The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-30 00:00:00

THE LA TE MR. LEIGH HUNT.

The following sketch of the leading events of
Leigh Hunt's life is taken from that comprehensive
storehouse of personal information, the " English
Cycloptudia of Biography," conducted by Mr.
Charles Knight :
Hunt, James Henry Leigh, was born at South-
gate, in Middlesex, Oct. 19, 1784. His father, by
birth a West Indian, had married an American
lady, arid was residing in North America when the
War of Independence broke out. Taking the layalist
side in the strife, he was obliged to flee to England,
where he took orders in the English Church, and
was for some t me tutor to Mr. Leigh, nephew of
the Duke of Chandos. Of several sons Leigh be-
came the most distinguished ; he was educated, as
his friends Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Barnes,
afterwards well known as editor of the Times, had
been, at Christ's Hospital, London ; and even while
thei e he revealed Isis natural genius for literature
by numerous attempts in verse, some of which were
published in 1802 by his father, under the title of
" Juvenilia, or a Collection of Poems written be-
tween the ages of twelve and. sixteen." After leav-
ing Christ's Hospital, at the age of fifteen, he was
for some time in the office of one of his brothers,
who had become an attorney, and afterwards he
had a situation in the War-office. While in these
employments he contributed to various periodicals ;
writing, more especially, theatrical criticism, and
literary articles for a weekly newspaper which had
been started in 1805 by his elder brother, John
Hunt. Of his theatrical criticisms, which were in
a style then quite new, a selection was published in
1807 in a more lasting form, in a volume of " Cri-
tical Essays on the Performers of the London
Theatres." In 1808 Mr. Hunt left the War-office,
at the age of twenty-four, to become joint editor
and proprietor of the Examiner newspaper—a jour-
nal, the high reputation of which, both for liberal
politics and literary ability, was first acquired under
the management of the Hunts. The reputation,
however, was not acquired, in those days of politi-
cal persecution, without some serious personal
consequences to the partners. Although more
literary than political in his tastes, the articles of
Leigh Hunt, as well as those of his brother, were of
a kind to give offence to the ruling powers of the
day ; and on three several occasions the Examiner
had to stand a government prosecution. On the
first occasion, in 1810, when the cause of offence
was an article on the Regency, reflecting on the
rule of George 111., the prosecution was abandoned;
on the second, which was caused in 1811 by an ar-
ticle on Flogging in the Army, the brothers were
tried before Lord Ellenborough, but being defended
by Mr. Brougham, were acquitted by the jury ; on
the third, however, when the cause was an article
referring to the Prince Regent in rather severe
terms, and calling him " an Adonis of fifty," the
brothers were sentenced to pay a fine of £5OO each
and to two years' imprisonment. The imprison-
ment, though actually undergone, was lightened by
the public sympathy with the captives ; and Leigh
Hunt describes the two years as being spent very
pleasantly amid flowers and books, with occasional
visits from friends, such as Byron, Moore, Charles
Lamb, Shelley, and Keats, some of whom he then
became acquainted with for the first time. Keats's
sonnet, " Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt
left Prison," is a fine poetical expression of the af-
fection with which Mr. Hunt was regarded at that
time by a wide circle of literary friends. Among
the literary fruits of his leisure in prison, published
after his release, were " The Descent of Liberty, a
masque," 1815 ; " The Feast of the Poets, with
notes, and other pieces, in verse," 1815 ; and the
well-known " Story of Rimini," 1816—the last of
which gave the author at once a place among the
poets of the day. In 1818 appeared " Foliage, or
Poems, original, and translated from the Greek of
Homer, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, and Ano-
creon, and from the Latin of Catullus." About the
same time Mr. Hunt started the Indicator, a small
weekly paper, on the model of the Queen Anne
Essayists. In 1823 he published " Ultra-Crepidarius,
a Satire on I,V lliain Gifford"—a retaliation on the
" Quarterly Review" for its severe treatment of the
school of poetry to which Mr. Hunt:was most closely
related. Before this satire was published, however,
Mr. Hunt, whose circumstances had not recovered
from the confusion into which they were thrown by
his imprisonment and by the expenses of the Exami-
ner, hadaccepted an invitation from Shelly and Lord
Byron, and gone over to Italy (1822) to assist them
in carrying on The Liberal, a journal the opinions
of which were to be of an extreme kind, both in
politics and literature. The death of his kindest
friend, Shelley, at the very moment of his arrival
(July 22), was a heavy blow to his fortunes; and,
though Mr. Hunt lived for a time under the same
roof with Lord Byron, the connection was not of a
kind t 3 last. The Liberal was discontinued—
Byron and Hunt parted, less mutually friends than
when they had met. Byron died in 1824 ; and
after living with his family some time in Italy Mr.
Hunt returned to England. The publication in
1828 of " Lord Byron and some of his Contempo-
raries, with Recollections of the Author's Life and
his Visit to Italy," gave much offence to Lord
Byron's admirers, and especially to Moore ; and
M. Hunt has himself subsequently declared the
criticisms of Byron's personal character and beha-
viour there contained to be unnecessarily harsh and
bitter. In 1828 Mr. Hunt (who had meanwhile
been contributing largely, together with Lamb,
Hazlitt, &c., to various periodicals, including the
London Magazine) started The Companion, a kind
of sequel to the Indicator ; and the Indicator and
Companion, republished together in 1834, has been
deservedly among the most popular of modern col-
lections of light and fanciful essays. In 1833 was
published a collected edition of Leigh Hunt's poeti-
cal works, since superseded by later editions, which
include, among other later poems, his celebrated
" Captain Sword and Captain Penn," first published
separately in 1835. In 1834 he started a new serial,
The London journal, which he continued to edit
during that and the following year ; he then wrote
for periodicals till 1840, when he published " A
Legend of Florence," a play (acted with some suc-
cess at Covent-garden), and several parts of a new
serial, called "The Seer, or Commonplaces Re-
ported," and also edited the " Dramatic Works of
Wyoherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar."
These works were followed in 1842 by " The Pal-
frey, a Love Story of Old Times," and " One Hun-
dred Romances of Real Life, selected and trans-
lated," 1843. A larger work offiction was" Sir Ralph
Esher, or Memoirs of a Gentleman of the Court of
Charles II.," a new edition of which appeared in
1850. Of Mr. Hunt's later works, the following
at e the chief :—" Imagination and Fancy" (a series
of extracts from the English poets, with five critical
elucidations and a preliminary essay on poetry),
1844 ; " Wit and Humour" (a similar collection),
1846 ; " 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; "Men, 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 vols.,
1850 ; a volume of " Table-talk, with Imaginary
Conversations of Pope and Swift, 1851; " The
Town, its remarkable Characters and Events" (a
delightful book of gossip about London streets),
two vols., 1848 ; " The Religion of the Heart, a
Manual f Faith and Duty," 1853; a collection of
" Stories in Verse," from the author's earlier writ-
ings, 1855 ; and " The Old Court Suburb, or Me-
morials of Kensington, regal, critical, and anecdo-
tical," two vols., 1855. In 1847 Mr. Hunt received
from the Crown a literary pension of £2OO per
annum, which he still enjoys, with the goodwill of
thousands whom his numerous writings, both in
prose and in verse, have instructed and charmed,
-
and among whom he is the representative of an age
of poets now all but vanished.

THIS DA F'S MARKETS.