| 310 | WILLIAM HAZLITT. |
Hazlitt’s way of
life was as little adapted to the ordinary course of things in a “regular”
family, as can well be conceived. He always lived (during the period of my intimacy with
him) in furnished lodgings, and those of a very secondary class;—the latter not from any
lack of means, for he had only to take his pen in hand to, as it were, coin money; still
less was it from any parsimonious feeling, for he was profuse in his expenditure, so far as
related to the personal comforts of himself and those dependent on him. But, on adopting
this mode of life, he fancied that his peculiar habits would have subjected him to
perpetual inconveniences and affronts, except from those to whom the moderate stipend he
paid was a material object. But he was far from escaping them by this expedient, of
descending in the scale of social order; for the lower
| WILLIAM HAZLITT. | 311 |
| 312 | WILLIAM HAZLITT. |
Hazlitt usually rose at from one to two
o’clock in the day—scarcely ever before twelve; and if he had no work in hand, he
would sit over his breakfast (of excessively strong black tea, and a toasted French roll)
till four or five in the afternoon—silent, motionless, and self-absorbed, as a Turk over
his opium pouch; for tea served him precisely in this capacity. It was the only stimulant
he ever took, and at the same time the only luxury; the delicate state of his digestive
organs prevented him from tasting any fermented liquors, or touching any food but beef and
mutton, or poultry and game, dressed with perfect plainness. He never touched any but black tea, and was very particular about the quality of that, always
using the most expensive that could be got: and he used, when living alone, to consume
nearly a pound in a week. A cup of Hazlitt’s tea (if you
happened to come in for the first
| WILLIAM HAZLITT. | 313 |
To judge from its occasional effect upon myself, I should say that the quantity Hazlitt drank of this tea produced, ultimately, a most injurious effect upon him; and in all probability hastened his death—which took place from disease of the digestive organs. But its immediate effect was agreeable, even to a degree of fascination; and not feeling any subsequent reaction from it, he persevered in its use to the last, notwithstanding two or three attacks, similar to that which terminated his life.
To the very few who felt a real and deep interest in this extraordinary man,
and to whom it was evident that his restless and resistless passions, and his entire, and
even wilful, subjection to them—added to other points, to be hereafter referred to, in his
moral and physical constitution—made him one of the most wretched of human beings,
| 314 | WILLIAM HAZLITT. |
For the last four or five years of his life, Hazlitt never touched any other liquid but tea. During the previous four or five years, he used to drink large quantities of cold water. I have frequently seen him take three or four quarts while sitting after supper—which was his favourite meal. Wine, and all fermented liquors, ho had forsworn before I knew him; and he religiously kept to his resolution. This, he used to say, was the reason why Blackwood’s people called him “pimpled Hazlitt”—thus holding him up to the world as a dram-drinker!* Had they
* Lord Byron took this imputation for granted, and discovered that the epithet “pimpled” might also be applied to his writings! And so it might with about equal fitness: for, as his face was as clear and pale as marble, so was his style the most simple and transparent of the day. Sir Bulwer Lytton, in his admirable work on “England and the English,” has inadvertently adopted the invention as if it were an unquestioned fact, merely |
| WILLIAM HAZLITT. | 315 |
His breakfast and tea were frequently the only meals that Hazlitt took till late at night, when he usually ate a hearty supper of hot meat—either rump-steak, poultry, or game—a partridge or a pheasant. This he invariably took at a tavern—his other meals (except his dinner sometimes) being as invariably taken at home.
There were three or four houses only that
disputing the utility of alleging it. “What purpose,” he asks, “salutary to literature, is served by hearing that Hazlitt had pimples on his face?” But he had no such thing! “Throw dirt enough, and some of it will stick.” That was the axiom on which Hazlitt’s enemies proceeded; and there is no denying that, in his case, it succeeded to a miracle. Times are changed since, and the “dirt,” when flung, sticks only to the fingers of the flinger. |
| 316 | WILLIAM HAZLITT. |
The houses Hazlitt frequented were
the Southampton Coffee-house, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane; Munday’s, in
Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, and (for a short period) the Spring Garden Coffee-house. The
first of these he has immortalised, in one of the most amusing of his Essays, “On Coffeehouse Politicians.” Here,
for several years, he used to hold a sort of evening levee, where, after a certain hour at
night (and till a very uncertain hour in the morning) he was always
to be found, and always more or less ready to take part in that sort of desultory
“talk” (the only thing really deserving the name of “conversation”)
in which he excelled every man I have ever met with. But of
| WILLIAM HAZLITT. | 317 |
When Hazlitt dined at all—which was often not more than two or three times a week—this meal seemed only a sort of preliminary to his everlasting Tea, for which he returned home as soon as he had dined, and usually sat over it for a couple of hours. Afterwards he almost invariably passed two or three hours at one or other of the large theatres, placing himself as invariably in a back corner seat of the second tier of boxes, and, if possible, shrouding himself from view, as if he felt himself “a weed that had no business there,” in such a scene of light, gaiety, and artificial seeming.
To the play itself, on these occasions, he
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