leading foible of his boyhood attended him throughout. He has been likened to Hamlet,—only it was a Hamlet who was not a prince, but a hard-working man. The defect was increased in Leigh Hunt, as it evidently was in the prince, by a certain imperfection in understanding, appreciating, or thoroughly mastering the material, tangible, physical part of nature. This, again, is inconsistent with his own account of himself, but it will be confirmed by a close critical scrutiny of his writings. Over-*sensitive, he was exquisitely conscious of such physical perceptions as he had. He was passionately fond of music, which he took to as we have seen. He was keenly impressed by painting and by colours,—which he defined with uncertainty, unless they were, what he liked them to be, very intense. He revelled in the aspect of the country,—but needed literary, poetic, or personal association, or habit, to help the appreciation of the landscape. His animation, his striking appearance, his manly voice, its sweetness and flexibility, the exhaustless fancy to which it gave utterance, his almost breathlessly tender manner in saying tender things, his eyes deep, bright, and genial, with a dash of cunning, his delicate yet emphatic homage,—all made him a "dangerous" man among women;—and he shrank back from the danger, the quickest to take alarm; confessing that "to err is human," as if he had erred in any but the most theoretical or imaginative sense! Remind him of his practical virtue, and, to disprove your too favourable construction, he would give you a sermon on the sins of the fancy, hallowed by quotations from the Bible—of which he was as much master as any clergyman—and illustrated by endless quotations from the poets in all languages, with innumerable biographical anecdotes of the said poets, to prove the fearful peril of the first step; and also to prove that, though men, they were not bad men;—that it is not for us to cast the first stone, and that, probably, if they had been different, their poetry would have suffered, to the grievous loss of the library and mankind.
He inculcated the study of minor pleasures with so much industry, that his writings have caused him to be taken for a minor voluptuary. His special apparatus for the luxury consisted in some old cloak to put about his shoulders when cold—which he allowed to slip off while reading or writing; in a fire—"to toast his feet"—which he let out many times in the day, with as many apologies to the servant for the trouble; and in a bill of fare, which he preposterously restricted for a fancied delicacy of stomach, and a fancied poison in everything agreeable, and which he could scarcely taste for a natural dulness of palate. Unable to perceive the smell of flowers, he habitually strove to imagine it. The Epicurean in theory was something like a Stoic in practice; and he would break off an "article" on the pleasures of feasting to ease his hunger, literally, with a supper of bread; turning round to enjoy by proxy, on report, the daintier food which he had provided for others. Eyeing the meat in another's plate, he would quote Peter Pindar—
"On my life, I could turn glutton,
On such pretty-looking mutton;"
