laden with domestic burdens, more heavily than
most men, and his economical resources are gone from him. For the last
twelve years he has toiled continually, with passionate diligence,
with the cheerfullest spirit; refusing no task; yet hardly able with
all this to provide for the day that was passing over him; and now,
after some two years of incessant effort in a new enterprise ('The
London Journal') that seemed of good promise, it also has suddenly
broken down, and he remains in ill health, age creeping on him,
without employment, means, or outlook, in a situation of the
painfullest sort. Neither do his distresses, nor did they at any time,
arise from wastefulness, or the like, on his own part (he is a man of
humble wishes, and can live with dignity on little); but from
crosses of what is called Fortune, from injustice of other men, from
inexperience of his own, and a guileless trustfulness of nature, the
thing and things that have made him unsuccessful make him in reality
_more_ loveable, and plead for him in the minds of the candid.

"6. That such a man is rare in a Nation, and of high value there; not
to be _procured_ for a whole Nation's revenue, or recovered when taken
from us, and some L200 a year is the price which this one, whom we
now have, is valued at: with that sum he were lifted above his
perplexities, perhaps saved from nameless wretchedness! It is believed
that, in hardly any other way could L200 abolish as much suffering,
create as much benefit, to one man, and through him to many and all.

"Were these things set fitly before an English Minister, in whom great
part of England recognises (with surprise at such a novelty) a man of
insight, fidelity and decision, is it not probable or possible that
he, though from a quite opposite point of view, might see them in
somewhat of a similar light; and, so seeing, determine to do in
consequence? _Ut fiat_!

"T.C."

"Some years later," says a writer in "Macmillan's Magazine,"[A] "in
the 'mellow evening' of a life that had been so stormy, Mr. Leigh
Hunt himself told the story of his struggles, his victories, and
his defeats, with so singularly graceful a frankness, that the most
supercilious of critics could not but acknowledge that here was
an autobiographer whom it was possible to like. Here is Carlyle's
estimate of Leigh Hunt's Autobiography:--

[Footnote A: July, 1862.]

"Chelsea, June 17, 1850.

"DEAR HUNT,

"I have just finished your Autobiog