talents and acquirements, is unhappily associated with a deed of blood as extraordinary in its details as any recorded in our calendar of crime. In the year 1745, being then an Usher and deeply engaged in the study of Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, and the Celtic dialects, for the formation of a Lexicon, he abruptly turned over a still darker page in human knowledge, and the brow that learning might have made illustrious was stamped ignominious forever with the brand of Cain. To obtain a trifling property he concerted with an accomplice, and with his own hand effected, the violent death of one Daniel Clarke, a shoemaker of Knaresborough, in Yorkshire. For fourteen years nearly the secret slept with the victim in the earth of St. Robert's Cave, and the manner of its discovery would appear a striking example of the Divine Justice, even amongst those marvels narrated in that curious old volume alluded to in The Fortunes of Nigel, under its quaint title of God's Revenge against Murther.

"The accidental digging up of a skeleton, and the unwary and emphatic declaration of Aram's accomplice that it could not be that of Clarke, betraying a guilty knowledge of the true bones, he was wrought to a confession of their deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned; and a trial of uncommon interest was wound up by a defense as memorable as the tragedy itself for eloquence and ingenuity-too ingenious for innocence, and eloquent enough to do credit even to that long premeditation which the interval between the deed and its discovery had afforded. That this dreary period had not passed without paroxysms of remorse, may be inferred from a fact of affecting interest. The late Admiral Burney was a scholar, at the school at Lynn in Norfolk, where Aram was an Usher, subsequent to his crime. The Admiral stated that Aram was beloved by the boys, and that he used to discourse to them of murder, not occasionally, as I have written elsewhere, but constantly, and in somewhat of the spirit ascribed to him in the poem.

ful process the burthen was replaced with a more stupendous weight of injunction, and an appalling conviction of the impossibility of its fulfilment. My mental anguish was indescribable;-the mighty agonies of souls tortured on the supernatural racks of sleep are not to be penned-and if in sketching those that belong to blood-guiltiness I have been at all successful, I owe it mainly to the uninvoked inspiration of that terrible dream."-Hood's Preface.

1141.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT

This poem was inspired by an incident

which recently had drawn attention to the conditions of workers in London. A woman whose husband had been killed in an accident and who was left with two infant children to support, was charged with having pawned articles belonging to her employer. It was brought out at the trial that she had been trying to support herself and family by making trousers at seven shillings a week, what her master called a "good living."

The poem won instant popularity in France and Germany as well as in England. It was printed on cotton handkerchiefs and sung about the streets. It is said to have trebled the circulation of Punch, in which it was first printed. Hood's monument bears the inscription "He sang the Song of the Shirt."

"The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem."-E. A. Poe, in The Poetic Principle (1850).

Among Hood's papers after his death was found a fragment entitled Bridge of Sighs.Part II. This aimed to tell the story of a mother who threw her illegitimate child into the river and who was sentenced to death for her act.

1 When Sarah, Abraham's wife, died in a foreign land, Abraham said to the people: "Give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."-Genesis, 23:4.

THE LAY OF THE LABORER

This poem in behalf of the starving unemployed was inspired by an incident that happened in the spring of 1844. A young Huntingdon laborer threatened to burn the property of the local farmers if they would not give him work. He was convicted and sentenced to transportation for life. Haunted by the subject, Hood wrote this poem and set it in a vigorous prose appeal, which he sent to the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham. It had no effect on the minister, but it won a pension for Hood's wife, and popular esteem for himself.

JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859), p. 866

EDITIONS

"The Story of Rimini,"

Edinburgh Review, The: June, 1816 (26:476). Fields, Mrs J. T.: A Shelf of Old Books (Boston, Osgood, 1894). Hazlitt, W.: "Mr. T. Moore-Mr. Leigh Hunt," The Spirit of the Age (London, 1825); Collected Works, ed. Waller and Glover, (London, Dent, 1902-06; New York, McClure), 4, 360.

Poetical Works (Popular Poets ed., London, Moxon,

1883).

Poems, with Hood, selected and edited by J. H.
Panting (Canterbury Poets ed.: London, Scott,
1889; New York, Simmons).
Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist: the Choicest

Passages selected, with Biographical Introduction, by W. C. Kent (London, Warne, 1888). Essays and Poems, 2 vols., selected and edited by R. B. Johnson (Temple Library ed.: London, Dent, 1891). Essays, ed., with an Introduction, by E. Ollier (London, Chatto, 1869, 1890). Essays, selected and edited, with an Introduction, by A. Symons (Camelot ed.: London, Scott, 1887, 1903).

Essays, selected and edited by A. Seymour (New
York, Dutton, 1904).
Dramatic Essays, ed, by W. Archer and R. W.
Lowe (London, Scott, 1894).
Autobiography (London, Smith, 1850, 1906); 2

vols., ed. by R. Ingpen (London, Constable, 1903; New York, Dutton). Imagination and Fancy: or, Selections from the

English Poets, with an Essay in answer to the question, "What is Poetry?" (London, Smith, 1845, 1852, 1891; New York, Scribner). What is Poetry?, ed. by A. S. Cook (Boston, Ginn, 1893).

Wishing-Cap Papers, The (London, Low, 1873; Boston, Lee).

Blackwood's Magazine: "Foliage, or Poems Original and Translated," Oct., 1819 (6:70); “On the Cockney School of Poetry," Oct., 1817 (2:38), Nov., 1817 (2:194), July, 1818 3:453), Aug., 1818 (3:519), Aug., 1825 (18: 155).

Caine, T. Hall: Cobwebs of Criticism (London, Stock, 1882, 1885).

Hunt," A New Spirit of the Age, 2 vols. (London, Smith, 1844).

Kent, Armine T.:

"Leigh Hunt as a Poet," The Fortnightly Review, July, 1881 (36:224). Macaulay, T. B.: The Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1841 (72:490): Critical and Historical Essays, 2 vols. (London and New York, Longmans, 1898).

Miller, Barnette: Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley, and Keats (Columbia Univ. Press, 1910). Punchard, C. D.: Helps to the Study of Leigh Hunt's Essays (London, Macmillan, 1899). Quarterly Review, The: "Foliage, or Poems Original and Translated," Jan., 1818 (18:324); "The Story of Rimini," Jan., 1816 (14:473). Redding, C.: Reminiscences of Eminent Men, 3 vols. (London, Saunders, 1867).

Saintsbury, G.: Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860, First Series (London, Percival, 1890; New York, Scribner).

Trelawny, E. J.: Records of Shelley and Byron

(London, Moxon, 1858); Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author, 2 vols. (London, Pickering, 1878; Frowde, 1906; New York, Dutton, 1905; Oxford Univ. Press, 1906).

Walker, H.: The English Essay and Essayists, ch. 7 (London, Dent, 1915; New York, Dutton).

Whipple, E. P.:

"British Critics" and "Leigh Hunt's Poems," Essays and Reviews, 2 vols. (Boston, Osgood. 1849, 1878).

Winchester, C. T.: A Group of English Essayists of the Early Nineteenth Century (New York, Macmillan, 1910).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CRITICAL NOTES

Dowden, E.: In Ward's The English Poets, Vol. 4 (London and New York, Macmillan, 1880, 1911).

From Letter to Maria Gisborne

You will see Hunt-one of those happy souls Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom

210

215

This world would smell like what it is-a tomb;
Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt
Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,
With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;
And coronals of bay from ribbons hung,
And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;
The gifts of the most learned 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 say, "I'm poor!"
Or oft in graver mood, when he will look
Things wiser than were ever read in book,
Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness.-

220

225

-Shelley (1820).

Shelley dedicated The Cenci to Hunt in the following words: "MY DEAR FRIEND-I inscribe with your name, from a distant country, and after an absence whose months have seemed years, this the latest of my literary efforts.

"Those writings which I have hitherto published, have been little else than visions which impersonate my own apprehensions of the beautiful and the just. I can also perceive in them the literary defects incidental to youth and impatience; they are dreams of what ought to be, or may be. The drama which I now present to you is a sad reality. I lay aside the presumptuous attitude of an instructor, and am content to paint, with such colors as my own heart furnishes, that which has been.

"Had I known a person more highly endowed than yourself with all that it becomes a man to possess, I had solicited for this work the ornament of his name. One more gentle, honorable, innocent and brave; one of more exalted toleration for all who do and think evil, and yet himself more free from 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 had already been fortunate in friendships when your name was added to the list.

"In that patient and irreconcilable enmity with domestic and political tyranny and imposture which the tenor of your life has illustrated, and which, had I health and talents, should illustrate mine, let us, comforting each other in our task, live and die.

"All happiness attend you! Your affectionate friend, PERCY B. SHELLEY.

"Rome, May 29, 1819."

See Keats's sonnets Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison (p. 753) and To Leigh Hunt, Esq. (p. 764); also Dickens's genial caricature of Hunt as Harold Skimpole in Bleak House.

THE STORY OF RIMINI

"The following story is founded on a passage in Dante, the substance of which is contained in the concluding paragraph of the second [fifth] Canto. For the rest of the incidents, generally speaking, the praise or blame remains with myself. The passage in question-the episode of Paulo and Francesca-has long been admired by the readers of Italian poetry, and is indeed the most cordial and refreshing one in the whole of that singular poem the Inferno, which some call a satire, and some an epic, and which, I confess, has always appeared to me a kind of sublime night-mare. We even lose sight of the place, in which the saturnine poet, according to his summary way of disposing both of friends and enemies, has thought proper to put the sufferers; and see the whole melancholy absurdity of his theology, in spite of itself, falling to nothing before one genuine impulse of the affections.

"The interest of the passage is greatly increased by its being founded on acknowledged matter of fact. Even the particular circumstance which Dante describes as having hastened the fall of the lovers, the perusal of Launcelot of the Lake, is most likely a true anecdote; for he himself, not long after the event, was living at the court of Guido Novella da Polenta, the heroine's father; and indeed the very circumstance of his having related it at all, considering its nature, is a warrant of is authenticity.

"There are no notes to the present poem. I have done my best, as every writer should, to be true to costume and manners, to time and place; and if the reader understands me as he goes, and feels touched where I am most ambitious he should be, I can be content that he shall miss an occasional nicety or so in other matters, and not be quite sensible of the mighty extent of my information. If the poem reach posterity, curiosity may find commentators enough for it, and the sanction of time give interest to whatever they may trace after me. If the case be otherwise, to write notes is only to show to how little purpose has been one's reading.

"For the same reason I suppress a good deal which I had intended to say on the versl fication of the poem,-or of that part of it, at least, where, in coming upon household matters calculated to touch us nearest, it takes leave, as it were, of a more visible march and accompaniment. I do not hesitate to say, however, that Pope and the French school of versification have known the least on the subject, of any poets perhaps that ever wrote. They have mistaken mere smoothness for harmony; and, in fact, wrote as they did, because their ears were only sensible of a

1 Launcelot of the Lake was a popular medieval

marked and uniform regularity. One of the most successful of Pope's imitators, Dr. Johnson, was confessedly insensible to music. In speaking of such men, I allude, of course, only to their style in poetry, and not to their undisputed excellence in other matters. The great masters of modern versification are, Dryden for common narrative, though he wanted sentiment, and his style in some respects was apt to be artificiak-Spenser, who was musical from pure taste,-Milton, who was learnedly so,-Ariosto, whose fine ear and animal spirits gave so frank and exquisite a tone to all he said,-Shakspeare, whose versification escapes us, only because he overinformed it with knowledge and sentiment;— and, though the name may appear singular to those who have not read him with due attention to the nature of the language then existing, Chaucer,-to whom it sometimes appears to me, that I can trace Dryden himself, though the latter spoke on the subject without much relish, or, in fact, knowledge of it. All these are about as different from Pope, as the church organ is from the bell in the steeple, or, to give him a more decorous comparison, the song of the nightingale, from that of the cuckoo,

"With the endeavor to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have joined one of still greater importance,-that of having a free and idiomatic cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which affects non-affectation. But the proper language of poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks. It is only adding musical modulation to what a fine understanding might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakspeare did,not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than they copied from their predecessors, but use as much as possible an actual, existing language,-omitting of course mere vulgarisms and fugitive' phrases, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as tragedy phrasés, dead idioms, and exaggerations of simplicity, are of the natural. The artificial style, it is true, has its beauties, as some great poets have proved; but I am here speaking of the style that is most beautiful; and these poets, it is to be observed, were not the greatest. Of the style, to which I allude, exquisite specimens, making allowances for what is obsolete, are to be found in The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, and his Troilus and Cressida; and you have only to open the first books of Pulci1 and Ariosto2 to meet with two charming ones, the interview

1 Luigi Pulci (1432-87) was an Italian romantic poet, author of the burlesque epic Il Morgante Maggiore.

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) was a celebrated Italian romantic poet, author of Orlando Furioso.

of Orlando with the Abbott, in the Morgante Maggiore (Canto 1 towards the conclusion), and the flight of Angelica, her meeting with Rinaldo's horse, etc., in the Orlando Furioso. Homer abounds with them, though, by the way, not in the translation; and I need not, of course, warn any reader of taste against trusting Mr. Hoole1 for a proper representation of the delightful Italian. Such versions, more or less, resemble bad engravings, in which all the substances, whether flesh, wood, or cloth, are made of one texture, and that a bad one. With the Greek dramatists I am ashamed to say I am unacquainted; and of the Latin writers, though Horace, for his delightful companionship, is my favorite, Catullus appears to me to have the truest taste for nature. But an Englishman need go no farther than Shakspeare. Take a single speech of Lear's, such for instance as that heart-rending one,

I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward,' etc.2

and you have all that criticism can say, or poetry can do.

"In making these observations, I do not demand the reader to conclude that I have succeeded in my object, whatever may be my own opinion of the matter. All the merit I claim is that of having made an attempt to describe natural things in a language becoming to them, and to do something towards a revival of what appears to me a proper English versification. There are narrative poets now living who have fine eyes for the truth of things, and it remains with them perhaps to perfect what I may suggest. If I have succeeded at all, the lovers of nature have still to judge in what proportion the success may be; but let me take them with me a while, whether in doors or out of doors, whether in the room or the green fields,-let my verses, in short, come under the perusal of ingenuous eyes, and be felt a little by the hearts that look out of them, and I am satisfied."—Hunt, in Preface to The Story of Rimini (1816). The poem was dedicated to Lord Byron,

See Keats's On Leigh Hunt's Poem "The Story of Rimini” (p. 765).

In the portion of the poem omitted, Paulo, the brother of Giovanni, Lord of Rimini, goes to Ravenna to bring back Giovanni's bride, Francesca, the daughter of Duke Guido. A proxy wedding is held, and Paulo and Francesca return to Rimini. From their first meeting Paulo and Francesca had grown to love each other, and as Giovanni was ill-tempered and uncongenial the relationship between him and his beautiful bride was not cordial. He often gave vent to his wrath and ill-treated Francesca. At such times, Francesca sought