HAZLITT was born in Kent, England, April 10th, 1778. His tastes as a young man led him to join the study of metaphysics to that of painting. When he went to London, it was to develop what he conceived to be his faculties for these antagonistic modes of intellectual activity. Naturally, he failed in both, but he established himself as a literary critic and popular essayist. It is said that he had Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb, and Thomas More for friends, and that he quarreled with them all. His nerves were too sensitive for the protracted literary work he attempted and the reaction from it gave him the irritability which, as it is said to characterize all “the race of poets,” is perhaps no less liable to attack those who make a profession of criticizing them. This Hazlitt did with such success that though he is under the sweeping condemnation of some, who accuse him of habitual “cramming,” others praise him as one of the first to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s apparent simplicity is due to the highest art. He died September 18th, 1830, after a life which was far from happy. Among his most notable works are his “Lectures on English Poetry,” “Lectures on the English Comic Writers,” “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,” “Table Talk,” “Original Essays,” and “Political Essays.” “Other men have been said to speak like books,” writes Richard Garnett, “Hazlitt’s books speak like men.”