relished only the consummate expression of nothing. Footnote 29: Listen, else, to Lamb himself: ‘Protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation 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.’ Thus does one Royalty celebrate the kingship and enrich the immortality of another. EDITORS’ PREFACE Two previous editions of Hazlitt’s works have been published: the Templeman edition, edited by the author’s son, and the seven volume edition in Bohn’s Library, edited by the author’s grandson, Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt. Valuable as these editions are from the exceptional advantages enjoyed by the respective editors, neither of them professes to be, or is, complete, and the aim of the present edition is to give for the first time an accurate text of the complete collected writings of Hazlitt with the exception of his _Life of Napoleon_. In the case of works published in book form by Hazlitt himself the latest edition published in his lifetime is here reprinted. Some obvious errors of the press have been corrected, but no attempt has been made to modernise or improve Hazlitt’s orthography or punctuation. He himself expressed contempt for ‘the collating of points and commas,’ and was probably a careless proof reader. He did not plume himself, as Boswell did, upon a deliberately adopted orthography, and his punctuation and use of italics were perhaps rather his printers’ fancy than his own. However that may be, the Editors feel that there is no justification for any tampering with his text. Essays not republished by Hazlitt himself are printed from the periodical or other publication in which they first appeared. It has been found impossible to avoid a good deal of repetition. All readers of Hazlitt know that he repeated not only phrases and sentences, but paragraphs and pages, as, _e.g._, in the case of the essay on ‘The Character of Pitt’ (see note to p. 125). A few of such cases might have been dealt with by means of cross references, but they are so numerous that the cross references would have become tiresome if only one of the identical or nearly identical passages had been printed.