[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 inMaria 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 withHyperion, 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, seeLord 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 inNotes and Queries, Feb. 4, 1905, dates theImitation 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 The discovery of the hitherto unpublished poem,Fill for me a brimming bowl, in imitation of Milton’s early poems, dated in the Woodhouse transcript Aug. 1814, is of considerable interest in determining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 sonnetOn Peacefound 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 is a second discovery of an unpublished poem of the same period.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 ofsoby Hunt and Keats. He compares the “so elegantly” of this passage with the line fromRimini“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 springThe 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 careThus startled unawareBe jealous that the foot of other wightShould madly follow that bright path of lightTrac’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 aidsThat smooth the path of honour; brotherhood,And friendliness the nurse of mutual good.The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnetInto 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 borrowSome 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 theStory of Riminisomething of the spirit which had informed theLines Written Above Tintern Abbey.” (Poems of John Keats.Introduction p. 34.)
(a) Of this room Hunt wrote: “Keats’sSleep and Poetryis a description of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion’s closet.”CorrespondenceI, p. 289. See alsoLord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries, p. 249.
(b) Further description of the same room is to be found inShelley’s Letter to Maria Gisborne, ll. 212-217.
(c) Clarke refers to it in theGentleman’s Magazine, February, 1874, and inRecollections 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 aShelf 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 theStory of Rimini.”
[183]The two sonnets were published inThe Examinerof September 21, 1817; Keats’s had been included previously in thePoems of 1817; Hunt’s appeared later inFoliage, 1818.
[184]This did not appear in 1817, but belongs to this period. SeeWorks, II, p. 257. For a comparison of these two sonnets with Shelley’s on the same Subject, see Rossetti’sLife of Keats, p. 110.
[185]Works, II, p. 166.
[186]Compare withA 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, seeTo 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 LeanderandBacchus and Ariadne, 1819, p. 45.
[198]Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated Hunt’sGentle 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 inHero 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 worddeliciouslyis 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.” InRiminithis 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 ofI stood tiptoe, quoted on p. 107. See his use of the same on p. 76. InBacchus and Ariadneit occurs in this passage “all luxuries that come from odorous gardens.”
[204]This is used inHyperion, II, l. 45. The expression “plashy pools” occurs in theStory 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 ofThe 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 theLetter 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 ofThe 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 alsoLetter 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; alsoWorks 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 inNineteenthCentury 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 withThe 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 inLiterary 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 theQuarterlyto Southey on the grounds of his enmity toThe Examinerwhich, 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 alsoCorrespondence, 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, seeWorks of Shelley, VIII, p. 167. Hunt’s collection of poems, published during 1818, under the title ofFoliagewas 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 theSuburbs 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 theQuarterly Review’sattack on thePosthumous Poems, which Mrs. Shelley, aided by Hunt, had published in 1824. This account was reworked in 1850 for theAutobiographyand 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’sBook of Gems(p. 40). He gave a fine description of his physical appearance not often quoted.
[277]It was considered by theAthaneumto 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 fromLaon andCythnawas added by Hunt.
[281]Pt. 2, p. 37.
[282]P. 217.
[283]A Shelf of Old Books, p. 291.
[284]Hunt’sBook of the Sonnet, which appeared posthumously, contained a criticism of Shelley’s sonnet onOzymandyas(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’sThe Cap and Bellsdeals with the same.
[303]Shelley gave directions that the poem should be printed like Hunt’sHero 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 BellinThe Examinerof 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. withWorks 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 soulsWhich are the salt of the earth, and without whomThis world would smell like what it is—a tomb;Who is what others seem; his room no doubtIs 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 dozensOf female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins.And there he is with his eternal puns,Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like dunsThundering 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 ofRosalind 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 ofAdonais, p. 2. London, 1887.
[313]To his wife.Worksof 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 theDivine 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’sLetters 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]SeeBlackwood’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 inJulian 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 ofChilde Haroldin 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 otherwiseThe Liberalwould 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.” OfDon Juanhe 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 readCain?” (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 itimpossiblethat 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 theFeast of the Poetsand 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 theMorning Chronicle, the necessity of a public subscription for Moore. (Ibid., II, p. 340). An unfavorable review of Moore’s political principles inThe Examinerduring 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.)