| 21 |
From 1791 it is that I must date my grandfather’s entrance into the field as a political champion. He was now thirteen, and his love of truth and liberty was outraged by the proceedings which had then recently taken place at Birmingham against Dr. Priestley, his father’s friend and correspondent, and the idol of Coleridge and Lamb. He composed a letter expressive of his views, and sent it to the editor of the Shrewsbury Chronicle, who inserted it:—
“Tis really surprising that men—men, too, that aspire to the character of Christians—should seem to take such pleasure in endeavouring to load with infamy one of the best, one of the wisest, and one of the greatest of men.
“One of your late correspondents, under the signature
of ΟΥΔΕΙΣ, seems desirous of
having Dr. Priestley in
| 22 | LETTER TO THE SHREWSBURY CHRONICLE. |
“This letter of the Doctor’s also, though it
throughout breathes the pure and genuine spirit of Christianity, is, by another
of your correspondents, charged with
| LETTER TO THE SHREWSBURY CHRONICLE. | 23 |
“Religious persecution is the bane of all religion;
and the friends of persecution are the worst enemies religion has; and of all
persecutions, that of calumny is the most intolerable. Any other kind of
persecution can affect our outward circumstances only, our properties, our
lives; but this may affect our characters for ever. And this great man has not
only had his goods spoiled, his habitation burned, and his life endangered, but
is also calumniated, aspersed with the most malicious reflections, and charged
with everything bad, for which a misrepresentation of the truth and prejudice
can give the least pretence. And why all this? To the shame of some one, let it
be replied, merely on account of particular speculative opinions, and not
anything scandalous, shameful, or criminal in his moral character.
‘Where I see,’ says the great and admirable Robinson,
| 24 | EDUCATING FOR THE CHURCH. |
His brother John painted a miniature portrait of him as he appeared at this time—a beautiful youth, with the hair flowing over his shoulders, and his exquisitely-formed hands displayed to advantage. It was the second time he had sat to an artist. While he was with his father in America, a portrait of him was taken, as I have already stated, by somebody whose name I have not been able to recover (1783 was too early for John), representing the future philosopher and critic, anno ætatis five. It is a miniature of the smallest dimensions, adapted for a brooch. The features are infantile; yet is the man in the child to my apprehending.
At the age of fifteen my grandfather entered the
| MR. CORRIE’S BACKWARD PUPIL. | 25 |
“When I was about fourteen (as long ago as the year 1792), in consequence of a dispute one day, after coming out of Meeting, between my father and an old lady of the congregation, respecting the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts and the limits of religious toleration, I set about forming in my head (the first time I ever attempted to think) the following system of political rights and general jurisprudence.” With this explanation he introduces his ‘Project for a New Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation,’ written in maturer years.
“It was this circumstance,” he goes on to tell us, “that decided the fate of my future life; or rather, I would say, it was from an original bias or craving to be satisfied of the reason of things, that I seized hold of this accidental opportunity to indulge in its uneasy and unconscious determination.”
He was at this time studying for the Church under Mr. Corrie’s more especial superintendence.
Mr. Corrie found his pupil rather backward in many of the ordinary
points of learning, and, in general, of a dry, intractable understanding. My grandfather at
last disclosed to Mr. Corrie the fact that, although he appeared
somewhat deficient in other matters, he thought he could do a little in a different way;
and he hinted at what he was
| 26 | THE FIRST ESSAY. |
My grandfather says further:—
“Mr. Corrie, my old tutor at Hackney, may still have the rough draught of this speculation, which I gave him with tears in my eyes, and which he good-naturedly accepted in lieu of the customary themes, and as a proof that I was no idler; but that my inability to produce a line on the ordinary school topics arose from my being involved in more difficult and abstruse matters. He must smile at the so oft-repeated charge against me of florid flippancy and tinsel.
“If from those briars I have since plucked roses, what labour has it not cost me? The Test and Corporation Acts were repealed the other day.
“How would my father have rejoiced if this had happened in his time, and in concert with his old friends, Dr. Price, Dr. Priestley, and others!
“I began with trying to define what a right meant; and this I settled with myself was not simply that which is good or useful in itself, but that which is thought so by the individual, and which has the sanction of his will as such. . . . . The next question I asked myself was, what is law, and the real and necessary ground of civil government? The answer to this is found in the former statement. Law is something to abridge, or more properly speaking, to ascertain, the bounds of the original right, and to coerce the will of individuals in the community. . . . .”
| LETTERS FROM HACKNEY. | 27 |
I cannot afford room for further details respecting this piece of literary history, but the whole is printed among the works, and it certainly deserves respectful attention as Mr. Hazlitt’s earliest essay upon any subject. It preceded, by about five years, the commencement of his second labour, which was still more recondite and ambitious. I mean, of course, that he had written it out in a rough draught which he gave to his tutor; the essay, as it appears among the ‘Literary Remains,’ was not actually written till 1828.
The three letters which I subjoin were written during his stay at Hackney, and partially bear upon this question:—
“I received your very kind letter yesterday morning.
With respect to my past behaviour, I have often said, and I now assure you.
that it did not proceed from any real disaffection, but merely from the nervous
disorder to which, you well know, I was so much subject. This was really the
case, however improbable it may appear. Nothing particular occurred from the
time I wrote last, till the Saturday following. On the Wednesday before,
Corrie had given me a theme. As it
was not a subject suited to my genius, and from other causes, I had not written
anything on it; so that I was not pleased to hear his bell on Saturday morning,
which was the time for showing our themes. When I came to him, he asked me
whether I had prepared my theme. I told him I had not. You should have a very
good
| 28 | LETTERS FROM HACKNEY. |
| LETTERS FROM HACKNEY. | 29 |
“I believe I am liked very well by the students, in general. I am pretty intimate with one of them, whose name is Tonson. F. Swanwick has been hitherto in a different class; but on applying to Corrie, he has been put into the same class with me. Farewell!
“I received your letter safely on Monday. On the preceding Saturday I finished the introduction to my essay on the ‘Political State of Man,’ and showed it to Corrie. He seemed very well pleased with it, and desired me to proceed with my essay as quickly as I could. After a few definitions, I give the following sketch of my plan:—
“‘In treating on the political state of man,
I shall, first, endeavour to represent his natural political relations, and
to deduce from these his natural political duties and his natural political
rights; and, secondly, to
| 30 | LETTERS FROM HACKNEY. |
“Corrie seemed much pleased with some of my translations this week.
“I passed the Ass’s Bridge very safely and very solitarily on Friday. I like Domine (that is the name by which Dr. Rees goes here) and his lectures very much.
“I was sorry to hear from your two last letters that
you wish me to discontinue my essay, as I am very desirous of finishing it, and
as I think it necessary to do so. For I have already completed the two first
propositions, and the third I have planned, and, shall be able to finish in a
very short time: the fourth proposition, which will be the last, will consist
only of a few lines. The first section you know I have done for some time; and
the first and fourth propositions are exactly similar to the first, second, and
fourth of the second section, so
| LETTERS FROM HACKNEY. | 31 |
With respect to themes, I really think them rather
disserviceable than otherwise. I shall not be able to make a good oration from
my essay. It is too abstruse and exact for that purpose. I shall endeavour to
write one on Providence, which will, I think, be a very good subject. I shall
certainly make it my study to acquire as much politeness as I can. However,
this is not the best place possible for acquiring it. I do not at all say that
the fellows who are here do not know how to behave extremely well, but the
behaviour which suits a set of young fellows, or boys, does not suit any other
society. This circumstance, however, is of very little
| 32 | YOUTHFUL MEMORIES. |
“I forget to tell you that Corrie has not returned me the first part of my essay.
I shall leave Mr. Hazlitt to speak for himself as much as possible henceforth. He says:—
“When I was quite a boy, my father used to take me to the Montpelier tea-gardens at Walworth.* Do I go there now? No; the place is deserted, and its borders and its beds o’erturned. I unlock the casket of memory, and draw back the warders of the brain; and there this scene of my infant wanderings still lives unfaded, or with fresher dyes. I see the beds of larkspur with purple eyes; tall hollyhocks, red and yellow; the broad sun-flowers, caked in gold, with bees buzzing round them; wildernesses of pinks and hot-glowing peonies; poppies run to seed; the sugared lily and faint mignionette, all ranged in order, and as thick as they can grow; the box-tree borders; the gravel walks; the painted alcove, the confectionery, the clotted cream—I think I see them now.
“When I was a boy I lived within sight of a range of
* Here we seem to have just a glimpse of an early experience of London life. This passage has led me to conjecture that at this time the Rev. W. Hazlitt was residing provisionally in or near Walworth; but I have no more distinct evidence of such a fact. |
| MEMORIES OF WEM. | 33 |
“In the library of the family where we were brought up [he means in his father’s library] stood the Fratres Poloni;† and we can never forget or describe the feeling with which not only their appearance, but the names of the authors on the outside inspired us. Pripscovius, we remember, was one of the easiest to pronounce. The gravity of the contents seemed in proportion to the weight of the volumes; the importance of the subjects increased with our ignorance of them. The trivialness of the remarks, if ever we looked into them, the repetitions, the monotony, only gave a greater solemnity to the whole, as the slowness and minuteness of the evidence adds to the impressiveness of a judicial proceeding. We knew that the authors had devoted their whole lives to the production of these works, carefully abstaining from the introduction of anything amusing or lively or interesting. In the folio volumes there was not one sally of wit, one striking reflection. Such was the notion we then had of this learned lumber; yet we would rather have this feeling again for one half-hour
| 34 | MEMORIES OF WEM. |
“It was my misfortune perhaps to be bred up among dissenters, who look with too jaundiced an eye at others, and set too high a value on their own peculiar pretensions. From being proscribed themselves, they learn to proscribe others; and come in the end to reduce all integrity of principle and soundness of opinion within the pale of their own little communion. Those who were out of it, and did not belong to the class of Rational Dissenters, I was led erroneously to look upon as hardly deserving the name of rational beings.
“For many years of my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, or wander by the pebbled sea-side—
To see the children sporting on the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. |
| MEMORIES OF WEM. | 35 |
“I tried to read some of the dialogues in the translation of Plato [by Taylor], but I confess I could make nothing of it; the logic was so different from ours!
“I never could make much of Cicero, except his two treatises on Friendship and Old Age, which are most amiable gossiping. I see that Canning borrowed his tautology from Cicero, who runs on with such expressions as, ‘I will bear, I will suffer, I will endure.’ This is bad enough in the original; it is inexcusable in the copy. Cicero’s style, however, answered to the elegance of his finely-turned features; and in his long, graceful neck you may trace his winding and involuted periods.”
In them Mr. Hazlitt said that he did not believe “more than he could help.”
He mentions being present, when he was sixteen, at “a large
party composed of men, women, and children, in which two persons of remarkable candour
and ingenuity were labouring (as hard as if they had been paid for it) to prove that
all prayer was a mode of dictating to the Almighty, and an arrogant assumption of
superiority. A gentleman present said, with great simplicity and naïveté, that there
was one prayer which
| 36 | MEMORIES OF WEM. |
About this time he wandered about in many places alone; and oh! yet not alone. He visited Burleigh, and saw its pictures for the first time—he went there twice afterwards. He also undertook (it must have been about now) a pilgrimage to Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, “to see the town where his mother was born, and the poor farmhouse where she was brought up, and the gate, where she told him that she used to stand, when a child of ten years old, and look at the setting sun!” These are his own very words, put down five-and-twenty years afterwards; and seventy years afterwards, I, transcribing them, find my eyes filling with tears, at recollections so affecting—so nearly being personal!
Till his dying day, he retained in his heart and in his mind a lifelike and fond remembrance of the happy days at Wem.
“If I see a row of cabbage-plants, or of peas or beans coming
up, I immediately think of those I used so carefully to water of an evening at Wem,
when
| MEMORIES OF WEM. | 37 |
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