| 232 |
Mr. Hazlitt removed, about 1827, from Down Street to 40, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly; and here he lodged, when in town, during a couple of years.
It happened, when the MS. of the second volume of ‘Napoleon’ was almost ready for the printer, some burglars, who had got at the back of the premises through Shepherd’s Market, tried to break in, and put Mr. Hazlitt into a great state of terror. He posted off the next morning to the Atlas office with his MS., and begged that it might be taken care of till the printer wanted it; and he had not even then, when the danger or alarm was all over, and his treasure was secure, quite overcome his excitement. I owe this anecdote to a gentleman who became acquainted with Mr. Hazlitt towards the close of his life, and who was an eye-witness of his arrival, MS. in hand, at the newspaper-office.
To another friend, whom he met with the adventure fresh in his mind, he
said, “You know, sir, I had no
| CHANGES OF QUARTERS—ANECDOTES. | 233 |
His industry never flagged. He was unceasingly occupied. His health was by no means re-established, and his spirits were sadly indifferent; but he went on, in spite of every obstacle, with the activity and continuity of a beginner.
In 1829, he shifted his quarters from 40, Half-Moon Street, to 3, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, where he occupied (with his son) a first floor.
There was an alarm of fire while he was here, and the business was to get their pictures away—the copies of Titian and the ‘Death of Clorinda.’ He was cross with my father (ill-health improves nobody’s temper) for being so cool; but he himself did nothing but act the bystander with great success. They were temporarily deposited, till the danger was over, at the Sussex Coffee-House over the way.
At Bouverie Street he wrote numerous papers in the Atlas, two or three in the ‘New Monthly,’ one or more in the Examiner, and two in the ‘Edinburgh Review’—Flaxman’s ‘Lectures on Sculpture’ and Wilson’s ‘Life of Defoe.’ The latter is in the ‘Review’ for January, 1830.
Lamb, in the postscript of a letter to Wilson, Nov. 15, 1829, says:—“Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis for a review of De Foe’s novels in the ‘Edinbro’.’ I wish I had health and spirits to do it.”
It seems that it was his greatest wish to make a paper
| 234 | THE ‘LIFE OF NAPOLEON’ COMPLETED. |
He was now bringing to completion his Magnum Opus, which, since his strength had begun visibly to decline, after that telling illness of 1827, he was fondly solicitous of seeing off his hands and in type. The finishing touches were put to the third and fourth volumes at the latter end of 1829, under the roof of Mr. Whiting the printer, of Beaufort House, in the Strand;* and the second and concluding portion of the ‘Life’ was at length launched safely in 1830. The sale of the former volumes had been very inconsiderable, and the publication of the remainder did not greatly help it on, I am afraid. It came after Sir Walter’s, and did not go off at all well.
But the author’s chief aim was not present gain so much as posthumous identification with a subject, which he considered, as time went on, would grow in interest, and would be judged, as it deserved.
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* Perhaps, after the alarm of fire at Bouverie Street, he thought the MS. safer at Mr. Whiting’s. |
| PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENT. | 235 |
I have understood, however, that he was to have had for the copyright a considerable sum (500l.), of which he received only a portion (140l.) in a bill, which, when the affairs of Messrs. Hunt and Clarke became hopelessly involved, was mere waste paper.
Mr. Hazlitt was dreadfully harassed by this disappointment. To him, as to most literary men, especially where there is sickness and growing incapacity for application, a sum of some hundreds of pounds was of the utmost moment, and the loss of it entailed the greatest possible inconvenience and personal worry.
I have no inclination to go into the painful details, and I shall merely mention that the pecuniary crisis, which Mr. Hazlitt had hoped to avert, was accelerated by a knavish accountant, introduced to him (in ignorance of his real character, doubtless) by Mr. Hone. Mr. Hazlitt’s strength and spirits were completely shattered by this deplorable and shameful affair. He removed in the beginning of 1830 to 6, Frith Street, Soho, and there he was now threatened with a return of his old enemies, dyspepsia and gastric inflammation.
His early friends, the Reynells, took leave of him to go over to Havre, where they had arranged to settle; and he was then poorly, and under the care of a M. Sannier. This was in June. There is a letter from Lamb to the first Mrs. Hazlitt, dated June 3, 1830, respecting a suggestion she wished made to my grandfather through Lamb, on a point in which the unhappy circumstances inspired her with the deepest motherly interest and anxiety—her son’s establishment in life.
| 236 | LAMB’S MEDIATION ASKED. |
It has never been printed, and I may therefore insert it:—
“I named your thought about William to his father, who expressed such horror and aversion to the idea of his singing in public, that I cannot meddle in it directly or indirectly. Ayrton is a kind fellow, and if you choose to consult him, by letter or otherwise, he will give you the best advice, I am sure, very readily. I have no doubt that Mr. Burney’s objection to interfering was the same with mine. With thanks for your pleasant long letter, which is not that of an invalid, and sympathy for your sad sufferings,* I remain,
“Mary’s kindest love.
The “thought” was that William should go with Mr. Braham the singer, and that he should adopt the profession. But his father’s insuperable repugnance to the choice of any line of life lingered with him till the last; he wanted to see him a gentleman, and to be able to leave him independent of the world.
In the course of the summer, my grandfather grew
* Mrs. H. was beginning to labour under frequent and severe attacks of rheumatism. |
| DEATH OF MR. HAZLITT. | 237 |
“Even then,” he wrote, “I should not despair. The Revolution of the Three Days was like a resurrection from the dead, and showed plainly that liberty too has a spirit of life in it; and that the hatred of oppression is ‘the unquenchable flame, the worm that dies not.’”
The end was near. He had struggled with death through August and a part of September, and seemed to live on by a pure act of volition. But he was sinking. He asked those who were with him to fetch his mother to him, that he might see her once more. He knew that he was going fast. But his mother could not come to him; she was in Devonshire, and heavily stricken in years.
As he lay there, on his dying bed, he mentioned to Lamb, who was by, that William was engaged to Kitty,* and said that the idea gave him pleasure.
One Saturday afternoon in September, when Charles Lamb was in the room, the scene closed. He died so quietly that his son, who was sitting by his bedside, did not know that he was gone till the vital breath had been extinct a moment or two.
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* Miss Catherine Reynell. They were married June 8, 1833. |
| 238 | DEATH OF MR. HAZLITT. |
His last words were: “Well, I’ve had a happy life.”
In my grandmother’s handwriting I find this contemporary memorandum:—
“Saturday, 18th September, 1830, at about half-past four in the afternoon, died at his lodgings, No. 6, Frith Street, Soho, William Hazlitt, aged 52 years, five months, and eight days.
“Mr. Lamb, Mr. White, Mr. Hessey, and his own son were with him at the time.”
In a letter written by a friend to his sister in Havre, on the following Tuesday, there is a reference to the loss which his acquaintance, his son, and literature had sustained on that 18th of September, 1830.
“Of the events which have occurred here since your
departure,” Mr. W. H. Reynell writes,
“none will astonish you more, or at least affect you more, than the death of
poor Hazlitt; though the uncertain state in
which he has been for the last two months ought to have prepared his friends for the
worst. It appears, however, from all accounts, that his son has entertained a very
different opinion, or at least caused a very different opinion to be entertained. His
father died on Saturday, and on Friday William
told me that he was much better; and even on the following day (the day he died) gave
out that he was in no danger, but that he had something in his
mind, which would kill him if he did not dispel it. I hear that Mr. Lawrence and another medical man were present,
besides Dr. Darling, who had been attending him
throughout, and who, they think, had not treated him judiciously. Mr. Hone
| THE EFFECT UPON LAMB. | 239 |
Talfourd observes:—
“Hazlitt’s death did not so much shock Lamb at the time, as it weighed down his spirits afterwards, when he felt the want of those essays which he had used periodically to look for with eagerness in the magazines and reviews, which they alone made tolerable to him; and when he realised the dismal certainty that he should never again enjoy that rich discourse of old poets and painters with which so many a long winter’s night had been gladdened, or taste life with an additional relish in the keen sense of enjoyment which endeared it to his companion.”
So, two years before the Reform Bill his spirit ascended. If such things might be, would that it had been vouchsafed to him to see the forced concession of the first instalment of that claim, of which the second is overdue as I lay the pen down!
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