(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
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(
This anthology draws on the range of Hunt's poetry and ...)
This anthology draws on the range of Hunt's poetry and prose, revealing a writer committed to the humane and civilizing powers of literature and friendship.
(Excerpt from The Book of the Sonnet, Vol. 2
There comes ...)
Excerpt from The Book of the Sonnet, Vol. 2
There comes a gallant vessel, in full trim,
Into the haven, high, majestical,
With music in her motion, as if all
The waves, o'er which she doth so lightly skim,
Rose up and sunk in cadence to each whim
And playful fancy of her rise and fall!
The sun is sinking, gilding yon dark pall
Of clouds, whose edges even now grow dim,
Ready to close around the grave of day!
But whence comes she, with sails the sun makes gold,
To fit them golden missions to convey?
Brings she Hesperian fruitage, long foretold,
From the far West? O yes, she comes to say,
She brings its best fruit, Peace, typed in that fable old!
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James Henry Leigh Hunt was an English critic, essayist, poet, and writer.
Background
Hunt was born on October 19, 1784 in Southgate, London, England, where his parents had settled after leaving the United States. His father Isaac, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his mother, Mary Shewell, a merchant's daughter and a devout Quaker, had been forced to come to Britain because of their loyalist sympathies during the American War of Independence. Hunt's father took holy orders and became a popular preacher, but he was unsuccessful in obtaining a permanent living. Hunt's father was then employed by James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos, as tutor to his nephew, James Henry Leigh (father of Chandos Leigh), after whom the boy was named.
Education
Hunt was educated at Christ's Hospital from 1791 to 1799.
Career
Hunt's poems were published in 1801 under the title of Juvenilia, and introduced him into literary and theatrical society. He began to write for the newspapers, and published in 1807 a volume of theatre criticism, and a series of Classic Tales with critical essays on the authors. Hunt's early essays were published by Edward Quin, editor and owner of The Traveller. In 1808 he left the War Office, where he had been working as a clerk, to become editor of the Examiner, a newspaper founded by his brother, John. His brother Robert Hunt, among others, also contributed to its columns; his criticism earned the enmity of William Blake, who described the journal's office at Beaufort Buildings, Strand, London, as containing a "nest of villains". Blake's response included Leigh Hunt, who aside from publishing the vitriolic reviews of 1808 and 1809 had added Blake's name on a list of "quacks". This journal soon acquired a reputation for unusual political independence; it would attack any worthy target, "from a principle of taste, " as John Keats expressed it. In 1813, an attack on the Prince Regent, based on substantial truth, resulted in prosecution and a sentence of two years' imprisonment for each of the brothers - Leigh Hunt served his term at the Surrey County Gaol. Leigh Hunt's visitors in prison included Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Lord Brougham, Charles Lamb and others, whose acquaintance influenced his later career. The stoicism with which Leigh Hunt bore his imprisonment attracted general attention and sympathy. His imprisonment allowed him many luxuries and access to friends and family, and Lamb described his decorations of the cell as something not found outside a fairy tale. When Jeremy Bentham called on him, he was found playing battledore. A number of essays in The Examiner that were written by Hunt and William Hazlitt between 1814 and 1817 under the series title "The Round Table" were collected in book form in The Round Table, published in two volumes in 1817. Twelve of the fifty-two essays were by Hunt, the rest by Hazlitt. In 1816 he made a mark in English literature with the publication of Story of Rimini, based on the tragic episode of Francesca da Rimini told in Dante's Inferno. Hunt's preference was decidedly for Chaucer's verse style, as adapted to modern English by John Dryden, in opposition to the epigrammatic couplet of Alexander Pope which had superseded it. The poem is an optimistic narrative which runs contrary to the tragic nature of its subject. Hunt's flippancy and familiarity, often degenerating into the ludicrous, subsequently made him a target for ridicule and parody. In 1818 appeared a collection of poems entitled Foliage, followed in 1819 by Hero and Leander, and Bacchus and Ariadne. In the same year he reprinted these two works with The Story of Rimini and The Descent of Liberty with the title of Poetical Works, and started the Indicator, in which some of his best work appeared. Both Keats and Shelley belonged to the circle gathered around him at Hampstead, which also included William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Bryan Procter, Benjamin Haydon, Charles Cowden Clarke, C. W. Dilke, Walter Coulson and John Hamilton Reynolds. This group was known as the Hunt Circle, or, pejoratively, as the Cockney School. Some of Hunt's most popular poems are "Jenny kiss'd Me", "Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel" and "A Night-Rain in Summer". His own affairs were in confusion, and only Percy Bysshe Shelley's generosity saved him from ruin. In return he showed sympathy to Shelley during the latter's domestic distresses, and defended him in the Examiner. He introduced Keats to Shelley and wrote a very generous appreciation of him in the Indicator. Keats seems, however, to have subsequently felt that Hunt's example as a poet had been in some respects detrimental to him. The time of Hunt's greatest difficulties was between 1834 and 1840. He was at times in absolute poverty, and his distress was aggravated by domestic complications. He died in Putney on 28 August 1859.
Achievements
Hunt was an English essayist, critic, journalist, and poet, who was an editor of influential journals in an age when the periodical was at the height of its power. Hunt’s poems, of which “Abou Ben Adhem” and his rondeau “Jenny Kissed Me” are probably the best known, reflect his knowledge of French and Italian versification.
In 1809, Leigh Hunt married Marianne Kent (whose parents were Thomas and Ann). Over the next 20 years they had ten children. Marianne, who had been in ill health for most of her life, died 26 January 1857, aged sixty-nine.
Father:
Isaac Hunt
Mother:
Mary Shewell
Spouse:
Marianne Kent
Daughter:
Arabella Leigh
Daughter:
Julia Trelawney Leigh
Daughter:
Mary Florimel Leigh
Daughter:
Jacyntha Leigh
Son:
Percy Bysshe Shelley Leigh
Son:
Henry Sylvan Leigh
Son:
John Horatio Leigh
Son:
Vincent Leigh
Son:
Swinburne Percy Leigh
Son:
Thornton Leigh Hunt
He was the first editor of the British daily broadsheet newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
