John Hunt

“ Hunt, had his full concurrence. Sir John saw which was the strongest side, and which way the current of popular opinion was rolling, and therefore he was determined to come in for his share of merit, by joining in the cry and running with the stream. Upon a shew of hands our amendment was carried by a majority of one hundred to one, at least. I never saw a man so delighted as Mr. Counsellor Trip was, I thought he would have jumped over the hustings for joy. ”

“ The highwayman again hastily demanded his prize, which was immediately granted, our heroes handing over to him their purses, containing about sixty guineas and two valuable family gold watches. It is said that Sir John Poore, after having recovered a little from the fright, endeavoured to raise his inconsolable companion from the stupor in which this sad misfortune had left him, by repeating the following lines of Hudibras:
"He that fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day;
But he that is in battle slain,
Can never live to fight again," ”

“ We sometimes skim into a Bed of rushes, and there become naturalized river-folks,—there is one particularly nice nest, which we have christened ‘Reynolds’s Cove,’ in which we have read Wordsworth, and talked as may be; I think I see you and Hunt meeting in the Pit.—What a very pleasant fellow he is, if he would give up the sovereignty of a room pro bono. What evenings we might pass with him, could we have him from Mrs H. Failings I am always rather rejoiced to find in a man than sorry for; they bring us to a level. ”

“ Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed alike from subjects remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness.” [304]
Rosalind and Helen, the Letter to Maria Gisborne, Swellfoot the Tyrant, and Peter Bell the Third [305] show a similar influence. The Letter to Maria Gisborne bears a resemblance to Hunt’s epistolary style, and was written, Mr. Forman thinks, for circulation in the Hunt circle only. [306] It was through Hunt, so Shelley states in the dedication, that he knew the Peter Bells of Wordsworth and of John Hamilton Reynolds. ”

“ John Keats had no more right to dress up Leigh Hunt in this absurd fashion, than he had to tar and feather him—and we do not doubt, that if Leigh Hunt had ever had the misfortune to have been tarred and feathered, he would have written a sonnet on his plumification, and described himself as a Bird of Paradise. ”

“ HUNT, HENRY (1773–1835) , English politician, commonly called “Orator Hunt,” was born at Widdington Farm, Upavon, Wiltshire, on the 6th of November 1773. While following the vocation of a farmer he made the acquaintance of John Horne Tooke, with whose advanced views he soon began to sympathize. ”

“ Hunt had spent the first months after his release in London, but by the end of 1815, some time before the publication of Rimini, had settled at Hampstead, where he soon made himself a sort of self-crowned laureate of the beauties of the place, and continued to vary his critical and political labours with gossiping complimentary verses to his friends in the form both of sonnet and epistle. ”

“ It was scarcely to be expected that London would escape scot free, and we find that she came in for her share. There was at this time a violent Mob orator named Henry Hunt, who, after the manner of his kind, (p. 119) was very fond of hearing himself speak. He was born on the 6th of November, 1773, in Wiltshire, and was a farmer, but, having imbibed violent Radical ideas, farming was too unexciting an occupation for him, and, embarking on the troubled sea of politics, he became the darling of the Mob. ”

“ In the year 1860, the remains of John Hunter were removed from the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and placed in Westminster Abbey, to rest with the dust of England’s most famous sons. The Council of the Royal College of Surgeons erected a tablet bearing a suitable inscription.
Mrs. Hunter retired from society after the death of her husband, and found much enjoyment in literature. She had two children, a son [Pg 166] and a daughter. On the 7th January, 1821, she died in London after a lingering illness, being nearly eighty years of age. ”

“ Hunt was more of a public figure than Clarke or Reynolds, James Rice, Mathew, or any other of Keats's chosen companions, but the basis of Keats's friendship, apart from his brothers, was a community of literary taste more even than of literary production. ”

“ Hunt has asked me to meet Tom Moore some day—so you shall hear of him. The Night we went to Novello’s there was a complete set to of Mozart and punning. I was so completely tired of it that if I were to follow my own inclinations I should never meet any one of that set again, not even Hunt, who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are with him—but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in matters of taste and [Pg 194] in morals. He understands many a beautiful thing ”

“ No man cared less for the profits of the medical profession, or more for the honor thereof, than the great Dr. John Hunter. He was honest, honorable, and simple in his every day life. His works, which contributed more to the science of medicine than any other writings during a thousand years, were simply announced as by John Hunter. A plain door plate, with the same name, announced his residence. Money was a secondary consideration to him. The following shows that he desired a professional brother to so consider it ”

“ John Hunter was as remarkable for his industry as for his talents, of which his museum alone forms a most extraordinary proof; and if we look around and contemplate the history of those men whose talents and acquirements we must esteem, we find that their superiority of knowledge has been the result of great labour and diligence. ”

“ Meanwhile Hugh le Brun, in revenge for the loss of his wife, was stirring up the Poitevin lords against him. In return John ordered the seneschal of Normandy to take Driencourt, then belonging to Ralph Count of Eu, Hugh's brother. War began on the Norman border, and before long Philip went to the help of John's enemies. John ordered his forces to assemble at Portsmouth on 13 May 1201. On this the earls met at Leicester, and declared that they would not cross the sea unless he granted them their rights. He demanded their castles, and showed that he meant to enforce the demand. ”

“ He at the same time entreats Hunt to intercede with Spenser on his behalf: and in the result it seems as though Hunt had stepped bodily in between them. In the handling of the metre, indeed, there is nothing of Hunt’s diluted Drydenism: there is the same direct though timid following of Elizabethan precedents as before, varied by an occasional echo of Lycidas in the use of the short six-syllable line:—
But in the style and sentiment we trace Leigh Hunt, or those elements in Keats which were naturally akin to him, at every turn. ”

“ The price was always thirty shillings, to be divided amongst twenty persons, a shilling dry, and six-pence wet, each person. Clifford assured me this office, of hiring the men to draw their candidates home, was frequently allotted to him, and that it was invariably the same with Mr. Horne Tooke, and Mr. Chamberlain, alias John Wilkes; and that he would undertake to have me or Mr. Waddington drawn through the streets of London, from Whitechapel to Piccadilly, for the same sum. At this time there was in fact very little disinterested patriotism amongst the working classes of the community. ”

“ JOHN HUNTER. A life and character like that of John Hunter has many claims upon the honourable remembrance of society; the more, because, for meritorious members of his profession, there is no other public reward than the general approbation of good men. We look upon him with that interest which genius successfully directed to good ends invariably excites; as one whose active labours in the service of mankind have been attended with useful consequences of great extent ”

“ Other discoveries made by John Hunter are described in William Hunter’s Medical Commentaries. But it soon appeared that the younger brother felt he did not receive a due share of praise and acknowledgment of his labours, while the elder considered every discovery made in his dissecting-room as more or less his property. John continued to dissect “with an ardour and perseverance of which there is hardly any example. ”

“ But public distress always has been the demagogue's opportunity; he has very little chance of being heard when working men are well employed and contented, and Henry Hunt was equal to the occasion.
On Friday, the 15th of November, about twenty thousand persons assembled in Spa Fields in consequence of a Requisition from a Committee in Shoreditch (which Requisition had been placarded all over the East End of London some days previously) addressed to distressed tradesmen, manufacturers, and mariners, calling upon them to meet for the purpose of adopting some measures with a view to their relief. ”

“ Naturally, in the general break-up consequent on the discovery of the Turnham Green plot, these practices came to light, the lonely house in the marshes was entered, and Hunt was himself seized and conveyed to London under a strong guard. There he lay in the Marshalsea until, by discovering the names of certain persons who had used his hiding-places, he was permitted to ransom his life. ”

“ The following description, though very conceited and passionless, seems to us the best thing the late Mr Hunt ever did "in the poetical line." But instead of breathing "of the fine imagination of the Greeks," it is nothing more than a copy in words of a picture in oil. Mr Hunt used to be a great lounger in picture-dealer's shops, and was a sad bore among the artists,—who must feel much relieved by his death. Whenever you meet with a vivid image in his verses, you are sure that it is taken from a picture. ”

“ John was an extremely unfaithful husband, but it is said that she also was guilty of infidelities, and that the king put her lovers to death. In December 1214 John ordered that she should be kept in confinement at Gloucester, and she was probably there at the time of his death. In 1217 she returned to her own country, and wrote several letters asking for help from England against the French king. In May 1220 she married her old lover Hugh, who had succeeded his father as count of La Marche, and was betrothed to her daughter Joanna. ”

“ His works were announced as the works of John Hunter; and John Hunter on a plain brass plate announced his residence. His honour and his pride made him look with contempt on the unworthy arts by which ignorant and greedy men advance their fortunes. He contemplated the hallowed duties of his art with the feelings of a philanthropist and a philosopher; and although surgery had been cultivated more than 2000 years, this single individual did more towards establishing it as a science, than all who preceded him. ”

“ The soldiers who were on the ground had orders, in case of disturbance, to shoot at him and the other speakers, instead of firing into the crowd. When parliament met in 1817 he was delegated by the Hampden clubs at Bristol and Bath to present petitions to the borough members, and on this visit to London became acquainted with several of the Lancashire reformers. When Thistlewood and the others were arrested in 1817, Hunt expected arrest also, but was not interfered with. He presided at a public meeting, originally held in compliance with the provisions of the Seditious Meetings Act, on 7 Sept. ”

“ As early as 1171 a marriage was proposed for him with Alice, daughter and heiress of Humbert III, count of Maurienne, and before Christmas 1172 the marriage contract was signed; it was agreed that if Humbert left no son John should be heir of all his dominions, and if it turned out otherwise should have a rich provision. On his side Henry in February 1173 proposed to give him the castles and districts of Chinon, Loudun, and Mirebeau. This marriage scheme failed owing to the refusal of John's eldest brother Henry, as count of Anjou, to part with any of his territories. ”

“ He used his power arrogantly, and so enabled John, the king’s brother, to assume the position of a defender of the rights of others. His fall was brought about by an act of violence. Geoffrey, the elect of York, who had met with much opposition from his chapter and from the bishop of Durham, had at last been consecrated in France by the Pope’s orders. He now returned to England, in spite, it is said, of having promised the king that he would not do so. An attempt was made to arrest him when he landed at Dover, and he fled to the priory church for refuge. ”

“ One of them, Leigh Hunt, was something of a poet himself and a pleasant prose-writer. His encouragement did much to stimulate Keats's genius, but his direct influence on his poetry was wholly bad. Leigh Hunt's was not a deep nature; his poetry is often trivial and sentimental, and his easy conversational style is intolerable when applied to a great theme. To this man's influence, as well as to the surroundings of his youth, are doubtless due the occasional flaws of taste in Keats's early work. ”

“ Hunter, has represented him as an honest, independent, perfectly candid, and most industrious man, indifferent about money, and much attached to science. Now though I believe this sketch to be perfectly correct, yet there were finer traits of character requiring to be depicted ere I should recognise the intellectual resemblance of John Hunter. Those who make the study of nature, and of science, or the attainment of moral good, the ultimate object of their endeavours, are candid, disinterested, benevolent, and humble minded. ”