Mr Hunt arrives in Italy--Meeting with Lord Byron--Tumults in the
House--Arrangements for Mr Hunt's Family---Extent of his Obligations
to Lord Byron--Their Copartnery--Meanness of the whole Business
On receiving Mr Shelley's letter, Mr Hunt prepared to avail himself
of the invitation which he was the more easily enabled to do, as his
friend, notwithstanding what he had intimated, borrowed two hundred
pounds from Lord Byron, and remitted to him. He reached Leghorn soon
after his Lordship had taken up his temporary residence at Monte
Nero.
The meeting with his Lordship was in so many respects remarkable,
that the details of it cannot well be omitted. The day was very hot;
and when Hunt reached the house he found the hottest-looking
habitation he had ever seen. Not content with having a red wash over
it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds--a salmon-colour;
but the greatest of all heats was within.
Lord Byron was grown so fat that he scarcely knew him; and was
dressed in a loose nankeen jacket and white trousers, his neckcloth
open, and his hair in thin ringlets about his throat; altogether
presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and
curly-headed person whom Hunt had known in England.
His Lordship took the stranger into an inner room, and introduced him
to a young lady who was in a state of great agitation. This was the
Guiccioli; presently her brother also, in great agitation, entered,
having his arm in a sling. This scene and confusion had arisen from
a quarrel among the servants, in which the young Count, having
interfered, had been stabbed. He was very angry, the Countess was
more so, and would not listen to the comments of Lord Byron, who was
for making light of the matter. Indeed, it looked somewhat serious,
for though the stab was not much, the inflicter threatened more, and
was at that time revengefully keeping watch, with knotted brows,
under the portico, with the avowed intention of assaulting the first
person who issued forth. He was a sinister-looking, meager caitiff,
with a red cap--gaunt, ugly, and unshaven; his appearance altogether
more squalid and miserable than Englishmen would conceive it possible
to find in such an establishment. An end, however, was put to the
tragedy by the fellow throwing himself on a bench, and bursting into
tears--wailing and asking pardon for his offence, and perfecting his
penitence by requesting Lord Byron to kiss him in token of
forgiveness. In the end, however, he was dismissed; and it being
arranged that Mr Hunt should move his family to apartments in the
Lanfranchi palace at Pisa, that gentleman returned to Leghorn.
The account which Mr Hunt has given, in his memoir of Lord Byron, is
evidently written under offended feeling; and, in consequence, though
he does not appear to have been much indebted to the munificence of
his Lordship, the tendency is to make his readers sensible that he
was, if not ill used, disappointed. The Casa Lanfranchi was a huge
and gaunt building, capable, without inconvenience or intermixture,
of accommodating several families. It was, therefore, not a great
favour in his Lordship, considering that he had invited Mr Hunt from
England, to become a partner with him in a speculation purely
commercial, to permit him to occupy the ground-floor or flat, as it
would be called in Scotland. The apartments being empty, furniture
was necessary, and the plainest was provided; good of its kind and
respectable, it yet could not have cost a great deal. It was chosen
by Mr Shelley, who intended to make a present of it to Mr Hunt; but
when the apartments were fitted up, Lord Byron insisted upon paying
the account, and to that extent Mr Hunt incurred a pecuniary
obligation to his Lordship. The two hundred pounds already mentioned
was a debt to Mr Shelley, who borrowed the money from Lord Byron.
Soon after Mr Hunt's family were settled in their new lodgings,
Shelley returned to Leghorn, with the intention of taking a sea
excursion--in the course of which he was lost: Lord Byron knowing
how much Hunt was dependent on that gentleman, immediately offered
him the command of his purse, and requested to be considered as
standing in the place of Shelley, his particular friend. This was
both gentlemanly and generous, and the offer was accepted, but with
feelings neither just nor gracious: "Stern necessity and a large
family compelled me," says Mr Hunt, "and during our residence at Pisa
I had from him, or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me
for the money, and who doled it out to me as if my disgraces were
being counted, the sum of seventy pounds."
"This sum," he adds, "together with the payment of our expenses when
we accompanied him from Pisa to Genoa, and thirty pounds with which
he enabled us subsequently to go from Genoa to Florence, was all the
money I ever received from Lord Byron, exclusive of the two hundred
pounds, which, in the first instance, he made a debt of Mr Shelley,
by taking his bond."--The whole extent of the pecuniary obligation
appears certainly not to have exceeded five hundred pounds; no great
sum--but little or great, the manner in which it was recollected
reflects no credit either on the head or heart of the debtor.
Mr Hunt, in extenuation of the bitterness with which he has spoken on
the subject, says, that "Lord Byron made no scruple of talking very
freely of me and mine." It may, therefore, be possible, that Mr Hunt
had cause for his resentment, and to feel the humiliation of being
under obligations to a mean man; at the same time Lord Byron, on his
side, may upon experience have found equal reason to repent of his
connection with Mr Hunt. And it is certain that each has sought to
justify, both to himself and to the world, the rupture of a
copartnery which ought never to have been formed. But his Lordship's
conduct is the least justifiable. He had allured Hunt to Italy with
flattering hopes; he had a perfect knowledge of his hampered
circumstances, and he was thoroughly aware that, until their
speculation became productive, he must support him. To the extent of
about five hundred pounds he did so: a trifle, considering the
glittering anticipations of their scheme.
Viewing their copartnery, however, as a mere commercial speculation,
his Lordship's advance could not be regarded as liberal, and no
modification of the term munificence or patronage could be applied to
it. But, unless he had harassed Hunt for the repayment of the money,
which does not appear to have been the case, nor could he morally,
perhaps even legally, have done so, that gentleman had no cause to
complain. The joint adventure was a failure, and except a little
repining on the part of the one for the loss of his advance, and of
grudging on that of the other for the waste of his time, no sharper
feeling ought to have arisen between them. But vanity was mingled
with their golden dreams. Lord Byron mistook Hunt's political
notoriety for literary reputation, and Mr Hunt thought it was a fine
thing to be chum and partner with so renowned a lord. After all,
however, the worst which can be said of it is, that formed in
weakness it could produce only vexation.
But the dissolution of the vapour with which both parties were so
intoxicated, and which led to their quarrel, might have occasioned
only amusement to the world, had it not left an ignoble stigma on the
character of Lord Byron, and given cause to every admirer of his
genius to deplore, that he should have so forgotten his dignity and
fame.
There is no disputing the fact, that his Lordship, in conceiving the
plan of The Liberal, was actuated by sordid motives, and of the
basest kind, inasmuch as it was intended that the popularity of the
work should rest upon satire; or, in other words, on the ability to
be displayed by it in the art of detraction. Being disappointed in
his hopes of profit, he shuffled out of the concern as meanly as any
higgler could have done who had found himself in a profitless
business with a disreputable partner. There is no disguising this
unvarnished truth; and though his friends did well in getting the
connection ended as quickly as possible, they could not eradicate the
original sin of the transaction, nor extinguish the consequences
which it of necessity entailed. Let me not, however, be
misunderstood: my objection to the conduct of Byron does not lie
against the wish to turn his extraordinary talents to profitable
account, but to the mode in which he proposed to, and did, employ
them. Whether Mr Hunt was or was not a fit copartner for one of his
Lordship's rank and celebrity, I do not undertake to judge; but any
individual was good enough for that vile prostitution of his genius,
to which, in an unguarded hour, he submitted for money. Indeed, it
would be doing injustice to compare the motives of Mr Hunt in the
business with those by which Lord Byron was infatuated. He put
nothing to hazard; happen what might, he could not be otherwise than
a gainer; for if profit failed, it could not be denied that the
"foremost" poet of all the age had discerned in him either the
promise or the existence of merit, which he was desirous of
associating with his own. This advantage Mr Hunt did gain by the
connection; and it is his own fault that he cannot be recollected as
the associate of Byron, but only as having attempted to deface his
monument.