," "Open rye," or any other grain in the
corn-chandler's list. No doubt the charm of these is increased by the
fact that they are never quite haphazard, never absolutely promiscuous,
despite their desultory arrangement; no doubt also a certain additional
interest arises from the constant revelation which they make of
Hazlitt's curious personality, his enthusiastic appreciation flecked
with spots of grudging spite, his clear intellect clouded with
prejudice, his admiration of greatness and nobility of character
co-existing with the faculty of doing very mean and even disgraceful
things, his abundant relish of life contrasted with almost constant
repining. He must have been one of the most uncomfortable of all English
men of letters, who can be called great, to know as a friend. He is
certainly, to those who know him only as readers, one of the most
fruitful both in instruction and in delight.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] For some further remarks on this duel as it concerns Lockhart see
Appendix.

[13] Since this paper was first published Mr. Alexander Ireland has
edited a most excellent selection from Hazlitt.

VI

MOORE

It would be interesting, though perhaps a little impertinent, to put to
any given number of well-informed persons under the age of forty or
fifty the sudden query, who was Thomas Brown the Younger? And it is very
possible that a majority of them would answer that he had something to
do with Rugby. It is certain that with respect to that part of his work
in which he was pleased so to call himself, Moore is but little known.
The considerable mass of his hack-work has gone whither all hack-work
goes, fortunately enough for those of us who have to do it. The vast
monument erected to him by his pupil, friend, and literary executor,
Lord Russell, or rather Lord John Russell, is a monument of such a
Cyclopean order of architecture, both in respect of bulk and in respect
of style, that most honest biographers and critics acknowledge
themselves to have explored its recesses but cursorily. Less of him,
even as a poet proper, is now read than of any of the brilliant group
of poets of which he was one, with the possible exceptions of Crabbe and
Rogers; while, more unfortunate than Crabbe, he has had no Mr. Courthope
to come to his rescue. But he has recently had what is an unusual thing
for an English poet, a French biographer.[14] I shall not have very much
to say of the details of M. Vallat's very creditable