William Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age
William Hazlitt
replica by William Bewick
1825
NPG 2697
Past display archive
20 May - 2 November 2003
Room 16
Free
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was the leading journalist, essayist and critic of the early nineteenth century. At the end of 1824 he published The Spirit of the Age, a volume of prose portraits of his most famous contemporaries. Far from celebrating their achievements, Hazlitt unleashed an opinionated attack on the vanity and hypocrisy of his times. This exhibition draws on the Gallery's collection of works on paper to illustrate and consider Hazlitt's critical portrait of the decades following the French Revolution.
Related portraits
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (NPG 452)
- Robert Southey (NPG 119)
- Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Bt (NPG 1229)
- Thomas Campbell (NPG 1429)
- Leigh Hunt (NPG 4505)
- William Wordsworth (NPG 3687)
- George Crabbe (NPG 316a(24b))
- Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (NPG 5038)
- Edward Irving (NPG 2757)
- William Hazlitt (NPG 2697)
- Sir Walter Scott, 1st Bt (NPG 2515(30))
- William Godwin (NPG 2515(29))
- William Wilberforce (NPG 4997)
- Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (NPG 1815)
- '"Two pair of portraits"' (NPG D13687)
- Lord Byron (NPG D7811)
- William Gifford (NPG D13690)
- Thomas Moore (NPG D13692)
- Charles Lamb ('ÆLIA') (NPG D13693)
- James Sheridan Knowles (NPG D13695)
- John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (NPG D13691)
- Jeremy Bentham (NPG D8064)
- Washington Irving (NPG D13694)
- Sir James Mackintosh (NPG D13688)
- Thomas Robert Malthus (NPG D13689)
Related sitters
- Jeremy Bentham
- Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
- Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Bt
- George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
- Thomas Campbell
- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- George Crabbe
- John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon
- Charles James Fox
- William Gifford
- William Godwin
- William Hazlitt
- Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland
- James Henry Leigh Hunt
- Edward Irving
- Washington Irving
- Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
- James Sheridan Knowles
- Charles Lamb
- Sir James Mackintosh
- Thomas Robert Malthus
- Thomas Moore
- William Pitt
- Sir Walter Scott, 1st Bt
- Robert Southey
- John Horne Tooke
- William Wilberforce
- John Wilkes
- William Wordsworth
Related artists
- William Bewick
- William Brockedon
- Adam Buck
- John Burnet
- James Carpenter
- Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey
- Colnaghi, Son & Co
- George Thomas Doo
- Drouart
- Henry Edridge
- R. Findley
- Amable Nicolas Fournier
- James Fraser
- James Gillray
- William Greatbach
- Robert Hancock
- Chester Harding
- Benjamin Robert Haydon
- John Henning
- John Hoppner
- Charles Joseph Hullmandel
- Richard James Lane
- Sir Thomas Lawrence
- François Le Villain
- John Linnell
- Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans
- James Lonsdale
- Daniel Maclise
- Nicolas Eustache Maurin
- Henry Meyer
- John Opie
- Aimée Pages
- Brook Pulham
- George Richmond
- Sir Martin Archer Shee
- Unknown artist
- Thomas Charles Wageman
- Richard Westall
- John Wright