Recollections of Writers
Leigh Hunt to Vincent Novello, 11 February 1822
Stonehouse, near Plymouth, Feb. 11th, 1822.
Oh Novello! what a
disappointing, wearisome, vexatious, billowy, up-and-downy, unbearable, beautiful
world it is! I cannot tell you all I have gone through since I wrote to you; but I
believe, after all, that all has been for the best, bad as it is. The first
stoppage, unavoidable as it was, almost put me beside myself. Those sunshiny days
and moonlight nights! And the idea of running merrily to Gibraltar! I used to shake
in my bed at night with bilious impatience, and feel ready to rise up and cry out.
But knowing what I since know, I have not only reason to believe that my wife would
have suffered almost as terribly afterwards as she did at the time, but I am even
happy that we underwent the second stoppage at this place,—at least as happy
as a man can be whose very relief arises from the illness of one dear to him.
Marianne fell so ill the day on which the
new vessel we had engaged sailed from Plymouth, that she was obliged to lose
forty-six ounces of blood in twenty-four hours, to prevent inflammatory fever on
the lungs. With the exception of a few hours she has been in bed ever since,
sometimes improving, sometimes relapsing and obliged to lose more blood, but always
so weak and so ailing that, especially during the return of these obstinate S.W.
winds, I have congratulated myself almost every hour that circumstances conspired
with my fears for her to hinder us from proceeding. Indeed I should never have
thought of doing so after her Dartmouth illness, had she not, as she now confesses,
in her eagerness not to be the means of detaining me again, misrepresented to me
her power of bearing the voyage. I shall now set myself down contentedly till
spring, when we shall have shorter nights, and she will be able to be upon deck in
the daytime. She will then receive benefit from the sea, as she ![]()
| LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS. | 209 |
![]()
ought to do, instead of
being shaken by it; and as to gunpowder! be sure I shall always make inquiries
enough about that. She starts sometimes to this hour in the middle of the night,
with the horror of it, out of her sleep. It gave a sort of horrible sting to my
feet sometimes as I walked the deck, and fancied we might all be sent shattered up
in the air in the twinkling of an eye; but I seldom thought of this danger, and do
not believe there was any to be seriously alarmed at, though the precautions and
penalties connected with the carriage of such an article were undoubtedly
sufficient to startle a freshwater imagination, to say nothing of that of a sick
mother with six children. The worst feeling it gave me was when it came over me
down in the cabin while we were comparatively comfortable,—especially when
little baby was playing his innocent tricks. I used to ask myself what right I had
to bring so much innocent flesh and blood into such an atrocious possibility of
danger. But what used chiefly to rouse my horrors was the actual danger of
shipwreck during the gales; and of these, as you may guess from my being
imaginative, I had my full share. Oh the feelings with which I have gone out from
the cabin to get news, and have stood at the top of that little staircase down
which you all came to bid me goodbye! How I have thought of you in your safe, warm
rooms, now merrily laughing, now “stopping the career of laughter with a
sigh” to wonder how the “sailors” might be going on! My worst
sensation of all was the impossibility I felt of dividing myself into seven
different persons in case anything happened to my wife and children. But as the
voyage is not yet over—remember, however, that the worst part, the winter
part, is over. You shall have an account of that as well as the rest when I get to
Italy and write it for the new work. Remember in the meantime what I tell you, and
that we mean to be very safe, very cowardly, and vernal all the rest of the way. It
was a little hard upon me,—was it not? that I could not have the [qu?
reward—illegible] of finishing the voyage boldly at once, especially as it
was such fine weather when they set off again, and I can go through any danger as
stubbornly as most persons, provided you allow me a pale face and a considerable
quantity of internal poltroonery:— ![]()
| 210 | RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS | |
![]()
but my old
reconciling philosophy, such as it is, has not forsaken me; and well it may remain,
for God only knows what I should have done, had my wife been seized with this
illness during the late return of the winds. I am very uneasy about her at all
times: but in that case, considering too I might have avoided bringing her into
such a situation, I should have been almost out of my wits. The vessel in which we
intended to resume our journey (besides being more ornamental than solid, and never
yet tried by a winter passage, except three days of one, which shattered it
grievously) must have had a bad time of it; and it is the opinion of everybody
here, both doctors and seamen, that her life was not to be answered for had we
encountered such weather. So I look at her in her snug, unmoving bed, and hope and
trust she is getting strength enough from repose to renew her journey in the
spring. We set off in April.—As to myself, my health is not at its best, but
it is not at its worst. I manage to write a little, though the weather has been
against me. I read more, and sometimes go to the Plymouth public library, where a
gentleman has got me admission, and receive infinite homage from Examinerions in
these parts, who have found me out. They want me to meet a “hundred
admirers” at a public dinner: but this, you know, is not to my taste. I tell
them I prefer a cup of tea with one of them now and then in private, and so they
take me at my word, and I find them such readers as I like,—good-natured,
cordial men, with a smack of literature.—I saw the announcement of the 4th
part of your “Fanchon” in the London Magazine. You cannot imagine how the
look of your name delighted me. You must know I had a design upon you for our new
Italian work when I bore away your “Fanchon.”
So, say nothing about it (I mean to myself), but wait for an increase of your
laurel from a hand you love. I think it will come with a good and profitable effect
from such a quarter.—Tell Mrs.
Gliddon, albeit she retains a piece of them, that I have found the
cheeks which she and her sister left in Devonshire. There is a profusion of
such,—faces that look built up of cream and roses, and as good-natured as
health can make them. In looking for lodgings I lit also upon a namesake of ![]()
| LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS. | 211 |
![]()
hers, no relation, who spelt
her name with a Y. I suppose a hundred and fiftieth cousin. She was a pleasant,
chattering old woman with a young spirit, who, not being able to accommodate us
herself, recommended her neighbours all round, and told me millions of things in a
breath.—Dear Novello, I cannot tell you how I feel the
kindness of my friends,—kindness, of which I know that you and Mrs. Novello, together with Bessie Kent, have been the souls. God bless you
all. I will say more to you all from Italy. You will see my hand in the Examiner again in a
week or two (about the time I could have written on the subject from abroad) with a
few touches for Southey and the Quarterly.—It delights me to see
the intimacy there is between you and Miss K.; she speaks in
the most affectionate terms of you and your wife, and receives all the solace from
your intercourse which I expected. Take a dozen hearty shakes of the hand from me,
dear Novello, and give (you see how much I can ask of you) as
many kisses of the same description to Mrs. Novello, unless
“dear Mr. Arthur” is present and
will do it for us. Convey also as many kisses to Mrs.
Gliddon as the said dear Mr. Arthur could have
given my wife had she been at your Christmas festivities, taking care (as in the
former instance) that they be in high taste and most long and loud.—And so,
Heaven bless you all and make us to send many good wishes to and from Italy to each
other till we meet again face to face.—Your affectionate friend,
P.S.—I can tell you nothing of the Plymouth
neighbourhood, being generally occupied with my wife’s bedside; but the
town is a nice clean one; and after being at Dartmouth I felt all the price of
Mirabeau’s gratitude, who when
he came into England, and saw streets paved, fell on his knees and thanked God
there was a country in the world where some regard was had for foot-passengers.
Dartmouth is a kind of sublime Wapping, being a set of narrow muddy streets in
a picturesque situation on the side of a hill. The people too, poor creatures,
are as dirty there as can be, having lost all their trade; whereas at Plymouth
they are all fat and flourishing.—Stonehouse is a kind of separate suburb
to Plymouth ![]()
| 212 | RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS | |
![]()
on the seashore.—My wife’s
kindest remembrances.—And mine to all rememberers.
Alistasia Gliddon (1790 c.-1851)
A friend of Leigh Hunt; she was raised and Devonshire and married Arthur Gliddon about
the year 1813.
Arthur Gliddon (1788-1862)
Tobacconist in King Street, Covent Garden, and personal friend of Leigh Hunt, the husband
of Alistasia Gliddon.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Marianne Hunt [née Kent] (1787-1857)
The daughter of Anne Kent and wife of Leigh Hunt; they were married in 1809. Charles
MacFarlane, who knew her in the 1830s, described her as “his mismanaging, unthrifty
wife, the most barefaced, persevering, pertinacious of mendicants.”
Elizbeth Kent (1790-1861)
The younger sister of Marianne, wife of Leigh Hunt, who lived with his family in the
1820s.
Mary Sabilla Novello [née Hehl] (1789-1854)
English author who married Vincent Novello in 1808 and had a family of eleven children,
among them Mary Cowden Clarke.
Vincent Novello (1781-1861)
English music publisher and friend of Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary
matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.
The London Magazine. (1820-1829). Founded by John Scott as a monthly rival to
Blackwood's, the
London Magazine included among its contributors Charles Lamb, John Clare, Allan Cunningham,
Thomas De Quincey, and Thomas Hood.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
