ABSTRACT
Leigh Hunt’s imprisonment was, publicly and personally, a triumph. Deriving maximum pleasure from his study and work, enjoying an ever enlarging group of friends and rejoicing in the support of his family, he escaped what had seemed an inevitable breakdown. Many of Hunt’s poetic friends, including Lord Byron, appeared in the new versions. The hero of both was W. Wordsworth. In the 1814 edition Hunt, applauding contemporary poets, greeted Wordsworth as a writer of great but unfulfilled promise; Hunt hoped that his talent would ‘speedily’ emerge. Hunt’s engravings and paintings of literary and classical subjects, his busts of celebrated patriots and writers, copious books and manuscripts, locks of hair from famous people, the indispensable vases of flowers, a grand pianoforte, and the battered but comfortable sofas and chairs in which he observed the religious ritual of the fireside.
