William Hazlitt (1778-1830) - photo 1
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) - photo 2
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) - photo 3
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) - photo 4
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) - photo 5

William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

Lot 102
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 6 048
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108901
Lot 102 | William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
Two autograph letters signed with initials (‘W.H.’) to [Peter George Patmore] (‘Dear P.’), Scarborough and [Edinburgh], 30 May 1822 and [17 July 1822]
4½ pages, 228 x 183mm and 209 x 167mm, bifolia, integral address panels, one preserving wax seal, one including a response from Benjamin Robert Haydon. With one additional letter in response from Patmore, London, 28 June 1822. Provenance: Christie's, 29 June 1995, lots 342 and 343.

Hazlitt writes in desperation to a friend after being rejected by the woman he loved, Sarah Walker, admitting that he has contemplated suicide: ‘my little boy too prevented me, when I thought of his face at hearing of his father’s death’. In the letter of 30 May 1822, Hazlitt writes from Scarborough where he has stopped on the way to Edinburgh from London. ‘What have I suffered since I parted with you? A raging gnawing fire in my heart and in my brain that I thought would drive me mad. The steam-boat seemed a prison, a hell, and the everlasting waters an unendurable repetition of the same idea’. He admits to having contemplated suicide while aboard the steamboat: ‘I wished for courage to throw myself into the waters, but I could not even do that’. In the letter of 27 July 1822, Hazlitt contemplates his imminent divorce from his wife, Sarah Stoddart: ‘Tomorrow is the fatal day that makes or mars me. […] My reception with her is doubtful, and my fate is then certain. “My reception doubtful”, after all I have done for her!’

Patmore (1786-1855) was secretary of the Surrey Institution, where Hazlitt gave a course of six lectures on the English poets in 1818. They met there and became close friends. Hazlitt had fallen in love with Sarah Walker, the daughter of his landlord at Southampton Buildings (‘S. Buildings’), Chancery Lane. Modified versions of both of the present letters were published by Hazlitt in his Liber Amoris, and published from there in The Letters of William Hazlitt, ed. H.M. Sikes, nos. 112 and 122. The original letters here remain unpublished.
Place of origin:England, Scotland
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