his philosophy, the Russian Vagabond presents a striking contrast in this
particular.

V

Comparing the styles of Hazlitt and De Quincey, one is struck with the
greater fire and vigour of Hazlitt.

Indeed, the term which De Quincey applied to certain of his
writings--"impassioned prose"--is really more applicable to many of
Hazlitt's essays. The dream fugues of De Quincey are delicately
imaginative, but real passion is absent from them. The silvery, far-away
tones of the opium-eater do not suggest passion.

Besides, an elaborate, involved style such as his does not readily convey
passion of any kind. It moves along too slowly, at too leisurely a pace.
On the other hand, the prose of Hazlitt was very frequently literally
"impassioned." It was sharp, concise, the sentences rang out resolutely
and clearly. And no veil of phantasy hung at these times between himself
and the object of his description, as with De Quincey, muffling the voice
and blurring the vision. Defects it had, which there is no necessity to
dwell on here, but there was a passion in Hazlitt's nature and writings
which we do not find in his contemporary.

Trying beyond doubt as was the wayward element in Hazlitt's disposition,
to his friends it is not without its charm as a literary characteristic.
His bitterness against Coleridge in his later years leads him to dwell
the longer upon the earlier meetings, upon the Coleridge of Wem and
Nether Stowey, and thus his very prejudices leave his readers frequently
as gainers.

A passing whim, a transient resentment, will be the occasion of some
finely discursive essay on abstract virtues and vices. And, after all,
there is at bottom such noble enthusiasm in the man, and where his
subjects were not living people, and his judgment is not blinded by some
small prejudices, how fair, how just, how large and admirable his view.
His faults and failings were of such a character as to bring upon the
owner their own retribution. He paid heavily for his mistakes. His
splenetic moods and his violent dislikes arose not from a want of
sensibility, but from an excess of sensibility. So I do not think they
need seriously disturb us. After all, the dagger he uses as a critic is
uncommonly like a stage weapon, and does no serious damage.

Better even than his brilliant, suggestive, if capricious, criticisms are
his discursive essays on men and things. These abound in a tonic wisdom,
a breadth of imaginatio