The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 55

291.--To Thomas Moore.

May 19, 1813.

Oh you, who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown, [1]-- For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Twopenny Post Bag;

But now to my letter--to _yours_ 'tis an answer-- To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on (According to compact) the wit in the dungeon [2]-- Pray Phoebus at length our political malice May not get us lodgings within the same palace!

I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some codgers, And for Sotheby's [3] Blues have deserted Sam Rogers; And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got, Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote.

But to-morrow at four, we will both play the _Scurra_, And you'll be Catullus, the Regent, Mamurra. [4]

Dear M.,--having got thus far, I am interrupted by----. 10 o'clock.

Half-past 11.----is gone. I must dress for Lady Heathcote's.--Addio.

[Footnote 1: Moore's 'Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post-bag. By Thomas Brown, the Younger', was published in 1813.]

[Footnote 2: The "wit in the dungeon" was James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), who was educated at Christ's Hospital, and began his literary life with "a collection of poems, written between the ages of twelve and sixteen," and published in 1801 as 'Juvenilia'. In 1808 he and his brother John started a weekly newspaper called the 'Examiner', which advocated liberal principles with remarkable independence. On February 24, 1811, Hunt published an article in defence of Peter Finnerty, convicted for a libel on Castlereagh, and exhorting public writers to be bold in the cause of individual liberty. The same number contained an article on the savagery of military floggings, for which he was prosecuted, defended by Brougham, and acquitted. His acquittal drew from Sh.e.l.ley a letter of congratulation, addressed to Hunt as "one of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind" (Dowden's 'Life of Sh.e.l.ley', vol. i. p. 113).

In March, 1812, the 'Morning Post' printed a poem, speaking of the Prince Regent as the "Maecenas of the Age," the "Exciter of Desire," the "Glory of the People," an "Adonis of Loveliness," etc. The 'Examiner'

for March 12, 1812, thus translated this adulation into "the language of truth:"

"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 'Exciter of Desire' (bravo! Messieurs of the 'Post'!), this 'Adonis in Loveliness,' was a corpulent man of fifty!--in short, this 'delightful, blissful, wise, pleasureable, honourable, virtuous, true', and 'immortal' prince was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single claim on the grat.i.tude of his country or the respect of posterity."

Crabb Robinson, who met Leigh Hunt, four days later, at Charles Lamb's, says ('Diary', vol. i. p. 376),

"Leigh Hunt is an enthusiast, very well intentioned, and, I believe, prepared for the worst. He said, pleasantly enough, 'No one can accuse me of not writing a libel. Everything is a libel, as the law is now declared, and our security lies only in their shame.'"

For this libel John and Leigh Hunt were convicted in the Court of King's Bench on December 9, 1812. In the following February they were sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 500 a-piece. John was imprisoned in Coldbath-fields, Leigh in the Surrey County Gaol. They were released on February 2 or 3, 1815.

Sh.e.l.ley, on reading the sentence, proposed a subscription for

"the brave and enlightened man... to whom the public owes a debt as the champion of their liberties and virtues"

(Dowden, 'Life of Sh.e.l.ley', vol. i. p. 325). Keats wrote a sonnet to Hunt on the day he left his prison, beginning:

"What though for showing truth to flatter'd state, Kind Hunt was shut in prison."

A political alliance was thus cemented, which, for the time, was disastrous to the literary prospects of Sh.e.l.ley and Keats. To Hunt Sh.e.l.ley dedicated the 'Cenci', and Keats his first volume of 'Poems'

(1817). He is the "gentlest of the wise" in Sh.e.l.ley's 'Adonais'; and, in a suppressed stanza of the same poem, the poet speaks of Hunt's "sweet and earnest looks," "soft smiles," and "dark and night-like eyes." The words inscribed on Sh.e.l.ley's tomb--"_Cor Cordium_"--were Hunt's choice.

In his various papers Hunt zealously championed his friends. In the 'Examiner' for September to October, 1819, he defended Sh.e.l.ley's personal character; in the same paper for June to July, 1817, he praised Keats's first volume of 'Poems'; he reviewed "Lamia" in the 'Indicator'

for August 2-9, 1820, and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" in that for May 10, 1820. In his 'Foliage' (1818) are three sonnets addressed to Keats.

Sh.e.l.ley believed in Hunt to the end. It was mainly through him that Hunt came to Pisa in June, 1822, to join with Byron in 'The Liberal'. But he doubted whether the alliance between the "wren and the eagle" could continue ('Life of Sh.e.l.ley', vol. ii. p. 519). Keats, on the other hand, lost his faith in Hunt. In a letter to Haydon (May, 1817), speaking of Hunt, he says,

"There is no greater Sin after the seven deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great Poet."

Again (March, 1818) he writes,

"It is a great Pity that People should, by a.s.sociating themselves with the finest things, spoil them. Hunt has d.a.m.ned Hampstead, and masks, and sonnets, and Italian tales."

He writes still more severely (December, 1818-January, 1819),

"If I were to follow my own inclinations, I should never meet any one 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. 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 a.s.sociated with him becomes a nothing."

Haydon considered that Hunt was the "great unhinger" of Keats's best dispositions ('Works of Keats', ed. H.B. Forman, vol. iv. p. 359); and Severn attributes Keats's temporary "mawkishness" to Hunt's society ('ibid'., p. 376).

Nathaniel Hawthorne ('Our Old Home', p. 229, ed. 1884) says of Hunt, and means it as high praise, that

"there was not an English trait in him from head to foot--morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale or stout, brandy or port-wine, entered not at all into his composition."

He was, in fact, a man of weak fibre, who allowed himself to sponge upon his friends, such as Talfourd, Haydon, and Sh.e.l.ley. Though d.i.c.kens denied ('All the Year Round', Dec. 24, 1859) that "Harold Skimpole" was intended for Hunt, the picture was recognized as a portrait. On the other hand, Hunt was a man of kindly and genial disposition.

"He loves everything," says Crabb Robinson ('Diary', vol. ii. p. 192), "he catches the sunny side of everything, and, excepting that he has a few polemical antipathies, finds everything beautiful."

In his essays, the best of which appeared in the 'Indicator' (1819-21), he communicates some of his own sense of enjoyment to those of his readers who are content to take him as he is. His circle is limited; but in it his observation is minute and suggestive. The Vale of Health is to him, in a degree proportioned to their respective powers, what the Temple was to Lamb. His style is neat, pretty, and would be affected if it were not the man himself. As a literary journalist, a dramatic critic, and an essayist, he has a place in literature. His poetry is less successful; his affectations, innate vulgarity, and habit of pawing his subjects repel even those who are attracted by its sweetness. Yet his 'Story of Rimini' (1816), which he dedicated to Byron, was admired in its day. Byron, though he condemned its affected style, thought the poem a "devilish good one." Moore held the same opinion; and Jeffrey, writing to him May 28, 1816 ('Memoirs, etc., of Thomas Moon,' vol. ii.

p. 100), says,

"I certainly shall not be ill-natured to 'Rimini'. It is very sweet and very lively in many places, and is altogether piquant, as being by far the best imitation of Chaucer and some of his Italian contemporaries that modern times have produced."

No two men could be more unlike than Byron and Hunt, or have less in common. Yet, with a singular capacity for self-delusion, Hunt told his wife that the texture of Byron's mind resembled his to a thread ('Correspondence of L. Hunt', vol. i. p. 88). The friends.h.i.+p began in political sympathy; but two years later (see Byron's letter to Moore, June 1, 1818) it had, on one side at least, cooled. In June, 1822, Hunt came to Pisa to launch The Liberal, with the aid of Sh.e.l.ley and Byron.

'The Liberal: Verse and Prose from the South', started in 1822, lived through four numbers, and died in July, 1823. During that time Byron expressed to Lady Blessington ('Conversations', p. 77)

"a very good opinion of the talents and principle of Mr. Hunt, though, as he said, 'our tastes are so opposite that we are totally unsuited to each other ... in short, we are more formed to be friends at a distance, than near.'"

For the best part of two years Hunt was Byron's guest: he repaid his hospitality by publis.h.i.+ng his 'Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries' (1828). Though Lady Blessington said the book "gave, in the main, a fair account" of Byron (Crabb Robinson's 'Diary', vol. iii.

p. 13), its publication was a breach of honour. As such it was justly attacked by Moore in "The 'Living Dog' and the 'Dead Lion'":

"Next week will be published (as 'Lives' are the rage) The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange, Of a small puppy-dog, that lived once in the cage Of the late n.o.ble Lion at Exeter 'Change.

"Though the dog is a dog of the kind they call 'sad,'

'Tis a puppy that much to good breeding pretends; And few dogs have such opportunities had Of knowing how Lions behave--among friends.

"How that animal eats, how he snores, how he drinks, Is all noted down by this Boswell so small; And 'tis plain, from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks That the Lion was no such great things after all.