He

was his worst enemy. His criticisms of his contemporaries seem to us to be, taken all in all, neither more nor less just than his criticisms of departed poets, comic writers, and dramatists. In all his criticisms alike he strikes us as a inan of extravagant sentiment and hyperbolical expression, widely read in philosophy and in general literature, a habitual and acute student of human char acter, more alive to varieties of excellence than any of his critical contemporaries, excepting De Quincey and John Wilson, and more, perhaps, than even these, alive to what may be called varieties of mood. His judgment was liable to be "deflected" by intemperate feeling, generous or splenetic. His criticisms must be taken with some grains of allowance on this score before we appreciate their substantial body of sound discerument. often puts things graphically and incisively; but his composition strikes the general taste of critics as wearing too much an appearance of effort, and straining too much at flashing effects. "Hazlitt," says De Quincey, was not eloquent, because he was discontinuous. No man can be eloquent whose thoughts are abrupt, insulated, capricious, and non-sequacious. Now Hazlitt's brilliancy is seen chiefly in separate splinterings of phrase or image which throw upon the eye a vitreous scintillation for a moment, but spread no deep suffusions of colour, and distribute no masses of mighty shadow. A flash, a solitary flash, and all is gone." De Quincey objects also to Hazlitt's habit of trite quotation, of ornamenting his pages with "tags of verse and 'cues' of rhyme."

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), journalist, essay-writer, book-compiler, and poet, may be placed with Hazlitt as another distinguished member of what was derisively termed "The Cockney School." He was the son of a West Indian lawyer, settled at Southgate in Middlesex, and received his schooling at Christ's Hospital. His father published a collection of his verses in 1802, under the title of 'Juvenilia,' when he was but eighteen-a collection which met with a much more favourable reception than Byron's 'Hours of Idleness,' published some five years later. Throughout his life his aspirations and pursuits were exclusively literary. The short trial that was made of his business abilities in a law office, and subsequently in the War Office, could hardly be said to be an interruption. When he was little more than twenty he made a sensation as a dramatic critic in his brother's paper, the News.' In 1808 he joined with his brother in setting up the Examiner,' designed as a weekly organ for political views more advanced than were then current in the press. The attacks of the 'Examiner' upon the Government involved it in more than one prosecution for libel; and in 1813 our author was indicted for certain sarcastic comments on the Prince Regent, and suffered im

prisonment for two years, glorying in his bonds, and declining several offers from friends to pay his fine and procure his release. In 1816 his 'Story of Rimini' presented him to the public as a poet; and as he had, some years before, in his 'Feast of the Poets,' rather captiously insulted the whole of that irritable race, his performance was reviewed and himself reviled with the utmost spirit. In 1819-21, he published the Indicator,' a weekly series of essays on the model of the 'Spectator.' The most notorious event in his life, next to his imprisonment for a political offence, was his connection with Lord Byron. He set sail for Italy in 1821 to assist Byron and Shelley in establishing the 'Liberal,' a projected new light in matters social, political, and religious; but the scheme failed through want of congeniality among the collaborateurs; and Hunt, after his return to England, published 'Recollections of Lord Byron,' in which he tried to exculpate himself at the expense of his friend. He returned to England in 1825. For the remaining thirty-four years of his life he lived as a man of letters in London, the fruits of his pen being eked out by occasional contributions from his friends, and after 1847 by a Government pension of £200, bestowed by Lord John Russell. He projected periodicals the Companion' (shortly after his return, à continuation of the Indicator'), the 'Tatler' (1830-33), the 'London Journal' (1834), and wrote to periodicals already established; composed a fictitious autobiography of Sir RALPH ESHER, a gentleman of the Court of Charles II. (1832), a poem, 'Captain Sword and Captain Pen,' 1839, and a play, 'The Legend of Florence,' 1840; and published various compilations, criticisms, and books of gossip-Imagination and Fancy,' 1845; 'Wit and Humour,' 1846; "Stories from the Italian Poets,' 1846; 'Men, Women, and Books' (a collection from his periodical essays), 1847; 'A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,' 1847; 'The Town,' 1848; 'Autobiography,' 1850; The Religion of the Heart,' 1853; 'The Old Court Suburb,' 1855. He died on the 28th of August 1859.-He is described as a rather tall man, of dark complexion, with erect carriage, and engaging liveliness and suavity of address. "His hair was black and shining, and slightly inclined to wave; his head was high, his forehead straight and white, his eyes black and sparkling." The inner as well as the outer man differed considerably from the typical John Bull. He was ruled by sentiment. His capacities for business were of the poorest order. He had no sense of the value of money, and would often have been in great distress had not the amiability of his character procured him relief from the generosity of his friends. As a youth he was spoiled by the praise of his precocity; overweeningly self-complacent, he sat in judgment with a patronising air upon his elders and superiors, and, meaning no harm in the world, made hosts of enemies on

every side. When his eyes were opened to the unconscious offensiveness of his behaviour, he appeared in a more amiable aspect. His Autobiography' is brimming with expressions of goodwill to all mankind, and frank confession of youthful offences. His philanthropic sentiment was overflowing. Uncle Toby was his ideal -"divine Uncle Toby." "He who created Uncle Toby was the wisest man since the days of Shakspeare." "As long as the character of Toby Shandy finds an echo in the heart of man, the heart of man is noble." In point of style, his model was Addison. In simplicity and felicitous grace of expression he may be contrasted with the more robust and careless vigour predominant in the early days of the 'Edinburgh Review' and 'Blackwood.' He particularly excels in graceful touches of humorous caricature.

John Wilson, "Christopher North" (1785-1854), was the son of a prosperous manufacturer in Paisley. When he was six or seven years old, he was placed under the care of the minister of the neighbouring parish of Mearns, and displayed from the first his singular union of muscular vigour with love of intellectual distinction. Jack was anything but a dull boy; his enthusiasm for angling and other sports, and his rattling youthful eloquence, were no less conspicuous than his quickness in booklearning. He studied at Glasgow, and subsequently at Oxford. At Glasgow he carried off the first prize in the Logic class; and at Oxford, besides being distinguished as a boxer and as the best farleaper of his day in England, he was said to have passed for his degree "the most illustrious examination within the memory of man." He left Oxford in 1807, and soon after, having purchased the beautiful residence of Elleray on the banks of the Windermere, he married, and lived there for several years in Utopian health and happiness, surrounded by the finest of scenery, and varying his poem-writing and halcyon peace with walking excursions and jovial visits from friends that, like himself, entered with zest into the hearty enjoyment of life. During this period he wrote his 'Isle of Palms,' a beautiful reflection of the soft passage of his days. In 1815, in consequence of pecuniary embarrassment, brought on by the misfortunes of the trustee of his father's property, he was under the necessity of choosing a profession, and decided for the Scottish bar. He made no effort to secure a practice. In 1820 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh. The duties of this Chair he discharged till 1851, when he retired upon a pension of £300, all the more gratifying as a mark of public respect that it was bestowed by his political enemies. But the most brilliant side of his life was his activity in connection with 'Blackwood's Magazine,' which, after a short tentative flight,

1 See Recreations of Christopher North.

was in 1817 fairly started in its present character with "Christopher North" as its leading contributor. When Wilson gave up

2

his residence at Elleray, he was, writes Professor Ferrier, "after sundry pleasant overtures from Jeffrey, and the composition of one eloquent article on 'Childe Harold' for the Edinburgh Review,' induced finally to cement a perpetual treaty with Mr Blackwood, and to act, for months and years, as the animating soul of his celebrated Magazine.' It was not, however, by a jump, or even rapidly, that Wilson attained to the full command of his powers, or the Magazine to a lucrative circulation. It was established in 1817; but it was not until 1825 that that brilliant succession of articles from Wilson's pen began to appear, which brought fame to him and a shoal of subscribers to the Magazine. For the ten following years, his industry never flagged. About 1836 it became somewhat intermittent, although, until near the close of his life, it was still powerfully exerted. "Dies Boreales were the last contributions from his pen to 'Blackwood's Magazine.' All his prose writings made their first appearance in 'Maga,' as he delighted to call the Magazine; after his death the principal of them were collected and published by the Messrs Blackwood under the editorship of his son-in-law Professor Ferrier.-The numerous floating traditions of "Christopher North's" commanding personal appearance and physical prowess have always made him one of the most popular of literary characters. The graceful dignity of his carriage, and the length of limb and peculiar formation of heel that gave him his extraordinary superiority as a far-leaper, are recorded with characteristic minuteness in De Quincey's sketch. De Quincey also dwells upon the popularity of his manners-his frank, open affability to all comers, his "infinite gamut" of acquaintance from college "Don" to groom, ostler, and stable-boy. His writings were no less popular than his person. As a critic he did not possess De Quincey's subtle power of entering into characters different from his own (in that respect De Quincey probably stood alone among his contemporaries); but his sympathies were so broad that it is not easy to define their limits. His strong pleasure in natural scenery, the native susceptibility of his eye to colour and form, gave him a wider compass than Jeffrey, and was the secret of his enthusiastic advocacy of Wordsworth, as a corresponding deficiency was the secret of Jeffrey's no less earnest depreciation. When we compare his review of Lord Tennyson's early poems with Lockhart's

1 In Mackenzie's Imperial Dictionary of Biography.

2 Among the early contributors to this Magazine, which introduced a new era in periodical writing, being the first parent of all the magazines that now swim the literary stream, were John Gibson Lockhart, Captain Hamilton (author of Cyril Thornton,' a brother of Sir Willian Hamilton), John Galt (author of 'Annals of the Parish '), Mrs Hemans, David M. Moir (" Delta"), Sir Archibald Alison, De Quincey, and other well-known names.

review of the same publication in the 'Quarterly,' we see that this nature-interest, this additional "bump" or bumps, overbalanced his repugnance to the admixture of the "Cockney" element, and the pseudo-metaphysical "drivel," that irreconcilably offended his early friend and associate. As regards Wilson's style, it has been said by Mr Hallam that "his eloquence is like the rush of mighty waters." He greatly admired Jeremy Taylor; and while, from temperament, he does not display the same habitual breathless eagerness in the accumulation of words, but pours out his full eloquence with less appearance of excitement, he often reminds us of Taylor's manner in his way of following out picturesque similitudes. Comparing them upon one point only, and disregarding other characteristics, we should say that of the two Taylor is the more rhetorical, and Wilson the more eloquent: Taylor rather accumulates his wealth of expression upon given themes; Wilson flows out spontaneously and often somewhat irrelevantly to the subject in hand, concerning what strongly interested him in real life: Taylor can flexibly bring his powers to bear upon any subject; Wilson, although from the width of his interests the distinction is not glaringly obtrusive, is copious only when he happens to strike a plentiful spring in his own nature. With all Wilson's Nimrod force and abounding animal spirits, perhaps his richest and most original vein of expression is connected with his love of peaceful beauties in natural scenery. A very high tribute both to his judgment and to his powers of illustration is paid by De Quincey when he says that from Wilson's contributions to 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and more especially from his meditative examinations of great poets ancient and modern, a florilegium might be compiled of thoughts more profound and more gorgeously illustrated than exist elsewhere in human composition.

John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854), already mentioned in connection with Blackwood's Magazine,' was editor of the 'Quarterly Review' for more than a quarter of a century, from 1826 to 1853. The son of a Scotch parish minister in Lanarkshire, he was a distinguished student at Glasgow College, and at the close of his curriculum was presented to one of the Snell exhibitions for Balliol College, Oxford. In the final examination at Oxford in 1813, he took a first-class in classics. After a visit to Germany, in the course of which he made the acquaintance of Goethe, he fixed his residence in Edinburgh, and was called to the Scotch bar in 1816. Like several other young lawyers of the same date, his profession was more literature than law. He co-operated with Wilson in the inauguration of 'Blackwood's Magazine' in 1817. He had a principal hand in the famous 'Chaldee Manuscript.'1 In 1819 he published

1 This pungent production appeared in the seventh number of Blackwood's Magazine, the first number contributed to by Wilson and Lockhart. It was