LEIGH HUNT.

(1784-1859.)

ONE of the writers in English literature who can be best described as delightful, is Leigh Hunt, poet, essayist and critic. He was the associate and friend of Shelley, Byron, Keats, Lamb, Hazlitt, Proctor, Haydon, De Quincey, Carlyle, Dickens, and a host of celebrities of his time. His career subtends all that is best in nineteenth century literature, commencing under the Prince Regent and ending with Victoria. Even Professor Wilson who, in the early days of Blackwood, had lampooned him most severely, grew to love him and at the last spoke words of praise for him. Macaulay admired his literary style and thoroughly appreciated his critical powers, while Carlyle, much against his usual habit with men, spoke of him with appreciation. In truth I do not know of another contemporary author of whom Carlyle spoke so well as of Leigh Hunt. He must,

therefore, have had many winning graces, both in speech and manner, to have escaped from the more than drastic criticism that Carlyle too freely expressed concerning the men he first met with when he went up to London.

Hunt lived a purely literary life, no man ever more so. He was absorbed in books, and before he was thirty he had English literature at his finger tips. He is the best guide over the whole field of that literature that has ever written upon it, not excepting even Hazlitt and Lamb. He is the very Ariel of criticism, kindly, gentle and loving. His judgments on the old books and writers are unerring, and his writings are one of the best of gateways to the Elizabethan literature. Nowhere is the grace and tenderness, the fancy and sweetness, the wit, the humor and the music of English letters better shown forth than in the writings of this delightful essayist. Let any one sit down with Hunt's "Imagination and Fancy," his "Wit and Humor," or his "Book for a Corner," and he will find the charm of this most genial soul and arise thrice blessed in his knowledge of what is sweetest and best in English poetry. In these he is seen at his best, though he wrote much else that is charming and enjoyable. But in these he gives selections from the great English poets,

from Spenser to Keats, with critical remarks of the highest value.

Hunt was educated at Christ's Hospital, where Lamb and Coleridge had preceded him. When still a youth he undertook, with his brother, the publication of a newspaper called The Examiner, and its radical political tone soon brought him trouble. A lampoon on the Prince Regent resulted in a trial for criminal libel, and the brothers were esteemed to have gotten lightly off with a punishment of two years in jail and a fine of several hundred pounds. This martyrdom brought Hunt many friends, and among them Shelley and Keats. They became warm friends, and Hunt exerted a remarkable literary influence over the two poets. His chief poem is "The Story of Remini," and while it has great merit in itself, and is a triumph of poetical narrative, felicitous, musical and unhackneyed, it nevertheless pointed out a form of verse to Shelley and Keats which they adopting, made greater than anything Hunt could have achieved, yet he led the way.

Hunt was a few years the eldest of the three, but they were near enough of an age to be associates, and they felt a generous rivalry. Hunt's finest sonnet was the result of a contest between them in that form of versification on the subject

of "The Nile."

Each was to write his sonnet

and submit it to the judgment of the three. The following is Hunt's sonnet:

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream ;
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands-

Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young earth, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us, and then we wake
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.

that

It is a piece of very exquisite poesy, and the two younger poets spontaneously awarded the supremacy to Hunt. "The laughing queen caught the world's great hands" is one of the most superb lines in our literature.

Certainly it is not to be contended that by this one happy effort, Hunt is to be placed as a poet above Shelley or Keats. By no means. But it does show that he had a high poetic genius, and that his life and works are very well worthy of consideration. Hunt's lyrics and short verses

are also very good, and one of them, because of the association, has been often quoted.

Mrs.

Carlyle is the heroine.

Jennie kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in ;
Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in !

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old—but add

Jennie kissed me.

There are not many verses more light and airy than that.

Hunt wrote much, and in almost every sort of writing. His tales from the Italian poets, and his rendition of Dante, are splendid introductions to that great literature. His poem of “Abou Ben Adhem," will never be forgotten, while his autobiography is a most delightful piece of writing. In it we find well-drawn portraits of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Hazlitt and Coleridge, with glimpses of many others of the eminent men of the early century. His letters, too, are graceful, and there is no question but that one must go to Hunt to obtain a full knowledge of nineteenth century literature.

Hunt did not live in a corner but impressed