life, he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on the liberal side.  It would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that this was merely a projection of his fancy-world into the actual, and that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an unsuitable person to receive one.  I beheld him not in his armor, but in his peacefullest robes.  Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was a lack of grit.  Though anything but a timid man, the combative and defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon his instincts.  It was on this account, and also because of the fineness of his nature generally, that the English appreciated him no better, and left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels in his declining age.

It was not, I think, from his American blood that Leigh Hunt derived either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, I do not see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from his ancestors on the mother’s side, who were Pennsylvania Quakers.  But the kind of excellence that distinguished him—­his fineness, subtilty, and grace—­was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended to develop in the happier examples of American genius, and which (though I say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual advancement may make general among us.  His person, at all events, was thoroughly American, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; for we are the best-as well as the worst-mannered people in the world.

Leigh Hunt loved dearly to be praised.  That is to say, he desired sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as much in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas.  In response to all that we ventured to express about his writings, (and, for my part, I went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a long way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who happily were with me,) his face shone, and he manifested great delight, with a perfect, and yet delicate, frankness for which I loved him.  He could not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave him; it always took him by surprise, he remarked, for—­perhaps because he cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices for himself—­he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his own person.  And then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little parlor about him beautiful thereby.  It is usually the hardest thing in the world to praise a man to his face; but Leigh Hunt received the incense with such gracious satisfaction, (feeling it to be sympathy, not vulgar praise,) that the only