BOOKS.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP LEIGH HURT.'

Mu. LEIGH Husrr published the first edition of this work about ten years since. From the title which was then given it, we judge that it was intended to be not only a Life of the Author, but a record of impressions and opinions respecting valued friends and distin- guished contemporaries. Such, after various modifications, it still remains. A true and complete biography of the man himself, it contains notices of the remarkable persons whom he knew and influenced, or who influenced him ; anecdotes of acquaintances ; brief political and historical estimates ; poetic and literary criti- cisms ; views of religion, art, and life ; delightful descriptions of English " rue in urbe ' landscapes, and equally well executed but less attractive paintings of Italian scenes. In its present form the -work has new claims to public favour ; a double revision, by the author and his eldest son, has removed inaccuracies and secured perspicuousness. The art of blotting also has been wisely and courageously applied ; and the narrative acquires force and effect from the mere omission of garrulous comment and superfluous illustration. Fresh value, too, is imparted by the introductory essay, the object of which is the elucidation of moral and intellec- tual characteristics in Leigh Hunt, and the removal of misconcep- tions, originating with political enemies, and confirmed by the misinterpretation of a retreating self-defence or the spontaneous admissions of the accused. The loyal and affectionate spirit which animates this filial vindication, recalls the old knightly motto of the Douglas, " Tender and true."

The autobiography itself commences with an account of the

Author's progenitors. Not contented with the extent of heredi- tary obligation implied in the principle which "fetches a man's mind from his cradle," Mr. Leigh Hunt, half seriously, half playfully, identifies himself with some Stuart cavalier, Plantagenet yeoman, or Tudor merchant, coneeding, however, a " sedentary. differ- ence" between himself and"his possible ancestors. Passing over genealogical speculations founded on family traditions, we dis- -cover in the Rector of St. Michael's, Barbados, a descendant of one of the earliest settlers in that luxurious island, the grandfather of our poet. Isaac, the son of this " admired and beloved " pastor, after studying the law and practising it with distinction, became himself a clergyman. " He was fair and handsome, with delicate features, a small aquiline nose, and blue eyes." With these per- sonal endowments, and a musical voice, which gave new beauty to the old rhymes of the English poets, he effected the conquest of -a lady's heart. Mary, the daughter of Stephen Shewell, a merchant of Philadelphia, became his bride and the mother of Leigh limit. A brunette, with fine eyes, black hair, and stately person, she possessed great energy of character, a saint-like charity, and ear- treme tenderness of heart. Something of her strong and painful sympathy with suffering seems to have been inherited by her youngest son, not without the practical assertion of that " unbend- ing resistance to oppression which she inculcated." Her greatest pleasure during her decay was to lie on a sofa, looking at the set- ting sun." She used to liken it to the door of heaven, and fancy her lost children there, waiting for her."

Isaac Hunt, flying as a royalist before insurgent patriotism,

took refuge in the mother country. From a lawyer he became a clergyman ; and from a divine of the Church of England he sub- sided into a Universalist. Of kindly and sanguine disposition, he was ever ready to help others ; ever ready to enjoy ; ever ready to hope ; " always looking forward with some romantic plan which was sure to succeed and never put in practice." He died in the year 1809. " I remember," says the Autobiographer, with a touch of pathos, in-the unintended cynicism of the remembrance,—" Ire- member they quarrelled over his coffin for the perquisites of the candles ; which put me upon a great many reflections on him and on the world."

The poet -first saw the light at Southgate, in the parish of Edmon-

ton, on the 19th of October, 1784 • and felictates himself on having been born in this sweet and truly English village of Middlesex. The account which he gives of his childhood is full of interest. He was a sensitive, imaginative, and sickly boy, not afraid of the perils of the daylight, but fearing-the dark, and " having a horror of dreadful faces, even in books." An elder brother, of generous nature but despotic tendencies, used to frighten him with acting the " Mantichora," a mythical wild beast, the idea of which lies its origin in the cannibal sect of the Aghori (merd, man, and khoordun, to eat), and which figures as a veritable monster in Pliny and the old travellers. Before the visual or vocal imper- sonations of this fabulous " anomaly," the persecuted child gnailed as with a preternatural terror. If a voice were heard through the keyhole, saying, in its hollowest tones, " The laia.ntichora's coming," down he ' rushed to the parlour, fancying the terror at his heels."

In 1792, Leigh Hunt was received as a pupil at Christ Hos- pital. Here his timid and tender nature was sorely tried. The sight of boys fighting struck him as something devilish, and the menace of corporal chastisement to a schoolfellow moved him to tears. Notwithstanding his extreme gentleness, however, he showed himaelf both disinterestedly and self-regardingly brave, checking monitorial tyranny exercised over -others, and by silent endurance conquering an attempted despotism towards himself; so that he "never was fag to anybody." The description of his • The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. A New 'Edition, ke.. Published by Smith and Elder.

schooldays ; of the school itself; of the masters ; and his young contemporaries who were educated there ; is wonderfully real and vivid. Leigh Hunt commends the school for its solid and unpre- tending character, equally removed from patrician pretension and plebeian submission. Two practices, however, perplexed him. The institution was originally intended for the maintenance of poor orphan children ; such is no longer its destination. Yet in those clays the boys were required punctually to " implore the pity of heaven on us poor orphans." A second poetical fiction

was the " show" napkin hung up by the side of each bed, and supposed to be the one used by the occupiers, the real towels being of the largest and coarsest kind. In the presence of these literal " white lies," the truth-loving boy ever anticipated with alarm the interrogation of some inquisitive visitor. The fare pro- vided was scanty ; the breakfast consisting of bread and water ; the dinner of milk porridge or rice milk, and, on alternate days, of bread and a small tough slice of meat. The head-master was a good verbal scholar, conscientiously regular, and ludicrously savage. Though a clergyman, he indulged himself in an oath, which was, " God's my life." He would turn on a defaulter in his lesson a round, staring eye like a fish ; he pinched the chins and ears of the boys till he made the blood come ; beat them over the head, and "persecuted them in a manner truly frightful." The name of this Quilp of pedagogues was Boyer. , Coleridge, when he heard of his death, said, It was lucky that the cherubim who took him to heaven were nothing but faces and wings, or he would infallibly have flogged them by the way.' " During his schooldays, Leigh Hunt had his first experience in love. His cousin, Fan Dayrell, "had little laughing eyes and a mouth like a plum." He used to "gaze on her with delight as she floated hither and thither," but " was not old or grudging enough to be jealous." After attaining the rank of first Deputy Grecian, he was withdrawn from the school in consequence of a disqualifying impediment in his speech. Verse-writing, desultory re g, and visiting, then occupied all his time. In 1802, he published a volume of poems, entitled Juvenilia, in the style of Collins, Gray, Pope, Thomson, and Spenser. The book, in spite of its mimetic character, was successful. A critic in the News, a lawyer's scribe, a War-Office clerk, he eventually dedicated his talents to the Examiner, founded by himself and his brother John in 1808. A kind of true libel, accompanied by uncompromising inflexibility, led to Mr. Hunt's confinement for two years in prison, whither he was attended by his wife and his eldest boy ; for, in the second year of his editorship, he had married one who was "a good daughter," and who "completed her conquest by reading verses better than he had ever yet heard." One of the rooms in the Infirmary, to which he was removed in consequence of ill health, was transformed by him into a sort of Arcadian apartment, with rose-trellis paper, sky-painted ceiling, busts, flowers, pianoforte, and books. "Charles Lamb declared there was no such other room, except in a fairy tale." Beyond this room was a garden, where he wrote and read in fine weather. Here he was visited by his old friends Pitman, Mitchell, Barnes, and " the Lambs, who came to comfort him in all weathers." William Hazlitt, Cowden Clarke, Wordsworth, and Byron, were among the persons with whom he then became acquainted. Here, too, came Bentham, the child-sage, who played at battledore with the imprisoned poet ; and, " with his usual eye towards improvement, suggested an amendment in the constitution of shuttlecocks." Leigh Hunt was released from the confinement of Horsemonger Lane Gaol in February 1815. In the following year he published his exquisite story of _Rimini, with its then audacious versifi- cation, its simple natural beauty and indulgent morality. During his residence at Hampstead (about this period) he was first visited by Shelley ; and some of the best pages in the Auto- biography have relation to that remarkable man. A volume of poems, called Foliage, was followed by the Indicator, a very po- pular seriaL In 1821, the declining fortunes of the Examiner, a proposal from Lord Byron to set up a liberal periodical in con-

junction with himself and Shelley, and a wish to recruit his fail- ing health, were the combined considerations which induced Leigh Hunt to try what could be done in Italy "to secure new aid to his prospects, and new friends to the cause of liberty." The sadden death of Shelley, the abatement of Byron's interest in the project, and a want of accord between the two surviving poets, seem

to be the chief, if not the sole, assignable causes for the speedy dis- continuance of the Liberal.

Returning to England in 1828, Mr. Leigh Hunt went to reside at Highgate. From Highgate he removed to Epsom, thence to Brompton, and from Brompton to Kensington, occupying finally a

cotta e in Hammersmith. Throughout this period he continued to add to English literature many useful and pleasant, and some

enduring works. We shall mention only the semi-historical novel

of Ralph Esher ; the Legend of Florence, a dramatic poem of pathetic loveliness ; and the Religion of the Heart, a manual of

faith and duty. In 1847, while residing at Chelsea, a practical

recognition of his merits was accorded by the Queen, in the shape of a pension of 2001. a year. His last years were years of tran-

quil enjoyment, broken by heavy domestic sorrows, but cheered by a pious and unfailing hope of reunion with the beloved and happy dead. " The sense of beauty and gentleness, of moral beauty and faithful gentleness, grew upon him as the clear even- ing closed in." He died on the 28th of August 1859, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He lies buried "in beautiful Ken- sal Green, the final bed-chamber " of his gifted and youngest son, Vincent. Before his death he had substantially completed his admirable autobiography. There are still, we think, some pages which might be omitted with advantage ; but in its amended form, the book is one of the most graceful, racy, and genial chronicles of the incidents and influences of a human life in the English language. The sweetness of temper, the indomitable love and forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and the faith in the ultimate triumph of good, revealed in its pages, show the humane and noble qualifies of the writer. There is almost every variety of mental excellence in it that such a book can be expected to possess. There is a pungent vigour in some passages ; a picturesque vividness in others ; while a graceful negligence, a honey-dropping garrulity, or an earnest humanity, characterize many portions. The reminis- cences of contemporaries are particularly striking, whether we are presented with a portrait of Lamb, with a frame and genius fit for thought, unfit for action, melancholy, apprehensive, humourous, bearding a superstition and shuddering at the old phantasm while he did it ; or of Coleridge, with the invincibly young face, which was round, fresh-coloured, with agreeable fea- tures, and an open, indolent, good-natured mouth,—strolling up and down, among flowers and birds, at Highgate, with his black coat and white locks, and a book in his hand, making friends with little children, reading old folios, or " persuading a deist that he was a Christian, and an atheist that he believed. in God ; " or of Keats, with his strong healthy sympathies and his mournful epi- taph, chastising a blackguard, or celebrating " lucent syrups tinot with cinnamon," with his broad shoulders, eager face, sunken cheeks, and mellow glowing eyes, large, dark, and sensitive ; or of Shelley, saving, as is probable, the life of a poor forlorn woman, or helping his friend with a 'princely generosity,—with his high weak voice, his brown hair tinged with grey, his drooping form, and his aspect that, when fronting you, "had a certain seraphical character that would have suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel whom Milton describes as holding a reed tipt with fire."

In addition to such reminiscences, we have a distinct avowal of Leigh Hunt's creed, political and religious. He was for a kind of chivalrous republic, surmounted with royalty ; for peace and plenty for all, and exuberant wealth for none. He believed firmly in the victory of good over evil ; in the acquisition by this beauti- ful planet of all requisite perfection ; in the satisfaction of that craving for completeness which marks our anxious and restless natures. He believed in God as love ; he believed in individual immortality ; with heaven for all. To the sterner thinkers he makes little or no concession. Though he, too, has " seen the faces of the gods of wonder and melancholy," he believes them to be useful phantoms of bad health, and "thinks nothing finally potential but gentleness and persuasion." Mr. Carlyle s philo- sophical puritanism and Dante's poetical retribution he maintains to be all a mistake, in language that the orthodox Christian who sees the shadow of the Cross over all life, or the sad-hearted unbeliever who feels the terrors of a creation that groaneth in pain, must alike think exceptionable. For, say that the strife shall not be eternal, that evil is evanescent, and that we shall all of us in a renewed earth or in the Paradise of God, attain ideal perfection and ideal happiness ; yet must not long ages pass during which the fearful antagonism must continue, during which violated law shall avenge itself, and the Nemesis that is in the material and spiritual world, shall teach us that in some sense there is a hell for stupidity, sin, and even enforced misadventure ? A more sceptical poet than Leigh Hunt recognized as facts, terror, madness, crime, remorse, "pain whose unheeded and familiar speech is howling, and self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood." Facts all too truly they are ; and as long as they are facts and not phantoms, Carlylea and Dantes will be wanted to show the darker side of the world, as the Leigh Hunts are needed to show "the side the sun's upon." And thus, till the arrival of an era too remote for computation, our future poets and prophets shall corporately announce the entire truth ; the stoical and more sorrowful spirits adding their revelation of "God the Terrible," to that of the gentler and happier souls who, following the example of the wise and loving writer of this book, shall delight to dwell most on the revelation of "God the Beautiful."