My Friends and Acquaintance
William Hazlitt XVIII
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XVIII.
A VISIT WITH HAZLITT TO MR. JOHN
HUNT, IN COLDBATH FIELDS PRISON.—ESTIMATE OF J.
HUNT’S CHARACTER.—HAZLITT’S PAINTINGS.
There was one man, and one only, towards whom Hazlitt seemed to cherish a feeling of unmingled personal
affection and regard: that man was the late Mr. John
Hunt, the elder brother of Mr. Leigh Hunt.
Of him only Hazlitt was accustomed to speak uniformly in terms of
unqualified admiration and esteem, as related to his personal character, no less than to
his sound judgment and singular good sense. He used to say that if there was an honest man
in the world, it was John Hunt. Nor did I ever hear him speak
disparagingly of him in even the smallest particular of either character or conduct, except
on one occasion. “Look here,” said he, as I went in one morning as he
was sitting at his breakfast, reading a letter he had just received—“Look
here!”—handing me the letter, and pointing to the seal of it, on which ![]()
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was a showy crest or coat-of-arms—“what d’ye think of
that from John Hunt—from the reviler of aristocratic
distinctions—the sturdy democrat—the only honest leveller and republican of them
all—and the only one among them all who would die a martyr to his opinions, if he could
propagate them by doing so?”
As some of my earliest and most vivid Recollections of Hazlitt are connected with this gentleman, I shall recur
to them here.
The first evidence Hazlitt gave me
of a disposition to cultivate my society—or rather to accept it—for he cultivated no
one—his mind and genius were essentially contemplative, and disposed to that loneliness
which contemplation asks—was his inviting me to accompany him one Sunday morning in a visit
to Mr. John Hunt, who was then confined in the
Coldbath Fields Prison, for a political libel which had appeared in the “Examiner” newspaper, of which the
Hunts were the sole proprietors.* We went, and
* I have given, in a previous Section, some details respecting
the conversation which took place on this visit, but no description of the visit
itself. |
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found Mr. Hunt walking in the garden of the
prison; and I shall not forget the impression his appearance and manner made on
me—corresponding so precisely as they did with the previous notion I had entertained of his
personal character. I have never seen in any one else so perfect an outward symbol or
visible setting forth of the English character, in its most peculiar and distinguishing
features, but also in its best and brightest aspect, as in Mr. John
Hunt. A figure tall, robust, and perfectly well-formed; a carriage
commanding and even dignified, without the slightest apparent effort or consciousness of
being so; a head and a set of features on a large scale, but cast in a perfectly regular
mould; handsome, open, and full of intelligence, but somewhat hard and severe; an
expression of bland benevolence, singularly blended with a marble coldness of demeanour
almost repulsive, because almost seeming to be so intended:—such were the impressions
produced on me by the first abord of
John Hunt, as I saw him within his prison walls.
As I afterwards became acquainted with Mr. John
Hunt and his accomplished brother, ![]()
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and had all my
first impressions confirmed about the former, I cannot let slip this occasion of testifying
my belief, that the wholesome and happy change that has taken place in our political and
social institutions since the period above referred to, and is still in happy progress, is
owing in no small degree to the excellent individuals just named; for I verily believe
that, without the manly firmness, the immaculate political honesty, and the vigorous good
sense of the one, and the exquisite genius and varied accomplishments, guided by the
all-pervading and all-embracing humanity of the other, we should at
this moment have been without many of those writers and thinkers on whose unceasing efforts
the slow but sure march of our political, and, with it, our social regeneration as a people
mainly depends. Of this I am certain—that without the writings of Mr. Leigh Hunt himself, we should have missed a large measure of that high
and pure tone of political and of social feeling from which everything is to be hoped in
the way of progress towards future good; and (having which) nothing need be feared in the
way of ![]()
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retrogression towards past evil. Many causes may interfere to
retard the coming on of that fair pageant of political and social amelioration which
already shines palpable and visible in the future, even like the coming on of the heavenly
host in the “Paradise
Lost.” But there, in the “clear obscure” of the distance, the
embodied splendour shines, and nothing can ever again abolish or blot it out.
Returning to my visit with Hazlitt
to Mr. John Hunt, in the Coldbath Fields
Prison,—after walking and conversing for some time in the prison garden, where we found
Mr. Hunt, he led us to his apartment. Here the first thing that
struck me was a picture over the mantelpiece, of an old countrywoman in a bonnet, which, it
immediately occurred to me, was one I had heard spoken of as
Hazlitt’s first attempt as an artist.
Hazlitt pointed to it with great apparent satisfaction, and asked
me if I had ever seen it before, or knew what it was; but he seemed to shrink from
distinctly saying what it was, and I was left to learn this from inquiry of Mr.
Hunt himself. ![]()
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The picture, I found, belonged to
Hazlitt himself. He kept it as a precious relic, not of his
success, but of his failure, as a painter—to which art he had at one time intended to
devote himself. The reader will, probably, call to mind some beautiful reminiscences of
this picture in his essay “On the
Pleasures of Painting.” The picture itself is a striking production,
evincing remarkable powers of pictorial effect, and not inferior in the force of its light
and shade to some of Rembrandt’s efforts of a
similar kind. I have never seen the picture since, and yet it is one of those very few
which dwell in my memory, as if they were actually present to the bodily sight. It
represented the head and shoulders merely of a very old countrywoman, in a plain black
bonnet, which shaded the upper half of the face, so as to leave the features almost black,
and only to be distinguished by fixed attention; while the lower half of the face was in a
full light. The expression (which was perfect in its way) was that of the utter stillness
and vacuity of extreme old age. The skin was greatly elaborated, but so as to produce the
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general and uniform effect, and the oneness, of nature and of
Rembrandt, not of the dry and hard detail of Denner or Holbein.
But the peculiarity of the picture consisted in the extraordinary effect of the light and
shade. The handling by which this effect was produced was coarse yet elaborate—bold and
forcible, yet perfectly undecided, and that of a novice. But the whole was natural and
true, in a remarkable degree, and it proved to demonstration that if
Hazlitt had devoted and applied himself steadily to the art, he
would greatly have distinguished himself in it. It proved, too, that he would have
distinguished himself in precisely that way in which the leading features of his mind
enabled him afterwards to shine as a writer—namely, in the perception and setting forth of
the actual and simple truth, in relation to whatever he might take
in hand; but especially of the truth as to human character.
The extreme apparent diffidence of Hazlitt in pointing my attention to this picture, reminds me to observe
here, that it was the same in respect to everything else that he did. ![]()
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He had in his possession, at this time, two noble copies, made by himself, from two of
Titian’s finest portraits in the Louvre—the
Young Venetian Nobleman with the Glove; and the Hyppolito di Medici. They used to hang in or stand about his rooms,
without frames, and covered with dirt; and I had seen and spoken of them several times,
before I learned (which I did by mere accident) that they were painted by himself. Not that
he underrated, or took a slight interest in them. On the contrary, he made no scruple of
declaring them to be the best copies of Titian that he had ever seen;
and they were the only things to which I ever knew him attach any value, or feel the least
desire to retain a property in. With the exception of these pictures, he never, during the
whole of my acquaintance with him, possessed a single object of property—not even a favourite book. But these he cherished with a personal
fondness that seemed to give them in his eyes all the character of living objects; they
seemed necessary to his very existence, and to preserve, as it were, that personal identity
with his early life, in the absence of ![]()
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which he would scarcely have
felt that he continued to live at all, at least, to any of the real and valuable purposes
of life. They were like keepsakes given to him by those twin brides
of his soul, the Ideals of Truth and Beauty, which he had wedded in
his youth, only to love and worship for a day, and then to be widowed from for ever, and
weep over their grave for the rest of his existence. For such was, in fact, the secret
cause of that profound melancholy which hung upon Hazlitt’s mind like an incubus, and
was the mortal disease that sunk him to a premature grave.
I afterwards possessed these two pictures, having purchased them at a sale
of the property of Haydon, who valued them, and had
purchased them of Hazlitt, when the latter had been
forced, under some momentary pecuniary pressure, to sell them.
I do not remember anything in my intercourse with Hazlitt which gave me so much pleasure, as being thus
enabled to preserve and restore these pictures to him. He used every now and then to come
to me on purpose to look at them, as he had done ![]()
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in the case of
Haydon when they were in his possession. I
remember he would stand and gaze on them with a look of deep sadness, not unmixed with
pleasure, and almost with tears in his eyes—as one may imagine a fond parent gazing on the
grave of his buried hopes; but he never said anything about wishing to have them, otherwise
I should have offered them to him immediately. I, on the other hand, never thought of
offering them spontaneously, knowing that, with all his frankness and delicacy in
appreciating an act of good-will of this kind, he would not have been able to avoid
attributing it in part to the want of my setting a due value on the pictures. At last he
came one day, and after looking earnestly at the pictures for some time, he began, in that
roundabout, awkward, and hesitating way, which he always fell into when he was not quite
sure of his ground:—
“I say, Patmore, do you
care about those pictures?”
“How do you mean?” said I—though I anticipated what was
coming.
“Why—I mean”—said he hesitatingly—![]()
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“that is—would you like to part with them?”
“Part with them?” I said—repeating his words, and not
knowing very well how to reply without the risk of hurting his self-love one way or the
other—and there is nothing like awkwardness for engendering its like—“Part with
them? Why I——” and I hesitated about coming to the point as much as he did.
“Ay”—continued he—“that is, not unless you
like—only I”—(and here he seemed to get farther than ever from the mark)
“I—that is, I think I can get you a good sum for them if you’ve a mind
to part with them.”
“If that’s what you mean,”
I said, “I have not a mind to part with them. I thought, perhaps, you wanted them
for yourself.”
“Why, that’s it,” said he. “The fact is,
so and so (naming some one whom I now forget) has been speaking to me about them.
He’ll give you forty or fifty pounds down for them, I think; and will let me have
them back again when I like. What do you say?”
I said—“I’ll not sell them—if
that’s what you mean—but you may have them if you
like.”
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“Well,” said he—“what shall I give you for
them?”
“Nonsense!”—I replied—“nothing—or anything you
like”—for I did not like to press his acceptance of them after he had told me
what he thought of doing with them.
“Well—shall I give you ten pounds for them ‘out and
out,’ on the chance of getting fifty?”
“Yes—if you like.”
“But I’ve got no money.”
“Well—give it me when you like.”
“No—I’ll give you a bill at two months (I think it was). I
shall have money then.”
I could hardly help smiling at this proposal: but I did not dare to do so,
as he was very sensitive on points of this kind.
“But may I take them with me now?” he asked,
hesitatingly—“I’ll bring you the bill by and bye.”
“To be sure,” I said—fairly smiling out at the idea of the
bill, but not venturing to refuse it.
Accordingly, he took away his two favourites under his arm; evidently
delighted to have them once again in his possession; for ![]()
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he had more
regard for them than for all his writings put together.
The next day he brought me a promissory note duly drawn—and which of
course was not duly paid. That it was paid ultimately, I need not
say. Had it been otherwise, the reader would have heard nothing of the details, at least,
of this little story. About seven or eight months afterwards, when I had almost forgotten
the bill he had given me, he called on me, and, holding out a ten-pound note,
said—“Have you got that bill?” and I believe he never parted with a
bank note so readily as he did on this occasion.
Returning for a moment to our visit to John
Hunt, in Coldbath Fields Prison, I remember, as if it had happened but
yesterday, the precise spot on which we met him in the prison garden; the dreary and
prison-like look of the garden itself, without a tree or a shrub in it; with nothing alive
but long rows of sickly cabbages and lettuces, that seemed to be pining for the free air
that passed hundreds of feet above their heads—an “unreal mockery” of a
garden—![]()
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that seemed, to a true garden, what the melancholy
“liberty” of walking in it was to liberty itself. I remember, too, the extreme
cleanliness of the narrow and interminable passages through which we passed to the
prisoner’s cell, and that it struck me as something shocking—like the unnatural
tameness of the birds and animals in the island of Juan Fernandez—a species of refinement
in cruelty. The cell itself, too, I see before me as I write—with its lofty ceiling, which
made the area look twice as small as it really was; its square iron-barred window, on the
right-hand wall as you entered, raised out of the reach of any access either from within or
without; the little blank fire-place opposite to the door; and the no-furniture, consisting
of a table and two chairs. Being an optimist, I have often thought since that the statesmen
of that day were the people of all others to inculcate the blessings and the love of
political liberty. To imprison for two years in a place like this one of the most honest,
honourable, and pure-minded men that ever lived, for expressing a political opinion that
they did not approve, was a pretty sure way ![]()
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of making him a patriot and an advocate of freedom, if he had not been so before. There
is nothing like Evil for teaching the value and the virtue of Good—nothing like Wrong for
demonstrating and confirming Right.
Balthasar Denner (1685-1749)
German painter renowned for the microscopic accuracy of his portraits.
Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)
English historical painter and diarist who recorded anecdotes of romantic writers and the
physiognomy of several in his paintings.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
John Hunt (1775-1848)
English printer and publisher, the elder brother of Leigh Hunt; he was the publisher of
The Examiner and
The Liberal, in
connection with which he was several times prosecuted for libel.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Peter George Patmore [Tims] (1786-1855)
English writer and friend of Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt; an early contributor to
Blackwood's, he was John Scott's second in the fatal duel, editor of
the
Court Journal, and father of the poet Coventry Patmore.
Rembrandt (1606-1669)
Dutch painter and etcher.
Titian (1487 c.-1576)
Venetian painter celebrated for his portraits.
The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary
matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.
