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.

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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 L500 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