pected to mean the whole for Leigh Hunt. He evidently
supposed that no one would know what lie had been
doing, but he did not attempt to rely on his own im-
pressions, and actually revised the points of resemblance
at the suggestion of Barry Cornwall and Forster.
When the book came out, however, the mischief was
done. Leigh Hunt did not recognise himself, but
friends were ready to open his eyes, and it was not very
easy for Dickens to draw a satisfactory line between the
borrowed and the invented traits of his character. The
two men were quickly reconciled, and Hunt bore witness
to an entire absence of resentment by contributing to
Household Words, but this is not the end of the matter.
Dickens's Leigh Hunt was more amusing, and far more
comprehensible than the genuine article ; the public
accepted the " revelations," and did not trouble them-
selves to inquire further. The epithet of " Skimpolism "
has been even adopted by critics for the explanation of
any opinions and actions in which Leigh Hunt did not
' Forster's Life of Dickens.
BIOGRAPHY. 57
adopt their standard. They are careless, Hke the
novelist, and more culpable.
This is the only painful episode in Hunt's friendships,
which were many and cordial. He was now a patriarch
of letters, at whose shrine the young delighted to worship,
around whose study chair all shades of opinion might
be found to mingle. The Americans had found him
out, both Hawthorne and Lowell printing records of
their impressions, and we find a vivid picture of the
man in Carlyle's letters and reminiscences.
" Hunt's house is a sort of ' poetical tinkerdom,' where the noble
Hunt receives you in the spirit of a king, apologises for nothing,
places you in the best seat, takes a window-sill himself if there is no
other, and there folding closer his 'muslin cloud ' of a printed night-
gown in which he always writes, commences the liveliest dialogue
on philosophy and the prospects of man (who is to be beyond
measure 'happy' yet) : which again he will courteously terminate
the moment you are bound to go."
The visit is frequently returned : —
"Our commonest evening sitter, for a good while, was Leigh
Hunt, who lived close by, and delighted to sit talking with us (free,
cheery, idly melodious as bird on bough), or listening, with real
feeling to her [Mrs. Carlyle's] uld Scotch tunes on the piano, and
winding up with a frugal morsel of Scotch porridge (endlessly
admirable to Hunt). . . . Hunt was always accurately dressed these
evenings, and had a fine, chivalrous, gentlemanly carriage, polite,
affectionate, respectful (especially to her), and yet so free and
natural. . . . His household, while at 4 Upper Cheyne Row, with-
in a few steps of us here, almost at once disclosed itself to be
hugger-mugger, unthrift and sordid collapse, once for all, and
had to be associated with on cautious terms, while he himself
emerged out of it in the chivalrous figure I describe. . . . He
$8 LEIGH HUNT,
would lean on his elbow against the mantelpiece (fine, clean,
elastic figure, too, he had, five feet ten or more), and look round
him nearly in silence, before taking leave for the night, 'as if I
were a lar,' said he once, 'or permanent household god here'
(such his polite, aerial-like way). Another time, rising from this
lar attitude, he repeated (voice very fine) as if in sport of parody,
yet with something of very sad perceptible, ' While I to sulphur-
ous and penal fire ' ... as the last thing before vanishing."
It must be admitted that, whereas he was very respon-
sive to sympathy and affection, few doses of flattery were
too strong for him, and the most demonstrative effusive-
ness was acceptable. Mrs. Carlyle, and others, have
been very severe on this trait, which is not the greatest in
his character. But it is another side of the benevolence
and sentimental humanity which constitutes the peculiar
charm of both the man and his writings. Moreover, he
had fought the good fight in his youth, and felt a hearty,
if unfastidious, desire to enjoy the fruits.
His work at this time consisted, for the most part, of
revision and revival. He collected, and to some extent
arranged, his criticism, his gossip, his extracts, in The
Seer (" Given at our suburban abode, with a fire on one
side of us, and a vine at the window on the other, this
19th day of October, one thousand eight hundred and
forty, in the green and invincible year of our life the
fifty-sixth. — L. H."), and other miscellanies already
mentioned.
During Southey's final attack of insanity he acted as a
kind of amateur Laureate, and produced a number of
pretty and sincerely loyal, if familiar, addresses to the
BIOGRAPHY. 59
royal family. Macaulay suggested that he might succeed
to the office on Southey's death, and he would have been
entirely pleased to do so, but the superior claims of
Wordsworth were recognised, and Leigh Hunt, who
certainly felt no annoyance on the matter, lived to re-
commend Alfred Tennyson as his successor.
" With regard to the I,aureateship," he wrote, Dec. 7, 1S50,
" the editor of this journal has particular reasons for wishing to give
his opinion on the subject in his own person ; and his opinion is,
that if the office in future is really to be bestowed on the highest
degree of poetical merit, and on that only (as, being a solitary office,
it unquestionably ought to be, though such has not hitherto been the
case), then Mr. Alfred Tennyson is entitled to it above any other
man in the kingdom ; since of all living poels he is the most gifted
with the sovereign poetical faculty. Imagination. May he live to
wear his laurel to a green old age ; singing congratulations to Queen
Victoria and human advancement, long after the writer of these
words shall have ceased to hear him with mortal ears."
The words appear in Leigh Hunt's Joxirnal, the last of
his editorial efforts, a revival of the London JoxirnaL
which only survived a few months. It contains his
second and last jmblished drama, Lovers' Amazements,
which was produced at the Lyceum, January 20, 1858.
" The audience called for me with the same fervour as on the
appearance of the Lerjend 0/ Florence, and I felt myself again, as it
were, in the warm arms of my fellow-creatures, unmistaken, anil
never to be moibidised more."
Three other plays of his still exist in manuscript, and
are described at some length in the Autobiography/: — 17ie
Prince's Marriayc ; The Double ; Look to Your Morals.
6o LEIGH HUNT.
Leigh Hunt records with justifiable pride that at this
time he was not aware of having a single enemy, and he
had lost none of his powers of sympathetic enjoyment.
" The same unvaried day saw me reading or writing, ailing, jest-
ing, reflecting, rarely stirring from home but to walk, interested in
public events, in the progress of society, in the New Reformation
(most deeply), in things great and small, in a print, in a plaster-
caste, in a hand-organ, in the stars, in the sun to which the sun was
hastening, in the flower on my table, in the fly on my paper while I
wrote. (He crossed words, of which he knew nothing; and per-
haps we all do as much every moment over things of the divinest
meaning.) I read everything that was readable, old and new,
particularly fiction and philosophy and natural history ; was always
returning to something Italian, or in Spenser, or in the themes of
the East ; lost no particle of Dickens, of Thackeray, of Mrs.
Gaskell (whose Mary Barton gave me emotions that required more
and more the consideration of the good which it must do) ; called
out every week for my Family Herald, a little penny publication,
at that time qualified to inform the best of its contemporaries ; re-
joiced in republications of wise and witty Mrs. Gore, especially
seeing she only made us wait for something newer ; delighted in
the inexhaustible wit of Douglas Jerrold, Thackeray, and his
coadjutors Tom Taylor, Percival Leigh, and others ; in Punch, the
best-humoured and best-hearted satirical publication that ever
existed ; wondered when Bulwer Lytton would give us more of his
potent romances and prospective philosophies ; and hailed every
fresh publication of James, though I knew half what he was going to do
with his lady, his gentleman, and his landscape, and his mystery, and
his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial. But I was charmed with the new
amusement which he brought out of old materials. I looked on
him as I should look upon a musician, famous for ' variations.' I
was grateful for his vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied
and vivid landscapes, for his power of painting women at once lady-
like and loving {a rare talent), for his making lovers to match, at
BIOGRAPHY. 6r
once beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this has
afforded me, sometimes over and over again, in illness and in con-
valescence, when I required interest without violence, and enter-
tainment at once animated and mild."
Some consolations were needed, for towards the end
of his life he had to suffer two bereavements, in con-
sequence of which he " seemed to belong as much to the
next world as to this." His favourite son Vincent, "one
of the most amiable, interesting, and sympathising of
human beings," died in October, 1852. At the be-
ginning of 1857 followed "the partner of his life for
more than half a century." " May all of us who desire
to meet elsewhere do so, and be then shown the secret
of the great, awful, yet, it is to be trusted, the beauti-
ful riddle."
For himself the end was not far distant. He was re-
vising the second edition of his Autobiography, contribut-
ing a series of papers called the Occasional to the
Spectator, assisting to vindicate the memory of Shelley,
and visiting a few of his oldest friends, when, on the 28th
of August, 1859, at the house of Charles Reynell, the
printer, in Putney, his long and busy life was happily
finished. It had been his desire to be buried in Kensal
Green Cemetery, and there a simple monument to his
memory may be found.
"Although his Ijodily powers had been giving way," writes his
son, " his most conspicuous qualities — his memory for books, and
his affection — remained ; and when his hair was white, when his
ample chest had grown slender, when the very proportion of his
height had visibly lessened, his step was still steady, and his dark
62 LEIGH HUNT.
eyes brightened at every happy expression and at every thought of
kindness. His death was simply exhaustion : he broke off his work
to lie down and repose. So gentle was the final approach that he
scarcely recognised it till the very last, and then it came without
terrors. His physical suffering had not been severe ; at the latest
hour he said that his only ' uneasiness ' was failing breath, and
that failing breath was used to express his sense of the inexhaustible
kindness of the family who had been so unexpectedly made his
nurses, to draw from one of his sons, by minute, eager, and search-
ing questions, all that he could learn about the latest vicissitudes and
growing hopes of Italy, to ask the friends and children around him
for news of those he loved, and to send love and messages to the
absent who loved him."'
II.— JOURNALIST.
A VERY brief resume of the relations between literature
and journalism in England from the earliest times may
form a basis from which to judge of Leigh Hunt's position
and work. " Almost from the first," says Mr. H. R.
Fox-Bourne, in his interesting English Newspapers,
"journalists attempted to be critics as well as news-
mongers. . . . Defoe, in his Revieiv, greatly developed
this branch of journalism, and some others as well, and
he had famous rivals and imitators in Steele and Addison,
who, however, as did some of their successors, like
Johnson and Goldsmith, generally preferred social and
literary questions to politics, and, affecting to despise
newspapers, delivered themselves in essay sheets like The
Spectator, which were not newspapers, or in weekly
miscellanies like The Universal Chronicle. It was Defoe
again, more than anyone else, who, in Mist's Journal and
other papers made it customary to give news and
elaborate comments in the same journal, and the plan
was hardly improved upon till John and Leigh Hunt
started The Examiner. The first newspapers, being
published weekly, provided nothing but such news as
they could collect. When, early in the eighteenth
century, daily newspapers began, they continued to pro-
63
64 LEIGH HUNT.
vide little more than news, leaving it for the newer and
generally short-lived weekly papers, either to provide
essays and critical articles alone, as in the case of The
Spectator, The Connoisseur, and some hundreds of others,
or to enliven their reports of events, obtained at second
hand, with a few columns of original writing, as in the
case of Mist's, Read's, and other journals. The dailies
began to usurp what was then regarded as the function
of the weeklies when such letters as Junius's appeared
in The Puhlic Advertiser, and before the end of George
III.'s reign every paper of importance had its leading
articles, its theatrical notices, and perhaps even its
reviews of books and miscellaneous essays, as well as its
reports of domestic and foreign occurrences, of parlia-
mentary debates and public meetings, for all of which
much ampler space than formerly was afforded by the
enlarged size of the sheets."
When Leigh Hunt entered the profession, indeed, the
weeklies were at a discount, and the leading editors were
Perry of The Morning Chronicle, Daniel Stuart of The
Morning Post, and the second John Walter oi The Times.
Daniel Stuart was to retire in a few years, but, during the
first days of The Examiner, he had the most distinguished
contributors : — Coleridge for politics and philosophy,
Southey to help him out on these subjects and share the
poet's corner with Wordsworth, and Lamb to supply
funny paragraphs at 6d. apiece. (The London Magazine
was not started till 1820.) Lamb and Coleridge wrote
also for the Chronicle in company with Moore, Campbell,
and Macintosh. Walter took the lead by different
JOURNALIST. 65
methods. He secured good writing witliout the help of
great writers^ and was already embarked upon that course
of independent and practical enterprise which led to the
establishment of the steam press in 1814.
It is well to note that The Edinhurgh Review began in
1802; The Quarterly and Blackwood, Hunt's persistent
foes, were started in 1809 and 181 7 respectively; while
the weekly rivals of The Examiner, such as The Atlas,
and its successor, The Spectator, arose in 1826 and 1828.
Leigh Hunt's earliest attempts at journalism had been
a series of contributions, over the signature " Mr. Town,
Junior : Critic and Censor-general," to The Traveller,
afterwards incorporated in The Globe, " a bold advocate
of political reforms," the organ of commercial travellers,
but appealing, under the editorship of Quin, to a much
larger and more intelligent class of readers than those for
whom it was specifically published. Hunt's papers of
miscellaneous criticism were in direct imitation of Messrs.
Colman and Bonnel Thornton^ the senior " Mr. Town "
of The Connoisseur, who themselves copied Goldsmith,
with " no pretensions to his genius, but possessing great
animal spirits, which are a sort of merit in this climate."
He was immensely pleased with his perquisite of five or
six copies of the paper, and "luckily the essays were
little read."
Meanwhile, his elder brother John, who had been
apprenticed to Reynell the printer, was beginning life on
his own account, and had energetically determined to
bring out a Liberal newspaper. He projected The
Statesman, but this passed into other hands ; and in
10
66 LEIGH HUNT.
1805 he published The JVews,'^ inviting the young Leigh
to contribute some theatrical criticism. It was the real
beginning of his professional career, for these papers,
however juvenile and conceited, were inspired by the
circumstances and principles which may be traced in all
his journalistic work.
There is further ground, moreover, for dwelling at
some length upon these theatrical criticisms. Mr.
William Archer, who has lately edited ^ a well-chosen
selection from Hunt's Critical Essays on the Performers
of the London Theatres (itself in part reprinted from The
News and from The Tatler), opines that he may " be
reckoned the first English dramatic critic." He was
actually " the first critical journalist who succeeded in
emerging from the mists of anonymity. Probably he was
the first who deserved to emerge." It is further to be
observed that all previous criticism of any permanent
value had been reminiscent. Good Mr. Pepys, of
course, recorded his impressions of the drama with a
decision and promptitude worthy of a journalist of to-day;
but his utterances are few, and, except for occasional
anecdotes or scraps of correspondence, we have to
depend for our impressions of the stage during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the records of
" men, looking back, at some distance of time, upon per-
formances which have pleased and impressed them."
In Leigh Hunt's days, indeed, there were professional
critics of a kind, gentlemen who "did the theatres" after
1 That is, he printed and apparently edited it for the proprietors.
2 With the late Mr. Robert W. Lowe. Walter Scott.
JOURNALIST. 67
a fashion described, with perfect justice, in the Autobio-
graphy, by way of contrast to his own methods : —
" Puffing and plenty of tickets were the system 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 re-
miniscences of last Thursday's salmon and lobster-sauce. The custom
was to write as short and 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 neces-
sary ; and to conclude by observing that ' the whole went off with
^clat.' For the rest, it was a critical religion in those times to
admire Mr. Kemble ; and at the period in question Master Betty
had appeared, and been hugged to the hearts of the town as the
young Roscius. We saw that independence in theatrical criticism
would be a great novelty. We announced it, and nobody 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 certainty any one of them, very handsomely left me
to myself. My retired and scholastic habits kept me so ; and the
pride of success confirmed my independence with regard to others.
, . . To know an actor personally appeared to me a vice not to be
thought of; and I woidd as lief have taken poison as accepted a
ticket from the theatres."
There was a good deal of bluster in his mood, but its
essential spirit was high-minded and courageous. He did
honestly determine to form his own opinions, and to ex-
press them frankly, sparing no trouble for either process.
" The managers," says Mr. A. Andrews, in his History of
British Journalism, " were startled by the apparition of
this boy critic who stood haughtily aloof from them,
68 LEIGH HUNT.
wrapped up in reserve, and ostentatiously impartial. . . .
Leigh went honestly to the theatre, sat out the perform-
ance, and wrote his candid opinion. This course did
not make him popular among the actors, but it raised
the circulations of The JVetvs."
Leigh Hunt had always frequented the theatres, since
his first sight of a play in March iSoo, and he was
interested in the drama as literature. The times un-
fortunately were not prolific of good work. The old
masterpieces were performed frequently, and sometimes
by men and women of genius, but the new playwrights.
Cherry, Dibdin, and Reynolds, were unworthy of
serious attention. Among actors, on the other hand, he
saw many of note — '' The Clan Kemble was at its
zenith " — Dora Jordan, Bannister, King, John Liston
" from Newcastle," Cooke, Young, Emery, Fawcett,
Munden, Miss Betterton, and their colleagues, were on
the boards. Of these the town had its favourites, and
Hunt was ready enough to attack them. He was more
often right than wrong, and, whatever the dangers of a
free lance, we must admire a certain healthy freshness in
the downright abuse, for instance, with which he rails at
Pope's clap-trap, and Kemble's " vicious orthoepy."
The charge of occasional pertness towards actresses can-
not be gainsaid. It arose from his tropical tempera-
ment and irresponsible boyishness, and must not be
confounded with any disrespect or bad taste in feel-
ing. Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse has judiciously quoted,
in contrast, the " wholly charming picture " of Mrs.
Jordan : —
JOURNALIST. 69
" Her laughter is the happiest and most natural on the stage ; if
she is to laugh in the middle of a speech it does not separate itself
so abruptly from her words as with most of our performers. . . . Her
laughter intermingles itself with her words as fresh ideas afford her
fresh merriment ; she does not so much indulge as she seems un-
able to help it ; it increases, it lessens with her fancy, and when
you expect it no longer according to the usual habit of the stage, it
sparkles forth at little intervals as recollection revives it, like flame
from half-smothered embers."
The essential characteristics of Hunt's dramatic criti-
cism are its sincerity, independence, and vivacity. His
praise is neither bought nor borrowed, and has therefore,
in all its crudity, a certain value. He was full of spirit,
moreover, and keenly alive to new impressions ; the
brilliancy of scenic effects and the glow of crowds
affected his imagination and inspired his pen. Under
the softening influences of experience he grew less
opinionative, and became, to some extent, a recognised
authority. His criticisms appeared in The News (1805-
1807), and in The Examiner, until about the end of 18 13,
when he wearied of the subject, or was engrossed by
others. He returned to the charge with renewed zeal
and delight in The Taller 1830-1832.
Encouraged apparently by the success of The News,
the brothers Hunt determined themselves to turn pro-
prietors, and on January 3, 1808, appeared the first
number of a new paper under Leigh's editorship — The
Examiner : A Sunday Paper on Politics, Domei^tic
Economy, ojid Thairicals. Price ^\d. From this time
forward Leigh Hunt was almost continually engaged in
70 L^EIGH HUNT.
managing or contributing to periodicals, but his first
effort stands alone as being, for a time at least, financially
successful and politically influential. Its programme
was reform, literature, and the fine arts.
Politically, The Examiner was the more worthy follower
of Cobbett's Political Register, against whose noisy
agitation it frequently protested. Taking his motto
from Swift — " Party is the madness of the many for the
gain of the few " — the editor professed to be of no party,
and shrank from intercourse with politicians and place-
men, as he had formerly avoided the denizens of the
stage.
" A crowd is no place for steady observation," it is wriUen in The
Prospectus ; " The, Examiner has escaped from the throng and the
bustle, but he will seat himself by the wayside, and contemplate the
mo\dng multitudes as they wrangle and wrestle along. He does
not mean to be as noisy as the objects of his contemplation, or to
abuse them for a bustle which resistance merely increases, or even
to take notice of those mischievous wags who might kick the mud
towards him as they drive along ; but the more rational part of the
multitude will be obliged to him, when he warns them of an ap-
proaching shower, or invites them to sit down with him and rest
themselves, or advises them to take care of their pockets. As to
the language and style in which this ad\-ice will be given, it would
be ridiculous to promise that which haste or the headache might
hinder him from performing. Perhaps it must still be left to states-
men to amuse in politics."
Leigh Hunt declared that though, " from family asso-
ciations," he soon became interested in politics as a man,
he never could love them as a writer. " It was against
JOURNALIST. 71
the grain that I was encouraged to begin them ; and
against the grain that 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."