Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
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 Mack 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 a week . A cup of Hazlitt ' s tea ( if you happened to come in for the first brewage of it ) was a peculiar thing ; I have never tasted anything like it . He always made it himself ; half-filling the tea-pot with tea , pouring the boiling water on it , and then almost immediately pouring it out ; using wifch ifc a greafc quantity of sugar and cream . " 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 deathwhich 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 . " 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 rumpsteak , 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 he frequented ; for he never entered the doors of any one where bis ways were not well known , or where there was any chance of his bill being asked for till he chose to offer payment of it . And when treated in a way that pleased him in this latter particular , he did not care
what he paid . I have known him pay with cheerfulness accumulated sums of twenty or thirty pounds for suppers only or chiefly . " 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 immortalized in one of the most amusing of his essays , ' On Coffee-house 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 , aud always more or less ready to take part in that sort of desultory 'talk' ( the ouly thing deserving the name of ' conversation' ) in which he excelled every man I have ever met with . But of this hereafter . Here , ho % vever , in that Ijttle bare and comfortless coffee-room , have I scores of times seen the daylight peep through the crevices ofthe window-shutters , upon 'Table-Talk ' that was worthy an intellectual feast of the gods . "
"The three or four hours a day employed by Hazlitt in composition enabled him to produce an essay for a magazine , one of his most profound and masterly 'Table-Talks , ' in two or three sittings ; or a long and brilliant article of thirty or forty pages for the Edinhurgh Rcvwio , in about a week . But when he had an entire volume or work in hand , he invariably went into the country to execute it , and almost always to the same spot , —a little wayside public-house , called ' The Hut , ' standing alone , and some miles distant from auy other house on Winterslow Heath , a barren tract of country on the road to and a few miles from Salisbury .
There , ensconced in a little wainscotted parlour , looking over the bare heath to the distant groves of Norman Court , some of his finest Essays were written ; there , in utter solitude and silence , many of his least unhappy days were spent ; and the ? 'e , wandering for hours over the bare heath , oi ; through the dark woods of the above named domain , his shattered frame always gained temporary strength and renovation . ' - < - . * •* * * * % # * " When Hazlitt was regularly engaged on any work or article , he Avrote at the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Critical Notices Of The Literature Of The Last Three Months,
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 Mack 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 a week . A cup of Hazlitt ' s tea ( if you happened to come in for the first brewage of it ) was a peculiar thing ; I have never tasted anything like it . He always made it himself ; half-filling the tea-pot with tea , pouring the boiling water on it , and then almost immediately pouring it out ; using wifch ifc a greafc quantity of sugar and cream . " 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 deathwhich 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 . " 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 rumpsteak , 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 he frequented ; for he never entered the doors of any one where bis ways were not well known , or where there was any chance of his bill being asked for till he chose to offer payment of it . And when treated in a way that pleased him in this latter particular , he did not care
what he paid . I have known him pay with cheerfulness accumulated sums of twenty or thirty pounds for suppers only or chiefly . " 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 immortalized in one of the most amusing of his essays , ' On Coffee-house 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 , aud always more or less ready to take part in that sort of desultory 'talk' ( the ouly thing deserving the name of ' conversation' ) in which he excelled every man I have ever met with . But of this hereafter . Here , ho % vever , in that Ijttle bare and comfortless coffee-room , have I scores of times seen the daylight peep through the crevices ofthe window-shutters , upon 'Table-Talk ' that was worthy an intellectual feast of the gods . "
"The three or four hours a day employed by Hazlitt in composition enabled him to produce an essay for a magazine , one of his most profound and masterly 'Table-Talks , ' in two or three sittings ; or a long and brilliant article of thirty or forty pages for the Edinhurgh Rcvwio , in about a week . But when he had an entire volume or work in hand , he invariably went into the country to execute it , and almost always to the same spot , —a little wayside public-house , called ' The Hut , ' standing alone , and some miles distant from auy other house on Winterslow Heath , a barren tract of country on the road to and a few miles from Salisbury .
There , ensconced in a little wainscotted parlour , looking over the bare heath to the distant groves of Norman Court , some of his finest Essays were written ; there , in utter solitude and silence , many of his least unhappy days were spent ; and the ? 'e , wandering for hours over the bare heath , oi ; through the dark woods of the above named domain , his shattered frame always gained temporary strength and renovation . ' - < - . * •* * * * % # * " When Hazlitt was regularly engaged on any work or article , he Avrote at the