Part 34

It is what we could hardly have expected, that Leigh Hunt is descended of a high Church and Tory stock. On his father's side his ancestors were Tories and Cavaliers who fled from the tyranny of Cromwell and settled in Barbadoes. For several generations they were clergymen. His grandfather was rector of St. Michael's, in Bridgetown, Barbadoes. His father was intended for the same profession, but, being sent to college at Philadelphia, he there commenced, on the completion of his studies, as a lawyer, and married. It was, again, curious that, the Revolution breaking out, the conservative propensities of the family broke out so strong in him as to cause him to flee for safety to England, as his ancestors had formerly fled from it. He had been carted through Philadelphia by the infuriated mob, only escaped tarring and feathering by a friend taking the opportunity of overturning the tar-barrel set ready in the street, and, being consigned to the prison, he escaped in the night by a bribe to the keeper. On the arrival of his wife in England, some time afterward, she found him who had left America a lawyer, now a clergyman, preaching from the pulpit, tranquillity. Mr. Hunt seems to have been one of those who are not made to succeed in the world. He did not obtain preferment, and fell into much distress. At one time he was a very popular preacher, and was invited by the Duke of Chandos, who had a seat near Southgate, to become tutor to his nephew, Mr. Leigh. Here he occupied a house at Southgate, called Eagle-hall; and here his son, the poet, was born, and was named after Mr. Leigh, his father's pupil.

Mr. Hunt, in his autobiography, describes his mother as feeling the distresses into which they afterward fell very keenly, yet bearing them patiently. She is represented as a tall, lady-like person, a brunette, with fine eyes, and hair blacker than is seen of English growth. Her sons much resembled her.

At seven, Leigh Hunt was admitted into the grammar-school of Christ's hospital, where he remained till he was fifteen, and received a good foundation in the Greek and Latin languages. Mr. Hunt describes very charmingly the two houses where, as a boy, he used to visit with his mother; one of these being that of West, the painter, who had married his mother's aunt; the aunt, however, being much of the same age as herself: the other was that of Mr. Godfrey Thornton, of the great mercantile house of that name. "How I loved," says Leigh Hunt, "the graces in the one, and every thing in the other! Mr. West had bought his house not long, I believe, after he came to England; and he had added a gallery at the back of it, terminating in a couple of lofty rooms. The gallery was a continuation of the hall passage, and, together with the rooms, formed three sides of a garden, very small, but elegant, with a grass-plot in the middle, and busts upon stands under an arcade. In the interior, the gallery made an angle at a little distance as you went up it; then a shorter one, and then took a longer stretch into the two rooms; and it was hung with his sketches and pictures all the way. In a corner between the two angles, and looking down the lower part of the gallery, was a study, with casts of Venus and Apollo on each side of the door. The two rooms contained the largest of the pictures; and in the farther one, after stepping softly down the gallery, as if respecting the dumb life on the walls, you generally found the mild and quiet artist at his work; happy, for he thought himself immortal." West, it is well known, was brought up a Quaker, and had been so poorly educated that he could hardly read. Leigh Hunt states his belief that West did a great deal of work for George III. for very little profit; then, as since, the honor was thought of itself nearly enough.

"As Mr. West," continues Leigh Hunt, "was almost sure to be found at work in the farthest room, habited in his white woolen gown, so you might have predicated, with equal certainty, that Mrs. West was sitting in the parlor reading. I used to think that if I had such a parlor to sit in, I should do just as she did. It was a good-sized room, with two windows looking out on the little garden I spoke of, and opening into it from one of them by a flight of steps. The garden, with its busts in it, and the pictures which you knew were on the other side of its wall, had an Italian look. The room was hung with engravings and colored prints. Among them was the Lion's Hunt, by Rubens; the Hierarchy, with the Godhead, by Raphael, which I hardly thought it right to look at; and two screens by the fireside, containing prints from Angelica Kauffman, of the Loves of Angelica and Medoro, which I could have looked at from morning till night."

Here Mrs. West and Mrs. Hunt used to sit talking of old times and Philadelphia. West never made his appearance, except at dinner and tea-time, retiring again to his painting-room directly afterward; but used to contrive to mystify the embryo poet with some such question as, "Who was the father of Zebedee's children?" "The talk," he says, "was quiet; the neighborhood quiet; the servants quiet; I thought the very squirrel in the cage would have made a greater noise anywhere else. James the porter, a fine athletic fellow, who figured in his master's pictures as an apostle, was as quiet as he was strong. Even the butler, with his little twinkling eyes, full of pleasant conceit, vented his notions of himself in half-tones and whispers."

The house of the Thorntons was a different one, and a more socially attractive place. "There was quiet in the one; there were beautiful statues and pictures; and there was my Angelica for me, with her intent eyes at the fireside. But, beside quiet in the other, there was cordiality, and there was music, and a family brimful of hospitality and good-nature; and dear Almeria T., now Mrs. P----e, who in vain pretends that she is growing old. These were indeed holydays on which I used to go to Austin Friars. The house, according to my boyish recollections, was of the description I have been ever fondest of; large, rambling, old-fashioned, solidly built; resembling the mansions about Highgate and other old villages. It was furnished as became the house of a rich merchant and a sensible man, the comfort predominating over the costliness. At the back was a garden with a lawn; and a private door opened into another garden, belonging to the Company of Drapers; so that, what with the secluded nature of the street itself, and these verdant places behind it, it was truly _rus in urbe_, and a retreat. When I turned down the archway, I held my mother's hand tighter with pleasure, and was full of expectation, and joy, and respect. My first delight was in mounting the stair-case to the rooms of the young ladies, setting my eyes on the comely and sparkling face of my fair friend, with her romantic name, and turning over, for the hundredth time, the books in her library."

The whole description of this charming and cordial family, is one of those beautiful and sunny scenes in human life, to which the heart never wearies of turning. It makes the rememberer exclaim:--"Blessed house! May a blessing be upon your rooms, and your lawn, and your neighboring garden, and the quiet, old monastic name of your street; and may it never be a thoroughfare; and may all your inmates be happy! Would to God one could renew, at a moment's notice, the happy hours we have enjoyed in past times, with the same circles, in the same houses!"

But a wealthy aunt, with handsome daughters, came from the West Indies, and Great Ormond-street, and afterward Merton, in Surrey, where this aunt went to live, became a new and happy resort for him.

After Leigh Hunt quitted Christchurch, of which, and of the life there, he gives a very interesting description, at the age of sixteen was published a volume of his school-boy verses. He then spent some time in what he calls "that gloomiest of all '_darkness palpable_'"--a lawyer's office; he became theatrical critic in a newly established paper, the News; and his zeal, integrity, and talent formed a striking contrast to the dishonest criticism and insufferable dramatic nonsense then in public favor. In 1805, an amiable nobleman, high in office, procured him a humble post under government; but this was as little calculated for the public spirit of honest advocacy which lived in him as the lawyer's office. He soon threw it up, having engaged with his brother in the establishment of the well known newspaper, the Examiner. The integrity of principle which distinguished this paper, was as ill suited to the views of government at that dark and despotic period, as such integrity and boldness for constitutional reform were eminently needed by the public interests. He was soon visited with the attentions of the attorney-general; who, twice prosecuting him for libel, branded him "_a malicious and ill disposed person_." It is now matter of astonishment for what causes such epithets and prosecutions were bestowed by government at that day. On one occasion, in quoting an account of some birthday or levee, to the fulsome statement of the hireling court scribe, that the prince regent "looked like an Adonis," he added the words "of fifty"--making it stand "the prince looked like an Adonis of fifty!" This was cause enough for prosecution, and an imprisonment of two years in Horsemonger-lane jail. It was here, in 1813, that Lord Byron and Moore dined with him. They found him just as gay, happy, and poetical, as if his prison was a shepherd's cot in Arcadia, and there was no such thing as "an Adonis of fifty" in the world. The "wit in the dungeon," as Lord Byron styled him in some verses of the moment, had his trellised flower-garden without, and his books, busts, pictures, and piano-forte within. Byron has recorded his opinion at that time of Mr. Hunt, in his journal, thus:--"Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times: much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive aspect. If he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, I know few men who will deserve more praise, or obtain it. He has been unshaken, and will continue so. I don't think him deeply versed in life: he is the bigot of virtue (not religion), and enamored of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of Brutus pronounced, and every day proves it."

What a different portrait is this to that of the affected, finicking, artificial cockney, which the critics of that day would fain have made the world accept for Leigh Hunt. Lord Byron was a man of the world as well as a poet; he could see into character as well as any body when there were no good-natured souls at his elbow to alarm his aristocratic pride. He was right. Mr. Hunt has gone on _qualis ab incepto_; and deserved and done great things. The critic-wolves have long ceased to howl; the world knows and loves the man.

In process of time the Examiner was made over to other parties, and Mr. Hunt devoted his pen more exclusively to literary subjects. His connection with Byron and Shelley led him to Italy, where the Liberal, a journal, the joint product of the pens of those three celebrated writers, was started, but soon discontinued; and Leigh Hunt, before his return, saw the cordiality of Lord Byron toward him shaken, and witnessed one of the most singular and solemn spectacles of modern times--the burning of the body of his friend Shelley on the sea-shore, where he had been thrown up by the waves.

The occasion of Leigh Hunt's visit to Italy, and its results, have been placed before the public, in consequence of their singular nature, and of the high standing of the parties concerned, in a more prominent position than any other portion of his life. There has been much blame and recrimination thrown about on all sides. Mr. Hunt has stated his own case, in his work on Lord Byron and his Cotemporaries. The case of Lord Byron has been elaborately stated by Mr. Moore, in his Life and Letters of the noble poet. It is not the place here to discuss the question; but posterity will very easily settle it. My simple opinion is, that Mr. Hunt had much seriously to complain of, and, under the circumstances, has made his statement with great candor. The great misfortune for him, as for the world, was, that almost immediately on his arrival in Italy with his family, his true and zealous friend, Mr. Shelley, perished. From that moment, any indifferent spectator might have foreseen the end of the connection with Lord Byron. He had numerous aristocratic friends, who would, and who did spare no pains to alarm his pride at the union with men of the determined character of Hunt and Hazlitt for progress and free opinion. None worked more earnestly for this purpose, by his own confession, than Moore. From that hour there could be nothing for Mr. Hunt but disappointment and mortification. They came fast and fully. With all the splendid qualities of Lord Byron, whether of disposition or intellect, no man of sensibility would willingly have been placed in any degree of dependence upon him; no man of genius could be so without undergoing the deepest possible baptism of suffering. Through that Leigh Hunt went, and every generous mind must sympathize with him. Had Shelley lived, how different would have been the whole of that affair, and the whole of his future life. He died--and all we have to do is now simply to notice the residences of Leigh Hunt in Italy, without further reference to these matters.

The chief places of Mr. Hunt's Italian sojourn were Pisa, Genoa, and Florence. At Leghorn he and his family landed, and almost immediately went on with Shelley to Pisa, where Byron joined them; but at Monte Nero, near Leghorn, was at once introduced to a curious scene of mixed English and Italian life. "In a day or two, I went to see Lord Byron, who was in what the Italians call _villeggiatura_, at Monte Nero; that is to say, enjoying a country house for the season. I there met with a singular adventure, which seemed to make me free of Italy and stilettos, before I had well set foot in the country. The day was very hot; the road to Monte Nero was very hot, through dusty suburbs; and when I got there, I found the hottest-looking house I ever saw. Not content with having a red wash over it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds, a salmon color. Think of this flaming over the country in a hot Italian sun.

"But the greatest of all the heats was within. Upon seeing Lord Byron, I hardly knew him, he was grown so fat; and he was longer in recognizing me, I was grown so thin. He was dressed in a loose nankeen jacket and white trowsers, his neckcloth open, and his hair in thin ringlets about his throat; altogether presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and curly-headed person whom I had known in England.

"He took me into an inner room, and introduced me to a young lady in a state of great agitation. Her face was flushed, her eyes lit up, and her hair, which she wore in that fashion, looked as if it streamed in disorder. This was the Countess Guiccioli. The Conte Pietro, her brother, came in presently, also in a state of agitation, and having his arm in a sling. I then learned, that a quarrel having taken place among the servants, the young count had interfered, and been stabbed. He was very angry; Madame Guiccioli was more so, and would not hear of the charitable comments of Lord Byron, who was for making light of the matter. Indeed, there was a look in the business a little formidable; for though the stab was not much, the inflictor of it threatened more, and was at that minute keeping watch under the portico, with the avowed intention of assaulting the first person that issued forth. I looked out of the window, and met his eye glaring upward like a tiger. The fellow had a red cap on like a _sans culotte_, and a most sinister aspect, dreary and meager, a proper caitiff. Thus, it appeared, the house was in a state of blockade; the nobility and gentry of the interior all kept in a state of impassibility by a rascally footman.

"How long things had continued in this state I can not say: but the hour was come when Lord Byron and his friends took their evening ride, and the thing was to be put an end to somehow. Fletcher, the valet, had been dispatched for the police, and was not returned.... At length we set out, Madame Guiccioli earnestly entreating 'Bairon' to keep back, and all of us uniting to keep in advance of Conte Pietro, who was exasperated. It was a curious moment for a stranger from England. I fancied myself pitched into one of the scenes in the Mysteries of Udolpho, with Montoni and his tumultuous companions. Every thing was new, foreign, and violent. There was the lady, flushed and disheveled, exclaiming against the '_scelerato_;' the young count, wounded and threatening; the assassin waiting for us with his knife; and last, not least in the novelty, my English friend metamorphosed, round-looking, and jacketed, trying to damp all this fire with his cool tones, and an air of voluptuous indolence. He had now, however, put on his loose riding-coat of mazarine blue, and his velvet cap, looking more lordly then, but hardly less foreign. It was an awkward moment for him, not knowing what might happen; but he put a good face on the matter; and as to myself, I was so occupied with the novelty of the scene, that I had not time to be frightened. Forth we issued at the door, all squeezing to have the honor of being the boldest, when a termination is put to the tragedy by the vagabond throwing himself on a bench, extending his arms, and bursting into tears. His cap was half over his eyes; his face gaunt, ugly, and unshaven; his appearance altogether more squalid and miserable than an Englishman could conceive it possible to find in such an establishment. This blessed figure reclined weeping and wailing, and asking pardon for his offense, and to crown all, he requested Lord Byron to kiss him."

This was a curious introduction to Italian life. Leghorn, Mr. Hunt says, is a polite Wapping, with a square and a theater. The country around, though delightful to a first view, from its vines hanging from the trees, and the sight of the Apennines, is uninteresting when you become acquainted with it. They left here and proceeded to Pisa. There they occupied the ground-floor of the Casa Lanfranchi, on the Lung' Arno. The house is said to have been built by Michael Angelo, and is worthy of him. It is, says Mr. Hunt, in a bold and broad style throughout, with those harmonious graces of proportion which are sure to be found in an Italian mansion. The outside is of rough marble.

Here poor Shelley saw his friends settled in their apartments, and took his leave forever! Here they spent their time in the manner which has been made so well known by the Life and Letters of Lord Byron,--talking or reading till afternoon in the house; then riding out to a wood or a vineyard, and firing pistols, after which they would occasionally alight at a peasant's cottage, and eat figs in the shade--returning to dinner. "In the evening," observes Mr. Hunt, "I seldom saw Byron. He recreated himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night when I went to bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with Don Juan."

In the autumn, they left Pisa for Genoa; and in their way visited the deserted house of Shelley. Wild as the place is, it now seemed additionally so. It was melancholy, its rooms empty, and its garden neglected. "The sea fawned upon the shore, as though it could do no harm."

Genoa now became, as it would appear, the residence of Leigh Hunt for the greater part of the time that he continued in Italy, for he describes himself as quitting it for Florence, three years afterward. Mrs. Shelley had preceded them thither, and had furnished houses both for herself and Lord Byron, in the village of Albaro. With her they took up their residence in the Casa Negroto. There were forty rooms in it, some of them such as would be considered splendid in England, and all neat and new, with borders and arabesques. The balcony and stair-case were of marble; and there was a little flower-garden. The rent was twenty pounds a-year. Byron paid for his twenty-four pounds. It was called the Casa Saluzzi, was older and more imposing, with rooms in still greater plenty, and a good piece of ground. Mr. Hunt describes himself as passing a melancholy time at Albaro, walking about the stony alleys, and thinking of Shelley. Here the first number of that unfortunate publication, The Liberal, reached them; here they prepared the few numbers which succeeded it, and here the coldness between Byron and Hunt grew to its height, and they parted.

We next, and lastly, find Mr. Hunt at Florence. "I hailed it," he says, "as a good omen in Florence, that the two first words that caught my ears were flowers and woman--_fiori_ and _donne_. The night of our arrival, we put up at an hotel in a very public street, and were kept awake by songs and guitars. It was one of the pleasantest pieces of the south we had experienced; and for the moment, we lived in the Italy of books. One performer to a jovial accompaniment, sung a song about somebody's fair wife--_bianca moglie_--which set the street in roars of laughter. From the hotel, we went into a lodging in the street of beautiful women--Via delle Belle Donne--a name which is a sort of tune to pronounce. We there heard one night a concert in the street, and looking out, saw music-stands, books, etc., in regular order, and amateurs performing as in a room. Opposite our lodging was an inscription on a house, purporting that it was the Hospital of the Monks of Vallombrosa. Wherever you turned was music or a graceful memory. From the Via delle Belle Donne, we went to live in the Piazza Santa Croce, next to the church of that name, containing the ashes of Michael Angelo. On the other side of it was the monastery in which Pope Sixtus V. went stooping as if in decrepitude; 'looking,' as he said afterward, 'for the keys of St. Peter.' We lodged in the house of a Greek, who came from the island of Andros, and was called Dionysius; a name which has existed there, perhaps, ever since the god who bore it."