English essayist William Hazlitt was a respected writer and lecturer on a range of literary subjects, from the characters in Shakespeare’s plays to the English comic writers to Milton’s poetry. This collection of essays, indispensable for students of literature, was drawn from a series of Hazlitt’s lectures. Included are William Shakespeare, John Lyly, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Heywood, John Webster, John Fletcher, Ben Johnson, Thomas Ford, Philip Massinger, Sir Philip Sidney, and Sir Francis Bacon, among many others.