Excerpt from Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist: Being the Choicest Passages From His Works
What is especially noticeable in regard to the writings of Leigh Hunt is the fact that they were penned almost with out any premeditation whatever. They were produced, so to speak, from hand to month, 011 the emergency of the moment, in Obedience to the clamorous necessity of the occasion. ‘whenever he wrote, it was always at a drive, and currente calamo. Even when he sat down to indite a three volume novel, he had, in submission to the imperious demand Of the hour, to supply his publisher with chapter ifter chapter at rapid intervals so as to secure for his home needs the advantage Of a weekly payment. One of his periodicals, and that a daily one, the Taller, so long as his health enabled him to do so, he wrote entirely himself, with out any extraneous assistance whatever. In putting this fact upon record, he adds, not very surprisingly, that the labour of its continuous production almost killed him. Beginning the brain-work of his life, as he did, besides, when he was a mere stripling, he had to persist in it strenuously almost to the very last. Bearing this in mind, it hardly seems matter for amazement to find him stating frankly in his Autobiography, that the staple productions of his hand as an author, his prose writings, were called into existence always under more or less excite ment, his face becoming flushed as he wrote, and his whole nervous system visibly agitated. In startling contrast to this, he takes note, there, of the calming influence upon him Of metrical composition, verse, as he says, having been ih variably written by him with the utmost composure. His rhythmical effusions, indeed, sweetened for him the whole current of his existence.
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