In early 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Having idolised Napoleon for years, Hazlitt took it as a personal blow. The event seemed to mark the end of hope for the common man against the oppression of “legitimate” monarchy. Profoundly depressed, he took up heavy drinking, his marriage deteriorated, and he was reported to have walked around unshaven and unwashed for weeks. Lamb, who tried to remain uninvolved politically, tolerated his abrasiveness, and that friendship managed to survive, if only just in the face of Hazlitt’s growing bitterness, short temper, and a propensity for hurling invective at friends and foes alike.
Hazlitt’s political essays would be attacked by Tory publications accusing him of ignorance, dishonesty, and obscenity. Not only was he personally shaken, he found it more difficult to have his work published, and once more he had to struggle for a living. His mood deteriorated and he had grown resigned to the lack of love between him and Sarah. He had been visiting prostitutes and was unable to pay his rent. Sarah left with their son, forcing him to find his own accommodation. He would occasionally see his son and even his wife, with whom he remained on speaking terms, but they were effectively separated. Hazlitt retreated to the countryside, but would continue to publish essays. He shut himself away like a hermit, not wanting to withdraw completely but rather to become an invisible observer of society.
In August 1820 Hazlitt began a tumultuous relationship with Sarah Walker, the 19 year old daughter of his London landlord. Sarah had aspirations to better herself and a famous author seemed a prize catch. Hazlitt was infatuated, but Sarah would become romantically involved with another lodger called Tomkins. This led to angry altercations of jealousy and recrimination. The relationship ended. Hazlitt’s mind nearly snapped and he contemplated suicide. This was the worst crisis of his life, and he would later record the experience in a fictional book Liber Amoris, which he used as a cathartic outlet for his misery.
Over the next few years Hazlitt would continue to turn out essays of remarkable variety and literary merit. Among these were a series of popular articles called Table-Talk which were included in a book of the same name. Hazlitt explained these essays as being “literary and conversational” rather than being scholarly and precise, as in a conversation between friends, insights into human nature and a vehicle to express literary and art criticism. They attracted some admiration during his lifetime, but it was only long after his death that their reputation achieved full stature.
In 1824 Hazlitt met Isabella Bridgewater, who married him, of necessity in Scotland, as his divorce from Sarah Stoddart was not recognised in England. Little is known about Isabella, or about her interaction with Hazlitt. Certainly Hazlitt nowhere in his writings suggests that this marriage was the love match he had been seeking, nor does he mention his new wife at all. After a tour of Europe Hazlitt and his new wife divorced.
In 1825 Hazlitt collected a series of critical essays he produced for the Examiner to form a book called The Spirit of the Age. Sketches of twenty-five prominent men or notable figures that showed characteristics of the age. Reflecting on the book as a whole, the author explains as an example, “the present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect , and doat on past achievements”.
Few details remain of Hazlitt’s later life. After a brief stay at Bouvier Street in London in 1829, sharing lodgings with his son, Hazlitt moved into a small apartment at 6 Frith Street Soho. He continued to churn out articles, but was being plagued with painful bouts of illness. Hazlitt was confined to his bed, and with his son in attendance, William Hazlitt died of stomach cancer on 18 September 1830. His last words were have reported to have been “well, I’ve had a happy life”.