of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent.  And who on earth could have anticipated what the voice said?  ’Eh! it’s a sad sight!’ Hunt sat down on a stone step.  They all laughed—­then looked very thoughtful.  Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence?  Again they laughed—­then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace."[A]

[Footnote A:  “A New Spirit of the Age,” by R.H.  Home.  London, 1844.  Vol. . p. 278.]

In 1840 Leigh Hunt left Chelsea, and went to live at Kensington, but Carlyle never altogether lost sight of him, and on several occasions was able to do him very serviceable acts of kindness; as, for instance, in writing certain Memoranda concerning him with the view of procuring from Government a small provision for Leigh Hunt’s declining years, which we may as well give in this place:—­

  MEMORANDA

  CONCERNING MR. LEIGH HUNT.

“1.  That Mr. Hunt is a man of the most indisputedly superior worth; a Man of Genius in a very strict sense of that word, and in all the senses which it bears or implies; of brilliant varied gifts, of graceful fertility, of clearness, lovingness, truthfulness; of childlike open character; also of most pure and even exemplary private deportment; a man who can be other than loved only by those who have not seen him, or seen him from a distance through a false medium.

“2.  That, well seen into, he has done much for the world;—­as every man possessed of such qualities, and freely speaking them forth in the abundance of his heart for thirty years long, must needs do:  how much, they that could judge best would perhaps estimate highest.

“3.  That, for one thing, his services in the cause of reform, as Founder and long as Editor of the ‘Examiner’ newspaper; as Poet, Essayist, Public Teacher in all ways open to him, are great and evident:  few now living in this kingdom, perhaps, could boast of greater.

“4.  That his sufferings in that same cause have also been great; legal prosecution and penalty (not dishonourable to him; nay, honourable, were the whole truth known, as it will one day be):  unlegal obloquy and calumny through the Tory Press;—­perhaps a greater quantity of baseless, persevering, implacable calumny, than any other living writer has undergone.  Which long course of hostility (nearly the cruellest conceivable, had it not been carried on in half, or almost total misconception) may be regarded as the beginning of his other worst distresses, and a main cause of them, down to this day.