Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats Part 6

"You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be written. I have employed a certain familiar style of language to express the actual way in which people talk to each other, whom education and a certain refinement of sentiment have placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word _vulgar_ in its most extensive sense. The vulgarity of rank and fas.h.i.+on is as gross, in its way, as that of poverty, and its cant terms equally expressive of base conceptions, and therefore, equally unfit for poetry. Not that the familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject wholly ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, where the pa.s.sion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundary of that which is ideal. Strong pa.s.sion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed alike from subjects remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness."[304]

_Rosalind and Helen_, the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, _Swellfoot the Tyrant_, and _Peter Bell the Third_[305] show a similar influence. _The Letter to Maria Gisborne_ bears a resemblance to Hunt's epistolary style, and was written, Mr. Forman thinks, for circulation in the Hunt circle only.[306] It was through Hunt, so Sh.e.l.ley states in the dedication, that he knew the _Peter Bells_ of Wordsworth and of John Hamilton Reynolds.

Sh.e.l.ley's qualified adoption in these poems of Hunt's theory of poetic language is seen in the choice of a vocabulary in dialogue nearer everyday usage than the more remote one of his other poems. Yet the result does not bear any great resemblance to Hunt. Sh.e.l.ley's unvarying refinement and sensibility kept him from committing the same errors of taste, but his work suffered rather than gained by an innovation which was probably a concession to his friends.h.i.+p for Hunt and not a strong conviction. With the exception of the descriptive pa.s.sages, the keynote of these poems is on a lower poetic pitch.

On subjects of Italian art and literature the friends held much the same opinion. At times Sh.e.l.ley seems to have been led by Hunt's judgment, as in his conclusions regarding Raphael and Michaelangelo.[307] One pa.s.sage on the Italian poets indicates a possible borrowing of thought and figure on Sh.e.l.ley's part when he wrote of Boccaccio that he was superior to Ariosto and to Ta.s.so, "the children of a later and colder day.... How much do I admire Boccaccio! What descriptions of nature are those in his little introduction to every new day! It is the morning of life stripped of that mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us."[308] Hunt wrote: "Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante are the morning, noon and night of the great Italian day."[309]

Poems which refer directly to Hunt are the fourteen lines in the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_;[310] possibly the fragment, beginning, "For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble."[311] A cancelled pa.s.sage of the _Adonais_ describes Hunt thus:

And then came one of sweet and carnal looks, Those soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes Were as the clear and ever-living brooks Are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, Showing how pure they are; a Paradise Of happy truth upon his forehead low Lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow Of star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below,

His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, A single strain--[312]

The thirty-fifth strophe of the present version refers to Hunt.

Sh.e.l.ley's last letter had reference to Hunt.[313] His last literary effort was a poem comparing Hunt to a firefly and welcoming him to Italy, just as Hunt's last letter and last public utterance bore reference to Sh.e.l.ley--strange coincidence, but striking testimony to their mutual devotion. An instance of Sh.e.l.ley's overestimation of Hunt's ability is seen in a pa.s.sage where he says that Hunt excels in tragedy in the power of delineating pa.s.sion and, what is more necessary, of connecting and developing it, "the last an incredible effort for himself but easy for Hunt."[314] He greatly valued and trusted Hunt's affection, at times calling him his best[315] and his only friend.[316] If the tender solicitude and veneration of a beautiful spirit for a man of vastly inferior abilities seems strange, it is but a witness to the humility of true genius.

CHAPTER IV.

Byron's Politics and Religion--His sympathy with Hunt in prison--His impression of the man--Hunt's Defense of Byron and Criticism of his works--_The Liberal_--_Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_.

It is not strange that Lord Byron, son of an English father and a Scotch mother, born of a long line of adventurous and warlike sailors and ill.u.s.trious and loyal knights, with a strain of royalty and madness on one side and eccentricity and immorality on the other, should have fallen heir in an unusual degree to a nature whose virtues and vices were complex and contradictory. Its singularities are nowhere more apparent than in the mutations of his friends.h.i.+ps.

Prior to his acquaintance with Hunt, Byron had taken his seat in the House of Lords and had made speeches against the framebreakers of Nottingham and in behalf of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. A month after their meeting he made a third speech introducing Major Cartwright's pet.i.tion for reform in Parliament. The second and third of these measures, in particular, were warmly advocated by _The Examiner_, with which paper Byron was familiar, as references in his letters show. It is therefore not hazardous to surmise that his sympathy with liberal policies, alien to his Tory blood and aristocratic spirit, was due, in part at least, to this influence.

Byron's political principles on the whole were as evanescent and intermittent as a will-o'-the-wisp.[317] His chief tenets were the a.s.sertion of the individual; antagonism against all authority; a striving after freedom. Brandes, Elze and Treitscke agree in attributing his political enthusiasm to the intense pa.s.sion of his nature rather than to his moral convictions.[318] His religious convictions were as fugitive as his political and, like those of Hunt and other advanced thinkers of the age, seem to have been without deference to any existing creed or dogma.

At his gloomiest moments he confessed that he denied nothing but doubted everything. Hunt says of Byron's religion that he "did not know what he was.... He was a Christian by education, he was an infidel by reading. He was a Christian by habit, but he was no Christian upon reflection."[319]

The phrase, "I am of the opposition" applies to his religion as well as to his politics, as indeed it serves as the key-note to almost every action of his life.

Leigh Hunt has given a characteristic account of his first sight of Byron "rehearsing the part of Leander," in the River Thames sometime before he went to Greece in 1809:

"I saw nothing in Lord Byron at that time, but a young man, who, like myself, had written a bad volume of poems; and though I had sympathy with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than I was willing to suppose, my sympathy was not an agreeable one; so, contenting myself with seeing his lords.h.i.+p's head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, I came away. Lord Byron when he afterwards came to see me in prison, was pleased to regret that I had not stayed. He told me, that the sight of my volume at Harrow had been one of his incentives to write verses, and that he had had the same pa.s.sion for friends.h.i.+p which I had displayed in it. To my astonishment he quoted some of the lines, and would not hear me speak ill of them."[320]

Hunt's _Juvenilia_, beyond having served as one of the incentives to the writing of Byron's _Hours of Idleness_, does not seem to have affected it.

For Hunt's undercurrent of friends.h.i.+p and cheerfulness were subst.i.tuted Byron's prevailing notes of amorousness and melancholy.

The actual acquaintance of the two men did not begin until 1813, when Thomas Moore, since 1811 a staunch admirer of Hunt's political courage and of his literary talent, and one of the visitors welcomed to Surrey Gaol, mentioned the circ.u.mstances of his imprisonment to Lord Byron, likewise a sympathizer with the att.i.tude of _The Examiner_ towards the Prince Regent.

Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson[321] thinks that it was this reckless sympathy with the libeller of the Prince Regent that led Byron to reprint with _The Corsair_, eight lines addressed in 1812 to the Princess Charlotte, _Weep, daughter of a Royal Line_. The retaliation of one of the Tory papers goaded Byron to write in return an article which strongly resembles Hunt's famous libel[322] on the Prince Regent. Byron expressed a wish to call on Hunt with Moore, and a visit followed on May 20, 1813.[323] Five days later Hunt wrote:

"I have had Lord B. here again. He came on Sunday, by himself, in a very frank, unceremonious manner, and knowing what I wanted for my poem [_Story of Rimini_] brought me the last new _Travels in Italy_ in two quarto volumes, of which he requests my acceptance, with the air of one who did not seem to think himself conferring the least obligation. This will please you. It strikes me that he and I shall become _friends_, literally and cordially speaking: there is something in the texture of his mind and feelings that seems to resemble mine to a thread; I think we are cut out of the same piece, only a little different wear may have altered our respective naps a little."[324]

With the pride of a sycophant in the presence of a lord Hunt relates that Byron would not let the footman carry the books but gave "you to understand that he was prouder of being a friend and a man of letters than a lord. It was thus by flattering one's vanity he persuaded us of his own freedom from it: for he could see very well, that I had more value for lords than I supposed."[325] In June of the same year Hunt invited Byron, Moore and Mitch.e.l.l to dine with him in prison. Among several others who came in during the evening was Mr. John Scott, later a severe critic of Byron in _The Champion_.[326] Many years after Moore, in his _Life of Byron_, wrote of the gathering with venom, recalling Scott as an a.s.sailant of Byron's "living fame, while another [Hunt] less manful, would reserve the cool venom for his grave."[327]

Byron esteemed Hunt greatly during the first year of their acquaintance.

His advances show a desire for intimacy which goes far toward contradicting the statements sometimes made that the overtures were on Hunt's side only.[328] Byron expressed himself thus at the time:

"Hunt is an extraordinary character and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times--much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. If he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, I know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. I must go and see him again--a rapid succession of adventures since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations. He has been unshaken and will continue so. I don't think him deeply versed in life:--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion) and enamoured of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of Brutus p.r.o.nounced and every day proves it. He is perhaps, a little opinionated, as all men who are the _center of circles_, wide or narrow--the Sir Oracles--in whose name two or three are gathered together--must be, and as even Johnson was: but withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring 'the right to the expedient,' might excuse."

December 2, 1813, he wrote to Hunt: "It is my wish that our acquaintance, or, if you please to accept it, friends.h.i.+p, may be permanent.... I have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering."[329] Cordial intercourse between the two men continued after Hunt's removal from Surrey Gaol to lodgings in Edgeware Road, where Byron became one of his most frequent visitors and correspondents. In the Hunt household Byron laid aside his ordinary reserve. There are records of his riding the children's rocking horse; of presents of game; loans of books; letters presented from a Paris correspondent for _The Examiner_; and gifts of boxes and tickets for Drury Lane Theatre, of which he was one of the managers. This last Hunt would not accept for fear of sacrificing his critical independence.

In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, Hunt claims that this familiarity proceeded from an "instinct of immeasureable distance."[330]

It was not until Byron's matrimonial difficulties in 1816 that Hunt, inert and depressed from his long confinement, bestirred himself to return a single one of the calls. Byron's separation from his wife in 1816 and the subsequent scandal aroused in Hunt that instinctive protection and active loyalty for friends abused, already discussed in a review of his relations with Keats and Sh.e.l.ley. The conjugal troubles and libertinism of the Prince Regent had brought forth only scorn and vituperation from the editor of _The Examiner_, but difficulties of equal notoriety at closer range in the lives of his friends evoked only sympathy and protection. He a.s.serted that there was no positive knowledge as to the cause of the trouble and much depraved speculation, envy and falsehood, yet "had he [Byron] been as the scandal-mongers represented him, we should nevertheless, if we thought our arm worth his using, have stood by him in his misfortunes to the last."[331] A prophecy of a near reconciliation and a too-gus.h.i.+ng picture of renewed domesticity are somewhat grotesque in the light of later events. For this defense Byron was very grateful. January 12, 1822, he wrote that Scott, Jeffrey and Leigh Hunt "were the only literary men of numbers whom I know (and some of whom I have served,) who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour, just then ... the third was under no kind of obligation to me."[332] Hunt's opinion in the matter underwent a transformation after the fateful Italian visit; he then declared that Byron wooed with genius, married for money, and strove for a reconciliation because of pique.[333]

The _Story of Rimini_, which had been submitted to Byron from time to time and which was dedicated to him, appeared likewise in 1816. Byron seems to have accepted the familiar tone of the inscription at the time in all good faith "as a public compliment and a private kindness"[334] although _Blackwood's_ of March, 1828, states, perhaps not seriously, that Byron in his copy had subst.i.tuted for Hunt's name "impudent varlet." As late as April 11, 1817, Byron wrote from Italy that he expected to return to Venice by Ravenna and Rimini that he might take notes of the scenery for Hunt.[335]

But a letter to Moore from Venice, June 1, 1818, seems to mark a disillusionment on the part of Byron:

"Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar c.o.xcombry that you might expect from his situation. He is a good man with some practical element in his chaos, but spoilt by the Christ Church Hospital and a Sunday newspaper to say nothing of the Surrey Gaol, which converted him into a martyr.... Of my friend Hunt, I have already said that he is anything but vulgar in his manners [a statement repeated again in 1822[336]]; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses. They may be honourable and gentlemanly men for what I know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications."[337]

Hunt did not see or hear from Byron from 1817 until 1821. No further mention of Hunt occurs in Byron's writings during this period except the reference to his influence on Barry Cornwall's _Sicilian Story_ and _Marcian Colonna_,[338] and another to the c.o.c.kney School in Byron's controversy with Bowles. In explanation of this break in the intercourse Hunt said, in 1828, that "Byron had become not very fond of his reforming acquaintances."[339]

Hunt's criticism of Byron's writings was not an important factor in his early literary development, as was the case with Sh.e.l.ley and Keats. Yet it deserves brief attention. _The Examiner_ of October 18, 1812, contained the address of Byron on the opening of the Drury Lane Theatre and a commendation of its "natural domestic touch" and of its independence.

Hunt's _Feast of the Poets_ as it appeared first in _The Reflector_ contained no mention of Byron. The separate edition of 1814 devoted seven pages of the added notes to a wordy discussion of his work and to personal advice. Byron in a letter of February 9, 1814, thanked Hunt for the "handsome note." The next mentions of Bryon were in _The Examiner_: a notice of his ode on Napoleon April 24, 1814; _Ill.u.s.trations of Lord Byron's Works_ on September 4 of the same year; an elegy, _Oh s.n.a.t.c.hed Away in Beauty's Bloom_, April 23, 1815; _The Renegade's Feelings Among the Tombs of Heroes_, March 3, 1816; and finally, an announcement of an opera founded on _The Corsair_, August 31, 1817. A review of the first and second cantos of _Don Juan_ appeared in _The Examiner_ of October 31, 1819. Byron's extraordinary variety and sudden transition of mood, his power in wielding satire and humor, his knowledge of human nature in its highest and lowest pa.s.sions, his contribution to the mock-heroic and the sincere, the "strain of rich and deep beauty" in the descriptions were pointed out. Any immoral tendency is denied: "The fact is at the bottom of these questions, that many things are made vicious which are not so by nature; and many things made virtuous, which are only so by calling and agreement; and it is on the horns of this self-created dilemma, that society is continually writhing and getting desperate!" _The Examiner_ of August 26, 1821 containing a critique of the third and fourth cantos of _Don Juan_, condemned the "careless contempt of canting moralists."

January 23, 1820, there was a notice in _The Examiner_ telling of Byron's munificence to a shoemaker; in comment _The Examiner_ said: "His lords.h.i.+p's virtues are his own. His frailties have been made for him, in more respects than one, by the faults and follies of society." January 21, 1822, appeared a reprint of _My Boat Is on the Sh.o.r.e_; April 22, the two stanzas from Childe Harold beginning, _Italia, Oh! Italia_; April 29, _Byron's Letters on Bowles's Strictures on Pope_; May 26, a review of two of Bowles's letters to Byron; July 29, an article ent.i.tled _Sketches of the Living Poets_.[340] The last gave a biographical account of Byron.

The general traits of his poety were said to be pa.s.sion, humour, and learning. It criticized the narrative poems as "too melodramatic, hasty and vague." Hunt's summary of the dramas and of _Don Juan_ shows excellent judgment: "For the drama, whatever good pa.s.sages such a writer will always put forth, we hold that he has no more qualifications than we have; his tendency being to spin every thing out of his own perceptions, and colour it with his own eye. His _Don Juan_ is perhaps his best work, and the one by which he will stand or fall with readers who see beyond time and toilets. It far surpa.s.ses, in our opinion, all the Italian models on which it is founded, not excepting the far famed _Secchia Rapita_."[341] On June 2, 1822, _The Examiner_ reviewed _Cain_. The article is chiefly a discussion of the origin of evil. The issue of September 30 contained a reprint of _America_; that of November 18 denied Byron's authors.h.i.+p of _Anastasius_. From July 5, 1823, to November 29 of the same year, there appeared in the _Literary Examiner_ friendly criticisms of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth cantos of _Don Juan_. The reviews consisted chiefly of extracts and a summary of the narrative.

THE LIBERAL.

A letter from Lord Byron dated December 25, 1820, had proposed to Thomas Moore to set up secretly, on their return to London, a weekly newspaper for the purpose of giving

"the age some new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, theology, and all other ism, ality and ology whatsoever.

Why, man, if we were to take to this in good earnest, your debts would be paid off in a twelvemonth, and by dint of a little diligence and practice, I doubt not that we could distance the common-place blackguards who have so long disgraced common sense and the common reader. They have no merit but practice and imprudence, both of which we may acquire; and, as for talent and culture, the devil's in't if such proofs as we have given of both can't furnish out something better than the 'funeral baked meats' which have coldly set forth the breakfast table of Great Britain for so many years."[342]

Moore cautiously refused the offer and the idea lay dormant in Byron's mind until he met Sh.e.l.ley at Ravenna in 1821. He then proposed that they should establish a radical paper with Leigh Hunt as editor, the three to be equal partners. Power, money, and notoriety were Byron's chief objects.

He frankly acknowledged a desire for enormous gains. He designed to use his proprietory privileges to publish those of his writings that Murray dared not. At the same time Byron had, without doubt, a desire to reform home government and to repay Hunt for his public defense in 1816.[343] He may have wished to please Sh.e.l.ley by asking Hunt.[344] Undoubtedly he valued Hunt's wide journalistic experience. Moore a.s.serts that in extending the invitation, Byron inconsistently admitted Hunt "not to any degree of confidence or intimacy but to a declared fellows.h.i.+p of fame and interest."[345] This, like other of Moore's statements regarding Hunt, is not very plausible in view of the past intimacy.

The most discussed question regarding Byron's motives in inviting Hunt is the extent of his relation to _The Examiner_ at that time, and Byron's knowledge of it. Trelawny states that when Byron "_consented_ to join Leigh Hunt and others in writing for the 'Liberal,' I think his princ.i.p.al inducement was in the belief that John and Leigh Hunt were proprietors of the 'Examiner';--so when Leigh Hunt at Pisa told him that he was no longer connected with that paper, Byron was taken aback, finding that Hunt would be entirely dependent upon the success of their hazardous project, while he himself would be deprived of that on which he had set his heart,--the use of a weekly paper in great circulation."[346] Moore heard indirectly in 1821 that Byron, Sh.e.l.ley and Hunt were to "_conspire_ together" in _The Examiner_[347]--a plan nowhere mentioned in the writings of the three men concerned and most unlikely. What Trelawney "thought" conflicts with what Moore "heard." The suggestions of both are open to doubt. Byron was most a.s.suredly the projector of _The Liberal_ and did not "_consent_ to join Leigh Hunt and others." Besides, granting that Trelawney's opinion was based on a statement of Byron's, even that would not be convincing, since Byron made a number of mis-statements about the matter after he grew weary of it. Questionable as the a.s.sertion is, it has been made the basis of accusations against Hunt of deliberate deceit and of breach of contract.

Had it been true that there was an understanding of cooperation between the two papers, Byron and Moore would have made much of the charge.

Trelawney's opinion, first noticed by _Blackwood's_ in March, 1828, has been elaborated by Jeaffreson,[348] and accepted by Leslie Stephen[349]

and Kent.[350] Elze, who seems to have labored under the impression that Harold Skimpole was a faithful portraiture of Hunt, states that his connection with Byron began with a falsehood.[351] R. B. Johnson says, in defense of Hunt, that the accusation "is quite unreasonable and contrary to all the evidence."[352] Monkhouse thinks that it is doubtful if Byron reckoned on the support of the London paper.[353] J. Ashcroft n.o.ble says that Byron had much to say about the Hunts in his letters, "and made the most of all kinds of trivial or imaginary grievances; it is simply incredible that had a grievance of such reality and magnitude as this really existed he would have refrained from mentioning it." As proof against it, he quotes Byron's belief in Hunt's honesty as late as September 1822; and he points out the "obvious absurdity of the idea that in the year 1822 a weekly newspaper could be conducted successfully, or at all, by an editor in Pisa or Genoa."[354] The strong probability, gathered from all the extant evidence, is that Byron and Sh.e.l.ley, in inviting Hunt to Italy, expected, and very naturally, that he would continue to share in the profits of _The Examiner_. Sh.e.l.ley, indeed, in a letter dated as late as January 25, 1822, urged Hunt not to leave England without a regular income from that journal[355]--an injunction which Hunt unfairly disregarded. It is also likely that his connection with _The Examiner_ was one of Byron's reasons in extending the partners.h.i.+p to include Hunt. But it is practically certain that there was no contract nor even understanding as regards the cooperation of _The Liberal_ and the London paper. The question does not therefore, involve Hunt's honor at all. If Byron expected to profit by the influence of _The Examiner_, his silence shows a manliness that n.o.ble does not credit him with.

Hunt, in accepting Byron's offer, was actuated by motives both selfish and unselfish. The fine of 1,000 imposed at the time of his conviction of libel was not all paid; _The Indicator_ had been abandoned; _The Examiner_ was on its last legs; his health was broken by overwork undertaken in the effort not to call upon his friends for aid;[356] an invalid wife and seven children were to be supported by his pen; his brother John was in prison. From January, 1821, to August of the same year he had been unable to write. In accepting Byron's offer he thought to recover his health in a southern climate, to regain his political influence which had been on the decrease during the last four or five years, and at the same time to aid aggressively the liberal movement.[357] Moreover, he was flattered immensely by the prospective public a.s.sociation with Lord Byron. He had little to lose and a prospect of large gain. Hunt should have weighed more gravely such a step before he embarked on such a hazardous venture with so large a family, but, with a buoyancy and irresponsibility in practical affairs peculiar to himself, he clutched at the new proposition as a way out of all difficulties and did not look beyond immediate necessities. He pictured himself and his family healthy and wealthy in a land he had always sighed for. If the skies lowered, he fancied Sh.e.l.ley always at hand. His description of preparations for the voyage is as airy as his pocketbook was light: "My family, therefore, packed up such goods and chattels as they had a regard for, my books in particular, and we took, with strange new thoughts and feelings, but in high expectation, our journey by sea."[358]

The part Sh.e.l.ley played in the invitation to Hunt is more difficult of interpretation. The original proposition to become an equal partner in the transaction he never seriously entertained. He consented to become a contributor only. His reasons for his refusal he gave to others, but, for fear of endangering Hunt's prospects, withheld from Byron; for the same reason he dissembled at times concerning his real feelings. Yet he was equally responsible with Byron in extending the invitation to Hunt, as will be shown later. Although Sh.e.l.ley could not have foreseen the full consequences of such a course of action, he was deficient in frankness toward Byron and undoubtedly sacrificed him somewhat in the transaction to his affection for Hunt. While Byron continued to hold the highest opinion of Sh.e.l.ley, between the time of their meeting in Switzerland and at Ravenna, Sh.e.l.ley had experienced three separate revulsions of feeling.[359] At the time in question his distrust had returned.

Hunt's pecuniary troubles made their relations still more difficult. This state of affairs between Byron and Sh.e.l.ley must have given Hunt great concern, and Sh.e.l.ley suspecting his distress wrote March 2, 1822: "The aspect of affairs has somewhat changed since the date of that in which I expressed a repugnance to a continuance of intimacy with Lord Byron as close as that which now exists; at least it has changed so far as regards you and the intended journal."[360]

In January, 1821, Mrs. Hunt wrote Mary Sh.e.l.ley, begging that they might come to Italy. The subject was thus revived and a formal invitation was conveyed in a letter of August 26, 1821, from Sh.e.l.ley to Hunt. It proves beyond a doubt that Byron was the chief projector of the journal:

"He (Byron) proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and share the profits.... There can be no doubt that the _profits_ of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various, yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other and effectuate the arrangement; since (to entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron), nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the borrowed splendor of such a partners.h.i.+p. You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success.... I did not ask Lord Byron to a.s.sist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself.... He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out."[361]

Hunt's answer was full of expectation and hope. He wrote that "Are there not three of us?... We will divide the world between us, like the Triumvirate, and you shall be the sleeping partner, if you will."[362] To Sh.e.l.ley's reply of October 6, thanking him for coming, Hunt answered: "You say, Sh.e.l.ley, you thank me for coming. The pleasure of being obliged by those we love is so great that I do not wonder that you continue to muster up some obligation to me, but if you are obliged, how much am I?"[363]