Cathedral at the age of seven, Arthur Thomas Corfe [q. v.] being then organist. Subsequently he was educated at the Salisbury grammar school, where he remained till 1827. During the last five years of this period he was articled to Corfe [q. v.], and received from him valuable instruction in music. When he left the grammar school, his fine voice gained him an appointment as lay vicar in the Lichfield cathedral choir, which he held till the autumn of 1835, resigning it on 10 Nov. of the same year, when he was elected to succeed Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)[q.v.] as organist to Hereford Cathedral. He remained at Hereford until his death in 1842. A collection of his songs was published in 1843.
[Life prefixed to his Songs.]
HUNT, JOHN (1812–1848), missionary, the third child of a farm bailiff, who had previously been a soldier and a sailor, was born at Hykeham Moss, near Lincoln, on 13 June 1812. After a few years in a parish school, Hunt was put to farm labour at the age of ten, and worked for some years as a ploughman at Balderton, near Newark, and Swinderby. He became a methodist when about sixteen. At Swinderby he educated himself in his spare time, and preached there and afterwards at Potter Hanworth, near Lincoln. In 1835 he was sent to the Hoxton theological college for Wesleyan ministers; in 1838 he was ordained and sailed for Fiji as a missionary. Here he was very successful, making long journeys to the various mission stations on the islands, and working hard at translation. In 1848 H.M.S. Calypso visited Fiji, and Hunt made a long tour with the captain. He died of an illness the consequence of fatigue on 4 Oct. 1848, and was buried at Vewa, one of the mission stations. His wife, Miss Summers, of Newton-on-Trent, whom he had married on 6 March 1838, and several children survived him.
Hunt took part in translating the Scriptures into Fijian. The New Testament was published at Viti, Fiji, in 1853, 12mo, and the whole Bible in London in 1864-8, 8vo., He also wrote: 1. `Memoir of the Rev. W. Cross,' the life of a missionary, to which he added a short notice of the early history of the mission to Fiji, London, 1846, 12mo. 2. 'Entire Sanctification, in Letters to a Friend,' edited by J. Calvert, London, 1853, 12mo.
[Memoir by the Rev. G. S. Rowe; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
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.]
HUNT, NICHOLAS (1596–1648), arithmetician, born in 1596 in Devonshire, was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, 12 April 1612, and graduated B.A. 19 April 1616. On the title-page of his first work (1628) he is designated 'preacher of Christ's Word.' According to Wood, he is identical with a Nicholas Hunt, born at or near Exeter, who lived at Camberwell, Surrey, in 1647, was for many years one of the `proctors of the arches,' and died in 1648.
Hunt's works are: 1. `The Devout Christian Communicant instructed in the Two Sacraments of the New Testament,' London, 1628. 2. `Newe Recreations, or the Mindes Release and Solacing,' London, 1631, 12mo. Another title-page of this book runs: `Judiciary Exercises, or Practical Conclusions,' London, 1631, dedicated to Charles I, and containing arithmetical conundrums and numerical problems. 3. `Handmaid to Arithmetick refin'd, shewing the variety and working of all Rules, in whole Numbers and Fractions, after most pleasant and profitable waies, abounding with Tables for Monies, Measures, and Weights, Rules for Commutations and Exchanges for Merchants and their Factors,' London, 1633. 4. `The New-borne Christian, or a Lively Patterne and Perfect representation of the Saint Militant Child of God,' London, 1634.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 589; De Morgan's Arith. Works, pp. 39, 40.]
