Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of LiteratureHazlitt, William
History
Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature
Hazlitt, William
English literature -- History and criticism
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-lov'd poet sung."
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 thistle, had something genial and
refreshing in them; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all
nature, that turned everything into good. The face of nature had not then
the brand of JUS DIVINUM on it:
"Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe."
On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired speaker came. I was called
down into the room where he was, and went half-hoping, half-afraid. He
received me very graciously, and I listened for a long time without
uttering a word. I did not suffer in his opinion by my silence. "For those
two hours," he afterwards was pleased to say, "he was conversing with W.
H.'s forehead!" 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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