CHAPTER I_Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH

LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH

BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS

LEIGH HUNT'S RELATIONS WITH

BYRON, SHELLEY AND KEATS

BY BARNETTE MILLER, PH.D.

New York

THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

1910

_All rights reserved_

BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Printed from type April, 1910

PRESS OF

THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY

LANCASTER, PA.

_This Monograph has been approved by the Department of English in Columbia

University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication._

A. H. THORNDIKE,

_Secretary_.

PREFACE

The relations of Leigh Hunt to Byron, Shelley and Keats have been treated

in a fragmentary way in various works of biography and criticism, and from

many points of view. Yet hitherto there has been no attempt to construct a

whole out of the parts. This led Professor Trent to suggest the subject to

me about five years ago. The publication of the results of my

investigation has been unfortunately delayed for nearly four years after

the work was finished.

I am indebted to Mr. S. L. Wolff for reading the first and second

chapters; to Professors G. R. Krapp, W. W. Lawrence, A. H. Thorndike, of

Columbia University, and Professor William Alan Nielson, now of Harvard,

for suggestions throughout. I am especially glad to have this opportunity

to record my gratitude to Prof. Trent, whose inspiration and guidance and

kindness from beginning to end have alone made completion of the study

possible.

B. M.

CONSTANTINOPLE, TURKEY.

March 21, 1910.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. LEIGH HUNT 1784-1823 1

CHAPTER II. KEATS 32

CHAPTER III. SHELLEY 65

CHAPTER IV. BYRON AND _The Liberal_ 88

CHAPTER V. THE COCKNEY SCHOOL 121

CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION 159

BIBLIOGRAPHY 164

CHAPTER I

Revolutionary tendencies of the age--The Reaction--Counter Reform

movement--Leigh Hunt--His Ancestry--School days--Career as a

Journalist--Imprisonment--Finances--Politics--Religion--Poetry.

Since contemporary social conditions played an important part in the

relations of Leigh Hunt with Byron, Shelley, and Keats, a brief survey of

the period in question is necessary to an understanding of the forces at

play on their intellect and conduct. The English mind had been admirably

prepared for the principles of the French Revolution by the progressive

tendency since the Revolution of 1688. The new order promised by France

was acclaimed in England as one destined to right the wrongs of humanity;

through unending progress mankind was to attain unlimited perfection. Upon

such a prospect both parties were agreed, and the warnings of Burke were

vain when Pitt, rationalizing, led the Tories, and Fox, rhapsodizing, led

the Whigs. In 1793, Godwin's _Political Justice_, with its anarchistic

doctrines of individual perfectibility and of individual self-reliance,

rallied more recruits to the standard of liberty, though his theories of

community of property and annulment of the marriage bond were somewhat

charily received. The early writings of Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge

were colored with enthusiasm for the new movement. The agitation and the

enactment of reform measures made actual advances towards the expected

millennium.

But the excesses of the Revolutionary regime in France bred in England,

ever inclined to order, an opposition in many conservative minds that

resulted in positive panic at the menace to state and church and property.

The reaction swung the pendulum far in the opposite direction from justice

and philanthropy. The first two decades of the new century continued to

suffer from a counter-reform movement when the actual fright had subsided.

During that period, anything which savored of reform was labelled as

seditious. At the very beginning of this reaction William Pitt's efforts

for the extension of the franchise were summarily put an end to, and the

House of Commons remained as little representative of the English people

as formerly. Catholics and Non-Conformists were denied, from the period of

the union of Ireland with England in 1800 until 1829, the right to vote

and to hold office. Pitt's efforts to frustrate such discrimination in

Ireland were as unavailing as in his own country, for the prejudices and

obstinacy of George III, in both instances, neutralized the good

intentions of the liberal Ministry. The corrupt influence of the Crown in

Parliament was undiminished except by the disfranchisement of persons

holding contracts from the crown and of incumbents of revenue offices. The

wars with America and with France greatly increased the public debt,

threatened the national credit and burdened with taxes an already

overburdened people. Oppressive industrial conditions made the life of the

masses still more unendurable. The rise of manufacturing and the

consequent adoption of inventions that dispensed with much hand labor

decreased the number of the employed and reduced wages, while the enormous

increase in population during the eighteenth century multiplied the number

of the idle and the poor. It is true that the wealth of the country became

much greater through the development of new resources, but the profits

were distributed among the few and gave no relief to the majority. The

government was indifferent to the sufferings of the poor, to the severity

of the penal code, to the horrors of the slave traffic. In Great Britain

the Habeas Corpus act was suspended, public assemblies were forbidden, the

press was more narrowly restricted, right of petition was limited, and the

legal definition of treason was greatly extended; in Scotland the

barbarous statute of transportation for political offenses was revived; in

Ireland industry and commerce were discouraged.

The re-accession of the Tories to power in 1807, followed by their long

ascendancy and abuse of power, led inevitably to a revival of the

questions of revolution and of reform. Lord Byron, Shelley and Leigh Hunt

were among the leaders of this second band of agitators, the "new camp,"

as Professor Dowden has designated them. It was their love of humanity,

perhaps to a greater degree than their poetic genius and their aesthetic

ideals, that made these men akin. Of the four poets with whom we deal

Keats alone was comparatively indifferent to the strife about him.

* * * * *

Besides the political background of the times, personal influence and

literary imitation enter into consideration in the present study.

Especially in the case of Hunt, whose unique personality has been so

variously interpreted, a brief biographical review is necessary. James

Henry Leigh Hunt was born October 19, 1784, in the village of Southgate,

Middlesex. He was descended on the father's side from "Tory cavaliers" of

West Indian adoption, and on the mother's from American Quakers of Irish

extraction--an exotic combination of Celtic and Creole strains which never

coalesced but in turn affected his temperament. His father was an engaging

and gifted clergyman who quoted Horace and drank claret--a sanguine,

careless child of the South who made the acquaintance alike of good

society and of debtor's prisons. This parent's cheerfulness and courage

were his most fortunate legacies to his son; a speculative turn in matters

of religion and government and a general financial irresponsibility

constituted his most unfortunate legacy. His mother was as shrinking as

his father was convivial, but, like her husband, possessed a strong sense

of duty and of loyalty. Her son inherited her love of books and of nature.

Of his heritage from his parents Leigh Hunt wrote: "I may call myself, in

every sense of the word ... a son of mirth and melancholy;... And, indeed,

as I do not remember to have ever seen my mother smile, except in

sorrowful tenderness, so my father's shouts of laughter are now ringing in

my ears."[1]

As Leigh Hunt was heir to his ancestry in an unusual degree, so in an

extraordinary measure was the child father of the man. The atmosphere of

the home, tense with discussions of theology and politics and bitter with

hardships of poverty and prisons, gave him a precocious acquaintance with

weighty matters and with many miseries. In 1791 he entered Christ's

Hospital. Like Shelley he rebelled against the time-honored custom of

fagging, and chose instead a beating every night with a knotted

handkerchief. He avoided personal encounters in self-defense, but was

valiant enough where others were concerned, or where a principle was

involved. Haydon said: "He was a man who would have died at the stake for

a principle, though he might have cried like a child from physical pain,

and would have screamed still louder if he put his foot in the gutter! Yet

not one iota of recantation would have quivered on his lips, if all the

elysium of all the religions on earth had been offered and realized to

induce him to do so."[2]

His wonderful power of forming friendships--a power with which the present

study is so much concerned--was first developed at Christ's Hospital. As

he sentimentally expressed it, "the first heavenly taste it gave me of

that most spiritual of the affections. I use the word 'heavenly'

advisedly; and I call friendship the most spiritual of the affections,

because even one's kindred, in partaking of our flesh and blood, become,

in a manner, mixed up with our entire being. Not that I would disparage

any other form of affection, worshipping as I do, all forms of it, love in

particular, which in its highest state, is friendship and something more.

But if I ever tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those

friendships which I entertained at school, before I dreamt of any maturer

feeling."[3] Like Shelley, Hunt had so great an inclination to

sentimentalize and idealize friendship that sometimes after the first

brief rhapsody of fresh acquaintance he suffered bitter disillusionment.

The majority, however, of the ties formed were lasting.[4]

The abridgements of the _Spectator_, set Hunt as a school task, instilled

a dislike of prose-writing that may account for his preference through

life for verse composition, although he was by nature less a poet than an

essayist. From Cooke's edition of the _British Poets_ he learned to love

Gray, Collins, Thomson, Blair and Spenser--influences responsible in part

for his dislike of eighteenth century convention and for his historical

prominence in the romantic movement. Spenser later became the literary

passion of his life. Other books which he read at this period were Tooke's

_Pantheon_, Lempriere's _Classical Dictionary_, and Spence's _Polymetis_,

three favorites with Keats; _Peter Wilkins_, _Thalaba_ and _German

Romances_, three favorites with Shelley. Later Hunt and Shelley's reading

was closely paralleled in Godwin's _Political Justice_, _Lucretius_,

_Pliny_, _Plato_, _Aristotle_, _Voltaire_, _Condorcet_ and the

_Dictionnaire Philosophique_. With the years Hunt's list swelled to an

almost incredible degree. It was through books that he knew life.

He left Christ Hospital in 1799. The eight years spent there were his only

formal preparation for a literary profession. He greatly regretted his

lack of a university education, but he consoled himself by quoting with

true Cockney spirit Goldsmith's saying: "London is the first of

Universities."[5] Through his father's connections he met many prominent

men in London and was made much of. This premature association accounts

for some of the arrogance so conspicuous in his early journalistic work,

which, in middle life, sobered down into a harmless vanity.

In 1808 Hunt started a Sunday newspaper, _The Examiner_. The letter

tendering his resignation[6] of a position in the office of the Secretary

of War, coming from an inexperienced man of twenty-four is pompous in tone

and heavy with the weight of his duty to the English nation. His

subsequent assurance and boldness resulted in 1812 in his being indicted

for a libel of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and in an

imprisonment for two years dating from February 15, 1813. His elder

brother John, the publisher of the paper, served the same sentence in a

separate prison. They shared between them a fine of L1,000. By special

dispensation Hunt's family was allowed to reside with him in prison and,

stranger still, he was allowed to continue his work on the libellous

journal. At the same time he wrote in jail the _Descent of Liberty_ and

part of the _Story of Rimini_. He transformed his prison yard into a

garden and his prison room into a bower by papering the walls with

trellises of roses and by coloring his ceiling like the sky. His books and

piano-forte, his flowers and plaster casts surrounded him as at home. Old

friends gathered about and new ones sought him as a martyr to the liberal

cause.

But the picture has a darker side which it is necessary to notice in order

to understand Hunt's personal relations. An imaginative and over-sensitive

brain in a feeble body had peopled his childhood with creatures of fear,

the precursors of the morbid fancies of later years. From 1805 to 1807 he

suffered from a trouble that seems to have been mental rather than

physical, probably a form of melancholia or hypochondria. He tortured

himself with problems of metaphysics and philosophy. He was haunted with

the hallucination that he was deficient in physical courage, and therefore

subjected himself to all kinds of tests. At the beginning of his

imprisonment he was suffering from a second attack of his malady. The

injurious effects upon his health of close confinement at this time can be

traced to the end of his life. After his release his morbid fear of

cowardice and his habit of seclusion were so strong upon him that for

months at a time he would not venture out upon the streets. Yet in spite

of all this and of frequent illnesses, his animal spirits were invincible.

His optimism was proverbial; indeed, it was a part of his religion.

Coventry Patmore tells us that on entering a room and being presented to

Hunt for the first time, he received the greeting "This is a beautiful

world, Mr. Patmore."[7] His wonderful fancy colored his life as it

colored his poetry. With his flowers and his friends and his fancies he

turned life into a perpetual Arcadia. It has been many times asserted that

Leigh Hunt was morally weak. His self-depreciation is largely responsible

for such assertions. It is true that he fell short of great accomplishment

and that he was guilty of small foibles which Haydon exaggerated into

"petticoat twaddling and Grandisonian cant."[8] Yet the struggle and the

suffering of his life show more virility and nobility than he is generally

credited with, and prove that beneath a veneer of affectation lay strong

and healthy qualities.

A second lasting and disastrous result that followed Hunt's incarceration

and that greatly affected his relations with Byron and Shelley was the

crippling of his finances. While it cannot be said that he ever showed any

real business ability, yet, at the beginning of the trials for libel, his

money matters were in fair condition. The heavy fine and costs permanently

disabled him. In 1821 his affairs were in such a bad state that, with the

hope of bettering them, he left England on a precarious journalistic

venture, an injudicious step, the cause of which can be traced to the

lingering effects of his labors in the cause of liberalism. From 1834 to

1840 his misfortunes reached a climax. He sold his books to get something

to eat. The pain of giving up his beloved _Parnaso Italiano_ was like that

of a violinist parting with his instrument. He lived in continual fear of

arrest for debt. At the same time, family troubles and ill-health combined

to torment him.

In 1844 Sir Percy Shelley gave him an annuity of L120, and in 1847, the

same year of the benefit performance of _Every Man in His Humour_, he was

granted through the efforts of Lord John Russell, Macaulay and Carlyle, an

annual pension of L200 on the Civil List. There were also two separate

grants of L200 each from the Royal Bounty, one from William IV, and the

other from Queen Victoria. In his last years there is no mention made of

want.[9]

Hunt's attitude in respect to money obligations was unique, but

well-defined and consistent. It was not, as is often inferred, either

puling or unscrupulous.[10] He was absolutely incapable of the Skimpole

vices.[11] His dilemmas were not due to indolence. On the contrary, he

labored indefatigably as results show. The trouble was his "hugger-mugger"

management, as Carlyle expressed it. He adopted William Godwin's doctrine

that the distribution of property should depend on justice and necessity,

and thought with him that the teachers of religion were pernicious in

treating the practice of justice "not as a debt, but as an affair of

spontaneous generosity and bounty. They have called upon the rich to be

clement and merciful to the poor. The consequence of this has been that

the rich, when they bestowed the slender pittance of their enormous

wealth in acts of charity, as they were called, took merit to themselves

for what they gave, instead of considering themselves delinquents for what

they withheld."[12] Godwin held gratitude to be a superstition.

Consequently, when in need, Hunt thought he had a right to assistance from

such friends as had the wherewithal to give. He accepted obligations, as

will be shown in the following chapters, much as a matter of course.[13]

But even in his worst distresses, he never desired nor accepted

promiscuous charity; and he did not always willingly accept aid even from

his friends. He refused offers of help from Trelawney. He returned a bank

bill sent him by his sister-in-law, L5 sent by De Wilde as part of the

Compensation Fund, and $500 presented by James Russell Lowell. In 1832

Reynell forfeited L200 as security for Hunt. Twenty years later, on the

payment of the first installment of the Shelley legacy, Hunt discharged

the debt.[14] He rejected several offers to pay his fine at the time of

his imprisonment.[15] Mary Shelley, who more than any one had cause to

complain of Hunt's attitude in money matters, wrote in 1844 in announcing

to him the forthcoming annuity from her son: "I know your real delicacy

about money matters."[16]

In the _Correspondence_ there are mysterious allusions made by Hunt and by

his son Thornton to a veiled influence on Hunt's life, to some one who

acted as trustee for him and who, without his knowledge or consent, made

indiscriminating appeals in his behalf. The discovery of refusals and

repulses led him to write the following to William Story, through whom

came Lowell's offer: "Nor do I think the man truly generous who cannot

both give and receive. But, my dear Story, my heart has been deeply

wounded, some time back, in consequence of being supposed to carry such

opinions to a practical extreme.... It gave me a shock so great that, as

long as I live, it will be impossible for me to forego the hope of

outliving all similar chances, by conduct which none can

misinterpret."[17]

* * * * *

Leigh Hunt's work which comes into the period of his association with

Byron, Shelley and Keats falls into four divisions: his theatrical

criticism, his political journals, his poetry and his miscellaneous

essays. The first and the last, although important in themselves, do not

enter into his relations with the three men in question and will not be

considered here. His political activity is important in his relations with

Byron and Shelley; his poetry in his relations with Keats and Shelley.

In Leigh Hunt's career, the step most significant in its far-reaching

effects was the establishment of _The Examiner_.[18] Its professed object

was the discussion of politics. It contained, in addition to foreign and

provincial intelligence, criticism of the theatre, of literature, and of

the fine arts. Full reports were given of the proceedings in Parliament.

At different times, various series of articles appeared, such as the

_Essays on Methodism_ by Hunt, and _The Round Table_ by Hunt and Hazlitt.

Fox-Bourne says that previous to Hunt's _Examiner_ there had been weeklies

or "essay sheets" such as Defoe, Steele, Addison and Goldsmith had

developed, and that there had been dailies or "news sheets" which gave

bare facts, but that _The Examiner_ was the first to give the news

faithfully in essay style.[19] It soon raised the character of the

weeklies. During the first year the circulation reached 2,200, a large

number at that time. Carlyle said: "I well remember how its weekly coming

was looked for in our village in Scotland. The place of its delivery was

besieged by an eager crowd, and its columns furnished the town talk till

the next number came."[20] Redding says "everybody in those days read _The

Examiner_."[21]

The prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary

journalism:[22]

"mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably

merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and

quite as feeble in criticism. You are invited to a literary

conversation, and you find nothing but scandal and commonplace. There

is a flourish of trumpets, and enter Tom Thumb. There is an

earthquake and a worm is thrown up.... The gentleman who until lately

conducted the THEATRICAL DEPARTMENT in the _News_ will criticise the

Theatre in the EXAMINER; and as the public have allowed the

possibility of IMPARTIALITY in that department, we do not see why the

same possibility may not be obtained in POLITICS."

Then followed a declaration against party as a factor in politics: party,

it was declared, should not exist "abstracted from its utility"; in the

present day every man must belong to some class; "he is either Pittite or

Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberforcite or Burdettite; though, at the same time,

two thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason

call themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites."[23]

Although _The Examiner_ thus firmly announced its intentions, nevertheless

in the heat of political contest it soon became the organ of a group of

men known as "reformers," who were laboring and clamoring for

constitutional and administrative improvement. It became the avowed enemy

of the Tory party and its journals, and in particular of the ministry

during the long Tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself.

The prospectus likewise announced an intention to reform the manners and

morals of the age. Hunt could write a sermon with the same ease as a song

or a satire. Horse-racing, cock-fighting and prize-fighting were

condemned; most of all the publication of scandal and crime. A passage on

advertisements is humorous and still of living interest:

"the public shall neither be tempted to listen to somebody in the

shape of wit who turns out to be a lottery-keeper, nor seduced to

hear a magnificent oration which finishes by retreating into a

peruke, or rolling off into a blacking ball ... and as there is

perhaps about one person in a hundred who is pleased to see two or

three columns occupied with the mutabilities of cotton and the

vicissitudes of leather, the proprietors will have as little to do

with bulls and raw-hides, as with lottery-men and wig-makers."

The editorials, which occupied the foremost columns of the paper, attacked

corruption and injustice of every kind without respect of persons,

currying favor with neither party nor individual, and laboring above all

for the people. International relations and continental conditions were

kept track of, but chief prominence was given to domestic affairs. The

editor warred against all abuses of power in the cabinet and in all

offices under the crown. In particular he attacked with merciless

persistence the Prince Regent in regard to his private life and his public

conduct, and his brother Frederick the Duke of York, for his inefficiency

as Commander-in-Chief of the army.[24] His definition of the English Army

was "a host of laced jackets and long pigtails."[25] He condemned the

numerous subsidies of the crown, the royal pensions and salaries for

nominal service. He ridiculed the divine right of kings and exposed court

scandal and immorality. The chief measures for which he labored were

Catholic Emancipation; reform of Parliamentary representation; liberty of

the press; reduction and equalization of taxes; greater discretion in

increasing the public debt; education of the poor and amelioration of

their sufferings; abolition of child-labor and of the slave trade; reform

of military discipline, of prison conditions, and of the criminal and

civil laws, particularly those governing debtors.

It is not a matter of marvel that the paper made hosts of enemies on every

side. Charges of libel quickly followed its onslaughts. Before the paper

was a year old a prosecution was begun in connection with the Major Hogan

and Mrs. Clarke case,[26] but it was dropped when an investigation was

begun by the House of Commons. Within a year's time after this prosecution

a second indictment was brought because of the sentence: "Of all monarchs

since the Revolution the successor of George the Third will have the

finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular."[27] The _Morning Chronicle_

copied it, and was indicted, but both cases were dismissed. The third

offense was the quotation of an article by John Scott on the cruelty of

military flogging[28] but, like the others, this prosecution came to

nothing.

The fourth and most disastrous misdemeanor was libel of the Prince Regent,

a man of shocking morals and of unstable character. Before his appointment

as Regent he had leaned to the Whig party and advocated Catholic

Emancipation, but at his accession to power he retained the Tory ministry.

The Whigs were greatly angered in consequence, and _The Examiner_ took it

upon itself to voice their indignation.[29] At a dinner given at the

Freemason's Tavern on St. Patrick's day, March 22, 1812, Lord Moira, an

old friend of the Prince's, omitted mentioning him in his speech. Later,

when a toast was proposed to the Prince, it was greeted with hisses. Mr.

Sheridan, because of Lord Moira's omission, spoke later in the evening in

defense of the Regent, but he, too, was received with hisses. The _Morning

Chronicle_ reported the dinner; the _Morning Post_ replied with fulsome

praise of the Prince; _The Examiner_ with its usual alacrity joined in the

fray and took sides with the _Chronicle_, dissecting, phrase by phrase,

the adulation heaped upon the Prince by the _Post_. The following is the

bitterest part of the polemic against him:

"What person, unacquainted with the true state of the case, would

imagine, in reading these astounding eulogies, that this 'Glory of

the people' was the subject of millions of shrugs and

reproaches!--that this 'Protector of the arts' had named a wretched

foreigner his historical painter, in disparagement or in ignorance of

the merits of his own countrymen!--that this 'Maecenas of the age'

patronized not a single deserving writer!--that this 'Breather of

eloquence' could not say a few decent extempore words, if we are to

judge, at least, from what he said to his regiment on its embarkation

for Portugal!--that this 'Conqueror of hearts' was the disappointer

of hopes!--that this 'Exciter of desire' [bravo! Messieurs of the

Post!]--this 'Adonis in loveliness', was a corpulent man of

fifty!--in short, this _delightful_, _blissful_, _wise_,

_pleasurable_, _honourable_, _virtuous_, _true_ and _immortal_

prince, was a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in

disgrace, a dispiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and

demireps, a man who has just closed half a century without one single

claim on the gratitude of his country, or the respect of

posterity!"[30]

It was said that the chief offense was given by the statement that "this

'Adonis in loveliness' was a corpulent man of fifty." The article,

although true, was of doubtful expediency and offensively violent and

personal. Further, the unremitting attacks of _The Examiner_ had been

neither dignified nor charitable in their searchlight penetration into the

Prince's private affairs.[31] An indictment for libel naturally followed

at once. Lord Brougham's "masterly defense"[32] failed to avert the

determined efforts of the prosecution to make an example of the editor and

the publisher of _The Examiner_. They were sentenced to the imprisonment

and fine already mentioned. They refused all overtures for alleviation of

the sentence:--overtures from the government; from the Whigs who, in the

person of Perry of the _Morning Chronicle_, proposed to obtain a

compromise from the prosecution by threatening the Regent with the

publication of state secrets from friends; and even from a juror who

offered to pay the fine. Leigh Hunt wrote: "I am an Englishman setting an

example to my children and my country; and it would be hard, under all

these circumstances, if I could not suffer my extremity rather than

disgrace myself by effeminate lamentation or worse compromise."[33] The

two Hunts thought that the serving of the sentence would be beneficial to

the liberal cause, particularly in increasing the freedom of the press.

The general method of _The Examiner_ was vigorous attack. There was no

circumlocution, no mincing of language, but aggressive candour, and, when

it was considered necessary, wholesale censure and vituperation. A typical

illustration is given in this passage, describing a dinner of the Common

Council:

"It is the fashion just now to call Bonaparte Antichrist, the Beast

with Seven Heads and Ten Horns, ... but if you wish to see those who

have the 'real mark of the beast' upon them, go to a City dinner,

and after battles for trout and the buffetings for turtle, after the

rattling of wine glasses and plethoric throats, after the swillings

and the gormandizings, and the maudlin hobs-and-nobs, and the

disquisitions on smothered rabbits, and the bloated hectics, and the

blinking eyes and slurred voices, and the hiccups, the rantings, and

the roars, hear an unwieldy Loan-jobber descanting on our Glorious

King and Unshaken Constitution. The stranger, that after this sight,

goes to see the beasts in the Tower, is an enemy to all true

climax."[34]

In actual results _The Examiner_ accomplished a great deal in the counter

movement for reform. While Hunt had no original or constructive political

theory, little power of philosophical or logical thought, and no special

equipment besides wide general knowledge, he had great sincerity and

courage and a defiant attitude toward corruption of all kinds.[35] He was

himself absolutely incorruptible. If he preferred any form of government

above another--for he was more interested in the pure administration of an

established government than in the form itself--his preference was for a

liberal monarchy. Notwithstanding this moderate attitude, _The Examiner_

was accused of radical, even revolutionary opinions. It was charged with

being an enemy of the constitution, a traitor to the king, a foe to the

established church.[36] Hunt's positive achievement in political

journalism was two-fold: he obtained additional freedom for the press and

he elevated journalistic style to a literary level. Monkhouse says that

Hunt "established for the first time a paper which fought, and fought

effectively, with prejudice and privilege, with superstition and tyranny,

which was a bearer of light to all men of Liberal principles in that

country, and set the example of the independent thought and fearless

expression of opinion, which has since become the very light and power of

the press."[37] Of the Hunt brothers Coventry Patmore writes: "I verily

believe that, without the manly firmness, the immaculate political

honesty, and the vigorous good sense of the one, and the exquisite genius

and varied accomplishments, guided by the all-pervading and all-embracing

humanity of the other, we should at this moment have been without many of

those writers and thinkers on whose unceasing efforts the slow but sure

march of our political, and with it, our social regeneration as a people

mainly depends."[38]

Hunt assisted in bringing about reforms in the interest of the people by

calling attention to abuses that demanded investigation, and by advocating

correction. His ideas on national finance and practical administration are

wonderful when contrasted with his inefficiency in his own affairs. He

lacked largeness of perspective and masculine grasp. His work is all the

more remarkable when his temperament and tastes are considered; for his

was a nature, as Professor Dowden has put it, "framed less for the rough

and tumble of English radical politics than for 'dance and Provencal Song

and sunburnt mirth.'" As a factor in the reform movement begun in the

first decade of the nineteenth century Leigh Hunt has not yet come into

his own.[39] His was no cosmic theory, nor search after the origin of

evil, nor magnificent rebellion like Shelley's and Byron's; but in his own

smaller way he played as courageous and as effective a part in the cause

of liberty as those greater spirits.[40]

In 1810, the two brothers had established a quarterly, _The Reflector_, of

much the same nature and creed as _The Examiner_. It was unsuccessful and

was discontinued after the fourth number. It differed from its

predecessor in combining literature with politics. Hunt's reason for this

innovation displays a rare power to judge of contemporary movements:

"Politics, in times like these, should naturally take the lead in

periodical discussion, because they have an importance almost unexampled

in history, and because _they are now, in their turn, exhibiting their

reaction upon literature, as literature in the preceding age exhibited its

action upon them_."[41]

Although Hunt continued to be editor of _The Examiner_ until he went to

Italy in 1822, his aggressive political activity seemed to die out of him

after his release from prison. He was never so prominently again before

the public; in 1828, he ceased altogether to write on political questions.

He retired more and more into the seclusion of his books, and from about

1849, denied himself to all but a small circle of congenial spirits.

Hunt, like the others of his group, was deeply influenced by the liberal

movement in religion as well as in politics. He had seen his father's

progress from the Anglican Church through the Unitarian[42] to the

Universalist. At the age of twelve he repudiated the doctrine of eternal

punishment and declared himself a believer in the "exclusive goodness of

futurity." In his early manhood he decried the superstition of

Catholicism, the intolerance of Calvinism, and the emotionality of

Methodism. Yet he acknowledged a Great First Cause and a Divine Paternity.

He refused, like Shelley, to recognize the existence of evil, and thought

everything finally good and beautiful in nature.[43] He believed that

universal happiness would come about through individual excellence,

through performance of duty and avoidance of excess. Those who disagreed

with him in this respect he considered blasphemers of nature. As Lord

Houghton in his address in the cemetery of Kensal Green on the unveiling

of a bust of Hunt remarked, he had an "absolute superstition for good."

Similar testimony was borne by R. H. Horne when he said that Chaucer's

"'Ah, benedicite' was falling forever from his lips."[44] His religion was

one of charity and cheerfulness, of love and truth, which is but to affirm

that the humanitarian moral of _Abou Ben Adhem_ was realized in his own

life.[45] On the death of Shelley's child William, Hunt wrote to the

bereaved father: "I do not know that a soul is born with us; but we seem,

to me, to _attain_ to a soul, some later, some earlier; and when we have

got that, there is a look in our eye, a sympathy in our cheerfulness, and

a yearning and grave beauty in our thoughtfulness that seems to say, 'Our

mortal dress may fall off when it will; our trunk and our leaves may go;

we have shot up our blossom into an immortal air.'"[46]

Hunt, like Byron and Shelley, had curious ideas about the relation of the

sexes, ideas which Hazlitt said, were "always coming out like a rash."[47]

This "crotchet" was taken over likewise from Godwin, who thought it

checked the progress of the mind for one individual to be obliged to live

for a long period in conformity to the desires of another and therefore

disapproved of the marriage relation. But, like Godwin and Shelley, Hunt

bowed to the conventions. His life was a singularly pure one.

The influence of Hunt's poetry upon Keats and Shelley, in its general

romantic tendencies, particularly in respect to diction and metre,

deserves equal consideration with the influence of his politics upon

Shelley and Byron. _Juvenilia_, a volume of Hunt's poems collected by his

father and issued by subscription in 1801 contains original work and

translations which show wide reading for a boy of seventeen and some

fluency in versification. Otherwise the writer's own opinion in 1850 is

correct: "My work was a heap of imitations, all but absolutely

worthless.... I wrote 'odes' because Collins and Gray had written them,

'pastorals' because Pope had written them, 'blank verse' because Akenside

and Thomson had written blank verse, and a 'Palace of Pleasure' because

Spenser had written a 'Bower of Bliss.'"[48] Hunt's chief defect in taste,

that of introducing in the midst of highly poetical conceptions,

disagreeable physical conditions or symptoms, is as conspicuous in this

volume[49] as in his more mature work.

The _Feast of the Poets_, 1814,[50] is a light satire in the manner of Sir

John Suckling's _Session of the Poets_. It spares few poets since the days

of Milton and Dryden, and it includes in its revilings most of Hunt's

contemporaries. Gifford, the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, comes in

for the worst castigation. It is not remarkable that the satire

antagonized people on every side in the literary world as _The Examiner_

had done in the political. Hunt believed that "its offences, both of

commission and of omission, gave rise to some of the most inveterate

enmities" of his life.[51] It is important in the history to be discussed

in a later chapter of the literary feud which resulted in the creation of

the so-called Cockney School. Later revisions included some poets who had

been intentionally ignored at first in both poems and notes, or who, like

Shelley and Keats, naturally would not have been included in the 1814

edition; and it softened down the harsh criticism of those who were

unfortunate enough to have been included, except Gifford, whom Hunt could

never forgive. The irony is fresh and there are occasional spicy flashes

of wit. The narrative is clear and the characterization vivid. Byron

pronounced it "the best Session we have."[52]

The _Descent of Liberty_,[53] 1815, is a masque celebrating the triumph of

Liberty, in the person of the Allies, over the Enchanter, Napoleon. There

is little plot or human interest; the natural, the supernatural, and the

mythical are confusedly interwoven. The pictorial effect, however, is one

of great richness and color, and some of the songs and passages have fine

lyrical feeling and melody. It is interesting in this connection to note a

vague general resemblance between the _Descent of Liberty_ and Shelley's

_Queen Mab_ (1812-13) in the worship of Liberty, in the hope and promise

of her ultimate triumph, and in the wild imagination which Hunt probably

never again equalled. It is not likely, however, that Hunt knew Shelley's

poem at the time he was writing his own.

_The Story of Rimini_, produced in 1816 and dedicated to Lord Byron, is

the most important of Hunt's works in a consideration of his relations

with the enemies of the Cockney School[54] and with Byron, Shelley, and

Keats. Byron criticised it severely. Shelley thought it carried uncommon

and irresistible interest with it, but he agreed with Byron in thinking

that the style had fettered Hunt's genius.[55] Keats wrote a sonnet[56] on

_Rimini_ in 1817, and in his own works shows unmistakably the influence of

Hunt's poem in diction and versification.

The story is founded, of course, on the Francesca episode in the fifth

canto of the _Inferno_ of Dante. It was a dangerous thing for Hunt to

undertake an elaboration of the marvelous episode of Dante. Had he been a

man of greater genius it would have been a risk; as it was, he produced a

diffuse and sentimental narrative which bears little resemblance to the

singular perfection of the original. On the other hand, the _Story of

Rimini_ does possess indubitable merits: directness of narrative, minute

observation, sensuous richness of pictorial description, and occasional

delicate felicity of language.[57] Byron wrote of the third canto which he

saw in manuscript:

"You have excelled yourself--if not all your contemporaries--in the

canto which I have just finished. I think it above the former books;

but that is as it should be; it rises with the subject, the

conception seems to me perfect, and the execution perhaps as nearly

so as verse will admit. There is more originality than I recollect to

have seen elsewhere within the same compass, and frequent and great

happiness of expression." The faults he said were "occasional

quaintnesses and obscurity, and a kind of harsh and yet colloquial

compounding of epithets, as if to avoid saying common things in a

common way."[58]

October 30, 1815, in reply to these objections Hunt sent forth this

defense: "we accomodate ourselves to certain habitual, sophisticated

phrases of _written_ language, and thus take away from real feeling of any

sort the only language _it ever actually uses_, which is the _spoken_

language." At the same time he made a few alterations at Byron's

suggestion.[59] And again the latter wrote: "You have two excellent points

in that poem--originality and Italianism."[60] After the _Story of Rimini_

appeared he wrote to Moore: "Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good

one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and

with poetry about it that will stand the test."[61] In 1818 Byron's

opinion had changed somewhat:

"When I saw _Rimini_ in Ms., I told him I deemed it good poetry at

bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his

style was a system, or _upon system_, or some other such cant; and

when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless; so I said no more

to him, and very little to anyone else. He believed his trash of

vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be _old_

English[62] ... Hunt, who had powers to make the _Story of Rimini_ as

perfect as a fable of Dryden, has thought fit to sacrifice his genius

to some unintelligible notion of Wordsworth, which I defy him to

explain.[63]... A friend of mine calls 'Rimini' _Nimini Pimini_; and

'Foliage' _Follyage_. Perhaps he had a tumble in 'climbing trees in

the Hesperides'! But Rimini has a great deal of merit. There never

were so many fine things spoiled as in 'Rimini.'"[64]

Hunt had a distinct theory of language based on a few crude principles. As

his practical application of them had its effect upon Keats, a somewhat

full consideration of them is desirable here. The first and most

conspicuous one, promoted by what Hunt called "an idiomatic spirit in

verse,"[65] was a preference for colloquial words.[66] He mistook for

grace and fluency of diction, a turn of phrase that was without poetic

connection and often in very poor taste. In dialogue, particularly, the

effect is undignified. This professed doctrine was a fuller

development[67] of the statement in the Advertisement to the _Lyrical

Ballads_ of 1798: in Hunt's opinion, Wordsworth failed to consider duly

meter in its essential relations to poetry, and while Hunt himself desired

a "return to nature and a natural style" he thought that Wordsworth had

substituted puerility for simplicity and affectation for nature. Hunt's

acknowledged model for the poem was Dryden,[68] but Hunt's colloquial

phrasing, peculiar diction, elision,[69] and loose expansion approach much

more closely to Chamberlayne's _Pharronida_ (1689) than to anything in

Dryden.[70] The following extract is one of many that might be cited as

suggestive of Hunt's _Story of Rimini_:

"To his cold clammy lips

Joining her balmy twins, she from them sips

So much of death's oppressing dews, that, by

That touch revived, his soul, though winged to fly

Her ruined seat, takes time to breathe

These sad notes forth: "farewell, my dear, beneath

My fainting spirits sink."[71]

Occasionally Hunt's choice of colloquial words fitted the subject, as in

the _Feast of the Poets_, where humor and satire permit such expressions

as "bards of Old England had all been rung in," "twiddling a sunbeam,"

"bloated his wits," "tricksy tenuity" or such words as "smack," "pop-in"

and "sing-song." His poetical epistles suffer without injury such

departures from dignified diction, but in other cases, of which the _Story

of Rimini_ is a notable example, a grave subject in the garb of everyday

language is degraded into the incongruous and prosaic. It is in physical

descriptions that this undignified diction most strikingly violates good

taste. Examples are:

"And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree,

Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly."

"So lightsomely dropped in, his lordly back,

His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance."

Sometimes the prosaic quality of Hunt's diction is due to its being

pitched upon a merely "society" level:

"May I come in? said he:--it made her start,--

That smiling voice;--she coloured, pressed her heart

A moment, as for breath and then with free

And usual tone said, 'O Yes,--certainly.'"

Such a treatment of the meeting of Paolo and Francesca in the bower is

wholly inadequate to the situation and the emotion of the moment.

Additional illustrations of his colloquialisms from the _Story of Rimini_

and from other poems of the same period are: "to bless his shabby eyes,"

"that to the stander near looks awfully," "banquet small, and cheerful,

and considerate," "clipsome waist," "jauntiness behind and strength

before" (description of a horse), "lend their streaming tails to the fond

air," "sweepy shape," "cored in our complacencies," "lumps of flowers,"

"smooth, down-arching thigh," "tapering with tremulous mass internally."

Hunt's second principle to be considered is the excessive use of vague and

passionless words. Instances of such words to be found very frequently in

his poetry are: fond, amiable, fair, rural, cordial, cheerful, gentle,

calm, smooth, serene, earnest, lovely, balmy, dainty, mild, meek, tender,

kind, elegant, quiet, sweet, fresh, pleasant, warm, social, and many

others of like character.

A third principle was the employment of unusual words; examples are found

in the _Story of Rimini_ in the first edition and in other poems produced

about this same time. In the _Poetical Works_, 1832, most of them have

been discarded. The preface states that the "occasional quaintnesses and

neologisms" which "formerly disfigured the poems did not arise from

affectation but from the sheer license of animal spirits"; that they are

not worth defending and that he has left only two in the _Story of

Rimini_, "swirl" and "cored." "Swaling" had been the most famous one in

the poem because of the ridicule heaped upon it by the enemies of the

Cockney School.

To use ordinary words in an extraordinary sense was a fourth principle.

The effect was often extremely awkward. Core passes as a synonym for

heart; fry occurs in _Rimini_ in a strange sense; hip and tiptoe are

employed with a special Huntian significance. Nouns and adjectives are

used as verbs and verbs as nouns and adjectives with an unpoetical effect:

cored (verb); drag (noun); frets (noun); feel (noun); patting (adjective);

spanning (adjective); lull'd (adjective); smearings; measuring;

doings.[72]

The use of compounds is a fifth distinguishing feature. Such combinations

are found as bathing-air, house-warm lips, side-long pillowed meekness,

fore-thoughted chess, pin-drop silence, tear-dipped feeling.

The sixth and last peculiarity is the preference for adjectives in _y_ and

_ing_, many of them of his own coinage; for adverbs in _ly_; and for

unauthorized or awkward comparatives: examples are plumpy (cheeks), knify,

perky, sweepy, farmy, bosomy, pillowy, arrowy, liny, leafy, scattery,

winy, globy; hasting, silvering, doling, blubbing, firming, thickening,

quickening, differing, perking; lightsomely, refreshfully, thrillingly,

kneadingly, lumpishly, smilingly, preparingly, crushingly,[73] finelier,

martialler, tastefuller, apter.

The colloquial vocabulary, the familiar tone, and the expansion of thought

into phrases and clauses where it would have gained by condensed

expression, give to the _Story of Rimini_ a prosaic and eccentric style.

Yet Hunt declared he held in horror eccentricity and prosiness.[74]

In a discussion of the influence of Leigh Hunt upon the versification of

his contemporaries and successors it is necessary to consider not only his

theory but also the active part played by him as a conscious reviver of

the older heroic couplet. In this reaction against the school of Pope, as

also in the use of blank verse, he showed great independence in discarding

approved models. The notes added to the _Feast of the Poets_ in 1814, when

it was republished from the _Reflector_ of 1812, are important in this

connection. They show a wide familiarity with modern poetry. He writes:

"The late Dr. Darwin, whose notion of poetical music, in common with

that of Goldsmith and others, was of the school of Pope, though his

taste was otherwise different, was perhaps the first, who by carrying

it to the extreme pitch of sameness, and ringing it affectedly in

one's ears, gave the public at large a suspicion that there was

something wrong in its nature. But of those who saw its deficiencies,

part had the ambition without the taste or attention requisite for

striking into a better path, and became eccentric in another extreme;

while others, who saw the folly of both, were content to keep the

beaten track and set a proper example to neither. By these appeals,

however, the public ear has been excited to expect something better;

and perhaps there was never a more favourable time than the present

for an attempt to bring back the real harmonies of the English

heroic, and to restore it to half the true principle of its music,

variety. I am not here joining the cry of those, who affect to

consider Pope as no poet at all. He is, I confess, in my judgment, at

a good distance from Dryden, and at an immeasurable one from such men

as Spenser and Milton; but if the author of the _Rape of the Lock_,

of _Eloisa to Abelard_, and of the _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, is

no poet, then are fancy and feeling no properties belonging to

poetry. I am only considering his versification; and upon that point

I do not hesitate to say, that I regard him, not only as no master of

his art, but as a very indifferent practiser, and one whose

reputation will grow less and less, in proportion as the lovers of

poetry become intimate with his great predecessors, and with the

principles of musical beauty in general."[75]

The remarks on Pope close with the hope that the imitation of the best

work of Dryden, Milton and Spenser "might lead the poets of the present

age to that proper mixture of sweetness and strength--of modern finish and

ancient variety--from which Pope and his rhyming facilities have so long

withheld us."[76] Hunt closes with an appeal for the return to Italian

models, and says that Hayley, in his _Triumphs of Temper_ was "the

quickest of our late writers to point out the great superiority of the

Italian school over the French." He protests against the wide influence of

Boileau.[77]

The Introduction to the _Poetical Works_ of 1832 contains a concise and

technical statement of Hunt's theory of the heroic couplet. He argues that

the triplet tends to condensation, three lines instead of four; that it

carries onward the fervor of the poet's feeling, delivering him from the

ordinary laws of his verse, and that it expresses continuity. Of the

bracket he says: "I confess I like the very bracket that marks out the

triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the music of it. It has

a look like the bridge of a lute."[78] The use of the Alexandrine in the

heroic couplet, he avers, gives variety and energy. Double rhymes are

defended on historical grounds. For himself he claims credit as a

restorer, not an innovator, and prophesies that the perfection of the

heroic couplet is "to come about by a blending between the inharmonious

freedom of our old poets in general ... and the regularity of Dryden

himself.... If anyone could unite the vigor of Dryden with the ready and

easy variety of pause in the works of the late Mr. Crabbe, and the lovely

poetic consciousness in the _Lamia_ of Keats ... he would be a perfect

master of the rhyming couplet." A study of the heroic couplet from Dryden

to Shelley based on two hundred lines from each poet has yielded the

results indicated in the table on the following page.

Professor Saintsbury says: "There is no doubt that his [Hunt's]

versification in _Rimini_ (which may be described as Chaucerian in basis

with a strong admixture of Dryden, further crossed and dashed slightly

with the peculiar music of the followers of Spenser, especially Browne and

Wither) had a very strong influence both on Keats and on Shelley, and that

it drew from them music much better than itself. This fluent, musical,

many-colored-verse was a capital medium for tale telling."[79] Professor

Herford marks it as the "starting point of that free or Chaucerian

treatment of the heroic couplet and of the colloquial style, eschewing

epigram and full of familiar turns, which Shelley in _Julian and Maddalo_,

and Keats in _Lamia_, made classical."[82] Mr. R. B. Johnson calls it "a

protest against the polished couplet of Pope--a protest already expressed

to some extent in the _Lyrical Ballads_, but through Hunt's influence,

guiding the pens of Keats, Shelley and some of his noblest successors."[83]

Mr. A. J. Kent says that "No one-sided sentiment of reaction against our

so-called Augustan literature disqualified Leigh Hunt from becoming, as he

afterwards became, the greatest master since the days of Dryden of the

heroic couplet."[84] Leigh Hunt's greatest mistake in the handling of the

couplet has been clearly pointed out by Mr. Colvin, who says that he

"blended the grave and the colloquial cadences of Dryden, without his

characteristic nerve and energy in either."[85] The late Dr. Garnett said

that the ease and variety of Dryden was restored by Hunt to English

literature.[86] Monkhouse pointed out that Keats and Shelley, more than

Hunt, reaped the rewards of his revivification of the heroic couplet. The

diffuseness of the diction of the _Story of Rimini_ results in a movement

weaker than Dryden's and less buoyant than Chaucer's. Yet the verse is

distinguished by a fluency and grace and melody that at times are very

pleasing. It had a notable influence on English verse--an influence begun

by others but strongly reinforced by Hunt. Further treatment of the

influence of Hunt's diction and versification upon Keats and Shelley is

reserved for chapters II and III of the present study.

---------------+-------------------------------------------------

|Dryden,

|_Absalom & Achitophel_,

|1682.

| +----------------------------------------------

| |Wm. Chamberlayne,

| |_Pharronida_, 1689.

| + +-------------------------------------------

| | |Alexander Pope,

| | |_Dunciad_, 1727.

| | + +----------------------------------------

| | | |Leigh Hunt,[80]

| | | |_Story of Rimini_, 1816.

| | | + +-------------------------------------

| | | | + +----------------------------------

| | | | | + +-------------------------------

| | | | | | + +----------------------------

| | | | | | | + +-------------------------

---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-------------------------

Run-on Couplets| 4|61| 1| 3|23|47|54|20|45

Run-on Lines |16|71|12|26|41|48|44|35|52

Triplets | 3| 0| 0| 2| 0| 0| 0| 5| 4

Alexandrines | 3| 0| 1| 2| 0| 0| 3|12| 0

---------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--

Hunt's next poetical work after _Rimini_ was _Foliage_, published in 1818.

It is a collection of original poems under the title _Greenwoods_, and of

translations under the title _Evergreens_.[87] In the preface Hunt

announces the main features to be a love of sociability, of the country,

and of the "fine imagination of the Greeks."[88] The first predilection

runs the gamut from "sociability" to "domestic interest" and is the most

fundamental characteristic of the author and of his writing. In the

preface to _One Hundred Romances of Real Life_ he declares sociability to

be "the greatest of all interests." It rarely failed to crop out when he

was writing even on the gravest and most impersonal of subjects. In his

intercourse with strangers, this same "sociability," added to a natural

kindliness and sympathy, caused a familiarity of bearing that was often

misunderstood. The _Nymphs_, the longest poem of the volume, is founded on

Greek mythology and is interesting in connection with Keats's poems on

classical subjects. Shelley said that the _Nymphs_ was "truly _poetical_,

in the intense and emphatic sense of the word. If 600 miles were not

between us, I should say what pity that _glib_ was not omitted, and that

the poem is not so faultless as it is beautiful."[89] In general Shelley

overestimated Hunt's poetry, though he saw some of its affectations.

Shorter pieces were epistles to Byron, Moore, Hazlitt and Lamb--a kind of

verse in which Hunt excelled, for his attitude and style were peculiarly

adapted to the familiar tone permissible in such writing. Among Hunt's

best poems may be counted the sonnets to Shelley, Keats, Haydon, Raphael,

and Kosciusko; those entitled the _Grasshopper and the Cricket_, _To the

Nile_, _On a Lock of Milton's Hair_, and the series on Hampstead. The

suburban charms of Hampstead were very dear to Hunt and he never tired of

celebrating them in poetry and in prose. No amount of derision from the

_Quarterly_ or _Blackwood's_ stopped him. The general characteristics of

_Foliage_ are much the same as those of the _Story of Rimini_. There are

poor lines and good ones, never sustained power, and no poetry of a very

high order. The subjects themselves are often unpoetical. Hunt obtrudes

himself too frequently in a breezy, offhand manner. Byron's opinion of the

book was scathing:

"Of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love

upon a Nightmare, I think 'this monstrous Sagittary' the most

prodigious. _He_ (Leigh H.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded

himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure

simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of

_him_self in the _Morning Post_) for Vates in both senses and

nonsenses of the word. Did you [Moore] look at the translations of

his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so?--Did you

read his skimble-skamble about Wordsworth being at the head of his

own _profession_, in the _eyes_ of _those_ who followed it? I thought

that poetry was an _art_, or an _attribute_, and not a _profession_;

but be it one, is that ... at the head of _your_ profession in your

eyes?"[90]

Other poems belonging to this period are _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus

and Ariadne_ in 1819, and a translation of Tasso's _Aminta_ in 1820. The

first two show Hunt's faculty for poetical narrative and description, and,

in common with Keats, a partiality for classical subjects. The three are

in no way radically different from the poems already considered.

The _Literary Pocket Book_ which Hunt edited in 1820, 1821 and 1822, the

_New Monthly Magazine_ to which he began contributing in 1821, and the

_Literary Examiner_, which he established in 1823, complete the

enumeration of his writings during the period of his association with

Byron, Shelley and Keats. Beyond the contributions of Shelley and Keats to

the first and the reviews of Byron's poems in the third, they are

unimportant here.