Chapter VIII: Conclusion (1)

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 chapter V, p. 19.

[55] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 330.

[56]

Who loves to peer up at the morning sun,
With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek
For meadows where the little rivers run;
Who loves to linger with the brightest one
Of Heaven (Hesperus) let him lowly speak
These numbers to the night, and starlight meek,
Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.
He who knows these delights, and too is prone
To moralize upon a smile or tear,
Will find at once religion of his own,
A bower for his spirit, and will steer
To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone,
Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are seer.

(_Complete Works of John Keats_, ed by Forman, II, p. 183.)

[57] Lowell said of Hunt: "No man has ever understood the delicacies and luxuries of the language better than he."

[58] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 226, October 22, 1815.

[59] _Ibid._, III, p. 418.

[60] _Ibid._, III, p. 242, October 30, 1815.

[61] _Ibid._, III, p. 267, February 29, 1816.

[62] _Ibid._, IV, p. 237, June 1, 1818.

[63] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 486-487.

[64] Medwin, _Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 187.

[65] In the preface to the _Story of Rimini_ (London, 1819, p. 16), Hunt says that a poet should use an actual existing language, and quotes as authorities, Chaucer, Ariosto, Pulci, even Homer and Shakespeare. He thought simplicity of language of greater importance even than free versification in order to avoid the cant of art: "The proper language of poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks, omitting mere vulgarisms and fugitive phrases which are cant of ordinary discourse."

[66] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418.

[67] Mr. A. T. Kent in the _Fortnightly Review_ (vol. 36, p. 227), points out that Leigh Hunt in the preface to the _Story of Rimini_, avoided the mistake of Wordsworth in "looking to an unlettered peasantry for poetical language," and quotes him as saying that one should "add a musical modulation to what a fine understanding might naturally utter in the midst of its griefs and enjoyments." Kent says we have here "two vital points on which Wordsworth, in his capacity of critic, had failed to insist."

[68] _Autobiography_, II, p. 24.

[69] To be found chiefly in the _Feast of the Poets_.

[70] In 1855, in _Stories in Verse_, Hunt changed his acknowledged allegiance from Dryden to Chaucer.

[71] Canto, II, ll. 433-440.

[72] E. De Selincourt gives these three last as examples of Hunt's derivation of the abstract noun from the present participle (_Poems of John Keats_, p. 577).

[73] De Selincourt notes that these adverbs are usually formed from present participles. (_Poems of John Keats_, p. 577.)

[74] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418.

[75]

"For ever since Pope spoiled the ears of the town
With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down,
There has been such a doling and sameness,--by Jove,
I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love."

(_Feast of the Poets._)

Hunt calls Pope's translation of the moonlight picture from _Homer_ "a gorgeous misrepresentation" (_Ibid._, p. 35) and the whole translation "that elegant mistake of his in two volumes octavo." (_Foliage_, p. 32.)

[76] _Feast of the Poets_, p. 38. The same opinions are expressed in _The Examiner_ of June 1, 1817; in the preface to _Foliage_, 1818.

[77] _Ibid._, p. 56.

[78] P. 23.

[79] Saintsbury, _Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860_, p. 220.

[80] Hunt, _Story of Rimini_, London, 1818, p. 11, 200 lines beginning with top of page. In the 1742 lines of the poem, there are 47 run-on couplets and 260 run-on lines. There are 7 Alexandrines and 21 triplets. In the edition of 1832 the number of triplets has been increased to 26. There are 46 double rhymes. In a study of the caesura based on the first 200 lines there are 70 medial, 17 double caesuras. The remaining 113 lines have irregular or double caesura.

[81] Keats, _Lamia_, Bk. I, ll. 1-200. In the 708 lines of _Lamia_, there are 98 run-on couplets, 144 run-on lines, 39 Alexandrines and 11 triplets. The caesura is handled with greater freedom than in the _Story of Rimini_.

[82] C. H. Herford, _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 83.

[83] R. B. Johnson, _Leigh Hunt_, p. 94.

[84] _Leigh Hunt as a Poet, Fortnightly Review_, XXXVI: 226.

[85] Sidney Colvin, _Keats_, p. 30.

[86] Garnett, _Age of Dryden_, p. 32.

[87] From Homer, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Anacreon, and Catullus.

[88] p. 13.

[89] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 115.

[90] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, IV, p. 238.

[91] Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, _Recollections of Writers_, p. 132.

[92] _Ibid._, p. 133.

[93] Hunt, _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries; with Recollections of the Author's Life and of his Visit to Italy_, p. 247.

[94] _Ibid._, p. 251.

[95] _Ibid._, pp. 246-272.

[96] _Autobiography_, II, pp. 27, 59.

[97] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 222.

[98] This refers to Keats's first published poem, the sonnet _O Solitude, if I must with thee dwell_, published (without comment) in _The Examiner_ of May 5, 1816.

[99] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 34.

[100] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 257.

[101] _Ibid._, pp. 257-258.

[102] Sharp, _Life and Letters of Joseph Severn_, p. 163.

[103] _Works_, I, p. 30.

[104] Mr. Forman, after a systematic search has been able to find no proof in either direction. (_Works_, III, p. 8.)

[105] _Works_, I, p. 5.

[106] _Foliage_, p. 125.

[107] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 66.

[108] A further account of the disastrous effects of his partisanship will be found in the discussion of the Cockney School, Ch. V.

[109] The _Century Magazine_, XXIII, p. 706.

[110] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 269.

[111] _Autobiography_, II, p. 266.

[112] _Works_, IV, p. 16.

[113] Haydon and Hunt had originally been very intimate, as is shown by the letters written by the former from Paris during 1814, and by his attentions to Hunt in Surrey Gaol. A letter to Wilkie, dated October 27, 1816, gives an attractive portrait of Hunt, and from this evidence it is inferred that the change in Haydon's attitude came about in the early part of 1817, and that a small unpleasantness was allowed by him to outweigh a friendship of long standing. After two weeks spent with Hunt he had written of him as "one of the most delightful companions. Full of poetry and art, and amiable humour, we argue always with full hearts on everything but religion and Bonaparte.... Though Leigh Hunt is not deep in knowledge, moral metaphysical or classical, yet he is intense in feeling and has an intellect forever on the alert. He is like one of those instruments on three legs, which, throw it how you will, always pitches on two, and has a spike sticking for ever up and ever ready for you. He "sets" at a subject with a scent like a pointer. He is a remarkable man, and created a sensation by his independence, his disinterestedness in public matters; and by the truth, acuteness and taste of his dramatic criticisms, he raised the rank of newspapers, and gave by his example a literary feeling to the weekly ones more especially. As a poet, I think him full of the genuine feeling. His third canto in _Rimini_ is equal to anything in any language of that sweet sort. Perhaps in his wishing to avoid the monotony of the Pope school, he may have shot into the other extreme; and his invention of obscene [sic] words to express obscene feelings borders sometimes on affectation. But these are trifles compared with the beauty of the poem, the intense painting of the scenery, and the deep burning in of the passion which trembles in every line. Thus far as a critic, an editor and a poet. As a man I know none with such an affectionate heart, if never opposed in his opinions. He has defects of course: one of his great defects is getting inferior people about him to listen, too fond of shining at any expense in society, and love of approbation from the darling sex bordering on weakness; though to women he is delightfully pleasant, yet they seem more to handle him as a delicate plant. I don't know if they do not put a confidence in him which to me would be mortifying. He is a man of sensibility tinged with morbidity and of such sensitive organization of body that the plant is not more alive to touch than he.... He is a composition, as we all are, of defects and delightful qualities, indolently averse to worldly exertion, because it harasses the musings of his fancy, existing only by the common duties of life, yet ignorant of them, and often suffering from their neglect." (Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, ed. R. H. Stoddard, pp. 155-156.)

Haydon said that the rupture came about because Hunt insisted upon speaking of our Lord and his Apostles in a condescending manner, and that he rebelled against Hunt's "audacious romancing over the Biblical conceptions of the Almighty." (Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 65.) This view, in the light of Haydon's general unreliability, may be mere romancing; for Keats, writing on January 13, 1818, gave the following explanation of the quarrel: "Mrs. H. (Hunt) was in the habit of borrowing silver from Haydon--the last time she did so, Haydon asked her to return it at a certain time--she did not--Haydon sent for it--Hunt went to expostulate on the indelicacy, etc.--they got to words and parted for ever." (Keats, _Works_, IV, p. 58).

[114] _Works_, IV, p. 20.

[115] Milnes, _Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats_, II, p. 44.

[116] _Works_, IV, p. 114.

[117] _Ibid._, V, p. 142.

[118] _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 208.

[119] _Works_, IV, p. 31.

[120] _Ibid._, IV, p. 60.

[121] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 37-38.

[122] _Ibid._, IV, p. 38, Keats gives his argument in favor of a long poem.

[123] _Ibid._, IV, p. 38.

[124] _Ibid._, IV, p. 49.

[125] _Ibid._, IV, p. 193.

[126] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 195-196.

[127] _Ibid._, IV, p. 12.

[128] _Ibid._, IV, p. 90.

[129] _Ibid._, I, p. 34.

[130] _Ibid._, V, p. 198.

[131] Haydon attempted also to make trouble between Wordsworth and Hunt, by telling the former that Hunt's admiration for him was only a "weather cock estimation" and by insinuations concerning his sincerity in friendships. (Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 197.)

[132] J. Ashcroft Noble, _The Sonnet in England, and Other Essays_, p. 108.

[133] _Autobiography_, II, p. 42.

[134] _Autobiography_, II, p. 44.

[135] _Works_, V, p. 203.

[136] Keats wrote Haydon, "There are three things to rejoice at in this age The Excursion, Your Pictures, and Hazlitt's depth of taste." (_Works_, IV, p. 56.)

[137] _Works_, II, p. 187.

[138] _Ibid._, V, p. 116.

[139] _Ibid._, V, p. 180.

[140] _Ibid._, V, p. 175.

[141] _Ibid._, V, p. 174.

[142] That he needed better attention than he could receive in lodgings is seen from an account of Keats's condition given in _Maria Gisborne's Journal_ (_Ibid._, V, p. 182), which says that when she drank tea there in July, Keats was under sentence of death from Dr. Lamb: "he never spoke and looks emaciated."

[143] _Works_, V, p. 183-184. The quotation follows Keats's punctuation.

[144] _Ibid._, V, p. 185.

[145] _Cornhill Magazine_, 1892.

[146] _Works_, V, p. 194.

[147] _Ibid._, V, p. 193.

[148] _Correspondence_, I, p. 107.

[149] P. 248.

[150] _The Examiner_, June 1st, July 6th, and 13th, 1817.

[151] Lines 181-206.

[152] _Works_, IV, p. 64.

[153] _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, p. 257.

[154] May 10, 1820.

[155] Cf. with Poe's sonnet, _Science, true daughter of Old Time thou art_.

[156] Haydon, _Life, Letters and Table Talk_, p. 201.

[157] In connection with _Hyperion_, it is interesting to note that the manuscript in Keats's handwriting recently discovered, survived through the agency of Leigh Hunt. From him it passed into the ownership of his son Thornton, and later to the sister of Dr. George Bird. It has been purchased from her by the British Museum. (_Athenaeum_, March 11, 1905.)

[158] This is, of course, a mistake.

[159] For other criticism of the 1820 poems by Hunt, see _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, pp. 258-268.

[160] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 16.

[161] _Ibid._, l. 20.

[162] _Ibid._, l. 81.

[163] _To some Ladies_, l. 15.

[164] _Ibid._, l. 117.

[165] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 215.

[166] _Ibid._, l. 61.

[167] _Calidore_, l. 132. Also pointed out by Mr. Colvin, _Keats_, p. 53.

[168] _To my brother George_, l. 7.

[169] _I stood tiptoe_, l. 144.

[170] Hunt quotes this with approbation, as showing a "human touch." (_Specimen of an Induction to a Poem_, ll. 13-14.)

[171] _Specimen of an Induction to a Poem_, l. 48.

[172] _Calidore_, l. 66.

[173] _Ibid._, l. 80 ff.

[174] _To ..._, l. 23 ff.

[175] Mr. De Selincourt in _Notes and Queries_, Feb. 4, 1905, dates the _Imitation of Spenser_ "1813." He does not produce documentary evidence, however. The discovery of the hitherto unpublished poem, _Fill for me a brimming bowl_, in imitation of Milton's early poems, dated in the Woodhouse transcript Aug. 1814, is of considerable interest in determining the date of Keats's earliest composition of verse. A sonnet _On Peace_ found in the same MS. is a second discovery of an unpublished poem of the same period.

[176] _Works_, I, p. 26.

[177] _Ibid._, I. p. 16. Mr. W. T. Arnold, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, London, 1884, has remarked upon the similar use of _so_ by Hunt and Keats. He compares the "so elegantly" of this passage with the line from _Rimini_ "leaves so finely suit."

[178] _To Charles Cowden Clarke_, l. 88.

[179] _Calidore_, ll. 34-35.

[180] _Story of Rimini_, p. 35.

[181] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 31.

[182] References to Hunt in the sonnets and other poems of 1817 are the following:

1. "He of the rose, the violet, the spring
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:"

(_Addressed to the Same_ [Haydon].) This sonnet did not appear in 1817, although it belongs to this period.

2. "... thy tender care
Thus startled unaware
Be jealous that the foot of other wight
Should madly follow that bright path of light
Trac'd by thy lov'd Libertas; he will speak,
And tell thee that my prayer is very meek

* * * * *

Him thou wilt hear."

(_Specimen of an Introduction_, l. 57 ff.) Mrs. Clarke is the authority that "Libertas" was Hunt.

3. "With him who elegantly chats, and talks--
The wrong'd Libertas."

(_Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke_, l. 43-44.)

4. "I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids
That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood,
And friendliness the nurse of mutual good.
_The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet
Into the brain ere one can think upon it_;
The silence when some rhymes are coming out;
And when they're come, the very pleasant rout:
The message certain to be done tomorrow.
'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow
Some precious book from out its snug retreat,
To cluster round it when we next shall meet."

(_Sleep and Poetry._)

Lines 353-404 of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a description of Hunt's library. Mr. De Selincourt calls it "a glowing tribute to the sympathetic friendship which Keats had enjoyed at the Hampstead Cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the _Story of Rimini_ something of the spirit which had informed the _Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey_." (_Poems of John Keats._ Introduction p. 34.)

(_a_) Of this room Hunt wrote: "Keats's _Sleep and Poetry_ is a description of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion's closet." _Correspondence_ I, p. 289. See also _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, p. 249.

(_b_) Further description of the same room is to be found in _Shelley's Letter to Maria Gisborne_, ll. 212-217.

(_c_) Clarke refers to it in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, February, 1874, and in _Recollections of Writers_, p. 134. In the letter he says that a bed was made up in the library for Keats and that he was installed as a member of the household. Here he composed the framework of the poem. Lines 325-404 are "an inventory of the art garniture of the room."

(_d_) The most intresting record in regard to the room is that given by Mrs. J. T. Fields in a _Shelf of old Books_, who says that her husband saw the library treasures which had inspired Keats--Greek casts of Sappho, casts of Kosciusko and Alfred, with engravings, sketches and well-worn books. Among the books collected by Mr. Fields was a copy of Shelley, Coleridge and Keats bound together, with an autograph of all three men, formerly owned by Hunt. The fly leaf "at the back contained the sonnet written by Keats on the _Story of Rimini_."

[183] The two sonnets were published in _The Examiner_ of September 21, 1817; Keats's had been included previously in the _Poems of 1817_; Hunt's appeared later in _Foliage_, 1818.

[184] This did not appear in 1817, but belongs to this period. See _Works_, II, p. 257. For a comparison of these two sonnets with Shelley's on the same Subject, see Rossetti's _Life of Keats_, p. 110.

[185] _Works_, II, p. 166.

[186] Compare with _A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and Francesca_, 1819. (_Works_, III, p. 16.)

[187] A pocket-book given Keats by Hunt and containing many of the first drafts of the sonnets belonged to Charles Wentworth Dilke. It is still in the possession of the Dilke family.

[188] For instances of Keats's interest in politics, see _To Kosciusko_, _To Hope_, ll. 33-36, and scattered references to Wallace, William Tell and similar characters. Most of these references have already been called attention to by others.

[189] _Works_, IV, pp. 60-61. The poem follows.

[190] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 107.

[191] _Endymion_, Bk. II, ll. 129-130.

[192] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, l. 863 ff.

[193] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 756 ff.

[194] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 938 ff.

[195] _Keats_, p. 169.

[196] Stanza 23, l. 7.

[197] _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_, 1819, p. 45.

[198] Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated Hunt's _Gentle Armour_. Mr. Colvin corrects this statement. (Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 59.)

[199] (_a_) W. T. Arnold, Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 128. (_b_) J. Hoops, _Keats's Jungend und Jugendgedichte_, Englische Studien, XXI, 239. (_c_) W. A. Read, _Keats and Spenser_.

[200] _Works_, V, p. 121.

[201] This same expression occurs in _Hero and Leander_, 1819, in the phrase, "Half set in trees and leafy luxury." Keats's dedication sonnet in which it occurs was written in 1817. Therefore Mr. W. T. Arnold makes a mistake when he says (in his edition of Keats, p. 129) it was taken direct from Hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites and Keats probably took them from him and combined them.

[202] Mr. Arnold says "delicious" is used sixteen times by Keats. (Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 129). He quotes a passage from one of Hunt's prefaces in which the latter comments on Chaucer's use of the word: "The word _deliciously_ is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some critics would pronounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the enjoyment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be obvious to finer senses." In _Rimini_ this line occurs: "Distils the next note more deliciously."

[203] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 261, notices Leigh Hunt's misuse of this word in his review of _I stood tiptoe_, quoted on p. 107. See his use of the same on p. 76. In _Bacchus and Ariadne_ it occurs in this passage "all luxuries that come from odorous gardens."

[204] This is used in _Hyperion_, II, l. 45. The expression "plashy pools" occurs in the _Story of Rimini_.

[205] November 11, 1820.

[206] _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelly_, II, p. 36.

[207] _Imagination and Fancy_, p. 231.

[208] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, pp. 252-3.

[209] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 274.

[210] _Poetical Works_, 1832, p. 36.

[211] The poem is reported to have brought L100, more than any poem sold during his lifetime. It is now lost.

[212] Mac-Carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the account Hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met Shelley, or perhaps not at all. He also points out that two passages in the letter to Hunt of March 2, 1811, important in their bearing upon Shelley's political theories at this time, are identical with passages in a letter of February 22 of the same year, addressed to the editor of _The Statesman_, presumably Finnerty. (_Shelley's Early Life_, pp. 1-106.)

[213] Hancock, _The French Revolution and English Poets_, pp. 50-77.

[214] Letter to Miss Hitchener, June 25, 1811.

[215] G. B. Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 88.

[216] See the _Letter to Lord Ellenborough_.

[217] Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 110.

[218] For Shelley's opinion on the coincidence of their political views, see the last paragraph of the dedication of _The Cenci_.

[219] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 103.

[220] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 176.

[221] _Autobiography_, II, p. 36.

[222] Pp. 122, 123.

[223] December 27, 1812.

[224] II, p. 13.

[225] _Autobiography_, II, p. 27.

[226] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863.

[227] December 8, 1816, Shelley wrote to Hunt: "I have not in all my intercourse with mankind experienced sympathy and kindness with which I have been so affected, or which my whole being has so sprung forward to meet and to return.... With you, and perhaps some others (though in a less degree, I fear) my gentleness and sincerity find favour, because they are themselves gentle and sincere: they believe in self-devotion and generosity because they are themselves generous and self-devoted." (Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 328.)

[228] December 15, 1816, Shelley wrote Mary Godwin: Hunt's "delicate and tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sustained me against the weight of the horror of this event." (Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 68.)

[229] (_a_) _The Examiner_, January 26, 1817. (_b_) _Ibid._, February 12, 1817. (_c_) _Ibid._, August 31, 1817. (_d_) Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 114; August 27, 1817.

[230] Shelley said of Horace Smith: "but is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker." (Hunt, _Autobiography_, I, p. 211.) See also _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, ll. 247-253; Forman, _Works of Shelley_, III, p. 225 ff.

[231] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 3; March 22, 1818.

[232] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 141; November 13, 1819.

[233] Professor Masson says that one of Shelley's first acts was to offer Hunt L100. It is probable he refers to the occasion already discussed. (_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other Essays_, p. 112.)

[234] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 61.

[235] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 331; December 8, 1816.

[236] _Ibid._, p. 336; August 16, 1817.

[237] Rogers, _Table Talk_, p. 236.

[238] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 146; September 12, 1819.

[239] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 36; _Correspondence_, I, p. 126.

[240] Medwin, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 137.

[241] Mitford, _Life_, I, p. 280. Jeaffreson, _The Real Shelley_, II, p. 357.

[242] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, p. 348; April 5, 1820. He assumed the debt for Hunt's piano as naturally as he did for his own. Prof. Dowden says that John Hunt expected Shelley to become responsible for all of his brother's debts. (_Life of Shelley_, II, p. 458.)

[243] Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 158; November 11, 1820.

[244] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 342.

[245] See Chapter IV, p. 89.

[246] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 456; also _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 252.

[247] (_a_) Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes_, pp. 352, 356. (_b_) Byron, _Letters and Journals_, VI, p. 11.

[248] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 489.

[249] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, pp. 36-37. In August, 1819, Hunt importunes Shelley to give no thought to his affairs (_Correspondence_, I, p. 136). Hunt wrote Mary Shelley on September 7, 1821: "Pray thank Shelley or rather do not, for that kind part of his offer relating to the expenses. I find I have omitted it; but the instinct that led me to do so is more honorable to him than thanks." (_Correspondence_, I, p. 171.)

[250] Jeaffreson, _The Real Shelley_, II, p. 355.