Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1884-10-10
Leigh Hunt.

Leigh HUllt.
What judicious, discursive critic
he was, with flavor of sarcasm and
dogmatism ever and anon in his bene-
ficent pages! Hunt, as James Eannay
concisely put it, was born faster.
His sense of artistic prOpriety was
unique. He was not afraid to be liber-
al, being sure of himself. He was an
epicure at quotations, and the chief
charm both of his style and his schol-
arship is that he knew and upheld the
"peeragc of wOrds,' the nobilities of
English speech. Therefore it is that
if Hunt is not popular, in the sense he
wished, he has, at least, a choice circle
perpetualy about him. The lovers of
1.-The exhaustless world of books and
art, of the rising genius of young au-
thors, the immortal language of music.
trees, and the memorial hooks of town
and country" are his friends.
Hunt was tall, erect, and slender,
with the 'sweet and earnest look" that
Shelley notes. In his early manhood,
His face was like summer night
All flooded with dusky light,
and sparkling with animation; but in
his declining year the gayety, save in
his smile and in the occasional clashes
of youth" in his fine eyes, seemed to
have died away; and in its stead came
the aspect of grave thoutfulness which
we see in the portrait periixed to his
latest book He had undergone the
combined attacks of melancholy and
ill-health, but his step was always
elastic and his chest ample. His head
was handsomely shaped, and covered
with rather straight, Indian-like black
hair; ByrOn's hats, as well as Keats
and Shelley's were too small for him.
Carlyle somewhere refers to his "prettv
little laugh, sincere and cordial; his
voice, with its ending musical warble
{ 'chirl, we called it), which reminded
one of singing-birds." 1t would
have been better for Hunt, since his
lines lay not in the planet Mercury,
but in this rough hand-tumble world.
had he been cast in a less delicate
mold; unless we hold with Lowell that
the infusion of "some fner-grained
stuff for woman prepared" is no
drawback, and that nature
Could not have hit a more excellent plan
For making him fully and perfectly man.
Hunts preferences were after Eve
lyn's own heart, and turned toward
books, and garden. He was not too
exacting; he relished page "be-
thumbed horribly" and found beauty
in toadstool. But he had little per-
sonal claim over any land or any
library. He was doctor sine h6riS the
greater part of his life; wretchedlv
poor from 1880 to 1910 and forced TO
sell his folios for the bare necessities
of life.
Fair lover all his days of all things fair,
none deserve better, by services, tenn
permanent, and generous habits, to be
surrounded with luxuries, and to be
blessed with some Other revenue than
his good spirits merely. Hazlitt un-
derstood his needs and their involved
denials. Leigh Hunt" he said, con-
scious that he was speaking in world
where labor is the immutable law,
'ought TO be allowed to play, sing,
laugh, and talk his life away; to pat
ronize men of letters; to write manly
prose and elegant verse;" Not a tithe
of such luck befell his sunny-hearted
friend. The deprivations which Hunt
could not lessen he bore with philo-
sophie serenity. October Atlantic.