LEIGH HUNT.

Ir the productions of an author afford an insight into his character, we cannot but infer that Leigh Hunt is, in many respects, a delightful man. The writings, from which this inference is drawn, form, probably, but a small proportion of the poet's compositions; still they are sufficient to convey a very definite impression, and afford ample basis for illustrative remark. We are especially justified in such a view from the fact that one, and by no means the least attractive of them, is a charming bit of autobiography, which gives the reader as fair a view of Mr. Hunt's heart, and an epoch or two of his life, as is afforded by the memoirs of Carlo Goldoni, which some critic has affirmed are more amusing than any of his comedies. The ancestral qualities of Leigh Hunt are truly enviable. His father descended from a line of West-India gentlemen, and his mother was the daughter of a Pennsylvania Quaker. Here was a fine mixture of tropical ardour and friendly placidity-of cordial gentility and prudent reserve-of careless cheerfulness and sober method. Both his parents were intellectually disposed; and his mother was partly won by her lover's fine readings of the English poets, which the son truly describes as "a noble kind of courtship." The paternal inheritance of the young author was like the revenue of Horatio a fund of "good-spirits ;" and apparently they have enabled him, like Hamlet's friend, to take fortune's

frowns and smiles "with equal thanks." He was, indeed, early inured to the experience of ill; but happily, certain mental antidotes were ever at hand to mitigate the power of evil. His first recollections are associated with the pecuniary embarrassments of his family, and a prison witnessed the sports of his childhood. "We struggled on," he says, between quiet and disturbance, placid readings and frightful knocks at the door, sickness and calamity, and hopes that hardly ever forsook us."

It is very obvious, from his truly filial portrait, that the poet's mother had, if any thing, more than an average share in giving a decided bias to his taste. She was a true lover of books and nature; and encouraged her son's poetic and literary tendencies in the sweetest manner. She treasured his early rhymes, carried them about her person, and exhibited them to their intimate friends with maternal pride. What a pleasing reminiscence must this have been to the poet in after life-how much better than a contrary course! What an influence it must have had in confirming his devotion to truth, his love of beauty, his superiority to the world's idols! According to his own confessions, written in the prime of life, poetry; by which

we

mean the loveliness of external nature, the true delights of society and affection, the creations of genius; all in short that redeems existence and refreshes the soul -has been the chief solace of his days. It has supported him in captivity, it has soothed the irritation of pain, it has made an humble lot independent, it has woven delightful ties with the good and the gifted, and bestowed wings on which he has soared to commune with immortals. In how many bosoms has the same ethereal instinct been extinguished by disdain! We cannot but recall what has often been quoted as a witticism by certain practical wiseacres "that every youth is expected to have he poetical disease once in his life as he has the measles,

and his friends rejoice when it is fairly over." It is such inhuman maxims, as far removed even from the philosophy of common-sense as they are from that of truth, that blight the flowers of humanity in the bud. Unfortunately they are too common among us. It was not the intrinsic merit so much as the spirit and the promise of her son's juvenile efforts, that the discerning heart of the mother applauded. Who can estimate the effect such sacred approval exerted? Perchance it made holy and permanent to that young mind what was before only regarded as an agreeable pastime. Not for the prospect of fame it suggested, was that sanction valuable, but because of the dawning sentiment it cherished, the lofty aims it prompted, the elevated tastes to which it gave strength and nurture. Had Leigh Hunt never written a decent couplet afterwards, this course would have been equally praiseworthy. Poetical traits of mind are frequently unallied with felicitous powers of expression. Their value to the individual, are not on this account essentially diminished. Through them is he to sympathize with the grand and lovely in literature, with the beautiful in creation, and the heroic in life. One early word of scorn thoughtlessly cast from revered lips, upon the unfolding sensibility to the poetical, may turn aside into darkness the clearest stream of the soul, may blast the germ of the richest flower on the highway of Time. Our self-biographer makes sufficiently light of his boyish offerings to the muses, but never for a moment loses his reverence for their trophies, or his thirst for their inspiration. It is evident that these feelings are the source of much of his cheerful philosophy; and that they have kept alive his attachment to imaginative literature, his fondness for moral pleasure, his eye for the picturesque in every day life, and his soul for genial society. The truly poetical heart never grows old. "It is astonishing,"

remarks our author, in speaking of an aged friend of his youth," how long a cordial pulse will keep playing, if allowed reasonably to have its way." The world wears, like dropping water, upon the prosaic mind, till it becomes petrified and cold. But whosoever has earnestly embraced the opposite creed, shall never fail to see in his kind something to cheer and to interest, as well as to repel and disgust. Let us hear again the testimony of one whose education was poetical: "Great disappointment and exceeding viciousness may talk as they please of the badness of human nature; for my part, I am on the verge of forty; I have seen a good deal of the world, the dark side as well as the light, and I say that human nature is a very good and kindly thing, and capable of all sorts of excellence,"

After awaking from his boyhood's dream of authorship, Leigh Hunt turned his talents to account as a journalist. He began by writing theatrical criticisms-the attraction of which was their perfect independence, no small novelty at the period. The habit of thinking for himself, according to his own account, was another blessing to which he was legitimate heir. It is traceable in his literary opinions, which have an air of perfect individuality, and in his theory of versification. Such a characteristic, one of the noblest to which our times give scope, soon brought the adventurous writer into difficulty. He and his brother, the joint proprietors of the "Examiner," were prosecuted for a libel on the Prince-Regent. They would not, as a matter of principle, allow their friends to pay the fine adjudged, and accordingly went to prison. Of this event we have a very graphic account in the biographical sketch. Here too was the bard followed by his better angel as well as his wife. Though deprived of liberty just at the moment the state of his health rendered it most valuable, though at first disturbed by sights and

sounds of human misery, and sometimes afflicted with illness and depression, yet he managed to fit up his room charmingly, to arrange a garden, to read and make verses, besides being consoled by the presence of his family and the visits of his friends. Indeed when we think of the rare spirits whose converse brightened his confinement, we can almost envy him a captivity, which brought such glorious freedom to his better nature, such mountain liberty to mind and heart.

Some of his epistles contain striking proofs of the pleasure with which he reverted to these kind attentions. At the close of one to Byron, he expresses his grateful recollection of

"that frank surprise, when Moore and you
Came to my cage, like warblers, kind and true,
And told me, with your arts of cordial lying,
How well I looked, although you thought me dying."

And in another to Charles Lamb, he says:

"You'll guess why I can't see the snow-covered streets,
Without thinking of you and your visiting feats,
When you call to remembrance how you and one more
When I wanted it most, used to knock at my door;
And leaving the world to the fogs and the fighters,
We discussed the pretensions of all sorts of writers."

Soon after his liberation, Mr. Hunt visited Italy. Despite of some pleasing references in his narrative of this absence, it is but too evident that ill-health and domestic cares prevented the poet from thoroughly appreciating the charms of Tuscany. To these causes, and strong home partialities, it is just to 'ascribe those somewhat unreasonable regrets, for meadows, green lanes and large trees, which appear in his journal. Indeed the writer hints as much himself. A wretched winter voyage, and the melancholy loss of a generous friend, must have contributed to throw many gloomy associations around this