A Brief James Henry Leigh Hunt Bio

Hunt (James Henry Leigh), poet, essayist and critic, b. Southgate, Middlesex, 19 Oct. 1784. was educated with Lamb and Coleridge at Christ’s Hospital, London. He joined his [181]brother John in editing first the Sunday News, 1805, and then the Examiner, 1808. They were condemned to pay a fine, each of £500, and to be imprisoned for two years, 1812–14, for a satirical article, in which the prince regent was called an “Adonis of fifty.” This imprisonment procured him the friendship of Shelley and Byron, with whom, after editing the Indicator he was associated in editing the Liberal. He wrote many choice books of poems and criticisms, and in his Religion of the Heart, ’53, repudiates orthodoxy. Died 28 Aug. 1859.