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 eclat. 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 L100. (_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." (_Encyclopaedia 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.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Pages 118, 119, and 120 are numbered consecutively in the text, but there appears to be a page or more missing from the original.
Footnote 442 (on page 118) ends with a comma in the original.
Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have been left open.
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
The following misprints have been corrected: "Francesea" corrected to "Francesca" (page 21) "everthing" corrected to "everything" (page 48) "Shelly" corrected to "Shelley" (page 68) "wordly" corrected to "worldly" (page 70) "followd" corrected to "followed" (page 90) "Progess" corrected to "Progress" (page 129) "ever" corrected to "even" (page 138) "Ambrosianae" corrected to "Ambrosianae" (page 152) "beween" corrected to "between" (footnote 30) "Cynthia" corrected to "Cythna" (footnote 180) "Nineteen" corrected to "Nineteenth" (foonote 259) "Work" corrected to "Works" (footnote 313) "elese" corrected to "else" (footnote 437)
Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.