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At the time of Lyrical Ballads’s 1798 publication, Leigh Hunt was only 14 but already an avid reader of poetry. Hunt’s boarding at Christ’s Hospital charity school meant easy access to the nearby shop of the radical bookseller Joseph Johnson where “on bookstalls within yards of the school,” Hunt could procure the latest poetry by Wordsworth and Coleridge (Roe 41). Hunt’s youthful enthusiasm for the elder poets, however, eventually gave way to a settling disillusionment with their later conservatism: Hunt’s earliest writings on Wordsworth were critical. In an 1812 edition of The Reflector, Hunt refers to both Wordsworth and Coleridge as “asses,” and beseeched them to “depart and be modest, ye driv’llers of pen” (qtd. in Stout 60). Throughout the rest of his journalistic and literary career, Hunt would go on to take a number of different stances on Wordsworth, each fluctuating between abasement, reverence, and indifference. However, the vast amount of existing scholarship on Wordsworth by Leigh Hunt implies that Wordsworth did, in fact, have an impact on Hunt’s life and writing.

In 1816, Leigh Hunt revised his poem The Feast of the Poets to place Wordsworth at the head of the contemporary literary scene. However, in an 1816 edition of The Examiner IX, Hunt balanced his admiration of Wordsworth’s poetic prowess with his intense political opposition and disagreement. Hunt criticizes Wordsworth’s uninformed assessments of English politics and virtues, stating “we think Mr. Wordsworth nevertheless a greater poet, (however) he has got into an awkward business here altogether” (Hunt’s Wordsworth Sonnets on Waterloo 60). By this time, Wordsworth had settled into an Anglican conservatism while Leigh Hunt maintained a liberal, Universalist position. This political dissent would go on to define much of Hunt’s criticism of Wordsworth. Even so, Hunt compliments Wordsworth’s inherent talent, and at times compares him to the poet Milton, a high honor coming from Hunt given his evident admiration of Milton’s poetry. Hunt concludes with the line “We hope to see many more of Mr Wordsworth’s sonnets, but shall be glad to find them, like his best ones, less Miltonic in one respect, and much more so in another” (Hunt’s Wordsworth Sonnets on Waterloo 61). In this way, Hunt concedes that Wordsworth possesses poetic aptitude, but urges a return to early forms and subjects.

In a 1819 edition of The Examiner XII, Hunt describes Wordsworth’s “Peter Bell, a Lyrical Ballad” as “a didactic little horror founded on fear, bigotry, and diseased impulse” (Hunt’s Literary Notices 186). Hunt has much to say regarding Wordsworth’s “weak and vulgar philosophy” (Hunt’s Literary Notices 187), attributing the poem’s “negative tastes” to an affliction of spirit and character. As with the 1816 edition of The Examiner IX, Hunt urges Wordsworth to return to early themes and techniques, concluding with the line “we are sorry to see an excellent poet like Wordsworth returning, in vulgar despair, to such half-witted prejudices,” these prejudices being, according to Hunt, a contempt for those Wordsworth perceives as “inferior” (Hunt’s Literary Notices 187). Hunt’s denunciation of “Peter Bell, A Lyrical Ballad” was born of a displeasure in Wordsworth’s developed political conservatism, a stance which Hunt perceived as both “morbid” and immoral (Hunt’s Literary Notices 188).

Wordsworth has proved himself the greatest contemplative poet this country has produced. His facility is wonderful. He never wants the fittest words for the finest thoughts. He can express, at will, those innumerable shades of feeling which most other writers, not unworthy too, in their degree, of the name of poets, either dismiss at once as inexpressible, or find so difficult of embodiment, as to be content with shaping them forth but seldom, and reposing from their labours (Hunt London Journal 302).