"The sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May
Round old Ravenna's clear-shown towers and bay,"--
all life, elasticity, and sunshine;--and the melancholy ending--
"The days were then at close of autumn--still,
A little rainy, and toward nightfall chill:
There was a fitful moaning all abroad;
And ever and anon over the road,
The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees," etc.,
are passages of exquisite beauty, marking the change from joy to
sorrow in one of the loveliest poems in the language. We have in it
the genuine spirit of Chaucer, the rich nervous cadences of Dryden,
with all the grace and life of modern English. But it is in vain here
to attempt to speak of the poetic merits of Leigh Hunt. A host of fine
compositions comes crowding on our consciousness. The Legend of
Florence, a noble tragedy; The Palfrey; Hero and Leander; The Feast of
the Poets; and The Violets; numbers of delightful translations from
the Italian, a literature in which Leigh Hunt has always reveled; and
above all, Captain Sword and Captain Pen. We would recommend every
body, just now that the war-spirit is rising among us, to read that
poem, and learn what horrors they are rejoicing over, and what the
Christian spirit of this age demands of us. But we must praise the
lyrics of the volume:--the pathos of the verses "To T. L. H., six
years old, during a sickness," and the playful humor of those "To J.
H., four years old," call on us for notice; and then the fine blank
verse poems, Our Cottage, and Reflections of a Dead Body, are equally
importunate. If any one does not yet know what Leigh Hunt has done for
the people and the age, let him get the pocket edition of his poems,
and he will soon find himself growing in love with life, with his
fellow-men, and with himself. The philosophy of Leigh Hunt is loving,
cheerful, and confiding in the goodness that governs us all. And when
we look back to what was the state of things when he began to write,
and then look round and see what it is now, we must admit that he has
a good foundation for so genial a faith.
It remains only to take a glance or two at his English homes. To
several of these we can trace him. Soon after his quitting
Horsemonger-lane prison, he was living at Paddington, having a study
looking over the fields toward Westbourne-green. In this he had a
narrow escape one morning of being burned, owing his escape to some
"fair cousin" not named. There he was visited by Lord Byron and
Wordsworth. At one time he was living at 8, York-buildings, New-road,
Marylebone. In the London Journal of January 7, 1835, Mr. Hunt gives a
very charming account of a very happy Twelfth Night spent there, and
in commemoration of it planted some young plane-trees within the rails
by the garden gate. Under these trees, but a year or two ago, he had
the pleasure of seeing people sheltering from the rain; but they are
now cut down. Here he first had the pleasure of seeing John Keats, and
here he was visited by Foscolo. At other times he lived in
Lisson-grove; at Hampstead, in the Vale of Health, where, as already
observed, Keats wrote Sleep and Poetry; at Highgate, near Coleridge;
and at Woodcote-green, near Ashstead-park, in Surrey, where he laid
the scene, and, I believe, wrote the romance, of Sir Ralph Esher.
Since his return to England he has lived chiefly in the suburbs of
London, in what Milton called "garden houses;" for some years in
Chelsea, near Thomas Carlyle; and now in Edwardes-square, Kensington,
a square of small, neat houses, built by a Frenchman, it is said in
expectation of the conquest of England by Bonaparte, and with a desire
to be ready settled, and with homes for his countrymen of more limited
means against that event. The speculation failing with the mightier
speculation of Napoleon, the poor Frenchman was ruined.
Such is a hasty sketch of the many wanderings and sojourns of Leigh
Hunt. May his age be rewarded for the services of his youth. In
closing this article I would, also with this wish, express another,
and that is, that he would sometime publish that small, but most
beautiful manual of domestic devotion, called by him Christianism, and
printed only for private circulation, some years ago. The object of
this little work seems to be, to give to such as had not full faith in
Christianity an idea of what is excellent in it, and by which they
might be benefited and comforted, even though they could not attain
full belief in its authenticity. The spirit and style of it are
equally beautiful.
[Illustration: House in St. James's Place]