[susan53]

Hazlitt lived 200 years ago. As have said before, it is pointless trying to understand language that far ago in terms of contemporary English. The grammar was different and of little relevance to us as language teachers today. As long as you understand the meaning, just accept that there will be differences. Here Hazlitt is clearly using a be + adjective construction while today we would use a verb : The contemporary version would be "whether he has died since then". If something has been written in the last fifty years, then it's probably of interest. Later than that and differences will slowly start to creep in, both of grammar and lexis. Go back a hundred years and you'll certainly find things that wouldn't be said nowadays. So it's pointless saying of such texts "I don't understand why..." 99.9% of the time the answer will be the same : because it's not contemporary English and the lexis and grammar used were different then.