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diff --git a/35733-8.txt b/35733-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e69e7c --- /dev/null +++ b/35733-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7833 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley +and Keats, by Barnette Miller + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats + +Author: Barnette Miller + +Release Date: March 31, 2011 [EBook #35733] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH + + + LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH + BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS + + + + + LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH + BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS + + + BY BARNETTE MILLER, PH.D. + + + New York + THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS + 1910 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + Copyright, 1910 + BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS + Printed from type April, 1910 + + PRESS OF + THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY + LANCASTER, PA. + + + + +_This Monograph has been approved by the Department of English in Columbia +University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication._ + + A. H. THORNDIKE, + _Secretary_. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The relations of Leigh Hunt to Byron, Shelley and Keats have been treated +in a fragmentary way in various works of biography and criticism, and from +many points of view. Yet hitherto there has been no attempt to construct a +whole out of the parts. This led Professor Trent to suggest the subject to +me about five years ago. The publication of the results of my +investigation has been unfortunately delayed for nearly four years after +the work was finished. + +I am indebted to Mr. S. L. Wolff for reading the first and second +chapters; to Professors G. R. Krapp, W. W. Lawrence, A. H. Thorndike, of +Columbia University, and Professor William Alan Nielson, now of Harvard, +for suggestions throughout. I am especially glad to have this opportunity +to record my gratitude to Prof. Trent, whose inspiration and guidance and +kindness from beginning to end have alone made completion of the study +possible. + +B. M. + + CONSTANTINOPLE, TURKEY. + March 21, 1910. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I. LEIGH HUNT 1784-1823 1 + + CHAPTER II. KEATS 32 + + CHAPTER III. SHELLEY 65 + + CHAPTER IV. BYRON AND _The Liberal_ 88 + + CHAPTER V. THE COCKNEY SCHOOL 121 + + CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION 159 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 164 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Revolutionary tendencies of the age--The Reaction--Counter Reform +movement--Leigh Hunt--His Ancestry--School days--Career as a +Journalist--Imprisonment--Finances--Politics--Religion--Poetry. + + +Since contemporary social conditions played an important part in the +relations of Leigh Hunt with Byron, Shelley, and Keats, a brief survey of +the period in question is necessary to an understanding of the forces at +play on their intellect and conduct. The English mind had been admirably +prepared for the principles of the French Revolution by the progressive +tendency since the Revolution of 1688. The new order promised by France +was acclaimed in England as one destined to right the wrongs of humanity; +through unending progress mankind was to attain unlimited perfection. Upon +such a prospect both parties were agreed, and the warnings of Burke were +vain when Pitt, rationalizing, led the Tories, and Fox, rhapsodizing, led +the Whigs. In 1793, Godwin's _Political Justice_, with its anarchistic +doctrines of individual perfectibility and of individual self-reliance, +rallied more recruits to the standard of liberty, though his theories of +community of property and annulment of the marriage bond were somewhat +charily received. The early writings of Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge +were colored with enthusiasm for the new movement. The agitation and the +enactment of reform measures made actual advances towards the expected +millennium. + +But the excesses of the Revolutionary régime in France bred in England, +ever inclined to order, an opposition in many conservative minds that +resulted in positive panic at the menace to state and church and property. +The reaction swung the pendulum far in the opposite direction from justice +and philanthropy. The first two decades of the new century continued to +suffer from a counter-reform movement when the actual fright had subsided. +During that period, anything which savored of reform was labelled as +seditious. At the very beginning of this reaction William Pitt's efforts +for the extension of the franchise were summarily put an end to, and the +House of Commons remained as little representative of the English people +as formerly. Catholics and Non-Conformists were denied, from the period of +the union of Ireland with England in 1800 until 1829, the right to vote +and to hold office. Pitt's efforts to frustrate such discrimination in +Ireland were as unavailing as in his own country, for the prejudices and +obstinacy of George III, in both instances, neutralized the good +intentions of the liberal Ministry. The corrupt influence of the Crown in +Parliament was undiminished except by the disfranchisement of persons +holding contracts from the crown and of incumbents of revenue offices. The +wars with America and with France greatly increased the public debt, +threatened the national credit and burdened with taxes an already +overburdened people. Oppressive industrial conditions made the life of the +masses still more unendurable. The rise of manufacturing and the +consequent adoption of inventions that dispensed with much hand labor +decreased the number of the employed and reduced wages, while the enormous +increase in population during the eighteenth century multiplied the number +of the idle and the poor. It is true that the wealth of the country became +much greater through the development of new resources, but the profits +were distributed among the few and gave no relief to the majority. The +government was indifferent to the sufferings of the poor, to the severity +of the penal code, to the horrors of the slave traffic. In Great Britain +the Habeas Corpus act was suspended, public assemblies were forbidden, the +press was more narrowly restricted, right of petition was limited, and the +legal definition of treason was greatly extended; in Scotland the +barbarous statute of transportation for political offenses was revived; in +Ireland industry and commerce were discouraged. + +The re-accession of the Tories to power in 1807, followed by their long +ascendancy and abuse of power, led inevitably to a revival of the +questions of revolution and of reform. Lord Byron, Shelley and Leigh Hunt +were among the leaders of this second band of agitators, the "new camp," +as Professor Dowden has designated them. It was their love of humanity, +perhaps to a greater degree than their poetic genius and their æsthetic +ideals, that made these men akin. Of the four poets with whom we deal +Keats alone was comparatively indifferent to the strife about him. + + * * * * * + +Besides the political background of the times, personal influence and +literary imitation enter into consideration in the present study. +Especially in the case of Hunt, whose unique personality has been so +variously interpreted, a brief biographical review is necessary. James +Henry Leigh Hunt was born October 19, 1784, in the village of Southgate, +Middlesex. He was descended on the father's side from "Tory cavaliers" of +West Indian adoption, and on the mother's from American Quakers of Irish +extraction--an exotic combination of Celtic and Creole strains which never +coalesced but in turn affected his temperament. His father was an engaging +and gifted clergyman who quoted Horace and drank claret--a sanguine, +careless child of the South who made the acquaintance alike of good +society and of debtor's prisons. This parent's cheerfulness and courage +were his most fortunate legacies to his son; a speculative turn in matters +of religion and government and a general financial irresponsibility +constituted his most unfortunate legacy. His mother was as shrinking as +his father was convivial, but, like her husband, possessed a strong sense +of duty and of loyalty. Her son inherited her love of books and of nature. +Of his heritage from his parents Leigh Hunt wrote: "I may call myself, in +every sense of the word ... a son of mirth and melancholy;... And, indeed, +as I do not remember to have ever seen my mother smile, except in +sorrowful tenderness, so my father's shouts of laughter are now ringing in +my ears."[1] + +As Leigh Hunt was heir to his ancestry in an unusual degree, so in an +extraordinary measure was the child father of the man. The atmosphere of +the home, tense with discussions of theology and politics and bitter with +hardships of poverty and prisons, gave him a precocious acquaintance with +weighty matters and with many miseries. In 1791 he entered Christ's +Hospital. Like Shelley he rebelled against the time-honored custom of +fagging, and chose instead a beating every night with a knotted +handkerchief. He avoided personal encounters in self-defense, but was +valiant enough where others were concerned, or where a principle was +involved. Haydon said: "He was a man who would have died at the stake for +a principle, though he might have cried like a child from physical pain, +and would have screamed still louder if he put his foot in the gutter! Yet +not one iota of recantation would have quivered on his lips, if all the +elysium of all the religions on earth had been offered and realized to +induce him to do so."[2] + +His wonderful power of forming friendships--a power with which the present +study is so much concerned--was first developed at Christ's Hospital. As +he sentimentally expressed it, "the first heavenly taste it gave me of +that most spiritual of the affections. I use the word 'heavenly' +advisedly; and I call friendship the most spiritual of the affections, +because even one's kindred, in partaking of our flesh and blood, become, +in a manner, mixed up with our entire being. Not that I would disparage +any other form of affection, worshipping as I do, all forms of it, love in +particular, which in its highest state, is friendship and something more. +But if I ever tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those +friendships which I entertained at school, before I dreamt of any maturer +feeling."[3] Like Shelley, Hunt had so great an inclination to +sentimentalize and idealize friendship that sometimes after the first +brief rhapsody of fresh acquaintance he suffered bitter disillusionment. +The majority, however, of the ties formed were lasting.[4] + +The abridgements of the _Spectator_, set Hunt as a school task, instilled +a dislike of prose-writing that may account for his preference through +life for verse composition, although he was by nature less a poet than an +essayist. From Cooke's edition of the _British Poets_ he learned to love +Gray, Collins, Thomson, Blair and Spenser--influences responsible in part +for his dislike of eighteenth century convention and for his historical +prominence in the romantic movement. Spenser later became the literary +passion of his life. Other books which he read at this period were Tooke's +_Pantheon_, Lemprière's _Classical Dictionary_, and Spence's _Polymetis_, +three favorites with Keats; _Peter Wilkins_, _Thalaba_ and _German +Romances_, three favorites with Shelley. Later Hunt and Shelley's reading +was closely paralleled in Godwin's _Political Justice_, _Lucretius_, +_Pliny_, _Plato_, _Aristotle_, _Voltaire_, _Condorcet_ and the +_Dictionnaire Philosophique_. With the years Hunt's list swelled to an +almost incredible degree. It was through books that he knew life. + +He left Christ Hospital in 1799. The eight years spent there were his only +formal preparation for a literary profession. He greatly regretted his +lack of a university education, but he consoled himself by quoting with +true Cockney spirit Goldsmith's saying: "London is the first of +Universities."[5] Through his father's connections he met many prominent +men in London and was made much of. This premature association accounts +for some of the arrogance so conspicuous in his early journalistic work, +which, in middle life, sobered down into a harmless vanity. + +In 1808 Hunt started a Sunday newspaper, _The Examiner_. The letter +tendering his resignation[6] of a position in the office of the Secretary +of War, coming from an inexperienced man of twenty-four is pompous in tone +and heavy with the weight of his duty to the English nation. His +subsequent assurance and boldness resulted in 1812 in his being indicted +for a libel of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and in an +imprisonment for two years dating from February 15, 1813. His elder +brother John, the publisher of the paper, served the same sentence in a +separate prison. They shared between them a fine of £1,000. By special +dispensation Hunt's family was allowed to reside with him in prison and, +stranger still, he was allowed to continue his work on the libellous +journal. At the same time he wrote in jail the _Descent of Liberty_ and +part of the _Story of Rimini_. He transformed his prison yard into a +garden and his prison room into a bower by papering the walls with +trellises of roses and by coloring his ceiling like the sky. His books and +piano-forte, his flowers and plaster casts surrounded him as at home. Old +friends gathered about and new ones sought him as a martyr to the liberal +cause. + +But the picture has a darker side which it is necessary to notice in order +to understand Hunt's personal relations. An imaginative and over-sensitive +brain in a feeble body had peopled his childhood with creatures of fear, +the precursors of the morbid fancies of later years. From 1805 to 1807 he +suffered from a trouble that seems to have been mental rather than +physical, probably a form of melancholia or hypochondria. He tortured +himself with problems of metaphysics and philosophy. He was haunted with +the hallucination that he was deficient in physical courage, and therefore +subjected himself to all kinds of tests. At the beginning of his +imprisonment he was suffering from a second attack of his malady. The +injurious effects upon his health of close confinement at this time can be +traced to the end of his life. After his release his morbid fear of +cowardice and his habit of seclusion were so strong upon him that for +months at a time he would not venture out upon the streets. Yet in spite +of all this and of frequent illnesses, his animal spirits were invincible. +His optimism was proverbial; indeed, it was a part of his religion. +Coventry Patmore tells us that on entering a room and being presented to +Hunt for the first time, he received the greeting "This is a beautiful +world, Mr. Patmore."[7] His wonderful fancy colored his life as it +colored his poetry. With his flowers and his friends and his fancies he +turned life into a perpetual Arcadia. It has been many times asserted that +Leigh Hunt was morally weak. His self-depreciation is largely responsible +for such assertions. It is true that he fell short of great accomplishment +and that he was guilty of small foibles which Haydon exaggerated into +"petticoat twaddling and Grandisonian cant."[8] Yet the struggle and the +suffering of his life show more virility and nobility than he is generally +credited with, and prove that beneath a veneer of affectation lay strong +and healthy qualities. + +A second lasting and disastrous result that followed Hunt's incarceration +and that greatly affected his relations with Byron and Shelley was the +crippling of his finances. While it cannot be said that he ever showed any +real business ability, yet, at the beginning of the trials for libel, his +money matters were in fair condition. The heavy fine and costs permanently +disabled him. In 1821 his affairs were in such a bad state that, with the +hope of bettering them, he left England on a precarious journalistic +venture, an injudicious step, the cause of which can be traced to the +lingering effects of his labors in the cause of liberalism. From 1834 to +1840 his misfortunes reached a climax. He sold his books to get something +to eat. The pain of giving up his beloved _Parnaso Italiano_ was like that +of a violinist parting with his instrument. He lived in continual fear of +arrest for debt. At the same time, family troubles and ill-health combined +to torment him. + +In 1844 Sir Percy Shelley gave him an annuity of £120, and in 1847, the +same year of the benefit performance of _Every Man in His Humour_, he was +granted through the efforts of Lord John Russell, Macaulay and Carlyle, an +annual pension of £200 on the Civil List. There were also two separate +grants of £200 each from the Royal Bounty, one from William IV, and the +other from Queen Victoria. In his last years there is no mention made of +want.[9] + +Hunt's attitude in respect to money obligations was unique, but +well-defined and consistent. It was not, as is often inferred, either +puling or unscrupulous.[10] He was absolutely incapable of the Skimpole +vices.[11] His dilemmas were not due to indolence. On the contrary, he +labored indefatigably as results show. The trouble was his "hugger-mugger" +management, as Carlyle expressed it. He adopted William Godwin's doctrine +that the distribution of property should depend on justice and necessity, +and thought with him that the teachers of religion were pernicious in +treating the practice of justice "not as a debt, but as an affair of +spontaneous generosity and bounty. They have called upon the rich to be +clement and merciful to the poor. The consequence of this has been that +the rich, when they bestowed the slender pittance of their enormous +wealth in acts of charity, as they were called, took merit to themselves +for what they gave, instead of considering themselves delinquents for what +they withheld."[12] Godwin held gratitude to be a superstition. + +Consequently, when in need, Hunt thought he had a right to assistance from +such friends as had the wherewithal to give. He accepted obligations, as +will be shown in the following chapters, much as a matter of course.[13] +But even in his worst distresses, he never desired nor accepted +promiscuous charity; and he did not always willingly accept aid even from +his friends. He refused offers of help from Trelawney. He returned a bank +bill sent him by his sister-in-law, £5 sent by De Wilde as part of the +Compensation Fund, and $500 presented by James Russell Lowell. In 1832 +Reynell forfeited £200 as security for Hunt. Twenty years later, on the +payment of the first installment of the Shelley legacy, Hunt discharged +the debt.[14] He rejected several offers to pay his fine at the time of +his imprisonment.[15] Mary Shelley, who more than any one had cause to +complain of Hunt's attitude in money matters, wrote in 1844 in announcing +to him the forthcoming annuity from her son: "I know your real delicacy +about money matters."[16] + +In the _Correspondence_ there are mysterious allusions made by Hunt and by +his son Thornton to a veiled influence on Hunt's life, to some one who +acted as trustee for him and who, without his knowledge or consent, made +indiscriminating appeals in his behalf. The discovery of refusals and +repulses led him to write the following to William Story, through whom +came Lowell's offer: "Nor do I think the man truly generous who cannot +both give and receive. But, my dear Story, my heart has been deeply +wounded, some time back, in consequence of being supposed to carry such +opinions to a practical extreme.... It gave me a shock so great that, as +long as I live, it will be impossible for me to forego the hope of +outliving all similar chances, by conduct which none can +misinterpret."[17] + + * * * * * + +Leigh Hunt's work which comes into the period of his association with +Byron, Shelley and Keats falls into four divisions: his theatrical +criticism, his political journals, his poetry and his miscellaneous +essays. The first and the last, although important in themselves, do not +enter into his relations with the three men in question and will not be +considered here. His political activity is important in his relations with +Byron and Shelley; his poetry in his relations with Keats and Shelley. + +In Leigh Hunt's career, the step most significant in its far-reaching +effects was the establishment of _The Examiner_.[18] Its professed object +was the discussion of politics. It contained, in addition to foreign and +provincial intelligence, criticism of the theatre, of literature, and of +the fine arts. Full reports were given of the proceedings in Parliament. +At different times, various series of articles appeared, such as the +_Essays on Methodism_ by Hunt, and _The Round Table_ by Hunt and Hazlitt. +Fox-Bourne says that previous to Hunt's _Examiner_ there had been weeklies +or "essay sheets" such as Defoe, Steele, Addison and Goldsmith had +developed, and that there had been dailies or "news sheets" which gave +bare facts, but that _The Examiner_ was the first to give the news +faithfully in essay style.[19] It soon raised the character of the +weeklies. During the first year the circulation reached 2,200, a large +number at that time. Carlyle said: "I well remember how its weekly coming +was looked for in our village in Scotland. The place of its delivery was +besieged by an eager crowd, and its columns furnished the town talk till +the next number came."[20] Redding says "everybody in those days read _The +Examiner_."[21] + +The prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary +journalism:[22] + + "mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably + merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and + quite as feeble in criticism. You are invited to a literary + conversation, and you find nothing but scandal and commonplace. There + is a flourish of trumpets, and enter Tom Thumb. There is an + earthquake and a worm is thrown up.... The gentleman who until lately + conducted the THEATRICAL DEPARTMENT in the _News_ will criticise the + Theatre in the EXAMINER; and as the public have allowed the + possibility of IMPARTIALITY in that department, we do not see why the + same possibility may not be obtained in POLITICS." + +Then followed a declaration against party as a factor in politics: party, +it was declared, should not exist "abstracted from its utility"; in the +present day every man must belong to some class; "he is either Pittite or +Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberforcite or Burdettite; though, at the same time, +two thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason +call themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites."[23] +Although _The Examiner_ thus firmly announced its intentions, nevertheless +in the heat of political contest it soon became the organ of a group of +men known as "reformers," who were laboring and clamoring for +constitutional and administrative improvement. It became the avowed enemy +of the Tory party and its journals, and in particular of the ministry +during the long Tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself. + +The prospectus likewise announced an intention to reform the manners and +morals of the age. Hunt could write a sermon with the same ease as a song +or a satire. Horse-racing, cock-fighting and prize-fighting were +condemned; most of all the publication of scandal and crime. A passage on +advertisements is humorous and still of living interest: + + "the public shall neither be tempted to listen to somebody in the + shape of wit who turns out to be a lottery-keeper, nor seduced to + hear a magnificent oration which finishes by retreating into a + peruke, or rolling off into a blacking ball ... and as there is + perhaps about one person in a hundred who is pleased to see two or + three columns occupied with the mutabilities of cotton and the + vicissitudes of leather, the proprietors will have as little to do + with bulls and raw-hides, as with lottery-men and wig-makers." + +The editorials, which occupied the foremost columns of the paper, attacked +corruption and injustice of every kind without respect of persons, +currying favor with neither party nor individual, and laboring above all +for the people. International relations and continental conditions were +kept track of, but chief prominence was given to domestic affairs. The +editor warred against all abuses of power in the cabinet and in all +offices under the crown. In particular he attacked with merciless +persistence the Prince Regent in regard to his private life and his public +conduct, and his brother Frederick the Duke of York, for his inefficiency +as Commander-in-Chief of the army.[24] His definition of the English Army +was "a host of laced jackets and long pigtails."[25] He condemned the +numerous subsidies of the crown, the royal pensions and salaries for +nominal service. He ridiculed the divine right of kings and exposed court +scandal and immorality. The chief measures for which he labored were +Catholic Emancipation; reform of Parliamentary representation; liberty of +the press; reduction and equalization of taxes; greater discretion in +increasing the public debt; education of the poor and amelioration of +their sufferings; abolition of child-labor and of the slave trade; reform +of military discipline, of prison conditions, and of the criminal and +civil laws, particularly those governing debtors. + +It is not a matter of marvel that the paper made hosts of enemies on every +side. Charges of libel quickly followed its onslaughts. Before the paper +was a year old a prosecution was begun in connection with the Major Hogan +and Mrs. Clarke case,[26] but it was dropped when an investigation was +begun by the House of Commons. Within a year's time after this prosecution +a second indictment was brought because of the sentence: "Of all monarchs +since the Revolution the successor of George the Third will have the +finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular."[27] The _Morning Chronicle_ +copied it, and was indicted, but both cases were dismissed. The third +offense was the quotation of an article by John Scott on the cruelty of +military flogging[28] but, like the others, this prosecution came to +nothing. + +The fourth and most disastrous misdemeanor was libel of the Prince Regent, +a man of shocking morals and of unstable character. Before his appointment +as Regent he had leaned to the Whig party and advocated Catholic +Emancipation, but at his accession to power he retained the Tory ministry. +The Whigs were greatly angered in consequence, and _The Examiner_ took it +upon itself to voice their indignation.[29] At a dinner given at the +Freemason's Tavern on St. Patrick's day, March 22, 1812, Lord Moira, an +old friend of the Prince's, omitted mentioning him in his speech. Later, +when a toast was proposed to the Prince, it was greeted with hisses. Mr. +Sheridan, because of Lord Moira's omission, spoke later in the evening in +defense of the Regent, but he, too, was received with hisses. The _Morning +Chronicle_ reported the dinner; the _Morning Post_ replied with fulsome +praise of the Prince; _The Examiner_ with its usual alacrity joined in the +fray and took sides with the _Chronicle_, dissecting, phrase by phrase, +the adulation heaped upon the Prince by the _Post_. The following is the +bitterest part of the polemic against him: + + "What person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would + imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 'Glory of + the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and + reproaches!--that this 'Protector of the arts' had named a wretched + foreigner his historical painter, in disparagement or in ignorance of + the merits of his own countrymen!--that this 'Mæcenas of the age' + patronized not a single deserving writer!--that this 'Breather of + eloquence' could not say a few decent extempore words, if we are to + judge, at least, from what he said to his regiment on its embarkation + for Portugal!--that this 'Conqueror of hearts' was the disappointer + of hopes!--that this 'Exciter of desire' [bravo! Messieurs of the + Post!]--this 'Adonis in loveliness', was a corpulent man of + fifty!--in short, this _delightful_, _blissful_, _wise_, + _pleasurable_, _honourable_, _virtuous_, _true_ and _immortal_ + prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in + disgrace, a dispiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and + demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single + claim on the gratitude of his country, or the respect of + posterity!"[30] + +It was said that the chief offense was given by the statement that "this +'Adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent man of fifty." The article, +although true, was of doubtful expediency and offensively violent and +personal. Further, the unremitting attacks of _The Examiner_ had been +neither dignified nor charitable in their searchlight penetration into the +Prince's private affairs.[31] An indictment for libel naturally followed +at once. Lord Brougham's "masterly defense"[32] failed to avert the +determined efforts of the prosecution to make an example of the editor and +the publisher of _The Examiner_. They were sentenced to the imprisonment +and fine already mentioned. They refused all overtures for alleviation of +the sentence:--overtures from the government; from the Whigs who, in the +person of Perry of the _Morning Chronicle_, proposed to obtain a +compromise from the prosecution by threatening the Regent with the +publication of state secrets from friends; and even from a juror who +offered to pay the fine. Leigh Hunt wrote: "I am an Englishman setting an +example to my children and my country; and it would be hard, under all +these circumstances, if I could not suffer my extremity rather than +disgrace myself by effeminate lamentation or worse compromise."[33] The +two Hunts thought that the serving of the sentence would be beneficial to +the liberal cause, particularly in increasing the freedom of the press. + +The general method of _The Examiner_ was vigorous attack. There was no +circumlocution, no mincing of language, but aggressive candour, and, when +it was considered necessary, wholesale censure and vituperation. A typical +illustration is given in this passage, describing a dinner of the Common +Council: + + "It is the fashion just now to call Bonaparte Antichrist, the Beast + with Seven Heads and Ten Horns, ... but if you wish to see those who + have the 'real mark of the beast' upon them, go to a City dinner, + and after battles for trout and the buffetings for turtle, after the + rattling of wine glasses and plethoric throats, after the swillings + and the gormandizings, and the maudlin hobs-and-nobs, and the + disquisitions on smothered rabbits, and the bloated hectics, and the + blinking eyes and slurred voices, and the hiccups, the rantings, and + the roars, hear an unwieldy Loan-jobber descanting on our Glorious + King and Unshaken Constitution. The stranger, that after this sight, + goes to see the beasts in the Tower, is an enemy to all true + climax."[34] + +In actual results _The Examiner_ accomplished a great deal in the counter +movement for reform. While Hunt had no original or constructive political +theory, little power of philosophical or logical thought, and no special +equipment besides wide general knowledge, he had great sincerity and +courage and a defiant attitude toward corruption of all kinds.[35] He was +himself absolutely incorruptible. If he preferred any form of government +above another--for he was more interested in the pure administration of an +established government than in the form itself--his preference was for a +liberal monarchy. Notwithstanding this moderate attitude, _The Examiner_ +was accused of radical, even revolutionary opinions. It was charged with +being an enemy of the constitution, a traitor to the king, a foe to the +established church.[36] Hunt's positive achievement in political +journalism was two-fold: he obtained additional freedom for the press and +he elevated journalistic style to a literary level. Monkhouse says that +Hunt "established for the first time a paper which fought, and fought +effectively, with prejudice and privilege, with superstition and tyranny, +which was a bearer of light to all men of Liberal principles in that +country, and set the example of the independent thought and fearless +expression of opinion, which has since become the very light and power of +the press."[37] Of the Hunt brothers Coventry Patmore writes: "I verily +believe that, without the manly firmness, the immaculate political +honesty, and the vigorous good sense of the one, and the exquisite genius +and varied accomplishments, guided by the all-pervading and all-embracing +humanity of the other, we should at this moment have been without many of +those writers and thinkers on whose unceasing efforts the slow but sure +march of our political, and with it, our social regeneration as a people +mainly depends."[38] + +Hunt assisted in bringing about reforms in the interest of the people by +calling attention to abuses that demanded investigation, and by advocating +correction. His ideas on national finance and practical administration are +wonderful when contrasted with his inefficiency in his own affairs. He +lacked largeness of perspective and masculine grasp. His work is all the +more remarkable when his temperament and tastes are considered; for his +was a nature, as Professor Dowden has put it, "framed less for the rough +and tumble of English radical politics than for 'dance and Provençal Song +and sunburnt mirth.'" As a factor in the reform movement begun in the +first decade of the nineteenth century Leigh Hunt has not yet come into +his own.[39] His was no cosmic theory, nor search after the origin of +evil, nor magnificent rebellion like Shelley's and Byron's; but in his own +smaller way he played as courageous and as effective a part in the cause +of liberty as those greater spirits.[40] + +In 1810, the two brothers had established a quarterly, _The Reflector_, of +much the same nature and creed as _The Examiner_. It was unsuccessful and +was discontinued after the fourth number. It differed from its +predecessor in combining literature with politics. Hunt's reason for this +innovation displays a rare power to judge of contemporary movements: +"Politics, in times like these, should naturally take the lead in +periodical discussion, because they have an importance almost unexampled +in history, and because _they are now, in their turn, exhibiting their +reaction upon literature, as literature in the preceding age exhibited its +action upon them_."[41] + +Although Hunt continued to be editor of _The Examiner_ until he went to +Italy in 1822, his aggressive political activity seemed to die out of him +after his release from prison. He was never so prominently again before +the public; in 1828, he ceased altogether to write on political questions. +He retired more and more into the seclusion of his books, and from about +1849, denied himself to all but a small circle of congenial spirits. + +Hunt, like the others of his group, was deeply influenced by the liberal +movement in religion as well as in politics. He had seen his father's +progress from the Anglican Church through the Unitarian[42] to the +Universalist. At the age of twelve he repudiated the doctrine of eternal +punishment and declared himself a believer in the "exclusive goodness of +futurity." In his early manhood he decried the superstition of +Catholicism, the intolerance of Calvinism, and the emotionality of +Methodism. Yet he acknowledged a Great First Cause and a Divine Paternity. +He refused, like Shelley, to recognize the existence of evil, and thought +everything finally good and beautiful in nature.[43] He believed that +universal happiness would come about through individual excellence, +through performance of duty and avoidance of excess. Those who disagreed +with him in this respect he considered blasphemers of nature. As Lord +Houghton in his address in the cemetery of Kensal Green on the unveiling +of a bust of Hunt remarked, he had an "absolute superstition for good." +Similar testimony was borne by R. H. Horne when he said that Chaucer's +"'Ah, benedicite' was falling forever from his lips."[44] His religion was +one of charity and cheerfulness, of love and truth, which is but to affirm +that the humanitarian moral of _Abou Ben Adhem_ was realized in his own +life.[45] On the death of Shelley's child William, Hunt wrote to the +bereaved father: "I do not know that a soul is born with us; but we seem, +to me, to _attain_ to a soul, some later, some earlier; and when we have +got that, there is a look in our eye, a sympathy in our cheerfulness, and +a yearning and grave beauty in our thoughtfulness that seems to say, 'Our +mortal dress may fall off when it will; our trunk and our leaves may go; +we have shot up our blossom into an immortal air.'"[46] + +Hunt, like Byron and Shelley, had curious ideas about the relation of the +sexes, ideas which Hazlitt said, were "always coming out like a rash."[47] +This "crotchet" was taken over likewise from Godwin, who thought it +checked the progress of the mind for one individual to be obliged to live +for a long period in conformity to the desires of another and therefore +disapproved of the marriage relation. But, like Godwin and Shelley, Hunt +bowed to the conventions. His life was a singularly pure one. + +The influence of Hunt's poetry upon Keats and Shelley, in its general +romantic tendencies, particularly in respect to diction and metre, +deserves equal consideration with the influence of his politics upon +Shelley and Byron. _Juvenilia_, a volume of Hunt's poems collected by his +father and issued by subscription in 1801 contains original work and +translations which show wide reading for a boy of seventeen and some +fluency in versification. Otherwise the writer's own opinion in 1850 is +correct: "My work was a heap of imitations, all but absolutely +worthless.... I wrote 'odes' because Collins and Gray had written them, +'pastorals' because Pope had written them, 'blank verse' because Akenside +and Thomson had written blank verse, and a 'Palace of Pleasure' because +Spenser had written a 'Bower of Bliss.'"[48] Hunt's chief defect in taste, +that of introducing in the midst of highly poetical conceptions, +disagreeable physical conditions or symptoms, is as conspicuous in this +volume[49] as in his more mature work. + +The _Feast of the Poets_, 1814,[50] is a light satire in the manner of Sir +John Suckling's _Session of the Poets_. It spares few poets since the days +of Milton and Dryden, and it includes in its revilings most of Hunt's +contemporaries. Gifford, the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, comes in +for the worst castigation. It is not remarkable that the satire +antagonized people on every side in the literary world as _The Examiner_ +had done in the political. Hunt believed that "its offences, both of +commission and of omission, gave rise to some of the most inveterate +enmities" of his life.[51] It is important in the history to be discussed +in a later chapter of the literary feud which resulted in the creation of +the so-called Cockney School. Later revisions included some poets who had +been intentionally ignored at first in both poems and notes, or who, like +Shelley and Keats, naturally would not have been included in the 1814 +edition; and it softened down the harsh criticism of those who were +unfortunate enough to have been included, except Gifford, whom Hunt could +never forgive. The irony is fresh and there are occasional spicy flashes +of wit. The narrative is clear and the characterization vivid. Byron +pronounced it "the best Session we have."[52] + +The _Descent of Liberty_,[53] 1815, is a masque celebrating the triumph of +Liberty, in the person of the Allies, over the Enchanter, Napoleon. There +is little plot or human interest; the natural, the supernatural, and the +mythical are confusedly interwoven. The pictorial effect, however, is one +of great richness and color, and some of the songs and passages have fine +lyrical feeling and melody. It is interesting in this connection to note a +vague general resemblance between the _Descent of Liberty_ and Shelley's +_Queen Mab_ (1812-13) in the worship of Liberty, in the hope and promise +of her ultimate triumph, and in the wild imagination which Hunt probably +never again equalled. It is not likely, however, that Hunt knew Shelley's +poem at the time he was writing his own. + +_The Story of Rimini_, produced in 1816 and dedicated to Lord Byron, is +the most important of Hunt's works in a consideration of his relations +with the enemies of the Cockney School[54] and with Byron, Shelley, and +Keats. Byron criticised it severely. Shelley thought it carried uncommon +and irresistible interest with it, but he agreed with Byron in thinking +that the style had fettered Hunt's genius.[55] Keats wrote a sonnet[56] on +_Rimini_ in 1817, and in his own works shows unmistakably the influence of +Hunt's poem in diction and versification. + +The story is founded, of course, on the Francesca episode in the fifth +canto of the _Inferno_ of Dante. It was a dangerous thing for Hunt to +undertake an elaboration of the marvelous episode of Dante. Had he been a +man of greater genius it would have been a risk; as it was, he produced a +diffuse and sentimental narrative which bears little resemblance to the +singular perfection of the original. On the other hand, the _Story of +Rimini_ does possess indubitable merits: directness of narrative, minute +observation, sensuous richness of pictorial description, and occasional +delicate felicity of language.[57] Byron wrote of the third canto which he +saw in manuscript: + + "You have excelled yourself--if not all your contemporaries--in the + canto which I have just finished. I think it above the former books; + but that is as it should be; it rises with the subject, the + conception seems to me perfect, and the execution perhaps as nearly + so as verse will admit. There is more originality than I recollect to + have seen elsewhere within the same compass, and frequent and great + happiness of expression." The faults he said were "occasional + quaintnesses and obscurity, and a kind of harsh and yet colloquial + compounding of epithets, as if to avoid saying common things in a + common way."[58] + +October 30, 1815, in reply to these objections Hunt sent forth this +defense: "we accomodate ourselves to certain habitual, sophisticated +phrases of _written_ language, and thus take away from real feeling of any +sort the only language _it ever actually uses_, which is the _spoken_ +language." At the same time he made a few alterations at Byron's +suggestion.[59] And again the latter wrote: "You have two excellent points +in that poem--originality and Italianism."[60] After the _Story of Rimini_ +appeared he wrote to Moore: "Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good +one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and +with poetry about it that will stand the test."[61] In 1818 Byron's +opinion had changed somewhat: + + "When I saw _Rimini_ in Ms., I told him I deemed it good poetry at + bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his + style was a system, or _upon system_, or some other such cant; and + when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless; so I said no more + to him, and very little to anyone else. He believed his trash of + vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be _old_ + English[62] ... Hunt, who had powers to make the _Story of Rimini_ as + perfect as a fable of Dryden, has thought fit to sacrifice his genius + to some unintelligible notion of Wordsworth, which I defy him to + explain.[63]... A friend of mine calls 'Rimini' _Nimini Pimini_; and + 'Foliage' _Follyage_. Perhaps he had a tumble in 'climbing trees in + the Hesperides'! But Rimini has a great deal of merit. There never + were so many fine things spoiled as in 'Rimini.'"[64] + +Hunt had a distinct theory of language based on a few crude principles. As +his practical application of them had its effect upon Keats, a somewhat +full consideration of them is desirable here. The first and most +conspicuous one, promoted by what Hunt called "an idiomatic spirit in +verse,"[65] was a preference for colloquial words.[66] He mistook for +grace and fluency of diction, a turn of phrase that was without poetic +connection and often in very poor taste. In dialogue, particularly, the +effect is undignified. This professed doctrine was a fuller +development[67] of the statement in the Advertisement to the _Lyrical +Ballads_ of 1798: in Hunt's opinion, Wordsworth failed to consider duly +meter in its essential relations to poetry, and while Hunt himself desired +a "return to nature and a natural style" he thought that Wordsworth had +substituted puerility for simplicity and affectation for nature. Hunt's +acknowledged model for the poem was Dryden,[68] but Hunt's colloquial +phrasing, peculiar diction, elision,[69] and loose expansion approach much +more closely to Chamberlayne's _Pharronida_ (1689) than to anything in +Dryden.[70] The following extract is one of many that might be cited as +suggestive of Hunt's _Story of Rimini_: + + "To his cold clammy lips + Joining her balmy twins, she from them sips + So much of death's oppressing dews, that, by + That touch revived, his soul, though winged to fly + Her ruined seat, takes time to breathe + These sad notes forth: "farewell, my dear, beneath + My fainting spirits sink."[71] + +Occasionally Hunt's choice of colloquial words fitted the subject, as in +the _Feast of the Poets_, where humor and satire permit such expressions +as "bards of Old England had all been rung in," "twiddling a sunbeam," +"bloated his wits," "tricksy tenuity" or such words as "smack," "pop-in" +and "sing-song." His poetical epistles suffer without injury such +departures from dignified diction, but in other cases, of which the _Story +of Rimini_ is a notable example, a grave subject in the garb of everyday +language is degraded into the incongruous and prosaic. It is in physical +descriptions that this undignified diction most strikingly violates good +taste. Examples are: + + "And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree, + Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly." + + "So lightsomely dropped in, his lordly back, + His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance." + +Sometimes the prosaic quality of Hunt's diction is due to its being +pitched upon a merely "society" level: + + "May I come in? said he:--it made her start,-- + That smiling voice;--she coloured, pressed her heart + A moment, as for breath and then with free + And usual tone said, 'O Yes,--certainly.'" + +Such a treatment of the meeting of Paolo and Francesca in the bower is +wholly inadequate to the situation and the emotion of the moment. +Additional illustrations of his colloquialisms from the _Story of Rimini_ +and from other poems of the same period are: "to bless his shabby eyes," +"that to the stander near looks awfully," "banquet small, and cheerful, +and considerate," "clipsome waist," "jauntiness behind and strength +before" (description of a horse), "lend their streaming tails to the fond +air," "sweepy shape," "cored in our complacencies," "lumps of flowers," +"smooth, down-arching thigh," "tapering with tremulous mass internally." + +Hunt's second principle to be considered is the excessive use of vague and +passionless words. Instances of such words to be found very frequently in +his poetry are: fond, amiable, fair, rural, cordial, cheerful, gentle, +calm, smooth, serene, earnest, lovely, balmy, dainty, mild, meek, tender, +kind, elegant, quiet, sweet, fresh, pleasant, warm, social, and many +others of like character. + +A third principle was the employment of unusual words; examples are found +in the _Story of Rimini_ in the first edition and in other poems produced +about this same time. In the _Poetical Works_, 1832, most of them have +been discarded. The preface states that the "occasional quaintnesses and +neologisms" which "formerly disfigured the poems did not arise from +affectation but from the sheer license of animal spirits"; that they are +not worth defending and that he has left only two in the _Story of +Rimini_, "swirl" and "cored." "Swaling" had been the most famous one in +the poem because of the ridicule heaped upon it by the enemies of the +Cockney School. + +To use ordinary words in an extraordinary sense was a fourth principle. +The effect was often extremely awkward. Core passes as a synonym for +heart; fry occurs in _Rimini_ in a strange sense; hip and tiptoe are +employed with a special Huntian significance. Nouns and adjectives are +used as verbs and verbs as nouns and adjectives with an unpoetical effect: +cored (verb); drag (noun); frets (noun); feel (noun); patting (adjective); +spanning (adjective); lull'd (adjective); smearings; measuring; +doings.[72] + +The use of compounds is a fifth distinguishing feature. Such combinations +are found as bathing-air, house-warm lips, side-long pillowed meekness, +fore-thoughted chess, pin-drop silence, tear-dipped feeling. + +The sixth and last peculiarity is the preference for adjectives in _y_ and +_ing_, many of them of his own coinage; for adverbs in _ly_; and for +unauthorized or awkward comparatives: examples are plumpy (cheeks), knify, +perky, sweepy, farmy, bosomy, pillowy, arrowy, liny, leafy, scattery, +winy, globy; hasting, silvering, doling, blubbing, firming, thickening, +quickening, differing, perking; lightsomely, refreshfully, thrillingly, +kneadingly, lumpishly, smilingly, preparingly, crushingly,[73] finelier, +martialler, tastefuller, apter. + +The colloquial vocabulary, the familiar tone, and the expansion of thought +into phrases and clauses where it would have gained by condensed +expression, give to the _Story of Rimini_ a prosaic and eccentric style. +Yet Hunt declared he held in horror eccentricity and prosiness.[74] + +In a discussion of the influence of Leigh Hunt upon the versification of +his contemporaries and successors it is necessary to consider not only his +theory but also the active part played by him as a conscious reviver of +the older heroic couplet. In this reaction against the school of Pope, as +also in the use of blank verse, he showed great independence in discarding +approved models. The notes added to the _Feast of the Poets_ in 1814, when +it was republished from the _Reflector_ of 1812, are important in this +connection. They show a wide familiarity with modern poetry. He writes: + + "The late Dr. Darwin, whose notion of poetical music, in common with + that of Goldsmith and others, was of the school of Pope, though his + taste was otherwise different, was perhaps the first, who by carrying + it to the extreme pitch of sameness, and ringing it affectedly in + one's ears, gave the public at large a suspicion that there was + something wrong in its nature. But of those who saw its deficiencies, + part had the ambition without the taste or attention requisite for + striking into a better path, and became eccentric in another extreme; + while others, who saw the folly of both, were content to keep the + beaten track and set a proper example to neither. By these appeals, + however, the public ear has been excited to expect something better; + and perhaps there was never a more favourable time than the present + for an attempt to bring back the real harmonies of the English + heroic, and to restore it to half the true principle of its music, + variety. I am not here joining the cry of those, who affect to + consider Pope as no poet at all. He is, I confess, in my judgment, at + a good distance from Dryden, and at an immeasurable one from such men + as Spenser and Milton; but if the author of the _Rape of the Lock_, + of _Eloisa to Abelard_, and of the _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, is + no poet, then are fancy and feeling no properties belonging to + poetry. I am only considering his versification; and upon that point + I do not hesitate to say, that I regard him, not only as no master of + his art, but as a very indifferent practiser, and one whose + reputation will grow less and less, in proportion as the lovers of + poetry become intimate with his great predecessors, and with the + principles of musical beauty in general."[75] + +The remarks on Pope close with the hope that the imitation of the best +work of Dryden, Milton and Spenser "might lead the poets of the present +age to that proper mixture of sweetness and strength--of modern finish and +ancient variety--from which Pope and his rhyming facilities have so long +withheld us."[76] Hunt closes with an appeal for the return to Italian +models, and says that Hayley, in his _Triumphs of Temper_ was "the +quickest of our late writers to point out the great superiority of the +Italian school over the French." He protests against the wide influence of +Boileau.[77] + +The Introduction to the _Poetical Works_ of 1832 contains a concise and +technical statement of Hunt's theory of the heroic couplet. He argues that +the triplet tends to condensation, three lines instead of four; that it +carries onward the fervor of the poet's feeling, delivering him from the +ordinary laws of his verse, and that it expresses continuity. Of the +bracket he says: "I confess I like the very bracket that marks out the +triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the music of it. It has +a look like the bridge of a lute."[78] The use of the Alexandrine in the +heroic couplet, he avers, gives variety and energy. Double rhymes are +defended on historical grounds. For himself he claims credit as a +restorer, not an innovator, and prophesies that the perfection of the +heroic couplet is "to come about by a blending between the inharmonious +freedom of our old poets in general ... and the regularity of Dryden +himself.... If anyone could unite the vigor of Dryden with the ready and +easy variety of pause in the works of the late Mr. Crabbe, and the lovely +poetic consciousness in the _Lamia_ of Keats ... he would be a perfect +master of the rhyming couplet." A study of the heroic couplet from Dryden +to Shelley based on two hundred lines from each poet has yielded the +results indicated in the table on the following page. + +Professor Saintsbury says: "There is no doubt that his [Hunt's] +versification in _Rimini_ (which may be described as Chaucerian in basis +with a strong admixture of Dryden, further crossed and dashed slightly +with the peculiar music of the followers of Spenser, especially Browne and +Wither) had a very strong influence both on Keats and on Shelley, and that +it drew from them music much better than itself. This fluent, musical, +many-colored-verse was a capital medium for tale telling."[79] Professor +Herford marks it as the "starting point of that free or Chaucerian +treatment of the heroic couplet and of the colloquial style, eschewing +epigram and full of familiar turns, which Shelley in _Julian and Maddalo_, +and Keats in _Lamia_, made classical."[82] Mr. R. B. Johnson calls it "a +protest against the polished couplet of Pope--a protest already expressed +to some extent in the _Lyrical Ballads_, but through Hunt's influence, +guiding the pens of Keats, Shelley and some of his noblest successors."[83] +Mr. A. J. Kent says that "No one-sided sentiment of reaction against our +so-called Augustan literature disqualified Leigh Hunt from becoming, as he +afterwards became, the greatest master since the days of Dryden of the +heroic couplet."[84] Leigh Hunt's greatest mistake in the handling of the +couplet has been clearly pointed out by Mr. Colvin, who says that he +"blended the grave and the colloquial cadences of Dryden, without his +characteristic nerve and energy in either."[85] The late Dr. Garnett said +that the ease and variety of Dryden was restored by Hunt to English +literature.[86] Monkhouse pointed out that Keats and Shelley, more than +Hunt, reaped the rewards of his revivification of the heroic couplet. The +diffuseness of the diction of the _Story of Rimini_ results in a movement +weaker than Dryden's and less buoyant than Chaucer's. Yet the verse is +distinguished by a fluency and grace and melody that at times are very +pleasing. It had a notable influence on English verse--an influence begun +by others but strongly reinforced by Hunt. Further treatment of the +influence of Hunt's diction and versification upon Keats and Shelley is +reserved for chapters II and III of the present study. + + ---------------+------------------------------------------------- + |Dryden, + |_Absalom & Achitophel_, + |1682. + | +---------------------------------------------- + | |Wm. Chamberlayne, + | |_Pharronida_, 1689. + | + +------------------------------------------- + | | |Alexander Pope, + | | |_Dunciad_, 1727. + | | + +---------------------------------------- + | | | |Leigh Hunt,[80] + | | | |_Story of Rimini_, 1816. + | | | + +------------------------------------- + | | | | |John Keats, + | | | | |_I stood tiptoe_, 1817. + | | | | + +---------------------------------- + | | | | | |Keats, + | | | | | |_Sleep and Poetry_, 1817. + | | | | | + +------------------------------- + | | | | | | |Keats, + | | | | | | |_Endymion_, 1818. + | | | | | | + +---------------------------- + | | | | | | | |Keats,[81] + | | | | | | | |_Lamia_, 1820. + | | | | | | | + +------------------------- + | | | | | | | | |Shelley, + | | | | | | | | |_Julian & Maddalo_, 1819. + ---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+------------------------- + Run-on Couplets| 4|61| 1| 3|23|47|54|20|45 + Run-on Lines |16|71|12|26|41|48|44|35|52 + Triplets | 3| 0| 0| 2| 0| 0| 0| 5| 4 + Alexandrines | 3| 0| 1| 2| 0| 0| 3|12| 0 + ---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-- + +Hunt's next poetical work after _Rimini_ was _Foliage_, published in 1818. +It is a collection of original poems under the title _Greenwoods_, and of +translations under the title _Evergreens_.[87] In the preface Hunt +announces the main features to be a love of sociability, of the country, +and of the "fine imagination of the Greeks."[88] The first predilection +runs the gamut from "sociability" to "domestic interest" and is the most +fundamental characteristic of the author and of his writing. In the +preface to _One Hundred Romances of Real Life_ he declares sociability to +be "the greatest of all interests." It rarely failed to crop out when he +was writing even on the gravest and most impersonal of subjects. In his +intercourse with strangers, this same "sociability," added to a natural +kindliness and sympathy, caused a familiarity of bearing that was often +misunderstood. The _Nymphs_, the longest poem of the volume, is founded on +Greek mythology and is interesting in connection with Keats's poems on +classical subjects. Shelley said that the _Nymphs_ was "truly _poetical_, +in the intense and emphatic sense of the word. If 600 miles were not +between us, I should say what pity that _glib_ was not omitted, and that +the poem is not so faultless as it is beautiful."[89] In general Shelley +overestimated Hunt's poetry, though he saw some of its affectations. +Shorter pieces were epistles to Byron, Moore, Hazlitt and Lamb--a kind of +verse in which Hunt excelled, for his attitude and style were peculiarly +adapted to the familiar tone permissible in such writing. Among Hunt's +best poems may be counted the sonnets to Shelley, Keats, Haydon, Raphael, +and Kosciusko; those entitled the _Grasshopper and the Cricket_, _To the +Nile_, _On a Lock of Milton's Hair_, and the series on Hampstead. The +suburban charms of Hampstead were very dear to Hunt and he never tired of +celebrating them in poetry and in prose. No amount of derision from the +_Quarterly_ or _Blackwood's_ stopped him. The general characteristics of +_Foliage_ are much the same as those of the _Story of Rimini_. There are +poor lines and good ones, never sustained power, and no poetry of a very +high order. The subjects themselves are often unpoetical. Hunt obtrudes +himself too frequently in a breezy, offhand manner. Byron's opinion of the +book was scathing: + + "Of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love + upon a Nightmare, I think 'this monstrous Sagittary' the most + prodigious. _He_ (Leigh H.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded + himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure + simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of + _him_self in the _Morning Post_) for Vates in both senses and + nonsenses of the word. Did you [Moore] look at the translations of + his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so?--Did you + read his skimble-skamble about Wordsworth being at the head of his + own _profession_, in the _eyes_ of _those_ who followed it? I thought + that poetry was an _art_, or an _attribute_, and not a _profession_; + but be it one, is that ... at the head of _your_ profession in your + eyes?"[90] + +Other poems belonging to this period are _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus +and Ariadne_ in 1819, and a translation of Tasso's _Aminta_ in 1820. The +first two show Hunt's faculty for poetical narrative and description, and, +in common with Keats, a partiality for classical subjects. The three are +in no way radically different from the poems already considered. + +The _Literary Pocket Book_ which Hunt edited in 1820, 1821 and 1822, the +_New Monthly Magazine_ to which he began contributing in 1821, and the +_Literary Examiner_, which he established in 1823, complete the +enumeration of his writings during the period of his association with +Byron, Shelley and Keats. Beyond the contributions of Shelley and Keats to +the first and the reviews of Byron's poems in the third, they are +unimportant here. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Keats's meeting with Hunt--Growth of their friendship--Haydon's +intervention--Keats's residence with Hunt--His departure for Italy--Hunt's +Criticism of Keats's poetry--His influence on the _Poems of 1817_. + + +It was about the year 1815 that Keats showed to his former school friend, +Charles Cowden Clarke, the following sonnet, the first indication the +latter had that Keats had written poetry: + + "What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, + Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, + In his immortal spirit been as free + As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. + Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? + Think you he nought but prison walls did see, + Till, so unwilling thou unturn'dst the key? + Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! + In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair, + Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew + With daring Milton through the fields of air: + To regions of his own his genius true + Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair + When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?" + +This admiration, expressed before Keats had met Hunt, was due to the +influence of the Clarke family and to Keats's acquaintance with _The +Examiner_, which he saw regularly during his school days at Enfield and +which he continued to borrow from Clarke during his medical +apprenticeship. Clarke later showed to Leigh Hunt two or three of Keats's +poems. Of the reception of one of them (_How Many Bards Gild the Lapses of +Time_) Clarke said: + + "I could not but anticipate that Hunt would speak encouragingly, and + indeed approvingly, of the compositions--written, too, by a youth + under age; but my partial spirit was not prepared for the + unhesitating and prompt admiration which broke forth before he had + read twenty lines of the first poem."[91] + +Hunt invited Keats to visit him. Of this first meeting between the two +men, Clarke wrote: + + "That was a red letter day in the young poet's life, and one which + will never fade with me while memory lasts. The character and + expression of Keats's features would arrest even the casual passenger + in the street; and now they were wrought to a tone of animation that + I could not but watch with interest, knowing what was in store for + him from the bland encouragement, and Spartan deference in attention, + with fascinating conversational eloquence, that he was to encounter + and receive.... The interview, which stretched into three 'morning + calls', was the prelude to many after-scenes and saunterings about + Caen Wood and its neighborhood; for Keats was suddenly made a + familiar of the household, and was always welcomed."[92] + +Hunt's account of the meeting is as follows: + + "I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the exuberant + specimens of genuine though young poetry that were laid before me, + and the promise of which was seconded by the fine fervid countenance + of the writer. We became intimate on the spot, and I found the young + poet's heart as warm as his imagination. We read and we walked + together, and used to write verse of an evening upon a given subject. + No imaginative pleasure was left untouched by us, or unenjoyed; from + the recollections of the bards and patriots of old, to the luxury of + a summer rain at our window, or the clicking of the coal in the + winter-time. Not long afterwards, having the pleasure of entertaining + at dinner Mr. Godwin, Mr. Hazlitt, and Mr. Basil Montagu, I showed + the verses of my young friend, and they were pronounced to be as + extraordinary as I thought them."[93] + +Leigh Hunt discovered Keats, by no means a small thing, for as he himself +has said: "To admire and comment upon the genius that two or three hundred +years have applauded, and to discover what will partake of applause two or +three hundred years hence, are processes of a very different +description."[94] With the same power of prophetic discernment, writing in +1828, he realized to the full the greatness of Keats and predicted that +growth of his fame in the future which has since taken place.[95] Keats's +account of his reception is given in the sonnet _Keen fitful gusts are +whisp'ring here and there_: + + "For I am brimfull of the friendliness + That in a little cottage I have found; + Of fair hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, + And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd; + Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, + And faithful Petrarch gloriously crowned." + +The date of the introduction of Keats to Hunt has been placed variously +from November, 1815, to the end of the year 1816. He says: + + "It was not at Hampstead that I first saw Keats. It was in York + Buildings, in the New Road (No. 8), where I wrote part of the + _Indicator_--and he resided with me while in Mortimer Terrace, + Kentish Town (No. 13), where I concluded it. I mention this for the + curious in such things, among whom I am one."[96] + +If this statement were correct, it would make the meeting about two or +three years later than has generally been supposed, for Leigh Hunt did not +move to York Buildings until 1818, and he did not begin work on the +_Indicator_ until October, 1819. Clarke states positively that the meeting +took place at Hampstead. From this evidence Mr. Colvin has suggested the +early spring of 1816 as the most probable date.[97] What seems better +evidence than any that has yet been brought forward is a passage in _The +Examiner_ of June 1, 1817, in Hunt's review of Keats's _Poems_ of 1817, +where he says that the poet is a personal friend whom he announced to the +public a short time ago (this allusion can only be to an article in _The +Examiner_ of December 1, 1816) and that the friendship dates from "no +greater distance of time than the announcement above mentioned. We had +published one of his sonnets in our paper,[98] without knowing more of him +than of any other anonymous correspondent; but at the period in question a +friend brought us one morning some copies in verse, which he said were +from the pen of a youth.... We had not read more than a dozen lines when +we recognized a young poet indeed." This seems conclusive evidence that +the meeting did not take place until the winter of 1816, for Hunt's +testimony written in 1817, when the circumstance was fresh in his mind is +certainly more trustworthy than his impression of it at the time that he +revised his _Autobiography_ in 1859 at the age of seventy-five years. + +The two men, before they came in contact, had much in common, and Hunt's +influence, while in some cases an inspiring force, more often fostered +instincts already existing in Keats. Both possessed by nature a deep love +of poetry, color and melody, and both "were given to 'luxuriating' +somewhat voluptuously over the 'deliciousness' of the beautiful in art, +books or nature."[99] At the very beginning of their acquaintance, +notwithstanding a disparity in age of eleven years, they were wonderfully +drawn to each other. Spenser was their favorite poet. Both had a great +love for Chaucer, for Oriental fable and for Chivalric romance, and an +unusual knowledge of Greek myth. But even at the height of their intimacy, +the friendship seems to have remained more intellectual than personal, a +fact due no doubt to Keats's reserve and Hunt's "incuriousness."[100] +Except for this drawback Hunt considered the friendship ideal. He says: +"Mr. Keats and I were old friends of the old stamp, between whom there was +no such thing as obligation, except the pleasure of it. He enjoyed the +privilege of greatness with all whom he knew, rendering it delightful to +be obliged by him, and an equal, but not a greater delight, to oblige. It +was a pleasure to his friends to have him in their houses, and he did not +grude it."[101] + +Through Hunt, Keats was introduced to a circle of literary men whose +companionship was an important factor in his development, notably Haydon, +Godwin, Hazlitt, Shelley, Vincent Novello, Horace Smith, Cornelius Webbe, +Basil Montagu, the Olliers, Barry Cornwall, and later Wordsworth. + +For about a year following the meeting of the two, Hunt undoubtedly +exerted the strongest influence of any living man over the young poet. +Severn said that Keats's introduction to Hunt wrought a great change in +him and "intoxicated him with an excess of enthusiasm which kept by him +four or five years."[102] Mr. Forman says that "Charles Cowden Clarke, as +his early mentor, Leigh Hunt and Haydon as his most powerful encouragers +at the important epoch of adolescence, must be credited with much of the +active influence that took Keats out of the path to a medical +practitioner's life, and set his feet in the devious paths of +literature."[103] Keats's interest in his profession had decreased as his +knowledge and love of poetry grew. With the publication of his _Poems_ in +1817, and his retirement in April of that year from London to the Isle of +Wight "to be alone and improve" himself and to continue _Endymion_, his +decision was finally made in favor of a literary life. Hunt's aid at this +time took the practical form of publishing Keats's poems in _The Examiner_ +and of drawing the attention of the public to them by comments and +reviews. Whether he ever paid Keats for any of his contributions to his +periodicals is not known.[104] Through the influence of Hunt the Ollier +brothers were induced to undertake the publication of Keats's first volume +of poems. It is dedicated to Leigh Hunt in the sonnet _Glory and +loveliness have passed away_. The sestet refers directly to him: + + "But there are left delights as high as these, + And I shall ever bless my destiny, + That in a time, when under pleasant trees + Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free + A leafy luxury, seeing I could please + With these poor offerings, a man like thee."[105] + +Hunt replied in the sonnet _To John Keats_, quoted here in full because of +its inacessibility: + + "'Tis well you think me truly one of those, + Whose sense discerns the loveliness of things; + For surely as I feel the bird that sings + Behind the leaves, or dawn as it up grows, + Or the rich bee rejoicing as he goes, + Or the glad issue of emerging springs, + Or overhead the glide of a dove's wings, + Or turf, or trees, or midst of all, repose. + And surely as I feel things lovelier still, + The human look, and the harmonious form + Containing woman, and the smile in ill, + And such a heart as Charles's wise and warm,-- + As surely as all this, I see ev'n now, + Young Keats, a flowering laurel on your brow."[106] + +In 1820, Hunt dedicated his translation of Tasso's _Aminta_ to Keats. + +In spite of a eulogistic article by Hunt running in _The Examiners_ of +June 1, July 6 and 13, 1817, and other notices in some of the provincial +papers, the _Poems_ sold not very well at first, and later, not at +all.[107] Praise from the editor of _The Examiner_, although offered with +the kindest intentions in the world, was about the worst thing that could +possibly have happened to Keats, for, politically and poetically, Leigh +Hunt was most unpopular at this time;[108] and it was noised abroad that +Keats too was a radical in politics and in religion, a disciple of the +apostate in his attack on the established and accepted creed of poetry. As +a matter of fact, Keats's interest in politics decreased as his knowledge +of poetry increased, although, "as a party-badge and sign of +ultra-liberalism," he, like Hunt, Byron and Shelley continued to wear the +soft turn-down collars in contrast to the stiff collars and enormous +cravats of the time.[109] In religion Keats vented his dislike of sect and +creed on the Kirk of Scotland, as Hunt had on the Methodists. His +"simply-sensuous Beauty-worship" Palgrave attributes to the "moral laxity" +of Hunt.[110] Unless Palgrave, like Haydon, refers to Hunt's unorthodoxy +in matters of church and state, it is difficult to understand on what +evidence he bases this statement; in the first place, a charge of moral +laxity is not borne out by the recorded facts of Hunt's life, but only by +such untrustworthy tradition as still lingers in the public mind from the +Cockney School articles of _Blackwood's_ and the _Quarterly_. Carlyle said +that he was of "most exemplary private deportment."[111] Byron, Shelley +and Lamb testified to his virtuous life. In the second place, a close +comparison of the works of the two now leads one to conclude that +"simply-sensuous Beauty-worship" existed to a much higher degree in Keats +than in Hunt, and that so strong an innate tendency would have developed +without outward stimulus from any one. While both men sought the good and +worshipped the beautiful, Keats, unlike Hunt, recognized somewhat "the +burthen and the mystery" of human life. + +Keats, during his stay in the Isle of Wight and a visit to Oxford with +Bailey in the spring and summer of 1817, worked on _Endymion_, finishing +it in the fall. The letters exchanged between him and Hunt during his +absence were friendly, but a feeling of coolness began before his return. +In a letter from Margate May 10, 1817, there is a curiously obscure +reference to the _Nymphs_: + + "How have you got on among them? How are the _Nymphs_? I suppose they + have led you a fine dance. Where are you now?--in Judea, Cappadocia, + or the parts of Lybia about Cyrene? Stranger from 'Heaven, Hues, and + Prototypes' I wager you have given several new turns to the old + saying, 'Now the maid was fair and pleasant to look on,' as well as + made a little variation in 'Once upon a time.' Perhaps, too, you have + rather varied, 'Here endeth the first lesson.' Thus I hope you have + made a horseshoe business of 'unsuperfluous life,' 'faint bowers' and + fibrous roots."[112] + +A letter written by Haydon to Keats, dated May 11, 1817, warned Keats +against Hunt, and, with others of its kind, was possibly the insidious +beginning of the coolness which followed: "Beware, for God's sake of the +delusions and sophistications that are ripping up the talents and morality +of our friend! He will go out of the world the victim of his own weakness +and the dupe of his own self-delusions, with the contempt of his enemies +and the sorrow of his friends, and the cause he undertook to support +injured by his own neglect of character."[113] A letter in reply from +Keats, written the day after he wrote the passage about the _Nymphs_, +accounts for its dissembling tone: + + "I wrote to Hunt yesterday--scarcely know what I said in it. I could + not talk about Poetry in the way I should have liked for I was not in + humour with either his or mine. His self delusions are very + lamentable--they have inticed him into a Situation which I should be + less eager after than that of a galley Slave,--what you observe + thereon is very true must be in time [sic]. + + Perhaps it is a self delusion to say so--but I think I could not be + deceived in the manner that Hunt is--may I die to-morrow if I am to + be. There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter + oneself into the idea of being a great Poet...."[114] + +To judge from the testimony of his brother George it is not surprising +that Keats succumbed to Haydon's influence against Hunt: "his nervous, +morbid temperament led him to misconstrue the motives of his best +friends."[115] In the last days of his life, his suspicion and bitterness +were general. In a letter to Bailey, June, 1818, Keats says: "I have +suspected everybody."[116] January, 1820, he wrote Georgiana Keats, "Upon +the whole I dislike mankind."[117] Haydon may have sincerely believed +Hunt's influence to be injurious because of the latter's unorthodoxy in +matters of religion. He wrote that Keats "could not bring his mind to bear +on one object, and was at the mercy of every petty theory that Leigh +Hunt's ingenuity would suggest.... He had a tendency to religion when I +first knew him, but Leigh Hunt soon forced it from his mind.... Leigh Hunt +was the unhinger of his best dispositions. Latterly, Keats saw Leigh +Hunt's weaknesses. I distrusted his leader, but Keats would not cease to +visit him, because he thought Hunt ill-used. This shows Keats's goodness +of heart."[118] It is not to be regretted that Haydon lessened Keats's +estimate of Hunt's literary infallibility, for his influence was most +injurious in that direction; but it is to be regretted that he impugned a +friendship in which Hunt was certainly sincere and by which Keats had +benefited. + +In September, just before Keats's return, he seems somewhat mollified and +writes to John Hamilton Reynolds of Leigh Hunt's pleasant companionship; +he has failings, "but then his make-ups are very good."[119] + +On his return to Hampstead in October, 1817, Keats found affairs among the +circle in a very bad way.[120] + + Everybody "seems at Loggerheads--There's Hunt infatuated--there's + Haydon's picture in statu quo--There's Hunt walks up and down his + painting room--criticising every head most unmercifully. There's + Horace Smith tired of Hunt. 'The web of our life is of mingled + yarn.'... I am quite disgusted with literary men and will never know + another except Wordsworth--no not even Byron. Here is an instance of + the friendship of such. Haydon and Hunt have known each other many + years.... Haydon says to me, Keats, don't show your lines to Hunt on + any Account or he will have done half for you--so it appears Hunt + wishes it to be thought. When he met Reynolds in the Theatre, John + told him that I was getting on to the completion of 4,000 lines--Ah! + says Hunt, had it not been for me they would have been 7,000! If he + will say this to Reynolds, what would he to other people? Haydon + received a Letter a little while back on this subject from some + Lady--which contains a caution to me, thro' him, on the subject--now + is not all this a most paultry (sic) thing to think about?"[121] + +Hunt had tried to persuade Keats not to write a long poem. Keats wrote of +this: "Hunt's dissuasion was of no avail[122]--I refused to visit Shelley +that I might have my own unfettered scope; and after all, I shall have the +reputation of Hunt's élève. His corrections and amputations will by the +knowing ones be traced in the poem."[123] + +During 1818, Leigh Hunt in his critical work remained silent concerning +Keats, probably because of his sincere disapproval of _Endymion_ and +secondly, because he realized that his praise would be injurious. The +attacks on Hunt in _Blackwood's_ and the _Quarterly_ had foreshadowed an +attack of the same virulent kind on Keats. The realization came with the +publication of _Endymion_. The article on "Johnny Keats," fourth of the +series on the Cockney School in _Blackwood's Magazine_, appeared almost +simultaneously with his return from Scotland, and the one in the +_Quarterly_ in September of the same year. These will be discussed in a +later chapter. Suspicions of neglect on the part of Hunt murmured in +Keats's mind like a discordant undertone, although the friendship +continued as warm as ever on Hunt's part. Keats was passive, without, +however, the old sense of dependence and trust. December 28, 1817, he +writes to his brothers of the "drivelling egotism" of _The Examiner_ +article on the obsoletion of Christmas gambols and pastimes.[124] In a +journal letter written to George Keats and his wife in Louisville during +December and January, 1819, the old liking has become almost repugnance: +"Hunt keeps on in his old way--I am completely tired of it all. He has +lately published a Pocket Book called the literary Pocket-Book--full of +the most sickening stuff you can imagine";[125] yet Keats suffered himself +to become a contributor to this same book with two sonnets, _The Human +Seasons_ and _To Ailsa Rock_. Again in the same letter: + + "The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Mozart + and punning. I was so completely tired of it that if I were to follow + my own inclinations I should never meet any of that set again, not + even Hunt who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are + with him, but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in + matters of taste and morals. He understands many a beautiful thing; + but then, instead of giving other minds credit for the same degree of + perception as he himself possesses,--he begins an explanation in such + a curious manner that our taste and self-love is offended + continually. Hunt does one harm by making fine things petty and + beautiful things hateful. Through him I am indifferent to Mozart, I + care not for white Busts--and many a glorious thing when associated + with him becomes a nothing."[126] + +Continuing in the same strain: + + "I will have no more Wordsworth or Hunt in particular. Why should we + be of the tribe of Manasseh when we can wander with Esau? Why should + we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses?... I don't + mean to deny Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to + say that we need not to be teazed with grandeur and merit, when we + can have them uncontaminated and unobtrusive. Let us have the old + Poets and Robin Hood."[127] + +And again: + + "Hunt has damned Hampstead and masks and sonnets and Italian tales. + Wordsworth has damned the lakes--Milman has damned the old + drama--West has damned wholesale. Peacock has damned satire--Ollier + has damned Music--Hazlitt has damned the bigoted and the + blue-stockinged; how durst the Man?!"[128] + +A parody on the conversation of Hunt's set, in which he is the principal +actor, carries with it a ridicule that is unkinder than the bitterness of +dislike, and difficult to reconcile with the fact that Keats at the same +time preserved the semblance of friendship.[129] + + "Scene, a little Parlour--Enter Hunt--Gattie--Hazlitt--Mrs. + Novello--Ollier. _Gattie_:--Ha! Hunt got into your new house? Ha! + Mrs. Novello: seen Altam and his wife? _Mrs. N._: Yes (with a grin) + it's Mr. Hunt's isn't it? _Gattie_: Hunt's? no, ha! Mr. Ollier, I + congratulate you upon the highest compliment I ever heard paid to the + Book. Mr. Hazlitt, I hope you are well. _Hazlitt_:--Yes Sir, no + Sir--_Mr. Hunt_ (at the Music) 'La Biondina' etc. Hazlitt, did you + ever hear this?--"La Biondina" &c. _Hazlitt_: O no Sir--I + never--_Ollier_:--Do Hunt give it us over + again--divine--_Gattie_:--divino--Hunt when does your Pocket-Book + come out--_Hunt_:--'What is this absorbs me quite?' O we are spinning + on a little, we shall floridize soon I hope. Such a thing was very + much wanting--people think of nothing but money getting--now for me I + am rather inclined to the liberal side of things. I am reckoned lax + in my Christian principles, etc., etc., etc., etc."[130] + +Such a dual attitude in Keats can be explained only by a dual feeling in +his mind, for it is impossible to believe him capable of deliberate +deceit. He may have realized Hunt's affectation and superficiality and +"disgusting taste"; he was probably swayed by Haydon to distrust Hunt's +morals; the suspicions planted by Haydon concerning _Endymion_ rankled; +but at the same time Hunt's charm of personality, and the assistance and +encouragement given in the first days of their friendship, formed a bond +difficult to break. Of Leigh Hunt's attitude there can be no doubt, for +through his long life of more than threescore years and ten, filled with +many friendships of many kinds, he can in no instance be charged with +insincerity. There is no conclusive proof on record to show him deserving +of the insinuations which Keats believed in respect to _Endymion_, for +Haydon is not trustworthy, and the opinion of a lady given through Haydon +may be dismissed on the same grounds.[131] Reynolds' testimony is not +damaging in itself, and in the absence of facts to the contrary may have +been wrongly construed by Keats. To the charges against himself, Leigh +Hunt has replied in the following passage, "affecting and persuasive in +its unrestrained pathos of remonstrance":[132] + + "an irritable morbidity appears even to have driven his suspicions to + excess; and this not only with regard to the acquaintance whom he + might reasonably suppose to have had some advantages over him, but to + myself, who had none; for I learned the other day, with extreme pain, + such as I am sure so kind and reflecting a man as Mr. Monckton Milnes + would not have inflicted on me could he have foreseen it, that Keats + at one period of his intercourse suspected Shelley and myself of a + wish to see him undervalued! Such are the tricks which constant + infelicity can play with the most noble natures. For Shelley, let + _Adonais_ answer. For myself, let every word answer which I uttered + about him, living and dead, and such as I now proceed to repeat. I + might as well have been told that I wished to see the flowers or the + stars undervalued, or my own heart that loved him."[133] + +Hunt's feeling towards Keats is nowhere better expressed than in his +_Autobiography_: "I could not love him as deeply as I did Shelley. That +was impossible. But my affection was only second to the one which I +entertained for that heart of hearts."[134] + +Keats's atonement is contained in the last letter that he ever wrote: "If +I recover, I will do all in my power to correct the mistakes made during +sickness, and if I should not, all my faults will be forgiven."[135] + +Haydon's influence over Keats was at its height in 1817 and 1818.[136] His +gifts and his enthusiasm, his "fresh magnificence"[137] carried Keats by +storm. It was not until about July 1818 that a reaction against Haydon in +favor of Hunt set in, brought about by money transactions between Keats +and Haydon, and the indifference of the latter in repaying a debt when he +knew Keats's necessity.[138] Keats probably never ceased to feel that +Hunt's influence as a poet had been injurious, as indeed it was, but the +relative stability of his two friends adjusted itself after this +experience with Haydon. Affairs seem to have been smoothed over with Hunt, +and were not disturbed again until a short time before Keats's departure +for Italy, when his morbid suspicions, which even led him to accuse his +friend Brown of flirting with Fanny Brawne,[139] seem to have been +renewed. + +In 1820, Brown, with whom Keats had been living since his brother Tom's +death, went on a second tour to Scotland. Keats, unable to accompany him, +took a lodging in Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town, to be near Hunt, who was +living in Mortimer Street. Brown says: "It was his choice, during my +absence to lodge at Kentish Town, that he might be near his friend, Leigh +Hunt, in whose companionship he was ever happy."[140] In a letter to Fanny +Brawne, Keats said Hunt "amuses me very kindly."[141] It is not likely, +judging from this overture, that there had ever been an actual cessation +of intercourse, notwithstanding what Keats wrote in his letters; and the +act points to a revival of the old feeling on his part. About the +twenty-second or twenty-third of June, 1820, Keats left his rooms and +moved to Leigh Hunt's home to be nursed.[142] He remained about seven +weeks with the family, when there occurred an unfortunate incident which +resulted in his abrupt departure August 12, 1820. A letter of Fanny +Brawne's was delivered to him two days late with the seal broken. The +contretemps was due to the misconduct of a servant, but it was interpreted +by Keats as treachery on the part of the family. At the moment he would +accept no explanations or apologies. He writes of this incident to Fanny +Brawne: + + "My friends have behaved well to me in every instance but one, and + there they have become tattlers, and inquisitors into my conduct: + spying upon a secret I would rather die than share it with anybody's + confidence. For this I cannot wish them well, I care not to see any + of them again. If I am the Theme, I will not be the Friend of idle + Gossips. Good gods what a shame it is our Loves should be put into + the microscope of a Coterie. Their laughs should not affect you (I + may perhaps give you reasons some day for these laughs, for I suspect + a few people to hate me well enough, _for reasons I know of_, who + have pretended a great friendship for me) when in competition with + one, who if he should never see you again would make you the Saint of + his memory. These Laughers, who do not like you, who envy you for + your Beauty, who would have God-bless'd me from you for ever: who + were plying me with disencouragements with respect to you eternally. + People are revengeful--do not mind them--do nothing but love + me."[143] + +In his next letter to her he says: + + "I shall never be able to endure any more the society of any of those + who used to meet at Elm Cottage and Wentworth Place. The last two + years taste like brass upon my Palate."[144] + +The lack of self-control and the distrust seen in these extracts show that +Keats was laboring under hallucinations produced by an ill mind and body; +the letters from which they have been taken are unnatural, almost +terrible, in their passion and rebellion against fate. + +Keats moved to the residence of the Brawnes. While he was here the trouble +seems to have been smoothed over, for in a letter to Hunt he says: "You +will be glad to hear I am going to delay a little at Mrs. Brawne's. I hope +to see you whenever you get time, for I feel really attached to you for +your many sympathies with me, and patience at all my _lunes_.... Your +affectionate friend, John Keats."[145] To Brown he says: "Hunt has behaved +very kindly to me"; and again: "The seal-breaking business is over-blown. +I think no more of it."[146] Hunt's reply is couched in most affectionate +terms: + + "Giovani [sic] Mio, + + "I shall see you this afternoon, and most probably every day. You + judge rightly when you think I shall be glad at your putting up + awhile where you are, instead of that solitary place. There are + humanities in the house; and if wisdom loves to live with children + round her knees (the tax-gatherer apart), sick wisdom, I think, + should love to live with arms about it's waist. I need not say how + you gratify me by the impulse that led you to write a particular + sentence in your letter, for you must have seen by this time how much + I am attached to yourself. + + "I am indicating at as dull a rate as a battered finger-post in wet + weather. Not that I am ill: for I am very well altogether. Your + affectionate Friend, Leigh Hunt."[147] + +This was probably the last letter written by him to Keats. In September +Keats went to Rome with Severn to escape the hardships of the winter +climate, after having declined an invitation from Shelley to visit him at +Pisa. In the same month, Hunt published an affectionate farewell to him in +_The Indicator_. An announcement of his death appeared in _The Examiner_ +of March 25, 1821. The story of the personal relations of the two men +could not be better closed than with the words of Hunt written March 8, +1821, to Severn in Rome when he believed Keats still alive: + + "If he can bear to hear of us, pray tell him; but he knows it + already, and can put it into better language than any man. I hear + that he does not like to be told that he may get better; nor is it to + be wondered at, considering his firm persuasion that he shall not + survive. He can only regard it as a puerile thing, and an insinuation + that he shall die. But if his persuasion should happen to be no + longer so strong, or if he can now put up with attempts to console + him, tell him of what I have said a thousand times, and what I still + (upon my honour) think always, that I have seen too many instances of + recovery from apparently desperate cases of consumption not to be in + hope to the very last. If he still cannot bear to hear this, tell + him--tell that great poet and noblehearted man--that we shall all + bear his memory in the most precious part of our hearts, and that the + world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do. Or if this, + again, will trouble his spirit, tell him that we shall never cease to + remember and love him; and that, Christian or infidel, the most + sceptical of us has faith enough in the high things that nature puts + into our heads, to think all who are of one accord in mind and heart + are journeying to one and the same place, and shall unite somewhere + or other again, face to face, mutually conscious, mutually + delighted."[148] + +The literary relations of Keats and Hunt will be considered under two +heads; first, the criticism of Keats's writings by Hunt; and second, his +direct influence upon them. + +_On first looking into Chapman's Homer_ in _The Examiner_ of December 1st, +1816, was embodied in an article entitled "Young Poets." It was the first +notice of Keats to appear in print and is in part as follows: + + "The last of these young aspirants whom we have met with, and who + promise to help the new school to revive Nature and + + 'To put a spirit of youth in everything,'-- + + is we believe, the youngest of them all, and just of age. His name is + John Keats. He has not yet published anything except in a newspaper, + but a set of his manuscripts was handed us the other day, and fairly + surprised us with the truth of their ambition, and ardent grappling + with Nature." + +In _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, the last line of the same +sonnet-- + + "Silent upon a peak in Darien"-- + +is called "a basis of gigantic tranquillity."[149] + +Leigh Hunt's review of the _Poems_ of 1817[150] was kind and +discriminating. He writes characteristically of the first poem, _I stood +tiptoe_, that it "consists of a piece of luxury in a rural spot"; of the +epistles and sonnets, that they "contain strong evidences of warm and +social feelings." This comment is quite characteristic of Hunt. He was as +fond of finding "warm and social feelings" in the poetry of others as of +putting them into his own. In his anxiety he sometimes found them when +they did not exist. He continues: "The best poem is certainly the last and +the longest, entitled _Sleep and Poetry_. It originated in sleeping in a +room adorned with busts and pictures [Hunt's library], and is a striking +specimen of the restlessness of the young poetical appetite, obtaining its +food by the very desire of it, and glancing for fit subjects of creation +'from earth to heaven.' Nor do we like it the less for an impatient, and +as it may be thought by some irreverend [sic] assault upon the late French +school of criticism[151] and monotony." But Hunt did not allow his +affection for Keats or his approval of Keats's poetical doctrine to blunt +his critical acumen. In summarizing he says: "The very faults of Mr. Keats +arise from a passion for beauties, and a young impatience to vindicate +them; and as we have mentioned these, we shall refer to them at once. They +may be comprised in two;--first, a tendency to notice everything too +indiscriminately, and without an eye to natural proportion and effect; and +second, a sense of the proper variety of versification without a due +consideration of its principles." In conclusion, the beauties "outnumber +the faults a hundred fold" and "they are of a nature decidedly opposed to +what is false and inharmonious. Their characteristics indeed are a fine +ear, a fancy and imagination at will, and an intense feeling of external +beauty in its most natural and least inexpressible simplicity." + +Hunt was disappointed with _Endymion_ and did not hesitate to say so. +Keats writes to his brothers: + + "Leigh Hunt I showed my 1st book to--he allows it not much merit as a + whole; says it is unnatural and made ten objections to it in the mere + skimming over. He says the conversation is unnatural and too + high-flown for Brother and Sister--says it should be simple, + forgetting do ye mind that they are both overshadowed by a + supernatural Power, and of force could not speak like Francesca in + the _Rimini_. He must first prove that Caliban's poetry is unnatural. + This with me completely overturns his objections. The fact is he and + Shelley are hurt, and perhaps justly, at my not having showed them + the affair officiously (sic); and from several hints I have had they + appear much disposed to dissect and anatomize any trip or slip I may + have made.--But who's afraid? Aye! Tom! Demme if I am."[152] + +Leigh Hunt expressed himself thus in 1828: "_Endymion_, it must be allowed +was not a little calculated to perplex the critics. It was a wilderness of +sweets, but it was truly a wilderness; a domain of young, luxuriant, +uncompromising poetry."[153] + +_La Belle Dame sans Merci_, which appeared first in _The Indicator_,[154] +was accompanied with an introduction by Hunt, who says that it was +suggested by Alain Chartier's poem of the same title and "that the union +of the imagination and the real is very striking throughout, particularly +in the dream. The wild gentleness of the rest of the thoughts and of the +music are alike old, and they are alike young." _The Indicator_ of August +2 and 9, 1820, contained a review of the volume of 1820. The part dealing +with philosophy in poetry is of more than passing interest: + + "We wish that for the purpose of his story he had not appeared to + give in to the commonplace of supposing that Apollonius's sophistry + must always prevail, and that modern experiment has done a deadly + thing to poetry by discovering the nature of the rainbow, the air, + etc.; that is to say, that the knowledge of natural science and + physics, by showing us the nature of things, does away the + imaginations that once adorned them. This is a condescension to a + learned vulgarism, which so excellent a poet as Mr. Keats ought not + to have made. The world will always have fine poetry, so long as it + has events, passions, affections, and a philosophy that sees deeper + than this philosophy. There will be a poetry of the heart, as long as + there are tears and smiles: there will be a poetry of the + imagination, as long as the first causes of things remain a mystery. + A man who is no poet, may think he is none, as soon as he finds out + the first causes of the rainbow; but he need not alarm himself:--he + was none before."[155] + +Much the same line of discussion is reported of the conversation at +Haydon's "immortal dinner," December 28, 1817, when Keats and Lamb +denounced Sir Isaac Newton and his demolition of the things of the +imagination, Keats saying he "destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by +reducing it to a prism."[156] The pictorial features of the _Eve of St. +Agnes_ were particularly admired by Hunt, as one might be led to expect +from the decorative detail of his own narrative poetry. The portrait of +"Agnes" (_sic_ for Madeline) is said to be "remarkable for its union of +extreme richness and good taste" and "affords a striking specimen of the +sudden and strong maturity of the author's genius. When he wrote +_Endymion_ he could not have resisted doing too much. To the description +before me, it would be a great injury either to add or to diminish. It +falls at once gorgeously and delicately upon us, like the colours of the +painted glass." Of the description of the casement window, Hunt asks +"Could all the pomp and graces of aristocracy with Titian's and Raphael's +aid to boot, go beyond the rich religion of this picture, with its +'twilight saints' and its 'scutcheons blushing with the blood of queens'?" +Elsewhere he says that "Persian Kings would have filled a poet's mouth +with gold" for such poetry. Hunt calls _Hyperion_[157] "a fragment, a +gigantic one, like a ruin in the desert, or the bones of the mastodon. It +is truly of a piece with its subject, which is the downfall of the elder +gods." Later, in _Imagination and Fancy_, Hunt declared that Keats's +greatest poetry is to be found in _Hyperion_. His opinion of the whole is +thus summed up: + + "Mr. Keats's versification sometimes reminds us of Milton in his + blank verse, and sometimes of Chapman both in his blank verse and in + his rhyme; but his faculties, essentially speaking, though partaking + of the unearthly aspirations and abstract yearnings of both these + poets, are altogether his own. They are ambitious, but less directly + so. They are more _social_, and in the finer sense of the word, + sensual, than either. They are more coloured by the modern philosophy + of sympathy and natural justice. _Endymion_, with all its + extraordinary powers, partook of the faults of youth, though the best + ones; but the reader of _Hyperion_ and these other stories would + never guess that they were written at twenty.[158] The author's + versification is now perfected, the exuberances of his imagination + restrained, and a calm power, the surest and loftiest of all power, + takes place of the impatient workings of the younger god within him. + The character of his genius is that of energy and voluptuousness, + each able at will to take leave of the other, and possessing in their + union, a high feeling of humanity not common to the best authors who + can combine them. Mr. Keats undoubtedly takes his seat with the + oldest and best of our living poets."[159] + +The more important division of the literary relations of the two men is +the direct influence of Hunt's work upon that of Keats. + +On Keats's prose style Hunt's influence was very slight and can be quickly +dismissed. At one time Keats, affected perhaps by Hunt's example, thought +of becoming a theatrical critic. He did actually contribute four articles +to _The Champion_. Keats's favorite of Hunt's essays, _A Now_, contains +several passages composed by Keats. Mr. Forman considers that "the greater +part of the paper is so much in the taste and humor of Keats" that he is +justified in including it in his edition of Keats. He has also called +attention to a passage in Keats's letter to Haydon of April 10, 1818, +which bears a striking likeness to Hunt's occasional essay style: "The +Hedges by this time are beginning to leaf--Cats are becoming more +vociferous--Young Ladies who wear Watches are always looking at them. +Women about forty-five think the Season very backward." + +The _Poems_ of 1817 show Hunt's influences in spirit, diction and +versification. There are epistles and sonnets in the manner of Hunt. _I +stood tiptoe upon a little hill_ opens the volume with a motto from the +_Story of Rimini_. The _Specimen of an Induction_ and _Calidore_ so nearly +approach Hunt's work in manner, that they might easily be mistaken for it. +_Sleep and Poetry_ attacks French models as Hunt had previously done. The +colloquial style of certain passages is significant of Hunt's influence +upon the poems. A few examples are: + + "To peer about upon variety."[160] + + "Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves + Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves."[161] + + "The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses."[162] + + "... you just now are stooping + To pick up the keepsake intended for me."[163] + + "Of this fair world, and all its gentle livers."[164] + + "The evening weather was so bright, and clear, + That men of health were of unusual cheer."[165] + + "Linger awhile upon some bending planks + That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, + And watch intently Nature's gentle doings: + They will be found softer than the ring-dove's cooings."[166] + + "The lamps that from the high roof'd wall were pendant + And gave the steel a shining quite transcendent."[167] + + "Or on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely, + Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely."[168] + +The following are infelicitous passages reflecting Leigh Hunt's bad taste, +especially in the description of physical appearance, or of situations +involving emotion: + + "... what amorous and fondling nips + They gave each other's cheeks."[169] + + "... some lady sweet + Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet."[170] + + "Rein in the swelling of his ample might."[171] + + "Nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches."[172] + + "... What a kiss, + What gentle squeeze he gave each lady's hand! + How tremblingly their delicate ankles spann'd! + Into how sweet a trance his soul was gone, + While whisperings of affection + Made him delay to let their tender feet + Come to the earth; with an incline so sweet + From their low palfreys o'er his neck they bent: + And whether there were tears of languishment, + Or that the evening dew had pearl'd their tresses, + He felt a moisture on his cheek and blesses + With lips that tremble, and with glistening eye, + All the soft luxury + That nestled in his arms."[173] + + "... Add too, the sweetness + Of thy honey'd voice; the neatness + Of thine ankle, lightly turned: + With those beauties, scarce discern'd + Kept with such sweet privacy, + That they seldom meet the eye + Of the little loves that fly + Round about with eager pry."[174] + +Descriptive passages in the Huntian style are not infrequent: the opening +lines from the _Imitation of Spenser_[175] are much nearer to Hunt than to +Spenser. + + "Now morning from her orient chamber came, + And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill, + Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame, + Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill; + Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distil + And after parting beds of simple flowers, + By many streams a little lake did fill, + Which round its marge reflected woven bowers, + And in its middle space, a sky that never lowers."[176] + +These lines of _Calidore_ show a like resemblance: + + "He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky, + And smiles at the far clearness all around, + Until his heart is well nigh over wound, + And turns for calmness to the pleasant green + Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean + So elegantly o'er the waters' brim + And show their blossoms trim."[177] + +A third is: + + "Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water." + +Single phrases showing the influence of Hunt[178] are: "airy feel," +"patting the flowing hair," "A Man of elegance," "sweet-lipped ladies," +"grateful the incense," "modest pride," "a sun-beamy tale of a wreath," +"soft humanity," "leafy luxury," "pillowy silkiness," "swelling apples," +"the very pleasant rout," "forms of elegance." + +The following passages apparently bear as close a resemblance to each +other as it is possible to find by the comparison of individual passages +from the works of the two men: + + "The sidelong view of swelling leafiness + Which the glad setting sun in gold doth dress"[179] + +compare with: + + "And every hill, in passing one by one + Gleamed out with twinkles of the golden sun: + For leafy was the road, with tall array."[180] + +The _Epistles_ are strikingly like Hunt's epistles in spirit, diction and +metre. Mr. Colvin has pointed out that the one addressed _To George Felton +Mathew_ was written in November, 1815, before Keats had met Hunt and +before the publication of the latter's epistles;[181] but Keats may have +known them at the time in manuscript through Clarke. The resemblances may +also have been due, in part, as in other points of comparison, to an +innate similarity of thought and feeling. + +That Hunt's habit of sonneteering and his preference for the Petrarcan +form influenced Keats, is attested by the similarity of the latter's +sonnets to Hunt's in form, subjects, and allusions, and by the direct +references[182] to Hunt. _On the Grasshopper and the Cricket_[183] and +_To the Nile_[184] were written in contest with Hunt. _To Spenser_ is a +refusal to comply with Hunt's request that he should write a sonnet on +Spenser.[185] The title of _On Leigh Hunt's Poem, The Story of +Rimini_[186] speaks for itself.[187] + +To put it briefly, the _Poems_ of 1817 show Hunt's influence in more ways +than any equal number of the young poet's later verses. It is seen in +Keats's subject matter[188] and allusions; in his adoption of a colloquial +style and diction; in his absorption of Hunt's spirit in the treatment of +nature and in his attitude toward women; and in his imitation and +exaggerated use of the free heroic couplet in _Sleep and Poetry_, _I +stood tiptoe_, _Specimen of an Induction_ and other poems. + +Of the poem _Lines on seeing a Lock of Milton's Hair_, written in January, +1818, Keats wrote in a letter to Bailey: "I was at Hunt's the other day, +and he surprised me with a real authenticated lock of _Milton's hair_. I +know you would like what I wrote thereon, so here it is--as they say of a +Sheep in a Nursery Book.... This I did at Hunt's, at his request--perhaps +I should have done something better alone and at home."[189] Leigh Hunt's +three sonnets on the same subject, published in _Foliage_, have been +already spoken of in the preceding chapter. + +_Endymion_ shows a decided decrease in the ascendancy of Hunt's mind over +Keats, for the sway of his intellectual supremacy had been shaken before +suspicions arose in Keats's mind as to the disinterestedness of his +motives. What influence lingers is seen in the general theory of +versification and in the diction, with some trace in matters of taste. A +marvellous luxury of imagery, glimpses into the heights and depths of +nature, an absorbing love of Greek fable, a deeper infusion of the ideal +have superseded what Mr. Colvin has called the "sentimental chirp" of +Hunt.[190] Specific passages in _Endymion_ reminiscent of Hunt are rare, +but Book III, ll. 23-30 recalls the general descriptive style in the +_Descent of Liberty_ and summarizes in a few lines pages of Hunt's +diffuse, spectacular imagery. Once or twice Keats seems to have fallen +into the colloquial manner in dialogue: + + "But a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell! + I have a ditty for my hollow cell."[191] + +Again: + + "I own + This may sound strangely: but when, dearest girl, + Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl + Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair! + Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share + This sister's love with me? Like one resign'd + And bent by circumstance, and thereby blind + In self-commitment, thus that meek unknown: + 'Aye, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, + Of jubilee to Dian:--truth I heard? + Well then, I see there is no little bird.'"[192] + +Occasionally there are passages in the bad taste of Hunt, as this example: + + "Enchantress! tell me by this soft embrace, + By the most soft completion of thy face, + Those lips, O slippery blisses, twinkling eyes, + And by these tenderest, milky sovereignties-- + These tenderest, and by the nectar wine, + The passion--"[193] + +Likewise: + + "O that I + Were rippling round her dainty fairness now, + Circling about her waist, and striving how + To entice her to a dive! then stealing in + Between her luscious lips and eyelids thin."[194] + +In July, 1820, appeared the volume _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes +and other Poems_. The lingering influence of Hunt is seen in a fondness +for the short poetic tale, in the direct and simple narrative style, and +in the return in _Lamia_ to the use of the heroic couplet; but that, along +with the other poems of the volume, is free from the Huntian +eccentricities of manner and diction found in Keats's earlier works. He +had come into his own. In treatment, _Lamia_ is almost faultless in +technique and in matters of taste; although Mr. Colvin has pointed out as +an exception the first fifteen lines of the second book, which he says +have Leigh Hunt's "affected ease and fireside triviality."[195] One of the +few occurrences of Hunt's manner is seen in the _Eve of St. Agnes_. + + "Paining with eloquence her balmy side."[196] + +The famous passage in the _Eve of St. Agnes_ describing all manner of +luscious edibles is very suggestive of one in Hunt's _Bacchus and Ariadne_ +which enumerates articles of the same kind.[197] It is in this latter +poem and in the _Story of Rimini_ that Hunt's power of description most +nearly approximates to that of Keats. In 1831, in the _Gentle Armour_, +Hunt is the imitator of Keats, as Mr. Colvin has already pointed out.[198] + +The peculiarities of Keats's diction are, in the main, two-fold, and may +each be traced to a direct influence: first, archaisms in the manner of +Spenser[199] and Chatterton; second, colloquialisms and deliberate +departures from established usage in the employment and formation of +words, in imitation of Leigh Hunt. Keats's theory so far as he had one, is +set forth in a passage in one of his letters: "I shall never become +attached to a foreign idiom, so as to put it into my writings. The +Paradise Lost, though so fine in itself, is a corruption of our language. +It should be kept as it is, unique, a curiosity, a beautiful and grand +curosity, the most remarkable production of the world; a northern dialect +accommodating itself to Greek and Latin inversions and intonations. The +purest English, I think--or what ought to be the purest--is +Chatterton's."[200] + +Keats's _Poems_ of 1817 show Hunt's influence in diction more strongly +than any of his later works. In the majority of instances, this influence +is reflected in the principles of usage rather than in the actual usages, +although words and phrases used by Hunt are occasionally found in the +writings of Keats. The tendency to a colloquial vocabulary is seen in such +words and combinations as jaunty, right glad, balmy pain, leafy +luxury,[201] delicious,[202] tasteful, gentle doings, gentle livers, soft +floatings, frisky leaps, lawny mantle, patting, busy spirits. Among these +words, leafy, balmy, lawny, patting, nest, tiptoe, and variations of +"taste" were special favorites with Hunt. A few expressions only of this +kind, as "nest," "honey feel," "infant's gums," are found in _Endymion_, +and almost none at all in the later poems. + +Keats used peculiar words with so much greater felicity and in so much +greater profusion than Hunt, exceeding in richness and individuality of +vocabulary most of the poets of his own time, that one is forced to +believe that Spenser's influence rather than Hunt's was dominant here. +Breaches of taste are confined almost entirely to the _Poems_ of 1817. + +Ordinary words used peculiarly include "nips" (they gave each other's +cheeks), "core" (for heart) and "luxury"[203] (with a wrong connotation), +nouns and adjectives employed as verbs, and verbs as nouns and adjectives. +These devices likewise cannot be credited to Hunt without reservation, +since both Spenser and Milton used them; but there is little doubt that in +this instance Hunt was an inciting and sustaining influence. Keats +resorted to such artifices frequently and continued to do so to the end. +Instances of nouns and adjectives employed as verbs are: pennanc'd, +luting, passion'd, neighbour'd, syllabling, companion'd, labrynth, +anguish'd, poesied, vineyard'd, woof'd, loaned, medicin'd, zon'd, mesh, +pleasure, legion'd, companion, green'd, gordian'd, character'd, finn'd, +forest'd, tusk'd, monitor. Verbs employed as nouns and adjectives are: +shine, which occurs five times, feel, seeing, hush, pry and amaze. + +More examples of coined compounds, nouns and adjectives, are to be found +in Keats than in Hunt; in his better work as well as in his early +productions. A few are: cirque-couchant, milder-mooned, tress-lifting, +flitter-winged, silk-pillowed, death-neighing, break-covert, +palsy-twitching, high-sorrowful, sea-foamy, amber-fretted, sweet-lipped, +lush-leaved. + +The last principle is the coining, or choice of, adjectives in _y_ and +_ing_; of adverbs in _ly_, when, in many instances, adjectives and adverbs +already existed formed on the same stem. The frequent use of words with +these weak endings gives a very diffuse effect at times in Keats's early +poems. The following are examples: fenny, fledgy, rushy, lawny, liny, +nervy, pipy, paly, palmy, towery, sluicy, surgy, scummy, mealy, sparry, +heathy, rooty, slumbery, bowery, bloomy, boundly, palmy, surgy, spermy, +ripply, spangly, spherey, orby, oozy, skeyey, clayey, and plashy.[204] +Adjectives in _ing_ are: cheering, hushing, breeding, combing, dumpling, +sphering, tenting, toying, baaing, far-spooming, peering (hand), searing +(hand), shelving, serpenting. Adverbs are: scantly, elegantly, +refreshingly, freshening (lave), hoveringly, greyly, cooingly, silverly, +refreshfully, whitely, drowningly, wingedly, sighingly, windingly, +bearingly. + +These statements are not very conclusive proof of the frequent occurrences +of the same words in the poems of the two men. They are questionable even +in regard to the principles of usage themselves, since poets of the same +period or young poets may possess the same tendencies. Yet in the light of +their relations already discussed the similarity of a number of principles +seems convincing proof that Hunt influenced Keats considerably in the +_principles_ of diction in his first volume and occasionally in the +selection of individual words; and that Keats never entirely freed himself +from some of Hunt's peculiarities. Shelley, in writing of _Hyperion_ to +Mrs. Hunt, spoke of the "bad sort of style which is becoming fashionable +among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and Wordsworth."[205] +Medwin reported Shelley as saying "We are certainly indebted to the +Lakists for a more simple and natural phraseology; but the school that has +sprung out of it, have spawned a set of words neither Chaucerian nor +Spencerian (_sic_), words such as 'gib,' and 'flush,' 'whiffling,' +'perking up,' 'swirling,' 'lightsome and brightsome' and hundreds of +others."[206] + +Keats, following the lead of Hunt, used the free heroic couplet in several +of the 1817 poems with a license even greater than Hunt's. In _Endymion_ +he indulged in further vagaries of rhythm and metre that Hunt never +dreamed of and in fact greatly disapproved of. Hunt said that "_Endymion_ +had no versification."[207] In its want of couplet and line units, this is +not very far from the truth. Writing of it again in 1828, he says: "The +great fault of _Endymion_ next to its unpruned luxuriance, (or before it, +rather, for it was not a fault on the right side,) was the wilfulness of +its rhymes. The author had a just contempt for the monotonous termination +of everyday couplets; he broke up his lines in order to distribute the +rhyme properly; but going only upon the ground of his contempt, and not +having settled with himself any principles of versification, the very +exuberance of his ideas led him to make use of the first rhymes that +offered; so that, by a new meeting of effects, the extreme was artificial, +and much more obtrusive than the one under the old system. Dryden modestly +thought, that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. Mr. Keats in the +tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help him, whether they would +or not; and they obeyed him, in the most singular manner, with equal +promptitude and ungainliness."[208] _Endymion_ has been thought by some +critics, to have been written under the metrical influence of +Chamberlayne's _Pharronida_. In the number of run-on lines and couplets--a +scheme nearer blank verse than the couplet--there is certainly a striking +correspondence. Mr. Forman thinks that Keats knew the poem. Mr. Colvin +and Mr. De Selincourt can see no real likeness. There is no proof as yet +discovered that Keats ever heard of it. + +In _Lamia_, after the extreme reaction in _Endymion_, Keats approached +nearer to the classic form of the couplet used by Dryden, but still with +greater freedom in structure than appears in either Dryden or Hunt. From +the evidence of Brown it is probable that Keats imitated Dryden directly +and not through the medium of Hunt's work, but it is very likely that Hunt +directed him there in the first instance for a model. Mr. Palgrave says of +the metre of _Lamia_ that Keats "admirably found and sustained the balance +between a blank verse treatment of the 'Heroic' and the epigrammatic form +carried to such perfection by Pope."[209] Leigh Hunt said that "the lines +seem to take pleasure in the progress of their own beauty like sea nymphs +luxuriating through the water."[210] + +In conclusion, Keats's early and late employment of the couplet was marked +always by greater freedom in the use of run-on couplets and lines, and in +the handling of the cæsura than Dryden's or Hunt's; he was at first slower +than Hunt to employ the triplet and the Alexandrine, but he later adopted +them in a larger measure; and he introduced the run-on paragraph and the +hemistich independently of Hunt. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SHELLEY + +Finnerty Case--Correspondence of Hunt and Shelley--Their Political and +Religious Sympathy--Hunt's Defense of Shelley--Hunt's Italian +Journey--Shelley's Death--Hunt's Criticism--Literary Influence--Shelley's +Estimate of Hunt. + + +The friendship of Shelley and Leigh Hunt is the simple story of an +intimacy founded on a common endowment of independence of thought and of +capacity for self-sacrifice. Although both were sensitive and shrinking by +nature, and preferred to dwell in an isolated world of books and dreams, +yet for the sake of abstract principles and for love of humanity, both +expended much time and endured much pain in the arena of public strife. + +In _The Examiners_ of February 18 and 24, 1811, appeared articles by Hunt +on the Finnerty case. Peter Finnerty, Hunt's successor as editor of _The +Statesman_, had been prosecuted and imprisoned on the charge of libelling +Lord Castlereagh. Hunt's defense drew Shelley's attention to the case and +may have inspired him, it has been suggested, to write his _Political +Essay on the Existing State of Things_. The proceeds went to +Finnerty.[211] On March 2 Shelley subscribed to the Finnerty fund and, on +the same day, wrote Hunt, whom he had never met, a letter from Oxford, +congratulating him on his acquittal from a third charge of libel and +proposing that an association should be formed to establish "rational +liberty," to resist the enemies of justice, and to protect each +other.[212] + +Shelley's political creed was, in the main, that of William Godwin, with +an admixture of Holbach, Volney and Rousseau at first hand.[213] In +English philosophic literature he knew Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Locke. His +watchword was the cry of the French Revolution, liberty, equality and +fraternity, to be gained, not by violence and bloodshed, but by a steady +and unyielding resistance of the masses against the corrupt institutions +of church and state. Like Godwin, he believed man capable of his own +redemption and, with tradition and tyranny overthrown and reason and +nature enthroned, he hoped for universal justice and ultimate +perfectibility of mankind. His poetry and his prose represent a +development from the impassioned and imaginative enthusiasm of an +uncompromising youth, who would single-handed revolutionize the world in +the twinkling of an eye, to the saner hope of a man who took somewhat into +account the necessarily gradual nature of ethical evolution. His chief +fallacy lay in the failure to recognize evil as an inherent force in human +nature and to acknowledge sect and state, to which he attributed the +origin of all error, as inventions of man's ingenuity. Neither did he +perceive the necessity of certain restrictions on the individual for the +preservation of law and order. He believed in no distinctions of rank +except those based on individual talent and virtue. He wrote in 1811: "I +am no aristocrat, nor '_crat_' at all, but vehemently long for the time +when men may dare to live in accordance with Nature and Reason--in +consequence with Virtue, to which I firmly believe that Religion and its +establishments, Polity and its establishments, are the formidable though +destructible barriers."[214] Shelley knew of Leigh Hunt first as a +political writer of considerable importance. In this respect he never +ceased to admire him or to be influenced by _The Examiner_ in the campaign +against government corruption. Yet his own equipment of mind and training, +visionary as his theories seem, gave him a power of speculation and grasp +of situation that ignored the limitations of time and space, while Hunt, +with his narrower view, never got beyond the petty and immediate details +of one nation or of one age. + +The social improvements which Shelley advocated were Catholic +Emancipation, brought about later, as has been pointed out by Symonds, by +the very means which Shelley foresaw and prophesied; reform of +parliamentary representation[215] similar to that carried into effect in +1832, 1867 and 1882; freedom of the press[216] and repeal of the union of +Great Britain and Ireland; the abolition of capital punishment and of +war.[217] During the fourteen years of Hunt's editorship, among the +reforms for which he fought in _The Examiner_ were the first three of +these measures. He denounced capital punishment and war in the same paper +and later in his poem _Captain Sword and Captain Pen_.[218] + +Shelley's moral code was based on an idealized sense of justice, and was a +kind of "natural piety."[219] With one marked exception, he seems to have +been true to the pursuit of it, both in his standards of conduct and in +his relations with others. His life was a model of generosity, purity of +thought, and unselfish devotion. Hunt reported Shelley as having said: +"What a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really the +principle of it, instead of faith."[220] He was atheist only in the sense +of discarding the dogmas of theology and of superstition, and in his +spirit of scientific inquiry. He did not deny the existence in nature of +an all-pervading spirit. Hunt thought the popular misconception of +Shelley's opinions was due to his misapplication of the names of the Deity +and to his identification of them with vulgar superstitions. Of Shelley's +attitude he wrote: "His want of faith in the letter, and his exceeding +faith in the spirit of Christianity, formed a comment, the one on the +other, very formidable to those who chose to forget what Scripture itself +observes on that point."[221] Whether or not Shelley believed in +immortality is still a vexed question and is likely to remain so, since he +had not reached convictions sufficiently stable to permit a formal +statement on his part. Many of the passages in _Adonais_ would lead one to +believe that he did; certainly he did, like Hunt, cling to the idea of the +persistence, in some form or other, of the good and the beautiful. The +close conformity of their views is seen in the latter's two sonnets in +_Foliage_[222] addressed to Shelley, where the poet condemns the degrading +notions so prevalent concerning the Deity and celebrates the Spirit of +Beauty and Goodness in all things. But, in religion as in politics, +Shelley was bolder and more speculative than Hunt. + +The fine of £1,000 and imprisonment of the Hunt brothers in 1813 drew from +Shelley a vehement protest. In a letter to Hogg[223] he lamented the +inadequacy of Lord Brougham's defense and fairly boiled with indignation +at "the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence" and pronounced +Hunt "a brave, a good, and an enlightened man." He started a subscription +with twenty pounds, and later he must have offered to pay the entire fine, +for Hunt recorded in his _Autobiography_ that Shelley had made him "a +princely offer,"[224] which he declined, as he did not need it. The offer +was actuated solely by a hatred of oppression, for the two men had little +or no personal knowledge of each other at the time. + +It is impossible to decide the exact date of their first meeting. Hunt +says that it took place before the indictment for libel on the Prince +Regent.[225] This evidence would make it fall sometime between March, +1812, the date of Shelley's letter mentioned above, and February, 1813, +the beginning of the incarceration. But a letter from Shelley to Hunt +dated December 7, 1813, demanding if he had made the statement that Milton +had died an atheist, from its very formal tone, leads one to believe that +they had not met up to that time and that Hunt, writing from memory many +years afterwards, made a mistake. Thornton Hunt gives as the immediate +cause of the two men coming together, Shelley's application to Mr. Rowland +Hunter, the publisher and stepfather of Mrs. Hunt, for advice regarding +the publication of a poem. He referred Shelley to Leigh Hunt. The next +meeting was in Surrey Street Gaol. Thornton Hunt, in a delightful +reminiscence of Shelley,[226] says that he had no recollection of him +among his father's visitors in prison, but he remembered perfectly the +latter's description of his "angelic" appearance, his classic thoughts, +and his dreams for the emancipation of mankind. The real intimacy began +after Shelley's return from the continent in 1816 when Shelley, in search +of a house before he settled at Marlow, was the guest of Hunt at Hampstead +during a part of December.[227] A close companionship followed +uninterruptedly for two years until Shelley went to Italy, and there are +recorded in the letters and journals of each many pleasant evenings at +Hampstead and at Marlow, filled with poetry and music, with talks on art +and trials of wit, with dinners and theater parties. Mary Shelley and Mrs. +Hunt became as great friends as their husbands. + +When Harriet committed suicide and Shelley went up to London to institute +proceedings for possession of their children, Hunt remained constantly +with him and gave him as much sympathy and support as it is possible for +one fellow-being to extend to another whom all the world has +deserted.[228] He attended the Chancery suit and stated Shelley's position +in _The Examiner_.[229] This sympathy and support, given Shelley in his +hour of greatest need and desolation, have never been sufficiently valued +in a comparative estimate of the relative indebtedness of the two men. If +Shelley gave freely of his money, Hunt, devoid of worldly goods, gave +unstintingly, to the detriment of his reputation, of those things which +money cannot purchase. That he incurred the displeasure of men in power, +and ran the risk of being misunderstood by the public in befriending +Shelley, did not deter him for an instant. + +During 1817 Shelley made the acquaintance, through Hunt, of the Cockney +circle, including Keats, Reynolds, Hazlitt, Brougham, Novello and Horace +Smith. The last-named became one of Shelley's most trusted friends.[230] +These new friends enlarged his list of acquaintances considerably, for up +to this time he seems to have had no friends except Godwin, Hogg and +Peacock. + +In the early spring of 1818, the Shelleys went to Italy, melancholy with +the thought of separation from the Hunts.[231] The letters from Shelley to +Hunt during the next four years form an important part of Shelley's +correspondence. + +The part played by Shelley in the invitation extended to Hunt to join Lord +Byron and himself in Italy and to become one of the editors of a +periodical will be treated minutely in the next chapter. It is sufficient +here to say that he was actuated by a desire to better Hunt's finances and +to enjoy his society--a pleasure he had been pining for ever since they +had been separated, and, in case of a return to England, regarded as the +one joy "among all the other sources of regret and discomfort with which +England abounds for me.... Shaking hands with you is worth all the +trouble; the rest is clear loss."[232] Further, he knew that Hunt longed +for Italy, and he wished to help Byron in the cause of liberalism. To +bring both ends about, he shouldered a burden that he was ill able to +bear. An annuity of £200 for the support of his two children, an annuity +of £100 to Peacock, perpetual demand for large sums from Godwin, +occasional assistance rendered the Gisbornes, partial support of Jane +Claremont, loans to Byron, and the support of his family, were the drains +already upon him--met, in the main by money raised on _post obits_ at half +value. + +The amount of Hunt's indebtedness to Shelley can be estimated only +approximately. The first reference to a financial transaction between them +after the "princely offer"[233] is to be found in Mary Shelley's letter of +December 6, 1816, in which she wondered that Hunt had not acknowledged the +"receipt of so large a sum." Professor Dowden thinks this may be an +allusion to Shelley's response to an appeal for the poor of Spitalfields +which had appeared in _The Examiner_ five days previously.[234] Shelley's +offers to Hunt to borrow £100 from Byron[235] and to stand security for a +loan from Charles Cowden Clarke,[236] and an attempt to borrow from Samuel +Rogers[237] are not developed by any further facts, but it is necessary to +take note of them in a general estimate. Before leaving England, Shelley +arranged with Ollier for a loan of £100 for Hunt, a debt which was later +liquidated by the sale of the _Literary Pocket Book_.[238] At some time +before leaving England, Shelley also gave Hunt in one year £1,400[239] for +the liquidation of his debts, which money was, Medwin says, borrowed from +Horace Smith.[240] Unfortunately for Shelley, the sum was insufficient to +extricate Hunt from his difficulties. Miss Mitford gives the amount as +£1,500, instead of £1,400, and adds that Shelley's furniture and bedding +were swept off to pay Hunt's creditors;[241] the inaccuracy of the first +statement and the lack of any evidence to support the second, lead one to +doubt the story. But it is true that Shelley's income at the time was only +£1,000. Even when so far away as Italy, Hunt's money troubles weighed +heavily upon Shelley in a continual regret that he could not set him +entirely free from his creditors;[242] he feared that the incredible +exertions Hunt was making on _The Indicator_ and on _The Examiner_, and +the privations that he endured, would undermine his health.[243] When Hunt +finally decided to go to Italy, Shelley assumed, as a matter of course, +the chief responsibility of providing the means. + +As early as 1818, when Shelley and Byron met in Venice, the matter of the +journal was discussed between them and broached to Hunt. December 22, +1818, Shelley wrote him that Byron wished him to come to Italy and that, +if money considerations prevented, Byron would lend him £400 or £500. He +added that Hunt should not feel uncomfortable in accepting the offer, as +it was frankly made, and that his society would give Byron pleasure and +service.[244] Hunt does not seem to have seriously considered the +proposition, for there are few references to it in his correspondence of +this year. On the renewal of the plan in 1821, Shelley would never have +called on Byron for assistance for Hunt if he himself could have provided +otherwise, for his opinion of Byron had changed in the meantime.[245] +January 25, 1822, Shelley sent £150 for the expenses of the voyage, +"within 30 or 40 pounds of what I have contrived to scrape +together";[246] and again on February 23, £250,[247] borrowed with +security from Byron. Yet Shelley's own exchequer at the time was so low +that Mary Shelley wrote in the spring: "We are drearily behindhand with +money at present. Hunt and our furniture has swallowed up more than our +savings."[248] On April 10 Shelley stated that he was trying to finish +_Charles the First_ in order that he might earn £100 for Hunt. + +In round numbers it may be calculated that the sum total of Hunt's +indebtedness, exclusive of the yearly bequest of £120 paid by Shelley's +son, was about £2,500, a very large sum in the light of Shelley's limited +resources and other obligations. But it was as ungrudgingly given as it +was graciously received. Between the two men there was no distinction of +_meum_ and _tuum_. More remarkable still, Mary Shelley gave as willingly +as her husband. If one is inclined to marvel at such an unusual state of +affairs, it must be recalled that both men were under the spell of William +Godwin's theories of community of property. Shelley gave as his duty and +Hunt received as his due. That the effort involved much deprivation and +distress of mind on the part of the giver mars the justice of acceptance +by the recipient, retrieved only in part by the belief that Hunt probably +did not know the full extent of Shelley's sacrifice, and the knowledge +that the former would gladly have endured as much if the conditions had +been reversed. The element of self-sacrifice and delicacy on the part of +Shelley in concealing it, in after years only added to the beauty of the +gift in Hunt's eyes, and even at the time he cannot be accused of +indifference.[249] Jeaffreson makes the absurd suggestion that Shelley +gave the money as a bribe to the editor of a powerful and flourishing +literary journal.[250] He thinks dodging creditors was a strong bond of +mutual interest between the two men. There is evidence that Hunt was in +difficulty at the time and that Shelley left a surgeon's bill unpaid,[251] +but there is no proof extant of deliberate mutual protection. On the +contrary, it is most unlikely. + +The Hunts sailed from England in November, 1821, and reached Leghorn +nearly nine months after first setting out on a voyage which, in its +delays and dangers, Byron compared to the "periplus of Hanno the +Carthaginian, and with much the same speed";[252] Peacock to that of +Ulysses.[253] Of Shelley's suggestion to make the trip by sea, Hunt wrote: +"if he had recommended a balloon, I should have been inclined to try +it."[254] Hogg, with his characteristic humour, remarked that a journey by +land would have taken equally long, since Hunt would have stopped to +gather all the daisies by the wayside from Paris to Pisa. Both men looked +forward to many years together[255] and Shelley, in his letter of welcome, +wrote that wind and waves parted them no more,[256] an assertion which now +sounds like a knell of doom. From Leghorn Shelley conveyed the party to +Pisa and installed them in the lower floor of Byron's dwelling, the +Lanfranchi Palace.[257] To Shelley fell the difficult task of keeping Lord +Byron in heart for the new undertaking and of reviving Hunt's drooping +spirits. Hunt's funds were all gone and in their place was a debt of sixty +crowns. The next few days were full of grave anxiety and foreboding for +the future, broken only by a delightful Sunday spent in seeing the +Cathedral and the Tower. Of this day Hunt wrote: "Good God! what a day was +that, compared with all that have followed it! I had my friend with me, +arm-in-arm, after a separation of years: he was looking better than I had +ever seen him--we talked of a thousand things--we anticipated a thousand +pleasures."[258] Then came the fatal Monday with its shipwreck of many +hopes--in its tragic sequel too well known to need repetition here. Hunt's +last services to his friend were his assistance rendered at the cremation +and his contribution of the now famous Latin epitaph "_cor cordium_."[259] + +With Shelley perished Hunt's chief hope in life; in the opinion of his +son, he was never the same man again. In 1832, at his period of darkest +depression, he wrote: "If you ask me how it is that I bear all this, I +answer, that I love nature and books, and think well of the capabilities +of human kind. I have known Shelley, I have known my mother."[260] In 1844 +he claimed as his proudest title, the "Friend of Shelley."[261] + +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." + +The _Quarterly Review_ of May, 1818, accused Shelley[264] of atheism and +of dissolute conduct in private life; the same journal of April, 1819, +reviewing the _Revolt of Islam_ on the basis of the suppressed version of +_Laon and Cythna_, though it did not fail to appreciate the genius and +beauty of the poem, charged Shelley with a predilection for incest and +with a frantic dislike for Christianity. It called the support of _The +Examiner_ "the sweet undersong of the weekly journal."[265] The two +attacks were met by a strong protest from Hunt,[266] particularly in +regard to the part dealing with Shelley's life. He denied the propriety of +such discussion in public criticism and declared that he had never known +Shelley to "deviate, notwithstanding his theories, even into a single +action which those who differ with him might think blameable." His life at +Marlow was described as spent in "beautiful charity and generosity" and +was likened to that of Plato. In 1821 an attack on Shelley by Hazlitt was +met by an angry warning from Hunt and a threat to become his public enemy, +if the offense were repeated.[267] Hunt's reason for taking this defensive +attitude was that he knew that Shelley suffered greatly from such +malignant exploitations and that he would not defend himself; therefore he +made his friend's cause his own and wrote: "I reckon upon your leaving +your personal battles to me,"[268] much in the same manner as Shelley had +assumed his money troubles. + +Following the review of the _Revolt of Islam_, a notice of _Rosalind and +Helen_ and of _Lines Written among the Euganean Hills_[269] appeared in +_The Examiner_ of May 9, 1819. Attention was called to the poet's optimism +and to his great love of nature: "the beauty of the external world has an +answering heart, and the very whispers of the wind a meaning." _The +Cenci_, published in 1820, contained in its dedication a glowing tribute +to Hunt, an honour in Shelley's opinion only in a small degree worthy of +his friend.[270] Hunt was intoxicated with the honour and wrote: "I feel +as if you had bound, not only my head, but my very soul and body with +laurels."[271] On the subject of the tragedy he was equally enthusiastic: +"What a noble book, Shelley, have you given us! What a true, stately, and +yet affectionate mixture of poetry, philosophy, and human nature, horror, +and all redeeming sweetness of intention, for there is an undersong of +suggestion through it all, that sings, as it were, after the storm is +over, like a brook in April."[272] In a public expression of his opinion +in _The Examiner_ of March 19, 1820, Hunt pronounced _The Cenci_ the +greatest dramatic production of the day. Writing of the drama again in the +same journal of July 19 and 26, 1820, he called Shelley "a framer of +mighty lines" and continued: "Majesty and Love do sit on one throne in the +lofty buildings of his poetry; and they will be found there, at a late and +we trust a happier day, on a seat immortal as themselves." + +One of Hunt's most perfect poems, _Jaffár_, is inscribed to the memory of +Shelley. The praise of _Jaffár_ and his friend's undying loyalty +immediately suggest to the reader that Hunt may have been celebrating his +own and Shelley's friendship. The last review to appear during Shelley's +lifetime by Hunt was that of _Prometheus Unbound_ in three numbers of _The +Examiner_ of 1822. A projected review of _Adonais_ alluded to in a letter +of Hunt's does not seem to have seen the light of publication, but a +reference in a letter at the time is worth noting: "It is the most Delphic +poety I have seen in a long while: full of those embodyings of the most +subtle and airy imaginations,--those arrestings and explanations of the +most shadowy yearnings of our being."[273] The well-known account of +Shelley's rescue of a woman on Hampstead Heath was told in _The Literary +Examiner_ of August 23, 1823.[274] The same magazine of September 20 of +the same year[275] contained the following _Sonnet to Percy Shelley_, +given here because of its general inaccessibility: + + "Hast thou from earth, then, really passed away, + And mingled with the shadowy mass of things + Which were, but are not? Will thy harp's dear strings + No more yield music to the rapid play + Of thy swift thoughts, now turned thou art to clay? + Hark! Is that rushing of thy spirit's wings, + When (like the skylark, who in mounting sings) + Soaring through high imagination's way, + Thou pour'dst thy melody upon the earth, + Silent for ever? Yes, wild ocean's wave + Hath o'er thee rolled. But whilst within the grave + Thou sleepst, let me in the love of thy pure worth + One thing foretell,--that thy great fame shall be + Progressive as Time's flood, eternal as the sea!" + +In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_ appeared the first +biographical memoir of Shelley, a sketch of some seventy pages.[276] It +shows great appreciation of the fine and gentle qualities of his rare +genius and defends some of the weak points of his career. The description +of his personal appearance, of the life at Marlowe, and the few anecdotes +are often quoted. But on the whole, it lacks the bold strokes of vivid +portraiture and it is very disappointing.[277] There was probably no one, +with the exception of his wife, who knew Shelley so well as Hunt and who +was, therefore, in a position to give as complete and intimate an idea of +him. It was Mrs. Shelley's wish that Hunt should be her husband's +biographer, for she thought that he, "perhaps above all others, understood +his nature and his genius."[278] Hunt, in _The Spectator_ of August 13, +1859, gave as his reason for not writing Shelley's life that he "could not +survive enough persons." But it is to be questioned if he were fitted for +the task. His son did not think that he was because of his attention to +details and his irresistible tendency to analysis: "a mind, in short, like +that of Hamlet, cultivated rather than corrected by the trials of life, +was scarcely suited to comprehend the strong instincts, indomitable will, +and complete unity of idea which distinguished Shelley."[279] + +In the _Tatler_ of August 1, 1831, Hunt wrote that "Mr. Shelley was a +platonic philosopher, of the acutest and loftiest kind," and that he +belonged to the school of Plato and Æschylus, as Keats belonged to that of +Spenser and Milton. Following _The Tatler_ was the preface to _The Mask of +Anarchy_,[280] published in 1832, originally designed for _The Examiner_ +in 1819, but laid aside by the editor because he thought the public not +discerning enough "to do justice to the sincerity and kindheartedness of +the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse." The preface +eulogizes the poet's spiritual nature and his "seraphic purpose of good." +In _The Seer_, 1841, Shelley's qualities of heart were pronounced more +enduring than his genius.[281] + +_Imagination and Fancy_ contained an essay and selections from his poems. +Here Hunt makes the curious statement that little in the poems is purely +poetical, but rather moral, political, and speculative. It is noteworthy +that he predicts, probably for the first time, that, had Shelley lived, he +would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth, +if not, indeed, actually so, through what he did accomplish; a statement +often repeated. He says: "If Coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, +Shelley is at once the most ethereal and gorgeous, the one who has clothed +his thought in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words +and imagery.... Shelley ... might well call himself Ariel."[282] In +connection with Shelley's ethereal qualities, Mrs. James T. Fields quotes +Hunt as having said on another occasion that Shelley always seemed to him +as if he were "just alit from the planet Mercury, bearing a winged wand +tipped with flame."[283] In _Imagination and Fancy_, Hunt continues: "Not +Milton himself is more learned in Grecisms, or nicer in entomological +propriety; and nobody, throughout, has a style so Orphic and primeval." + +It is a touching circumstance that Hunt's last letter bore reference to +Shelley, and that his last effort as a public writer, made only a few days +before his death, was in vindication of Shelley's character.[284] The +publication of the _Shelley Memorials_, 1859, in which Hunt had a part, +provoked an unfavorable review in _The Spectator_. Hunt replied in the +next number[285] of the same paper. In particular he asserted Shelley's +truthfulness, which had been assailed in respect to his story of the +attempted assassination in Wales. He held that Shelley was not a man to be +judged by ordinary rules, but that he was the highest possible exponent of +humanity--an approach to divinity. + +Hunt's literary relation with Shelley falls into two divisions; +publications written for Hunt's periodicals, and received by Hunt in +order to give Shelley an outlet of expression denied him in the more +conservative papers; and second, positive literary imitation. Besides the +poems quoted in Hunt's criticisms of Shelley, the first includes a review +of Godwin's _Mandeville_,[286] a letter of protest regarding the second +edition of _Queen Mab_,[287] _Marianne's Dream_,[288] _Song on a Faded +Violet_,[289] _The Sunset_,[290] _The Question_,[291] _Good Night_,[292] +_Sonnet, Ye Hasten to the Grave_,[293] _To ---- (Lines to a +Reviewer)_,[294] _November, 1815_,[295] _Love's Philosophy_,[296] and the +contributions designed by Shelley for _The Liberal_ and published after +his death.[297] Productions which were written for Hunt's papers, but were +not accepted, were _Peter Bell the Third_, _The Mask of Anarchy_, _Julian +and Maddalo_, a letter on the persecution of Richard Carlile,[298] letters +on Italy, and a review of Peacock's _Rhododaphne_. Hunt's failure to +accept what was sent him greatly discouraged Shelley at times: "Mine is a +life of failures; Peacock says my poetry is composed of day dreams and +nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for _The +Examiner_." + +_On a Fete at Carlton House_, an attack on the Prince Regent, though +perhaps directly inspired by the account in the dailies of the ball at +Carlton House on June 20, 1811, was doubtless influenced by the continued +attacks of _The Examiner_. As there are extant only two or three lines of +the poem,[299] it is impossible to judge of the extent of the influence, +but in Shelley's letters to Hogg and to Edward Graham describing the poem, +there is resemblance in tone and epithet to _The Examiner_. A letter from +Shelley to Lord Ellenborough on the occasion of Eaton's sentence for +publishing the third part of Paine's _Age of Reason_ followed a long +series of articles by Hunt on the prerogative of liberty of speech.[300] + +A meeting of Reformers at Manchester on the sixteenth of August, 1819, for +the purpose of discussing quietly the annual meeting of Parliament, +universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, was dispersed by military force. +Articles setting forth the long sufferings of the Reformers, charging the +authorities with wanton bloodshed, and ridiculing the absurd trial of the +offenders, appeared in _The Examiner_ of August 22, 29, September 5, 19 +and 26. _The Mask of Anarchy_, written on the occasion of the massacre at +Manchester, was sent to Leigh Hunt for publication sometime before the +first of November, 1819. The sentiment of both men is the same regarding +the affair. + +Accounts of the death of the Princess Charlotte and of the executions for +high treason at Derby of Brandreth, Ludlam and Turner, after a horrible +imprisonment, two articles in _The Examiner_ of November 9, 1819, inspired +Shelley's _Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte_, +sometimes known as _We Pity the Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird_, dated +November 12 of the same year. Hunt followed with a second article, _Death +of the Princess Charlotte and Indecent Advantage Taken of It_, November +16, 1819. Both writers called attention to the disposition of the public +to forget the sufferings of the poor, while it mourned hysterically with +royalty; they declared that the administration of justice and the events +leading to such crimes were of much greater importance. Three articles in +_The Examiner_ of October 17, 24 and 31, 1819, on the trial of Richard +Carlile for libel, were followed by an open letter on the same case from +Shelley to Hunt dated November 3, 1819. By scattered references it can be +seen that Shelley fully agreed with Hunt in his opinion of the Prince +Regent and of the Ministers, in his attitude toward the corruption of the +court and of the army; and in his proposed regulation of taxes and of the +public debt. + +_Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyrant_, begun August, 1820, +succeeded a series of articles, beginning in _The Examiner_ of June 11, +1820, and continuing throughout nineteen numbers,[301] on the subject of +George IV's attempt to divorce his wife.[302] Abhorrence of the king's +perfidy and of his ministers' support, sympathy for Queen Caroline, and +minor details parallel closely Hunt's version in _The Examiner_. This +passage occurs in the article of June 9: "An animal sets himself down, +month after month, at Milan, to watch at her doors and windows, to +intercept discarded servants and others who know what a deposition might +be worth, and thus to gather poison for one of those venomous Green Bags, +which have so long infected and nauseated the people, and are now to +infect the Queen." This seems to be the germ of the passage in Shelley's +poem beginning: + + "Behold this bag! it is + The poison Bag of that Green Spider huge, + On which our spies sulked in ovation through + The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead." + +Then follows the plot to throw the contents upon the Queen. + +The handling of the heroic couplet, employed in the _Letter to Maria +Gisborne_ and in _Epipsychidon_, as well as in _Julian and Maddalo_,[303] +has been already discussed in its relationship to Hunt's use of the same. +Shelley, in a letter to Hunt, explains his position in regard to the +language of _Julian and Maddalo_: + + "You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent + with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be + written. I have employed a certain familiar style of language to + express the actual way in which people talk to each other, whom + education and a certain refinement of sentiment have placed above the + use of vulgar idioms. I use the word _vulgar_ in its most extensive + sense. The vulgarity of rank and fashion is as gross, in its way, as + that of poverty, and its cant terms equally expressive of base + conceptions, and therefore, equally unfit for poetry. Not that the + familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject wholly + ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, + where the passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundary of + that which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, + borrowed alike from subjects remote or near, and casts over all the + shadow of its own greatness."[304] + +_Rosalind and Helen_, the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, _Swellfoot the +Tyrant_, and _Peter Bell the Third_[305] show a similar influence. _The +Letter to Maria Gisborne_ bears a resemblance to Hunt's epistolary style, +and was written, Mr. Forman thinks, for circulation in the Hunt circle +only.[306] It was through Hunt, so Shelley states in the dedication, that +he knew the _Peter Bells_ of Wordsworth and of John Hamilton Reynolds. +Shelley's qualified adoption in these poems of Hunt's theory of poetic +language is seen in the choice of a vocabulary in dialogue nearer everyday +usage than the more remote one of his other poems. Yet the result does not +bear any great resemblance to Hunt. Shelley's unvarying refinement and +sensibility kept him from committing the same errors of taste, but his +work suffered rather than gained by an innovation which was probably a +concession to his friendship for Hunt and not a strong conviction. With +the exception of the descriptive passages, the keynote of these poems is +on a lower poetic pitch. + +On subjects of Italian art and literature the friends held much the same +opinion. At times Shelley seems to have been led by Hunt's judgment, as in +his conclusions regarding Raphael and Michaelangelo.[307] One passage on +the Italian poets indicates a possible borrowing of thought and figure on +Shelley's part when he wrote of Boccaccio that he was superior to Ariosto +and to Tasso, "the children of a later and colder day.... How much do I +admire Boccaccio! What descriptions of nature are those in his little +introduction to every new day! It is the morning of life stripped of that +mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us."[308] Hunt wrote: +"Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante are the morning, noon and night of the +great Italian day."[309] + +Poems which refer directly to Hunt are the fourteen lines in the _Letter +to Maria Gisborne_;[310] possibly the fragment, beginning, "For me, my +friend, if not that tears did tremble."[311] A cancelled passage of the +_Adonais_ describes Hunt thus: + + And then came one of sweet and carnal looks, + Those soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes + Were as the clear and ever-living brooks + Are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, + Showing how pure they are; a Paradise + Of happy truth upon his forehead low + Lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise + Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow + Of star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below, + + * * * * * + + His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, + A single strain--[312] + +The thirty-fifth strophe of the present version refers to Hunt. + +Shelley's last letter had reference to Hunt.[313] His last literary effort +was a poem comparing Hunt to a firefly and welcoming him to Italy, just as +Hunt's last letter and last public utterance bore reference to +Shelley--strange coincidence, but striking testimony to their mutual +devotion. An instance of Shelley's overestimation of Hunt's ability is +seen in a passage where he says that Hunt excels in tragedy in the power +of delineating passion and, what is more necessary, of connecting and +developing it, "the last an incredible effort for himself but easy for +Hunt."[314] He greatly valued and trusted Hunt's affection, at times +calling him his best[315] and his only friend.[316] If the tender +solicitude and veneration of a beautiful spirit for a man of vastly +inferior abilities seems strange, it is but a witness to the humility of +true genius. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Byron's Politics and Religion--His sympathy with Hunt in prison--His +impression of the man--Hunt's Defense of Byron and Criticism of his +works--_The Liberal_--_Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_. + + +It is not strange that Lord Byron, son of an English father and a Scotch +mother, born of a long line of adventurous and warlike sailors and +illustrious and loyal knights, with a strain of royalty and madness on one +side and eccentricity and immorality on the other, should have fallen heir +in an unusual degree to a nature whose virtues and vices were complex and +contradictory. Its singularities are nowhere more apparent than in the +mutations of his friendships. + +Prior to his acquaintance with Hunt, Byron had taken his seat in the House +of Lords and had made speeches against the framebreakers of Nottingham and +in behalf of Catholic emancipation. A month after their meeting he made a +third speech introducing Major Cartwright's petition for reform in +Parliament. The second and third of these measures, in particular, were +warmly advocated by _The Examiner_, with which paper Byron was familiar, +as references in his letters show. It is therefore not hazardous to +surmise that his sympathy with liberal policies, alien to his Tory blood +and aristocratic spirit, was due, in part at least, to this influence. +Byron's political principles on the whole were as evanescent and +intermittent as a will-o'-the-wisp.[317] His chief tenets were the +assertion of the individual; antagonism against all authority; a striving +after freedom. Brandes, Elze and Treitscke agree in attributing his +political enthusiasm to the intense passion of his nature rather than to +his moral convictions.[318] His religious convictions were as fugitive as +his political and, like those of Hunt and other advanced thinkers of the +age, seem to have been without deference to any existing creed or dogma. +At his gloomiest moments he confessed that he denied nothing but doubted +everything. Hunt says of Byron's religion that he "did not know what he +was.... He was a Christian by education, he was an infidel by reading. He +was a Christian by habit, but he was no Christian upon reflection."[319] +The phrase, "I am of the opposition" applies to his religion as well as to +his politics, as indeed it serves as the key-note to almost every action +of his life. + +Leigh Hunt has given a characteristic account of his first sight of Byron +"rehearsing the part of Leander," in the River Thames sometime before he +went to Greece in 1809: + + "I saw nothing in Lord Byron at that time, but a young man, who, like + myself, had written a bad volume of poems; and though I had sympathy + with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than I was + willing to suppose, my sympathy was not an agreeable one; so, + contenting myself with seeing his lordship's head bob up and down in + the water, like a buoy, I came away. Lord Byron when he afterwards + came to see me in prison, was pleased to regret that I had not + stayed. He told me, that the sight of my volume at Harrow had been + one of his incentives to write verses, and that he had had the same + passion for friendship which I had displayed in it. To my + astonishment he quoted some of the lines, and would not hear me speak + ill of them."[320] + +Hunt's _Juvenilia_, beyond having served as one of the incentives to the +writing of Byron's _Hours of Idleness_, does not seem to have affected it. +For Hunt's undercurrent of friendship and cheerfulness were substituted +Byron's prevailing notes of amorousness and melancholy. + +The actual acquaintance of the two men did not begin until 1813, when +Thomas Moore, since 1811 a staunch admirer of Hunt's political courage and +of his literary talent, and one of the visitors welcomed to Surrey Gaol, +mentioned the circumstances of his imprisonment to Lord Byron, likewise a +sympathizer with the attitude of _The Examiner_ towards the Prince Regent. +Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson[321] thinks that it was this reckless sympathy with +the libeller of the Prince Regent that led Byron to reprint with _The +Corsair_, eight lines addressed in 1812 to the Princess Charlotte, _Weep, +daughter of a Royal Line_. The retaliation of one of the Tory papers +goaded Byron to write in return an article which strongly resembles Hunt's +famous libel[322] on the Prince Regent. Byron expressed a wish to call on +Hunt with Moore, and a visit followed on May 20, 1813.[323] Five days +later Hunt wrote: + + "I have had Lord B. here again. He came on Sunday, by himself, in a + very frank, unceremonious manner, and knowing what I wanted for my + poem [_Story of Rimini_] brought me the last new _Travels in Italy_ + in two quarto volumes, of which he requests my acceptance, with the + air of one who did not seem to think himself conferring the least + obligation. This will please you. It strikes me that he and I shall + become _friends_, literally and cordially speaking: there is + something in the texture of his mind and feelings that seems to + resemble mine to a thread; I think we are cut out of the same piece, + only a little different wear may have altered our respective naps a + little."[324] + +With the pride of a sycophant in the presence of a lord Hunt relates that +Byron would not let the footman carry the books but gave "you to +understand that he was prouder of being a friend and a man of letters than +a lord. It was thus by flattering one's vanity he persuaded us of his own +freedom from it: for he could see very well, that I had more value for +lords than I supposed."[325] In June of the same year Hunt invited Byron, +Moore and Mitchell to dine with him in prison. Among several others who +came in during the evening was Mr. John Scott, later a severe critic of +Byron in _The Champion_.[326] Many years after Moore, in his _Life of +Byron_, wrote of the gathering with venom, recalling Scott as an assailant +of Byron's "living fame, while another [Hunt] less manful, would reserve +the cool venom for his grave."[327] + +Byron esteemed Hunt greatly during the first year of their acquaintance. +His advances show a desire for intimacy which goes far toward +contradicting the statements sometimes made that the overtures were on +Hunt's side only.[328] Byron expressed himself thus at the time: + + "Hunt is an extraordinary character and not exactly of the present + age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times--much talent, + great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, + aspect. If he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, I know few men who will + deserve more praise or obtain it. I must go and see him again--a + rapid succession of adventures since last summer, added to some + serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; + but he is a man worth knowing; and though for his own sake, I wish + him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations. He + has been unshaken and will continue so. I don't think him deeply + versed in life:--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion) and + enamoured of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of + Brutus pronounced and every day proves it. He is perhaps, a little + opinionated, as all men who are the _center of circles_, wide or + narrow--the Sir Oracles--in whose name two or three are gathered + together--must be, and as even Johnson was: but withal, a valuable + man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of + preferring 'the right to the expedient,' might excuse." + +December 2, 1813, he wrote to Hunt: "It is my wish that our acquaintance, +or, if you please to accept it, friendship, may be permanent.... I have a +thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained +with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering."[329] Cordial +intercourse between the two men continued after Hunt's removal from Surrey +Gaol to lodgings in Edgeware Road, where Byron became one of his most +frequent visitors and correspondents. In the Hunt household Byron laid +aside his ordinary reserve. There are records of his riding the children's +rocking horse; of presents of game; loans of books; letters presented from +a Paris correspondent for _The Examiner_; and gifts of boxes and tickets +for Drury Lane Theatre, of which he was one of the managers. This last +Hunt would not accept for fear of sacrificing his critical independence. +In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, Hunt claims that this +familiarity proceeded from an "instinct of immeasureable distance."[330] + +It was not until Byron's matrimonial difficulties in 1816 that Hunt, inert +and depressed from his long confinement, bestirred himself to return a +single one of the calls. Byron's separation from his wife in 1816 and the +subsequent scandal aroused in Hunt that instinctive protection and active +loyalty for friends abused, already discussed in a review of his relations +with Keats and Shelley. The conjugal troubles and libertinism of the +Prince Regent had brought forth only scorn and vituperation from the +editor of _The Examiner_, but difficulties of equal notoriety at closer +range in the lives of his friends evoked only sympathy and protection. He +asserted that there was no positive knowledge as to the cause of the +trouble and much depraved speculation, envy and falsehood, yet "had he +[Byron] been as the scandal-mongers represented him, we should +nevertheless, if we thought our arm worth his using, have stood by him in +his misfortunes to the last."[331] A prophecy of a near reconciliation and +a too-gushing picture of renewed domesticity are somewhat grotesque in the +light of later events. For this defense Byron was very grateful. January +12, 1822, he wrote that Scott, Jeffrey and Leigh Hunt "were the only +literary men of numbers whom I know (and some of whom I have served,) who +dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour, just then ... the third +was under no kind of obligation to me."[332] Hunt's opinion in the matter +underwent a transformation after the fateful Italian visit; he then +declared that Byron wooed with genius, married for money, and strove for a +reconciliation because of pique.[333] + +The _Story of Rimini_, which had been submitted to Byron from time to time +and which was dedicated to him, appeared likewise in 1816. Byron seems to +have accepted the familiar tone of the inscription at the time in all good +faith "as a public compliment and a private kindness"[334] although +_Blackwood's_ of March, 1828, states, perhaps not seriously, that Byron in +his copy had substituted for Hunt's name "impudent varlet." As late as +April 11, 1817, Byron wrote from Italy that he expected to return to +Venice by Ravenna and Rimini that he might take notes of the scenery for +Hunt.[335] + +But a letter to Moore from Venice, June 1, 1818, seems to mark a +disillusionment on the part of Byron: + + "Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry that + you might expect from his situation. He is a good man with some + practical element in his chaos, but spoilt by the Christ Church + Hospital and a Sunday newspaper to say nothing of the Surrey Gaol, + which converted him into a martyr.... Of my friend Hunt, I have + already said that he is anything but vulgar in his manners [a + statement repeated again in 1822[336]]; and of his disciples, + therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses. They + may be honourable and gentlemanly men for what I know; but the latter + quality is studiously excluded from their publications."[337] + +Hunt did not see or hear from Byron from 1817 until 1821. No further +mention of Hunt occurs in Byron's writings during this period except the +reference to his influence on Barry Cornwall's _Sicilian Story_ and +_Marcian Colonna_,[338] and another to the Cockney School in Byron's +controversy with Bowles. In explanation of this break in the intercourse +Hunt said, in 1828, that "Byron had become not very fond of his reforming +acquaintances."[339] + +Hunt's criticism of Byron's writings was not an important factor in his +early literary development, as was the case with Shelley and Keats. Yet it +deserves brief attention. _The Examiner_ of October 18, 1812, contained +the address of Byron on the opening of the Drury Lane Theatre and a +commendation of its "natural domestic touch" and of its independence. +Hunt's _Feast of the Poets_ as it appeared first in _The Reflector_ +contained no mention of Byron. The separate edition of 1814 devoted seven +pages of the added notes to a wordy discussion of his work and to personal +advice. Byron in a letter of February 9, 1814, thanked Hunt for the +"handsome note." The next mentions of Bryon were in _The Examiner_: a +notice of his ode on Napoleon April 24, 1814; _Illustrations of Lord +Byron's Works_ on September 4 of the same year; an elegy, _Oh Snatched +Away in Beauty's Bloom_, April 23, 1815; _The Renegade's Feelings Among +the Tombs of Heroes_, March 3, 1816; and finally, an announcement of an +opera founded on _The Corsair_, August 31, 1817. A review of the first and +second cantos of _Don Juan_ appeared in _The Examiner_ of October 31, +1819. Byron's extraordinary variety and sudden transition of mood, his +power in wielding satire and humor, his knowledge of human nature in its +highest and lowest passions, his contribution to the mock-heroic and the +sincere, the "strain of rich and deep beauty" in the descriptions were +pointed out. Any immoral tendency is denied: "The fact is at the bottom of +these questions, that many things are made vicious which are not so by +nature; and many things made virtuous, which are only so by calling and +agreement; and it is on the horns of this self-created dilemma, that +society is continually writhing and getting desperate!" _The Examiner_ of +August 26, 1821 containing a critique of the third and fourth cantos of +_Don Juan_, condemned the "careless contempt of canting moralists." +January 23, 1820, there was a notice in _The Examiner_ telling of Byron's +munificence to a shoemaker; in comment _The Examiner_ said: "His +lordship's virtues are his own. His frailties have been made for him, in +more respects than one, by the faults and follies of society." January 21, +1822, appeared a reprint of _My Boat Is on the Shore_; April 22, the two +stanzas from Childe Harold beginning, _Italia, Oh! Italia_; April 29, +_Byron's Letters on Bowles's Strictures on Pope_; May 26, a review of two +of Bowles's letters to Byron; July 29, an article entitled _Sketches of +the Living Poets_.[340] The last gave a biographical account of Byron. +The general traits of his poety were said to be passion, humour, and +learning. It criticized the narrative poems as "too melodramatic, hasty +and vague." Hunt's summary of the dramas and of _Don Juan_ shows excellent +judgment: "For the drama, whatever good passages such a writer will always +put forth, we hold that he has no more qualifications than we have; his +tendency being to spin every thing out of his own perceptions, and colour +it with his own eye. His _Don Juan_ is perhaps his best work, and the one +by which he will stand or fall with readers who see beyond time and +toilets. It far surpasses, in our opinion, all the Italian models on which +it is founded, not excepting the far famed _Secchia Rapita_."[341] On June +2, 1822, _The Examiner_ reviewed _Cain_. The article is chiefly a +discussion of the origin of evil. The issue of September 30 contained a +reprint of _America_; that of November 18 denied Byron's authorship of +_Anastasius_. From July 5, 1823, to November 29 of the same year, there +appeared in the _Literary Examiner_ friendly criticisms of the sixth, +seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and +fourteenth cantos of _Don Juan_. The reviews consisted chiefly of extracts +and a summary of the narrative. + + +THE LIBERAL. + +A letter from Lord Byron dated December 25, 1820, had proposed to Thomas +Moore to set up secretly, on their return to London, a weekly newspaper +for the purpose of giving + + "the age some new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, + morality, theology, and all other ism, ality and ology whatsoever. + Why, man, if we were to take to this in good earnest, your debts + would be paid off in a twelvemonth, and by dint of a little diligence + and practice, I doubt not that we could distance the common-place + blackguards who have so long disgraced common sense and the common + reader. They have no merit but practice and imprudence, both of which + we may acquire; and, as for talent and culture, the devil's in't if + such proofs as we have given of both can't furnish out something + better than the 'funeral baked meats' which have coldly set forth the + breakfast table of Great Britain for so many years."[342] + +Moore cautiously refused the offer and the idea lay dormant in Byron's +mind until he met Shelley at Ravenna in 1821. He then proposed that they +should establish a radical paper with Leigh Hunt as editor, the three to +be equal partners. Power, money, and notoriety were Byron's chief objects. +He frankly acknowledged a desire for enormous gains. He designed to use +his proprietory privileges to publish those of his writings that Murray +dared not. At the same time Byron had, without doubt, a desire to reform +home government and to repay Hunt for his public defense in 1816.[343] He +may have wished to please Shelley by asking Hunt.[344] Undoubtedly he +valued Hunt's wide journalistic experience. Moore asserts that in +extending the invitation, Byron inconsistently admitted Hunt "not to any +degree of confidence or intimacy but to a declared fellowship of fame and +interest."[345] This, like other of Moore's statements regarding Hunt, is +not very plausible in view of the past intimacy. + +The most discussed question regarding Byron's motives in inviting Hunt is +the extent of his relation to _The Examiner_ at that time, and Byron's +knowledge of it. Trelawny states that when Byron "_consented_ to join +Leigh Hunt and others in writing for the 'Liberal,' I think his principal +inducement was in the belief that John and Leigh Hunt were proprietors of +the 'Examiner';--so when Leigh Hunt at Pisa told him that he was no longer +connected with that paper, Byron was taken aback, finding that Hunt would +be entirely dependent upon the success of their hazardous project, while +he himself would be deprived of that on which he had set his heart,--the +use of a weekly paper in great circulation."[346] Moore heard indirectly +in 1821 that Byron, Shelley and Hunt were to "_conspire_ together" in _The +Examiner_[347]--a plan nowhere mentioned in the writings of the three men +concerned and most unlikely. What Trelawney "thought" conflicts with what +Moore "heard." The suggestions of both are open to doubt. Byron was most +assuredly the projector of _The Liberal_ and did not "_consent_ to join +Leigh Hunt and others." Besides, granting that Trelawney's opinion was +based on a statement of Byron's, even that would not be convincing, since +Byron made a number of mis-statements about the matter after he grew weary +of it. Questionable as the assertion is, it has been made the basis of +accusations against Hunt of deliberate deceit and of breach of contract. +Had it been true that there was an understanding of coöperation between +the two papers, Byron and Moore would have made much of the charge. +Trelawney's opinion, first noticed by _Blackwood's_ in March, 1828, has +been elaborated by Jeaffreson,[348] and accepted by Leslie Stephen[349] +and Kent.[350] Elze, who seems to have labored under the impression that +Harold Skimpole was a faithful portraiture of Hunt, states that his +connection with Byron began with a falsehood.[351] R. B. Johnson says, in +defense of Hunt, that the accusation "is quite unreasonable and contrary +to all the evidence."[352] Monkhouse thinks that it is doubtful if Byron +reckoned on the support of the London paper.[353] J. Ashcroft Noble says +that Byron had much to say about the Hunts in his letters, "and made the +most of all kinds of trivial or imaginary grievances; it is simply +incredible that had a grievance of such reality and magnitude as this +really existed he would have refrained from mentioning it." As proof +against it, he quotes Byron's belief in Hunt's honesty as late as +September 1822; and he points out the "obvious absurdity of the idea that +in the year 1822 a weekly newspaper could be conducted successfully, or at +all, by an editor in Pisa or Genoa."[354] The strong probability, gathered +from all the extant evidence, is that Byron and Shelley, in inviting Hunt +to Italy, expected, and very naturally, that he would continue to share in +the profits of _The Examiner_. Shelley, indeed, in a letter dated as late +as January 25, 1822, urged Hunt not to leave England without a regular +income from that journal[355]--an injunction which Hunt unfairly +disregarded. It is also likely that his connection with _The Examiner_ was +one of Byron's reasons in extending the partnership to include Hunt. But +it is practically certain that there was no contract nor even +understanding as regards the coöperation of _The Liberal_ and the London +paper. The question does not therefore, involve Hunt's honor at all. If +Byron expected to profit by the influence of _The Examiner_, his silence +shows a manliness that Noble does not credit him with. + +Hunt, in accepting Byron's offer, was actuated by motives both selfish and +unselfish. The fine of £1,000 imposed at the time of his conviction of +libel was not all paid; _The Indicator_ had been abandoned; _The Examiner_ +was on its last legs; his health was broken by overwork undertaken in the +effort not to call upon his friends for aid;[356] an invalid wife and +seven children were to be supported by his pen; his brother John was in +prison. From January, 1821, to August of the same year he had been unable +to write. In accepting Byron's offer he thought to recover his health in a +southern climate, to regain his political influence which had been on the +decrease during the last four or five years, and at the same time to aid +aggressively the liberal movement.[357] Moreover, he was flattered +immensely by the prospective public association with Lord Byron. He had +little to lose and a prospect of large gain. Hunt should have weighed more +gravely such a step before he embarked on such a hazardous venture with so +large a family, but, with a buoyancy and irresponsibility in practical +affairs peculiar to himself, he clutched at the new proposition as a way +out of all difficulties and did not look beyond immediate necessities. He +pictured himself and his family healthy and wealthy in a land he had +always sighed for. If the skies lowered, he fancied Shelley always at +hand. His description of preparations for the voyage is as airy as his +pocketbook was light: "My family, therefore, packed up such goods and +chattels as they had a regard for, my books in particular, and we took, +with strange new thoughts and feelings, but in high expectation, our +journey by sea."[358] + +The part Shelley played in the invitation to Hunt is more difficult of +interpretation. The original proposition to become an equal partner in the +transaction he never seriously entertained. He consented to become a +contributor only. His reasons for his refusal he gave to others, but, for +fear of endangering Hunt's prospects, withheld from Byron; for the same +reason he dissembled at times concerning his real feelings. Yet he was +equally responsible with Byron in extending the invitation to Hunt, as +will be shown later. Although Shelley could not have foreseen the full +consequences of such a course of action, he was deficient in frankness +toward Byron and undoubtedly sacrificed him somewhat in the transaction to +his affection for Hunt. While Byron continued to hold the highest opinion +of Shelley, between the time of their meeting in Switzerland and at +Ravenna, Shelley had experienced three separate revulsions of +feeling.[359] At the time in question his distrust had returned. + +Hunt's pecuniary troubles made their relations still more difficult. This +state of affairs between Byron and Shelley must have given Hunt great +concern, and Shelley suspecting his distress wrote March 2, 1822: "The +aspect of affairs has somewhat changed since the date of that in which I +expressed a repugnance to a continuance of intimacy with Lord Byron as +close as that which now exists; at least it has changed so far as regards +you and the intended journal."[360] + +In January, 1821, Mrs. Hunt wrote Mary Shelley, begging that they might +come to Italy. The subject was thus revived and a formal invitation was +conveyed in a letter of August 26, 1821, from Shelley to Hunt. It proves +beyond a doubt that Byron was the chief projector of the journal: + + "He (Byron) proposes that you should come out and go shares with him + and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of + the contracting parties should publish all their original + compositions and share the profits.... There can be no doubt that the + _profits_ of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, + from various, yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for myself, + I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until + you can know each other and effectuate the arrangement; since (to + entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord + Byron), nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still + less, in the borrowed splendor of such a partnership. You and he, in + different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different + manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and + success.... I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a + remittance for your journey; because there are men, however + excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the + worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for + myself.... He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker + of aristocracy wants to be cut out."[361] + +Hunt's answer was full of expectation and hope. He wrote that "Are there +not three of us?... We will divide the world between us, like the +Triumvirate, and you shall be the sleeping partner, if you will."[362] To +Shelley's reply of October 6, thanking him for coming, Hunt answered: "You +say, Shelley, you thank me for coming. The pleasure of being obliged by +those we love is so great that I do not wonder that you continue to muster +up some obligation to me, but if you are obliged, how much am I?"[363] + +From the beginning of the enterprise Thomas Moore and John Murray scented +trouble and made more. They continued their intermeddling after _The +Liberal_ was launched, and doubtless ministered to Byron's vacillation. +Hunt and Murray had disagreed over the _Story of Rimini_[364] and an +attack on Southey in _The Examiner_ of May 11 and 18, 1817, had included +Murray as well. Moreover, Murray saw in John Hunt,[365] the publisher of +the new periodical, a dangerous future rival in his business relations +with Byron. After matters became unpleasant in Italy, Murray took his +revenge by making public Byron's letters containing ill-natured remarks +about Hunt.[366] The relations of Moore and Hunt had been very +friendly[367] but at this juncture both became too proud of having a +"noble lord" for a friend.[368] + +Moore, writing to Byron in the latter part of 1821, said: "I heard some +time ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to Genoa with all of his family; +and the idea seems to be, that you and Shelley and he are to _conspire_ +together in _The Examiner_. I cannot believe this--and deprecate such a +plan with all my might. _Alone_ you may do anything, but partnerships in +fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for the +deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and I tremble even for you with +such a bankrupt company.... They are both clever fellows, and Shelley I +look upon as a man of real genius; but, I must say again, you could not +give your enemies (the ... s 'et hoc genus omne') a greater triumph than +by joining such an unequal and unholy alliance,"[369] an astounding +statement from a man of pronounced liberal views. Byron's answer of +January 24 was indefinite and perhaps intentionally misleading: "Be +assured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend."[370] February +19, Moore advised Byron not to discuss religious matters in the new work, +but to confine himself to political theories; "if you have any political +catamarans to explode this (London) is your place."[371] After _The +Liberal_ was begun, Moore wrote: "It grieves me to urge anything so much +against Hunt's interest, but I should not hesitate to use the same +language to himself were I near him. I would, if I were you, serve him in +every possible way but this--I would give him (if he would accept of it) +the profits of the same works, published separately--but I would not mix +myself up in this way with others. I would not become a partner in this +sort of miscellaneous '_pot au feu_' where the bad flavour of one +ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. I would be, if I were _you_, +alone, single-handed and as such, invincible."[372] + +The Hunts started for Italy November 15, 1821, but on account of various +setbacks and delays did not really leave the coast of England until May +13, 1822. In the ten months which elapsed between the invitation to Hunt +and his arrival, it is not surprising that Byron's enthusiasm had cooled. +He would have withdrawn if he could have done so, although Byron, Trelawny +says, was at first more eager than Shelley for Hunt's arrival.[373] As has +already been stated above, affairs between Byron and Shelley had been very +strained in January. In the letter of March 2, already referred to, +Shelley informed Hunt that matters had improved between Byron and himself +and that Byron expressed the "greatest eagerness to proceed with the +journal, he dilates with impatience on the delay, and he disregards the +opinion of those who have advised him against it." + +Shelley thought that their strained relations would in no way interfere +with Hunt's prospects, and, with what looks a little like double-dealing, +that it would be possible for him to preserve what influence he had over +the "Proteus" until Hunt arrived: "It will be no very difficult task to +execute that you have assigned me--to keep him in heart with the project +until your arrival."[374] April 10, Shelley wrote again to Hunt of Byron's +eagerness for his arrival: "he urges me to press you to depart." But a +reference to the state of affairs in the two households in Italy carries a +foreboding note: "Lord Byron has made me bitterly feel the inferiority +which the world has presumed to place between us, and which subsists +nowhere in reality but in our own talents, which are not our own but +Nature's--or in our rank, which is not our own but Fortune's." With his +usual humility, Shelley closes the letter with an apology for carrying his +jealousy of Byron into Hunt's relations with him, and says: "You in the +superiority of a wise and tranquil nature have well corrected and justly +reproved me ... you will find much in me to correct and reprove."[375] +During the summer Shelley continued to shrink more than ever from Byron; +June 18 he declared to Hunt that he would not be the link between them for +Byron is the "nucleus of all that is hateful." His one dread was that he +might injure Hunt's prospects.[376] Between April and July Byron's +enthusiasm had again cooled. Trelawny relates that Shelley when he went to +Leghorn to meet Hunt, was greatly depressed by Lord Byron's "shuffling and +equivocating," and, "but for imperilling Hunt's prospects," that Shelley +would have abruptly terminated their intercourse.[377] On July 4 Shelley +wrote to Mary from Pisa that "things are in the worst possible situation +with respect to poor Hunt.... Lord Byron must of course furnish the +requisite funds at present, as I cannot, but he seems inclined to depart +without the necessary explanations and arrangements due to such a +situation as Hunt's. These, in spite of delicacy, I must procure."[378] +This dual attitude of Shelley has been variously viewed. Professor Dowden +thinks it a "triumph of diplomacy,"[379] while Jeaffreson deems it a +conspiracy of Hunt and Shelley against the innocent and unsuspecting +Byron. + +Hunt gave the following ominous description of his first call upon Lord +Byron: "The day was very hot; the road to Mount Nero was very hot, through +dusty suburbs; and when I got there I found the hottest looking house I +ever saw. It was salmon colour. Think of this, flaring over the country in +a hot Italian sun! But the greatest of all the heats was within. Upon +seeing Lord Byron, I hardly knew him, he was grown so fat; and he was +longer in recognizing me, I had grown so thin."[380] Hunt wrote to England +that Byron received him with marked cordiality[381] but Shelley's friend +Williams, in his last letter to his wife, stated that Byron treated Hunt +vilely and "actually said as much that he did not wish his name to be +attached to the work, and of course to theirs"; that his treatment of Mrs. +Hunt was "most shameful"; and that his "conduct cut H. to the soul."[382] +The Hunt family was quickly quartered on the ground floor of Byron's +palace, which Byron had furnished at a cost of £60.[383] Shelley's +sensible suggestions to Hunt about his furniture,[384] about the income +from _The Examiner_, and worse still, his delicately given advice that it +was not possible for him to bring _all_ of his family, had been +ignored.[385] + +With Shelley's tragic death a few days after their arrival, the only "link +of the two thunderbolts,"[386] as he had called himself, was broken. Hunt +was left in an awkward position which no one could have foreseen. A few +days later he wrote to friends at home of Byron's kindness.[387] In 1828 +he gave a different version: + + "Lord Byron requested me to look upon him as standing in Mr. S.'s + place. My heart died within me to hear him; I made the proper + acknowledgment, but I knew what he meant, and I more than doubted + whether even in that, the most trivial part of the friendship, he + could resemble Mr. Shelley, if he would. Circumstances unfortunately + rendered the matter of too much importance to me at the moment. I had + reason to fear:--I was compelled to try:--and things turned out as I + had dreaded. The public have been given to understand that Lord + Byron's purse was at my command, and that I used it according to the + spirit with which it was offered. _I did so._ Stern necessity and a + family compelled me."[388] + +With the magazine scarcely likely to yield an income for some time, it was +absolutely necessary for Hunt to get money from somewhere for living +expenses and, Shelley gone, there was no one left to tide over the +interval but Byron. The latter did not relish the position of sole banker +to a family of nine and doled out £70 in small doses through his steward, +Hunt says, just as if his "disgraces were being counted."[389] He was +embittered by his position as suppliant and dependent, though there is +nothing to show that he was ever refused what he asked for or requested to +pay back what he owed.[390] + +Hunt's entire money obligation to Byron has been comprehensively +calculated by Galt at £500: £200 for the journey from England, £70 at Pisa +for living expenses, the cost of the journey from Pisa to Genoa, and £30 +from Genoa to Florence. Galt thought the use of the ground floor a small +favor since Byron could use only one floor for himself. Such practices +were very common, Italian palaces often being built for that purpose.[391] +It is likely that until the step was irrevocable Byron did not correctly +gauge Hunt's resources and the responsibility which he was assuming in +transporting a large family to a foreign country. If he did, he expected +to share the burden with Shelley. Had Hunt been financially independent, +it is probable that he and Byron would have remained on amicable enough +terms, for the former asserts that the first time he was treated with +disrespect was when Byron knew he was in want.[392] Yet that neither +Shelley nor Byron were wholly ignorant of what to expect before Hunt's +arrival in Italy is apparent from Shelley's letter to Byron, February 15, +1822: + + "Hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. + My answer consisted in sending him all I could spare, which I have + now literally done. Your kindness in fitting up a part of your own + home for his accommodation I sensibly felt, and willingly accept from + you on his part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of + imposing, or, if I could help it, of allowing to be imposed, any + heavier task on your purse. As it has come to this in spite of my + exertions, I will not conceal from you the low ebb of my own money + affairs in the present moment,--that is, my absolute incapacity of + assisting Hunt further. I do not think poor Hunt's promise to pay in + a given time is worth very much, but mine is less subject to + uncertainty, and I should be happy to be responsible for any + engagement he may have proposed to you."[393] + +Mrs. Hunt seems to have widened further the breach between the two +men.[394] She did not speak Italian and the Countess Guiccioli, the head +of Byron's establishment, did not speak English. Neither made any +linguistic efforts and consequently there was no intercourse between the +families of the two households. This, Hunt later says, was the first cause +of diminished cordiality between Byron and himself. The Hunt children were +a further cause of trouble. Byron wrote of them to Mrs. Shelley: "They +were dirtier and more mischievous than Yahoos. What they can't destroy +with their feet they will with their fingers."[395] Again he described +them as "six little blackguards ... kraal out of the Hottentot +country."[396] + +The question of rank was a thorn in the flesh, particularly to Hunt. While +in open theory he had no respect for titles, in actual practice he +groveled before them. Pride, as he thought, had made him decline all +advances from men of rank, but it was more with the air of being afraid to +trust himself than with real indifference. His exception, made in the case +of Lord Byron, is thus explained: "But talents, poetry, similarity of +political opinion, flattery of early sympathy with my boyish writings, +more flattering offers of friendship and the last climax of flattery, an +earnest waiving of his rank, were too much for me in the person of Lord +Byron."[397] On the renewal of the acquaintance in Italy, the very +familiar attitude seen in the dedication of the _Story of Rimini_, which +Hunt himself had decided was "foolish," was changed at the advice of +Shelley to an extremely formal manner of address. Hunt says that Byron did +not like the change.[398] As a matter of fact, six years of separation had +brought about other more important changes: Byron had grown more selfish +and avaricious, Hunt more helpless and vain. + +Three months were spent in Pisa after Shelley's death. In September the +two families left for Genoa, travelling in separate parties and, on their +arrival, settling in separate homes, the Hunts with Mrs. Shelley. From +this time on there was little intercourse between Byron and Hunt. October +9, 1822, Byron wrote to England and denied that all three families were +living under one roof. He said that he rarely saw Hunt, not more than once +a month.[399] Hunt to the contrary said that they saw less of each other +than in Genoa yet "considerable."[400] Although at no time was there an +open breach, yet cordiality and sympathy were wholly lost on both sides in +the strain of the financial situation. They failed of agreement even on +impersonal matters. Byron had looked forward with great pleasure to Hunt's +companionship. Before they met he had written: "When Leigh Hunt comes we +shall have banter enough about those old _ruffiani_, the old dramatists, +with their tiresome conceits, their jingling rhymes, and endless play +upon words."[401] This pleasant anticipation was not realized, for Hunt's +sensitiveness in petty matters and Byron's scorn of Hunt's affectation and +of his ill-bred personal applications,[402] or so the hearer interpreted +them, reduced safe topics to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. Even a mutual +admiration of Pope and Dryden was forgotten. Literary jealousy and vanity +fed the flames. Hunt was unable to appreciate manhood of Byron's virile +type, and he did not try to conceal the fact from one who was hungry for +praise. On the other hand, Byron did not render to Hunt the homage he was +accustomed to receive from the Cockney circle and had nothing but contempt +for all his works except the _Story of Rimini_. A statement in the +anonymous _Life of Lord Byron_, published by Iley, that the +misunderstanding was the result of a criticism by Hunt of _Parisina_ in +the Leghorn and Lucca newspapers and that Byron never spoke to him after +the discovery[403] is a fabrication as unsubstantial as the greater part +of the other statements in the same book. Hunt denied the charge. His sole +connection with _Parisina_ was that he supplied the incident of the +heroine talking in her sleep,[404] a device that he had already made use +of in _Rimini_. + +On his arrival in Italy Hunt wrote back to England that Byron entered into +_The Liberal_ with great ardor, and that he had presented the _Vision of +Judgment_ to his brother and himself for their mutual benefit.[405] Yet +four days later in a letter to Moore Byron wrote: "Hunt seems sanguine +about the matter but (entre nous) I am not. I do not, however, like to put +him out of spirits by saying so, for he is bilious and unwell. Do, pray, +answer _this_ letter immediately. Do send Hunt anything in prose or verse +of yours, to start him handsomely--and lyrical, _iri_cal, or what you +please."[406] At the time of Trelawny's first visit after the work had +begun, Byron said impatiently: "It will be an abortion," and again in +Trelawny's presence he called to his bull-dog on the stairway, "Don't let +any Cockneys pass this way."[407] Sometime previous to October his +endurance must have given way completely, for in that month Hunt wrote +that Byron was _again_ for the plan.[408] In January Byron urged John Hunt +to employ good writers for _The Liberal_ that it might succeed.[409] March +17, 1823, Byron, in a letter to John Hunt, said that he attributed the +failure of _The Liberal_ to his own contributions and that the magazine +would stand a better chance without him. He desired to sever the +partnership if the magazine was to be continued.[410] His constant +vacillation in part supports the charge made by Hunt that Byron under +protest contributed his worse productions in order to make a show of +coöperation.[411] Insinuations from Moore and Murray had fallen on fertile +ground and had persuaded Byron that the association jeopardized his +reputation. Hobhouse, Byron's friend, joined his dissenting voice to +theirs, and "rushed over the Alps" to add to his disapproval.[412] +Hazlitt's account of the conspiracy of Byron's friends against _The +Liberal_ is very fiery.[413] + +The first number of _The Liberal_ appeared October 15, 1822. There were +three subsequent numbers. Byron's contributions were his brilliant and +masterly satire, the _Vision of Judgment_, _Heaven and Earth_, _A Letter +to the Editor of my Grandmother's Review_, _The Blues_, and his +translation of the first canto of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_. Murray had +withheld the preface to the _Vision of Judgment_ and this omission, +combined with an unwise announcement in _The Examiner_ of September 29, +1822, by John Hunt, made the reception even worse than it might otherwise +have been. Hunt said the _Vision of Judgment_ "played the devil with all +of us."[414] Shelley had made ready for the forthcoming magazine his +exquisite translation of Goethe's _May Day Night_ and a prose narrative, +_A German Apologue_. These appeared in the first number. Hunt's best +contributions were two poems, _Lines to a Spider_ and _Mahmoud_. _Letters +from Abroad_ are good in spots only. His two satires, _The Dogs_ and _The +Book of Beginners_, are pale reflections in meter and tone of _Don Juan_ +and _Beppo_ combined. The _Florentine Lovers_ is a good story spoiled. +_Rhyme and Reason_, _The Guili Tre_, and the rest are purely hack work, +with the possible exceptions of the translation from Ariosto and the +modernization of the _Squire's Tale_. Hazlitt contributed _Pulpit +Oratory_, _On the Spirit of Monarchy_, a pithy dissertation _On the Scotch +Character_, and a delightful reminiscence of Coleridge in _My First +Acquaintance with Poets_. Mrs. Shelley wrote _A Tale of the Passions_, +_Mme. D'Houdetot_, and _Giovanni Villani_, all rather stilted and heavy. +Charles Browne contributed _Shakespear's Fools_. A number of unidentified +prose articles and poems, many of the latter translations from Alfieri, +completed the list. + +The causes of the failure of _The Liberal_ were very complex, but quite +obvious. There was no definite political campaign mapped out, no +proportion outlined for the various departments, no assignments of +individual responsibility, no attempt to cater to the public appetite or +to mollify the public prejudices for expediency's sake, and an utter want +of harmony among its supporters. Each contributor rode his own hobby. +Each vented his private spleen without regard to the common good. It was a +vague, up-in-the-air scheme, wholly lacking in coördination and common +sense. Byron's fickleness and want of genuine interest in a small affair +among many other greater ones; the disappointment of both Byron[415] and +Hunt in not realizing the enormous profits that they had looked forward +to--although Hunt wrote later that the "moderate profits" were quite +enough to have encouraged perseverance on the part of Byron; Hunt's +ill-health and unhappy situation which rendered it difficult for him to +write; John Hunt's inexperience as a bookseller; the general unpopularity +of the editor, the publisher, and the contributors; and last, the pent-up +storm of rage from the press which greeted the first number of _The +Liberal_,[416] were other reasons that contributed to its ultimate +downfall. In seeking Hunt for the editor of such a venture, as Gait had +pointed out,[417] Byron had mistaken his political notoriety for solid +literary reputation. + +Hunt, notwithstanding his confession[418] of an inability to write at his +best and of his brother's inexperience, throws the burden of failure +solely on Byron. He asserts that _The Liberal_ had no enemies and, worst +of all, that Byron when he foresaw hostility and failure, gave him and his +brother the profits that they might carry the responsibility of an +"ominous partnership"[419]--a statement ungenerously distorted by bitter +memories, for when John Hunt was prosecuted for the publication of the +_Vision of Judgment_, Byron offered to stand trial in his stead. Neither +does Hunt state that Byron's contributions were _gratis_ and that the +"moderate profits" enabled him and his brother to pay off some of their +old debts.[420] Byron, strong with the prescience of failure, likewise +shifted the blame to other shoulders and with the aid of a strong +imagination tried to persuade himself and his friends that the Hunts had +projected the affair and that he had consented in an evil hour to engage +in it;[421] that they were the cause of the failure; that his motives +throughout had been philanthropic only in nature;[422] and that he was +sacrificing himself for others. Such statements are inventions born of +self-accusation and of self-defense. The worst that can be said of Byron +from beginning to end of the affair is that he was not conscientious in +his endeavors to make the journal a success; that, after it failed, he +evaded financial responsibility by placing barriers of coldness and +ungraciousness between Hunt and himself. + +On October 9, 1822, he wrote to Moore that he had done all he could for +Hunt "but in the affairs of this world he himself is a child";[423] "As it +is, I will not quit them (the Hunts) in their adversity, though it should +cost me my character, fame, money, and the usual et cetera.... Had their +journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for them, I +should then have left them; after my safe pilotage off a lee shore, to +make a prosperous voyage by themselves. As it is, I can't, or would not, +if I could, leave them amidst the breakers. As to any community of +feeling, thought, or opinions between L. H. and me, there is little or +none; we meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and +able man.[424]... You would not have had me leave him in the street with +his family, would you? And as to the other plan you mention, you forget +how it would humiliate him--that his writings should be supposed to be +dead weight! Think a moment--he is perhaps the vainest man on earth, at +least his own friends say so pretty loudly; and if he were in other +circumstances I might be tempted to take him down a peg; but not now--it +would be cruel.[425]... A more amiable man in society I know not, nor +(when he will allow his sense to prevail over his sectarian principles) a +better writer. When he was writing his _Rimini_ I was not the last to +discover its beauties, long before it was published. Even then I +remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which are the more extraordinary, +because the author is anything but a vulgar man."[426] During April, 1823, +the Countess of Blessington had a conversation with Byron in which he said +that while he regretted having embarked in _The Liberal_, yet he had a +good opinion of the talents and principles of Hunt, despite their +diametrically opposed tastes.[427] On April 2, 1823, he wrote that Hunt +was incapable or unwilling to help himself; that he could not keep up this +"genuine philanthropy" permanently; and that he would furnish Hunt with +the means to return to England in comfort.[428] There is no proof that +Byron ever made such an offer to Hunt. The purchase money of Hunt's +journey home was _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_. On July 23, +1823, Byron went to Greece. The Hunts, provided by him with £30 for the +trip, left Genoa about the same time for Florence, where they were +literally stranded, in ill-health and without sufficient means for +support,[429] until their departure for England in September, 1825. The +suffering there and the foul calumny at home magnified in Hunt's mind[430] +the indignity and injustice that had been put upon him and warped his +sense of gratitude and honor in the whole affair. He wrote from Florence: +"The stiffness of age has come into my joints; my legs are sore and +fevered; and I sometimes feel as if I were a ship rotting in a stagnant +harbour."[431] Mrs. Shelley protested to Byron concerning his treatment of +Hunt[432] but she received no further satisfaction than the statement +that he had engaged in the journal for good-will and respect for Hunt +solely.[433] + +The publisher Colburn in 1825 made Hunt an advance of money for the return +journey, to be repaid by a volume of selections from _his own writings +preceded by a biographical sketch_.[434] An irresistible longing for +England and a crisis in the disagreement with John Hunt regarding the +proprietary rights of _The Examiner_ and the publication of the _Wishing +Cap Papers_ in that paper, made Hunt seize at the first opportunity by +which he might return home. From Paris, on his way to England, he wrote: +"If I delayed I might be pinned forever to a distance, like a fluttering +bird to a wall, and so die in helpless yearning. I have been mistaken. +During my strength my weakness perhaps, was only apparent; now that I am +weaker, indignation has given a fillip to my strength."[435] From his +severance with _The Examiner_ and the publication of _Bacchus in Tuscany_ +in 1825, Hunt was idle until 1828. Then, pressed by his obligation to +Colburn and stung by the misrepresentations of the press regarding his +relations with Byron in Italy, he scored even, as he thought, by producing +_Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, the blunder of his life and +the one blot upon his honor. In addition to the part dealing with Byron, +it contained autobiographical reminiscences and memoirs of Shelley, Keats, +Moore, Lamb and others. It went rapidly through three editions. The body +of the work is a discussion of the defects of Byron's character and a +detailed analysis of his actions. In brief, he is charged with insincerity +in the cause of liberty; an impatience of any despotism save his own; a +vain pride of rank, although his friends were of humble origin; a +"libelling all around" of friends; an ignorance of real love, +consanguineous or sexual; coarseness in speaking of women or to them;[436] +a voluptuous indolence; weak impulses; a habit of miscellaneous +confidences and exaggeration; untruthfulness; susceptibility to +influence; avarice even in his patriotism and debauchery; a willingness to +receive petty obligations; jealousy of the great and small; no powers of +conversation and a want of self-possession; bad temper and self-will; an +inordinate desire for flattery; egotism and love of notoriety. More petty +accusations are excess in his eating and drinking, though Hunt complains +that Byron would not "drink like a lord"; his fondness for communicating +unpleasant tidings; his inclination to the mock heroic; his effeminacy and +old-womanish superstition; his easily-aroused suspicions; his +imitativeness in writing poetry; his slight knowledge of languages; his +physical cowardice. The virtues of this monster, small in number and +grudgingly allowed, were admitted to be good horsemanship, good looks, a +delicate hand, amusing powers of mimicry, pleasantry in his cups, masterly +swimming. Unfortunately these statements were usually damned with a "but" +or "yet." + +While it is now generally believed that many of the accusations made by +Hunt were true,[437] inasmuch as they are confirmed in large part by +contemporary evidence, and as truthfulness was one of Hunt's dominant +traits, yet, on the other hand, it is quite necessary to make large +allowance for the point of view and the color given by prejudice and +bitterness of spirit. That Hunt told only the truth does not justify the +injury in the slightest, for he had slept under Byron's roof and eaten of +his bread. The obligations conferred were not exactly those of benefactor +to suppliant; they were perhaps no more than Hunt's due in the light of +the responsibility voluntarily assumed by Byron; yet they could not be +destroyed or forgotten because of a refusal to acknowledge them. Worse +still, Hunt's motives proceeded from impecuniosity and revenge. Such petty +gossip of private affairs was worthy of a smaller and meaner soul. That +Hunt did not have the sanction of his own judgment and conscience is +clearly seen in the preface to the first edition where he confesses an +unwilling hand and gives as a reason for the change of scheme a too long +holiday taken after the advance of money from Colburn. He says that the +book would never have been written at all, or consigned to the flames when +finished, if he could have repaid the money.[438] His one poor defense is +that "Byron talked freely of me and mine," that the public had talked, and +that Byron knew how he felt.[439] + +The book had a very large circulation. But Hunt, who had hoped to defend +himself in this manner from the calumnies afloat since the failure of _The +Liberal_, brought down a storm of abuse from the press that resulted in +his degradation and Byron's canonization. Moore's welcome was a poem, _The +Living Dog and the Dead Lion_.[440] Hunt's friends replied with _The Giant +and the Dwarf_.[441] In his life of Byron published some years later, +Moore speaks reservedly of the book, merely saying it had sunk into +deserved oblivion.[442] + +Hunt's public apology and reparation, in so far as such lay in his power, +were first made in 1847 in _A Saunter Through the West End_: "No. 140 +(formerly No. 13 of what was Piccadilly Terrace) was the last house which +Byron inhabited in England. Nobody needs to be told what a great wit and +fine poet he was: but everybody does not know that he was by nature a +genial and generous man spoiled by the most untoward circumstances in +early life. He vexed his enemies, and sometimes his friends; but his very +advantages have been hard upon him, and subjected him to all sorts of +temptations. May peace rest upon his infirmities, and his fame brighten as +it advances."[443] In 1848, he wrote in praise of the Ave Maria stanza in +_Don Juan_.[444] And finally and completely in his _Autobiography_ he +apologized for the heat and venom of _Lord Byron and Some of His +Contemporaries_: + + "I wrote nothing which I did not feel to be true, or think so. But I + can say with Alamanni, that I was then a young man, and that I am now + advanced in years. I can say, that I was agitated by grief and anger, + and that I am now free from anger. I can say, that I was far more + alive to other people's defects than to my own, and that I am now + sufficiently sensible of my own to show to others the charity which I + need myself. I can say, moreover, that apart from a little allowance + for provocation, I do not think it right to exhibit what is amiss, or + may be thought amiss, in the character of a fellow-creature, out of + any feeling but unmistakable sorrow, or the wish to lessen evils + which society itself may have caused. + + "Lord Byron, with respect to the points on which he erred and + suffered (for on all others, a man like himself, poet and wit, could + not but give and receive pleasure), was the victim of a bad bringing + up, of a series of false positions in society, of evils arising from + the mistakes of society itself, of a personal disadvantage (which his + feelings exaggerated), nay, of his very advantages of person, and of + a face so handsome as to render with strong tendencies of natural + affection," and declared that his fickleness had been "nurtured by an + excessively bad training." In exoneration of Hunt he said that if + "disappointment and the fervour of a new literary work--which often + draws the pen beyond its original intention--led Leigh Hunt into a + book that was too severe, perhaps too one-sided in its views, he + himself afterwards corrected the one-sidedness, and recalled to mind + the earlier and undoubtedly the more correct impression he had had of + Lord Byron." I, 202-203. + + him an object of admiration. Even the lameness, of which he had such + a resentment, only softened the admiration with tenderness. + + "But he did not begin life under good influences. He had a mother, + herself, in all probability, the victim of bad training, who would + fling the dishes from table at his head, and tell him he would be a + scoundrel like his father. His father, who was cousin to the previous + lord, had been what is called a man upon town, and was neither rich + nor very respectable. The young lord, whose means had not yet + recovered themselves, went to school, noble but poor, expecting to be + in the ascendant with his title, yet kept down by the inconsistency + of his condition. He left school to put on the cap with the gold + tuft, which is worshipped at college:--he left college to fall into + some of the worst hands on the town:--his first productions were + contemptuously criticised, and his genius was thus provoked into + satire:--his next were overpraised, which increased his + self-love:--he married when his temper had been soured by + difficulties, and his will and pleasure pampered by the sex:--and he + went companionless into a foreign country, where all this perplexity + could repose without being taught better, and where the sense of a + lost popularity could be drowned in license. + + "I am sorry I ever wrote a syllable respecting Lord Byron which might + have been spared. I have still to relate my connection with him, but + it will be related in a different manner. Pride, it is said, will + have a fall; and I must own, that on this subject I have experienced + the truth of the saying. I had prided myself--I should pride myself + now if I had not been thus rebuked--on not being one of those who + talk against others. I went counter to this feeling in a book; and to + crown the absurdity of the contradiction, I am foolish enough to + suppose that the very fact of my so doing would show that I had done + it in no other instance! that having been thus public in the error, + credit would be given me for never having been privately so! Such are + the delusions inflicted on us by self-love. When the consequence was + represented to me as characterized by my enemies, I felt, enemies + though they were, as if I blushed from head to foot. It is true I had + been goaded to the task by misrepresentation:--I had resisted every + other species of temptation to do it:--and, after all, I said more in + his excuse, and less to his disadvantage, than many of those who + reproved me. But enough. I owed the acknowledgment to him and to + myself; and I shall proceed on my course with a sigh for both, and I + trust in the good will of the sincere."[445] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Characteristics of the "Cockney School"--Reasons for Tory +enmity--Establishment of _Blackwood's Magazine_ and the _Quarterly +Review_--Their methods of attack--Other targets--Authorship of anonymous +articles--Members of the Cockney group--Byron--Hunt--Keats--Shelley-- +Hazlitt. + + +The word "Cockney" says Bulwer-Lytton, signifies the "archetype of the +Londoner east of Temple Bar, and is as grotesquely identified with the +Bells of Bow as Quasimodo with those of Notre Dame."[446] The epithet +remains doubtful in origin but is proverbially significant of odium and of +ridicule. R. H. Horne asserts that, in its first application, it meant +merely "pastoral, minus nature."[447] The word did not long carry so +harmless a connotation. It was first applied to Hunt by the Tory journals +in 1817 and, in the phrase "Cockney School," was gradually extended until +it included most of his associates. The group of men thus arbitrarily +banded together did not form a _school_ or cult, and themselves resented +such a classification. They differed widely in their fundamental +principles of life and art. They were not all of one vocation. On the +other hand they had certain superficial points in common which made them +collectively vulnerable to the dart of the enemy. They were Londoners[448] +by birth or by adoption; with the exception of Shelley they may all be +said to have belonged to the middle class; the most Cockneyfied of them +had certain vulgar mannerisms; they egotistically paraded their personal +affairs in public; they praised each other somewhat fulsomely in +dedications and elsewhere, though not always to the full satisfaction of +everybody concerned; they presented each other with wreaths of bay, +laurel, and roses, and with locks of hair; they agreed in liking Thomas +Moore and in disliking Southey; they moved with complacency within a +limited circle to the exclusion of a large city; in general they were +liberal in politics and in religion; they were in revolt against French +criticism; they chose Elizabethan or Italian models, and, as a rule, they +conceitedly ignored or contemned contemporary writers. + +The gatherings of the coterie have been nowhere better described than by +Cowden Clarke: + + "Evenings of Mozartian operatic and chamber music at Vincent + Novello's own house, where Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Keats and the Lambs + were invited guests; the brilliant supper parties at the alternate + dwellings of the Novellos, the Hunts and the Lambs, who had mutually + agreed that bread and cheese, with celery, and Elia's immortalized + 'Lutheran beer' were to be the sole cates provided; the meetings at + the theatres, when Munden, Dowton, Liston, Bannister, Elliston and + Fanny Kelly were on the stage; the picnic repasts enjoyed together by + appointment in the fields that lay spread in green breadth and + luxuriance between the west end of Oxford Street and the western + slope of Hampstead Hill--are things never to be forgotten."[449] + +Miss Mitford relates a ludicrous incident of one of these meetings: + + "Leigh Hunt (not the notorious Mr. Henry Hunt, but the fop, poet and + politician of the 'Examiner') is a great keeper of birthdays. He was + celebrating that of Haydn, the great composer--giving a dinner, + crowning his bust with laurels, berhyming the poor dear German, and + conducting an apotheosis in full form. Somebody told Mr. Haydon they + were celebrating _his_ birthday. So off he trotted to Hampstead, and + bolted into the company--made a very fine animated speech--thanked + him most sincerely for what they had done him and the arts in his + person."[450] + +At one time the set became violently vegetarian. The enthusiasm came to a +sudden end, as narrated by Joseph Severn: + + "Leigh Hunt most eloquently discussed the charms and advantages of + these vegetable banquets, depicting in glowing words the cauliflowers + swimming in melted butter, and the peas and beans never profaned with + animal gravy. In the midst of his rhapsody he was interrupted by the + venerable Wordsworth, who begged permission to ask a question. 'If,' + he said, 'by chance of good luck they ever met with a caterpillar, + they thanked their stars for the delicious morsel of animal food.' + This absurdity all came to an end by an ugly discovery. Haydon, whose + ruddy face had kept the other enthusiasts from sinking under their + scanty diet--for they clung fondly to the hope that they would become + like him, although they increased daily in pallor and leanness--this + Haydon was discovered one day coming out of a chop-house. He was + promptly taxed with treachery, when he honestly confessed that every + day after the vegetable repast he ate a good beef-steak. This fact + plunged the others in despair, and Leigh Hunt assured me that on + vegetable diet his constitution had received a blow from which he had + never recovered. With Shelley it was different, for he was by nature + formed to regard animal food repulsively."[451] + +The causes of the enmity of the press were political rather than literary +or personal and have already been sufficiently dwelt upon in the preceding +chapters. The strong rivalry between Edinburgh and London as publishing +strongholds intensified the strife. Hunt in particular had centered +attention upon himself by his persistent and violent attacks on Gifford +and Southey for several years previous to 1817. Besides _The Examiner's_ +persistent allusions to these two unregenerates, a savage diatribe had +appeared in the _Feast of the Poets_, which alluded to Gifford's humble +origin and mediocre ability, charged him with being a government tool, and +continued: "But a vile, peevish temper, the more inexcusable in its +indulgence, because he appears to have had early warning of its effects, +breaks out in every page of his criticism, and only renders his affected +grinning the more obnoxious ... I pass over the nauseous epistle to Peter +Pindar, and even notes to his Baviad and Moeviad, where though less +vulgar in his language, he has a great deal of the pert cant and snip-snap +which he deprecates."[452] During 1817, _The Examiner_ had concerned +itself particularly with Southey. He had been called an apostate, a +hypocrite, and almost every other name in Hunt's abusive vocabulary. Sir +Walter Scott had not been spared. His politics were said to be easily +estimated by the "simple fact, that of all the advocates of Charles the +Second, he is the least scrupulous in mentioning his crimes, because he is +the least abashed;" his command of prose was declared equal to nothing +beyond "a plain statement or a brief piece of criticism;" his poetry "a +little thinking conveyed in a great many words."[453] Hunt thus secured to +himself, through offensive and aggressive abuse, the hostility of the +Tories both in England and in Scotland. His weaknesses and affectations +made him a conspicuous and assailable target for the inevitable return +fire.[454] + +The establishment by the Tories of the _Quarterly Review_ in 1809 and of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1817 was with the view of opposing and, if +possible, of suppressing the _Edinburgh Review_ and _The Examiner_. The +brunt of the hostility fell upon the latter, for Hunt, by reason of his +extreme social and religious policy, could not always rally the _Edinburgh +Review_ to his support. With the founding of the _London Magazine_ in 1820 +he had a new ally in its editor, John Scott, but the war had then already +raged for three years, and Scott fell a victim to it in two years' +time.[455] By a process of elimination Scott fixed the identity of +"Z"--such was the only signature of the articles on the Cockney School in +_Blackwood's_--upon Lockhart. He also asserted that Lockhart was the +editor of the magazine. Lockhart demanded an apology. His friend Christie +took up the quarrel. In the duel which followed Scott was fatally wounded. +His death followed Keats's within four days. + +The method of attack with the _Quarterly_ and with _Blackwood's_ was much +the same. They differed chiefly in the style of approach. The former may +be compared to heavy artillery, slow, cumbrous and crushing. The reviews +indeed often verge on dullness and stupidity. Neither Gifford nor Southey +seemed to have been blessed with the saving grace of humor in dealing with +the Cockney School. _Blackwood's_, on the other hand, had too much, for +whenever one of the so-called Cockneys was mentioned, its contributors +wallowed in the mire of coarse buffoonery and cruel satire, disgusting +scandal and vulgar parody. The only counter-irritant to such a dose is the +clever joking and keen humor; but even when this is clean, which is rare, +the whole is rendered unpalatable by the thought of its cruelty and of its +frequent falsity. Furthermore, _Blackwood's_ was more merciless in its +persecution than the _Quarterly_ in that it was untiring. It was +perpetually discharging a fresh fusilade. Both magazines disguised their +real motives under a cloak of religious zeal and monarchical loyalty. + +While Hunt did much to bring the hornet's nest about his ears, he was not +wholly deserving of the amount, and not at all of the kind, of stinging +calumny that he had to endure. Neither were the members of the Cockney +School the only ones who provoked such antagonism from the same magazine. +Other famous libels of _Blackwood's_ that should be mentioned to show the +disposition of its controllers were the _Chaldee Manuscript_; the +_Madonna of Dresden_ and other effusions of the "_Baron von +Lauerwinckel_"; the _Diary_ and _Horæ Sinicæ of Ensign O'Doherty_; and the +_Diary of William Wastle, Blackwood and Dr. Morris_. _Letter to Sir Walter +Scott, Bart., on the Moral and other Characteristics of the Ebony and +Shandrydan School_,[456] cites a full list of _Blackwood's_ victims. +These, besides those of the Cockney School, were said to be Jeffrey, +Professor Playfair, Professor Dugald Stewart, Professor Leslie, James +Macintosh, Lord Brougham, Moore, Professor David Ricardo, Wordsworth, +Coleridge, Pringle, Dalzell, Cleghorn, Graham, Sharpe, Jameson, and Hogg, +the Ettrick Shepherd. The characters in _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, Ticklers, +Scorpions and Shepherds, were said by the pamphleteer to respectively +tickle, sting and stultify, and to make a business "of insulting worth, +offending delicacy, caluminating genius, and outraging the decencies and +violating all the sanctities of life." Their weapons were "loathsome +billingsgate and brutality," and "sublime bathos." An interesting +statement, not elsewhere found, is made by the anonymous author of the +pamphlet that the proprietor of the Black Bull Inn imputed the death of +his wife to the first volume of _Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_, a +series similar to the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. Sir Walter Scott is told that +he cannot remain innocent if he remains indifferent to the machinations of +the "Ebony and Shandrydan School"--as the writer pleases to call the +_Blackwood's_ group. Another interesting pamphlet of like nature is _The +Scorpion Critic Unmasked; or Animadversions on a Pretended Review of +"Fleurs, a Poem, in Four Books," which appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh +Magazine for June, 1821, in a Letter to a Friend_.[457] _Blackwood's_ had +called Nathaniel John Hollingsworth, the author of the poem, and others of +his type, the "Leg of Mutton School."[458] Nothing in fact seems to have +given this magazine so much malicious delight as to create schools, +perhaps in a spirit of rivalry with the "Lake School" of the _Edinburgh +Review_. In the preceding April the "Manchester School" had been presented +by _Blackwood's_ to the public. Hollingsworth in turn created the +"Scorpion School" in order to deride _Blackwood's_. Other pamphlets of the +same kind were _Rebellion again Gulliver; or R-D-C-L-SM in Lilliput_. _A +Poetical Fragment from a Lilliputian Manuscript_, an anonymous publication +which appeared in Edinburgh in 1820; _Aspersions answered: an explanatory +Statement, advanced to the Public at Large, and to Every Reader of The +Quarterly Review in Particular_;[459] and _Another Article for the +Quarterly Review_;[460] both by William Hone in reply to the charge of +irreligion made by the _Quarterly_ against him. + +William Blackwood, John Wilson or "Christopher North," Lockhart, and +perhaps Maginn, share the blame severally of _Blackwood's_; while in the +case of the _Quarterly_, to Gifford and Southey, already mentioned, must +be added Sir Walter Scott and Croker. The two last certainly countenanced +the actions of the others, even if they took no more active part. There +seems to be no way of determining the individual authorship of the various +articles. It was a secret jealously guarded at the time and it is unlikely +that any further disclosures will come to light. The victims themselves +hazarded as many guesses as more recent critics with no greater degree of +certainty. Leigh Hunt thought that the articles were written by Sir Walter +Scott;[461] Hazlitt said, "To pay those fellows _in their own coin_, the +way would be to begin with Walter Scott _and have at his clump +foot_;"[462] Charles Dilke thought that the articles were written by +Lockhart with the encouragement of Scott;[463] Haydon thought that "Z" was +Terry the actor, an intimate of the Blackwood party, who had been +exasperated because Hunt had failed to notice him in _The Examiner_;[464] +Shelley fancied that the articles in the _Quarterly_ were by Southey, and, +on his denial, attributed them to Henry Hart Milman.[465] Mrs. Oliphant in +her two ponderous volumes, _William Blackwood and His Sons_, practically +asserts that "Z" was Lockhart.[466] If the extent of her research is to be +the gauge of its value, her opinion is a very valuable one. Mr. Colvin +advances the theory that "Z" was Wilson or Lockhart, possibly revised by +William Blackwood.[467] Mr. Courthope thinks that Croker was the author of +the articles on _Endymion_ in the _Quarterly_.[468] Mr. Herford thinks +that the whole campaign against the Cockney School was "largely worked +out" by Lockhart.[469] + + * * * * * + +Hunt, Shelley, Hazlitt and Keats were the chief targets in the Cockney +School. The attacks on each of these are of such length as to require +separate discussion and will be returned to later. Those who attained +lesser notoriety were Charles Lamb, Haydon, Barry Cornwall, John Hamilton +Reynolds, Cornelius Webb, Charles Wells, Charles Dilke, Charles Lloyd, P. +G. Patmore and John Ketch (Abraham Franklin). Those who moved within the +same circle and who may by attraction be considered Cockneys are Charles +Cowden Clarke and his wife, Vincent Novello, Charles Armitage Brown, the +Olliers, Horace and James Smith, Douglas Jerrold, Joseph Severn, Laman +Blanchard, Thomas Noon Talfourd, Thomas Love Peacock, and perhaps Thomas +Hood. + +Charles Lamb was first attacked in 1820. He had written essays somewhat in +the manner of Hunt and he was a contributor to the _London Magazine_, +which had blundered by censuring Castlereagh, Canning, and Wilberforce. +The much-despised Hazlitt was another of its force. Accordingly, "Elia" +was pronounced a "Cockney Scribbler," _Christ's Hospital_ an essay full of +offensive and reprehensible personalities,[470] and _All Fool's Day_ +"mere inanity and very Cockneyism."[471] In April, 1822, _Blackwood's_ +returned to the attack but with more than usual good nature. In _Noctes +Ambrosianæ_ of that month Tickler is made to say: + + "Elia in his happiest moods delights me; he is a fine soul; but when + he is dull, his dullness sets human stupidity at defiance. He is like + a well-bred, ill-trained pointer. He has a fine nose, but he can't or + won't range. He always keeps close to your foot, and then he points + larks or tit-mice. You see him snuffing and snoking and brandishing + his tail with the most impassioned enthusiasm, and then drawn round + into a semi-circle he stands beautifully--dead set. You expect a + burst of partridges, or a towering cock-pheasant, when lo, and + behold, away flits a lark, or you discover a mouse's nest, or there + is absolutely nothing at all. Perhaps a shrew has been there the day + before. Yet if Elia were mine, I would not part with him, for all his + faults." + +A few years later Lamb became one of _Blackwood's_ contributors. Two +attacks on Lamb proceeded from the _Quarterly_. The _Confessions of a +Drunkard_, the writer says, "affords a fearful picture of the consequences +of intemperance which we have reason to know is a true tale."[472] In his +_Progress of Infidelity_, Southey asserted that Elia's volume of essays +wanted "only sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is +original."[473] Lamb's wrath had been slowly gathering under the strain of +repeated attacks on Hunt, Hazlitt and himself. It culminated with +Southey's article. In the _London Magazine_ of October, 1823, he +repudiated at considerable length the compliments thrust upon him at the +expense of his friends, and denied the arraignment of drunkenness and +heterodoxy. Matters were then smoothed over between him and Southey +through an explanation which his unfailing good nature could not resist. + +Haydon was nick-named the "Raphael of the Cockneys."[474] Until the +exhibition of _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_ in Edinburgh in 1820, he +underwent the same kind of persecution as his friends. His "greasy hair" +was about as notorious as Hazlett's "pimpled face." But the picture +converted _Blackwood's_ crew. They apologized and confessed that their +misapprehensions had been due to the absurd style of laudation in _The +Examiner_. Henceforward they acknowledged him to be "a high Tory and an +aristocrat, and a sound Christian."[475] + +Bryan Waller Procter, or Barry Cornwall, was satirized in _Blackwood's_ +for his so-called effeminacy. In October, 1823, the following facetious +passage occurs: "the merry thought of a chick--three tea-spoonsfulls of +peas, the eighth part of a French roll, a sprig of cauliflower, and an +almost imperceptible dew of parsley" would dine the author of _The +Deluge_. The article on Shelley's _Posthumous Poems_ in the _Edinburgh_ of +July, 1824, was attributed to Procter by _Blackwood's_ and assailed in a +most disgusting manner. The article was by Hazlitt. + +John Hamilton Reynolds was a friend of Keats, one of the _Young Poets_ +reviewed by Hunt in _The Examiner_, and a contributor to the _London +Magazine_. His two poems, _Eden of the Imagination_ and _Fairies_, showed +Hunt's influence. In the former he had even dared to praise Hunt in the +notes. + +Cornelius Webb was the author of numerous poems which exhibit in a marked +degree the Huntian peculiarities of diction pointed out in the first +chapter. He is moreover responsible for the unfortunate lines so often +quoted in derision by Blackwood's: + + "Keats + The Muses' son of promise! and what feats + He yet may do." + +His sonnets in the _Literary Pocket Book_ were thus reviewed in +_Blackwood's_ of December, 1821: "Now, Cornelius Webbe is a Jaw-breaker. +Let any man who desires to have his ivory dislodged, read the above sonnet +to March. Or shall we call Cornelius, the grinder? After reading aloud +these fourteen lines, we called in our Odontist, and he found that every +tooth in our head was loosened, and a slight fracture in the jaw. 'My +dearest Christopher', said the Odontist, in his wonted classical spirit, +'beware the Ides of March.' So saying, he bounced up in our faces and +disappeared." + +Charles Wells was a friend of Hazlitt and of Keats. In true Cockney +fashion he sent the latter a sonnet and some roses and thus began the +acquaintance. Dilke was a friend of Keats, a radical, and an independent +critic in the manner of Hunt. Charles Lloyd was Lamb's friend, one of the +contributors to the _Literary Pocket Book_ of 1820, and a poet of +sentimental and descriptive propensities. P. G. Patmore was "Count Tims, +the Cockney."[476] Although he was a correspondent of _Blackwood's_, his +son has remarked that he was not _persona grata_, but was employed to +secure news from London; and permitted to write only when he did not +defend his friends too much.[477] "John Ketch" (Abraham Franklin) is +mentioned by Lord Byron as one of the "Cockney Scribblers."[478] Thomas +Hood, as brother-in-law of Reynolds, as assistant editor of the _London +Magazine_, and as an imitator in a small degree in his early work of Lamb +and of Hunt may be enumerated among the Cockneys, although he is not +usually included. Laman Blanchard was the friend of Procter, Lamb and +Hunt. He imitated Procter's _Dramatic Sketches_ and Lamb's _Essays_. +Talfourd was a member of the circle and the friend and biographer of Lamb. +He defended Edward Moxon when he was prosecuted for publishing _Queen +Mab_. Peacock was the friend of Shelley. The Ollier brothers, publishers, +introduced Keats, Shelley, Hunt, Lamb and Procter to the public.[479] + +Although Byron was frequently at war with _Blackwood's_ and the +_Quarterly_, and although he was closely associated with Shelley and Hunt, +he was never stigmatized as a member of the Cockney School. Yet through +his alliance with them he came in for some opprobrium that he would +otherwise have escaped. _Blackwood's_ strove through ridicule to prevent +any growth of familiarity with Hunt or his fraternity. Its attitude +towards the dedication to Byron of the _Story of Rimini_ has already been +mentioned. Hunt's statement already quoted on p. 95 that "for the drama, +whatever good passages such a writer will always put forth, we hold that +he (Byron) has no more qualification than we have" was a choice morsel for +the Scotch birds of prey, enjoyed to the fullest extent in a review of +_Lyndsay's Dramas of the Ancient World_: + + "Prigs will be preaching--and nothing but conceit cometh out of + Cockaigne. What an emasculated band of dramatists have deployed upon + our boards. A pale-faced, sallow set, like the misses of some Cockney + boarding-school, taking a constitutional walk, to get rid of their + habits of eating lime out of the wall.... But it was reserved to the + spirit of atheism of an age, to talk of a Cockney writing a tragedy. + When the mind ceases to believe in a Providence, it can believe in + anything else; but the pious soul feels that while to dream, even in + sleep, that a Cockney had written a successful tragedy, would be + repugnant to reason; certainly a more successful tragedy could not be + imagined, from the utter destruction of Cockaigne and all its + inhabitants. An earthquake or a shower of lava would be too + complimentary to the Cockneys; but what do you think of a shower of + soot from a multitude of foul chimneys, and the smell of gas from + exploded pipes. Something might be made of the idea.... The truth is, + that these mongrel and doggerel drivellers have an instinctive + abhorrence of a true poet; and they all ran out like so many curs + baying at the feet of the Pegasus on which Byron rode ... and the + eulogists of homely, and fireside, and little back-parlour incest, + what could they imagine of the unseduceable spirit of the spotless + Angiolina?... When Elliston, ignorant of what one gentleman owes to + another, or driven by stupidity to forget it, brought the Doge on the + stage, how crowed the Bantam Cocks of Cockaigne to see it damned!... + But Manfred and the Doge are not dead; while all that small fry have + disappeared in the mud, and are dried up like so many tadpoles in a + ditch, under the summer drowth. 'Lord Byron,' quoth Mr. Leigh Hunt, + 'has about as much dramatic genius as _ourselves_!' He might as well + have said, 'Lucretia had about as much chastity as my own heroine in + Rimini;' or, 'Sir Phillip Sidney was about as much of the gentleman + as myself!'"[480] + +Byron's attitude toward the Cockney School was expressed in a letter +written to John Murray during the Bowles controversy: + + "With the rest of his (Hunt's) young people I have no acquaintance, + except through some things of theirs (which have been sent out + without my desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not + aware of the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick's 'Ode to + Shakespeare,' _they_ '_defy criticism_.' These are of the personages + who decry Pope.... Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; + but the rest of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I would + not 'march through Coventry with them, that's flat!' were I in Mr. + Hunt's place. To be sure, he has 'led his ragamuffins where they will + be well peppered'; but a system-maker must receive all sorts of + proselytes. When they have really seen life--when they have felt + it--when they have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the + wilds of Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, + and traced to its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not + till then, can it properly be permitted to them to despise Pope.... + The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets + is their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but + 'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be _coarse_ and yet not + _vulgar_, and the reverse.... It is in their _finery_ that the new + school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as + what we called at Harrow "A Sunday blood" might be easily + distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be the + better cut, and his boots the best blackened of the two:--probably + because he made the one or cleaned the other, with his own hands.... + In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the + latter I know nothing; of the former I judge as it is found."[481] + +Byron's opinion of Keats is too well known to need repetition. He thought +there was hope for Barry Cornwall if "he don't get spoiled by green tea +and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Row. The pity of these men is, +that they never lived in _high life_ nor in _solitude_: there is no medium +for the knowledge of the _busy_ or the _still_ world. If admitted into +high life for a season, it is merely as _spectators_--they form no part of +the mechanism thereof."[482] + +_Blackwood's_ of December, 1822, in a review of _The Liberal_, advised +Byron to "cut the Cockney"--"by far the most unaccountable of God's +works." Hunt is denominated "the menial of a lord." When Byron +notwithstanding its advice continued his "conjunction with these deluded +drivellers of Cockaigne" _Blackwood's_ grew savage towards the peer +himself: it is said that he suffered himself + + "to be so enervated by the unworthy Delilahs which have enslaved his + imagination, as to be reduced to the foul office of displaying blind + buffooneries before the Philistines of Cockaigne ... I feel a moral + conviction that his lordship must have taken the Examiner, the + Liberal, the Rimini, the Round Table, as his model, and endeavored + to write himself down to the level of the capacities and the swinish + tastes of those with whom he has the misfortune, originally, I + believe, from charitable motives, to associate. This is the most + charitable hypothesis which I can frame. Indeed there are some verses + which have all the appearance of having been interpolated by the King + of the Cockneys."[483] + +When Byron and Hunt had separated, _Blackwood's_ attempted to reinstate +Byron in his former position by declaring that he had been disgusted +beyond endurance on Hunt's arrival in Italy and that he had cut him very +soon in a "paroxysm of loathing."[484] + + * * * * * + +The declaration of war between the Cockneys and the Tory press was made +with a review of the _Story of Rimini_ in the _Quarterly_ of January, +1816. From this time on Hunt was the choice prey of the two magazines, and +others were attacked principally on account of him, or reached through +him. Hunt's writings were termed "eruptions of a disease" with which he +insists upon "inoculating mankind;" his language "an ungrammatical, +unauthorized, chaotic jargon." _Blackwood's_ of October, 1817, contained +the first of the long series of abusive articles which appeared in its +columns. Hazlitt in the _Edinburgh Review_ in June of the preceding year +had acclaimed the _Story of Rimini_ to be "a reminder of the pure and +glorious style that prevailed among us before French modes and French +methods of criticism." In it he had discovered a resemblance to Chaucer, +to the voluptuous pathos of Boccaccio and to the laughing graces of +Ariosto. To offset such statements _Blackwood's_ dubbed the new school the +"Cockney School" and made Hunt its chief doctor and professor. (Later, in +1823, _Blackwood's_ proudly claimed the honor of christening and said that +the _Quarterly_ used the epithet only when it had become a part of English +criticism.) It declared the dedication to Byron an insult and the poem the +product of affectation and gaudiness and continued: + + "The beaux are attorney's apprentices, with chapeau bras and Limerick + gloves--fiddlers, harp teachers, and clerks of genius: the belles are + faded, fan-twinkling spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, + and enormous citizen's wives. The company are entertained with + luke-warm negus, and the sounds of a paltry piano forte.... His + poetry resembles that of a man who has kept company with + kept-mistresses. His muse talks indelicately like the tea-sipping + milliner's girl. Some excuse for her there might have been, had she + been hurried away by imagination or passion; but with her, indecency + seems a disease, she appears to speak unclean things from perfect + inanition." Hunt "would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and he + is very sorry that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning + with yellow breeches and flesh-colored silk stockings. He sticks an + artificial rosebud in his button hole in the midst of winter. He + wears no neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the prints of + Petrarch." + +Nature in the eyes of a Cockney was said to consist only of "green fields, +jaunty streams, and o'er-arching leafiness;" no mountains were higher than +Highgate-hill nor streams more pastoral than the Serpentine River.[485] +_Blackwood's_ was near the truth in its criticism of Hunt's conception of +nature. While his appreciation was very genuine, it was restricted to +rural or suburban scenes, "of the town, towny."[486] The scale was that of +the window garden or a flower pot. Who but he could rhapsodize over a cut +flower or a bit of green; or could speak in spring "of being gay and +vernal and daffodilean?"[487] Yet he produced some delightful rural +poetry. Take this for instance: + + "You know the rural feeling, and the charm + That stillness has for a world-fretted ear, + 'Tis now deep whispering all about me here, + With thousand tiny bushings, like a swarm + Of atom bees, or fairies in alarm + Or noise of numerous bliss from distant spheres."[488] + +The general characteristics of the school, briefly summarized, were said +to be ignorance and vulgarity, an entire absence of religion, a vague and +sour Jacobinism for patriotism, admiration of Chaucer and Spenser when +they resemble Hunt, and extreme moral depravity and obscenity. November, +1817, of _Blackwood's_ contained the notorious accusation against the +_Story of Rimini_ of immorality of purpose.[489] The poem was called "the +genteel comedy of incest." Francesca's sin was declared voluntary and her +sufferings sentimental. The changes from the historical version, an +espousal by proxy instead of betrothal, the omission of deformity, the +substitution of the duel for murder, and the happy opening, were +pronounced wilful perversions for the furtherance of corruption. Ford's +treatment of the same theme much more elevated. Hunt's defense was that +the catastrophe was Francesca's sufficient punishment.[490] In May, 1818, +the same charge was repeated: "No woman who has not either lost her +chastity, or is desirous of losing it, ever read the 'Story of Rimini' +without the flushings of shame and of self-reproach." + +_The Examiner_ of November 2 and 16, 1817, quoted extracts from the first +of these articles and called upon the author to avow himself; otherwise to +an "utter disregard of _Truth_ and Decency, he adds the height of Meanness +and COWARDICE."[491] As might have been expected, this demand brought +forth nothing more than a disavowal from the London publishers who handled +_Blackwood's_ of all responsibility in the matter. June 14, 1818, _The +Examiner_ assailed the editor of the _Quarterly_ as a government critic +who disguised a political quarrel in literary garb, as a sycophant to +power and wealth: + + "Grown old in the service of corruption, he drivels on to the last + with prostituted impotence, and shameless effrontery; salves a meagre + reputation for wit, by venting the driblets of his spleen and + impertinence on others; answers their arguments by confuting himself; + mistakes habitual obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness, + not to be imposed upon by shallow pretensions; unprincipled rancor + for zealous loyalty; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, and + peevish effusions of bodily pain and mental infirmity, for proofs of + refinement of taste and strength of understanding." + +This condescension to a use of his enemies' weapons only weakened Hunt's +position. Yet in the light of the secrecy maintained at the time and the +mystery surrounding the matter ever since, it is interesting to read +_Blackwood's_ contorted reply to Hunt's demand for an open fight, written +as late as January, 1826: + + "Nor let it be said that, either on this or any other occasion, the + moral Satyrists (sic) in this magazine ever wished to remain unknown. + How, indeed, could they wish for what they well knew was impossible? + All the world has all along known the names of the gentlemen who have + uttered our winged words. Nor did it ever, for one single moment, + enter into the head of any one of them to wish--not to scorn + concealment. To gentlemen, too, they at all times acted like + gentlemen; but was it ever dreamt by the wildest that they were to + consider as such the scum of the earth? 'If I but knew who was my + slanderer,' was at one time the ludicrous skraigh of the convicted + Cockney. Why did he not ask? and what would he have got by asking? + Shame and confusion of face--unanswerable argument and cruel + chastisement. For before one word would have been deigned to the + sinner, he must have eaten--and the bitter roll is yet ready for + him--all the lies he had told for the last twenty years, and must + either have choked or been kicked." + +In January, 1818, _Blackwood's_ issued a manifesto of their future +campaign. The Keatses, Shelleys, and Webbes, were to be taken in turn. The +charges of profligacy and obscenity against Hunt's poem were repeated, but +it was emphatically stated that there was no implication made in reference +to his private character--an ominous statement that any one with any +knowledge of _Blackwood's_ usual methods could only construe into a +warning that such an implication would speedily follow. The article was +signed "Z," a shadowy personage who sorrowfully called himself the +"present object" of Hunt's resentment and dislike. He seems to have +expected gratitude and affection in return for articles that would +compare favorably with the most scurrilous billingsgate of any of the +Humanistic controversies. In May, 1818, with due ceremony, Hunt was +proclaimed "King of the Cockneys" and editor of the Cockney Court-gazette. +His kingdom was the "Land of Cockaigne," a borrowing, most probably, from +the thirteenth century satire by that name. Keats's sonnet containing the +line "He of the rose, the violet, the spring" became the official Cockney +poem--by an "amiable but infatuated bardling." John Hunt was made Prince +John. With the lapse of time Hunt's crimes seem to have multiplied. He is +called a lunatic, a libeller, an abettor of murder and of assassination, a +coward, an incendiary, a Jacobin, a plebeian and a foe to virtue. He is +instructed, if sickened with the sins and follies of mankind, to withdraw + + "to the holy contemplation of your own divine perfections, and there + 'perk up with timid mouth' 'and lamping eyes' (as you have it) upon + what to you is dearer and more glorious than all created things + besides, till you become absorbed in your own identity--motionless, + mighty, and magnificent, in the pure calm of Cockneyism ... instead + of rousing yourself from your lair, like some noble beast when + attacked by the hunter, you roll yourself round like a sick hedgehog, + that has crawled out into the 'crisp' gravel walk round your box at + Hampstead, and oppose only the feeble pricks of your hunch'd-up back + to the kicks of any one who wishes less to hurt you, than to drive + you into your den." + +The _Quarterly_ of the same month contained the notorious review of +_Foliage_. Southey, in a counterfeited Cockney style, contorts Hunt's +devotion to his leafy luxuries, his flowerets, wine, music and other +social joys into Epicureanism[492] and like unsound principles. He even +goes so far as to accuse him of incest and adultery in his private life. +There are disguised but unmistakable references to Keats and to Shelley; +the latter is credited with evil doings that fall little short of +machinations with the devil. The volume of poems, which was the ostensible +pretext for this parade of foul slander, not a word of which was true, +has, Southey says, richness of language and picturesqueness of +imagery.[493] The July number of _Blackwood's_ went a step beyond Southey +and identified the characters of the _Story of Rimini_ with Hunt and his +sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kent. After ostentatiously giving currency to the +scandal, "Z" then proceeds to deny the rumor--which had no existence save +in the minds of Hunt's vilifiers--in order to preserve immunity from +libel. At the time that Lamb replied to Southey in 1823 he took up these +charges made against Hunt in 1818. He said: + + "I was admitted to his household for several years, and do most + solemnly aver that I believe him to be in his domestic relations as + correct as any man. He chose an ill-judged subject for a poem.... In + spite of 'Rimini,' I must look upon its author as a man of taste and + a poet. He is better than so; he is one of the most cordial-minded + men that I ever knew, and matchless as a fireside companion. I do not + mean to affront or wound your feelings when I say that in his more + genial moods, he has often reminded me of you."[494] + +A facetious bit of prose _On Sonnet Writing_ and a _Sonnet on Myself_ in +_Blackwood's_ of April, 1819, parodied excellently the Cockney conceit and +mannerisms. The September number contrasted Henry Hunt, the representative +of the Cockney School of Politics, with Leigh Hunt, of the Cockney School +of Poetry; resenting loudly the claim of the two to prominence for "even +Douglasses never had more than one Bell-the-cat at a time." While Henry +Hunt "the brawny white feather of Cockspur-street" addresses street mobs, +the other Hunt, "the lank and sallow hypochondriac of the 'leafy rise' +and 'farmy fields' of Hampstead," "the whining milk-sop sonneteer of the +Examiner" is said to speak to a "sorely depressed remnant of 'single +gentlemen' in lodgings, and single ladies we know not where--a generation +affected with headaches, tea-drinking and all the nostalgia of the +nerves." It is hardly necessary to add that there was no connection +whatsoever between the two men. + +_Blackwood's_ of October, 1819, announced _Foliage_ to be a posthumous +publication of Hunt's, presented to the public by his three friends, +Keats, Haydon and Novello. An affecting picture is drawn of the +now-departed Hunt in his once familiar costume of dressing-gown, yellow +breeches and red slippers, sipping tea, playing whist and writing sonnets. +His statement in the preface that a "love of sociability, of the country, +and the fine imagination of the Greeks" had prompted the poems is greatly +ridiculed. The first is said to have caused his death by an +over-indulgence in tea-drinking; his feeling for nature is said to be +limited to the lawns, stiles and hedges of Hampstead and his knowledge of +the imagination of the Greeks to quotations. The _Sonnet On Receiving a +Crown of Ivy from Keats_ came in for especial derision--"a blister clapped +on his head" would have been considered more appropriate. + +Hunt's _Literary Pocket Books_ for 1819 and 1820 were reviewed in +_Blackwood's_ in December, 1819, in a remarkably kind article. They are +recommended as worth three times the price. The reviewer, who was no other +than "Christopher North," stated that he had purchased six copies. +_Blackwood's_ of September, 1820, reviewed _The Indicator_; of December, +1821, the 1822 _Literary Pocket Book_; the last contained coarse and +unkind allusions to Hunt's health. It declared the production of sonnets +in London and its suburbs about equal to the number of births and deaths. +In reply, _The Examiner_ of December 16, 1821, in an article entitled +_Modern Criticism_, italicised extracts from _Blackwood's_ to bring out +peculiarities of grammar and diction. _Blackwood's_ of January, 1822, +contained a sonnet which it was pretended was Hunt's New Year's greeting, +but which was instead a clever parody on his sonnet-style. + +The issue of the next month announced the triumvirate of _The Liberal_ +and, through Byron's "noble generosity," Hunt's departure with his wife +and "little Johnnys" upon a "perilous voyage on the un-cockney ocean.... +He and his companions will now, like his own Nereids, + + turn + And toss upon the ocean's lifting billows, + Making them _banks and_ pillows, + Upon whose _springiness_ they lean and ride; + Some with an _inward back_; some _upward-eyed_, + Feeling the sky; and some with _sidelong hips_, + O'er which the surface of the water slips." + +The first number of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ appeared in March. The +following passage refers to the launching of _The Liberal_ in a dialogue +between the Editor and O'Doherty: + + O. Hand me the lemons. This holy alliance of Pisa will be a queer + affair. _The Examiner_ has let down its price from a tenpenny to a + sevenpenny. They say the Editor here is to be one of that faction, + for they must publish in London, of course. + + Ed. Of course, but I doubt if they will be able to sell many. Byron + is a prince, but these dabbling dogglerers destroy every dish they + dip in. + + O. Apt alliteration's artful aid. + + Ed. Imagine Shelly [sic], with his spavin, and Hunt, with his + staingalt, going in harness with such a caperer as Byron, + three-a-breast. He'll knock the wind out of them both the first + canter. + + O. 'Tis pity Keats is dead.--I suppose you could not venture to + publish a sonnet in which he is mentioned now? The _Quarterly_ (who + killed him, as Shelly says) would blame you. + + Ed. Let's hear it. Is it your own? + + O. No; 'twas written many months ago by a certain great Italian + genius, who cuts a figure about the London routs--one Fudgiolo. + + Ed. Try to recollect it. (Here follows the sonnet.) + +_Blackwood's_ of December, 1822, had passages on the Cockney School in +_Noctes Ambrosianæ_. Number VII. of the series of articles on its members +reviewed Hunt's _Florentine Lovers_, or, in their phrasing, his _Art of +Love_, the story of which is wilfully misrepresented. Hunt is declared +"the most irresistible knight-errant errotic extant ... the most +contemptible little capon of the bantam breed that ever vainly dropped a +wing, or sidled up to a partlet. He can no more crow than a hen. Byron +makes love like Sir Peter, Moore like a tom-tit and Hunt like a bantam." +The writer then charges Hunt with irreligion, indecency, sensuality and +licentiousness. He is called "A Fool" and an "exquisite idiot." Such a +burst of rage on the part of the anti-Cockneys, after their wrath had +begun to cool as seen in the review of the _Literary Pocket Book_, was +doubtless due to Hunt's association in _The Liberal_ with Byron: "What can +Byron mean by patronizing a Cockney?... by far the most unaccountable of +God's works ... a scavenger raking in the filth of the common sewers and +stews, for a few gold pieces thrown down by a nobleman.... But that Satan +should stoop to associate with an incubus, shows that there is degeneracy +in hell." The tirade closes with a poem of six stanzas of which this is a +fair sample: + + "The kind Cockney Monarch, he bids us farewell + Taking his place in the Leghorn-bound smack-- + In the smack, in the smack--Ah! will he ne'er come back?" + +At the appearance of the last number of _The Liberal_, _Blackwood's_ +rejoiced thus: + + "Their hum, to be sure, is awfully subdued. They remind me of a + mutchkin of wasps in a bottle, all sticking to each other--heads and + tails--rumps glued with treacle and vinegar, wax and pus--helpless, + hopeless, stingless, wingless, springless--utterly abandoned of + air--choked and choking--mutually entangling and entangled--and + mutually disgusting and disgusted--the last blistering ferment of + incarnate filth working itself into one mass of oblivion in one + bruised and battered sprawl of swipes and venom."[495] + +_Blackwood's_ of October, 1823, declared Hazlitt to be the most loathsome +and Hunt the most ludicrous of the group. Before the close of the year +Hunt threatened the magazine with a suit for libel. This threat did not +prevent in January a notice of Hunt's _Ultra-Crepidarius_, a satire on +Gifford much in the vein and style of the _Feast of the Poets_. Mercury +and Venus come to earth in search of the former's lost shoe. On their +arrival they discover that it has been converted by command of the gods +into a man named Gifford. The satire is facetiously attributed by +_Blackwood's_ to Master Hunt, aged ten; a "small, smart, smattering +satirist of an air-haparent ... Cockney chick." The parent is reproached +for putting a child in such a position. + + "Had Leigh Hunt, the papa, boldly advanced on any great emergency, at + the peril of his life and crown, to snatch the legitimate issue of + his own loins from the shrivelled hands of some blear-eyed old + beldam, into whose small cabbage-garden Maximilian had headed a + forlorn hope, good and well, and beautiful; but not so, when a + stalwart and cankered carl like Mr. Gifford, with his quarter-staff, + belabours the shoulders of his Majesty, and sire shoves son between + himself and the Pounder ... such pusillanimity involves forfeiture of + the Crown, and from this hour we declare Leigh dethroned, and the + boy-bard of _Ultra-Crepidarius_ King of Cockaigne." + +Wearying of this make-believe, the reviewer discards such a possibility of +authorship and considers Hunt's grandfather, a legendary personage whose +age is put at ninety-six and who is given the name of Zachariah Hunt: +"What a gross, vulgar, leering old dog it is! Was ever the couch of the +celestials so profaned before! One thinks of some aged cur, with mangy +back, glazed eye-balls dropping rheum, and with most disconsolate muzzard +muzzling among the fleas of his abominable loins, by some accident lying +upon the bed where Love and Beauty are embracing and embraced." As a final +potentiality the reviewer deliberates whether Hunt by any possibility +could have been the author and closes with this peroration: "There he goes +soaking, and swaling, and straddling up the sky, like Daniel O'Rouke on +goose back!... Toes in if you please. The goose is galloping--why don't +you stand in the stirrups?... Alas Pegasus smells his native marshes; +instead of making for Olympus, he is off in a wallop to the fens of +Lincolnshire! Bellerophon has lost his seat--now he clings desperately by +the tail--a single feather holds him from eternity." + +Article VIII of the regular series, reviewing Hunt's _Bacchus in Tuscany_, +appeared in _Blackwood's_ of August, 1825. His allegiance to Apollo in +Cockaigne is declared to have been changed to Bacchus in Tuscany, and his +usual beverage of weak tea to a diet of wine on which he swills like a +hippopotamus. He is depicted as Jupiter Tonans and his manner to Hebe is +compared with a "natty Bagman to the barmaid of the Hen and Chickens." The +same number noticed Sotheby's translation of Homer. The opportunity was +not lost to refer unfavorably to Hunt's translations of the same in +_Foliage_. + +_The Rebellion of the Beasts_; or _The Ass is Dead! Long Live the Ass!!! +By a Late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge_, with the motto "A man +hath pre-eminence above a beast," was published anonymously by J. & H. L. +Hunt in London in 1825. There is every reason to believe that it was by +Hunt, although he does not mention it elsewhere. It is an exceedingly +clever satire on monarchy and far surpasses anything else of the kind that +he ever did. Had the Tories of Edinburgh suspected the author it would +probably have made them apoplectic with rage. + +With _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_ the rage of the two +periodicals reached a grand climax and seemingly exhausted itself. The +_Quarterly_ in March of the same year in which it appeared said: "The last +wiggle of expiring imbecility appears in these days to be a volume of +personal Reminiscences." It characterized the book as a melancholy product +of coxcombry and cockneyism: as "dirty gabble about men's wives and men's +mistresses--and men's lackeys, and even the mistresses of the lackeys:" as +"the miserable book of a miserable man; the little airy fopperies of its +manner are like the fantastic trip and convulsive simpers of some poor +worn-out wanton, struggling between famine and remorse, leering through +her tears." _Blackwood's_ of the same month pictured Hunt riding in the +tourney lists of Cockaigne to the tune of Cock-a-doodle-doo. It accused +him, besides those misdemeanors many times previously exploited, of clumsy +casuistry, of falsehood regarding his transaction with Colburn, of +ill-breeding in dragging his wife into such a book. The following is the +culmination of the author's anger: + + "Mr. Hunt, who to the prating pertness of the parrot, the chattering + impudence of the magpie--to say nothing of the mowling malice of the + monkey--adds the hissiness of the bill-pouting gander, and the + gobble-bluster of the bubbly-jock--to say nothing of the forward + valour of the brock or badger--threatens death and destruction to all + writers of prose or verse, who shall dare to say white is the black + of his eye, or that his book is not like a vase lighted up from + within with the torch of truth ... Frezeland Bantam is the vainest + bird that attempts to crow; and by and by our feverish friend comes + out into the light, and begins to trim his plumage! His toilet over + he basks on the ditch side, and has not the smallest doubt in the + world that he is a Bird of Paradise." + +The _Literary Gazette_ joined in the hue-and-cry against "the pert +vulgarity and miserable low-mindedness of Cockney-land," against "the +disagreeable, envious, bickering, hating, slandering, contemptible, +drivelling and be-devilling wretches."[496] _Blackwood's_ of February, +1830, in a review of Moore's _Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, +satirizes the conversational habits of the Cockneys "who all keep +chattering during meals and after them, like so many monkeys, emulous and +envious of each other's eloquence, and pulling out with their paws fetid +observations from their cheek-pouches, which are nuts to them, though +instead of kernel, nothing but snuff." + +Not only did the articles in _Blackwood's_ cease after this last, but in +1834 a full and complete apology was tendered Hunt by Christopher North: + + "And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was honorable + to both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and I hope Gurney + will let a certain person in the City understand that I treat his + offer of a reviewal of Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_ with disdain. If + he has anything to say against us or that gentleman, either + conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other channel; + and I promise him a touch and taste of the crutch. He talks to me of + _Maga's_ desertion of principle; but if he were a Christian--nay, a + man--his heart and his head would tell him that the Animosities are + mortal, but the Humanities live for ever--and that Leigh Hunt has + more talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken + upon himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling with + forgotten falsehoods."[497] + +Professor Wilson's invitation to Hunt to contribute to his magazine was +declined politely but firmly. Leigh Hunt wrote to Charles Cowden Clarke: +"_Blackwood's_ and I, poetically, are becoming the best friends in the +world. The other day there was an Ode in _Blackwood_ in honour of the +memory of Shelley; and I look for one of Keats. I hope this will give you +faith in glimpses of the Golden Age."[498] Nowhere does Hunt show +resentment or malice for the sufferings of years. Yet Mrs. Oliphant, in +her advocacy of the Blackwood group, goes the length of saying that he +displayed "feebleness of mind and body," "petty meannesses," +"unwillingness or incapacity to take a high view even of friends or +benefactors," a lightheartedness and frivolity, and "enduring spite." She +grudgingly admits his "almost feminine grace and charm." She says that he +thought his friends deserved only "casual thanks when they did what was +but their manifest duty ... bitter and spiteful satire when they attended +to their own affairs instead." She makes a radically false statement when +she says that he defended Byron, Shelley, Keats, Moore, and many others in +_The Examiner_, but found an opportunity to say an evil word of most of +them afterwards; and that when _Blackwood's_ or the _Quarterly_ attacked +him, he was convinced that "it must be really one of his friends who was +being struck at through him."[499] + +The _Quarterly_ delayed longer in assuming a friendly attitude. It +remained silent until 1867, when Bulwer, in a comparison of Hunt and +Hazlitt, conceded to the former a gracefulness and kindliness of +disposition, a smoothness of tone and delicacy of finish in his writing. +There was no formal apology as in the case of _Blackwood's_. + +Carlyle says that Hunt suffered an "obloquy and calumny through the Tory +press--perhaps a greater quantity of baseness, persevering, implacable +calumny, than any other living writer has undergone; which long course of +hostility ... may be regarded as the beginning of his worst distresses, +and a main cause of them down to this day."[500] Macaulay said: "There is +hardly a man living whose merits have been so grudgingly allowed, and +whose faults have been so cruelly expiated."[501] For a period of more +than a quarter of a century, from the beginning of the crusade against him +until about 1845, partly as the result of the misrepresentation of the +press, and partly as a natural consequence of his own foibles and early +blunders, a pretty general antagonism existed against him. At the end of +that time his honesty and talents were recognized and rewarded publicly by +the government. And the public has come more and more to esteem his +personal character. + + * * * * * + +The _Quarterly_ of April, 1818, contained the stupid and savage review of +_Endymion_, provoked almost solely by the Keats's offence in being the +friend and public protégé of Leigh Hunt. The simple and manly preface[502] +was misconstrued into a formula for Huntian poetry, and its allusion to a +"London drizzle or a Scotch mist" into a "deprecation of criticism in a +feverish manner." Leigh Hunt asked years afterwards how "anybody could +answer such an appeal to the mercy of strength with the cruelty of +weakness. All the good for which Mr. Gifford pretended to be zealous, he +might have effected with pain to no one, and glory to himself; and +therefore all the evil he mixed with it was of his own making."[503] The +general trend of the article and the reviewer's acknowledgment that he had +read only the first book of the poem are well known. The following passage +refers directly to Keats's connection with Hunt: + + "The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt, but he is more unintelligible, + almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and + absurd than his prototype; who, though he impudently presumed to seat + himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by + his own standard, yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats advanced + no dogmas which he was bound to support by examples; his nonsense is + therefore quite gratuitous; he writes it for his own sake, and, being + bitten by Mr. Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the + insanity of his poetry."[504] + +_Blackwood's_ followed the _Quarterly's_ lead in August, reviewing Keats's +first volume at the same time with _Endymion_. He is reproached with +madness, with metromania, with low origin, with perversion of talents +suited only to an apprenticeship, all because he admired Hunt sufficiently +to adopt some of his theories and because he had been called in _The +Examiner_ one of "two stars of glorious magnitude." The sonnet _Written on +the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison_, the _Sonnet to Haydon_, and +_Sleep and Poetry_, are anathematized. In the last Keats is said to speak +with + + "contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits that the world ever + produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties + in laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or + cascades heard at Vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, + philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney + school of versification, morality and politics, a century before its + time. After blaspheming himself into a fury against Boileau, etc., + Mr. Keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present + more promising state of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories + of the poet of _Rimini_." + +The denunciation of the "calm, settled, drivelling idiocy" of _Endymion_ +in the same article is famous, but in a discussion of the Cockney School +it is well to recall the following: + + "From his prototype Hunt, John Keats has acquired a sort of vague + idea, that the Greeks were a most tasteful people, and that no + mythology can be so finely adopted for the purpose of poetry as + theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the Cockneys make of this + mythology; the one confesses that he never read the Greek Tragedians + and the other knows Homer only from Chapman; and both of them write + about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries, as might be expected + from persons of their education. We shall not, however, enlarge at + present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an entire paper to + the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney poets." + +The versification is said to expose the defects of Hunt's system ten times +more than Hunt's own poetry. The mocking close is as follows: "It is a +better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; +so back to the shop, Mr. John, back to 'plasters, pills, and ointment +boxes,' etc. But, for Heaven's sake, young Sangrado, be a little more +sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have been +in your poetry." + +The delusion that these articles were the direct cause of Keats's death, +an impression given wide currency by the passages in _Adonais_[505] and +_Don Juan_,[506] has long since been dispelled by the evidence of +Hunt,[507] Fanny Brawne, C. C. Clarke and, most important of all, Keats's +own letters.[508] It is not likely that he was affected by them as much as +either Hunt or Hazlitt, for he showed more indifference and greater +dignity under fire than either. His courage and his craving for future +fame do not seem to have wavered during the year in which they appeared. +Joseph Severn has testified that he never heard Keats mention +_Blackwood's_ and that he considered what his friend endured from the +press as "one of the least of his miseries"; that he knew so little about +the whole matter that when he met Sir Walter Scott in Rome many years +after he was at a loss to understand Scott's embarrassment when Keats's +name was mentioned; and it was not until a friend afterwards explained +that Scott was connected with one of the magazines which was popularly +supposed to have caused Keats's death that he could fathom it.[509] + +It would have been impossible for a more obtuse man than Leigh Hunt not to +have realized from the import of these two articles that Keats was abused +largely because of the association with himself and, but for that, might +have remained in peaceful obscurity. Hunt therefore wisely refrained from +further defense as it would only have made matters worse. During the year +1818 only one notice of Keats appeared in _The Examiner_.[510] During the +same year three sonnets to Keats appeared in _Foliage_. Yet it has been +several times stated that Hunt forsook Keats at this time. Keats, under +the hallucination of disease himself, accused Hunt of neglect, yet there +were three reasons which made a persistent defense on the part of Hunt not +to be expected. First, he was unaware, according to his own statement, of +the extent of the defamation; second, he realized that his championship +and friendship had been the original cause of wrath in the enemies' camp +against Keats and that any activity on his part would only incense them +further,[511] and third, he did not approve of Keats's only publication of +that year and could not give it his support, as he frankly told Keats +himself. Mr. Forman and Mr. Rossetti both scout the idea of disertion and +disloyalty. Yet Mr. Hall Caine has made much[512] of a charge which has +been denied by Hunt and ultimately repudiated by Keats. He has, moreover, +overlooked the fact that Hunt's bitter satire, _Ultra-Crepidarius_, was +written in _1818_ as a reply to Keats's critics but was withheld from +publication, presumably only for reasons of prudence, until 1823. When +Keats's feeling on the subject was brought to his knowledge years later, +Hunt wrote: + + "Keats appears to have been of opinion that I ought to have taken + more notice of what the critics said against him. And perhaps I + ought. My notices of them may not have been sufficient. I may have + too much contented myself with panegyrizing his genius, and thinking + the objections to it of no ultimate importance. Had he given me a + hint to another effect, I should have acted upon it. But in truth, as + I have before intimated, I did not see a twentieth part of what was + said against us; nor had I the slightest notion, at that period, + that he took criticism so much to heart. I was in the habit, though a + public man, of living in a world of abstractions of my own; and I + regarded him as of a nature still more abstracted, and sure of + renown. Though I was a politician (so to speak), I had scarcely a + political work in my library. Spensers and Arabian Tales filled up + the shelves; and Spenser himself was not remoter, in my eyes, from + all the common-places of life, than my new friend. Our whole talk was + made up of idealisms. In the streets we were in the thick of the old + woods. I little suspected, as I did afterwards, that the hunters had + struck him; and never at any time did I suspect that he could have + imagined it desired by his friends. Let me quit the subject of so + afflicting a delusion."[513] + +The _Edinburgh Review_ of August, 1820, discussed _Endymion_ and the 1820 +volume. While it lamented the extravagances and obscurities, the +"intoxication of sweetness" and the perversion of rhyme, it gave Keats due +credit for his genius and his appreciation of the spirit of poetry. Hunt's +review of _Lamia_[514] and the other poems of the 1820 volume appeared in +_The Indicator_ of the same month. _Blackwood's_ answered the next month, +abusing Hunt roundly and faintly praising the poems. The following proves +that their chief object was to strike Hunt through Keats: + + "It is a pity that this young man, John Keats, author of _Endymion_, + and some other poems, should have belonged to the Cockney School--for + he is evidently possessed of talents that, under better direction, + might have done very considerable things. As it is, he bids fair to + sink himself beneath such a mass of affectation, conceit, and Cockney + pedantry, as I never expected to see heaped together by anybody, + except the first founder of the School.... There is much merit in + some of the stanzas of Mr. Keats's last volume, which I have just + seen; no doubt he is a fine feeling lad--and I hope he will live to + despise Leigh Hunt and be a poet." + +Hazlitt, in May of the next year wrote of the persecution of Keats in the +_Edinburgh Review_: + + "Nor is it only obnoxious writers on politics themselves, but all + their friends and acquaintances, and those whom they casually notice, + that come under their sweeping anathema. It is proper to make a clear + stage. The friends of Caesar must not be suspected of an amicable + intercourse with patriotic and incendiary writers. A young poet comes + forward; an early and favourable notice appears of some boyish verses + of his in the _Examiner_, independently of all political opinion. + That alone decides fate; and from that moment he is set upon, pulled + in pieces, and hunted into his grave by the whole venal crew in full + cry after him. It was crime enough that he dared to accept praise + from so disreputable a quarter." + +In a letter from Hunt in Italy to _The Examiner_, July 7, 1822, an inquiry +is made why Mr. Gifford has never noticed Keats's last volume: "that +beautiful volume containing _Lamia_, the story from Boccaccio, and that +magnificent fragment _Hyperion_?" _Blackwood's_ of August replied to these +two defenses in a tirade of twenty-two pages against the _Edinburgh +Review_, Hazlitt, and Hunt. The _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ of October continued +in the same strain and, though the grave should have protected Keats from +such banter, revived the old allusions to the apothecary and his pills. + +In self defense against the charge, that its attacks and those of the +_Quarterly_ had broken Keats's heart, _Blackwood's_ in January, 1826, said +that it alone had dealt with Keats, Shelley and Procter with "_common +sense_ or _common feeling_"; that, seeing Keats in the road to ruin with +the Cockneys, it had "tried to save him by wholesome and severe +discipline--they drove him to poverty, expatriation and death." The most +remarkable part of this remarkable justification is this: "Keats outhunted +Hunt in a species of emasculated pruriency, that, although invented in +Little Britain, looks as if it were the prospect of some imaginative +Eunuch's muse within the melancholy inspiration of the Haram" (_sic_). + +In March, 1828, in a review of _Lord Byron and Some of His +Contemporaries_, the _Quarterly_ seized the opportunity to revert to the +author's friendship for Keats in its old hostile manner; and, in a +criticism of Coleridge's poems in August, 1834, to speak of his "dreamy, +half-swooning style of verse criticised by Lord Byron (in language too +strong for print) as the fatal sin of Mr. John Keats." Finally in March, +1840, in _Journalism in France_, there is another feeble effort at +defense; a resentment of the "twaddle" against the _Quarterly_ "when they +had the misfortune to criticise a sickly poet, who died soon afterwards, +apparently for the express purpose of dishonoring us." + +One of Hunt's utterances in regard to Keats and his critics disposes +finally of the matter: "his fame may now forgive the critics who disliked +his politics, and did not understand his poetry."[515] + + * * * * * + +From Italy Shelley wrote to Peacock: + + "I most devoutly wish I were living near London.... My inclination + points to Hampstead; but I do not know whether I should not make up + my mind to something more completely suburban. What are mountains, + trees, heaths, or even glorious and ever beautiful sky, with such + sunsets as I have seen at Hampstead, to friends? Social enjoyment, in + some form or other, is the Alpha and the Omega of existence. All that + I see in Italy--and from my tower window I now see the magnificent + peaks of the Apennine half enclosing the plain--is nothing. It + dwindles into smoke in the mind, when I think of some familiar forms + of scenery, little perhaps in themselves, over which old remembrances + have thrown a delightful colour."[516] + +The attacks of the _Quarterly_ of May, 1818, on Shelley's private life and +of April, 1819, on the _Revolt of Islam_, and the reply of _The Examiner_, +have already been discussed on p. 77 of the third chapter. The assault was +renewed in October, 1821. The dominating characteristic of Shelley's +poetry is said to be "its frequent and total want of meaning." In +_Prometheus Unbound_ there were said to be many absurdities "in defiance +of common sense and even of grammar ... a mere jumble of words and +heterogeneous ideas, connected by slight and accidental associations, +among which it is impossible to distinguish the principal object from the +accessory." The poem is declared to be full of "flagrant offences against +morality and religion" and the poet to have gone out of his way to "revile +Christianity and its author." As a final verdict the reviewer says: "Mr. +Shelley's poetry is, in sober sadness, _drivelling prose run mad_.... Be +his private qualities what they may, his poems ... are at war with reason, +with taste, with virtue, in short, with all that dignifies man, or that +man reveres." The _London Literary Gazette_ joined its forces to the +_Quarterly_ and scored _Prometheus Unbound_ in 1820, _Queen Mab_ in 1821. +_The Examiner_ of June 16, 23 and July 7, 1822, contained Hunt's answer to +the two onslaughts. He accused the writer in the _Quarterly_ of having +used six stars to indicate an omission, in order to imply that the name of +Christ had been blasphemously used; of having put quotation marks to +sentences not in the author criticised and of having intentionally left +out so much at times as to make the context seem absurd. At the same time +Hunt stated that he agreed that Shelley's poetry was of "too abstract and +metaphysical a cast ... too wilful and gratuitous in its metaphors"; and +that it would have been better if he had kept metaphysics and polemics out +of poetry. But at the same time he asserted that Shelley had written much +that was unmetaphysical and poetically beautiful, as _The Cenci_, the _Ode +to a Skylark_ and _Adonais_. Of the second he wrote: "I know of nothing +more beautiful than this,--more choice of tones, more natural in words, +more abundant in exquisite, cordial, and most poetic associations." He +characterized Southey's reviews as cant, Gifford's as bitter commonplace +and Croker's as pettifogging. + +_Blackwood's_ reviewed _Adonais_ and _The Cenci_ in December, 1821. The +Della Cruscans were reported to have come again from "retreats of Cockney +dalliance in the London suburbs" and "by wainloads from Pisa." The +Cockneys were said to hate everything that was good and true and +honorable, all moral ties and Christian principles, and to be steeped in +desperate licentiousness. _Adonais_ is fifty-five stanzas of +"unintelligible stuff" made up of every possible epithet that the poet has +been able to "conglomerate in his piracy through the Lexicon." The sense +has been wholly subordinated to the rhymes. The author is a "glutton of +names and colours" and has accomplished no more than might be done on such +subjects as Mother Goose, Waterloo or Tom Thumb. Two cruel and loathsome +parodies follow: _Wouther the city marshal broke his leg_ and an _Elegy on +My Tom Cat_, which, it is claimed, are less nonsensical, verbose and +inflated than _Adonais_. _The Cenci_ is "a vulgar vocabulary of rottenness +and reptilism" in an "odiferous, colorific and daisy-enamoured style." It +is regretted by the writer that it is impossible to believe that Shelley's +reason is unsettled, for this would be the best apology for the +poem.[517] + +When _The Liberal_ was organized Shelley was spoken of thus: + + "But Percy Bysshe Shelly has now published a long series of poems, + the only object of which seems to be the promotion of _atheism_ and + _incest_; and we can no longer hesitate to avow our belief, that he + is as worthy of co-operating with the King of Cockaigne, as he is + unworthy of co-operating with Lord Byron. Shelley is a man of genius, + but he has no sort of sense or judgment. He is merely 'an inspired + idiot.' Leigh Hunt is a man of talents, but vanity and vulgarity + neutralize all his efforts to pollute the public mind. Lord Byron we + regard not only as a man of lofty genius, but of great shrewdness and + knowledge of the world. What can HE seriously hope from associating + his name with such people as these?"[518] + +As in the case of Keats, _Blackwood's_ did not have the decency to desist +from its indecent articles after Shelley's death. September, 1824, this +vulgar ridicule of the two dead poets appeared in answer to Bryan Waller +Procter's review of Shelley's poems in the preceding number of the +_Edinburgh Review_: + + "Mr. Shelley died, it seems, with a volume of Mr. Keats's poetry + grasped with the hand in his bosom--rather an awkward posture, as you + will be convinced if you try it. But what a rash man Shelley was, to + put to sea in a frail boat with Jack's poetry on board. Why, man, it + would sink a trireme. In the preface to Mr. Shelley's poems we are + told that his 'vessel bore out of sight with a favorable wind;' but + what is that to the purpose? It had Endymion on board, and there was + an end. Seventeen ton of pig iron would not be more fatal ballast. + Down went the boat with a 'swirl'! I lay a wager that it righted soon + after evicting Jack." + +In the face of these articles against it as evidence, _Blackwood's_, as +early as January, 1828, had the audacity to claim--perhaps with the +expectation that its audience was gifted with a sense of subtle +humor--that Shelley had been praised in its pages for his fortitude, +patience, and many other noble qualities, and that this praise had +irritated the other Cockneys and made the whole trouble. If Keats suffered +at the hands of the Edinburgh dictators for his association with Hunt the +balance weighed in the other direction in the case of Shelley. All the +crimes and opinions of which he was deemed guilty were passed on to Hunt. +But Hunt gladly suffered for Shelley. + +Hazlitt, although of Irish descent and a native of Shropshire, and of such +independence as to belong to no school whatsoever, came in for a share of +abuse second only in virulence to that showered on Hunt.[519] In the +_Quarterly_ of April, 1817, in a review of the _Round Table_, probably in +retaliation for his abuse of Southey in _The Examiner_, Hazlitt's papers +are denominated "vulgar descriptions, silly paradoxes, flat truisms, misty +sophistry, broken English, ill-humour and rancorous abuse." His +characterizations of Pitt and Burke are "vulgar and foul invective," and +"loathsome trash." The author might have described washerwomen forever, +the reviewer asserts, "but if the creature, in his endeavours to see the +light, must make his way over the tombs of illustrious men, disfiguring +the records of their greatness with the slime and filth which marks his +tracks, it is right to point out that he may be flung back to the +situation in which nature designed that he should grovel." + +The _Characters of Shakespeare's Plays_ was made an excuse for dissecting +the morals and understanding of this "poor cankered creature."[520] The +_Lectures on the English Poets_ is characterized as a "third predatory +incursion on taste and common sense ... either completely unintelligible, +or exhibits only faint and dubious glimpses of meaning ... of that happy +texture that leaves not a trace in the mind of either reader or +hearer."[521] The _Political Essays_ was said to mark the writer as a +death's head hawk-moth, a creature already placed in a state of damnation, +the drudge of _The Examiner_, the ward of Billingsgate, the slanderer of +the human race, one of the plagues of England.[522] Later, in a discussion +of _Table Talk_,[523] he becomes a "Slang-Whanger" ("a gabbler who employs +slang to amuse the rabble"). + +Hazlitt's _Letter to Gifford_, 1819, was a reply to all previous attacks +of the _Quarterly_. For a pamphlet of eighty-seven pages on such a subject +it is "lively reading," for Hazlitt, like Burke, as Mr. Birrell has +remarked, excelled in a quarrel.[524] He calls Gifford a cat's paw, the +Government critic, the paymaster of the band of Gentleman Pensioners, a +nuisance, a + + "dull, envious, pragmatical, low-bred man.... Grown old in the + service of corruption, he drivels on to the last with prostituted + impotence and shameless effrontery; salves a meagre reputation for + wit, by venting the driblets and spleen of his wrath on others; + answers their arguments by confuting himself; mistakes habitual + obtuseness of intellect for a particular acuteness; not to be imposed + upon by shallow appearances; unprincipled rancour for zealous + loyalty; and the irritable, discontented, vindictive, peevish + effusions of bodily pain and mental imbecility for proofs of + refinement of taste and strength of understanding."[525] + +_Blackwood's_ had accepted abstracts of Hazlitt's _Lectures on the English +Poets_[526] from P. G. Patmore without comment and even managed a lengthy +comparison of Jeffrey and Hazlitt with an approach to fair dealing. But by +August, 1818, he had been identified with the "Cockney crew" and he +became "that wild, black-bill Hazlitt," a "lounge in third-rate +bookshops"; and as a critic of Shakspere, a gander gabbling at that +"divine swan." In April of the following year he was christened the +"Aristotle" of the Cockneys. His _Table Talk_ provoked ten pages of +vituperation,[527] and _Liber Amoris_, two reviews as coarse as the +provocation.[528] In the first of these, apropos of his contributions to +the _Edinburgh Review_ and in particular of his article on the _Periodical +Press of Britain_, the downfall of the magazine and its editor is +announced as certain. Hazlitt is called a literary flunky, a sore, an +ulcer, a poor devil. In the second he is Hunt's orderly, the "Mars of the +Hampstead heavy dragoons." + +Hazlitt found relief for his feelings by threatening _Blackwood's_ with a +lawsuit. Yet in July, 1824, appeared an elaborate comparison of Hunt and +Hazlitt in _Blackwood's_ choicest manner and in March, 1825, a review of +the _Spirit of the Age_. After 1828 the defamatory articles ceased +entirely. In 1867 appeared what might be construed into an attempt at +reparation by Bulwer-Lytton. Hazlitt was still spoken of as the most +aggressive of the Cockneys, discourteous and unscrupulous, a bitter +politician who would substitute universal submission to Napoleon for +established monarchial institutions; but he is credited with strong powers +of reason, of judicial criticism and of metaphysical speculation, and with +perception of sentiment, truth and beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CONCLUSION + + +It is curious that, in the lives of three such geniuses as Shelley, Byron +and Keats a man of lesser gifts and of weaker fibre should have played so +large a part as did Leigh Hunt. It is more curious in view of the fact +that the period of intimate association in each case extended over only a +few years. The explanation must be sought in the accident of the age and +in the personality of the man himself. It was an era of stirring action +and of strong feeling. Men were clamoring for freedom from the trammels of +the past and were pressing forward to the new day. Through the union of +some of the qualities of the pioneer and of the prophet, Leigh Hunt was +thrust into a position of prominence that he might not have gained at any +other time, for he lacked the vital requisites of true leadership. + +His personal quality was as rare as his opportunity. He had a personal +ascendancy, a strange fascination born of the sympathy and chivalry, the +sweetness and joyousness of his nature. An exotic warmth and glow worked +its spell upon those about him. Barry Cornwall said that he was a "compact +of all the spring winds that blew." His lovableness and very "genius for +friendship" bound intimately to him those who were thus attracted. There +was, besides, an elusiveness and an ethereality about him--as Carlyle +expressed it--"a fine tricksy medium between the poet and the wit, half a +sylph and half an Ariel ... a fairy fluctuating bark." The "vinous +quality" of his mind, Hazlitt said, intoxicated those who came in contact +with him. + +In the case of Shelley it was Hunt the man, rather than the writer, that +held him. Charm was the magnet in a friendship that, in its perfection and +deep intimacy, deserves to be ranked with the fabled ones of old--a love +passing the love of woman. There is no single cloud of distrust or +disloyalty in the whole story of their relations. + +Second to the personal tie may be ranked Hunt's influence on Shelley's +politics, greater in this instance than in the case of Byron or Keats. +Hunt's attitude was an important factor in forming Shelley's political +creed. With Godwin, he drew Shelley's attention from the creation of +imaginary universes to the less speculative issues of earth. Indeed, +Shelley's main reliance for a knowledge of political happenings during +many years, and practically his only one for the last four years of his +life, was _The Examiner_. He was guided and moderated by it in his general +attitude. In the specific instances already cited, the stimulus for poems +or the information for prose tracts and articles can be directly traced to +Hunt. + +In regard to literary art Hunt did not affect Shelley beyond pointing the +way to a freer use of the heroic couplet, and in a limited degree, in four +or five of his minor poems, influencing him in the use of a familiar +diction. Only in his letters does Shelley show any inclination to +emphasize "social enjoyments" or suburban delights. That the literary +influence was so slight is not surprising when Shelley's powers of +speculation and accurate scholarship are compared with Hunt's want of +concentration and shallow attainments. Notwithstanding this intellectual +gulf, strong convictions, with a moral courage sufficient to support them, +and a congeniality of tastes and temperament, made possible an ideal +comradeship. + +Byron, like Shelley, was attracted by Hunt's charm of personality. An +imprisoned martyr and a persecuted editor appealed to Byron's love of the +spectacular. Political sympathy furthered the friendship. In a literary +way, Byron influenced Hunt more than Hunt influenced him. + +Their intercourse is the story of a pleasant acquaintance with a +disagreeable sequel and much error on both sides. With two men of such +varying caliber and tastes, the "wren and eagle" as Shelley called them, +thrown together under such trying circumstances, it could hardly have been +otherwise. Their love of liberty and courage of opposition were the only +things in common. Byron recognized to the last Hunt's good qualities and +Hunt, except for the bitter years in Italy and immediately after his +return, proclaimed Byron's genius; but, for all that, they were +temperamentally opposed. Byron detested Hunt's small vulgarities as much +as Hunt loathed Byron's assumed superiority. + +The relation with Keats was the reverse of that in the other two cases. It +was an intellectual affinity throughout. At no time were Keats and Hunt +very close to each other. Nor, indeed, does Keats seem to have had the +capacity for intimate friendship, except with his brothers and, possibly, +Brown and Severn. + +The intercourse of the two men had its disadvantages for Keats in an +injurious influence on his early work and in the public association of his +name with that of Hunt's; but the latter's literary patronage and loving +interpretation when Keats was wholly unknown, the friendships made +possible for him with others, the open home and tender care whenever +needed, the unfailing sympathy, encouragement and admiration so freely +given, the new fields of art, music and books opened up, and the +pleasantness of the connection at the first, should more than compensate +for the attacks which Keats suffered as a member of the Cockney School. +From this view it seems very ungrateful of George Keats to have said that +he was sorry that his brother's name should go down to posterity +associated with Hunt's. Keats received far more than he gave in return. + +Briefly stated, Keats's early work shows the marked influence of Hunt in +the selection of subjects, in a love of Italian and older English +literature, in the "domestic" touch, in the colloquial and feeble diction, +and in the lapses of taste. It is only fair to Hunt to emphasize that this +was not wholly a question of influence. It was due, as Keats himself +confessed, to a natural affinity of gifts and tastes, though the one was +so much more highly gifted than the other. Keats soon saw his mistake. +_Endymion_ showed a great improvement and the 1820 volume an almost +complete absence of his own _bourgeois_ tendencies and of the effect of +Hunt's specious theories. Yet it was undoubtedly through Hunt that Keats +in his later poems began to imitate Dryden. + +In connection with the work of all three poets, Hunt's criticism is a more +important fact of literary history than his services of friendship. He +had, as Bulwer-Lytton has remarked, the first requisite of a good critic, +a good heart. He had also wonderful sympathy with aspiring authorship. His +insight was most remarkable of all in the appreciation of his +contemporaries. With powers of critical perception that might be called an +instinct for genius, he discovered Shelley and Keats and heralded them to +the public. The same ability helped him to appreciate Byron, Hazlitt and +Lamb. Browning, Tennyson and Rossetti were other young poets whom he +encouraged and supported. He defended the Lake School in 1814 when it +still had many deriders. He anticipated Arnold's judgment when he wrote +that "Wordsworth was a fine lettuce, with too many outside leaves." As +early as 1832 he wrote of the "wonderful works of Sir Walter Scott, the +remarkable criticism of Hazlitt, the magnetism of Keats, the tragedy and +winged philosophy of Shelley, the passion of Byron, the art and festivity +of Moore." To value correctly such criticism it is necessary to remember +that the Romantic movement was still in its first youth at the time. His +criticism of the three men in question, like his criticisms in general, is +distinguished by great fairness and absence of all personal jealousy, by a +delicacy of feeling that will not be fully felt until scattered notes and +buried prefaces are gathered together. He was animated chiefly by an +inborn love of poetry and enjoyment of all beautiful things. If he +sometimes fell short in understanding Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, he was +perfectly sincere and independent, and pretended nothing that he did not +feel. His range of information was truly remarkable, though not deep and +accurate. His style was slipshod. With the exception of the essay _What is +Poetry_, he fails in concentration and generalization. He never clinched +his results, but was forever flitting from one sweet to another. His +method was impressionistic in its appreciation of physical beauty. There +is no comprehension whatsoever of mystical beauty. It is the curious +instance of a man of almost ascetic habits who revelled and luxuriated in +the sensuous beauties of literature. The reader of such books as +_Imagination and Fancy_ and the half dozen others of the same kind will +see his wonderful power of selection. His attempt to interpret and +"popularize literature"--a cause in which he laboured long and +steadfastly--was one of the greatest services he rendered his age, even if +his habit of italicization and running comment for the purpose of calling +attention to perfectly patent beauties irritated some of his readers. His +critical taste, when exercised on the work of others, was almost +faultless. The occasional vulgarities of which he was guilty in his +original work do not intrude here; they were superficial and were not a +part of the man. Through his criticism he discovered and championed +illustrious contemporaries; he instituted the Italian revival in creative +literature in the early part of the century; he assisted in resuscitating +the interest in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. + +Hunt's services of friendship to Byron, Shelley and Keats, his able +criticism and just defense of them, have found their reward in the +inseparable association of his name with their immortal ones. They easily +surpassed him in every department of writing in which they contested, yet +the _man_ was strong and alluring enough in his relations with them to +prove a determining and, on the whole, beneficent influence in their +lives. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +The following list includes only the most important contributions to the +present study. Where the indebtedness consists merely of one or two +references, such indebtedness is acknowledged in a footnote. + +Alden, Raymond Macdonald. English Verse. New York, 1903. + +Andrews, A. The History of British Journalism. London, 1859. + +Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism. London and New York, 1903. + +Beers, H. A. History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century. New +York, 1901. + +Blessington, Countess of. Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of +Blessington. London, 1834. + +Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. + +Byron, George Gordon Noel. The Works of Lord Byron. A New, Revised and +Enlarged Edition, with Illustrations. Poetry. Ed. by Ernest Hartley +Coleridge. 7 vols. + + Letters and Journals. Ed. by Rowland E. Prothero. 6 vols. London and + New York, 1898. + + Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life, by + Thomas Moore. 2 vols. London, 1830. + +Brandes, George. Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature. 6 vols. +New York, 1906. + +Caine, T. Hall. Cobwebs of Criticism. "The Cockney School," pp. 123-266. +London, 1883. + +Carlyle, Thomas. Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle. Ed. by Charles Eliot +Norton. 2 vols. London and New York, 1886. + + Letters of Thomas Carlyle. Ed. by Charles Eliot Norton. 2 vols. + London and New York, 1886. + + New Letters of Thomas Carlyle. Ed. by Alexander Carlyle. 2 vols. + London and New York, 1904. + +Clarke, Charles and Mary Cowden. Recollections of Writers. London, 1878. + +Collins, J. Churton. Byron. In the Quarterly Review, CII, p. 429 ff. + +Colvin, Sidney. Keats. (English Men of Letters.) London and New York, +1902. + +Dowden, Edward. Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 2 vols. London, 1886. + + The French Revolution and English Literature. New York, 1897. + + Transcripts and Studies. London, 1888. + +The Edinburgh Review. + +Elze, Karl. Lord Byron. A Biography with a Critical Essay on His Place in +Literature. London, 1872. + +Fields, J. T. Old Acquaintance. Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends. +Boston, 1876. + + Yesterdays with Authors. Boston, 1885. + +Fields, Mrs. J. T. A Shelf of Old Books. In Scribner's Magazine, Vol. III, +pp. 285-305. + +Fox Bourne, H. R. English Newspapers. 2 vols. London, 1887. + +Galt, John. The Life of Lord Byron. London, 1830. + +Gosse, Edmund. From Shakespeare to Pope. Cambridge, 1885. + +Hancock, Albert Elmer. The French Revolution and English Poets. New York, +1899. + + John Keats. Boston and New York, 1908. + +Haydon, Benjamin Robert. Correspondence and Table Talk. Edited with a +Memoir, by His Son, Frederic Wordsworth Haydon. 2 vols. London, 1876. + + Life, Letters and Table Talk. (Sans Souci Series.) Ed. by Richard + Henry Stoddard. New York, 1876. + + Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon. Ed. by Tom Taylor. 3 vols. London, + 1853. + +Hazlitt, William. The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits. Ed. by +His Son. London, 1858. + + The Plain Speaker. 2 vols. London, 1826. + +Herford, C. H. The Age of Wordsworth. London, 1901. + +Hogg, Thomas Jefferson. Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 2 vols. London, +1858. + +Horne, R. H. A New Spirit of the Age. New York, 1844. + +Hunt, James Henry Leigh. Autobiography. Ed. by Roger Ingpen. 2 vols. New +York, 1903. + + Correspondence. Ed. by His Eldest Son. 2 vols. London, 1862. + + The Descent of Liberty, a Mask. London, 1815. + + Essays and Poems. (Temple Library.) Ed. by Reginald Brimley Johnson. + London, 1891. + + The Examiner, A Sunday Paper, On Politics, Domestic Economy, and + Theatricals. London. Editor 1808-1821. Contributor 1821-1825. + + The Feast of the Poets; with Notes and Other Pieces in Verse, by the + Editor of the Examiner. London, 1814. + + Foliage; or Poems Original and Translated. London, 1818. + + Imagination and Fancy; or Selections from the English Poets ... and + an Essay in Answer to the Question "What is Poetry?" New York, 1845. + + The Indicator and The Companion. 2 vols. London, 1834. + + Juvenilia, or a Collection of Poems. Fourth Edition. London, 1803. + + The Liberal. 2 vols. London, 1822-1823. + + The Literary Examiner. London, 1823. + + Leigh Hunt's London Journal. 2 vols. London, 1834-1835. + + Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, with Recollections of the + Author's Life, and of his Visit to Italy. 2 vols. London, 1828. + + Men, Women and Books. London, 1847. + + Poetical Works. London, 1832. + + Poetical Works. Ed. by S. Adams Lee. 2 vols. Boston, 1857. + + Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist. (Chandos Classics.) Ed. by W. C. M. + Kent, London, 1891. + + The Reflector, a Quarterly Magazine, on Subjects of Philosophy, + Politics, and the Liberal Arts. 2 vols. London, 1810-1811. + + The Story of Rimini. London, 1810. + +Ireland, Alexander. List of the Writings of Leigh Hunt and William +Hazlitt, Chronologically Arranged. London, 1868. + +Johnson, R. B. Leigh Hunt. London, 1896. + +Jeaffreson, Cordy. The Real Lord Byron. 2 vols. London, 1883. + + The Real Shelley. 2 vols. London, 1885. + +Keats, John. Poetical Works. Ed. by William T. Arnold. London, 1884. + + Poems. (Muses Library.) Ed. by G. Thorn Drury with an Introduction by + Robert Bridges. 2 vols. London and New York, 1896. + + The Poetical Works and Other Writings. Edited by Harry Buxton Forman. + 4 vols. London, 1883. + + Poetical Works. (Golden Treasury Series.) Edited by Francis T. + Palgrave. London and New York, 1898. + + Poems of John Keats. Ed. by E. De Sélincourt. New York, 1905. + +Mac-Carthy, Denis Florence. Shelley's Early Life. London, n. d. + +Martineau, Harriet. Autobiography. Ed. by Maria Weston Chapman. 2 vols. +Boston, 1877. + +Masson, David. Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays. London, 1875. + +Meade, W. E. The Versification of Pope in its Relation to the Seventeenth +Century. Leipsic, 1889. + +Medwin, Thomas. The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London, 1847. + + Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron. New York and + Philadelphia, 1824. + +Milnes, Richard Moncton. (Lord Houghton.) Life, Letters and Literary +Remains of John Keats. 2 vols. London, 1848. + +Mitford, Mary Russell. Recollections of a Literary Life. 3 vols. London, +1852. + +Monkhouse, Cosmo. Life of Leigh Hunt. ("Great Writers.") London, 1893. + +Moore, Thomas. Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence. Ed. by the Right +Honorable Lord John Russell, M. P. 8 vols. London, 1853. + +Morley, John. Critical Miscellanies. London and New York, 1898. + +Nichol, John. Byron. (English Men of Letters.) London and New York, 1902. + +Nicoll, W. Robertson, and Wise, Thomas J. Literary Anecdotes of the +Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. London. + +Noble, J. Ashcroft. The Sonnet in England and Other Essays. London and +Chicago, 1896. + +Oliphant, Mrs. Margaret. The Literary History of England in the End of the +Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. London, 1822. + +Patmore, Coventry. Memoirs and Correspondence. Ed. by Basil Champneys. 2 +vols. London, 1900. + +Patmore, P. G. My Friends and Acquaintance. 3 vols. London, 1854. + +Procter, Bryan Waller. (Barry Cornwall.) An Autobiographical Fragment and +Biographical Notes. London, 1877. + +The Quarterly Review. + +Rossetti, William Michael. Life of John Keats. ("Great Writers.") London, +1887. + +Saintsbury, George. Essays in English Literature. (1780-1860.) London, +1891. + + A History of Nineteenth Century Literature. (1780-1895.) London and + New York, 1899. + +Schipper, Jakob M. Englische Metrik. Bonn, 1881. + +Severn, Joseph. Life and Letters. By William Sharp. New York, 1892. + +Sharp, William. Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. (Great Writers.) London, +1887. + +Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Works. Ed. by Harry Buxton Forman. 8 vols. London, +1880. + + The Complete Poetical Works. (Centenary Edition.) Ed. by George + Edward Woodberry. New York, 1892. + + Poetical Works. Ed. by Mrs. Shelley. 4 vols. London, 1839. + +Smith, George Barnett. Shelley, A Critical Biography. Edinburgh, 1877. + +Trelawney, E. J. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. +Boston, 1858. + + Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author. London, 1878. + +Woodberry, George Edward. Makers of Literature. New York, 1900. + + Studies in Letters and Life. Boston and New York, 1891. + +Symonds, John Addington. Shelley. (English Men of Letters.) London and New +York, 1902. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] _Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, I, p. 34. + +[2] _Correspondence of Leigh Hunt_, I, p. 332. + +[3] _Autobiography_, I, p. 93. Compare the above quotation with Shelley's +description of his first friendship. (Hogg, _Life of Percy Bysshe +Shelley_, pp. 23-24.) + +[4] This early passion for friendship, which developed into a power of +attracting men vastly more gifted than himself, brought about him besides +Byron, Shelley and Keats, such men as Charles Lamb, Robert Browning, +Carlyle, Dickens, Horace and James Smith, Charles Cowden Clarke, Vincent +Novello, William Godwin, Macaulay, Thackeray, Lord Brougham, Bentham, +Haydon, Hazlitt, R. H. Horne, Sir John Swinburne, Lord John Russell, +Bulwer Lytton, Thomas Moore, Barry Cornwall, Theodore Hook, J. Egerton +Webbe, Thomas Campbell, the Olliers, Joseph Severn, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. +Gaskell, Mrs. Browning and Macvey Napier. Hawthorne, Emerson, James Russel +Lowell and William Story sought him out when they were in London. + +[5] _Correspondence_, I, p. 49. + +[6] _Ibid._, I, p. 44. + +[7] _Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore_, ed. Basil Champney, +I, p. 32. + +[8] _Life, Letters and Table Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon_, ed. by +Stoddard, p. 232. + +[9] _Correspondence_, I, p. 272. + +[10] On once being accused of speculation Hunt replied that he had never +been "in a market of any kind but to buy an apple or a flower." (_Atlantic +Monthly_, LIV, p. 470.) Nor did Hunt admire money-getting propensities in +others. He said of Americans: "they know nothing so beautiful as the +ledger, no picture so lively as the national coin, no music so animating +as the chink of a purse." (_The Examiner_, 1808, p. 721.) + +[11] Dickens did Hunt an irreparable injury in caricaturing him as Harold +Skimpole. The character bore such an unmistakable likeness to Hunt that it +was recognized by every one who knew him, yet the weaknesses and vices +were greatly multiplied and exaggerated. Before the appearance of _Bleak +House_, Dickens wrote Hunt in a letter which accompanied the presentation +copies of _Oliver Twist_ and the New American edition of the _Pickwick +Papers_: "You are an old stager in works, but a young one in faith--faith +in all beautiful and excellent things. If you can only find in that green +heart of yours to tell me one of these days, that you have met, in wading +through the accompanying trifles, with anything that felt like a vibration +of the old chord you have touched so often and sounded so well, you will +confer the truest gratification on your old friend, Charles Dickens." +(_Littell's Living Age_, CXCIV, p. 134.) + +His apology after Hunt's death was complete, but it could not destroy the +lasting memory of an immortal portrait. He wrote: "a man who had the +courage to take his stand against power on behalf of right--who in the +midst of the sorest temptations, maintained his honesty unblemished by a +single stain--who, in all public and private transactions, was the very +soul of truth and honour--who never bartered his opinion or betrayed his +friend--could not have been a weak man; for weakness is always treacherous +and false, because it has not the power to resist." (_All The Year Round_, +April 12, 1862.) + +[12] Godwin, _Enquiry Concerning Political Justice_, Book VIII, Chap. I. + +[13] Prof. Saintsbury has very plausibly suggested that a similar attitude +in Godwin, Coleridge and Southey in respect to financial assistance was a +legacy from patronage days. (_A History of Nineteenth Century Literature_, +p. 33.) The same might be said of Hunt. + +[14] S. C. Hall, _A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, +from Personal Acquaintance_, p. 247. + +[15] His feeling on the subject is set forth clearly in a letter where he +is writing of the generosity of Dr. Brocklesby to Johnson and Burke: "The +extension of obligations of this latter kind is, for many obvious reasons, +not to be desired. The necessity on the one side must be of as peculiar, +and, so to speak, of as noble a kind as the generosity on the other; and +special care would be taken by a necessity of that kind, that the +generosity should be equalled by the means. But where the circumstances +have occurred, it is delightful to record them." (Hunt, _Men, Women and +Books_, p. 217.) + +[16] _Correspondence_, II, p. 11. + +[17] _Ibid._, II, p. 271. + +[18] Hunt's work as a political journalist had begun in 1806 with _The +Statesman_, a joint enterprise with his brother. It was very short-lived +and is now very scarce. Perhaps it is due to this rarity that it is not +usually mentioned in bibliographies of Hunt. + +[19] H. R. Fox-Bourne, _English Newspapers_, I, p. 376. + +[20] _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_, XL, p. 256. + +[21] Redding, _Personal Reminiscences of Eminent Men_, p. 184, ff. + +[22] Contemporary dailies were the _Morning Chronicle_, _Morning Post_, +_Morning Herald_, _Morning Advertiser_, and the _Times_. In 1813 there +were sixteen Sunday weeklies. Among the weeklies published on other days, +the _Observer_ and the _News_ were conspicuous. In all, there were in the +year 1813, fifty-six newspapers circulating in London. (Andrews, _History +of British Journalism_, Vol. II, p. 76.) + +[23] _The Examiner_, January 3, 1808. + +[24] On the subject of military depravity _The Examiner_ contained the +following: "The presiding genius of army government has become a perfect +Falstaff, a carcass of corruption, full of sottishness and selfishness, +preying upon the hard labour of honest men, and never to be moved but by +its lust for money; and the time has come when either the vices of one man +must be sacrificed to the military honour of the country, or the military +honour of the country must be sacrificed to the vices of one man." (_The +Examiner_, October 23, 1808.) + +[25] _The Examiner_, April 10, 1808. + +[26] Maj. Hogan, an Irishman in the English Army, unable to gain promotion +by the customary method of purchase, after a personal appeal to the Duke +of York, commander-in-chief of the army, gave an account of his grievences +in a pamphlet entitled, _Appeal to the Public and a Farewell Address to +the Army_. Before it appeared Mrs. Clarke, the mistress of the Duke of +York, sent Maj. Hogan £500 to suppress it. He returned the money and made +public the offer. The subsequent investigation showed that Mrs. Clarke was +in the habit of securing through her influence with the commander-in-chief +promotion for those who would pay her for it. After these disclosures, the +Duke resigned. _The Examiner_ sturdily supported Maj. Hogan as one who +refused to owe promotion "to low intrigue or petticoat influence." It +likened Mrs. Clarke to Mme. Du Barry and called the Duke her tool. + +[27] _The Examiner_, October 8, 1809. + +[28] _Ibid._, March 31, 1811. + +[29] "Surely it is too gross to suppose that the Prince of Wales, the +friend of Fox, can have been affecting habits of thinking, and indulging +habits of intimacy, which he is to give up at a moment's notice for nobody +knows what:--surely it cannot be, that the Prince Regent, the Whig Prince, +the friend of Ireland--the friend of Fox,--the liberal, the tolerant, +experienced, large-minded Heir Apparent, can retain in power the very men, +against whose opinions he has repeatedly declared himself, and whose +retention in power hitherto he has explicitly stated to be owing solely to +a feeling of delicacy with respect to his father." (_The Examiner_, +February 28, 1812.) + +[30] _The Examiner_, March 12, 1812. The contention between Canon Ainger +and Mr. Gosse in respect to Charles Lamb's supposed part in this libel is +set forth in _The Athenaeum_ of March 23, 1889. Mr. Gosse's evidence came +through Robert Browning from John Forster, who first told Browning as +early as 1837 that Lamb was concerned in it. + +[31] Mr. Monkhouse says that it was then politically unjustifiable. (_Life +of Leigh Hunt_, p. 88.) + +[32] Brougham wrote of his intended defense, "it will be a thousand times +more unpleasant than the libel." For a narration of his friendship for +Hunt, see _Temple Bar_, June, 1876. + +[33] _The Examiner_, February 7, 1813. + +[34] _The Examiner_, December 10, 1809. + +[35] _Correspondence_, I, p. 179. + +[36] _The Reflector_, I, p. 5. + +[37] Monkhouse, _Life of Leigh Hunt_, p. 79. + +[38] Patmore, _My Friends and Acquaintance_, III, p. 101. + +[39] The _Edinburgh Review_ of May, 1823, in an article entitled _The +Periodical Press_ ranked Hunt next to Cobbett in talent and _The Examiner_ +as the ablest and most respectable of weekly publications, when allowance +had been made for the occasional twaddle and flippancy, the mawkishness +about firesides and Bonaparte, and the sickly sonnet-writing. + +[40] Mazzini wrote Hunt: "Your name is known to many of my Countrymen; it +would no doubt impart an additional value to the thoughts embodied in the +League. [International League.] It is the name not only of a patriot, but +of a high literary man and a poet. It would show at once that _natural_ +questions are questions not of merely _political_ tendencies, but of +feeling, eternal trust, and Godlike poetry. It would show that poets +understand their active mission down here, and that they are also prophets +and apostles of things to come. I was told only to-day that you had been +asked to be a member of the League's Council, and feel a want to express +the joy I too would feel at your assent." (_Cornhill Magazine_, LXV, p. +480 ff.) + +[41] _The Reflector_, I, p. 5. + +[42] Hunt accepted the _Monthly Repository_ in 1837 as a gift from W. J. +Fox in order to free it from Unitarian influence. Carlyle, Landor, +Browning and Miss Martineau were contributors. + +[43] (1) "Besides, it is my firm belief--as firm as the absence of +positive, tangible proof can let it be (and if we had that, we should all +kill ourselves, like Plato's scholars, and go and enjoy heaven at once), +that whatsoever of just and affectionate the mind of man is made by nature +to desire, is made by her to be realized, and that this is the special +good, beauty and glory of that illimitable thing called space--in her +there is room for everything." _Correspondence_, II, p. 57. + +(2) And Faith, some day, will all in love be shown. ("Abraham and the +Fire-Worshipper," _Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt_, 1857, p. 135.) + +[44] _A New Spirit of the Age_, II, p. 183. + +[45] Hunt wrote two religious books, _Christianism_ and _Religion of the +Heart_. The second, which is an expansion of the first, contains a ritual +of daily and weekly service. For the most part it contains reflections on +duty and service. + +[46] _Correspondence_, I, p. 130. + +[47] Bryan Waller Proctor (Barry Cornwall), _An Autobiographical Fragment +and Biographical Notes_, p. 197. + +[48] _Autobiography_, I, p. 119-120. + +[49] _A Morning Walk and View_; _Sonnet on the Sickness of Eliza_. + +[50] It had appeared previously in _The Reflector_, No. 4, article 10. In +the separate edition it was expanded and 126 pages of notes were added. + +[51] _Poetical Works_, 1832, preface, p. 48. + +[52] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 28, February 9, 1814. + +[53] The same volume contained a preface on the origin and history of +masques and an _Ode for the Spring of 1814_. Byron said of the latter that +the "expressions were _buckram_ except here and there." The masque, he +thought, contained "not only poetry and thought in the body, but much +research and good old reading in your prefatory matter." Byron, _Letters +and Journals_, III, p. 200, June 1, 1815. + +[54] See chapter V, p. 19. + +[55] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. +330. + +[56] + + Who loves to peer up at the morning sun, + With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, + Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek + For meadows where the little rivers run; + Who loves to linger with the brightest one + Of Heaven (Hesperus) let him lowly speak + These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, + Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. + He who knows these delights, and too is prone + To moralize upon a smile or tear, + Will find at once religion of his own, + A bower for his spirit, and will steer + To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone, + Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are seer. + + (_Complete Works of John Keats_, ed by Forman, II, p. 183.) + +[57] Lowell said of Hunt: "No man has ever understood the delicacies and +luxuries of the language better than he." + +[58] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 226, October 22, 1815. + +[59] _Ibid._, III, p. 418. + +[60] _Ibid._, III, p. 242, October 30, 1815. + +[61] _Ibid._, III, p. 267, February 29, 1816. + +[62] _Ibid._, IV, p. 237, June 1, 1818. + +[63] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 486-487. + +[64] Medwin, _Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 187. + +[65] In the preface to the _Story of Rimini_ (London, 1819, p. 16), Hunt +says that a poet should use an actual existing language, and quotes as +authorities, Chaucer, Ariosto, Pulci, even Homer and Shakespeare. He +thought simplicity of language of greater importance even than free +versification in order to avoid the cant of art: "The proper language of +poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends +for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks, +omitting mere vulgarisms and fugitive phrases which are cant of ordinary +discourse." + +[66] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418. + +[67] Mr. A. T. Kent in the _Fortnightly Review_ (vol. 36, p. 227), points +out that Leigh Hunt in the preface to the _Story of Rimini_, avoided the +mistake of Wordsworth in "looking to an unlettered peasantry for poetical +language," and quotes him as saying that one should "add a musical +modulation to what a fine understanding might naturally utter in the midst +of its griefs and enjoyments." Kent says we have here "two vital points on +which Wordsworth, in his capacity of critic, had failed to insist." + +[68] _Autobiography_, II, p. 24. + +[69] To be found chiefly in the _Feast of the Poets_. + +[70] In 1855, in _Stories in Verse_, Hunt changed his acknowledged +allegiance from Dryden to Chaucer. + +[71] Canto, II, ll. 433-440. + +[72] E. De Selincourt gives these three last as examples of Hunt's +derivation of the abstract noun from the present participle (_Poems of +John Keats_, p. 577). + +[73] De Selincourt notes that these adverbs are usually formed from +present participles. (_Poems of John Keats_, p. 577.) + +[74] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418. + +[75] + + "For ever since Pope spoiled the ears of the town + With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down, + There has been such a doling and sameness,--by Jove, + I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love." + + (_Feast of the Poets._) + +Hunt calls Pope's translation of the moonlight picture from _Homer_ "a +gorgeous misrepresentation" (_Ibid._, p. 35) and the whole translation +"that elegant mistake of his in two volumes octavo." (_Foliage_, p. 32.) + +[76] _Feast of the Poets_, p. 38. The same opinions are expressed in _The +Examiner_ of June 1, 1817; in the preface to _Foliage_, 1818. + +[77] _Ibid._, p. 56. + +[78] P. 23. + +[79] Saintsbury, _Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860_, p. 220. + +[80] Hunt, _Story of Rimini_, London, 1818, p. 11, 200 lines beginning +with top of page. In the 1742 lines of the poem, there are 47 run-on +couplets and 260 run-on lines. There are 7 Alexandrines and 21 triplets. +In the edition of 1832 the number of triplets has been increased to 26. +There are 46 double rhymes. In a study of the cæsura based on the first +200 lines there are 70 medial, 17 double cæsuras. The remaining 113 lines +have irregular or double cæsura. + +[81] Keats, _Lamia_, Bk. I, ll. 1-200. In the 708 lines of _Lamia_, there +are 98 run-on couplets, 144 run-on lines, 39 Alexandrines and 11 triplets. +The cæsura is handled with greater freedom than in the _Story of Rimini_. + +[82] C. H. Herford, _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 83. + +[83] R. B. Johnson, _Leigh Hunt_, p. 94. + +[84] _Leigh Hunt as a Poet, Fortnightly Review_, XXXVI: 226. + +[85] Sidney Colvin, _Keats_, p. 30. + +[86] Garnett, _Age of Dryden_, p. 32. + +[87] From Homer, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Anacreon, and Catullus. + +[88] p. 13. + +[89] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 115. + +[90] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, IV, p. 238. + +[91] Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, _Recollections of Writers_, p. 132. + +[92] _Ibid._, p. 133. + +[93] Hunt, _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries; with Recollections +of the Author's Life and of his Visit to Italy_, p. 247. + +[94] _Ibid._, p. 251. + +[95] _Ibid._, pp. 246-272. + +[96] _Autobiography_, II, pp. 27, 59. + +[97] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 222. + +[98] This refers to Keats's first published poem, the sonnet _O Solitude, +if I must with thee dwell_, published (without comment) in _The Examiner_ +of May 5, 1816. + +[99] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 34. + +[100] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 257. + +[101] _Ibid._, pp. 257-258. + +[102] Sharp, _Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_, p. 163. + +[103] _Works_, I, p. 30. + +[104] Mr. Forman, after a systematic search has been able to find no proof +in either direction. (_Works_, III, p. 8.) + +[105] _Works_, I, p. 5. + +[106] _Foliage_, p. 125. + +[107] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 66. + +[108] A further account of the disastrous effects of his partisanship will +be found in the discussion of the Cockney School, Ch. V. + +[109] The _Century Magazine_, XXIII, p. 706. + +[110] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 269. + +[111] _Autobiography_, II, p. 266. + +[112] _Works_, IV, p. 16. + +[113] Haydon and Hunt had originally been very intimate, as is shown by +the letters written by the former from Paris during 1814, and by his +attentions to Hunt in Surrey Gaol. A letter to Wilkie, dated October 27, +1816, gives an attractive portrait of Hunt, and from this evidence it is +inferred that the change in Haydon's attitude came about in the early part +of 1817, and that a small unpleasantness was allowed by him to outweigh a +friendship of long standing. After two weeks spent with Hunt he had +written of him as "one of the most delightful companions. Full of poetry +and art, and amiable humour, we argue always with full hearts on +everything but religion and Bonaparte.... Though Leigh Hunt is not deep in +knowledge, moral metaphysical or classical, yet he is intense in feeling +and has an intellect forever on the alert. He is like one of those +instruments on three legs, which, throw it how you will, always pitches on +two, and has a spike sticking for ever up and ever ready for you. He +"sets" at a subject with a scent like a pointer. He is a remarkable man, +and created a sensation by his independence, his disinterestedness in +public matters; and by the truth, acuteness and taste of his dramatic +criticisms, he raised the rank of newspapers, and gave by his example a +literary feeling to the weekly ones more especially. As a poet, I think +him full of the genuine feeling. His third canto in _Rimini_ is equal to +anything in any language of that sweet sort. Perhaps in his wishing to +avoid the monotony of the Pope school, he may have shot into the other +extreme; and his invention of obscene [sic] words to express obscene +feelings borders sometimes on affectation. But these are trifles compared +with the beauty of the poem, the intense painting of the scenery, and the +deep burning in of the passion which trembles in every line. Thus far as a +critic, an editor and a poet. As a man I know none with such an +affectionate heart, if never opposed in his opinions. He has defects of +course: one of his great defects is getting inferior people about him to +listen, too fond of shining at any expense in society, and love of +approbation from the darling sex bordering on weakness; though to women he +is delightfully pleasant, yet they seem more to handle him as a delicate +plant. I don't know if they do not put a confidence in him which to me +would be mortifying. He is a man of sensibility tinged with morbidity and +of such sensitive organization of body that the plant is not more alive to +touch than he.... He is a composition, as we all are, of defects and +delightful qualities, indolently averse to worldly exertion, because it +harasses the musings of his fancy, existing only by the common duties of +life, yet ignorant of them, and often suffering from their neglect." +(Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, ed. R. H. Stoddard, pp. 155-156.) + +Haydon said that the rupture came about because Hunt insisted upon +speaking of our Lord and his Apostles in a condescending manner, and that +he rebelled against Hunt's "audacious romancing over the Biblical +conceptions of the Almighty." (Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. +65.) This view, in the light of Haydon's general unreliability, may be +mere romancing; for Keats, writing on January 13, 1818, gave the following +explanation of the quarrel: "Mrs. H. (Hunt) was in the habit of borrowing +silver from Haydon--the last time she did so, Haydon asked her to return +it at a certain time--she did not--Haydon sent for it--Hunt went to +expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.--they got to words and parted for +ever." (Keats, _Works_, IV, p. 58). + +[114] _Works_, IV, p. 20. + +[115] Milnes, _Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats_, II, p. +44. + +[116] _Works_, IV, p. 114. + +[117] _Ibid._, V, p. 142. + +[118] _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 208. + +[119] _Works_, IV, p. 31. + +[120] _Ibid._, IV, p. 60. + +[121] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 37-38. + +[122] _Ibid._, IV, p. 38, Keats gives his argument in favor of a long +poem. + +[123] _Ibid._, IV, p. 38. + +[124] _Ibid._, IV, p. 49. + +[125] _Ibid._, IV, p. 193. + +[126] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 195-196. + +[127] _Ibid._, IV, p. 12. + +[128] _Ibid._, IV, p. 90. + +[129] _Ibid._, I, p. 34. + +[130] _Ibid._, V, p. 198. + +[131] Haydon attempted also to make trouble between Wordsworth and Hunt, +by telling the former that Hunt's admiration for him was only a "weather +cock estimation" and by insinuations concerning his sincerity in +friendships. (Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 197.) + +[132] J. Ashcroft Noble, _The Sonnet in England, and Other Essays_, p. +108. + +[133] _Autobiography_, II, p. 42. + +[134] _Autobiography_, II, p. 44. + +[135] _Works_, V, p. 203. + +[136] Keats wrote Haydon, "There are three things to rejoice at in this +age The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of taste." (_Works_, +IV, p. 56.) + +[137] _Works_, II, p. 187. + +[138] _Ibid._, V, p. 116. + +[139] _Ibid._, V, p. 180. + +[140] _Ibid._, V, p. 175. + +[141] _Ibid._, V, p. 174. + +[142] That he needed better attention than he could receive in lodgings is +seen from an account of Keats's condition given in _Maria Gisborne's +Journal_ (_Ibid._, V, p. 182), which says that when she drank tea there in +July, Keats was under sentence of death from Dr. Lamb: "he never spoke and +looks emaciated." + +[143] _Works_, V, p. 183-184. The quotation follows Keats's punctuation. + +[144] _Ibid._, V, p. 185. + +[145] _Cornhill Magazine_, 1892. + +[146] _Works_, V, p. 194. + +[147] _Ibid._, V, p. 193. + +[148] _Correspondence_, I, p. 107. + +[149] P. 248. + +[150] _The Examiner_, June 1st, July 6th, and 13th, 1817. + +[151] Lines 181-206. + +[152] _Works_, IV, p. 64. + +[153] _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, p. 257. + +[154] May 10, 1820. + +[155] Cf. with Poe's sonnet, _Science, true daughter of Old Time thou +art_. + +[156] Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 201. + +[157] In connection with _Hyperion_, it is interesting to note that the +manuscript in Keats's handwriting recently discovered, survived through +the agency of Leigh Hunt. From him it passed into the ownership of his son +Thornton, and later to the sister of Dr. George Bird. It has been +purchased from her by the British Museum. (_Athenæum_, March 11, 1905.) + +[158] This is, of course, a mistake. + +[159] For other criticism of the 1820 poems by Hunt, see _Lord Byron and +Some of his Contemporaries_, pp. 258-268. + +[160] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 16. + +[161] _Ibid._, l. 20. + +[162] _Ibid._, l. 81. + +[163] _To some Ladies_, l. 15. + +[164] _Ibid._, l. 117. + +[165] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 215. + +[166] _Ibid._, l. 61. + +[167] _Calidore_, l. 132. Also pointed out by Mr. Colvin, _Keats_, p. 53. + +[168] _To my brother George_, l. 7. + +[169] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 144. + +[170] Hunt quotes this with approbation, as showing a "human touch." +(_Specimen of an Induction to a Poem_, ll. 13-14.) + +[171] _Specimen of an Induction to a Poem_, l. 48. + +[172] _Calidore_, l. 66. + +[173] _Ibid._, l. 80 ff. + +[174] _To ..._, l. 23 ff. + +[175] Mr. De Selincourt in _Notes and Queries_, Feb. 4, 1905, dates the +_Imitation of Spenser_ "1813." He does not produce documentary evidence, +however. The discovery of the hitherto unpublished poem, _Fill for me a +brimming bowl_, in imitation of Milton's early poems, dated in the +Woodhouse transcript Aug. 1814, is of considerable interest in determining +the date of Keats's earliest composition of verse. A sonnet _On Peace_ +found in the same MS. is a second discovery of an unpublished poem of the +same period. + +[176] _Works_, I, p. 26. + +[177] _Ibid._, I. p. 16. Mr. W. T. Arnold, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, +London, 1884, has remarked upon the similar use of _so_ by Hunt and Keats. +He compares the "so elegantly" of this passage with the line from _Rimini_ +"leaves so finely suit." + +[178] _To Charles Cowden Clarke_, l. 88. + +[179] _Calidore_, ll. 34-35. + +[180] _Story of Rimini_, p. 35. + +[181] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 31. + +[182] References to Hunt in the sonnets and other poems of 1817 are the +following: + + 1. "He of the rose, the violet, the spring + The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:" + +(_Addressed to the Same_ [Haydon].) This sonnet did not appear in 1817, +although it belongs to this period. + + 2. "... thy tender care + Thus startled unaware + Be jealous that the foot of other wight + Should madly follow that bright path of light + Trac'd by thy lov'd Libertas; he will speak, + And tell thee that my prayer is very meek + + * * * * * + + Him thou wilt hear." + +(_Specimen of an Introduction_, l. 57 ff.) Mrs. Clarke is the authority +that "Libertas" was Hunt. + + 3. "With him who elegantly chats, and talks-- + The wrong'd Libertas." + +(_Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke_, l. 43-44.) + + 4. "I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids + That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, + And friendliness the nurse of mutual good. + _The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet + Into the brain ere one can think upon it_; + The silence when some rhymes are coming out; + And when they're come, the very pleasant rout: + The message certain to be done tomorrow. + 'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow + Some precious book from out its snug retreat, + To cluster round it when we next shall meet." + +(_Sleep and Poetry._) + +Lines 353-404 of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a +description of Hunt's library. Mr. De Selincourt calls it "a glowing +tribute to the sympathetic friendship which Keats had enjoyed at the +Hampstead Cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the _Story of +Rimini_ something of the spirit which had informed the _Lines Written +Above Tintern Abbey_." (_Poems of John Keats._ Introduction p. 34.) + +(_a_) Of this room Hunt wrote: "Keats's _Sleep and Poetry_ is a +description of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion's +closet." _Correspondence_ I, p. 289. See also _Lord Byron and Some of his +Contemporaries_, p. 249. + +(_b_) Further description of the same room is to be found in _Shelley's +Letter to Maria Gisborne_, ll. 212-217. + +(_c_) Clarke refers to it in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, February, 1874, +and in _Recollections of Writers_, p. 134. In the letter he says that a +bed was made up in the library for Keats and that he was installed as a +member of the household. Here he composed the framework of the poem. Lines +325-404 are "an inventory of the art garniture of the room." + +(_d_) The most intresting record in regard to the room is that given by +Mrs. J. T. Fields in a _Shelf of old Books_, who says that her husband saw +the library treasures which had inspired Keats--Greek casts of Sappho, +casts of Kosciusko and Alfred, with engravings, sketches and well-worn +books. Among the books collected by Mr. Fields was a copy of Shelley, +Coleridge and Keats bound together, with an autograph of all three men, +formerly owned by Hunt. The fly leaf "at the back contained the sonnet +written by Keats on the _Story of Rimini_." + +[183] The two sonnets were published in _The Examiner_ of September 21, +1817; Keats's had been included previously in the _Poems of 1817_; Hunt's +appeared later in _Foliage_, 1818. + +[184] This did not appear in 1817, but belongs to this period. See +_Works_, II, p. 257. For a comparison of these two sonnets with Shelley's +on the same Subject, see Rossetti's _Life of Keats_, p. 110. + +[185] _Works_, II, p. 166. + +[186] Compare with _A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and +Francesca_, 1819. (_Works_, III, p. 16.) + +[187] A pocket-book given Keats by Hunt and containing many of the first +drafts of the sonnets belonged to Charles Wentworth Dilke. It is still in +the possession of the Dilke family. + +[188] For instances of Keats's interest in politics, see _To Kosciusko_, +_To Hope_, ll. 33-36, and scattered references to Wallace, William Tell +and similar characters. Most of these references have already been called +attention to by others. + +[189] _Works_, IV, pp. 60-61. The poem follows. + +[190] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 107. + +[191] _Endymion_, Bk. II, ll. 129-130. + +[192] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, l. 863 ff. + +[193] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 756 ff. + +[194] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 938 ff. + +[195] _Keats_, p. 169. + +[196] Stanza 23, l. 7. + +[197] _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_, 1819, p. 45. + +[198] Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated +Hunt's _Gentle Armour_. Mr. Colvin corrects this statement. (Keats, +_Poetical Works_, p. 59.) + +[199] (_a_) W. T. Arnold, Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 128. (_b_) J. Hoops, +_Keats's Jungend und Jugendgedichte_, Englische Studien, XXI, 239. (_c_) +W. A. Read, _Keats and Spenser_. + +[200] _Works_, V, p. 121. + +[201] This same expression occurs in _Hero and Leander_, 1819, in the +phrase, "Half set in trees and leafy luxury." Keats's dedication sonnet in +which it occurs was written in 1817. Therefore Mr. W. T. Arnold makes a +mistake when he says (in his edition of Keats, p. 129) it was taken direct +from Hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites +and Keats probably took them from him and combined them. + +[202] Mr. Arnold says "delicious" is used sixteen times by Keats. (Keats, +_Poetical Works_, p. 129). He quotes a passage from one of Hunt's prefaces +in which the latter comments on Chaucer's use of the word: "The word +_deliciously_ is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some +critics would pronounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the +enjoyment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be +obvious to finer senses." In _Rimini_ this line occurs: "Distils the next +note more deliciously." + +[203] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 261, notices Leigh +Hunt's misuse of this word in his review of _I stood tiptoe_, quoted on p. +107. See his use of the same on p. 76. In _Bacchus and Ariadne_ it occurs +in this passage "all luxuries that come from odorous gardens." + +[204] This is used in _Hyperion_, II, l. 45. The expression "plashy pools" +occurs in the _Story of Rimini_. + +[205] November 11, 1820. + +[206] _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly_, II, p. 36. + +[207] _Imagination and Fancy_, p. 231. + +[208] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, pp. 252-3. + +[209] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 274. + +[210] _Poetical Works_, 1832, p. 36. + +[211] The poem is reported to have brought £100, more than any poem sold +during his lifetime. It is now lost. + +[212] Mac-Carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the +account Hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to +indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met Shelley, or +perhaps not at all. He also points out that two passages in the letter to +Hunt of March 2, 1811, important in their bearing upon Shelley's political +theories at this time, are identical with passages in a letter of February +22 of the same year, addressed to the editor of _The Statesman_, +presumably Finnerty. (_Shelley's Early Life_, pp. 1-106.) + +[213] Hancock, _The French Revolution and English Poets_, pp. 50-77. + +[214] Letter to Miss Hitchener, June 25, 1811. + +[215] G. B. Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 88. + +[216] See the _Letter to Lord Ellenborough_. + +[217] Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 110. + +[218] For Shelley's opinion on the coincidence of their political views, +see the last paragraph of the dedication of _The Cenci_. + +[219] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 103. + +[220] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 176. + +[221] _Autobiography_, II, p. 36. + +[222] Pp. 122, 123. + +[223] December 27, 1812. + +[224] II, p. 13. + +[225] _Autobiography_, II, p. 27. + +[226] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863. + +[227] December 8, 1816, Shelley wrote to Hunt: "I have not in all my +intercourse with mankind experienced sympathy and kindness with which I +have been so affected, or which my whole being has so sprung forward to +meet and to return.... With you, and perhaps some others (though in a less +degree, I fear) my gentleness and sincerity find favour, because they are +themselves gentle and sincere: they believe in self-devotion and +generosity because they are themselves generous and self-devoted." (Nicoll +and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 328.) + +[228] December 15, 1816, Shelley wrote Mary Godwin: Hunt's "delicate and +tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sustained me +against the weight of the horror of this event." (Dowden, _Life of +Shelley_, II, p. 68.) + +[229] (_a_) _The Examiner_, January 26, 1817. (_b_) _Ibid._, February 12, +1817. (_c_) _Ibid._, August 31, 1817. (_d_) Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. +114; August 27, 1817. + +[230] Shelley said of Horace Smith: "but is it not odd that the only truly +generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be +a stockbroker." (Hunt, _Autobiography_, I, p. 211.) See also _Letter to +Maria Gisborne_, ll. 247-253; Forman, _Works of Shelley_, III, p. 225 ff. + +[231] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 3; March 22, 1818. + +[232] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 141; November 13, 1819. + +[233] Professor Masson says that one of Shelley's first acts was to offer +Hunt £100. It is probable he refers to the occasion already discussed. +(_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other Essays_, p. 112.) + +[234] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 61. + +[235] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. +331; December 8, 1816. + +[236] _Ibid._, p. 336; August 16, 1817. + +[237] Rogers, _Table Talk_, p. 236. + +[238] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 146; September 12, 1819. + +[239] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 36; _Correspondence_, I, p. 126. + +[240] Medwin, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 137. + +[241] Mitford, _Life_, I, p. 280. Jeaffreson, _The Real Shelley_, II, p. +357. + +[242] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, p. 348; April 5, 1820. He +assumed the debt for Hunt's piano as naturally as he did for his own. +Prof. Dowden says that John Hunt expected Shelley to become responsible +for all of his brother's debts. (_Life of Shelley_, II, p. 458.) + +[243] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 158; November 11, 1820. + +[244] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. +342. + +[245] See Chapter IV, p. 89. + +[246] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 456; also _Works of Shelley_, +VIII, p. 252. + +[247] (_a_) Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, pp. 352, 356. (_b_) +Byron, _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 11. + +[248] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 489. + +[249] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, pp. 36-37. In August, 1819, Hunt +importunes Shelley to give no thought to his affairs (_Correspondence_, I, +p. 136). Hunt wrote Mary Shelley on September 7, 1821: "Pray thank Shelley +or rather do not, for that kind part of his offer relating to the +expenses. I find I have omitted it; but the instinct that led me to do so +is more honorable to him than thanks." (_Correspondence_, I, p. 171.) + +[250] Jeaffreson, _The Real Shelley_, II, p. 355. + +[251] W. M. Rossetti, _Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, +I, p. 75. + +[252] _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 96. + +[253] Kent, _Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist_, p. 28. + +[254] _Autobiography_, II, p. 60. + +[255] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863. + +[256] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 283. June 19, 1822. + +[257] Built by Michaelangelo and situated on the Arno. + +[258] _The Liberal_, I, p. 103. + +[259] Brandes attributes the inscription to Mary Shelley. (_Main Currents +in Nineteenth Century Literature_, IV, p. 208.) + +[260] _Correspondence_, I, p. 269. + +[261] After Shelley's death, Mary Shelley decided to remain in Italy in +order to assist with _The Liberal_. She considered Hunt "expatriated at +the request and desire of others," and, in helping him, she thought to +fulfil any obligation that Shelley might have assumed in the scheme. For +her services she received thirty-three pounds. She lived for some time in +the same house with the Hunts after they separated from Lord Byron, but +the arrangement was an unhappy one. Disagreements, beginning with a +misunderstanding concerning the possession of Shelley's heart, dragged +through the winter. Fortunately everything was adjusted before they +separated. July, 1823, she wrote of Hunt: "he is all kindness, +consideration and friendship--all feeling of alienation towards me has +disappeared to its last dregs." (Marshall, _The Life and Letters of Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin_, London, 1889, II, p. 81.) And again: "But thank +heaven we are now the best friends in the world.... It is a delightful +thing, my dear Jane, to be able to express one's affection upon an old and +tried friend like Hunt, and one so passionately attached to my Shelley as +he was, and is.... He was displeased with me for many just reasons, but he +found me willing to expiate, as far as I could, the evil I had done; his +heart again warmed, and if when I return you find me more amiable, and +more willing to suffer with patience than I was, it is to him that I owe +this benefit." (_Ibid._, II, p. 85.) + +[262] Jeaffreson assigns the cause of Hunt's neglect to his ignorance of +the fact that he could suck money out of Shelley. _The Real Shelley_, II, +p. 352. + +[263] Mac-Carthay in _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. +302. + +[264] Shelley was deeply wounded by the attack. He wrote Hunt: "As to what +relates to yourself and me, it makes me melancholy to consider the +dreadful wickedness of the heart which would have prompted such +expressions as those with which the anonymous writer gloats over my +domestic calamities and the perversion of understanding with which he +paints your character." (Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, p. 340; +December 22, 1818.) + +[265] Shelley at first attributed the article in the _Quarterly_ to +Southey on the grounds of his enmity to _The Examiner_ which, Shelley +declared, had been the "crown of thorns worn by this unredeemed Redeemer +for many years." Southey denied the authorship. (Nicoll and Wise, +_Literary Anecdotes_, p. 341; December 22, 1818.) + +[266] _The Examiner_, September 26, October 3 and 10, 1819. See also +_Correspondence_, I, pp. 125-126. + +[267] _Correspondence_, I, p. 169. + +[268] _Ibid._, I, p. 166. + +[269] See Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 130. + +[270] For Shelley's desire for Hunt's good opinion, see _Works of +Shelley_, VIII, p. 167. Hunt's collection of poems, published during 1818, +under the title of _Foliage_ was dedicated to Shelley: "Had I known a +person more highly endowed than yourself with all the qualities that it +becomes a man to possess, I had selected for this work the ornament of his +name. One more gentle, honorable, innocent and brave; one of more exalted +toleration of all who do and think evil; one who knows better how to +receive, and how to confer a benefit though he must ever confer far more +than he can receive; one of simpler, and in the highest sense of the word, +of purer life and manners I never knew: and I had already been fortunate +in friendships when your name was added to the list." + +[271] _Correspondence_, I, p. 153. + +[272] _Ibid._, I, p. 154. + +[273] _Ibid._, I, p. 179; March 26, 1822. + +[274] In an article on the _Suburbs of Genoa and the Country about +London_, pp. 118-119. + +[275] Dated August 4, 1823. + +[276] The second part of the sketch was in answer to the _Quarterly +Review's_ attack on the _Posthumous Poems_, which Mrs. Shelley, aided by +Hunt, had published in 1824. This account was reworked in 1850 for the +_Autobiography_ and was taken in part for the preface to an edition of +Shelley's works in 1871. Hunt wrote another biographical sketch of Shelley +for S. C. Hall's _Book of Gems_ (p. 40). He gave a fine description of his +physical appearance not often quoted. + +[277] It was considered by the _Athaneum_ to be the best part of the book, +and to be the "powerful portrait of a benevolent man." (VI, p. 70.) + +[278] Letter to Ollier, February, 1858. + +[279] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863. + +[280] Forman, _Shelley Library_, p. 113, says that the motto from _Laon +and Cythna_ was added by Hunt. + +[281] Pt. 2, p. 37. + +[282] P. 217. + +[283] _A Shelf of Old Books_, p. 291. + +[284] Hunt's _Book of the Sonnet_, which appeared posthumously, contained +a criticism of Shelley's sonnet on _Ozymandyas_ (I, p. 87). + +[285] August 13 and 20, 1859. + +[286] _The Examiner_, December 28, 1817. + +[287] _Ibid._, July 15, 1821. + +[288] _Literary Pocket Book_, London, 1819. Shelley's signature was +[Greek: D] and [Greek: S]. See Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, 125. + +[289] _Literary Pocket Book_, 1821. (_Works of Shelley_, III, p. 150.) + +[290] _Literary Pocket Book_, 1821. (_Works of Shelley_, III, p. 380.) + +[291] _Literary Pocket Book_, 1822. (_Works of Shelley_, IV, p. 32.) + +[292] _Ibid._, 1822. (_Works of Shelley_, IV, p. 49.) + +[293] _Ibid._, 1823. (_Works of Shelley_, IV, p. 63.) + +[294] _Ibid._, 1823. (_Works of Shelley_, IV, p. 41.) + +[295] _Ibid._, 1823. Mr. Forman thinks that the poem refers to Harriet +Shelley's death and that the date is a disguise. (_Works of Shelley_, III, +p. 146.) + +[296] _The Indicator_, December 22, 1819. + +[297] Chapter IV. + +[298] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 291; November 3, 1819. + +[299] _Works of Shelley_, IV, p. 359. + +[300] Six months later, December 6, 1812, Hunt addressed a letter to Lord +Ellenborough on the same subject in regard to his own sentence. + +[301] June 11, 18, 25, July 2, 9, August 27, September 3, 10, October 1, +8, 15, 22, December 3, 10, 17; in 1821, February 4, August 12, 19, and +September 9. The last three articles were written after the Queen's death. + +[302] Keats's _The Cap and Bells_ deals with the same. + +[303] Shelley gave directions that the poem should be printed like Hunt's +_Hero and Leander_. _Works of Shelley_, III, p. 101. + +[304] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 116; August 15, 1819. The letter +instructs Hunt to throw the poem into the fire or not as he sees fit and +requests him, in preference to Peacock, to correct the proofs. "Can you +take it as a compliment that I prefer to trouble you?" + +[305] Forman wrongly attributes the review of Reynolds' _Peter Bell_ in +_The Examiner_ of April 25, 1819, to Hunt and says that this "flippant +notice" by Hunt inspired Shelley's poem. _Ibid._, II, p. 288. Reynolds +asked Keats to request Hunt to review his poem. Keats did it himself. +(Keats, _Works_, III, pp. 246-249.) + +[306] _Works of Shelley_, III, p. 235. + +[307] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 116, 141; April 24, 1818, and +September 6, 1819. Cf. with _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 121; September 3, +1819. (Editor says dated wrongly.) + +[308] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 127; September 27, 1819. + +[309] _Correspondence_, I, p. 123; August 4, 1818. + +[310] + + "You will see Hunt--one of those happy souls + Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom + This world would smell like what it is--a tomb; + Who is what others seem; his room no doubt + Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout, + With graceful flowers tastefully placed about, + And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, + And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung,-- + The gifts of the most learned among some dozens + Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. + And there he is with his eternal puns, + Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns + Thundering for money at a poet's door; + Alas! it is no use to say 'I'm poor!'" + +[311] Mr. Forman thinks that it may be part of the original draft of +_Rosalind and Helen_; if so, it is still a very close approximation of +Shelley's opinion of Hunt (_Works of Shelley_, III, p. 403). William +Rossetti and Felix Rabbe think that it was addressed to Hunt. + +[312] Wise's edition of _Adonais_, p. 2. London, 1887. + +[313] To his wife. _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 288; July 4, 1822. + +[314] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, p. 350; April 5, 1820. + +[315] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 136. Professor George Edward Woodberry +says that Shelley had the "kindest feeling of gratitude and respect ... +but nothing more" towards Hunt. (_Studies in Letters and Life_, p. 153.) + +[316] _Ibid._, I, p. 158. November 11, 1820. _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. +150; November 23, 1819. + +[317] Sir Walter Scott has given a good estimate of them: "Our sentiments +agreed a good deal, except on the subject of religion and politics, upon +neither of which I was inclined to believe that Lord Byron entertained +very fixed principles.... On Politics he used sometimes to express a high +strain of what is now called Liberalism; but it appeared to me that the +pleasure that it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and +satire against individuals in office was at the bottom of his habit of +thinking. At heart I would have termed Byron a patrician on principle." +(Moore, _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, I, p. 616.) + +[318] Hancock, _The French Revolution and English Poets_, p. 84. + +[319] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 128. + +[320] _Ibid._, p. 1; _Autobiography_, II, p. 85. + +[321] _The Real Lord Byron_, I, p. 277. + +[322] _Letters and Journals_, III, pp. 29-31. The article was not +published. + +[323] Nichol, _Life of Bryon_, p. 84, incorrectly gives 1812 as the date. + +[324] _Correspondence_, I, p. 88, May 25, 1813. + +[325] _Autobiography_, II, p. 85. + +[326] _The Champion_, April 7, 14, 21, 1816. + +[327] _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, p. 402. + +[328] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, II, p. 157, December 1, 1813. + +[329] _Ibid._, II, pp. 296-297. + +[330] Page 36. + +[331] _The Examiner_, April 21, 1816. + +[332] _Letters and Journals_, VI, pp. 2-3. + +[333] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 6. + +[334] _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 265. + +[335] In 1820 Byron translated the Rimini episode of the _Divine Comedy_. + +[336] Trelawney, _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_, p. +109. + +[337] _Letters and Journals_, V, pp. 590-591. + +[338] _Letters and Journals_, V, p. 217. This passage is omitted from the +letter in which it occurs in Moore's _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, +II, p. 437. + +[339] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 8. + +[340] Hunt wrongly gives Byron's date of birth as 1791. The article is +accompanied with a woodcut. + +[341] See _Blackwood's_, X, pp. 286, 730. + +[342] _Letters and Journals_, V, pp. 143-144. + +[343] Medwin, _Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 186. + +[344] Jeaffreson, _The Real Lord Byron_, II, p. 186, says that Byron +through Shelley's mediation could secure Hunt as editor. + +[345] _Ibid._, _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, II, p. 626. + +[346] _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_, p. 157. + +[347] See p. 103. + +[348] _The Real Lord Byron_, II, p. 186. + +[349] _Dictionary of National Biography._ + +[350] _Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist_, p. 30. + +[351] _Life of Byron_, pp. 266-267. + +[352] _Leigh Hunt_, p. 37, note. + +[353] _Life of Leigh Hunt_, p. 154. + +[354] _The Sonnet in England_, pp. 118-119. + +[355] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 255. + +[356] _Correspondence_, I, p. 161. + +[357] _Autobiography_, II, p. 59. + +[358] _Autobiography_, II, p. 59. + +[359] After Shelley's meeting with Byron in Switzerland in 1816, before +they met again in Venice, there had been a lapse of two years bridged only +by a not always pleasant correspondence relating to Allegra, Byron's +natural daughter. Shelley occupied the unenviable position of mediator +between him and Jane Clairmont, the child's mother. Yet when the two men +met again in August, 1818, it was at first on the terms recorded in +_Julian and Maddalo_. Byron's influence served as a stimulus to this and +to other poems of the same period. By December of that year Shelley's +opinion of Byron had changed; on the 22d, he wrote to Peacock of _Childe +Harold_ in terms that show how quickly his views could alter: "The spirit +in which it is written, is, if insane, the most wicked and mischievous +insanity that was ever given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and +self-willed folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in +vain on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone arises.... +He (Byron) associates with wretches who seem to have lost the gait and +physiognomy of man, and who do not scruple to avow practices, which are +not only not named, but I believe seldom even conceived in England. He +says he disapproves, but he endures. He is heartily and deeply +discontented with himself; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of +his own thoughts the nature and destiny of man, what can he behold but +objects of contempt and despair? But that he is a great poet, I think the +address to Ocean proves. And he has a certain degree of candour while you +talk to him, but unfortunately it does not outlast your departure. No, I +do not doubt, and for his own sake, I ought to hope, that his present +career must soon end in some violent circumstance." (_Works of Shelley_, +VIII, pp. 80-81.) + +From the close of 1818 until 1821, they were again separated. Their +correspondence, as previously, related chiefly to Allegra and was of a +still less agreeable nature. Byron had refused to deal directly with Jane +Clairmont and all communications had to pass through Shelley's hands. In +the interval, as though in retaliation, Byron had believed the Shiloh +story, a fabrication by a nurse of the Shelleys that Jane Clairmont was +Shelley's mistress, but he does not seem to have condemned such a state of +affairs. (_Letters and Journals_, V, p. 86, October, 1820.) Yet he +testified in his letters his great admiration of Shelley's poetry +(_Ibid._, VI, p. 387), and after his death he called him "The best and +least selfish man I ever knew." (_Ibid._, VI, p. 98; August 3, 1822.) But +before 1821, a reversal of the opinion formed in Shelley's mind at the +time of Byron's Venetian excesses, came about. November 11, 1820, he wrote +to Mrs. Hunt: "His indecencies, too, both against sexual nature, and +against human nature in general, sit very awkwardly upon him. He only +affects the libertine; he is, really, a very amiable, friendly and +agreeable man, I hear." (Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 139.) This +corroborates Thornton Hunt's statement that Byron had risen in Shelley's +estimation before 1821 and that otherwise _The Liberal_ would never have +been started. (_Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863.) + +At Byron's invitation they met again in Ravenna. Shelley's letters dated +from there show unstinted admiration of Byron's genius and of the man +himself. He wrote in August, 1821, that he was living a "life totally the +reverse of that which he led at Venice.... (_Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. +211, August 7, 1821.) L. B. is greatly improved in every respect. In +genius, in temper, in moral views, in health, in happiness.... He has had +mischievous passions, but these he seems to have subdued, and he is +becoming what he should be, a virtuous man.... (_Ibid._, VIII, p. 217, +August 10, 1821.) Lord Byron and I are excellent friends, and were I +reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claims to a higher +station than I possess--or did I possess a higher than I deserve, we +should appear in all things as such, and I would freely ask him any +favour. Such is not now the case. The daemon of mistrust and pride lurks +between two persons in our station, poisoning the freedom of our +intercourse. This is a tax and a heavy one, which we must pay for being +human." Of _Don Juan_ he wrote: "It sets him not only above, but far +above, all the poets of the day--every word is stamped with immortality. I +despair of rivalling Lord Byron, as well I may, and there is no other with +whom it is worth contending. (_Ibid._, VIII, p. 219, August 10, 1821.) +During the visit Shelley served as ambassador to the Countess Guiccioli in +persuading her not to go to Switzerland, and in the same capacity to Byron +in the arrangement of Allegra's affairs. It was then settled that Byron +should reside for the winter at Pisa. Shelley had misgivings about such an +arrangement on his own and on Miss Clairmont's account, for he had +previously intended to settle in the same vicinity. He finally decided not +to let it make any difference in his plans. In January, 1822, Shelley +wrote from Pisa to Peacock: "Lord Byron is established here, and we are +his constant companions. No small relief this, after the dreary solitude +of the understanding and the imagination in which we passed the first +years of our expatriation, yoked to all sorts of miseries and +discomforts.... if you before thought him a great poet, what is your +opinion now that you have read _Cain_?" (_Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 249; +January 11, 1822.) During the same month he wrote to John Gisborne: "What +think you of Lord Byron now? Space wondered less at the swift and fair +creations of God, when he grew weary of vacancy, than I at this spirit of +an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body." (_Ibid._, VIII, p. +251, January, 1822.) + +A letter to Leigh Hunt gives the first intimation of the return of the +ill-feeling toward Byron: "Past circumstances between Lord B. and me +render it _impossible_ that I should accept any supply from him for my own +use, or that I should ask for yours if the contribution could be supposed +in any manner to relieve me, or to do what I could otherwise have done." +(_Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 253, January 25, 1822.) This referred to +more entanglements with Byron about Allegra. Shelley wrote to Jane +Clairmont: "It is of vital importance, both to me and yourself, to Allegra +even, that I should put a period to my intimacy with Lord Byron, and that +without éclat. No sentiments of honour and of justice restrain him (as I +strongly suspect) from the basest suspicion, and the only mode in which I +could effectually silence him I am reluctant (even if I had proof) to +employ during my father's life. But for your immediate feelings, I would +suddenly and irrevocably leave the country which he inhabits, nor even +enter it but as an enemy to determine our differences without words." +(_The Nation_, XLVIII, p. 116.) + +[360] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 258. + +[361] _Ibid._, VIII, p. 235, August 26, 1821. + +[362] _Correspondence_, I, p. 172, September 21, 1821. + +[363] _Ibid._, I, p. 174, November 16, 1821. + +[364] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, IV, p. 129, June 4, 1817. + +[365] _Ibid._, VI, pp. 117, 122, 127, 129, 134, 138, 158. + +[366] _Ibid._, VI, p. 156. + +[367] In 1814 Moore showed considerable pride in being included as one of +the four poets to sup with Apollo in the _Feast of the Poets_ and said +that he was "particularly flattered by praise from Hunt, because he is one +of the most honest and candid men" that he knew. (_Memoirs, Journal and +Correspondence_, II, p. 159.) In 1819 Hunt had urged upon Perry, the +editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, the necessity of a public subscription +for Moore. (_Ibid._, II, p. 340). An unfavorable review of Moore's +political principles in _The Examiner_ during the same year may have done +something to bring about the change in Moore's feelings, though he was +eulogized in a later issue of January 21, 1821. + +[368] B. W. Procter, _An Autobiographical Fragment_, p. 153. + +[369] _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, II, p. 583. + +[370] _Ibid._, II, p. 582. + +[371] _Ibid._, II, p. 584. + +[372] Jeaffreson, _The Real Lord Byron_, II, p. 188. + +[373] _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_, p. 111. + +[374] Nicoll, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 353, +March, 1822. + +[375] _Ibid._, p. 356. + +[376] _Fortnightly_, XXIX, p. 850. + +[377] _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_, p. 112. + +[378] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 288-289. + +[379] _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 459. + +[380] _Autobiography_, II, p. 94. + +[381] _Correspondence_, I, p. 86. + +[382] Monkhouse, _Life of Leigh Hunt_, p. 156. + +[383] Hunt refuted the statement that Byron had walled off part of his +dwelling and furnished it handsomely. (_Lord Byron and Some of His +Contemporaries_, p. 14 ff.) + +[384] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, pp. 242, 253. + +[385] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. +342, December 22, 1818. + +[386] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 286. + +[387] _Correspondence_, I, p. 190. + +[388] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 18. + +[389] _Ibid._, p. 18. + +[390] "I could always procure what I wanted from Lord Byron, and living +here is divinely cheap." (_Correspondence_, I, p. 198, November 7, 1822.) + +[391] _Life of Byron_, p. 242. + +[392] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 6. + +[393] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 257. + +[394] She used no tact in her dealings with Lord Byron. She let him see +that she had no respect for rank or titles. She even went beyond the +limits of courtesy in her remarks to him. On Byron's saying, "What do you +think, Mrs. Hunt? Trelawny had been speaking of my morals! What do you +think of that?" "It is the first time," said Mrs. Hunt, "I ever heard of +them." (_Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 27). Of his +portrait by Harlowe she said "that it resembled a great schoolboy, who had +had a plain bun given him, instead of a plum one," a facetious speech +indiscreetly repeated by Hunt to Byron. + +[395] _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 124. + +[396] _Ibid._, VI, pp. 119-120. Hunt's view was quite different. Byron +was, he thought, intimidated "out of his reasoning" by his children and +their principles. (_Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 28.) + +[397] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 32. + +[398] _Ibid._, p. 30. + +[399] _Letters and Journals_, VI, pp. 157, 167. + +[400] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 64. + +[401] Medwin, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 58. + +[402] Monkhouse, _Life of Leigh Hunt_, pp. 64-65. + +[403] II, pp. 145-146. + +[404] _Autobiography_, II, p. 24. + +[405] _Correspondence_, I, p. 188, July 8, 1822. Letter to his +sister-in-law. + +[406] _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 97, July 12, 1822. + +[407] _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_, I, p. 174. + +[408] _Correspondence_, I, p. 192. October (?), 1822. + +[409] _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 160. January 8, 1823. + +[410] _Ibid._, VI, pp. 171-173. + +[411] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, pp. 50, 63. + +[412] _Ibid._, p. 48. + +[413] "_Blackwood's Magazine_ overflowed, as might be expected, with +ten-fold gall and bitterness; the _John Bull_ was outrageous; and Mr. +Jerdan black in the face at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. But who +would have supposed that Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. Hobhouse, those staunch +friends and partisans of the people, should also be thrown into almost +hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their +noble and ignoble acquaintance, between the Patrician and the +'Newspaper-Man'? Mr. Moore darted backwards and forwards from +Cold-Bath-Fields' Prison to the Examiner-Office, from Mr. Longman's to Mr. +Murray's shop, in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see what was to be +done to prevent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this +indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this undue extension of +patronage and compromise of privilege. The Tories were shocked that Lord +Byron should grace the popular side by his direct countenance and +assistance--the Whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and +councils with any one who did not unite the double recommendations of +birth and genius--but themselves!" (Hazlitt, _The Plain Speaker_, II, p. +437 ff.) + +[414] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 52. + +[415] Galt in his _Life of Byron_ says: "Whether Mr. Hunt was or was not a +fit co-partner for one of his Lordship's rank and celebrity, I do not +undertake to judge; but every individual was good enough for that vile +prostitution of his genius, to which in an unguarded hour, he submitted +for money." (P. 244.) + +[416] _The Literary Gazette_ of October 19, 1822, was one of the notable +opponents. + +[417] _Life of Byron_, p. 239. + +[418] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 52. + +[419] _Ibid._, p. 53. + +[420] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 183. + +[421] _Ibid._, VI, p. 124. + +[422] _Ibid._, VI, p. 174, p. 182. (Letters to Mrs. Shelley.) + +[423] _Ibid._, VI, p. 124. + +[424] _Ibid._, V, p. 157, December 25, 1822. + +[425] _Ibid._, VI, pp. 167-168. + +[426] _Ibid._, V, p. 588. + +[427] Lady Blessington, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 77. + +[428] _Letters and Journals_, VI, pp. 182-183, April 2, 1823. + +[429] Hunt's only means of support were the income from his contributions +to _Colburn's New Monthly Magazine_, from the _Wishing Cap Papers_ in _The +Examiner_, and an annuity of £100. (_Correspondence_, I, p. 227.) + +[430] _Correspondence_, I, p. 233-234. + +[431] _Correspondence_, I, p. 228. See Hazlitt's account of Hunt in Italy +given in a letter from Haydon to Miss Mitford. (Haydon, _Life, Letters and +Table Talk_, pp. 223-225.) + +[432] Moore, _Memoirs_, IV, p. 220; V, p. 182. + +[433] _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 174, 1823. + +[434] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, preface, p. 3. + +[435] Clarke, _Recollection of Writers_, p. 230. + +[436] But compare Hunt's own remarks on p. 40. + +[437] The biographers of the two men have taken various attitudes toward +the value of _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_. Galt says that +the pains Hunt took to elaborate faults of Byron make one think Hunt was +treated according to his deserts, and that the troubles he labored under +may have caused him to misapprehend Byron's jocularity for sarcasm, and +caprice for insolence. (_Life of Byron_, p. 260.) Garnett considers the +book a "corrective of merely idealized estimates of Lord Byron," and its +"reception more unfavorable than its deserts." (_Encyclopædia Britannica_, +"Byron," Ninth Edition.) Nichol thinks that while the book was prompted by +uncharitableness and egotism, Byron's faults were only slightly magnified: +that the poetic insight, the cosmopolitan sympathy and courage of Hunt +have given a view that nothing else could have done. (_Life of Byron_, p. +165.) R. B. Johnson thinks that it was a correct estimate written in +self-justification. Undoubtedly it should not have come from Hunt, yet if +it had not been written Hunt would not have been defended nor Byron so +well known. He says there is "no reason to regret any part of the affair +but the heated and persistent abuse with which one of the most sensitive +and humane of men has been loaded on account of it." (_Leigh Hunt_, p. +50.) Noble says that "Byron's friends met unpleasant truths by still more +unpleasant falsehoods." (_The Sonnet in England_, p. 115.) Alexander +Ireland, says the book was the great blunder of Hunt's life, "ought not to +have been written, far less published." (_Dictionary of National +Biography._) + +[438] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 89. + +[439] _Ibid._, pp. 20-21. + +[440] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, II, p. 208. + +[441] _Ibid._, II, p. 461. + +[442] Thornton Hunt, in his edition of his father's _Correspondence_, +1862, in this connection defended Byron, and credited him with "a strong +sympathy with all that was beautiful and generous, with a desire to do +right, + +[443] P. 14. For an apology made six years earlier see a letter from Hunt +to Thomas Moore. (_Correspondence_, II, p. 38.) + +[444] Hunt, _A Jar of Honey from Mt. Hybia_, p. 155. + +[445] II, pp. 90-93. + +[446] _Charles Lamb and Some of His Companions_ in the _Quarterly Review_ +of January, 1867. + +[447] _A New Spirit of the Age_, p. 182. + +[448] Near the close of his life Hunt wrote: "The jests about London and +the Cockneys did not affect me in the least, as far as my faith was +concerned. They might as well have said that Hampstead was not beautiful, +or Richmond lovely; or that Chaucer and Milton were Cockneys when they +went out of London to lie on the grass and look at the daisies. The +Cockney School is the most illustrious in England; for, to say nothing of +Pope and Gray, who were both veritable Cockneys, 'born within the sound of +Bow Bell,' Milton was so too; and Chaucer and Spenser were both natives of +the city. Of the four greatest English poets, Shakespeare only was not a +Londoner." (_Autobiography_, II, p. 197.) + +[449] _Recollections of Writers_, p. 19. Other accounts of these suppers +are to be found in Hazlitt's _On the Conversations of Authors_; in the +works dealing with Charles Lamb; and in the _Cornhill Magazine_, November, +1900. + +[450] _The Life of Mary Russell Mitford_. Edited by A. J. K. L'Estrange, +New York, 1870, I, p. 370, November 12, 1819. + +[451] Sharp, _The Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_, p. 33. + +[452] Notes, pp. 57-61. + +[453] _Ibid._, pp. 62-68. + +[454] Other controversies, such as the one with Antoine Dubost, show +Hunt's aggressiveness. Dubost had sold a painting of Damocles to his +patron, a Mr. Hope. The latter became convinced that the author was an +imposter and tore the signature from the picture. In retaliation Dubost +painted and exhibited _Beauty and the Beast_, a caricature of the whole +incident. _The Examiner_ accused him of forgery and rank ingratitude. Hunt +does not seem to have had any particular proof or knowledge on the +subject, yet he employed scathing denunciation in writing of it. Dubost +replied and asserted that Hunt was Hope's hireling, and that he had +"ransacked the whole calendar of scurrility, and hunted for nick-names +through all the common places of blackguardism." (Dubost, _An Appeal to +the Public against the Calumnies of the Examiner_, London, n. d., p. 9.) + +[455] He undertook a vindication of the Cockney School in a series of four +articles, in which he pointed out the "mean insincerity," the "vulgar +slander," the "mouthing cant," the "shabby spite," the falsehoods and the +recantations of Blackwood's. The description of the conditions, under +which Scott pictured the articles of his enemies to have been written, +smacks of the mocking humor of _Blackwood's_ itself: "a redolency of +Leith-ale, and tobacco smoke, which floats about all the pleasantry in +question,--giving one the idea of its facetious articles having been +written on the slopped table of a tavern parlour in the back-wynd, after +the _convives_ had retired, and left the author to solitude, pipe-ashes, +and the dregs of black-strap." + +[456] Published in Edinburgh in 1820 and signed by "An American +Scotchman." + +[457] Published in Newcastle in 1821. + +[458] The School was thus described in Blackwood's: "The chief +constellations, in this poetical firmament, consist of led captains, and +clerical hangers-on, whose pleasure, and whose business, it is, to +celebrate in tuneful verse, the virtues of some angelic patron, who keeps +a good table, and has interest with the archbishop, or the India House. +Verily they have their reward." In other words this group was composed of +diners-out or parasites, and sycophants for livings and military +appointments. + +[459] Published in London, 1824. + +[460] Published in London also in 1824. + +[461] Keats, _Works_, IV, p. 66. + +[462] C. C. Clarke, _Recollections of Writers_, p. 147. + +[463] Keats, _Works_, IV, p. 66. + +[464] _Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon_, p. 349. + +[465] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 302. + +[466] I, p. 133. + +[467] _Keats_, p. 120. + +[468] _Life in Poetry: Law in Taste_, pp. 21-23. + +[469] _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 58. + +[470] _Blackwood's_, November, 1820. + +[471] _Ibid._, May, 1821. + +[472] _Quarterly_, April, 1822. + +[473] _Ibid._, January, 1823. + +[474] _Blackwood's_, April, 1819. + +[475] _Life, Letters and Table Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon_, p. 69. + +[476] _Blackwood's_, May, 1823, pp. 558-566. + +[477] _Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore_, I, p. 23. + +[478] _Letters and Journals_, V, p. 588. + +[479] _St. James Magazine_, XXXV, p. 387 ff. + +[480] _Blackwood's_, December, 1821. + +[481] _Letters and Journals_, V, pp. 587-590. March 25, 1821. + +[482] _Ibid._, V, pp. 362-363. September 12, 1821. + +[483] _Letters of Timothy Tickler, Esq._, July, 1823. + +[484] September, 1824. + +[485] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 136. + +[486] Daniel Maclise, _A Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters_ +(1830-1838). London, n. d., p. 132. + +[487] William Dorling, _Memoirs of Dora Greenwell_, London, 1885, p. 75. + +[488] _Epistle to Barnes._ + +[489] This accusation has been made still more recently by Mr. Palgrave, +who speaks of the "slipshod morality of _Rimini_ and _Hero_." _Poetical +Works of John Keats_, p. 263. + +[490] In 1844, however, he refashioned the whole poem, now representing +Giovanni as deformed and as the murderer of his wife and brother, whereas +in the version of 1816 Paolo had been slain in a duel and Francesca had +died of grief. In 1855, he made a second change and went back to the 1816 +version. The duel he preserved in the fragment, _Corso and Emilia_. Hunt's +translation of Dante's episode appeared in _Stories of Verse_, 1855. In +1857 he made a third change and restored the version of 1844. + +[491] The editor of _Blackwood's_ in a letter dated April 20, 1818, +offered space to P. G. Patmore for a favourable critique of Hunt's poetry, +reserving to himself the privilege of answering such an article. He stated +further that if Hunt had employed less violent language towards the +reviewer of _Rimini_ he might have been given a friendly explanation. +_Memoirs and Correspondence of Coventry Patmore_, II, p. 438. + +[492] This charge was renewed in a review of Hunt's _Autobiography_ in +1850 in the _Eclectic Review_, XCII, p. 416. + +[493] Byron greatly resented Southey's article: "I am glad Mr. Southey +owns that article on _Foliage_ which excited my choler so much. But who +else could have been the author? Who but Southey would have had the +baseness, under the pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insidiously +to make it nest work for hatching malicious calumnies against others?... I +say nothing of the critique itself on _Foliage_; with the exception of a +few sonnets, it was unworthy of Hunt. But what was the object of that +article? I repeat, to villify and scatter his dark and devilish +insinuation against me and others." (Medwin, _Conversations of Lord +Byron_, p. 102.) Again Byron wrote of Southey in 1820: "Hence his +quarterly overflowings, political and literary, in what he has termed +himself 'the ungentle craft,' and his special wrath against Mr. Leigh +Hunt, not withstanding that Hunt has done more for Wordsworth's reputation +as a poet (such as it is), than all the Lakers could in their interchange +of praises for the last twenty-five years." (_Letters and Journals_, V, p. +84.) + +[494] _London Magazine_, October, 1823. + +[495] September, 1823. + +[496] Reprinted in the _Museum of Foreign Literature_, XII, p. 568. + +[497] August, 1834, XXVI, p. 273. + +[498] C. C. Clarke, _Recollections of Writers_, p. 244. The year in which +the letter was written is not given, but it must fall within the years +1833-1840, the period of Hunt's residence at Chelsea. + +[499] _The Victorian Age_, I, pp. 94-101. + +[500] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 267. + +[501] _Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays_, New York and +Boston, 1860, IV, p. 350. + +[502] The first preface to _Endymion_ was rejected by Keats on the advice +of his friends who thought that it was in the vain yet deprecating tone of +Hunt's prefaces. To this charge Keats replied: "I am not aware that there +is anything like Hunt in it (and if there is, it is my natural way, and I +have something in common with Hunt)." The second preface justifies the +charge. + +[503] _London Journal_, January 21, 1835. + +[504] Of Southey's attack on Hunt and others in May, 1818, Keats wrote: "I +have more than a laurel from the Quarterly Reviewers, for they have +smothered me in 'Foliage.'" (_Works_, IV, p. 115.) + +[505] Shelley wrote also a letter to the _Quarterly Review_ remonstrating +against its treatment of Keats but the letter was never sent. (Milnes, +_Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats_, I, p. 208 ff.) + +[506] In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, Hunt states that he +informed Byron of his mistake and received a promise that it would be +altered, but that the rhyme about _article_ and _particle_ was too good to +throw away (p. 266). + +[507] Just before leaving England, Keats with Hunt visited the house where +Tom had died. He told Hunt in _this_ connection that he was "dying of a +broken heart." (_Literary Examiner_, 1823, p. 117.) + +[508] _Works_, IV, pp. 42-43, 169-171, 174, 177, 194; V, pp. 27, 29. + +[509] _Atlantic Monthly_, XI, p. 406. + +[510] October 11, 1818. It included two reprints from other papers. The +first was a letter taken from the _Morning Chronicle_ signed J. S. It +predicted that if Keats would "apostatise his friendship, his principles, +and his politics (if he have any) he may even command the approbation of +the _Quarterly Review_." This was followed by extracts from an article by +John Hamilton Reynolds in the _Alfred Exeter Paper_ praising Keats for his +power of vitalizing heathen mythology and for his resemblance to Chapman +and calling Gifford "a Lottery Commissioner and Government Pensioner" who +persecuted Keats by "intrigue of literature and contrivance of political +parties." + +[511] Dante Gabriel Rossetti suggests this possibility in a letter to Mr. +Hall Caine. (Caine, _Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti_, p. 179.) + +[512] _Cobwebs of Criticism_, p. 137. + +[513] _Autobiography_, II, p. 43. + +[514] See p. 50 ff. + +[515] _Imagination and Fancy_, p. 230. + +[516] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 274. + +[517] Other hostile reviews of _The Cenci_ appeared in the _Literary +Gazette_ of April 1, 1820; the _Monthly Magazine_ of the same month; and +the _London Magazine_ of May of the same year. + +[518] _Blackwood's_, January, 1822. + +[519] Alexander Ireland has pointed out curious correspondences in the +lives and intrests of Hazlitt and Hunt. (_Memoir of Hazlitt_, pp. +474-476.) + +[520] _Quarterly_, May, 1818. + +[521] _Ibid._, December, 1818. + +[522] _Ibid._, July, 1819. + +[523] _Ibid._, October, 1821. + +[524] Birrell, _William Hazlitt_, New York, 1902, p. 147. + +[525] _The Examiner_ of March 7 and 14, 1819, contained extracts from the +_Letter_ and comments by Hunt upon this "quint-essential salt of an +epistle," as he called it. Lamb's _Letter to Southey_, already referred +to, contained a defense of Hazlitt as well as of Hunt. + +[526] February, 1818-April, 1819. + +[527] August, 1822. + +[528] August, 1823; October, 1823. + + + + +THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS + +STUDIES IN ENGLISH + + Joseph Glanvill + _A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century_ + By FERRIS GREENSLET, Ph.D., + Cloth, 12mo pp. xi + 235 $1.50 _net_ + + The Elizabethan Lyric + By JOHN ERSKINE, Ph.D., + Cloth, 12mo pp. xvi + 344 $1.50 _net_ + + Classical Echoes in Tennyson + By WILFRED P. 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