“One of the finest and wisest spirits breathing,” “one of the keenest and brightest critics that ever lived,” are Lamb's and Thackeray's famous tributes to the genius of William Hazlitt, a critic whom every critic delights to honour. With the steadily increasing interest that is now manifested in literary criticism, it is natural to find an ever increasing respect and admiration for the work of Hazlitt. In our own day he has well been called “the critics’ critic,” and the fitness of the designation has been generally allowed. In one not unimportant particular the eulogies of Hazlitt command special respect. No deduction has to be made from them, no allowance for the hyperbole of affection. His personality had little attraction for his contemporaries. They admired him in spite of himself. So, too, he appeals to his readers by virtue mainly of one quality-his sincere, enlightened, and passionate enthusiasm for the best in English literature. He is more than the critics’ critic just because of this union of enthusiasm and insight. To the critic he is suggestive no less when he is manifestly wrong than when he is most happily inspired, but scarcely less valuable is the other quality of his work which makes it for readers with no critical pretensions the most attractive and eloquent call to the love of books.