Leigh Hunt

James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 1784 - 28 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English poet, literary critic, and essayist.

Early life
Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA. His father Isaac, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his mother, Mary Shewell, a merchant's daughter and a devout Quaker, had been forced to come to Britain because of their loyalist sympathies during the American War of Independence. Hunt's father took holy orders, and became a popular preacher, but was unsuccessful in obtaining a permanent living. Hunt's father was then employed by James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos as tutor to his nephew, James Henry Leigh (father of Chandos Leigh), after whom the boy was named.

Education
Leigh Hunt was educated at Christ's Hospital from 1791 to 1799, a period which is detailed in his autobiography. He entered the school shortly after Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb had both left; Thomas Barnes, however, was a school friend of his. One of the current boarding houses at Christ's Hospital is named after him. As a boy, he was an ardent admirer of Thomas Gray and William Collins, writing many verses in imitation of them. A speech impediment, later cured, prevented his going to university. "For some time after I left school," he says, "I did nothing but visit my school-fellows, haunt the book-stalls and write verses." His poems were published in 1801 under the title of Juvenilia, and introduced him into literary and theatrical society. He began to write for the newspapers, and published in 1807 a volume of theatre criticism, and a series of Classic Tales with critical essays on the authors.

Hunt's early essays were published by Edward Quin, editor and owner of The Traveller.

The Examiner
In 1808 he left the War Office, where he had been working as a clerk, to become editor of the Examiner, a newspaper founded by his brother, John. His brother Robert Hunt, among others, also contributed to its columns; his criticism earned the enmity of William Blake, who described the journal's office at Beaufort Buildings as containing a "nest of villains". Blake's response included Leigh Hunt, who aside from publishing the vitriolic reviews of 1808 and 1809 had added Blake's name on a list of "quacks".

This journal soon acquired a reputation for unusual political independence; it would attack any worthy target, "from a principle of taste," as John Keats expressed it. In 1813, an attack on the Prince Regent, based on substantial truth, resulted in prosecution and a sentence of two years' imprisonment for each of the brothers &mdash; Leigh Hunt served his term at the Surrey County Gaol. Leigh Hunt's visitors in prison included Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Lord Brougham, Charles Lamb and others, whose acquaintance influenced his later career. The stoicism with which Leigh Hunt bore his imprisonment attracted general attention and sympathy. His imprisonment allowed him many luxuries and access to friends and family, Lamb described his decorations of the cell as something not found outside a fairy tale. When Jeremy Bentham called on him, he was found playing battledore.

A number of essays in The Examiner that were written by Hunt and William Hazlitt between 1814 and 1817 under the series title "The Round Table" were collected in book form in The Round Table, published in two volumes in 1817. Twelve of the fifty-two essays were by Hunt, the rest by Hazlitt.

The Reflector
In 1810-1811 he edited a quarterly magazine, the Reflector, for his brother John. He wrote "The Feast of the Poets" for this, a satire, which offended many contemporary poets, particularly William Gifford of the Quarterly.

Poetry
In 1816 he made a mark in English literature with the publication of Story of Rimini. Hunt's preference was decidedly for Chaucer's verse style, as adapted to the Modern English by John Dryden, in opposition to the epigrammatic couplet of Alexander Pope which had superseded it. The poem is an optimistic narrative which runs contrary to the tragic nature of its subject. Hunt's flippancy and familiarity, often degenerating into the ludicrous, subsequently made him a target for ridicule and parody.

In 1818 appeared a collection of poems entitled Foliage, followed in 1819 by Hero and Leander, and Bacchies and Ariadne. In the same year he reprinted these two works with The Story of Rimini and The Descent of Liberty with the title of Poetical Works, and started the Indicator, in which some of his best work appeared. Both Keats and Shelley belonged to the circle gathered around him at Hampstead, which also included William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Bryan Procter, Benjamin Haydon, Charles Cowden Clarke, C.W. Dilke, Walter Coulson and John Hamilton Reynolds.

Friend of Keats and Shelley
He had for some years been married to Marianne Kent. His own affairs were in confusion, and only Shelley's generosity saved him from ruin. In return he showed sympathy to Shelley during the latter's domestic distresses, and defended him in the Examiner. He introduced Keats to Shelley and wrote a very generous appreciation of him in the Indicator. Keats seems, however, to have subsequently felt that Hunt's example as a poet had been in some respects detrimental to him.

After Shelley's departure for Italy in 1818, Leigh Hunt became even poorer, and the prospects of political reform less satisfactory. Both his health and his wife's failed, and he was obliged to discontinue the Indicator (1819–1821), having, he says, "almost died over the last numbers." Shelley suggested that Hunt go to Italy with him and Byron to establish a quarterly magazine in which Liberal opinions could be advocated with more freedom than was possible at home. An injudicious suggestion, it would have done little for Hunt or the Liberal cause at the best, and depended entirely upon the co-operation of the capricious, parsimonious Byron. Byron's principal motive for agreeing appears to have been the expectation of acquiring influence over the Examiner, and he was mortified to discover that Hunt was no longer interested in the "Examiner". Leigh Hunt left England for Italy in November 1821, but storm, sickness and misadventure retarded his arrival until 1 July 1822, a rate of progress which Thomas Love Peacock appropriately compares to the navigation of Ulysses.



The death of Shelley, a few weeks later, destroyed every prospect of success for the Liberal. Hunt was now virtually dependent upon Byron, who did not relish the idea of being patron to Hunt's large and troublesome family. Byron's friends also scorned Hunt. The Liberal lived through four quarterly numbers, containing contributions no less memorable than Byron's "Vision of Judgment" and Shelley's translations from Faust; but in 1823 Byron sailed for Greece, leaving Hunt at Genoa to shift for himself. The Italian climate and manners, however, were entirely to Hunt's taste, and he protracted his residence until 1825, producing in the interim Ultra-Crepidarius: a Satire on William Gifford (1823), and his matchless translation (1825) of Francesco Redi's Bacco in Toscana.

In 1825 a litigation with his brother brought him back to England, and in 1828 he published Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, a corrective to idealized portraits of Byron. The public was shocked that Hunt, who had been obliged to Byron for so much, would "bite the hand that fed him" in this way. Hunt especially writhed under the withering satire of Moore. For many years afterwards, the history of Hunt's life is a painful struggle with poverty and sickness. He worked unremittingly, but one effort failed after another. Two journalistic ventures, the Tatler (1830–1832), a daily devoted to literary and dramatic criticism, and Leigh Hunt's London Journal (1834–1835), were discontinued for want of subscribers, although the latter contained some of his best writing. His editorship (1837–1838) of the Monthly Repository, in which he succeeded William Johnson Fox, was also unsuccessful. The adventitious circumstances which allowed the Examiner to succeed no longer existed, and Hunt's personality was unsuited to the general body of readers.

In 1832 a collected edition of his poems was published by subscription, the list of subscribers including many of his opponents. In the same year was printed for private circulation Christianism, the work afterwards published (1853) as The Religion of the Heart. A copy sent to Thomas Carlyle secured his friendship, and Hunt went to live next door to him in Cheyne Row in 1833. Sir Ralph Esher, a romance of Charles II's period, had a success, and Captain Sword and Captain Pen (1835), a spirited contrast between the victories of peace and the victories of war, deserves to be ranked among his best poems. In 1840 his circumstances were improved by the successful representation at Covent Garden of his play Legend of Florence. Lover's Amazements, a comedy, was acted several years afterwards, and was printed in Leigh Hunt's Journal (1850–1851); other plays remained in manuscript. In 1840 he wrote introductory notices to the work of Sheridan and to Edward Moxon's edition of the works of William Wycherley, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh and George Farquhar, a work which furnished the occasion of Macaulay's essay on the Dramatists of the Restoration. The narrative poem The Palfrey was published in 1842.

Financial difficulties
The time of Hunt's greatest difficulties was between 1834 and 1840. He was at times in absolute poverty, and his distress was aggravated by domestic complications. By Macaulay's recommendation he began to write for the Edinburgh Review. In 1844 Mary Shelley and her son, on succeeding to the family estates, settled an annuity of £120 upon Hunt (Rossetti 1890); and in 1847 Lord John Russell procured him a pension of £200. Now living in improved comfort, Hunt published the companion books, Imagination and Fancy (1844), and Wit and Humour (1846), two volumes of selections from the English poets, which displayed his refined, discriminating critical tastes. His book on the pastoral poetry of Sicily, A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (1848), is also delightful. The Town (2 vols., 1848) and Men, Women and Books (2 vols., 1847) are partly made up from former material. The Old Court Suburb (2 vols., 1855; ed. A Dobson, 2002) is a sketch of Kensington, where he long resided. In 1850 he published his Autobiography (3 vols.), a naive and affected, but accurate, piece of self-portraiture. A Book for a Corner (2 vols.) was published in 1849, and his Table Talk appeared in 1851. In 1855 his narrative poems, original and translated, were collected under the title Stories in Verse.

He died in Putney on the 28 August 1859, and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.

Recognition
His poem "Jenny kiss'd Me" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.

In September 1966 Christ's Hospital named one of its Houses in memory of him.

Leigh Hunt was the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House. "Dickens wrote in a letter of 25 September 1853, 'I suppose he is the most exact portrait that was ever painted in words! ... It is an absolute reproduction of a real man'; and a contemporary critic commented, 'I recognized Skimpole instantaneously; ... and so did every person whom I talked with about it who had ever had Leigh Hunt's acquaintance.'" G.K. Chesterton suggested that Dickens "may never once have had the unfriendly thought, 'Suppose Hunt behaved like a rascal!'; he may have only had the fanciful thought, 'Suppose a rascal behaved like Hunt!'" (Chesterton 1906).

Poetry

 * Juvenilia. London: Printed by J. Whiting, 1801; Philadelphia, PA: Printed & published by H. Maxwell, 1804.
 * Modern Parnassus; or, The new art of poetry. London: J. Johnson, 1814.
 * The Feast of the Poets, with notes, and other pieces in verse. London: Printed for James Cawthorn, 1814; New York: Printed & published by Van Winkle & Wiley, 1814; enlarged edition, London: Gale & Fenner, 1815.
 * The Story of Rimini. London: Printed by T. Davison for J. Murray; W. Blackwood, Edinburgh; and Cummings, Dublin, 1816; Boston: Published by Wells & Lilly and M. Carey, Philadelphia, 1816.
 * Foliage, or Poems Original and Translated. London: Printed for C. & J. Ollier, 1818; Philadelphia, PA: Published by Littell & Henry and Edward Earle, printed by W. Brown, 1818.
 * Hero and Leander, and Bacchus and Ariadne. London: Printed for C. & J. Ollier, 1819.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt (3 volumes). London: C. & J. Ollier, 1819.
 * The Months, Descriptive of the Successive Beauties of the Year. London: C. & J. Ollier, 1821.
 * Ultra-Crepidarius: a Satire on William Gifford. London: Printed for John Hunt, 1823.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. London: Edward Moxon, 1832.
 * Captain Sword and Captain Pen: A poem, with some remarks on war and military statesmen. London: Charles Knight, 1835.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt: A new edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1844.
 * Rimini, and other poems. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1844.
 * Stories in Verse: Now first collected. London & New York: Routledge, 1855.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt: Now first entirely collected, revised by himself (edited by S. Adams Lee). (2 volumes), Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857. Volume I, Volume II.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt: Now finally collected, revised by himself (edited by Thornton Hunt). London & New York: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, 1860.
 * Poems of Leigh Hunt (edited by Reginald Brimleu Johnson). London: Dent, 1891.
 * The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, edited by H.S. Milford). London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1923.

Plays

 * The Descent of Liberty: A mask. London: Printed for Gale, Curtis & Fenner, 1815; Philadelphia: Printed for Harrison Hall, 1816.
 * A Legend of Florence: A play in five acts. London: Edward Moxon, 1840.

Fiction

 * Sir Ralph Esher; or, adventures of a gentleman of the court of Charles II (novel). (3 volumes), London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1830-1832 [1832].
 * The Palfrey: A Love Story of Old Times. London: How & Parsons, 1842.
 * Tales by Leigh Hunt: Now first collected (edited by William Knight). London: W. Paterson, 1891.

Non-fiction

 * Critical Essays on the Performers of the London Theatres. London: Printed by & for John Hunt, 1807.
 * An Attempt to Shew the Folly and Danger of Methodism. London: Printed for & sold by John Hunt, 1809.
 * The Prince of Wales V. the Examiner: A full report of the trial of John and Leigh Hunt. London: Printed by and for John Hunt, 1812.
 * Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries. (2 volumes), London: H. Colburn, 1828; Philadelphia, PA: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1828. Volume I, Volume II
 * The Companion. London: Hunt & Clark, 1828.
 * Christianism: or, belief and unbelief reconciled. London: Bradbury, 1832;
 * revised and enlarged as The Religion of the Heart: a manual of faith and duty. London: John Chapman, 1853; New York: Printed by J.J. Reed, 1857.
 * The Indicator and the Companion: A Miscellany for the Fields and for the Fireside (2 volumes). London: Published for Henry Colburn by R. Bentley, 1834. Volume I, Volume II.
 * republished as Tge Indicator: A Miscellany for the Fields and for the Fireside (1 volume). New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1845.
 * The Seer: or, Common-places Refreshed] (2 parts). London: E. Moxon, 1840; Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1864. Part I, Part II.
 * Essays by Leigh Hunt: The Indicator, The Seer. London: E. Moxon, 1841.
 * Stories from the Italian Poets: With lives of the writers. (2 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1845; New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846. Volume I, Volume II.
 * Men, Women, and Books: A selection of sketches, essays, and critical memoirs (2 volumes). London: Smith, Elder, 1847; New York: Harper, 1847. Volume I, Volume II.
 * A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla. London: Smith, Elder, 1848.
 * The Town: Its memorable characters and events, St. Paul's to St. James's (2 volumes). London: Smith, Elder, 1848.
 * The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt: With reminiscences of friends and contemporaries (3 volumes), London: Smith, Elder, 1850; (2 volumes), New York: Harper, 1850. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
 * revised edition (1 volume). London: Smith, Elder, 1860.
 * Table-Talk. London: Smith, Elder, 1851; New York: Appleton, 1879.
 * Essays and Miscellanies. Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1851.
 * The Old Court Suburb; or, Memorials of Kensington, regal, critical, and anecdotical (2 volumes). London: Hurst & Blackett, 1855; enlarged, 1855. Volume I, Volume II.
 * A Saunter Through the West End. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1861.
 * A Day By the Fire, and other papers, hitherto uncollected (edited by Joseph Edward Babson). London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1870; Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.
 * The Wishing-Cap Papers (edited by Joseph Edward Babson). Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1873; London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1874.
 * Essays by Leigh Hunt (edited by Arthur Symons). London: Walter Scott, 1887.
 * Dramatic Essays (edited by William Archer & Robert W. Lowe). London: Walter Scott, 1894.
 * Coaches and Coaching. Boston: H.M. Caldwell, [18--?]; London: Sisley, 1908; New York: James Pott, 1908.
 * Leigh Hunt as Essayist. London: Baxter, 1900.
 * Essays and Sketches (edited by H. Brimley Johnson). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press / London: Henry Frowde, 1912.
 * Musical Evenings, or Selections, vocal and instrumental (edited by David R. Cheney). Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1964.
 * Hunt on Eight Sonnets of Dante (edited by Rhodes Dunlap). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa School of Journalism, 1965.

Juvenile

 * Ballads of Robin Hood (edited by Luther A. Brewer). Cedar Rapids, IA: privately printed, 1922. 

Collected editions

 * The Works of Leigh Hunt (4 volumes). Philadelphia, PA: Willis P. Hazard, 1854.
 * The Works of Leigh Hunt (7 volumes). London: Smith, Elder, 1870-1872.
 * Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist (edited by Charles Kent). London & New York: Warne, 1889.
 * Selections in Prose and Verse (edited by J.H. Lobban). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1909.
 * Leigh Hunt (edited by Edward Storer). London: Herbert & Daniel (Regent Library), 1913.

Translated

 * Amyntas, a Tale of the Woods: from the Italian of Torquato Tasso (translated, with notes, by Hunt). London: T. & J. Allman, 1820).
 * Bacchus in Tuscany: A dithyramic poem from the Italian of Francesco Redi (translated by Hunt). London: Printed for John & H.L. Hunt, 1825.

Edited

 * The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar (includes biographical and critical notices by Hunt). London: Edward Moxon, 1840.
 * The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (edited, with a biographical and critical sketch, by Hunt). London: Edward Moxon, 1840.
 * One Hundred Romances of Real Life (edited and annotated by Hunt). London: L. Whittaker, 1843.
 * Imagination and Fancy: or, Selections from the English poets with an essay in answer to the question: What is poetry? (edited, with an introductory essay, by Hunt). London: Smith, Elder, 1844; New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1845.
 * Thornton Hunt, The Foster-Brother: A tale of the war of Chiozza]. (3 volumes), London: T.C. Newby, 1845. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III.
 * Wit and Humour, Selected from the English poets with an illustrative essay (edited, with an introductory essay, by Hunt). London: Smith, Elder, 1846; New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1847.
 * A Book for a Corner; or Selections in prose and verse from authors the best suited to that mode of enjoyment (edited, with an introduction and comments, by Hunt). (2 volumes), London: Chapman & Hall, 1849; (1 volume), New York: G.P. Putnam, 1852).
 * Readings for Railways: or, Anecdotes and Other Short Stories, Reflections, Maxims, Characteristics, Passages of Wit, Humour and Poetry, etc. (selected by Hunt. London: C. Gilpin, 1849.
 * Beaumont and Fletcher; or, The finest scenes, lyrics, and other beauties of those two poets (edited, with a preface, by Hunt). London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855.
 * The Book of the Sonnet (edited by Hunt and S. Adams Lee, with an essay on the sonnet by Hunt). (2 volumes). Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1867; London: S. Low, Son & Marston, 1867. Volume I, Volume II.

Letters

 * The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt (edited by his eldest son [Thornton Leigh Hunt]). London: Smith, Elder, 1862. Volume I, Volume II.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Play productions

 * A Legend of Florence. London, Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 7 February 1840.
 * Lovers' Amazements. London, Lyceum Theatre, 20 January 1858.