Memoirs of William Hazlitt
Ch. IV 1822
William Hazlitt to Peter George Patmore; [21 April 1822]
[Edinburgh, April 21, 1822.]
“My dear Patmore,
“I got your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod
not only with submission but gratitude. Your rebukes of me and your defences of
her are the only things that save me. . . . . Be it known to you that while I
write this I am drinking ale at the Black Bull, celebrated in Blackwood. It is owing to your letter.
Could I think the love honest, I am proof against Edinburgh ale. . . .
Mrs. H. is actually on her way here.
I was going to set off home . . . . when coming up Leith Walk I met an old
friend come down here to settle, who said, ‘I saw your wife at the
wharf. She had just paid her passage by the Superb.’ . . . This Bell whom I met is the
very man to negotiate the business between us. ![]()
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Should the business succeed, and I should
be free, do you think S. W. will be Mrs.
——? If she will she shall; and to
call her so to you, or to hear her called so by others, will be music to my
ears such as they never heard [!] . . . . . How I sometimes think of the time I
first saw the sweet apparition, August 16, 1820! . . . I am glad you go on
swimmingly with the N[ew] M[onthly]
M[agazine]. I shall be back in a week or a month. I won’t
write to her.
“I wish Colburn would send me word what he is about. Tell him what
I am about, if you think it wise to do so.
“P. G. Patmore, Esq.,
“12, Greek Street, Soho, London.”
John Robertson Bell (1784-1822 fl.)
The son of Adam Bell, master cooper, he was a government contractor who worked with
Joseph Hume of the Victualling Office; he and his wife Mary Ann (née Tebbut) were friends
of the Hazlitts.
Henry Colburn (1785-1855)
English publisher who began business about 1806; he co-founded the
New
Monthly Magazine in 1814 and was publisher of the
Literary
Gazette from 1817.
Sarah Hazlitt [née Stoddart] (1774-1840)
The daughter of John Stoddart (1742-1803), lieutenant in the Royal Navy; she married
William Hazlitt in 1808 and was divorced in 1822.
Sarah Walker (1800-1878)
The daughter of Micaiah Walker, a tailor; William Hazlitt wrote about his passion for her
in
Liber amoris (1823); she was afterwards the common-law wife of a
John Tomkins.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,
Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth
number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.
New Monthly Magazine. (1814-1884). Founded in reaction to the radically-inclined
Monthly Magazine,
the
New Monthly was managed under the proprietorship of Henry
Colburn from 1814 to 1845. It was edited by Thomas Campbell and Cyrus Redding from
1821-1830.
