Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey].
- Thomas De Quincey
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Coleridge and opium-eating, and other writings / [Thomas De Quincey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
326/356 (page 310)
![them. But still the great talents for speculative research which Hazlitt had from nature, without having given to them the benefit of much culture or much exercise, would justify our attentive examination of the work. It forms part of the volume which contains the Essay on Human Action; which volume, by the way, Mr Gilfillan sup- poses to have won the special applause of Sir James Macintosh, then in Bengal. This, if accurately stated, is creditable to Sir James’s generosity; for in this particular volume it is that Hazlitt makes a pointed assault, in sneering terms, and very unnecessarily, upon Sir James as a lecturer at Lincoln’s Inn. The other little work unnoticed by Mr Gilfillan is an examination (but under what title I cannot say) of Bind- ley Murray’s English Grammar. This may seem, by its subject, a trifle; yet Hazlitt could hardly have had a motive for such an effort but in some philosophic percep- tion of the ignorance betrayed by many grammars of our language, and continually by that of Bindley Murray; which Bindley, by the way, though resident in England, was an American. There is great room for a useful dis- play of philosophic subtlety in an English grammar, even though meant for schools. Hazlitt could not but have furnished something of value towards such a display. And if (as I was once told) his book was suppressed, I imagine that this suppression must have been purchased by some powerful publisher interested in keeping up the current reputation of Murray. “ Strange stories,” says Mr Gilfillan, “ are told about his [Hazlitt’s] latter days, and his deathbed.” I know not whether I properly understand Mr Gilfillan. The stories which I myself have happened to hear were not so much “ strange,” since they arose naturally enough out of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24853987_0326.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
