Memoirs of William Hazlitt
Ch. XII 1808
Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt [10 December 1808]
“Dec. 10, 1808.
“My dear Sarah,
“I hear of you from your brother, but you do not write yourself, nor does Hazlitt. I beg that one or both of you will
amend this fault as speedily as possible, for I am very anxious to hear of your
health. . . .
“You cannot think how very much we miss you and
H. of a Wednesday evening—all the
glory of the night, I may say, is at an end. Phillips makes his jokes, and there is no one to applaud him.
Rickman argues, and there is no one
to oppose him.
“The worst miss of all to me is that when we are in
the dismals, there is now no hope of relief from any quarter whatsoever.
Hazlitt was most brilliant, most ![]()
![]()
ornamental, as a Wednesday-man, but he
was a more useful one on common days, when he dropt in after a quarrel, or a
fit of the glooms. . . .
“Charles is
come home, and wants his dinner. . . Tell us how you go on, and how you like
Winterslow and winter evenings. . . . John
Hazlitt was here on Wednesday, very sober.
“Our love to Hazlitt. . . .
“Yours affectionately,
“M. Lamb.
“Mrs. Hazlitt,
“Winterslow, near Sarum, Wilts.”*
John Hazlitt (1767-1837)
Miniaturist and portrait painter who studied under Joshua Reynolds, the elder brother of
the essayist. A radical and alcoholic, the
Gentleman's Magazine
reported that he “was, like his brother, of an irritable temperament.”
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Edward Phillips (1771-1844)
He was clerk to John Rickman whom he succeeded as secretary to the speaker of the House
of Commons (1814-33); he was also a friend of Charles Lamb.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
Sir John Stoddart (1773-1856)
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he befriended Coleridge and Wordsworth and after
abandoning his early republican principles became a writer for the
Times, and afterwards editor of the Tory newspaper
New
Times in 1817 and a judge in Malta (1826-40). His sister married William Hazlitt
in 1808.
