WILE^ & PUTNAM'S ADVERTISEMENT. 



XIII. 

 HAZLITT'S AGE OF ELIZABETH. 



Lectures on tlie Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. By William 



Hazlitt. Price 50 cents 



"The present century has produced many men of poetical genius, and 

 tome of analytical acumen ; but I doubt whether it has produced any ore 

 «rhc has given to the world such signal proofs of the union of the two, ai 

 the late William Hazlitt. If I were asked his peculiar and pred( mi- 

 nating distinction, 1 should say that, above all things, he was a Critic 

 His taste was not the creature of schools and canons, it was begotten of En- 

 thusiasm by Thought." — Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



*' In all that Hazlitt has written on old English authors, he is seldom 

 merely critical. In the laboratory of his intellect, analysis was turned to 

 the sweet uses of alchemy. While he discourses of characters he has 

 known the longest, he sheds over them the light ot his own boyhood, and 

 makes us partakers of the realizing power by which they become creatures 

 of flesh and blood, with whom we may eat, drink, and be merry." -Serjeant 

 Talfourd. 



" There is no feature in the retrospect of the last few years, more impor- 

 tant and more delightful than the steady advance of an improved taste in 

 literature : and both as a cause and as a consequence of this, the works of 

 William Hazlitt, which heretofore have been duly appreciated only by the 

 few, are now having ample justice done them by the many. With refer- 

 rence to the present work, the Edinburgh Review eloquently observes, 

 * Mr. Hazlitt possesses one noble quality at least for the office which he 

 has chosen, in the intense admiration and love which he feels for the great 

 authors on whose excellencies he chiefly dwells. His relish for their beau- 

 ties is so keen, that while he describes them, the pleasures which they im- 

 part become almost palpable to the sense, and we seem, scarcely in a figure, 

 to feast and banquet on their ' nectared sweets.' He introduces us almost 

 corporally into the divine presence of the great of old time — enables us to 

 fjcar the living oracles of wisdom drop from their lips — and makes us par- 

 takers, not only of those joys which they diffused, but of those which they 

 felt in the inmost recesses of their souls. He draws aside the veil of time with 

 a hand tremulous with mingled delight and reverence; and descants with 

 kindling enthusiasm, on all the delacacies of that picture of genius which ha 

 discloses. His intense admiration of intellectual beauty seems always to 

 sharpen his critical faculties. He perceives it, by a kind of intuitive power, 

 how deeply soever it may be buried in rubbish ; and separates it in a mo- 

 ment from all that would encumber or deface it. At the same time, he 

 exhibits to us those hidden sources of beauty, not like an anatomist, but like 

 a lover. He does not coolly dissect the form to show the si)rwi"-a whence 

 the blood flows all eloquent, and the tlivine expression is kinaled; but 

 makes us feel in the sparkling or softened eye, the wreathed smile, and the 

 tender bloom. In a word, he at once analyzes and describes — so that our 

 enjoyments of loveliness are not chilled, but brightened by our acquaintance 

 with their inward sources. The knowledge communicated in his lecture* 

 oreaks no sweet enchantment, nor chills one feeling of youthful joy.' "— 

 Preface to the London Edition. 



