Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy

by William Hazlitt

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426 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2007

About the author

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell, but his work is currently little-read and mostly out of print. During his lifetime, he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

Hazlitt was the son of the Unitarian minister and writer, William Hazlitt, who greatly influenced his work. Hazlitt's son, also called William Hazlitt, and grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, were also writers.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

Reviews

[Prooost Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Hazlitt begins his travelogue by saying, "The rule for traveling is to take our common sense with us, and to leave our prejudices behind us." He then proceeds to display most of the prejudices we (prejudicially) associate with the British tourist. But he is not unaware of what he is doing, and occasionally goes on rants about his own countrymen.

A French gentleman, a man of sense and wit, expressed his wonder that all the English did not go and live in the South of France, where they would have a beautiful country, a fine climate, and every comfort almost for nothing. He did not perceive that they would go back in shoals from this scene of fancied contentment to their fogs and sea-coal fires, and that no Englishman can live without something to complain of.

Hazlitt does plenty of complaining, but when he loves something, he is not afraid to say so. Besides his comment on scenery, people, prices, and accommodations, he visits as many art galleries as possible, and his criticism is the most lucid and passionate that I have read.

Wikipedia notes that Hazlitt "is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language," but that he is little read today. That is a pity, because he had plenty to say, and was often very funny.

There is a glass manufactory at Vionnax, which I did not go to see; others who have more curiosity may. It will be there (I dare say) next year for those who choose to visit it: I liked neither its glare not its heat. The cold icy crags that hang suspended over it have been there a thousand years, and will be there a thousand years to come. Short-lived as we are, let us attach ourselves to the immortal, and scale (assisted by earth's giant brood) the empyrean of pure thought! But the British abroad turn out of their way to see every pettifogging, huckstering object that they could see better at home, and are as fussy and fidgety, with their smoke-jacks and mechanical inventions among the Alps, as if they had brought Manchester and Sheffield in their pockets!

And...

But what shall we say to a commonplace or barbarous piece of work by Michael Angelo? The David is as if a large mass of solid marble fell upon one's head, to crush one's faith in great names. It looks like an awkward overgrown actor at one of our minor theaters, without his clothes: the head is too big for the body, and it has a helpless expression of distress.