A third influence at work in this second romantic generation was that The "Cockney" consciously formed on Elizabethan and Italian lines. The group of poets School which culminated in Keats desired to forget all that had been written in English verse since about 1625, and to continue the work of such Italianated poets as Fletcher and the disciples of Spenser. There can be no question. Leigh that a very prominent part in heralding this revival was taken by Charles Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808), a book which seemed to be unnoticed at first, but which was devoured with ecstasy by several young men of good promise, and particularly by Hunt, Keats, Procter, and Beddoes. While LEIGH HUNT was being imprisoned for libelling the Prince Regent, in 1812, he made a very minute study of the Parnaso Italiano, and particularly of Ariosto. Between 1814 and 1818 he published several volumes, in which the Italians were closely and fervidly imitated; Leigh Hunt After the Portrait by B. R. Haydon among these the Story of Rimini holds a really important place in the evolution of English poetry. Hunt was very promptly imitated by Keats, who was eleven years his junior, and in every element of genius immeasurably his superior. A certain school of critics has never been able to forgive Leigh Hunt, who, it must be admitted, lacked distinction in his writings, and taste in his personal relations; but Hunt was liberal and genial, and a genuine devotee of poetry. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was the son of a Barbadoes clergyman, the Rev. Isaac Hunt, and his wife, Mary Shewell of Philadelphia. He was born at Southgate, on the 19th of October 1784. His childhood was very delicate, but at the age of seven he was sent to Christ Hospital, and he stayed there till 1799. He was happy at this school, of which he has left an inimitable description, and here he began to write verses. In 1801 his father collected these into a volume called Juvenilia. He acted as a sort of lawyer's clerk to his elder brother Stephen until 1805, when another brother, John, having started a newspaper, Leigh became its dramatic critic. About 1806 he secured a clerkship in the War Office, which he held for two years, until the Examiner was founded in 1808; of this paper Leigh Hunt remained the editor until 1821. For being rude to the Prince Regent, Hunt was shut up in Surrey gaol for exactly two years from February 1813. It was during this enforced retirement, which he made as agreeable as he could, that his mind turned to the reform of English poetry on Italian models, and for the next few years he was very active in verse, publishing The Feast of the Poets, 1814; The Descent of Liberty, 1815; The Story of Rimini, 1816; and Foliage, 1818. He was brought into close relations with Keats and Reynolds, and afterwards with Lamb, Shelley, and Byron, especially after his settling in Hampstead, and becoming the head of the "Cockney" School. In 1819-20 he published the weekly Indicator, from which he made a fine selection of essays in 1834. He was ill-advised to migrate to Italy in 1822, arriving at Leghorn but a few weeks before the death of Shelley. Hunt went with Byron to Genoa, and afterwards to Florence, where he edited the Liberal. He quarrelled with Byron, and was very miserable in Italy, where, however, he stayed in a villa at Maiano till the autumn of 1825, when he took a house at Highgate. In 1828 he did his reputation a lasting injury by publishing his interesting but most injudicious Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries. He continued to live in the neighbourhood of London, never staying very long in any one place, much troubled by poverty and overwork, but protected against their effects by a really extraordinary optimism. He issued, always with ebullient hopes, one newspaper after another, The Companion, 1828; The Chat of the Week, 1830; The Tatler, 1830-1832; Leigh Hunt's London Journal, 1834-35; The Monthly Repository, 1837-38. All these ventures were failures, and Hunt's persistence in renewing the laborious and costly experiment Leigh Hunt After the Portrait by Margaret Gillies was amazing. Most of these periodicals were written from end to end entirely by himself, and their files present almost unexplored storehouses of the prose of Leigh Hunt. Meanwhile he published a novel, Sir Ralph Esher, in 1832, and collected his Poetical Works in the same year. Fresh poems were Captain Sword and Captain Pen, 1834, and The Palfrey, 1842; in 1840 he enjoyed a real success at Covent Garden with his poetical play, A Legend of Florence. In 1840 to 1853 Leigh Hunt resided in Kensington, and this was the time when he compiled and published the delightful volumes by which he is now best known, such as Imagination and Fancy, 1844; Men, Women, and Books, 1847; A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla, 1848, and A Book for a Corner, 1849. In 1847 a crown pension of £200 removed from him the constant dread of poverty, and he sat down leisurely to write his Autobiography, 1850. He suffered much from bereavements during the last few years of his life; but he lived on in his Hammersmith house until August 28, 1859. The most interesting fact about Leigh Hunt is the evenness of his intellectual hedonism and his unfailing cheerfulness. He has described the mode in which his long life was spent, "reading or writing, ailing, jesting, reflecting, rarely stirring from home but to walk, interested in public events, in the progress of society, in things great or small, in the flower on my table, in the fly on my paper as I write." In person Leigh Hunt revealed his tropical parentage; he was swarthy, full-faced, and with glossy jet-black hair. ABOU BEN ADHEM. Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) And saw, within the moonlight in his room, An angel writing in a book of gold: Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, The angel wrote and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, |