memories of the plays themselves or his reviewing of past performances, but the course of his whole life. In words written within his last few months, the possessor of a free admission to the theatre, "ensconced in his favourite niche, looking from the 'loop-holes of retreat' in the second circle ... views the pageant of the world played before him; melts down years to moments; sees human life, like a gaudy shadow, glance across the stage; and here tastes of all earth's bliss, the sweet without the bitter, the honey without the sting, and plucks ambrosial fruits and amaranthine flowers (placed by the enchantress Fancy within his reach,) without having to pay a tax for it at the time, or repenting of it afterwards."<ref>''Works'', vol. 17, p. 366.</ref>

He found some time to return to his earlier philosophical pursuits, including popularised presentations of the thoughts expressed in earlier writings. Some of these, such as meditations on "Common Sense", "Originality", "The Ideal", "Envy", and "Prejudice", appeared in ''The Atlas'' in early 1830.<ref>''Works'', vol. 20, pp. 296–321.</ref> At some point in this period he summarised the spirit and method of his life's work as a philosopher, which he had never ceased to consider himself to be; but "The Spirit of Philosophy" was not published in his lifetime.<ref>''Works'', vol. 20, pp. 369–76.</ref> He also began contributing once again to ''The Edinburgh Review''; paying better than the other journals, it helped stave off hunger.<ref>Maclean, p. 552.</ref>

After a brief stay on [[Bouverie Street]] in 1829, sharing lodgings with his son,<ref>Jones, p. xvi.</ref> Hazlitt moved into a small apartment at 6 [[Frith Street]], [[Soho]].<ref>Maclean, p. 553.</ref> He continued to turn out articles for ''The Atlas'', ''The London Weekly Review'', and now ''The Court Journal''.<ref>Wardle, p. 479, 481.</ref> Plagued more frequently by painful bouts of illness, he began to retreat within himself. Even at this time, however, he turned out a few notable essays, primarily for ''The New Monthly Magazine''. Turning his suffering to advantage,<ref>Wardle, p. 483.</ref> he described the experience, with copious observations on the effects of illness and recovery on the mind, in "The Sick Chamber". In one of his last respites from pain, reflecting on his personal history, he wrote, "This is the time for reading. ... A cricket chirps on the hearth, and we are reminded of Christmas gambols long ago. ... A rose smells doubly sweet ... and we enjoy the idea of a journey and an inn the more for having been bed-rid. But a book is the secret and sure charm to bring all these implied associations to a focus. ... If the stage [alluding to his remarks in "The Free-Admission"] shows us the masks of men and the pageant of the world, books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. They are the first and last, the most home-felt, the most heart-felt of our enjoyments".<ref>"The Sick Chamber", first published in ''The New Monthly Magazine'', August 1830, ''Works'', vol. 17, pp. 375–76.</ref> At this time he was reading the novels of [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton|Edward Bulwer]] in hopes of reviewing them for ''The Edinburgh Review''.<ref>According to P.G. Patmore, reported by P. P. Howe in Hazlitt's ''Works'', vol. 17, p. 429.</ref>

Such respites from pain did not last, though news of [[July Revolution|The Three Glorious Days]] that drove the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbons]] from France in July raised his spirits.<ref>As A. C. Grayling wrote in a memorial in ''[[The Guardian]]'' at the turn of the twenty-first century: "From his bed he wrote that the revolution 'was like a resurrection from the dead, and showed plainly that liberty too has a spirit of life in it; and the hatred of oppression is "the unquenchable flame, the worm that dies not"'". See Grayling, "Memorial".</ref> A few visitors cheered these days, but, toward the end, he was frequently too sick<ref>Grayling conjectures that his ailment was either stomach cancer or ulcers. Grayling, "Memorial".</ref> to see any of them.<ref>Wardle, p. 484.</ref> By September 1830, Hazlitt was confined to his bed, with his son in attendance, his pain so acute that his doctor kept him drugged on opium much of the time.<ref>Hazlitt mentions this explicitly in "The Sick Chamber", ''Works'', vol. 17, p. 373.</ref> His last few days were spent in delirium, obsessed with some woman, which in later years gave rise to speculation: was it Sarah Walker? Or was it, as biographer Stanley Jones believes, more likely to have been a woman he had met more recently at the theatre?<ref>See Maclean, pp. 577–79; Wardle, p. 485; and Jones, pp. 380–81.</ref> Finally, with his son and a few others in attendance, he died on 18 September. His last words were reported to have been "Well, I've had a happy life".<ref>Not all of his biographers were convinced that he really uttered those words. See Maclean, p. 608; Wardle, p. 485; and Jones, p. 381.</ref>

William Hazlitt was buried in the churchyard of [[St Anne's Church, Soho]] in London on 23 September 1830, with only his son William, Charles Lamb, P.G. Patmore, and possibly a few other friends in attendance.<ref>Wardle, p. 486.</ref>