THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 LEIGH HUNT
 
 Sv vermissicn cf M' WXa^h ffunt
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 WITH REMINISCENCES OF FRIENDS AND 
 
 CONTEMPORARIES, AND WITH THORNTON 
 
 HUNT'S INTRODUCTION AND POSTSCRIPT 
 
 NEWLY EDITED BY 
 
 ROGER INGPEN 
 
 Illustrated with Portraits 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL I 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON & CO 
 
 3 I WEST 23RD STREET 
 1903 
 
 (^
 
 " Most men, when drawn to speak about themselves, 
 Are moved by little and little to say more 
 Than they dreamt : until at last they blush, 
 And can but hope to find secret excuse 
 In the self-knowledge of their auditors." 
 
 Walter Scott's Old Play
 
 TO 
 
 WALTER LEIGH HUNT 
 
 THE ELDEST SON OF LEIGH HUNT'S 
 
 ELDEST SON IS INSCRIBED 
 
 THIS NEW EDITION 
 
 OF HIS GRANDFATHER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 March 1903
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 IN the summer of 1825 Leigh Hunt had been for 
 three years a sojourner in Italy, whither he had 
 gone at the invitation of Lord Byron and Shelley to 
 edit that ill-fated magazine the Liberal. During these 
 three years a series of disastrous events had occurred, 
 all more or less bearing directly on Hunt's life, and 
 all described at considerable length and with much 
 circumstantial detail in the following pages. The 
 death of Shelley, the failure after four numbers of 
 the Liberal, the unfriendly attitude taken up by Lord 
 Byron, and his subsequent death, were sufficient in 
 themselves to make it highly desirable for Hunt to 
 return to England. Italy however had a great attrac- 
 tion for him, and he lingered on at Florence for fully 
 three months, until September, 1825, when his return 
 home became imperative, owing to the action of his 
 brother John, who contended that Leigh Hunt, by his 
 protracted absence, had forfeited his proprietary rights 
 in the Exaininer. 
 
 One of the immediate obstacles to his return was that 
 he was, nominally at any rate, without resources. The 
 expenses of a journey to England were at that time con- 
 siderable, and this prodigal son of letters had no means 
 whatever wherewith to defray them. It was in these 
 circumstances that Hunt's old friend and admirer, 
 Vincent Novello, made an arrangement with Henry 
 Colburn, the publisher, for the advance of a sum of 
 money on account of a book. The book thus arranged 
 for was originally to have consisted of a collection of 
 the author's scattered writings, with an autobiographi- 
 cal introduction. Hunt arrived in England in October, 
 1825, but no new book appeared bearing his name 
 until 1828, when a large quarto volume was published 
 with the title of Lo7'd Byi'on and sorne of his Contem- 
 poraries ; ivith Recollections of the Authors Life and of 
 his Visit to Italy. The book created a sensation ; it was 
 in every one's hands, and it rapidly went into a second 
 
 vii
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 edition. Tho author, however, was roundly abused on all 
 sides for his outspoken criticism of Lord Byron, who 
 was at the time by way of being a popular hero. 
 Those who had formerly fatigued themselves in their 
 elYorts to vilify the character of Byron, now eagerly 
 turned their wrath against Leigh Hunt. The experi- 
 ment Wiis an unhappy one, for instead of justifying 
 himself to the public, as he had hoped, by a frank 
 explanation of his relations with Byron, Hunt only 
 earned for himself the title of ingrate. 
 
 This book, the cause of so much unhappines to Hunt 
 at the time of its publication, afterwards became the 
 basis of his Autobiography, which is perhaps the best 
 known of his works, and the one that is likely to 
 survive the longest. " Had Lord Byron and his Con- 
 temporaries never been written," says Mr. Brimley 
 Johnson, " we should have lost, what some of us at 
 least would be very unwilling to spare, a most intimate 
 and life-like contemporary impression of the author of 
 Don Juan ; while a number of charges against Leigh 
 Hunt would have remained unanswered, and, perhaps 
 unanswerable. No one else was both able and willing 
 to conduct his defence, and he was thus driven to act 
 as his own counsel." The account of the author's life, 
 and early recollections, his reminiscences of Shelley, 
 Lamb and Keats were all included in these expanded 
 Recollections as well as the description of the voyage 
 to Italy. 
 
 The Autobiography was written at 32, Edwardes 
 Square, Kensington, probably during the year 1849, and 
 the early months of 1850. A writer in the Bookman^ 
 \iov April, 189.3, recalls a pleasant visit to Leigh Hunt 
 jat Edwardes Square some years earlier. "I had ex- 
 jpected," he says, " to find him all briskness and vivacity. 
 ;0n the contrary, as he sat and talked among his books, 
 '.busts and engravings, tall, dark complexioned, with a 
 thoughtful brow and expressive hazel eyes, his greyish 
 black hair flowing down to his shoulders, he gave you 
 the impression of courteous dignity and repose. In a 
 grave sweet voice, he spoke frankly, but always kindly, 
 
 * The writer signs <i> (^, F, E[espinasse]). 
 viii
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 of the notable men with whom he had been intimate, 
 and of whom, a junior as I was, might wish to hear : 
 Shelley and Keats, Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. . . . He 
 liked his domicile and its surroundings. Edwarde^ 
 Square, with its pretty houses, large enclosure, gardens! 
 behind, and spacious grass-plots in front, had been ' in- 
 vented,' as he phrased it, by a Frenchman, and Hunt has 
 recorded his inability when first he saw it to reconcile it 
 with ' English principles ' of house-building and street 
 construction. It was quite a rus in urbe, just suited fot 
 a poet who, while delighting in trees and flowers and 
 verdure, loved also to hear the busy hum of men. By 
 a visitor, who like myself knew nothing of his financial 
 difficulties, which then, as almost always, embarrassed 
 him, but which never disturbed his outward serenity, 
 Leigh Hunt might have been pronounced a happy man. 
 After an absence of a year or two from London, I revisi- 
 ted Leigh Hunt at Edwardes Square and found him in ex- 
 cellent spirits. His delightful Autobiography was being 
 received with a chorus of approval, which gladdened the 
 veteran's heart, and brought him again very promi- 
 nently into notice." 
 
 The first edition of the Autobiography appeared on 
 June 8, 1850, in three volumes. The book was warmly 
 received by the author's numerous friends, but its 
 critics in the press were the reverse of cordial. Both 
 the Athenceum and the Spectator gave it long reviews, 
 but little praise, and enlarged on its diffuseness. The 
 edition gradually sold, however, until at the end of nine 
 years there was a call for a fresh edition, and Leigh 
 Hunt spent what were actually his last days in revising 
 and compressing the whole work, and adding a final 
 chapter to complete the story of his life. It so happened 
 that there was very little for others to add, for his death 
 took place shortly afterwards, in August, 1859. The 
 new edition was finally prepared for the press by his 
 eldest son Thornton, and issued in the following De- 
 cember. Those papers that had but faintly praised 
 the first edition were quick to acknowledge merits of 
 the later version. For instance the Spectator [Sep. 18, 
 1860] said that " in its amended form, the book is 
 
 ix h
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 one of the most graceful, racy iind genial chronicles 
 of the incidents and influences of a human life in the 
 English language. The sweetness of temper, the in- 
 domitahle love and forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and 
 the faith in the ultimate triumph of good, revealed in 
 its pages show the humane and noble qualities of the 
 ^-riter." 
 
 And the Athencvum [July 4, 1860] spoke of it "now as 
 perfect a book as care and love can make it. This pic- 
 ture of a father painted by a son, in Mr. Thornton 
 Hunt's Introduction is one of the most beautiful and 
 tender things in Literature." 
 
 The present volumes, which are a reprint of the latest 
 revised edition, contain reproductions of the portraits 
 of the author (by Hayter), and of Lamb and Keats, which 
 originally appeared in Lord Byron and his Conteinpor- 
 aries.^ 
 
 The Editor desires primarily to thank Mr. Thomas 
 Seccombe, who originated the idea of this reprint, for 
 his ready help and kind encouragement in the prepara- 
 tion of the book for the press. He also acknowledges 
 the courtesy of Mr. Walter Leigh Hunt, who not only 
 kindly supplied him with much information regarding 
 his grandfather and his family, but also allowed his 
 portrait of Leigh Hunt by Samuel Laurence to be repro- 
 duced for the present reprint of the Autobiography. 
 Thanks are due to Mr. Bertram Dobell, for assistance in 
 proof reading, and for many useful suggestions ; also to 
 Mr. R. Brimley Johnson for permission to make a liberal 
 use of his valuable contributions to the study of the 
 autobiographer. 
 
 March, 1903. ^^^^^ ^^^^^^- 
 
 *^* The footnotes not enclosed by brackets are the 
 author's, those enclosed by brackets with the signature 
 T. H. are by Thornton Hunt, and those within brackets, 
 with no signature, are the present editor's. 
 
 ' In the appendix will be found"" some additional material illus- 
 trating the Autobiography, including Leigh Hunt's "attempt to 
 estimate his own character," an autobiographic fragment, intended 
 for use in his book on Lord Byron, which was discovered some ten 
 years ago in the Forster Collection by the late jMt. Dykes Campbell. 
 
 X
 
 TESTIMONIA 
 
 I HAVE just finished your Autobiography, which has been 
 most pleasantly occupying my leisure these three days. . . . 
 Well, I call this an excellent good book, by far the best of the 
 autobiographic kind I remember to have read in the English 
 language ; and indeed, except it be Boswell's of Johnson, I do not 
 know where we have such a picture drawn of a human life as in 
 these three volumes. A pious, ingenious, altogether human and 
 worthy book ; imaging, with graceful honest and free felicity, many 
 interesting objects and persons on your life-path, and imaging ' 
 throughout, what is best of all, a gifted, gentle, patient, and valiant 
 human soul, as it buffets its way through the billows of time, and 
 will not drown though often in danger ; cannot he drowned, but 
 conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it ... . In fact, 
 this book has been like a written exercise of devotion to me ; I have 
 not assisted at any sermon, liturgy or litany, this long while, that 
 has had so religious an affect on me. Thanks in the name of all 
 men. And believe, along with me, that this book will be welcome 
 to other generations as well as to ours. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 1850. 
 
 Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the pre- 
 sent age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times — 
 much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not 
 repulsive, aspect. If he goes on qualis ab incepto, I know few men 
 who will deserve more praise, or obtain it. I must go and see him 
 again — the rapid succession of adventure since last summer, added 
 to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our ac- 
 quaintance ; but he is a man worth knowing. 
 
 Lord Byron, 1813. 
 To Leigh Hunt, Esq. 
 Glory and Loveliness have pass'd away ; 
 For if we wander out in early morn. 
 No wreathed incense do we see upbourne 
 Into the east to meet the smiling day : 
 No crowd of nymphs soft-voiced and young and gay, 
 In woven baskets bringing ears of corn, 
 Roses and pinks, and violets to adorn 
 The shrine of Flora in her early May. 
 But there are left delights as high as these 
 
 And I shall ever bless my destiny. 
 That in a time when under pleasant trees 
 Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free, 
 A leafy luxury, seeing I could please 
 
 With these poor offerings, a man like thee. 
 Dedication to his Poems, 1817. 
 
 John Kkats. 
 xi
 
 TESTIMONIA 
 
 Had I known a person more highly endowed than yourself with 
 all that it l>ocomes a man to possess, I had solicited for this work 
 the ornament of his name. One more gentle, honourable, innocent 
 and brave ; one of more exalted toleration for all who do and think 
 evil, and yet himself more free fi'om evil ; one who knows better 
 how to receive, and how to confer a benefit, though he must ever 
 confer far more than he can receive ; one of simpler, and, in the 
 highest sense of the word, of purer life and manners I never knew ; 
 and I hiid already been fortunate in friendships when your name 
 was added to the list. 
 
 From the Dedication of The Cenci, 1819. 
 
 Percy B. Shelley. 
 
 . . . Hunt ; one of those happy souls 
 WTiich are the salt of the earth, and without whom 
 This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ! 
 Who is what others seem ; his room no doubt 
 Is still adorn'd by many a cast from Shout, 
 With graceful flowers, tastefully placed about ; 
 And coronals of bay from riband hung, 
 And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung, 
 The gifts of the most learn'd among some dozens 
 Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins. 
 And there is he with his eternal puns. 
 Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 
 Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 
 Alas ! it is no use to-day, " I'm poor ! " 
 Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 
 Things wiser than were ever said in book. 
 Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness. 
 From the Letter to Mai'ia G-isborne, 1820. 
 
 Percy B. Shelley. 
 
 to my friend the indicator. 
 Your easy Essays indicate a pleasant flow, 
 Dear Friend, of brain, ■which we may elsewhere seek ; 
 And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe, 
 That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week. 
 Such observation, wit, and sense, are shown. 
 We think the days of Bickerstaffe returned ; 
 And that a portion of that oil you own, 
 In his undying midnight lamp which burned. 
 I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head. 
 Or wrong the rules of grammar understood ; 
 But, with the leave of Priscian be it said, 
 The Indicative is your Potential Mood. 
 Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator — 
 Hunt, your best title yet is Indicator. 
 
 Charles Lams, 1820. 
 xii
 
 TESTIMONIA 
 
 I look upon the author of Rimini as a man of taste and a poet. 
 He is better than so ; he is one of the most cordial-minded men I 
 ever knew — a matchless fireside companion. I mean not to affront 
 or wound your feelings when I say, that in his more genial moods 
 he has often reminded me of you. There is the same air of mild 
 dogmatism — the same condescending to boyish sportiveness in both 
 your conversations. 
 
 Charles Lamb to Sotjthey, 1823. 
 
 He is the only poet or literary man we ever knew who puts us 
 in mind of Sir John Suckling, or Killigrew, or Oarew ; or who 
 united rare intellectual acquirements with outward grace and 
 natural gentility. 
 
 William Hazlitt on Leigh Hunt, 1825. 
 
 We have a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt. We form our judgment 
 of him, indeed, only from events of universal notoriety, from his 
 own works, and from the works of other writers, who have gener- 
 ally abused him in the most rancorous manner. But, unless we are 
 greatly mistaken, he is a very clever, a very honest, and a very 
 good-hearted man. We can clearly discern, together with many 
 merits, many faults both in his writings and in his conduct. But 
 we I'eally think that there is hardly a man living whose merits have 
 been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly 
 expiated. 
 
 Lord Macaulay, 1841. 
 
 A beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a, 
 black dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive ; 
 all over, and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. 
 . . . I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never 
 saw a finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the ex- 
 pression, nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly with- 
 out the slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in 
 this respect. . . . But when he began to speak, and as he grew more 
 earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age ; some- 
 times, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which 
 his sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash 
 of youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I 
 never witnessed such a wonderfully illvisive transformation, before 
 or since ; and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should 
 find it difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predica- 
 ment — youth or age. . . . His eyes were dark and very fine, and his 
 delightful voice accompanied their visible language like music. . . . 
 I felt that no effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, 
 however transitory, in myself escaped his notice. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne's Our Old Home. 
 
 xiii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE author's progenitors 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fetching a man's mind from the cradle — Transmission of 
 family faces and qualities — Childhood a favourite theme in 
 after-life — The Author's ancestors and father — Perils of the 
 latter during the American Revolution— Compliment paid 
 him by the father of Sheridan— His answer to a Bishop, and 
 general character and career — Becomes tutor to the nephew 
 of the Duke of Chandos— Accidental death of that noble- 
 man, and affecting end of his Duchess — Misfortunes in the 
 Author's family — His mother and her connexions — Her 
 behaviour diu-ing her voyage to England ; admirable con- 
 duct on various other occasions ; and love of the sunset 
 during her decline 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 [1784-1792.] 
 The Leigh family — Preposterous charge against it — Beautiful 
 character in Fielding applied to Mr. Leigh by his son — 
 Author's birthplace, Southgate — Dr. Trinder, clergyman 
 and physician — Calais and infant heresy — Porpoises and 
 Dolphins — A despotic brother — Supernatural fears in child- 
 hood — Anecdote of an oath — Martial toys — Infant church- 
 militant — Manners and customs of the time — Music and 
 poetry — Memories of songs — Authors in vogue — Pitt and 
 Fox — Lords and Commons 30 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 [1791-1799] 
 Children's books — Hogarth — Christ Hospital— Moral and per- 
 sonal courage — Anecdote of a racket-ball — Fagging — Visits 
 of Queen Victoria to the school — Details respecting that 
 foundation, its manners and customs, modes of training, 
 
 XV
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 J'AGE 
 
 distinpuisheil scholiirs, preachers and schoolmasters, etc. — 
 Coleridge and Lamb— "Mr. Guy"— Tooke's Pantheon and 
 the British poets — Scalded legs and the luxuries of a sick 
 ward 54 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 SCHOOL-DAYS {contintied) 
 [1791-1799] 
 Healthy literary training of Christ Hospital— Early friendship- 
 Early love — St. James's Park, music and war — President 
 West and his house— The Thornton family and theirs — The 
 Dayrells and first love — Early thoughts of religion — Jews 
 and their synagogues — Coleridge and Lamb — A mysterious 
 schoolfellow — The greater mystery of the Fazzer— Mitchell 
 and Barnes — Boatings, bathings, and Lady Craven— De- 
 parture from school 92 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 [1799-1802] 
 Juvenile verses — Visits to Cambridge and Oxford — Danger of 
 drowning — Bobart, the Oxford coachman — Spirit of Uni- 
 versity training — Dr. Raine, of the Charterhouse — A 
 juvenile beard — America and Dr. Franklin — Maurice, 
 author of Indian antiquities — Welsh bards — A religious 
 hoy — Doctrine of self-preservation — A walk frem Ramsgate 
 to Brighton— Character of a liver at inns — A devout 
 landlord — Inhospitality to the benighted — Answers of 
 rustics to wayfarers — Pedestrian exploits — Dangers of 
 delay — The club of elders 119 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PLAYGOIXG AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 [1802-1872] 
 Threatened invasion by the French — The St. James's volun- 
 teers—Singular debut of their Colonel — Satire of Foote — A 
 taste of campaigning — Recollections of the stage at the 
 beginning of the present century — Farley, De Camp, Miss 
 De Camp, Emery, Kelly and Mrs. Crouch, Catalani, Mrs. 
 Billington, Madame Grassini, Braham, Pasta and Lablache, 
 female singers in general ; Ambrogetti, Vestris the dancer, 
 Parisot ; singing and dancing in former times and present, 
 Jack Bannister, Fawcett, Munden, EUiston, Mathews, 
 Dowton, Cooke, the Kembles and Mrs. Siddons, and Mrs. 
 Jordan — Playgoing in youth — Critical playgoing — Play- 
 
 xvi
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 going in general not what it was — Social position of actors 
 in those times — John Kemble and a noble lord at a book 
 sale — Earl Spencer 131 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 [1804-1808] 
 Acquaintance with the British classics, and contribution of a 
 series of articles to an evening paper — Oolman and Bonnell 
 Thornton — Goldsmith again — Reading of novels — Objection 
 to history — Voltaire — Youthful theology — The News — 
 "Critical Essays on the Performers of the London 
 Theatres " — John Kemble and his whims of pronunciation. 154 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 [1805-1807] 
 
 Nervous illness and conclusions therefrom — Mystery of the 
 universe — Hypochondriacal recreations — A hundred and 
 fifty rhymes on a trisyllable — Pastoral innocence — A di- 
 dactic yeoman — " Hideous sight" of Dr. Young — Action the 
 cure for sedentary ailments — Boating ; a fray on the 
 Thames; magical effect of the word "law" — Retui-n of 
 health and enjoyment 180 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE " EXAMINER " 
 
 [1808] 
 
 Establishment of the Examiner — Albany Fonblanque — 
 Author's mistake in setting out on his editorial career — 
 Objects of the Examiyier, and misrepresentations of them 
 by the Tories — Jeu d' esprit of " Napoleon in his Cabinet " — 
 * ' Breakfast sympathies with the miseries of war " — War 
 dispassionately considered — Anti-Republicanism of the 
 Examiner, and its views in theology — The author for some 
 time a clerk in the War Office — His patron, Mr. Addington, 
 afterwards Lord Sidmouth — Poetry and accounts . . 192 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 [1809] 
 
 Du Bois — Campbell — Theodore Hooke — Mathews — James and 
 
 Horace Smith — Fuseli — Bonnycastle — Kinnaird, etc. . 200 
 
 xvii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 POLITICAL CHAKACTKKS 
 
 [1808-1812] 
 
 Ministry of the Pittitos— Time-serving conduct of the allies — 
 Height anil downfall of Napoleon — Character of George the 
 Third — JMistakes and sincerity of the Examiner — Indict- 
 ment against it respecting the case of Major Hogan — 
 Affair of Mrs. Clarke — Indictment respetting the reign of 
 George the Thu"d — PeiTy, proprietor of the Morning 
 Chron'wU — Charactersj of L(n'd Canning, Liverpool, and Lord 
 Castlereagh — "Whigs and Whig-Radicals — Queen Victoria — 
 Royalty and Repulilics — Indictment respecting military 
 flogging — The Attorney-General, Sir Vicary Gibbs . . 218 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LITEBART WARFARE 
 
 [1810] 
 
 The Reflector and the winters in it — Feast of the Poets — Its 
 attack on Gilford for his attacks on Mrs. Robinson — Char- 
 acter of Giflford and his writings — Specimens of the Baviad 
 and Ma;viad — His appearance at the Roxburgh sale of 
 books — Attack on Walter Scott, occasioned by a passage 
 in his edition of Dryden — Tory calumny — Quarrels and 
 recriminations of authors — The writer's present opinion of 
 Sir Walter — General offence caused by the Feast of tJie 
 Poets — Its inconsiderate treatment of Hayley — Dinner of 
 the Prince Regent: — Holland House and Lord Holland — 
 Neutralization of Whig advocacy — Recollections of Blanco 
 White . , 238 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE REGENT AND THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 [1812] 
 
 "The Prince on St. Patrick's Day" — Indictment for an attack 
 on the Regent in that article — Present feelings of the writer 
 on the subject: — Real sting of the offence in the article — 
 Sentence of the proprietors of the Examiner to an im- 
 prisonment for two years — Their rejection of two proposals 
 of compromise — Lord Ellenborough, Mr. Garrow, and Mr. 
 Justice Grose 254 
 
 xviii
 
 LIST OF PORTRAITS 
 
 Vol, I 
 
 Leigh Hunt 
 Leigh Hunt 
 Charles Lamb 
 Leigh Hunt 
 Leigh Hunt 
 P. B. Shelley 
 
 Samuel Lawrence. Frontispiece 
 B. Botvyer. To face p. 80 
 
 H. Meyer. „ „ 112 
 
 J. Severn. ,, ,, 150 
 
 J. Hayter. „ „ 192 
 
 Amelia Curran. „ „ 210 
 
 XIX
 
 i 
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 The titles of Leigh Hunt's books are in italics, contemporary eyents iih 
 square brackets. 
 aet. 
 
 [Chatterton died. Wordsworth born.] 
 
 [Gray died. Sir Walter Scott born.] 
 
 [Coleridge born.] 
 
 [Charles Valentine Le Grice born.] 
 
 [Goldsmith died. South ey born.] 
 
 [John Hunt born. Charles Lamb born. Lander bom.Ii 
 
 [Thomas Campbell born.] 
 
 [Hazlitt born.] 
 
 [T. Moore born.] 
 
 Leigh Hunt born at Southgate, Middlesex, October 19. 
 
 [Lord Palmerston born. Dr. Johnson died.] 
 [Marianne Kent (afterwards Mrs. Leigh Hunt) born.. 
 
 Byron born.] 
 Entered Christ Hospital. 
 [Shelley born.] 
 [Carlyle born.] 
 [Burns died. Keats born.] 
 
 [Mary W, Shelley, n^e Godwin, born. Burke died.] 
 Left Christ Hospital. [Hood born.] 
 [Cowper died. Macaulay born.] 
 Juvenilia. Portrait by R. Bowyer. Contributed to 
 
 "European Magazine," "Juvenile Library" and 
 
 " Monthly Preceptor." 
 
 1804 20 Contributed to " The Traveller " under the signature of 
 
 "Mr. Town." [Benjamin Disraeli born.] 
 
 1805 21 Contributed to the "News." 
 
 1806-722-23 Classic Tales, 5 vols., edited. [Pitt and Fox died, 1806.] 
 
 1807 23 Critical Essays on the Perforiners of the London Theatres. 
 
 Clerk to his brother Stephen, an attorney. Afterwards 
 clerk in the War Office. 
 
 1808 24 Examiner, edited till 1821 : John Hunt, publisher. 
 
 1809 25 Married Marianne Kent. Lived at Beckenham, Kent, till 
 
 1811. [Rev. Isaac Hunt died, set. 57.] An Attempt to 
 shoiv the Folly and Danger of Methodism. [A. Ten- 
 nyson born. Elizabeth Barrett Browning born.^ 
 W. E. Gladstone born. 0. Darwin born.] 
 
 xxi 
 
 1770 
 
 
 1771 
 
 
 1772 
 
 
 1773 
 
 
 1774 
 
 
 1775 
 
 
 1777 
 
 
 1778 
 
 
 1779 
 
 
 1784 
 
 
 1788 
 
 4 
 
 1791 
 
 7 
 
 1792 
 
 8 
 
 1795 
 
 11 
 
 1796 
 
 12 
 
 1797 
 
 13 
 
 1799 
 
 15 
 
 1800 
 
 16 
 
 1801 
 
 17
 
 1815 
 
 31 
 
 1816 
 
 32 
 
 1817 
 
 33 
 
 1818 
 
 34 
 
 1819 
 
 35 
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 ipt. 
 
 1810 26 Reflector edited : concluded 1811. Reformists Reply to 
 
 the Edinburgh Review. Thornton Hunt born. 
 
 1811 27 Hampstejid. Prosecuted with his brother by Govern- 
 
 ment for an article in the Ejcaminer on Military 
 Flogging. [Thackeray born. E. A. Poe born.] 
 
 1812 28 Libel on the Prince Regent in Examiner, for which, with 
 
 John Hunt, tried and sentenced to two years' im- 
 prisonment. [Dickens born. R. Browning born.] 
 
 1813 29 Entered prison February 13. Visited by Moore and 
 
 Byron. 
 
 1814 30 The Feast of the Poets. Hunt's daughter, Mary Florimel, 
 
 born (afterwards Mrs. John Gliddon). 
 
 Left prison. Edgware Road. The Descent of Liberty. 
 
 Removes to Hampstead in the Spring. Visited by 
 Shelley, December. Tlie Story of Rimini. 
 
 13, Lisson Grove North. The Round Table (with W. 
 Hazlitt). 
 
 8, York Buildings, New Road. Foliage. 
 
 The Literary Pocket Book; also in 1820 {.ad 1821. The 
 Indicator edited : concluded 1821. Hero and Leander 
 and Bacchus and Ariadne. Poetical Works, Percy 
 Hunt born. [Percy Florence Shelley born.] 
 
 1820 36 13, Mortimer Terrace, Kentish Town, from April 6 to 
 
 August 23. Portrait by Joseph Severn. Amyntas, a 
 Tale of the Woods. [George IV. succeeded George III.] 
 
 1821 37 Vale of Health, Hampstead. The Months, November 
 
 15. Sets out for Italy, with family, but driven by storms 
 into Plymouth, where detained several months. 
 [Keats died, February 23.] 
 
 1822 38 The Hunts start again for Italy, May. Arrive in Italy, 
 
 June. [Shelley died, July 8.] The Liberal edited. 
 Pisa. Genoa. The Literary Examiner edited. 
 
 1823 39 Florence. Vincent Hunt born. Ultra-CrepidaHus : a 
 
 Satire on Wm, Gifford, Wishing Cap Papers in 
 
 "Examiner." 
 Quarrelled with his brother, John Hunt. [Byron died.] 
 Bacchus in Tuscany, from the Italian of Francesco 
 
 Redi, Returns to England. Highgate till 1828. 
 Swinburne Hunt died. 
 Portrait by J. Hayter. Lord Byron atid Some of his 
 
 Contemporaries, The Companion edited. Epsom. 
 
 1830 46 Chat of tJie Week edited. The Tatler, a daily sheet, 
 
 edited (concluded February 13, 1832). Cromwell Lane, 
 Old Brompton. [Hazlitt died. Williami IV. succeeded 
 George IV.] 
 
 1831 47 Elm Tree Road, St. John's Wood. 
 
 xxii 
 
 1824 
 
 40 
 
 1825 
 
 41 
 
 1827 
 
 43 
 
 1828 
 
 44
 
 1835 
 
 51 
 
 1836 
 
 52 
 
 1837 
 
 53 
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 aet. 
 
 1832 48 5, York Buildings, New Road, till 1833, Poetical Works 
 
 by subscription. Sir Ralph Esher. Christianis7n. 
 Shelley's Masque of Atiarchy edited. [Sir Walter 
 Scott died,] 
 
 1833 49 4, Upper Oheyne Row, Chelsea, till 1840, New series 
 
 of Wishing Cap Papers in " Tait's Magazine." 
 
 1834 50 Selections from The Indicator and Companion. Leigh 
 
 Hunt's London Journcd edited (concluded in 1835). 
 [Coleridge died. C. Lamb died.] 
 
 Captaiyi Sicord arul Captain Pen. 
 
 [William Godwin died.] 
 
 Portrait by Samuel Lawrence. Succeeds W, J. Fox as 
 editor of Monthly Repository (till 1838). [Accession 
 of Queen Victoria.] 
 1840 56 32, Edwardes Square, Kensington, June till 1851. The 
 Seer, or Commonplaces Refreshed (and 1841), A Legend 
 of Florence produced at Covent Garden, February 7. 
 Biographical and Critical Sketch of Sheridan prefixed 
 to Dramatic Works, Biographical and Critical Notices 
 to works of Wycherley, Oongreve, Vanbrugh and 
 Farquhar, [Egerton Webbe died, aged 30,] 
 
 Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernized (contributed to). 
 
 The Palfrey, a Love Story of Old Times. 
 
 One Hundred Romances of Real Life (reprinted from 
 " London Journal "), [Southey died,] 
 
 1844 60 Pocket edition of Poems (with additions). Imagination 
 
 and Fancy. Sir Percy Shelley settled £120 per 
 annum on Hunt. [T. Campbell died.] 
 
 1845 61 Edited Thornton Hunt's " Foster Brother." [Hood died.] 
 
 1846 62 Wit and Humour. Stories from the Italian Poets, 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 1847 63 Contributes A Saunter through the West End to the 
 
 "Atlas." 3Ie7i, Women and Books. Civil List pen- 
 sion of £200 a year. Dickens' Amateur Company 
 performed "Every Man in his Humour" for Hunt's 
 benefit; he received 400 guineas. [Mary Lamb died.] 
 
 1848 64 A Jar of Honey from Mount Hyhla. The Town. [John 
 
 Hunt died Sep. 7.] 
 
 1849 65 A Book for a CorTier. Edited Readings for Railways. 
 
 [E. A. Poe died.] 
 
 1850 66 Portrait by W. F. Williams. The Autobiography of 
 
 Leigh Hunt, 3 vols. Leigh Hunfs Journal, new 
 series, edited : Dec. 7 to March 29, 1851. [Words- 
 worth died.] 
 
 1851 67 2, Phillimore Terrace, Kensington. Table Talk. Visits 
 
 Ewell. [Mary W. Shelley died.] 
 
 xxiii 
 
 1841 
 
 57 
 
 1842 
 
 58 
 
 1843 
 
 59
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 a?t. 
 
 1852 68 A TA-gctid of Florence revived at Sadler's Wells. 
 
 Vincent Hunt died, October. 7, Cromwell Road, 
 Haniniorsniith, where Hunt spent the rest of his days. 
 [T. Moore died.] 
 
 1853 69 The Religion of the Heart ("Christianism," 1832, en- 
 
 larged). 
 1855 71 The Old Court Suburb. Stoi'ies in Verse. Notes and 
 Preface to Finest Scenes from Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 1857 73 Poetical Works, 2 vols. Boston, U.S.A. Mrs. Leigh 
 
 Hunt died. 
 
 1858 74 im"er'.s^wm2:e)nc7i<sproducedatthe Lyceum, January 20. 
 
 [C. V. Le Grice died.] 
 
 1859 Revised Autobiography. Died at Putney, August 28, 
 
 aged 74 years and 10 months. Buried at Kensal 
 Green cemetery. [Macaulay died. De Quincey died.) 
 
 1859 Dec. Autobiography, neiv edition (dated 1860). 
 
 1860 Poetical Works, edited by Thornton Hunt. 
 
 1862 Leigh Hunfs Correspondence, edited by Thornton Hunt. 
 
 1869 Monument to Leigh Hunt in Kensal Green Cemetery 
 
 inaugurated by Lord Houghton, October 19, the 85th 
 
 anniversary of Hunt's birth. 
 
 XXIV
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1850 
 
 BEFORE the reader looks any further into these 
 volumes, I would entreat him to bear in mind 
 two things. 
 
 And I say " entreat," and put those two words in 
 italics, not in order to give emphasis to the truth (for 
 truth is, or ought to be, its own emphasis) but to show 
 him how anxious I am on the points, and to impress 
 them the more strongly on his attention. The first is, 
 that the work, whatever amusement he may find in it 
 (and I hope, for the publishers' sake, as well as my 
 own, that it is not destitute of amusement) was com- 
 menced under circumstances which committed me to 
 its execution, and would have been abandoned at 
 almost every step, had those circumstances allowed. 
 
 The second is, that the life being that of a man of 
 letters, and topics of a different sort failing me towards 
 the conclusion, I found myself impelled to dilate more 
 on my writings, than it would otherwise have entered 
 my head to contemplate. It is true, that autobio- 
 graphy, and autocriticism also, have abounded of late 
 years in literary quarters. The French appear to have 
 set the example. Goldoni and Alfieri followed it. Goethe 
 and Chateaubriand followed them. Coleridge's Literary 
 Life is professedly autocritical. With autocriticism 
 Wordsworth answered his reviewers. And editions of 
 Collected Works have derived new attractions from 
 whatever accounts of them their authors have been 
 induced to supply. 
 
 Example itself, however, while it furnishes excuse in 
 proportion to the right which a man has to follow it, 
 becomes a reason for alarm when he knows not the 
 extent of the warrant. Others will have to determine 
 that point, whatever he may be disposed to think of it ; 
 and perhaps he may be disposed not to think of it at 
 
 XXV c
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 all, but wholly to eschew its necessity. Such, at all 
 events, was the case with myself. I would have 
 entirely waived the autobiography, if a sense of justice 
 to others would have permitted me to do so. My 
 friend and publisher, Mr. Smith, ^ will satisfy any one 
 on that head, who is not acquainted with my veracity. 
 But Mr. Smith's favourable opinion of me, and his own 
 kindly feeling, led him to think it would be so much 
 the reverse of a disadvantage to me in the end, that he 
 took the handsomest means of making the task as easy 
 to me as he could, through a long period of engage- 
 ments over due, and of interruptions from ill health ; 
 and though I can never forget the pain of mind which 
 some of the passages cost me, yet I would now, for 
 both our sakes, willingly be glad that the work has been 
 done, provided the public think it worth reading, and 
 are content with this explanation. The opportunity, 
 indeed, which it has given me of recalling some 
 precious memories, of correcting some crude judgments, 
 and, in one respect, of discharging a duty that must 
 otherwise have been delayed, make me persuade my- 
 self, on the whole, that I am glad. So I shall endea- 
 vour, with the reader's help, to remain under that 
 comfortable impression. I will liken myself to an 
 actor, who, though commencing his part on the stage 
 with a gout or a headache, or, perhaps, even with a bit 
 of heartache, finds his audience so willing to be pleased, 
 that he forgets his infirmity as he goes, and ends with 
 being glad that he has appeared. 
 
 One thing, perhaps, may be said in greater excuse for 
 me, than for most autobiographers ; namely, that I have 
 been so accustomed during the greater part of my life 
 to talk to the reader in my own person, or at least to 
 compare notes with him by implication on all sorts of 
 personal subjects, that I fall more naturally into this 
 kind of fireside strain than most writers, and therefore 
 
 [^ Mr. George Smith (1824-1901), the senior partner of Messrs. 
 Smith, Elder & Co. His reminiscences of Leigh Hunt are contained 
 in an interesting paper entitled "In the Early Forties," which he 
 contributed to the Cornhill Magazine for November, 1900. For a 
 detailed Memoir of Mr. Smith, see Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy. Supplement, vol. I.] 
 
 xxvi
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 do not present the public so abrupt an image of in- 
 dividuality. 
 
 So much for talking of myself at all. The autocriticism 
 I would rank at due distance, in the category of those 
 explanations, of their thoughts and feelings, their 
 designs, or idiosyncrasies, with which poets have 
 occasionally accompanied their verses, from the times 
 of Dante and Petrarch downwards. At least, this was 
 the example or instinctive principle, on which I acted, 
 owing to my intimacy with the old Italian writers, and 
 to my love of the way in which their prose falls a 
 talking of their poetry ; for I have not entered into the 
 nature of such autocriticism itself, or given my reasons 
 as I might have done, and I think to good effect, for 
 the desirableness of poets giving an account of their 
 art. I came unexpectedly on the subject, while at a 
 loss for my next autobiographical topic ; and I was so 
 perplexed what to find, that I had not time even to 
 make choice of my instances. I would make the same 
 excuse for going into details on other points, especially 
 those most relating to myself ; for I have lived long 
 enough to discover, that autobiography may not only be 
 a very distressing but a puzzling task, and throw the 
 writer into such doubts as to what he should or should 
 not say, as totally to confuse him. What conscience 
 bids him utter, for the sake of the world, may be clear 
 enough ; and in obeying that, he must find his consola- 
 tion for all chances of injury to himself. 
 
 The autobiography includes all that seemed worth 
 retaining of what has before been written in connexion 
 with it, and this has received the benefit of a maturer 
 judgment. The political articles from the Examiner, 
 curious from the consequences attending them, are 
 republished for the first time ; several hitherto unpub- 
 lished letters of Thomas Moore appear in the third 
 volume, in addition to those which the public have 
 already seen^ ; and the whole work will be new to by far 
 the greater number of readers, not only because of the 
 new reading generations that have come up, but be- 
 cause times are altered, and writers are willingly heard 
 [' Omitted in the second and all subsequent editions.] 
 xxvii
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 now, in tlio comparative calm of parties, and during 
 the anxiety of all honest men to know what it is best 
 to think or do, whom, twenty or thirty years ago, 
 every means would have been taken to suppress. 
 
 What may be said for the tergeminus honos of the 
 portraits, for my having suffered myself to be made 
 " three gentlemen at once," I do not so well know ; 
 unless the curiosity of catching a fellow-creature in 
 this extraordinary act of simultaneousness, and the 
 being able to see ho^v any one else might look under 
 like presentment of three different periods of life, may 
 be thought a reasonable excuse for it. At all events, 
 these are perils that valiant publishers tell autobio- 
 graphers they are bound to undergo ; so I have 
 acquiesced, as people are accustomed to do, who are 
 willing to be thought valiant in valiant company. 
 
 Let me close this preface with thanking two members 
 of a profession, which literature has always reason to 
 thank and to love ; the one my old and distinguished 
 friend Dr. Southwood Smith, the friend of his species, 
 whose attentions to my health enabled me to proceed 
 with the work ; and the other, my new and, if I am 
 not greatly mistaken, hereafter to be distinguished 
 friend. Dr. Francis Sibson, a young physician, who is 
 not unworthy to be named at the same time, who did 
 me the like cordial service when I could no longer pre- 
 vail on myself to interrupt a public benefactor. 
 
 And so Heaven bless the reader, and all of us ; and 
 enable us to compare notes some day in some Elysium 
 corner of intuition, where we shall be in no need of 
 prefaces and explanations, and only wonder how any 
 of us could have missed the secret of universal know- 
 ledge and happiness. 
 
 Reader (smiling and staring about him). — Where is 
 it? 
 
 Author. — Ah, we must get into the confines of 
 Elysium first, in order to know. 
 Reader. — And where is Elysium ? 
 Author. — Why, a good old Divine of the Church of 
 England says, the approach to it is called Temper. — 
 " Heaven," says Dr. Whichcote, " is first a temper, and 
 then a place." 
 
 xxviii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 By THORNTON HUNT 
 
 THE author's eldest SON 
 
 THIS edition of the Autobiography was revised 
 by Mr. Leigh Hunt, and brought down to the 
 present year by his own hand. He had almost com- 
 pleted the passages which he intended to add ; but he 
 had left some portions which were marked for omis- 
 sion in a state of doubt. From the manner in which 
 the work was written, points of interest here and 
 there were passed over indistinctly or omitted alto- 
 gether, and some inaccuracies were overlooked in the 
 re-perusal. In a further revision by the writer's eldest 
 son, several obscurities have been cleared away, in- 
 accuracies have been corrected, and omissions have 
 been supplied. The interpolated passages, whether in 
 the text or in notes, are distinguished by being in- 
 cluded in brackets. 
 
 In the Preface to the earlier edition, the Author 
 avowed that he felt a difficulty in having to retrace a 
 life which was marked by comparatively little incident, 
 and was necessarily, therefore, mainly a retrospect of 
 his own writings. Another difficulty, of which he was 
 evidently conscious only through its effect in cramping 
 his pen, lay in an excess of scruple when he ap- 
 proached personal matters. In the revisal of this 
 second edition, however, the lapse of time had in 
 some degree freed him from restraint ; and while the 
 curtailments necessary to compress the bulk of the 
 volume have been made principally in the more de- 
 tailed portions of the literary retrospect, the additions 
 have tended to increase the personal interest of the 
 text. The work is relieved of some other portions, 
 
 xxix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 because they may be found in his collected writings, 
 or because the subject-matter to which they refer is 
 out of date. The result of the alterations is, that the 
 biographical part of the volume is brought more 
 closely together, while it is presented with greater 
 fulness and distinctness. 
 
 The reader of this Autobiography will find it less 
 a relation of the events which happened to the writer, 
 than of their impression on himself, and the feelings 
 which they excited, or the ideas which they prompted. 
 This characteristic of the writing is in a great degree 
 a characteristic of the man, and thus the book reflects 
 his own life more than on a first judgment it might 
 ibe supposed to do. His whole existence and his habit 
 |of mind were essentially literary. If it were possible 
 rto form any computation of the hours which he ex- 
 pended severally in literary labour and in recreation, 
 ^after the manner of statistical comparisons, it would 
 ^be found that the largest portion of his hours was 
 I devoted to hard work in the seclusion of the study, 
 tand that by far the larger portion of the allotted 
 I " recreation " was devoted to reading, either in the 
 Istudy or in the society of his family. Those who 
 ■knew him best will picture him to themselves clothed 
 Hn a dressing-gown, and bending his head over a book 
 ^or over the desk. At some periods of his life he rose 
 early, in order that he might get to work early ; in 
 , other periods he rose late, because he sat over the 
 Vdesk very late. For the most part, however, he 
 ^habitually came down " too late " to breakfast, and 
 i'iwas no sooner seated sideways at the table than he 
 Jbegan to read. After breakfast he repaired to his 
 |study, where he remained until he went out to take 
 I his walk. He sometimes read at dinner, though not 
 (always. At some periods of his life he would sleep 
 '■■ after dinner ; but usually he retired from the table to 
 lo'ead. He read at tea time, and all the evening read 
 fov wrote. In early life his profession led him, as a 
 Jcritic, to the theatres, and the same employment took 
 |him there at later dates. In the earlier half of his 
 ^existence he mixed somewhat in society, and his own 
 
 XXX
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 house was noted, amongst a truly selected circle of 
 friends, for the tasteful ease of its conversation and 
 recreation, music usually forming a staple in both the 
 talk and the diversion. It was at this period of his 
 life that his appearance was most characteristic, and 
 none of the portraits of him adequately conveyed the 
 idea of it. One of the best, a half-length chalk draw- 
 ing, by an artist named Wildman, perished. The 
 miniature by Severn was only a sketch on a small 
 scale, but it suggested the kindness and animation of 
 his countenance. In other cases, the artists knew too 
 little of their sitter to catch the most familiar traits of 
 his aspect. He was rather tall, as straight as an 
 arrow, and looked slenderer than he really was. Hi& 
 hair was black and shining, and slightly inclined to-j 
 wave; his head was high, his forehead straight andi 
 white, his eyes black and sparkling, his general com-? 
 plexion dark. There was in his whole carriage and, 
 manner an extraordinary degree of life. Years and 
 trouble had obscured that brilliancy when the drawing | 
 was made of which a copy is prefixed to the present 
 volume ^ ; but it is a faithful portrait, in which the 
 reader will see much of the reflection, the earnestness, 
 and the affectionate thought that were such leading I 
 elements in his character. 
 
 As life advanced, as his family increased faster than 
 his means, his range of visiting became more con- 
 tracted, his devotion to labour more continuous, and 
 his friends reduced to the small number of those who 
 came only to steal for conversation the time that he 
 otherwise would have given to his books. Such friends 
 he welcomed heartily, and seldom allowed them to feel 
 the tax which they made him pay for the time thus 
 consumed. 
 
 Even at seasons of the greatest depression in his 
 fortunes, he always attracted many visitors, but still 
 not so much for any repute that attended him as for 
 his personal qualities. Few men were more attractive 
 " in society," whether in a large company or over the 
 
 [' The portrait by Williams, which forms the frontispiece ta 
 Vol. 2 of the present edition.] 
 
 xxxi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fireside. His manners were peculiarly animated ; his 
 conversation, varied, ranging over a great field of 
 subjects, was moved and called forth by the response 
 of his companion, be that companion philosopher or 
 student, siige or boy, man or woman ; and he was 
 equally ready for the most lively topics or for the 
 gi'avest reflections — his expression easily adapting 
 itself to the tone of his companion's mind. With 
 much freedom of manners, he combined a spontaneous 
 courtesy that never failed, and a considerateness 
 derived from a ceaseless kindness of heart that in- 
 variably fascinated even strangers. In the course of 
 his newspaper career, more than one enemy has come 
 to his house with the determination to extort dis- 
 avowals or to chastise, and has gone away with loud 
 expressions of his personal esteem and liking. 
 
 This tendency to seclusion in the study had a very 
 large and serious influence upon Leigh Hunt's life. It 
 arose, as we have seen, from no dislike to society ; on 
 the contrary, from youth to his very latest days, he 
 preferred to have companions with him ; but it was 
 necessary to be surrounded by his books. He used to 
 ascribe this propensity to his two years' seclusion in 
 prison ; and it is probable that that circumstance did 
 contribute to fasten upon his character what must 
 still have been an inborn tendency ; for it continued 
 through all changes of position. His natural faculties 
 conduced to make him regard all things that came 
 before him chiefly from the intellectual or imaginative 
 point of view. He had no aptitude for material 
 science, and always retained a very precarious grasp of 
 mere dry facts ; which, indeed, in proportion as they 
 ftended to the material or the hard, he almost dis- 
 ^ked ; the result was, that he viewed all things as in 
 <a mirror, and chiefly as they were reflected in books 
 or illuminated by literary commentary. 
 
 It is a necessary consequence of such a habit of 
 mind that he often failed to see realities directly as 
 they were ; and a further result was, that false ideas 
 which were industriously circulated of him, in the first 
 instance by political enemies, were confirmed, or even 
 
 xxxii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 strengthened, by false conceptions which he formed of 
 himself, and did not conceal. At a very early date, he 
 felt bound to avow his liberal opinions on the subject of. 
 religion : in those days it was a common and an easy 
 retort for an opponent to insinuate, that the man who 
 was not sound in the most important opinions of all, 
 must be wicked at heart, and therefore immoral in con- 
 duct; and, accordingly, Leigh Hunt has been accused 
 of lax morality in his personal life. To him the 
 shocking part of these accusals lay in their uncharit- 
 ableness, their disingenuousness, or their malignity. 
 In reply, he pointed to the charity enjoined by the 
 Divine Author of Christianity, and qualified even his 
 antagonism to such charges by appeals to charitable 
 constructions, and admissions of the foibles of human 
 nature, which suggested that there might be some 
 foundation of truth for the charge. He was accused 
 of improvidence, and he admitted incapacities for com- 
 putation in matters of money, or anything else, which 
 sounded very like a reluctant confession. Stern critics 
 discerned, in the pleasurable traits of his gayer poems, 
 proofs of effeminacy and weakness ; and throughout 
 Leigh Hunt's writings will be found admissions, or 
 even spontaneous announcements, of personal timidity. 
 If there were not numbers disposed to accept the best 
 construction of the man, it would be difficult indeed to 
 make them easily understand how utterly unfounded 
 are these apparent confirmations and admissions. 
 
 Such foibles as Leigh Hunt had lay altogether in 
 different directions. In early life he had no very 
 profound respect for appearances, but his conduct was 
 guided by a rigour of propriety that might shame 
 many of his accusers ; and in later life he entertained 
 a growing respect for appearances from the sense of 
 the mischief which misconstrued example might do. 
 His so-called improvidence resulted partly from actual 
 disappointment in professional undertakings, partly 
 from a real incapacity to understand any subjects 
 when they were reduced to figures, and partly also 
 from a readiness of self-sacrifice, which was the less 
 to be guessed by any who knew him, since he seldom 
 
 xxxiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 alluded to it, and never, except in the vaguest and 
 most unintelligible terms, hinted at its real nature or 
 extent. His personal timidity was simply an intel- 
 lectual hallucination, in some degree founded upon 
 what he supposed ought to be the utterly unmoved 
 feelings of " a brave man." I have seen him in many 
 situations calculated to try the nerves, and never saw 
 him moved by personal fear. He has been in a car- 
 riage of which the horses ran away, and seemed only 
 to enjoy the rapidity of the motion ; in fact, I believe 
 he could scarcely present to his mind the chances of 
 personal mischief that were before us. I have seen 
 him threatened, more than once, by brutal and brawny 
 rustics, whom he instantly approached with an ani- 
 mated and convincing remonstrance. I have seen him 
 in a carriage nearly carried away by a flooded river, 
 his whole anxiety being centred in one of his children 
 whom he thought to be more exposed than himself. 
 I have seen him for weeks together, each hour of 
 the day in imminent danger of shipwreck, and never 
 observed the slightest solicitude, except for those about 
 him. On the occasion which he mentions, when the 
 drunken steward endangered our being run down by 
 two large ships that passed us like vast clouds astern, 
 the lanterns were relit and handed up by Leigh Hunt 
 with the coolness of a practised seaman. But there 
 ivas a species of fear which beset him in every situa- 
 tion of life — it was, lest he might not do quite what 
 was right ; lest some terrible evil should be inflicted 
 upon somebody else ; and this thought, if he reflected, 
 did sometimes paralyse his action and provoke evi- 
 dent emotion. 
 
 Perhaps the mastering trait in his character was a 
 conscientiousness which was carried even to extremes. 
 While he possessed the uncertain grasp of material 
 facts which I have mentioned, and viewed things most 
 distinctly when they were presented to his mind in the 
 mirror of some abstraction, he never was able to rest 
 w^ith a final confidence in his own judgment. The 
 anxiety to recognize the right of others, the tendency 
 to " refine," which was noticed by an early school com- 
 
 xxxiv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 panion, and the propensity to elaborate every thought, 
 made him, along with the direct argument by which he 
 sustained his own conviction, recognize and almost 
 admit all that might be said on the opposite side. If, 
 indeed, the facts upon which he had to rely had be- 
 come matter of literary record, he would collect them 
 with an unwearied industry of research ; but in the 
 action of life these resources did not always avail him ; 
 and the excessive anxiety to take into account all that 
 might be advanced on every side, with the no less 
 excessive wish to do what was right, to avoid every 
 chance of wrong, and, if possible, to abstain from 
 causing any pain, begot an uncertainty of purpose for 
 which il can find no known prototype except in the 
 character of Hamlet. 
 
 The ultra-conscientiousness has affected even his 
 biography. With an unbounded frankness in speak- 
 ing of himself, he soon paused in speaking of others, 
 from the habit of questioning whether he had " any 
 right " to do so ; and thus an habitual frankness was 
 accompanied by an habitual and unconquerable re- 
 serve. His Autobiography is characteristically pro- 
 nounced in its silence. He has nowhere related the 
 most obvious family incidents. The silence is broken 
 almost in an inverse proportion to the intimacy of his 
 relations. He scarcely mentions his own marriage ; 
 excepting the faintest possible allusions, the only one 
 of his children to whom he alludes has been to a 
 certain extent before the public ; and even where his 
 personal friends gave him, in their own recognition by 
 the public, the right to speak of them openly, he has 
 faithfully used the right in the peculiar ratio which 
 has been pointed out, — freely mentioning those with 
 whom he held intercourse chiefly in literary matters 
 or in society, sparingly those whose intercourse power- 
 fully affected his own life. A conspicuous instance is 
 afforded by the friend who ultimately became his suc- 
 cessor in maintaining the general independence of the 
 Examiner, who has placed in the library immortal 
 contributions to the political history of the English 
 Commonwealth, who endeared himself to Leigh Hunt 
 
 xxxv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 even less by most valuable and laborious services than 
 by kindness of heart and generosity of mind, and who 
 retained his strongly expressed affection to the last. 
 It was not that he did not respond to the warmest 
 affection which he could so well inspire ; but in pro- 
 portion as it was strongly felt and personal he seemed 
 to regard it as unfitted for public allusion. 
 
 It would ill become a son gratuitously to reveal 
 " the faults " of his father ; though he himself taught 
 me to speak out the truth as I believe it. If I differ 
 with him, it is in not being ready to see " faults " in 
 any character, since I know of no abstract or ideal 
 measure by which the shortcoming could be estab- 
 lished. But in his case it is most desirable that his 
 qualities should be known as they were ; for such de- 
 ficiencies as he had are the honest explanation of his 
 mistakes ; while, as the reader may see from his wri- 
 ting and his conduct, they are not, as the faults of 
 which he was accused would be, incompatible with the 
 noblest faculties both of head and heart. To know 
 Leigh Hunt as he was, was to hold him in reverence 
 and love. 
 
 The likeness to Hamlet was not lost even in a sort of 
 aggressive conscientiousness. It affected his appre- 
 ciation of character, which was, of course, modified 
 also by the oblique sense of facts. Hence, some inci- 
 dents in his life which had the most serious conse- 
 quences to others, and therefore to himself. When he 
 first became acquainted with a new friend whom he 
 liked, he noticed with all his vivacity of ready and 
 intense admiration the traits which he thought to be 
 chiefly prominent in the aspect and bearing of the 
 other ; constructed a character inferentially, and es- 
 teemed his friend accordingly. This constructive 
 appreciation would survive the test of years. Then he 
 would discover that in regard to some quality or other 
 which he had ascribed to his friend " he was mis- 
 taken " ; the whole conception of the admired character 
 at once fell to the ground ; and his own disappointment 
 recoiled with bitterness and grief on the perplexed and 
 grieved friend. He never knew the pain he thus 
 
 xxxvi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 caused to some of the most loving hearts, which con- 
 tinued unchanged to him. 
 
 If, indeed, he knew it, the simple knowledge was 
 enough to cure the evil. No man ever lived who was 
 more prepared to make thorough work with the prac- 
 tice of his own precepts — and his precepts were always 
 noble in their spirit, charitable in their construction. 
 No injury done to him, however inexcusable, however 
 unceasing, or however painful in its consequences, 
 could exhaust his power of forgiveness. His anima- 
 tion, his sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable, 
 his avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness, were 
 manifest on the surface, and could be appreciated by 
 those who knew him in society, most probably even 
 exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself in- 
 sisted with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness. 
 In the spirit which made him disposed to enjoy " any- 
 thing that was going forward," he would even assume 
 for the evening a convivial aspect, and urge a liberal 
 measure of the wine with the gusto of a bon vivant. 
 Few that knew him so could be aware, not only of the 
 simple and uncostly sources from which he habitually 
 drew his enjoyments, but of his singularly plain life, 
 extended even to a rule of self-denial. Excepting at 
 intervals when wine was recommended to him, or came 
 to him as a gift of friendship, his customary drink was 
 water, which he would drink with the almost daily 
 repetition of Dr. Armstrong's line, " Nought like the 
 simple element dilutes." For, a trick of playing with a 
 certain round of quotations was among the traits of 
 his character most conspicuous even to casual visitors; 
 In the routine of life, it may be said, he almost thought 
 in a slang of the library. His dress was always plain 
 and studiously economical. He would excuse the ex- 
 treme plainness of his diet, by ascribing it to a delicacy 
 of health, which he overrated. His food was often 
 nothing but bread and meat at dinner, bread and tea 
 for two meals of the day, bread alone for luncheon or 
 for supper. His liberal constructions were shown to 
 others, his strictness to himself. If he heard that a 
 friend was in trouble, his house was offered as a 
 
 xxxvii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 *' homo " ; and it was literally so, many times in his life. 
 Sometimes this generosity was repaid with outrageous 
 ingratitude — with scandal-mongering, and even calum- 
 nious inventions : he excused the wrong, as the conse- 
 quence of deficient sense, of early training, or of con- 
 genital fault ; " for," he would remark, " it is impossible 
 to say what share, now, X.'s father and mother may 
 have had in his doing so, or what ancestor of X.'s may 
 not have been really the author of my suffering — and 
 his." When he was once reminded of his sacrifices for 
 others, he answered, as if it dismissed the subject, " It 
 was only for my own relations " ; but his memory de- 
 ceived him extravagantly. It was not that his kindness 
 was undiscriminating ; for he " drew the line " with 
 much clearness between what he " could " do for the 
 mere sake of helping the unfortunate, and the willing- 
 ness to share whatever he might have with those he 
 really esteemed and loved — not a few. The tender- 
 ness of his affection was excessive : it disarmed some 
 of the most reckless ; it made him throw a veil of 
 impenetrable reserve over weaknesses of others, from 
 which he suffered in ways most calculated to mortify 
 and pain him, but which he suffered with never-failing 
 kindness, and with silence absolutely unbroken. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that with all his 
 disposition to refine, his love of the pleasurable, and 
 his tenderness, he was a mere easy sentimentalist. If 
 he may be compared to Hamlet, it was Hamlet buck- 
 ling himself to hard work, and performing with vigour 
 and conscientious completeness. Seldom have writers 
 so conscientiously verified all their statements of fact. 
 His constant industry has been mentioned : he could 
 w^ork from early morning till far into midnight, every 
 day, for months together ; and he had been a hard- 
 working man all his life. For the greater part, even 
 his recreation was auxiliary to his work. He had thus 
 acquired a knowledge of authorities most unusual, and 
 had heaps of information " at his fingers' ends " ; yet 
 he habitually verified even what he knew already, 
 though it should be only for some parenthetical use. 
 No tenderness could shake him from sternly rebuking 
 
 xxxviii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 or opposing where duty bade him do so ; and for a ' 
 principle he was prepared to sacrifice everything, as he 
 had sacrificed money and liberty. For all his excessive 
 desire not to withhold his sympathy, not to hurti 
 others' feelings, or not to overlook any possible excuse^' 
 for infirmity, moral as well as physical, he nevej? 
 paltered with his own sincerity. He never swerved 
 from what he believed to be the truth. 
 
 In the course of his long life as a public writer, 
 political and polemical animosities died away, and were 
 succeeded by a broader recognition of common pur- 
 poses and common endeavours, to which he had not a 
 little contributed. Although some strange misconcep- 
 tions of Leigh Hunt's character still remained, — strange, 
 though, as we have seen, not diflScult to explain, — the 
 acknowledgment of his genuine qualities had widely ex- 
 tended. There had been great changes, some liberals 
 had become conservative, more conservatives had 
 become liberal, all had become less dogmatic and un- 
 charitable. His personal friendships embraced every 
 party ; but through all, the spirit of his opinions, the 
 qualities of his character, the unweariedness of his 
 industry, continued the same. To promote the happi-| 
 ness of his kind, to minister to the more educated! 
 appreciation of order and beauty, to open more widely 
 the dour of the library, and more widely the window 
 of the library looking out upon nature, — these were 
 the purposes that guided his studies and animated 
 his labour to the very last. [1859.] 
 
 XXXIX
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 THE circumstances that led to this Autobiography 
 will transpire in the course of it. Suffice it to say 
 for the present, that a more involuntary production it 
 would be difficult to conceive ; though I trust it will not 
 be found destitute of the entertainment which any true 
 account of experiences in the life of a human being 
 must of necessity, -perhaps, contain. 
 
 I claim no importance for anything which I have 
 done or undergone, but on grounds common to the 
 interests of all, and to the willing sympathy of my 
 brother-lovers of books. Should I be led at any time 
 into egotisms of a nature that make me seem to think 
 otherwise, I blush beforehand for the mischance, and 
 beg it to be considered as alien from my habits of re- 
 flection. I have had vanities enough in my day ; and, 
 as the reader will see, became aware of them. If I 
 have any remaining, I hope they are only such as 
 nature kindly allows to most of us, in order to comfort 
 us in our regrets and infirmities. And the more we 
 could look even into these, the less ground we should 
 find in them for self-complacency, apart from con- 
 siderations that respect the whole human race. 
 
 There is a phrase, for instance, of " fetching a man's 
 mind from his cradle." But does the mind begin at that 
 point of time ? Does it begin even with his parents ? 
 I was looking once, in company with Mr. Hazlitt, at an 
 exhibition of pictures in the British Institution, when 
 casting my eyes on the portrait of an officer in the dress 
 of the time of Charles the Second, I exclaimed, " What 
 
 1 B
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 a likeness to Basil Montagu !"' (a friend of ours). It 
 turned out to be his ancestor, Lord Sandwich. Mr. 
 Hazlitt took mo across the room, and showed me the 
 portrait of a celebrated judge, who lived at the same 
 period. "This," said he, " is Judge So-and-so ; and his 
 living representative (he is now dead) has the same face 
 and the same passions." The Hazlitt then of the same 
 age might have been the same Hazlitt that w^as stand- 
 ing with me before the picture ; and the same may have 
 been the case wdth the writer of these pages. There 
 is a famous historical bit of transmission called the 
 " Austrian lip ; " and faces, which we consider peculiar 
 to individuals, are said to be common in districts : such 
 as the Boccaccio face in one part of Tuscany, and the 
 Dante face in another. I myself have seen, in the 
 Genoese territory, which is not far from Corsica, many 
 a face like that of the Bonapartes ; and where a race 
 has strong blood in it, or whatever may constitute the 
 requisite vital tendency, it is probable that the family 
 likeness might be found to prevail in the humblest as 
 well as highest quarters. There are families, indeed, of 
 yeomen, which are said to have flourished like oaks, in 
 one and the same spot, since the times of the Anglo- 
 Saxons. I am descended, both by father's and mother's 
 side, from adventurous people, who left England for 
 the New World, and whose descendants have retained 
 the spirit of adventure to this day. The chances are, 
 that in some respects I am identical with some half- 
 dozen, or perhaps twenty of these ; and that the mind 
 of some cavalier of the days of the Stuarts, or some 
 gentleman or yeoman, or " roving blade," of those of 
 the Edwards and Henrys — perhaps the gallant mer- 
 chant-man, " Henry Hunt " of the old ballad — mixed^ 
 
 [^ Basil Montagu, Q.C. (1770-1851), was the natural son of John 
 Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, by Miss Martha Ray, an actress 
 who was shot by an admirer, the Rev. James Hackman, at Covent 
 Garden Theatre in 1779. Montagu was a voluminous writer, and the 
 
 J, editor of an edition of Bacon's works in 16 vols., which is now 
 chiefly remembered as the basis of Macaulay's scathing essay on 
 Bacon. Montagu's third wife, Mrs. Skepper, had a daughter by a 
 previous marriage, who afterwards became the wife of Bryan 
 
 :, Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall) and the mother of Adelaide Anne 
 
 • Procter.) 
 
 2
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 alas ! with a sedentary difference — is now writing these 
 lines, ignorant of his former earthly self and of his 
 present ! I say earthly, for I speak it with no dis- 
 paragement to the existence of an individual " soul " — 
 a point in which I am a firm believer ; nor would it be 
 difficult to reconcile one opinion with the other, in ears 
 accustomed to such arguments ; but I must not enter 
 upon them here.^ 
 
 The name of Hunt is found among the gentry, but I 
 suspect it is oftener a plebeian name. Indeed it must 
 be so, like almost all others, from the superabundance 
 of population on the plebeian side. But it has also a 
 superabundance of its own ; for in the list of sixty of 
 the commonest names in England, given by Mr. Lower""* 
 in his Essay on Family Nomenclature, it stands fifty- 
 fourth. On the other hand, offsets from aristocratic 
 trees wander into such remote branches, that the same 
 name is found among those of the few families that 
 have a right to quarter the royal arms. I should be 
 very proud to be discovered to be a nine hundred and 
 fiftieth cousin of Queen Victoria ; the more so, inas- 
 much as I could, patiently enough, have let the claim 
 lie dormant in the case of some of her Majesty's prede- 
 cessors. My immediate progenitors were clergymen ; 
 
 1 "Then Henrye Hunt, with vigour hott, 
 Came bravely on the other side, 
 Soon he drove downe his foremast tree, 
 
 (Sir Andrexo Barton's, to vnt) 
 And killM fourscore men beside. 
 ' Nowe, out alas ! ' Sir Andrewe cryed, 
 
 ' What may a man now think, or say ? 
 Yonder merchant theefe, that pierceth mee, 
 He was my prisoner yesterday.' " 
 Ballad of Sir Andrexv Barton, in Percy's Reliques, vol. 2. 
 
 Barton, a kind of "Scottish rover on the seas" (as the balhixi 
 calls him), worried the English navigation in the time of Henry the 
 Eighth, and was killed in the engagement here noticed, in which 
 the two ships under his command were captured by two English 
 ships under the command of Sir Thomas and Sir Edward Howard. 
 Hunt was captain of a merchantman, of Newcastle, which traded to 
 Bordeaux, and which had been one of Barton's prizes. I hope the 
 gallant seaman's Bordeaux claret was ancestor of that which my 
 progenitors drank in Barbados. 
 
 [^ Mark Anthony Lower (1813-1876) published his English Sur- 
 names, an Essay on Family Nomenclature, in 1842.] 
 
 3
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 niul Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies contains 
 a map of Barbados (their native place) with one of the 
 residences designated by it — apparently a minor estate 
 — yet the name of Hunt does not appear either in the 
 old map in the History of Barbados by Ligon, or in the 
 lists of influential or other persons in that by Sir Robert 
 Schomburgck. There is a " Richard Hunt, Esq.," in the 
 list of subscribers to Hughes's Natural History of Bar- 
 bados, which contains also the name of Dr. Hunt, who 
 was Hebrew and Arabic professor at Oxford, and whose 
 genealogy the biographer cannot discover. Perhaps the 
 good old oriental scholar belongs to our stock, and 
 originated my love of the Arabian Nights ! The tradi- 
 tion in the family is that we descend from Tory cavaliers 
 (a wide designation), who fled to the West Indies from 
 the ascendancy of Cromwell ; and on a female side, 
 amidst a curious mixture of quakers and soldiers, we 
 derive ourselves not only from gentry, but from kings 
 — that is to say, Irish kings ! — personages (not to say it 
 disrespectfully to the wit and misfortunes of the sister- 
 island) who rank pretty much on a par with the negro 
 chief, surrounded by half a dozen lords in ragged shirts, 
 who asked the traveller what his brother kings thought 
 of him in Europe. A learned and friendly investigator 
 into the matter thinks the Cromwell tradition a mis- 
 take, and brings us from a clergyman of the name of 
 Isaac Hunt (my father's name), who left Exeter for 
 Barbados in the time of James the First. He connects us 
 also with a partner in the mercantile firm of Hunt and 
 Lascelles in that island, one of w^hich latter persons 
 came into England during the first half of the last 
 century, and gave rise to the noble family of Hare- 
 wood. In the British Museum is a manuscript journal 
 that was kept in this year by a Hunt of the same 
 Christian name of Isaac. I take our paternal family 
 stock to have been divided for many generations be- 
 tween the clerical and mercantile professions. 
 
 The etymology, however, of the name is obvious ; 
 and very unfit does it render it for its present owners. 
 The pastime in which their Saxon ancestors may have 
 excelled, so as to derive from it their very appellation, 
 
 4
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 is contrary to the principles of their descendants ! But 
 hunting was not merely a pastime in old Saxon days. 
 It was a business and a necessity ; there were children 
 to feed, and wild beasts to be exterminated. Besides, 
 one must share and share alike in the reputation of 
 one's fellow creatures. I dare say the Hunts were as 
 ferocious in those days as their name may have im- 
 plied. They have since hunted in other ways, not 
 always without a spice of fierceness ; and smarting 
 have been the wounds which they have both given and 
 taken. 
 
 [The more probable etymology of the name traces it 
 to the geographical use of the word, designating a 
 district used for the chase. The tradition of Irish 
 kings has probably been introduced by a very doubtful 
 connection with the Hunts of Ireland, who have changed 
 their name for that of De Vere, which they also claim 
 by inheritance. One of the family, in a jocular way, 
 claimed cousinship with Leigh Hunt ; but if any re- 
 lationship existed, it must have been before either 
 family left England for Barbados, or for Ireland. The 
 Bickleys, mentioned subsequently, were not of Irish 
 origin, though Sir William served in Ireland. The 
 Hunts of Barbados were among the very earliest settlers, 
 and the name may be seen in a list published in Barbados 
 in 1612 ; but it is testimony from which the auto- 
 biographer probably shrunk with dislike, for it is an 
 old list, perhaps the oldest existing list, of negro slave- 
 owners. There is reason to believe that members of 
 the family revisited their native country in the course 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. T. H.] 
 
 I have begun my book with my progenitors and 
 with childhood, partly because " order gives all things 
 view," partly because, whatever we may assume as we 
 grow up respecting the " dignity of manhood," we all 
 feel that childhood was a period of great importance 
 to us. Most men recur to it with delight. They are 
 in general very willing to dilate upon it, especially if 
 they meet with an old schoolfellow ; and therefore, 
 on a principle of reciprocity, and as I have long con- 
 sidered myself a kind of playmate and fellow-disciple 
 
 5
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 with persons of all times of life (for none of us, unless 
 wo are very silly or naughty boys indeed, ever leave 
 off learning in some school or other), I shall suppose 
 I have been listening to some other young gentleman 
 of sixty or seventy years of age over his wine, and 
 that I am now going to relate about half as much 
 respecting my existence as he has told us of his own. 
 
 My grandfather, himself the son, I believe, of a 
 clergyman, was Rector of St. Michael's, in Bridge Town, 
 Barbados. He was a good-natured man, and recom- 
 mended the famous Lauder ^ to the mastership of the 
 free school there ; influenced, no doubt, partly by his 
 pretended repentance, and partly by sympathy with 
 his Toryism. Lauder is said to have been discharged 
 for misconduct. I never heard that ; but I have heard 
 that his appearance was decent, and that he had a 
 wooden leg : which is an anti-climax befitting his 
 history.'^ My grandfather was admired and beloved 
 by his parishioners for the manner in which he dis- 
 charged his duties. He died at an early age, in con- 
 sequence of a fever taken in the hot and damp air, 
 
 [1 William Lauder (? 1680-1771), the author of An essay on Milton's 
 Use and Imitations of the Moderrws in Paradise Lost. The evidence 
 put forward in the work was fabricated by the writer, who suc- 
 ceeded in duping, among othei"s, Dr. Johnson.] 
 
 ^ Since writing this passage, I find a more serious conclusion to 
 his history in a book entitled Creoliana; or. Social and Domestic 
 Scenes and Incidents in Barbados in Days of Yore, by J. W. Order- 
 son. He is there said to have failed in his school ; and to have set 
 up a huckster's shop with the aid of an African woman whom he 
 had purchased. After behaviour to a daughter by this woman 
 which cannot be described, and her repulses of which he resented 
 by ordering her to be scourged, he sold her to a naval captain, who 
 rescued her from the infliction. 
 
 Let us hope that Lauder would have denied the paternity imputed 
 to him. Perhaps, indeed, he would have denied more, or did deny 
 it ; for his answer of the charges yet remains to be heard. The 
 poor girl afterwards became the fat and flourishing landlady of an 
 hotel ; and is famous in Barbadian and nautical annals for having 
 successfully drawn up a bill of damages to the amount of seven 
 hundred pounds against his Royal Highness Prince William Henry, 
 afterwards Duke of Clarence and King William the Fourth, who in 
 a fit of ultrajoviality with the mess of the Forty-ninth Regiment, 
 demolished all the furniture in her house, to the very beds ; the 
 cunning hostess (whom he upset as he went away) refusing to 
 interfere with the vivacities of "Massa, the King's son," which she 
 prudently concluded he would pay for like a gentleman. 
 
 6
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 while officiating incessantly at burials during a mortality. 
 His wife, who was an O'Brien, or rather Bryan, very 
 proud of her descent from the kings aforesaid (or of 
 the kings from her), was as good-natured and beloved 
 as her husband, and very assiduous in her attentions 
 to the negroes and to the poor, for whom she kept a 
 set of medicines, like my Lady Bountiful. They had 
 two children besides my father : Ann Courthope, who 
 died unmarried ; and Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Dayrell, 
 Esq., of Barbados, one of the family of the Dayrells 
 of Lillingstone, and father by a first marriage of the 
 late barrister of that name. I mention both of these 
 ladies, because they will come among my portraits. 
 
 To these their children, the worthy Rector and his 
 wife were a little too indulgent. When my father was 
 to go to the American continent to school, the latter 
 dressed up her boy in a fine suit of laced clothes, such 
 as we see on the little gentlemen in Hogarth ; but so 
 splendid and costly that when the good pastor beheld 
 him he was moved to utter an expostulation. Ob- 
 jection, however, soon gave way before the pride of 
 all parties ; and my father set off for school, ready 
 spoilt, with plenty of money to spoil him more. 
 
 He went to college at Philadelphia, and became the 
 scapegrace who smuggled in the wine, and bore the 
 brunt of the tutors. My father took the degree of 
 Master of Arts, both at Philadelphia and New York. 
 When he spoke the farewell oration on leaving college, 
 two young ladies fell in love with him, one of whom 
 he afterwards married. He was fair and handsome, 
 with delicate features, a small aquiline nose, and blue 
 eyes. To a graceful address he joined a remarkably 
 fine voice, which he modulated with great effect. It 
 was in reading, with this voice, the poets and other 
 classics of England, that he completed the conquest 
 of my mother's heart. He used to spend the evenings 
 in this manner with her and her family, — a noble way 
 of courtship ; and my grandmother became so hearty 
 in his cause that she succeeded in carrying it against 
 her husband, who wished his daughter to marry a 
 wealthy neighbour. [The bride was Mary, the daughter 
 
 7
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of Stephen Shewell, a merchant of Philadelphia, a 
 vehement man, both in public and in family matters. 
 The other lady was Mary's aunt, although the girls 
 were about the same age. T. H.] 
 
 My father was intended, I believe, to carry on 
 the race of clergymen, as he afterwards did ; but 
 he went, in the first instance, into the law. The 
 Americans united the practice of attorney and barrister. 
 My father studied the law under articles to one of the 
 chief persons in the profession ; and afterwards prac- 
 tised with distinction himself. At this period (by 
 which time all my brothers except one were born) the 
 Revolution broke out ; and he entered with so much 
 zeal into the cause of the British Government, that, 
 besides pleading for loyalists with great fervour at the 
 bar, he wrote pamphlets equally full of party warmth, 
 w^hich drew on him the popular odium. His fortunes 
 then came to a crisis in America. Early one morning, 
 a great concourse of people appeared before his house. 
 He came out — or was brought. They put him into a 
 cart prepared for the purpose (conceive the anxiety of 
 his wife !), and, after parading him about the streets, 
 were joined by a party of the revolutionary soldiers 
 with drum and fife. The multitude, some days before, 
 for the same purpose, had seized Dr. Kearsley, a 
 staunch Tory, who on learning their intention had 
 shut up the windows of his house, and endeavoured to 
 prevent their getting in. The doctor had his hand 
 pierced by a bayonet, as it entered bet^'een the shutters 
 behind which he had planted himself. He was dragged 
 out and put into the cart, dripping with blood ; but he 
 lost none of his intrepidity ; for he answered their 
 reproaches and outrage with vehement reprehensions ; 
 and, by way of retaliation on the " Rogue's March," 
 struck up " God save the King." My father, who knew 
 Kearsley, had endeavoured to persuade him not to add 
 to their irritation ; but to no purpose. The doctor 
 continued infuriate, and more than once fainted from 
 loss of blood and the violence of his feelings. My 
 father comparatively softened the people with his 
 gentler manners ; yet he is understood, like Kearsley, 
 
 8
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 to have had a narrow escape from tarring and feather- 
 ing. A tub of tar, which had been set in a conspicuous 
 place in one of the streets for that purpose, was over- 
 turned by an officer intimate with our family. The 
 well-bred loyalist, however, did not escape entirely 
 from personal injury. One of the stones thrown by 
 the mob gave him such a severe blow on the head, as 
 not only laid him swooning in the cart, but dimmed 
 his sight for life. At length, after being carried through 
 every street in Philadelphia, he was deposited, as Dr. 
 Kearsley had been, in a prison in Market Street. The 
 poor doctor went out of his mind, and ended his days 
 not long afterwards in confinement.^ My father, by 
 means of a large sum of money given to the sentinel 
 who had charge of him, was enabled to escape at mid- 
 night. He went immediately on board a ship in the 
 Delaware, that belonged to my grandfather, and was 
 bound for the West Indies. She dropped down the 
 river that same night ; and my father went first to 
 Barbados, and afterwards to England, where he 
 settled. 
 
 My mother was to follow my father as soon as 
 possible, which she was not able to do for many 
 months. The last time she had seen him, he was a 
 lawyer and a partisan, going out to meet an irritated 
 populace. On her arrival in England, she beheld him 
 in a pulpit, a clergyman, preaching tranquillity. When 
 my father came over, he found it impossible to continue 
 his profession as a la\vyer. Some actors, who heard 
 him read, advised him to go on the stage ; but he was 
 too proud for that, and he went into the Chvirch. He 
 
 ' I learn this particular i-especting Dr. Kearsley from an amusing- 
 and interesting book, entitled Bleiiioirs of a Life chiefly passed in 
 Pennsylvania, the anonymous author of which is understood to 
 have been a Captain Graddon, or Graydon, an officer in the 
 American service. The same work has occasioned me to represent 
 the treatments of Kearsley and my father as occurring on two 
 distinct days, instead of siniultaneously, as in the family tradition, 
 the Captain informing us that he was an eye-witness of both. 
 
 There appears to have been something constitutionally wild in the 
 temperament of Kearsley. The Captain describes him as having 
 ridden once, dining a midnight frolic, into the parlour of a lodging- 
 house, mounted on horseback, and even up the stairs ! 
 
 9
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 was ordained by the celebrated Lowth,' then Bishop of 
 London ; and he soon became so popular that the 
 Bishop sent for him and remonstrated against his 
 }>ri'aching so many charity sermons. His lordship said 
 that it was ostentatious in a clergyman, and that he 
 saw his name in too many advertisements. My father 
 thought it strange, but acquiesced. It is true he 
 preached a great many of these sermons. I am told 
 that for a whole year he did nothing else ; and 
 perha]:>s there was something in his manner a little 
 startling to the simplicity of the Church of England. 
 I remember when he came to that pait of the Litany 
 where the reader prays for his deliverance " in the 
 hour of death and at the day of judgment," he used 
 to make a pause at the word " death," and drop his 
 voice on the rest of the sentence. The effect was 
 striking ; but the repetition must have hurt it. I am 
 afraid it was a little theatrical. His delivery, however, 
 was so much admired by those who thought themselves 
 the best judges, that Thomas Sheridan,'^ father of the 
 celebrated Sheridan, came up to him one day, after 
 service, in the vestry, and complimented him on having 
 profited so well from his 'Treatise on Reading the 
 Litany. My father was obliged to tell him that he 
 had never seen it. 
 
 I do not know whether it was Lowth, but it was 
 some bishop to whom my father one day, in the midst 
 of a warm discussion, being asked, " Do you know who 
 I am ? " replied, with a bow, " Yes, my lord ; dust and 
 ashes." Doubtless the clergyman was warm and im- 
 prudent. In truth, he made a great mistake when he 
 entered the profession. By the nature of the tenure 
 it was irretrievable, and his whole life after was a 
 series of errors arising from the unsuitability of his 
 position. He was fond of divinity ; but it was as a 
 speculator, not as a dogmatist, or one who takes upon 
 trust. He was ardent in the cause of Church and State ; 
 
 [ » Robert Lowth (1710-1787). Bishop of St. David's, 1766 ; trans- 
 lated to Oxford the same year ; Bishop of London, 1777 ; on 
 the death of Archbishoj) Coiiiwallis, he was offered the primacy, 
 but decHned it.] 
 
 [ =" Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788), elocutionist and lexicographer.] 
 
 10 
 
 I
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 but here he speculated too, and soon began to modify 
 his opinions, which got him the ill-will of the Govern- 
 ment. He delighted his audiences in the pulpit, so 
 much so that he had crowds of carriages at the dooi-. 
 One of his congregations had an engraving made of 
 him, and a lady of the name of Cooling, who was 
 member of another, left him by will the sum of £500 
 as a testimony of the pleasure and advantage she had 
 derived from his discourses. 
 
 But unfortunately, after delighting his hearers in 
 the pulpit, he would delight some of them a little too 
 much over the table. He was extremely lively and 
 agreeable, was full of generous sentiments, could flat- 
 ter without grossness, had stories to tell of lords whom 
 he knew, and when the bottle was to circulate it did 
 not stand with him. All this was dangerous to a West 
 Indian who had an increasing family and who was to 
 make his way in the Church. It was too much for 
 him ; and he added another to the list of those who, 
 though they might suffice equally for themselves and 
 others in a more considerate and contented state of 
 society, and seem born to be the delights of it, are only 
 lost and thrown out in a system of things which, by 
 going upon the ground of individual aggrandizement, 
 compels dispositions of a more sociable and reasonable 
 nature either to become parties concerned or be ruined 
 in the refusal. It is doubtless incumbent on a husband 
 and father to be careful under all circumstances : and 
 it is easy for most people to talk of the necessity of 
 being so and to recommend it to others, especially 
 when they have been educated to the habit. Let those 
 fling the first stone who, with the real inclination and 
 talent for other things (for the inclination may not be 
 what they take it for), confine themselves industriously 
 to the duties prescribed them. There are more victims 
 to errors committed by society itself than society sup- 
 poses. 
 
 But I grant that a man is either bound to tell society 
 so or to do as others do. My father was always 
 zealous, theoretically speaking, both for the good of 
 the world and for that of his family (I remember a 
 
 11
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 printed jH'oposal which ho drew up for an academy, to 
 bo outitlod the *' Oosniopolitical Seminary ") ; but ho had 
 neither uneasiness enough in his blood, nor, perhaps, 
 sufficient strength in his convictions, to bring his spccu- 
 latit)n8 to bear; and as to the prido of cutting a figure 
 above his noighl)ours, ^vhich so many men mistake for 
 a better principle of action, he could dispense with 
 that. As it was, he should have been kept at home in 
 Barbados. He w^as a true exotic, and ought not to 
 have been transplanted. He might have preached 
 there, and quoted Horace, and been gentlemanly and 
 generous, and drunk his claret, and no harm done. 
 But in a bustling, commercial state of society, where 
 the enjoyment, such as it is, consists in the bustle, he 
 was neither very likely to succeed nor to meet with a 
 good construction, nor to end his pleasant w^ays with 
 l)leasing either the world or himself. 
 
 It was in the pulpit of Bentinck Chapel, Lisson Green, 
 Paddington, that my mother found her husband offi- 
 ciating. He published a volume of sermons preached 
 there, in which there is little but elegance of diction and 
 a graceful morality. ^ His delivery was the charm, and, 
 to say the truth, he charmed everybody but the owner 
 of the chapel, who looked upon rent as by far the most 
 eloquent production of the pulpit. The speculation 
 ended wdth the preacher being horribly in debt. Friends, 
 however, were lavish of their assistance. Three of my 
 brothers were sent to school, the other, at her earnest 
 entreaty, went to live (which he did for some years) 
 
 [' The following publications by the Rev. Isaac Hunt (1752-1809) 
 are contained in the catalogue of the British Museum: — A Sei-mon 
 [on Psalm xi. 2-6] Preached before the Laudable Associntion of Anti- 
 (jallivans .... 2;3i'il of April, 1778. London, 1778, 4°. A Sermon 
 [on Matt. vi. 11] occasioned bi/ the General Distress of the Parish of 
 iMarylebone, oh the Improvident Accommodation of the poor In- 
 habitatits for the jmr pose of Public Worship, etc., pp. 31. London, 
 1781, 8°. Sev)no)is on Public Occasions (some account of the laud- 
 able Institution of the Society of Antigallicans). London, 1781, 8°. 
 Ways and means to pay taxes aiul be happy: a sermon [on Eccle- 
 siastes ii. 14]. London, 1784, 4°. Discourses on public occasions: 
 London, 1786, 8°. Rights of English-men: a7i Antidote to the 
 Poi.so/1 iioiv vending by the Tr a cisatlantic Rejniblican, TJiomas 
 Paine. In reply to his W'himsical Attacks against the Constit/ufion 
 and Government of Great Britain, part I. London, 1791, 8°. Of 
 this last work, no more seems to have been published.] 
 
 12
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 with Mrs. Spencer, a sister (I think) of Sir Richard 
 Worsley/ and a delicious little old woman, the delight 
 of all the children of her acquaintance. She occupied 
 at one time a small house which belonged to her in 
 the Paddington Road, and in the front garden of 
 which, or in that of the house next to it (I forget 
 which, but they were both her property), stood a 
 beautiful almond tree, not long since cut down. Never 
 shall I forget the enchanting effect which the bright 
 green rails of the gardens of these houses used to have 
 upon me when I caught sight of them in going there 
 with my mother. My father and mother took breath 
 in the meantime under the friendly roof of Mr. West,^ 
 the painter, who had married her aunt. The aunt and 
 niece were much of an age, and both fond of books. 
 Mrs. West, indeed, ultimately became a martyr to 
 them, for the physician declared that she lost the use 
 of her limbs by sitting indoors. 
 
 From Newman Street my father went to live in 
 Hampstead Square, whence he occasionally used to go 
 and preach at Southgate. The then Duke of Chandos^ 
 had a seat in the neighbourhood of Southgate. He 
 heard my father preach, and was so pleased with him 
 that he requested him to become tutor to his nephew, 
 Mr. Leigh, which the preacher did, and he remained 
 with his Grace's family for several years. The Duke 
 was Master of the Horse, and originated the famovis 
 epithet of " heaven-born minister," applied to Mr. Pitt. 
 I have heard my father describe him as a man of great 
 sweetness of nature and good breeding. He was the 
 grandson of Pope and Swift's Duke of Chandos. He 
 died in 1789, and left a widow, who survived him for 
 several years in a state of mental alienation. I men- 
 tion this circumstance because I think I have heard it 
 
 [' Sir Richard Worsley, Governor and Historian of the Isle of 
 Wight, b. 1751, d. 1805.] 
 
 ['^ Benjamin West (17.'}8 1820), born at Springfield, Pennsylvania. 
 He succeeded Sir .Toshua Reynolds as President of the Royal 
 Academy in 1791, and on his appointment was offered a knight- 
 hood by George III., but he declined it.] 
 
 [* James Brydges, third and last Duke of Chandos of the family 
 of Brydges.] 
 
 13
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 said in our family that her derangement was owing to 
 a piece of thoughtlessness, the notice of which may- 
 serve as a caution. She was a woman of great animal 
 spirits, and happening to thrust aside the Duke's chair 
 when he was going to sit down, the consequences were 
 such that being extremely attached to him she could 
 never forgive herself, but lost her husband and senses 
 at once. The Duchess had already been married to a 
 gentleman of the name of Elletson. She was daughter 
 of Sir Richard Gamon and mother of an heiress, who 
 carried the title of Chandos into the Grenville family. 
 
 To be tutor in a ducal family is one of the roads to 
 a bishopric. My father was thought to be in the 
 highest way to it. He was tutor in the house not only 
 of a duke, but of a state officer, for whom the King 
 had a personal regard. His manners were of the 
 highest order ; his principles in Church and State as 
 orthodox, to all appearance, as could be wished ; and 
 he had given up flourishing prospects in America for 
 their sake. But the same ardent and disinterested 
 sense of right which induced him to make that sacrifice 
 in behalf of what he thought due to his Sovereign 
 made him no less ready to take the part of any one 
 holding opposite opinions whom he considered to be 
 ill-used ; and he had scarcely set his foot in England 
 when he so distinguished himself among his brother 
 loyalists for his zeal in behalf of a fellow-countryman 
 Tvho had served in the republican armies that he was 
 given to understand it was doing him no service at 
 court. 
 
 This gentleman was the distinguished American 
 artist, Colonel Trumbull.^ Mr. Trumbull, at that time 
 a young man, had left the army to become a painter, 
 to which end he had crossed the Atlantic and was 
 studying under Mr. West. The Government, suspect- 
 ing him to be a spy, arrested him, and it was not 
 without exertions extremely creditable to Mr. West 
 
 [' John Trumbull (1756-1843) was Washington's aide-de-camp in 
 the revolutionary war. His paintings are chiefly historical, and the 
 collection of his pictures, which he presented to Yale College, is 
 known as the Trumbull Gallery.] 
 
 14
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 himself as well as to my father (for the future Presi- 
 dent of the Academy was then commencing his own 
 career under regal patronage) that the supposed 
 dangerous ex-officer ^vas set free. Mr. Trumbull, in 
 his memoirs, has recorded his obligations to both. 
 Those on the part of my father, as a loyalist, he pro- 
 nounces to have been not only perilous but vmique. 
 He says in a letter to his father. Governor Trumbull : — 
 
 "Mr. West, who has been very much my friend, 
 spoke immediately both to the King and the American 
 secretary, and was encouraged by both to expect that as 
 soon as the noise should have subsided a little I should 
 be discharged. However, after waiting two months, 
 I wrote to Lord George Germaine, but received no 
 answer. Mr. West, at the same time, could not obtain 
 a second interview^ w^ith him. In February, a Mr, 
 Hunt, a refugee from Philadelphia, formerly an assist- 
 ant to Mr. West " (this is a mistake, my father never 
 had anything to do with painting), " conversing with 
 Mr. West on the subject, was so far convinced of the 
 absurdity and injustice of the treatment I had received 
 that he entered warmly into my interest, and with 
 great perseverance urged the other refugees to assist 
 him in undeceiving the ministry, and gaining my dis- 
 charge. Not one, however, joined him ; and after a 
 fortnight's solicitation, he w^as told by Mr. Thompson, 
 Lord George Germaine's secretary, a Woburn lad, that 
 he made himself very busy in this affair, and very little 
 to his own reputation ; that he had best stop, for all his 
 applications in my behalf were useless." ^ 
 
 And again, in the Appendix to the same work, page 
 319:— 
 
 " I had little left to hope, unless from some favour- 
 able turn of affairs in America. An effort indeed was 
 made through Mr. Hunt, a refugee from Philadelphia, 
 upon the feeling of his fellows, which does honour to 
 him, and was pushed so far as almost to endanger his 
 
 ^ Autobiography , Reminiscences, and Letters of John Trumbull, 
 from 1756 to 1841. New York and London, 1841. The Thompson 
 here contemptuously mentioned as " a Woburn lad," was after- 
 wards the celebrated Count Rumford. 
 
 15
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 own safety, but without any other effect than showing 
 the detestable rancour which, with very few exceptions, 
 is the common mark of their character." 
 
 Mr. Trumbull's opinion of the loyalists in general 
 must be taken ciun (jrano ; for though he appears to 
 have been an estimable, he was also an irritable, man ; 
 but this does not diminish the honour due to my 
 father's efforts. There can be little doubt, however, 
 that those efforts did him mischief with the King, 
 who, not knowing him so well as he did Mr. West, 
 being naturally given to dislike those who in any 
 respect differed with him, and probably having been 
 made acquainted with some indiscreet evidence of 
 warmth in the prosecution of his endeavours for Mr. 
 Trumbvill, is very likely to have conceived an impres- 
 sion of him unfavourable to the future clergyman. I 
 know not how soon, too, but most likely before long, 
 my father, as he became acquainted with the Govern- 
 ment, began to doubt its perfections ; and the King, 
 whose minuteness of information respecting the per- 
 sonal affairs of his subjects is well known, was most 
 likely prepared with questions, which the Duke of 
 Chandos was not equally prepared to answer. 
 
 Meanwhile the honest loyalist was getting more and 
 more distressed. He removed to Hampstead a second 
 time : from Hampstead he crossed the water ; and the 
 first room I have any recollection of is one in a prison. 
 It was in the King's Bench. Here w^as the game of 
 rackets, giving the place a strange lively air in the 
 midst of its distresses ; here I first heard, to my aston- 
 ishment and horror, a verse of a song, sung out, as he 
 tottered along, by a drunken man, the words of which 
 appeared to me unspeakably wicked : and here I 
 remember well, as he walked up and down, the appear- 
 ance of a prisoner who was at that time making no 
 little noise in the world, and who was veritably wicked 
 enough. He was a tall thin man, in a cocked hat, had 
 an aquiline nose, and altogether appeared to my child- 
 ish eyes a strangely inconsistent-looking person for a 
 man of his character, and much of a gentleman, I 
 have an impression on my memory that I was told he 
 
 16
 
 « 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 had run n needle through his wife's tongue. This was 
 Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes, Esq.,* which last name 
 he had assumed on his marriage with the Countess of 
 Strathmore, for cruel treatment of whom in his attempt 
 to extort her property he had been sentenced to an 
 imprisonment of three years. His surgeon and bio- 
 grapher, Jesse Foot, in summing up his character, says 
 of him, that he was " cowardly, insidious, hypocritical, 
 tyrannic, mean, violent, selfish, deceitful, jealous, 
 revengeful, inhuman, and savage, without a single 
 countervailing quality." It is not improbable that Mr. 
 Foot might have been one of the persons he deceived ; 
 but the know^n events of the man's life really go far to 
 make him out this kind of monster ; and Foot sup- 
 presses most of the particulars of his cruelty as too 
 shocking to detail. Ho was one of those madmen who I 
 are too conventionally sane to be locked up, but who- 
 appear to be born what they are by some accident ofi 
 nature. 
 
 Mr. West took the liberty of representing my father's 
 circumstances to the king. It is well known that this 
 artist enjoyed the confidence of his Majesty in no ordi- 
 nary degree. The king would converse half a day at a 
 time with him, while he was painting. His Majesty 
 said he would speak to the bishops ; and again, on a 
 second application, he said my father should be pro- 
 vided for. My father himself also presented a petition ; 
 but all that was ever done for him, was the putting his 
 name on the Loyalist Pension List for a hundred a year, 
 — a sum which he not only thought extremely inade- 
 quate for the loss of seven or eight times as much in 
 America, a cheaper country, but w^hich he felt to be a 
 poor acknowledgment even for the active zeal which 
 he had evinced, and the things which he had said and 
 written ; especially as the pension came late, and his 
 circumstances were already involved. Small as it was, 
 he was obliged to mortgage it ; and from this time 
 
 I ' The second husband of Mary Eleanor, only daughter and heiress 
 of John Bowes, whose first husband, John, ninth Earl of Strathmore, 
 also assumed the name of Bowes. This extraordinary character is 
 supposed to be reproduced in Thackeray's Barry Lyndon.] 
 
 17 c
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 till the arrival of some relations from the West Indies, 
 several years afterwards, he underwent a series of mor- 
 tifications and distresses, not always without reason 
 for self-reproach. Unfortunately for others, it might 
 be said of him, what Lady Mary Wortley said of her 
 I kinsman, Henry Fielding, " that give him his leg of 
 ; mutton and bottle of wine, and in the very thick of 
 : calamity he would be happy for the time being." Too 
 well able to seize a passing moment of enjoyment, he 
 was always scheming, never performing ; always look- 
 ing forward with some romantic plan which was sure to 
 succeed, and never put in practice. I believe he wrote 
 more titles of non-existing books than Rabelais. At 
 length he found his mistake. My poor father ! He 
 grew deeply acquainted with arrests, and began to lose 
 his graces and (from failures with creditors) his good 
 name. He became irritable with the consequences, and 
 almost took hope of better days out of the heart that 
 loved him, and was too often glad to escape out of its 
 society. Yet such an art had he of making his home 
 comfortable when he chose, and of settling himself to 
 the most tranquil pleasures, that if she could have 
 ceased to look forward about her children, I believe, 
 with all his defects, those evenings would have brought 
 unmingled satisfaction to her, when, after brightening 
 the fire and bringing out the coffee, my mother knew 
 that her husband was going to read Saurin or Barrow 
 to her, with his fine voice and unequivocal enjoyment. 
 
 We thus struggled on between quiet and disturbance, 
 between placid readings and frightful knocks at the 
 door, and sickness, and calamity, and hopes, which 
 hardly ever forsook us. One of my brothers went to 
 sea, — a great blow to my poor mother. The next was 
 articled to an attorney.^ My brother Robert became 
 pupil to an engraver, and my brother John ^ was 
 apprenticed to Mr. Reynell, the printer, whose kindly 
 manner, and deep iron voice, I well remember and re- 
 spect. I had also a regard for the speaking trumpet, 
 which ran all the way up his tall house, and conveyed 
 his rugged whispers to his men. And his goodly wife, 
 
 [' Stephen Shewell Hunt.] [^ John Hunt (1775-1848).] 
 
 18
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 proud of her husband's grandfather, the bishop ; never 
 shall I forget how^ much I loved her for her portly 
 smiles and good dinners, and how often she used to 
 make me measure heights with her fair daughter Caro- 
 line, and found me wanting ; which I thought not 
 quite so hospitable. 
 
 As my father's misfortunes, both in America and 
 England, were owing, in the first instance, to feelings 
 the most worthy and disinterested, so they were never 
 unaccompanied with manifestations of the same zeal 
 for others in smaller, though not always equally justifi- 
 able ways, which he had shown in the greater. He 
 hampered himself, for instance, by becoming security 
 for other people. This, however, he could only have 
 done out of his usual sanguine belief in the honesty of 
 those whom he assisted ; for of collusion with anything 
 deliberately unworthy, he was as incapable as he was 
 trusting. His pen, though irregular, or unprofitable to 
 himself, was always at the service of those who 
 required it for memorials or other helps. As to his 
 children, he was healthy and sanguine, and always 
 looked forward to being able to do something for them ; 
 and something for them he did, if it was only in graft- 
 ing his animal spirits on the maternal stock, and 
 setting them an example of independent thinking. But 
 he did more. He really took care, considering his 
 unbusinesslike habits, towards settling them in some 
 line of life. It is our faults, not his, if we have not 
 been all so successful as we might have been : at least 
 it is no more his fault than that of the West Indian 
 blood of which we all partake, and which has disposed 
 all of us, more or less, to a certain aversion from; 
 business. And if it may be some vanity in us, at least 
 it is no dishonour to our turn of mind, to hope that we 
 may have been the means of circulating more know- 
 ledge and entertainment in society, than if he had 
 attained the bishopric he looked for, and left us 
 ticketed and labelled among the acquiescent. 
 
 Towards the latter part of his life my father's affairs 
 were greatly retrieved by the help of his sister, Mrs. 
 Dayrell, who came over with a property from Bar- 
 
 19
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 bados. My aunt was generous ; part of her property 
 came among us also by a marriage [moat probably of 
 the author's eldest brother Stephen Shewell Hunt with 
 Christiana Dayrell. T. H.]. My father's West Indian sun 
 was again warm upon him. On his sister's death, to be 
 sure, his struggles recommenced, though not at all in 
 comparison to what they had been. Recommence, 
 however, they did ; and yet so sanguine was he in his 
 intentions to the last, and so accustomed had my 
 mother been to try to believe in him, and to persuade 
 herself she did, that not long before she died he made 
 the most solemn promises of amendment, which by 
 chance I could not help overhearing, and which she 
 received with a tenderness and a tone of joy, the 
 remembrance of which brings the tears into my eyes. 
 My father had one taste well suited to his profession, 
 and in him, I used to think, remarkable. He was very 
 fond of sermons ; which he was rarely tired of reading, 
 or my mother of hearing. I have mentioned the effect 
 which these used to have upon her. When she died, 
 he could not bear to think she w^as dead ; yet retaining, 
 in the midst of his tears, his indestructible tendency to 
 seize on a cheering reflection, he turned his very de- 
 spair into consolation ; and in saying, " She is not dead, 
 but sleeps," I verily believe the image became almost a 
 literal thing with him. Besides his fondness for ser- 
 mons, he was a great reader of the Bible. His copy of 
 it is scored with manuscript ; and I believe he read a 
 portion of it every morning to the last, let him have 
 been as satisfied or dissatisfied with himself as he might 
 for the rest of the day. This was not hypocrisy ; it 
 was habit, and real fondness : though, while he was no 
 hypocrite, he was not, I must confess, remarkable for 
 being explicit about himself ; nor did he cease to dog- 
 matize in a sort of official manner upon faith and 
 virtue, lenient as he thought himself bound to be to 
 particular instances of frailty. To young people, who 
 had no secrets from him, he was especially indulgent, 
 as I have good reason to know. He delighted to 
 show his sense of a candour in others, which I believe 
 he would always have practised himself, had he been 
 
 20
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 taught it early. For many years before his death he i 
 had greatly relaxed in the orthodoxy of his religious \ 
 opinions. Both he and my mother had become Uni- ; 
 tarians. They were also Universalists, and great :, 
 admirers of Mr. Winchester, particularly my mother.^ i 
 My father was willing, however, to hear all sides of the ^ 
 question, and used to visit the chapels of the most 
 popular preachers of all denominations. His favourite 
 among them, I think, was Mr. Worthington, who 
 preached at a chapel in Long Acre, and had a strong 
 natural eloquence. Politics and divinity occupied 
 almost all the conversation that I heard at our fireside. 
 It is a pity my father had been so spoilt a child, and 
 had strayed so much out of his sphere ; for he could be 
 contented with little. He was one of the last of the 
 gentry who retained the old fashion of smoking. He 
 indulged in it every night before he went to bed, which 
 he did at an early hour ; and it was pleasant to see 
 him sit, in his tranquil and gentlemanly manner, and 
 relate anecdotes of " my Lord North " and the Rocking- 
 ham administration, interspersed with those mild puffs 
 and urbane resumptions of the pipe. How often have 
 I thought of him under this aspect, and longed for the 
 state of society that might have encouraged him to be 
 more successful ! Had he lived twenty years longer 
 he would have thought it was coming. He died in the 
 year 1809, aged fifty-seven, and was buried in the 
 churchyard in Bishopsgate Street. I remember they 
 quarrelled over his coffin for the perquisites of the 
 candles ; which put me upon a great many reflections, 
 both on him and on the world. 
 
 I bless and am grateful to his memory. One of the 
 last sayings of the last surviving of his children but 
 myself, was a tribute to it equally simple and sincere. 
 
 ' " The Universalists cannot, properly speaking, be called a 1 
 distinct sect, as they are frequently found scattered amongst 
 various denominations. They are so named from holding the 
 benevolent opinion that all mankind, nay, even the demons them- 
 selves, will be finally restored to happiness, through the mercy of 
 Almighty God." — History of all Religions and Religiotts Cere- 
 monies, p. 263. What an impiety towards " Almighty God," that 
 anybody could ever have thought the reverse ! 
 
 21
 
 AlTOlUOCiKArHY OF LKIC. 11 HUNT 
 
 " What a kind man.' saiil tny brother Kobert. '' he 
 was ! " 
 
 My jjrandtather. by n\y mother's side, was Stephen 
 Shewell. merchant of Philadelphia, who sent out his 
 *■ arijosies. " His mother was a ipiaker. and he. himself. 
 I boliovo, descended fri>m a quaker stoek. He had 
 ships trading to England. Holland, and the West 
 Indies, and used to put his sons and nephews in them 
 as eaptains. For sausai^fes and " botargoes " (tirst 
 authors, perhaps, of the jaundice iri our blood). Friar 
 John woidd have recommended him. As Chaucer 
 siiys. 
 
 '• It suewcii. in his hoiiso. of meat and drink." 
 
 On that side of the family we seem all sailors and 
 rough subjects, with a mitigation (on the female part) 
 of Quakerism : as. on the father's side, we are Creoles 
 •and claret -dritikers, very polite and clerical. 
 
 My grandmcuher's n\aiilen name was Bickley. I 
 believe her family canie trciiu Buckinghatiishire. The 
 coat of arms are three half moons ; which 1 happen to 
 recollect, because of a traditiiin we had. that an 
 honourable augmentatioT\ was made to them of three 
 wheat -sheaves, in reward of some gallant achievement 
 performed in cutting ot¥ a convoy of provisions [by Sir 
 William Bickley. a partisan of the House of Orange, 
 who wiis made a Banneret. He was reputed in the 
 family to have been the last Englishman who received 
 the title of a Knight Banneret, by receiving Knight- 
 hood from the royal haiul. on the tield. T. H.]. My 
 grandmother was an open-hearted, cheerful woman, 
 of a good healthy blood. The family consisted of live 
 daughters and two sons, (.hie of the daughters died 
 uinnarried : of the four others, three are dead also; 
 the founli still lives, iis upright in her carriage as when 
 she wtis youTig, and the intelligent mother of two 
 intelligent daughters, one of whom, the wife of Dr. 
 Swift, a physician, is distinguished for her talent in 
 writing verses. One of my uncles died in England, ii 
 mild, excellent creature, more tit for solitude than the 
 sea. The other, my inu'le Stephen, a tine haTuisome
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 follow of great j^ood nature and f^allantry, was never 
 lieard of aftoi" leaving tin; jiort of l*hila<](iii)liia for the 
 WoHt IndioH. JIo iiad a practice of crowding too much 
 sail, whidi is HuppoH(;d to have heen h'lH doHtruction. 
 Th<!y Hai<l lie <li<l it " to g<5t ba(;k to Jiis ladies." 
 
 My un<-l<! was tlie rncsans of saving his nanuisake, my 
 brotluir St(!i)h<jn, from a singular destiny. SorrKs Indians, 
 who carrui into the city to traflic, had b(5en observed to 
 notic(5 my l)rother a good deal. It is sui)pos(;d they saw 
 in his tall little person, dark fac(5 and long black hair a 
 resemblances to themselv(!S. OiUi dny they enticed hinn 
 from my grand fath(;r's house in Front Street, and taking 
 him to the Delaware, which was close by, were carrying 
 him off across the river, when his uncle d(5scried them 
 and gave; the alarm. His threats induced them to come 
 back ; oth<;i'wise, it is thought, they intended to carry 
 him into their own quarters, and bring him up as an 
 Indian ; so that, inst(;ad of a riiro c^iaracter of another 
 sort, — an attorn(;y who would rather <5ompound a (juarrel 
 foi' his (dicitits than get rich by it, — we might have had 
 for a brother the Great Buffalo, Bloody Jiear, or some 
 such grim personage. I will indulges myself with the 
 liberty of observing in this place, that with great diver- 
 sity of chara(;ter among us, with strong [)oints of dis- 
 pute even among ourselves, and with the usual amount, 
 though not perhaps exactly the like nature, of infirmi- 
 ties common to other people, — some of us, may be, with 
 greater, — we have all been persons who inherited the 
 power of making sac^rifices for the sake of a principle. 
 
 My grandfath(!r, though intimate with Dr. Franklin, 
 was secretly on the British side of the question when 
 the American war broke out. He professed to be neu- 
 tral, and to attend only to business ; but his n(;utrality 
 did not avail him. One of his most valuably laden 
 shij)s was burnt in th(i Delaware^ }>y the Revolutionists, 
 to j)revent its getting into the hands of the British ; 
 and besides making free with his botargoes, they de- 
 spatched every now and then a file of soldiers to rifle 
 his house of everything else that could be serviceable : 
 linen, blankets, etc. And this, unfortunately, was only 
 a taste of what he was to suffer ; for, emptying his 
 
 23
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 mercantile stores from time to time, they paid himi 
 with their coutinental currency, paper money ; the de- 
 preciation of which was so great as to leave him at 
 the close of the war bankrupt of everything but some 
 houses, which his wife brought him ; they amounted 
 to a sufficiency for the family support : and thus, after 
 all his neutralities, he owed all that he retained to a 
 generous and unspeculating woman. His saving grace, 
 however, was not on all occasions confined to his money. 
 He gave a strong instance of his partiality to the British 
 cause, by secreting in his house a gentleman of the name 
 of Slater, w^ho commanded a small armed vessel on the 
 Delaware, and who was not long since residing in Lon- 
 don. Mr. Slater had been taken prisoner, and confined 
 at some miles' distance from Philadelphia. He contrived 
 to make his escape, and astonished my grandfather's 
 family by appearing before them at night, drenched in 
 the rain, which descends in torrents in that climate. 
 They secreted him for several months in a room at the 
 top of the house. 
 
 My mother at that time was a brunette with fine 
 eyes, a tall ladylike person, and hair blacker than is 
 seen of English growth. It was supposed that Anglo- 
 Americans already began to exhibit the influence of 
 climate in their appearance. The late Mr. West told 
 me that if he had met myself or any of my brothers 
 in the streets he should have pronounced, without 
 knowing us, that we were Americans. My mother had 
 no accomplishments but the two best of all, a love of 
 nature and of books. Dr. Franklin offered to teach 
 her the guitar ; but she was too bashful to become his 
 pupil. She regretted this afterwards, partly no doubt 
 for having lost so illustrious a master. Her first child, 
 who died, was named after him. I know^ not whether 
 the anecdote is new, but I have heard that w^hen Dr. 
 Franklin invented the Harmonica, he concealed it from 
 his wife till the instrument was fit to play, and then 
 woke her with it one night, when she took it for the 
 nausic of angels. Among the visitors at my grand- 
 father's house, besides Franklin, was Thomas Paine ; 
 whom I have heard my mother speak of, as having a 
 
 24
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 countenance that inspired her with terror. I believe 
 his aspect was not captivating ; but most likely his 
 political and religious opinions did it no good in the ^ 
 eyes of the fair loyalist. I 
 
 My mother was diffident of her personal merit, but 
 she had great energy of principle. When the troubles 
 broke out, and my father took that violent part in 
 favour of the king, a letter was received by her from 
 a person high in authority, stating, that if her husband 
 would desist from opposition to the general wishes of 
 the colonists, he should remain in security ; but that if 
 he thought fit to do otherwise, he must suffer the con- 
 sequences which awaited him. The letter concluded 
 with advising her, as she valued her husband's and 
 family's happiness, to use her influence with him to 
 act accordingly. To this, " in the spirit of old Rome 
 and Greece," as one of her sons has proudly and justly 
 observed (I will add, of Old England, and, though con- 
 trary to our royalist opinions, of New America, too), my 
 mother replied, that she knew her husband's mind too 
 well to suppose for a moment that he would so degrade 
 himself ; and that the writer of the letter entirely mis- 
 took her, if he thought her capable of endeavouring to 
 persuade him to an action contrary to the convictions 
 of his heart, whatever the consequences threatened 
 might be. Yet the heart of this excellent woman, 
 strong as it was, was already beating with anxiety 
 for what might occur ; and on the day when my 
 father was seized, she fell into a fit of the jaundice, 
 so violent as to affect her ever afterwards, and sub- 
 ject a previously fine constitution to every ill that 
 came across it. 
 
 It was nearly two years before my mother could set 
 off with her children for England. She embarked in 
 the Earl of Effingham frigate. Captain Dempster, who, 
 from the moment she was drawn up the sides of the 
 vessel with her little boys, conceived a pity and respect 
 for her, and paid her the most cordial attention. In 
 truth he felt more pity for her than he chose to ex- 
 press ; for the vessel was old and battered, and he 
 thought the voyage not without danger. Nor was it. 
 
 25
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 They did very well till they came off the Scilly Islands, 
 \vh(ni a storm arose which threatened to sink them. 
 The ship was w^ith difficulty kept above water. Here 
 my mother again showed how courageous her heart 
 could be, by the very strength of its tenderness. There 
 was a lady in the vessel who had betrayed w^eaknesses 
 of various sorts during the voyage ; and who even went 
 so far as to resent the superior opinion w^hich the gal- 
 lant captain could not help entertaining of her fellow- 
 passenger. My mother, instead of giving way to tears 
 and lamentations, did all she could to keep up the 
 spirits of her children. The lady in question did the 
 reverse ; and my mother feeling the necessity of the 
 case, and touched with pity for children in the same 
 danger as her ow^n, was at length moved to break 
 through the delicacy she had observed, and expostulate 
 strongly with her, to the increased admiration of the 
 captain, who congratulated himself on having a female 
 passenger so truly worthy of the name of woman. 
 Many years afterwards, near the same spot, and during 
 a similar danger, her son, the writer of this book, with 
 a wife and seven children around him, had occasion to 
 call her to mind ; and the example w^as of service even 
 to him, a man.^ It was thought a miracle that the Earl 
 of Effingham was saved. It was driven into Swansea 
 Bay, and borne along by the heaving might of the 
 waves into a shallow, where no vessel of so large a size 
 ever appeared before ; nor could it ever have got there, 
 but by so unwonted an overlifting. 
 
 Having been born nine years later than the youngest 
 of my brothers, I have no recollection of my mother's 
 earlier aspect. Her eyes were alw^ays fine, and her 
 person lady-like ; her hair also retained its colour for 
 a long period ; but her brown complexion had been 
 exchanged for a jaundiced one, which she retained 
 through life ; and her cheeks were sunken, and her 
 mouth drawn down with sorrow at the corners. She 
 retained the energy of her character on great occa- 
 sions ; but her spirit in ordinary w^as weakened, and 
 
 [' Leigh Hunt is referring to his unfortunate voyage to Italy in 
 November and December, 1821, see post, chapter xvii.) 
 
 26
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 she looked at the bustle and discord of the present 
 state of society with a frightened aversion. My 
 father's danger, and the war-whoops of the Indians 
 which she heard in Philadelphia, had shaken her soul 
 as well as frame. The sight of two men fighting in 
 the streets would drive her in tears down another 
 road ; and I remember, when we lived near the park, 
 she would take me a long circuit out of the way rather 
 than hazard the spectacle of the soldiers. Little did 
 she think of the timidity w^ith which she was thus 
 inoculating me, and what difficulty I should have, 
 when I went to school, to sustain all those fine 
 theories, and that unbending resistance to oppression, 
 which she inculcated. However, perhaps it ultimately 
 turned out for the best. One must feel more than 
 usual for the sore places of humanity, even to fight 
 properly in their behalf. Never shall I forget her face, 
 as it used to appear to me coming up the cloisters, with 
 that w^eary hang of the head on one side, and that 
 melancholy smile ! 
 
 One holiday, in a severe winter, as she was taking me 
 home, she was petitioned for charity by a woman sick 
 and ill- clothed. It was in Blackfriars' Road, I think 
 about midway. My mother, with the tears in her eyes, 
 turned up a gateway, or some such place, and beckoning 
 the woman to follow, took off her flannel petticoat, and 
 gave it her. It is supposed that a cold which ensued, 
 fixed the rheumatism upon her to life. Actions like 
 these have doubtless been often performed, and do not 
 of necessity imply any great virtue in the performer ; 
 but they do if they are of a piece with the rest of the 
 character. Saints have been made for charities no 
 greater. 
 
 The reader will allow me to quote a passage out of a 
 poem of mine, because it was suggested by a recollec- 
 tion I had upon me of this excellent woman. It is 
 almost the only passage in that poem worth repeating, 
 which I mention, in order that he may lay the quotation 
 to its right account, and not suppose I am anxious to 
 repeat my verses because I fancy they must be good. 
 In everything but the word " happy," the picture is 
 
 27
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 from life. The bird spoken of is the nightingale — 
 the 
 
 " Bird of wakeful glow, 
 Wlioso louder song is like the voice of life, 
 Ti'iiiinphant o'er death's image ; but whose deep. 
 Low, lovelier note is like a gentle wife, 
 A pool', a pensive, yet a happy one, 
 Stealing, when daylight's common tasks are done, 
 An hour for mother's work ; and singing low. 
 While her tired husband and her children sleep." 
 
 I liave spoken of my mother during my father's 
 troubles in England. She stood by him through them 
 all ; and in everything did more honour to marriage, 
 than marriage did good to either of them : for it 
 brought little happiness to her, and too many children 
 to both. Of his changes of opinion, as well as of for- 
 tune, she partook also. She became a Unitarian, a 
 Universalist, perhaps a Republican ; and in her new 
 opinions, as in her old, was apt, I suspect, to be a little 
 too peremptory, and to wonder at those who could be of 
 the other side. It was her only fault. She would have 
 mended it had she lived till now. Though not a re- 
 publican myself, I have been thought, in my time, to 
 speak too severely of kings and princes. I think I did, 
 and that society is no longer to be bettered in that man- 
 ner, but in a much calmer and nobler way. But I was 
 a witness, in my childhood, to a great deal of suffering ; 
 I heard of more all over the world ; and kings and 
 princes bore a great share in the causes to which they 
 were traced. 
 
 Some of those causes were not to be denied. It is 
 now understood, on all hands, that the continuation of 
 the American war was owing to the personal stubborn- 
 ness of the king. My mother, in her indignation at him 
 for being the cause of so much unnecessary bloodshed, 
 thought that the unfortunate malady into which he fell 
 was a judgment of Providence. 
 
 My mother's intolerance, after all, was only in theory. 
 When anything was to be done, charity in her always 
 ran before faith. If she could have served and benefited 
 the king himself personally, indignation would soon have 
 given way to humanity. She had a high opinion of every- 
 
 28
 
 THE AUTHOR'S PROGENITORS 
 
 thing that was decorous and feminine on the part of a'; 
 wife ; yet w^hen a poor violent woman, the wife of an' 
 amiable and eloquent preacher, went so far on one occa- 
 sion as to bite his hand in a fit of jealous rage as he was 
 going to ascend his pulpit (and he preached in great 
 pain), my mother was the only female of her acquaint- 
 ance that continued to visit her ; alleging that she 
 needed society and comfort so much the more. She had 
 the highest notions of chastity ; yet when a servant came 
 to her, who could get no place because she had had an 
 illegitimate child, my mother took her into her family 
 upon the strength of her candour and her destitute con- 
 dition, and was served during the remainder of the 
 mistress's life with affectionate gratitude. 
 
 My mother's favourite books were Dr. Young's Night 
 Thoughts (which was a pity), and Mrs. Rowe's Devout 
 Exercises of the Heart. I remember also her expressing 
 great admiration of the novels of Mrs. Inchbald, especi- 
 ally the Simple Story. She was very fond of poetry, and 
 used to hoard my verses in her pocket-book, and en- 
 courage me to write, by showing them to the Wests 
 and the Thorntons. Her friends loved and honoured 
 her to the last : and, I believe, they retained their 
 regard for the family. 
 
 My mother's last illness was long, and was tormented 
 with rheumatism. I envied my brother Robert the 
 recollection of the filial attentions he paid her ; but 
 they shall be as much known as I can make them, not 
 because he was my brother (which is nothing), but be- 
 cause he was a good son, which is much ; and every 
 good son and mother will be my warrant. My other 
 brothers, w^ho were married, were away with their 
 families ; and I, who ought to have attended more, was 
 as giddy as I was young, or rather a great deal more so. 
 I attended, but not enough. How often have we occa- 
 sion to w^ish that we could be older or younger than we 
 are, according as we desire to have the benefit of gaiety 
 or experience ! Her greatest pleasure during her decay 
 was to lie on a sofa, looking at the setting sun. She 
 used to liken it to the door of heaven, and fancy her 
 lost children there, w^aiting for her. She died in the 
 
 29
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 tifty-third year of her age, in a little miniature house 
 which staiuls in a row behind the church that has been 
 since built in Somerstown ; and she was buried, as 
 she had always wished to be, in the churchyard of 
 Hampstead. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 [1784—1792] 
 
 I HAVE spoken of the Duke of Chandos, to whose 
 nephew, Mr. Leigh, ^ my father became tutor. Mr. 
 Leigh, who gave me his name, was son of the duke's 
 sister. Lady Caroline, and died member of parliament. 
 He was one of the kindest and gentlest of men, addicted 
 to those tastes for poetry and sequestered pleasure, 
 which w^ere conspicuous in his son, Lord Leigh ; for all 
 which reasons it would seem, and contrary to the 
 usurping qualities in such cases made and provided, he 
 and his family were subjected to one of the most extra- 
 ordinary charges that a defeated claim ever brought 
 drunken witnesses to set up ; no less than the murder 
 and burial of a set of masons, who were employed in 
 building a bridge, and whose destruction in the act of 
 so doing was to bury both them and a monument which 
 they knew of for ever ! To complete the romance of 
 the tragedy, a lady, the wife of the usurper, presides 
 over the catastrophe. She cries, " Let go ! " while 
 the poor wretches are raising a stone at night-time, 
 amidst a scene of torches and seclusion ; and down goes 
 the stone, aided by this tremendous father and son, and 
 crushes the victims of her ambition ! She meant, as 
 Cowley says Goliath did of David, 
 
 " At once their murder and their monument." 
 
 If a charge of the most awful crimes could be dug up 
 
 [' The Hon, James Henry Leigh.] 
 30
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 against the memories of such men as Thomson and 
 Shenstone, or of Cowley, or Cowper, or the " Man of 
 Ross," it could not have created more laughing astonish- 
 ment in the minds of those who knew them, than such 
 a charge against the family of the Leighs. Its late 
 representative in the notes to his volume of poems, 
 printed some years ago, quoted the "following beautiful 
 passage " out of Fielding : — 
 
 " It was the middle of May, and the morning was 
 remarkably serene, when Mr. Allworthy walked forth 
 on the terrace, where the dawn opened every minute 
 that lovely prospect we have before described, to his 
 eye. And now having sent forth streams of light 
 which ascended to the firmament before him, as har- 
 bingers preceding his pomp, in the full blaze of his 
 majesty up rose the sun ; than w^hich one object alone 
 in this lower creation could be more glorious, and that 
 Mr. Allworthy himself presented ; a human being 
 replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner 
 he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator 
 by doing most good to his creatures." 
 
 " This," adds the quoter, " is the portrait of a fictitious 
 personage ; but I see in it a close resemblance to one 
 whose memory I shall never cease to venerate." 
 
 The allusion is to his father, Mr. Leigh. 
 
 But I must not anticipate the verdict of a court of 
 justice.^ Indeed, I should have begged pardon of my 
 noble friend for speaking of this preposterous accusa- 
 tion, did not the very excess of it force the words from 
 my pen, and were I not sure that my own father would 
 have expected them from me, had he been alive to hear 
 it. His lordship must accept them as an effusion of 
 grateful sympathy from one father and son to another. 
 
 Lord Leigh has written many a tender and thought- 
 ful verse, in which, next to the domestic affections and 
 the progress of human kind, he shows that he loves 
 above all things the beauties of external nature, and 
 the tranquil pleasures they suggest. 
 
 ' The verdict was subsequently given. It almost seemed ridicu- 
 lous, it was so unnecessary ; except, indeed, as a caution to the like 
 of those whom it punished. 
 
 31
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 So much do I agree with him, that it is a pleasure to 
 nio to know that I was even born in so sweet a village 
 as Southgato. I first saw the light there on the 19th of 
 October, 1784.* It found me cradled, not only in the 
 lap of the nature which I love, but in the midst of the 
 truly English scenery which I love beyond all other. 
 Middlesex in general, like my noble friend's county of 
 Warwickshire, is a scene of trees and meadows, of 
 " greenery " and nestling cottages ; and Southgate is a 
 prime specimen of Middlesex. It is a place lying out of 
 the way of innovation, therefore it has the pure, sweet 
 air of antiquity about it ; and as I am fond of local 
 researches in any quarter, it may be pardoned me if in 
 this instance I would fain know even the meaning of 
 its name. There is no Northgate, Eastgate, or West- 
 gate in Middlesex ; what, then, is Southgate ? No topo- 
 grapher tells us ; but an old map of the country twenty- 
 five miles round London, drawn up some years previous 
 to my childhood, is now before me ; and on looking at 
 the boundaries of Enfield Chase, I see that the " Chase- 
 gate," the name most likely of the principal entrance, 
 is on the north side of it, by North-Hall and Potter's 
 Bar ; while Southgate, which has also the name of 
 " South Street," is on the Chase's opposite border ; so 
 that it seems evident, that Southgate meant the south- 
 ern entrance into the chase, and that the name became 
 that of a village from the growth of a street. The 
 street, in all probability, was the consequence of a fair 
 held in a wood which ran on the western side of it, and 
 iwhich, in the map, is designated " Bush Fair." Bush, 
 in old English, meant not only a hedge, but a wood ; as 
 
 ?o^s or Bosco does in French and Italian. Moses and 
 the " burning bush " is Moses and the " burning wood ;" 
 
 ^hich, by the way, presents a much grander idea than 
 the modicum of hedge commonly assigned to the 
 
 [' At a house called Eagle Hall. As he says above, he was the 
 youngest of the family. He was given the name of James Henry 
 Leigh. Lord Palmerston was born on the following day. On the 
 form for admission to Christ's Hospital, it is stated that Hunt was 
 baptized on October 30, 1791 ; that is, after the date of the petition 
 {see p. 56),] 
 
 32
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 celestial apparition. There is a good deal more wood 
 in the map than is now to be found. I wander in 
 imagination through the spots marked in the neigh-< 
 bourhood, with their pleasant names — Woodside, Wood 
 Green, Palmer Green, Nightingale Hall, etc., and fancy 
 my father and mother listening to the nightingales, and 
 loving the new little baby, who has now lived to see 
 more years than they did. 
 
 Southgate lies in a cross-country road, running from 
 Edmonton through Enfield Chase into Hertfordshire. 
 It is in the parish of Edmonton ; so that we may fancy 
 the Merry Devil ^ of that place still playing his pranks 
 hereabouts, and helping innocent lovers to a wedding, 
 as in the sweet little play attributed to Dryden. For 
 as to any such devils going to a place less harmonious, 
 it is not to be thought possible by good Christians. 
 Furthermore, to show what classical ground is round 
 about Southgate, and how it is associated with the best 
 days of English genius, both old and new, Edmonton is 
 the birthplace of Marlowe,^ the father of our drama, and 
 of my friend Horne,^ his congenial celebrator. In Ed| 
 monton churchyard lies Charles Lamb ; in Highgate 
 churchyard, Coleridge ; and in Hampstead have resided 
 Shelley and Keats, to say nothing of Akenside befor© 
 them, and of Steele, Arbuthnot, and others, before 
 Akenside. 
 
 But the neighbourhood is dear to me on every 
 account ; for near Southgate is Colney Hatch, where 
 my mother became acquainted with some of her dearest 
 friends, whom I shall mention by-and-by. Near Colney 
 
 [* The Life and Death of the Mefry Devil of Edmonton, etc., is 
 supposed to have been written by Thomas Brewer (fl. 1624), although 
 it has been ascribed by some to Anthony Brewer. This play was 
 entered at Stationers' Hall on April 3, 1608, and there is a copy in 
 the British Museum bearing the date of 1617. It therefore could not 
 have been written by Dryden as Hunt suggests. Michael Drayton 
 has been suggested by some as the author of this play, and it is not 
 unlikely Leigh Hunt confused his name with that of the later 
 dramatist. ] 
 
 [2 This of course is a slip of Hunt's ; Christopher Marlowe (1564- 
 1593) was born at Canterbury.] 
 
 [■* Richard Henry, or Hengist, Home (1803-1884), the author of 
 The Death of Marlowe, 1837.] 
 
 33 D
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Hatch is Finchley, where our family resided on quitting 
 Sduthjj^ato ; and at no groat distance from Finchley is 
 Mill Hill, where lived excellent Dr. W. M. Trinder, Vicar 
 of Hendon, who presented in his person the rare com- 
 bination of clergyman and physician. He boasted that 
 he had cured a little child (to wit, myself) of a dropsy 
 in the head. The fact was contested, I believe, by 
 the lay part of the profession ; but it was believed in 
 the family, and their love for the good doctor was 
 boundless. 
 
 I may call myself, in every sense of the w^ord, ety- 
 mological not excepted, a son of mirth and melancholy ; 
 for my father's Christian name (as old students of ono- 
 mancy would have heard with serious faces) was Isaac, 
 which is Hebrew for " laughter," and my mother's was 
 Mary, w^hich comes from a word in the same language 
 signifying " bitterness." And, indeed, as I do not 
 remember to have ever seen my mother smile, ex- 
 cept in sorrowful tenderness, so my father's shouts of 
 laughter are now^ ringing in my ears. Not at any ex- 
 pense to her gravity, for he loved her, and thought her 
 an angel on earth ; but because his animal spirits were 
 invincible. I inherit from my mother a tendency to 
 jaundice, Tvhich at times has made me melancholy 
 enough. I doubt, indeed, whether I have passed a day 
 during half my life, w^ithout reflections, the first germs 
 of which are traceable to sufferings which this tendency 
 once cost me. My prevailing temperament, neverthe- 
 less, is my father's ; and it has not only enabled me to 
 turn those reflections into sources of tranquillity and 
 exaltation, but helped my love of my mother's memory 
 to take a sort of pride in the infirmity which she be- 
 queathed me. 
 
 I forget whether it was Dr. Trinder — for some pur- 
 pose of care and caution — but somebody told my 
 mother (and she believed it), that if I survived to the 
 age of fifteen I might turn out to possess a more than 
 average amount of intellect ; but that otherwise I stood a 
 chance of dying an idiot. The reader may imagine the 
 anxiety which this information would give to a tender 
 mother. Not a syllable of course did she breathe to me 
 
 34
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 on the subject till the danger was long past, and doubly 
 did I then become sensible of all the marks of affection 
 which I called to mind ; of the unusual things which she 
 had done for me ; of the neglect, alas ! which they had too 
 often experienced from me, though not to her know- 
 ledge ; and of the mixture of tenderness and anxiety 
 which I had always noted in her face. I was the 
 youngest and least robust of her sons, and during early 
 childhood I used hardly to recover from one illness 
 before I was seized with another. The doctor said I 
 must have gone through an extraordinary amount of 
 suffering. I have sometimes been led to consider this 
 as the first layer of that accumulated patience with 
 which, in after life, I had occasion to fortify myself ; 
 and the supposition has given rise to many consolatory 
 reflections on the subject of endurance in general. 
 
 To assist my recovery from one of these illnesses, I 
 was taken to the coast of France, where, as usual, I fell 
 into another ; and one of my earliest recollections is of 
 a good-natured French woman, the mistress of the lodg- 
 ing-house at Calais, who cried over the " poore littel 
 boy," because I was a heretic. She thought I should 
 go to the devil. Poor soul ! What torments must the 
 good-hearted woman have undergone ; and what pleasl 
 ant pastime it is for certain of her loud and learned 
 inferiors to preach such doctrines, careless of the 
 injuries they inflict, or even hoping to inflict them for the 
 sake of some fine deity-degrading lesson, of which their 
 sordid imaginations and splenetic itch of dictation 
 assume the necessity. It w^as lucky for me that our 
 hostess w^as a gentle, not a violent bigot, and susceptible 
 at her heart of those better notions of God w^hich are in- 
 stinctive in the best natures. She might otherwise 
 have treated me, as a late traveller says, infants have 
 been treated by Catholic nurses, and murdered in order 
 to save me.^ 
 
 In returning from the coast of France, w^e stopped at ; 
 Deal, and I found myself, one evening, standing with an I 
 elder brother on the beach, looking at a shoal of por- | 
 poises, creatures of which he had given me some tre- 
 
 ' Letters from the Bye-tvays of Italy. By Mrs. Henry Stisted. 
 
 35
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 niondous, mysterious notion. I remember, as if it were 
 yesterday, feeling the shades of evening, and the solem- 
 nity of the spectacle, with an awful intensity. There 
 they were, tumbling along in the foam, what exactly I 
 knew not, but fearful creatures of some sort. My 
 brother spoke to me of them in an under tone of voice, 
 and I held my breath as I looked. The very word 
 "porpoise" had an awful mouthfilling sound. 
 
 This brother of mine, who is now no more, and who 
 might have been a MarinelP himself, for his notions of 
 wealth and grandeur (to say nothing of his marrying, 
 in succession, two ladies with dowries, from islands, 
 whom ancient imagination could easily have exalted 
 into sea-nymphs), was then a fine tall lad, of intrepid 
 spirit, a little too much given to playing tricks on those 
 who had less. He was a dozen years older than I was, 
 and he had a good deal of the despot in a nature other- 
 wise generous. 
 
 To give an instance of the lengths to which my 
 brother Stephen carried his claims of ascendancy, he 
 used to astonish the boys, at a day school to which he 
 went at Finchley, by appearing among them with clean 
 shoes, when the bad state of the lanes rendered the 
 phenomenon unaccountable. Reserve, on the one side, 
 and shame on another, kept the mystery a secret for 
 some time. At length it turned out that he was in the 
 habit, on muddy days, of making one of his brothers 
 carry him to school on his shoulders. 
 
 This brother (Robert), who used to laugh at the recol- 
 lection, and who, as I have intimated, was quite as 
 brave as the other, was at a disadvantage on such occa- 
 sions, from his very bravery ; since he knew what a 
 horror my mother would have felt had there been any 
 collision between them ; so he used to content himself 
 with an oratorical protest, and acquiesce. Being a 
 brave, or at all events irritable little fellow enough my- 
 self, till illness, imagination, and an ultra tender and 
 anxious rearing, conspired to render me fearful and 
 patient, I had no such consequences to think of. When 
 Stephen took me bodily in hand, I was only exas- 
 [^ See Spenser's Faerie Queene, book III.] 
 36
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 perated. I remember the furious struggles I used to 
 make, and my endeavours to get at his shins, when he 
 would hold me at arm's length, " aggravating " me (as 
 the phrase is) by taunting speeches, and laughing like a 
 goblin. 
 
 But on the " night-side of human nature," as Mrs. 
 Crowe ^ calls it, he " had me." I might confront him 
 and endeavour to kick his shins by daylight, but with 
 respect to ghosts, as the sailor said, I did not " under- 
 stand their tackle." I had unfortunately let him see 
 that I did not like to be in the dark, and that I had a 
 horror of dreadful faces, even in books. I had found 
 something particularly ghastly in the figure of an old 
 man crawling on the ground, in some frontispiece — I 
 think to a book called the Looking-Glass ; and there 
 was a fabulous wild beast, a portrait of which, in some 
 picture-book, unspeakably shocked me. It was called 
 the Mantichora. It had the head of a man, grinning 
 with rows of teeth, and the body of a wild beast, bran- 
 dishing a tail armed with stings. It was sometimes 
 called by the ancients ilf artichora. But I did not know 
 \ that. I took the word to be a horrible compound of 
 I man and tiger. The beast figures in Pliny and the old 
 travellers. ApoUonius had heard of him. He takes a 
 1 fearful joy in describing him, even from report : — 
 
 " ApoUonius asked ' if they had among them the Mar- 
 ! tichora.' ' What ! ' said larchas, ' have you heard of 
 that animal ; for if you have, you have probably heard 
 I something extraordinary of its figure.' ' Great and 
 ) wonderful things have I heard of it,' replied ApoUonius. 
 I ' It is of the number of quadrupeds, has a head like a 
 j man's, is as large as a lion, with a tail from which 
 bristles grow, of the length of a cubit, all as sharp as 
 I prickles, which it shoots forth like so many arrows 
 I against its pursuers.' " ^ 
 
 1 That sentence, beginning " Great and wonderful 
 I things," proves to me, that ApoUonius must once have 
 I been a little boy, looking at the picture-books. The 
 
 j [' Mrs. Catherine Ann Crowe, n^e Stevens (1790-1872), was the 
 ! author of a book of ghostly tales called The Niglit-side of Nature, 
 ! 1848.] 2 Berwick's Translation, p. 176. 
 
 37
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 possibility of such " creatures " being " pursued " never 
 occurred to me. Alexander, I thought, might have 
 been encountei-ed while crossing the Granicus, and 
 elephants might be driven into the sea ; but how could 
 any one face a beast with a man's head ? One look of 
 its horrid countenance (which it always carried front- 
 ing you, as it went by — I never imagined it seen in pro- 
 file) would have been enough, I concluded, to scare an 
 army. Even full-grown dictionary makers have been 
 frightened out of their propriety at the thought of 
 him. " Mantichora," says old Morell — " bestia horrenda" 
 — (a brute fit to give one the horrors). 
 
 In vain my brother played me repeated tricks \s^ith this 
 frightful anomaly. I w^as always ready to be frightened 
 again. At one time he would grin like the Mantichora ; 
 then he would roar like him ; then call about him in 
 the dark. I remember his asking me to come up to 
 him one night at the top of the house. I ascended, and 
 found the door shut. Suddenly a voice came through 
 the key-hole, saying in its hoUowest tones, "The Manti- 
 chora's coming." Down I rushed to the parlour, fancy- 
 ing the terror at my heels. 
 
 I dwell the more on this seemingly petty circum- 
 stance, because such things are no petty ones to a sen- 
 sitive child. My brother had no idea of the mischief 
 they did me. Perhaps the mention of them will save 
 mischief to others. They helped to morbidize all that 
 was weak in my temperament, and cost me many a 
 bitter night. ^ 
 
 ^ Since this passage was written, I have met with one in Tod's 
 Travels in Western India, p. 82, etc., in which the veritable origin 
 of the idea of the Mantichora is, I have no doubt, set forth. India 
 has ever been a land of extremes, both spiritual and bodily. At the 
 moment when I write (September, 1857) it is a land of horrors. 
 Here is one, existing five-and-thirty years ago, and in all probability 
 existing still, which shows the outrageous tendency to excess on 
 the side of mad superstition, and of brute contradiction to humanity, 
 characteristic of the lower forms of Indian degradation. It is the 
 sect of the Aghori, who, among other unspeakable viands, fed on 
 dead bodies, and were first re-mentioned after the ancient writers, 
 by the celebrated traveller Thevenot, who says they were called 
 Merdi-coura, or eaters of men. Colonel Tod observes, "It is a 
 curious fact, as D'Anville adds, that ' this espece de bete,' this Merdi- 
 cour, or, properlv, Merdi-khor, should have been noticed by Pliny, 
 
 38
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 Another time I was reading to him, while he was 
 recovering in bed from an accident. He was reckless 
 in his play ; had once broken his leg on Hampstea^ 
 Heath ; and w^as now getting well from a broken 
 collar-bone. He gave me a volume to read to him, 
 either of Elegant Extracts or Atkins Miscellanies (t, 
 think the former), and selected the story of " Sir] 
 Bertrand." He did not betray by his face what was 
 coming. I was enchanted with the commencement 
 about the " dreary moors " and the " curfew^ ; " and I 
 was reading on with breathless interest, when, at one 
 of the most striking passages, — probably some analo- 
 gous one about a noise, — he contrived, w^ith some in- 
 strument or other, to give a tremendous knock on the 
 wall. Up I jumped, aghast ; and the invalid lay rolling 
 with laughter. 
 
 So healthily had I the good fortune to be brought 
 up in point of religion, that (to anticipate a remark 
 which might have come in at a less effective place) I 
 remember kneeling one day at the school-church dur- 
 ing the Litany, when the thought fell upon me — "Sup- 
 pose eternal punishment should be true." An unusual 
 sense of darkness and anxiety crossed me — but only 
 for a moment. The next instant the extreme absurdity 
 and impiety of the notion restored me to my ordinary 
 feelings ; and from that moment to this, — respect the 
 mystery of the past as I do, and attribute to it what 
 final good out of fugitive evil I may, — I have never for 
 
 Aristotle, and Ctesias, under nearly the same name — Marti-cliora, 
 giving its synonym in their own language, ^Av6poirocl)dyos ; for Merdi- 
 khor is a Persian compound, from inerd, ' man,' and khoordun, ' to 
 eat.' " 
 
 " I passed," says the Colonel, "the gopha, or cave, of the most 
 celebrated of the monsters of the present age, who was long the! 
 object of terror and loathing to Aboo and its neighbourhood. Hia 
 name was Putteh Poori ; who, after having embowelled whatever 
 came in his way, took the extraordinary resolution of immuring 
 himself in his cell. The commands of maniacs generally meet withi 
 ready obedience ; and as he was regarded by many in this light, his 
 desire was implicitly fulfilled. The mouth of the cave was built up; 
 and will remain so, till some mummy-hunting Frank shall re-open 
 it, or till phrenology form a part of the modern education of a' 
 Hindu; when, doubtless, the organ of destruction on the cranium 
 of Fixtteh Poori will exhibit a high state of development." 
 
 39
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 /oiio instant dt)ubted the transitoriness of the doctrine 
 and the unexchisive goodness of futurity. All those 
 question-begging argumentations of the churches and 
 schools, which arc employed to reconcile the inflictions 
 of the imrsery to the gift of reason, and which would 
 do quite as well for the absurdities of any one creed as 
 another (indeed, they would be found to have done so, 
 were we as deeply read in the religions of the East as 
 of the West), come to nothing before the very modesty 
 to which they appeal, provided it is a modesty healthy 
 and loving. The more even of fugitive evil which it 
 sees (and no ascertained evil suffered by any individual 
 creature is otherwise), nay, the more which is disclosed 
 to it in the very depths and concealments of nature, 
 only the more convinces it that the great mystery of 
 all things will allow of no lasting evil, visible or in- 
 visible ; and therefore it concludes that the evil which 
 does exist is for some good purpose, and for the final 
 blessing of all sentient beings, of whom it takes a care 
 so remarkable. 
 
 I know not whether it was fortunate or unfortunate 
 for me, humanly speaking, that my mother did not see 
 as far into healthiness of training in other respects as 
 in this. Some of the bad consequences to myself were 
 indeed obvious, as the reader has seen ; but it may 
 have enabled me to save worse to others. If I could 
 find any fault with her memory (speaking after an 
 ordinary fashion), it would be that I was too delicately 
 bred, except as to what is called good living. My 
 parents were too poor for luxury. But she set me an 
 example of such excessive care and anxiety for those 
 about us, that I remember I could not see her bite off 
 the ends of her thread while at work without being 
 in pain till I was sure she would not swallow them. 
 She used to be so agitated at the sight of discord and 
 quarrelling, particularly when it came to blows, and 
 between the rudest or gayest combatants in the street, 
 that, although it did not deprive her of courage and 
 activity enough to interfere (which she would do if 
 there was the slightest chance of effect, and which 
 produced in myself a corresponding discrimination be- 
 
 40
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 tween sensibility and endeavour), it gave me an ultra- 
 sympathy with the least show of pain and suffering ; 
 and she had produced in me such a horror, or rather 
 such an intense idea of even violent words, and of the 
 commonest trivial oath, that being led one day, per- 
 haps by the very excess of it, to snatch a "fearful joy" 
 in its utterance, it gave me so much remorse that for 
 some time afterwards I could not receive a bit of 
 praise, or a pat of encouragement on the head, with- 
 out thinking to myself, "Ah ! they little suspect that I 
 am the boy who said, ' d — n it.' " 5 
 
 Dear mother ! No one could surpass her in gener-i- 
 osity ; none be more willing to share, or to take the 
 greatest portion of blame to themselves, of any evil 
 consequences of mistake to a son ; but if I have not 
 swallowed very many camels in the course of my life, 
 it has not been owing, perhaps, to this too great a 
 straining at gnats. How happy shall I be (if I may) 
 to laugh and compare notes with her on the subject 
 in any humble corner of heaven ; to recall to her the 
 filial tenderness with which she was accustomed to 
 speak of the mistakes of one of her own parents, and 
 to think that her grandchildren will be as kind to the 
 memory of their father. 
 
 I may here mention, as a ludicrous counterpart to 
 this story, and a sample of the fantastical nature of 
 scandal, that somebody having volunteered a defence 
 of my character on some occasion to Mr. Wordsworth, 
 as though the character had been questioned by him 
 — the latter said he had never heard anything against 
 it, except that I was " given to swearing." 
 
 I certainly think little of the habit of swearing, 
 however idle, if it be carried no further than is done 
 by many gallant and very good men, wise and great 
 ones not excepted. I wish I had no worse faults to 
 answer for. But the fact is, that however I may laugh 
 at the puerile conscience of the anecdote just men- 
 tioned, an oath has not escaped my lips from that day 
 to this. 
 
 I hope no " good fellow " will think ill of me for it. 
 If he did, I should certainly be tempted to begin swear- 
 
 41
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 in^ iininodiately, purely to vindicate my character. 
 J>ut tlioro was no s\vcarin<^ in our family : there was 
 none in our school (Christ Hospital) ; and I seldom ever 
 fell in the way of it anywlicre except in books ; so that 
 the practice was not put into my head. I look upon 
 Tom Jones, who swore, as an angel of light compared 
 with Blitil, who, I am afraid, swore no more than my- 
 self. Steele, I suspect, occasionally rapped out an oath, 
 which is not to be supposed of Addison. And this, 
 agaui. might tempt me into a grudge against my non- 
 juring turn of colloquy ; for I must own that I pre- 
 fer open-hearted Steele wdtli all his faults, to Addison 
 ■with all his essays. But habit is habit, negative as 
 w^ell as positive. Let him that is without one, cast the 
 first sarcasm. 
 
 After all, swearing was once seriously objected to 
 me, and I had given cause for it. I must own, that I 
 even begged hard to be allowed a few oaths. It was 
 for an article in a magazine (the Neiv Monthly), w^here 
 I had to describe a fictitious person, whose character I 
 thought required it ; and I pleaded truth to nature, 
 and the practice of the good old novelists ; but in vain. 
 The editor was not to be entreated. He was Mr. 
 Theodore Hook.^ Perhaps this was what gave rise to 
 ,the poet's impression. 
 
 •J But to return to my reminiscences. It may appear 
 ■ surprising to some, that a child brought up in such 
 scruples of conscience, and particularly in such objec- 
 tions to pugnacity, should have ever found himself in 
 possession of such toys as a drum and a sword. A 
 distinguished economist, who was pleased the other 
 day to call me the " spoiled child of the public " (a 
 title which I should be proud to possess), expressed his 
 astonishment that a person so " gentle " should have 
 been a fighter in the thick of politics. But the "gen- 
 tleness " was the reason. I mean, that under certain 
 '.circumstances of training, the very love of peace and 
 I comfort, in begetting a desire to see those benefits 
 
 [1 Theodore Edward Hook (1788-1&41) the novelist. He became 
 the editor of the Neiv Monthly Magazine in 1836.] 
 
 42
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 partaken by others, begets a corresponding indignation 
 at seeing them withheld. 
 
 I am aware of the perils of reaction to which this 
 feeling tends ; of the indulgence in bad passions which 
 it may disguise ; of the desirableness of quietly advo- 
 cating whatever is quietly to be secured ; of the per- 
 plexity occasioned to all these considerations by the 
 example which appears to be set by nature herself in 
 her employment of storm and tempest ; and of the 
 answer to be given to that perplexity by the modesty 
 of human ignorance and its want of certainty of fore- 
 sight. Nevertheless, till this question be settled (and 
 the sooner the justice of the world can settle it the 
 better), it renders the best natures liable to incon- 
 sistencies between theory and practice, and forces them 
 into self -reconcilements of conscience, neither quite so 
 easy in the result, nor so deducible from perfect reason 
 as they would suppose. My mother, whose fortunes 
 had been blighted, and feelings agonized, by the revo- 
 lution in America, and who had conceived such a 
 horror of war, that when we resided once near the 
 Park, she would take a long circuit (as I have before 
 mentioned), rather than go through it, in order to 
 avoid seeing the soldiers, permitted me, nevertheless, 
 to have the drum and the sword. Why ? Because, if 
 the sad necessity were to come, it would be her son's 
 duty to war against war itself — to fight against those 
 who oppressed the anti-fighters. 
 
 My father, entertaining these latter opinions without 
 any misgiving (enforced, too, as they were by his 
 classical education), and both my parents being great 
 lovers of sermons, which he was in the habit of reading 
 to us of an evening, I found myself at one time culti- 
 vating a perplexed ultra-conscientiousness with my 
 mother ; at another, laughing and being jovial with 
 my father ; and at a third, hearing from both of them 
 stories of the Greek and Roman heroes, some of whom 
 she admired as much as he did. The consequence was, 
 that I one day presented to the astonished eyes of the 
 maidservant a combination that would have startled 
 Dr. Trinder, and delighted the eyes of an old Puritan. 
 
 43
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 To clap a sword by my side, and get the servant to pin 
 up my hat into the likeness of the hat military, were 
 symptoms of an ambition which she understood and 
 ai>plaiulod : but when I jiroceeded to append to this 
 martial attire one of my father's bands, and, combining 
 the military with the ecclesiastical authority, got upon 
 a chair to preach to an imaginary audience over the 
 back of it, she seemed to think the image realized of 
 " heaven and earth coming together." However, she 
 ended with enjoying, and even abetting, this new 
 avatar of the church militant. Had I been a Moham- 
 med, she would have been my first proselyte, and I 
 should have called her the Maid-servant of the Faith- 
 ful. She was a good, simple-hearted creature, who 
 from not having been fortunate with the first orator 
 in whom she believed, had stood a chance of ruin for 
 life, till received into the only family that would admit 
 her ; and she lived and died in its service. 
 
 The desire thus childishly exhibited, of impressing 
 some religious doctrine, never afterwards quitted me ; 
 though, in consequence of the temperament which I 
 inherited from one parent, and the opinions which 
 I derived from both, it took a direction singularly 
 cheerful. For a man is but his parents, or some other 
 of his ancestors, drawn out. My father, though a 
 clergyman of the Established Church, had settled, as 
 well as my mother, into a Christian of the Universalist 
 persuasion, which believes in the final restoration of all 
 things. It was hence that I learned the impiety (as I 
 have expressed it) of the doctrine of eternal punish- 
 ment. In the present day, a sense of that impiety, in 
 some way or other, whether of doubt or sophistication, 
 is the secret feeling of nine-tenths of all churches ; and 
 every church will discover, before long, that it must 
 rid itself of the doctrine, if it would not cease to exist. 
 Love is the only creed destined to survive all others. 
 They who think that no church can exist without a 
 strong spice of terror, should watch the growth of 
 education, and see which system of it is the most 
 beloved. They should see also which system in the 
 very nursery is growing the most ridiculous. The 
 
 44
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 threat of the " black man and the coal-hole " has van- 
 ished from all decent infant training. What answer is 
 the father, who would uphold the worst form of it, to 
 give to the child whom he has spared the best ? 
 
 How pleasant it is, in reviewing one's life, to look 
 back on the circumstances that originated or encour- 
 aged any kindly tendency. I behold, at this moment, 
 with lively distinctness, the handsome face of Miss C, 
 who was the first person I remember seeing at a piano- 
 forte ; and I have something of a like impression of 
 that of Miss M[axwell], mother, if J mistake not, or, at all 
 events, near relation, of my distinguished friend Sheri- 
 dan Knowles.^ My parents and his were acquainted. 
 My mother, though fond of music, and a gentle singer 
 in her way, had missed the advantage of a musical 
 education, partly from her coming of a half-quaker 
 stock, partly (as I have said before) from her having 
 been too diffident to avail herself of the kindness of 
 Dr. Franklin, who offered to teach her the guitar. 
 
 The reigning English composer at that time was| 
 "Mr. Hook,"^ as he was styled at the head of his songs||; 
 He was the father of my punctilious editor of th^," 
 magazine, and had a real, though small vein of genius|| 
 which was none the better for its being called upon t4| 
 flow profusely for Ranelagh and Vauxhall. He wa^j 
 composer of the " Lass of Richmond Hill " (an allusioi]^! 
 to a penchant of George IV.), and of another populaC| 
 song more lately remembered, " 'Twas within a mile ot;^ 
 Edinborough town." ^ The songs of that day abounded 
 in Strephons and Delias, and the music partook of the 
 gentle inspiration. The association of early ideas with | 
 that kind of commonplace, has given me more than a ; 
 toleration for it. I find something even touching in' 
 
 [1 James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), the dramatist, was the 
 son of James Knowles, lexicographer, by his first wife, Jane Daunt 
 (Tj-^e Peace). James Knowles married a second time in 1800 a Miss 
 Maxwell, who mnst have been the lady Hunt remembered.] 
 
 [2 James Hook (b. 1746-1827) is said to have written more than 
 2,000 songs.] I 
 
 [3 The words of this song, which are to be found in an old play by \ 
 "Mr. Scott" entitled The Mock Marriage, 1696, were written by r 
 Thomas D'Urfey (165a-1722-3).] 
 
 45
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the endeavours of an innocent set of ladies and gentle- 
 men, my fathers and mothers, to identify themselves 
 with shepherds and shepherdesses, even in the most 
 impossible hats and crooks. I think of the many 
 heiirtfelt smiles that must have welcomed love letters 
 and verses containing that sophisticate imagery, and 
 of the no less genuine tears that were shed over the 
 documents when faded ; and criticism is swallowed up 
 in those human drops. This is one of the reasons why 
 I can read even the most faded part of the works of 
 Shenstone, and why I can dip again and again into 
 such correspondence as that of the Countesses of Hert- 
 ford and Pomfret,' and of my Lady Luxborough, who 
 raises monuments in her garden to the united merits 
 of Mr, Somerville^ and the god Pan. The feeling was 
 true, though the expression was sophisticate and a 
 fashion ; and they who cannot see the feeling for the 
 mode, do the very thing which they think they 
 scorn ; that is, sacrifice the greater consideration for 
 the less. 
 
 But Hook was not the only, far less the most 
 fashionable composer. There were (if not all per- 
 sonally, yet popularly contemporaneous) Mr. Lampe, 
 Mr. Oswald, Dr. Boyce, Linley, Jackson, Shield, and 
 Storace, with Paesiello, Sacchini, and others at the 
 King's Theatre, w^hose delightful airs wandered into the 
 streets out of the English operas that borrowed them, 
 and became confounded with English property. I have 
 often, in the course of my life, heard " Whither, my 
 love?" and "For tenderness formed," boasted of, as 
 specimens of English melody. For many years I took 
 them for such myself, in common w^ith the rest of our 
 family, with whom they w^ere great favourites. The 
 first, which Stephen Storace adapted to some words in 
 the Haunted Toiver, is the air of " La Rachelina " in 
 Paesiello's opera La Molinara. The second, which w^as 
 put by General Burgoyne to a song in his comedy of 
 the Heiress, is " lo sono Lindoro," in the same enchant- 
 
 (1 John Pomfret (1667-1703), the author of The Choice, and other 
 poems.] 
 [« WUliam Somerville (1675-1742), the author of The Chase.] 
 
 46
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 iiig composer's Barbier-e di Seviglia. The once popular 
 English songs and duets, etc., " How imperfect is 
 expression ; " " For me, my fair a wreath has wove ; " 
 "Henry cull'd the flow'ret's bloom;" "Oh, thou wert 
 born to please me ; " " Here's a health to all good 
 lasses ; " " Youth's the season made for joys ; " " Gently 
 touch the warbling lyre;" "No, 'twas neither shape 
 nor feature ; " " Pray, Goody, please to moderate ; " 
 " Hope told a flattering tale ; " and a hundred others, 
 were all foreign compositions, chiefly Italian. Every 
 burlesque or huffo song, of any pretension, was pretty 
 sure to be Italian. , 
 
 When Edwin, Fawcett, and others, were rattling 4 
 away in the happy comic songs of O'Keeffe, with hisv 
 triple rhymes and illustrative jargon, the audience" 
 little suspected that they were listening to some of the 
 finest animal spirits of the south — to Piccini, Paesiello, 
 and Cimarosa. Even the wild Irishman thought him- . 
 self bound to go to Naples, before he could get a? 
 proper dance for his gaiety. The only genuine English 
 compositions worth anything at that time, were almost 
 confined to Shield, Dibdin, and Storace, the last of 
 whom, the author of " Lullaby," who was an Italian 
 born in England, formed the golden link between the 
 music of the two countries, the only one, perhaps, in 
 which English accentuation and Italian flow were ever 
 truly amalgamated ; though I must own that I am 
 heretic enough (if present fashion is orthodoxy) to 
 believe, that Arne was a real musical genius, of a very 
 pure, albeit not of the very first water. He has set, 
 indeed, two songs of Shakspeare's (the " Cuckoo song," 
 and " Where the bee sucks,") in a spirit of perfect 
 analogy to the words, as well as of the liveliest musical 
 invention ; and his air of " Water parted," in Arta- 
 xerxes, winds about the feelings with an earnest and 
 graceful tenderness of regret, worthy in the highest 
 degree of the affecting beauty of the sentiment.^ 
 
 ' "Dr. Hadynwas delighted with Artaxerxes; and he told my 
 dear mother (for he was frequently with us at Vauxhall) that he 
 had not an idea we had such an opera in the English language." — 
 Letter of Mrs. Henslow in Cradock's Literally and Miscellaneous 
 Memoirs. Vol. iv. p. 133. 
 
 47
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 All tlu' favourite poetry of the day, however, was of 
 ono cast. I have now before mo a Select Collection of 
 English Songs, by Ritson, published in the year 1783, 
 ill three vohimes octavo, the hist of which contains 
 the musical airs. The style is of the following descrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 Almeria's face, hei* shape, her air, 
 
 With chrtrmji resistless ^cound tfie heart, etc., p. 2, 
 
 (I should not wonder if dear Almeria Thornton, whose 
 tender affection for my mother will appear in another 
 chapter, was christened out of this song.) 
 
 Say, Myra, why is gentle love, etc. 
 Which racks the ainorous breast, 
 
 by Lord Lyttelton, the most admired poet, perhaps, of 
 the age. 
 
 When Delia on the plain appears ; 
 
 also by his lordship. 
 
 In vain, Philander, at my feet. 
 Ah, Damon, dear shepherd, adieu. 
 
 Come, thou rosy dimpled boy. 
 Source of every heartfelt joy. 
 Leave the blissful bowers a while, 
 Paphos and the Cyprian isle. 
 
 This was a favourite song in our hour. So was 
 " Come, now, all ye social powers," and 
 
 Come, let us dance and sing, 
 While all Barbjidos bells shall ring ; 
 
 probably on account of its mention of my father's 
 native place. The latter song is not in Ritson. It was 
 the finale in Colman's Inkle and Yarico, a play founded 
 on a Barbadian story, which our family must have gone 
 with delight to see. Another favourite, which used to 
 make my mother shed tears, on account of my sister 
 Eliza, who died early, was Jackson of Exeter's song — 
 
 Encompass'd in an angel's frame. 
 48
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 It is indeed a touching specimen of that master. The 
 "Hardy Tar," also, and " The topsails shiver in the 
 wind," used to charm yet sadden her, on account of my 
 eldest brother then living, who was at sea. The latter, 
 written by the good-natured and gallant Captain 
 Thompson, was set to music, I think, by Arne's son, 
 Michael, who had a fine musical sea-vein, simple and 
 strong. He was the composer of " Fresh and strong the 
 breeze is blowing." 
 
 The other day I found two songs of that period on 
 Robinson's music-stall in Wardour Street, one by Mr. 
 Hook, entitled " Alone, by the light of the moon ; " the 
 other, a song with a French burden, called " Dans votre 
 lit ; " an innocent production, notwithstanding its title. 
 They were the only songs I recollect singing when a ; 
 child, and I looked on them with the accumulated^ 
 tenderness of sixty- three years of age. I do not re- | 
 member to have set eyes on them in the interval.; 
 What a difference between the little smooth-faced boy 
 at his mother's knee, encouraged to lift vip his voice to 
 the pianoforte, and the battered grey-headed senior, 
 looking again, for the first time, on what he had sung 
 at the distance of more than half a century. Life often 
 seems a dream ; but there are occasions when the sud- 
 den re-appearance of early objects, by the intensity of 
 their presence, not only renders the interval less pre- 
 sent to the consciousness than a very dream, but makes 
 the portion of life which preceded it seem to have been 
 the most real of all things, and our only undreaming 
 time. 
 
 " Alone, by the light of the moon," and "Dans votre 
 lit ! " how had they not been thumbed and thrown aside 
 by all the pianoforte young ladies — our mothers and 
 grandmothers — fifty years ago, never to be brought 
 forth again, except by an explorer of old stalls, and to 
 meet, perhaps, with no sympathy but in his single 
 imagination ! Yet there I stood ; and Wardour Street, 
 every street, all London, as it now exists, became to me 
 as if it had never been. The universe itself was no- 
 thing but a poor sitting-room in the year '89 or '90, 
 with my mother in it bidding me sing, Miss C. at the 
 
 49 E
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 pianoforte — harpsichord more likely, and my little 
 sist(M-, Mary, \vitli her round cheeks and blue eyes, 
 ^vishinJl^ me to be«i;in. What a great singer is that little 
 boy to those loving relations, and how Miss C, with all 
 her good nature, must be smiling at the importance of 
 little boys to their mothers! " Alone, by the light of 
 the moon," was the " show song," but "Dans votre lit" 
 was the favourite with my sister, because, in her ignor- 
 ance of the French language, she had associated the 
 name of her brother with the sound of the last word. 
 
 The song was a somewhat gallant, but very decorous 
 ■ song, apostrophizing a lady as a lily in the flower-bed. 
 It was "silly, sooth," and "dallied wuth the innocence 
 of love " in those days, after a fashion which might 
 have excited livelier ideas in the more restricted imagi- 
 nations of the present. The reader has seen that my 
 mother, notwithstanding her charitableness to the poor 
 maid-servant, was a woman of strict morals ; the tone 
 of the family conversation was scrupulously correct, 
 though, perhaps, a little flowery and Thomson-like 
 (Thomson was the favourite poet of most of us) ; yet 
 the songs that were sung at that time by the most fas- 
 tidious might be thought a shade freer than would suit 
 the like kind of society at present. Whether we are 
 more innocent in having become more ashamed, I shall 
 not judge. Assuredly, the singer of those songs was as 
 innocent as the mother that bade him sing them. 
 
 My little sister Mary died not long after. She was so 
 young, that my only recollection of her, besides her 
 blue eyes, is her love of her brother, and her custom of 
 leading me by the hand to some stool or seat on the 
 staircase, and making me sing the song with her 
 favourite burden. We were the two youngest children, 
 and about of an age. 
 
 I please myself with picturing to my imagination 
 what was going forward during my childhood in the 
 world of politics, literature, and public amusements ; 
 how far they interested my parents ; and what amount 
 of impression they may have left on my own mind. 
 The American Revolution, which had driven my father 
 from Philadelphia, was not long over, and the French 
 
 50
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 Revolution was approaching. My father, for reasons 
 which have already been mentioned, listened more and 
 more to the new opinions, and my mother listened, not 
 only from love to her husband, but because she was still 
 more deeply impressed by speculations regarding the 
 welfare of human kind. The public mind, after a long 
 and comparatively insipid tranquillity, had begun to be 
 stirred by the eloquence of Burke ; by the rivalries of 
 Pitt and Fox ; by the thanks which the king gave to 
 heaven for his recovery from his first illness ; by the 
 warlike and licentious energies of the Russian Empress, 
 Catherine II., who partly shocked and partly amused 
 them ; and by the gentler gallantries and showy lux- 
 ury of the handsome young Prince of Wales, afterwards 
 George IV. 
 
 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 
 Joshua Reynolds 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, etc. 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, surprised 
 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 He7'7nsprong and Man as He Is) delighted 
 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.^ 
 
 [' William Hayley (1745-1820), the author of Triumplis of Temper, \ 
 and other poems. He was acquainted with William Blake and | 
 William Cowper, and wrote the life of the latter. Erasmus Dar- | 
 win, M.D. (1731-1802), the grandfather of the celebrated Charles | 
 Darwin, and the author of Tlie Botanic Garden, a poem much | 
 esteemed in its day. Frances Burney (1752-1840) married M. ii 
 d'Arblay, a French emigrant. Her novel Evelina ; or the History 
 of a Young Lady's Introduction to tlie World, made her famous. 
 Some other novels from her pen were published, as well as her 
 
 51
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 My niothor was one of their greatest admirers. I 
 have hoard her expatiate with dehght on the charac- 
 ters in X(ttu)-e and Art, which, though not so masterly 
 a novel as the Simple Story, and a little wilful in the 
 treatment, was full of matter for reflection, especially 
 on conventional, and what are now called " class " 
 points. Dr. Philpotts would have accused my mother 
 of disalTection to the Church ; and she would not have 
 mended the matter by retreating on her admiration of 
 Bishops Hoadley and Shipley. Her regard for the 
 reverend author of Meditations in a Flmver Garden 
 would have made the doctor smile, though she would 
 have recovered, perhaps, something of his good opinion 
 by her admiration of Dr. Young and his Night Thoughts. 
 But Young deluded her with his groans against the 
 world, and his lamentations for his daughter. She did 
 not know that he was a preferment-hunter, who was 
 prosperous enough to indulge in the " luxury of woe," 
 and to groan because his toast was not thrice buttered. 
 
 Ranelagh and Vauxhall, as painted in Miss Burney's 
 novels, were among the fashionable amusements of 
 those days. My mother was neither rich nor gay 
 enough to see much of them ; but she was no ascetic, 
 and she went where others did, as occasion served. My 
 father, whose manners were at once high-bred and 
 lively, had some great acquaintances ; but I recollect 
 none of them personally, except an old lady of quality, 
 who (if memory does not strangely deceive me, and give 
 me a personal share in what I only heard talked of ; for 
 old autobiographers of childhood must own themselves 
 liable to such confusions) astounded me one day, by 
 letting her false teeth slip out, and clapping them in 
 again. 
 
 I had no idea of the existence of such phenomena, 
 and could almost as soon have expected her to take off 
 her head and re-adjust it. She lived in Red Lion 
 Square, a quarter in different estimation from vrhat it 
 is now. It was at her house, I believe, that my father 
 
 diary and letters. Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald, nee Simpson (1753-1821), 
 became an actress early in life. Besides writing several novels and 
 dramas, she edited a collection of plays in forty-two vols. ] 
 
 52
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 one evening met Wilkes. He did not know him by 
 sight, and happening to fall into conversation with 
 him, while the latter sat looking down, he said some- I 
 thing in Wilkes's disparagement ; on which the jovial ' 
 demagogue looked up in his face, and burst out a 
 laughing. 
 
 I do not exactly know how people dressed at that 
 time ; but I believe that sacks, and negligees, and tou- 
 pees were going out, and the pigtail and the simpler ■ 
 modern style of dress coming in. I recollect hearing i 
 my mother describe the misery of having her hair I 
 dressed two or three stories high, and of lying in it all ' 
 night ready for some visit or spectacle next day. I 
 think I also recollect seeing Wilkes himself in an old- j! 
 fashioned flap-waistcoated suit of scarlet and gold ; ? 
 and I am sure I have seen Murphy, the dramatist, a 
 good deal later, in a suit of a like fashion, though 
 soberer, and a large cocked-hat. The cocked-hat in 
 general survived till nearly the present century. It 
 was superseded by the round one during the French 
 Revolution. I remember our steward at school, a very 
 solemn personage, making his appearance in one, to our 
 astonishment, and not a little to the diminution of his 
 dignity. Some years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a blue 
 coat, buckskin breeches and boots, and a round hat, 
 with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with 
 his hat oif his forehead, and his nose in the air, — that 
 nose on which Hazlitt said he " suspended the House of 
 Commons." Much about the same time I saw his 
 friend, the first Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking 
 old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. 
 Fox, fat and jovial, though he was then declining. 
 He, who had been a "beau" in his youth, then looked 
 something quaker-like as to dress, with plain coloured; 
 clothes, a broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if Ij 
 am not mistaken, white stockings. He was standing! 
 in Parliament Street, just where the street commences I, 
 as you leave Whitehall ; and was making two young \ 
 gentlemen laugh heartily at something which he seemed ; 
 to be relating. S 
 
 My father once took me — but I cannot say at what 
 
 53
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ptM-ioil of my juvenility — into both houses of Parlia- 
 ment. In the Commons I saw Mr. Pitt sawing the air, 
 anil oorasionally turning to appeal to those about him, 
 while he spoke m a loud, important, and hollow voice. 
 When the persons he appealed to said " Hear ! hear !" 
 1 thought they said " Dear ! dear ! " in objection ; and 
 I wondered that he did not seem in the least degree 
 disconcerted. The house of Lords, I must say (without 
 meaning disrespect to an assembly which must always 
 have contained some of the most accomplished men in 
 the country), surprised me with the personally insig- 
 nificant look of its members. I had, to be sure, con- 
 ceived exaggerated notions of the magnates of all 
 countries ; and perhaps might have expected to behold 
 a set of conscript fathers ; but in no respect, real or 
 ideal, did they appear to me in their corporate aspect, 
 like anything which is understood by the word " noble." 
 The Commons seemed to me to have the advantage ; 
 though they surprised me with lounging on the benches 
 and retaining their hats. I was not then informed 
 enough to know the difference between apparent and 
 substantial importance ; much less aware of the posi- 
 tive exaltation, which that very simplicity, and that 
 absence of pretension, gave to the most potent assembly 
 in Europe. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 [1791—1799] 
 
 BOOKS for children during the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century had been in a bad way, with 
 sordid and merely plodding morals — ethics that were 
 necessary perhaps for a certain stage in the progress of 
 commerce and for its greatest ultimate purposes (un- 
 dreamt of by itself), but which thwarted healthy and 
 large views of society for the time being. They were 
 
 54
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 the consequences of an altogether unintellectual state 
 of trade, aided and abetted by such helps to morality as 
 Hogarth's pictures of the Good and Bad Apprentice,: 
 which identified virtue with prosperity. 
 
 Hogarth, in most of his pictures, w^as as healthy a 
 moralist as he supposed himself, but not for the reasons 
 which he supposed. The gods he worshipped were 
 Truth and Prudence ; but he saw more of the carnal than 
 spiritual beauties of either. He was somewhat of a vul- 
 garian in intention as well as mode. But wherever there 
 is genius, there is a genial something greater than the 
 accident of breeding, than the prevailing disposition, or 
 even than the conscious design ; and this portion of 
 divinity within the painter, saw fair-play between his 
 conventional and immortal part. It put the beauty of 
 colour into his mirth, the counteraction of mirth into 
 his melancholy, and a lesson beyond his intention into 
 all : that is to say, it suggested redemptions and first 
 causes for the objects of his satire ; and thus vindicated 
 the justice of nature, at the moment when he was 
 thinking of little but the pragmaticalness of art. 
 
 The children's books in those days were Hogarth's 
 pictures taken in their most literal acceptation. Every 
 good boy was to ride in his coach, and be a lord mayor ; 
 and every bad boy was to be hung, or eaten by lions. 
 The gingerbread was gilt, and the books were gilt like 
 the gingerbread, — a "take in" the more gross, inasmuch 
 as nothing could be plainer or less dazzling than the 
 books of the same boys when they grew a little older. 
 There was a lingering old ballad or so in favour of the 
 gallanter apprentices who tore out lions' hearts and 
 astonished gazing sultans ; and in antiquarian corners, 
 Percy's " Reliques " were preparing a nobler age, both 
 in poetry and prose. But the first counteraction came, 
 as it ought, in the shape of a new book for children. 
 The pool of mercenary and time-serving ethics was 
 first blown over by the fresh country breeze of Mr. 
 Day's^ Sandfoi^d and 3Ierton — a production that I well 
 remember, and shall ever be grateful to. It came in 
 
 [1 Thomas Day (1748-1789). His story, Sandford and Merton, 
 three vohimes, was published in 1783, 1787, and 1789.] 
 
 55
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 aiil of my mother's ]>crplexities between delicacy and 
 haitlihotxl, hi'twoon coiira<jfo and consc-ientiousnesa. It 
 assisloil the chooiriilness I inherited from my father; 
 sht>\ved me that circumstances were not to crush a 
 health}' j^aiety, or the most masculine self-respect; and 
 helped to supply nie with the resolution of standing by 
 a principle, not merely as a point of lowly or lofty 
 sacritice, but as a matter of common sense and duty, 
 and a simple co-operation with the elements of natural 
 welfare.^ 
 
 I went, nevertheless, to school at Christ Hospital, an 
 ultra-sympathizing and timid boy.^ The sight of boys 
 lighting, from which I had been so anxiously withheld, 
 frightened me as something devilish; and the least 
 threat of corporal chastisement to a schoolfellow (for 
 the lesson I had learned would have enabled me to bear 
 it myself) affected me to tears. I remember to this day, 
 merely on that account, the name of a boy who was to 
 receive punishment for some offence about a task. It 
 was Lemoine. (I hereby present him with my respects, 
 if he is an existing old gentleman, and hoi^e he has not 
 lost a pleasing countenance.) He had a cold and 
 hoarseness ; and his voice, while pleading in mitiga- 
 tion, sounded to me so pathetic, that I wondered how 
 the master could have the heart to strike him. 
 
 [' In Leigh Hunt's Correspondence is printed a list of the earliest 
 books that he could recollect having read and ^vritten. Milton's 
 Paradise Lost, "with cuts which I then thought beautiful," is the 
 first book he so remembered. Then followed Seven Champions 
 of Christendom, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: "a book called, I 
 think, Benignus, or some such title, written by Mr. Pratt, which 
 I took to school with nie." A volume of Fairy Tales and a, Hamlet 
 *' bound up by itself." He did not remember his favourite Spenser 
 as early as these books, but at the age of twelve he wrote " several 
 lines of a poem called the Fairy Ring, intended as a rival of the 
 Fairy Queen." His volume Juvenilia, 1801, contains The Palace of 
 Pleasure, a poem in imitation of Spenser. Before this, he adds, 
 *' the perusal of Thomson's Winter had called forth a rival attempt 
 in rhyme."] 
 
 ^ In 1792. [This date is added by the author, but from the follow- 
 ing it appears to be incorrect. The petition for admission of Leigh 
 Hunt to Christ's Hospital, given in Mr. R. B. Johnson's work on 
 the School, is dated April 1st, 1791. He was admitted Nov. 23rd, 
 1791, and clothed on the following day. Charles Lamb left Christ's 
 Hospital in 1789, and Coleridge in 1791; but their accounts of the 
 school should be read in connexion with Hunt's recollections.] 
 
 56
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 Readers who have been at a pubHc school may guess 
 the consequence. I was not of a disposition to give 
 offence, but neither was I quick to take it ; and this, to 
 the rude, energy-cultivating spirit of boys in general 
 (not the worst thing in the world, till the pain in pre- 
 paration for them can be diminished), was in itself an 
 offence. I therefore " went to the wall," till address, 
 and the rousing of my own spirit, tended to right me ; 
 but I went through a great deal of fear in the process. 
 I became convinced, that if I did not put moral courage 
 in the place of personal, or, in other words, undergo 
 any stubborn amount of pain and wretchedness, rather 
 than submit to what I thought wrong, there was an 
 end for ever, as far as I was concerned, of all those fine 
 things that had been taught me, in vindication of right 
 and justice. 
 
 Whether it was, however, that by the help of animal 
 spirits I possessed some portion of the courage for 
 which the rest of the family was remarkable — or 
 whether I was a veritable coward, born or bred, 
 destined to show, in my person, ho^v far a spirit of 
 love and freedom could supersede the necessity of gall, 
 and procure me the resj)ect of those about me — certain 
 it is, that although, except in one instance, I did my 
 best to avoid, and succeeded honourably in avoiding, 
 those personal encounters with my school-fellows, 
 which, in confronting me on my own account with the 
 face of a fellow-creature, threw me upon a sense of 
 something devilish, and overwhelmed me with a sort 
 of terror for both parties, yet I gained at an early 
 period of boyhood the reputation of a romantic 
 enthusiast, whose daring in behalf of a friend or a 
 good cause nothing could put down. I was obliged to 
 call in the aid of a feeling apart from my own sense of 
 personal antagonism, and so merge the diabolical, as it 
 were, into the human. In others words, I had not 
 self-respect or gall enough to be angry on my own 
 account, unless there was something at stake which, 
 by concerning others, gave me a sense of support, and 
 so pieced out my want with their abundance. The 
 moment, however, that I felt thus supported, not only 
 
 57
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 dill all iuisj]fiviiig vanish from my mind, but contempt 
 of pain took possession of my body ; and my poor 
 mother mi^ht have gloried through her tears in the 
 k)ving eoiu'age of her son. 
 
 I state the case thus proudly, both in justice to the 
 manner in wliich she trained me, and because I con- 
 ceive it may do good. I never fought with a boy but 
 once, and then it was on my own account ; but though 
 I beat him I was frightened, and eagerly sought his 
 good will. I dared everything, however, from the 
 biggest and strongest boys on other accounts, and was 
 sometimes afforded an opportunity of showing my 
 spirit of martyrdom. The truth is, I could suffer better 
 than act ; for the utmost activity of martyrdom is 
 supported by a certain sense of passiveness. We are 
 not bold from ourselves, but from something which 
 compels us to be so, and which supports us by a sense 
 of the necessity. 
 
 I had not been long in the school, when this spirit 
 within me broke out in a manner that procured me 
 great esteem. There was a monitor or " big boy " in 
 office, who had a trick of entertaining himself by pelt- 
 ing lesser boy's heads with a hard ball. He used to 
 throw it at this boy and that ; make the throivee bring 
 it back to him ; and then send a rap with it on his 
 cerebellum, as he was going off. 
 
 I had borne this spectacle one day for some time, 
 when the family precepts rising within me, I said to 
 myself, " I must go up to the monitor and speak to 
 him about this." I issued forth accordingly, and to 
 the astonishment of all present, who had never wit- 
 nessed such an act of insubordination, I said, " You 
 have no right to do this." The monitor, more astounded 
 than any one, exclaimed " What ? " I repeated my 
 remonstrance. He treated me with the greatest con- 
 tempt, as if disdaining even to strike me ; and finished 
 by ordering me to "standout." "Standing out" meant 
 going to a particular spot in the hall where we dined. 
 I did so ; but just as the steward (the master in that 
 place) was entering it, the monitor called to me to 
 come away ; and I neither heard any more of standing 
 
 58
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 out, nor saw any more of the ball. I do not recollect 
 that he even " spited " me afterwards, which must 
 have been thought very remarkable. I seemed fairly 
 to have taken away the breath of his calculations. 
 The probability is, that he was a good lad who had got| 
 a bad habit. Boys often become tyrants from a notion! 
 of its being grand and manly. 
 
 Another monitor, a year or two afterwards, took it 
 into his head to force me to be his fag. Fag was not 
 the term at our school, though it was in our vocabu- 
 lary. Fag, with us, meant eatables. The learned 
 derived the word from the Greek phago, to eat. I had 
 so little objection to serve out of love, that there is no 
 office I could not have performed for good will ; but it 
 had been given out that I had determined not to 
 be a menial on any other terms, and the monitor in 
 question undertook to bring me to reason. He was 
 a mild, good-looking boy about fourteen, remark- 
 able for the neatness, and even elegance, of his ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Receiving the refusal, for which he had been pre- 
 pared, he showed me a knot in a long handkerchief, 
 and told me I should receive a lesson from that hand- 
 kerchief every day, with the addition of a fresh knot 
 every time, unless I chose to alter my mind. I did not 
 choose. I received the daily or rather nightly lesson, 
 for it was then most convenient to strip me, and I 
 came out of the ordeal in triumph. I never was fag 
 to anybody ; never made anybody's bed, or cleaned his 
 shoes, or was the boy to get his tea, much less expected 
 to stand as a screen for him before the fire ; which I 
 have seen done, though, upon the whole, the boys 
 were very mild governors. 
 
 Lamb has noticed the character of the school for 
 good manners, which he truly describes as being 
 equally removed from the pride of aristocratic founda- 
 tions and the servility of the charity schools. I believe 
 it retains this character still ; though the changes 
 which its system underwent not long ago, fusing all the 
 schools into one another, and introducing a more 
 generous diet, is thought by some not to have been 
 
 59
 
 AlTOHUXJHArilY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 t'ollowocl l)y an advance in other respects. I have 
 htard the scliool charged, more hitely, with having 
 been sntYered, in the intervals between the school 
 hours, to fall out of the liberal and gentlemanly super- 
 vision of its best teachers, into the hands of an officious 
 and ignorant sectarianism. But this may only have 
 been a passing abuse. 
 
 I love and honour the school on private accounts ; 
 and I feel a public interest in its welfare, inasmuch as 
 it is one of those judicious links with all classes, the 
 importance of which, especially at a time like the 
 present, cannot be too highly estimated ; otherwise, I 
 should have said nothing to its possible, and I hope 
 transient disadvantage. Queen Victoria recognized its 
 importance, by visits and other personal condescen- 
 sions, long before the late changes in Europe could 
 have diminished the grace of their bestowal ; and I 
 will venture to say that every one of those attentions 
 will have sown for her generous nature a crop of 
 loyalty worth having. 
 
 But for the benefit of such as are unacquainted with 
 the city, or with a certain track of reading, I must give 
 a more particular account of a school which in truth is 
 a curiosity. Thousands of inhabitants of the metro- 
 polis have gone from west-end to east-end, and till the 
 new hall was laid open to view by the alterations in 
 Newgate Street, never suspected that in the heart of it 
 lies an old cloistered foundation, where a boy may 
 grow uji as I did, among six hundred others, and know 
 as little of the very neighbourhood as the world does 
 of him.^ 
 
 * Perhaps there is not a foundation in the country so 
 •truly English, taking that word to mean what English- 
 jmen wish it to mean — something solid, unpretending, 
 jof good character, and free to all. More boys are to be 
 ;found in it, who issue from a greater variety of ranks, 
 than in any school in the kingdom ; and as it is the 
 
 [* As this edition is going through the press (September, 1902) 
 the historic building is being rapidly demolished by the pick and 
 mattock of the housebreaker, the school having removed early in 
 the year to Horsham.] 
 
 60
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 most various, so it is the largest, of all the free schools.. 
 Nobility do not go there, except as boarders. Now and 
 then a boy of a noble family may bo met with, and ho 
 is reckoned an interloper, and against the charter ; bud 
 the sons of poor gentry and London citizens abound j 
 and with them an equal share is given to the sons oQ 
 tradesmen of the very humblest description, not oinit-j 
 ting servants. I would not take my oath — but I have 
 a strong recollection, that in my time there were twq 
 boys, one of whom went up into the drawing-room t<j 
 his father, the master of the house ; and the othci* 
 down into the kitchen to his father, the coachman; 
 One thing, however, I know to be certain, and it is the 
 noblest of all, namely, that the boys themselves (at 
 least it was so in my time) had no sort of feeling of th© 
 difference of one another's ranks out of doors. Th0 
 cleverest boy was the noblest, let his father be who h© 
 might. Christ Hospital is a nursery of tradesmen, of 
 merchants, of naval officers, of scholars ; it has pro- 
 duced some of the greatest ornaments of their time ; 
 and the feeling among the boys themselves is, that it i^ 
 a medium between the patrician pretension of suclj 
 schools as Eton and Westminster, and the plebeiail 
 submission of the charity schools. In point of univer4 
 sity honours it claims to be equal with the best ; i\m\ 
 though other schools can show a greater abundance of 
 eminent names, I know not where many will be found 
 who are a greater host in themselves. One original 
 author is worth a hundred transmitters of elegances 
 and such a one is to be found in Richardson,* who her^ 
 received what education he possessed. Here Camden* 
 also received the rudiments of his. Bishop Stillingfleet,^ 
 according to the Memoirs of Pepys, was brought up in 
 the school. We have had many eminent scholars, two 
 
 [' Samuel Richardson, (1680-1761) the novelist, author of Pamela, 
 Clarissa llarlowe and Sir C/uirles Grandison.] 
 
 [^ William Camden (15ol-162.'J), the antiquary, author ot Britannia , 
 educated at Christ's Hospital, St. Paul's School, and Magdalen 
 College, Oxford.] 
 
 [^ Edward Stillingfleet (lO-'tt-HJOO), Dean of St. Paul's and after- 
 wards Bishop of Worcester, author of Oriyinea Sacroi and many 
 other theological works. ] 
 
 61
 
 .VrTOHIOGRAril V OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of tluiu (Jri'ok i)rofossors, to wit, Barnes^ and Schole- 
 iiolil,* tlio latter of whom attained an extraordinary 
 succession of luiiversity honours. The rest arc Mark- 
 hmd ; ^ Middleton/ hite Bishop of Calcutta ; and Mit- 
 chell,'' the translator of Aristo])ha7U's. Christ Hospital, 
 I helieve, towards the close of the last century, and the 
 be«jinninjx of the present, sent out more living w^riters, 
 in its proportion, than any other school. There was 
 Dr. Richards,*^ author of the Aboriginal Britons ; Dyer,' 
 whose life was one unbroken dream of learning and 
 goodness, and who used to make us wonder with pass- 
 ing through the school-room (where no other person in 
 " town clothes " ever appeared) to consult books in the 
 library ; Le Grice,* the translator of Longus ; Horne,^ 
 author of some w^ell-known productions in controversial 
 divinity ; Surr,^*^ the novelist (not in the Grammar 
 School) ; James White," the friend of Charles Lamb, 
 
 [' Joshua Barnes (1654-1712), divine and professor of Greek at 
 Cambridge, on whose monument in Hemington Church it is said 
 that he had read over a pocket Bible 120 times. Besides many 
 original works, he edited editions of Honiei' and Anacreon.] 
 
 [- James Scholefield (1789-1853), Regius professor of Greek at 
 Cambridge.] 
 
 [^ Jeremiah Markland, critic (1693-1776).] 
 
 [* Thomas Fanshawe Middleton (1769-1822), consecrated Bishop in 
 1814. Lamb savs, he was " a scholar and a gentleman in his teens."] 
 
 (* Thomas Mitchell (1783-1845), Greek scholar and Fellow of Sidney 
 College, Cambridge. He was one of Hunt's schoolfellows.] 
 
 [® George Richards (1767-1837) poet and divine ; he gained the 
 prize offered anon>Tnously by Simon, Earl Harcourt, in 1791 for an 
 English poem on the "Aboriginal Britons " and the donor became his 
 lifelong friend. The poem was praised by Lamb, and by Byron in 
 English Bards and Scotch Revieicers.] 
 
 [' George Dyer (17.55-1841), poet and scholar, the friend of Charles 
 Lamb, who in the Essays of Elia has written of him charmingly 
 under the title of Amicus Mediviviis, also O.vford in the Vacation,] 
 
 [* Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), afterwards incumbent 
 of St. Mary's, Penzance. See note on p. 82.] 
 
 [^ Thomas Hartwell Home (1780-1862), for some time assistant- 
 librarian in the department of printed books at the British Museiim. 
 His Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures 
 was published in 1818, and so pleased the then Bishop of London, 
 Dr. Howley, that he ordained Home in 1819, and later presented 
 him with the living of St. Ednmnd, Lombard Street.] 
 
 ['" Thomjis Skinner Surr (1770-1847). He^vrote a poem on Christ's 
 Hospital. It is said that Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was so 
 mortified at being introduced under a fictitious name into his 
 Winter in London, that it hastened her death.] 
 
 [" James White (1775-1820), see Lamb's Essav, "The Praise of 
 
 62
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 and not unworthy of him, author of Falstaff's Letters 
 (this was he who used to give an anniversary dinner to 
 the chimney-sweepers, merrier than, though not so 
 magnificent as Mrs. Montagu's^) ; Pitman,^ a celebrated 
 preacher, editor of some school-books and religious 
 classics (also a veritable man of wit) ; Mitchell, before 
 mentioned ; myself, who stood next him ; Barnes,^ who 
 came next, the Editor of the Times, than whom no man 
 (if he had cared for it) could have been more certain of 
 attaining celebrity for wit and literature ; Townsend,* 
 a prebendary of Durham, author of Armageddon, and 
 several theological works (it was he who went to see 
 the Pope, in the hope of persuading him to concede 
 points towards the amalgamation of the Papal and 
 Protestant Churches) ; Gilly,^ another of the Dur- 
 ham prebendaries, an amiable man, who w^rote the 
 Narrative of the Waldenses ; Scargill,*^ a Unitarian 
 minister, author of some tracts on Peace and War, 
 etc. ; and lastly, whom I have kept by way of 
 climax, Coleridge and Charles Lamb, two of the 
 most original geniuses, not only of the day, but of the 
 country. '■, 
 
 In the time of Henry the Eighth Christ Hospital,| 
 was a monastery of Franciscan friars. Being dissolved I 
 among the others, Edward the Sixth, moved by a 
 sermon of Bishop Ridley's, assigned the revenues of it 
 to the maintenance and education of a certain number 
 
 Chimney Sweepers " in Elia. Lamb is supposed to have had a 
 hand in the Falstaff Letters, published 1796.] 
 
 [' Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu — nee Robinson — (1720-1800), authoress 
 and bluestocking, she used to entertain youthful chimney sweepers 
 every May Day morning on her lawn with roast beef and plum 
 pudding.] 
 
 [^ John Rogers Pitman (1782-1861), divine and author.] 
 
 [' Thomas Barnes (1785-1841) another of Hunt's friends at school. 
 It was from Barnes that he learnt Italian.] 
 
 [* George Townsend (1788-1857), Armageddon, a poem, was pub- 
 lished in 1816.] 
 
 [* William Stephen Gilly (1789-18.55). Besides the Prebendary of 
 Durham, he was presented in 1851 to the Vicarage of Norham, 
 Northumberland. His works are numerous and chiefly theo- 
 logical.] 
 
 P William Pitt Scargill (1787-1836). Author of An Essay on War, 
 and some novels.] 
 
 63
 
 ArTor.Kxiiv'Arii V of leigh hunt 
 
 of poor orpliaii I'liildrcii, l)()ni ot" citi/ciis ot" London. I 
 hrlirvi' tlu'it^ Ims hern no law passed to alter the k^tt(M* 
 of this intention ; whicli is a pity, since the alteration 
 has taken place. An extension of it was probably very 
 good, and even demanded by circumstances. I have 
 reason, for one, to be grateful for it. Ikit tainperinj^ 
 with matters-of-fact among children is danj^erous. They 
 soon learn to distinguish between allowed poetical fiction 
 and that which they are told, under severe penalties, 
 never to be guilty of ; and this early sample of contra- 
 diction between the thing asserted and the obvious 
 fact, can do no good even in an establishment so plain- 
 dealing in other respects as Christ Hospital. The place 
 is not only designated as an Orphan-house in its Latin 
 title, but the boys, in the prayers which they repeat 
 every day, implore the pity of heaven upon " us poor 
 orijhans." I remember the perplexity this caused me 
 at a very early period. It is true, the word orphan 
 may be used in a sense implying destitution of any 
 sort ; but this was not its Christ Hospital intention ; 
 nor do the younger boys give it the benefit of that 
 scholarly interpretation. There was another thing 
 (now, I believe, done away) which existed in my time, 
 and perplexed me still more. It seemed a glaring 
 instance of the practice likely to result from the other 
 assumption, and made me prepare for a hundred false- 
 hoods and deceptions, which, mixed up with contradic- 
 tion, as most things in society are, I sometimes did 
 find, and oftener dreaded. I allude to a foolish custom 
 they had in the ward which I first entered, and which 
 w^as the only one that the company at the public sup- 
 pers were in the habit of going into, of hanging up, by 
 the side of each bed, a clean white napkin, which was 
 supposed to be the one used by the occupiers. Now 
 these napkins were only for show, the real towels being 
 of the largest and coarsest kind. If the masters had 
 been asked about them, they would doubtless have told 
 the truth ; perhaps the nurses would have done so. 
 But the boys were not aware of this. There they saw 
 these " white lies " hanging before them, a conscious 
 imposition ; and I well remember how alarmed I used 
 
 64
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 to feel, lest any of the company should direct their | 
 inquiries to me. i 
 
 Christ Hospital (for this is its proper name, and not | 
 Christ's Hospital) occupies a. considerable portion of | 
 ground between Newgate Street, Giltspur Street, St. | 
 Bartholomew's, and Little Britain. There is a quad- I 
 rangle with cloisters ; and the square inside the cloisters | 
 is called the Garden, and most likely was the monastery | 
 garden. Its only delicious crop, for many years, has | 
 been pavement. Another large area, presenting the | 
 Grammar and Navigation Schools, is also misnomered |: 
 the Ditch ; the town-ditch having formerly run that } 
 w^ay. In Newgate Street is seen the Hall, or eating- | 
 room, one of the noblest in England, adorned with | 
 enormously long paintings by Verrio and others, and i 
 with an organ. A portion of the old quadrangle once j;: 
 contained the library of the monks, and was built or 
 repaired by the famous Whittington, whose arms w^ere 
 to be seen outside ; but alterations of late years have 
 done it away. 
 
 In the cloisters a number of persons lie buried, 
 besides the officers of the house. Among them is , 
 Isabella, wife of Edward the Second, the " She-wolf of | 
 France." I was not aware of this circumstance then ; '{i 
 but many a time, with a recollection of some lines in | 
 " Blair's Grave " upon me, have I run as hard as I could ;| 
 at night-time from my ward to another, in order to |: 
 borrow the next volume of some ghostly romance. In | 
 one of the cloisters w^as an impression resembling a t, 
 gigantic foot, which w^as attributed by some to the | 
 angry stamping of the ghost of a beadle's wife ! A | 
 beadle was a higher sound to us than to most, as it | 
 involved ideas of detected apples in churchtime, " skulk- | 
 ing " (as it was called) out of bounds, and a power of ^ 
 reporting us to the masters. But fear does not stand « 
 upon rank and ceremony. I 
 
 The wards, or sleeping-rooms, are twelve, and con- V 
 tained, in my time, rows of beds on each side, partitioned | 
 off, but connected with one another, and each having 
 two boys to sleep in it. Down the middle ran the binns 
 for holding bread and other things, and serving for a 
 
 65 P
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 tjible when the meal was not taken in the hall ; and 
 over the binns hun^ a ^reat homely chandelier. 
 
 To each of those wards a nurse was assigned, who 
 was the widow of some decent liveryman of London, 
 ?\nd who had the charge of looking after us at night- 
 time, seeing to our washing, etc., and carving for us at 
 dinner : all of which gave her a good deal of power, 
 more than her name warranted. The nurses, however, 
 were almost invariably very decent people, and per- 
 formed their duty ; which was not always the case with 
 the young ladies, their daughters. There were five 
 schools ; a grammar school, a mathematical or naviga- 
 tion school (added by Charles the Second, through the 
 zeal of Mr. Pepys), a writing, a drawing, and a reading 
 school. Those who could not read when they came on 
 the foundation, w^ent into the last. There were few in 
 the last-but-one, and I scarcely know w^hat they did, or 
 for what object. The writing-school was for those who 
 were intended for trade and commerce ; the mathe- 
 matical, for boys who went as midshipmen into the 
 naval and East India service ; and the grammar school 
 for such as were designed for the Church, and to go to 
 the University. The writing school was by far the 
 largest ; and, w^hat is very curious (it has been altered 
 since), all the schools were kept quite distinct ; so that 
 a boy might arrive at the age of fifteen in the grammar 
 school, and not know his multiplication-table ; which 
 was the case with myself, Nor do I know it to this 
 day ! Shades of Horace Walpole,^ and Lord Lyttelton ! 
 come to my assistance, and enable me to bear the con- 
 fession : but so it is. The fault was not my fault at 
 the time ; but I ought to have repaired it when I went 
 out into the world ; and great is the mischief which it 
 has done me. 
 
 ,' Most of these schools had several masters ; besides 
 .fjvhom there was a steward, who took care of our sub- 
 'jBistence, and w^ho had a general superintendence over 
 ■all hours and circumstances not connected with teach- 
 
 [^ "I was always so incapable of learning mathematics, that I 
 could not even get beyond the multiplication table." — Horace 
 Walpole to Miss Berry, August 16, 1796.] 
 
 66
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 ing. The masters had almost all been in the school^ 
 and might expect pensions or livings in their old ageJi 
 Among those in my time, the mathematical mastei^ 
 was Mr. Wales/ a man well known for his science; 
 who had been round the world with Captain Cook; 
 for which we highly venerated him. He was a good 
 man, of plain, simple manners, w^ith a heavy large 
 person and a benign countenance. When he was at 
 Otaheite, the natives played him a trick while bathing, 
 and stole his small-clothes ; which we used to think a 
 liberty scarcely credible. The name of the steward, a 
 thin stiff man of invincible formality of demeanour^ 
 admirably fitted to render encroachment impossible^' 
 was Hathaway. We of the grammar-school used to 
 call him " the Yeoman," on account of Shakespeare 
 having married the daughter of a man of that name,^ 
 designated as " a substantial yeoman." | 
 
 Our dress was of the coarsest and quaintest kind, 
 but was respected out of doors, and is so. It consisted 
 of a blue drugget gown, or body, with ample skirts to 
 it ; a yellow vest underneath in winter-time ; small-^ 
 clothes of Russia duck ; worsted yellow stockings ; ai 
 leathern girdle ; and a little black worsted cap, usually 
 carried in the hand. I believe it was the ordinary 
 dress of children in humble life during the reign of the 
 Tudors. We used to flatter ourselves that it was 
 taken from the monks ; and there went a monstrous; 
 tradition, that at one period it consisted of blue velvet 
 with silver buttons. It was said, also, that during the 
 blissful era of the blue velvet, we had roast mutton 
 for supper, but that the small-clothes not being then 
 in existence, and the mutton suppers too luxurious, the 
 eatables were given up for the ineffables. 
 
 A malediction, at heart, always followed the memory * 
 of him who had taken upon himself to decide so pre- 
 posterously. To say the truth, we were not too well 
 fed at that time, either in quantity or quality ; and we 
 could not enter with our hungry imaginations into 
 these remote philosophies. Our breakfast was bread 
 
 [' William Wales, F.R.S. (1734P-1798). He was elected in 1775 to 
 the mastership, which position he retained until his death.] 
 
 67
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 and water, for the beer was too bad to drink. The 
 broa<l consisted of the half of a three-halfpenny loaf, 
 ac('orilin<x to the prices then current. This was not 
 much for growing boys, who had had nothing to eat 
 from six or seven o'clock the preceding evening. For 
 dinner we had the same quantity of bread, with meat 
 only every other day, and that consisting of a small 
 slice, such as would be given to an infant three or four 
 years old. Yet even that, w^ith all our hunger, we 
 very often left half-eaten — the meat was so tough. 
 On the other days we had a milk-porridge, ludicrously 
 thin ; or rice-milk, which was better. There were no 
 vegetables or puddings. Once a month we had roast 
 beef ; and twice a year (I blush to think of the eager- 
 ness with which it was looked for !) a dinner of pork. 
 One was roast, and the other boiled ; and on the latter 
 occasion we had our only pudding, which was of peas. 
 I blush to remember this, not on account of our poverty, 
 but on account of the sordidness of the custom. There 
 had much better have been none. For supper we had 
 a like piece of bread, with butter or cheese ; and then 
 to bed, " with what appetite we might." 
 
 Our routine of life was this. We rose to the call of 
 a bell, at six in summer, and seven in w^inter ; and after 
 combing ourselves, and w^ashing our hands and faces, 
 went, at the call of another bell, to breakfast. All 
 this took up about an hour. From breakfast we pro- 
 ceeded to school, where we remained till eleven, winter 
 and summer, and then had an hour's play. Dinner 
 took place at twelve. Afterwards was a little play 
 till one, when we again w^ent to school, and remained 
 till five in summer and four in winter. At six was the 
 'supper. We used to play after it in summer till eight. 
 In winter, we proceeded from supper to bed. On 
 Sundays, the school-time of the other days was occu- 
 pied in church, both morning and evening ; and as the 
 iBible was read to us every day before every meal, and 
 jon going to bed, besides prayers and graces, we rivalled 
 khe monks in the religious part of our duties. 
 5 The effect was certainly not what was intended. 
 The Bible, perhaps, was read thus frequently, in the 
 
 68
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 first instance, out of contradiction to the papal spirit 
 that had so long kept it locked up ; but, in the eigh- 
 teenth century, the repetition was not so desirable 
 among a parcel of hungry boys, anxious to get their 
 modicum to eat. On Sunday, what with the long ser- 
 vice in the morning, the service again after dinner, and 
 the inaudible and indifferent tones of some of the 
 preachers, it was unequivocally tiresome. I, for one, 
 who had been piously brought up, and continued to 
 have religion inculcated on me by father and mother, 
 began secretly to become as indifferent as I thought 
 the preachers ; and, though the morals of the school 
 were in the main excellent and exemplary, we all felt, 
 without knowing it, that it was the orderliness and 
 example of the general system that kept us so, and not 
 the religious part of it, which seldom entered our heads 
 at all, and only tired us when it did. 
 
 I am not begging any question here, or speaking for 
 or against. I am only stating a fact. Others may 
 argue that, however superfluous the readings and 
 prayers might have been, a good general spirit of re- 
 ligion must have been inculcated, because a great deal 
 of virtue and religious charity is known to have issued 
 out of that school, and no fanaticism. I shall not dis- 
 pute the point. The case is true ; but not the less true 
 is what I speak of. Latterly there came, as our parish 
 clergyman, Mr. Crowther, a nephew of our famous 
 Richardson, and worthy of the talents and virtues of 
 his kinsman, though inclining to a mode of faith which 
 is supposed to produce more faith than charity. But, 
 till then, the persons who were in the habit of getting 
 up in our church pulpit and reading-desk, might as 
 well have hummed a tune to their diaphragms. They 
 inspired us with nothing but mimicry. The name of 
 the morning reader was Salt. He was a worthy man, 
 I believe, and might, for aught we knew, have been a 
 clever one ; but he had it all to himself. He spoke in 
 his throat, with a sound as if he were weak and corpu- 
 lent ; and was famous among us for saying " murracles" 
 instead of "miracles." When we imitated him, this 
 was the only word we drew upon : the rest was unin- 
 
 69
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 t«>lliij:il)K' siifTocation. Our usual evening preacher was 
 Mr. Saiulil'ortl, who had the reputation of learning and 
 piety. It was of no use to us, except to make us 
 associate the ideas of learning and piety in the pulpit 
 with inaudible humdrum. Mr. Sandiford's voice was 
 hollow and low ; and he had a habit of dipping up and 
 down over his book, like a chicken drinking. Mr. Salt 
 was eminent for a single word. Mr. Sandiford sur- 
 passed him, for he had two audible phrases. There 
 was, it is true, no great variety in them. One was 
 " the dispensation of Moses " ; the other (with a due 
 interval of hum), " the Mosaic dispensation." These 
 he used to repeat so often, that in our caricatures of 
 him they sufficed for an entire portrait. The reader 
 may conceive a large church (it was Christ Church, 
 Newgate Street), with six hundred boys, seated like 
 charity-children up in the air, on each side of the organ, 
 Mr. Sandiford humming in the valley, and a few^ maid- 
 servants who formed his afternoon congregation. We 
 did not dare to go to sleep. We were not allowed to 
 read. The great boys used to get those that sat be- 
 hind them to play with their hair. Some whispered 
 to their neighbours, and the others thought of their 
 lessons and tops. I can safely say that many of us 
 w^ould have been good listeners, and most of us atten- 
 tive ones, if the clergyman could have been heard. As 
 it was, I talked as well as the rest, or thought of my 
 exercise. Sometimes we could not help joking and 
 laughing over our w^eariness ; and then the fear was, 
 lest the steward had seen us. It was part of the busi- 
 ness of the steward to preside over the boys in church- 
 time. He sat aloof, in a place w^here he could view the 
 whole of his flock. There was a ludicrous kind of re- 
 venge we had of him, whenever a particular part of 
 the Bible was read. This was the parable of the Unjust 
 Steward. The boys waited anxiously till the passage 
 commenced ; and then, as if by a general conspiracy, 
 at the words "thou unjust steward," the whole school 
 turned their eyes upon this unfortunate officer, who sat 
 "Like Teneriff or Atlas unremoved." * 
 [* Paradise Lost, Book iv. line 987.] 
 
 70
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 We persuaded ourselves, that the more unconscious he 
 looked, the more he was acting. 
 
 By a singular chance, there were two clergymen, [ 
 occasional preachers in our pulpit, who were as loud] 
 and startling as the others were somniferous. One of; 
 them, with a sort of flat, high voice, had a remarkable 
 way of making a ladder of it, climbing higher and 
 higher to the end of the sentence. It ought to be 
 described by the gamut, or written up-hill. Perhaps it 
 was an association of ideas, that has made me recol- 
 lect one particular passage. It is where Ahab consults 
 the prophets, asking them whether he shall go up to 
 Ramoth Gilead to battle. " Shall I go against Ramoth 
 Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear ? and they said. Go 
 up ; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the 
 king." He used to give this out in such a manner, that 
 you might have fancied him climbing out of the pulpit, 
 sword in hand. The other was a tall thin man, with 
 a noble voice. He would commence a prayer in a most 
 stately and imposing manner, full both of dignity and 
 feeling ; and then, as if tired of it, would hurry over 
 all the rest. Indeed, he began every prayer in this 
 way, and was as sure to hurry it ; for w^hich reason, 
 the boys hailed the sight of him, as they knew they 
 should get sooner out of church. When he commenced, 
 in his noble style, the band seemed to tremble against 
 his throat, as though it had been a sounding-board. 
 
 Being able to read, and knowing a little Latin, I was 
 put at once into the Under Grammar School. How 
 much time I wasted there in learning the accidence 
 and syntax, I cannot say ; but it seems to me a long 
 while. My grammar seemed always to open at the 
 same place. Things are managed differently now, I 
 believe, in this as well as in many other respects. 
 Great improvements have been made in the whole 
 establishment. The boys feed better, learn better, and 
 have longer holidays in the country. In my time they 
 never slept out of the school, but on one occasion, 
 during the whole of their stay ; this was for three 
 weeks in summer-time, w^hich they were bound to pass 
 at a certain distance from London. They now have 
 
 71
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 these holidays with a reasonable frequency; and they 
 all go to the difYerent schools, instead of being con- 
 fined, as they were then, some to nothing but writing 
 and cyphering, and some to the languages. It has been 
 doubted by some of us elders, whether this system will 
 beget such temperate, proper students, with pale faces, 
 as the other did. I dare say our successors are not 
 afi"iid of us. I had the pleasure, some years since, of 
 dining in company with a Deputy Grecian, who, with 
 a stout rosy-faced person, had not failed to acquire the 
 scholarly turn for joking which is common to a classi- 
 cal education ; as well as those simple, becoming man- 
 ners, made up of modesty and proper confidence, which 
 have been often remarked as distinguishing the boys 
 on this foundation. 
 
 " But what is a Deputy Grecian ? " Ah, reader ! to 
 ask that question, and at the same time to know any- 
 thing at all worth knowing, would at one time, accord- 
 ing to our notion of things, have been impossible. 
 Wben I entered the school, I was shown three gigantic 
 boys, young men rather (for the eldest was between 
 seventeen and eighteen), who, I was told, were going 
 to the University. These were the Grecians. They 
 were the three head boys of the Grammar School, and 
 were understood to have their destiny fixed for the 
 Church. The next class to these, like a College of 
 Cardinals to those three Popes (for every Grecian was 
 in our eyes infallible), were the Deputy Grecians. The 
 former were supposed to have completed their Greek 
 studies, and ^vere deep in Sophocles and Euripides. 
 The latter were thought equally competent to tell you 
 anything respecting Homer and Demosthenes. These 
 two classes, and the head boys of the Navigation School, 
 held a certain rank over the whole place, both in school 
 and out. Indeed, the whole of the Navigation School, 
 upon the strength of their cultivating their valour for 
 the navy, and being called King's Boys, had succeeded 
 in establishing an extraordinary pretension to respect. 
 This they sustained in a manner as laughable to call 
 to mind as it was grave in its reception. It was an 
 etiquette among them never to move out of a right 
 
 72
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 line as they walked, whoever stood in their way. I 
 believe there was a secret understanding with Grecians 
 and Deputy Grecians, the former of whom were un- 
 questionably lords paramount in point of fact, and 
 stood and walked aloof when all the rest of the school 
 were marshalled in bodies. I do not remember any 
 clashing between these civil and naval powers ; but I 
 remember well my astonishment when I first beheld 
 some of my little comrades overthrown by the progress 
 of one of these very straightforward marine person- 
 ages, who walked on with as tranquil and unconscious 
 a face as if nothing had happened. It was not a fierce- 
 looking push ; there seemed to be no intention in it. 
 The insolence lay in the boy not appearing to know 
 that such inferior creatures existed. It was always 
 thus, wherever he came. If aware, the boys got out 
 of his way ; if not, down they went, one or more ; 
 away rolled the top or the marbles, and on walked the 
 future captain— 
 
 "In maiden navigation, frank and free." ^ 
 
 These boys wore a badge on the shoulder, of which 
 they were very proud ; though in the streets it must 
 have helped to confound them with charity boys. For 
 charity boys, I must own, we all had a great contempt, 
 or thought so. We did not dare to know that there 
 might have been a little jealousy of our own position 
 in it, placed as we were midway between the homeli- 
 ness of the common charity-school and the dignity of 
 the foundations. We called them " chizzy-ivags" and 
 had a particular scorn and hatred of their nasal tone 
 in singing. 
 
 The under grammar-master, in my time, was the 
 Rev. Mr. Field. ^ He was a good-looking man, very 
 gentlemanly, and always dressed at the neatest. I 
 believe he once wrote a play. He had the reputation 
 
 [^ " In maiden meditation, fancy-free." Midsummer Night's 
 Dreatn, Act I. Sc. 1.] 
 
 [* Rev. Matthew Field was master from 1776 to 1796 when he 
 retired, having obtained preferment in the Church of St. Pauls. He 
 died in August, 1796. His play is entitled Vertumnus and Pomonia ; 
 a subject dealt with by Hunt himself in Tfie Companion. ] 
 
 73
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of being jidniiretl b^' the ladies. A man of a more 
 lianilsonie incompetence for bis situation perhaps did 
 not exist. He came bite of a morning ; went away 
 sot)n in the attcrnoon ; and vised to walk up and down, 
 languidly bearing his cane, as if it were a lily,* and 
 hearing our eternal Dominuses and As in prcesentis 
 with an air of ineffable endurance. Often he did not 
 hear at all. It was a joke with us, when any of our 
 friends came to the door, and we asked his permission 
 to go to them, to address him with some preposterous 
 question wide of the mark, to which he used to assent. 
 We would say, for instance, " Are you not a great fool, 
 sir ?" or, " Isn't your daughter a pretty girl ? " to which 
 he would reply, " Yes, child." When he condescended 
 to hit us with the cane, he made a face as if he were 
 taking physic. Miss Field, an agreeable-looking girl, 
 was one of the goddesses of the school ; as far above 
 us as if she had lived on Olympus. Another was Miss 
 Patrick, daughter of the lamp-manufacturer in Newgate 
 Street. I do not remember her face so well, not seeing 
 it so often, but she abounded in admirers. I write the 
 names of these ladies at full length because there is 
 nothing that should hinder their being pleased at having 
 caused us so many agreeable visions. We used to identify 
 them with the picture of Venus in Tooke's Pantheon. 
 
 The other master, the upper one, Boyer^ — famous 
 for the mention of him by Coleridge and Lamb — was 
 a short stout man, inclining to punchiness, w^ith large 
 face and hands, an aquiline nose, long upper lip, and 
 a sharp mouth. His eye ^was close and cruel. The 
 spectacles which he wore threw a balm over it. Being 
 a clergyman, he dressed in black, with a powdered wig. 
 His clothes were cut short ; his hands hung out of 
 the sleeves, with tight wristbands, as if ready for 
 execution ; and as he generally wore gray -worsted 
 stockings, very tight, w^ith a little balustrade leg, his 
 
 (' "Field never used the rod ; and in truth he wielded the cane 
 with no great goodwill — holding it ' like a dancer.' It looked in 
 his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority ; 
 and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of." Lamb's Christ's Hospital.] 
 
 [^ Rev. James Boyer held his post at Christ's Hospital from 1776 
 to 1799.] 
 
 74
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 whole appearance presented something formidably 
 succinct, hard, and mechanical. In fact, his weak side, 
 and undoubtedly his natural destination, lay in car- 
 pentry ; and he accordingly carried, in a side-pocket 
 made on purpose, a carpenter's rule. 
 
 The merits of Boyer consisted in his being a good 
 verbal scholar, and conscientiously acting up to the 
 letter of time and attention. I have seen him nod at 
 the close of the long svimmer school-hours, wearied 
 out ; and I should have pitied him if he had taught 
 us to do anything but fear. Though a clergyman, very 
 orthodox, and of rigid morals, he indulged himself in 
 an oath, which was " God's-my-life ! " When you were 
 out in your lesson, he turned upon you a round staring 
 eye like a fish ; and he had a trick of pinching you 
 under the chin, and by the lobes of the ears, till he 
 would make the blood come. He has many times lifted 
 a boy off the ground in this way. He was, indeed, a 
 proper tyrant, passionate and capricious ; would take 
 violent likes and dislikes to the same boys ; fondle some 
 w^ithout any apparent reason, though he had a leaning 
 to the servile, and, perhaps, to the sons of rich people ; 
 and he would persecute others in a manner truly fright- 
 ful. I have seen him beat a sickly-looking, melancholy 
 
 boy (C n)^ about the head and ears till the poor 
 
 fellow, hot, dry-eyed, and confused, seemed lost in 
 
 bewilderment. C n, not long after he took orders, 
 
 died, out of his senses. I do not attribute that catas- 
 trophe to the master ; and of course he could not wish 
 to do him any lasting mischief. He had no imagina- 
 tion of any sort. But there is no saying how far his 
 treatment of the boy might have contributed to pre- 
 vent a cure. Tyrannical school-masters nowadays are 
 to be found, perhaps, exclusively in such inferior schools 
 as those described with such masterly and indignant 
 edification by my friend Charles Dickens ; but they 
 formerly seemed to have abounded in all ; and masters, >. 
 as well as boys, have escaped the chance of many bitter \ 
 
 1 [William Ed. Cheslyn, who afterwards went to St. John's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge, and died young (see Mr. R. Brimley Johnson's 
 Chrisfs Hospital, p. 262).] 
 
 75
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 reflections since a wiser and more generous intercourse 
 has come up between them. 
 
 I have some stories of Boyer that will completely 
 show his character, and at the same time relieve the 
 reader's indignation by something ludicrous in their 
 excess. We had a few boarders at the school : boys 
 wliose parents were too rich to let them go on the 
 foundation. Among them, in my time, w^as Carlton, a son 
 of Lord Dorchester ; Macdonald, one of the Lord Chief 
 
 Baron's sons ; and R , the son of a rich merchant. 
 
 C , who was a fine fellow, manly and full of good 
 
 sense, took his new master and his caresses very coolly, 
 and did not ■u'^ant them. Little M also could dis- 
 pense with them, and would put on his delicate gloves 
 after lesson, with an air as if he resumed his patrician 
 plumage. R was meeker, and willing to be en- 
 couraged ; and there would the master sit, w^ith his arm 
 round his tall waist, helping him to his Greek verbs, as 
 a nurse does bread and milk to an infant ; and repeat- 
 ing them, w^hen he missed, with a fond patience, that 
 astonished us criminals in drugget. 
 
 Very different was the treatment of a boy on the 
 foundation, whose friends, by some means or other, 
 had prevailed on the master to pay him an extra 
 attention, and try to get him on. He had come into 
 the school at an age later than usual, and could hardly 
 read. There was a book used by the learners in reading, 
 called Dialogues between a Missionary and an Indian. It 
 was a poor performance, full of inconclusive arguments 
 and other commonplaces. The boy in question used to 
 appear w^ith this book in his hand in the middle of the 
 school, the master standing behind him. The lesson 
 
 was to begin. Poor , w^hose great fault lay in a 
 
 deep-toned drawl of his syllables and the omission of his 
 stops, stood half looking at the book, and half casting 
 his eye towards the right of him, whence the blows 
 were to proceed. The master looked over him, and 
 his hand was ready. I am not exact in my quotation 
 jat this distance of time; but the spirit of one of the 
 passages that I recollect was to the following purport, 
 and thus did the teacher and his pupil proceed : — 
 
 76
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 Master. — " Now, young man, have a care ; or I'll set 
 you a swingeing task." (A common phrase of his.) 
 
 Pupil. — (Making a sort of heavy bolt at his calamity, 
 and never remembering his stop at the word Mission- 
 ary.) " Missionary Can you see the wind ? " 
 
 (Master gives him a slap on the cheek.) 
 
 Pupil. — (Raising his voice to a cry, and still forget- 
 ting his stop.) " Indian No ! " 
 
 Master. — " God's-my-life, young man ! have a care 
 how you provoke me ! " 
 
 Pupil. — (Always forgetting the stop.) " Missionary 
 How then do you know that there is such a thing ? " 
 
 (Here a terrible thump.) 
 
 Pupil. — (With a shout of agony.) " Indian Because 
 I feel it." 
 
 One anecdote of his injustice will suffice for all. It 
 is of ludicrous enormity ; nor do I believe anything 
 more flagrantly wilful was ever done by himself. I 
 
 heard Mr. C , the sufferer, now a most respectable 
 
 person in a Government office, relate it with a due 
 relish, long after quitting the school. The master was ; 
 
 in the habit of " spiting " C ; that is to say, of 
 
 taking every opportunity to be severe with him, no- i 
 body knew why. One day he comes into the school, , 
 and finds him placed in the middle of it with three 
 other boys. He w^as not in one of his w^orst humours, 
 and did not seem inclined to punish them, till he saw 
 his antagonist. "Oh, oh ! sir," said he: "what! jou 
 are among them, are you ? " and gave him an exclusive^ 
 thump on the face. He then turned to one of the' 
 Grecians, and said, " I have not time to flog all these 
 boys ; make them draw lots, and I'll punish one." The 
 
 lots w^ere drawn, and C 's was favourable. " Oh, 
 
 oh ! " returned the master, when he saw them, " you 
 have escaped have you, sir ? " and pulling out his watch, 
 and turning again to the Grecian, observed, that he 
 found he had time to punish the whole three ; " and, 
 
 sir," added he to C , with another slap, " I'll begin 
 
 with you." He then took the boy into the library and 
 flogged him ; and, on issuing forth again, had the face 
 to say, with an air of indifference, " I have not time, 
 
 77
 
 AlTOHlOCJHArHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 after all. to punish these two other boys ; let them take 
 care how thoy provoke me another time." 
 
 Often did I wish that I were a fairy, in order to play 
 him trioks like a Caliban. We used to sit and fancy 
 what we should do with his wig ; how we would 
 hamper and vex him ; " put knives in his pillow, and 
 halters in his pew." To venture on a joke in our own 
 mortal persons, was like playing with Polyphemus. 
 One afternoon, when he was nodding with sleep over a 
 lesson, a boy of the name of Header, who stood behind 
 him, ventured to take a pin, and begin advancing w^ith 
 it up his wig. The hollow, exhibited between the wig 
 and the nape of the neck, invited him. The boys 
 encouraged this daring act of gallantry. Nods and 
 becks, and then whispers of " Go it, M. ! " gave more 
 and more valour to his hand. On a sudden, the 
 master's head falls back ; he starts with eyes like a 
 shark ; and seizing the unfortunate culprit, w^ho stood 
 helpless in the act of holding the pin, caught hold of 
 him, fiery with passion. A " swingeing task " ensued, 
 which kept him at home all the holidays. One of 
 these tasks would consist of an impossible quantity of 
 Virgil, which the learner, unable to retain it at once, 
 wasted his heart and soul out " to get up," till it was 
 too late. 
 
 Sometimes, however, our despot got into a dilemma, 
 and then he did not know how to get out of it. A 
 boy, now and then, would be roused into open and 
 fierce remonstrance. I recollect S., afterwards one of 
 the mildest of preachers, starting up in his place, and 
 pouring forth on his astonished hearer a torrent of 
 invectives and threats, which the other could only 
 answer by looking pale, and uttering a few threats in 
 return. Nothing came of it. He did not like such 
 matters to go before the governors. Another time, 
 Favell, a Grecian, a youth of high spirit, whom, he 
 had struck, went to the school-door, opened it, and 
 turning round with the handle in his grasp, told him he 
 Would never set foot again in the place, unless he 
 promised to treat him with more delicacy. " Come 
 back, child ; come back ! " said the other, pale, and in a 
 
 78
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 faint voice. There was a dead silence. Favell came 
 back, and nothing more w^as done. 
 
 A sentiment, unaccompanied with something prac- 
 tical, would have been lost upon him. D , who 
 
 went afterwards to the Military College at Woolwich, 
 played him a trick, apparently between jest and earnest, 
 which amused us exceedingly. He was to be flogged ; 
 and the dreadful door of the library was approached. 
 (They did not invest the books with flowers, as 
 Montaigne recommends.) Down falls the criminal, and 
 twisting himself about the master's legs, which he does 
 the more when the other attempts to move, repeats 
 without ceasing, "Oh, good God! consider my father, 
 sir ; my father, sir ; you know my father ! " The point 
 was felt to be getting ludicrous, and was given up. 
 
 P , now a popular preacher, was in the habit of 
 
 entertaining the boys in that way. He was a regular 
 wag ; and would snatch his jokes out of the very flame 
 and fury of the master, like snap-dragon. Whenever 
 the other struck him, P. would get up ; and, half to 
 avoid the blows, and half render them ridiculous, begin 
 moving about the school-room, making all sorts of 
 antics. When he was struck in the face, he woidd 
 clap his hand with affected vehemence to the place, and 
 cry as rapidly, "Oh, Lord !" If the blow came on the 
 arm, he would grasp his arm, with a similar exclama- 
 tion. The master would then go, driving and kicking 
 him : while the patient accompanied every blow with 
 the same comments and illustrations, making faces to 
 us by w^ay of index. 
 
 What a bit of a golden age was it, when the Rev. Mr. 
 Steevens, ^ one of the under grammar-masters, took his 
 place, on some occasion, for a short time ! Steevens 
 was short and fat, with a handsome, cordial face. You 
 loved him as you looked at him ; and seemed as if you 
 should love him the more the fatter he became. I 
 
 [^ Lamb says in his Christ Hospital Five and thirty Years Ago, 
 " First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Steevens, kindest of 
 boys and men, since co-grammar master (and inseparable com- 
 panion) with Dr. T[rollop]e." Dr. Arthur William Trollope (1768- 
 1827) afterwards became headmaster. His son William (1798-1863) 
 wrote A History of Christ's Hospital, 1834.] 
 
 79
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ataTnniored when I was at that time of life : which was 
 an infirmity that used to get me into terrible trouble 
 with the master. Steevens used to say, on the other 
 hand, " Here comes our little black-haired friend, who 
 sttimmers so. Now, let us see w^hat we can do for him." 
 The consequence was, I did not hesitate half so much as 
 with the other. When I did, it was out of impatience 
 to please him. 
 
 Such of us were not liked the better by the master as 
 were in favour with his wife. She was a sprightly, 
 good-looking woman, with black eyes ; and was beheld 
 with transport by the boys, whenever she appeared at 
 the school-door. Her husband's name, uttered in a 
 mingled tone of good-nature and imperativeness, brought 
 him down from his seat with smiling haste. Sometimes 
 he did not return. On entering the school one day, he 
 found a boy eating cherries. " Where did you get those 
 cherries '? " exclaimed he, thinking the boy had nothing 
 to say for himself. " Mrs. Boyer gave them me, sir." 
 He turned away, scowling with disappointment. 
 
 Speaking of fruit, reminds me of a pleasant trait on 
 the part of a Grecian of the name of Le Grice.^ He was 
 the maddest of all the great boys in my time ; clever, 
 full of address, and not hampered with modesty. 
 Remote humours, not lightly to be heard, fell on our 
 ears, respecting pranks of his amongst the nurses' 
 daughters. He had a fair handsome face, with delicate 
 aquiline nose, and twinkling eyes. I remember his 
 astonishing me when I was " a new^ boy," with sending 
 me for a bottle of water, which he proceeded to pour 
 down the back of G., a grave Deputy Grecian. On the 
 master asking him one day why he, of all the boys, had 
 given up no exercise (it was a particular exercise that 
 they were bound to do in the course of a long set of 
 holidays), he said he had had "a lethargy." The 
 extreme impudence of this puzzled the master ; and, I 
 believe, nothing came of it. But what I alluded to 
 about the fruit was this. Le Grice w^as in the habit of 
 eating apples in school-time, for which he had been 
 
 [* Samuel Le Grice. His regiment was the 60th Foot : he died in 
 Jamaica in 1802.] 
 
 80

 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 often rebuked. One day, having particularly pleased 
 the master, the latter, who was eating apples himself, 
 and who would now and then with great ostentation 
 present a boy w^ith some halfpenny token of his man- 
 suetude, called out to his favourite of the moment, " Le 
 Grice, here is an apple for you." Le Grice, who felt 
 his dignity hurt as a Grecian, but was more pleased at 
 having this opportunity of mortifying his reprover, 
 replied, with an exquisite tranquillity of assurance, 
 "Sir, I never eat apples." For this, among other things, 
 the boys adored him. Poor fellow ! He and Favell ^ 
 (who, though very generous, was said to be a little too 
 sensible of an humble origin) wrote to the Duke of 
 York, when they were at College, for commissions in 
 the army. The Duke good-naturedly sent them. Le 
 Grice died in the West Indies. Favell was killed in one 
 of the battles in Spain, but not before he had dis- 
 tinguished himself as an officer and a gentleman. 
 
 The Upper Grammar School was divided into four 
 classes or forms. The two under ones were called Little 
 and Great Erasmus ; the two upper were occupied by 
 the Grecians and Deputy Grecians. We used to think 
 the title of Erasmus taken from the great scholar of 
 that name ; but the sudden appearance of a portrait 
 among us, bearing to be the likeness of a certain 
 Erasmus Smith, Esq., shook us terribly in this opinion, 
 and was a hard trial of our gratitude. We scarcely 
 relished this perpetual company of our benefactor, 
 watching us, as he seemed to do, with his omnipresent 
 eyes. I believe he was a rich merchant, and that the 
 forms of Little and Great Erasmus were really named 
 after him. It was but a poor consolation to think that 
 he himself, or his great-uncle, might have been named 
 after Erasmus. Little Erasmus learned Ovid; Great 
 Erasmus, Virgil, Terence, and the Greek Testament. 
 The Deputy Grecians were in Homer, Cicero, and 
 
 [' Robert Favell who was described by Lamb as " dogged, faithful, 
 anticipative of insult, warm hearted, with something of the old 
 Roman height about him," figures in the Elian essay on " Poor 
 Relations " as W , the son of a house-painter at Oxford (Cam- 
 bridge). He was so ashamed of his father's calling that he was led 
 to join the army.] 
 
 81 G
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Demosthenes ; the Grecians, in the Greek plays and the 
 niuthoniatics. 
 
 Whi>n a boy entered the Upper School, he was under- 
 stood to be in the road to the University, provided he 
 had inclination and talents for it; but, as only one 
 Grecian a year went to College, the drafts out of Great 
 and Little Erasmus into the w^riting-school were 
 nunicious. A few also became Deputy Grecians with- 
 out going farther, and entered the world from that 
 form. Those who became Grecians always went to the 
 University, though not always into the Church ; which 
 was reckoned a departure from the contract. When I 
 first came to school, at seven years old, the names of 
 the Grecians were Allen,* Fa veil, Thomson,^ and Le 
 Grice, ^ brother of the Le Grice above mentioned, and 
 now a clergyman in Cornwall. Charles Lamb had 
 lately been Deputy Grecian ; and Coleridge had left for 
 the University. 
 
 The master, inspired by his subject with an eloquence 
 beyond himself, once called him, " that sensible fool, Col- 
 leridge," pronouncing the word like a dactyl. Coleridge 
 : must have alternately delighted and bewildered him. 
 y The compliment, as to the bewildering w^as returned, if 
 I not the delight. The pupil, I am told, said he dreamt 
 ^^•of the master all his life, and that his dreams w^ere 
 j horrible. A bon-mot of his is recorded, very character- 
 jistic both of pupil and master. Coleridge, w^hen he 
 .^ heard of his death, said, "It was lucky that the 
 I cherubim who took him to heaven w^ere nothing but 
 I faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged 
 I them by the way."* This was his esoterical opinion of 
 l^him. His outward and subtler opinion, or opinion 
 \ exoterical, he favoured the public w^ith in his Literary 
 i Life. ^ He praised him, among other things, for his 
 
 (' Robert Allen, afterwards went to University College, Oxford.] 
 [- Marmaduke Thompson, became a missionary. Lamb dedicated 
 
 his Rosamund Gray to him.] 
 
 (^ Charles Valentine Le Grice. The Tineum, containing Estia- 
 
 nomny, or the Art of Stirring a Fire, etc." appeared in 1794, while 
 
 Le Grice was at Cambridge.] 
 [* This story is also related by Lamb, but with rather more point.] 
 (* Coleridge's Biographia lAteraria, or- Biographical Sketches of 
 
 my Literary Life and Opinions, 2 vols. 8vo., 1817.] 
 
 82
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 good taste in poetry, and his not suffering the boys to 
 get into the commonplaces of Castalian Streams, 
 Invocations to the Muses, etc. Certainly, there were 
 no such things in our days — at least, to the best of my 
 remembrance. But I do not think the master saw 
 through them, out of a perception of anything further. 
 His objection to a commonplace must have been itself 
 commonplace. 
 
 I do not remember seeing Coleridge,^ when I was a 
 child. Lamb's visits to the school, after he left it, 
 I remember well, with his fine intelligent face. Little 
 did I think I should have the pleasure of sitting with 
 it in after-times as an old friend, and seeing it care- 
 worn and still finer. Allen, the Grecian, was so 
 handsome, though in another and more obvious way, 
 that running one day against a barrow-w^oman in 
 the street, and turning round to appease her in the 
 midst of her abuse, she said, " Where are you driving 
 to, you great hulking, good-for-nothing — beautiful 
 fellow, God bless you ! " Le Grice the elder w^as a 
 wag, like his brother, but more staid. He went into the 
 Church as he ought to do, and married a rich widow. 
 He published a translation, abridged, of the celebrated 
 pastoral of Longus ; and report at school made him 
 the author of a little anonymous tract on the A^t 
 of Poking the Fire. 
 
 Few of us cared for any of the books that were 
 taught : and no pains were taken to make us do so. 
 The boys had no helps to information, bad or good, 
 except what the master afforded them respecting 
 manufactures — a branch of knowledge to which, as I 
 before observed, he had a great tendency, and which 
 was the only point on which he was enthusiastic 
 and gratuitous. I do not blame him for what he 
 taught us of this kind : there was a use in it, be- 
 yond what he was aware of ; but it was the only 
 one on which he volunteered any assistance. In this 
 he took evident delight. I remember, in explaining 
 
 [' Coleridge left Christ's Hospital in September, 1791, for Jesus 
 College, Cambridge. Hunt did not enter the school until the fol- 
 lowing November.] 
 
 83
 
 AUT015I0GKAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 piujs of iron or lead to us, he made a point of cross- 
 inix <^>iie of his legs with the other, and, cherishing 
 it up and down with great satisfaction, saying, " A 
 pig, children, is about the thickness of my leg." 
 Upon which, with a slavish pretence of novelty, we 
 all looked at it, as if he had not told us so a hundred 
 times. In everything else we had to hunt out our 
 own knowledge. He would not help us with a word 
 till he had ascertained that we had done all we could 
 to learn the meaning of it ourselves. This discipline 
 was useful ; and in this and every other respect, we 
 had all the advantages which a mechanical sense of 
 right, and a rigid exaction of duty, could afford us ; 
 but no further. The only superfluous grace that he 
 was guilty of, was the keeping a manuscript book, in 
 which, by a rare luck, the best exercise in English 
 verse was occasionally copied out for immortality ! To 
 have verses in " the Book" was the rarest and highest 
 honour conceivable to our imaginations.^ I never, 
 alas ! attained it. 
 
 How little did I care for any verses at that time, 
 except English ones ; I had no regard even for Ovid. 
 I read and knew nothing of Horace ; though I had got 
 somehow a liking for his character. Cicero I disliked, 
 as I cannot help doing still. Demosthenes I was 
 inclined to admire, but did not know why, and would 
 , very willingly have given up him and his difficulties 
 together. Homer I regarded with horror, as a series 
 of lessons which I had to learn by heart before I 
 understood him. When I had to conquer, in this 
 way, lines which I had not construed, I had recourse 
 to a sort of artificial memory, by which I associated 
 the Greek words with sounds that had a meaning in 
 English, Thus, a passage about Thetis I made to 
 bear on some circumstance that had taken place in 
 the school. An account of a battle was converted 
 into a series of jokes ; and the master while I was 
 ; saying my lesson to him in trepidation, little suspected 
 i what a figure he was often cutting in the text. The 
 
 [' Coleridge was a contributor to Boyer's album.] 
 84
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 only classic I remember having any love for was Virgil ; ■ 
 and that was for the episode of Nisus and Euryalus. I; 
 
 But there were three books which I read in when- ;^ 
 ever I could, and which often got me into trouble. 
 These w^ere Tooke's Pantheon, Lempriere's Classical 
 Dictionary, and Spence's Polymetis, the great folio 
 edition with plates. Tooke was a prodigious favourite , 
 with us. I see before me, as vividly now as ever, his * 
 Mars and Apollo, his Venus and Aurora, which I was 
 continually trying to copy ; the Mars, coming on . 
 furiously in his car ; Apollo, with his radiant head, in j 
 the midst of shades and fountains ; Aurora with hers, I 
 a golden dawn ; and Venus, very handsome, we | 
 thought, and not looking too modest in "a slight ^ 
 cymar." It is curious how completely the graces of 
 the Pagan theology overcame with us the ^vise cautions 
 and reproofs that w^ere set against it in the pages of 
 Mr. Tooke. Some years after my departure from ; 
 school, happening to look at the work in question, | 
 I was surprised to find so much of that matter in him. | 
 When I came to reflect, I had a sort of recollection + 
 that we used occasionally to notice it, as something t 
 inconsistent with the rest of the text — strange, and >■ 
 odd, and like the interference of some pedantic old * 
 gentleman. This, indeed, is pretty nearly the case. | 
 The author has also made a strange mistake about I 
 Bacchus, whom he represents, both in his text and | 
 his print, as a mere belly-god ; a corpulent child, like ^, 
 the Bacchus bestriding a tun. This is anything but | 
 classical. The truth is, it w^as a sort of pious fraud, I 
 like many other things palmed upon antiquity. Tooke's 1 
 Pantheon was written originally in Latin by the I 
 Jesuits.^ I 
 
 Our Lempriere was a fund of entertainment. Spence's * 
 
 I* Francois Pomey (1619-1673), a French Jesuit, was the author 
 of Panthceum Mythicttm, which Andrew Tooke (1673-1731) pub- 
 lished in English without acknowledgment. Rev. John Lem- 
 priere (1765-1824). Rev Joseph Spence (1698-1768), the friend of 
 Pope, and the author of the Anecdotes Coriceming Eminent 
 Literary Characters. His Polymetis, or Enqtiiry into the Agree- 
 ment between the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains of 
 the Ancient Artists, was published in 1747.] 
 
 85
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Poh/mrtis was not so easily got at. There was also 
 sonu'thiii^ in the text that did not invito us ; but we 
 ailniiriHl tlio lino large prints. However, Tooko was 
 the favourite. I cannot divest myself of a notion, to 
 this day, that there is something really clever in the 
 picture of Apollo. The Minerva we " could not 
 abide "; Juno was no favourite, for all her throne 
 and her peacock ; and we thought Diana too pretty. 
 The instinct against these three goddesses begins 
 early. I used to wonder how Juno and Minerva 
 could have the insolence to dispute the apple with 
 Venus. 
 
 In those times, Cooke's edition of the British poets 
 came up. I had got an odd volume of Spenser ; and I 
 fell passionately in love with Collins and Gray. How I 
 loved those little sixpenny numbers containing whole 
 poets ! I doted on their size ; I doted on their type, 
 on their ornaments, on their wrappers containing lists 
 of other poets, and on the engravings from Kirk. I 
 bought them over and over again, and used to get 
 up select sets which disappeared like buttered crum- 
 pets ; for I could resist neither giving them away, 
 nor possessing them. When the master tormented 
 me — when I used to hate and loathe the sight of 
 Homer, and Demosthenes, and Cicero — I would com- 
 fort myself with thinking of the sixpence in my 
 pocket, with which I should go out to Paternoster Row, 
 when school was over, and buy another number of 
 an English poet.^ 
 , I was already fond of writing verses. The first I 
 ■ remember were in honour of the Duke of York's 
 " Victory at Dunkirk " ; which victory, to my great 
 mortification, turned out to be a defeat. I compared 
 him with Achilles and Alexander ; or should rather say, 
 trampled upon those heroes in the comparison. I 
 fancied him riding through the field, and shooting right 
 and left of him ! Afterwards, when in Great Erasmus, 
 I wrote a poem called Winter, in consequence of reading 
 
 f William Hazlitt, in his essay "On Reading Old Books," has 
 described in his inimitable way how as a boy he came under the 
 spell of Cooke's edition of the novelists.] 
 
 8(>
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 Thomson ; and when Deputy Grecian, I completed some 
 hundred stanzas of another, called the Fairy King, 
 which was to be in emulation of Spenser ! I also wrote 
 a long poem in irregular Latin verses (such as they 
 were) entitled Thor ; the consequence of reading Gray's 
 Odes and Mallett's Northern Antiquities. English verses 
 were the only exercise I performed with satisfaction. 
 Themes, or prose essays, I wrote so badly, that the 
 master was in the habit of contemptuously crumpling 
 them up in his hand and calling out, " Here, children, 
 there is something to amuse you ! " Upon which the 
 servile part of the boys w^ould jump up, seize the paper,, 
 and be amused accordingly. 
 
 The essays must have been very absurd, no doubt ; 
 but those who would have tasted the ridicule best were 
 the last to move. There was an absurdity in giving us 
 such essays to write. They were upon a given subject, 
 generally a moral one, such as Ambition or the Love 
 of Money : and the regular process in the manufacture 
 was this : — You wrote out the subject very fairly at 
 top. Quid non mortalia, etc., or, Crescit amor' nummi. 
 Then the ingenious thing was to repeat this apophthegm 
 in as many words and roundabout phrases as possible, 
 which took up a good bit of the paper. Then you at- 
 tempted to give a reason or two why amor nuTnrni was 
 bad ; or on what accounts heroes ought to eschew^ 
 ambition ; after w^hich naturally came a few examples, 
 got out of Plutarch or the Selectee h Profanis ; and the 
 happy moralist concluded with signing his name. 
 Somebody speaks of schoolboys going about to one 
 another on these occasions, and asking for " a little 
 sense." That was not the phrase with us ; it was " a 
 
 thought." "P , can you give me a thought?" 
 
 " C , for God's sake, help me to a thought, for it 
 
 only wants ten minutes to eleven." It was a joke with 
 
 P , who knew my hatred of themes, and how I used 
 
 to hurry over them, to come to me at a quarter to 
 eleven, and say, " Hunt, have you begun your theme ? "! 
 
 — "Yes, P ." He then, when the quarter of ai^ 
 
 hour had expired, and the bell tolled, came again, and^ 
 with a sort of rhyming formula to the other question, 
 
 87
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 said, " Hunt, have you done your theme ? " — " Yes, 
 P .' 
 
 How I dared to trespass in this way upon the patience 
 tof the master, I cannot conceive. I suspect that the 
 themes appeared to him more absurd than careless. 
 .Perhaps another thing perplexed him. The master was 
 rigidly orthodox ; the school establishment also was 
 orthodox and high Tory; and there w^as just then a 
 little perplexity, arising from the free doctrines incul- 
 cated by the books we learned, and the new and alarm- 
 ing echo of them struck on the ears of power by the 
 French Revolution. My father was in the habit of 
 expressing his opinions. He did not conceal the new 
 tendency w^hich he felt to modify those which he enter- 
 tained respecting both Church and State. His uncon- 
 scious son at school, nothing doubting or suspecting, 
 repeated his eulogies of Timoleon and the Gracchi, 
 with all a schoolboy's enthusiasm ; and the master's 
 mind was not of a pitch to be superior to this unwitting 
 annoyance. It was on these occasions, I suspect, that 
 he crumpled up my themes with a double contempt, 
 and with an equal degree of perplexity. 
 
 There w^as a better school exercise, consisting of an 
 abridgment of some paper in the Spectator. We made, 
 however, little of it, and thought it very difficult and 
 perplexing. In fact, it w^as a hard task for boys, utterly 
 unacquainted with the world, to seize the best points 
 out of the writings of masters in experience. It only 
 gave the Spectator an unnatural gravity in our eyes. 
 A common paper for selection, because reckoned one of 
 the easiest, was the one beginning, " I have always pre- 
 ferred cheerfulness to mirth." I had heard this paper 
 so often, and was so tired with it, that it gave me a 
 great inclination to prefer mirth to cheerfulness. 
 
 My books were a never-ceasing consolation to me, and 
 such they have ever continued. My favourites, out of 
 school hours, were Spenser, Collins, Gray, and the 
 Arabian Nights. Pope I admired more than loved ; 
 Milton was above me ; and the only play of Shakes- 
 peare's with which I was conversant was Hamlet, of 
 which I had a delighted awe. Neither then, however, 
 
 88
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 nor at any time, have I been as fond of dramatic read- 
 ing as of any other, though I have written many 
 dramas myself, and have even a special propensity for 
 so doing ; a contradiction for which I have never been 
 able to account. Chaucer, who has since been one of 
 my best friends, I was not acquainted with at school, 
 nor till long afterwards. Hudihras I remember reading 
 through at one desperate plunge, while I lay incapable 
 of moving with two scalded legs. I did it as a sort of 
 achievement, driving on through the verses without 
 understanding a twentieth part of them, but now and 
 then laughing immoderately at the rhymes and similes, 
 and catching a bit of knowledge unaw^ares. I had a 
 schoolfellow of the name of Brooke, afterwards an 
 officer in the East India Service — a grave, quiet boy, 
 with a fund of manliness and good-humour. He would 
 pick out the ludicrous couplets like plums, such as those 
 on the astrologer, — 
 
 "Who deals in destiny's dark counsels, 
 And sage opinions of the moon sells " ; 
 
 And on the apothecary's shop : — 
 
 " With stores of deleterious med'cines, : 
 
 Which whosoever took is dead since." ; 
 
 He had the little thick duodecimo edition, with Hogarth's 
 plates — dirty, and well read, looking like Hudibras him- 
 self. 
 
 I read through, at the same time, and with little less 
 sense of it as a task, Milton's Paradise Lost. The 
 divinity of it was so much " Heathen Greek " to us. 
 Unluckily, I could not taste the beautiful "Heathen 
 Greek " of the style. Milton's heaven made no impres- 
 sion ; nor could I enter even into the earthly catastrophe 
 of his man and woman. The only two things I thought 
 of were their happiness in Paradise, where (to me) they 
 eternally remained ; and the strange malignity of the 
 devil, who, instead of getting them out of it, as the 
 poet represents, only served to bind them closer. He 
 seemed an odd shade to the picture. The figure he cut 
 in the engravings was more in my thoughts than any- 
 
 89
 
 AUTOIUOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 thiiiix said of him in the poem. He was a sort of 
 human wild beast, lurking about the garden in which 
 thi>y lived ; though, in consequence of the dress given 
 him in some of tlie plates, this man with a tail occa- 
 sionally confused himself in my imagination with a 
 Roman general. I could make little of it. I believe 
 the plates impressed me altogether much more than 
 the poem. Perhaps they were the reason why I thought 
 of Adam and Eve as I did ; the pictures of them in 
 their paradisaical state being more numerous than 
 those in which they appear exiled. Besides, in their 
 exile they were together ; and this constituting the 
 best thing in their paradise, I suppose I could not so 
 easily get miserable with them when out of it. I had 
 the same impression from Dr. Johnson's Rasselas. I 
 never thought of anything in it but the Happy Valley. 
 I might have called to mind, with an effort, a shadow^y 
 something about disappointment, and a long remainder 
 of talk which I would not read again, perhaps never 
 thoroughly did read. The Happy Valley was new to 
 me, and delightful and everlasting ; and there the 
 princely inmates were everlastingly to be found. 
 
 The scald that I speak of as confining me to bed was 
 a bad one. I will give an account of it, because it 
 furthers the elucidation of our school manners. I had 
 then become a monitor, or one of the chiefs of a ward ; 
 and I was sitting before the fire one evening, after the 
 boys had gone to bed, wrapped up in the perusal of the 
 ''Wonderful Magazine, and having in my ear at the 
 isame time the bubbling of a great pot, or rather 
 cauldron of water, containing what was by courtesy 
 called a bread pudding ; being neither more nor less 
 than a loaf or two of our bread, which, with a little 
 sugar mashed up w^ith it, w^as to serve for my supper. 
 And there were eyes, not yet asleep, which would look 
 at it out of their beds, and regard it as a lordly dish. 
 From this dream of bliss I was roused up on the 
 sudden by a great cry, and a horrible agony in my legs, 
 A "boy," as a fag was called, wishing to get some- 
 thing from the other side of the fire-place, and not 
 choosing either to go round behind the table, or to 
 
 90
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 disturb the illustrious legs of the monitor, had en- 
 deavoured to get under them or between them, and so 
 pulled the great handle of the pot after him. It was a 
 frightful sensation. The whole of my being seemed 
 collected in one fiery torment into my legs. Wood, 
 the Grecian (afterwards Fellow of Pembroke, at Cam-'j 
 bridge), who was in our ward, and who was al^vays^ 
 very kind to me (led, I believe, by my inclination for'i 
 verses, in which he had a great name), came out of his| 
 study, and after helping me off with my stockings,^ 
 which was a horrid operation, the stockings being very 
 coarse, took me in his arms to the sick ward. I shall 
 never forget the enchanting relief occasioned by the 
 cold air, as it blew across the square of the sick ward 
 I lay there for several weeks, not allowed to move for , 
 some time ; and caustics became necessary before I got j 
 well. The getting well was delicious. I had no tasks t 
 — no master ; plenty of books to read ; and the nurse's s; 
 daughter {ahsit calumiiia) brought me tea and buttered | 
 toast, and encouraged me to play the flute. My play- \ 
 ing consisted of a few tunes by rote ; my fellow- i 
 invalids (none of them in very desperate case) ^vould 
 have it rather than no playing at all ; so we used to 
 play and tell stories, and go to sleep, thinking of the | 
 blessed sick holiday we should have to-morro^v, and of * 
 the bowl of milk and bread for breakfast, w^hich was 
 alone worth being sick for. The sight of Mr. Long's \ 
 probe was not so pleasant. We preferred seeing it in | 
 the hands of Mr. Vincent, w^hose manners, quiet and i 
 mild, had double effect on a set of boys more or less | 
 jealous of the mixed humbleness and importance of ft 
 their school. This was most likely the same gentleman 
 of the name of Vincent, who afterwards became dis- 
 tinguished in his profession. He was dark, like a 
 West Indian, and I used to think him handsome. Per- 
 haps the nurse's daughter taught me to think so, for 
 she was a considerable observer. 
 
 91
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS {coiitinued) 
 [1791-1799] 
 
 I AM grateful to Christ Hospital for having bred me 
 np in old cloisters, for its making me acquainted 
 with the languages of Homer and Ovid, and for its 
 having secured to me, on the whole, a well-trained and 
 cheerful boyhood. It pressed no superstition upon me. 
 It did not hinder my growing mind from making what 
 excursions it pleased into the wide and healthy regions 
 of general literature. I might buy as much Collins and 
 Gray as I pleased, and get novels to my heart's content 
 from the circulating libraries. There was nothing pro- 
 hibited but what would have been prohibited by all 
 good fathers ; and everything was encouraged which 
 would have been encouraged by the Steeles, and Addi- 
 sons, and Popes ; by the Warburtons, and Atterburys, 
 ;and Hoadleys. Boyer w^as a severe, nay, a cruel 
 ' master ; but age and reflection have made me sensible 
 • that I ought always to add my testimony to his being 
 ■a laborious and a conscientious one. When his severity 
 t went beyond the mark, I believe he was always sorry 
 for it : sometimes I am sure he w^as. He once (though 
 ^ the anecdote at first sight may look like a burlesque on 
 \ the remark) knocked out one of my teeth with the 
 ;; back of a Homer, in a fit of impatience at my stammer- 
 ■■ ing. The tooth was a loose one, and I told him as 
 V much ; but the blood rushed out as I spoke : he turned 
 pale, and, on my proposing to go out and w^ash the 
 naouth, he said, " Go, child," in a tone of voice amount- 
 ing to the paternal. Now " Go, child," from Boyer, 
 was worth a dozen tender speeches from any one else ; 
 fand it was felt that I had got an advantage over him, 
 Sacknowledged by himself. 
 
 If I had reaped no other benefit from Christ Hos- 
 
 92
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 pital, the school would be ever dear to me from the \ 
 recollection of the friendships I formed in it, and of t 
 the first heavenly taste it gave me of that most | 
 spiritual of the affections. I use the word "heavenly"? 
 advisedly ; and I call friendship the most spiritual of | 
 the affections, because even one's kindred, in partaking \ 
 of our flesh and blood, become, in a manner, mixed up }, 
 with our entire being. Not that I ^vould disparage any | 
 other form of affection, worshipping, as I do, all forms ? 
 of it, love in particular, which, in its highest state, is 
 friendship and something more. But if ever I tasted | 
 a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those ' 
 friendships which I entertained at school, before I 
 dreamt of any maturer feeling. I shall never forget 
 the impression it first made on me. I loved my friend 
 for his gentleness, his candour, his truth, his good < 
 repute, his freedom even from my own livelier manner, J 
 his calm and reasonable kindness. It was not any| 
 particular talent that attracted me to him, or anything i 
 striking whatsoever. I should say, in one w^ord, it was I 
 his goodness. I doubt whether he ever had a concep-f 
 tion of a tithe of the regard and respect I entertained', 
 for him ; and I smile to think of the perplexity (though | 
 he never showed it) which he probably felt sometimes I 
 at my enthusiastic expressions ; for I thought him a ^ 
 kind of angel. It is no exaggeration to say, that, take | 
 away the unspiritual part of it — the genius and the| 
 knowledge — and there is no height of conceit indulged { 
 in by the most romantic character in Shakspeare, ; 
 which surpassed w^hat I felt towards the merits I 
 ascribed to him, and the delight which I took in his 
 society. With the other boys I played antics, and 
 rioted in fantastic jests ; but in his society, or whenever 
 I thought of him, I fell into a kind of Sabbath state of 
 bliss ; and I am sure I could have died for him. 
 
 I experienced this delightful affection towards three 
 successive schoolfellows, till two of them had for some 
 time gone out into the world and forgotten me ; but it 
 grew less with each, and in more than one instance 
 became rivalled by a new set of emotions, especially in 
 regard to the last, for I fell in love with his sister — at 
 
 93
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 loast, I (liouj^ht so. But on the occurrence of her 
 (loath, not long after, I was startled at finding myself 
 assume an air of greater sorrow than I felt, and at 
 being willing to be relieved by the sight of the first 
 pretty face that turned towards me. I was in the 
 situation of the page in Figaro : — 
 
 "Ogni donna cangiar di colore; 
 Ogni donna mi fa palpitar." 
 
 My friend, who died himself not long after his quitting 
 the University, was of a German family in the service 
 of the court, very refined and musical. I likened them 
 to the people in the novels of Augustus La Fontaine ; 
 and with the younger of the two sisters I had a great 
 desire to play the part of the hero in the Family of 
 Halden. 
 
 The elder, who was my senior, and of manners too 
 advanced for me to aspire to, became distinguished in 
 private circles as an accomplished musician. How I 
 used to rejoice when they struck their " harps in praise 
 of Bragela ! " and how ill-bred I must have appeared 
 w^hen I stopped beyond all reasonable time of visiting, 
 unable to tear myself away ! They lived in Spring 
 Gardens, in a house which I have often gone out of my 
 w^ay to look at ; and as I first heard of Mozart in their 
 company, and first heard his marches in the Park, I 
 used to associate with their idea whatsoever was 
 charming and graceful. 
 
 Maternal notions of war came to nothing before love 
 and music, and the steps of the officers on parade. 
 The young ensign with his flag, and the ladies with 
 their admiration of him, carried everything before 
 them. 
 
 I had already borne to school the air of " Non piu 
 andrai " ; and, w^ith the help of instruments made of 
 paper, into w^hich we breathed what imitations Mve could 
 of hautboys and clarionets, had inducted the boys into 
 the " pride, pomp, and circumstance " of that glorious 
 bit of war. 
 
 Thus is war clothed and recommended to all of us, 
 and not without reason, as long as it is a necessity, or 
 
 94
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 as long as it is something, at least, which we have not 
 acquired knowledge or means enough to do away with. 
 A bullet is of all pills the one that most requires 
 gilding. 
 
 But I will not bring these night- thoughts into the 
 morning of life. Besides, I am anticipating ; for this 
 was not my first love. I shall mention that presently. 
 
 I have not done "with my school reminiscences ; but 
 in order to keep a straightforward course, and notice 
 simultaneous events in their proper places, I shall here 
 speak of the persons and things in which I took 
 the greatest interest when I was not within school- 
 bounds. 
 
 The two principal houses at which I visited, till the 
 arrival of our relations from the West Indies, were 
 Mr. West's (late President of the Royal Academy), in 
 Newman-street, and Mr. Godfrey Thornton's ^ (of the 
 distinguished City family), in Austin Friars, How I 
 loved the Graces in one, and everything in the other ! 
 Mr. West (who, as I have already mentioned, had 
 married one of my relations) had bought his house, I 
 believe, not long after he came to England ; and he 
 had added a gallery at the back of it, terminating in a 
 couple of lofty rooms. The gallery was a continuation 
 of the house-passage, and, together with one of those 
 rooms and the parlour, formed three sides of a garden, 
 very small but elegant, with a grass-plot in the middle, 
 and busts upon stands under an arcade. The gallery, 
 as you went up it, formed an angle at a little distance 
 to the left, then another to the right, and then took a 
 longer stretch into the two rooms ; and it was hung 
 with the artist's sketches all the way. In a corner 
 between the two angles was a study-door, with casts of 
 Venus and Apollo on each side of it. The two rooms 
 contained the largest of his pictures ; and in the farther 
 one, after stepping softly down the gallery, as if 
 reverencing the dumb life on the walls, you generally 
 found the mild and quiet artist at his work ; happy, for 
 he thought himself immortal. 
 
 I* Leigh Hunt's eldest son, and the first editor of his father's 
 Autobiography, was named after this family.] 
 
 95
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 I iuhmI not ontor into the merits of an artist who is 
 so well known, and has been so often criticized. He 
 Was a man with regukir, mild features ; and, though of 
 Quaker origin, had the look of what he was, a painter 
 to a court. His appearance was so gentlemanly, that, 
 the moment he changed his gown for a coat, he seemed 
 to be full-dressed. The simplicity and self-possession 
 of the young Quaker, not having time enough to grow 
 stiff (for he went early to study at Rome), took up, I 
 suppose, with more ease than most would have done, 
 the urbanities of his new position. And what simpli- 
 city helped him to, favour would retain. Yet this man, 
 so well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art 
 (whatever might be the amount of his genius), had re- 
 ceived so careless, or so homely an education when a 
 boy, that he could hardly read. He pronounced also 
 some of his words, in reading, with a puritanical bar- 
 barism, such as halve for have, as some people pro- 
 nounce when they sing psalms. But this was, perhaps, 
 an American custom. My mother, who both read and 
 spoke remarkably yveW, would say halve and shaul (for 
 shall), w^hen she sang her hymns. But it was not so 
 well in reading lectures to the Academy. Mr. West 
 would talk of his art all day long, painting all the 
 while. On other subjects he was not so fluent ; and on 
 political and religious matters he tried hard to main- 
 tain the reserve common w^ith those about a court. 
 He succeeded ill in both. There were alw^ays strong 
 .^suspicions of his leaning to his native side in politics ; 
 ■ and during Bonaparte's triumph, he could not contain 
 his enthusiasm for the Republican chief, going even to 
 Paris to pay him his homage, vrhen First Consul. The 
 admiration of high colours and powerful effects, natural 
 ito a painter, ^vas too strong for him. How he managed 
 Ithis matter w^ith the higher powers in England I cannot 
 isay. Probably he was the less heedful, inasmuch as he 
 )W^as not very carefully paid. I believe he did a great 
 ideal for George the Third with little profit. Mr. West 
 certainly kept his love for Bonaparte no secret ; and it 
 was no wonder, for the latter expressed admiration of 
 his pictures. The artist thought the conqueror's smile 
 
 96
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 enchanting, and that he had the handsomest leg he had 
 ever seen. He was present when the " Venus de' Medici " 
 was talked of, the French having just taken possession 
 of her. Bonaparte, Mr. West said, turned round to 
 those about him, and said, with his eyes lit up, " She's 
 coming ! " as if he had been talking of a living person. 
 I believe he retained for the Emperor the love that he 
 had had for the First Consul, a wedded love, " for 
 better, for worse." However, I believe also that he 
 retained it after the Emperor's downfall — which is not 
 what every painter did. 
 
 But I am getting out of my chronology. The quiet 
 of Mr. West's gallery, the tranquil, intent beauty of the 
 statues, and the subjects of some of the pictures, par- 
 ticularly Death on the Pale Horse, the Deluge, the 
 Scotch King hunting the Stag, Moses on Mount Sinai, 
 Christ Healing the Sick (a sketch), Sir Philip Sidney 
 giving up the Water to the Dying Soldier, the Installa- 
 tion of the Knights of the Garter, and Ophelia before 
 the King and Queen (one of the best things he ever did), 
 made a great impression upon me. My mother and I 
 used to go down the gallery, as if we were treading on 
 wool. She was in the habit of stopping to look at some 
 of the pictures, particularly the Deluge and the Ophelia, 
 with a countenance quite awe-stricken. She used also 
 to point out to me the subjects relating to liberty and 
 patriotism, and the domestic affections. Agrippina 
 bringing home the ashes of Germanicus was a great 
 favourite with her. I remember, too, the awful delight 
 afforded us by the Angel slaying the Army of Sen- 
 nacherib ; a bright figure lording it in the air, with a 
 chaos of human beings below. 
 
 As Mr. West was almost sure to be found at work, in 
 the farthest room, habited in his white woollen gown, 
 so you might have predicted, with equal certainty, that 
 Mrs. West was sitting in the parlour, reading. I used 
 to think, that if I had such a parlour to sit in, I should 
 do just as she did. It was a good-sized room, w^ith two! 
 windows looking out on the little garden I spoke of, 
 and opening to it from one of them by a flight of steps. 
 The garden, with its busts in it, and the pictures which 
 
 97 H
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 you knew wore on the other side of its wall, had an 
 Italian look. The room was hung with engravings 
 
 ♦ and coloured prints. Among them was the Lion Hunt, 
 from Rubens ; the Hierarchy with the Godhead, from 
 Rapliael, which I hardly thought it right to look at ; 
 and two screens by the fireside, containing prints (from 
 
 • Angelica Kauffman, I think, but I am not sure that 
 t Mr. West himself was not the designer) of the Loves 
 
 of Angelica and Medoro, which I could have looked 
 ^ at from morning to night. Angelica's intent eyes, I 
 i thought, had the best of it ; but I thought so without 
 i knowing why. This gave me a love for Ariosto before 
 1 1 knew him. I got Hoole's translation, but could make 
 'nothing of it.^ Angelica Kauffman seemed to me to 
 'have done much more for her namesake. She could 
 :see farther into a pair of eyes than Mr. Hoole w^ith his 
 ^spectacles. This reminds me that I could make as little 
 .of Pope's Homer, which a schoolfellow of mine was 
 'always reading, and which I was ashamed of not being 
 able to like. It was not that I did not admire Pope ; 
 but the words in his translation always took pre- 
 cedence in my mind of the things, and the unvarying 
 sweetness of his versification tired me before I knew 
 .the reason. This did not hinder me afterwards from 
 trying to imitate it ; nor from succeeding ; that is to 
 say, as far as everybody else succeeds, and writing 
 smooth verses. It is Pope's wit and closeness that are 
 jthe difficult things, and that make him what he is : a 
 !truism which the mistakes of critics on divers sides 
 have rendered it too warrantable to repeat. 
 
 Mrs. West and my mother used to talk of old times, 
 and Philadelphia, and my father's prospects at court. 
 I sat apart w^ith a book, from which I stole glances at 
 Angelica. I had a habit at that time of holding my 
 breath, ^vhich forced me every now and then to take 
 long sighs. My aunt would offer me a bribe not to 
 
 {* Hunt afterwards translated this passage from Ariosto, and in a 
 note to the verses (printed in Ron tl edge's edition, 1860) he says " the 
 combined names of Angelica and Medoro " have become almost 
 synonymous with "a true lover's knot." Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse's 
 Life of Leigh Hunt, p. 37.] 
 
 98
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 sigh. I would earn it once or twice ; but the sighs 
 were sure to return. These wagers I did not care for ; 
 but I remember being greatly mortified when Mr. West 
 offered me half-a-crown if I would solve the old ques- 
 tion of " Who was the father of Zebedee's children ? " 
 and I could not tell him. He never made his appear- 
 ance till dinner, and returned to his painting-room 
 directly after it. And so at tea-time. The talk was 
 very quiet ; the neighbourhood quiet ; the servants 
 quiet ; I thought the very squirrel in the cage would 
 have made a greater noise anywhere else. James, the 
 porter, a fine tall fellow, who figured in his master's 
 pictures as an apostle, was as quiet as he was strong. 
 Standing for his picture had become a sort of religion 
 with him. Even the butler, with his little twinkling 
 eyes, full of pleasant conceit, vented his notions of 
 himself in half-tones and whispers. This was a strange 
 fantastic person. He got my brother Robert to take 
 a likeness of him, small enough to be contained in a 
 shirt-pin. It was thought that his twinkling eyes, 
 albeit not young, had some fair cynosure in the neigh- 
 bourhood. What was my brother's amazement, when, 
 the next time he saw him, the butler said, with a face 
 of enchanted satisfaction, " Well, sir, you see ! " making 
 a movement at the same time with the frill at his 
 waistcoat. The miniature that was to be given to the 
 object of his affections, had been given accordingly. 
 It was in his own bosom ! 
 
 But, notwithstanding my delight with the house at 
 the West End of the town, it was not to compare with 
 my beloved one in the City. There was quiet in the 
 one ; there were beautiful statues and pictures ; and 
 there was my Angelica for me, with her intent eyes, 
 at the fireside. But besides quiet in the other, there 
 was cordiality, and there was music, and a family 
 brimful of hospitality and good-nature, and dear 
 
 Almeria (now^ Mrs. P e), who in vain pretends 
 
 that she has become aged, which is what she never did, 
 shall, would, might, should, or could do. Those were 
 indeed holidays, on which I used to go to Austin Friars. 
 The house (such, at least, are my boyish recollections) 
 
 99
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 was of the description I have ever been fondest of, — 
 large, rambling, old-fashioned, solidly built, resembling 
 the mansions about Highgate and other old villages. 
 
 It was furnished as became the house of a rich mer- 
 chant and a sensible man, the comfort predominating 
 over the costliness. At the back was a garden \vith a 
 lawn ; and a private door opened into another garden, 
 belonging to the Company of Drapers ; so that, what 
 with the secluded nature of the street itself, and these 
 verdant places behind it, it was truly i^us in ur^be, and 
 a retreat. When I turned down the archway, I held 
 my mother's hand tighter with pleasure, and was full 
 of expectation, and joy, and respect. My first delight 
 ■was in mounting the staircase to the rooms of the 
 young ladies, setting my eyes on the comely and bright 
 countenance of my fair friend, with her romantic name, 
 and turning over for the hundredth time the books in 
 her library. What she did with the volumes of the 
 Turkish Spy, what they meant, or what amusement 
 she could extract from them, was an eternal mystifica- 
 tion to me. Not long ago, meeting with a copy of the 
 book accidentally, I pounced upon my old acquaintance, 
 and found him to contain better and more amusing 
 stuff than people would suspect from his dry look and 
 his obsolete politics.^ 
 
 The face of tenderness and respect with which 
 Almeria used to welcome my mother, springing for- 
 ward with her fine buxom figure to supply the strength 
 which the other wanted, and showing what an equality 
 of love there may be between youth and middle age, 
 and rich and poor, I should never cease to love her for, 
 had she not been, as she was, one of the best-natured 
 persons in the world in everything. I have not seen 
 her now for a great many years ; but, with that same 
 face, w^hatever change she may pretend to find in it. 
 
 1 The Turkish Spy is a sort of philosophical newspaper, in volumes ; 
 and, under a mask of bigotry, speculates very freely on all subjects. 
 It is said to have been written by an Italian Jesuit of the name of 
 Marana. The first volume has been attributed, however, to Sir 
 Roger Manley, father of the author of the Atalantis : and the rest 
 to Dr. Midgley, a friend of his. 
 
 100
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 she will go to heaven ; for it is the face of her spirit. 
 A good heart never grows old. 
 
 Of George T[hornton], her brother, who will pardon 
 this omission of his worldly titles, w^hatever they may 
 be, I have a similar kind of recollection, in its propor- 
 tion ; for, though we knew him thoroughly, w^e saw 
 him less. The sight of his face was an additional sun- 
 shine to my holiday. He was very generous and hand- 
 some-minded ; a genuine human being. 
 
 Mrs. T[hornton], the mother, a very lady-like woman, 
 in a delicate state of health, w^e usually found reclining 
 on a sofa, always ailing, but always with a smile for 
 us. The father, a man of large habit of body, panting 
 with asthma, whom we seldom saw but at dinner, 
 treated us with all the family delicacy, and would have 
 me come and sit next him, which I did with a mixture 
 of joy and dread ; for it w^as painful to hear him 
 breathe. I dwell the more upon these attentions, 
 because the school that I was in held a sort of 
 equivocal rank in point of what is called respect- 
 ability ; and it was no less an honour to another, 
 than to ourselves, to know when to place us upon a 
 liberal footing. Young as I was, I felt this point 
 strongly ; and was touched with as grateful a tender- 
 ness towards those who treated me handsomely, as I 
 retreated inwardly upon a proud consciousness of my 
 Greek and Latin, when the supercilious would have 
 humbled me. Blessed house ! May a blessing be upon 
 your rooms, and your lawn, and your neighbouring 
 garden, and the quiet old monastic name of your 
 street ! and may it never be a thoroughfare ! and may 
 all your inmates be happy ! Would to God one could 
 renew, at a moment's notice, the happy hours w^e have 
 enjoyed in past times, with the same circles, and in the 
 same houses ! A planet with such a privilege would be 
 a great lift nearer heaven. What prodigious evenings, 
 reader, we would have of it ! What fine pieces of 
 childhood, of youth, of manhood — ay, and of age, as 
 long as our friends lasted ! 
 
 The old gentleman in Gil Bias, who complained that 
 the peaches were not so fine as they used to be when 
 
 101
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 he was young, had more reason than appears on the 
 face of it. He missed not only his former palate, but 
 the places he ate thena in, and those who ate them 
 with him. I have been told, that the cranberries I 
 have met with since must have been as fine as those 
 I got with the T[hornton's] ; as large and as juicy ; and 
 that they came from the same place. For all that, 
 I never ate a cranberry-tart since I dined in Austin 
 Friars. 
 
 I should have fallen in love with A[lmeria] T[hornton] 
 had I been old enough. As it was, my first flame, or 
 my first notion of a flame, which is the same thing in 
 those days, was for my giddy cousin Fanny Dayrell, a 
 charming West Indian. Her mother, the aunt ^ I spoke 
 of, had just come from Barbados with her two 
 daughters and a sister. She was a woman of a 
 princely spirit ; and having a good property, and 
 every wish to make her relations more comfortable, 
 she did so. It became holiday with us all. My 
 mother raised her head ; my father gre^v young again ; 
 my cousin Kate (Christiana jrather, for her name ^vas 
 not Catherine ; Christiana Arabella was her name) 
 conceived a regard for one of my brothers,^ and mar- 
 ried him ; and for my part, besides my pictures and 
 Italian garden at Mr. West's, and my beloved old 
 English house in Austin Friars, I had now another 
 paradise in Great Ormond Street. 
 
 My aunt had something of the West Indian pride, 
 but all in a good spirit, and was a mighty cultivator 
 of the gentilities, inward as well as outward. I did 
 not dare to appear before her w^ith dirty hands, she 
 would have rebuked me so handsomely. For some 
 reason or other, the marriage of my brother and his 
 cousin was kept secret for a little w^hile. I became 
 acquainted with it by chance, coming in upon a 
 holiday, the day the ceremony took place. Instead of 
 keeping me out of the secret by a trick, they very 
 wisely resolved upon trusting me with it, and relying 
 upon my honour. My honour happened to be put to 
 
 [' Mrs. Dayrell, 7i<?e Elizabeth Hunt.] 
 ['- Stephen Sherwell Hunt, the lawyer.] 
 
 102
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 the test, and I came o£P with flying colours. It is to 
 this circumstance I trace the religious idea I have ever 
 since entertained of keeping a secret. I vs^ent with the 
 bride and bridegroom to church, and remember kneel- 
 ing apart and weeping bitterly. My tears were un- 
 accountable to me then. Doubtless they were owing 
 to an instinctive sense of the great change that was 
 taking place in the lives of two human beings, and of 
 the unalterableness of the engagement. Death and 
 Life seem to come together on these occasions, like 
 awful guests at a feast, and look one another in the 
 face. 
 
 It was not with such good effect that my aunt raised 
 my notions of a schoolboy's pocket-money to half- 
 crowns, and crowns, and half -guineas. My father and 
 mother were both as generous as daylight ; but they 
 could not give what they had not. I had been unused 
 to spending, and accordingly I spent with a vengeance. 
 I remember a ludicrous instance. The first half -guinea 
 that I received brought about me a consultation of 
 companions to know how to get rid of it. One shilling 
 was devoted to pears, another to apples, another to 
 cakes, and so on, all to be bought immediately, as they 
 were ; till coming to the sixpence, and being struck 
 with a recollection that I ought to do something useful 
 with that, I bought sixpenn'rth of shoe-strings : these, 
 no doubt, vanished like the rest. The next half-guinea 
 came to the knowledge of the master : he interfered, 
 which was one of his proper actions ; and my aunt 
 practised more self-denial in future. 
 
 Our new family from abroad were true West Indians, 
 or, as they would have phrased it, "true Barbadians 
 born." They were generous, warm-tempered, had great 
 good-nature ; were proud, but not unpleasantly so ; 
 lively, yet indolent ; temperately epicurean in their 
 diet ; fond of company, and dancing, and music ; and 
 lovers of show, but far from withholding the substance. 
 I speak chiefly of the mother and daughters. My 
 other aunt,^ an elderly maiden, who piqued herself on 
 
 [' Ann Courthope Hunt.] 
 
 103
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 tlie delicacy of her hands and ankles, and made you 
 understand how many suitors she had refused (for 
 which she expressed anything but repentance, being 
 extremely vexed), was not deficient in complexional 
 good-nature ; but she was narrow-minded, and seemed 
 to care for nothing in the world but two things : 
 first, for her elder niece Kate, whom she had helped 
 to nurse ; and second, for a becoming set-out of 
 coffee and buttered toast, particularly of a morn- 
 ing, when it was taken up to her in bed, with a 
 suitable equipage of silver and other necessaries of 
 life. Yes; there was one more indispensable thing 
 — slavery. It was frightful to hear her small 
 mouth and little mincing tones assert the necessity 
 not only of slaves, but of robust corporal punish- 
 ment to keep them to their duty. But she did this, 
 because her want of ideas could do no otherwise. 
 Having had slaves, she wondered how anybody could 
 object to so natural and lady-like an establishment. 
 Late in life, she took to fancying that every polite 
 old gentleman was in love with her ; and thus she 
 lived on, till her dying moment, in a flutter of expec- 
 tation. 
 
 The black servant must have puzzled this aunt of 
 mine sometimes. All the wonder of which she was 
 capable, he certainly must have roused, not without a 
 " quaver of consternation." This man had come over 
 with them from the West Indies. He was a slave on 
 my aunt's estate, and as such he demeaned himself, till 
 he learned that there was no such thing as a slave in 
 England ; that the moment a man set his foot on 
 English ground he w^as free. I cannot help smiling to 
 think of the bewildered astonishment into which his 
 first overt act, in consequence of this knowledge, must 
 have put my poor aunt Courthope (for that was her 
 Christian name). Most likely it broke out in the shape 
 of some remonstrance about his fellow-servants. He 
 partook of the pride common to all the Barbadians, black 
 as well as white ; and the maid-servants tormented 
 him. I remember his coming up in the parlour one 
 day, and making a ludicrous representation of the 
 
 104
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 affronts put upon his office and person, interspersing 
 his chattering and gesticulations with explanatory dumb 
 show. One of the maids was a pretty girl, who had 
 manoeuvred till she got him stuck in a corner ; and 
 he insisted upon telling us all that she said and did. 
 His respect for himself had naturally increased since he 
 became free ; but he did not know what to do with it. 
 Poor Samuel was not ungenerous, after his fashion. 
 He also wished, with his freedom, to acquire a freeman's 
 knowledge, but stuck fast at pothooks and hangers. 
 To frame a written B he pronounced a thing impossible. 
 Of his powers on the violin he made us more sensible, 
 not without frequent remonstrances, which it must have 
 taken all my aunt's good-nature to make her repeat. 
 He had left two wives in Barbados, one of whom was 
 brought to bed of a son a little after he came away. 
 For this son he wanted a name, that was new, sounding, 
 and long. They referred him to the reader of Homer 
 and Virgil. With classical names he was well ac- 
 quainted. Mars and Venus being among his most inti- 
 mate friends, besides Jupiters and Adonises, and 
 Dianas with large families. At length we succeeded 
 with Neoptolemus. He said he had never heard it 
 before ; and he made me write it for him in a great 
 text-hand, that there might be no mistake. 
 
 My aunt took a country-house at Merton, in Surrey, 
 where I passed three of the happiest weeks of my life. 
 It was the custom at our school, in those days, to allow 
 us only one set of unbroken holidays during the whole 
 time we were there — I mean, holidays in which we re- 
 mained away from school by night as well as by day. 
 The period was always in August. Imagine a school- 
 boy passionately fond of the green fields, who had never 
 slept out of the heart of the City for years. It was a 
 compensation even for the pang of leaving my friend ; 
 and then what letters I would write to him ! And what 
 letters I did write ! What full measure of affection 
 pressed down, and running over ! I read, walked, had 
 a garden and orchard to run in ; and fields that I 
 could have rolled in, to have my will of them. 
 
 My father accompanied me to Wimbledon to see 
 
 105
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Home Tooke/ who patted me on the head. I felt very 
 dififerently under his hand, and under that of the bishop 
 of London,^ when he confirmed a crowd of us in St. 
 Paul's. Not that I thought of politics, though I had a 
 sense of his being a patriot ; but patriotism, as well as 
 everything else, was connected in my mind with some- 
 thing classical, and Home Tooke held his political repu- 
 tation with me by the same tenure that he held his 
 fame for learning and grammatical knowledge. " The 
 learned Horne Tooke " was the designation by which I 
 styled him in some verses I wrote ; in which verses, by 
 the way, with a poetical licence which would have been 
 thought more classical by Queen Elizabeth than my 
 master, I called my aunt a " nymph." In the ceremony 
 of confirmation by the bishop, there was something too 
 official, and like a despatch of business, to excite my 
 veneration. My head only anticipated the coming of 
 his hand with a thrill in the scalp : and when it came, 
 it tickled me. 
 
 My cousins had the celebrated Dr. Callcott^ for a 
 music-master. The doctor, who was a scholar and a 
 great reader, w^as so pleased with me one day for being 
 able to translate the beginning of Xenophon's Anabasis 
 (one of our schoolbooks), that he took me out wath him 
 to Nunn's the bookseller's in Great Queen Street, and 
 made me a present of Schrevelius's Lexicon. When he 
 came down to Merton, he let me ride his horse. What 
 days were those ! Instead of being roused against my 
 will by a bell, I jumped up with the lark, and strolled 
 " out of bounds." Instead of bread and water for break- 
 
 [* John Home Tooke (1736-1812). His paternal name was 
 Home, but, on inheriting a sum of money from a Mr. Tooke, he 
 assumed that name. He entered Holy Orders, and was at one time 
 associated with John Wilkes, with whom he subsequently quarrelled. 
 He was an object of suspicion to the government, was imprisoned 
 for libel in 1775, and on another occasion tried for treason, but ac- 
 quitted. Having resigned his living, he entered as a student in the 
 Temple, but was refused admission to the Bar. He is chiefly re- 
 membered as the author of a philological work entitled The Diver- 
 sions of Purley.] 
 
 [2 Beilby Porteous (1731-1808), Bishop of London from 1787 to 1808.] 
 P John Wall Callcott, Mus. Doc. (1766-1821), the author of TJi^ 
 Musical Grammar and a number of popular compositions.] 
 
 106
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 fast, I had coffee, and tea, and buttered toast : for 
 dinner, not a hunk of bread and a modicum of hard 
 meat, or a bowl of pretended broth ; but fish, and fowl, 
 and noble hot joints, and puddings, and sweets, and 
 Guava jellies, and other West Indian mysteries of 
 peppers and preserves, and wine ; and then I had tea ; 
 and I sat up to supper like a man, and lived so well, 
 that I might have been very ill, had I not run about all 
 the rest of the day. 
 
 My strolls about the fields with a book were full of 
 happiness : only my dress used to get me stared at by 
 the villagers. Walking one day by the little river 
 Wandle, I came upon one of the loveliest girls I ever 
 beheld, standing in the water with bare legs, washing 
 some linen. She turned as she was stooping, and 
 showed a blooming oval face with blue eyes, on either 
 side of which flo^ved a profusion of flaxen locks. With 
 the exception of the colour of the hair, it was like 
 Raphael's own head turned into a peasant girl's. The 
 eyes were full of gentle astonishment at the sight of 
 me ; and mine must have wondered no less. However, 
 I was prepared for such wonders. It was only one of 
 my poetical visions realized, and I expected to find the 
 world full of them. What she thought of my blue 
 skirts and yellow stockings is not so clear. She did not, 
 however, taunt me with my " petticoats," as the girls in 
 the streets of London would do, making me blush, as I 
 thought they ought to have done instead. My beauty 
 in the brook was too gentle and dilffident ; at least I 
 thought so, and my own heart did not contradict me. 
 I then took every beauty for an Arcadian, and every 
 brook for a fairy stream ; and the reader would be sur- 
 prised if he knew to w^hat an extent I have a similar 
 tendency still. I find the same possibilities by another 
 path. 
 
 I do not remember whether an Abbe Paris, who 
 taught my cousins French, used to see them in the 
 country ; but I never shall forget him in Ormond 
 Street. He was an emigrant, very gentlemanly, with 
 a face of remarkable benignity, and a voice that became 
 it. He spoke English in a slow manner, that was very 
 
 107
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 graceful. I sliall never forget his saying one day, in 
 answer to somebody who pressed him on the subject, and 
 in the mildest of tones, that without doubt it was im- 
 possible to be saved out of the pale of the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 One contrast of this sort reminds me of another. 
 My aunt Courthope had something growing out on one 
 of her knuckles, which she was afraid to let a sur- 
 geon look at. There was a Dr. Chapman, a West 
 Indian physician, who came to see us, a person of great 
 suavity of manners, with all that air of languor and 
 w^ant of energy which the West Indians often exhibit. 
 He was in the habit of inquiring, with the softest voice 
 in the world, how my aunt's hand was ; and coming one 
 day upon us in the midst of dinner, and sighing forth 
 his usual question, she gave it him over her shoulder to 
 look at. In a moment she shrieked, and the swelling 
 was gone. The meekest of doctors had done it away 
 with his lancet. 
 
 I had no draw^back on my felicity at Merton, with the 
 exception of an occasional pang at my friend's absence 
 and a new vexation that surprised and mortified me. 
 I had been accustomed at school to sleep with sixty 
 boys in the room, and some old night-fears that used 
 to haunt me w^ere forgotten. No Mantichoras there I — 
 no old men crawling on the floor I What was my 
 chagrin, when on sleeping alone, after so long a period, 
 I found my terrors come back again ! — not, indeed, in 
 all the same shapes. Beasts could frighten me no longer : 
 but I was at the mercy of any other ghastly fiction 
 that presented itself to my mind, crawling or ramping. 
 I struggled hard to say nothing about it ; but my days 
 began to be discoloured with fears of my nights ; and 
 with unutterable humiliation I begged that the foot- 
 man might be allowed to sleep in the same room. 
 Luckily, my request was attended to in the kindest and 
 most reconciling manner. I was pitied for my fears, 
 but praised for my candour — a balance of qualities 
 which I have reason to believe, did me a service far 
 beyond that of the moment. Samuel, who, fortunately 
 for my shame, had a great respect for fear of this kind, 
 
 108
 
 1 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 had his bed removed accordingly into my room. He 
 used to entertain me at night with stories of Barbados 
 and the negroes ; and in a few days I was reassured 
 and happy. 
 
 It was then (oh, shame that I must speak of fair 
 lady after confessing a heart so faint !) — it was then 
 that I fell in love with my cousin Fan. However, I 
 would have fought all her young acquaintances round 
 for her, timid as I was, and little inclined to pugnacity. 
 
 Fanny was a lass of fifteen, with little laughing eyes, 
 and a mouth like a plum. I was then (I feel as if I 
 ought to be ashamed to say it) not more than thirteen, 
 if so old ; but I had read Tooke's Pantheon, and came 
 of a precocious race. My cousin came of one too, and 
 was about to be married to a handsome young fellow 
 of three-and-twenty. I thought nothing of this, for 
 nothing could be more innocent than my intentions. I 
 was not old enough, or grudging enough, or whatever 
 it was, even to be jealous. I thought everybody must 
 love Fanny Dayrell ; and if she did not leave me out in 
 permitting it, I was satisfied. It w^as enough for me to 
 be with her as long as I could ; to gaze on her with 
 delight as she floated hither and thither ; and to sit on 
 the stiles in the neighbouring fields, thinking of Tooke's 
 Pantheon. My friendship was greater than my love. 
 Had my favourite schoolfellow been ill, or otherwise 
 demanded my return, I should certainly have chosen 
 his society in preference. Three-fourths of my heart 
 w^ere devoted to friendship ; the rest was in a vague 
 dream of beauty, and female cousins, and nymphs, and 
 green fields, and a feeling which, though of a warm 
 nature, was full of fear and respect. 
 
 Had the jade put me on the least equality of footing 
 as to age, I know not what change might have been 
 wrought in me ; but though too young herself for the 
 serious duties she was about to bring on her, and full of 
 sufficient levity and gaiety not to be uninterested with 
 the little black-eyed schoolboy that lingered about 
 her, my vanity was well paid off by hers, for she kept 
 me at a distance by calling me petit gargon, This was 
 no better than the assumption of an elder sister in her 
 
 109
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 teens over a younger one ; but the latter feels it, never- 
 theless ; and I persuaded myself that it was particularly 
 cruel. I wished the Abbe Paris at Jamaica with his 
 French. There would she come in her frock and tucker 
 (for she had not yet left off either), her curls dancing, 
 and her hands clasped together in the enthusiasm of 
 something to tell me, and when I flew to meet her, 
 forgetting the difference of ages, and alive only to my 
 charming cousin, she would repress me with a little 
 fillip on the cheek, and say, " Well, petit garqon, what do 
 you think of that?" The worst of it was, that this 
 odious French phrase sat unsufferably well upon her 
 plump little mouth. She and I used to gather peaches 
 before the house were up. I held the ladder for her ; 
 she mounted like a fairy ; and when I stood doting on 
 her as she looked down and threw the fruit in my lap, 
 she would cry, '' Petit garqon, you will let 'em all drop !" 
 On my return to school, she gave me a locket for a 
 keepsake, in the shape of a heart ; which was the worst 
 thing she ever did to the petit gargon, for it touched 
 me on my weak side, and looked like a sentiment. I 
 believe I should have had serious thoughts of becoming 
 melancholy, had I not, in returning to school, returned 
 to my friend and so found means to occupy my craving 
 for sympathy. However, I wore the heart a long 
 while. I have sometimes thought there ^vas more in 
 her French than I imagined ; but I believe not. She 
 naturally took herself for double my age, with a 
 lover of three-and-twenty. Soon after her marriage, 
 fortune separated us for many years. My passion had 
 almost as soon died away ; but I have loved the name 
 of Fanny ever since ; and when I met her again, which 
 was under circumstances of trouble on her part, I 
 could not see her without such an emotion as I was 
 fain to confess to a person " near and dear," who for- 
 gave me for it ; which made me love the forgiver the 
 more. Yes ! the " black ox " trod on the fairy foot of 
 my light-hearted cousin Fan ; of her, whom I could no 
 more have thought of in conjunction with sorrow, than 
 of a ball-room with a tragedy. To know that she 
 was rich and admired, and abounding in mirth and 
 
 110
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 music, was to me the same thing as to know that she 
 existed. How often did I afterwards wish myself rich 
 in turn, that I might have restored to her all the graces 
 of life ! She was generous, and w^ould not have denied 
 me the satisfaction. 
 
 This was my first love. That for a friend's sister was 
 my second, and not so strong ; for it was divided with 
 the admiration of which I have spoken for the Park 
 music and " the soldiers." Nor had the old tendency to 
 mix up the clerical with the military service been 
 forgotten. Indeed, I have never been without a clerical 
 tendency ; nor, after what I have written for the 
 genial edification of my fellow-creatures, and the 
 extension of charitable and happy thoughts in matters 
 of religion, would I be thought to speak of it without 
 even a certain gravity, not compromised or turned into 
 levity, in my opinion, by any cheerfulness of tone with 
 which it may happen to be associated ; for Heaven has 
 made smiles as well as tears : has made laughter itself, 
 and mirth ; and to appreciate its gifts thoroughly is to 
 treat none of them with disrespect, or to affect to be 
 above them. The w^hoUy gay and the w^holly grave 
 spirit is equally but half the spirit of a right human 
 creature. 
 
 I mooted points of faith with myself very early, 
 in consequence of what I heard at home. The very 
 inconsistencies which I observed round about me in 
 matters of belief and practice, did but the more make 
 me wish to discover in w^hat the right spirit of religion 
 consisted : w^hile, at the same time, nobody felt more 
 instinctively than myself, that forms were necessary to 
 preserve essence. I had the greatest respect for them, 
 wherever I thought them sincere. I got up imitations of 
 religious processions in the school-room, and persuaded 
 my coadjutors to learn even a psalm in the original 
 Hebrew, in order to sing it as part of the ceremony. To 
 make the lesson as easy as possible, it was the shortest 
 of all the psalms, the hundred and seventeenth, which 
 consists but of two verses. A Jew, I am afraid, would 
 have been puzzled to recognize it ; though, perhaps, I 
 got the tone from his own synagogue ; for I was well 
 
 111
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 acqnaititod with that place of worship. I was led to 
 dislike Catholic ehaiiels, in spite of their music and 
 Itheir paintings, by what I had read of Inquisitions, and 
 Eby the impiety which I found in the doctrine of eternal 
 punishment, — a monstrosity which I never associated 
 with the Church of England, at least not habitually. 
 But identifying no such dogmas with the Jews, who 
 are indeed free from them (though I was not aware of 
 that circumstance at the time), and reverencing them 
 for their ancient connection with the Bible, I used to go 
 ^with some of my companions to the synagogue in 
 (I'Duke's Place ; where I took pleasure in witnessing the 
 f semi-Catholic pomp of their service, and in hearing 
 their fine singing ; not without something of a con- 
 stant astonishment at their wearing their hats. This 
 custom, however, kindly mixed itself up with the 
 I recollection of my cocked hat and band. I was not 
 I aware that it originated in the immovable Eastern 
 Hurban. 
 
 These visits to the synagogue did me, I conceive, a 
 great deal of good. They served to universalize my 
 notions of religion, and to keep them unbigoted. It 
 never became necessary to remind me that Jesus was 
 himself a Jew. I have also retained through life a 
 respectful notion of the Jews as a body. 
 
 There were some school rhymes about " pork upon a 
 fork," and the Jews going to prison. At Easter, a 
 strip of bordered paper was stuck on the breast of 
 ievery boy, containing the words " He is risen." It did 
 not give us the slightest thought of what it recorded. 
 It only reminded us of an old rhyme, which some of 
 the boys used to go about the school repeating : — 
 
 X "He is risen, he is risen, 
 
 I All the Jews must go to prison." 
 
 A beautiful Christian deduction ; Thus has charity 
 itself been converted into a spirit of antagonism ; and 
 thus it is that the antagonism, in the progress of know- 
 ledge, becomes first a pastime and then a jest. 
 
 I never forgot the Jews' synagogue, their music, 
 their tabernacle, and the courtesy with which strangers 
 
 112

 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 were allowed to see it. I had the pleasure, before J^ 
 left school, of becoming acquainted with some memberslj 
 of their community, who w^ere extremely liberal 
 towards other opinions, and who, nevertheless, enter- 
 tained a sense of the Supreme Being far more rever- 
 ential than I had observed in any Christian, my mother 
 excepted. My feelings towards them received addi- 
 tional encouragement from the respect shown to their' 
 history in the paintings of Mr. West, who was anything 
 but a bigot himself, and who often had Jews to sit to 
 him. I contemplated Moses and Aaron, and the young 
 Levites, by the sweet light of his picture-rooms, where 
 everybody trod about in stillness, as though it were a 
 kind of holy ground ; and if I met a Rabbi in the street, 
 he seemed to me a man coming, not from Bishops- 
 gate or Saffron Hill, but out of the remoteness of time. 
 
 I have spoken of the distinguished individuals bred at 
 Christ Hospital, including Coleridge and Lamb, who 
 left the school not long before I entered it. Coleridge 
 I never saw till he was old, Lamb I recollect coming 
 to see the boys, with a pensive, brown, handsome, and 
 kindly face, and a gait advancing with a motion from 
 side to side, between involuntary consciousness and 
 attempted ease. His brown complexion may have 
 been owing to a visit in the country ; his air of uneasi- 
 ness to a great burden of sorrow. He dressed with a 
 quaker-like plainness. I did not know him as Lamb : 
 I took him for a Mr. " Guy," having heard somebody 
 address him by that appellative, I suppose in jest.^ 
 
 The boy whom I have designated in these notices as 
 
 C n, and whose intellect in riper years became 
 
 clouded, had a more than usual look of being the son of 
 old parents. He had a reputation among us, which, in 
 more superstitious times, might have rendered him an 
 object of dread. We thought he knew a good deal out 
 of the pale of ordinary inquiries. He studied the 
 weather and the stars, things which boys rarely trouble 
 their heads with ; and as I had an awe of thunder, 
 which always brought a reverential shade on my 
 mother's face, as if God had been speaking, I used to 
 * For explanation of "Mr. Guy" see Appendix. 
 
 113 I
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 send to him on close summer days, to know if thunder 
 was to be expected. 
 
 In connection with this mysterious schoolfellow, 
 though he was the last person, in some respects, to be 
 associated with him, I must mention a strange epidemic 
 fear which occasionally prevailed among the boys 
 respecting a personage whom they called the Fazzer. 
 ' The Fazzer was known to be nothing more than one 
 of the boys themselves. In fact, he consisted of one of 
 the most impudent of the bigger ones ; but as it was 
 his custom to disguise his face, and as this aggravated 
 the terror which made the little boys hide their own 
 faces, his participation of our common human nature 
 only increased the supernatural fearfulness of his pre- 
 tensions. His office as Fazzer consisted in being 
 audacious, unknown, and frightening the boys at night ; 
 sometimes by pulling them out of their beds ; some- 
 times by simply fazzing their hair (" fazzing " meant 
 pulling or vexing, like a goblin) ; sometimes (which 
 was horriblest of all) by quietly giving us to under- 
 stand, in some way or other, that the " Fazzer was 
 out," that is to say, out of his own bed, and then being 
 seen (by those who dared to look) sitting, or otherwise 
 making his appearance, in his white shirt, motionless 
 and dumb. It was a very good horror, of its kind. 
 The Fazzer was our Dr. Faustus, our elf, our spectre, 
 our Flibbertigibbet, who " put knives in our pillows 
 and halters in our pews." He was Jones, it is true, or 
 Smith ; but he was also somebody else — an anomaly, a 
 duality. Smith and sorcery united. My friend Charles 
 Oilier^ should have written a book about him. He 
 was our Old Man of the Mountain, and yet a common 
 boy. 
 
 \ One night I thought I saw this phenomenon under 
 circumstances more than usually unearthly. It was a 
 fine moonlight night ; I was then in a ward the case- 
 
 [' Charles Oilier (1788-1859), publisher and author. In partnership 
 with his brother James, he issued some of the works of Leigh Hunt, 
 Shelley and Keats. He wrote several novels of which Inesilla is the 
 best kiiown. Hunt probably had in mind his Fallacy of Ghosts, 
 Dreams, and Omens, with stories of Witchcraft, etc." 1848.] 
 
 114
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 ments of which looked (as they still look) on the^ 
 churchyard. My bed was under the second w^indow^i 
 from the east, not far from the statue of Edward the | 
 Sixth. Happening to wake in the middle of the night, ] 
 and cast up my eyes, I saw^, on a bed's head near me, ' 
 and in one of these casements, a figure in its shirt, 
 which I took for the Fazzer. The room was silent ; 
 the figure motionless ; I fancied that half the boys in 
 the ward were glancing at it, without daring to speak. 
 
 It was poor C n, gazing at that lunar orb, which 
 
 might afterwards be supposed to have malignantly 
 fascinated him. 
 
 Contemporary with C n was Wood, before men- 
 tioned, whom I admired for his versesi and who was 
 afterwards Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 
 where I visited him, and found him, to my astonishment, 
 a head shorter than myself. Every upper boy at school 
 appears a giant to a little one. " Big boy " and senior 
 are synonymous. Now and then, however, extreme 
 smallness in a senior scholar gives a new kind of 
 dignity, by reason of the testimony it bears to the 
 ascendancy of the intellect. It was the custom for the 
 monitors at Christ Hospital, during prayers before 
 meat, to stand fronting the tenants of their respective 
 wards, while the objects of their attention were kneel- 
 ing. Looking up, on one of these occasions, towards a 
 new monitor who was thus standing, and w^hose face 
 was unknown to me (for there were six hundred of us, 
 and his ward was not mine), I thought him the 
 smallest boy that could ever have attained to so dis- 
 tinguished an eminence. He was little in person, little 
 in face, and he had a singularly juvenile cast of features, 
 even for one so petit. 
 
 It was Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes. He 
 had really attained his position prematurely. I rose 
 afterwards to be next to him in the school ; and from a 
 grudge that existed between us, owing probably to a 
 reserve, which I thought pride, on his part, and to an 
 ardency which he may have considered frivolous on 
 mine, we became friends. Circumstances parted us in 
 after life : I became a Reformist, and he a Quarterly 
 
 115
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Reviewer ; hut ho sent me kindly remembrances not 
 lonj^ before he died. I did not know he was declining ; 
 and it will ever be a pain to me to reflect that delay 
 conspired with accident to hinder my sense of it from 
 being known to him ; especially as I learned that he had 
 not been so prosperous as I supposed. He had his 
 weaknesses as well as myself, but they were mixed with 
 conscientious and noble qualities. Zealous as he was 
 for aristocratical government, he was no indiscriminate 
 admirer of persons in high places ; and, though it would 
 have bettered his views in life, he had declined taking 
 orders, from nicety of religious scruple. Of his admir- 
 able scholarship I need say nothing. 
 
 Equally good scholar, but of a less zealous tempera- 
 ment, was Barnes, who stood next me on the Deputy 
 Grecian form, and "who was afterwards identified ^vith 
 the sudden and striking increase of the Times news- 
 paper in fame and influence. He was very handsome 
 when young, with a profile of Grecian regularity ; and 
 was famous among us for a certain dispassionate 
 humour, for his admiration of the works of Fielding, 
 and for his delight, nevertheless, in pushing a narrative 
 to its utmost, and drawing upon his stores of fancy for 
 intensifying it ; an amusement for w^hich he possessed 
 an understood privilege. It was painful in after-life to 
 see his good looks swallowed up in corpulency, and his 
 once handsome mouth thrusting its under lip out, and 
 panting with asthma. I believe he was originally so 
 well constituted in point of health and bodily feeling, 
 that he fancied he could go on, all his life, without 
 taking any of the usual methods to preserve his com- 
 fort. The editorship of the Times, which turned his 
 night into day, and would have been a trying burden to 
 any man, completed the bad consequences of his negli- 
 gence ; and he died painfully before he w^as old. 
 Barnes w^rote elegant Latin verse, a classical English 
 style, and might assuredly have made himself a name 
 in wit and literature, had he cared much for anything 
 beyond his glass of wine and his Fielding. He left 
 money to found a Barnes scholarship at Cambridge. 
 
 What pleasant days have I not passed with him, and 
 
 116
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 other schoolfellows, bathing in the New River, and 
 boating on the Thames. He and I began to learn 
 Italian together ; and anybody not within the pale of 
 the enthusiastic, might have thought us mad, as we 
 went shouting the beginning of Metastasio's Ode to 
 Venus, as loud as we could bawl, over the Hornsey 
 fields, I can repeat it to this day, from those first 
 lessons, 
 
 "Scendi propizia 
 Col tuo splendore, 
 O bella Venere, 
 
 Madre d'Amore ; 
 Madre d'Amore, 
 
 Che sola sei 
 Piacer degli uomini, 
 E degli dei."i 
 
 On the same principle of making invocations as loud 
 as possible, and at the same time of fulfilling the pro- 
 phecy of a poet, and also for the purpose of indulging 
 ourselves with an echo, we used to lie upon our oars at 
 Richmond, and call, in the most vociferous manner, 
 upon the spirit of Thomson to " rest." 
 
 "Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore, 
 
 When Thames in summer wreaths is drest, 
 And oft suspend the dashing oar 
 To bid his gentle spirit rest." 
 
 Collinses Ode on the Death of Thomson. 
 
 It was more like " perturbing " his spirit than laying it. 
 
 One day Barnes fell overboard, and, on getting into 
 the boat again, he drew a little edition of Seneca out of 
 his pocket, which seemed to have become fat with the 
 water. It was like an extempore dropsy. 
 
 Another time, several of us being tempted to bathe 
 on a very hot day, near Hammersmith, and not exer- 
 cising sufficient patience in selecting our spot, we were 
 astonished at receiving a sudden lecture from a lady. 
 She was in a hat and feathers, and riding-habit ; and 
 as the grounds turned out to belong to the Margravine 
 
 *" Descend propitious with thy brightness, O beautiful Venus, 
 Mother of Love ; — Mother of Love, who alone art the pleasure of 
 men and of gods." 
 
 117
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of Aiispjic'h (Lady Criivon), wo persuaded ourselves that 
 our adnmiiitrlx, who spoke in no measured terms, was 
 her Serene Highness herself. The obvious reply to her 
 was, that if it was indiscreet in us not to have chosen 
 a more sequestered spot, it was not excessively the 
 reverse in a lady to come and rebuke us. I related this 
 story to my acquaintance, Sir Robert Ker Porter, who 
 knew her. His observation was, that nothing wonder- 
 ful was to be wondered at in the Margravine. 
 
 I was fifteen when I put off my band and blue skirts 
 for a coat and neckcloth. I w^as then first Deputy 
 Grecian, and I had the honour of going out of the 
 school in the same rank, at the same age, and for the 
 same reason, as my friend Charles Lamb. The reason 
 was, that I hesitated in my speech. I did not stammer 
 half so badly as I used ; and it is very seldom that I 
 halt at a syllable now ; but it was understood that a 
 Grecian was bound to deliver a public speech before he 
 left school, and to go into the Church afterwards ; and 
 ;as I could do neither of these things, a Grecian I could 
 "not be. So I put on my coat and waistcoat, and, what 
 nvas stranger, my hat ; a very uncomfortable addition 
 jto my sensations. For eight years I had gone bare- 
 ptieaded, save now and then a few^ inches of pericranium, 
 jwhen the little cap, no larger than a crumpet, was 
 jstuck on one side, to the mystification of the old ladies 
 jin the streets. 
 
 I then cared as little for the rains as I did for any- 
 thing else. I had now a vague sense of worldly 
 trouble, and of a great and serious change in my con- 
 dition ; besides which, I had to quit my old cloisters, 
 and my playmates, and long habits of all sorts ; so that 
 what was a very happy moment to schoolboys in 
 general, was to me one of the most painful of my life. 
 I surprised my schoolfeUow\s and the master with the 
 melancholy of my tears. I took leave of my books, of 
 my friends, of my seat in the grammar-school, of my 
 good-hearted nurse and her daughter, of my bed, of the 
 cloisters, and of the very pump out of which I had 
 taken so many delicious draughts, as if I should never 
 see them again, though I meant to come every day. 
 
 118
 
 YOUTH 
 
 The fatal hat was put on ; my father was come ta 
 fetch me. 
 
 " We, hand in hand, with strange new steps and slow, 
 Through Holborn took our meditative way." ^ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 [1799-1802] 
 
 FOR some time after I left school, I did nothing but 
 visit my schoolfellow^s, haunt the book-stalls, and 
 write verses. My father collected the verses, and pub- 
 lished them [in 1802, under the title oi Juvenilia ^],with 
 a large list of subscribers, numbers of whom belonged 
 to his old congregations. [The volume had a portrait 
 by Jackson in the manner of that artist, imparting to 
 it an air of heavy laziness, said to have characterized 
 the artist, but certainly foreign to the sitter.] I was 
 as proud, perhaps, of the book at that time as I am 
 ashamed of it now. The French Revolution, though 
 the worst portion of it was over, had not yet shaken 
 up and reinvigorated the sources of thought all over 
 Europe. At least I was not old enough, perhaps was 
 not able, to get out of the trammels of the regular 
 imitative poetry, or versification rather, which was 
 taught in the schools. My book was a heap of imita- 
 tions, all but absolutely worthless. But absurd as it 
 was, it did me a serious mischief ; for it made me sup- 
 pose that I had attained an end, instead of not having 
 
 [^ "They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow. 
 Through Eden took their solitary way." 
 
 Paradise Lost, xii. 649.] 
 
 [^ The date in this addition by Thornton Hunt is incorrect. The 
 following is the title of the first edition : Jmwnilia, or a Col- 
 lection of Poems, written between the ages of twelve and sixteen by 
 J. H. L. Hunt, late of the Grammar School of Christ's Hospital, and 
 dedicated by permission to the Hon. J. H. Leigh, containing Mis- 
 cellanies, Translations, Sonnets, Pastorals, Elegies, Odes, Hymns 
 and Anthem. London, 1801, 2nd edition the same year, 3rd edition 
 1802 ; 1803 (also called the 3rd) ; 1804 (called the 4th). The Portrait 
 was not by Jackson but by Bowyer, a reproduction of which will be 
 found in the present edition,] 
 
 119
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 roachcd even a comniencement ; and thus caused me to 
 waste in imitation a good many years which I ought 
 to have devoted to the study of the poetical art and of 
 nature. Coleridge has praised Boyer for teaching us 
 to laugh at " muses " and " Castalian streams " ; but he 
 ought rather to have lamented that he did not teach us 
 how to love them wisely, as he might have done had 
 he really known anything about poetry, or loved 
 Spenser and the old poets, as he thought, and admired 
 the new. Even Coleridge's juvenile poems were none 
 the better for Boyer's training. As to mine, they were 
 for the most part as mere trash as anti-Castalian heart 
 could have desired. I wrote " odes " because Collins 
 and Gray had written them, " pastorals " because Pope 
 had written them, " blank verse " because Akenside and 
 Thomson had written blank verse, and a " Palace of 
 Pleasure " because Spenser had written a " Bowser of 
 Bliss." But in all these authors I saw^ little but their 
 words, and imitated even those badly. I had nobody 
 to bid me to go to the nature which had originated the 
 books. Coleridge's lauded teacher put into my hands, 
 at one time, the life of Pope by Ruffhead ^ (the worst 
 he could have chosen), and at another (for the express 
 purpose of cultivating my love of poetry) the Irene and 
 other poems of Dr. Johnson ! Pope's smooth but un- 
 artistical versification spell-bound me for a long time. 
 Of Johnson's poems I retained nothing but the epigram 
 beginning " Hermit hoar — " 
 
 ' ' ' Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, 
 
 Wearing out life's evening gray, 
 Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell, 
 
 What is bliss, and which the way ? ' 
 
 Thus I spoke, and speaking, sighed, 
 Scarce repressed the starting tear, 
 
 When the hoary sage replied, 
 
 ' Come, my lad, and drink some beer.' " 
 
 This was the first epigram of the kind which I had 
 
 [' Owen 'Ruffhead (1723-1769) was a barrister who produced a 
 number of miscellaneous works, including an edition of the statutes 
 and a LAfe of Pope. He also conducted a political periodical named 
 the Contest.] 
 
 120
 
 YOUTH 
 
 seen ; and it had a cautionary effect upon me to an 
 extent which its author might hardly have desired. 
 The grave Dr. Johnson and the rogue Ambrose de 
 Lamela, in Gil Bias, stood side by side in my imagina- 
 tion as unmaskers of venerable appearances ; that is to 
 say, as persons who had no objection to the jolly hypo- 
 crisy which they unmasked. 
 
 Not long after the publication of my book, I visited 
 two of my schoolfellows, who had gone to Cambridge 
 and Oxford. The repute of it, unfortunately, accom- 
 panied me, and gave a foolish increase to my self-com- 
 placency. At Oxford, I was introduced to Kett,^ the 
 poetry professor, — a good-natured man with a face like 
 a Houyhnhnm (had Swift seen it, he would have 
 thought it a pattern for humanity). It w^as in the gar- 
 den of the professor's college (Trinity) ; and he ex- 
 pressed a hope that I should feel inspired then " by the 
 muse of Warton."^ I w^as not acquainted with the 
 writings of Warton at that time ; and perhaps my 
 ignorance was fortunate ; for it was not till long after 
 my acquaintance with them that I saw farther into 
 their merits than the very first anti-commonplaces 
 would have discerned, and as I had not acquired even 
 those at that period, and my critical presumption was 
 on a par with my poetical, I should probably have 
 given the professor to understand that I had no esteem 
 for that kind of secondhand inspiration. I w^as not 
 aware that my own was precisely of the same kind, 
 and as different from Warton's as poverty from ac- 
 quirement. 
 
 At Oxford, my love of boating had nearly cost me my 
 life. I had already had a bit of a taste of drowning in 
 the river Thames, in consequence of running a boat too 
 hastily on shore ; but it was nothing to what I experi- 
 enced on this occasion. The schoolfellow whom I was visit- 
 
 [1 Henry Kett, B.D. (1761-1825), Fellow of Ti-inity College, Oxford. 
 He was afterwards appointed to the living of Charlton Kings, Glos. 
 He met his death by drowning at Stanwell.] 
 
 [2 Thomas Warton (1728-1790), Professor of Poetry at Oxford and 
 Poet Laureate. A collected edition of his poems was published in 
 1777. He was the author of the admirable History of Poetry.] 
 
 121
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 iiiLC was the friend whose family liv^od in Spring Gardens. 
 Wo had gone out in a little decked skiff, and not ex- 
 pecting disasters in the " gentle Isis," I had fastened 
 the sail-line, of which I had the direction, in order that 
 I might read a volume which I had with me, of Mr. 
 Cumberland's novel called Henry} My friend was at 
 the helm. The wind grew a little strong ; and we had 
 just got into Iffley Reach, when I heard him exclaim, 
 " Hunt, we are over ! " The next moment I was under 
 the water, gulping it, and giving myself up for lost. 
 The boat had a small opening in the middle of the deck, 
 under which I had thrust my feet ; this circumstance 
 had carried me over with the boat, and the worst of it 
 was, I found I had got the sail -line round my neck. 
 My friend, who sat on the deck itself, had been swept 
 oif , and got comfortably to shore, which was at a little 
 distance. 
 
 My bodily sensations were not so painful as I should 
 have fancied they would have been. My mental reflec- 
 tions were very different, though one of them, by a 
 singular meeting of extremes, was of a comic nature. 
 I thought that I should never see the sky again, that I 
 had parted w^ith all my friends, and that I was about 
 to contradict the proverb which said that a man who 
 was born to be hanged, would never be drowned ; for 
 the sail-line, in which I felt entangled, seemed destined 
 to perform for me both the offices. On a sudden, I 
 found an oar in my hand, and the next minute I was 
 climbing, with assistance, into a wherry, in which there 
 sat two Oxonians, one of them helping me, and loudly 
 and laughingly differing with the other, who did not 
 at all like the rocking of the boat, and who assured me, 
 to the manifest contradiction of such senses as I had 
 left, that there was no room. This gentleman is now 
 no more ; and I shall not mention his name, because I 
 might do injustice to the memory of a brave man 
 struck with a panic. The name of his companion, if I 
 mistake not, was Russell. I hope he was related to an 
 illustrious person of the same name, to whom I have 
 
 [' Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), dramatist. His novel Henry 
 was published in 1795.] 
 
 122
 
 YOUTH 
 
 lately been indebted for what may have been another 
 prolongation of my life. ^ 
 
 On returning to town, w^hich I did on the top of an 
 Oxford coach, I was relating this story to the singular 
 person w^ho then drove it (Bobart, who had been a 
 collegian), when a man who was sitting behind sur- 
 prised us with the excess of his laughter. On asking 
 him the reason, he touched his hat, and said, " Sir, I'm 
 his footman." Such are the delicacies of the livery, 
 and the glorifications of their masters w^ith which they 
 entertain the kitchen. . 
 
 This Bobart was a very curious person. I havef 
 noticed him in the Indicator, in the article on?; 
 " Coaches." He was a descendant of a horticultural' 
 family, who had been keepers of the Physic Garden ab' 
 Oxford, and one of whom palmed a rat upon thd 
 learned world for a dragon, by stretching out its skin 
 into wings. Tillimant Bobart ^ (for such was the name 
 of our charioteer) had been at college himself, probably 
 as a sizer ; but having become proprietor of a stage- 
 coach, he thought fit to be his own coachman ; and he 
 received your money and touched his hat like the rest 
 of the fraternity. He had a round, red face, with eyes 
 that stared, and showed the white ; and having be- 
 come, by long practice, an excellent capper of verses, ; 
 he was accustomed to have bouts at that pastime w^ith 
 the collegians whom he drove. It was curious to hear i 
 him whistle and grunt, and urge on his horses with the 
 other customary euphonies of his tribe, and then see 
 him flash his eye round upon the capping gentleman 
 who sat behind him, and quote his never-failing line 
 out of Virgil or Horace. In the evening (for he only 
 drove his coach half way to London) he divided his 
 solace after his labours between his book and his 
 brandy -and-water ; but I am afraid with a little too 
 
 [' Referring to the pension of £200 a year which Lord John 
 Russell obtained for Hunt in 1847. ] 
 
 ['' Hunt quotes these lines in his Indicator article : — 
 
 "But all our praises why for Charles and Robert? 
 Rise, honest Mews, and sing the Classic Bobart."] 
 
 123
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 '^niuch of the braiuly, for his end was not happy. ^ 
 
 'There was eccentricity in the family, without anything 
 
 jmuch to show for it. The Bobart who invented the 
 
 5 dragon chuckled over the secret for a long time with a 
 
 I satisfaction that must have cost him m.any falsehoods ; 
 
 I and the first Bobart that is known used to tag his beard 
 
 '' with silver on holidays. 
 
 If female society had not been wanting, I should 
 have longed to reside at an university ; for I have 
 never seen trees, books, and a garden to w^alk in, but I 
 saw^ my natural home, provided there w^as no " monk- 
 ery " in it. I have always thought it a brave and 
 great saying of Mohammed, — " There is no monkery 
 in Islam." 
 
 " From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : 
 They are the books, the arts, the academes, 
 Which shew, contain, and nourish all the world."* 
 
 Were I to visit the universities now, I should explore 
 every corner, and reverently fancy myself in the pre- 
 sence of every great and good man that has adorned 
 them ; but the most important people to young men 
 are one another ; and I w^as content with glancing at 
 the haunts of Addison and Warton in Oxford, and at 
 those of Gray, Spenser, and Milton, in Cambridge. 
 Oxford, I found, had greatly the advantage of Cam- 
 bridge in point of country. You could understand 
 well enough how poets could wander about Iffley and 
 Woodstock ; but when I visited Cambridge the naked- 
 ness of the land w^as too plainly visible under a sheet of 
 snow, through which gutters of ditches ran, like ink, 
 by the side of leafless sallows, which resembled huge 
 pincushions stuck on posts. The tow^n, however, made 
 amends ; and Cambridge has the advantage of Oxford 
 
 ' On the information of Mi". George Hooper, who kindly volun- 
 teered the communication as a reader of the Indicator, and sent me 
 a very curious letter on the subject ; w^ith details, however, that 
 were rather of private than of public interest. 
 
 [2 ' « From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : 
 They are the ground, the books, the academes. 
 From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire." 
 
 Love's Labour Lost, iv. 3.] 
 124
 
 YOUTH 
 
 in a remarkable degree, as far as regards eminent'l 
 names. England's two greatest philosophers, Bacon and 
 Newton, and (according to Tyrwhitt) three out of its; 
 four great poets, were bred there, besides double thei 
 number of minor celebrities. Oxford even did noi^ 
 always know " the good the gods provided." It repu-' 
 diated Locke ; alienated Gibbon ; and had nothing but 
 angry sullenness and hard expulsion to answer to the 
 inquiries which its very ordinances encouraged in the 
 sincere and loving spirit of Shelley.^ 
 
 Yet they are divine places, both ; full of grace, and 
 beauty, and scholarship ; of reverend antiquity, and 
 ever-young nature and hope. Their faults, if of worldli- 
 ness in some, are those of time and of conscience in 
 more, and if the more pertinacious on those accounts, 
 will merge into a like conservative firmness, when still 
 nobler developments are in their keeping. So at least 
 I hope ; and so may the Fates have ordained ; keeping 
 their gowns among them as a symbol that learning is, 
 indeed, something which ever learns ; and instructing 
 them to teach love, and charity, and inquiry, with the 
 same accomplished authority as that with w^hich they 
 have taught assent. 
 
 My book was unfortunately successful everywhere, 
 particularly in the metropolis. The critics were 
 extremely kind ; and, as it was unusual at that time 
 to publish at so early a period of life, my age made me 
 a kind of " Young Roscius " in authorship. I was 
 introduced to literati, and shown about among parties. 
 My father took me to see Dr. Raine, Master of the 
 Charter-House.^ The doctor, who was very kind and 
 pleasant, but who probably drew none of our deduc- 
 tions in favour of the young writer's abilities, warned 
 me against the perils of authorship ; adding, as a final 
 
 [* Oxford commemorated the centenary of Shelley's bh-th (1892) by | 
 the erection of a beautiful memorial, the work of Mr. E. Onslow i 
 Ford, at University College. A valuable edition of Adonais wasj 
 issued by the Oxford University Press in 1891, with notes, etc., byt 
 Mr. W. M. Rossetti.] 
 
 [2 Matthew Raine, D.D. (1760 1810), Fellow of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, was appointed as Master of the Charter-House School 
 in 1791, and in 1809 he became preacher of Gray's Inn.] 
 
 125
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 (lohortntive, tliat " the slielves were full." It was not 
 till we came away that I thought of an answer, which 
 I conceived would have " anniliilated" him. "Then, 
 sir " (I should have said), " we will make another." 
 Not having heen in time with this repartee, I felt all 
 that anguish of undeserved and unnecessary defeat, 
 which has been so pleasantly described in the Miseries 
 of Huma7i Life.^ This, thought I, would have been an 
 answer befitting a poet, and calculated to make a figure 
 in biography. 
 
 A mortification that I encountered at a house in 
 Cavendish Square affected me less, though it surprised 
 me a good deal more. I had been held up, as usual, to 
 the example of the young gentlemen and the astonish- 
 ment of the young ladies, when, in the course of the 
 dessert, one of mine host's daughters, a girl of 
 exuberant spirits, and not of the austerest breeding, 
 came up to me, and, as if she had discovered that I was 
 not so young as I pretended to be, exclaimed, " What a 
 beard you have got ! " at the same time con^^ncing her- 
 self of the truth of her discovery by taking hold of it ! 
 Had I been a year or two older, I should have taken my 
 revenge. As it vras, I know^ not how I behaved, but 
 the next morning I hastened to have a beard no 
 longer. 
 
 I was now a man, and resolved not to be out of 
 countenance next time. Not long afterwards, my 
 grandfather, sensible of the new fame in his family, 
 but probably alarmed at the fruitless consequences 
 to w^hich it might lead, sent me word, that if I would 
 come to Philadelphia, " he would make a man of me." 
 I sent word, in return, that " men grew in England 
 as well as America :" an answer which repaid me for 
 the loss of my repartee at Dr. Raine's. 
 
 I had got a dislike of my grandfather for reasons in 
 
 ^ [' The Miseries of Human Life ; or tlie groans of Samuel 
 '^Sensitive and Timothy Testy was published anonymously in 
 • 1806-7, and was several times reprinted. It was the work of the 
 Rev. James Beresford (1764-1840), a Fellow of Merton College, 
 Oxford, who was also the author of many other books, but The 
 Miseries of Huma7i Life, owing to its fund of genuine humour, is 
 the only one that brought him fame.] 
 
 126
 
 YOUTH 
 
 which his only surviving daughter tells me I was mis- 
 taken ; and partly on a similar account, I equally dis- 
 liked his friend Dr. Franklin, author of Poor Richards 
 Almanack -^ a heap, as it appeared to me, of " scoundrel 
 maxims."^ I think I now appreciate Dr. Franklin as I 
 ought; but although I can see the utihty of such 
 publications as his Almanack for a rising commercial 
 state, and hold it useful as a memorandum to uncal- 
 culating persons like myself, who happen to live in an 
 old one, I think there is no necessity for it in commercial 
 nations long established, and that it has no business in 
 others, who do not found their happiness in that sort of 
 power. Franklin, wdth all his abilities, is but at the 
 head of those who think that man Kves "by bread 
 alone." 
 
 The respect which, in matters of reHgion, I felt for 
 the " spirit which giveth life," in preference to the " letter 
 which killeth," received a curious corroboration from a 
 circumstance which I witnessed on board a Margate hoy. 
 Having nothing to do, after the pubhcation of my poor 
 volume, but to read and to look about me, a friend pro- 
 posed an excursion to Brighton, We were to go first to 
 Margate, and then walk the rest of the way by the sea- 
 side, for the benefit of the air. 
 
 We took places accordingly in the first hoy that was 
 
 [* Benjamin Franklin (170&-1790) published Ms Poor RichardOs 
 Almanack in 17.32. It attained great success, and is said to have 
 circulated to the number of 10,000 copies in one year.] 
 
 ^ Thomson's phrase, in the Castle of Indolence, speaking of a 
 miserly money-getter : — 
 
 " ' A penny saved is a penny got : ' 
 
 Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth he, 
 
 Ne of its rigour will he bate a jot. 
 
 Till it hath quench'd his fire and banished his pot." 
 
 The reader will not imagine that I suppose all money-makers to be 
 of this description. Very gallant spirits are to be founi among them, 
 who only take to this mode of activity for want of a better, and are 
 as generous in disbiirsing as they are vigorous in acquiring. You 
 may always know the common run, as in other instances, by the 
 soreness with which they feel attacks on the body corporate. 
 
 For the assertion that Dr. Franklin cut oflr his son with a shilling, 
 my only authority is family tradition. It is observable, however, 
 that the friendliest of his biographers are not only forc€^ to admit 
 that he seemed a little too fond of money, but notice the mysterious 
 secrecy in which his family history is involved. 
 
 127
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 about to sail, and speedily found ourselves seated and 
 moving. We thought the passengers a singularly staid 
 set of people for holiday-makers, and could not account 
 for it. The impression by degrees grew so strong, that 
 we resolved to inquire into the reason ; and it was with 
 no very agreeable feelings, that we found ourselves 
 fixed for the day on board what was called the 
 " Methodist hoy." The vessel, it seems, was under the 
 particular patronage of the sect of that denomination ; 
 and it professed to sail " by Divine Providence." 
 
 Dinner brought a little more hilarity into the faces of 
 these children of heaven. One innocently proposed a 
 game at riddles ; another entertained a circle of hearers 
 by a question in arithmetic ; a third (or the same person, 
 if I remember — a very dreary gentleman) raised his 
 voice into some remarks on " atheists and deists," glanc- 
 ing, while he did it, at the small knot of the uninitiated 
 who had got together in self-defence ; on which a fourth 
 gave out a hymn of Dr. Watts's, w^hich says that — 
 
 ' ' Religion never w^as designed 
 To make our pleasures less." 
 
 It was sung, I must say, in a tone of the most impartial 
 misery, as if on purpose to contradict the opinion. 
 
 Thus passed the hours, between formality, and eat- 
 ing and drinking, and psalm-singing, and melancholy 
 attempts at a little mirth, till night came on ; when 
 our godly friends vanished below into their berths. 
 The wind was against us ; we beat out to sea, and had 
 a taste of some cold autumnal weather. Such of us as 
 were not prepared for this, adjusted ourselves as well 
 as Mve could to the occasion, or paced about the deck to 
 warm ourselves, not a little amused with the small 
 crew of sailors belonging to the vessel, who sat together 
 singing songs in a low tone of voice, in order that the 
 psalm-singers below might not hear them. 
 
 During one of these pacings about the deck, my foot 
 came in contact with a large bundle which lay as much 
 out of the way as possible, but which I had approached 
 unawares. On stooping to see what it was, I found it 
 was a woman. She was sleeping, and her clothes were 
 
 128
 
 YOUTH 
 
 cold and damp. As the captain could do nothing for 
 her, except refer me to the " gentlefolks " below, in case;, 
 any room could be made for her in their dormitory, Ii 
 repaired below accordingly ; and with something of a ' 
 malicious benevolence, persisted in waking every sleeper 
 in succession, and stating the woman's case. Not a 
 soul w^ould stir. They had paid for their places : the 
 woman should have done the same ; and so they left 
 her to the care of the " Providence " under which they 
 sailed. I do not wish to insinuate by this story that 
 many excellent people have not been Methodists. All I 
 mean to say is, that here was a whole Margate hoy full 
 of them ; that they had feathered their nest well 
 below ; that the night was trying ; that to a female it 
 might be dangerous ; and that not one of them, never- 
 theless, would stir to make room for her. 
 
 As Methodism is a fact of the past and of the present, 
 I trust it may have had its uses. The degrees of it are 
 various, from the blackest hue of what is called 
 Calvinistic Methodism to colours little distinguishable 
 from the mildest and pleasantest of conventional 
 orthodoxy. Accidents of birth, breeding, brain, heart, 
 and temperament make worlds of difference in this 
 respect, as in all others. But where the paramount 
 doctrine of a sect, whatever it may profess to include, 
 is Self-preservation, and where this paramount doctrine, 
 as it needs must when actually paramount, blunts in 
 very self-defence the greatest final sympathies with 
 one's fellow-creatures, the transition of ideas is easy 
 from unfeelingness in a future state to unf eelingness in 
 the present ; and it becomes a very little thing indeed 
 to let a woman lie out in the cold all night, while 
 saints are snoozing away in comfort. 
 
 My companion and I, much amused, and not a little 
 indignant, took our way from Ramsgate along the 
 coast, turning cottages into inns as our hunger com- 
 pelled us, and sleeping at night the moment we laid our 
 heads on our pillows. 
 
 The length of this journey, which did us good, we 
 reckoned to be a hundred and twelve miles ; and we did 
 it in four days, which was not bad walking. But my 
 
 129 K
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 brother Robert once went a hundred miles in two. He 
 also, when a lad, kept up at a kind of trotting pace 
 with a friend's horse all the way from Finchley to 
 Pimlico. His limbs were admirably well set. 
 
 The friend who was my companion in this journey 
 had not been long known to me ; but he was full of 
 good qualities. He died a few years afterwards in 
 France, where he unhappily found himself among his 
 countrymen, whom Bonaparte so iniquitously detained 
 at the commencement of the second war. He was 
 brother of my old friend Henry Robertson, treasurer 
 of Covent Garden theatre, in whose company and that ^ 
 
 of Vincent Novello, Charles Cowden Clarke, and other 
 gifted and estimable men, I have enjoyed some of the 
 most harmonious evenings of my life, in every sense 
 of the word. 
 
 Let me revert to a pleasanter recollection. The com- 
 panion of my journey to Brighton, and another brother 
 of his, who was afterguards in the Commissariat (all 
 the brothers, alas ! are no^" dead), set up a little club to 
 which I belonged, called the " Elders," from our regard 
 for the wine of that name, with hot goblets of w^hich 
 we finished the evening. It was not the wine so called 
 which you buy in the shops, and which is a mixture of 
 brandy and verjuice, but the vintage of the genuine 
 berry, which is admired w^ierever it is kno^vn, and 
 which the ancients unquestionably symbolized under 
 the mystery of the Bearded Bacchus, the senior god of 
 (that name — 
 I "Brother of Bacchus, elder born," '■ 
 
 |rhe great Boerhaave held the tree in such pleasant re- 
 ference for the multitude of its virtues, that he is said 
 |to have taken off his hat whenever he passed it. 
 ' Be this as it may, so happily it sent us to our beds, 
 with such an extraordinary twofold inspiration of 
 Bacchus and Somnus, that, falling to sleep, we would 
 dream half an hour after of the last jest, and wake up 
 again in laughter. 
 
 [' Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738), the celebrated Dutch phy- 
 sician.] 
 
 130
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 [1802-1872] 
 
 A KNOCK at the doors of all England awoke us up 
 from our dreams. It was Bonaparte, threatening 
 to come among us, and bidding us put down " that 
 glass." The " Elders," in common with the rest of the 
 world, were moved to say him nay, and to drink, and 
 drill themselves, to his confusion. 
 
 I must own that I never had the slightest belief in 
 this coming of Bonaparte. It did, I allow, sometimes 
 appear to me not absolutely impossible ; and very 
 strange it was to think that some fine morning I might 
 actually find myself face to face with a parcel of French- 
 men in Kent or Sussex, instead of playing at soldiers 
 in Piccadilly. But I did not believe in his coming : first, 
 because I thought he had far wiser things to attend to ; 
 secondly, because he made such an ostentatious show of 
 it ; and thirdly, because I felt that whatever might be 
 our party politics, it was not in the nature of things 
 English to allow it. Nobody, I thought, could believe 
 it possible, who did but see and hear the fine, unaffected, 
 manly young fellows that composed our own regiment 
 of volunteers, the St. James's, and whose counterparts 
 had arisen in swarms all over the country. It was too 
 great a jest. And with all due respect for French 
 valour, I think so to this day. 
 
 The case was not the same as in the time of the Nor- 
 mans. The Normans were a more advanced people than 
 the Saxons ; they possessed a familiar and family inter- 
 est among us ; and they had even a right to the throne. 
 But in the year 1802, the French and English had for 
 centuries been utterly distinct as well as rival nations ; 
 the latter had twice beaten the French on French 
 
 131
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ground, and under the greatest disadvantages : how 
 nnu'li less likely were they to be beaten on their own, 
 under every circumstance of exasperation ? They were 
 an abler-bodied nation than the French ; they had been 
 bred up, however erroneously, in a contempt for them, 
 which (in a military point of view), was salutary when 
 it was not careless ; and, in fine, here were all these 
 volunteers, as well as troops of the line, taking the 
 threat with an ease too great even to laugh at it, but 
 at the same time sedulously attending to their drills, 
 and manifestly resolved, if the struggle came, to make 
 a personal business of it, and see which of the two 
 nations had the greatest pluck. 
 
 The volunteers would not even take the trouble of 
 patronizing a journal that was set up to record their 
 movements and to flatter their self-respect. A word of 
 praise from the king, from the commander-in-chief, or 
 the colonel of the regiment, was w^ell enough ; it was 
 all in the way of business ; but why be told what they 
 knew, or be encouraged when they did not require it ? 
 Wags used to say of the journal in question, which was 
 called the Volunteer, that it printed only one number, 
 sold only one copy, and that this copy had been pur- 
 chased by a volunteer drummer-boy. The boy, seeing 
 the paper set out for sale, exclaimed, " The Volunteer ! 
 why, I'm a volunteer ! " and so he bought that solitary 
 image of himself. The boy was willing to be told that 
 he was doing something more than playing at soldiers ; 
 but what was this to the men ? 
 
 This indifferent kind of self-respect and contentment 
 did not hinder the volunteers, however, from having a 
 good deal of pleasant banter of one another among 
 themselves, or from feeling that there was something 
 now and then among them ridiculous in respect to 
 appearances. A gallant officer in our regiment, who 
 was much respected, went among us by the name of 
 Lieutenant Molly, on account of the delicacy of his 
 complexion. Another, who was a strict disciplinarian, 
 and had otherwise a spirit of love for the profession, as 
 though he had been a born soldier, was not spared 
 allusions to his balls of perfumery. Our major (now 
 
 132
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 no more) was an undertaker in Piccadilly, of the name 
 of Downs, very fat and jovial, yet active withal, and 
 a good soldier. He had one of those lively, juvenile 
 faces that are sometimes observed in people of a certain 
 sleek kind of corpulency. This ample field-officer was 
 " cut and come again " for jokes of all sorts. Nor was 
 the colonel himself spared, though he was a highly 
 respectable nobleman, and nephew to an actual troop- 
 of-the-line conqueror, the victor of Montreal. But this 
 requires a paragraph or two to itself. 
 
 We had been a regiment for some time without a 
 colonel. The colonel was always about to be declared, 
 but declared he was not ; and meantime we mustered 
 about a thousand strong, and were much amazed, and, 
 perhaps, a little indignant. At length the moment 
 arrived — the colonel was named ; he was to be intro- 
 duced to us ; and that nothing might be wanting to our 
 dignity, he was a lord, and a friend of the minister, and 
 nephew to the victor aforesaid. 
 
 Our parade was the court-yard of Burlington House. 
 The whole regiment attended. We occupied three sides 
 of the ground. In front of us were the great gates, 
 longing to be opened. Suddenly the word is given, 
 " My lord is at hand ! " Open burst the gates — up 
 strikes the music. " Present arms ! " vociferates the 
 major. 
 
 In dashes his lordship, and is pitched right over his 
 horse's head to the ground. 
 
 It was the most unfortunate anticlimax that could 
 have happened. Skill, grace, vigour, address, example, 
 ascendancy, mastery, victory, all were in a manner to 
 have been presented to us in the heroical person of the 
 noble colonel ; and here they were prostrated at our 
 feet — ejected — cast out — humiliated — ground to the 
 earth — subjected (for his merciful construction) to the 
 least fellow-soldier that stood among us upright on his 
 feet. 
 
 The construction, however, was accorded. Every- 
 body felt indeed, that the greatest of men might have 
 been subjected to the accident. It w^as the horse, not 
 he, that was in fault — it was the music — the ringing of 
 
 133
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the arms, etc. His spirit had led him to bring with him 
 too liery a charger. Bucephahis miglit have thrown 
 Alexander at such a moment. A molehill threw 
 William the Third. A man might conquer Bona- 
 parte, and yet be thrown from his horse. And the 
 conclusion was singularly borne out in another quar- 
 Jter ; for no conqueror, I believe, whose equitation 
 ■,is ascertained, ever combined more numerous victories 
 with a greater number of falls from his saddle than 
 his lordship's illustrious friend, the Duke of Wel- 
 lington. 
 
 During our field-days, which sometimes took place in 
 the neighbourhood celebrated by Foote in his Mayor of 
 Garrat,^ it was impossible for those who were acquainted 
 with his w^ritings not to think of his city-trained bands 
 and their dreadful " marchings and counter-marchings 
 from Acton to Ealing, and from Eahng back again to 
 Acton." We were not " all robbed and murdered," 
 however, as we returned home, " by a single footpad." 
 We returned, not by the Ealing stage, but in right war- 
 like style, marching and dusty. We had even, one day, 
 a small taste of the will and appetite of campaigning. 
 Some of us, after a sham-fight, w^ere hastening towards 
 Acton, in a very rage of hunger and thirst, when we 
 discerned coming towards us a baker with a basket full 
 of loaves. To observe the man, to see his loaves 
 scattered on the ground, to find ourselves each with one 
 of them under his arm, tearing the crumb out, and 
 pushing on for the village, heedless of the cries of the 
 pursuing baker, was (in the language of the novelists) 
 the work of a moment. Next moment we found our- 
 selves standing in the cellar of an Acton alehouse, with 
 the spigots torn out of the barrels, and everybody help- 
 ing himself as he could. The baker and the beerman 
 were paid, but not till we chose to attend to them ; and 
 I fully comprehended, even from this small specimen 
 of the will and pleasure of soldiers, what savages they 
 could become on graver occasions. 
 
 [1 Samuel Foote (1720-1777). His Mayor of Garratt, a Comedy 
 in two acts, first printed in 1764, is a dramatisation of the cele- 
 brated mock election of the mayor at Garratt, Wandsworth.] 
 
 134
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 In this St. James's regiment of volunteers w^ere three 
 persons whom I looked on with great interest, for they 
 were actors. They were Farley,^ Emery, ^ and De Camp, 
 all well-known performers at the time. The first was 
 a celebrated melodramatic actor, remarkable for com- 
 bining a short sturdy person with energetic activity ; 
 for which reason, if I am not mistaken, in spite of his 
 shortness and his sturdiness, he had got into the light 
 infantry company, where I think I have had the plea- 
 sure of standing both w^ith him and Mr. De Camp. 
 With De Camp certainly. The latter was brother of 
 Miss De Camp, afterw^ards Mrs. Charles Kemble, an 
 admirable actress in the same line as Farley, and in 
 such characters as Beatrice and I/acy Lockitt. She had 
 a beautiful figure, fine large dark eyes, and elevated 
 features, fuller of spirit than softness, but still capable of 
 expressing great tenderness. Her brother was nobody in 
 comparison with her, though he was clever in his way, 
 and more handsome. But it w^as a sort of effeminate 
 beauty, which made him look as if he ought to have 
 been the sister, and she the brother. It was said of 
 him, in a comprehensive bit of alliteration, that he 
 "failed in fops, but there was fire in his footmen." 
 
 The third of these histrionic patriots, Mr. Emery, 
 was one of the best actors of his kind the stage ever 
 saw. He excelled, not only in Yorkshiremen, and 
 other rustical comic characters, but in parts of homely 
 tragedy, such as criminals of the lower order ; whose 
 conscious guilt he exhibited w^ith such a lively, truthful 
 mixture of clownishness in the mode and intensity in 
 the feeling, as made a startling and terrible picture of 
 the secret passions to w^hich all classes of men are 
 liable. 
 
 Emery was also an amateur painter — of landscape, 
 I believe, and of no mean repute. He was a man of 
 a middle height, rather tall perhaps than otherwise and 
 with quiet, respectable manners, but with something 
 of what is called a pudding face, and an appearance 
 on the whole not unlike a gentleman farmer. You 
 
 I' Charles Farley (1771-1859).] [^ John Emery (1777-1822).] 
 
 135
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 would not have supposed there was so much emotion 
 in him, thougli he had purpose, too, in his look, and 
 he died early. 
 
 I have been tempted to dilate somewhat on these 
 gentlemen ; for though I made no acquaintance with 
 them privately, I was now beginning to look with 
 peculiar interest on the stage, to which I had already 
 wished to be a contributor, and of which I was then 
 becoming a critic. I had written a tragedy, a comedy, 
 and a farce ; and my Spring Garden friends had given 
 me an introduction to their acquaintance, Mr. Kelly,' 
 of the Opera House, with a view to having the farce 
 brought out by some manager with whom he was 
 intimate. I remember lighting upon him at the door 
 of his music-shop or saloon, at the corner of the lane 
 in Pall Mall, where the Arcade now^ begins, and giving 
 him my letter of introduction and my farce at once. 
 He had a quick, snappish, but not ill-natured voice, 
 and a flushed, handsome, and good-humoured face, 
 with the hair about his ears. The look was a little 
 rakish or so, but very agreeable. 
 
 Mr. Kelly was extremely courteous to me ; but what 
 he said of the farce, or did with it, I utterly forget. 
 Himself I shall never forget ; for as he was the first 
 actor I ever beheld anywhere, so he was one of the 
 first whom I saw on the stage. Actor, indeed, he was 
 none, except inasmuch as he was an acting singer, 
 and not destitute of a certain spirit in everything he 
 did. Neither had he any particular power as a singer, 
 or even a voice. He said it broke down while he was 
 studying in Italy ; where, indeed, he had sung with 
 applause. The little snappish tones I spoke of were 
 very manifest on the stage : he had short arms, as if 
 to match them, and a hasty step : and yet, notwith- 
 standing these drawbacks, he was heard with pleasure, 
 for he had taste and feeling. He was a delicate com- 
 poser, as the music in Blue Beard evinces ; and he 
 selected so happily from other composers as to give 
 rise to his friend Sheridan's banter, that he M'^as an 
 
 [^ Michael Kelly (1762-1826). His "Reminiscences" is one of the 
 most amusing records of theatrical history that we possess.] 
 
 136
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 *' importer of music and composer of wines " (for he 
 once took to being a wine-merchant). While in Ire- 
 land, during the early part of his career, he adapted 
 a charming air of Martini's to English words, which, 
 under the title of " Oh, thou wert born to please me," 
 he sang with Mrs. Crouch ^ to so much effect, that not 
 only was it always called for three times, but no play 
 was suffered to be performed without it. It should be 
 added, that Mrs. Crouch was a lovely woman, as well 
 as a beautiful singer, and that the two performers 
 were in love. I have heard them sing it myself, and 
 do not wonder at the impression it made on the sus- 
 ceptible hearts of the Irish. Twenty years afterwards, 
 when Mrs. Crouch was no more, and while Kelly was 
 singing a duet in the same country with Madame 
 Catalani, a man in the gallery cried out, " Mr. Kelly, 
 will you be good enough to favour us with ' Oh, thou 
 wert born to please me?'" The audience laughed; 
 but the call went to the heart of the singer, and prob- 
 ably came from that of the honest fellow who made it. 
 The man may have gone to the play in his youth, with 
 somebody whom he loved by his side, and heard two 
 lovers, as happy as himself, sing what he now wished 
 to hear again. 
 
 Madame Catalani ^ was also one of the singers I first 
 remember. I first heard her at an oratorio, where, 
 happening to sit in a box right opposite to where she 
 stood, the leaping forth of her amazingly powerful 
 voice absolutely startled me. Women's voices on the 
 stage are apt to rise above all others, but Catalani's 
 seemed to delight in trying its strength with choruses 
 and orchestras ; and the louder they became, the higher 
 and more victorious she ascended. In fact, I believe 
 she is known to have provoked and enjoyed this sort 
 of contest. I suspect, however, that I did not hear 
 her when she was at her best or sweetest. My re- 
 collection is, that with a great deal of taste and 
 
 fi Mrs. Crouch, 7iee Phillips, made her first appearance at Drury 
 Lane in 1781 ; she died in 1806.] 
 
 [- Angelica Catalani (1782-1849), an Italian vocalist of great re- 
 nown.] 
 
 187
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 brilliancy, there was more force than feeling. She 
 was a Iloman, with the regular Italian antelope face 
 (if I may so call it) ; large eyes, with a sensitive 
 elegant nose, and lively expression. 
 
 Mrs. Billington^ also appeared to me to have more 
 brilliancy of execution than depth of feeling. She was 
 a fat beauty, with regular features, and may be seen 
 drawn to the life in a portrait in Mr. Hogarth's ^ 
 Memoirs of the Musical Di-ama, where she is frightfully 
 dressed in a cropped head of hair, and a waist tucked 
 under her arms — the fashion of the day. 
 
 Not so Grassini, a large but perfectly well-made as 
 well as lovely woman, with black hair and eyes, and 
 her countenance as full of feeling as her divine contralto 
 voice. Largeness, or what is called fineness of person, 
 was natural to her, and did not hinder her from having 
 a truly feminine appearance. She was an actress as 
 well as singer. She acted Proserpina in Winter's 
 beautiful opera, and might have remained in the re- 
 collection of any one who heard and beheld her, as an 
 image of the goddess she represented. My friend, 
 Vincent Novello,^ saw^ the composer when the first 
 performance of the piece was over, stoop down (he 
 w^as a very tall man) and kiss Mrs. Billington's hand 
 for her singing in the character of Ceres, I wonder 
 he did not take Grassini in his arms. She must have 
 had a fine soul, and would have known how to pardon 
 him. But perhaps he did. 
 'With Billington used to perform Braham, from 
 
 [' Elizabeth Wiecschell (1769-1818) was born in London of German 
 parents. Her first husband was John Billington of the Drury Lane 
 orchestra. She afterwards married M. de Fellesent. Her career 
 as vocalist and actress began at the early age of seven, and was con- 
 jjtinued with great success almost to the end of her life.] 
 t [^ George Hogarth (1783-1870), musical critic and the author of 
 numerous works on musical subjects. Memoirs of tlie Musical 
 y)ratna appeared in 1838. His daughter became the wife of Charles 
 J)ickens.] 
 
 % [* Vincenzo Novello (1781-1861), who was chiefly instrumental in 
 making known the sacred musical classics of Italy and Germany 
 to the English public. He is mentioned in Charles Lamb's famous 
 essay, " A Chapter on Ears." He was the father of the well-known 
 singer Clara Anastasia, also of Mary Victoria, Mrs. Cowden Clarke, 
 the Shakespearean authority. 
 
 138
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 whose wonderful remains of power in his old age we t 
 may judge what he must have been in his prime. I f 
 mean with regard to voice ; for as to general manner 
 and spirit, it is a curious fact that, except when he was 
 in the act of singing, he used to be a remarkably in- |; 
 sipid performer ; and that it w^as not till he was grow- | 
 ing elderly that he became the animated person we I 
 now see him. This, too, he did all on a sudden, to 
 the amusement as well as astonishment of the behold- 
 ers. When he sang, he was always animated. The )- 
 probability is that he had been bred up under masters ' 
 who were wholly untheatrical, and that something had 
 occurred to set his natural spirit reflecting on the in- 
 justice they had done him ; though, for a reason which 
 I shall give presently, the theatre, after all, was not the <} 
 best field for his abilities. He had wonderful execution 
 as well as force, and his voice could also be very sweet, 
 though it was too apt to betray something of that 
 nasal tone which has been observed in Jews, and which 
 is, perhaps, quite as much, or more, a habit in which 
 they have been brought up, than a consequence of 
 organization. The same thing has been noticed in 
 Americans ; and it might not be difficult to trace it to 
 moral, and even to monied causes ; those, to w^it, that 
 induce people to retreat inwardly upon themselves ; 
 into a sense of their shrewdness and resources ; and to 
 clap their finger in self -congratulation upon the organ 
 through which it pleases them occasionally to intimate 
 as much to a bystander, not choosing to trust it wholly 
 to the mouth. 
 
 Perhaps it was in some measure the same kind of | 
 breeding (I do not say it in disrespect, but in reference | 
 to matters of caste, far more discreditable to Christians | 
 than Jews) which induced Mr. Braham ^ to quit thej? 
 Italian stage, and devote himself to his popular and! 
 not very refined style of bravura-singing on the Eng- J 
 lish. It was what may be called the loud-and-soft? 
 
 i 
 
 [* John Braham (1774-1856). His real name was Abraham. He en- 
 joyed great popularity throughout his life as a singer. Amongst 
 his many compositions, his song "The Death of Nelson" is still a 
 favourite.] 
 
 139
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 stylo. There was admirable execution ; but the expres- 
 sion consisted in being very soft on the words love, 
 peace, etc., and then bursting into roars of triumph on 
 the words hate, war, and gloi^j. To this pattern Mr. 
 Braham composed many of the songs written for him ; 
 and tlie pubUc were enchanted with a style which en- 
 abled them to fancy that they enjoyed the highest style 
 of the art, while it required only the vulgarest of their 
 perceptions. This renowned vocalist never did himself 
 justice except in the compositions of Handel. When 
 he stood in the concert-room or the oratorio, and 
 opened his mouth with plain, heroic utterance in the 
 mighty strains of "Deeper and deeper still," or "Sound 
 an alarm," or " Comfort ye my people," you felt in- 
 deed that you had a great singer before you. His 
 voice which too often sounded like a horn vulgar, in 
 the catchpenny lyrics of Tom Dibdin, now became a 
 ; veritable trumpet of grandeur and exaltation ; the 
 tabernacle of his creed seemed to open before him in 
 its most victorious days ; and you might have fancied 
 yourself in the jjresence of one of the sons of Aaron, 
 calling out to the host of the people from some plat- 
 form occupied by their prophets. 
 
 About the same time Pasta ^ made her first appear- 
 ance in England, and produced no sensation. She did 
 not even seem to attempt any. Her nature was so 
 truthful, that, having as yet no acquirements to dis- 
 play, it would appear that she did not pretend she 
 had. She must either have been prematurely put for- 
 ward by others, or, with an instinct of her future 
 greatness, supposed that the instinct itself would be 
 recognized. When she came the second time, after 
 completing her studies, she took rank at once as the 
 greatest genius in her line which the Italian theatre in 
 England had witnessed. She was a great tragic ac- 
 tress ; and her singing, in point of force, tenderness, 
 and expression, was equal to her acting. All noble 
 
 [' Judith Pasta (1798-1865) was a Jewess by bii^th. She made 
 her first appearance in public about the year 1822 ; so Leigh 
 Hunt's recollections of her, are of a date somewhat later than one 
 would gather from the text.) 
 
 140
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 passions belonged to her ; and her very scorn seemed 
 equally noble, for it trampled only on what was mean. 
 When she measured her enemy from head to foot, in 
 Tancredi, you really felt for the man, at seeing him so 
 reduced into nothingness. When she made her en- 
 trance on the stage, in the same character — which she 
 did right in front of the audience, midway between 
 the side scenes, she waved forth her arms, and drew 
 them quietly together again over her bosom, as if she 
 sweetly, yet modestly, embraced the whole house. 
 And when, in the part of Medea, she looked on the 
 children she was about to kill, and tenderly parted 
 their hair, and seemed to mingle her very eyes in 
 lovingness with theirs, uttering, at the same time, 
 notes of the most w^andering and despairing sweetness, 
 every gentle eye melted into tears. She wanted height, 
 and had somewhat too much flesh ; but it seemed the 
 substance of the very health of her body, which was 
 otherwise shapely. Her head and bust were of the 
 finest classical mould. An occasional roughness in her 
 lower tones did but enrich them with passion, as people 
 grow hoarse with excess of feeling ; and while her voice 
 was in its prime, even a little incorrectness now and 
 then in the notes would seem the consequence of a like 
 boundless emotion ; but, latterly, it argued a failure of 
 ear, and consoled the mechanical artists w^ho had been 
 mystified by her success. In every other respect, 
 perfect truth, graced by idealism, w^as the secret of 
 Pasta's greatness. She put truth first always ; and, in 
 so noble and sweet a mind, grace followed it as a natural 
 consequence. 
 
 With the exception of Lablache,^ that wonderful 
 barytone singer, full of might as well as mirth, in 
 whom the same truth, accompanied in some respects 
 by the same grace of feeling, suffered itself to be over- 
 laid with comic fat (except when he turned it into an 
 heroic amplitude with drapery), I remember no men 
 on our Italian stage equal to the women. Women 
 have carried the palm out and out, in acting, singing, 
 
 [» Louis Lablache (1794-1858) was born in Naples ; he made his first 
 appearance in London in 1834.] 
 
 141
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 and danciii}?. The pleasurable seems more the forte of 
 the sex ; and the opera house is essentially a palace 
 of pleasure, even in its tragedy. Bitterness there can- 
 not but speak sweetly ; there is no darkness, and no 
 poverty ; and every death is the death of the swan. 
 When the men are sweet, they either seem feeble, or, 
 as in the case of Rubini, have execution without pas- 
 sion. Naldi was amusing ; Tramezzani was elegant ; 
 Ambrogetti (whose great big calves seemed as if they 
 ought to have saved him from going into La Trappe) 
 was a fine dashing representative of Don Juan, with- 
 out a voice. But what were these in point of impres- 
 sion on the public, compared with the women I have 
 mentioned, or even with voluptuous Fodor, w^ith ami- 
 able Sontag, with charming Malibran (whom I never 
 saw), or ^\4th adorable Jenny Lind ^ (whom, as an Irish- 
 man would say, I have seen still less ; for not to see 
 her appears to be a deprivation beyond all ordinary 
 conceptions of musical loss and misfortune) ? 
 
 As to dancers, male dancers are almost always gaw- 
 kies, compared M^ith female. One forgets the names of 
 the best of them ; but who, that ever saw, has forgot- 
 ten Heberle, or Cerito, or Taglioni ? There was a great 
 noise once in France about the Vestrises ; ^ particularly 
 old Vestris ; but (with all due respect to our gallant 
 neighbours) I have a suspicion that he took the French 
 in with the gravity and imposingness of his twirls. 
 There was an imperial demand about Vestris, likely to 
 create for him a corresponding supply of admiration. 
 The most popular dancers of whom I have a recollec- 
 tion, when I was young, were Deshayes, who was 
 rather an elegant posture-master than dancer, and 
 ! Madame Parisot, who was very thin and always smil- 
 (ing. I could have seen little dancing in those times, 
 'or I should have something to say of the Presles, 
 
 [» Jenny Lind (1820-1887), "The Swedish Nightingale," first ap- 
 peared in London in 1847. She married her accompanist, Otto 
 Goldschmidt, in 1851.] 
 
 [2 Maria Taglioni (1804-1884) and Lucia Elizabeth Vestris, ri^e 
 Bartolizzi (1797-1856), two Italian dancers of great repute. The 
 husband of the latter belonged to a family of famous dancers.] 
 
 142
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 Didelots, and others, who turned the heads of the 
 Yarmouths and Barrymores of the day. Art, in all its 
 branches, has since grown more esteemed ; and I sus- 
 pect that neither dancing nor singing ever attained so 
 much grace and beauty as they have done within the 
 last twenty years. The Farinellis and Pacchierottis 
 were a kind of monsters of execution. There w^ere 
 tones, also, in their voices which, in all probability, 
 were very touching. But, to judge from their printed 
 songs, their chief excellence lay in difficult and ever- 
 lasting roulades. And we may guess, even now, from 
 the prevailing character of French dancing, that diffi- 
 culty was the great point of conquest with Vestris. 
 There was no such graceful understanding between the 
 playgoers and the performers, no such implied recog- 
 nition of the highest principles of emotion, as appears 
 to be the case in the present day with the Taglionis 
 and Jenny Linds. 
 
 To return to the English boards, — the first actor* 
 whom I remember seeing upon them w^as excellent Jacki 
 Bannister.^ He was a handsome specimen of the best' 
 kind of Englishman, — jovial, manly, good-humoured,! 
 unaifected, with a great deal of whim and drollery, buts 
 never passing the bounds of the decorous ; and when \ 
 he had made you laugh heartily as some yeoman or 
 seaman in a comedy, he could bring the tears into your 
 eyes for some honest sufferer in an afterpiece. He 
 gave you the idea of a good fellow, — a worthy house- 
 hold humourist, — whom it would be both pleasant andj 
 profitable to five w^ith ; and this was his real character, i 
 He had a taste for pictures, and settled down into a( 
 good English gout and the love of his family. I saw ' 
 him one day hobbling with a stick in Gower Street, 
 where he lived, and the same evening performing the 
 part either of the young squire, Tony Lumpkin, in) 
 She Stoops to Conquer, or of Acres, in the Comedy of ^ 
 the Rivals, I forget which ; but in either character he - 
 would be young to the last. Next day he would per-^ 
 
 [' John Bannister (1760-1836). The son of Charles Bannister, actor 
 and vocalist, who prepared him for the stage. Garrick also gave 
 him some instruction.] 
 
 143
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 form the old father, the Brazier, in Colman's senti- 
 nientiil comedy, John Bull ; and everybody would see 
 that it was a father indeed who was suffering. 
 
 This could not be said of Fawcett^ in the same 
 character, who roared like Bull, but did not feel like 
 John. He was affecting, too, in his way ; but it was 
 after the fashion of a great noisy boy, whom you can- 
 not help pitying for his tears, though you despise him 
 for his vulgarity. Fawcett had a harsh, brazen face, 
 and a voice like a knife-grinder's wheel. He was all 
 pertness, coarseness, and effrontery, but with a great 
 deal of comic force ; and whenever he came trotting 
 on to the stage (for such was his walk) and pouring 
 forth his harsh, rapid words, w^ith his nose in the air, 
 and a facetious grind in his throat, the audience were 
 prepared for a merry evening. 
 
 Munden^ w^as a comedian famous for the variety and 
 significance of his grimaces, and for making something 
 out of nothing by a certain intensity of contemplation. 
 Lamb, w^ith exquisite wit, described him in one sen- 
 tence by saying that Munden " beheld a leg of mutton 
 in its quiddity." If he laid an emphasis on the word 
 " Holborn," or " button," he did it in such a manner 
 that you thought there was more in " Holborn " or 
 " button " than it ever before entered into your head to 
 conceive. I have seen him, v^rhile playing the part of 
 a vagabond loiterer about inn-doors, look at, and gradu- 
 ally approach a pot of ale on a table from a distance, 
 for ten minutes together, w^hile he kept the house in 
 roars of laughter by the intense idea which he dumbly 
 ponveyed of its contents, and the no less intense mani- 
 festation of his cautious but inflexible resolution to 
 drink it. So, in acting the part of a credulous old 
 jantiquary, on whom an old beaver is palmed for the 
 f hat of William Tell," he reverently put the hat on his 
 head, and then solemnly walked to and fro with such 
 
 [^ John Fawcett (1768-1837). Like Elliston, he was educated at 
 St. Paul's School,] 
 
 [^ Joseph Shepherd Munden (1758-1832). The story of Lamb quoted 
 above appears in Elia, "The acting of Munden." "The Auto- 
 biography of Mr. Munden," pubHshed in the London Magazine, was 
 one of Charles Lamb's celebrated hoaxes.] 
 
 144
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 an excessive sense of the glory with which he was 
 crowned, such a weight of reflected heroism, and accu- 
 mulation of Tell's whole history on that single repre- 
 sentative culminating point, elegantly halting every 
 now and then to put himself in the attitude of one 
 drawing a bow, that the spectator could hardly have 
 been astonished had they seen his hair stand on end 
 and carry the hat aloft with it. But I must not suffer 
 myself to be led into these details. 
 
 Lewis ^ was a comedian of the rarest order, for he 
 combined whimsicality with elegance, and levity with 
 heart. He was the fop, the lounger, the flatterer, the 
 rattlebrain, the sower of wild oats ; and in all he was 
 the gentleman. He looked on the stage what he was 
 off it, the companion of wits and men of quality. It is 
 pleasant to know that he was a descendant of Erasmus 
 Lewis, the secretary of Lord Oxford, and friend of Pope 
 and Swift. He was airiness personified. He had a 
 light person, light features, a light voice, a smile that 
 showed the teeth, with good-humoured eyes ; and a 
 genial levity pervaded his action, to the very tips of his 
 delicately-gloved fingers. He drew on his glove like a 
 gentleman, and then darted his fingers at the ribs of 
 the character he was talking with, in a way that carried 
 with it whatever was suggestive, and sparkling, and 
 amusing. When he died they put up a classical Latin 
 inscription to his memory, about elegantice and lepores 
 (whims and graces) ; and you felt that no man better 
 deserved it. He had a right to be recorded as the type 
 of airy genteel comedy. 
 
 Elliston^ was weightier both in manner and person ; 
 and he was a tragedian as well as comedian. Not a 
 great tragedian, though able to make a serious and 
 affecting impression ; and when I say weightier in 
 comedy than Lewis, I do not mean heavy ; but that he 
 had greater bodily substance and force. In Sir Harry 
 
 [' William Thomas Lewis (? 1748-1871), known as "Gentleman 
 Lewis."] 
 
 ['' Robert William Elliston (1774-1831), now chiefly remembered 
 through Charles Lamb's essays, "To the Shade of Elliston" and 
 " Ellistoniana." He it was who played the t/itle rdle in Lamb's farce, 
 Mr. H., on its single appearance on December 10, 1806.] 
 
 145 L
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Wlldair, for insUince, he looked more like the man who 
 toiiKl bear rakeryaiid debauch. The engraved portrait 
 of him in a coat bordered with fur is very like. He 
 had dry as well as genial humour, was an admirable 
 representative of the triple hero in Three and the Deuce, 
 of Charles Surface, Don Felix, the Duke in the Honey- 
 moon, and of all gallant and gay lovers of a robust 
 order, not omitting the most cordial. Indeed, he was 
 the most genuine lover that I ever saw on the stage. 
 No man approached a woman as he did, — with so flatter- 
 ing a mixture of reverence and passion — such closeness 
 without insolence, and such a trembling energy in his 
 words. His utterance of the single w^ord " charming " 
 was a volume of rapturous fervour. I speak, of course, 
 only of his better days. Latterly, he grew flustered 
 w^ith imprudence and misfortune ; and from the 
 accounts I have heard of his acting, nobody who had 
 not seen him before could have guessed w^hat sort of 
 man he had been. Elliston, like Lewis, went upon the 
 stage with advantages of training and connections. 
 He was nephew of Dr. Elliston, master of one of the 
 colleges at Cambridge ; and he was educated at Saint 
 Paul's school. 
 
 These are the actors of those days whom I recollect 
 w^ith the greatest pleasure. I include Fawcett, because 
 he was identified with some of the most laughable 
 characters in farce. 
 
 To touch on some others. Liston ^ was renowned for 
 an exquisitely ridiculous face and manner, rich w^ith 
 half-conscious, half -unconscious absurdity. The whole 
 piece became Listonized the moment he appeared. 
 People longed for his coming back, in order that they 
 might dote on his oily, mantling face, and laugh with 
 him and at him. 
 
 Mathews^ was a genius in mimicry, a facsimile in 
 mind as well as manner ; and he was a capital Sir 
 
 {' John Liston (1776-1846). His earliest efforts were associated 
 with tragedy, which he happily abandoned for comedy, his true 
 forte. He produced a great sensation in 1825 by the creation of the 
 character, " Paul Pry," at Drury Lane Theatre.] 
 
 [- Charles Mathews (1776-1835), born the same year as his friend 
 Liston, with whom he began his stage life.] 
 
 146
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 Fretful Plagiary. It was a sight to see him looking 
 •wretchedly happy at his victimizers, and digging 
 deeper and deeper into his mortification at every fresh 
 button of his coat that he buttoned up. 
 
 Dowton^ was perfect in such characters as Colonel 
 Oldboy and Sir Anthony Absolute. His anger was no 
 petty irritability, but the boiling of a rich blood, and 
 of a will otherwise genial. He was also by far the best 
 Falstaff. 
 
 Cooke, ^ a square-faced, hook-nosed, wide-mouthed, 
 malignantly smiling man, was intelligent and peremp- 
 tory, and a hard hitter : he seized and strongly kept 
 your attention ; but he w^as never pleasant. He was 
 too entirely the satirist, the hypocrite, and the villain. 
 He loved too fondly his own caustic and rascally words ; 
 so that his voice, which was otherwise harsh, was in 
 the habit of melting and dying aw^ay inwardly in the 
 secret satisfaction of its smiling malignity. As to his, 
 vaunted tragedy, it was a mere reduction of Shak- C 
 speare's poetry into indignant prose. He limited every ^ 
 character to its worst qualities ; and had no idealism, 
 no affections, no verse. 
 
 Kemble ^ was a god compared with Cooke, as far as 
 the ideal was concerned ; though, on the other hand, 
 I never could admire Kemble as it was the fashion to 
 do. He was too artificial, too formal, too critically and 
 deliberately conscious. Nor do I think that he had any 
 genius whatsoever. His power was all studied acquire- 
 ment. It was this, indeed, by the help of his stern 
 Roman aspect, that made the critics like him. It pre- 
 sented, in a noble shape, the likeness of their own 
 capabilities. 
 
 Want of genius could not be imputed to his sister, 
 Mrs. Siddons.* I did not see her, I believe, in her best 
 
 [• William Dowton (1764-1851).] 
 
 1'^ George Frederick Cooke (1750-1811). SeeHunt's Critical Essays.] 
 
 [3 John Philip Kemble (1757-1823). The eminent tragedian. He 
 was the eldest son of Roger Kemble, a theati'ical manager, three 
 of whose children attained great fame on the stage. Besides reach- 
 ing the foremost position in his profession, J. P. Kemble was the 
 author and editor of many plays.] 
 
 [■• Sarah Siddons, n(ie Kemble (1755-18.31), was senior to her brotlier 
 
 147
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Via ys ; but she must always have been a somewhat 
 iiiasc'ulino beauty ; and she had no love in her, apart 
 from other passions. She was a mistress, however, of 
 lofty, of queenly, and of appalling tragic effect. Never- 
 theless, I could not but think that something of too 
 much art was apparent even in Mrs. Siddons ; and she 
 failed, I think, in the highest points of refinement. 
 fWhen she smelt the blood on her hand, for instance, in 
 \Mncheth, in the scene where she walked in her sleep, 
 •she made a face of ordinary disgust, as though the 
 odour were offensive to the senses, not appalling to the 
 mind. 
 
 Charles Kemble,^ who had an ideal face and figure, 
 was the nearest approach I ever saw to Shakspeare's 
 gentlemen, and to heroes of romance. He also made 
 an excellent Cassio. But with the exception of Mrs. 
 Siddons, who was declining, all the reigning school of 
 tragedy had retrograded rather than otherwise, towards 
 the time that preceded Garrick ; and the consequence 
 was, that when Kean brought back nature and impulse, 
 he put an end to it at once, as Garrick had put an end 
 to Quin. 
 
 In comedy nature had never been wanting ; and 
 ^there was one comic actress, who was nature herself in 
 lone of her most genial forms. This was Mrs. Jordan,* 
 fwho, though she was neither beautiful, nor handsome, 
 ^jior even pretty, nor accomplished, nor " a lady," nor any- 
 Ithing conventional or comme il faut whatsoever, yet was 
 so pleasant, so cordial, so natural, so full of spirits, so 
 healthily constituted in mind and body, had such a 
 
 John by two years. David Garrick, who was one of the earliest to 
 recognize her abiUties, engaged her at Drury Lane, where she soon 
 attained great success. After an extraordinarily brilliant career she 
 withdrew from the stage in 1812. At the time of her retirement 
 she was 67. If Hunt saw her ten years earlier she was probably past 
 her prime.] 
 
 [' Charles Kemble (1775-1854), tragedian, and the younger son of 
 
 this remarkable family.] 
 
 ^ [^ Dorothea Bland (? 1762-1816), who, though never married, as- 
 
 t sumed the name of Mrs. .Jordan. Her relations with the Duke of 
 
 I Clarence, afterwards William IV., led to her retirement from the 
 
 stage, where she was universally popular. She died in poverty and 
 
 neglect at St. Cloud.] 
 
 148
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 shapely leg withal, so charming a voice, and such a \ 
 happy and happy-making expression of countenance, | 
 that she appeared something superior to all those re- | 
 quirements of acceptability, and to hold a patent from | 
 nature herself for our delight and good opinion. It is I 
 creditable to the feelings of society in general, that | 
 allowances are made for the temptations to which the I 
 stage exposes the sex ; and in Mrs. Jordan's case these ;' 
 were not diminished by a sense of the like considera- 
 tion due to princely restrictions, and to the manifest 
 domestic dispositions of more parties than one. But 
 she made even Methodists love her. A touching story 
 is told of her apologizing to a poor man of that persua- 
 sion for having relieved him. He had asked her name ; 
 and she expressed a hope that he would not feel offended 
 when the name was told him. On hearing it, the honest 
 Methodist (he could not have been one on board the hoy), 
 shed tears of pity and admiration, and trusted that he 
 could not do wrong in begging a blessing on her head. | 
 
 {Se7'ious Reviewer, interi-wpting. But, my good sir,] 
 suppose some of your female readers should take itl 
 into their heads to be Mrs. Jordan ? | 
 
 Author. Oh, my good sir, don't be alarmed. Myf 
 female readers are not persons to be so much afraid! 
 for, as you seem to think yours are. The stage itself | 
 has taught them large measures both of charity and| 
 discernment. They have not been so locked up \nl 
 restraint, as to burst out of bounds the moment theyi 
 see a door open for consideration.) ^ 
 
 Mrs. Jordan was inimitable in exemplifying the con-'i 
 sequences of too much restraint in ill-educated Country ' 
 Girls, in Romps, in Hoydens, and in Wards on whom 
 the mercenary have designs. She wore a bib and 
 tucker, and pinafore, with a bouncing propriety, fit to ,' 
 make the boldest spectator alarmed at the idea of 
 bringing such a household responsibility on his shoul- 
 ders. To see her when thus attired shed blubbering, 
 tears for some disappointment, and eat all the while a; 
 great thick slice of bread and butter, weeping, and: 
 moaning, and munching, and eyeing at every bite the 
 part she meant to bite next, w^as a lesson against will 
 
 149
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ami appetite wortli a hundred sermons of our friends 
 on board the hoy ; and, on the other hand, they could 
 assuredly have done and said nothin«^ at all calculated 
 to make such an impression in favour of amiahleness 
 as she did, when she acted in gentle, generous, and con- 
 tiding characters. The way in which she would take a 
 friend hy the cheek and kiss her, or make up a quarrel 
 with a lover, or coax a guardian into good-humour, or 
 sing (without accompaniment) the song of " Since then 
 I'm doomd," or " In the dead of the night," trusting, as 
 she had a right to do, and as the house wished her to 
 do, to the sole effect of her sweet, mello^v, and loving 
 voice — the reader will pardon me, but tears of pleasure 
 and regret come into my eyes at the recollection, as if 
 she personified whatsoever was happy at that period of 
 life, and which has gone like herself. The very sound 
 of the little familiar word bud from her lips (the ab- 
 breviation of husband), as she packed it closer, as it 
 were, in the utterance, and pouted it up with fondness 
 in the man's face, taking him at the same time by the 
 chin, was a whole concentrated world of the power of 
 loving. 
 
 That is a pleasant time of life, the playgoing time in 
 youth, when the coach is packed full to go to the 
 theatre, and brothers and sisters, parents and lovers 
 (none of whom, perhaps, go very often) are all w^afted 
 together in a flurry of expectation ; when the only wish 
 as they go (except with the lovers) is to go as fast as 
 ^possible, and no sound is so delightful as the cry of 
 " Bill of the Play " ; when the smell of links in the 
 darkest and muddiest winter's night is charming ; and 
 the steps of the coach are let dowTi ; and a roar of 
 hoarse voices round the door, and mud-shine on the 
 pavement, are accompanied w^ith the sight of the warm- 
 looking lobby which is about to be entered ; and they 
 ; enter, and pay, and ascend the pleasant stairs, and 
 /begin to hear the silence of the house, perhaps the first 
 jingle of the music ; and the box is entered amidst some 
 little aw^kwardness in descending to their places, and 
 being looked at : and at length they sit, and are become 
 used to by their neighbours, and shawls and smiles are 
 
 150
 
 J^^eai Jo.
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 adjusted, and the play-bill is handed round or pinned 
 to the cushion, and the gods are a little noisy, and the 
 music veritably commences, and at length the curtain 
 is drawn up, and the first delightful syllables are heard : 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Charles, when did you see the lovely 
 Olivia?" 
 
 " Oh ! my dear Sir George, talk not to me of Olivia. 
 The cruel guardian," etc. 
 
 Anon the favourite of the party makes his appear- 
 ance, and then they are quite happy ; and next day, 
 besides his own merits, the points of the dialogue are 
 attributed to him as if he were the inventor. It is not 
 Sir Harry, or old Dornton, or Dubster, who said this or 
 that ; but " Lewis," " Munden," or " Keeley." They 
 seem to think the wit really originated with the man 
 who uttered it so delightfully. 
 
 Critical playgoing is very inferior in its enjoyments 
 to this. It must of necessity blame as well as praise ; 
 it becomes difficult to please ; it is tempted to prove its 
 own merits, instead of those of its entertainers ; and 
 the enjoyments of self-love, besides, perhaps, being ill- 
 founded, and subjecting it to the blame which it bestows, 
 are sorry substitutes, at the best, for hearty delight in 
 others. Never, after I had taken critical pen in hand, 
 did I pass the thoroughly delightful evenings at the 
 playhouse which I had done when I went only to laugh 
 or be moved. I had the pleasure, it is true, of praising 
 those whom I admired ; but the retributive uneasiness 
 of the very pleasure of blaming attended it ; the con- 
 sciousness of self, which on all occasions except loving 
 ones contains a bitter in its sweet, put its sorry obstacle 
 in the way of an unembarrassed delight ; and I found 
 the days flown when I retained none but the good 
 passages of plays and performers, and when I used to 
 carry to my old school-fellows rapturous accounts of 
 the farces of Colman,^ and the good natured comedies 
 of O'Keefe.^ 
 
 [' George Colman (1733-1794) and his son George (1762-1836). They 
 both wrote plays, but Hunt probably refers to the younger, who 
 was the author of several popular farces. ] 
 
 [^ John O'Keefe (1747-1833), Irish dramatist, the author of a large 
 number of comedies and farces.] 
 
 151
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 I speak of my own feelings, and at a particular time 
 of life ; but forty or fifty years ago people of all times 
 of life were much greater playgoers than they are now. 
 They dined earlier, they had not so many newspapers, 
 clubs, and pianofortes ; the French Revolution only 
 tended at first to endear the nation to its own habits ; 
 it had not yet opened a thousand new channels of 
 thought and interest ; nor had railroads conspired to 
 carry people, bodily as well as mentally, into as many 
 analogous directions. Everything was more concen- 
 trated, and the various classes of society felt a greater 
 concern in the same amusements. Nobility, gentry, 
 citizens, princes — all w^ere frequenters of theatres, and 
 even more or less acquainted personally with the per- 
 formers. Nobility intermarried with them ; gentry, 
 and citizens too, wrote for them ; princes conversed 
 and lived with them. Sheridan, and other members of 
 Parliament, were managers as w^ell as dramatists. It 
 was Lords Derby, ^ Craven,^ and Thurlow ^ that sought 
 wives on the stage. Two of the most popular minor 
 dramatists were Cobb,* a clerk in the India House, and 
 Birch,* the pastrycook. If Mrs. Jordan lived with the 
 Duke of Clarence (William IV.) as his mistress, nobody 
 doubts that she was as faithful to him as a wife. His 
 brother, the Prince of Wales (George the Fourth) 
 besides his intimacy with Sheridan and the younger 
 Coleman, and to say nothing of Mrs. Robinson,^ took a 
 pleasure in conversing with Kemble, and was the pre- 
 sonal patron of O'Keefe and of Kelly. The Kembles, 
 
 [' Eliza Farren (1750-1829) married the Earl of Derby, 1797.] 
 
 [2 Louisa Brunton (? 1785-1860) retired from the stage in 1807 on 
 becoming the wife of William, seventh baron, and first Earl of 
 Craven,] 
 
 [3 Edward Howell-Thurlow, second Baron Thvirlow (1781-1829), 
 married in 1813 Mary Catherine Bolton, an actress of some repute.] 
 
 [* James Cobb (1756-1818), he became secretary to the India 
 Company.] 
 
 [^ Samuel Birch (1757-1841), owner of the well-known business in 
 Cornhill. His plays were frequently produced at Covent Garden, 
 Drury Lane and the Haymarket.] 
 
 [^ Mary Robinson (1758-1800), n^e Darby, an actress of great 
 beauty. Her portrait by Gainsborough, as Perdita in the Winter's 
 Tale, is well known. It was while playing that character she first 
 attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales.] 
 
 152
 
 PLAYGOING AND VOLUNTEERS 
 
 indeed, as Garrick had been, were received everywhere 
 among the truly best circles ; that is to say, where 
 intelligence was combined with high breeding ; and 
 they deserved it : for whatever difference of opinion 
 may be entertained as to the amount of genius in the 
 family, nobody who recollects them will dispute that 
 they were a remarkable race, dignified and elegant in 
 manners, with intellectual tendencies, and in point of 
 aspect very like what has been called " God Almighty'^, 
 nobility." 
 
 I remember once standing behind John Kemble and 
 a noble lord at a sale. It was the celebrated book sale, 
 of the Duke of Roxburgh ; ^ and by the same token 11 
 recollect another person that was present, of whom- 
 more by-and-by. The player and the nobleman were 
 conversing, the former in his high, dignified tones, the 
 latter in a voice which I heard but indistinctly. Presently 
 the actor turned his noble profile to his interlocutor, and 
 on his moving it back again, the man of quality turned 
 his ! What a difference ! and what a voice ! Kemble's 
 voice was none of the best ; but, like his profile, it was 
 nobleness itself compared with that of the noble lord. 
 I had taken his lordship for a young man, by the trim 
 cut of his body and of his clothes, the " fall in " of his 
 back, and the smart way in which he had stuck his hat 
 on the top of his head ; but when I saw his profile and 
 heard his voice, I seemed to have before me a prema- 
 ture old one. His mouth seemed toothless ; his voice 
 was a hasty mumble. Without being aquiline, the face 
 had the appearance of being what may be called an old 
 " nose-and-mouth face." The suddenness with which it 
 spoke added to the surprise. It was like a flash of 
 decrepitude on the top of a young body. 
 
 This was the sale at which the unique copy of; 
 Boccaccio fetched a thousand and four hundred pounds.! 
 It was bought by the Marquis of Blandford (the late? 
 Duke of Marlborough) in competition with Earl Spencer, j 
 who conferred with his son. Lord Althorp, and gave it ' 
 up. So at least I understand, for I was not aware of 
 
 [* This sale of the library of John Ker, Duke of Roxburgh, took 
 place in 1812.] 
 
 153
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the oonforence, or of the presence of Lord Althorp 
 (afterwards minister, and late Earl Spencer). I remem- 
 ber his father well at the sale, and how he sat at the 
 farther end of the auctioneer's table, with an air of 
 intelligent indiiYerence, leaning his head on his hand so 
 as to push his hat up a little from off it. I beheld with 
 pleasure in his person the pupil of Sir William Jones ^ 
 and brother of Coleridge's Duchess of Devonshire.^ It 
 was curious, and scarcely pleasant, to see two Spencers 
 thus bidding against one another, even though the bone 
 of contention was a book ; and the ghost of their illus- 
 trious kinsman, the author of the Faerie Qiceene, might 
 have been gratified to see what book it was, and how 
 high the prices of old folios had risen. Wliat satisfac- 
 tion the Marquis got out of his victory I cannot say. 
 The Earl, who, I believe, was a genuine lover of books, 
 eould go home and reconcile himself to his defeat by 
 Reading the work in a cheaper edition. 
 
 I shall have occasion to speak of Mr. Kemble again 
 presently, and of subsequent actors by-and-by. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 [1804-18081 
 
 I HAD not been as misdirected in the study of prose 
 as in that of poetry. It was many years before I 
 discovered w^hat was requisite in the latter. In the 
 former, the very commonplaces of the schoolmaster 
 tended to put me in the right path, for (as I have 
 already intimated) he found the Spectator in vogue, 
 and this became our standard of prose writing. 
 
 [' Sir William Jones (1746-1795), the eminent scholar and lawyer. 
 He became tutor to Lord Althorp at the age of 19.] 
 
 [* Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806), the famous beauty 
 and political dame, the daughter of John, Earl Spencer ; she married 
 William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire. Coleridge \vrote an ode 
 to her, on a stanza in one of her poems.] 
 
 154
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 It is true (as I have also mentioned) that in conse- 
 quence of the way in which we were taught to use 
 them by the schoolmaster, I had become far more dis- 
 gusted than delighted with the charming papers of 
 Addison, and with the exaction of moral observations 
 on a given subject. But the seed was sown, to ripen 
 under pleasanter circumstances ; and my father, with 
 his usual good-natured impulse, making me a present 
 one day of a set of the British classics, which attracted 
 my eyes on the shelves of Harley, the bookseller in 
 Cavendish Street, the tenderness with which I had 
 come to regard all my school recollections, and the 
 acquaintance which I now made for the first time with 
 the lively papers of the Connoisseur,^ gave me an 
 entirely fresh and delightful sense of the merits of 
 essay-writing. I began to think that when Boyer 
 crumpled up and chucked away my " themes " in a 
 passion, he had not done justice to the honest weariness 
 of my anti-formalities, and to their occasional evidences 
 of something better. 
 
 The consequence was a delighted perusal of the whole 
 set of classics (for I have ever been a " glutton of 
 books ") : and this was followed by my first prose 
 endeavours in a series of papers called the Traveller, 
 which appeared in the evening paper of that name 
 [long since incorporated with the Globe], under the 
 signature of "Mr. Town, junior. Critic and Censor- 
 general " — the senior Mr. Town, with the same titles, 
 being no less a person than my friend of the Connoisseur; 
 with whom I thus had the boldness to fraternize. I 
 offered them with fear and trembling to the editor of 
 the Traveller, Mr. Quin, and was astonished at the 
 gaiety with which he accepted them. What astonished 
 me more was a perquisite of five or six copies of the 
 paper, which I enjoyed every Saturday when my essays 
 appeared, and with which I used to reissue from Bolt 
 
 y Of the Connoisseur (1754-6), Mr. Austin Dobson says that it "was 
 mainly the work of two friends, George Colman and Bonnell Thorn- 
 ton, 1724-1768, the Erckmann-Chatrian of their age. Whether 
 wi'iting separately or together, their style is undistinguishable. 
 They had a few assistants, the most notable of whom were Oowper 
 the poet, and Churchill's friend, the unfortunate Robert Lloyd."] 
 
 15.5
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Court in a state of transport. I had been told, but 
 could not easily ronceive, that the editor of a new 
 evening paper would be happy to fill up his pages w^ith 
 any decent writing ; but Mr. Quin praised me besides ; 
 and I could not behold the long columns of type, w^ritten 
 by myself, in a public paper, without thinking there 
 must be some merit in them, besides that of being a 
 stop-gap. 
 
 Luckily, the essays were little read ; they were not 
 at all noticed in public ; and I thus escaped the perils 
 of another premature laudation for my juvenility. I 
 was not led to repose on the final merits either of my 
 prototype or his imitator. The Connoisseur, neverthe- 
 less, gave me all the transports of a first love. His 
 citizen at Vauxhall, who says, at every mouthful of 
 beef, " There goes twopence " ; and the creed of his 
 unbeliever, who " believes in all unbelief," competed for 
 a long time in my mind with the humour of Goldsmith. 
 I was also greatly delighted with the singular account 
 of himself, in the dual number, with which he concludes 
 his work, shadowing forth the two authors of it in one 
 person : — 
 
 "Mr. Town" (says he) "is a fair, black, middle-sized, very short 
 person. He wears his own hair, and a periwig. He is about thirty 
 years of age, and not more than four-and-twenty. He is a student 
 of the law and a bachelor of physic. He was bred at the University 
 of Oxford ; where, having taken no less than three degrees, he looks 
 down on many learned professors as his inferiors ; yet, having been 
 there but little longer than to take the first degree of bachelor of 
 arts, it has more than once happened that the censor-general of all 
 England has been reprimanded by the censor of his college for 
 neglecting to furnish the usual essay, or (in the collegiate phrase) 
 the theme of the week." 
 
 Probably these associations with school-terms, and 
 with a juvenile time of life, gave me an additional 
 liking for the Connoisseur. The twofold author, which 
 he thus describes himself, consisted of Bonnell Thornton, 
 afterwards the translator of Plautus, and Colman, the 
 dramatist, author of the Jealous Wife, and translator 
 of Terence. Colman was the " very short person " of 
 four-and-twenty, and Thornton w^as the bachelor of 
 physic, though he never practised. The humour of 
 these writers, compared with Goldsmith's, was carica- 
 
 156
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 ture, and not deep ; they had no pretensions to the 
 genius of the Vicar of Wakefield ; but they possessed 
 great animal spirits, which are a sort of merit in this 
 climate ; and this was another claim on my regard. 
 The name of Bonnell Thornton (whom I had taken to 
 be the sole author of the Connoisseur) was for a long 
 time, with me, another term for animal spirits, humour, 
 and wit. I then discovered that there was more smart- 
 ness in him than depth ; and had I known that he and 
 Colman had ridiculed the odes of Gray, I should, per- 
 haps, have made the discovery sooner ; though I w^as 
 by no means inclined to confound parody with dis- 
 respect. But the poetry of Gray had been one of my 
 first loves ; and I could as soon have thought of friend- 
 ship or of the grave with levity, as of the friend of 
 West,^ and the author of the Elegy and the Bard. 
 
 An amusing story is told of Thornton, which may 
 show^ the quick and ingenious, but, perhaps, not very - 
 feeling turn of his mind. It is said that he was once i; 
 discovered by his father sitting in a box at the theatre, | 
 when he ought to have been in his rooms at college. 
 The old gentleman addressing him accordingly, that! 
 youngster turned in pretended amazement to thei 
 people about him, and said, " Smoke old wigsby, who^ 
 takes me for his son." Thornton, senior, upon this, 
 indignantly hastens out of the box, with the manifest 
 intention of setting off for Oxford, and finding the 
 rooms vacant. Thornton, junior, takes double post- 
 horses, and is there before him, quietly sitting in his 
 chair. He rises from it on his father's appearance, and 
 cries, " Ah ! dear sir, is it you ? To what am I indebted 
 for this unexpected pleasure ? " 
 
 Goldsmith enchanted me. I knew no end of repeat- 
 ing passages out of the Essays and the Citizen of the 
 World — such as the account of the Club, with its Babel 
 of talk ; of Beau Tibbs, with his dinner of ox-cheek 
 which " his grace was so fond of" ; and of the wooden- 
 legged sailor, who regarded those that were lucky ; 
 enough to have their " legs shot off " on board king's 
 
 [' Gilbert West (1716-1756), the editor of Pindar, and the friend 
 and correspondent of Thomas Gray.] 
 
 157
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 sliips (whit'h oTititled them to a penny a day), as being 
 " horn witli golden spoons in their mouths." Then 
 there was his correct, sweet style ; the village-painting 
 in his poems ; the Itetaliation, which, though on an 
 artificial subject, seemed to me (as it yet seems) a still 
 more genuine effusion ; and, above all, the Vicar of 
 Wakefield — with Burchell, whom I adored ; and Moses, 
 whom I would rather have been cheated with, than 
 prosper ; and the Vicar himself in his cassock, now 
 presenting his " Treatise against Polygamy " (in the 
 family picture) to his w^ife, habited as Venus ; and now 
 distracted for the loss of his daughter Olivia, who is 
 seduced by the villanous squire. I knew not whether 
 to laugh at him, or cry w^ith him most. 
 
 These, with Fielding and Smollett, Voltaire, Charlotte 
 
 Smith,* Bage,^Mrs. Radcliffe,and AugustusLa Fontaine,^ 
 
 were my favourite prose authors. I had subscribed, 
 
 while at school, to the famous circulating library in 
 
 Leadenhall Street,^ and I have continued to be such a 
 
 glutton of novels ever since, that, except where they 
 
 .. repel me in the outset w^ith excessive w^ordiness, I can 
 
 \ read their three-volume enormities to this day without 
 
 i skipping a syllable ; though I guess pretty nearly all 
 
 'i that is going to happen, from the mysterious gentleman 
 
 '^, who opens the work in the dress of a particular century, 
 
 I down to the distribution of punishments and the drying 
 
 v; up of tears in the last chapter. I think the authors 
 
 \ w^onderfuUy clever people, particularly those w^ho write 
 
 ';' most ; and I should like the most contemptuous of their 
 
 I critics to try their hands at doing something half as 
 
 I engaging. 
 
 \ Should any chance observer of these pages (for I look 
 
 \ upon my customary perusers as people of deeper insight) 
 
 pronounce such a course of reading frivolous, he w^ill 
 
 be exasperated to hear that, had it not been for rever- 
 
 ^ence to opinion, I should have been much inclined at 
 
 [' Charlotte Smith (1749-1806), author of several novels and a series 
 of " Elegiac Sonnets."] 
 
 [2 Robert Bage (172&-1801), novelist.] 
 
 [^ Henry Julius Augustus Lafontaine (1756-1831), a German 
 novelist.] 
 
 [* The Minerva Press of William Lane.] 
 
 158
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 that age (as, indeed, I am still) to pronounce the reading ^ 
 of far graver works frivolous ; history, for one. I read 1 
 every history that came in my way, and could not help? 
 liking good old Herodotus, ditto Villani, picturesque,;] 
 festive Froissart, and accurate and most entertaining, | 
 though artificial, Gibbon. But the contradiction of' 
 historians in general, their assumption of a dignity for 
 which I saw no particular grounds, their unphilosophic \ 
 and ridiculous avoidance (on that score) of personal 
 anecdote, and, above all, the narrow-minded and time- 
 serving confinement of their subjects to wars and 
 party-government (for there are time-servings, as there 
 are fashions, that last for centuries), instinctively re-| 
 pelled me. I felt, though I did not know, till Fielding! 
 told me, that there was more truth in the verisimilitudes| 
 of fiction than in the assumptions of history ; and I 
 rejoiced over the story told of Sir Walter Raleigh, who, 
 on receiving I forget how many different accounts o^, 
 an incident that occurred under his own windows,? 
 laughed at the idea of his writing a History of thek 
 World. I 
 
 But the writer who made the greatest impression on| 
 me was Voltaire. I did not read French at that time, ^ 
 but I fell in with the best translation of some of his' 
 miscellaneous works ; and I found in him not only the 
 original of much which I had admired in the style and 
 pleasantry of my favourite native authors, Goldsmith/ 
 in particular (who adored him), but the most formid-| 
 able antagonist of absurdities which the world has'^l 
 seen ; a discloser of lights the most overwhelming, in^ 
 flashes of wit ; a destroyer of the strongholds of super- ,^ 
 stition, that were never to be built up again, let thef 
 hour of renovation seem to look forth again as it might, 
 I was transported with the gay courage and unquestion- - 
 able humanity of this extraordinary person, and I soon?* 
 caught the tone of his cunning implications and pro- 
 voking turns. He did not frighten me. I never felt 
 for a moment, young as I was, and Christianly brought 
 up, that true religion would suffer at his hands. On 
 the contrary, I had been bred up (in my home circle) 
 to look for reforms in religion : I had been led to desire 
 
 159
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 tlie best and f^ontlost form of it, unattended with threats 
 and horrors : and if the school orthodoxy did not 
 countenance such expectations, it took no pains to dis- 
 countenance them. I had privately accustomed myself, 
 of my own further motion, to doubt and reject every 
 doctrine, and every statement of facts, that went 
 counter to the plainest precepts of love, and to the 
 final happiness of all the creatures of God. I could 
 never see, otherwise, what Christianity could mean, 
 that was not meant by a hundred inferior religions ; nor 
 could I think it right and holy to accept of the great- 
 est hopes, apart from that universality — Fiat justitia, 
 mat cceluin. I was prepared to give up heaven itself 
 (as far as it is possible for human hope to do so) rather 
 than that anything so unheavenly as a single exclusion 
 from it should exist. Therefore, to me, Voltaire was a 
 putter down of a great deal that was wrong, but of 
 nothing that was right. I did not take him for a 
 builder ; neither did I feel that he knew much of the 
 sanctuary which w^as inclosed in what he pulled down. 
 He found a heap of rubbish pretending to be the shrine 
 itself, and he set about denying its pretensions and 
 abating it as a nuisance, w^ithout knowing, or consider- 
 ing (at least I thought so) w^hat there remained of 
 beauty and durability, to be disclosed on its demolition. 
 I fought for him, then and afterwards, with those who 
 challenged me to the combat ; and I w^as for some time 
 driven to take myself for a Deist in the most ordinary 
 sense of the word, till I had learned to know what a 
 Christian truly was, and so arrived at opinions on 
 religious matters in general which I shall notice at the 
 conclusion of these volumes. 
 
 It is a curious circumstance respecting the books of 
 Voltaire — the greatest writer upon the whole that 
 France has produced, and undoubtedly the greatest 
 name in the eighteenth century — that to this moment 
 they are far less known in England than talked of ; 
 so much so, that, with the exception of a few educated 
 circles, chiefly of the upper class, and exclusively among 
 the men even in those, he had not only been hardly 
 read at all, even by such as have talked of him with 
 
 160
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 admiration, or loaded him with reproach, but the 
 portions of his writings that have had the greatest 
 effect on the world are the least known among readers 
 the most popularly acquainted with him. The reasons 
 of this remarkable ignorance respecting so great a 
 neighbour — one of the movers of the world, and an 
 especial admirer of England — are to be found, first, in 
 the exclusive and timid spirit, under the guise of 
 strength which came up with the accession of George 
 the Third ; second, as a consequence of this spirit, a 
 studious ignoring of the Frenchman in almost all 
 places of education, the colleges and foundations in par- 
 ticular ; third, the anti-Gallican spirit which followed 
 and exasperated the prejudice against the French Revo- 
 lution ; and fourth, the very translation and popularity 
 of two of his novels, the Candide and Zadig, which, 
 though by no means among his finest productions, had 
 yet enough wit and peculiarity to be accepted as suffi- 
 cing specimens of him, even by his admirers. Unfor- 
 tunately one of these, the Candide, contained some of 
 his most licentious and even revolting writing. This 
 enabled his enemies to adduce it as a sufficing specimen 
 on their own side of the question ; and the idea of 
 him which they succeeded in imposing upon the 
 English community in general was that of a mere; 
 irreligious scoffer, who was opposed to everything' 
 good and serious, and who did but mingle a little 
 frivolous wit with an abundance of vexatious, hard- 
 hearted, and disgusting effrontery. 
 
 There is, it is true, a version, purporting to be that 
 of his whole works, by Smollett, Thomas Francklin,^ 
 and others, which is understood to have been what 
 is called a bookseller's job ; but I never met with : 
 it except in an old catalogue ; and I believe it was so ' 
 dull and bad, that readers instinctively recoiled from 
 it as an incredible representation of anything lively. 
 The probability is, that Smollett only lent his name ; 
 and Francklin himself may have done as little, though ^ 
 the " translator of Sophocles " (as he styled himself) ■ 
 
 [' Thomas Francklin (1721-1784), Professor of Greek at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. Translator of Ltician and other classics.] 
 
 161 M
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 was well enough qualified to misrepresent any kind 
 of genius. 
 
 Be this as it may, I have hardly ever met, even in 
 literary circles, with persons who knew anything of 
 Voltaire, except through the medium of these two 
 novels, and of later school editions of his two histories 
 of Charles the Twelfth and Peter the Great : books 
 which teachers of all sorts in his own country have 
 been gradually compelled to admit into their courses 
 of reading by national pride and the imperative 
 growth of option. Voltaire is one of the three great 
 tragic writers of France, and excels in pathos ; yet 
 not one Englishman in a thousand knows a syllable 
 of his tragedies, or would do anything but stare to 
 hear of his pathos. Voltaire inducted his countrymen 
 into a knowledge of English science and metaphysics, 
 nay, even of English poetry ; yet Englishmen have 
 been told little about him in connection with them, 
 except of his disagreements wdth Shakspeare. Voltaire 
 created a fashion for English thinking, manner, and 
 policy, and fell in love with the simplicity and truthful- 
 ness of their very Quakers : and yet, I will venture to 
 say, the English knew far less of all this than they do 
 of a licentious poem wath which he degraded his 
 better nature in burlesquing the history of Joan of 
 Arc. 
 
 There are, it is admitted, two sides to the character 
 of Voltaire ; one licentious, merely scoffing, sadden- 
 ing, defective in sentiment, and therefore wanting 
 the inner clue of the beautiful to guide him out of 
 the labyrinth of scorn and perplexity ; all owing, be it 
 observed, to the errors which he found prevailing in 
 his youth, and to the impossible demands which they 
 made on his acquiescence ; but the other side of his 
 character is moral, cheerful, beneficent, prepared to 
 encounter peril, nay, actually encountering it, in the 
 only true Christian causes, those of toleration and 
 charity, and raising that voice of demand for the ad- 
 vancement of reason and justice w^hich is now growing 
 into the whole voice of Europe. He was the only man 
 perhaps that ever existed who represented in his single 
 
 162
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 person the entire character, with one honourable excep- 1 
 tion (for he was never sanguinary), of the nation in| 
 which he w^as born ; nay, of its whole history, past, , 
 present, and to come. He had the licentiousness of the 
 old monarchy under w^hich he was bred, the cosmop- 
 olite ardour of the Revolution, the science of the 
 Consulate and the " savans," the unphilosophic love of 
 glory of the Empire, the worldly wisdom (without 
 pushing it into folly) of Louis Philippe, and the change- 
 ful humours, the firmness, the weakness, the flourishing 
 declamation, the sympathy w^ith the poor, the bonhomie^ 
 the unbounded hopes of the best actors in the extraor-^ 
 dinary scenes acted before the eyes of Europe in 
 these last ten years. As he himself could not 
 construct as well as he could pull down, so neither do 
 his countrymen, w^ith all the goodness and greatness 
 among them, appear to be less truly represented by 
 him in that particular than in others ; but in pulling 
 down he had the same vague desire of the best that 
 could be set up ; and when he was most thought to 
 oppose Christianity itself, he only did it out of an. 
 impatient desire to see the law of love triumph- 
 ant, and was only thought to be the adversary of 
 its spirit, because his revilers knew nothing of it; 
 themselves. ^ 
 
 Voltaire, in an essay written by himself in the English 
 language, has said of Milton, in a passage which would 
 do honour to our best writers, that when the poet saw 
 the Adamo of Andre ini at Florence, he " pierced through 
 the absurdity of the plot to the hidden majesty of the 
 subject." It may be said of himself, that he pierced 
 through the conventional majesty of a great many 
 subjects, to the hidden absurdity of the plot. He laid 
 the axe to a heap of savage abuses ; pulled the corner- 
 stones out of dungeons and inquisitions ; bowed and 
 mocked the most tyrannical absurdities out of counte- 
 nance ; and raised one prodigious peal of laughter at 
 superstition, from Naples to the Baltic. He was the 
 first man who got the power of opinion and common 
 sense openly recognized as a reigning authority ; and 
 who made the acknowledgement of it a point of wit 
 
 163
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 and cunning, even with those who had hitherto thought 
 tliey had the world to themselves. 
 
 An abridgment that I picked up of the Philosophi- 
 cal Dictionary (a translation) ^ was for a long while 
 ray text-book, both for opinion and style. I was also a 
 great admirer of L'Ingenu, or the Sincere Huron, and of 
 the Essay on the Philosophy of History. In the char- 
 acter of the Sincere Huron I thought I found a resem- 
 blance to my own, as most readers do in those of their 
 favourites : and this piece of self-love helped me to 
 discover as much good-heartedness in Voltaire as I dis- 
 cerned wit. Candide, I confess, I could not like. I 
 enjoyed passages ; but the laughter was not as good- 
 humoured as usual ; there was a view of things in it 
 which I never entertained then or afterwards, and into 
 which the author had been led, rather in order to pro- 
 voke Leibnitz, than because it was natural to him ; and, 
 to crown my unwilling dislike, the book had a coarse- 
 ness, apart from graceful and pleasurable ideas, w^hich 
 I have never been able to endure. There were passages 
 in the abridgment of the Philosophical Dictionary 
 which I always passed over ; but the rest delighted me 
 beyond measure. I can repeat things out of it now. 
 
 It must have been about the time of my first 
 acquaintance with Voltaire, that I became member, for 
 a short time, of a club of young men, who associated 
 for the purpose of cultivating public speaking. With 
 the exception of myself, I believe the whole of them 
 were students at law ; but, to the best of my 
 recollection, the subjects they discussed were as 
 miscellaneous as if they w^ere of no profession ; 
 though the case probably became otherwise, as their 
 powers advanced. At all events I did not continue 
 long w^ith them, my entrance into the club having 
 mainly originated in a wish to please my friend Barron 
 Field,^ and public speaking not being one of my objects 
 
 {' There was an abridgment of the Philosophical Dictionary pub- 
 lished in one voliune in 1802. It is described on the title-page as " A 
 new correct edition with notes, containing a refutation of such pas- 
 sages as are any way exceptional in regard to religion."] 
 
 [* Barron Field (1786-1846), at one time a judge in the Supreme 
 Court at Sydney, N.S.W. He was the author of some poetry, and 
 
 164
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 in life. It might have been much to my benefit if it 
 had ; for it would in all probability have sooner rid me 
 of my stammering, and delivered me from my fear of 
 it among strangers and in the presence of assembled 
 audiences ; an anxiety, of which I have never been able 
 to get rid, and which has deprived me of serious ad- 
 vantages. Far different was the case with another 
 member of the club, Thomas Wilde, ^ then an attorney 
 in Castle Street, Falcon Square, afterwards Lord Chan- 
 cellor, and a peer of the realm. Wilde had an impedi- 
 ment in his speech, which he inflexibly determined to 
 mend : an underhung jaw and a grave and fixed ex- 
 pression of countenance seemed constantly to picture 
 this resolution to me, as I beheld him. The world has 
 seen how^ well he succeeded. Another member of the 
 club, who had no such obstacle to surmount, but who 
 might have been diverted from success by wider intel- 
 lectual sympathies and the very pleasurableness of his 
 nature, conquered those perils by an energy still more 
 admirable, and is the present Lord Chief Baron Pollock.^ 
 My friend Field himself, though suffering under a state 
 of health w^hich prevented his growing old, became a 
 judge in the colonies ; and very likely I should have 
 more honours of the club to refer to, had I known it 
 longer. I can with truth aver, that however much I 
 admired the energy of Wilde, and have more than ad- 
 mired that of the Chief Baron (of whose legal as well as 
 general knowledge, the former, if I am not mistaken, 
 was in the habit of taking friendly counsel to the last), 
 my feeling towards them, as far as ambition was con- 
 cerned, never degenerated into envy. My path was 
 chosen before I knew them ; my entire inclinations 
 were in it ; and I never in my life had any personal am- 
 
 the friend to whom Lamb inscribed his essay, " Distant Correspon- 
 dents."] 
 
 [1 Sir Thomas Wilde (1789-1855), afterwards Lord Truro. He was 
 nominated Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1846, and be- 
 came Lord Chancellor in 1850, under the administration of Lord 
 John Russell.] 
 
 [2 Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. (1783-1870). Twice Attorney Gene- 
 ral, in 1834 and 1841 ; he succeeded Lord Abinger as Lord Chief Baron 
 of the Court of Exchequer in 1841, and on his retirement, in 1866, 
 was created a Baronet.] 
 
 165
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 bitioTi whatsoever, but that of adding to the list of 
 iiuthors, and doing some good as a cosmopolite. Often, 
 it is true, when I considered my family, have I wished 
 that the case could have been otherwise, and the cos- 
 mopolitism still not ineffectual ; nor do 1 mean to cast 
 the slightest reflection on the views, personal or other- 
 wise, of the many admirable and estimable men who 
 have adorned the bench in our courts of law. My 
 reverence, indeed, for the character of the British 
 judge, notwithstanding a few monstrous exceptions in 
 former times, and one or two subsequently of a very 
 minor kind, is of so deep a nature, that I can never dis- 
 associate the feeling from their persons, however social 
 and familiar it may please the most amiable of them to 
 be in private. I respected as well as loved my dear 
 friend Talfourd ^ more and more to the last ; entertain 
 the like sentiments for others, of whose acquaintance, 
 while living, it would not become me openly to boast ; 
 and believe it would have been impossible for them to 
 have done better or more nobly for the world as well as 
 for themselves, than by obeying the inclination which 
 took them where they ascended. Under these circum- 
 stances, it will be considered, I trust, neither indecorous 
 nor invidious in me if I close these legal reminiscences 
 with relating, that having, when I was young, been 
 solemnly rebuked one evening in company by a subse- 
 quently eminent person of my own age, now^ dead, and 
 of no remarkable orthodoxy, for making what he pro- 
 nounced to be an irreverent remark on a disputed point 
 of Mosaic history, I said to a friend of mine on coming 
 
 away, " Now mark me, B , so and so (naming him) 
 
 will go straight up the high road to preferment, while 
 I shall as surely be found in the opposite direction." 
 i Besides Voltaire and the Connoisseur, I was very fond 
 \ at that time of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and a great 
 I reader of Pope. My admiration of the Rape of the 
 \ Lock led me to write a long mock-heroic poem, entitled 
 
 [^ Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1858) was nominated a Justice 
 of the Common Pleas in 1848, and knighted. He was the author 
 of several dramatic pieces, and w^as one of Charles Lamb's literary 
 executors. He died suddenly on the Bench while addressing a jury.] 
 
 166
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 the Battle of the Bridal Ring, the subject of which was 
 a contest between two rival orders of spirits, on whom 
 to bestow a lady in marriage. I venture to say, that it 
 would have been well spoken of by the critics, and was 
 not worth a penny. I recollect one couplet, which will 
 serve to show how I mimicked the tone of my author. 
 It was an apostrophe to Mantua, — 
 
 " Mantua, of great and small the long renown, 
 That now a Virgil giv'st, and now a gown." 
 
 Dryden, I read, too, but not with that relish for his | 
 nobler versification which I afterwards acquired. To! 
 dramatic reading, with all my love of the theatre, l| 
 have already mentioned my disinclination ; yet, in thej 
 interval of my departure from school, and of my get- 5 
 ting out of my teens, I wrote two farces, a comedy and j 
 a tragedy ; and the plots of them all (such as they were) | 
 w^ere inventions. The hero of my tragedy was the Earl % 
 of Surrey (Howard, the poet), who was put to death I 
 by Henry the Eighth. I forget what the comedy wasf 
 upon. The title of one of the farces was the Beaul 
 Miser which may explain the nature of it. The other* 
 was called A Hundred a Year, and turned upon a| 
 hater of the country, who, upon having an annuity to| 
 that amount given him, on condition of his never going; 
 out of London, becomes a hater of the town. In the 
 last scene, his annuity died a jovial death in a country 
 tavern ; the bestower entering the room just as my 
 hero had got on a table, with a glass in his hand, to 
 drink confusion to the metropolis. All these pieces 
 were, I doubt not, as bad as need be. About thirty 
 years ago, being sleepless one night with a fit of en- 
 thusiasm, in consequence of reading about the Spanish 
 play of the Cid, in Lord Holland's Life of Guillen de 
 Castro,^ I determined to write a tragedy on the same 
 subject, which was accepted at Drury Lane. Perhaps 
 the conduct of this piece was not without merit, the 
 conclusion of each act throwing the interest into the 
 
 [» Richard Henry Vassall Fox, 3rd Lord Holland (1773-1840). The 
 Life of Guillen de Castro was published in 1817, with a reprint of 
 Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega.] 
 
 167
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 succeeding one : but I had great doubts of all the rest 
 of it ; and on receiving it from Mr. Elliston to make 
 an alteration in the third act, very judiciously proposed 
 by him, I looked the whole of the play over again, and 
 convinced myself it was unfit for the stage. I therefore 
 withheld it. I had painted my hero too after the beau- 
 ideal of a modern reformer, instead of the half-godlike, 
 half-bigoted soldier that he was. I began afterwards 
 to recast the play, but grew tired and gave it up. The 
 Cid would make a delicious character for the stage, or 
 in any work ; not, indeed, as Corneille declaimed him, 
 nor as inferior writers might adapt him to the reigning 
 taste ; but taken, I mean, as he was, with the noble im- 
 pulses he received from nature, the drawbacks with 
 which a bigoted age qualified them, and the social and 
 open-hearted pleasantry (not the least evidence of his 
 nobleness) w^hich brings forth his heart, as it were, in 
 flashes through the stern armour. But this would 
 require a strong hand, and readers capable of grappling 
 with it. In the mean time, they should read of him in 
 Mr. Southey's Chronicle of the Cid (an admirable sum- 
 mary from the old Spanish writers), and in the delight- 
 ful verses at the end of it, translated from an old 
 Spanish poem by Mr. Hookham Frere,^ with a trium- 
 phant force and fidelity, that you feel to be true to the 
 original at once. 
 
 About the period of my writing the above essays, cir- 
 cumstances introduced me to the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Bell,^ the proprietor of the Weekly Messenger. In his 
 house in the Strand I used to hear of politics and dra- 
 matic criticism, and of the persons who wrote them. 
 Mr. Bell had been well known as a bookseller, and a 
 speculator in elegant typography. It is to him the 
 public are indebted for the small edition of the Poets 
 that preceded Cooke's, and which, with all my predilec- 
 tions for that work, was unquestionably superior to 
 it. Besides, it included Chaucer and Spenser. The 
 
 [1 John Hookham Frere (1769-1S46). Southey's book, which 
 appeared in 1808, contains three of Frere's translations.] 
 
 [2 John Bell (174&-1831). Bell was also one of the proprietors of 
 the Morning Post.] 
 
 168
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 omission of these in Cooke's edition was as unpoetical 
 a sign of the times, as the present familiarity with 
 their names is the reverse. It was thought a mark of 
 good sense : — as if good sense, in matters of literature, 
 did not consist as much in knowing what w^as poetical in 
 poetry, as brilliant in wit. Bell was upon the whole a 
 remarkable person. He was a plain man, w^ith a red 
 face, and a nose exaggerated by intemperance ; and yet 
 there was something not unpleasing in his countenance, 
 especially when he spoke. He had sparkling black eyes, a 
 good-natured smile, gentlemanly manners, and one of the 
 most agreeable voices I ever heard. He had no acquire- 
 ments, perhaps not even grammar; but his taste in 
 putting forth a publication, and getting the best artists 
 to adorn it, was new in those times, and may be ad- 
 mired in any ; and the same taste was observable in his 
 house. He knew nothing of poetry. He thought the 
 Delia Cruscans ^ fine people, because they w^ere known 
 in the circles ; and for Milton's Paradise Lost he had 
 the same epithet as for Mrs. Crouch's face, or the phae- 
 ton of Major Topham : he thought it "pretty." Yet 
 a certain liberal instinct, and turn for large dealing, 
 made him include Chaucer and Spenser in his edition ; 
 he got Stothard to adorn the one, and Mortimer the 
 other ; and in the midst, I suspect, of very equivocal 
 returns, issued a British Theatre with embellishments, 
 and a similar edition of the plays of Shakspeare — the 
 incorrectest publication, according to Mr. Chalmers, 
 that ever issued from the press. 
 
 Unfortunately for Mr. Bell, he had as great a taste 
 for neat wines and ankles as for pretty books ; and, to 
 crown his misfortunes, the Prince of Wales, to whotti 
 he was bookseller, once did him the honour to partake 
 of an entertainment, or refreshment (I forget w^hich, 
 most probably the latter), at his house. He afterwards 
 became a bankrupt. He was one of those men whose 
 temperament and turn of enjoyment throw a sort of 
 
 [^ The Delia Cruscans were a group of poetasters (mostly resident 
 in Florence), which included Robert Merry, Mrs. Piozzi and Hannah 
 Cowley. The British Album of 1789, one of Bell's publications, 
 contained much of their work.] 
 
 169
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 jjjrace over whatsoever they do, standing them in stead 
 of everything but prudence, and sometimes even sup- 
 plying them with the consolations which prudence has 
 forfeited. After his bankruptcy he set up a newspaper, 
 whicli became profitable to everybody but himself. He 
 iiad become so used to lawyers and bailiffs, that the 
 more his concerns flourished, the more his debts flour- 
 ished with him. It seemed as if he would have been 
 too happy without them ; too exempt from the cares 
 that beset the prudent. The first time I saw him he 
 was standing in a chemist's shop, waiting till the road 
 was clear for him to issue forth. He had a toothache, 
 for which he held a handkerchief over his mouth ; and, 
 while he kept a sharp look-out with his bright eye, was 
 alternately groaning in a most gentlemanly manner 
 over his gums, and addressing some polite words to the 
 shopman. I had not been introduced to him, and did 
 not know his person ; so that the effect of his voice 
 upon me was unequivocal. I liked him for it, and 
 wished the bailiff at the devil. ^ 
 
 In the office of the Weekly Messenger, I saw one day 
 a person who looked the epitome of squalid authorship. 
 He was wretchedly dressed and dirty; and the rain, as 
 he took off his hat, came away from it as from a spout. 
 This was a man of the name of Badini, who had been 
 
 ; * An intelligent compositor (Mr, J. P. S. Bicknell), who has been 
 j|a noter of curious passages in his time, informs me, that Bell was 
 *the first printer who confined the small letter s to its present shape, 
 jiand rejected altogether the older form /. He tells me, that his inne- 
 rvation, besides the handsomer form of the new letter, was " a boon 
 ^ to both master-printers and the compositor, inasmuch as it lessened 
 f the amount of capital necessary to be laid out under the old system, 
 and saved to the workman no small portion of his valuable time 
 and labour." 
 
 My informant adds, as a curious instance of conservative ten- 
 dency on small points, that Messrs. Rivington having got as far- as 
 three sheets, on a work of a late Bishop of Durham, in which the new 
 plan had been adopted, the Bishop sent back the sheets, in order to 
 have the old letter restored, which compelled the booksellers to get 
 a new supply from the type-foundry, the fount containing the 
 venerable /having been thrown away. 
 
 Mr. Bicknell also informs me, that when Bell set up his news- 
 paper, the Weekly Messenger (which had a wood-cut at the top of it, 
 of a newsman blowing his horn), he is said to have gone to masquer- 
 ade in the newsman's character, and distributed prospectuses to the 
 company. 
 
 170
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 poet at the Opera, and was then editor of the Messenger.] 
 He was afterwards sent out of the country under thej 
 Alien Act, and became reader of the English papers] 
 to Bonaparte. His intimacy w^ith some of the first ^ 
 families in the country, among whom he had been a; 
 teacher, is supposed to have been of use to the French | 
 Government. He wrote a good idiomatic English style, | 
 and was a man of abilities. I had never before seen a % 
 poor author, such as are described in books ; and the :i 
 spectacle of the reality startled me. Like most authors, | 
 however, who are at once very poor and very clever, ^! 
 his poverty was his own fault. When he received any | 
 money he disappeared, and was understood to spend it ;| 
 in alehouses. We heard that in Paris he kept his | 
 carriage. I have since met with authors of the same | 
 squalid description ; but they were destitute of ability, i. 
 and had no more right to profess literature as a trade v 
 than alchemy. It is from these that the common | 
 notions about the tribe are taken. One of them, poor | 
 fellow ! might have cut a figure in Smollett. He was a | 
 proper ideal author, in rusty black, out at elbows, | 
 thin and pale. He brought me an ode about an eagle ; | 
 for which the publisher of a magazine, he said, had had | 
 the " inhumanity " to offer him half-a-crown. His neces- ■), 
 sity for money he did not deny ; but his great anxiety | 
 was to know whether, as a poetical composition, his ode J 
 was not worth more. " Is that poetry, sir?" cried he : I 
 " that's what I want to know — is t\isit poetry?" rising | 
 from his chair, and staring and trembling in all the | 
 agony of contested excellence. '* 
 
 My brother John, at the beginning of the year 1805, 
 set up a paper, called the Neivs, and I went to live with 
 him in Brydges Street, and write the theatricals in it. 
 
 [Between quitting the Bluecoat School, and the es- 
 tablishment of the Neivs, Leigh Hunt had been for 
 some time in the law office of his brother Stephen. — 
 T. H.] 
 
 It was the custom at that time for editors of papers 
 to be intimate with actors and dramatists. They were 
 often proprietors, as well as editors ; and, in that case, 
 it was not expected that they should escape the usual 
 
 171
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 j intercourse, or wish to do so. It was thought a feather 
 I in the cap of all parties ; and with their feathers they 
 I tickled one another. The newspaper man had conse- 
 ' quence in the green-room, and plenty of tickets for his 
 friends ; and he dined at amusing tables. The drama- 
 tist secured a good-natured critique in his journal, 
 sometimes got it w^ritten himself, or, according to Mr. 
 Reynolds,^ was even himself the author of it. The 
 actor, if he was of any eminence, stood upon the same 
 ground of reciprocity ; and not to know a pretty 
 actress would have been a want of the knowing in 
 general. Upon new performers, and upon writers not 
 yet introduced, a journalist was more impartial ; and 
 sometimes, where the proprietor w^as in one interest 
 more than another, or for some personal reason grew 
 offended with an actor, or set of actors, a criticism 
 would occasionally be hostile, and even severe. An 
 editor, too, would now and then suggest to his em- 
 ployer the policy of exercising a freer authority, and 
 obtain influence enough with him to show symptoms 
 of it. I believe Bell's editor, who was more clever, was 
 also more impartial than most critics ; though the pub- 
 lisher of the British Theatre, and patron of the Delia 
 Cruscans, must have been hampered with literary inti- 
 macies. The best chance for an editor, who wished to 
 have anything like an opinion of his own, was the 
 appearance of a rival newspaper with a strong theatri- 
 cal connection. Influence was here threatened with 
 diminution. It was to be held up on other grounds ; 
 and the critic was permitted to find out that a bad 
 play was not good, or an actress's petticoat of the law- 
 ful dimensions. 
 
 Puffing and plenty of tickets were, however, the 
 isystem of the day. It was an interchange of amenities 
 over the dinner-table ; a flattery of power on the one 
 side, and puns on the other ; and what the public took 
 for a criticism on a play was a draft upon the box- 
 ' office, or reminiscences of last Thursday's salmon and 
 lobster-sauce. The custom was, to write as short and 
 
 [' Frederic Reynolds (17&4-1841), dramatist, said to have composed 
 nearly one hundred tragedies and comedies.] 
 
 172
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 as favourable a paragraph on the new piece as could | 
 be; to say that Bannister was " excellent " and Mrs. • 
 Jordan "charming"; to notice the "crowded house"; 
 or invent it, if necessary ; and to conclude by observing' 
 that " the whole went off with eclat.'' For the rest, itf 
 was a critical religion in those times to admire Mr.r 
 Kemble : and at the period in question Master Betty ^ ■ 
 had appeared, and been hugged to the hearts of the I 
 tow^n as the young Roscius. I 
 
 We saw that independence in theatrical criticism? 
 would be a great novelty. We announced it, and no- • 
 body believed us ; we stuck to it, and the town believed 
 everything we said. The proprietors of the News, of 
 whom I knew so little that I cannot recollect with cer-.; 
 tainty any one of them, very handsomely left me tof 
 myself. My retired and scholastic habits kept me so i 
 and the pride of Success confirmed my independence 
 with regard to others. I was then in my twentieth 
 year, an early age at that time for a writer. The 
 usual exaggeration of report made me younger than I- 
 was : and after being a " young Roscius " political, I: 
 was now looked upon as one critical. To know^ an 
 actor personally appeared to me a vice not to be' 
 thought of ; and I would as lief have taken poison as.; 
 accepted a ticket from the theatres. | 
 
 Good God ! To think of the grand opinion I had off 
 myself in those days, and what little reason I had for ; 
 it ! Not to accept the tickets was very proper, con- 1 
 sidering that I bestowed more blame than praise.' 
 There was also more good-nature than I supposed in 
 not allowing myself to know any actors ; but the 
 vanity of my position had greater weight with me than 
 anything else, and I must have proved it to discerning 
 eyes by the small quantity of information I brought to , 
 my task, and the ostentation with which I produced it.. 
 I knew almost as little of the drama as the young? 
 
 [' William Henry West Betty (1791-1874) made his appearance on 
 the stage at the age of eleven, and for some five years he enjoyed 
 great popularity. He quitted the stage for a time to study at 
 Cambridge, but afterwards returned in 1812 and finally retired 
 twelve years later.] 
 
 173
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 . Hosc'ius himself. Luckily, I had tho advantage of him 
 ill knowing how unfit he was for his office ; and, pro- 
 (bably, he thought lue as much so, though he could not 
 ^liave argued upon it; for I was in the minority re- 
 specting his merits, and the balance was then trembling 
 on the beam ; the Neics, I believe, hastened the settle- 
 ment of the question. I wish with all my heart we 
 had let him alone, and he had got a little more money. 
 However, he obtained enough to create him a provision 
 for life. His position, which appeared so brilliant at 
 first, had a remarkable cruelty in it. Most men begin 
 life with struggles, and have their vanity sufficiently 
 knocked about the head and shoulders to make their 
 kinder fortunes the more welcome. Mr. Betty had his 
 sugar first, and his physic afterwards. He began life 
 ' with a double childhood, with a new and extraordinary 
 ■felicity added to the natural enjoyments of his age ; 
 ^|:and he lived to see it speedily come to nothing, and to 
 f be taken for an ordinary person. I am told that he 
 "acquiesces in his fate, and agrees that the town were 
 mistaken. If so, he is no ordinary person still, and has 
 as much right to our respect for his good sense, as he 
 is declared on all hands to deserve it for his amiable- 
 ness. I have an anecdote of him to both purposes, 
 which exhibits him in a very agreeable light. Hazlitt 
 happened to be at a party where Mr. Betty was pre- 
 sent ; and in coming away, when they were all putting 
 on their great-coats, the critic thought fit to compli- 
 ment the dethroned favourite of the town, by telling 
 him that he recollected him in old times, and had been 
 " much pleased with him." Betty looked at his me- 
 morialist, as much as to say, " You don't tell me so ! " 
 and then starting into a tragical attitude, exclaimed, 
 *' Oh, memory ! memory ! " 
 
 I was right about Master Betty, and I am sorry for 
 it ; though the town was in fault, not he. I think I 
 was right also about Kemble ; but I have no regret 
 upon that score. He flourished long enough after 
 my attack on his majestic dryness and deliberate 
 nothings ; and Kean ^ would have taken the public 
 [' Edmund Kean (1787-1833). His introduction to the stage took 
 
 174
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 by storm, whether they had been prepared for him , 
 
 or not : > 
 
 l 
 " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. * 
 
 Kemble faded before him, Hke a tragedy ghost. I ] 
 never denied the merits which that actor possessed. ■ 
 He had the look of a Roman ; made a very good ideal, 1 
 though not a very real Coriolanus, for his pride was ' 
 not sufficiently blunt and unaffected : and in parts that ', 
 suited his natural deficiency, such as Penruddock and • 
 the Abbe de I'Epee, would have been altogether admir- 
 able and interesting, if you could have forgotten that 
 their sensibility, in his hands, was not so much re- 
 pressed, as wanting. He was no more to be compared 
 to his sister, than stone is to flesh and blood. There 
 was much of the pedagogue in him. He made a fuss 
 about trifles ; was inflexible on a pedantic reading : in 
 short, was rather a teacher of elocution than an actor ; 
 and not a good teacher, on that account. There was a 
 merit in his idealism, as far as it went. He had, at 
 least, faith in something classical and scholastic, and he 
 made the town partake of it ; but it was all on the sur- 
 face — a hollow trophy : and I am persuaded, that he 
 had no idea in his head but of a stage Roman, and the 
 dignity he added to his profession. i 
 
 But if I was right about Kemble, whose admirers I ( 
 plagued enough, I was not equally so about the living i- 
 dramatists, whom I plagued more. I laid all the defi- j 
 ciencies of the modern drama to their account, and 
 treated them like a parcel of mischievous boys, of ,J 
 whom I was the schoolmaster and whipper-in. I for- f 
 got that it was I who was the boy, and that they knew 
 twenty times more of the world than I did. Not that 
 I mean to say their comedies were excellent, or that ', 
 my commonplaces about the superior merits of Con- ' 
 greve and Sheridan were not well founded ; but there 
 was more talent in their " five-act farce " than I sup- 
 posed ; and I mistook, in a great measure, the defect of 
 
 place at an early age, but his first appearance at a London theatre 
 was at Drury Lane in 1814.] 
 
 175
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the age— its dearth of dramatic character — for that of 
 the writers who were to draw upon it. It is true, a 
 great wit, by a hiborious process, and the help of his 
 acquirements, might extract a play or two from it, 
 as was Sheridan's own case ; but there was a great 
 deal of imitation even in Sheridan, and he w^as fain 
 to help himself to a little originality out of the char- 
 acters of his less formalized countrymen, his own in- 
 cluded. 
 ; It is remarkable, that the three most amusing dra- 
 matists of the last age, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and 
 O'Keefe, were all Irishmen, and all had characters of 
 tlieir own. Sheridan, after all, was Swift's Sheridan ^ 
 come to life again in the person of his grandson, with 
 the oratory of Thomas Sheridan, the father, superadded 
 and brought to bear. Goldsmith, at a disadvantage in 
 his breeding, but full of address with his pen, drew^ 
 upon his own absurdities and mistakes, and filled his 
 dramas with ludicrous perplexity. O'Keefe was all for 
 whim and impulse, but not without a good deal of con- 
 science ; and, accordingly, in his plays we have a sort 
 of young and pastoral taste of life in the very midst of 
 his sophistications. Animal spirits, quips and cranks, 
 credulity, and good intention, are triumphant through- 
 out and make a delicious mixture. It is a great credit 
 to O'Keefe, that he ran sometimes close upon the bor- 
 ders of the sentimental drama, and did it not only with 
 impunity but advantage ; but sprightliness and sincer- 
 ity enable a man to do everything with advantage. 
 
 It was a pity that as much could not be said of Mr. 
 Colman, w^ho, after taking more licence in his w^ritings 
 than anybody, became a licenser ex officio, and seemed 
 inclined to license nothing but cant. When this writer 
 got into the sentimental, he made a sad business of it, 
 for he had no faith in sentiment. He mouthed and 
 overdid it, as a man does when he is telling a lie. At 
 a farce he was admirable : and he remained so to the 
 last, whether writing or licensing. 
 
 [' Thomas Sheridan, D.D. (1684-1738). His son, also Thomas Sheri- 
 dan, is mentioned in the note on p. 10 ante — the grandson was of 
 course Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816).] 
 
 176
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 Morton seemed to take a colour from the writers all 
 round him, especially from O'Keefe and the sentiment- 
 alists. His sentiment was more in earnest than Col- 
 man's, yet, somehow, not happy either. There was a 
 gloom in it, and a smack of the Old Bailey. It was 
 best when he put it in a shape of humour, as in the 
 paternal and inextinguishable tailorism of Old Rapid, 
 in a Cu7'e for' the Heart-Ache. Young Rapid, w^ho com- 
 plains that his father " sleeps so slow," is also a plea- 
 sant fellow, and worthy of O'Keefe. He is one of the 
 numerous crop that sprang up from Wild Oats, but not 
 in so natural a soil. 
 
 The character of the modern drama at that time was 
 singularly commercial : nothing but gentlemen in dis- 
 tress, and hard landlords, and generous interferers, and 
 fathers who got a great deal of money, and sons w^ho 
 spent it. I remember one play in particular, in w^hich 
 the whole wit ran upon prices, bonds, and post-obits. 
 You might know what the pit thought of their pound- 
 notes by the ostentatious indifference with w^hich the 
 heroes of the pieces gave them away, and the admira- 
 tion and pretended approval with which the spectators 
 observed it. To make a present of a hundred pounds 
 was as if a man had uprooted and given away an 
 Egyptian pyramid. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds was not behindhand with his brother 
 dramatists in drawing upon the taste of the day for 
 gains and distresses. It appears by his Memoirs that 
 he had too much reason for so doing. He was, per- 
 haps, the least ambitious, and the least vain (whatever 
 charges to the contrary his animal spirits might have 
 brought on him) of all the writers of that period. In 
 complexional vivacity he certainly did not yield to any 
 of them ; his comedies, if they were fugitive, were 
 genuine representations of fugitive manners, and went 
 merrily to their death ; and there is one of them, the 
 Dramatist, founded upon something more lasting, 
 which promises to remain in the collections, and de- 
 serves it : which is not a little to say of any writer. I 
 never wish for a heartier laugh than I have enjoyed, 
 since I grew wiser, not only in seeing, but in reading 
 
 177 N
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the vagaries of his dramatic hero, and his mystifica- 
 tions of " Old Scratch." When I read the good- 
 Imiuoured Memoirs of this writer the other day, I felt 
 quite ashamed of the ignorant and boyish way in 
 which I used to sit in judgment upon his faults, with- 
 out being aware of what was good in him ; and my 
 repentance was increased by the very proper manner 
 in which he speaks of his critics, neither denying the 
 truth of their charges in letter, nor admitting them 
 altogether in spirit ; in fact, showing that he knew 
 very well what he was about, and that they, whatso- 
 ever they fancied to the contrary, did not. 
 
 Mr. Reynolds, agreeably to his sense and good- 
 humour, never said a word to his critics at the time. 
 Mr. Thomas Dibdin,^ not quite so wise, wrote me a 
 letter, which Incledon,^ I am told, remonstrated with 
 him for sending, saying, it would do him no good with 
 
 the " d d boy." And he was right. I published it, 
 
 with an answer, and only thought that I made dra- 
 matists " come bow to me." Mr. Colman attacked me 
 in a prologue, which, by a curious chance, Fawcett 
 spoke right in my teeth, the box I sat in happening to 
 be directly opposite him. I laughed at the prologue ; 
 and only looked upon Mr. Colman as a great monkey 
 pelting me with nuts, which I ate. Attacks of this 
 kind were little calculated to obtain their end with a 
 youth w^ho persuaded himself that he wrote for nothing 
 but the public good; who mistook the impression 
 which anybody of moderate talents can make with a 
 newspaper, for the result of something peculiarly his 
 own ; and w4io had just enough scholarship to despise 
 the want of it in others. I do not pretend to think 
 that the criticisms in the News had no merit at all. 
 They showed an acquaintance vdth the style of Vol- 
 taire, Johnson, and others ; were not unagreeably 
 sprinkled with quotation ; and, above all, were written 
 with more care and attention than was customary with 
 
 [1 Thomas Dibdin (1771-1841) was the son of Charles Dibdin the 
 song writer. He was the author of numeroiis comedies and dra- 
 matic pieces.] 
 
 [- Benjamin Charles Incledon (1764-1826), a popular vocalist.] 
 
 178
 
 ESSAYS IN CRITICISM 
 
 newspapers at that time. The pains I took to round a 
 period with nothing in it, or to invent a simile that 
 should appear offhand, would have done honour to 
 better stuff. 
 
 A portion of these criticisms subsequently formed 
 the appendix of an original volume on the same sub- 
 ject, entitled Critical Essays on the Performers of the 
 London Theatres [1807].^ I have the book now before 
 me : and if I thought it had a chance of survival I 
 should regret and qualify a good deal of uninformed 
 judgment in it respecting the art of acting, which, with 
 much inconsistent recommendation to the contrary, it 
 too often confounded with a literal, instead of a liberal 
 imitation of nature. I particularly erred with respect 
 to comedians like Munden, whose superabundance of 
 humour and expression I confounded with farce and 
 buffoonery. Charles Lamb taught me better. 
 
 There was a good deal of truth, however, mixed up | 
 with these mistakes. One of the things on which I| 
 was always harping was Kemble's vicious pronunciaT^ 
 tion. Kemble had a smattering of learning, and a| 
 great deal of obstinacy. He was a reader of old books ;| 
 and having discovered that pronunciation had not| 
 always been what it was, and that in one or two| 
 instances the older was metrically better than the new| 
 (as in the case of the word aches, which was originally| 
 a dissyllable — aitches), he took upon him to reform it in| 
 a variety of cases, where propriety was as mucm 
 against him as custom. Thus the vowel e in the word 
 " merchant," in defiance of its Latin etymology, he in- 
 sisted upon pronouncing according to its French deri- 
 
 [' Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres, irv- 
 cluding general observations on the Practice and Genius of the Stage. 
 By the author of the theatrical criticisms in the weekly paper called 
 the News . . . London, Printed by and for John Hunt, at the office 
 of the News, 28, Brydges Street, Strand, 1807. 8vo. In an " adver- 
 tisement" to this book Hunt says, " It was not till after the title- 
 page of the present work had been engraved that the author had 
 any intentions of quitting the News, but he now writes exclusively 
 for the paper called the Examiner, of which the reader may see a 
 prospectus at the end of the volume." The prospectus states that the 
 first number appeared on January 3, 1808, so it is to be inferred 
 that the volume of Critical Essays was published after the date on 
 the title-page.] 
 
 179
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 vative, marchayit. "Innocent" he called innocint ; 
 *' conscience " (in defiance even of his friend Chaucer), 
 con,shincc: " virtue," in proper slip-slop, rarc^ite ; "fierce," 
 fursc : " heard," bird : " thy," the (because we generally 
 call '* my," me) ; and " odious," " hideous," and " perfi- 
 dious," became ojUs, hijjus, perfijjus.^ 
 
 Nor were these all. The following banter, in the 
 shape of an imaginary bit of conversation between an 
 vofficer and his friend, was, literally, no caricature : — 
 
 A. Ha! captain! how dost? The^ appearance would be much 
 improved by a little more attention to the bird.^ 
 
 B. Why, so I think : there's no sentimint* in a,bird. But then it 
 serves to distinguish a soldier, and there is no doubt much military 
 varchue^ in looking furful.^ 
 
 A. But the girls, Jack, the girls ! Why, the mouth is enough to 
 banish kissing from the airth'' etaimally.^ 
 
 B. In maircy,^ no more of that! Zounds, but the shopkeepers 
 and the marchants '" will get the better of us with the dear souls ! 
 However, as it is now against military law to have a tender coun- 
 tenance, and as some birds, I thank heaven, are of a tolerable 
 qual-ity,^^ I must make a varchue of necessity ; and as I can't look 
 soft for the love of my girl, I must e'en look hijjiis '^ for the love of 
 my country. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 [1805-1807] 
 
 BUT the gay and confident spirit in which I began 
 this critical career received a check, of which none 
 of my friends suspected the anguish, and very few were 
 told. I fell into a melancholy state of mind, produced 
 by ill-health. 
 
 I thought it was owing to living too well ; and as I 
 had great faith in temperance, I went to the reverse 
 extreme ; not considering that temperance implies 
 
 [^ These remarks concerning Kemble's pronunciation are con- 
 tained in the Critical Essays, p. 2 of the Appendix.] 
 
 2 Thy. 3 Beard. * Sentiment. * Virtue. « Fearful. ,_ 
 
 ' Earth. « Eternally. » Mercy. »<> Merchants. jl 
 
 " Quality (with the a as in universality). '^ Hideous. 
 
 180
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 moderation in self-denial as well as in self-indulgence.^ 
 The consequence was a nervous condition, amounting 
 to hypochondria, which lasted several months. I exj 
 perienced it twice afterwards, each time more pain*^ 
 fully than before, and for a much longer period ; but I 
 have never had it since ; and I am of opinion that I need 
 not have had it at all had I gone at once to a physician, 
 and not repeated the mistake of being over abstinent. | 
 I mention the whole circumstance for the benefit of 
 others. The first attack came on me with palpitations 
 of the heart. These I got rid of by horseback. I for- 
 get what symptoms attended the approach of the 
 second. The third was produced by sitting out of doors 
 too early in the spring. I attempted to outstarve them 
 all, but egregiously failed. In one instance, I took 
 wholly to a vegetable diet, which made me so weak and 
 giddy, that I was forced to catch hold of rails in the 
 streets to hinder myself from falling. In another, I 
 confined myself for some weeks to a milk diet, which 
 did nothing but jaundice my complexion. In the third, 
 I took a modicum of meat, one glass of wine, no milk 
 except in tea, and no vegetables at all ; but though I 
 did not suffer quite so much mental distress from this 
 regimen as from the milk, I suffered more than from 
 the vegetables, and for a much longer period than with 
 either. To be sure, I continued it longer ; and, perhaps^ 
 it gave me greater powers of endurance ; but for 
 upwards of four years, without intermission, and above 
 six years in all, I underw^ent a burden of w^retchedness 
 which I afterwards felt convinced I need not have 
 endured for as many weeks, perhaps not as many daySji 
 had I not absurdly taken to the extreme I spoke of in 
 the first instance, and then as absurdly persisted irt 
 seeking no advice, partly from fear of hearing worse 
 things foretold me, and partly from a hope of wearing 
 out the calamity by patience. At no time did my 
 friends guess to what amount I suffered. They saw 
 that my health was bad enough, and they condoled with 
 me accordingly ; but cheerful habits enabled me to 
 retain an air of cheerfulness, except when I was alone ; 
 and I never spoke of it but once, which was to my 
 
 181
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 frierul Mitchell, whom I guessed to have undergone 
 somothing of the kind. 
 
 And what was it that I suffered? and on what 
 account? On no account. On none whatsoever, ex- 
 cept niy ridiculous super-abstinence, and my equally 
 ridiculous avoidance of speaking about it. The very 
 fact of having no cause whatsoever, was the thing that 
 most frightened me. I thought that if I had but a 
 cause, the cause might have been removed or palliated ; 
 but to be haunted by a ghost which was not even 
 ghostly, which was something I never saw, nor could 
 even imagine, this, I thought, was the most terrible 
 thing that could befall me. I could see no end to the 
 persecutions of an enemy, who was neither visible nor 
 even existing ! 
 
 Causes for suffering, however, came. Not, indeed, 
 the worst, for I was neither culpable nor superstitious. 
 I had WTonged nobody ; and I now felt the inestimable 
 benefit of having had cheerful opinions given me in 
 religion. But I plagued myself with things which are 
 the pastimes of better states of health, and the pursuits 
 of philosophers. I mooted with myself every point of 
 metaphysics that could get into a head into which they 
 had never been put. I made a cause of causes for 
 anxiety, by inquiring into causation, and outdid the 
 Vicar of Wakefield's Moses, in being my own Sancho- 
 niathan and Berosus on the subject of the cosmogony ! 
 I jest about it now ; but oh ! what pain was it to me 
 then ! and what pangs of biliary will and impossibility 
 I underwent in the endeavour to solve these riddles of 
 the universe ! I felt, long before I knew Mr. Words- 
 worth's poetry, — 
 
 " the burthen and the mystery 
 Of all this unintelligible world." 
 
 I reverence the mystery still, but I no longer feel the 
 burden, because for these five-and-thirty years I have 
 known how to adjust my shoulders to it by taking care 
 of my health. I should rather say because healthy 
 shoulders have no such burden to carry. The elements 
 of existence, like the air which we breathe, and which 
 
 182
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 would otherwise crush us, are so nicely proportioned to J 
 one another w^ithin and around them, that we are | 
 unconsciously sustained by them, not thoughtfully < 
 oppressed. '^ 
 
 One great benefit, however, resulted to me from this | 
 suffering. It gave me an amount of reflection, such as | 
 in all probability I never should have had without it ; | 
 and if readers have derived any good from the graver | 
 portion of my writings, I attribute it to this experience I 
 of evil. It taught me patience ; it taught me charitys 
 (however imperfectly I may have exercised either) ; it 
 taught me charity even towards myself ; it taught me 
 the worth of little pleasures, as well as the dignity and 
 utility of great pains ; it taught me that evil itself con- 
 tained good ; nay, it taught me to doubt whether any | 
 such thing as evil, considered in itself, existed ; whether 
 things altogether, as far as our planet knows them, 
 could have been so good without it ; whether the desire, 
 nevertheless, which nature has implanted in us for its 
 destruction, be not the signal and the means to that 
 end ; and whether its destruction, finally, will not 
 prove its existence, in the meantime, to have been 
 necessary to the very bliss that supersedes it. i: 
 
 I have been thus circumstantial respecting thist 
 illness, or series of illnesses, in the hope that such- 
 readers as have not had experience or reflection enough • 
 of their own to dispense with the lesson, may draw the 
 following conclusions from sufferings of all kinds, i:^^ 
 they happen to need it : — 'i 
 
 First, — That however any suffering may seem to be| 
 purely mental, body alone may occasion it ; which was| 
 undoubtedly the case in my instance. ■ 
 
 Second, — That as human beings do not originate their 
 own bodies or minds, and as yet very imperfectly know 
 how to manage them, they have a right to all the aid 
 or comfort they can procure, under any sufferings 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Third, — That whether it be the mind or body that is 
 ailing, or both, they may save themselves a world of 
 perplexity and of illness by going at once to a physician. 
 
 Fourth, — That till they do so, or in case they are 
 
 183
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 unable to do it, a recourse to the first principles of 
 lu'alth is their only wise proceeding ; by which principles 
 1 understand air and exercise, bathing, amusements, and 
 whatsoever else tends to enliven and purify the blood. 
 
 Fifth, — That the blackest day may have a bright 
 morrow ; for my last and worst ilhiess suddenly left me, 
 probably in consequence of the removal, though uncon- 
 sciously, of some internal obstruction ; and it is now for 
 the long period above mentioned that I have not had 
 the slightest return of it, though I have had many 
 anxieties to endure, and a great deal of sickness. 
 
 Sixth, — That the far greater portion of a life thus 
 tried may nevertheless be remarkable for cheerfulness ; 
 which has been the case w ith my own. 
 
 Seventh, — That the value of cheerful opinions is 
 inestimable ; that they will retain a sort of heaven 
 round a man, when everything else might fail him ; and 
 that, consequently, they ought to be religiously 
 inculcated in children. 
 
 Eighth and last, — That evil itself has its bright, or at 
 any rate its redeeming, side ; probably is but the fugitive 
 requisite of some everlasting good ; and assuredly, in 
 the meantime, and in a thousand obvious instances, is 
 the admonisher, the producer, the increaser, nay, the 
 very adorner and splendid investitor of good ; it is the 
 pain that prevents a worse, the storm that diffuses 
 health, the plague that enlarges cities, the fatigue that 
 sweetens sleep, the discord that enriches harmonies, the 
 calamity that tests affections, the victory and the crown 
 of patience, the enrapturer of the embraces of joy. 
 
 I was reminded of the circumstances which gave rise 
 to these reflections, by the mention of the friend of 
 whom I spoke last, and another brother of whom I 
 went to see during my first illness. He was a young 
 and amiable artist, residing at Gainsborough in Lincoln- 
 shire. He had no conception of what I suffered ; and 
 one of his modes of entertaining me was his taking me 
 to a friend of his, a surgeon, to see his anatomical 
 preparations, and delight my hypochondriacal eyes with 
 grinnings of skulls and delicacies of injected hearts. I 
 have no more horror now, on reflection, of those f rame- 
 
 184
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 works and machineries of the beautiful body in which 
 we live, than I have of the jacks and wires of a 
 harpsichord. The first sight revolts us simply because 
 life dislikes death, and the human being is jarred out of 
 a sense of its integrity by these bits and scraps of the 
 material portion of it. But I know it is no more me, 
 than it is the feeling which revolts from it, or than the 
 harpsichord itself is the music that Haydn or Beethoven 
 put into it. Indeed, I did not think otherwise at the 
 time, with the healthier part of me ; nor did this 
 healthier part ever forsake me. I always attributed 
 what I felt to bodily ailment, and talked as reasonably, 
 and for the most part as cheerfully, with my friends as 
 usual, nor did I ever once gainsay the cheerfulness and 
 hopefulness of my opinions. But I could not look 
 comfortably on the bones and the skulls nevertheless, 
 though I made a point of sustaining the exhibition. I 
 bore anything that came, in order that I might be 
 overborne by nothing ; and I found this practice of 
 patience very useful. I also took part in every 
 diversion, and went into as many different places and 
 new scenes as possible ; which reminds me that I once 
 rode with my Lincolnshire friend from Gainsborough to 
 Doncaster, and that he and I, sick and serious as I was, 
 or rather because I was sick and serious (for such 
 extremes meet, and melancholy has a good-natured 
 sister in mirth), made, in the course of our journey, a 
 hundred and fifty rhymes on the word " philosopher." 
 We stopped at that number, only because we had come 
 to our journey's end. I shall not apologize to the 
 reader for mentioning this boy's play, because I take 
 every reader who feels an interest in this book to be 
 a bit of a philosopher himself, and therefore prepared 
 to know that boy's play and man's play are much 
 of tener identical than people suppose, especially when 
 the heart has need of the pastime. I need not remind | 
 him of the sage, who while playing with a parcel of | 
 schoolboys suddenly stopped at the approach of a I 
 solemn personage, and said, " We must leave off, boys, | 
 at present, for here's a fool coming." 
 
 The number of rhymes might be a little more sur- 
 
 185
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 prising ; but the wonder will cease when the reader 
 considers that they must have been doggerel, and that 
 there is no end to the forms in which rhymes can set off 
 from new given points ; as, go so far, throiv so far ; nose 
 of her, hemuv of her ; toss of her, cross of her, etc. 
 
 Spirits of Swift and Butler ! come to my aid, if any 
 chance reader, not of our right reading fashion, happen 
 to light upon this passage, and be inclined to throw 
 down the book. Come to his aid ; for he does not 
 know what he is going to do ; — how many illustrious 
 jingles he is about to vituperate ! 
 
 The surgeon I speak of was good enough one day to 
 take me with him round the country, to visit his 
 patients. I was startled in a respectable farmhouse to 
 hear language openly talked in a mixed party of males 
 and females, of a kind that seldom courts publicity, and 
 that would have struck with astonishment an eulogizer 
 of pastoral innocence. Yet nobody seemed surprised at 
 it ; nor did it bring a blush on the cheek of a very nice, 
 modest-looking girl. She only smiled, and seemed to 
 think it was the man's way. Probably it was nothing 
 more than the language which was spoken in the first 
 circles in times of old, and which thus survived among 
 the peasantry, just as we find them retaining words 
 that have grown obsolete in cities. The guilt and 
 innocence of manners very much depend on conven- 
 tional agreement ; that is to say, on what is thought of 
 them with respect to practice, and to the harm or 
 otherwise which they are actually found to produce. 
 The very dress which would be shameless in one age or 
 country, is respectable in another ; but in neither case 
 is it a moral test. When the shame goes in one respect, 
 it by no means comes in another ; otherwise all Turks 
 would be saints, and all Europeans sinners. The minds 
 of the people in the Lincolnshire farmhouse were 
 " naked and not ashamed." It must be owned, how- 
 ever, that there was an amount of consciousness about 
 them, which savoured more of a pagan than a 
 paradisaical state of innocence. 
 
 One of this gentleman's patients was very amusing. 
 He was a pompous old gentleman-farmer, cultivating 
 
 186
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 his gout on two chairs, and laying down the law on the 
 state of the nation. Lord Eldon he called " my Lord 
 Eljin" (Elgin) ; and he showed us what an ignorant 
 man this chancellor was, and what a dreadful thing 1 
 such want of knowledge was for the country. The j 
 proof of his own fitness for setting things right was 5 
 thus given by his making three mistakes in one word. | 
 He took Lord Eldon for Lord Elgin ; he took Lord I 
 Elgin for the chancellor ; and he pronounced his lord- j 
 ship's name with a soft g instead of a hard one. His ^ 
 medical friend was of course not bound to cure his | 
 spelling as well as his gout ; so we left him in the full- I 
 blown satisfaction of having struck awe on the 
 Londoner. 
 
 Dr. Young talks of — | 
 
 "That hideous sight — a naked human heart:" 
 
 a line not fit to have been written by a human being. 
 The sight of the physical heart, it must be owned, was 
 trying enough to sick eyes ; that of the Doctor's moral 
 heart, according to himself, would have been far worse. 
 I don't believe it. I don't believe he had a right thus 
 to calumniate it, much less that of his neighbour, and| 
 of the whole human race. | 
 
 I saw^ a worse sight than the heart, in a journey I 
 which I took into a neighbouring country. It was an 
 infant, all over sores, and cased in steel — the result of 
 the irregularities of its father ; and I confess that I ; 
 would rather have seen the heart of the very father of 
 that child, than I would the child himself. I am sure 
 it must have bled at the sight. I am sure there would 
 have been a feeling of some sort to vindicate nature, 
 granting that up to that moment the man had been a 
 fool or even a scoundrel. Sullenness itself would have 
 been some amends; some sort of confession and regret. 
 As to the poor child, let us trust that the horrible 
 spectacle prevented more such ; that he was a martyr, 
 dying soon, and going to some heaven where little souls 
 are gathered into comfort, I never beheld such a sight, 
 before or since, except in one of the pictures of Hogarth, 
 in his Rake's Progress ; and I sadden this page with the 
 
 187
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 rocoUection, for the same reason that induced him to 
 paint it. 
 
 I have mentioned that I got rid of a palpitation of 
 the heart, which accompanied my first visitation of 
 hypochondria, by riding on horseback. The palpitation 
 was so strong and incessant, that I was forced, for 
 some nights, to sleep in a reclining posture, and I 
 expected sudden death ; but when I began the horse- 
 back, I soon found that the more I rode, and (I used to 
 think) the harder I rode, the less the palpitation 
 became. Galloping one day up a sloping piece of 
 ground, the horse suddenly came to a stand, by a 
 chalk-pit, and I was agreeably surprised to find myself 
 not only unprecipitated over his head (for though a 
 decent, I was not a skilful rider), but in a state of 
 singular calmness and self-possession — a right proper 
 masculine state of nerves. I might have discovered, 
 as I did afterwards, what it was that so calmed and 
 strengthened me. I was of a temperament of body in 
 which the pores were not easily opened ; and the freer 
 they were kept, the better I was ; but it took me a 
 long time to discover that in order to be put into a 
 state of vigour as well as composure, I required either 
 vigorous exercise or some strong moral excitement 
 connected with the sense of action. Unfortunately, I 
 had a tendency to extremes in self -treatment. At one 
 time I thought to cure myself by cold-water baths, in 
 which I persevered through a winter season ; and, subse- 
 quently, I hurt myself by hot baths. Late hours at 
 night were not mended by lying in bed of a morning ; 
 nor incessant reading and writing, by weeks in which 
 I did little but stroll and visit. It is true, I can hardly 
 be said to have ever been without a book ; for if not in 
 my hand, it was at my side, or in my pocket ; but what 
 I needed was ordinary, regular habits, accompanied 
 ^ with a more than ordinary amount of exercise. I was 
 ^ never either so happy or so tranquil, as when I was in 
 ia state the most active. I could very well understand 
 the character of an unknown individual, described in 
 the prose works of Ben Jonson, who w^ould sit writing 
 day and night till he fainted, and then so entirely give 
 
 188
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 himself up to diversion, that people despaired of getting 
 him to work again. But I sympathized still more with 
 one of the Rucellai family, who was so devoted to a« 
 sedentary life, that he could not endure the thought | 
 of being taken from it ; till being forced, in a manner, ^ 
 to accept a diplomatic mission, he became as vehement ;' 
 for a life of action as he had before been absorbed in 
 indolence, and was never satisfied till he was driving 
 everything before him, and spinning, with his chariot- 
 wheels, from one court to another. If I had not a 
 reverence, indeed, for whatever has taken place in the 
 ordinance of things, great and small, I should often 
 have fancied that some such business of diplomacy 
 would have been my proper vocation ; for I delight in 
 imagining conferences upon points that are to be 
 carried, or scenes in which thrones are looked upon, 
 and national compliments are to be conveyed ; and I 
 am sure that a great deal of action would have kept 
 me in the finest health. Whatever dries up the surface 
 of my body, intimidates me ; but when the reverse has 
 been effected by anything except the warm bath, fear 
 has forsaken me, and my spirit has felt as broad and 
 healthy as my shoulders. 
 
 I did not discover this particular cause of healthy 
 sensation till long after my recovery. I attributed it 
 entirely to exercise in general ; but by exercise, at all 
 events (and I mention the w^hole circumstance for the 
 benefit of the nervous), health was restored to me ; 
 and I maintained it as long as I persevered in the 
 means. 
 
 Not long after convalescence, the good that had been 
 done me was put further to the test. Some friends, 
 among w^hom w^ere two of my brothers and myself, had 
 a day's boating up the Thames. We were very merry 
 and jovial, and not prepared to think any obstacle, in 
 the way of our satisfaction, possible. On a sudden we 
 perceive a line stretched across the river by some 
 fishermen. We call out to them to lower, or take it 
 away. They say they will not. One of us holds up a 
 knife, and proclaims his intention to cut it. The fisher- 
 men defy the knife. Forward goes the knife with the 
 
 189
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 boat, and cuts the line in the most beautiful manner 
 conceivjible. The two halves of the line rushed asunder. 
 
 "Off," cry the fishermen to one another, "and duck 
 'em.' They push out their boat. Their wives (I forget 
 whence they issued) appeared on the bank, echoing the 
 cry of " Duck 'em ! " We halt on our oars, and are 
 come up with, the fishermen looking as savage as w^ild 
 islanders, and swearing might and main. My brother 
 and myself, not to let us all be run down (for the 
 fishermen's boat was much larger than ours, and we 
 had ladies with us, who were terrified) told the enemy 
 we would come among them. We did so, going from 
 our boat into theirs. 
 
 The determination to duck us no^\^ became manifest 
 enough, and the fishermen's wives (cruel with their 
 husbands' lost fishing) seemed equally determined not 
 to let the intention remit. They screamed and yelled 
 like so many furies. The fishermen seized my brother 
 John, whom they took for the cutter of the line, and 
 would have instantly effected their purpose, had he 
 not been clasped round the waist by my brother Robert, 
 who kept him tight down in a corner of the hold. A 
 violent struggle ensued, during which a ruffianly fellow 
 aiming a blow at my brother John's face, whose arms 
 were pinioned, I had the good luck to intercept it. 
 Meanwhile the wives of the boaters were screaming as 
 well as the wives of the fishermen ; and it was asked 
 our antagonists, whether it was befitting brave men to 
 frighten women out of their senses. 
 
 The fury seemed to relax a little at this. The word 
 " payment " was mentioned, which seemed to relax it 
 more ; but it was still divided between threat and 
 demand, when, in the midst of a fresh outbreak of the 
 first resolution, beautiful evidence was furnished of the 
 magical effects of the word " law." 
 
 Luckily for our friends and ourselves (for the enemy 
 had the advantage of us, both in strength and numbers), 
 the owner of the boat, it seems, had lately been worsted 
 in some action of trespass, probably of the very nature 
 of what they had been doing with their line. I was 
 then living with my brother Stephen, who was in the 
 
 190
 
 SUFFERING AND REFLECTION 
 
 law. I happened to be dressed in black ; and I had 
 gathered from some words which fell from them during 
 their rage, that what they had been about with their 
 fishing-net was in all probability illegal. I assumed it 
 to be so. I mentioned the dreaded word " law ; " my 
 black coat corroborated its impression ; and, to our 
 equal relief and surprise, w^e found them on the sudden 
 converting their rage and extortion into an assumption 
 that we meant to settle with their master, and quietly 
 permitting us to get back to our friends. 
 
 Throughout this little rough adventure, which at 
 one time threatened very distressing, if not serious 
 consequences, I was glad to find that I underwent no 
 apprehensions but such as became me. The pain and 
 horror that used to be given me at sight of human 
 antagonism never entered my head. I felt nothing 
 but a flow^ of brotherhood and determination, and 
 returned in fine breathing condition to the oar. I 
 subsequently found that all corporate occasions of 
 excitement affected me in the same healthy manner.;. 
 The mere fact of being in a crowd when their feelings \v 
 were strongly moved, to whatever purpose, roused all | 
 that was strong in me ; and from the alacrity, and | 
 even comfort and joy, into which I was warmed by the v 
 thought of resistance to whatever wrong might demand i 
 it, I learned plainly enough what a formidable thing a f, 
 human being might become if he took wrong for right, | 
 and what reverence was due to the training and just i? 
 treatment of the myriads that compose a nation. 
 
 I was now again in a state of perfect comfort and ' 
 enjoyment, the gayer for the cloud which had gone, 
 though occasionally looking back on it with gravity, ; 
 and prepared, alas ! or rather preparing myself by | 
 degrees, to undergo it again in the course of a few ^ 
 years by relapsing into a sedentary life. Suffer as I '• 
 might have done, I had not, it seems, suffered enough. 
 However, the time was very delightful while it lasted. 
 I thoroughly enjoyed my books, my walks, my com- ^ 
 panions, my verses ; and I had never ceased to be | 
 ready to fall in love with the first tender-hearted 
 damsel that should encourage me. Now it was a fair 
 
 191
 
 AUTOTUOfHiA F'M Y OF' LEIGH HUNT 
 
 j<h/irrn<r, iitul now Ji \)iuncA.U' ; now u ^irl who HJin^, or 
 'a ^irl wFio ilntuuul ; now on<r tliut was merry, or waf 
 
 r 
 waH 
 
 nH'lan<*fioly, or hci'iuwa] tAt mrt' for nofliin^, or for 
 every f liiii^, or wan a j^oo<I fr'n'.inl, or ^ood HiHt/<*r, or 
 ^oo<l ilau^^hU'r. Willi Ihis lanf,, wlio <-(»rii|)lr'f <m1 Ju^r 
 ; confjurst hy n^jwlin^ vcrnaH h<;tU;r (Jian I lia<l (rv(^r yot 
 ! heard, I ultimnU'Ay hricarnr; w<m1(J(!(1 for Iif«; ; and nhc. 
 \ r<;fulH vorHOH \)i',tUtr tJi/m «!V(!r to tFji.M day, <!Hp(!(nally 
 '. Hoin«' that shall !»»• nainclcH.s.' 
 
 CHyMTKK IX 
 
 Tin-; "KXAMINKK" 
 
 |18(J8| 
 
 AT th<- \>c'^'iiiuin^ of t,h(^ year ISOS, irxy hrothcr .John 
 and niyMcIf Hj^t up th<! weekly ]ni\H'r of th(! 
 I'j.inniirur* in joint partne'rHFiij*. It w/ih named aft<;r 
 th(! I'j.idiiii HIT of Swift and liis hrothfti* Tori(!H. I did 
 n<»t think oi" their politics. 1 thought, only of t.luiir 
 wit and fine writ, in)^, whieh, in my youthful lunlideucc, 
 I pro[)Os(Ml t.o myH(df to enndate ; and I < ould lind no 
 prrivioiiH p(jlitie/il jouruul <<|u;illy (pi;ililic(| (o he itH 
 ^odfatliei". I'jVen A<Mison had <all<(l hi- opposition 
 \ui\U'.r the Wliuj /'j'.i (nni HI i\ 
 
 Somfj y(jarH /ifterwards I Ii.kI an rtditorial HucceHsor, 
 Mr. FVjnhlarKpie, who had all the wit foi- which I toiif^d, 
 witJiiiUt niakinj^ any pr(;t.ensionH to il. lie wan, 
 iufhreij, the j^enuiiur HUceesHor, not, of me, hut of th(! 
 Swift '^ and A^ldisons themselveH; [)rofuHe of wit- even 
 hcjyond lln-m, and superior in political knowlcdj^e. 
 
 I' WriLU:n nearly Um yiuivn b(;f(jr<; the pr(!H<;nL edition wiiH piit)- 
 liiiticd : ttic fc'ulcr IijmJ ^onc before the auttior leviMcd tiiH own 
 wfilifiK. wliif ti tie left liii.ilU-rcd. T. H.j |He<; 'I'lioi nton lliiiit'n not^- 
 U, pit^c 'SVK\ 
 
 \' Kce A|i|»cn(lix for Iliiiit'M inohfx-ctii.M. The llrst iiiiinher waH 
 [tiililiMlied on .Ifiniiat-y '.i, \>y .lolin Hunt. liiiKh Hunt. eiliU-d, and 
 < ()ntiil»uU-d t/O the paper for !!{ year-H; in IKJO it chanKed liandH. 
 Aft4T a run <»f ovei- Heventy y<-/irM, it wiiM diHcontinued in IHSl.j 
 
 \U2,

 
 THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 Yet, if I laboured hard for what was so easy to Mr. 
 Fonblanque, I will not pretend to think that I did not 
 sometimes find it ; and the study of Addison and Steele, 
 of Goldsmith and Voltaire, enabled me, when I was 
 pleased with my subject, to give it the appearance of 
 ease. At other times, especially on serious occasions, I 
 too often got into a declamatory vein, full of what I 
 thought fine turns and Johnsonian antitheses. The 
 new office of editor conspired with my success as a 
 critic to turn my head. I wrote, though anony- 
 mously, in the first person, as if, in addition to my 
 theatrical pretensions, I had suddenly become an oracle 
 in politics ; the words philosophy, poetry, criticism, 
 statesmanship, nay, even ethics and theology, all took 
 a final tone in my lips. When I remember the virtue 
 as well as knowledge which I demanded from every- 
 body whom I had occasion to notice, and how much 
 charity my own juvenile errors ought to have con- 
 sidered themselves in need of (however they might 
 have been warranted by conventional allowance), I 
 will not say I was a hypocrite in the odious sense of 
 the word, for it was all done out of a spirit of foppery 
 and "fine writing," and I never affected any formal 
 virtues in private ; — but when I consider all the non- 
 sense and extravagance of those assumptions, all the 
 harm they must have done me in discerning eyes, and 
 all the reasonable amount of resentment which it was 
 preparing for me with adversaries, I blush to think 
 what a simpleton I was, and how much of the conse- 
 quences I deserved. It is out of no "ostentation of 
 candour " that I make this confession. It is extremely 
 painful to me. 
 
 Suffering gradually worked me out of a good deal of 
 this kind of egotism. I hope that even the present 
 most involuntarily egotistical book affords evidence 
 that I am pretty well rid of it ; and I must add, in my 
 behalf, that, in every other respect, never, at that time 
 or at any after time, was I otherwise than an honest 
 man. I overrated my claims to public attention ; but 
 I set out perhaps with as good an editorial amount of 
 qualification as most writers no older. I was fairly 
 
 193 o
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 j^rounded in Englisli liistory ; I had carefully read De 
 Lolme* and Blackstone ; " I had no mercenary views 
 wliatsoever, though I was a proprietor of the journal ; 
 and all the levity of my animal spirits, and the foppery 
 of the graver part of my pretensions, had not destroyed 
 that spirit of martyrdom which had been inculcated in 
 me from the cradle. I denied myself political as well 
 as theatrical acquaintances ; I was the reverse of a 
 speculator upon patronage or employment ; and I was 
 prepared, with my excellent brother, to suffer manfully, 
 should the time for suffering arrive. 
 
 The spirit of the criticism on the theatres continued 
 the same as it had been in the iVeics. In politics, from 
 old family associations, I soon got interested as a man, 
 though I never could love them as a writer. It was 
 against the grain that I was encouraged to begin them; 
 and against the grain I ever afterwards sat down to 
 write, except when the subject was of a very general 
 description, and I could introduce philosophy and the 
 belles lettres. 
 
 The main objects of the Examiner newspaper were to 
 assist in producing Reform in Parliament, liberality of 
 opinion in general (especially freedom from supersti- 
 tion), and a fusion of literary taste into all subjects 
 whatsoever. It began with being of no party ; but 
 Reform soon gave it one. It disclaimed all knowledge 
 of statistics ; and the rest of its politics were rather a 
 sentiment, and a matter of general training, than 
 founded on any particular political reflection. It 
 possessed the benefit, however, of a good deal of read- 
 ing. It never wanted examples out of history and 
 biography, or a kind of adornment from the spirit of 
 literature ; and it gradually drew to its perusal many 
 intelligent persons of both sexes, ^vho would, perhaps, 
 never have attended to politics under other circum- 
 stances. 
 
 [' TJie ConstiUdion of Etiglaivd. by John Louis De Lolme (174i>- 
 1806), a Swiss. The book was written in French, but an English 
 translation appeared in 177.5.] 
 
 [2 Com'metitaries on the Lciivs of England., by Sir William Black- 
 stone (172:^-1780).] 
 
 19^
 
 THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 In the course of its warfare with the Tories, the Exam- 
 iner was charged with Bonapartism, with republicism, 
 with disaffection to Church and State, with conspiracy 
 at the tables of Burdett,^ and Cobbett,^ and Henry- 
 Hunt.^ Now, Sir Francis, though he was for a long 
 time our hero, we never exchanged a word with ; and 
 Cobbett and Henry Hunt (no relation of ours) we 
 never beheld ; — never so much as saw their faces. I 
 was never even at a public dinner ; nor do I believe my 
 brother was. We had absolutely no views whatsoever 
 but those of a decent competence and of the public 
 good ; and we thought, I dare affirm, a great deal more 
 of the latter than of the former. Our competence we 
 allowed too much to shift for itself. Zeal for the 
 public good was a family inheritance ; and this we 
 thought ourselves bound to increase. As to myself, 
 what I thought of, more than either, was the making 
 of verses. I did nothing for the greater part of the 
 week but write verses and read books. I then made a 
 rush at my editorial duties ; took a w^orld of superfluous 
 pains in the writing ; sat up late at night, and was a 
 very trying person to compositors and newsmen. I 
 sometimes have before me the ghost of a pale and 
 gouty printer whom I specially caused to suffer, and 
 who never complained. I think of him and of some 
 needy dramatist, and wish they had been worse men. 
 
 The Examiner commenced at the time when Bona^ 
 parte was at the height of his power. He had the! 
 continent at his feet ; and three of his brothers werel 
 on thrones. | 
 
 I thought of Bonaparte at that time as I have though!^ 
 ever since ; to wit, that he was a great soldier, and littlei 
 else ; that he was not a man of the highest order of | 
 intellect, much less a cosmopolite ; that he was a retro-? 
 spective rather than a prospective man, ambitious of: 
 old renown instead of new ; and would advance the? 
 age as far, and no farther, as suited his views of 
 
 [> Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. (1770-1844), the Radical member for 
 Westminster. He married a daughter of Mr. Coixtts the banker.] 
 [2 William Cobbett (1702-lS:^), the Radical pamphleteer.] 
 [^ Henry Hunt (1773-1835), a Radical agitator and orator.] 
 
 195
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 vpersonal aggrandizement. The Examiner, however 
 inut'h it differed with the niiUtary policy of Bona- 
 parte's antagonists, or however meanly it thought of 
 •their understandings, never overrated his own, or was 
 Sone of his partisans. 
 
 ? I now look upon war as one of the fleeting necessities 
 of things in the course of human progress ; as an evil 
 (like most other evils) to be regarded in relation to 
 some other evil that would have been worse without it, 
 but always to be considered as an indication of compara- 
 tive barbarism — as a necessity, the perpetuity of which 
 is not to be assumed — or as a half-reasoning mode of 
 adjustment, whether of disputes or of populations, which 
 mankind, on arriving at years of discretion, and coming 
 to a better understanding with one another, may, and 
 must of necessity, do away. It would be as ridiculous 
 to associate the idea of war with an earth covered with 
 railroads and commerce, as a fight between Holborn and 
 the Strand, or between people met in a drawing-room. 
 Wars, like all other evils, have not been without their 
 good. They have pioneered human intercourse ; have 
 thus prepared even for their own eventual abolition ; 
 and their follies, losses and horrors have been made the 
 best of by adornments and music, and consoled by the 
 exhibition of many noble qualities. There is no evil 
 unmixed with, or unproductive of, good. It could not, 
 in the nature of things, exist. Antagonism itself pre- 
 vents it. But nature incites us to the diminution of 
 evil ; and while it is pious to make the best of what is 
 inevitable, it is no less so to obey the impulse which 
 she has given us towards thinking and making it other- 
 wise. 
 
 With respect to the charge of republicanism against 
 the Examiner, it was as ridiculous as the rest. Both 
 Napoleon and the Allies did, indeed, so conduct them- 
 selves on the high roads of empire and royalty, and 
 the British sceptre was at the same time so unfortu- 
 nately wielded that kings and princes were often 
 treated with less respect in our pages than we desired. 
 But we generally felt, and often expressed, a wish to 
 treat them otherwise. The Examiner was always 
 
 196
 
 THE ''EXAMINER" 
 
 quoting against them the Alfreds and Antoninuses of 
 old. The " Constitution," with its King, Lords and 
 Commons, was its incessant watchword. The greatest 
 political change which it desired was Reform in Parlia- 
 ment ; and it helped to obtain it, because it was in^ 
 earnest. As to republics, the United States, notwith-t 
 standing our family relationship, were no favourites! 
 with us, owing to what appeared to us to be an absorp- ' 
 tion in the love of money, and to their then want of i 
 the imaginative and ornamental ; and the excesses of • 
 the French Revolution we held in abhorrence. 
 
 With regard to Church and State, the connection | 
 was of course duly recognized by admirers of the i 
 English constitution. We desired, it is true, reform | 
 in both, being far greater admirers of Christianity in | 
 its primitive than in any of its subsequent shapes, and 
 hearty accorders with the dictum of the apostle, who 
 said that the " letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." | 
 Our version of religious faith was ever nearer to what | 
 M. Lamartine has called the " New Christianity," than f 
 to that of Doctors Horsley and Philpotts. But we| 
 heartily advocated the mild spirit of religious govern- i' 
 ment, as exercised by the Church of England, in oppo- / 
 sition to the bigoted part of dissent ; and in furtherance 
 of this advocacy, the first volume of the Exaininei' con- 
 tained a series of Essays on the Folly and Danger' of 
 Methodism, which were afterwards collected into a . 
 pamphlet.^ So " orthodox " were these essays, short of ; 
 points from which common sense and humanity always 
 appeared to us to revolt, and from which the deliver- 
 ance of the Church itself is now, I believe, not far off, 
 that in duty to our hope of that deliverance, I after- 
 wards thought it necessary to guard against the con- 
 clusions which might have been drawn from them, as 
 to the amount of our assent. A church appeared to 
 me then, as it still does, an instinctive want in the 
 human family. I never to this day pass one, even of a 
 
 [' An Attempt to Show the Folly and Danger of Metliodlsin, in a 
 series of essays, first piiblislied in the weekly paper called the 
 E.eaniiner, and now enlai'ged with a preface and editorial note, by 
 the editor of the Examiner, 1809.] 
 
 197
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 kind tlio most unroformed, without Ji wish to go into 
 it and join luy t'ellow-creatures in their ntrecting evi- 
 dence of the necessity of an additional tie with Deity 
 and Infinity, with this world and the next. But the 
 wish is ac'coinpanied with an afflicting regret that I 
 cannot recognize it, free from barbarisms derogatory 
 to both ; and I sigh for some good old country church, 
 finally delivered from the corruptions of the Councils, 
 and breathing nothing but the peace and love befitting 
 the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that a time is 
 coming, when such doctrine, and such only, will be 
 preached ; and my future grave, in a certain beloved 
 and flowery cemetery, seems quieter for the consumma- 
 tion. But I anticipate. 
 
 For a short period before and after the setting up of 
 the Exaininer, I was a clerk in the War Office. The 
 situation was given me by Mr. Addington,^ then prime 
 minister, afterwards Lord Sidmouth, who knew my 
 father. My sorry stock of arithmetic, which I taught 
 myself on j)urpose, was sufficient for the work which I 
 had to do ; but otherwise I made a bad clerk ; wasting 
 my time and that of others in perpetual jesting ; going 
 too late to office ; and feeling conscious that if I did not 
 quit the situation myself, nothing was more likely, or 
 would have been more just, than a suggestion to that 
 effect from others. The establishment of the Exaininer, 
 and the tone respecting the court and the ministry 
 which I soon thought myself bound to adopt, increased 
 the sense of the propriety of this measure ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, I sent in my resignation. Mr. Addington 
 had fortunately ceased to be minister before the 
 Exaininer was set up ; and though I had occasion 
 after^vards to differ extremely with the measures 
 approved of by him as Lord Sidmouth, I never forgot 
 the personal respect which I owed him for his kindness 
 to myself, to his own amiable manners, and to his 
 undoubted, though not wise, conscientiousness. He 
 
 [* Henry Addington, Lord Sidmouth (1755-1844), elected in 1789 
 Speaker of the House of Commons. On Pitt's resignation of the 
 Chancellorship of the Exchequer, in 1801, Addington took his place. 
 He resigned in 1804, and was created a peer bv George III.] 
 
 198
 
 THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 had been Speaker of the House of Commons, a situa- 
 tion for which his figure and deportment at that time 
 of life admirably fitted him. I think I hear his fine 
 voice, in his house at Richmond Park, good-naturedly 
 expressing to me his hope, in the words of the poet, 
 that it might be one day said of me, — 
 
 " — Not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, 
 But stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song." 
 
 The sounding words " moralized his song," came tonincf 
 out of his dignified vitterance like " sonorous metal." 
 This was when I went to thank him for the clerkship. 
 I afterwards sat on the grass in the park feeling as 
 if I were in a dream, and wondering how I should 
 reconcile my propensity to verse making with sums in 
 addition. The minister, it was clear, thought them 
 not incompatible : nor are they. Let nobody think 
 otherwise, unless he is preiaared to suffer for the mis- 
 take, and, what is worse, to make others suffer. The 
 body of the British Poets themselves shall confute him, 
 with Chaucer at their head, who was a " comptroller 
 of wool " and " clerk of works." 
 
 "Thou hearest neither that nor this" 
 (says the eagle to him in the House of Fame) ; — 
 
 "For when thy labour all done is, 
 And hast made all thy reckonirigs. 
 Instead of I'est and of new things, 
 Thou goest home to thine house anon. 
 And all so dumb as any stone 
 Thou sittest at another book, 
 Till fully daz6d is thy look." 
 
 Lamb, it is true, though ho stuck to it, has com- 
 plained of 
 
 "The dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood:" 
 
 and Chaucer was unable to attend to his accounts in 
 the month of May, when, as he tells us, he could not 
 help passing whole days in the fields, looking at the 
 daisies. The case, as in all other matters, can only 
 be vindicated, or otherwise, by the consequences. 
 
 199
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 Bat that is a perilous responsibility ; and it involves 
 assumptions which ought to be startling to the modesty 
 of young rhyming gentlemen not in the receipt of an 
 income. 
 
 I did not give up, however, a certainty for an un- 
 certainty. The Exaininer was fully established when I 
 quitted the office [in 1808].^ My friends thought that I 
 should be better able to attend to its editorship ; and 
 it was felt, at any rate, that I could not with propriety 
 remain. So I left my fellow-clerks to their better 
 behaviour and quieter rooms ; and set my face in the 
 direction of stormy x^olitics. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 [1809] 
 
 JUST after this period I fell in with a new set of 
 acquaintances, accounts of whom may not be un- 
 interesting. I forget what it was that introduced me 
 to Mr. Hill, proprietor of the Monthly Mirror; but 
 at his house at Sydenham I used to meet his editor, 
 Du Bois ; ^ Thomas Campbell, who was his neighbour ; 
 and the two Smiths,^ authors of The Rejected Addresses. 
 I saw also Theodore Hook, and Mathews the comedian. 
 Our host was a jovial bachelor, plumj) and rosy as an 
 abbot ; and no abbot could have presided over a more 
 festive Sunday. The wine flowed merrily and long ; 
 the discourse kept pace with it ; and next morning, in 
 returning to town, we felt ourselves very thirsty. A 
 I)ump by the roadside, with a i)lasli round it, was a 
 bewitching sight. 
 
 [1 Hunt's letter to the Secretary-at-Wai% resigning his appoint- 
 ment, is dated 26th Dec, 1808.] 
 
 [2 Edward Du Bois (1774-1850). Besides some novels, he issued an 
 edition of the Decavieron of Boccaccio, uiih reviarks on his Life 
 and Writings, 1804, 2 vols.] 
 
 [3 Horatio Smith (1779-1849), and James Smith (1775-1839).] 
 
 200
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Du Bois was one of those wits who, like the cele- 
 brated Eachard, have no faculty of gravity. His hand- 
 some hawk's eyes looked blank at a speculation ; but 
 set a joke or a piece of raillery in motion, and they 
 sparkled with wit and malice. Nothing could be more 
 trite or commonplace than his serious observations. 
 Acquiescences they should rather have been called ; for 
 he seldom ventured upon a gravity, but in echo of 
 another's remark. If he did, it was in defence of 
 orthodoxy, of which he was a great advocate ; but his 
 quips and cranks were infinite. He was also an excel- 
 lent scholar. He, Dr. King,^ and Eachard ^ would have 
 made a capital trio over a table, for scholarship, mirth, 
 drinking, and religion. He was intimate with Sir 
 Philip Francis,^ and gave the public a new edition of 
 the Horace of Sir Philip's father. The literary world 
 knew him well also as the writer of a popular novel in 
 the genuine Fielding manner, entitled Old Nick. 
 
 Mr. Du Bois held his editorship of the Monthly 
 Mirror very cheap. He amused himself with writing 
 notes on Athenseus, and was a lively critic on the 
 theatres ; but half the jokes in his magazine were 
 written for his friends, and must have mystified the 
 uninitiated. His notices to correspondents were often 
 made up of this by-play ; and made his friends laugh, 
 in proportion to their obscurity to every one else. 
 Mr. Du Bois subsequently became a magistrate in the 
 Court of Requests ; and died the other day at an 
 advanced age, in spite of his love of port. But then 
 he was festive in good taste ; no gourmand ; and had 
 a strong head withal. I do not know whether such 
 men ever last as long as teetotallers ; but they certainly 
 
 1' Probably William King, D.C.L. (168.5-1763), of St. Mary Hall, 
 Oxford. Author of Literary Anecdotes of his own Time, published 
 in 1818.] 
 
 ['' John Eachard, D.D, (1636-1697) was chosen Master of Catharine 
 Hall, Cambridge, in 1675.] 
 
 [=* Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), supposed by many, including 
 Macaulay, to have been the author of the Letters of Junius. His 
 father, Philip Francis, D.D. (d. 1773), at one time kept a school and 
 had Gibbon as a pupil. His translation of Horace was issued 
 in 1747, and Du Bois' edition in 1807. ] 
 
 201
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 last as Ion<?, and look a great deal younger, than the 
 carking and severe. 
 
 Thoy who knew Mr. Campbell only as the author of 
 Gertrude of }Vyo7ning, and the Pleasures of Iloj^e, would 
 not have suspected him to be a merry companion, over- 
 flowing with humour and anecdote, and anything 
 but fastidious. These Scotch poets have always some- 
 thing in reserve. It is the only point in which the 
 major part of them resemble their countrymen. The 
 mistaken character which the lady formed of Thomson 
 from his Seasons is well known. He let part of the 
 secret out in his Castle of Indolence ; and the more he 
 let out, the more honour it did to the simplicity and 
 cordiality of the poet's nature, though not always to 
 the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends 
 Gay and Somerville as well in their writings as he did 
 when he came to be personally acquainted with them ; 
 but Allan, who had bustled up from a barber's shop 
 into a bookseller's, was " a cunning shaver ; " and 
 nobody w^ould have guessed the author of the Gentle 
 Shepherd to be penurious. Let none svippose that any 
 insinuation to that effect is intended against Campbell. 
 He was one of the few men whom I could at any time 
 have walked half a dozen miles through the snow to 
 spend an evening with ; and I could no more do this 
 -with a penurious man, than I could with a sulky one. 
 I know but of one fault he had, besides an extreme 
 cautiousness in his w^ritings, and that one was national, 
 a matter of words, and amply overpaid by a stream of 
 conversation, lively, piquant, and liberal, not the less 
 interesting for occasionally betraying an intimacy with 
 pain, and for a high and somewhat strained tone of 
 voice, like a man speaking w^ith suspended breath, and 
 in the habit of subduing his feelings. No man felt 
 more kindly towards his fellow-creatures, or took less 
 credit for it. "When he indulged in doubt and sarcasm, 
 and spoke conteinptuously of things in general, he did 
 it partly, no doubt, out of actual dissatisfaction, but 
 more perhaps than he suspected, out of a fear of being 
 thought weak and sensitive ; which is a blind that the 
 best men very commonly practise. He professed to be 
 
 202
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 hopeless and sarcastic, and took pains all the while to | 
 set up a university (the London). | 
 
 When I first saw this eminent person, he gave iiie| 
 the idea of a French Virgil. Not that he was like a |: 
 Frenchman, much less the French translator of Virgil. | 
 I found him as handsome as the Abbe Delille ^ is said | 
 to have been ugly. But he seemed to me to embody i, 
 a Frenchman's ideal notion of the Latin poet ; some- 1 
 thing a little more cut and dry than I had looked! 
 for ; compact and elegant, critical and acute, with a i;; 
 consciousness of authorship upon him ; a taste over- ; 
 anxious not to commit itself, and refining and diminish- ■ 
 ing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy <j 
 was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his| 
 expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he| 
 had a volume of the French poet in his hand. His « 
 skull was sharply cut and fine ; with plenty, according '; 
 to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative |v 
 organs : and his poetry will bear them out. For a 5 
 lettered solitude, and a bridal properly got up, bothw 
 according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely:^ 
 Gertrude of Wyoming. His face and person were| 
 rather on a small scale ; his features regular ; his eye| 
 lively and penetrating ; and when he spoke, dimples| 
 played about his mouth, which, nevertheless, had some-| 
 thing restrained and close in it. Some gentle puritan! 
 seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a| 
 stamp on his face, such as we often see in the female| 
 Scotch face rather than the male. But he appeared! 
 not at all grateful for this ; and when his critiques and| 
 his Virgilianism were over, very unlike a puritan he| 
 talked ! He seemed to spite his restrictions ; and, ouli 
 of the natural largeness of his sympathy with things| 
 high and low, to break at once out of Delille's Virgifc 
 into Cotton's,^ like a boy let loose from school. Whent 
 I had the pleasure of hearing him afterwards, I forgot; 
 his Virgilianisms, and thought only of the delightfu|; 
 
 'i 
 
 [1 Jacques Delille (1738-1813). He translated the Georgics, the| 
 uiEneid and Paradise Lost.] t 
 
 [« Charles Cotton (1630-1687), the author of the second part of the 
 Complete Angler. He produced a travesty of Virgil.] 
 
 208
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 <'OTiipaiuon, the \inafTeettHl philanthropist, and the 
 rroator of a beauty worth all the heroines in Racine. 
 Campbell tasted pretty sharply of the good and ill 
 of the present state of society, and, for a bookman, 
 liad beheld strange sights. He witnessed a battle in 
 Germany from the top of a convent (on which battle 
 he has left us a noble ode) ; and he saw the French 
 cavalry enter a town, vriping their bloody swords on 
 the horses' manes. He was in Germany a second time, 
 — I believe to purchase books ; for in addition to his 
 classical scholarship, and his other languages, he was 
 a. reader of German. The readers there, among whom 
 he is popular, both for his poetry and his love of 
 freedom, crowded about him with affectionate zeal ; 
 and they gave him, what he did not dislike, a good 
 dinner. Like many of the great men in Germany — 
 Schiller, Wieland, and others — he did not scruple to 
 become editor of a magazine ; ^ and his name alone 
 gave it a recommendation of the greatest value, and 
 such as made it a grace to write under him. 
 
 I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore 
 Hook coming in unexpectedly to dinner, and amusing 
 us very much with his talent at extempore verse. He 
 was then a youth, tall, dark, and of a good person, 
 W'ith small eyes, and features more round than weak ; 
 a face that had character and humour, but no refine- 
 ment. His extempore verses were really surprising. 
 It is easy enough to extemporize in Italian — one only 
 wonders how, in a language in which everything con- 
 spires to render verse-making easy, and it is difficult 
 ^ to avoid rhyming, this talent should be so much cried 
 I up — but in English it is another matter. I have 
 < known but one other person besides Hook, who could 
 extemporize in English, and he wanted the confidence 
 ' to do it in public. Of course, I speak of rhyming. 
 : Extempore blank verse, with a little practice, would 
 ; be found as easy in English as rhyming is in Italian. 
 ; In Hook the faculty was very unequivocal. He could 
 not have been pre-informed about all the visitors on 
 the present occasion, still less of the subject of con- 
 [1 The New Jlonildy Magaslne.] 
 
 204"
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 versation when he came in, and he talked his full 
 share till called upon ; yet he ran his jokes and his 
 verses upon us all in the easiest manner, saying some- 
 thing characteristic of everybody, or avoiding it with 
 a pun ; and he introduced so agreeably a piece of 
 village scandal upon which the party had been rallying 
 Campbell, that the poet, though not un jealous of his: 
 dignity, was, perhaps, the most pleased of us all.;. 
 Theodore afterwards sat down to the pianoforte, and, 
 enlarging upon this subject, made an extempore parody 
 of a modern opera, introducing sailors and their clap-} 
 traps, rustics, etc., and making the poet and his ' 
 supposed flame the hero and heroine. He parodied 
 music as well as words, giving us the most received 
 cadences and flourishes, and calling to mind (not with- 
 out some hazard to his filial duties) the commonplaces { 
 of the pastoral songs and duets of the last half-century ; ^' 
 so that if Mr. Dignum, the Damon of Vauxhall, had;^ 
 been present, he would have doubted whether to take 
 it as an affront or a compliment. Campbell certainly: 
 took the theme of the parody as a compliment ; for|; 
 having drunk a little more wine than usual that even-;' 
 ing, and happening to wear a wig on account of having} 
 lost his hair by a fever, he suddenly took off the wig,', 
 and dashed it at the head of the performer, exclaiming, ^ 
 " You dog ! I'll throw my laurels at you." f, 
 
 I have since been unable to help wishing, perhaps* 
 not very wisely, that Campbell would have been a little 
 less careful and fastidious in what he did for the public ; 
 for, after all, an author may reasonably be supposed ; 
 to do best that which he is most inclined to do. It is f 
 our business to be grateful for what a poet sets before > 
 us, rather than to be wishing that his peaches were ' 
 nectarines, or his Falernian champagne. Campbell, V 
 as an author, was all for refinement and classicality, . 
 not, however, without a great deal of pathos and < 
 luxurious fancy. His merry jongleur, Theodore Hook, 
 had as little propensity, perhaps, as can be imagined, 
 to any of those niceties : yet in the pleasure of re- 
 collecting the evening which I passed with him, I was ; 
 unable to repress a wish, as little wise as the other ; 
 
 205
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 t-o wit, that lie had stuck to his humours and farces, 
 for which he had real talent, instead of writing politics. 
 There was ability in the novels which he subsequently 
 wrote : but their worship of high life and attacks on 
 vulgarity were themselves of the vulgarest description. 
 Mathews, the comedian, I had the pleasure of seeing 
 at Mr. Hill's several times, and of witnessing his imita- 
 tions, which, admirable as they -VN'ore on the stage, 
 were still more so in private. His wife occasionally 
 came with him, with her handsome eyes, and charit- 
 ably made tea for us. Many years afterwards I had 
 the pleasure of seeing them at their o^vn table ; and I 
 thought that while Time, with unusual courtesy, had 
 spared the sweet countenance of the lady, he had given 
 more force and interest to that of the husband in the 
 very ploughing of it up. Strong lines had been cut, 
 and the face stood them well. I had seldom been more 
 surprised than on coming close to Mathews on that 
 occasion, and seeing the bust which he possessed in his 
 gallery of his friend Liston. Some of these comic 
 actors, like comic writers, are as unfarcical as can be 
 imagined in their interior. The taste for humour 
 comes to them by the force of contrast. The last time 
 I had seen Mathews, his face appeared to me insignifi- 
 cant to what it was then. On the former occasion, 
 he looked like an irritable in-door pet ; on the latter, 
 he seemed to have been grappling with the w^orld, and 
 to have got vigour by it. His face had looked out 
 upon the Atlantic, and said to the old waves, " Buffet 
 on ; I have seen trouble as well as you." The paralytic 
 affection, or whatever it was, that twisted his mouth 
 when young, had formerly appeared to be master of 
 his face, and given it a character of indecision and 
 alarm. It now seemed a minor thing ; a twist in a 
 piece of old oak. And what a bust was Liston's ! The 
 mouth and chin, with the throat under it, hung like 
 an old bag ; but the upper part of the head w^as as 
 fine as possible. There was a speculation, a look-out, 
 and even an elevation of character in it, as unlike the 
 Liston on the stage, as Lear is to King Pippin. One 
 might imagine Laberius to have had such a face. 
 
 206
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 The reasons why Mathews' imitations were still! 
 better in private than in public were, that he was | 
 more at his ease personally, more secure of his audience | 
 (" fit though few "), and able to interest them with | 
 traits of private character, which could not have been | 
 introduced on the stage. He gave, for instance, to | 
 persons who he thought could take it rightly, a picture | 
 of the manners and conversation of Sir Walter Scott, |. 
 highly creditable to that celebrated person, and calcu- y, 
 lated to add regard to admiration. His commonest v. 
 imitations were not superficial. Something of the ;v 
 mind and character of the individual was always in- | 
 sinuated, often with a dramatic dressing and plenty | 
 of sauce piquante. At Sydenham he used to give us | 
 a dialogue among the actors, each of whom found fault 5 
 with another for some defect or excess of his own — f 
 Kemble objecting to stiffness, Munden to grimace, and ? 
 so on. His representation of Incledon was extra- 1 
 ordinary : his nose seemed actually to become aquiline. | 
 It is a pity I cannot put upon j^aper, as represented | 
 by Mr. Mathews, the singular gabblings of that actor, ;^ 
 the lax and sailor-like twist of mind, with which every- |; 
 thing hung upon him ; and his profane pieties in i- 
 quoting the Bible ; for which, and swearing, he seemed | 
 to have an equal reverence. He appeared to be charit- |; 
 able to everybody but Braham. He would be described | 
 as saying to his friend Holman,^ for instance, " My n 
 dear George, don't be abusive, George ; — don't insult, <;'• 
 — don't be indecent, by G — d ! You should take the | 
 beam out of your own eye, — what the devil is it — you | 
 know — in the Bible ? something " (the a very broad) j 
 "about a beam, my dear George! and — and — and a' 
 mote ; — you'll find it in any part of the Bible : yes, • 
 George, my dear boy, the Bible, by G — d "(and then j 
 with real fervour and reverence), " the Holy Scripture, } 
 G — d d — me ! " He swore as dreadfully as a devout 
 knight-errant. Braham, whose trumpet blew down 
 his wooden walls, he could not endure. He is repre- 
 sented as saying one day, with a strange mixture of 
 
 [* Joseph George Holman (1764-1817), actor and dramatist.] 
 
 207
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 imagination and matter-of-fact, that " he only wished 
 his beloved master, Mr. Jackson, could come down 
 from heaven and take the Exeter stage to London 
 to hear that d — d Jew ! " 
 
 As Hook made extempore verses on us, so Mathews 
 one day gave an extempore imitation of us all round, 
 with the exception of a young theatrical critic {videlicet, 
 myself), in whose appearance and manner he pro- 
 nounced that there was no handle for mimicry. This, 
 in all probability, was intended as a politeness towards 
 a comparative stranger, but it might have been policy ; 
 and the laughter was not missed by it. At all events, 
 the critic was both good-humoured enough, and at 
 that time self-satisfied enough, to have borne the 
 mimicry ; and no harm would have come of it. 
 
 One morning, after stopping all night at this pleasant 
 house, I was getting up to breakfast when I heard the 
 noise of a little boy having his face washed. Our host 
 was a merry bachelor, and to the rosiness of a priest 
 might, for aught I knew, have added the paternity ; 
 but I had never heard of it, and still less expected to 
 find a child in his house. More obvious and obstrep- 
 erous proofs, however, of the existence of a boy with 
 a dirty face could not have been met with. You heard 
 the child crying and objecting ; then the woman re- 
 monstrating ; then the cries of the child snubbed and 
 swallowed up in the hard towel ; and at intervals out 
 came his voice bubbling and deploring and was again 
 swallowed up. At breakfast, the child being pitied, 
 I ventured to speak about it, and was laughing and 
 sympathizing in perfect good faith, when Mathews 
 came in, and I found that the little urchin was he. 
 
 The same morning he gave us his immortal imitation 
 of old Tate Wilkinson, patentee of the York Theatre. 
 Tate had been a little too merry in his youth, and was 
 very melancholy in old age. He had a wandering 
 mind and a decrepit body ; and being manager of a 
 theatre, a husband, and a ratcatcher, he would speak, 
 j;in his wanderings, " variety of wretchedness." He 
 Hvould interweave, for instance, all at once, the subjects 
 of a new engagement at his theatre, the rats, a veal- 
 
 208
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 pie, Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, and Mrs. Tate and thei 
 doctor. I do not pretend to give a specimen : Mathews | 
 alone could have done it ; but one trait I recollect, \ 
 descriptive of Tate himself, which will give a goodi 
 notion of him. On coming into the room, Mathews | 
 assumed the old manager's appearance, and proceeded * 
 towards the window to reconnoitre the state of the; 
 weather, which was a matter of great importance to^ 
 him. His hat was like a hat worn the wrong way, 5 
 side foremost, looking sadly crinkled and old ; his * 
 mouth was desponding, his eye staring, and his whole I 
 aspect meagre, querulous, and prepared for objection, i 
 This miserable object, grunting and hobbling, and help- , 
 ing himself with everything he can lay hold of as he 
 goes, creeps up to the window ; and, giving a glance 
 at the clouds, turns round with an ineffable look of 
 despair and acquiescence, ejaculating, " Uh Christ ! " t 
 Of James Smith, a fair, stout, fresh-coloured man, I 
 with round features, I recollect little, except that he i 
 used to read to us trim verses, with rhymes as pat as } 
 butter. The best of his verses are in the Rejected } 
 Addresses^ — and they are excellent. Isaac Hawkins I 
 Browne,- with his Pipe of Tobacco, and all the rhyming 1 
 jeux-desprit in all the Tracts, are extinguished in the ' 
 comparison ; not excepting the Probationary Odes. 
 Mr. Fitzgerald found himself bankrupt in non sequiturs ; 
 Crabbe could hardly have known which was which, 
 himself or his parodist ; and Lord Byron confessed to me 
 that the summing up of his philosophy, to wit, that 
 " Nought is everything, and everything is nought," 
 
 was very posing. Mr. Smith would sometimes repeat 
 after dinner, with his brother Horace, an imaginary 
 dialogue, stuffed full of incongruities, that made us roll 
 with laughter. His ordinary verse and prose were too 
 
 [' Rejected Addresses, 1812. The fii'st piece in the book, entitled 
 "Loyal Effusion," burlesques the verse of William Thomas Fitz- 
 gerald (1759-1829), whose name also appears in the opening line of 
 English Bards and Scotch Revietcers, 1809 : — 
 
 "Still must I hear ?— shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl 
 His creaking couplets in a tavern hall."] 
 [2 Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705-6-1760). In A Pipe of Tobacco, he 
 imitates the style of Gibber, Thomson, Young, Pope and Swift.] 
 
 209 P
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 full of the ridicule of city pretensions. To be superior to 
 ■anything it should not always be running in one's head. 
 
 4 His brother Horace was delicious. Lord Byron used 
 to say that this epithet should be applied only to 
 •eatables ; and that he wondered a friend of his (I 
 forget who) that was critical in matters of eating 
 should use it in any other sense. I know not what 
 
 ;the present usage may be in the circles, but classical 
 'authority is against his lordship, from Cicero down- 
 wards ; and I am content with the modern warrant 
 of another noble wit, the famous Lord Peterborough, 
 , who, in his fine, open way, said of Fenelon, that he 
 Iwas such a " delicious creature, he was forced to get 
 away from him, else he would have made him pious ! " 
 I grant there is something in the word delicious which 
 may be said to comprise a reference to every species 
 of pleasant taste. It is at once a quintessence and a 
 compound ; and a friend, to deserve the epithet, ought, 
 perhaps, to be capable of delighting us as much over 
 our wine as on graver occasions. Fenelon himself 
 could do this with all his piety ; or rather he could do 
 it because his piety was of the true sort, and relished 
 of everything that was sweet and affectionate. A 
 finer nature than Horace Smith's, except in the single 
 instance of Shelley, I never met with in man ; nor 
 5; even in that instance, all circumstances considered, 
 ihave I a right to say that those who knew him as 
 
 5 intimately as I did the other, would not have had the 
 jsame reasons to love him.^ Shelley himself had the 
 i highest regard for Horace Smith, as may be seen by 
 Ithe following verses, the initials in which the reader 
 
 has here the pleasure of filling up : — 
 
 J " Wit and sense, 
 
 ' Virtue and hnnian knowledge, all that might 
 
 Make this dark world a business of delight, 
 
 Are all combined in H. S." ^ 
 
 (' In writing to Horace Smith in 1847, Hunt says, " You were the 
 friend of all others whom I loved best next to Shelley, and, since 
 the death of Shelley, has occupied the first living place in my 
 heart."] 
 
 [* Prom Letter to Maria Gifihorne, published in Shelley's Pos</iwm- 
 oiis Poems, 1824.] 
 
 210
 
 ,y^£^te>u- i-Ayu:hme' ,.Jne/^^ 
 
 !^Ao<i. 4)^/4,1 H/.iS^urad.
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Horace Smith differed with Shelley on some points ; 
 but on others, which all the world agree to praise highly 
 and to practise very little, he agreed so entirely, and 
 showed unequivocally that he did agree, that with the 
 exception of one person (Vincent Novello), too diffident 
 to gain such an honour from his friends, they were the 
 only two men I had then met with, from whom I could 
 have received and did receive advice or remonstrancei 
 with perfect comfort, because I could be sure of the un- 
 mixed motives and entire absence of self-reflection, 
 with which it would come from them.^ Shelley said to 
 me once, " I know not what Horace Smith must take 
 me for sometimes : I am afraid he must think me a 
 strange fellow : but is it not odd, that the only truly 
 generous person I ever knew, who had money to be 
 generous with, should be a stockbroker ! And he writes 
 poetry too," continued Shelley, his voice rising in a 
 fervour of astonishment — " he writes poetry and pas- 
 toral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and 
 does make it, and is still generous ! " Shelley had 
 reason to like him. Horace Smith was one of the few 
 men, who, through a cloud of detraction, and through 
 all that difference of conduct from the rest of the world 
 which naturally excites obloquy, discerned the great* 
 ness of my friend's character. Indeed, he became a 
 witness to a very unequivocal proof of it, w^hich I shall 
 mention by-and-by. The mutual esteem was accords 
 ingly very great, and arose from circumstances mos| 
 honourable to both parties. " I believe," said Shelley 
 on another occasion, " that I have only to say to Horace; 
 Smith that I want a hundred pounds or two, and he 
 would send it me w^ithout any eye to its being returned i 
 such faith has he that I have something within me be-l 
 yond what the world supposes, and that I could only ask 
 his money for a good purpose." And Shelley would 
 have sent for it accordingly, if the person for whom it 
 was intended had not said Nay. I will now mention 
 
 ' Notwithstanding his caprices of temper, I must add Hazlitt, 
 who was quite capable, when he chose, of giving genuine advice, 
 and making you sensible of his disinterestedness. Lamb could have 
 done it, too ; but for interference of any sort he had an abhorrence. 
 
 211
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the circumstance which first gave my friend a regard 
 for Horace Smith. It concerns the person just men- 
 tioned, who is a man of letters. It came to Mr. Smith's 
 knowledge, many years ago, that this person was suffer- 
 ing under a pecuniary trouble. He knew little of him 
 at the time, but had met him occasionally ; and he 
 availed himself of this circumstance to write him a 
 letter as full of delicacy and cordiality as it could hold, 
 making it a matter of grace to accept a bank-note of 
 lOOZ., which he enclosed. I speak on the best authority, 
 that of the obliged person himself ; who adds that he 
 not only did accept the money, but felt as light and 
 happy under the obligation, as he has felt miserable 
 under the very report of being obliged to some ; and he 
 says that nothing could induce him to withhold his 
 name, but a reason which the generous, during his life- 
 time, would think becoming. 
 
 I have said that Horace Smith was a stockbroker. 
 He left business with a fortune, and went to live in 
 France, where, if he did not increase, he did not seri- 
 ously diminish it ; and France added to the pleasant 
 stock of his knowledge. 
 
 On returning to England, he set about exerting him- 
 self in a manner equally creditable to his talents and 
 interesting to the public. I would not insult either the 
 modesty or the understanding of my friend while he 
 was alive, by comparing him with the author of Old 
 Mortality and Guy Mannering : but I ventured to say, 
 and I repeat, that the earliest of his novels, Brainhletye 
 House, ran a hard race with the novel of Woodstock, 
 and that it contained more than one character not un- 
 worthy of the best volumes of Sir Walter. I allude to 
 the ghastly troubles of the Regicide in his lone house ; 
 the outward phlegm and merry inward malice of Winky 
 Boss (a happy name), who gravely smoked a pipe with 
 his mouth, and laughed with his eyes ; and, above all, 
 to the character of the princely Dutch merchant, who 
 would cry out that he should be ruined, at seeing a few 
 nutmegs dropped from a bag, and then go and give a 
 thousand ducats for an antique. This is hitting the 
 high mercantile character to a nicety — minute and care- 
 
 212
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 fill in its means, princely in its ends. If the ultimate 
 effect of commerce {jper^nulti translbunt, etc.) were not 
 something very different from what its pursuers 
 imagine, the character would be a dangerous one to 
 society at large, because it throws a gloss over the spirit 
 of money-getting ; but, meanwhile, nobody could paint 
 it better, or has a greater right to recommend it, than 
 he who has been the first to make it a handsome por- 
 trait. ' 
 
 The personal appearance of Horace Smith, like that 
 of most of the individuals I have met with, was highly 
 indicative of his character. His figure was good and 
 manly, inclining to the robust ; and his countenance 
 extremely frank and cordial ; sweet without weakness. 
 I have been told he was irascible. If so, it must have 
 been no common offence that could have irritated him. 
 He had not a jot of it in his appearance. ; 
 
 Another set of acquaintances which I made at thii^ 
 time used to assemble at the hospitable table of Mr. 
 Hunter^ the bookseller, in St. Paul's Churchyard. They 
 were the survivors of the literary party that were acr 
 customed to dine with his predecessor, Mr. Johnson. 
 They came, as of old, on the Friday. The most regular 
 were Fuseli^ and Bonny castle.'^ Now and then, God- 
 win* was present : oftener Mr. Kinnaird the magis^ 
 trate, a great lover of Horace. ■ 
 
 Fuseli was a small man, with energetic features, and 
 a white head of hair. Our host's daughter, then a little 
 girl, used to call him the white-headed lion. He combed 
 his hair up from the forehead ; and as his whiskers 
 were large, his face was set in a kind of hairy frame, 
 which, in addition to the fierceness of his look, really 
 gave him an aspect of that sort. Otherwise, his fea- 
 tures were rather sharp than round. He w^ould have 
 looked much like an old military officer, if his face, be- 
 sides its real energy, had not affected more. There 
 
 [' Mr. Rowland Hunter. See Thornton Hunt's note, vol. I., p. 231.] 
 [- Henry Fiiseli (1741-1825), Professor of Painting at the Royal 
 Aciideniy.] 
 [^ John Bonny castle (1750 P-1821), a celebrated mathematician.] 
 [* William Godwin (1756-183C), the novelist and philosopher.] 
 
 213
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 /was the same defect in it as in his pictures. Conscious 
 ' of not having all the strength he wished, he endeav- 
 oured to make up for it by violence and pretension. 
 He carried this so far, as to look fiercer than usvial 
 when he sat for his picture. His friend and engraver, 
 Mr. Haughtou,^ drew an admirable likeness of him in 
 this state of dignified extravagance. He is sitting back 
 in his chair, leaning on his hand, but looking ready to 
 pounce withal. His notion of repose was like that of 
 Pistol : 
 
 "Now, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap."- 
 
 Agreeably to this over-wrought manner, he was 
 reckoned, I believe, not quite so bold as he might have 
 been. He painted horrible pictures, as children tell 
 horrible stories ; and was frightened at his own lay- 
 figures. Yet he would hardly have talked as he did 
 about his terrors, had he been as timid as some sup- 
 posed him. With the affected, impression is the main 
 thing, let it be produced how it may. A student of the 
 Academy told me that Mr. Fuseli coming in one night 
 when a solitary candle had been put on the floor in a 
 corner of the room, to produce some effect or other, he 
 said it looked " like a damned soul." This was by way 
 of being Dantesque, as Michael Angelo w^as. Fuseli 
 was an ingenious caricaturist of that master, making 
 great bodily displays of mental energy, and being osten- 
 tatious with his limbs and muscles, in proportion as he 
 could not draw them. A leg or an arm was to be 
 thrust down one's throat, because he knew we should 
 dispute the truth of it. In the indulgence of this wil- 
 fulness of purpose, generated partly by impatience of 
 study, partly by want of sufficient genius, and no doubt, 
 also, by a sense of superiority to artists who could do 
 nothing but draw correctly, he cared for no time, place, 
 or circumstance in his j)ictures. A set of prints, after 
 
 [1 Moses Haughton, born in 1772, and an exhibitor at the Royal 
 Academy till 1848. He lived with Fuseli for some time and 
 engraved much of his work.] 
 
 ['■' "Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap." 
 
 2nd UetDV/ IV. v. 3.] 
 
 214
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 his designs, for Shakspeare and Cowper, exhibit a chaosi 
 of mingled genius and absurdity, such as, perhaps, waaj 
 never before seen. He endeavoured to bring Michae| 
 Angelo's apostles and propiiets, with their superhuman' 
 ponderousness of intention, into the commonplaces of 
 modern life. A student reading in a garden, is all over 
 intensity of muscle ; and the quiet tea-table scene in; 
 Cowper, he has turned into a preposterous conspiracy; 
 of huge men and women, all bent on showing their 
 thews and postures, with dresses as fantastical as their 
 minds. One gentleman, of the existence of whose 
 trousers you are not aware till you see the terminating 
 line at the ankle, is sitting and looking grim on a sofa, 
 with his hat on and no waistcoat. Yet there is real 
 genius in his designs for Milton, though disturbed, as 
 usual, by strainings after the energetic. His most ex- 
 traordinary mistake, after all, is said to have been on 
 the subject of his colouring. It was a sort of livid 
 green, like brass diseased. Yet they say, that when 
 praised for one of his pictures, he would modestly ob- 
 serve, " It is a pretty colour." This might have been 
 thought a jest on his part, if remarkable stories were 
 not told of the mistakes made by other people with 
 regard to colour. Sight seems the least agreed upon of 
 all the senses. 
 
 Fuseli was lively and interesting in conversation, bufc 
 not without his usual faults of violence and pretension. 
 Nor was he always as decorous as an old man ought td, 
 be ; especially one whose turn of mind is not of th^ 
 lighter and more pleasurable cast. The licences he took] 
 were coarse, and had not sufficient regard to his com-j; 
 pany. Certainly they went a great deal beyond hisj 
 friend Armstrong ; ^ to whose account, I believe, Fuseli's 
 passion for swearing was laid. The poet condescended^ 
 to be a great swearer, and Fuseli thought it energetic- 
 to swear like him. His friendship with Bonnycastle 
 had something childlike and agreeable in it. They came 
 and went away together for years, like a couple of old 
 schoolboys. They also, like boys, rallied one another, 
 
 [1 John Armstrong, M.D. (1709-1779), author of the Art of Pre- 
 serving Health and other poems.] 
 
 21.5
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 and sometimes made a singular display of it — Fuseli, at 
 least ; for it was he that was the aggressor. 
 
 Bonnyeastle was a good fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, 
 long-headed man, with large features and spectacles, 
 and a deep internal voice, with a twang of rusticity in 
 it ; and he goggled over his j^late, like a horse. I often 
 thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on 
 him. His laugh was equine, and showed his teeth up- 
 wards at the sides. Wordsworth, who notices similar 
 mysterious manifestations on the part of donkeys, would 
 have thought it ominous. Bonnyeastle was extremely 
 fond of quoting Shakspeare and telling stories ; and if 
 the Edinburgh Revieio had just come out, would give us 
 all the jokes in it. He had once a hypochondriacal 
 disorder of long duration ; and he told us, that he 
 should never forget the comfortable sensation given 
 him one night during this disorder by his knocking a 
 landlord that was insolent to him down the man's stair- 
 case. On the strength of this piece of energy (having 
 first ascertained that the offender was not killed) he 
 went to bed, and had a sleep of unusual soundness. 
 Perhaps Bonnyeastle thought more highly of his talents 
 than the amount of them strictly warranted ; a mistake 
 to which scientific men appear to be more liable than 
 others, the universe they work in being so large, and 
 their universality (in Bacon's sense of the word) being 
 often so small. But the delusion was not only pardon- 
 able, but desirable, in a man so zealous in the perform- 
 ance of his duties, and so much of a human being to all 
 about him as Bonnyeastle was. It was delightful one 
 day to hear him speak with complacency of a transla- 
 tion which had appeared of one of his books in Arabic, 
 and which began by saying, on the part of the transla- 
 tor, that " it had pleased God, for the advancement of 
 human knowledge, to raise us up a Bonnyeastle." Some 
 of his stories were a little romantic, and no less authen- 
 tic. He had an anecdote of a Scotchman who boasted 
 of being descended from the Admirable Crichton ; in 
 proof of which the Scotchman said he had " a grit quan- 
 tity of table-leenen in his possassion, marked A. C, 
 Admirable Creechton." 
 
 216
 
 LITERARY ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Kinnaird, the magistrate, was a sanguine man, under 
 the middle height, with a fine lamping black eye, lively 
 to the last, and a body that "had increased, was in- 
 creasing, and ought to have been diminished ; " which 
 is by no means what he thought of the prerogative. 
 Next to his bottle he was fond of his Horace ; and, in 
 the intervals of business at the police-office, would enjoy 
 both in his arm-chair. Between the vulgar calls of 
 this kind of magistracy, and the perusal of the urbane 
 Horace, there must have been a gusto of contradiction, 
 which the bottle, perhaps, was required to render quite 
 palatable. Fielding did not love his bottle the less for 
 ])eing obliged to lecture the drunken. Nor did his son, 
 who succeeded him in taste and office. I know not 
 how a former poet-laureate, Mr. Pye,^ managed, — another 
 man of letters, who was fain to accept a situation of 
 this kind. Having been a man of fortune and a mem- 
 ber of Parliament, and loving his Horace to boot, he 
 could hardly have done without his wine. I saw him 
 once in a state of scornful indignation at being inter- 
 rupted in the perusal of a manuscript by the monitions 
 of his police-officers, who were obliged to remind him 
 over and over again that he was a magistrate, and that 
 the criminal multitude were in waiting. Every time 
 the door opened he threatened and implored. 
 
 " Otium divos rogat in patenti 
 Prensus yEgaeo." 
 
 Had you quoted this to Mr. Kinnaird, his eyes would 
 have sparkled with good-fellowship : he would have 
 finished the verse and the bottle with you, and pro- 
 <'eeded to as many more as your head could stand. 
 Poor fellow ! the last time I saw him he was an appar- 
 ition formidably substantial. The door of our host's 
 dining-room opened without my hearing it, and, hap- 
 pening to turn round, I saw a figure in a great coat 
 literally almost as broad as it was long, and scarcely 
 able to articulate. He was dying of a dropsy, and was 
 obliged to revive himself before he was fit to converse 
 
 [• Henry Jamos Pye (1745-1813). He succeeded Thomas Warton 
 as laureate in 1790 and in 1792 was appointed a London police 
 magistrate.] 
 
 217
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 by the wine that was killing him. But he had cares 
 besides, and cares of no ordinary description ; and, for 
 my part, I will not blame even his wine for killing him 
 unless his cares could have done it more agreeably. 
 After dinner that day he was comparatively himself 
 again, quoted his Horace as usual, talked of lords and 
 courts with a relish, and begged that God save the King 
 might be played to him on the pianoforte ; to which he 
 listened as if his soul had taken its hat off. I believe 
 he would have liked to die to God save the King, and to 
 have " waked and found those visions true." 
 
 X 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 [1808-1812] 
 
 *HE Examiner had been set up towards the close 
 X of the reign of George the Third, three years 
 before the appointment of the regency. Pitt ^ and Fox 
 had died two years before ; the one, in middle life, of 
 constant ill-success, preying on a sincere but proud, 
 and not very large mind, and unwisely supported by a 
 habit of drinking ; the other, of older but more genial 
 habits of a like sort, and of demands beyond his 
 strength by a sudden accession to office. The king — a 
 conscientious but narrow-minded man, obstinate to a 
 degree (which had lost him America), and not always 
 dealing ingenuously, even with his advisers — had lately 
 got rid of Mr. Fox's successors, on account of their 
 urging the Catholic claims. He had summoned to 
 office in their stead Lords Castlereagh, Liverpool, and 
 others, who had been the clerks of Mr. Pitt ; and 
 Bonaparte was at the height of his power as French 
 Emperor, setting his brothers on thrones, and compel- 
 
 [1 William Pitt died on January 23, 1806, and Charles James Fox 
 on September 13, 1806.] 
 
 218
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 ling our Russian and German allies to side with him 
 under the most mortifying circumstances of tergiver- 
 sation. 
 
 It is a melancholy period for the potentates of the 
 earth when they fancy themselves obliged to resort 
 to the shabbiest measures of the feeble ; siding against 
 a friend with his enemy ; joining in accusations against 
 him at the latter's dictation ; believed by nobody on 
 either side ; returning to the friend, and retreating 
 from him, according to the fortunes of war ; secretly 
 hoping that the friend will excuse them by reason of 
 the pauper's plea, necessity ; and at no time able to 
 give better apologies for their conduct than those 
 " mysterious ordinations of Providence " which are the 
 last refuge of the destitute in morals, and a reference 
 to which they contemptuously deny to the thief and 
 the "king's evidence." It proves to them, "with a 
 vengeance," the " something rotten in the state of 
 Denmark ; " and will continue to prove it, and to be 
 despicable, whether in bad or good fortune, till the 
 world find out a cure for the rottenness. 
 
 Yet this is what the allies of England were in the 
 habit of doing, through the whole contest of England 
 with France. When England succeeded in getting up 
 a coalition against Napoleon, they denounced him for 
 his ambition, and set out to fight him. When the 
 coalition was broken by his armies, they turned round 
 at his bidding, denounced England, and joined him in 
 fighting against their ally. And this was the round 
 of their history : a coalition and a tergiversation alter- 
 nately ; now a speech and a fight against Bonaparte, 
 who beat them ; then a speech and fight against Eng- 
 land, who bought them off; then, again, a speech 
 and a fight against Bonaparte, who beat them again ; 
 and then, as before, a speech and fight against Eng- 
 land, who again bought them off. Meanwhile, they 
 took everything they could get, whether from enemy 
 or friend, seizing, with no less greediness whatever bits 
 of territory Bonaparte threw to them for their mean- 
 ness, then pocketing the millions of Pitt, for which wo 
 are paying to this day. 
 
 219
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 It becomes us to bow, and to bow humbly, to the 
 ." mysterious dispensations of Providence;" but in fur- 
 ftherance of those very dispensations, it has jjleased 
 ;f^ Providence so to constitute us, as to render us incaj)- 
 i^jable of admiring such conduct, whether in king's evi- 
 {jdences or in kings ; and some of the meanest figures 
 I that present themselves to the imagination, in looking 
 Iback on the events of those times, are the Emperors of 
 ^Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia. It is 
 ^salutary to bear this in mind, for the sake of royalty 
 ^Sitself. What has since ruined Louis Philippe,^ in spite 
 jof all his ability, is his confounding royal privileges 
 |\vith base ones, and his not keeping his word as a 
 ^gentleman. 
 
 If it be still asked, what are kings to do under such 
 circumstances as those in which they were placed with 
 Bonaparte ? what is their alternative ? it is to be re- 
 plied, firstly, that the question has been answered 
 already, by the mode in which the charge is put ; and, 
 secondly, that whatever they do, they must either 
 cease to act basely, and like the meanest of mankind, 
 or be content to be regarded as such, and to leave such 
 stains on their order as tend to produce its downfall, 
 and to exasperate the world into the creation of re- 
 •jpublics. Republics, in the first instance, are never 
 ;desired for their own sakes. I do not think they will 
 be finally desired at all ; certainly not unaccompanied 
 by courtly graces and good breeding, and whatever can 
 tend to secure to them ornament as well as utility. I 
 do not think it is in human nature to be content with 
 a different settlement of the old question, any more 
 than it is in nature physical to dispense with her pomp 
 of flowers and colours. But sure I am that the first 
 cravings for republics always originate in some despair 
 created by the conduct of kings. 
 
 It might be amusing to bring together a few of the 
 exordiums of those same speeches, or state papers, of 
 the allies of George the Third ; but I have not time to 
 look for them ; and perhaps they would prove tire- 
 
 [' Louis Philippe died an exile at Claremont in England on August 
 26, 1850.] 
 
 220
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 some. It is more interesting to consider the " state "" 
 which Bonaparte kept in those days, and to compare it 
 with his exile in St. Helena. There are more persons, 
 perhaps, in the present generation who think of Bona- 
 parte as the captive of Great Britain, defeated by 
 Wellington, than as the maker of kings and queens, 
 reigning in Paris, and bringing monarchs about his 
 footstool. 
 
 But the fortunes of Napoleon were on the declinQ 
 when they appeared to be at their height. The year 
 1808 beheld at once their culmination and thei^ 
 descent ; and it was the feeblest of his vassals who^ 
 by the very excess of his servility, gave the signal for 
 the change. Fortunately, too, for the interests ot 
 mankind, the change was caused by a violation of the 
 most obvious principles of justice and good sense. It 
 was owing to the unblushing seizure of Spain. It was 
 owing to the gross and unfeeling farce of a pretended 
 sympathy with the Spanish king's quarrel with his son ; 
 to the acceptance of a throne which the ridiculous 
 father had no right to give away ; and to the endeavour 
 to force the accession on a country, which, instead of 
 tranquilly admitting it on the new principles of in- 
 difference to religion and zeal for advancement (as he 
 had ignorantly expected), opposed it with the united 
 vehemence of dogged bigotry and an honest patriotism. 
 
 Spain was henceforth the millstone hung round the 
 neck of the conqueror ; and his marriage with a prin- « 
 cess of Austria, which was thought such a wonderful 
 piece of success, only furnished him with a like impedi- 
 ment ; for it added to the weight of his unpopularity 
 with all honest and prospective minds. It was well 
 said by Cobbett, that he had much better have as- 
 sembled a hundred of the prettiest girls in France, and 
 selected the prettiest of them all for his wife. The 
 heads and hearts of the " Young Continent " were 
 henceforward against the self-seeker, ambitious of the 
 old " shows of things," in contradiction to the honest 
 " desires of the mind." Want of sympathy was pre- 
 pared for him in case of a reverse ; and when, partly 
 in the confidence of his military pride, partly by way 
 
 221
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of making a final set-off against his difficulties in Spain, 
 and partly in very ignorance of what Russian natures 
 and Russian winters could effect, he went and ran his 
 head against the great northern wall of ice and snow, 
 he came back a ruined man, masterly and surprising as 
 his efforts to reinstate himself might thereafter be. 
 Nothing remained for him but to fume and fret in 
 spirit, get fatter with a vitiated state of body, and see 
 I'everse on reverse coming round him, which he was to 
 face to no purpose. The grandest thing he did was to 
 return from Elba : the next, to fight the battle of 
 Waterloo ; but he went to the field, bloated and half 
 asleep, in a carriage. He had already, in body, become 
 one of the commonest of those " emperors " whom he 
 ; had first laughed at and then leagued with : no great 
 I principle stood near him, as it did in the times of the 
 republic, when armies of shoeless youths beat the 
 veteran troops of Austria ; and thus, deserted by every- 
 thing but his veterans and his generalship, which came 
 to nothing before the unyieldingness of English, and 
 ^;the advent of Prussian soldiers, he became a fugitive 
 Vin the "belle France" which he had fancied his own, 
 j'and died a prisoner in the hands of a man of the name 
 of Lowe.^ 
 
 . I do not believe that George the Third, or his minis- 
 i ter, Mr. Pitt, speculated at all upon a catastrophe like 
 I this. I mean, that I do not believe they reckoned upon 
 I Napoleon's destroying himself by his own ambition. 
 'They looked, it is true, to the chance of "something 
 I turning up ; " but it was to be of the ordinary kind. 
 4 They thought to put him down by paid coalitions, and 
 iin the regular course of war. Hence, on repeated 
 v^ failures, the minister's broken heart, and probably the 
 ']final extinguishment of the king's reason. The latter 
 ^jcalamity, by a most unfortunate climax of untimeliness, 
 ftook place a little before his enemy's reverses. 
 V George the Third was a very brave and honest man. 
 tHe feared nothing on earth, and he acted according to 
 iiis convictions. But, unfortunately, his convictions 
 
 [' Sir Hudson Lowe {17G9-1S44), the Governor of St. Helena at the 
 time of Xapolecjn's imprisonment on the island.] 
 
 222
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 were at the mercy of a will far greater than his under- 
 standing; and hence his courage became obstinacy, and 
 his honesty the dupe of his inclinations. He was the 
 son of a father with little brain, and of a mother who 
 had a diseased blood : indeed, neither of his parents 
 was healthy. He was brought up in rigid principles 
 of morality on certain points, by persons who are sup-'; 
 posed to have evaded them in their own conduct ; he 
 was taught undue notions of kingly prerogative ; he 
 was suffered to grow up, nevertheless, in homely as] 
 well as shy and moody habits ; and while acquiring ai" 
 love of power tending to the violent and uncontrollable, v 
 he was not permitted to have a taste of it till he be-j 
 came his own master. The consequences of this train-j 
 ing were an extraordinary mixture of domestic virtuef 
 with official duplicity ; of rustical, mechanical tastes: 
 and popular manners, with the most exalted ideas of 
 authority ; of a childish and self-betraying cunning,) 
 with the most stubborn reserves ; of fearlessness with 
 sordidness ; good-nature with unf orgivingness ; and of 
 the health and strength of temperance and self-denial,, 
 with the last weaknesses of understanding, and pas4 
 sions that exasperated it out of its reason. The Englisl^' 
 nation were pleased to see in him a crowning specimen,! 
 of themselves — a royal John Bull. They did not dis4 
 cover till too late (perhaps have not yet discovered)^ 
 how much of the objectionable, as well as the respect-; 
 able, lies hidden in the sturdy nickname invented for 
 them by Arbuthnot ; ^ how much the animal predomi-; 
 nates in it over the intellectual ; and how terribly thO; 
 bearer of it may be overridden, whether in a royal or 
 a national shape. They had much better get some 
 new name for themselves, worthy of the days of Queen| 
 Victoria and of the hopes of the world. t 
 
 In every shape I reverence calamity, and would not? 
 be thought to speak of it with levity, especially in] 
 connection with a dynasty which has since become I 
 estimable, as well as reasonable, in every respect. | 
 
 If the histories of private as well as public families ' 
 
 [» Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735). His History of John Bull, de- 
 signed to ridicule the Duke of Mai-lborough, appeared in 1712.] 
 
 223
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 were known, the race of the Guelphs would only be 
 found, in the person of one of their ancestors, to have 
 shared, in common perhaps with every family in the 
 world, the sorrows of occasional deterioration. But in 
 the greatest and most tragical examples of human 
 suffering, the homeliest, as well as the loftiest images, 
 are too often forced on the mind together. George 
 the Third, with all his faults, was a more estimable 
 man than many of his enemies, and, certainly, than 
 any of his wholesale revilers ; and the memory of his 
 last days is sanctified by whatever can render the loss 
 of sight and of reason affecting. 
 
 Whatever of any kind has taken place in the world, 
 may have been best for all of us in the long run. 
 Nature permits us, retrospectively and for comfort's 
 sake, though not in a different spirit, to entertain that 
 conclusion among others. But meantime, either be- 
 cause the world is not yet old enough to know better, 
 or because we yet live but in the tuning of its instru- 
 ments, and have not learned to play the harmonies of 
 the earth sweetly, men feel incited by what is good as 
 well as bad in them, to object and to oppose ; and 
 youth being the season of inexperience and of vanity, 
 as well as of enthusiasm, otherwise the most disinter- 
 ested, the Examiner, which began its career, like most 
 papers, with thinking the worst of those from whom 
 it differed, and expressing its mind accordingly with 
 fearless sincerity (which was not equally the case Tvith 
 those papers), speedily excited the anger of Govern- 
 ment. It did this the more, inasmuch as, according to 
 what has been stated of its opinions on foreign politics, 
 and in matters of church government, it did not fall 
 into the common and half -conciliating because degrad- 
 ing error of antagonists, by siding, as a matter of 
 course, with the rest of its enemies. 
 
 I need not reopen the questions of foreign and do- 
 mestic policy which were mooted with the ruling 
 powers in those days, Reform in particular. The result 
 is well known, and the details in general have ceased 
 to be interesting. I would repeat none of them at all 
 if personal history did not give a new zest to almost 
 
 224
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 any kind of relation. As such, however, is the case, 
 I shall proceed to observe that the Examiner had not 
 been established a year when Government instituted a 
 prosecution against it, in consequence of some remarks ; 
 on a pamphlet by a Major Hogan, who accused the \ 
 Duke of York, as Commander-in-Chief, of favouritism 
 and corruption. 
 
 Major Hogan was a furious but honest Irishman, who 
 had been in the army seventeen years. He had served 
 and suffered bitterly ; in the West Indies he possessed 
 the highest testimonials to his character, had been a 
 very active recruiting officer, had seen forty captains 
 promoted over his head in spite of repeated applica- 
 tions and promises, and he desired, after all, nothing 
 but the permission to purchase his advancement, agree- 
 ably to every custom. 
 
 Provoked out of his patience by these fruitless 
 endeavours to buy what others who had done nothing 
 obtained for nothing, and being particularly disgusted 
 at being told, for the sixth time, that he had been 
 " noted for promotion, and would be duly considered as 
 favourable opportunities offered," the gallant Hibernian 
 went straight, without any further ado, to the office of 
 the Commander-in-chief, and there, with a vivacity and 
 plain-speaking which must have looked like a scene in 
 a play, addressed his Royal Highness in a speech that 
 astounded him. 
 
 The Major explained to the royal Commander-in- 
 chief how more than forty captains had been promoted 
 without purchase, who had been his juniors when he 
 was a captain, and how it had been suggested to him 
 that he might obtain a majority without purchase by 
 paying six hundred pounds as a bribe to certain persons. 
 The Duke of York made no reply, asked no questions, 
 but looked astounded. " Vox faucibus hcesit" The 
 Major proceeded to state his case in a pamphlet for 
 publication. The day after his first advertisement, a 
 lady in a barouche, with two footmen, called at the 
 newspaper office for his address, and on the following 
 evening an anonymous letter was left at his lodging, 
 telling him that to maintain secrecy would benefit him 
 
 225 Q
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 with the royal family, and hoping that " the enclosed " 
 (notes for 500Z.) would prevent the publication of his 
 intended pamphlet. The receipt of this letter was 
 properly attested by several witnesses. Major Hogan 
 declined to be influenced by such agencies, and instantly 
 announced that the money should be returned. 
 
 The Examiner made comments on these disclosures, 
 of a nature that was to be expected from its ardour in 
 the cause of Reform ; not omitting, however, to draw 
 a distinction between the rights of domestic privacy 
 and the claims to indulgence set up by traffickers in 
 public corruption. The Government, however, cared 
 nothing for this distinction ; neither would it have had 
 the corruption inquired into. Its prosecutions were of 
 a nature that did not allow truth to be investigated ; 
 and one of these was accordingly instituted against us, 
 when it was unexpectedly turned aside by a member of 
 Parliament, Colonel Wardle, who was resolved to bring 
 the female alluded to by Major Hogan before the notice 
 of that tribunal. 
 
 I say " unexpectedly," because neither then, nor at 
 any time, had I the least knowledge of Colonel Wardle. 
 The Examiner^ so to speak, lived quite alone. It sought 
 nobody; and its principles in this respect had already 
 become so well understood that few sought it, and no 
 one succeeded in making its acquaintance. The colonel's 
 motion for an investigation came upon us, therefore, 
 like a god-send. The prosecution against the paper 
 was dropped ; and the whole attention of the country 
 was drawn to the strange spectacle of a laughing, 
 impudent woman, brought to the bar of the House of 
 Commons, and forcing them to laugh in their turn at 
 the effrontery of her answers. The poor Duke of 
 York had parted with her, and she had turned against 
 him. 
 
 The upshot of the investigation was, that Mrs. 
 Clarke* had evidently made money by the seekers of 
 
 [* Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, n^e Thompson (1776-1852), was a mistress 
 of Frederick, Duke of York, the Commander-in-chief, a younger 
 brother of George IV. Her appearance at the bar of the House of 
 Commons, which took place in 1809, caused a great sensation. She 
 was imprisoned in 1813 for libel.] 
 
 226
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 military promotion, but that the duke was pronounced 
 innocent of connivance. His Royal Highness with- 
 drew, however, from office for a time (for he was not 
 long afterwards reinstated), and public opinion, as to 
 his innocence or guilt, went meanwhile pretty much 
 according to that of party. 
 
 My own impression, at this distance of time, and 
 after better knowledge of the duke's private history 
 and prevailing character, is, that there was some con- 
 nivance on his part, but not of a systematic nature, or 
 beyond what he may have considered as warrantable 
 towards a few special friends of his mistress, on the 
 assumption that she would carry her influence no 
 farther. His own letters proved that he allowed her to 
 talk to him of people with a view to promotion. He even 
 let her recommend him a clergyman, who (as he phrased 
 it) had an ambition to " preach before royalty." He 
 said he would do what he could to bring it about; 
 probably thinking nothing whatsoever — I mean, never 
 having the thought enter his head — of the secret 
 scandal of the thing, or not regarding his consent as 
 anything but a piece of good-natured patronizing 
 acquiescence, after the ordinary fashion of the " ways of 
 the world." 
 
 For, in truth, the Duke of York was as good-natured 
 a man as he was far from being a wise one. The 
 investigation gave him a salutary caution ; but I really 
 believe, on the whole, that he had already been, as he 
 was afterwards, a very good, conscientious war-office 
 clerk. He was a brave man, though no general; a 
 very filial, if not a very thinking politician (for he 
 always voted to please his father); and if he had no 
 idea of economy, it is to be recollected how easily 
 princes' debts are incurred, — how often encouraged by 
 the creditors who complain of them ; and how often, 
 and how temptingly to the debtor, they are paid off by 
 governments. 
 
 As to his amours, the temptations of royalty that way 
 are still greater : the duke seems to have regarded a 
 mistress in a very tender and conjugal point of view, 
 as long as the lady chose to be equally considerate ; and 
 
 227
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 if people wondered why such a loving man did not love 
 his duchess — who appears to have been as good-natured 
 as himself — the wonder ceased when they discovered 
 that her Royal Highness was a lady of so whimsical a 
 taste, and possessed such an overflowing amount of 
 benevolence towards the respectable race of beings 
 hight dogs, that in the constant occupation of looking 
 after the welfare of some scores of her canine friends, 
 she had no leisure to cultivate the society of those 
 human ones that could better dispense with her 
 attentions. 
 
 The ministers naturally grudged the Examiner its 
 escape from the Hogan prosecution, especially as they 
 gained nothing with the paper, in consequence of their 
 involuntary forbearance. Accordingly, before another 
 year was out, they instituted a second prosecution ; and 
 so eager were they to bring it, that, in their haste, they 
 again overleaped their prudence. Readers in the 
 present times, when more libels have been written in a 
 week by Toryism itself against royalty, in the most 
 irreverent style, than appeared in thsoe days in the 
 course of a year from pens the most radical, and 
 against princes the most provoking, are astonished to 
 hear that the offence we had committed consisted of 
 the following sentence : 
 
 "Of all monarchs since the Revolution, the successor 
 of George the Third will have the finest opportunity of 
 becoming nobly popular." 
 
 But the real offence was the contempt displayed 
 towards the ministers themselves. The article in which 
 the sentence appeared, was entitled " Change of 
 Ministry ;" the Duke of Portland^ had just retired from 
 the premiership ; and the Examine^' had been long 
 girding him and his associates on the score of general 
 incompetency, as well as their particular unfitness for 
 constitutional government. The ministers cared nothing 
 for the king, in any sense of personal zeal, or of a 
 particular wish to vindicate or exalt him. The tempers, 
 
 [1 William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, the third Duke of Portland 
 (173S-1809). He became First Lord of the Treasury in 1807, but 
 retired the same year.] 
 
 228
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 caprices, and strange notions o£ sincerity and craft to 
 which he was subject, by neutralizing in a great 
 measure his ordinary good nature and somewhat 
 exuberant style of intercourse on the side of familiar- 
 ity and gossiping, did not render him a very desirable 
 person to deal with, even among friends. But he was 
 essentially a Tory king, and so far a favourite of 
 Tories ; he was now terminating the fiftieth year of 
 his reign ; there was to be a jubilee in consequence ; 
 and the ministers thought to turn the loyalty of the 
 holiday into an instrument of personal revenge. 
 
 The passage in that article charged with being 
 libellous was the following [reproduced now as a 
 specimen of what was considered libel in those 
 days] : — 
 
 " Whatever may be the truth of these statements, it is generally 
 supposed that the mutilated administration, in spite of its tenacity 
 of life, cannot exist much longer ; and the Foxites, of course, are 
 beginning to rally round their leaders, in order to give it the coup 
 ■de gtace. A more respectable set of men they certainly are, — with 
 more general information, more attention to the encouragement of 
 intellect, and altogether a more enlightened policy ; and if his 
 Majesty could be persuaded to enter into their conciliatory views 
 with regard to Ireland, a most important and most necessary benefit 
 would be obtained for this country. The subject of Ireland, next to 
 the difficulty of coalition, is no doubt the great trouble in the 
 election of his Majesty's servants ; and it is this, most probably, 
 which has given rise to the talk of a regency, a measure to which 
 the court would never resort while it felt a possibility of acting 
 upon its own principles. What a crowd of blessings rush upon 
 one's mind, that might be bestowed upon the country in the event 
 of such a change ! Of all monarchs, indeed, since the revolution, 
 the successor of George the Third will have the finest opportunity 
 of becoming nobly popular." 
 
 The framers of the indictment evidently calculated 
 •on the usual identification of a special with a Tory 
 jury. They had reckoned, at the same time, so con- 
 fidently on the effect to be produced with that class of 
 persons, by any objection to the old king, that the 
 proprietor of the Morning Chronicle^ Mr. Perry, ^ was 
 prosecuted for having extracted only the two conclud- 
 
 [' James Perry (1756-1821), one of the pioneers of Parliamentary 
 reporting. He was the first to introduce the system of employing 
 ^ succession of reporters to take notes of the speeches.] 
 
 229
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ing sentences ; and as the Government was still more 
 angered with the Whigs who hoped to displace them, 
 than with the Radicals who wished to see them dis- 
 placed, Mr. Perry's prosecution preceded ours. This 
 was fortunate ; for though the proprietor of the 
 Morning Chronicle pleaded his own cause, an occasion 
 in which a man is said to have " a fool for his client " 
 (that is to say, in the opinion of lawyers), he pleaded it 
 so well, and the judge (Ellenborough), who afterwards 
 showed himself so zealous a Whig, gave him a hearing 
 and construction so favourable, that he obtained an 
 acquittal, and the prosecution against the Examinei'- 
 accordingly fell to the ground. 
 
 I had the pleasure of a visit from this gentleman 
 while his indictment was pending. He came to tell me 
 how he meant to conduct his defence. He was a lively, 
 good-natured man, with a shrewd expression of 
 countenance, and twinkling eyes, which he not un- 
 willingly turned upon the ladies. I had lately married, 
 and happened to be sitting with my wife. A chair was 
 given him close to us ; but as he was very near-sighted, 
 and yet could not well put up his eyeglass to look at 
 her (which purpose, nevertheless, he was clearly bent 
 on effecting), he took occasion, while speaking of the 
 way in which he should address the jury, to thrust his 
 face close upon hers, observing at the same time, with 
 his liveliest emphasis, and, as if expressly for her 
 information, " I mean to be very modest." 
 
 The unexpectedness of this announcement, together 
 with the equivocal turn given to it by the vivacity of his 
 movement, had all the effect of a dramatic surprise, 
 and it was with difficulty we kept our countenances. 
 
 Mr. Periy subsequently became one of my warmest 
 friends, and, among other services, would have done me 
 one of a very curious nature, which I will mention 
 by-and-by.^ 
 
 [' This is the first mention that the writer makes of his marriages 
 and it is a striking example of the manner in which, for various 
 reasons, but principally out of delicacy to living persons, he felt 
 himself bound to pass over, with very slight allusions, the greater 
 part of his personal and private life. In the present instance there 
 
 230
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 Of the ministers, whom a young journalist thus 
 treated with contempt, I learned afterwards to think 
 better. Not as ministers : for I still consider them, in 
 that respect, as the luckiest, and the least deserving their 
 luck, of any statesmen that have been employed by the 
 House of Brunswick. I speak not only of the section 
 at that moment reigning, but of the whole of what 
 was called Mr. Pitt's successors. But with the inexperi- 
 ence and presumption of youth, I was too much in the 
 habit of confounding difference of opinion with dis- 
 honest motives. I did not see (and it is strange how 
 
 was no practical reason for this reserve, unless it was that if the 
 author had entered upon domestic matters, he might, with his 
 almost exaggerated sense of the active obligations which truth- 
 speaking involved, have felt bound to enter into personal questions 
 and perhaps judgments, which he thought it better to waive. The 
 dommating motives for this characteristic reserve are treated in the 
 closing chapter of the volume. Leigh Hunt was married in 1809, 
 [July 3], to Marianne, the daughter of Thomas and Ann Kent. Mr. 
 Kent had died comparatively young. His widow had obtained an 
 independent livelihood as a dressmaker in rather a "high" connec- 
 tion ; amongst her acquaintance was the young editor, who fell in love 
 with the eldest daughter, and married her after a long courtship. 
 The bride was the reverse of handsome, and without accomplish- 
 ments; but she had a pretty figure, beautiful black hair which 
 reached down to her knees, magnificent eyes, and a very unusual 
 natural turn for plastic art. She was an active and thrifty house- 
 wife, until the curious malady with which she was seized totally 
 undermined her strength. Mrs. Kent, her mother, who had perhaps 
 acquired some harshness of character in a very hard school of 
 adversity, never quite succeeded in retaining the regard of her son- 
 in-law, — one reason, perhaps, for the reserve which has been 
 noticed. Mrs. Kent made, indeed, some fearful mistakes in her 
 sternness ; but she was really a very kind-hearted woman, only too 
 anxious to please, and faithful in the attachments which she foinied, 
 even when disappointed. She subsequently married Mr. Rowland 
 Hunter, a man of keen observation and simple mind, who has 
 survived to a great age, and whose hearty friendship was cordially 
 appreciated by Leigh Hunt, as they both advanced in years. 
 Rowland Hunter was the nephew and successor of Johnson, the 
 well-known bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the early 
 patron of the poet Cowper. Johnson acquired celebrity for his 
 success in business, his intelligence, and his peculiar hospitality ; 
 and Mr. Hunter continued his custom of keeping open house weekly 
 for literary men, the friends of literature, and persons of any 
 individual mark. At his house, the young author encountered a 
 great variety of minds, and most unquestionably derived great 
 advantage from the opportunity. His conversation frequently turned 
 upon his recollections of these gatherings, and it was in this house 
 that he formed many of his literary and personal acquaintances. 
 — T. H.] 
 
 231
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 people, not otherwise wanting in common sense or 
 modesty, can pass whole lives without seeing !) that if 
 I had a right to have good motives attributed to myself 
 by those who differed with me in opinion, I was bound 
 to reciprocate the concession. I did not reflect that 
 political antagonists have generally been born and bred 
 in a state of antagonism, and that for any one of them 
 to demand identity of opinion from another on pain of 
 his being thought a man of bad motives, was to demand 
 that he should have had the antagonist's father and 
 mother as well as his own — the same training, the same 
 direction of conscience, the same predilections and very 
 prejudices ; not to mention, that good motives them- 
 selves might have induced a man to go counter to all 
 these, even had he been bred in them ; which, in one or 
 two respects, was the case with myself. 
 
 Canning,^ indeed, was not a man to be treated with 
 contempt under any circumstances by those who ad- 
 mired wit and rhetoric ; though, compared with what 
 he actually achieved in either, I cannot help thinking 
 that his position procured him an undue measure of 
 fame. What has he left us to perpetuate the amount 
 of it? A speech or two, and the Ode on the Knife- 
 Crrinder. This will hardly account with the next ages 
 for the statue that occupies the highway in West- 
 minster ; a compliment, too, unique of its kind ; mono- 
 polizing the parliamentary pavement, as though the 
 original had been the only man fit to go forth as the 
 representative of Parliament itself, and to challenge 
 the admiration of the passengers. The liberal measures 
 of Canning's last days renewed his claim on the public 
 regard, especially as he was left, by the jealousy and 
 resentment of his colleagues, to carry them by himself : 
 jealousy, because, small as his wit was for a great 
 fame, they had none of their own to equal it ; and 
 resentment, because in its indiscretions and incon- 
 siderateness, it had nicknamed or bantered them all 
 
 [ » Rt. Hon. George Canning (1770- 1827). ' * The Friend of Humanity 
 and the Knife-Grinder," a clever but merciless parody of Southey's 
 early Jacobin verses, appeared in the Anti-Jacobin newspaper. As 
 a youth at Eton Canning started a periodical called the Microcosm.] 
 
 232
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 round, — the real cause, I have no doubt, of that aristo- 
 cratical desertion of his ascendancy which broke his 
 heart at the very height of his fortunes. But at the 
 time I speak of, I took him for nothing but a great sort 
 of impudent Eton boy, with an unfeelingness that sur- 
 passed his abihty. Whereas he was a man of much 
 natural sensibility, a good husband and father, and an 
 admirable son. Canning continued, as long as he lived, i 
 to write a letter every week to his mother, who had \ 
 been an actress, and whom he treated, in every respect, j 
 with a consideration and tenderness that may be pro- f 
 nounced to have been perfect. " Good son " should • 
 have been written under his statue. It would have 
 given the somewhat pert look of his handsome face a 
 pleasanter effect ; and have done him a thousand times 
 more good with the coming generations than his Ode 
 on the Knife-Grinder. 
 
 The Earl of Liverpool,^ whom Madame de Stael is 
 said to have described as having a " talent for silence," 
 and to have asked, in company, what had become of 
 "that dull speaker, Lord Hawkesbury " (his title during 
 his father's lifetime), was assuredly a very dull minister ; 
 but I believe he was a very good man. His father had 
 been so much in the confidence of the Earl of Bute at 
 the accession of George III., as to have succeeded to 
 his invidious reputation of being the secret adviser of 
 the king ; and he continued in great favour during the 
 whole of the reign. The son, with little interval, was 
 in office during the whole of the war with Napoleon ; 
 and after partaking of all the bitter draughts of dis- 
 appointment which ended in killing Pitt, had the luck 
 of tasting the sweets of triumph. I met him one day, 
 not long afterwards, driving his barouche in a beautiful 
 spot where he lived, and was so struck with the melan- 
 choly of his aspect, that, as I did not know him by sight, 
 I asked a passenger who he was. 
 
 The same triumph did not hinder poor Lord Castle- 
 reagh ^ from dying by his own hand. The long burden 
 
 (* Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828) became 
 Prime Minister in 1812, after the assassination of Spencer Perceval.] 
 
 [^ Robert Stewart, second Marquis of Londonderry, better known 
 AS Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822).] 
 
 233
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 of responsibility had been too much, even for him ; 
 though, to all appearance, he was a man of a stronger 
 temperament than Lord Liverpool, and had, indeed, a 
 very noble aspect. He should have led a private life, 
 and been counted one of the models of the aristocracy ; 
 for though a ridiculous speaker and a cruel politician 
 (out of impatience of seeing constant trouble, and not 
 knowing otherwise how to end it), he was an intelligent 
 and kindly man in private life, and could be superior to 
 his position as a statesman.^ He delighted in the poli- 
 tical satire of the Beggars Opera ; has been seen ap- 
 plauding it from a stage box ; and Lady Morgan tells 
 us, would ask her in company to play him the songs on 
 the pianoforte, and good-humouredly accompany them 
 with a bad voice. How pleasant it is thus to find one- 
 self reconciled to men whom we have ignorantly under- 
 valued ! and how fortunate to have lived long enough 
 to say so ! 
 
 The Exaininer, though it preferred the Whigs to the 
 Tories, was not a Whig of the school then existing. 
 Its great object was a reform in Parliament, which the 
 older and more influential Whigs did not advocate, 
 which the younger ones (the fathers of those now 
 living) advocated but fitfully and misgivingly, and which 
 had lately been suffered to fall entirely into the hands 
 of those newer and more thorough-going Whigs, which 
 were known by the name of Radicals, and have since 
 been called WTiig-Radicals and Liberals. The opinions 
 of the Examiner, in fact, both as to State and Church 
 government, allowing, of course, for difference of posi- 
 tion in the parties and tone in their manifestation, 
 were those that have since swayed the destinies of the 
 country, in the persons of Queen Victoria and her 
 ministers. I do not presume to give her Majesty the 
 name of a partisan ; or to imply that, under any circum- 
 stances, she would condescend to accept it. Her busi- 
 ness, as she well knows and admirably demonstrates, 
 is not to side with any of the disputants among her 
 
 [' The amount, and even existence, of the cruelty here attributed 
 to Lord Castlereagh, have since been denied, and apparently not 
 without reason. — T. H.] 
 
 234
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 children, but to act lovingly and dispassionately for 
 them all, as circumstances render expedient. But the , 
 extraordinary events which took place on the continent i 
 during her childhood, the narrow political views of 
 most of her immediate predecessors, her own finer and. 
 more genial understanding, and the training of a wi8e| | 
 mother, all these circumstances in combination have] ' 
 rendered her what no prince of her house has been|; 
 before her, — equal to the (Jemands not only of thef • 
 nation and the day, but of the days to come, and th© 
 popular interests of the world. So, at least, I conceive^l ^ 
 I do not pretend to any special knowledge of the cour<| 
 or its advisers. I speak from what I have seen of her^ 
 Majesty's readiness to fall in with every great and 
 liberal measure for the education of the country, the 
 freedom of trade, and the independence of nations ; and 
 I spoke in the same manner before I could be suspected 
 of confounding esteem with gratitude. She knows 
 how, and nobly dares, to let the reins of restriction in 
 the hands of individuals be loosened before the growing 
 strength and self-government of the many ; and thej 
 royal house that best knows how to do this, and neither 
 to tighten those reins in anger nor abandon them out 
 of fear, will be the last house to suffer in any convul^* 
 sion which others may provoke, and the first to b^ 
 reassured in their retention, as long as royalty shal| 
 exist. May it exist, under the shape in which I can 
 picture it to my imagination, as long as reasonableness 
 can outlive envy, and ornament be known to be one o| 
 nature's desires ! Excess, neither of riches nor poverty^ 
 would then endanger it. I am no republican, nor eve^ 
 was, though I have lived during a period of history 
 when kings themselves tried hard to make honest men 
 republicans by their apparent unteachableness. But 
 my own education, the love, perhaps, of poetic ornar 
 ment, and the dislike which I had conceived at tha^ 
 time of an existing republic, even of British origin^ 
 kept me within the pale of the loyal. I might prefer^ 
 perhaps, a succession of queens to kings, and a simply 
 fillet on their brows to the most gorgeous diadem. I 
 think that men more willingly obey the one, and I am 
 
 2.3.5
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 sure that nobody could mistake the cost of the other. 
 But peaceful and reasonable provision for the progress 
 of mankind towards all the good possible to their nature, 
 from orderly good manners up to disinterested senti- 
 ments, is the great desideratum in government ; and 
 thinking this more securely and handsomely maintained 
 in limited monarchies than republics, I am for English 
 permanence in this respect, in preference to French 
 mutability, and American electiveness ; though, at the 
 same time, I cannot but consider the two great nations 
 of France and the United States as setting us enviable 
 examples in regard to the more amiable sociality of the 
 one and the special and constant consideration for 
 women in the other. 
 
 The Tory Government having failed in its two 
 attacks on the Examiner^ could not be content, for any 
 length of time, till it had failed in a third. For such 
 was the case. The new charge was again on the subject 
 of the army — that of military flogging. An excellent 
 article on the absurd and cruel nature of that punish- 
 ment, from the pen of the late Mr. John Scott^ (who 
 afterwards fell in a duel with one of the writers in 
 Blacktvood), had appeared in a country paper, the 
 Stamford Neics^ of which he was editor. The most 
 striking passages of this article were copied into the 
 Examiner^ and it is a remarkable circumstance in the 
 history of juries, that after the journal which copied it 
 had been acquitted^ in London, the journal which 
 originated the copied matter was found guilty in Stam- 
 ford ; and this, too, though the counsel was the same 
 in both instances — the present Lord Brougham, 
 
 ' [' John Scott (1783-1821). Editor of the CJiampion newspaper 
 and afterwards Editor of the London Magazine. While conducting 
 
 ' the latter periodical he induced Lamb to contribute a series of Essays 
 which are now universally known by their signature Elia. He also 
 obtained the support of Hazlitt and other writers of fame. The 
 duel in which Scott fell was with Jonathan Henry Christie, a friend 
 of Lockhart, who had been severely attacked by Scott. Byron 
 wrote of Scott that he "died like a brave man and lived an able 
 one."] 
 
 [2 Early in 1811 Shelley first introduced himself to Hunt by send- 
 ing him from Oxford a letter of congratulation on his acquittal on 
 this trial.] 
 
 236
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTERS 
 
 The attorney-general at that time was Sir Vicary 
 Gibbs ; ^ a name which it appears somewhat ludicrous 
 to me to write at present, considering what a bugbear 
 it was to politicians, and how insignificant it has since 
 become. Sir Vicary was a little, irritable, sharp- 
 featured, bilious-looking man (so at least he was 
 described, for I never saw him) ; very worthy, I believe, 
 in private ; and said to be so fond of novels, that he 
 would read them after the labours of the day, till the 
 wax lights guttered without his knowing it. I had a 
 secret regard for him on this account, and wished he 
 would not haunt me in a spirit so unlike Tom Jones. 
 I know not what sort of lawyer he was ; probably none 
 the worse for imbuing himself with the knowledge of 
 Fielding and Smollett ; but he was a bad reasoner, 
 and made half-witted charges. He used those edge- 
 tools of accusation which cut a man's own fingers. 
 He assumed that we could have no motives for writing 
 but mercenary ones ; and he argued that because Mr. 
 Scott (who had no more regard for Bonaparte than we 
 had) endeavoured to shame down the practice of mili- 
 tary flogging by pointing to the disuse of it in the 
 armies of France, he only wanted to subject his native 
 country to invasion. He also had the simplicity to ask 
 why we did not "speak privately on the subject to 
 some member of Parliament," and get him to notice it 
 in a proper manner, instead of bringing it before the 
 public in a newspaper ? We laughed at him ; and the 
 event of his accusations enabled us to laugh more. 
 
 The charge of being friends of Bonaparte against all 
 who differed with Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning 
 was a common, and, for too long a time, a successful 
 trick with such of the public as did not read the 
 writings of the persons accused. I have often been 
 surprised, much later in life, both in relation to this 
 and to other charges, at the credulity into which many 
 excellent persons had owned they had been thus be- 
 guiled, and at the surprise which they expressed in turn 
 at finding the charges the reverse of true. To the 
 
 [1 Sir Vicary Gibbs (1751-1820).] 
 237
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 readers of the Examiner they caused only indignation 
 or merriment. 
 
 The last and most formidable prosecution against us 
 remains to be told ; but some intermediate circum- 
 stances must be related first. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 [1810] 
 
 THE Examiner had been established between two 
 and three years, when [in 1810]^ my brother 
 projected a quarterly magazine of literature and poli- 
 tics, entitled the Reflector, which I edited. Lamb, Dyer, 
 Barnes, Mitchell, the Greek Professor Scholefield (all 
 Christ-Hospital men), together with Dr. Aikin and his 
 family, wrote in it ; and it w^as rising in sale every 
 quarter, when it stopped at the close of the fourth 
 number for want of funds. Its termination w^as not 
 owing to want of liberality in the payments. But the 
 radical reformers in those days were not sufficiently 
 rich or numerous to support such a publication. 
 
 Some of the liveliest effusions of Lamb first appeared 
 in this magazine ; and in order that I might retain no 
 influential class for my good wishers, after having 
 angered the stage, dissatisfied the Church, offended the 
 State, not very well pleased the Whigs, and exasperated 
 the Tories, I must needs commence the maturer part of 
 my verse-making with contributing to its pages the 
 Feast of the Poets. 
 
 The Feast of the Poets ^ was (perhaps I may say, is) a 
 jeu-d'esprit suggested by the Session of the Poets of Sir 
 John Suckling. Apollo gives the poets a dinner ; and 
 
 [* The first number was issued in December, 1810.] 
 
 [* The Feast of the Poets was afterwards published "with 
 
 notes and other pieces of verse, by the Editor of the Eocaminer, 
 
 1814."] 
 
 , 238
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 many verse-makers, who have no claim to the title, 
 present themselves, and are rejected. 
 
 With this effusion, while thinking of nothing but 
 showing my wit, and reposing under the shadow of my 
 " laurels " (of which I expected a harvest as abundant 
 as my self-esteem), I made almost every living poet 
 and poetaster my enemy, and particularly exasperated 
 those among the Tories. I speak of the shape in which 
 it first appeared, before time and reflection had mode- 
 rated its judgment. It drew upon my head all the 
 personal hostility which had hitherto been held in a 
 state of suspense by the vaguer daring of the Examiner^ 
 and I have reason to believe that its inconsiderate, and 
 I am bound to confess, in some respects, unwarrantable 
 levity, was the origin of the gravest and far less war- 
 rantable attacks which I afterwards sustained from 
 political antagonists, and which caused the most serious 
 mischief to my fortunes. Let the young satirist take 
 warning ; and consider how much self-love he is going 
 to wound, by the indulgence of his own. 
 
 Not that I have to apologize to the memory of every 
 one whom I attacked. I am sorry to have had occasion 
 to differ with any of my fellow-creatures, knowing the 
 mistakes to which we are all liable and the circum- 
 stances that help to cause them. But I can only regret 
 it, personally, in proportion to the worth or personal 
 regret on the side of the enemy. 
 
 The Quarterly Revieic, for instance, had lately been 
 set up, and its editor was Gifford,^ the author of the 
 Baviad and Mceviad. I had been invited, nay, pressed 
 by the publisher, to write in the new review ; which 
 surprised me, considering its politics and the great 
 difference of my own. I was not aware of the little 
 faith that was held in the politics of any beginner of 
 the world ; and I have no doubt that the invitation had 
 been made at the instance of Gifford himself, of whom, 
 as the dictum of a " man of vigorous learning," and the 
 
 [» William Gifford (1756-1826). T1ie Baviad, a poem satirizing 
 the Delia Oruscan School of Poetasters, appeared in 1794, which was 
 followed in 1795 by The Mceviad, a satire directed against the 
 corruptions of the drama of the day.] 
 
 239
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 *' first satirist of his time," I had quoted in the Critical 
 Essays the gentle observation, that " all the fools in 
 the kingdom seemed to have risen up with one accord, 
 and exclaimed, ' let us write for the theatres ! ' " 
 
 Strange must have been Gifford's feelings, when, 
 in the Feast of the Poets, he found his eulogizer falling 
 as trenchantly on the author of the Baviad and Mmviad 
 as the Baviad and Ma^viad had fallen on the dramatists. 
 The Tory editor discerned plainly enough, that if a 
 man's politics were of no consideration with the 
 Quarterly Revieic, provided the politician was his critical 
 admirer, they were very different things with the 
 editor Radical. He found also, that the new satirist 
 had ceased to regard the old one as a " critical 
 authority ; " and he might not have unwarrantably 
 concluded that I had conceived some personal disgust 
 against him as a man ; for such, indeed, was the secret 
 of my attack. 
 
 The reader is, perhaps, aware, that George the 
 Fourth, when he was Prince of Wales, had a mistress 
 of the name of Robinson. She was the wife of a man 
 of no great character, had taken to the stage for a 
 livelihood, was very handsome, wrote verses, and is 
 said to have excited a tender emotion in the bosom of 
 Charles Fox. The prince allured her from the stage, 
 and lived with her for some years. After their sepa- 
 ration, and during her decline, which took place 
 before she was old, she became afflicted with rheuma- 
 tism ; and as she solaced her pains, and perhaps added 
 to her subsistence, by writing verses, and as her verses 
 turned upon her affections, and she could not discontinue 
 her old vein of love and sentiment, she fell under the lash 
 of this masculine and gallant gentleman, Mr. Gifford, 
 who, in his Baviad and Mceviad, amused himself with 
 tripping up her " crutches," particularly as he thought 
 her on her way to her last home. This he considered 
 the climax of the fun. 
 
 "See," exclaimed he, after a hit or two at other 
 women, like a boy throwing stones in the street — 
 
 [See note, vol. i. p. 152.] 
 240
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 " See Robinson forget her state, and move | 
 
 On crutches toid'rds the grave to ' Light o' Love.' " \ 
 
 This is the passage which put all the gall into any- 1 
 thing which I said, then or afterwards, of Giff ord, till i 
 he attacked myself and my friends. At least, it disposed 1 
 me to think the worst of whatever he wrote ; and as 'i 
 reflection did not improve nor suffering soften him, he ^ 
 is the only man I ever attacked, respecting whom li' 
 have felt no regret. 
 
 It would be easy for me, at this distance of time, tol 
 own that Gifford possessed genius, had such been thai 
 case. It would have been easy for me at any time. | 
 But he had not a particle. The scourger of poetasters \ 
 was himself a poetaster. When he had done with hisi 
 whip, everybody had a right to take it up, and lay it overs^ 
 the scourger's shoulders ; for though he had sense enough| 
 to discern glaring faults, he abounded in commonplaces. >' 
 His satire itself, which at its best never went beyondf 
 smartness, was full of them. | 
 
 The reader shall have a specimen or two, in order(; 
 that Mr. Gifford may speak for himself ; for his bookj^ 
 has long ceased to be read. He shall see with how^f 
 little a stock of his own a man may set up for a judge| 
 of others. ^ 
 
 The Baviad and Mceviad — so called from two badj^ 
 poets mentioned by Virgil — was a satire, imitated f rom| 
 Persius, on a set of fantastic writers who had madeil 
 their appearance under the title of Delia Cruscans.'^ 
 The coterie originated in the meeting of some of them I 
 at Florence, the seat of the famous Della-Cruscan !< 
 Academy. Mr. Merry, their leader, who was a member | 
 of that academy, and who wrote under its signature,'^ 
 gave occasion to the name. They first published a' 
 collection of poems, called the Florence Miscellany, and )J 
 then sent verses to the London newspapers, which | 
 occasioned an overflow of contributions in the like;; 
 taste. The taste was as bad as can be imagined ; full of \ 
 floweriness, conceits, and affectation; and, in attempting:? 
 to escape from commonplace, it evaporated into non-' 
 sense : — 
 
 241 R
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 "Was it the shuttle of the morn 
 That wove upon the cobwebb'd thorn 
 Thy airy lay ? " 
 
 •'Hang o'er his eye the gossamery tear." 
 
 '" " Gauzy zephyrs, fluttering o'er the plain, 
 
 v On twilight's bosom drop their filmy rain." 
 
 ;! etc., etc. 
 
 r It was impossible that such absurdities could have 
 had any lasting efiPect on the public taste. They would 
 have died of inanition. 
 
 His satire consists, not in a critical exposure — in 
 showing why the objects of his contempt are wrong — 
 but in simply asserting that they are so. He turns a 
 commonplace of his own in his verses, quotes a passage 
 from his author in a note, expresses his amazement at 
 it, and thus thinks he has proved his case, when he 
 has made out nothing but an overweening assumption 
 at the expense of what was not worth noticing. " I 
 was born," says he, — 
 
 •'To brand obstrusive ignorance with scorn, 
 On bloated pedantry to pour my rage. 
 And hiss preposterous fustian from the stage." 
 
 What commonplace talking is that? Here is some 
 more of the same stuff : — 
 
 "Then let your style be brief, your meaning clear, 
 Nor, like Lorenzo, tire the labouring ear 
 With a wild waste of words ; sound without sense, 
 And all the florid glare of impotence. 
 Still, with your characters your language change, — 
 From grave to gay, as nature dictates, range ; 
 Now droop in all the plaintiveness of woe, — (! !) 
 Now in glad numbers light and airy flow ; 
 Now shake the stage with guilt's alarming tone, (! I) 
 And make the aching bosom all your oxen." 
 
 Was there ever a fonder set of complacent old 
 phrases, such as any schoolboy might utter ? Yet this 
 is the man who undertook to despise Charles Lamb, 
 and to trample on Keats and Shelley ! 
 
 I have mentioned the Roxburgh sale of books. I 
 was standing among the bidders with my friend the 
 late Mr. Barron Field, when he jogged my elbow, and 
 
 242
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 said, " There is Gifford over the way, looking at you 
 with such a face ! " I met the eyes of my beholder, and 
 saw a little man, with a warped frame and a countenance : 
 between the querulous and the angry, gazing at me 
 with all his might. It was, truly enough, the satirist 
 who could not bear to be satirized — the denouncer of 
 incompetencies, who could not bear to be told of his , 
 own. He had now learnt, as I was myself to learn, ;; 
 what it was to taste of his own bitter medicaments ; 
 and he never profited by it, for his Revieio spared 
 neither age nor sex as long as he lived. What he did 
 at first out of a self-satisfied incompetence, he did at 
 last out of an envious and angry one ; and he was, all 
 the while, the humble servant of power, and never 
 expressed one word of regret for his inhumanity. 
 The mixture of implacability and servility is the 
 sole reason, as I have said before, why I still speak 
 of him as I do. If he secretly felt regret for it, I 
 am sorry — especially if he retained any love for his 
 " Anna," whom I take to have been not only the good 
 servant and friend he describes her, but such a one as 
 he could wish that he had married. Why did he not 
 marry her, and remain a humbler and a happier man ? 
 or how was it, that the power to have any love at all 
 could not teach him that other people might have 
 feelings as well as himself, especially women and the 
 sick? 
 
 Such were the causes of my disfavour with the Tory 
 critics in England. 
 
 To those in Scotland I gave, in like manner, the first 
 cause of offence, and they had better right to complain 
 of me ; though they ended, as far as regards the mode 
 of resentment, in being still more in the wrong. I had 
 taken a dislike to Walter Scott, on account of a solitary 
 passage in his edition of Dryden — nay, on account of a 
 single word. The word, it must be allowed, was an 
 extraordinary one, and such as he must have regretted 
 writing ; for a more dastardly or deliberate piece of 
 wickedness than allowing a ship with its crew to go to 
 sea, knowing the vessel to be leaky, believing it likely 
 to founder, and on purpose to destroy one of the pas- 
 
 243
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 songers, it is not easy to conceive ; yet, because this 
 was done by a Tory king, the relator could find no 
 severer term for it than " ungenerous." Here is the 
 passage : — 
 
 " His political principles (the Earl of Mulgrave's) were those of a 
 staiiwch Tory, which he maintained through his whole life ; and he 
 was zealous for the royal prerogative, although he had no small 
 reason to complain of Charles the Second, who, to avenge himself 
 on Mulgrave, lor a supposed attachment to the Princess Anne, sent 
 him to Tangiers, at the head of some troops, in a leaky vessel, 
 ivhich it was siijjpofted miist have perished in the voyage. Though 
 Mulgrave was apprised of the danger, he scorned to shun it ; and 
 the Earl of Plymouth, a favourite son of the king, generously 
 insisted upon sharing it along with him. This u7igenerous attempt 
 to destroy him in the very act of performing his duty, with the 
 refusal of a regiment, made a temporary change in Mulgrave's 
 conduct." — Xofes 071 Absaloiti and Achithophel in Dry den's Works, 
 vol. ix. p. 304. 
 
 This passage was the reason why the future great 
 novelist was introduced to Apollo, in the Feast of the 
 Poets, after a very irreverent fashion. 
 
 I believe that with reference to high standards of 
 poetry and criticism, superior to mere description, how- 
 ever lively, to the demands of rhyme for its own sake, 
 to prosaical groundworks of style, metaphors of com- 
 mon property, conventionalities in general, and the 
 prevalence of a material over a spiritual treatment, my 
 estimate of Walter Scott's then publications, making 
 allowance for the manner of it, will still be found not 
 , far from the truth, by those who have profited by a 
 ,)• more advanced age of sesthetical culture. 
 I There is as much difference, for instance, poetically 
 j[ speaking, between Coleridge's brief poem, Christabel, 
 I and all the narrative poems of Walter Scott, or as 
 "t. Wordsworth called them, " novels in verse," as between 
 f a precious essence and a coarse imitation of it, got up 
 &for sale. Indeed, Coleridge, not unnaturally, though 
 f, not with entire reason (for the story and characters in 
 I Scott were the real charm), lamented that an endeavour, 
 I' unavowed, had been made to catch his tone, and had 
 i succeeded just far enough to recommend to unbounded 
 popularity what had nothing in common with it. 
 
 But though Walter Scott was no novelist at that 
 
 244
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 time except in verse, the tone of personal assumption 
 towards him in the Feast of the Poets formed a just , 
 ground of offence. Not that I had not as much right I 
 to differ with any man on any subject, as he had to * 
 differ with others ; but it would have become me, 
 especially at that time of life, and in speaking of aj 
 living person, to express the difference with modesty. ; 
 I ought to have taken care also not to fall into one of 
 the very prejudices I was reproving, and think ill or^; 
 well of people in proportion as they differed or agreed « 
 with me in politics. Walter Scott saw the good oi\ 
 mankind in a Tory or retrospective point of view. I' 
 saw it from a Whig, a Radical, or prospective one ;| 
 and though I still think he was mistaken, and thought 
 circumstances have shown that the world think so too, j 
 I ought to have discovered, even by the writings which ; 
 I condemned, that he was a man of a kindly nature ; li 
 and it would have become me to have given him credit I 
 for the same good motives, which I arrogated ex-[ 
 clusively for my own side of the question. It is true, [ 
 it might be supposed, that I should have advocated; 
 that side with less ardour, had I been more temperate' 
 in this kind of judgment ; but I do not think so. Or| 
 if I had, the want of ardour would probably have beenj 
 compensated by the presence of qualities, the absence.? 
 of which was injurious to its good effect. At alll 
 events, I am now of opinion, that whatever may be; 
 the immediate impression, a cause is advocated to thei 
 most permanent advantage by persuasive, instead o^ 
 provoking manners ; and certain I am, that whether, 
 this be the case or not, no human being, be he the besti 
 and wisest of his kind, much less a confident youn^i 
 man, can be so sure of the result of his confidence, as; 
 to warrant the substitution of his will and pleasure ini 
 that direction, for the charity which befits his common, 
 modesty and his participation of error. 
 
 It is impossible for me, in other respects, to regretj 
 the war I had with the Tories. I rejoice in it as far 
 as I can rejoice at anything painful to myself and 
 others, and I am paid for the consequences in what I 
 have lived to see ; nay, in the respect and regrets of 
 
 245
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 the best of my enemies. But I am sorry that in aim- 
 ing wounds which I had no right to give, I cannot deny 
 that I brought on myself others which they had still 
 less right to inflict ; and I make the amends of this 
 confession, not only in return for what they have 
 expressed themselves, but in justice to the feelings 
 which honest men of all parties experience as they 
 advance in life, and when they look back calmly upon 
 their common errors. 
 
 " I shall put this book in my pocket," said Walter 
 Scott to Murray, after he had been standing a while at 
 his counter, reading the Storij of Rimini.^ 
 
 " Pray do," said the publisher. The copy of the book 
 was set down to the author in the bookseller's account 
 as a present to Walter Scott. Walter Scott was 
 beloved by his friends; the author of the StovT/ of 
 Rimini was an old offender, personal as well as 
 political ; and hence the fury with which they fell on 
 him in their new publication. 
 
 ^ Every party has a right side and a wrong. The 
 
 right side of Whiggism, Radicalism, or the love of 
 
 liberty, is the love of justice — the wish to see fair play 
 
 to all men, and the advancement of knowledge and 
 
 competence. The wrong side is the wish to pull down 
 
 those above us, instead of the desire of raising those 
 
 who are below. The right side of Toryism is the love 
 
 of order and the disposition to reverence and personal 
 
 attachment ; the wrong side is the love of power for 
 
 power's sake, and the determination to maintain it in 
 
 the teeth of all that is reasonable and humane. A 
 
 strong spice of superstition, generated by the habit of 
 
 .; success, tended to confuse the right and wrong sides 
 
 I of Toryism, in minds not otherwise unjust or un- 
 
 I generous. They seemed to imagine that heaven and 
 
 ; earth would *' come together," if the supposed favourites 
 
 Sof Providence were to be considered as favourites no 
 
 > longer ; and hence the unbounded licence which they 
 
 > gave to their resentment, and the strange self-per- 
 
 [^ The Story of Rimini was published by John Murray in 1816, and 
 was dedicated to Lord Byron. The subject is Dante's story of 
 Paolo and Francesca. — Inferno, Canto v. 101. J 
 
 246
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 mission of a man like Walter Scott, not only to lament i 
 over the progress of society, as if the future had been j 
 ordained only to carry on the past, but to countenance t 
 the Border-like forays of his friends into provinces .] 
 which they had no business to invade, and to speculate j 
 upon still greater organizations of them, which cir- f. 
 cumstances, luckily for his fame, prevented. I allude ;{ 
 to the intended establishment of a journal, which, as it 
 never existed, it is no longer necessary to name. 
 
 Readers in these kindlier days of criticism have no 
 conception of the extent to which personal hostility 
 allowed itself to be transported, in the periodicals of 
 those times. Personal habits, appearances, connections, 
 domesticities, nothing was safe from misrepresenta- 
 tions, begun, perhaps, in the gaiety of a saturnalian 
 licence, but gradually carried to an excess which would 
 have been ludicrous, had it not sometimes produced 
 tragical consequences. It threatened a great many 
 more, and scattered, meantime, a great deal of 
 wretchedness among unoffending as well as offending 
 persons, sometimes in proportion to the delicacy which 
 hindered them from exculpating themselves, and 
 which could only have vindicated one portion of a^ 
 family by sacrificing another. I was so caricatured, it? 
 seems, among the rest, upon matters great and small! 
 (for I did not see a tenth part of what was said of me), | 
 that persons, on subsequently becoming acquainted \ 
 with me, sometimes expressed their surprise at finding | 
 me no other than I was in face, dress, manners, and | 
 very walk ; to say nothing of the conjugality which | 
 they found at my fireside, and the affection which I | 
 had the happiness of enjoying among my friends in 
 general. I never retaliated in the same way ; first, | 
 because I had never been taught to respect it, even by | 
 the jests of Aristophanes ; secondly, because I observed | 
 the sorrow which it caused both to right and wrong ; | 
 thirdly, because it is impossible to know the truth of | 
 any story related of a person, without hearing all the | 
 parties concerned ; and fourthly, because, while people | 
 thought me busy with politics and contention, I was | 
 almost always absorbed in my books and verses, and | 
 
 247 
 
 %
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 -did not, perhaps, sufficiently consider the worldly 
 I consequences of the indulgence. 
 
 !To return to the Feast of the Poets. I offended all 
 tlie critics of the old or French school by objecting to 
 . the monotony of Pope's versification, and all the critics 
 
 ■ of the new or German school, by laughing at Words- 
 worth, with whose writings I was then unacquainted, 
 except through the medium of his deriders. On read- 
 ing him for myself, I became such an admirer, that 
 Lord Byron accused me of making him popular upon 
 town. I had not very well pleased Lord Byron him- 
 self, by counting him inferior to Wordsworth. Indeed, 
 I offended almost everybody whom I noticed ; some by 
 finding any fault at all with them ; some, by not 
 praising them on their favourite points ; some, by 
 praising others on any point ; and some, I am afraid, 
 and those amongst the most good-natured, by need- 
 lessly bringing them on the carpet, and turning their 
 very good-nature into a subject of caricature. Thus I 
 introduced Mr. Hayley, whom I need not have noticed 
 at all, as he belonged to a bygone generation. He had 
 been brought up in the courtesies of the old school of 
 manners, ^vhich he ultra-polished and rendered caress- 
 ing, after the fashion of my Arcadian friends of Italy ; 
 and as the poetry of The T^^iumphs of Temper was not 
 as \'igorous in style as it was amiable in its moral and 
 elegant in point of fancy, I chose to sink his fancy and 
 
 ^his amiableness, and to represent him as nothing but 
 an effeminate parader of phrases of endearment and 
 
 ^Ipickthank adulation. I looked upon him as a sort of 
 powder-puff of a man, with no real manhood in him, 
 but fit only to suffocate people with his frivolous 
 
 Ivanity, and be struck aside with contempt. I had not 
 
 fyet learned, that writers may be very " strong " and 
 huffing on paper, while feeble on other points, and, 
 vice versa, weak in their metres, while they are strong 
 enough as regards muscle. I remember my astonish- 
 ment, years afterwards, on finding that the "gentle 
 Mr. Hayley," whom I had taken for 
 
 " A puny insect, shivering at a breeze," 
 248
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 was a strong-built man, famous for walking in the:;] 
 snow before daylight, and possessed of an intrepidity! 
 SiS a horseman amounting to the reckless. It is not! 
 improbable that the feeble Hayley, during one of hisl 
 equestrian passes, could have snatched up the "vigorous"! 
 Gilford, and pitched him over the hedge into the nextl 
 field. I 
 
 Having thus secured the enmity of the Tory critics| 
 north and south, and the indifference (to say the leasts 
 of it) of the gentlest lookers on, it fell to the lot of the i 
 better part of my impulses to lose me the only counter- 1 
 acting influence which was offered me in the friendship^! 
 of the Whigs. I had partaken deeply of Whig indig-| 
 nation at the desertion of their party by the Prince| 
 Regent. The Reflecto7' contained an article on hisi'i' 
 Royal Highness, bitter accordingly, which bantered,! 
 among other absurdities, a famous dinner given by'^ 
 him to " one hundred and fifty particular friends."| 
 There was a real stream of water running down the* 
 table at this dinner, stocked with golden fish. It had^p 
 banks of moss and bridges of pasteboard ; the salt-iV^ 
 cellars were panniers borne by " golden asses ; " every-ji! 
 thing, in short, was as unlike the dinners now given byyl 
 the sovereign, in point of taste and good sense, asf^i 
 effeminacy is different from womanhood ; and therli 
 Reflector, in a parody of the complaint of the shepherd,! 
 described how '^ 
 
 " Despairing, beside a clear sti'eara, 
 
 The bust of a cod-fish was laid ; 
 
 And while a false taste was his theme, ^| 
 
 A drainer supported his head." | 
 
 '1 
 A day or two after the appearance of this article,| 
 
 I met in the street the late estimable Blanco White, ^';i 
 
 whom I had the pleasure of being acquainted with.| 
 
 He told me of the amusement it had given at Holland^ 
 
 House ; and added, that Lord Holland would be glad|i 
 
 % 
 [' Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841). The author of several 
 Unitarian works and of some books against Roman Catholicism. 
 His autobiography, with extracts from his correspondence, appeared 
 in 1845.) 
 
 249
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 to see 1110 among his friends there, and that he (Blanco 
 White) was commissioned to say so. 
 
 I did not doubt for an instant that anything but the 
 most disinterested kindness and good-nature dictated 
 the invitation which was thus made to me. It was 
 impossible, at any subsequent time, that I could speak 
 with greater respect and admiration of his lordship, 
 than I had been in the habit of doing already. Never 
 had an unconstitutional or illiberal measure taken 
 place in the House of Lords, but his protest was sure 
 to appear against it ; and this, and his elegant litera- 
 ture and reputation for hospitality, had completely 
 won my heart. At the same time, I did not look upon 
 the invitation as any return for this enthusiasm. I 
 considered his lordship (and now at this moment con- 
 sider him) as having been as free from every personal 
 motive as myself ; and this absence of all suspicion, 
 prospective or retrospective, enabled me to feel the 
 more confident and consoled in the answer which I felt 
 bound to make to his courtesy. 
 
 I said to Mr. Blanco White, that I could not suffi- 
 ciently express my sense of the honour that his lord- 
 ship was pleased to do me ; and there was not a man 
 in England at whose table I should be prouder or 
 happier to sit ; and I was fortunate in having a con- 
 veyer of the invitation, who would know how to believe 
 what I said, and to make a true representation of it ; 
 and that with almost any other person, I should fear 
 to be thought guilty of immodesty and presumption, 
 in not hastening to avail myself of so great a kindness ; 
 but that the more I admired and loved the character 
 of Lord Holland, the less I dared to become personally 
 acquainted with him ; that being a far weaker person 
 than he gave me credit for being, it would be difficult 
 for me to eat the mutton and drink the claret of such 
 a man, without falling into any opinion into which his 
 conscience might induce him to lead me ; and that not 
 having a single personal acquaintance, even among 
 what was called my own party (the Radicals), his lord- 
 ship's goodness would be the more easily enabled to put 
 its kindest and most indulgent construction on the 
 
 250
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 misfortune which I was obliged to undergo, in denying ^ 
 myself the delight of his society. | 
 
 I do not say that these were the very words, but! 
 they convey the spirit of what I said to Mr. Blanco | 
 White ; and I should not have doubted his giving them 1 
 a correct report, even had no evidence of it followed. '| 
 But there did ; for Lord Holland courteously sent me | 
 his publications, and never ceased, while he lived, to f 
 show me all the kindness in his power. 4 
 
 Of high life in ordinary, it is little for me to say that 1 
 I might have had a surfeit of it, if I pleased. Circum- 1 
 stances, had I given way to them, might have rendered | 
 half my existence a round of it. I might also havel 
 partaken no mean portion of high life extraordinary.! 
 And very charming is its mixture of softness and? 
 strength, of the manliness of its taste and the urbanity!! 
 of its intercourse. I have tasted, if not much of it,| 
 yet some of its very essence, and I cherish, and am| 
 grateful for it at this moment. What I have said, | 
 therefore, of Holland House, is mentioned under no | 
 feelings, either of assumption or servility. The invita- j 
 tion was made, and declined, with an equal spirit of | 
 faith on both sides in better impulses. | 
 
 Far, therefore, am I from supposing, that the silence | 
 of the Whig critics respecting me was owing to any | 
 hostile influence which Lord Holland would have con- | 
 descended to exercise. Not being among the visitors y 
 at Holland House, I dare say I was not thought of ; or :'] 
 if I was thought of, I was regarded as a person who, ? 
 in shunning Whig connection, and, perhaps, in persist- 
 ing to advocate a reform towards which they were 
 cooling, might be supposed indifferent to Whig 
 advocacy. And, indeed, such was the case, till I felt 
 the want of it. \^,, 
 
 Accordingly, the Edinburgh RevUiv took no notice of 'i 
 the Feast of the Poets, though my verses praised it at ); 
 the expense of the Quarterly, and though some of the | 
 reviewers, to my knowledge, liked it, and it echoed the | 
 opinions of others. It took no notice of the pamphlet |- 
 on the Folly and Danger of Methodism,^ though the 
 [^ An Attempt to show the Folly and Danger of Methodism, in a 
 
 251
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 opinions in it were, perhaps, identical with its own. 
 I And it took as little of the ReforinisVs Ansicer to an 
 ^ Article in the Edinburgh Revieiv^ — a pamphlet which I 
 I wrote in defence of its own reforming principles, which 
 I it had lately taken it into its head to renounce as 
 X impracticable. Reform had been apparently given up 
 I for ever by its originators ; the Tories were increasing 
 ^, in strength every day ; and I was left to battle with 
 * them as I could. Little did I suppose, that a time 
 I would come when I should be an Edinburgh Reviewer 
 'i myself ; when its former editor, agreeably to the 
 , dictates of his heart, would be one of the kindest of my 
 ~ friends ; and when a cadet of one of the greatest of the 
 ( Whig houses, too young at that time to possess more 
 • than a prospective influence, would carry the reform 
 ^; from which his elders recoiled, and gift the prince- 
 opposing Whig-Radical with a pension, under the 
 gracious countenance of a queen whom the Radical 
 ' loves. I think the Edinburgh Review might have 
 . noticed my books a little of tener. I am sure it would 
 \^: have done me a great deal of worldly good by it, and 
 ; itself no harm in these progressing days of criticism. 
 ; But I said nothing on the subject, and may have been 
 ■: thought indifferent. 
 
 ": Of Mr. Blanco White, thus brought to my recoUec- 
 
 ! tion, a good deal is known in certain political and 
 
 i religious quarters ; but it may be new to many readers, 
 
 > that he was an Anglo-Spaniard, who was forced to 
 
 ! quit the Peninsula for his liberal opinions, and who 
 
 ' died in his adopted country not long ago, after many 
 
 years' endeavour to come to some positive faith within 
 
 the Christian pale. At the time I knew him he had 
 
 not long arrived from Spain, and was engaged, or 
 
 about to be engaged, as tutor to the present Lord 
 
 Holland. Though English by name and origin, he was 
 
 more of the Spaniard in appearance, being very unlike 
 
 series of Essays, First Published in the Weekly Paper called the 
 " Examiner," arid noio enlarged\tcith^a Preface and Editorial Notes 
 by the Editor of the ^'Examiner," 1809.] 
 
 {^Reformist's Reply to an Article in the *' Edinburgh Review," 
 1810.] 
 
 252
 
 LITERARY WARFARE 
 
 the portrait prefixed to his Life and Correspondence. 
 At least, he must have greatly altered from what he| 
 was when I knew him, if that portrait ever resembled| 
 him. He had a long pale face, with prominent droop- 1 
 ing nose, anxious and somewhat staring eyes, and a.'^ 
 mouth turning down at the corners. I believe there | 
 was not an honester man in the world, or one of an I 
 acuter intellect, short of the mischief that had been i 
 done it by a melancholy temperament and a supersti- I 
 tious training. It is distressing, in the work alluded | 
 to, to see what a torment the intellect may be rendered | 
 to itself by its own sharpness, in its efforts to make its | 
 way to conclusions, equally unnecessary to discover | 
 and impossible to bo arrived at. .| 
 
 But, perhaps, there was something naturally self- | 
 tormenting in the state of Mr. White's blood. Thel 
 first time I met him at a friend's house, he was suffer- 1 
 ing under the calumnies of his countrymen ; and though | 
 of extremely gentle manners in ordinary, he almost! 
 startled me by suddenly turning round, and saying, in | 
 one of those incorrect foreign sentences which force | 
 one to be relieved while they startle, " If they proceed | 
 more, I will go mad." | 
 
 In like manner, while he was giving me the Holland- 1 
 House invitation, and telling me of the amusement | 
 derived from the pathetic cod's head and shoulders, he | 
 looked so like the piscatory bust which he was describ- I 
 ing, that with all my respect for his patriotism and his I 
 sorrows, I could not help partaking of the unlucky 5 
 tendency of my countrymen to be amused, in spite I 
 of myself, with the involuntary burlesque. | 
 
 Mr. White, on his arrival in England, was so anxious f 
 a student of the language, that he noted down in al 
 pocket-book every phrase which struck him as remark-! 
 able. Observing the words " Cannon Brewery " on I 
 premises then standing in Knightsbridge, and taking the i 
 figure of a cannon which was over them, as the sign of | 
 the commodity dealt in, he put down as a nicety of | 
 speech, " The English breiv cannon." | 
 
 Another time, seeing maid-servants walking with | 
 children in a nursery-garden, he rejoiced in the 
 
 253
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 ^ progeny-loving character of the people among whom 
 
 ! he had come, and wrote down, "Public garden provided 
 
 i for nurses, in which they take the children to walk." 
 
 I This gentleman, who had been called " Blanco " in 
 
 / Spain — which was a translation of his family name 
 
 ; " White," and who afterwards wrote an excellent 
 
 ) English book of entertaining letters on the Peninsula, 
 
 I under the Grseco-Spanish appellation of Don Leucadio 
 
 f Doblado (White Doubled) — was author of a sonnet 
 
 I which Coleridge pronounced to be the best in the 
 
 English language. I know not what Mr. Wordsworth 
 
 said on this judgment. Perhaps he wrote fifty sonnets 
 
 on the spot to disprove it. And in truth it was a bold 
 
 sentence, and probably spoken out of a kindly, though 
 
 not conscious, spirit of exaggeration. The sonnet, 
 
 nevertheless, is truly beautiful.^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE REGENT AND THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 [1812] 
 
 EVERYTHING having been thus prepared, by my- 
 self as well as by others, for a good blow at the 
 Examiner, the ministers did not fail to strike it. 
 
 There was an annual dinner of the Irish on St. 
 Patrick's Day, at which the Prince of Wales's name 
 used to be the reigning and rapturous toast, as that of 
 the greatest friend they possessed in the United King- 
 dom. He was held to be the jovial advocate of liber- 
 ality in all things, and sponsor in particular for con- 
 cession to the Catholic claims. But the Prince of 
 Wales, now become Prince Regent, had retained the 
 Tory ministers of his father ; he had broken life-long 
 engagements ; had violated his promises, particular as 
 
 * It is the one beginning— 
 
 " ]\Iysterious night I when oiir first parent knew." 
 254
 
 THE REGENT AND THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 well as general, those to the Catholics among thems; 
 and led in ioto a different political life from what had 
 been expected. The name, therefore, which used to be 
 hailed with rapture, was now, at the dinner in ques4 
 tion, received with hisses. \ 
 
 An article appeared on the subject in the Examiner ;^ 
 the attorney-general's eye was swiftly upon the article ; 
 and the result to the proprietors was two years' im- 
 prisonment, with a fine, to each, of five hundred pounds.^ 
 I shall relate the story of my imprisonment a few 
 pages onward. Much as it injured me, I cannot wish 
 that I had evaded it, for I believe that it did good, and 
 I should have suffered far worse in the self -abasement.?; 
 Neither have I any quarrel, at this distance of time,' 
 with the Prince Regent ; for though his frivolity, his 
 tergiversation, and his treatment of his wife, will not 
 allow me to respect his memory, I am bound to pardon 
 it as I do my own faults, in consideration of the cir-| 
 cumstances which mould the character of every human 
 being. Could I meet him in some odd corner of the 
 Elysian fields, where charity had room for both of us, 
 I should first apologise to him for having been the 
 instrument in the hand of events for attacking a f el- ; 
 low-creature, and then expect to hear him avow as 
 hearty a regret for having injured myself, and unjustly 
 treated his wife. 
 
 [The author repeated the article in the first edition 
 of his Autobiography ; but in revising the present edi- : 
 tion he marked the whole of it for omission. The 
 greater portion, indeed, is completely out of date, as so 
 often happens with political writing ; the facts, the al- 
 lusions, the very turn of the phrases, belong to circum- 
 stances long since forgotten ; and the effect of the 
 composition, even as a work of art, could not now be 
 appreciated. But since so much has turned upon the 
 purport of this paper, and especially upon one passage, 
 it may be as well to preserve that portion. The occur- 
 
 [» March 12, 1812.] 
 
 [* The trial took place in December, 1812, Lord Brougham again 
 defending them. They were sentenced by Lord Ellen borough, John 
 Hunt to Clerkenwell and Leigh Himt to Horsemonger Lane Gaol.] 
 
 255
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 rence which prompted the article was a public dinner 
 on St. Patrick's Day, at which the Chairman, Lord 
 Moira, a generous man, made not the slightest allusion 
 to the Prince Regent, and Mr. Sheridan, who manfully- 
 stood up for his royal friend, declaring that he still 
 
 ; sustained the principles of the Prince Regent, was 
 saluted by angry shouts and cries of " Change the sub- 
 ject ! " The Whig Morning Chronicle moralized this 
 theme ; and the Morning Post, which then affected to 
 be the organ of the Court, in a strain of unqualified 
 admiration, replied to the Chronicle, partly in vapid 
 prose objurgation, and partly in a wretched poem, 
 
 ';. graced with epithets intended to be extravagantly flat- 
 tering to the Prince. To this reply the Examiner re- 
 joined in a paper of considerable length, analyzing the 
 whole facts, and translating the language of adulation 
 into that of truth. The close of the article shows its 
 spirit and purpose, and is a fair specimen of Leigh 
 Hunt's political writing at that time. — T.H.] 
 
 "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 re- 
 proaches ! — 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 countrymen ! — that this ' Mecaenas of the 
 age ' patronized not a single deserving writer ! — that this ' Breather 
 of eloquence ' could not say a few decent extempore words, if we 
 are to judge, at least, from what he said to his regiment on its em- 
 barkation for Portugal ! — that this • Conqueror of hearts ' was the 
 disappointer of hopes ! — that this ' Exciter of desire ' [bravo ! Mes- 
 sieurs of the Post!] — this 'Adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent 
 man of fifty ! — in short, this delightful, blissful, wise, pleasurable, 
 ^ honourable, viH^ious, true, and immortal prince, was a violator of 
 I his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of 
 i domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who 
 V has just closed half a century without one single claim on the 
 ' gratitude of his country, or the respect of posterity ! 
 
 " These are hard truths ; but are they not truths ? And have we 
 not suffered enough — are we not now suffering bitterly — from the 
 ^disgusting flatteries of which the above is a repetition ? The minis- 
 ?: ters may talk of the shocking boldness of the press, and may throw 
 t out their wretched warnings about interviews between Mr. Percival 
 ^and Sir Vicary Gibbs ; but let us inform them, that such vices as 
 •have just been enumerated are shocking to all Englishmen who 
 have a just sense of the state of Europe ; and that he is a bolder 
 ;man, who, in times like the present, dares to afford reason for the 
 >:description. Would to God, the Examiner could ascertain that 
 *diflQcvdt, and perhaps undiscoverable, point which enables a public 
 
 256
 
 THE REGENT AND THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 writer to keep clear of an appearance of the love of scandal, while 
 he is hunting out the vices of those in power I Then should one 
 paper, at least, in this metropolis help to rescue the nation from 
 the charge of silently encouraging what it must publicly rue ; and 
 the Sardanapalus who is now afraid of none but informers, be 
 taught to shake, in the midst of his minions, in the very drunken- 
 ness of his heart, at the voice of honesty. But if this be impossible, 
 still there is one benefit which truth may derive from adulation — 
 one benefit which is favourable to the former in proportion to the 
 grossness of the latter, and of which none of his flatterers seem to 
 be aware — the opportunity of contradicting its assertions. Let us 
 never forget this advantage, which adulation cannot help giving 
 us ; and let such of our readers as are inclined to deal insincerely 
 with the great from a false notion of policy and of knowledge of 
 the world, take warning from what we now see of the miserable 
 effects of courtly disguise, paltering, and profligacy. Flattery in 
 any shape is unworthy a man and a gentleman ; but political flat- 
 tery is almost a request to be made slaves. If we would have the 
 great to be what they ought, we ipust find some means or other to 
 speak of them as they are." 
 
 This article, no doubt, was very bitter and contemp- 
 tuous ; therefore, in the legal sense of the term, very- 
 libellous ; the more so, inasmuch as it was very true. 
 There will be no question about the truth of it, at this 
 distance of time, with any class of persons, unless, 
 possibly, with some few of the old Tories, who may 
 think it was a patriotic action in the Prince to displace 
 the Whigs for their opponents. But I believe, that 
 under all the circumstances, there are few persons in- 
 deed nowadays, of my class, who will not be of opinion 
 that, bitter as the article was, it was more than suffi- 
 ciently avenged by two years' imprisonment and a fine 
 of a thousand pounds. For it did but express what 
 all the world were feeling, with the exception of the 
 Prince's once bitterest enemies, the Tories themselves, 
 then newly become his friends ; and its very sincerity 
 and rashness, had the Prince possessed greatness of 
 mind to think so, might have furnished him such a 
 ground for pardoning it, as would have been the best 
 proof he could have given us of our having mistaken 
 him, and turned us into blushing and grateful friends. 
 An attempt to bribe us on the side of fear did but 
 further disgust us. A free and noble waiving of the 
 punishment would have bowed our hearts into regret. 
 We should have found in it the evidence of that true 
 
 257 s
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 generosity of nature paramount to whatsoever was 
 
 frivolous or appeared to be mean, which his flatterers 
 
 claimed for him, and which would have made us doubly 
 
 ,rblush for the formal virtues to which we seemed to be 
 
 •:attached, when, in reality, nothing would have better 
 
 >pleased us than such a combination of the gay and the 
 
 ^^magnanimous. I say doubly blush, for I now blush at 
 
 ^ever having been considered, or rather been willing 
 
 |to be considered, an advocate of any sort of conven- 
 
 I tionality, unqualified by liberal exceptions and prospec- 
 
 I tive enlargement ; and I am sure that my brother, had 
 
 I he been living, who was one of the best-natured and 
 
 I most indulgent of men, would have joined with me in 
 
 I making the same concession ; though I am bound to 
 
 I add that, ^v^th all his indulgence of others, I have no 
 
 I reason to believe that he had ever stood in need of 
 
 I that pardon for even conventional licence, from the 
 
 5^ necessity of which I cannot pretend to have been 
 
 I exempt. 
 
 5 I have spoken of an attempt to bribe us. We were 
 I given to understand, through the medium of a third 
 I person, but in a manner emphatically serious and po- 
 I tential, that if we would abstain in future from com- 
 '4 menting upon the actions of the royal personage, 
 I means would be found to prevent our going to prison. 
 I The same offer was afterwards repeated, as far as the 
 ? paynient of a fine was concerned, upon our going 
 i thither. I need not add that we declined both. 
 |: The expectation of a prison was, m one respect, very 
 I formidable to me ; for I had been a long time in a bad 
 t state of health. I was suffering under the worst of 
 I those hypochondriacal attacks which I have described 
 I in a former chapter ; and when notice was given that 
 I we were to be brought up for judgment, I had just 
 i been advised by the physician to take exercise every 
 I day on horseback, and go down to the sea-side. I was 
 t resolved, however, to do no disgrace either to the 
 I courage which I really possessed, or to the example set 
 I me by my excellent brother. I accordingly put my 
 I countenance in its best trim ; I made a point of wear- 
 ' ing my best apparel ; and descended into the legal 
 
 2.58
 
 THE REGENT AND THE "EXAMINER" 
 
 arena to be sentenced gallantly. As an instance of the f 
 imagination which I am accustomed to mingle with I 
 everything, I was at that time reading a little work,! 
 to which Milton is indebted, the Comus of Erycius'^ 
 Puteanus ; ^ and this, which is a satire on " Bacchuses 
 and their revellers," I pleased myself with having in ■ 
 my pocket. | 
 
 It is necessary, on passing sentence for a libel, to I 
 read over again the words that composed it. This was { 
 the business of Lord Ellenborough, who baffled the at- \ 
 tentive audience in a very ingenious manner by affect- \ 
 ing every instant to hear a noise, and calling upon the i 
 officers of the court to prevent it. Mr. Garrow,^ the f 
 attorney-general (who had succeeded Sir Vicary Gibbs I 
 at a very cruel moment, for the indictment had been t 
 brought by that irritable person, and was the first i 
 against us which took effect), behaved to us with a | 
 politeness that was considered extraordinary. Not so /:| 
 Mr. Justice Grose, ^ who delivered the sentence. To be ^j 
 didactic and old-womanish seemed to belong to his ; 
 nature ; but to lecture us on pandering to the public ■' 
 appetite for scandal was what we could not so easily j 
 bear. My brother, as I had been the writer, expected j 
 me, perhaps to be the spokesman ; and speak I cer- | 
 tainly should have done, had I not been prevented by | 
 the dread of that hesitation in my speech to which I ] 
 had been subject when a boy, and the fear of which ^ 
 (perhaps idly, for I hesitated at that time least among ; 
 strangers, and very rarely do so at all) has been the i 
 main cause why I have appeared and acted in public \ 
 less than any other public man. There is reason to i 
 think that Lord Ellenborough was still less easy than | 
 ourselves. He knew that we were acquainted with [ 
 his visits to Carlton-house and Brighton (sympathies c 
 not eminently decent in a judge), and with the good - 
 
 [^ Eryciiis Puteanus— or Henclrik van der Putten— (1574-1646). His 
 Latin extravaganza, Comus, sivePhagesiposia Cinivueria," appeared 
 in 1608; it was afterwards i-eprinted, one edition being issued at 
 Oxford in 1634, the year of Milton's Masque.] 
 
 [" Sir William Garrow (1760-1840). He was made Attorney-General 
 on May 4, 1813.] 
 
 [3 Sir Nash Grose (1740-1814).] 
 
 259
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT 
 
 things which he had obtained for his kinsmen ; and 
 we could not help preferring our feelings at the mo- 
 ment to those which induced him to keep his eyes fixed 
 on his papers, which he did almost the whole time of 
 our being in court, never turning them once to the 
 place on which we stood. There were divers other 
 points too, on which he had some reason to fear that 
 we might choose to return the lecture of the bench. 
 He did not even look at us when he asked, in the course 
 of his duty, whether it was our wish to make any re- 
 marks ? I answered that we did not ^ash to make any 
 there ; and Mr. Justice Grose proceeded to pass sen- 
 tence. At the sound of two years' imprisonment in 
 separate gaols, my brother and myself instinctively 
 pressed each other's arm. It was a heavy blow ; but 
 the pressure that acknowledged it encouraged the reso- 
 lution to bear it ; and I do not believe that either of 
 us interchanged a word afterwards on the subject. 
 We knew that we had the respect of each other, and 
 that ^ve stood together in the hearts of the people. 
 
 Just before our being brought up for judgment the 
 
 friendly circumstance took place on the part of Mr. 
 
 ■Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, to which allusion has 
 
 ;been made in the eleventh chapter, and which I forgot 
 
 :;'to supply in the first edition of this work. It was an 
 
 /offer made us to give Whig sanction, and therefore 
 
 |;certain and immediate influence, to the announcement 
 
 ;* of a manuscript for publication, connected with some 
 
 .important state and court secrets, and well known and 
 
 ^dreaded by the Regent, under the appellation of The 
 
 .Book. I forget whether Mr. Perry spoke of its appear- 
 
 iinee, or of its announcement only ; but the offer was 
 
 jnade for the express purpose of saving us from going 
 
 to prison. We heartily thanked the kind man ; but 
 
 ■ iknowing that what it is very proper sometimes, and 
 
 iiandsome for persons to offer, it may not be equally 
 
 so for other persons to accept, and not liking to owe 
 
 our deliverance to a threat or a ruse de guerre, we were 
 
 *' romantic," and declined the favour. 
 
 Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.