rapher seems
to think it in another sense unique; but it is, in effect, a very
typical letter from a literary lover of a rather passionate temperament.
The two were married, in defiance of superstition, on Sunday, the first
of May; and certainly the superstition had not the worst of it.

At first, however, no evil results seemed likely. Miss Stoddart had a
certain property settled on her at Winterslow, on the south-eastern
border of Salisbury Plain, and for nearly four years the couple seem to
have dwelt there (once, at least, entertaining the Lambs), and producing
children, of whom only one lived. It was not till 1812 that they removed
to London, and that Hazlitt engaged in writing for the newspapers. From
this time till the end of his life, some eighteen years, he was never at
a loss for employment--a succession of daily and weekly papers, with
occasional employment on the _Edinburgh Review_, providing him, it would
seem, with sufficiently abundant opportunities for copy. The _London_,
the _New Monthly_ (where Campbell's dislike did him no harm), and other
magazines also employed him. For a time, he seems to have joined "the
gallery," and written ordinary press-work. During this time, which was
very short, and this time only, his friends admit a certain indulgence
in drinking, which he gave up completely, but which was used against him
with as much pitilessness as indecency in _Blackwood_; though heaven
only knows how the most Tory soul alive could see fitness of things in
the accusation of gin-drinking brought against Hazlitt by the
whiskey-drinkers of the _Noctes_. For the greater part of his literary
life he seems to have been almost a total abstainer, indulging only in
the very strongest of tea. He soon gave up miscellaneous press-work, as
far as politics went; but his passion for the theatre retained him as a
theatrical critic almost to the end of his life. He gradually drifted
into the business really best suited to him, that of essay-writing, and
occasionally lecturing on literary and miscellaneous subjects. During
the greatest part of his early London life, he was resident in a famous
house, now destroyed, in York Street, Westminster, next door to Bentham
and reputed to have once been tenanted by Milton; and he was a constant
attendant on Lamb's Wednesday evenings. The details of his life, it has
been said, are not much known. The chief of them, besides the breaking
out of his lifelong war with _Blackwood_ and