Recollections of Writers
Leigh Hunt to Vincent Novello, 9 September 1823
Florence, Sept. 9th, 1823.
My dear Novello,—You must not imagine I am
going to send you all the pleasant people I may happen to meet with; but I could
not resist the chance of introducing you to the grand-daughter of Dr. Burney, daughter of Captain Cooke’s Burney, niece of Evelina’s and Camilla’s Burney, friend of Charles and Mary Lamb, and a
most lively, refreshing, intelligent, good-humoured person to boot, who is also a
singer and pianoforte-player. All this, at least, she seems to me, in my gratitude
for having met with a countrywoman who could talk to me of my old friends. I cannot
write farther, for I hear the voices of gentlemen who have come to go with me, to
take leave of her and her husband: but whether she happens to bring this letter or
not, I could not help giving you the chance I speak of, nor her that of know-![]()
| LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS. | 223 |
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ing you and yours, your
music, &c., which is the best return I can make her for the recreation she has
afforded me: and, besides, this will show you we were going on well. Florence,
besides its other goods, has libraries, bookstalls, and Cockney meadows; and we
begin to breathe again. I hope by this time you and Mrs. Shelley have shaken cordial hands.
Your affectionate friend,
L.H.
Charles Burney (1726-1814)
English musicologist and father of the novelist Frances Burney; he published a
History of Music (1776-89).
Frances D'Arblay [née Burney] (1752-1840)
English novelist, the daughter of the musicologist Dr. Charles Burney; author of
Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World
(1778),
Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), and
Camilla (1796).
James Burney (1750-1821)
The brother of Fanny Burney; he sailed with Captain Cook and wrote about his voyages, and
in later life was a friend of Charles Lamb and other literary people.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Vincent Novello (1781-1861)
English music publisher and friend of Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851)
English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife
of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of
Frankenstein (1818)
and
The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works
(1839-40).
