gain is his copy of Rousseau's "Confessions," Holyoake's
translation, annotated through and through with Hunt's humane and
penetrating criticisms on nature with which his own had much in common,
though purer and sweeter. This volume of Milton's "Minor Poems" was his
also, with the rich and varied notes of Warton, the edition of whose
literary charms he somewhere speaks with such delight. Here also is
Forster's "Perennial Calendar," a book of rural gossip, such as Leigh
Hunt thoroughly enjoyed; and this copy of Aubrey de Vere's Poems was a
present from the author. Above all, perhaps, one dwells with interest on
a volume of Hennell's "Christianity and Infidelity," riddled through and
through by pen-and-ink underscorings, extending sometimes to every line
upon a page. The book ends with a generous paragraph in assertion of the
comfort and sufficiency of Natural Religion; and after it comes, written
originally in pencil, then in ink again, always with the same firm and
elegant handwriting, the indorsement, "Amen. So be it. L. H. July 14th,
1857." This was written in his seventy-third year, two years before his
death, and this must have been about the time of Hawthorne's visit to
him. Read the "Amen" in the light of that beautiful description of
patient and frugal old age, and it is a touching and noble memorial.

Americans often fancied that they noticed something American in Leigh
Hunt's _physique_ and manners, without knowing how near he came to
owning a Cisatlantic birth. His mother was a Philadelphian; and his
father, a West-Indian, resided in this country until within a few years
of his death. It is fitting, therefore, that our publishers should keep
his writings in the market, and this is well done in this handsome
edition of "The Seer." These charming essays will bear preservation;
none are more saturated with cultivated taste and literary allusion, and
in none are more graceful pictures painted on a slighter canvas. If
there is an occasional impression of fragility and superficiality, it is
yet wholly in character, and seems not to interfere with the peculiar
charm. Hunt, for instance, writes a delightful paper on the theme of
"Cricket," without ten allusions to the game, or one indication of ever
having stopped to watch it. He discourses deliciously upon Anacreon's
"Tettix,"--the modern Cicada,--and then calls it a beetle. There is apt,
indeed, to be a pervading trace of that kind of conscious effort which
is techni