Winterslow and William Hazlitt

The Pheasant Hotel

The essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was a frequent visitor to Winterslow and wrote many of his greatest works here, including Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, The Spirit of the Age, Sketches and Essays and Winterslow: Essays.

A friend of Charles and Mary Lamb, Samuel Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Benjamin Haydon and John Keats, Hazlitt was a Dissenter who first sought a career as a painter. Making little headway, however, he turned to writing and soon came to be regarded as one of England’s greatest essayists.

In 1808 he married Sarah Stoddart, the sister of John Stoddart, the Times journalist and later editor. They settled at one of her Winterslow cottages from November 1808 until summer 1812 before Hazlitt re-launched his career as a public lecturer, political journalist and critic of drama, poetry and art.

For Hazlitt this was a period of great activity and creativity, but Sarah was bedevilled with miscarriages and infant mortality. Only one son survived, and constant travelling and lack of a stable family life outside Winterslow contributed to the couple drifting apart.

When Hazlitt returned to Winterslow in October 1817, he stayed at the Winterslow Hut, now the Pheasant Hotel, where he would write extensively and continually return. At Winterslow, he wrote:

‘My style’.. ‘flows like a river and overspreads its banks. I have not to seek for thoughts or hunt for images: they come out of themselves, I inhale them with the breeze, and the silent groves are vocal with a thousand recollections:

And visions, as poetic eyes avow
Hang on each leaf and cling to every bough…'

He returned in winter 1818-19 to write about Shakespeare, in summer 1819 to write about Elizabethan drama, and retruned again in summer 1820, winter 1821, summer 1822 and winter 1827-28.

Winterslow inspired him, and provided space for his library, it was the place where he could ‘get through the summer or winter months, without ever knowing what it is to feel ennui.’

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