Hazlitt, William

William (1778-1830), an English essayist and critic. He was born at Maidstone, Kent. He entered a Unitarian college, but found the study of art and literature more congenial than that of theology. He determined to become a painter, but after some years renounced art for literature. He was one of the group of writers called the "Cockney School," but he quarreled with Leigh Hunt, with Lamb, and with Moore. He also attacked his older friends, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. He wrote many political articles, criticisms on art and on theatrical subjects, and delivered lectures on English philosophy, English poets, and on subjects connected with the stage. His best known works are Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, A View of the English Stage, Lectures on the English Poets, Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lectures on the Elizabethan Age.