538 LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



(5) A volume, once the property of Leigh. Hunt, another writer 

 remarkable for a chequered literary and political career. He and his 

 bi'other, during the Regency, established the Examiner newspaper ; 

 and three times they were prosecuted for their strictures on the 

 government. On the third occasion, they were imprisoned for two 

 years, and fined £500 each. This sentence caused Leigh Hunt to 

 become very popular. In 1847 he received a pension of £200 per 

 annum, which he enjoyed until 1859, when he died at the age of 

 seventy-five. But it was not chiefly as a journalist that he was 

 distinguished, but rather as an elegant English essayist, poet, dramatist, 

 novelist, and translator from the Italian. He was the personal friend 

 of Coleridge, Lamb, Keats, Shelley, Proctor, Moore and Byron. It 

 was probably during his sojourn with the last-named in Italy, in 

 1823, that Leigh Hunt provided himself with the volume which is 

 in my collection, which, besides having his autograph signature on 

 the title page, is full of MS. annotations and reference -memoranda 

 written by himself. It is a beautiful copy of Dante's "Amori e 

 Rime," printed at Mantua in 1823 ; co' tipi Virgiliani di L. Caranenti. 

 Brief fragments, that need not be transcribed, from the hands, of (6) 

 Sir Charles Lyell, (7) Sir Roderick Murchison, (8) Thackeray, and 

 (9) Miss C. M. Yonge, (10) Miss Mary Russell Mitford's copy of 

 Scott's " Lay of the Last Minstrel," and (11) Mark Anthony Lower's 

 copy of Bowditch's "Suffolk Surnames," with the fine signature of 

 the former owner, and an autograph letter of the author himself, 

 inserted. As associated with the name of Sir Walter Scott, I place 

 here (12) a copy of Smith's Translation of " Longinus on the Sub- 

 lime," printed in London in 1756. It has fairly written on the 

 title-page, in a hand of the last century, " E Libris. James Sanson." 

 The Rev. Mr. James Sanson, of Leadhills, Lanarkshire, the former 

 owner of the book, was a zealous bibliomaniac, well-known to Sir 

 Walter ; and it is held by Mr. Sanson's immediate family connexions 

 in Scotland and here, that the novelist had him chiefly in his eye 

 when he drew the world-famous "Dominie Sampson,'' venturing in 

 the surname rather near that of his original. 



Thackeray's relic, above referred to, is the following note, in which 

 a too forward literary neophyte receives a rather stern rebufi". " My 

 dear Sir : I cannot do what you have set your mind iipon. Though 

 I am always inclined to oblige, I at the same time am unable to do 

 that which is utterly out of my power. You must not, young Sir, 



