Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, John Higgs
HUNT, JOHN HIGGS (1780–1859), translator of Tasso, born in 1780, was educated at the Charterhouse. He matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1797 gained the Browne medal for a Latin ode. He graduated B.A. 1801, M.A. 1804, and was elected a fellow of Trinity. For some time he edited the 'Critical Review,' and wrote in the number of September 1807 a favourable notice of Byron's 'Hours of Idleness.' 'I have been praised,' wrote Byron, 'to the skies in the "Critical Review"' (Moore, Life of Byron, p. 58). Hunt was living at Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmoreland, in 1818, and had vacated his fellowship, probably by marriage, before that date. On 20 March 1823 he became vicar of Weedon Beck, Northamptonshire, and died there on 17 Nov. 1859. He published Tasso's `Jerusalem Delivered,' with notes and occasional illustrations, London, 2 vols. 1818, 8vo; the translation was commended in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' (1819, i. 541). It was reprinted in Walsh's `Works of the British Poets ' (vols. xlviii. and xlix.), Philadelphia, 1822. Hunt is also said to have written a work upon 'Cosmo the Great.'
[Gent. Mag. 1860, i. 188; Graduati Cantabr.; Cambr. Univ. Calend.; Baker's Northamptonshire; Foster's Index Ecclesiasticus, 1800-1840; Northampton Herald, 3 Dec. 1859; Critical Review, 7 Sept. 1807.]