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Juvenilia (poetry
collection)
Juvenilia; or, a Collection of Poems
Written between the ages of Twelve
and Sixteen by J. H. L. Hunt, Late of
the  Grammar  School  of  Christ's
Hospital, commonly known as
Juvenilia, was a collection of poems
written by James Henry Leigh Hunt at a
young age and published in March 1801.
As an unknown author, Hunt's work was
not accepted by any professional
publishers, and his father Isaac Hunt
instead entered into an agreement with
the printer James Whiting to have the
collection printed privately. The collection
had over 800 subscribers, including
important academics, politicians and
lawyers, and even people from the United
States. The critical and public response to 1802 title page
Hunt's work was positive; by 1803 the
collection had run into four volumes. The
Monthly Mirror declared the collection to show "proofs of poetic genius, and
literary ability",[1] and Edmund Blunden held that the collection acted as a
predictor of Hunt's later success. Hunt himself came to despise the collection
as "a heap of imitations, all but absolutely worthless",[2] but critics have argued
that without this early success to bolster his confidence Hunt's later career
could have been far less successful.

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Contents
Background
Poems
Critical response
Notes
References

Background
When Hunt was 15, he entered into a series of competitions run by the
Monthly  Preceptor calling for the submission of both poems and essays.
Throughout 1800, Hunt submitted various works including a translation of
Horace, which won first prize. In December, he came in second for an essay
called "On Humanity to the Brute Creation as a Moral and Christian Duty".
The Monthly Preceptor printed many of his poems, even ones not submitted
for the competition. The successful publication of these works prompted his
father Isaac Hunt to collect his son's childhood poetry to publish them. Since
publishers would not pay the expenses to publish a book for an unknown
author, Isaac Hunt decided to take subscriptions for the book to defer the cost
of publication. Under an agreement with the printer James Whiting, the Hunts
collected subscribers with the support of his uncle and aunt, Benjamin and
Elizabeth West.[3]

Eventually, they were able to collect over 800 subscribers to the volume. The
collection was published March 1801 with the title Juvenilia; or, a Collection
of  Poems  Written  between  the  ages  of  Twelve  and  Sixteen  by  J.  H.  L.  Hunt,
Late of the Grammar School of Christ's Hospital with a subscription list that
ran for more than 15 pages. The subscribers included important academics and
artists, well known publishers and booksellers, and many politicians, lawyers,
and government employees. The list covered people from all aspects of British
life and even included many from the United States. A frontispiece by
Francesco Bartollozi based on a painting by Raphael West was included in the

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edition based on an allegorical representation of penury from Hunt's poem

"Retirement". The third edition included an engraving of Hunt's portrait by
Robert Bowyer. By 1803, four editions of the volume had been published with
a new set of subscriptions for each, which included many famous politicians,
artists, and other well-known individuals.[4]

Poems
The collection separated the poems into sections based on genre and type:
elegy, hymn, ode, pastoral, sonnet, allegory modelled after Edmund Spenser's,
and a section for miscellaneous. The volume begins with "Macbeth; or, the Ill
Effects of Ambition" and "Content". Poems that followed are "Chearfulness"
and The Palace of Pleasure. The miscellaneous poems include: "Retirement, or
the Golden Mean", "Remembered Friendship", "Christ's Hospital", "The Negro
Boy, A Ballad", "Epitaph on Robespierre", "Written at the Time of the War in
Switzerland", "Speech of Caractacus to Claudius Caesar", and "Progress of
Painting".[5]

In the "Progress of Painting", Hunt reveals his debt to the artistic background
of his uncle in introducing the wonders of various painters. Hunt's
"Remembered Friendship" is similar to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's depiction of
a childhood watching of the sky in Frost at Midnight.[6]

Most of the work was imitative. Although success allowed Hunt greater
opportunities and connections in Britain, he later believed that his early
success kept him from properly starting his path to become a poet.[7]

Critical response
The response to Hunt's Juvenilia was positive. The reviews focused on Hunt's
successful youthful accomplishment and he was well received by the literary
establishment.[8] In an immediate review, the Monthly Mirror claimed that the
poems were "proofs of poetic genius, and literary ability, which reflect great
credit on the youthful author, and will justify the most sanguine expectations
of his future reputation".[1] However, Hunt later stated, "I was as proud,
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perhaps, of the book at the time as I am ashamed of it now [...] a heap of

imitations, all but absolutely worthless".[2] Edmund Blunden, in 1930, argued:
"The best poetical promise in Juvenilia was an occasional floweriness of
colouring and personal fancy [...] But even in most juvenile passages the
collection informs us of Hunt's boyish attainments and natural tastes,
anticipating his later characteristics in several tendencies."[9]

In 1985, Ann Blainery wrote, "For a boy of 17 it was an achievement, and if it

went to his head this was understandable. The shy schoolboy whose poems
were despised by his teacher had become a literary lion-cub. Without the
confidence imparted by his first book, his career could have been very
different."[10] Nicholas Roe claimed, "His Juvenilia has been genuinely
impressive for the skill with which he had imitated other writers, and it had
deservedly drawn admiration."[11] Anthony Holden argued, "The opening ode
on Macbeth [...] is declared, as if by way of apology for its orotund emptiness,
to have been written at the age of twelve. Even so, it shows a remarkably
precocious technique, as do the marginally more mature teenager's fluent if
florid pastiches of Spenser and Pope, Dryden and Gay, Thomson and Johnson,
even Akenside and Ossian".[12]

Notes
1. Holden 2005 qtd p. 17
2. Holden 2005 qtd p. 15
3. Roe 2005 pp. 50–52
4. Roe 2005 pp. 52–57
5. Roe 2005 pp. 55–56
6. Holden 2005 pp. 16–17
7. Holden 2005 pp. 15–17
8. Roe 2005 p. 57
9. Blunden 1930 pp. 30–31
10. Blainery 1985 p. 17
11. Roe 2005 p. 68

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12. Holden 2005 p. 16

References
Blainey, Ann. Immortal Boy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985.
Blunden, Edmund. Leigh Hunt and His Circle. London: Harper & Brothers
Publishers, 1930.
Edgecombe, Rodney. Leigh Hunt and the Poetry of Fancy. Madison:
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994.
Holden, Anthony. The Wit in the Dungeon. New York: Little, Brown and
Company, 2005.
Roe, Nicholas. Fiery Heart. London: Pimlico, 2005.

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