which Gibbon described as the best of all others-most worthy of the memory of departed genius, and giving the most undoubted testimony to the sincerity with which it is adorned. He catches the mantles of those whose celestial flights he regards with devout but undazzled eye. He lives in their time, becomes animated with their feelings, and conveys to us their spirit, in its unrivalled freshness and unquenched fire. Nothing that is common-place or unmeaning-none of the expletives of criticism-enter into his discourses; he never 'bandies idle words;' the source of true beauty, the soul of poetical life, the hidden charm, the essential principle of power and efficacy, the original feature, the distinguishing property-to these his sagacity and taste are drawn, as it were by instinct, and with these only he meddles in his expositions."

HENRY T. TUCKERMAN (an accomplished American critic). "Such was the native appetite for truth, such the intense love of beauty, such the fine combination of the sensuous, the imaginative, and the purely intellectual, in the character of this remarkable man, that we know of no critic who so thoroughly imparted to others the sense of his own enjoyment of genius, and made known the process of it, with such marvellous success. We recognise the mystery of that vital genius that can make a mind partake of its own emotions; we awake to a great conception of the glory of mental triumphs, and the blessedness of those higher sources of gratification which are overlaid by material life. We are conscious of the unity between 'to know and to love'-that the one illustrates the other, and that both are indispensable to the noblest criticism-that which inhales the very atmosphere, seizes on the eliminating principles, and discerns the most distant relations of genius in art, and literature, and action.”

LEIGH HUNT.

THOMAS CARLYLE. "Well seen into, he has done much for the world; as every man possessed of such qualities, and freely speaking them forth in the abundance of his heart, for thirty years long, must needs do; how much, they that could judge best would perhaps estimate highest. Well, I call this, (the Autobiography') an excellent good book, by far the best of the autobiographic kind I remember to have seen in the English language; and, indeed, except it be Boswell's of Johnson, I do not know where we have such a picture drawn of a human life as in these three volumes. A pious, ingenious, altogether human and worthy book; imaging, with graceful honesty and free felicity, many interesting objects and persons on your life-path, and imaging throughout, what is best of all, a gifted, gentle, patient, and valiant human soul, buffeting its way through the billows of time, and will not drown, though often in danger; cannot be drowned, but conquers, and leaves a track of radiance behind it.

"In fact, this book has been like a written exercise of devotion to me; I have not assisted at any sermon, liturgy or litany, this long while, that has had so religious an effect on me. Thanks in the name of all men. And believe, along with me, that this book will be welcome to other generations as well as ours. And long may you live to write more books for us; and may the evening sun be softer on you (and on me) than the noon sometimes was!"

LORD MACAULAY." We really think that there is hardly a man whose merits have been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated. We do not always agree with his literary judgments; but we find in him, what is very rare in our time, the power of justly appreciating and heartily enjoying good things of very different kinds. He has paid particular attention to the history of the English drama, from the age of Elizabeth down to the present time, and has every right to be heard with respect on that subject."

LORD LYTTON.- "His kindly and cheerful sympathy with nature-his perception of the minuter and more latent sources of the beautiful-spread an irresistible charm over his compositions. . In criticism, indeed, few living writers have equalled those subtle and delicate compositions which have appeared in the Indicator, the Tatler, and the earlier pages of the Examiner-and, above all, none have excelled the poet now before our own critical bar in the kindly sympathies with which, in judging of others, he has softened down the asperities, and resisted the caprices, common to the exercise of power. In him the young poet has ever found a generous encourager no less than a faithful guide. None of the jealousy or the rancour ascribed to literary men, and almost natural to such literary men as the world has wronged, have gained access to his true heart, or embittered his generous sympathies. Struggling against no light misfortunes, and no common foes, he has not helped to retaliate upon rising authors the difficulty and the depreciation which have burdened his own career; he has kept, undiminished and unbroken, through all reverses, that first requisite of a good critic-a good heart."

JUDGE TALFOURD.-"His beauty and pathos will live when all topics of temporary irritation have expired; one who has been 'true as steel' to the best hopes of human nature; a poet, a wit, and an honest man."

W. M. THACKERAY.-"Few essayists have equalled, or approached, Leigh Hunt in the combined versatility, invention, and finish of his miscellaneous prose writings; and few, indeed, have brought such varied sympathies to call forth the sympathies of the reader-and always to good purpose,-in favour of kindness, of reflection, of natural pleasures, of culture, and of using the available resources of life."

CHARLES DICKENS.-"His was an essentially human nature, rich and inclusive, sometimes overclouded with the shadow of affliction, but more often bright and hopeful, and at all times sympathetic; taking a keen delight in all beautiful things-in the exhaustless world of books and art, in the rising genius of young authors, in the immortal language of music, in trees, and flowers, in the sunlight which

came, as he used to say, like a visitor out of heaven, glorifying humble places; in the genial intercourse of mind with mind; in the most trifling incidents of daily life that spoke of truth and nature, in the domesticities of family life, and in the general progress of the world. .. Who, in

the midst of the sorest temptations, maintained his honesty unblemished by a single stain-who, in all public and private transactions, was the very soul of truth and honour."

DOUGLAS JERROLD." If Goldsmith could touch nothing but what he adorned, it may be said of Leigh Hunt that he touches nothing without extracting beauty from it, and without imparting a sense of it to his readers."

W. J. Fox.-" Companionship is the constant sensation that we have in Leigh Hunt's writings. He walks

with us, talks with us, sits with us, eats with us, drinks with us, and reads with us. There is a feeling of companionship in whatever he does, made perfectly familiar by his frequent allusion to homely things, giving us an abiding sense of it. There is at all times a geniality that charms, like that of one who is bodily present, and present in smiles and good humour, and sure to say something that is refreshing and agreeable."

R. H. HORNE.-"The motto to his London Journal, is highly characteristic of him—To assist the enquiring, animate the struggling, and sympathise with all.' The very philosophy of cheerfulness and the good humour of genius imbue all his prose papers from end to end; and if the best dreamer of us all should dream of a poet at leisure, and a scholar in idleness,' neither scholar nor poet would speak, in that air of dreamland, more graceful, wise, and scholar-like fancies, than are written in his books."

JAMES HANNAY.- "He was, take him all in all, the finest belles-lettrist of his day. He did much good by helping to make the great men of his generation known to many who would not otherwise have appreciated them so soon; and by reviving a love of the older writers whom the eighteenth century had allowed to fall into oblivion. . . He died at peace with all the world, in what was an euthanasia for a man of his long warfare with the course of life—a true lover of letters and mankind,-friendly, genial, and essentially honourable in nature,Leigh Hunt has left a good and pleasant memory behind him ; and his books will long be remembered among the gayest and gracefullest contributions to the belles-lettres of England."

CHARLES KNIGHT. "His essays are full of fancies rich and rare, of glances into the heart of things, of pictures, of poetry, of thoughts new and deep, of tenderness, of humour often most quaint and original; and the moral spirit of the whole is as beautiful as ever breathed from prose or verse.

He charms us with his toleration and universal charity; the

cheerfulness and hope, unconquered by many sorrows, with which he looks upon all things; the warmth of his domestic and social affections; his love of nature; and, let us add, his love of books."

WILLIAM HOWITT.-"There is a charm cast by him over every-day life that makes us congratulate ourselves that we live. All that is beautiful and graceful in nature, and love-inspiring in our fellow-men, is brought out and made part of our daily walk and pleasure."

"NORTH BRITISH REVIEW."- 'He is neither equalled nor approached in his own peculiar excellences—in exuberant fancy; in the imagination which invests with poetry the most trivial common-places; in the delicate sensibility with which he feels, and teaches his readers also to understand the inner spirit and beauty of every object of his contemplation." If, indeed, the 'mission' of the poet be to feel and express the beauty of the universe, many of the essays are poems, in every sense of that word which does not involve the idea of metrical rhythm."

"EXAMINER."""There is none of the race of critics, present or past, who selects with such unerring and delicate tact, or recommends his selections to the relish of others in such fitting, home-going, easy, and elegant words. We know of no poetical criticism to compare with Mr. Hunt's, not simply for that quality of exquisite taste, but for its sense of continuity and sustained enjoyment."

"SPECTATOR."—"The sweetness of temper, the indomitable love and forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and the faith in the ultimate triumph of good, revealed in his pages, show the humane and noble qualities of the writer."

"FOREIGN QUarterly Review."" Leigh Hunt is a critic of very uncommon excellence. He knows poetry, and he feels it. He can not only relish a beautiful poem, but he can also explain the mystery of its mechanism, the witchery of peculiar harmonies, and the intense force of words used in certain combinations. The mysteries of versification in their subtlest recesses are known to him."

"ATHENÆUM.”. "No one draws out the exquisite pas sages of a favourite author with such conscious relish-no one is happier or finer in the distinction of beauties-no one more engaging in taking the reader's sympathy for granted. He is the prince of parlour-window writers; whether

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