Table-Talk

I would try the marvellous line of 'Peter Wilkins' if I attempted it rather than the real fiction of 'Robinson Crusoe'"(" Table-Talk, "1851, pp. 331-332).

Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) Robert Paltock 1732

In Table-Talk, Hazlitt had found the most congenial format for this thoughts and observations.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

Not only do the “Table-Talk” essays frequently display “trenchant insights into human nature”, they at times reflect on the vehicle of those insights and of the literary and art criticism that constitute some of the essays.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

More than just a distraction from his woes, this devotion led to musings on the value of competitive sports and on human skill in general, expressed in writings like his notice of the “Death of John Cavanagh” (a celebrated Fives player) in The Examiner on February 9, 1817, and the essay “The Indian Jugglers” in Table-Talk (1821).

March « 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

But often, as in his self-imposed seclusion at Winterslow, he was able to achieve a “philosophic detachment”, and he continued to turn out essays of remarkable variety and literary merit, most of them making up the two volumes of Table-Talk.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

One idea that particularly bore fruit was that of a series of articles called “Table-Talk”.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

To The New Monthly Magazine he supplied more essays in the “Table-Talk” manner, and he produced some art criticism, published in that year as Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries of England.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

Together with some newly written, and one brought in from the “Table-Talk” series, they were collected in book form as The Spirit of the Age: Or, Contemporary Portraits in 1825.

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

(Many were written expressly for inclusion in the book of the same name, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, which appeared in different editions and forms over the next few years.)

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009

More than just a distraction from his woes, this devotion led to musings on the value of competitive sports and on human skill in general, expressed in writings like his notice of the “Death of John Cavanagh” (a celebrated Fives player) in The Examiner on February 9, 1817, and the essay “The Indian Jugglers” in Table-Talk (1821).

william hazlitt | the man of letters « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009