IX.

Preliminary Intercourse between Byron, Shelley and Leigh Hunt as regards the editing of a projected Journal afterwards called The Liberal'.

Byron first met Leigh Hunt in Horsemonger Lane Gaol, whither he was accompanied by Moore, in May 1813, and from that period till Hunt's release from gaol, saw him there on several occassions, treating him with great kindness and making him presents of books and game. From the time of Hunt's release from prison, in February 1815, till Byron left England in April 1816, they saw but little of each other, enough however to enable Byron to describe Hunt to Moore in a letter written at Venice on June 1st 1818, as "a great coxcomb and a very vulgar person in everything about

him." 2

Shelley, who had not yet made Leigh Hunt's acquaintance when he left England on his way to meet Byron in the spring of 1816, had written him a letter of congratulation as editor of the 'Examiner' from University College, Oxford, on the occasion of the brothers Hunt being declared "Not guilty" of libel in March 1811.3

When the Hunt's were sentenced to two years imprisonment in February 1813, Shelley wrote to the Old Bond Street publisher Hookam, that he was "boiling over with indignation at the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence pronounced

1 Moore was mistaken in giving June 1813, as the date of this meeting. ('Moore's Life' etc. 1 vol. ed. p. 183); See Hunt's letter of May 25th 1813 to his wife in The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt' edited by his eldest son Thornton Hunt. London, 1862.

2 'Moore's Life' etc. letter 317.

3 Dowden's 'Life of Shelley' vol. 1, p. 113.

on Hunt and his brother," and offred to send twenty pounds wherewith to begin a subscription in their behalf.1

After returning from Geneva in the autumn of 1816, Shelley called on Hunt, and their acquaintance had ripened into friendship before the close of that year. The day after Shelley heard of his first wife's suicide, on the 16th of December 1816, he wrote to his mistress from London,-"Leigh Hunt has been with me all day, and his delicate and tender attentions to me, and kind speeches of you, have sustained me against the weight of the horror of this event." 2

A passage in the second Mrs. Shelley's letter of October 5th 1817 to her husband, will serve to illustrate the intimacy existing between the needy man of letters and the baronet's son at that period. Mrs. Shelley writes, "I have written to Hunt; but tell him over and above, that our piano is in tune, and that I wish he would come down by Monday's coach to play me a few tunes. He will think I jest, but it would really give me the greatest pleasure. I would make love to him pour passer le temps, that he might not regret the company of his Marianne [Mrs. Hunt] and Thornton [Hunt's eldest son].3

On March 11th 1818, Shelley, Shelley's second wife, their two children, Claire, Allegra and the Swiss nurse Elise, were on the road to Dover on their way to Italy, where they intended having Allegra handed over to her father at Venice, with Hunt's last volume of poetry in their keeping as a present from the author to Byron.

Shelley had not been a fortnight absent from England when he wrote to Hunt from Lyons, "When shall I see you again? Oh that it might be in Italy! I confess that the thought of how long we may be divided makes me very

1 Dowden's 'Life of Shelley', vol. 1, pp. 324, 25.

2 Dowden's 'Life of Shelley', vol. 2, p. 68.

3 Dowden's 'Life of Shelley', vol. 2, p. 148.

melancholy." 1 Hunt replies an the 24th of April of the same year, "When you write to Lord Byron, pray, remember me particularly to him. Oh! for some of your Italian sunshine....., to make a proper April with."2

As Byron had made a proposition to Moore of being joint editor of a journal with him, as early as January 1817,3 Shelley, who was no doubt duly affected by Hunt's longing for Italian sunshine, had but little difficulty in persuading Byron to invite Hunt to Italy. It is possible, though highly improbable, that he did no more in 1818 than mention Hunt's desire to come to Italy to Byron who, immediately invited the author of Rimini to do so; probably with the same end in view which he had in inviting him to come to Pisa three years later.

Shelley wrote to his friend Peacock from Naples on December 22nd 1818-"You don't see much of Hunt. I wish you could contrive to see him when you go up to town, and ask him what he means to answer to Lord Byron's invitation. He has now an opportunity of seeing Italy." 5

Although Hunt did not accept Byron's invitation in 1818, Byron did not give up the idea of having some kind of periodical publication under his control, and made a second proposition to Moore on the same subject in December 1820.6

In the autumn of 1820 Leigh Hunt became seriously ill, and was obliged to discontinue work on the 'Examiner', his brother John was in prison for writing of 'The House of Comons' as 'consisting in the main of public criminals'. Leigh Hunt was at that time the father of six children, and his wife in despair wrote to Mrs. Shelley in January 1821, in referring to Byron, "Ask

Forman's edition of Shelley's 'Prose Works', vol. 4, p. 4.

2 'Correspondence of Leigh Hunt'. London, 1862. vol. 1, p. 118.

3 'Moore's Life' etc., letter 259.

4 See Byron's severely critical remarks on Hunt in his letter

to Moore of June 1st 1818, ('Moore's Life' etc., letter 317).

5 Forman's edition of Shelley's Prose Works', vol. 4, p. 70.

6 Moore's Life' etc., letter 403.

Mr. Shelley my dear Mrs. Shelley to urge it to him . .

Surely

we might sell all our furniture and come over to you."

It seems certain that Byron did not send his first invitation to Hunt in 1818 altogether of his own free will, and that he was influenced in so doing by Shelley; as almost three months before Shelley visited him at Venice, he wrote to Moore on June 1st 1818, in the same letter in which he describes Hunt as 'a very vulgar person', of the same gentleman's last published volume of poetry 'Foliage' thus: "Of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by Self-love upon a Night-mare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most prodigious." It is difficult to conceive that even his tenderness for Hunt, who had taken his part in the 'Examiner' at the time of his separation from his wife, would have prompted Byron to select as a literary partner, a man of whose ability he possessed so low an opinion.

3

No doubt one of Shelley's reasons for visiting Byron in August 1811 at Ravenna, was to urge on the author of Don Juan the project of having Hunt come to Italy for editorial purposes; and though he wrote to Hunt shortly after his return to Pisa, "He [Byron] proposes that you should come and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here," there can be but little doubt but that Shelley had something to do with bringing Byron's journalistic scheme back to the great poet's memory, besides being altogether instrumental in Hunt's being chosen as his and Byron's coadjutor for editing the journal. Possibly Shelley went so far as to let Byron know that he was acting solely in Hunt's behalf. This seems at least probable, judging from

1 Dowden's 'Life of Shelley', vol. 2, p. 439.

2 'Moore's Life' etc., 5letter 17.

3 His other motive in travelling to Ravenna was to visit Allegra at Bagna Cavallo for Claire's sake.

4 Forman's edition of Shelleys 'Prose Works', vol. 4, p. 235; or Hunt's Correspondence' vol., 1, p. 170.

Byron's letter of October 9th 18221 to Murray, in which he wrote to his publisher-"They [the brothers Hunt] pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented.2

3

Shelley, in writing to Hunt of Byron's proposition, made the bait which was to bring the needy man of letters with his invalid wife and six children to Italy, as tempting as possible; he wrote "There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various, yet cooperating 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 intrust 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 splendour of such a partnership. You and he in different manners would be equal, and would bring, in different manners, but in the same proportion equal stocks of reputation and success." 5

Hunt, who, at that period of his life, was as vain as a peacock, and in the affairs of this world a child', lost his head in reading Shelley's letter and boiled over with pride, hope and ambition.-"What?"-he wrote,-"Are there not

1 'Moore's Life' etc., letter 504.

2 Jeaffreson in "The Real Lord Byron' (standard edition, p. 359) referring to the above letter and letter 509 of 'Moore's Life' etc., writes that in them "Byron talked wide of the truth without knowing it" as regards his relationship with the Hunts in the affair of "The Liberal'. He is possibly acquainted with some as yet unpublished information on the subject.

3 Hunt was the father of six children when he left England for Italy. His wife bore him a seventh child on the 8th of June 1823 at Genoa.

4 Hunt must have inferred from the above, that he would get Shelley's share of the profits of the intended journal besides his own. 5 Forman's edition of Shelley's 'Prose Works', vol. 4, p. 235.

6 See Byron's letter to Murray of October 9th 1822 ('Moore's Life' etc., letter 504).