Recent commentators have tended to locate the works of William Hazlitt within the context of a dynamic metropolitan culture. The present article attempts to identify some of the fundamental tensions in his relation to urban modernity, and in particular to its promotion of the spectacular. Aspects of Hazlitt's ambivalence include his radical revision of the polite essayistic tradition, his fascination for entertainment, high and low, as the antithesis or counterpart of literature, and his reliance on a negative gusto to pierce through the variegated "medium" of modern culture.