Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats Part 20

"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 Sh.e.l.ley's opinion of Hunt (_Works of Sh.e.l.ley_, 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 Sh.e.l.ley_, 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 Sh.e.l.ley had the "kindest feeling of grat.i.tude and respect ...

but nothing more" towards Hunt. (_Studies in Letters and Life_, p. 153.)

[316] _Ibid._, I, p. 158. November 11, 1820. _Works of Sh.e.l.ley_, 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] Hanc.o.c.k, _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 Sh.e.l.ley and Byron_, p.

109.

[337] _Letters and Journals_, V, pp. 590-591.

[338] _Letters and Journals_, V, p. 217. This pa.s.sage 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 Sh.e.l.ley'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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley_, VIII, p. 255.

[356] _Correspondence_, I, p. 161.

[357] _Autobiography_, II, p. 59.