think this monstrous Sagittary the most
prodigious. _He_ (Leigh H.) is an honest charlatan, who has
persuaded himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks
Punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor
Fitzgerald said of _himself_ in the Morning Post) for _Vates_ in
both senses, or nonsenses, of the word. Did you look at the
translations of his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and
says so?--Did you read his skimble-skamble about * * being at the
head of his own _profession_, in the _eyes_ of _those_ who followed
it? I thought that poetry was an _art_, or an _attribute_, and not
a _profession_;--but be it one, is that * * * * * * at the head of
_your_ profession in _your_ eyes? I'll be curst if he is of _mine_,
or ever shall be. He is the only one of us (but of us he is not)
whose coronation I would oppose. Let them take Scott, Campbell,
Crabbe, or you, or me, or any of the living, and throne him;--but
not this new Jacob Behmen, this * * * * * * whose pride might have
kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted as his
_soi-disant_ poetry.

"But Leigh Hunt is a good man, and a good father--see his Odes to
all the Masters Hunt;--a good husband--see his Sonnet to Mrs.
Hunt;--a good friend--see his Epistles to different people;--and a
great coxcomb and a very vulgar person in every thing about him.
But that's not his fault, but of circumstances.[22]

"I do not know any good model for a life of Sheridan but that of
_Savage_. Recollect, however, that the life of such a man may be
made far more amusing than if he had been a Wilberforce;--and this
without offending the living, or insulting the dead. The Whigs
abuse him; however, he never left them, and such blunderers deserve
neither credit nor compassion. As for his creditors,--remember,
Sheridan _never had_ a shilling, and was thrown, with great powers
and passions, into the thick of the world, and placed upon the
pinnacle of success, with no other external means to support him in
his elevation. Did Fox * * * _pay his_ debts?--or did Sheridan take
a subscription? Was the * *'s drunkenness more excusable than his?
Were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his
contemporaries? and is his memory to be blasted, and theirs
respected? Don't let yourse