158 THE EXETER ROAD 



irritable, he wanted quiet, nor can it be doubted that 

 in this spot he found what he sought. He was cursed, 

 according to the widely different beliefs of his friends, 

 with ' an ino;rained selfishness,' or ' a morbid self- 

 consciousness,' and on the downs he w^ould walk, 

 for the pleasure of having the neighbourhood all to 

 himself, from forty to fifty miles a day. He wrote 

 his Wintersloiv essays here, and his Napoleon, for 

 whom he had an almost insane reverence. The ' dia- 

 bolical scowl ' of Hazlitt when Napoleon or any other 

 of his pet susceptibilities were abused must have been 

 worth seeing. 



' Now,' says a literary hero-hunter, who has visited 

 ' Winterslow Hut,' as a place of pilgrimage, — ' now it 

 is a desolate place, fallen into decay, and tenanted by 

 a labouring man and his family, cultivating a small 

 farm of some thirty acres, and barely able to make a 

 living out of it. In winter tw^o or three weeks will 

 sometimes elapse without even a beggar or tramp 

 or cart passing the door. On the ground floor, look- 

 ing out upon a horse-poncl, flanked by two old lime- 

 trees, is a little parlour, which was the one probably 

 used by Hazlitt as his sitting-room. At the other 

 end of the house is a large empty room, formerly 

 devoted to cock-fiojhtino; matches and sino-lestick 

 combats. It was with a strano-e and eerie feeliuo^ that 

 I contemplated this little parlour, and pictured to my- 

 self the many solitary evenings during which Hazlitt 

 sat in it enjoying copious libations of his favourite 

 tea (for during the last fifteen years of his life he 

 never tasted alcoholic drinks of any kind) perhaps 

 reading Tom Jones for the tenth time, or enjoying 



