"Thou whom I love, but cannot fee, My Lord, my God! look down on me! My low affections raife; The spirit of liberty impart, Enlarge my foul, inflame my heart, And, while I spread thy praise, LEIGH HUNT. FEW names fall more pleafantly on the ear, or linger more lovingly in the memory, than his who wrote "The Story of Rimini." As effayift; as a pleasant goffipper on things in general; as a link between the present and the paft; as a generous, loving, and large-hearted man; as a poet, as a dramatist, as a novelist-but more especially as a friend, is his name dear to us all. For from the kindliness of his heart, from the happy converfational-like style of his narrative, he seems to all his readers as a friend fitting by their hearths, and converfing with them on the fubject in hand. You can imagine his bright, joyous eye looking into your face as he tells fome pleasant story, and you see the sparkle which lights it up as he narrates some generous or noble action; you hear his welcome voice as he lovingly repeats fome lines from one of his many favourite poets; and in fancy you clafp his warm, honest hand while honest hand while you thank him for his vifit, and heartily defire him to repeat it on the earliest poffible opportunity. He may be pro perly ftyled the most focial of all our writers, not even excepting Mr. Dickens. The author is never predominant over the man. He is the kind friend, the fociable vifitor, the pleasant goffipper, the drawing-room ornament, the companion never obtrufive and never unwelcome. At the time of his death, in his seventy-fifth year, his pages are as pleafant, his talk as interefting, his fenfibility as warm, his focial fympathies as great, and his love of man as large and broad-if not broader and larger-than in the warm and enthusiastic period of his poetic youth. From his pleasant Autobiography we gather the following facts of Leigh Hunt's life. He was born at Southgate, in the year 1784. His parents had been driven from America at the Revolution on account of their loyalty. At the time of the poet's birth, his father, the Rev. J. Hunt, was tutor to Mr. Leigh, nephew of the Duke of Chandos. His mother was the daughter of Stephen Shewell, a merchant of Philadelphia, and the poet speaks in admiration of her character, and is one more witness to the influence of mothers on the future career of their fons. He was an early inquirer, and was in some respects a precocious child. At feven he was admitted into Chrift's Hospital, of which institution he gives an admirable account, and is himself one more eminent |