At the last field-gate, when taking leave, he gave
me the sonnet entitled, "Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left
Prison." Unless I am utterly mistaken, this was the first proof I had
received of his having committed himself in verse; and how clearly can I
recall the conscious look with which he hesitatingly offered it! There
are some momentary glances of beloved friends that fade only with life.
I am not in a position to contradict the statement of his biographer,
that "the lines in imitation of Spenser,
"'Now Morning from her orient charger came,
And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill,' etc.,
"are the earliest known verses of his composition"; from the subject
being the inspiration of his first love--and such a love!--in poetry, it
is most probable; but certainly his first published poem was the sonnet
commencing,
'O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell';
and that will be found in the "Examiner," some time, as I conjecture,
in 1816,--for I have not the paper to refer to, and, indeed, at this
distance, both of time and removal from the means of verification, I
would not be dogmatical.
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