James Henry Leigh Hunt was a 19th century essayist, critic, Poet, and publisher. Many English Poets and writers were contemporaries of Leigh Hunt, including John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Jeremy Bentham, and Charles Darwin. Keats, Byron, and Shelley were personal friends who benefited from Hunts graciousness. Such great company has given Leigh Hunt a distinguished status.
During Hunts lifetime England engaged in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 with America, and the 23 year period of the Napoleonic Wars with France. During Hunts lifetime the French Revolution occurred and Napoleon became Emperor of France. Later in his lifetime, steam engines created an industrial revolution, and Darwin sailed to the Galapagos Islands and reported his findings. During a three year period Hunts friends and supporters, Keats, Shelley, and Byron all died at young ages.
Young Leigh Hunt
Leigh Hunt was born into a poor family near London in 1784 and attended school in London at Christs Hospital, a school founded 240 years earlier for the education of poor children. Following his schooling, Hunt took a job as a clerk in the war office.
In 1805 Hunt partnered with his older brother, John, a printer, to establish a newspaper called The News. Three years later the brothers abandoned the newspaper and created a political weekly that established their liberal reputation called the Examiner. Among other topics, the Examiner called for many reforms in Parliament, criticized King George III, and supported the abolition of slavery.
The power of journalism came of age during this period of English history with the publishing of numerous critical newspapers which collectively became known as the radical press. Consequently, the government became very busy, though mostly unsuccessfully, prosecuting the radical press for seditious libel.
I n 1812 the Hunts wrote an article in the Examiner that called the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps. As a result, John and Leigh Hunt were convicted by a jury of libel and sentenced to two years in prison.
Though he continued to write for the Examiner while in prison, Leigh Hunts misery during his separation from his family convinced him to turn away from political writing and to focus on literary writing.
Shelley and Keats
Shortly after being released from prison, Leigh Hunt moved into what would become his favorite house in Hampstead where he was able to spend precious time with his wife and three children and with his literary friends. Among those friends who stayed with Hunt for periods of time in his Hampstead house were Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.
Hunt had earlier introduced the world to the w ritings of Keats and Shelley in the pages of the Examiner. His section on Young Poets gave Keats and Shelley access to valuable space where some of their first works were published.
Keats welcomed Hunts tutelage for about a year. He broke away from Hunt when a critic labeled Hunt and Keats as members of The Cockney School of Poetry.
In 1818 Shelley and his family decided to move to Italy for health and financial reasons. His friend, Lord Byron, was living in Italy at the time and the two corresponded for several years while each lived in different parts of Italy.
In 1821, when Shelley and Byron were both living in Pisa, Shelley envisioned a new magazine called The Liberal, which Shelley, Byron, and friend, Leigh Hunt, would publish in Italy. Shelley sent money and an invitation to Hunt and promised to provide a house and income for Hunt and his large family.
Hunt liked the prospect of joining Shelley and Byron in Italy and took his family to Genoa and then to Leghorn to meet Shelley. After their meeting Hunt and his family went to Pisa to join Byron, and Shelley set sail in his boat, the Don Juan, for his home up the coast at Casa Magni.
Shelleys boat was caught in a thunderstorm and sank. Shelleys body and his crew washed ashore in Corsica a few days later. Local health laws prohibited the moving of the bodies to Rome or Pisa, so a month later Hunt, Byron, and family members attended a cremation of Shelleys body. After the cremation Hunt ended up in possession of Shelleys heart, which he eventually returned to Shelleys wife, Mary.
Thereafter, Lord Byron lost interest in The Liberal and soon left Italy to take a commanding interest in the civil war unfolding in Greece. Byron died in Greece of respiratory disease and fever in 1824.
Back to England
Hunt and his family were left in Italy without their friends and without an income. Hunt published a few editions of The Liberal, but it lacked heart and soul and failed. Hunt received an advance for literary works and took his family, which now included seven children, back to England.
Shortly after returning from Italy, Hunt moved to Chelsea in London and became neighbor to Poet and author, Thomas Carlyle, at his suggestion. The two became close friends and Hunts Chelsea home, as his Hampstead home had been, was always open to his circle of friends, of which there were many.
One winter Hunt was sick with influenza and absent for so long that when he finally recovered and went to visit the Carlyles, Jane jumped up and kissed him as soon as he appeared at the door. Two days later one of the Hunt servants delivered a note, addressed, From Mr. Hunt to Mrs. Carlyle. It contained the Poem, Jenny Kissed Me.
Hunt was impoverished most of his life. Charles Dickens was instrumental in agitating the government for the grant of a pension to be paid to Englands needy authors. In 1847 Hunt began receivi ng the pension which eased, but did not eliminate, his financial constraints.
The publication of Dickens novel, Bleak House, considered by some critics to be his finest work, though certainly not his most popular, included a character said to be modeled after Leigh Hunt. The book caused a rift to develop between Dickens and Hunt.
The Bleak House character, Harold Skimpole, was described as airy, improvident and objectionable. Skimpole claimed to be a child when it came to finances and managed to have everyone else pay his way through life.
Though Dickens denied that this was a characterization of Hunt and offered apologies, Hunt and his literary friends were offended.
Leigh Hunt died in 1859 at age 75, well-remembered by his many friends. William Hazlitt, the painter and writer, said that in conversation he is all life and animation, combining the vivacity of the school-boy with the resources of the wit and the taste of the scholar.
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Garry Gamber is a public school teacher and entrepreneur. He writes articles about politics, real estate, health and nutrition, and internet dating services. He is the owner of http://www.Anchorage-Homes.com and http://www.TheDatingAdvisor.com.
Author:: Garry Gamber
Keywords:: Jenny Kissed Me, Leigh Hunt, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Dickens, Hunt, Poem, Poet, Hunts, Hunt's
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