but from that period the shadows seemed to
gather about the head of the youthful reformer,
and the tone of his private writings acquired a
corresponding hue. He had been married a
few years before, and had now two children.
Feeling himself in ill-health (for, though gifted
naturally with a strong constitution, he was
seldom free from depressing ailments, the result
of excessive study, over-work, and insufficient
exercise), and doubting whether he should ever
live to see the end of his captivity, he resolved
on keeping a kind of prison journal: partly for
the sake of amusement, partly that he might
leave some record, should such become necessary,
of his "grounds of conduct and habits of thinking."
He tells his children, however, that if he
should never acquire any greater reputation as
an author than he then possessed, they are not
to allow the diary to pass beyond their own
private circle, unless his memory should be
"wantonly and ignorantly traduced by those who
think it worth while to notice it." Both these
conditions having been fulfilled, the diary finds
its way before the public; and a very charming
picture it presents of the prison-life of a man
of genius and conscience, turning his very jail
into a scene of domesticity and love, and filling
it with visions of an honourable fame, to be won
thereafter by constant devotion to literary toil.
The writer was just then beginning the story
of Rimini; but he did not forget his journalistic
responsibilities. He had been vexed at
the discovery of "a miserable blunder" which
he had made a few weeks before, "upon a
matter of every-day knowledge;" so he set
himself to work to study with greater completeness
than he had yet done, the details of politics
and history. Even at that early period he had
formed a just estimate both of the value and
the short-comings of his newspaper writings. "I
have hitherto confined myself as a journalist,"
he writes, "to very general politics, and principally
to the ethical part of them, to the diffusion
of a liberal spirit of thinking, and to the very
broadest view of characters and events, always
referring them to the standard of human nature
and common sense; but although this may be
enough for a general reformist, yet it is far from
sufficient for a particular one. In short, the
common sense, the moral part of my business,
I know well enough, and am enabled by it to
detect most of the wretched errors which the
ordinary politicians of the day would pass upon
us for good government; but I want the
acquired learning—the details, the out-of-door
experience." It is no disparagement to the
true and valuable service which Leigh Hunt
rendered to the Liberal cause in the early part
of the present century, to say that he never
acquired the practical knowledge of which he
confesses the want in this passage. He
admitted in later life that he could not understand
a question when put in the form of an Act of
Parliament; and, in truth, the bent of his
disposition was too purely literary to permit of his
obtaining a mastery over the mere business of
politics But the kind of knowledge which he
lacked, is so often accompanied in others by a
want of the higher knowledge which he
possessed—a sense of the lasting elements of
morality, and of the wants of human nature—
that even an exclusive exhibition of the latter
is an advantage in the midst of more utilitarian
views. In much of the political writings of the
present day one could dispense with a large
amount of technicality for the sake of a loftier
regard for the first principles of truth.

The journal, unfortunately, was discontinued
after a few days, as such things are apt to be
when the novelty has worn off; but the letters,
which become more numerous after the prison
epoch, are in themselves a species of diary. The
correspondence with Shelley is amongst the most
interesting in the collection, the writer expressing
himself with perfect unreserve when
communicating with that "friend of friends." It is
curious to note the influence which the two
authors had upon one another. Although, as
we have seen with respect to christenings, Leigh
Hunt, even when a youth, dissented from
received ideas in some important matters, we find
him indulging in a greater freedom of speculation
after he had become closely associated with
the daring poet of the Cenci. On the other
hand, Shelley's views were doubtless
unconsciously modified by those of his friend;
or in later life he abandoned the purely
negative principles of his earlier years. Leigh
Hunt admired the character of Shelley so highly,
and defended it with so much warmth from the
aspersions which had been cast upon it, that he
was in time identified with the whole of Shelley's
opinions, and suffered accordingly. This was a
signal error, as Mr. Thornton Hunt has pointed
out. The Examiner was never Republican, but
was constitutional and monarchical; and in
religion Leigh Hunt at no time adopted the extreme
unbelief of Shelley's youthful speculations.
Though not orthodox, his natural piety was
always conspicuous; and the greater spirituality
of Shelley's more mature works was not
improbably owing to his communings with a mind at
once liberal and devout. When Shelley lost his
beloved son William, in Italy, Leigh Hunt wrote
to him a letter of condolence, and suggested
that so beautiful and intelligent a spirit as that
of the dead child could not perish "like the
house it inhabited." He then proceeds to a
speculation of a very original and singular
kind, expressed in language of such tender
and thoughtful beauty, that we cannot forbear
from repeating it. "I do not know that a
soul is born with us," he writes; "but we seem
to me to attain to a soul, some later, some
earlier; and when we have got that, there is a
look in our eye, a sympathy in our cheerfulness,
and a yearning and grave beauty in our
thoughtfulness, that seems to say, 'Our mortal dress
may fall off when it will; our trunk and our
leaves may go; we have shot up our blossom
into an immortal air.'" Then, recollecting
that he is speaking to one who, though desirous
to believe whatever is beautiful and adorable,
was apt to demand strict logical proof of any