It is in the familiar eway that he shows to greatest advantage. Criticism, speellation, literary gosip, romantic stories from real life, and descriptions of country pleasures, are charmingly mingled in his page: he can be grave as well as gay, and speak consolation to friends in trouble. No man, says Mr. Lowell, · has ever understood the delicacies and luxuries of language better than he; and his thoughts often have all the rounded grace and shifting lustre of a dove's neck.... He was as pure-minded a man as ever lived, and a critic whose subtlety of discrimination and whose so indness of judgment, supported as it was on a broad basis of truly liberal scholarship, have hardly yet won fitting apprecia

tion.*

As a poet Leigh Hunt showed much tenderness, a delicate and vivid fancy, and an entire freedom from any morbid strain of introspection. His verses never lack the sense and expression of quick, keen delight in all things naturally and wholesomely delightful. But an occasional mannerism, bordering on affectation, detracts somewhat from the merits of his poetry. His narrative poems, such as "The Story of Rimini,' are, however, among the very best in the language. He is most successful in the heroic couplet. His exquisite little fable Abou ben Adhem' has assured him a permanent place in the records of the English language.

wave.

'In appearance,' says his son, 'Leigh Hunt was tall and straight as an arrow, and looked slenderer than he really was. His hair was black and shining, and slightly inclined to His head was high, his forehead straight and white, under which beamed a pair of eyes, dark, brilliant, reflecting, gay, and kind, with a certain look of observant humour. His general complexion was dark. There was in his whole carriage and manner an extraordinary degree of life. His whole existence and habit of mind were essentially literary. He was a hard and conscientious | worker, and most painstaking as regards ac- | curacy. He would often spend hours in verifying some fact or event which he had only stated parenthetically. Few men were more attractive in society, whether in a large company or over the fireside. His manner was particularly animated, his conversation varied, ranging over a great field of subjects. There was a spontaneous courtesy in him that never failed, and a considerateness derived from a ceaseless kindness of heart that invariably fascinated.' Hawthorne and Emerson have left on record the delightful impression he made when they visited him. He led a singularly plain life. His customary drink was water, and his food of the plainest

and simplest kind; tread alone was what he took for nebeon or supper. His personal friendships embraced men of every party, and among those who have eloquently testined to his high character as a man and an author are Carige, Lytton, Shelley, Macaulay, Dickens, Thackeray, Lori Hutton, Forster, Macnady, Jerry 14, W. J. Fox, Miss Martineau, and Miss Mitford.

A portrait of Hunt by Haydon is in the National Portrait Gallery. There is a portrait by Macise in Fraser's Magazine."

The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, a new Eition, revised by the Author, with further Revision, and an Introduction by his Eldest Son, 1560; The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt, edited by his Eldest Son, with a Portrait 2 vols. 1862; Recollections of Writers, by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, with Letters of Charies Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, and Charles Dickens, and a Preface by Mary Cowden Clarke, 1878; Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley; Moore's Life of Byron: List of the Writings of William Hazlitt and descriptive, critical, and explanatory, by AlexLeigh Hunt, chronologically arranged, with Notes, ander Ireland, 1868 (two hundred copies printed); Characteristics of Leigh Hunt as exhibited in that typical Literary Periodical Leigh Hunt's London Journal, 1834-5, with Illustrative Notes by Lancelot Cross (Frank Carr), 1878. References to Leigh Hunt occur in the writings of his contemporaries William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, and Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller Procter), and in the Reminiscences and Letters of Thomas Carlyle. Selections from his writings have been made by Edmund Ollier, with introduction and notes, 1869; by Arthur Symons, with useful introduction and notes, 1887; by Charles Kent, with a biographical introduction and portrait, Brimley Johnson, in the Temple Library, 1891, 1889, and chiefly from the poems, by Reginald with a biographical and critical introduction and portrait from an unpublished sketch, and views of his birthplace and the various houses inhabited by him; A Life of Hunt, by Cosmo Monkhouse, in the Great Writers series, is in preparation.]

A. I.

HUNT, JEREMIAH, D.D. (1678-1744), independent minister, only son of Thomas Hunt, a London merchant, was born in London on 11 June 1678. His father died in 1680, and his mother secured for him a liberal education. He studied first under Thomas Rowe [q. v.], then at the Edinburgh University, and lastly at Leyden (1699-1701), where Nathaniel Lardner [q.v.] was a fellow student. He owed much to John Milling (d. 16 June 1705), minister of the English presbyterian church at Leyden, and learned Hebrew of a rabbi from Lithuania. In Holland he was licensed to preach, and was one of three who officiated in turns to the English presbyterian

congregation at Amsterdam. He always preached without notes, and his memory was so good that he could recall the language of an unwritten sermon fourteen years after its delivery. On his return to England he was for three years (1704-7) assistant to John Green, an ejected divine, who had formed an independent church at Tunstead, Norfolk. Here, according to Harmer, he was ordained.

(ed. by George Benson, D.D. [q. v.], from imperfect notes).

[Funeral Sermon by Lardner, 1744; Protestant Dissenters' Mag. 1795, p. 1 sq. (Sketch by 1. T., i.e. Joshua Toulmin), 1799, p. 432; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808, i. 98, 124, ii. 262 sq.; Kippis's Life of Lardner, 1815, p. v; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, 1822, i. p. xxvi; Townsend's Life of Barrington, 1828, p. xix; Armstrong's App. to Martineau's Ordination Service, 1829, p. 97; London Directory of 1677, 1858; Cat. of Edinburgh Graduates, 1858, p. 240; James's Hist. Litigation Engl. Presb. Churches, 1867, pp. 700, 721, 821; Browne's Hist. Congr. Norf. and Suff., 1877, PP. 304 sq.; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, p. 131.]

A. G.

Coming up to London in 1707, Hunt accepted a call to succeed Richard Wavel, an ejected divine (d. 9 Dec. 1705), as pastor of the independent church at Pinners' Hall, Old Broad Street. Here he renewed his acquaintance with Lardner, whose testimony to the breadth and depth of his learning is very emphatic. They were members of a minis- HUNT, SIR JOHN (1550 ?-1615), polititers' club which met on Thursdays at Chew's cian, was second son of John Hunt, esq., of coffee-house in Bow Lane. Hunt was ac- Lyndon in Rutlandshire, and of the ancient counted 'a rational preacher;' his matter was family of the Le Hunts (WRIGHT, Rutland, practical, his method expository, his style pp. 82-3). His mother was Amy, daughter easy. His admirers admitted that 'he only of Sir Thomas Cave of Stanford, Northamppleases the discerning few' (Character of the tonshire. He was born at Morcott in RutDissenting Ministers; see Protestant Dis- landshire, whence he was sent to Eton, and senters' Mag. 1798, p. 314). How far he afterwards to King's College, Cambridge, diverged from the traditional Calvinism of where he was admitted a scholar 27 Aug. dissent is not clear. Isaac Watts says that 1565, but left the university without taking some suspected him of Socinianising,' but a degree. In the parliament which met unjustly. In 1719 he voted with the non- 2 April 1571 he took his seat as member for subscribers at Salters' Hall [see BRADBURY, Sudbury. He settled during the latter part THOMAS], but took no part in the contro- of his life at Newton in Leicestershire. versy. John Shute Barrington, first viscount Although a man of some ability and attainBarrington [q. v.], the leader of the nonsub-ments, he appears to have led a somewhat scribers, joined his church. At Barrington's seat, Tofts in Essex, he was in the habit of meeting Anthony Collins [q. v.] On 31 May 1729 he was made D.D. by Edinburgh University. In 1730, though an independent, he was elected a trustee of Dr. Williams's foundations. He took part in 1734-5 in a course of dissenting lectures against popery, his subject being penances and pilgrimages. He was also one of the disputants in certain 'conferences' held with Roman catholics, on 7 and 13 Feb. 1735, at the Bell Tavern, Nicholas Lane.

He died on 5 Sept. 1744. He married a distant relative of Lardner, who preached his funeral sermon at Pinners' Hall.

Lardner gives a list of eleven separate sermons by Hunt, published between 1716 and 1736; eight of them are funeral sermons. He published also: 1. 'Mutual Love recommended upon Christian Principles,' &c., 1728, 8vo. 2. An Essay towards explaining the History and Revelations of Scripture.. Part I.,' &c., 1734, 8vo (deals with Genesis ; no other part published; appended is a 'Dissertation on the Fall of Man'). Posthumous was: 3. 'Sermons,' &c., 1748, 8vo, 4 vols.

profligate life, and in July 1611 the Countess of Oxford caused articles to be drawn up against him on account of the evil influence that he exercised over her son, Henry de Vere, eighteenth earl, a youth of eighteen, the companion of Prince Henry. She entreated the interference of the Earls of Salisbury and Northampton. The charge does not seem to have lost him the royal favour, for in the same year (10 Nov.) he was knighted at Whitehall by James. A nephew, William Le Hunt of Gray's Inn, was called to the degree of serjeant of law in Trinity term 1688.

Sir John was author of: 1. Latin epigrams in collection presented by the scholars of Eton to Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, 1563. 2. Latin verses in commendation of Anne, countess of Oxford, 1588, Lansdowne MS. civ. art. 78.

[State Papers, James I, vol. lxv. No. 49; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 349; Nichols's Progresses, James I, ii. 432; Wright's Rutland, pp. 82-3.]

J. B. M.

HUNT, JOHN (1806-1842), organist and composer, born on 30 Dec. 1806 at Marnhull in Dorsetshire, entered the choir of Salisbury

As a poet Leigh Hunt showed much tenderness, a delicate and vivid fancy, and an ( entire freedom from any morbid strain of introspection. His verses never lack the sense and expression of quick, keen delight in all things naturally and wholesomely delightful. But an occasional mannerism, bordering on affectation, detracts somewhat from the merits of his poetry. His narrative poems, such as "The Story of Rimini,' are, however, amor the very best in the language. He is 1 successful in the heroic couplet. His exq little fable Abou ben Adhem' has as him a permanent place in the records o English language.

Was

J. ne,

bor. ii. 493-4; Ander-
21 edit. i. 168-83.]
G. G.

o Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, after removed with his family to

Devoting himself to scientific rediscovered that the chemical rays solar spectrum sensibly accelerate the tion of seeds. In 1842 he read a before the Cornwall Polytechnic on a uliar Band of Light encircling the Sun.' In 1813-4, before the British Association, i announced that there are three distinct phenomena in the solar ray, light, heat, and photographic power, the last being what Sir J. Herschel and he agreed to call actinism. His Popular Treatise of the Art of Photong graphy' (Glasgow, 1841, 8vo), the first treaordinance tise printed in this country, passed through America. six editions. He wrote the article 'PhotoSoon after-graphy' for the Encyclopædia Metropolidown, to- tana,' and it was afterwards (1851) published he dwellings separately. His 'Researches on Light in its ensuing winter. Chemical Relations' (Falmouth, 1844) was that he had ex- mainly a history of photography; but the seA new church cond edition (London, 1854) contained a large of 1608, but Hunt number of original experiments and new 'analyses of the solar ray. Hunt had meanwhile also distinguished himself by experimenting on electrical phenomena in mineral veins, and by some papers on the application of the steam engine in pumping mines. In 1845 he received the government appointment of keeper of the mining records, an office which he discharged for thirty-seven years. In 1851 he was appointed lecturer on mechanical science in the Royal School of Mines, and began to collect and arrange statistics as to the products of British mines. In accordance with the report of a treasury commission Hunt's results were issued annually as a blue-book, 'Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom, from 1855 to 1884, and the series is still continued. After lecturing for two years on mechanical science Hunt succeeded to the chair of experimental physics at the School of Mines, which he resigned in order to give more time to the Mining Record Office. Hunt was occupied with the scientific work of the 1851 Exhibition, and drew up the 'Synopsis' and the 'Handbook' for it. He was also engaged in much of the preparatory work for several sections of the 1862 Exhibition, again compiling a handbook. At the Health Exhibition in 1884 Hunt received the diploma of honour for services rendered.

T (1807-1887), scientific Plymouth Dock (now Devon, was the posthumous son der who had perished with all a Sloop of war in the Grecian After attending schools at PlyPenzance, Hunt was placed with practising at Paddington, London. red some knowledge of practical with a smattering of Latin, and anatomy under Joshua Brookes (1761V. He was afterwards for more than Vars with a physician, and was for years following in charge of a medical pensary in London. He made the acquaintde of Radical Hunt' [see HUNT, HENRY], who helped to direct his studies. On inheritIn a small property on the Fowey in Cornwill, he settled there for a short time; studied the folklore of the district; published a descriptive poem, "The Mount's Bay,' Penzance, 1829, 12mo; established a mechanics' institute at Penzance, and gave the first lecture to the members.

Hunt soon returned to London and was employed by a firm of chemical manufacturers. | On the discovery of photography he at once began a series of careful experiments, and soon after published in the Philosophical Transactions' several papers on his results, one being the discovery that the proto-sulphate of iron could be used as a developing agent. In 1840 he was appointed secretary

In 1851 appeared his 'Elementary Physics, giving accurate information of the chief facts in Physics, and explaining the experimental evidence without mathematical details.' Besides several papers on the 'Influence of Light on the Growth of Plants,' which were read before the British Association, Hunt drew up an almost exhaustive statement of the pro

Hunt

ings apart from considerations of fortune,' of which some hint is given in his correspondence (Autobiog. II. i. 164, 268). Macaulay, who writing to Napier in 141 suggested that in case of Southey's death Hunt would make a suitable poet laureate, obtained for him some reviewing in the Edinburgh.' His personal friends, aware of his struggles, were anxious to see some provision made for his declining years. Already on two occasions a royal grant of 2007. had been secured for him, and a pension of 1201. was settled upon him by Sir Percy Shelley upon succeeding to the family estates in 1844. Among those who urged Hunt's claims to a moderate public provision most earnestly, was his friend Carİyle. The characteristic paper which Carlyle drew up on the subject eulogised Hunt with admirable clearness and force. On 22 June 1847 the prime minister, Lord John Russell, wrote to Hunt that a pension of 2007. a year would be settled upon him. During the summer of 1847 Charles Dickens, with a company of amateur comedians, chiefly men of letters and artists, gave two performances of Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour' for Hunt's benefit, in Manchester and Liverpool, by which 9001, was raised.

1

poraries,' 3 vols. A revised edition of it, brought down by himself to within a short time of his death (1859), and with further revision and an introduction by his eldest son, Thornton, was published in 1860. The book is one of the most graceful and genial chronicles of its kind in our language. Carlyle reckoned it only second to Boswell's 'Life of Johnson,' and called it (in a letter to Hunt which belongs to the present writer) 'a pious, ingenious, altogether human, and worthy book, imaging with graceful honesty and free felicity many interesting objects and persons on your life-path, and imaging throughout what is best of all, a gifted, gentle, patient, and valiant human soul as it buffets its way through the billows of the time, and will not drown, though often in danger cannot be drowned, but conquers and leaves a tract of radiance behind it. . . ?

several poems by Hunt in 'Ainsworth's MagaBetween 1845 and 1850 there appeared zine' and the New Monthly Magazine. In 1851 was issued Table-Talk, to which are added Imaginary Conversations of Pope and Swift.' The matter consisted partly of short pieces first published under the head of 'Table-Talk' in the Atlas' newspaper, and In 1848 appeared A Jar of Honey from partly of passages scattered in periodicals, Mount Hybla, illustrated by Richard Doyle.' and never before collected. In 1850 he reThe substance of the volume had appeared in vived an old venture under the slightly Ainsworth's Magazine' in 1844. It includes changed title of Leigh Hunt's Journal: a a retrospect of the mythology, history, and Miscellany for the Cultivation of the Mebiography of Sicily, and ancient legends and morable, the Progressive, and the Beautiful.' examples of pastoral poetry selected from Carlyle contributed to it three articles. It was ce, Italy, and Britain, with illustrative discontinued in March 1851, failing chiefly criticisms, including a notice of Theocritus, from the smallness of the means which the With transisted specimens. In the same year originators of it had thought sufficient for its And The Town: its Memorable Charac- establishment.' In 1852 his youngest son, tes and Events St. Paul's to St. James's- Vincent, died. In the same year Dickens A 45 Castrations in 2 vols. containing wrote Bleak House,' in which Harold Skimun socount of London, partly topographical pole was generally understood to represent and) samond but chiefly memes of remark Hunt. But Dickens categorically denied in shit chameters and events associated with All the Year Round (24 Dec. 1859) that ps herweer St. Peals and St. James's Hunt's character had suggested any of the The pene.06 por son of the work had ap- unpleasant features of the portrait. ́ ́In the haar man before in Leh Hunt's midst of the sorest temptations, Dickens Es pat mok was 'A wrote of Hunt, * He maintained his honesty Zvak te & Camar, or Sidactions in Prose and unblemished by a single stain. He was in all My Aphaw the best song to that public and private transactions the very soul Caymes on each, of truth and honour."

•The Old Court Suburb, or Memorials of Kensington-Royal, Critical, and Anecdoticall Prols, appeared in 1855. The book is full (historical and literary anecdotes. There wed in the same year Beaumont and tok zorthe finest Scenes, Lyrics, and other yes of these to Pets now first selected by w boke of their works to the exclusion Wative is moral sectionable; with Juris & Bangashed Critics, Notes ex