The Spirit of the Age to have inaugurated the Romantic movement in English poetry with the publication in 1798 of their "Lyrical Ballads". Hazlitt was introduced to Wordsworth by Coleridge, and both had a shaping influence on him, who was privileged to have read "Lyrical Ballads" in manuscript. Though Hazlitt was never close with Wordsworth, their relationship was cordial for many years. As between Coleridge and Hazlitt, as well as Southey and Hazlitt, differences between Wordsworth and Hazlitt over politics were a major cause of the breakdown of their friendship. But there was another cause for the rupture. Hazlitt had reviewed Wordsworth's "The Excursion" in
The Feast of the Poets Apollo, which reflected a friendship between the two. The work influenced how critics viewed Romantic poetry. Hunt's interpretation of Wordsworth and Wordsworth's poetry was later picked up and developed by William Hazlitt in a review of Wordsworth's "Excursion". Hazlitt emphasised the egotistical aspects of Wordsworth's regular contemplation in his works. Hazlitt also relied on Hunt's criticism of Wordsworth preferring common people as his heroes. Hazlitt's review, grounded in Hunt's ideas, influenced John Keats's view of the "wordsworthian or egotistical sublime". Coleridge, in "Biographia Literaria", relied on Hunt's claim that Wordsworth focused on the morbid aspects of life or dwelled too