The English literary and social critic William Hazlitt (1778-1830) is best known for his informal essays, which are elegantly written and cover a wide range of subjects.

Born at Maidstone, Kent, on April 10, 1778, William Hazlitt was the son of the Reverend William Hazlitt, a Unitarian minister. In 1783 the family sailed for America. Three years later, after preaching Unitarianism from Maryland to Maine, the Reverend Hazlitt returned to seek a home for his family in England. Eight-year-old William wrote his father that it would have been "a great deal better for America if the white people had not found it out." The family was reunited at Wem in Shropshire, where William grew happily until 1793, when he went to New College, Hackney, to study divinity. In 1795 he withdrew from New College, feeling unfitted for the ministry.

In January 1798 Hazlitt heard Samuel Taylor Coleridge preach in Shrewsbury and wrote that "until...