Among the notable themes in William Hazlitt's essays are the disappointments in his life. He failed in love and in social life; yet he recognized his intellectual superiority and exercised it in essays, reviews, and books throughout his fifty-two years. His reputed last words, "Well, I've had a happy life"--whether actually said or invented by a biographer--express relish for life even in the passing moments of his existence.

William Hazlitt, third son and fourth child of the Reverend William Hazlitt, was born in Maidstone, Kent, on 10 April 1778. His father, a Unitarian minister, identified as a Dissenter for opposing the articles of the Church of England, cultivated in his son the capacity for provoking controversy. His handsome mother, Grace Loftus Hazlitt, the daughter of an ironmonger, moved willingly with her controversial husband from church to church, even country to country. In 1778 Reverend Hazlitt had been preaching for eight...