On the Choice of Books | Page 7

now
living in this kingdom, perhaps, could boast of greater.
"4. That his sufferings in that same cause have also been great; legal
prosecution and penalty (not dishonourable to him; nay, honourable,
were the whole truth known, as it will one day be): unlegal obloquy and
calumny through the Tory Press;--perhaps a greater quantity of baseless,
persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living writer has
undergone. Which long course of hostility (nearly the cruellest
conceivable, had it not been carried on in half, or almost total
misconception) may be regarded as the beginning of his other worst
distresses, and a main cause of them, down to this day.
"5. That he is heavily laden with domestic burdens, more heavily than
most men, and his economical resources are gone from him. For the
last twelve years he has toiled continually, with passionate diligence,
with the cheerfullest spirit; refusing no task; yet hardly able with all
this to provide for the day that was passing over him; and now, after
some two years of incessant effort in a new enterprise ('The London
Journal') that seemed of good promise, it also has suddenly broken
down, and he remains in ill health, age creeping on him, without
employment, means, or outlook, in a situation of the painfullest sort.
Neither do his distresses, nor did they at any time, arise from
wastefulness, or the like, on his own part (he is a man of humble wishes,
and can live with dignity on little); but from crosses of what is called
Fortune, from injustice of other men, from inexperience of his own, and
a guileless trustfulness of nature, the thing and things that have made
him unsuccessful make him in reality more loveable, and plead for him
in the minds of the candid.
"6. That such a man is rare in a Nation, and of high value there; not to
be procured for a whole Nation's revenue, or recovered when taken
from us, and some £200 a year is the price which this one, whom we
now have, is valued at: with that sum he were lifted above his
perplexities, perhaps saved from nameless wretchedness! It is believed
that, in hardly any other way could £200 abolish as much suffering,
create as much benefit, to one man, and through him to many and all.
"Were these things set fitly before an English Minister, in whom great
part of England recognises (with surprise at such a novelty) a man of

insight, fidelity and decision, is it not probable or possible that he,
though from a quite opposite point of view, might see them in
somewhat of a similar light; and, so seeing, determine to do in
consequence? Ut fiat!
"T.C."
"Some years later," says a writer in "Macmillan's Magazine,"[A] "in the
'mellow evening' of a life that had been so stormy, Mr. Leigh Hunt
himself told the story of his struggles, his victories, and his defeats,
with so singularly graceful a frankness, that the most supercilious of
critics could not but acknowledge that here was an autobiographer
whom it was possible to like. Here is Carlyle's estimate of Leigh Hunt's
Autobiography:--
[Footnote A: July, 1862.]
"Chelsea, June 17, 1850.
"DEAR HUNT,
"I have just finished your Autobiography, which has been most
pleasantly occupying all my leisure these three days; and you must
permit me to write you a word upon it, out of the fulness of the heart,
while the impulse is still fresh to thank you. This good book, in every
sense one of the best I have read this long while, has awakened many
old thoughts which never were extinct, or even properly asleep, but
which (like so much else) have had to fall silent amid the tempests of
an evil time--Heaven mend it! A word from me once more, I know, will
not be unwelcome, while the world is talking of you.
"Well, I call this an excellent good book, by far the best of the
autobiographic kind I remember to have read 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, as it buffets its way through the
billows of the time, and will not drown though often in danger; cannot
be drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it: that,
I think, conies out more clearly to me than in any other of your
books;--and that, I can venture to assure you, is the best of all results