The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-03-16
A PASSFROM VIC TOR HUGO
The Latest is Did Shakespeare Write
the Psalms.
AND DID BURNS WRITE BURNS POEMS
Japanese Point of View Of European Men Of
Letters of the 18Th Century. RrnoId's
Light Of Asia the Greatest
Poem
BY HERBERT BREWSTER.

BY HERBERT BREWSTER.
What is claimed to be the first COM
plete edition of the writings of William
Hazlitt will be issued both in England
and America this spring-the first vol
ume is now ready; there will be twelve
in all. Here is a literary event worthy
of chronicle wherever English is spoken,
for OF all men who have written in that
language Hazlitt was the greatest crit
ic, perhaps even the greatest prose-mas-
ter. undoubtedly the most brilliant writ
err. Why the monument of thorough
ly complete edition has not been reared
to him before no one can satisfactorily
explain. The rush of modern things has
crowded him out somehow. I recall
searching through the second hand book
stores a few years ago for as complete
an edition of Hazlitt as was to be had
None had been issued for over thirty
years, the regular book shop men had
almost forgotten that Hazlitt had ever
=
never heard of him; there were very few
stray copies of his books outside of the
libraries. After several days L found
four old octaVa volumes and had to be
content with these.
The editors of the present edition, A
r. Waller and Arnold Glover, together
with Mr.. w. r. Henley, who has writ
ten the Introduction, have given cOnsid-
cradle Geographic and photographic in
formation in addition to the text Ac-
cording to these gentlemen, only two
previous editions of Hazlitt's works have
been attempted, the Templeman edition,
edited by his son, and the Bohn library
edition. edited by his grandson, w. Ca
rev Hazlitt, neither of which made any
pretensions to being complete. There
have been various issues of parts of
Hazlitt, however, brought out in this
country.
Stevenson once declared: "We are
mighty fine fellows, but we can not
write like William Hazlitt,' and Stew
enson, in the latter part of his declara-
ton at least, voiced the sentiments of all
men of letters since Hazlitt's time. For
seventy years and more, they agree, no
writer of English has equalled this man
who is now for the first time taking
his place as the hero of complete edi-
ticn"
AS Mr.. Henly has pointed out in his
Introduction, Hazlitt has always had
praise, but it has been the praise of the
few. He is yet to be considered by the
many as "a critic of many elements in
human activity, as master of the mother
tongue, and one, and that one not the
least, in an epoch illustrious in the
achievement of Keats and Shelley and
Wordsworth, Cobbett, Byron, Sir Wal
ter Scott, Coleridge, Christopher North
and Charles Lamb
Hazlitts father was minister in the
Unitarian Church and when the boy
was five years DID, the elder removed
his family from England to America
and established one of the first Uni
tartan churches in this country Fiji
teen months covered the period of their
stay in America, however. William
Hazlitt was educated by the father, who
wanted him to enter the ministry. There
was too much love of the world in the
youth for this. He had made the &C
quaintance of Coleridge and Wordsworth
and imbibed a liking for poetry which
turned him finally into the literary life.
Meantime he attempted to paint, and
really accomplished some good work
at least it led him to reading more about
art than he would have otherwise, and
then the critical faculty found expression
in what he tried to write about artists
and paintings.
1t would be interesting to trace HaZ-
lifts career down through the years of
his lecturing, editing, writing, fighting,
even to his death in 1880. He wrote
grammars. edited womens papers, taught
and lectured. John Wilson christopher
North. of Blackwood's Magazine, was a
constant enemy Some of the best es-
says Hazlitt ever wrote were inspired
by such attacks as Wilson made on him.
Henley calls Charles Lamb the best
talker and Hazlitt the next. IF l could
break the grave" he writes, "and call
the great ghosts back to earth for a
spell of their mortal fury, l would begin
and end with Lamb and Hazlitt; Lamb
as he always was; Hazlitt in one of his
high and mighty moods, sweeping life
and letters and the art of painting and
the nature of man. and the curious case
of woman, into a high rapture of fire,
and take a night-long series of achieve
ments in consummate speech.
Hazlitt was a man who would walk
forty or fifty miles a day when the mood
took him, but his usual custom was to
lie abed until two in the afternoon,
breakfast until 8 o'clock without NOV
ing from his teapot and chair and then
go to a theatre or to some chop house,
where he talked until two in the morn
ing 1t was at these times that he was
doubtless more brilliant than in his writ
ings. The complete edition will be wei
coined heartily.
One of the ceremonies in connection
with the celebration in Paris of Victor
Hugos centenary was a performance of
LES Burgraves" at the Coincide Fran
A dav or bpfOpo ho ouar+