I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven
be praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have
enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with
living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first
interview with Leigh Hunt.
He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little
house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but
that of an ugly village-street, and certainly nothing to gratify
his craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly
maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry,
a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black
dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over,
and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into
his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor
paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and
an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external
blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth
mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh
Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that
it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as
in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men.
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