grows with their growth, it does not wither in their decay. It lives
when the almond-tree flourishes, and is not bowed down with the
tottering knees. It glimmers with the last feeble eyesight, smiles
in the faded cheek like infancy, and lights a path before them to the
grave!"

Here is a man of Puritan lineage speaking; but is it the voice of
Puritanism only? Surely it is a Puritanism softened and refined, a
Puritanism which is free of those harsh and unpleasing elements that have
too often obscured its finer aspects. I know of no passage in his
writings which for spacious eloquence, nobleness of thought, beauty of
expression, can rival this. It was written in 1818, when Hazlitt was
forty years old, and in the plenitude of his powers.

III

But the power of co-ordination was not always exerted; perhaps not always
possible. Had it been so, then Hazlitt would not take his place in this
little band of literary Vagabonds.

There are times when the Puritan element disappears; and it is Hazlitt
the eager, curious taster of life that is presented to us. For there was
the restless inquisitiveness of the Vagabond about him. This gives such
delightful piquancy to many of his utterances. He ranges far and wide,
and is willing to go anywhere for a fresh sensation that may add to the
interest of his intellectual life. He has no patience with readers who
will not quit their own small back gardens. He is for ranging "over the
hills and far away."

No sympathy he with the readers who take timid constitutionals in
literature, choosing only the well-worn paths. He is a true son of the
road; the world is before him, and high roads and byways, rough paths and
smooth paths, are equally acceptable, provided they add to his zest and
enjoyment.

Not that he cares for the new merely because it is new. The essay on
"Reading Old Books" is proof enough of that. A literary ramble must not
merely be novel, it must have some element of beauty about it, or he will
revisit the old haunts of whose beauty he has full cognizance.

The passion for the Earth which was noted as one of the Vagabond's
characteristics is not so pronounced in Hazlitt and De Quincey as with
the later Vagabonds. But it is unmistakable all the same. There are, he
says, "only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived
from inanimate things--books, pictures, and the face of Nature." The
somewhat curious use of the word