s the scanty
confines of the earlier papers of the _Round Table_, and allows himself
that score of pages which seems to be with so many men the normal limit
of a good essay. Of his shortest style one sample from "Trifles light as
Air" is so characteristic, in more ways than one, that it must be quoted
whole.

I am by education and conviction inclined to Republicanism and
Puritanism. In America they have both. But I confess I feel a
little staggered as to the practical efficacy and saving grace
of first principles, when I ask myself, Can they throughout the
United States from Boston to Baltimore, produce a single head
like one of Titian's Venetian Nobles, nurtured in all the pride
of aristocracy and all the blindness of popery? Of all the
branches of political economy the human face is perhaps the best
criterion of value.

If I were editing Hazlitt's works I should put these sentences on the
title-page of every volume; for, dogmatist as he thought himself, it is
certain that he was in reality purely aesthetic, though, I need hardly
say, not in the absurd sense, or no-sense, which modern misuse of
language has chosen to fix on the word. Therefore he is very good (where
few are good at all) on Dreams; and, being a great observer of himself,
singularly instructive on Application to Study. "On Londoners and
Country People" is one of his liveliest efforts; and the pique at his
own inclusion in the Cockney School fortunately evaporates in some
delightful reminiscences, including one of the few classic passages on
the great game of marbles. His remarks on the company at the
Southampton coffee-house, which have been often and much praised, please
me less: they are too much like attempts in the manner of the Queen Anne
men, and Hazlitt is always best when he imitates nobody. "Hot and Cold"
(which might have been more intelligibly called "North and South") is
distinctly curious, bringing out again what may be called Hazlitt's
fanciful observation; and it may generally be said that, however
alarming and however suggestive of commonplace the titles "On
Respectable People," "On People of Sense," "On Novelty and Familiarity,"
may be, Hazlitt may almost invariably be trusted to produce something
that is not commonplace, that is not laboured paradox, that is eminently
literature.

I know that a haphazard catalogue of the titles of essays (for it is
little more) such as fills the last paragraph or