LEIGH HUNT.

A 11E3I0IB OF HIS LIFE.

Leigh Hunt was born in Southgate, Middlesex, on the 19th October, 1784, in the midst of " the truly English scenery" which he loved before all other. His father, a "Barbadian born," had been an American barrister in Philadelphia ; when the revolution broke out he remained staunch to the king, as became the traditions of the family, which were that they were descended from Tory cavaliers who fled to the West Indies from the tyranny of Cromwell. To avoid persecution from the Republicans the family in the person of Leigh Hunt's father recrossed the Atlantic, again fugitive loyalists ; and in England the American barrister (or attorney, for in the States both are in one) became a clergyman. Ho also became tutor to Mr. Leigh (nephew of the Duke of Chandos), after whom the poet had his second name, for he was baptised James Henry Leigh Hunt, though he soon dropped the first names and never used them in public. "Illness, imagination, and an ultra tender

and anxious rearing" made him a nervous child, of timid fancies and sensitive to superstitious fears. The circumstances of Leigh Hunt's childhood are thus told by himself. "In the world of literature and art. Goldsmith and Johnson had gone ; Cowper was not yet much known • the most prominent poets were Hayley and Darwin ; the most distinguished prose-writer, Gibbon. Sir JoshuaRey- nolds was in his decline, so was Horace Walpole. The Kembles had come up in the place of Garrick. There were excellent comic actors in the persons of Edwin, Lewis, young Bannister, &c. They had O'Keeffe, an original humourist, to write for them. I have already noticed the vocal portion of the theatres. Miss Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay, sur- prised the reading world with her entertaining, but somewhat vulgar novels ; and Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, and a then anonymous author, Robert Bage (who wrote Hermsprong,' and Man as He Is'), de- lighted liberal politicians with theirs. Mrs. Inchbald was also a successful dramatist; but her novels, which were written in a style to endure, were her chief merits."

He was educated at Christ's Hospital. Coleridge and Lamb, after- wards his associates and friends, left the school not long before he entered it. He received at this institution a sound, healthy, classical training, of which he always spoke and wrote with respect. Many of his holidays at this time were spent in the galleries and in the house of the painter, Benjamin West, who was connected with his mother's family, and who was gracious to the young lad. Shortly after ha left school ho published a volume of Juvenile verses ; they were, we believe, but trivial, and gave little promise of his matured powers. His first appearance as a critic and essayist was in the Traveller, an evening paper, now, and long since, incorporated with the Globe. In the year 1805 ills brother, John Hunt, set up a paper called the -Yews to which Leigh Hunt be- came theatrical critic. The town was startled by the independent, scholarly criticism of the young writer, for at that time to praise Kemble and the young Roscius (as Master Betty was called) was a religion, and to praise all actors was made pleasant by dinners and cajolery. Leigh Hunt, a young man of twenty, kept free from both ; spoke his mind freely, and made a sensation. In 1808 Leigh Hunt and his brother John set up the .Examiner. Its objects were- " to assist in producing Reform in Parliament, liberality of opinion in general (especially freedom from superstition), and a fusion of literary taste into all subjects whatsoever." Bonaparte at that time was at the height of his power ; the French Empire had reached its full ex- tent ; three of Napoleon's brothers were on thrones, and his sister was Queen of Naples. A slight dramatic sketch appeared in the first number of the Examiner • it is now half a century old, yet not without a kind of parallelism to the European situation of today, when we have a Napoleon in his Cabinet disposing of thrones:— "NAPOLEON IN HIS CABINET.

" SCV2CE,—A Cabinet at St. Cloud. " NAPOLEON. [Ruminating before a fire and grasping a poker.] Who waits there ?

" LE M. May it please your Majesty, your faithful soldier, Le Meurtrier. "NAP. Tell Sultan Mustapha that he is the last of the Sultans. " LE M. Yes, sire. " Nee. And, hark ye—desire the King of Holland to come to me directly. " LE M. Yes, sire.

" NAP. And the King of Westphalia.—[Aside] I must tweak Jerome by

the nose a little, to teach him dignity.

"LE M. [With hesitation.] M. Champagne, sire, waits to know your Majesty's pleasure respecting the King of Sweden. "NAP. Oh—tell him, I'll let the boy alone for a month or two. And stay, Le Meurtrier; go to the editor of the Honiteur, and tell him to de- throne the Queen of Portugal.—Spain's dethronement is put off to next year. Where's Bienseance ?

[Exit LE MEURTILLER, and enter BIEN-SEANCE. " BIEN. May it please your august Majesty, Bienseance is before you. " NAP. Fetch me General F.'s head, and a cup of coffee. '44'131M [Smiling with devotion.] Every syllable uttered by the great Napoleon eooyinces Frenchmen that he is their father. [Exit BM/SEANCE.

• "Nee. [Meditating with ferocity.] After driving the Turks out of Eu- rope [piokertlie fire],-I must annihilate England [gives a furious poke); but first-el -shall overrun India ; then I shall request America and Africa to pat thee:melees under my protection ; and after making that great jackass, the Russian Emperor, one of my tributaries, crown myself emperor of the east--west—norela—and south. Then I must have a balloon army, of which Garner-in shall he' field-marshal ; for I must positively take possession of the comet, because it makes a noise. That will assist me to conquer the solar system ; and then I shall go with my army to the other systems; and then—I think—I shall go to the deviL— ' Before becoming editor of the Examiner, Leigh Hunt had been ap- pointed a clerk in the War Office—but be soon resigned the situation. Indeed, his uncompromising opposition to the Court and the Ministry

would have compelled the step if his own diaindination for office drudgery had not dictated it.

In 1809, the second year of his editorship, he got married. In his Au- tobiography he thus alludes to this event:- " I thoroughly enjoyed my books, my walks, my companions, my verses ;

and I had never ceased to be ready to fall in love with the that tender- hearted damsel that should encourage me. Now it was a fair charmer, and now a brunette; now a girl who sang, and now a girl who danced ; now one who was merry, or was melancholy, or seemed to care for nothing, or for everything, or was a good friend, or good sister, or a good daughter. With this last, who completed her conquest by reading verses better than I had ever yet heard, I ultimately became wedded for life ; and she reads verses better than ever to this day, especially some that shall be nameless."

In his newspaper life he soon became acquainted with the leading lite- rary men of the time—Thomas Campbell, Theodore Hook, Matthews, James and Horace Smith, and many others, with all of whom Leigh Hunt, bright-eyed, young, eager, "gentle and not fearful," became a general favourite. His comments on the scandalous sale of commis- sions by Mrs. Clarke (the protegee of the Duke of York), brought down on the paper a prosecution which was dropped when the Rouse of Com- mons took up the whole case. Another prosecution was instituted for an article, the "libellous" part of which consisted solely of the words-

" Of all monarchs since the Revolution the successor of George the Third will have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular."

This prosecution also fell through when the Morning Chronicle, which had copied the article and which was prosecuted first, was acquitted. A third prosecution against the Examiner was for copying an article against military flogging ; in this case the trial came on, but the Hunts were acquitted. About this time Leigh Hunt associated himself with Lamb, Barnes (afterwards of the Times), Dr. Aikin, and others, in a quarterly review called the Refiettor ; it died after its fourth number. In it Leigh Hunt wrote his Feast of the Poets, a satire in verse ' • he lashed his contemporaries in a light, but stinging style, and called out much personal hatred against himielf. But the interest of this passage of arms was soon lost in the publication of an article on the Prince Regent in the Examiner of May 22, 1812. The article thus com- menced:—

" The Prince Regent is still in everybody's mouth ; and, unless he is as insensible to biting as to bantering, a delicious time he has of it in that re- morseless ubiquity ! If a person takes in a newspaper, the first thing he i does, when he looks at it, is to give the old groan and say, Well ! what of

the Prince Regent now If he goes out after breakfast, the first friend he meets is sure to begin talking about the Prince Regent ; and the two al- ways separate with a shrug. He who is lounging along the street will take your arm, and turn back with you to expatiate on the Prince Regent ; and he in a hurry, who is skimming the other side of the way, helloes out as he goes, Fine things these, of the Prince Regent I' You can scarcely pass by two people talking together, but you shall hear the words Prinee Regent' ; —` if the Prince Regent has done that, he must be—' or such as the Prince Regent and Lord Yar—' the rest escapes in the distance. At dinner the Prince Regent quite eclipses the goose or the calf's-head ; the tea-table, of course, rings of the Prince Regent ; if the company go to the theatre to see The Hypocrite, or the new farce of Turn Out, they cannot help thinking of the Prince Regent ; and, as Dean Swift extracted philosophical meditation from a broomstick, so it would not be surprising if any serious person, in going to bed, should find in his very nightcap something to remind him of the merits of the Prince Regent.'

It replies thus to the Morning .Post, which had affected contempt for the guests at a public dinner where the Regent's health was received with hisses.

" The same page, which contained the specimen of contempt above-men- tioned, contained also a set of wretched common-place lines in French, Italian, Spanish, and English, literally addressing the Prince Regent in the following terms, among others :—' You are the Glory of the people,'—' You are the Protector of the arts,'—' You arc the %comas of the age,'— ` Wherever you appear you conquer all hearts, wipe away tears, excite de- sire and love, and win beauty towards you,'—' You breathe cloquence,'— You inspire the Graces,'—' You are Adonis in loveliness ." Thus gifted, it proceeds in English,— "'Thus gifted with each grace of mind,

Born to delight and bless mankind; Wisdom, with Pleasure in her train, Great Prince I shall signalize thy reign: To Honour, Virtue, Truth allied; The nation's safeguard and its pride ; With monarchs of immortal fame Shall bright renown enrol the name'

" What person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this Glory of the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and reproaches!—that this ` Protector of the arts' had named a wretched foreigner his historical painter, in disparagement or in ignorance of the merits of his own country- men !—that this • Memenas of the age' patronized not a single deserving writer I—that this 'Breather of eloquence' could not say a few decent ex- tempore words—if we are tojudge, at least, from what he said to his regi- ment on its embarkation for Portugal—that this Conqueror of hearts' was the disappointer of hopes !—that this `Exciter of desire' [bravo I Messieurs of the Post I] this 'Adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent man of fifty !—in short, that this delightful, blissful, wise, pleasurable, honourable, virtuous, true, and immortal prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine, over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single claim on the gtatitude of his country, or the respect of posterity."

For this article Leigh Hunt and his brother John were indicted, con- victed, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, in separate prisons, and each to pay a fine of 5001. Leigh Hunt was imprisoned in Horse- monger Lane Gaol, one of the old-fashioned dreary buildings, wretched in every way. He was soon allowed, however, to purchase alleviations; and when, on account of ill-health, he was removed into the infirmary, he made hie rooms bright with pretty papering, but more with his own cheerfulness. He thus speaks of it himself :— " The infirmary was divided into four wards, with as many small rooms attached to them. The two upper wards were occupied, but the two on the floor had never been used ; and one of these, not very providently (for I had not yet learned to think of inoney) I turned into a noble room. I papered the walls with a trellis of roses ; I had the ceiling coloured with clouds and sky ; the barred windows I screened with Venetian blinds ; and when my book-cases were set up with their busts, and flowers and a pianoforte mademadetheir appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side the

water. I took a pleasure, when a stranger knocked at the door, to see him come in and stare about him. The surprise on issuing from the Borough,

and passing through the avenues of a gaol, was dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room, except in a fairy tale.

" But I possessed another surprise, which was a garden. There was a little yard outside the room, railed off from another belonging to the neigh- bouring ward. This yard l shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even con- trived to have a grass-plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple-tree, from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. Thomas Moore, who came to see me with Lord Byron, told me he had seen no such heart's-ease. I bought the Parnaso Italiano while in prison, and used often to think of a passage in it, while looking at this miniature piece of horticulture :— " Mio pieciol orto, A me sei vigna, e campo, e selva, e prato.' BALD. " My little garden,

To me thou'rt vineyard, field, and meadow, and wood.'

Here I wrote and read in tine weather, sometimes under an awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet-runners, which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds of miles off."

His wife and children were allowed to be with him, and his eldest daughter Mary (since dead) was born in prison. However lightened his prison time was by such company, and the troops of friends whom his martyrdom for truth brought around him, he suffered severely in mind (especially when the last summer of his stay his family removed to Brighton), and his bodily health never recovered the long confinement. It confirmed in him a reluctance to stir about, which was partly the

result of constitutional weakness, but which the two years' habit made

a second nature. Ho came out of prison in February 1815. In this year he first became acquainted with Byron and with Wordsworth. He

had defended Wordsworth in the Examiner from the attacks of his many

critics.

In 1816 Leigh Hunt's longest and most ambitious poem, the Story of

Rimini, was published. The tale is the well-known one of Francesca of Rimini and Paulo her husband's brother, her own lover. Dante makes Francesca tell, in a few lines, the story of her fall ; Leigh Hunt gives the whole tale. Francesca is given away by her father to the Lord of Rimini, but he, who is deformed, sends his brother Paulo, a young hand- some cavalier, to escort home his bride. At first the bride takes Paulo for her betrothed, and when she learns her error it is too late. But the mar- riage goes on. Her fall is told by Leigh Hunt in lines not unworthy to stand beside Dante's more simple, statuesque grandeur.

" Ready she sat with one band to turn o'er The leaf, to which her thoughts ran on before, The other on the table, half enwreath'd In the thick tresses over which she breath'd.

So sat she fix'd, and so observ'd was she Of one, who at the door stood tenderly,- Paulo,—who from a window seeing her

Go straight across the lawn, and guessing where,

Had thought she was in tears, and found, that day, His usual efforts vain to keep away. Twice had he seen her since the Prince was gone, On some small matter needing unison ;

Twice linger'd, and convers'd, and grown long friends ;

But not till now where no one else attends.-

' May I come in ? ' said he ;—it made her start,—

That smiling voice ;—she colour'd, press'd her heart A moment, as for breath, and then with free And usual tone said,-' 0 yes,—certainly.' There's wont to be, at conscious times like these,

An affectation of a bright-eyed ease, An air of something quite serene and sure, As if to seem so, were to be, secure.

With this the lovers met, with this they spoke, With this sat down to read the self-same book, And Paulo, by degrees, gently embrao'd With one permitted arm her lovely waist ; And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree, Came with a touch together thrillingly, And o'er the book they hung, and nothing said, And every lingering page grew longer as they read.

" As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart Their colour change, they came upon the part Where fond Geneura, with her flame long nurst, Smil'd upon Launcelot, when he kiss'd her first :— That touch, at last, through every fibre slid ,• And Paulo turn'd, scarce knowing what he did, Only he felt he could no more dissemble,

And kiss'd her, mouth to mouth, all in a tremble.—

Oh then she wept,—the poor Francesca wept ; And pardon oft he pray'd ; and then she swept The tears away, and look'd him in the face, And, well as words might save the truth disgrace, She told him all, up to that very hour,

The father's guile, th' undwelt-in bridal bower,—

And wish'd for wings on which they two might soar Far, far away, as doves to their own shore, With claim from none.—That day they read no more."

The last words are translated from Dante. Francesca telling her story herself says- " Quel giomo non legemmo pill avanti."

Leigh Hunt at this time lived in Hampstead, where Shelley, who through life loved him with a brother's love, first visited him. About this time also he first knew Keats.

After publishing some miscellaneous poems and translations in a volume

entitled Foliage, Leigh Hunt started the Indicator. Of all the periodicals that for the last hundred years have taken up the role of Addison's and Steele's delightful serials, none was ever so successful. Leigh Hunt possessed all the requisites for editing such a paper ; he was genial,

scholarly, many-sided, and catholic in taste.

In 1821 Leigh Hunt visited Italy, partly to recruit his health, partly

to see Shelley, and with the intention of joining Shelley and Byron in a periodical called the Liberal. It was actually started, but the union came to a sad and bitter ending through the sudden death of Shelley, and

a quarrel with Lord Byron. Leigh Hunt incurred much odium some

time after by publishing a volume (1828) in which Byron's life in Italy was perhaps too frankly criticised. Mile residing at Florence after the

decease of the Liberal, Hunt translated Redi's Bacco in TO8Cantl, with a

spirit and success surprising to many who had thought the original too Italian to fit easily or happily in any other dress.

On his return to England, Hunt went to live at Highgate (1828), and wrote here the greater part of The Companion—a series in continuation of the Indicator. He also published anonymously (he was unpopular at the time with the Tory critics who lorded it over literature, and the pub- lisher would not allow him to put his name to it) a novel called Sir Ralph Esher. It is a fictitious autobiography of the time of the second Charles, and though not powerful as a novel, gives a good picture of the time. A second edition of it was published in 1850. From Highgate he removed to Epsom, and from Epsom to Brompton, and while living there he conducted for some time a little daily paper of his own, consisting but of four folio pages, and always containing a notice of a play or a new book. The constant labour of this undertaking was too much for him, and his health again gave way. He soon afterwards wrote (still in bad health) for The True Sun, an evening paper, in the office of which he first became acquainted with Laman Blanchard. He shortly after re- moved to Chelsea, (where he met Thomas Carlyle,) and set up The London Journal—a very successful precursor to such periodicals as Chambers and the Household Words of our own time. Ha lived for seven years in Chelsea, and wrote amongst other things during his residence there, Captain Sword and Captain Pen, (published 1835,) a poem of considerable' power, showing the horrors of war. Leigh Hunt wrote in all five plays—The Legend of Florence (which had some success at its first appearance, but which was not fitted for the stage), Lorers' Amazements, which was acted within the last eighteen months at the Lyceum ; and three other pieces never acted. From Chelsea, shortly after he received (1847) a pension of 2001. a year from the Queen, Leigh Hunt removed to Kensington, where he wrote the best of his critical productions—two volumes (1844 and 1846), entitled Wit and Humour and Imagination and Fancy. They were com- posed of extracts from the English literature of all time, interspersed with commentaries full of thought and fine taste. Of a somewhat similar kind was his Book for a Corner (1849), while in The Town (1848), he brought his genial wit to lighten antiquarian details. During the last seven years Leigh Hunt resided at Hammersmith. Here he wrote The Religion of the Heart (1853), ".a manual of faith and duty"—an attempt to suggest a ritual for unbigoted believers of all creeds—and The Old Court Suburb (1855), a pleasant history of Kensington. Amongst other literary works not already mentioned were an edition of the Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar ; The Palfrey, a :Love Story of Old Times 1842 ; One Hundred Romances of Real Life, selected and translated, 1843 ; Stories from the Italian Poets, with Lives (a collection of admirably translated pieces), 1846; an edition of the Dramatic Works of Sheridan, with biography and notes, 1846; Alen, Women, and Books, a selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, 1847 ; A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (a collection in prose and verse), 1848 ; the author's Autobiography, in three volumes, 1850 ; a volume of Table-Talk, with Imaginary Conver- sations of Pope and Swift,1851; and a collection of Stories in Verse, from the author's earlier writings, 1855. He wrote from time to time articles for Household Words, and up to within the last few weeks his pen sup- plied our own columns with occasional contributions. In later years he led a life quietly happy ; denied the pleasure of rude health, he enjoyed himself in his own way, in his arm-chair, poring over a favourite xolume, listening to an Italian song from his daughter, or chatting with some friend. When his last hour came, he died without pain, tended to the last by loving and familiar hands. On Thursday Mr. Leigh Hunt was interred in Kensall Green Ceme- tery. The funeral was of the most private kind; it was attended by five of his nearest relatives, Mr. Charles W. Reynell, a very old con- nection of Mr. Hunt's' Mr. Joseph Severn the artist, who had paid the same last duties as the faithful friend and companion of John Keats, and Mr. Benjamin Moran, of the United States Legation.