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JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859)
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The taste of the attack itself, indeed, was not always unexceptionable; and one upon the See also:Prince See also:Regent, the See also:chief sting of which See also:lay in its substantial truth, occasioned (1813) a See also:prosecution and a See also:sentence of two years' imprisonment for each of the See also:brothers
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The effect was to give a political direction to what should have been the career of a See also:man of letters
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But the cheerfulness and gaiety with which Leigh Hunt See also:bore his imprisonment attracted See also:general See also:attention and sympathy, and brought him visits from See also:Byron, See also:Moore, See also:Brougham and others, whose acquaintance exerted much See also:influence on his future destiny
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In 1810—1811 he edited for his brother John a quarterly See also:magazine, the Reflector, for which he wrote " The Feast of the Poets," a See also:satire which gave offence to many contemporary poets, and particularly offended See also:
But the writer's occasional flippancy and familiarity, not seldom degenerating into the ludicrous, made him a mark for ridicule and See also:parody on the See also:part of his opponents, whose animosity, however, was rather political than literary
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In 1818 appeared a collection of poems entitled Foliage, followed in 1819 by See also:Hero and Leander, and Bacchus and See also:Ariadne
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In the same See also:year he reprinted these two See also:works with The Story of Rimini and The Descent of See also:Liberty with the title of Poetical Works, and started the See also:Indicator, in which some of his best See also:work appeared
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Both Keats and See also:Shelley belonged to the circle gathered around him at See also:Hampstead, which also included William Hazlitt, See also: Keats seems, however, to have subsequently See also:felt that Hunt's example as a poet had been in some respects detrimental to him . After Shelley's departure for Italy (1818) Leigh Hunt's affairs became still more embarrassed, and the prospects of political reform less and less satisfactory . His See also:health and his wife's failed, and he was obliged to discontinue his charming series of essays entitled the Indicator (1819 — 1821), having, he says, " almost died over the last See also:numbers." These circumstances induced him to listen to a proposal, which seems to have originated with Shelley, that he should proceed to Italy and join Shelley and Byron in the See also:establishment of a quarterly magazine in which Liberal opinions should be advocated with more freedom than was possible at See also:home . The project was injudicious from every point of view; it would have done little for Hunt or the Liberal cause at the best, and depended entirely upon the co-operation of Byron, the most capricious of See also:allies, and the most parsimonious of paymasters . Byron's See also:principal See also:motive for acceding to it appears to have been the expectation of acquiring influence over the Examiner, and he was exceedingly mortified on discovering when too See also:late that Hunt had parted, or was considered to have parted, with his interest in the journal . Leigh Hunt left England for Italy in See also:November 1821, but See also:storm, sickness and misadventure retarded his arrival until the 1st of See also:July 1822, a See also:rate of progress which T . L . See also:Peacock appropriately compares to the See also:navigation of Ulysses . The tragic See also:death of Shelley, a few See also:weeks later, destroyed every prospect of success for the Liberal . Hunt was now virtually a dependant upon Byron, whose least amiable qualities were called forth by the relation of See also:patron to an unsympathetic dependant, burdened with a large and troublesome See also:family . He was moreover incessantly wounded by the representations of his See also:friends that he was losing See also:caste by the connexion . The Liberal lived through four quarterly numbers, containing contributions no less memorable than Byron's " See also:Vision of See also:Judgment " and Shelley's See also:translations from See also:Faust; but in 1823 Byron sailed for See also:Greece, leaving his coadjutor at See also:Genoa to shift for himself . The See also:Italian See also:climate and See also:manners, however, were entirely to Hunt's taste, and he protracted his See also:residence until 1825, producing in the See also:interim Ultra-Crepidarius, a Satire on William Gifford (1823), and his matchless See also:translation (1825) of See also:Francesco Redi's Bacco in Toscana . In 1825 an unfortunate litigation with his brother brought him back to England, and in 1828 he committed his greatest See also:mistake by the publication of his See also:Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries . The work is of considerable value as a corrective of merely idealized estimates of Lord Byron . But such a corrective should not have come from one who had lain under obligations to Byron . See also:British ideas of what was decent were shocked, and the author especially writhed under the withering satire of Moore . For many years ensuing the See also:history of Hunt's See also:life is that of a painful struggle with poverty and sickness . He worked unremittingly, but one effort failed after another . Two journalistic ventures, the Taller (1830-1832), a daily devoted to literary and dramatic See also:criticism, and Leigh Hunt's See also:London Journal (1834-1835), 2 John Hamilton Reynolds (1796-1852), best known for his friend-See also:ship and See also:correspondence with Keats . His narrative See also:verse founded on the tales of See also:Boccaccio appeared in 1821 as The See also:Garden of See also:Florence and other Poems . He wrote some admirable sonnets, one of which is addressed to Keats . were discontinued for want of subscribers, although in the in everything he ever wrote, and hence the most beautiful See also:pro-latter Leigh Hunt had able coadjutors, and it contained some of ductions of his See also:pen appear in a manner tainted by his really very his best writing . His editorship (1837-1838) of the Monthly pardonable weaknesses . 
Some of these, such as his helplessness Repository, in which he succeeded W . J . See also:Fox, was also unsuccess- in See also:money matters, and his facility in accepting the obligations ful . The See also:adventitious circumstances which had for a time made which he would have delighted to confer, involved him in painful the See also:fortune of the Examiner no longer existed, and Hunt's strong and humiliating embarrassments, which seem to have been and weak points, his refinement and his affectations, were alike aggravated by the mismanagement of those around him . The unsuited to the general:See also:body of readers. notoriety of these things has deprived him of much of the In 1832 a collected edition of his poems was published See also:honour due to him for his fortitude under the severest calamities, by subscription, the See also:list of subscribers including many of his for his unremitting literary See also:industry under the most discouraging opponents . In the same year was printed for private circulation circumstances, and for his uncompromising See also:independence as a Christianism, the work afterwards published (1853) as The journalist and an author . It was his misfortune to be involved See also:Religion of the See also:Heart . A copy sent to See also:Carlyle secured his friend- in politics, for he was as thorough a man of letters as ever existed, ship, and Hunt went to live next See also:door to him in See also:Cheyne See also:Row in and most of his failings were more or less incidental to that 1833 . See also:Sir See also:Ralph See also:Esher, a See also:romance of Charles II.'s See also:period, had See also:character . But it is not every consummate man of letters of a success, and See also:Captain See also:Sword and Captain Pen (1835), a spirited whom it can be unhesitatingly affirmed that he was brave, just contrast between the victories of See also:peace and the victories of war, and pious . When it was suggested that Leigh Hunt was the deserves to be ranked among his best poems . In 184o his cir- See also:original of Harold Skimpole in See also:Bleak See also:House, Charles See also:Dickens cumstances were improved by the successful See also:representation at denied that any of the shadows in the portrait were suggested Covent Garden of his See also:Legend of Florence, a See also:play of considerable by Hunt, who was, he said, " the very soul of truth and honour." merit . See also:Lover's Amazements, a See also:comedy, was acted several years Leigh Hunt's character as an author was the counterpart of afterwards, and was printed in Leigh Hunt's Journal (1850-1851) ; his character as a man . In some respects his literary position is and other plays remained in MS . In 184o he wrote See also:introductory unique . Few men have effected so much by See also:mere exquisiteness notices to the work of R . B . See also:Sheridan and to See also:Moxon's edition of of taste in the See also:absence of high creative See also:power; fewer still, so the works of See also:Wycherley, See also:Congreve, See also:Vanbrugh and See also:Farquhar, richly endowed with taste, have so frequently and conspicuously a work which furnished the occasion of See also:Macaulay's See also:essay on the betrayed the want of it; and he was incapable of discovering Dramatists of the Restoration . The See also:pretty narrative poem of where familiarity became flippancy . But his poetry possesses The See also:Palfrey was published in 1842. a brightness, animation, See also:artistic symmetry and metrical See also:harmony, The time of Hunt's greatest difficulties was between 1834 and which lift the author out of the See also:rank of See also:minor poets, particularly 1840 . He was at times in See also:absolute want, and his See also:distress was 1 when the influence of his example upon his contemporaries is aggravated by domestic complications . By Macaulay's recom- taken into account . He excelled especially in narrative poetry, mendation he began to write for the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review . In 1844 of which, upon a small See also:scale, there are probably no better he was further benefited by the generosity of Mrs Shelley and examples than " Abou See also:ben Adhem " and " See also:Solomon's See also:Ring." He possessed every qualification for a translator; and as an appreciative critic, whether literary or dramatic, he has hardly her son, who, on succeeding to the family estates, settled an See also:annuity of £12o upon him; and in 1847 Lord John See also:Russell procured him a See also:civil list See also:pension of £200 . The fruits of the improved comfort and augmented leisure of these latter years were visible in the See also:production of some charming volumes . Foremost among these are the See also:companion books, See also:Imagination and See also:Fancy (1844), and Wit and See also:Humour (1846), two volumes of selections from the English poets . In these Leigh Hunt shows himself within a certain range the most refined, appreciative and felicitous of critics . See also:Homer and See also:Milton may be upon the whole beyond his reach, though even here he is See also:great in the detection of minor and unapprehended beauties; with See also:Spenser and the old English dramatists he is perfectly at home, and his subtle and discriminating criticism upon them, as well as upon his own great contemporaries. is continually bringing to See also:light unsuspected beauties . His companion volume on the See also:pastoral poetry of See also:Sicily, quaintly entitled A See also:Jar of See also:Honey from See also:Mount See also:Hybla (1848). is almost equally delightful . The See also:Town (2 vols., 1848) and Men, See also:Women and Books (2 vols., 1847) are partly made up from former material . The Old See also:Court Suburb (2 vols., 1855; ed . A . See also:Dobson, 1902) is an anecdotic See also:sketch of See also:Kensington, where he See also:long resided before his final removal to See also:Hammersmith . In 185o he published his Autobiography (3 vols.), a naive and accurate piece of self-See also:portraiture, full of affectations, but on that account free from the affectation of unreality . It contains very detailed accounts of some of the most interesting periods of the author's life, his See also:education at Christ's Hospital, his imprisonment, and his residence in Italy . A Book for a Corner (2 vols.) was published in 1849, and his Table Talk appeared in 1851 .
In 18J5 his narrative poems, original and translated, were collected under the title of Stories in Verse, with an interesting See also:preface
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He died at Putney on the 28th of See also:August 1859
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Leigh Hunt's virtues were charming rather than imposing or brilliant; he had no vices, but very many foibles
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His great misfortune was that these foibles were for the most part of an undignified sort
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His affectation is not comparable to Byron's, nor his egotism to Wordsworth's, but their very pettiness excites a sensation of the ludicrous
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The very sincerity of his nature is detrimental to him; the whole man seems to be revealedbeen equalled
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Leigh Hunt's other works include: Amyntas, A See also:Tale of the See also:Woods (182o), translated from See also:Tasso; The Seer, or See also:Common-Places refreshed (2 pts., 1840—1841); three of the See also:Canterbury Tales in The Poems of See also:Geoffrey Chaucer. modernized (1841); Stories from the Italian Poets (1846); compilations such as One See also:Hundred Romances of Real Life (1843); selections from See also:Beaumont and See also:Fletcher (1855); and, with S, See also:
Kent; Essays and Poems (1891), ed
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