ABSTRACT
James North cote, who had studied under the leading portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92), encouraged both John and William Hazlitt in their careers as painters. Though Hazlitt finally abandoned painting as a career in 1811 and 1812, he continued to write about painters and painting, and remained, like Godwin, a regular visitor to Northcote’s studio. From 1826 onwards, Hazlitt published versions of his conversations with Northcote under the title of 'Boswell Redivivus' in the New Monthly Magazine and in several other periodicals, before collecting them in the volume, Conversations of James Northcote. This chapter presents a passage that demonstrates the qualities of forthrightness and plain speaking which attracted both Hazlitt and Godwin, at different times, to Northcote’s studio. Through the device of literary dialogue, Hazlitt presents his own critical views in the dramatised form of colloquial conversation.
