The first printed notice of Shelley was in _The Examiner_ of December 1, 1816. Therefore to Hunt belongs in this case, as in that of Keats, the credit of discovery. It is difficult to account for Hunt's tardiness of recognition,[262] coming as it did six years after Shelley first wrote him, five years after the Finnerty poem, three years after _Queen Mab_, and two years after the visit in prison.[263] Also Shelley had sent contributions to _The Examiner_, which Hunt had not accepted, but which he vaguely recalled at the time of writing his first review on Shelley. It was inspired by the announcement of _Alastor_, and consisted of about ten lines, embodied in the article on Keats and Reynolds already referred to. Hunt pronounced Shelley "a very striking and original thinker." Shelley's reply to a letter from Hunt, telling him of the notice, pictures him anxiously scouring the countryside about Bath for the sight of a copy and buoyed up at last by the news of one five miles distant. This notice was followed by the publication of the _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_ in _The Examiner_ of January 19, 1817; a notice of the Chancery suit, January 26 and February 2; and an extract from _Laon and Cythna_, November 30. A review of the _Revolt of Islam_ ran through three numbers, January 25, February 8 and 22, 1818. Shelley's system of charity and his crusade against tyranny, as set forth in the preface, Hunt loudly applauded. Many extracts were italicized for the guidance of the public. The beauties of the poem were pronounced to be its mysticism, its wildness, its depth of sentiment, its grandeur of imagery, and its varied and sweet versification. In the boldness of speculation and in the love of virtue Hunt saw a resemblance to Lucretius, while in the gloom and imagination of certain passages, particularly in the grandeur of the supernatural architecture, he was reminded of Dante. The defects were pronounced to be obscurity of narrative and sameness of image and metaphor. The review closed with the prophecy "we have no doubt he is destined to be one of the leading spirits of the age."