The Hero and Leander is a flowing and vivid recital of the ancient tale. The three works form good specimens of the spirit as well as execution of Leigh Hunt's poetical writings. Of some of his smaller pieces it may be said that they had become classic in his lifetime—such as the reverential sonnet "On the Lock of Milton's Hair" which he possessed; the exquisite parental tenderness of the lines "To T. L. H., in Sickness;" and the grandly Christian exaltation of charity in his Abou-ben-Adhem.
As few men brought their personality more thoroughly into their writings, so few men, out of the bookworm pale aforesaid, were more thoroughly saturated with literature. He saw everything through books, or saw it dimly. Speaking of his return from Italy, he writes:—"I seemed more at home in England, even with Arcadian idealisms, than I had been in the land nearer their birthplace; for it was in England I first found them in books, and with England even my Italian books were more associated than with Italy itself." And speaking of the Parnaso Italiano, he goes on:—"This book aided Spenser himself in filling my English walks with visions of gods and nymphs,—of enchantresses and magicians; for the reader might be surprised to know to what a literal extent such was the case." He used to "envy" the "household waggon that one meets with in sequestered lanes" for its wanderings, but was daunted at the bare imagination of "parish objections" and raffish society; and so he ever recurred to "the stationary domesticities." He failed in practical life, because he was not guided in it by literature. He could only apprehend so much of it as he found in the cyclopædia. On the other hand, he could render all that literature could give. His memory was marvellous; and to try him in history, biography, bibliography, or topography, was to draw forth an oral "article" on the topic in question. Ask him where was the Ouse, and he would tell you of all the rivers so called; what were the books on a given subject, and you had the list; "who was Colonel O'Kelly?" and you had a sketch of the colonel, of the horse "Eclipse," of Epsom, and of horse-racing in general, as distinguished from the racing of the ancients or the modern riderless races of Italy—where, as in Florence, may still be seen a specimen of the biga sweeping round the meta "fervidis evitata rotis." His conversation was an exhaustless Curiosities of Literature. The delighted visitor read his host,—but it was from a talking book, with cordial voice naturally pitched to every change of subject, animated gesture, sparkling eyes, and overflowing sympathy. In society Leigh Hunt was ever the perfect gentleman, not in the fashion, but always the scholar and the noble-minded man. But his diffidence was disguised, rather than removed, by his desire to agree with those around him, and to fall in with the humour of the hour. He was better known to his reader, either in his books, or, best of all, in his home, where familiarity tested his unfailing courtesy, daily intercourse brought forth the persevering goodness of his heart and conscience, and poverty did but fetch out the thorough-going generosity that not only "would share," but did share the last crust.
