r this reason he constantly
denounced Johnsonese with its polysyllabic Latin words which reduced
language to abstract generalization. His own vocabulary is concrete and
vivid, and of a purity which makes one wonder how even the Quarterly
Review could have ventured to apply to him the epithet "slang-whanger."

In spite of all that may be said in honor of the unadorned style of
composition, writers have ever found that even in prose ideas are most
forcibly conveyed by means of imagery. Hazlitt, it should be remembered,
was an ardent admirer of the picturesque qualities in the prose of Burke,
the most brilliant of the eighteenth century. In recalling his first
reading of Burke, he tells how he despaired of emulating his felicities.
But whether by dint of meditating over Burke or by the native vigor of his
fancy, Hazlitt learned to write as boldly and as brilliantly as the great
orator. As a rule his rhetorical passages are not deliberately contrived,
in the manner for example of his esteemed contemporary De Quincey. His
tropes and images rise directly out of his subject or his feelings.
Instead of dissecting the qualities of a character or a work of art, he
translates its tone and its spirit as closely as language will permit.
That is why his criticism, like Lamb's or that of the master of this form,
Longinus, is itself first-rate literature, recreating the impression of a
masterpiece and sometimes even going beyond it.

Of his picturesque quality examples enough may be found in the present
volume, yet one cannot forbear to add a few illustrations at this point.
There is his irresistible comparison of Cobbett in his political
inconsistency to "a young and lusty bridegroom, that divorces a favorite
speculation every morning, and marries a new one every night. He is not
wedded to his notions, not he. He has not one Mrs. Cobbett among all his
opinions."[108] There is a good deal more than mere wit in the analogy
between Godwin's mechanical laboriousness and "an eight-day clock that
must be wound up long before it can strike."[109] And there is real
grandeur in his description of Fame: "Fame is the sound which the stream
of high thoughts, carried down to future ages, makes as it flows--deep,
distant, murmuring evermore like the waters of the mighty ocean. He who
has ears truly touched to this music, is in a manner deaf to the voice of
popularity."[110] In representing the brilliant hues of Restoration
comedy, he allows an even