ntrast with the portrait drawn by
Dickens in _Bleak House_, where the character of Harold Skimpole was so
patent a caricature of Hunt that mutual friends promptly remonstrated
with the author, and this influenced Dickens, in the later numbers of
the monthly parts in which the book was issued, to modify his picture.

In writing of his father after his death, Thornton evidently had in mind
this ungenerous act of Dickens when he penned these sentences: "His
consideration, his sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable, his
avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness were manifest on the
surface, and could only be appreciated by those who knew him in society,
most probably even exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself
insisted with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness. In the spirit
which made him disposed to enjoy 'anything that was going forward' he
would even assume for the evening a convivial aspect, and urge a liberal
measure of the wine with the gusto of a bon vivant. Few who knew him so
could be aware, not only of the simple and uncostly sources from which
he habitually drew his enjoyments, but of his singularly plain life,
extended even to a rule of self denial. Excepting at intervals when wine
was recommended to him, or came to him as a gift of friendship, his
customary drink was water, which he would drink with the almost daily
repetition of Dr. Armstrong's line, 'Nought like the simple element
dilutes.'... His dress was always plain and studiously economical. He
would excuse the plainness of his diet, by ascribing it to a delicacy of
health, which he overrated. His food was often nothing but bread and
meat at dinner, bread and tea for two meals of the day, bread alone for
luncheon or for supper. His liberal constructions were shown to others,
his strictness to himself. If he heard that a friend was in trouble, his
house was offered as a 'home'; and it was literally so, many times in
his life."

Apropos of this, it is of interest to note that his house was an asylum
for Keats for weeks, at a time when the young poet was sick in body and
mind. It was Leigh Hunt who gave Keats, in the _Examiner_, the first
favorable review he received.

It is but fair to note that Dickens later disclaimed any intent to
portray in Harold Skimpole the foibles of Leigh Hunt. I have several
letters from Dickens to Hunt making delicate reference to the subject.
As late as June 28, 1855, four years prior to Hunt's death,