Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/77

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HUNT 69 8vo, 1822). But his pecuniary affairs had be- come badly involved, and in June, 1822, on the invitation of Byron and Shelley, he went to Pisa, Italy, to assist them in editing the "Liberal," a journal intended to be ultra-lib- eral in both literature and politics. Shelley's death occurred in July, and Hunt resided with Byron for several months ; but the journal proving a failure and the association uncon- genial, the poets separated with decidedly un- pleasant impressions of each other. Hunt re- mained in Italy for some years, and after his return to England published "Recollections of Lord Byron and some of his Contempora- ries" (4to and 2 vols. 8vo, 1828). In this book the character of Byron was set forth in so unfavorable a light that his friends, espe- cially Moore, retorted upon its author in the severest manner. Years afterward Hunt con- fessed that he was ashamed of it. From this time his life was constantly devoted to the pro- duction of books. He had always been sneered at as a cockney by certain critics, and was fre- quently in great pecuniary straits, until in 1847 he received a literary pension of 200, but plodded on with unceasing industry. He trans- lated Tasso's Aminta, Redi's Sacco in Toscana, Boileau's Lutrin, and numerous other works; edited the plays of Wycherly, Oongreve, Van- brugh, Farqnhar, and Sheridan, and an expur- gated edition of Beaumont and Fletcher ; and was a frequent contributor to the literary and political columns of newspapers and maga- zines. Among his other works are the follow- ing: "Sir Ralph Esher," a novel (1832; new ed., 1850) ; " Captain Sword and Captain Pen," a metrical satire against war (1835); "The Legend of Florence," a drama (1840); "The Seer," a collection of essays (1841) ; " The Pal- frey," a love story in rhyme (1842); "Stories from the Italian Poets, with Lives of the Wri- ters" (2 vols., 1840); "Men, Women, and Books " (2 vols., 1847) ; " The Town " (2 vols., 1848); "Autobiography" (1850); "Table Talk, with Imaginary Conversations of Pope and Swift" (1851); "Religion of the Heart" (1853); and "The Old Court Suburb" (1855). Shortly before his death he collected and ar- ranged a complete final edition of his poems. A selection from his correspondence was pub- lished in 1802. II. Thornton, an English author and art critic, son of the preceding, born in London, Sept. 10, 1810, died June 24, 1873. He studied the art of painting, but soon aban- doned it for journalism, conducted the political department of the " Constitutional " until that journal ceased to exist, edited successively the " North Cheshire Reformer " and the " Glas- gow Argus," and from 1840 to 1860 was con- nected with the London "Spectator." He published "The Foster Brother," a romance (1845), and edited his father's "Autobiogra- phy" (1850) and "Correspondence" (18fi2). Hl'NT, Richard Morris, an American architect, born in Brattleboro, Vt., Oct. 28, 1828. In 1843 he went to Europe, where he studied his profession at the school of fine arts in Paris, and under Hector Lefuel, and made a tour through various parts of Europe, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. Returning to Paris, he was engaged as inspector under Lefuel, then archi- tect to the emperor, on the new building con- necting the Louvre and the Tuileries. On his return to America in 1855, he was employed upon the capitol extension at Washington. Since then he has executed many public and private works, of which the most important are the Presbyterian hospital, the Stevens apartment house, the Lenox library, and the Tribune building in New York ; the Yale di- vinity college in New Haven ; the Stuyvesant building, New York ; the Brimmer houses, Boston; the residence of J. Q. A. Ward, New York; and several villas at Newport, R. I. HCAT, Thomas St*rry, an American chemist, mineralogist, and geologist, born in Norwich, Conn., Sept. 5, 1826. He studied medicine for a time, but, devoting himself to chemistry, be- came in 1845 a private student with Prof. B. Silliman, jr., of New Haven, acting meanwhile as chemical assistant to Prof. Silliman, sr., in the laboratory of Yale college. After two years thus spent he was in 1847 made chemist and mineralogist to the geological survey of Canada, then just begun under the direction of Sir William Logan. He held this post fbr more than 25 years, but resigned it in 1872, and ac- cepted the chair of geology in the Massachu- setts institute of technology, where he succeed- ed Prof. William B. Rogers. His earlier studies were directed especially to theoretical chem- istry, then assuming shape from the labors of Liebig, Dumas, Laurent, and Gerhardt. It was as the reviewer, interpreter, and critic of these chemists that Mr. Hunt first became known, while he at the same time developed from some germs in the writings of Laurent a new system essentially his own, in which all chemical compounds are deduced from simple types represented by one or more molecules of water or of hydrogen. These views, maintained by him in a series of papers in the " American Journal of Science," beginning in 1848, have at length been universally adopted, and are now recognized as one of the foundations of modern chemical theory. His philosophy of the sciences has been influenced by the study ol' Kant, and still more of Hegel and Stallo, as may be seen in his essays on " Solution," " Chemical Changes," and "Atomic Volumes," which first appeared in the "Journal " (1853-'4), and were republished in England and Germany. In these he attacks the atomic hypothesis and all its consequences, and asserts that solution is chem- ical union, and chemical union identification. His researches on the equivalent volumes of liquids and solids were a remarkable anticipa- tion of those of Dumas, while in his inquiries into the polymerism of mineral species he has opened a new field for mineralogy, as set forth later in his essay on the " Objects and Meth- od of Mineralogy." His philosophical studies