And there, sure as fate, came the knock of you two,
Then the lanthorn, the laugh, and the "Well, how d'ye do?"
Then your palm tow'rds the fire, and your face turned to me,
And shawls and great-coats being—where they should be,—
And due "never saw's" being paid to the weather,
We cherished our knees, and sat sipping together,
And leaving the world to the fogs and the fighters,
Discussed the pretensions of all sorts of writers.
There is too much reason to believe, that this everlasting tea-drinking was the chief cause of Leigh Hunt's death. The truth is, that he had for many years been sipping imitation-tea, a pleasant but deleterious preparation—more pernicious by far than the very worst port; and there can be little doubt, that if he had drunk about a bottle of black-strap in the fortnight, and forsworn thin potations altogether, he might have been alive, and perhaps writing a sonnet at this very moment.
II. His love of the Country.
Mr Hunt informs us, that of all the poets of the present day he was the fondest of rural scenes.
O Spirit, O muse of mine,
Frank, and quick-dimpled to all social glee,
And yet most sylvan of the earnest Nine,
Who on the fountain-shedding hill,
Leaning about among the clumpy bays
Look at the clear Apollo while he plays;—
Take me, now, now, and let me stand
On some such lovely land,
Where I may feel me, as I please,
In dells among the trees,
Or on some outward slope, with ruffling hair,
Be level with the air;
For a new smiling sense has shot down through me,
And from the clouds, like stars, bright eyes are beckoning to me.
Having got into this situation, Mr Hunt did not long for his wonted cup of tea, but for "poetic women"
"To have their fill of pipes and leafy playing."
What vast ideas of tobacco does "fill of pipes" awaken! and what a game at romps is signified by "leafy playing!" after this violent exertion the poet and his nymphs lie down to sleep.
There lie they, lulled by little whiffling tones
Of rills among the stones,
Or by the rounder murmur, glib and flush,
Of the escaping gush,
That laughs and tumbles, like a conscious, thing.
For joy of all its future travelling.
The lizard circuits them; and his grave will
The frog, with reckoning leap, enjoys apart,
Till now and then the woodcock frights his heart
With brushing down to dip his dainty bill.
How beautifully he describes the Hampstead clouds of heaven.
And lo, there issued from beside the trees,
Through the blue air, a most delicious sight,
A troop of clouds, rich, separate, three parts white,
As beautiful as pigeons that one sees
Round a glad homestead reeling at their ease,
But large, and slowly; and what made the sight
Such as I say, was not that piled white,
Nor their more rosy backs, nor forward press
Like sails, nor yet their surfy massiveness
Light in it's plenitude, like racks of snow.
These are singing clouds, and ought to be introduced on the stage.
As they stooped them near,
Lo, I could hear
How the smooth silver clouds, lasping with care,
Make a bland music to the fawning air,
Filling with such a roundly-slipping tune
The hollow of the great attentive noon,
That die tall sky seemed touched; and all the trees
Thrilled with the coming harmonies;
And the fair waters looked as if they lay
Their cheek against the sound, and so went kissed away.
But it is needless to enter at greater length into Mr Hunt's "love of the country," for it all hangs on one great principle—every grove has its nymph, and that is enough for the author of the story of Rimini.
You finer people of the earth,
Nymphs of all names, and woodland Geniuses,
I see you, here and there, among the trees,
Shrouded in noon-day respite of your mirth:
This hum in air, which the still ear perceives,
Is your unquarrelling voice among the leaves;
And now I find, whose are the laughs and stirrings
That make the delicate birds dart so in whisks and whirrings.
It is much to be regretted, that the deceased bard's rural life was so limited and local. He had no other notion of that sublime.expression, "sub Dio," than merely "out of doors." One always thinks of Leigh Hunt, on his rural excursions to and from Hampstead, in a great-coat or spencer, clogs over his shoes, and with an umbrella in his hand. He is always talking of lanes, and styles, and hedgerows, and clumps of trees, and cows with large
