The Essay

The Great Essayists Writer and philosopher AC Grayling continues his exploration of key figures from the glory days of the English essay. 3/4. William Hazlitt was a journalist, critic and radical republican polemicist. He is renowned for the power and beauty of his prose in essays, ranging from a description of Poussin's famous painting of Orion to an evocation of the atmosphere at a bare-knuckle fight on the Hungerford Downs.