ABSTRACT
Leigh Hunt was a literary tourist attraction, and many young writers called to see him, to shake the hand that had once touched Byron, Keats and Shelley. Once more he was a chief actor on the literary stage, and he adored it. He dressed ‘fantastically’ in a ‘sacerdotal looking garment’ — the flowered dressing-gown in summer or a monk-like brown one in winter — and when he went out he wore a velvet jacket and cloak that swirled about his spare and stooping figure. To visit Hunt in Kensington was like a royal audience. Young Coventy Patmore, whose father Hunt had known in his own youth, remembered waiting hours for his host to appear. Hunt entered grandly, rubbed his hands, and without apology announced airily, ‘This is a beautiful world, Mr Patmore’. Hunt continued to be an enthusiastic miscellanist and anthologist, setting aside passages from his daily reading and adding his own commentaries for a wider public.
