sh for it, which can
only be guessed at by the imperfect and yet more than casual agreement
among those who have done so from choice and feeling."[50] Though not the
surest kind of clue, this indicates at least that Hazlitt's rejection of
"pedantical rules and pragmatical formulas" was not equivalent to a
declaration of anarchy.

For Hazlitt the assertion of individual taste meant emancipation from
arbitrary codes and an opportunity to embrace a compass as wide as the
range of literary excellence. Realizing that every reader, even the
professed critic, is hemmed in by certain prejudices arising from his
temperament, his education, his environment, he was unwilling to pledge
his trust to any school or fashion of criticism. The favorite oppositions
of his generation--Shakespeare and Pope, Fielding and Richardson, English
poetry and French--had no meaning for him. He was glad to enjoy each in
its kind. "The language of taste and moderation is, _I prefer this,
because it is best to me_; the language of dogmatism and intolerance is,
_Because I prefer it, it is best in itself, and I will allow no one else
to be of a different opinion_."[51] This passage, in connection with the
one last quoted, may be considered as fixing the limits within which
Hazlitt gave scope to personal preference. The sum of his literary
judgments reveals a taste for a greater variety of the works of genius
than is displayed by any contemporary, and the absence of "a catholic and
many-sided sympathy"[52] is one of the last imputations that should have
been brought against him. His criticism has limitations, but not such as
are due to a narrowness of literary perception.

Even Hazlitt's shortcomings may frequently be turned to his glory as a
critic. The most remarkable thing about his violent political prejudices
is the success with which he dissociated his literary estimates from them.
Such a serious limitation in a critic as deficiency of reading in his case
only raises our astonishment at the sureness of instinct which enabled him
to pronounce unerringly on the scantest information. Never was there a
critic of nearly equal pretensions who had as little of the scholar's
equipment. If, as he tells us, he applied himself too closely to his
studies at a certain period in his youth,[53] he atoned for it by his
neglect of books in later life.[54] A desultory education had left him
without that intimacy with the classics which belonged of right to every
cul