Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats Part 5

These statements are not very conclusive proof of the frequent occurrences of the same words in the poems of the two men. They are questionable even in regard to the principles of usage themselves, since poets of the same period or young poets may possess the same tendencies. Yet in the light of their relations already discussed the similarity of a number of principles seems convincing proof that Hunt influenced Keats considerably in the _principles_ of diction in his first volume and occasionally in the selection of individual words; and that Keats never entirely freed himself from some of Hunt's peculiarities. Sh.e.l.ley, in writing of _Hyperion_ to Mrs. Hunt, spoke of the "bad sort of style which is becoming fas.h.i.+onable among those who fancy that they are imitating Hunt and Wordsworth."[205]

Medwin reported Sh.e.l.ley as saying "We are certainly indebted to the Lakists for a more simple and natural phraseology; but the school that has sprung out of it, have sp.a.w.ned a set of words neither Chaucerian nor Spencerian (_sic_), words such as 'gib,' and 'flush,' 'whiffling,'

'perking up,' 'swirling,' 'lightsome and brightsome' and hundreds of others."[206]

Keats, following the lead of Hunt, used the free heroic couplet in several of the 1817 poems with a license even greater than Hunt's. In _Endymion_ he indulged in further vagaries of rhythm and metre that Hunt never dreamed of and in fact greatly disapproved of. Hunt said that "_Endymion_ had no versification."[207] In its want of couplet and line units, this is not very far from the truth. Writing of it again in 1828, he says: "The great fault of _Endymion_ next to its unpruned luxuriance, (or before it, rather, for it was not a fault on the right side,) was the wilfulness of its rhymes. The author had a just contempt for the monotonous termination of everyday couplets; he broke up his lines in order to distribute the rhyme properly; but going only upon the ground of his contempt, and not having settled with himself any principles of versification, the very exuberance of his ideas led him to make use of the first rhymes that offered; so that, by a new meeting of effects, the extreme was artificial, and much more obtrusive than the one under the old system. Dryden modestly thought, that a rhyme had often helped him to a thought. Mr. Keats in the tyranny of his wealth, forced his rhymes to help him, whether they would or not; and they obeyed him, in the most singular manner, with equal prompt.i.tude and ungainliness."[208] _Endymion_ has been thought by some critics, to have been written under the metrical influence of Chamberlayne's _Pharronida_. In the number of run-on lines and couplets--a scheme nearer blank verse than the couplet--there is certainly a striking correspondence. Mr. Forman thinks that Keats knew the poem. Mr. Colvin and Mr. De Selincourt can see no real likeness. There is no proof as yet discovered that Keats ever heard of it.

In _Lamia_, after the extreme reaction in _Endymion_, Keats approached nearer to the cla.s.sic form of the couplet used by Dryden, but still with greater freedom in structure than appears in either Dryden or Hunt. From the evidence of Brown it is probable that Keats imitated Dryden directly and not through the medium of Hunt's work, but it is very likely that Hunt directed him there in the first instance for a model. Mr. Palgrave says of the metre of _Lamia_ that Keats "admirably found and sustained the balance between a blank verse treatment of the 'Heroic' and the epigrammatic form carried to such perfection by Pope."[209] Leigh Hunt said that "the lines seem to take pleasure in the progress of their own beauty like sea nymphs luxuriating through the water."[210]

In conclusion, Keats's early and late employment of the couplet was marked always by greater freedom in the use of run-on couplets and lines, and in the handling of the caesura than Dryden's or Hunt's; he was at first slower than Hunt to employ the triplet and the Alexandrine, but he later adopted them in a larger measure; and he introduced the run-on paragraph and the hemistich independently of Hunt.

CHAPTER III

Sh.e.l.lEY

Finnerty Case--Correspondence of Hunt and Sh.e.l.ley--Their Political and Religious Sympathy--Hunt's Defense of Sh.e.l.ley--Hunt's Italian Journey--Sh.e.l.ley's Death--Hunt's Criticism--Literary Influence--Sh.e.l.ley's Estimate of Hunt.

The friends.h.i.+p of Sh.e.l.ley and Leigh Hunt is the simple story of an intimacy founded on a common endowment of independence of thought and of capacity for self-sacrifice. Although both were sensitive and shrinking by nature, and preferred to dwell in an isolated world of books and dreams, yet for the sake of abstract principles and for love of humanity, both expended much time and endured much pain in the arena of public strife.

In _The Examiners_ of February 18 and 24, 1811, appeared articles by Hunt on the Finnerty case. Peter Finnerty, Hunt's successor as editor of _The Statesman_, had been prosecuted and imprisoned on the charge of libelling Lord Castlereagh. Hunt's defense drew Sh.e.l.ley's attention to the case and may have inspired him, it has been suggested, to write his _Political Essay on the Existing State of Things_. The proceeds went to Finnerty.[211] On March 2 Sh.e.l.ley subscribed to the Finnerty fund and, on the same day, wrote Hunt, whom he had never met, a letter from Oxford, congratulating him on his acquittal from a third charge of libel and proposing that an a.s.sociation should be formed to establish "rational liberty," to resist the enemies of justice, and to protect each other.[212]

Sh.e.l.ley's political creed was, in the main, that of William G.o.dwin, with an admixture of Holbach, Volney and Rousseau at first hand.[213] In English philosophic literature he knew Berkeley, Hume, Reid and Locke. His watchword was the cry of the French Revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, to be gained, not by violence and bloodshed, but by a steady and unyielding resistance of the ma.s.ses against the corrupt inst.i.tutions of church and state. Like G.o.dwin, he believed man capable of his own redemption and, with tradition and tyranny overthrown and reason and nature enthroned, he hoped for universal justice and ultimate perfectibility of mankind. His poetry and his prose represent a development from the impa.s.sioned and imaginative enthusiasm of an uncompromising youth, who would single-handed revolutionize the world in the twinkling of an eye, to the saner hope of a man who took somewhat into account the necessarily gradual nature of ethical evolution. His chief fallacy lay in the failure to recognize evil as an inherent force in human nature and to acknowledge sect and state, to which he attributed the origin of all error, as inventions of man's ingenuity. Neither did he perceive the necessity of certain restrictions on the individual for the preservation of law and order. He believed in no distinctions of rank except those based on individual talent and virtue. He wrote in 1811: "I am no aristocrat, nor '_crat_' at all, but vehemently long for the time when men may dare to live in accordance with Nature and Reason--in consequence with Virtue, to which I firmly believe that Religion and its establishments, Polity and its establishments, are the formidable though destructible barriers."[214] Sh.e.l.ley knew of Leigh Hunt first as a political writer of considerable importance. In this respect he never ceased to admire him or to be influenced by _The Examiner_ in the campaign against government corruption. Yet his own equipment of mind and training, visionary as his theories seem, gave him a power of speculation and grasp of situation that ignored the limitations of time and s.p.a.ce, while Hunt, with his narrower view, never got beyond the petty and immediate details of one nation or of one age.

The social improvements which Sh.e.l.ley advocated were Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, brought about later, as has been pointed out by Symonds, by the very means which Sh.e.l.ley foresaw and prophesied; reform of parliamentary representation[215] similar to that carried into effect in 1832, 1867 and 1882; freedom of the press[216] and repeal of the union of Great Britain and Ireland; the abolition of capital punishment and of war.[217] During the fourteen years of Hunt's editors.h.i.+p, among the reforms for which he fought in _The Examiner_ were the first three of these measures. He denounced capital punishment and war in the same paper and later in his poem _Captain Sword and Captain Pen_.[218]

Sh.e.l.ley's moral code was based on an idealized sense of justice, and was a kind of "natural piety."[219] With one marked exception, he seems to have been true to the pursuit of it, both in his standards of conduct and in his relations with others. His life was a model of generosity, purity of thought, and unselfish devotion. Hunt reported Sh.e.l.ley as having said: "What a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really the principle of it, instead of faith."[220] He was atheist only in the sense of discarding the dogmas of theology and of superst.i.tion, and in his spirit of scientific inquiry. He did not deny the existence in nature of an all-pervading spirit. Hunt thought the popular misconception of Sh.e.l.ley's opinions was due to his misapplication of the names of the Deity and to his identification of them with vulgar superst.i.tions. Of Sh.e.l.ley's att.i.tude he wrote: "His want of faith in the letter, and his exceeding faith in the spirit of Christianity, formed a comment, the one on the other, very formidable to those who chose to forget what Scripture itself observes on that point."[221] Whether or not Sh.e.l.ley believed in immortality is still a vexed question and is likely to remain so, since he had not reached convictions sufficiently stable to permit a formal statement on his part. Many of the pa.s.sages in _Adonais_ would lead one to believe that he did; certainly he did, like Hunt, cling to the idea of the persistence, in some form or other, of the good and the beautiful. The close conformity of their views is seen in the latter's two sonnets in _Foliage_[222] addressed to Sh.e.l.ley, where the poet condemns the degrading notions so prevalent concerning the Deity and celebrates the Spirit of Beauty and Goodness in all things. But, in religion as in politics, Sh.e.l.ley was bolder and more speculative than Hunt.

The fine of 1,000 and imprisonment of the Hunt brothers in 1813 drew from Sh.e.l.ley a vehement protest. In a letter to Hogg[223] he lamented the inadequacy of Lord Brougham's defense and fairly boiled with indignation at "the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence" and p.r.o.nounced Hunt "a brave, a good, and an enlightened man." He started a subscription with twenty pounds, and later he must have offered to pay the entire fine, for Hunt recorded in his _Autobiography_ that Sh.e.l.ley had made him "a princely offer,"[224] which he declined, as he did not need it. The offer was actuated solely by a hatred of oppression, for the two men had little or no personal knowledge of each other at the time.

It is impossible to decide the exact date of their first meeting. Hunt says that it took place before the indictment for libel on the Prince Regent.[225] This evidence would make it fall sometime between March, 1812, the date of Sh.e.l.ley's letter mentioned above, and February, 1813, the beginning of the incarceration. But a letter from Sh.e.l.ley to Hunt dated December 7, 1813, demanding if he had made the statement that Milton had died an atheist, from its very formal tone, leads one to believe that they had not met up to that time and that Hunt, writing from memory many years afterwards, made a mistake. Thornton Hunt gives as the immediate cause of the two men coming together, Sh.e.l.ley's application to Mr. Rowland Hunter, the publisher and stepfather of Mrs. Hunt, for advice regarding the publication of a poem. He referred Sh.e.l.ley to Leigh Hunt. The next meeting was in Surrey Street Gaol. Thornton Hunt, in a delightful reminiscence of Sh.e.l.ley,[226] says that he had no recollection of him among his father's visitors in prison, but he remembered perfectly the latter's description of his "angelic" appearance, his cla.s.sic thoughts, and his dreams for the emanc.i.p.ation of mankind. The real intimacy began after Sh.e.l.ley's return from the continent in 1816 when Sh.e.l.ley, in search of a house before he settled at Marlow, was the guest of Hunt at Hampstead during a part of December.[227] A close companions.h.i.+p followed uninterruptedly for two years until Sh.e.l.ley went to Italy, and there are recorded in the letters and journals of each many pleasant evenings at Hampstead and at Marlow, filled with poetry and music, with talks on art and trials of wit, with dinners and theater parties. Mary Sh.e.l.ley and Mrs.

Hunt became as great friends as their husbands.

When Harriet committed suicide and Sh.e.l.ley went up to London to inst.i.tute proceedings for possession of their children, Hunt remained constantly with him and gave him as much sympathy and support as it is possible for one fellow-being to extend to another whom all the world has deserted.[228] He attended the Chancery suit and stated Sh.e.l.ley's position in _The Examiner_.[229] This sympathy and support, given Sh.e.l.ley in his hour of greatest need and desolation, have never been sufficiently valued in a comparative estimate of the relative indebtedness of the two men. If Sh.e.l.ley gave freely of his money, Hunt, devoid of worldly goods, gave unstintingly, to the detriment of his reputation, of those things which money cannot purchase. That he incurred the displeasure of men in power, and ran the risk of being misunderstood by the public in befriending Sh.e.l.ley, did not deter him for an instant.

During 1817 Sh.e.l.ley made the acquaintance, through Hunt, of the c.o.c.kney circle, including Keats, Reynolds, Hazlitt, Brougham, Novello and Horace Smith. The last-named became one of Sh.e.l.ley's most trusted friends.[230]

These new friends enlarged his list of acquaintances considerably, for up to this time he seems to have had no friends except G.o.dwin, Hogg and Peac.o.c.k.

In the early spring of 1818, the Sh.e.l.leys went to Italy, melancholy with the thought of separation from the Hunts.[231] The letters from Sh.e.l.ley to Hunt during the next four years form an important part of Sh.e.l.ley's correspondence.

The part played by Sh.e.l.ley in the invitation extended to Hunt to join Lord Byron and himself in Italy and to become one of the editors of a periodical will be treated minutely in the next chapter. It is sufficient here to say that he was actuated by a desire to better Hunt's finances and to enjoy his society--a pleasure he had been pining for ever since they had been separated, and, in case of a return to England, regarded as the one joy "among all the other sources of regret and discomfort with which England abounds for me.... Shaking hands with you is worth all the trouble; the rest is clear loss."[232] Further, he knew that Hunt longed for Italy, and he wished to help Byron in the cause of liberalism. To bring both ends about, he shouldered a burden that he was ill able to bear. An annuity of 200 for the support of his two children, an annuity of 100 to Peac.o.c.k, perpetual demand for large sums from G.o.dwin, occasional a.s.sistance rendered the Gisbornes, partial support of Jane Claremont, loans to Byron, and the support of his family, were the drains already upon him--met, in the main by money raised on _post obits_ at half value.

The amount of Hunt's indebtedness to Sh.e.l.ley can be estimated only approximately. The first reference to a financial transaction between them after the "princely offer"[233] is to be found in Mary Sh.e.l.ley's letter of December 6, 1816, in which she wondered that Hunt had not acknowledged the "receipt of so large a sum." Professor Dowden thinks this may be an allusion to Sh.e.l.ley's response to an appeal for the poor of Spitalfields which had appeared in _The Examiner_ five days previously.[234] Sh.e.l.ley's offers to Hunt to borrow 100 from Byron[235] and to stand security for a loan from Charles Cowden Clarke,[236] and an attempt to borrow from Samuel Rogers[237] are not developed by any further facts, but it is necessary to take note of them in a general estimate. Before leaving England, Sh.e.l.ley arranged with Ollier for a loan of 100 for Hunt, a debt which was later liquidated by the sale of the _Literary Pocket Book_.[238] At some time before leaving England, Sh.e.l.ley also gave Hunt in one year 1,400[239] for the liquidation of his debts, which money was, Medwin says, borrowed from Horace Smith.[240] Unfortunately for Sh.e.l.ley, the sum was insufficient to extricate Hunt from his difficulties. Miss Mitford gives the amount as 1,500, instead of 1,400, and adds that Sh.e.l.ley's furniture and bedding were swept off to pay Hunt's creditors;[241] the inaccuracy of the first statement and the lack of any evidence to support the second, lead one to doubt the story. But it is true that Sh.e.l.ley's income at the time was only 1,000. Even when so far away as Italy, Hunt's money troubles weighed heavily upon Sh.e.l.ley in a continual regret that he could not set him entirely free from his creditors;[242] he feared that the incredible exertions Hunt was making on _The Indicator_ and on _The Examiner_, and the privations that he endured, would undermine his health.[243] When Hunt finally decided to go to Italy, Sh.e.l.ley a.s.sumed, as a matter of course, the chief responsibility of providing the means.

As early as 1818, when Sh.e.l.ley and Byron met in Venice, the matter of the journal was discussed between them and broached to Hunt. December 22, 1818, Sh.e.l.ley wrote him that Byron wished him to come to Italy and that, if money considerations prevented, Byron would lend him 400 or 500. He added that Hunt should not feel uncomfortable in accepting the offer, as it was frankly made, and that his society would give Byron pleasure and service.[244] Hunt does not seem to have seriously considered the proposition, for there are few references to it in his correspondence of this year. On the renewal of the plan in 1821, Sh.e.l.ley would never have called on Byron for a.s.sistance for Hunt if he himself could have provided otherwise, for his opinion of Byron had changed in the meantime.[245]

January 25, 1822, Sh.e.l.ley sent 150 for the expenses of the voyage, "within 30 or 40 pounds of what I have contrived to sc.r.a.pe together";[246] and again on February 23, 250,[247] borrowed with security from Byron. Yet Sh.e.l.ley's own exchequer at the time was so low that Mary Sh.e.l.ley wrote in the spring: "We are drearily behindhand with money at present. Hunt and our furniture has swallowed up more than our savings."[248] On April 10 Sh.e.l.ley stated that he was trying to finish _Charles the First_ in order that he might earn 100 for Hunt.

In round numbers it may be calculated that the sum total of Hunt's indebtedness, exclusive of the yearly bequest of 120 paid by Sh.e.l.ley's son, was about 2,500, a very large sum in the light of Sh.e.l.ley's limited resources and other obligations. But it was as ungrudgingly given as it was graciously received. Between the two men there was no distinction of _meum_ and _tuum_. More remarkable still, Mary Sh.e.l.ley gave as willingly as her husband. If one is inclined to marvel at such an unusual state of affairs, it must be recalled that both men were under the spell of William G.o.dwin's theories of community of property. Sh.e.l.ley gave as his duty and Hunt received as his due. That the effort involved much deprivation and distress of mind on the part of the giver mars the justice of acceptance by the recipient, retrieved only in part by the belief that Hunt probably did not know the full extent of Sh.e.l.ley's sacrifice, and the knowledge that the former would gladly have endured as much if the conditions had been reversed. The element of self-sacrifice and delicacy on the part of Sh.e.l.ley in concealing it, in after years only added to the beauty of the gift in Hunt's eyes, and even at the time he cannot be accused of indifference.[249] Jeaffreson makes the absurd suggestion that Sh.e.l.ley gave the money as a bribe to the editor of a powerful and flouris.h.i.+ng literary journal.[250] He thinks dodging creditors was a strong bond of mutual interest between the two men. There is evidence that Hunt was in difficulty at the time and that Sh.e.l.ley left a surgeon's bill unpaid,[251]

but there is no proof extant of deliberate mutual protection. On the contrary, it is most unlikely.

The Hunts sailed from England in November, 1821, and reached Leghorn nearly nine months after first setting out on a voyage which, in its delays and dangers, Byron compared to the "periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, and with much the same speed";[252] Peac.o.c.k to that of Ulysses.[253] Of Sh.e.l.ley's suggestion to make the trip by sea, Hunt wrote: "if he had recommended a balloon, I should have been inclined to try it."[254] Hogg, with his characteristic humour, remarked that a journey by land would have taken equally long, since Hunt would have stopped to gather all the daisies by the wayside from Paris to Pisa. Both men looked forward to many years together[255] and Sh.e.l.ley, in his letter of welcome, wrote that wind and waves parted them no more,[256] an a.s.sertion which now sounds like a knell of doom. From Leghorn Sh.e.l.ley conveyed the party to Pisa and installed them in the lower floor of Byron's dwelling, the Lanfranchi Palace.[257] To Sh.e.l.ley fell the difficult task of keeping Lord Byron in heart for the new undertaking and of reviving Hunt's drooping spirits. Hunt's funds were all gone and in their place was a debt of sixty crowns. The next few days were full of grave anxiety and foreboding for the future, broken only by a delightful Sunday spent in seeing the Cathedral and the Tower. Of this day Hunt wrote: "Good G.o.d! what a day was that, compared with all that have followed it! I had my friend with me, arm-in-arm, after a separation of years: he was looking better than I had ever seen him--we talked of a thousand things--we antic.i.p.ated a thousand pleasures."[258] Then came the fatal Monday with its s.h.i.+pwreck of many hopes--in its tragic sequel too well known to need repet.i.tion here. Hunt's last services to his friend were his a.s.sistance rendered at the cremation and his contribution of the now famous Latin epitaph "_cor cordium_."[259]

With Sh.e.l.ley perished Hunt's chief hope in life; in the opinion of his son, he was never the same man again. In 1832, at his period of darkest depression, he wrote: "If you ask me how it is that I bear all this, I answer, that I love nature and books, and think well of the capabilities of human kind. I have known Sh.e.l.ley, I have known my mother."[260] In 1844 he claimed as his proudest t.i.tle, the "Friend of Sh.e.l.ley."[261]

The first printed notice of Sh.e.l.ley was in _The Examiner_ of December 1, 1816. Therefore to Hunt belongs in this case, as in that of Keats, the credit of discovery. It is difficult to account for Hunt's tardiness of recognition,[262] coming as it did six years after Sh.e.l.ley first wrote him, five years after the Finnerty poem, three years after _Queen Mab_, and two years after the visit in prison.[263] Also Sh.e.l.ley had sent contributions to _The Examiner_, which Hunt had not accepted, but which he vaguely recalled at the time of writing his first review on Sh.e.l.ley. It was inspired by the announcement of _Alastor_, and consisted of about ten lines, embodied in the article on Keats and Reynolds already referred to.

Hunt p.r.o.nounced Sh.e.l.ley "a very striking and original thinker." Sh.e.l.ley's reply to a letter from Hunt, telling him of the notice, pictures him anxiously scouring the countryside about Bath for the sight of a copy and buoyed up at last by the news of one five miles distant.

This notice was followed by the publication of the _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_ in _The Examiner_ of January 19, 1817; a notice of the Chancery suit, January 26 and February 2; and an extract from _Laon and Cythna_, November 30. A review of the _Revolt of Islam_ ran through three numbers, January 25, February 8 and 22, 1818. Sh.e.l.ley's system of charity and his crusade against tyranny, as set forth in the preface, Hunt loudly applauded. Many extracts were italicized for the guidance of the public.

The beauties of the poem were p.r.o.nounced to be its mysticism, its wildness, its depth of sentiment, its grandeur of imagery, and its varied and sweet versification. In the boldness of speculation and in the love of virtue Hunt saw a resemblance to Lucretius, while in the gloom and imagination of certain pa.s.sages, particularly in the grandeur of the supernatural architecture, he was reminded of Dante. The defects were p.r.o.nounced to be obscurity of narrative and sameness of image and metaphor. The review closed with the prophecy "we have no doubt he is destined to be one of the leading spirits of the age."

The _Quarterly Review_ of May, 1818, accused Sh.e.l.ley[264] of atheism and of dissolute conduct in private life; the same journal of April, 1819, reviewing the _Revolt of Islam_ on the basis of the suppressed version of _Laon and Cythna_, though it did not fail to appreciate the genius and beauty of the poem, charged Sh.e.l.ley with a predilection for incest and with a frantic dislike for Christianity. It called the support of _The Examiner_ "the sweet undersong of the weekly journal."[265] The two attacks were met by a strong protest from Hunt,[266] particularly in regard to the part dealing with Sh.e.l.ley's life. He denied the propriety of such discussion in public criticism and declared that he had never known Sh.e.l.ley to "deviate, notwithstanding his theories, even into a single action which those who differ with him might think blameable." His life at Marlow was described as spent in "beautiful charity and generosity" and was likened to that of Plato. In 1821 an attack on Sh.e.l.ley by Hazlitt was met by an angry warning from Hunt and a threat to become his public enemy, if the offense were repeated.[267] Hunt's reason for taking this defensive att.i.tude was that he knew that Sh.e.l.ley suffered greatly from such malignant exploitations and that he would not defend himself; therefore he made his friend's cause his own and wrote: "I reckon upon your leaving your personal battles to me,"[268] much in the same manner as Sh.e.l.ley had a.s.sumed his money troubles.

Following the review of the _Revolt of Islam_, a notice of _Rosalind and Helen_ and of _Lines Written among the Euganean Hills_[269] appeared in _The Examiner_ of May 9, 1819. Attention was called to the poet's optimism and to his great love of nature: "the beauty of the external world has an answering heart, and the very whispers of the wind a meaning." _The Cenci_, published in 1820, contained in its dedication a glowing tribute to Hunt, an honour in Sh.e.l.ley's opinion only in a small degree worthy of his friend.[270] Hunt was intoxicated with the honour and wrote: "I feel as if you had bound, not only my head, but my very soul and body with laurels."[271] On the subject of the tragedy he was equally enthusiastic: "What a n.o.ble book, Sh.e.l.ley, have you given us! What a true, stately, and yet affectionate mixture of poetry, philosophy, and human nature, horror, and all redeeming sweetness of intention, for there is an undersong of suggestion through it all, that sings, as it were, after the storm is over, like a brook in April."[272] In a public expression of his opinion in _The Examiner_ of March 19, 1820, Hunt p.r.o.nounced _The Cenci_ the greatest dramatic production of the day. Writing of the drama again in the same journal of July 19 and 26, 1820, he called Sh.e.l.ley "a framer of mighty lines" and continued: "Majesty and Love do sit on one throne in the lofty buildings of his poetry; and they will be found there, at a late and we trust a happier day, on a seat immortal as themselves."

One of Hunt's most perfect poems, _Jaffar_, is inscribed to the memory of Sh.e.l.ley. The praise of _Jaffar_ and his friend's undying loyalty immediately suggest to the reader that Hunt may have been celebrating his own and Sh.e.l.ley's friends.h.i.+p. The last review to appear during Sh.e.l.ley's lifetime by Hunt was that of _Prometheus Unbound_ in three numbers of _The Examiner_ of 1822. A projected review of _Adonais_ alluded to in a letter of Hunt's does not seem to have seen the light of publication, but a reference in a letter at the time is worth noting: "It is the most Delphic poety I have seen in a long while: full of those embodyings of the most subtle and airy imaginations,--those arrestings and explanations of the most shadowy yearnings of our being."[273] The well-known account of Sh.e.l.ley's rescue of a woman on Hampstead Heath was told in _The Literary Examiner_ of August 23, 1823.[274] The same magazine of September 20 of the same year[275] contained the following _Sonnet to Percy Sh.e.l.ley_, given here because of its general inaccessibility:

"Hast thou from earth, then, really pa.s.sed away, And mingled with the shadowy ma.s.s of things Which were, but are not? Will thy harp's dear strings No more yield music to the rapid play Of thy swift thoughts, now turned thou art to clay?

Hark! Is that rus.h.i.+ng of thy spirit's wings, When (like the skylark, who in mounting sings) Soaring through high imagination's way, Thou pour'dst thy melody upon the earth, Silent for ever? Yes, wild ocean's wave Hath o'er thee rolled. But whilst within the grave Thou sleepst, let me in the love of thy pure worth One thing foretell,--that thy great fame shall be Progressive as Time's flood, eternal as the sea!"

In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_ appeared the first biographical memoir of Sh.e.l.ley, a sketch of some seventy pages.[276] It shows great appreciation of the fine and gentle qualities of his rare genius and defends some of the weak points of his career. The description of his personal appearance, of the life at Marlowe, and the few anecdotes are often quoted. But on the whole, it lacks the bold strokes of vivid portraiture and it is very disappointing.[277] There was probably no one, with the exception of his wife, who knew Sh.e.l.ley so well as Hunt and who was, therefore, in a position to give as complete and intimate an idea of him. It was Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley's wish that Hunt should be her husband's biographer, for she thought that he, "perhaps above all others, understood his nature and his genius."[278] Hunt, in _The Spectator_ of August 13, 1859, gave as his reason for not writing Sh.e.l.ley's life that he "could not survive enough persons." But it is to be questioned if he were fitted for the task. His son did not think that he was because of his attention to details and his irresistible tendency to a.n.a.lysis: "a mind, in short, like that of Hamlet, cultivated rather than corrected by the trials of life, was scarcely suited to comprehend the strong instincts, indomitable will, and complete unity of idea which distinguished Sh.e.l.ley."[279]

In the _Tatler_ of August 1, 1831, Hunt wrote that "Mr. Sh.e.l.ley was a platonic philosopher, of the acutest and loftiest kind," and that he belonged to the school of Plato and aeschylus, as Keats belonged to that of Spenser and Milton. Following _The Tatler_ was the preface to _The Mask of Anarchy_,[280] published in 1832, originally designed for _The Examiner_ in 1819, but laid aside by the editor because he thought the public not discerning enough "to do justice to the sincerity and kindheartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse." The preface eulogizes the poet's spiritual nature and his "seraphic purpose of good."

In _The Seer_, 1841, Sh.e.l.ley's qualities of heart were p.r.o.nounced more enduring than his genius.[281]

_Imagination and Fancy_ contained an essay and selections from his poems.

Here Hunt makes the curious statement that little in the poems is purely poetical, but rather moral, political, and speculative. It is noteworthy that he predicts, probably for the first time, that, had Sh.e.l.ley lived, he would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth, if not, indeed, actually so, through what he did accomplish; a statement often repeated. He says: "If Coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, Sh.e.l.ley is at once the most ethereal and gorgeous, the one who has clothed his thought in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery.... Sh.e.l.ley ... might well call himself Ariel."[282] In connection with Sh.e.l.ley's ethereal qualities, Mrs. James T. Fields quotes Hunt as having said on another occasion that Sh.e.l.ley always seemed to him as if he were "just alit from the planet Mercury, bearing a winged wand tipped with flame."[283] In _Imagination and Fancy_, Hunt continues: "Not Milton himself is more learned in Grecisms, or nicer in entomological propriety; and n.o.body, throughout, has a style so Orphic and primeval."

It is a touching circ.u.mstance that Hunt's last letter bore reference to Sh.e.l.ley, and that his last effort as a public writer, made only a few days before his death, was in vindication of Sh.e.l.ley's character.[284] The publication of the _Sh.e.l.ley Memorials_, 1859, in which Hunt had a part, provoked an unfavorable review in _The Spectator_. Hunt replied in the next number[285] of the same paper. In particular he a.s.serted Sh.e.l.ley's truthfulness, which had been a.s.sailed in respect to his story of the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination in Wales. He held that Sh.e.l.ley was not a man to be judged by ordinary rules, but that he was the highest possible exponent of humanity--an approach to divinity.

Hunt's literary relation with Sh.e.l.ley falls into two divisions; publications written for Hunt's periodicals, and received by Hunt in order to give Sh.e.l.ley an outlet of expression denied him in the more conservative papers; and second, positive literary imitation. Besides the poems quoted in Hunt's criticisms of Sh.e.l.ley, the first includes a review of G.o.dwin's _Mandeville_,[286] a letter of protest regarding the second edition of _Queen Mab_,[287] _Marianne's Dream_,[288] _Song on a Faded Violet_,[289] _The Sunset_,[290] _The Question_,[291] _Good Night_,[292]

_Sonnet, Ye Hasten to the Grave_,[293] _To ---- (Lines to a Reviewer)_,[294] _November, 1815_,[295] _Love's Philosophy_,[296] and the contributions designed by Sh.e.l.ley for _The Liberal_ and published after his death.[297] Productions which were written for Hunt's papers, but were not accepted, were _Peter Bell the Third_, _The Mask of Anarchy_, _Julian and Maddalo_, a letter on the persecution of Richard Carlile,[298] letters on Italy, and a review of Peac.o.c.k's _Rhododaphne_. Hunt's failure to accept what was sent him greatly discouraged Sh.e.l.ley at times: "Mine is a life of failures; Peac.o.c.k says my poetry is composed of day dreams and nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for _The Examiner_."

_On a Fete at Carlton House_, an attack on the Prince Regent, though perhaps directly inspired by the account in the dailies of the ball at Carlton House on June 20, 1811, was doubtless influenced by the continued attacks of _The Examiner_. As there are extant only two or three lines of the poem,[299] it is impossible to judge of the extent of the influence, but in Sh.e.l.ley's letters to Hogg and to Edward Graham describing the poem, there is resemblance in tone and epithet to _The Examiner_. A letter from Sh.e.l.ley to Lord Ellenborough on the occasion of Eaton's sentence for publis.h.i.+ng the third part of Paine's _Age of Reason_ followed a long series of articles by Hunt on the prerogative of liberty of speech.[300]

A meeting of Reformers at Manchester on the sixteenth of August, 1819, for the purpose of discussing quietly the annual meeting of Parliament, universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, was dispersed by military force.

Articles setting forth the long sufferings of the Reformers, charging the authorities with wanton bloodshed, and ridiculing the absurd trial of the offenders, appeared in _The Examiner_ of August 22, 29, September 5, 19 and 26. _The Mask of Anarchy_, written on the occasion of the ma.s.sacre at Manchester, was sent to Leigh Hunt for publication sometime before the first of November, 1819. The sentiment of both men is the same regarding the affair.

Accounts of the death of the Princess Charlotte and of the executions for high treason at Derby of Brandreth, Ludlam and Turner, after a horrible imprisonment, two articles in _The Examiner_ of November 9, 1819, inspired Sh.e.l.ley's _Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte_, sometimes known as _We Pity the Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird_, dated November 12 of the same year. Hunt followed with a second article, _Death of the Princess Charlotte and Indecent Advantage Taken of It_, November 16, 1819. Both writers called attention to the disposition of the public to forget the sufferings of the poor, while it mourned hysterically with royalty; they declared that the administration of justice and the events leading to such crimes were of much greater importance. Three articles in _The Examiner_ of October 17, 24 and 31, 1819, on the trial of Richard Carlile for libel, were followed by an open letter on the same case from Sh.e.l.ley to Hunt dated November 3, 1819. By scattered references it can be seen that Sh.e.l.ley fully agreed with Hunt in his opinion of the Prince Regent and of the Ministers, in his att.i.tude toward the corruption of the court and of the army; and in his proposed regulation of taxes and of the public debt.

_Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot the Tyrant_, begun August, 1820, succeeded a series of articles, beginning in _The Examiner_ of June 11, 1820, and continuing throughout nineteen numbers,[301] on the subject of George IV's attempt to divorce his wife.[302] Abhorrence of the king's perfidy and of his ministers' support, sympathy for Queen Caroline, and minor details parallel closely Hunt's version in _The Examiner_. This pa.s.sage occurs in the article of June 9: "An animal sets himself down, month after month, at Milan, to watch at her doors and windows, to intercept discarded servants and others who know what a deposition might be worth, and thus to gather poison for one of those venomous Green Bags, which have so long infected and nauseated the people, and are now to infect the Queen." This seems to be the germ of the pa.s.sage in Sh.e.l.ley's poem beginning:

"Behold this bag! it is The poison Bag of that Green Spider huge, On which our spies sulked in ovation through The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead."

Then follows the plot to throw the contents upon the Queen.

The handling of the heroic couplet, employed in the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_ and in _Epipsychidon_, as well as in _Julian and Maddalo_,[303]

has been already discussed in its relations.h.i.+p to Hunt's use of the same.

Sh.e.l.ley, in a letter to Hunt, explains his position in regard to the language of _Julian and Maddalo_: