Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries
Mr. Shelley. With a Criticism on his Genius.
LORD BYRON
AND
SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES;
WITH
RECOLLECTIONS OF
THE AUTHOR’S LIFE,
AND OF HIS
VISIT TO ITALY.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
“It is for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth.
“In the examples, which I here bring in, of what I have heard,
read, done, or said, I have forbid myself to dare to alter even the most light and
indifferent circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one tittle. What my ignorance
may do, I cannot say.” Montaigne.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1828.
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MR. SHELLEY.
WITH A CRITICISM ON HIS GENIUS, AND
MR. TRELAWNEY’S NARRATIVE OF HIS LOSS AT SEA.
Mr. Shelley, when he died, was in his
thirtieth year. His figure was tail and slight, and his constitution consumptive. He was
subject to violent spasmodic pains, which would sometimes force him to lie on the ground till
they were over; but he had always a kind word to give to those about him, when his pangs
allowed him to speak. In this organization, as well as in some other respects, he resembled the
German poet, Schiller. Though well-turned, his shoulders
were bent a little, owing to premature thought and trouble. The same causes had touched his
hair with grey: and though his habits of temperance and exercise gave him a remarkable degree
of strength, it is not supposed that he could have lived many years. He used to say, that he
had lived three times as long as the calendar gave out; which he would prove, between jest and
earnest, by some remarks on Time,
“That would have puzzled that stout Stagyrite.” |
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Like the Stagyrite’s, his voice was high and weak. His eyes
were large ![]()
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and animated, with a dash of wildness in them; his face
small, but well-shaped, particularly the mouth and chin, the turn of which was very sensitive
and graceful. His complexion was naturally fair and delicate, with a colour in the cheeks. He
had brown hair, which, though tinged with grey, surmounted his face well, being in considerable
quantity, and tending to a curl. His side-face upon the whole was deficient in strength, and
his features would not have told well in a bust; but when fronting and looking at you
attentively, his aspect had a certain seraphical character that would
have suited a portrait of John the Baptist, or the angel whom
Milton describes as holding a reed “tipt
with fire.” Nor would the most religious mind, had it known him, have objected to the
comparison; for, with all his scepticism, Mr. Shelley’s
disposition may be truly said to have been any thing but irreligious. A person of much eminence
for piety in our times has well observed, that the greatest want of religious feeling is not to
be found among the greatest infidels, but among those who never think of religion but as a
matter of course. The leading feature of Mr. Shelley’s character,
may be said to have been a natural piety. He was pious towards nature, towards his friends,
towards the whole human race, towards the meanest insect of the forest. He did himself an
injustice with the public, in using the popular name of the Supreme Being inconsiderately. He
identified it solely with the most vulgar and tyrannical notions of a God made after the worst
human fashion; and did not sufficiently reflect, that it was often used by a juster devotion to
express a sense of the great Mover of the universe. An impatience in contradicting worldly and
pernicious notions of a supernatural power, led his own aspirations to be misconstrued; for
though, in the severity of his dialectics, and particularly in moments of despondency, he
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times appeared to be hopeless of what he most
desired,—and though he justly thought, that a Divine Being would prefer the increase of
benevolence and good before any praise, or even recognition of himself, (a reflection worth
thinking of by the intolerant,) yet there was in reality no belief to which he clung with more
fondness than that of some great pervading “Spirit of Intellectual Beauty;” as may
be seen in his aspirations on that subject. He said to me in the cathedral at Pisa, while the
organ was playing, “What a divine religion might be found out, if charity were really
made the principle of it, instead of faith!”
Music affected him deeply. He had also a delicate perception of the beauties
of sculpture. It is not one of the least evidences of his conscientious turn of mind, that with
the inclination, and the power, to surround himself in Italy with all the graces of life, be
made no sort of attempt that way; finding other use for his money, and not always satisfied
with himself for indulging even in the luxury of a boat. When he bought elegancies of any kind,
it was to give away. Boating was his great amusement. He loved the mixture of action and repose
which he found in it; and delighted to fancy himself gliding away to Utopian isles, and bowers
of enchantment. But he would give up any pleasure to do a deed of kindness. “His
life,” says Mrs. Shelley, “was spent in
the contemplation of nature, in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection. He was
an elegant scholar, and a profound metaphysician. Without possessing much scientific
knowledge, he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his observations on natural
objects: he knew every plant by its name, and was familiar with the history and habits of
every production of the earth: he could interpret, without a fault, each appearance in the
sky; and the varied phenomena of heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion. He made ![]()
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his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream,
the lake, and the waterfall.”—Preface to his Posthumous Poems, p. 14. “The
comparative solitude,” observes the same lady, “in which Mr.
Shelley lived, was the occasion that he was personally known to few; and his
fearless enthusiasm in the cause which he considered the most sacred upon earth, the
improvement of the moral. and physical state of mankind, was the chief reason why he, like
other illustrious reformers, was pursued by hatred and calumny. No man was ever more
devoted than he to the endeavour of making those around him happy; no man ever possessed
friends more unfeignedly attached to him. Before the critics contradict me, let them appeal
to any one who had ever known him. To see him was to love him.“—Ibid. This is a high character, and I, for one, know it was deserved. I
should be glad to know, how many wives of Mr. Shelley’s calumniators
could say as much of their husbands; or how many of the critics would believe them, if they
did.
Mr. Shelley’s comfort was a sacrifice to the perpetual contradiction
between the professions of society and their practice; between “the shows of things
and the desires of the mind.” Temperament and early circumstances conspired to
make him a reformer, at a time of life when few begin to think for themselves; and it was his
misfortune, as far as immediate reputation was concerned, that he was thrown upon society with
a precipitancy and vehemence, which rather startled them with fear for themselves, than allowed
them to become sensible of the love and zeal that impelled him. He was like a spirit that had
darted out of its orb, and found itself in another planet. I used to tell him that he had come
from the planet Mercury. When I heard of the catastrophe that overtook him, it seemed as if
this spirit, not sufficiently constituted like the rest of the world, to obtain their sympathy,
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gifted with a double portion of love for all living things, had
been found dead in a solitary corner of the earth, its wings stiffened, its warm heart cold;
the relics of a misunderstood nature, slain by the ungenial elements.
That the utility, however, of so much benevolence was not lost to the world,
whatever difference of opinion may exist as to its occasional mode of showing itself, will be
evinced, I hope, by the following pages.
Mr. Shelley was the eldest son of Sir Timothy
Shelley, Bart. of Castle-Goring, in
Sussex; and was born at Field Place, in that
county, the 4th of August, 1792.*
It is difficult, under any circumstances, to speak with proper delicacy of
the living connexions of the dead; but it is no violation of decorum to observe (what, indeed,
the reader knows already, if he knows any thing of Parliament,) that the family connexions of
Mr. Shelley belonged to a small party in the House of Commons, itself
belonging to another party. They were Whig Aristocrats; a distinction that, within a late
period, has been handsomely merged by some of the bearers of it into the splendour of a more
prevailing universality. To a man of genius, endowed with a metaphysical acuteness to discern
truth and falsehood, and a strong sensibility to give way to his sense of it, such an origin,
however
* Gibbon has a note in his
Decline and Fall, in which,
with a greater degree of romance than might have been expected of him, even with all
his self-love as a man of letters, he “exhorts” the noble family of the
Spensers to consider the Fairy Queen
as the “brightest jewel in their coronet.” The
Shelleys are of old standing, and have branched out into three
several baronetcies, one of which has become the representative of the kindred of
Sir Philip Sidney. Mr.
Shelley had a respect for that distinction, carelessly as he
contemplated the other family honours. He would have allowed no claim for superiority
to be put in there. But if I had a right to speak like Gibbon, and
if affection might be allowed to anticipate the voice of posterity, I would
“exhort” in like manner the race of the Shelleys to pierce through the din
of existing prejudices, and consider no sound so fair as the name of their aspiring
kinsman. |
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respectable in the ordinary point of view, was not the very luckiest
that could have happened, for the purpose of keeping him within ordinary bounds. With what
feelings is Truth to open its eyes upon this world among the most respectable of our mere party
gentry? Among licensed contradictions of all sorts? among the Christian doctrines and the
worldly practices? Among fox-hunters and their chaplains? among beneficed loungers,
noli-episcoparian bishops, rakish old gentlemen, and more startling young ones, who are old in
the folly of knowingness? In short, among all those professed demands of
what is right and noble, mixed with real inculcations of what is wrong and full of hypocrisy,
which have been so admirably exposed by Mr. Bentham, and
which he has fortunately helped some of our best living statesmen to leave out of the catalogue
of their ambitions.
Mr. Shelley began to think at a very early age, and to think too of these
anomalies. He saw, that at every step in life some compromise was expected between a truth
which he was told not to violate, and a colouring and double-meaning of it, which forced him
upon the violation.
Doubtless there are numbers of young men who discern nothing of all this;
and who, comparatively speaking, become respectable tellers of truth in spite of it. These are
the honourable part of the orthodox; good-natured fathers and husbands, conscientious
clergymen, respectable men in various walks of life, who, thinking they abide by the ideas that
have been set before them, really have very few ideas of any thing, and are only remarkable for
affording specimens of every sort of commonplace, comfortable or unhappy. On the other hand,
numbers of young men get a sense of this confusion of principles, if not with a direct and
logical consciousness, yet with an instinct for turning it to account. Even some of these, by
dint of a genial nature, and upon the same ![]()
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principle on which a
heathen priest would eschew the vices of his mythology, turn out decent members of society. But
how many others are spoilt for ever! How many victims to this confusion of truth and falsehood,
apparently flourishing, but really callous or unhappy, are to be found in all quarters of the
community; men who profess opinions which contradict their whole lives; takers of oaths, which
they dispense with the very thought of; subscribers to articles which they doubt, or even
despise; triflers with their hourly word for gain; expedient statesmen; ready hirelings of
power; sneering disbelievers in good; teachers to their own children of what has spoilt
themselves, and has rendered their existence a dull and selfish mockery.
Whenever a character like Mr. Shelley’s appears
in society, it must be considered with reference to these systems. Others may consent to be
spoilt by them, and to see their fellow-creatures spoilt. He was a looker-on of a different
nature.
With this jumble, then, of truth and falsehood in his head, and a genius
born to detect it, though perhaps never quite able to rid itself of the injury, (for if ever he
deviated into an error unworthy of him, it was in occasionally condescending, though for the
kindest purposes, to use a little double-dealing,) Mr. Shelley was sent to
Eton, and afterwards to the University of
Oxford. At Eton, a Quarterly Reviewer recollects him
setting trees on fire with a burning-glass; a proceeding which the critic sets down to his
natural taste for destruction. A more impartial and not less philosophic observer might have
attributed it to the natural curiosity of genius. Perhaps, if the Reviewer recollected
Mr. Shelley, Mr. Shelley no less recollected him
as one of the school-tyrants against whom he rose up, in opposition to the system of fagging.
Against this custom he formed a conspiracy; and for a time made it pause, at least as far as
his own person was concerned. Mr. Shelley’s
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feelings at this period of his life are touchingly and powerfully
described in the dedication of the Revolt of Islam.
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“Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirits sleep: a fresh May-day it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
From the near school-room, voices, that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes—
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.
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“And then I clasped my hands, and look’d around—
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground.—
So without shame I spake: ‘I will be wise,
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power; for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannise
Without reproach or check.’ I then controlled
My tears; my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.
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“And from that hour did I, with earnest thought,
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore;
Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
I cared to learn; but from that secret store
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind.”
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Mr. Shelley retained all his kindness and energy, but corrected, as he
here aspires to do, the irritability of his temper. No man, by the account of all who lived
with him, ever turned it into greater sweetness. The Reviewer, by the usual process of tyranny,
became a slave.
Mr. Shelley, I believe, was taken from Eton before
the regular period for leaving school. His unconventional spirit, penetrating, sincere, and ![]()
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demanding the reason and justice of things, was found to be
inconvenient. At Oxford it was worse. Logic was there put into his
hands; and he used it in the most uncompromising manner. The more important the proposition,
the more he thought himself bound to investigate it: the greater the demand upon his assent,
the less, upon their own principle of reasoning, he thought himself bound to grant it. The
result was expulsion.
Conceive a young man of Mr. Shelley’s character,
with no better experience of the kindness and sincerity of those whom he had perplexed, thrown
forth into society, to form his own judgments, and pursue his own career. It was “Emilius out in the World.”
but formed by his own tutorship. There is a Novel, under that title, written by the German,
La Fontaine, which has often reminded me of him. The
hero of another, by the same author, called the “Reprobate,” still more
resembles him. His way of proceeding was entirely after the fashion of those guileless, but
vehement hearts, which not being well replied to by their teachers, and finding them hostile to
inquiry, add to a natural love of truth all the passionate ardour of a generous and devoted
protection of it. Mr. Shelley had met with Mr.
Godwin’s “Political
Justice;” and he seemed to breathe, for the first time, in an open and bright
atmosphere. He resolved to square all his actions by what he conceived to be the strictest
justice, without any consideration for the opinions of those, whose little exercise of that
virtue towards himself, ill-fitted them, he thought, for better teachers, and as ill warranted
him in deferring to the opinions of the world whom they guided. That he did some extraordinary
things in consequence, is admitted: that he did many noble ones, and all with sincerity, is
well known to his friends, and will be admitted by all sincere persons. Let those who are so
fond of exposing ![]()
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their own natures, by attributing every departure
from ordinary conduct to bad motives, ask themselves what conduct could be more extraordinary
in their eyes, and at the same time less attributable to a bad motive, than the rejection of an
estate for the love of a principle. Yet Mr. Shelley rejected one. He had
only to become a yea and nay man in the House of Commons, to be one of the richest men in
Sussex. He declined it, and lived upon a comparative pittance. Even
the fortune that he would ultimately have inherited, as secured to his person, was petty in the
comparison.
We will relate another anecdote, which the conventional will not find it so
difficult to quarrel with. It trenches upon that extraordinary privilege to indulge one sex at
the expense of the other, which they guard with so jealous a care, and so many hypocritical
faces. The question, we allow, is weighty. We are far from saying it is here settled: but very
far are they themselves from having settled it; as their own writings and writhings, their own
statistics, morals, romances, tears, and even jokes will testify. The case, I understood, was
this; for I am bound to declare that I forget who told it me; but it is admirably in character,
and not likely to be invented. Mr. Shelley was present at a ball, where he
was a person of some importance. Numerous village ladies were there, old and young; and none of
the passions were absent, that are accustomed to glance in the eyes, and gossip in the tongues,
of similar gatherings together of talk and dress. In the front were seated the rank and fashion
of the place. The virtues diminished, as the seats went backward; and at the back of all,
unspoken to, but not unheeded, sat blushing a damsel who had been seduced. We do not inquire by
whom; probably by some well-dressed gentleman in the room, who thought himself entitled
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the most flourishing ladies
present, and who naturally thought so, because he had it. That sort of thing happens every day.
It was expected, that the young squire would take out one of these ladies to dance. What is the
consternation, when they see him making his way to the back benches, and handing forth, with an
air of consolation and tenderness, the object of all the virtuous scorn of the room! the person
whom that other gentleman, wrong as he had been towards her, and “wicked” as the
ladies might have allowed him to be towards the fair sex in general, would have shrunk from
touching!—Mr. Shelley, it was found, was equally unfit for
school-tyrannies, for universities, and for the chaste orthodoxy of squires’ tables. So
he went up to town.
The philosophic observer will confess, that our young author’s
experiences in education, politics, and gentlemanly morality, were not of a nature to divert
him from his notions of justice, however calculated to bring him into trouble. Had he now
behaved himself pardonably in the eyes of the orthodox, he would have gone to London with the
resolution of sowing his wild oats, and becoming a decent member of society; that is to say, he
would have seduced a few maidservants, or at least haunted the lobbies; and then bestowed the
remnant of his constitution upon some young lady of his own rank in life, and settled into a
proper church-and-king man, perhaps a member of the Suppression of Vice. This is the proper
routine, and gives one a right to be didactic. Alas! Mr. Shelley did not
do so; and bitterly had he to repent, not that he did not do it, but that he married while yet
a stripling, and that the wife whom he took was not of a
nature to appreciate his understanding, or perhaps to come from contact with it, uninjured in
what she had of her own. They separated by mutual consent, after the birth of two children. To
this measure his enemies would hardly have ![]()
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demurred; especially as
the marriage was disapproved by Mr. Shelley’s family, and the lady
of inferior rank. It might have been regarded even as something like making amends. But to one
thing they would strongly have objected. He proceeded, in the spirit of Milton’s doctrines, to pay his court to another lady. We
wish we could pursue the story in the same tone: but now came the greatest pang of
Mr. Shelley’s life. He was residing at
Bath, when news came to him that his wife had destroyed herself. It
was a heavy blow to him; and he never forgot it. Persons who riot in a debauchery of scandal,
delighting in endeavouring to pull down every one to their own standard, and in repeating the
grossest charges in the grossest words, have taken advantage of this passage in Mr.
Shelley’s life, to show their total ignorance of his nature, and to harrow
up, one would think, the feelings of every person connected with him, by the most wanton
promulgation of names, and the most odious falsehoods. Luckily, the habitual contempt of truth
which ever accompanies the love of calumny, serves to refute it with all those whose good
opinion is worth having. So leaving the scandal in those natural sinks, to which all the
calumnies and falsehoods of the time hasten, we resume our remarks with the honourable and the
decent. As little shall we dwell upon the conduct of one or two persons of better repute, who
instead of being warned against believing every malignant rumour by the nature of their own
studies, and as if they had been jealous of a zeal in behalf of mankind, which they had long
been accused of merging in speculations less noble, did not disdain to circulate the gossip of
the scandalous as far as other countries, betraying a man to repulses, who was yearning with
the love of his species; an confounding times, places, and circumstances, in the eagerness of
their paltry credulity. Among other ![]()
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falsehoods it was stated, that
Mr. Shelley, at that time living with his wife, had abruptly
communicated to her his intention of separating; upon which the other had run to a pond at the
end of the garden, and drowned herself. The fact, as we have seen, is, that they had been
living apart for some time, during which the lady was accountable to no one but herself. We
could relate another story of the catastrophe that took place, did we not feel sincerely for
all parties concerned, and wish to avoid every species of heart-burning. Nobody could lament it
more bitterly than Mr. Shelley. For a time, it tore his being to pieces;
nor is there a doubt, that however deeply he was accustomed to reason on the nature and causes
of evil, and on the steps necessary to be taken for opposing it, he was not without remorse for
having no better exercised his judgment with regard to the degree of intellect he had allied
himself with, and for having given rise to a premature independence of conduct in one unequal
to the task. The lady was greatly to be pitied; so was the survivor. Let the school-tyrants,
the University refusers of argument, and the orthodox sowers of their wild oats, with myriads
of unhappy women behind them, rise up in judgment against him. Honester men will not be
hindered from doing justice to sincerity, wherever they find it; nor be induced to blast the
memory of a man of genius and benevolence, for one painful passage in his life, which he might
have avoided, had he been no better than his calumniators.
On the death of this unfortunate lady, Mr. Shelley
married the daughter of Mr. Godwin; and resided at
Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, where he
was a blessing to the poor. His charity, though liberal, was not weak. He inquired personally
into the circumstances of the petitioners; visited the sick in their beds, (for he had gone the
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of the Hospitals on purpose to be able to practise on
occasion); and kept a regular list of industrious poor, whom he assisted with small sums to
make up their accounts.* At Marlow he wrote the Revolt of Islam. * “Another anecdote remains, not the least in interest.”
(I was speaking, in the Literary Examiner,
of an adventure of Mr. Shelley’s, at the time he was on a
visit to me at Hampstead.) Some years ago, when a house (on the
top of the Heath) “was occupied by a person whose name I forget, (and I should
suppress it in common humanity, if I did not,) I was returning home to my own, which
was at no great distance from it, after the Opera. As I approached my door, I heard
strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the voice of a man. The next day, it was
reported by the gossips, that Mr. Shelley, no Christian, (for it
was he, who was there,) had brought some ‘very strange female’ into the
house, no better of course than she ought to be. The real Christian had puzzled them.
Mr. Shelley, in coming to our house that night, had found a
woman lying near the top of the hill, in fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow
upon the ground; and winter loses nothing of its fierceness at
Hampstead. My friend, always the promptest as well as most
pitying on these occasions, knocked at the first houses he could reach, in order to
have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was, that they could not do it. He asked
for an outhouse to put her in, while he went for a doctor. Impossible! In vain he
assured them she was no impostor. They would not dispute the point with him; but doors
were closed, and windows were shut down. Had he lit upon worthy Mr. Park, the philologist, he would assuredly have
come, in spite of his Calvinism. But he lived too far off. Had he lit upon you, dear
B—n, or your neighbour D—e, you would either of you have jumped up from
amidst your books or your bed-clothes, and have gone out with him. But the paucity of
Christians is astonishing, considering the number of them. Time flies; the poor woman
is in convulsions; her son, a young man, lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a
carriage driving up to a house at a little distance. The knock is given; the warm door
opens; servants and lights pour forth. Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his
best address, which any body might recognize for that of the highest gentleman as well
as an interesting individual, and plants himself in the way of an elderly person, who
is stepping out of the carriage with his family. He tells his story. They only press on
the faster. ‘Will you go and see her?’ ‘No, Sir; there’s no
necessity for that sort of thing, depend on it: impostors swarm every where: the thing
cannot be done: Sir, your conduct is extraordinary.’ ‘Sir,’ cried
Mr. Shelley at last, assuming a very different appearance,
and forcing the flourishing householder to stop out of astonishment, ‘I am
sorry to say that your conduct is not extraordinary: and if my own seems to amaze
you, I will tell you something that may amaze you a little
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Queen Mab was an earlier
production, written at the age of seventeen or eighteen, when he married; and it was never
published with his consent. He regretted the publication when it did take place some years
afterwards, and stated as much in the newspapers, considering it a crude performance, and as
not sufficiently entering into the important questions it handled. Yet upon the strength of
this young and unpublished work, he was deprived of his two children.
The reader perhaps is not aware, that in this country of England, where the
domestic institutions are boasted of as so perfect, and are apt to be felt as so melancholy,
where freedom of opinion is so much cried up, and the tribunals take so much pains to put it
down,—where writers and philosophers in short, and what may be called the unconstituted
authorities, have done so much for all the world, and the constituted authorities, particularly
the lawyers, have done so little for
more, and I hope will frighten you. It is such men as you who madden the spirits and
the patience of the poor and wretched: and if ever a convulsion comes in this
country, (which is very probable,) recollect what I tell you;—you will have
your house, that you refuse to put the miserable woman into, burnt over your
head.’ ‘God bless me, Sir! Dear me, Sir!’ exclaimed the
frightened wretch, and fluttered into his mansion. The woman was then brought to our
house, which was at some distance, and down a bleak path; and Mr. S. and her son were
obliged to hold her, till the doctor could arrive. It appeared that she had been
attending this son in London, on a criminal charge made against him, the agitation of
which had thrown her into the fits on her return. The doctor said that she would
inevitably have perished, had she lain there a short time longer. The next day my
friend sent mother and son comfortably home to Hendon, where
they were well known, and whence they returned him thanks full of gratitude. Now go, ye
Pharisees of all sorts, and try if ye can still open your hearts and your doors like
the good Samaritan. This man was himself too brought up in a splendid mansion, and
might have revelled and rioted in all worldly goods. Yet this was one of the most
ordinary of his actions.” |
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any body but themselves,*—the reader is perhaps not aware,
that in this extraordinary country, any man’s children may be taken from him tomorrow,
who holds a different opinion from the Lord Chancellor in
faith and morals. Hume’s, if he had any, might have
been taken. Gibbon’s might have been taken. The
virtuous Condorcet, if he had been an Englishman and a
father, would have stood no chance. Plato, for his Republic, would have stood as little; and
Mademoiselle de Gournay might have been torn from
the arms of her adopted father Montaigne, convicted
beyond redemption of seeing farther than the walls of the Court of Chancery. That such things
are not done often, we believe: that they may be done oftener than people suspect, we must
unfortunately believe also; for they are transacted with closed doors, and the details are
forbidden to transpire. Mr. Shelley was convicted of holding the
unpublished opinions, which his public teachers at the University had not thought fit to reason
him out of. He was * Always excepting Bacon, who
can hardly be called a lawyer. His profession was but an accident in his life. It was
in philosophy that he lived and moved and had his being; and with it he has moved the
world. Experiment was that standing ground which Aristotle desired without knowing it, and on which the great lever has
at last been fixed. Mechanical philosophy has not only moved; it will inevitably alter
the world; and moral improvements, of all sorts, will follow. Two other lawyers’
names must be added not unworthy to follow Bacon’s; that of Mr. Bentham, who had no sooner entered the profession,
than he got out of it; and that of Henry Brougham;
who, though he remains a lawyer, presents the singular spectacle of a lawyer, equally
active in his lesser calling and his greater, and consenting, perhaps, to realize the
gains of the one, only that he may secure the power of pursuing time noblest of all
ambitions in the other. Mr. Brougham was “meant for
mankind;” and luckily he has not been prevented, by the minuter demands on his
eyesight, from looking abroad and knowing it. His world is the world it ought to
be,—the noble planet, capable of being added to the number of other planets which
have perhaps worked out their moral beauty;—not a mere little despairing corner
of it, entitled a court of justice. |
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also charged with not being of the received opinions with regard to
the intercourse of the sexes; and his children, a girl and a boy, were taken from him. The
persons who succeeded in bereaving him, did not succeed in their application to have the
children put under their own management. They were transferred to the care of an old, and I
dare say respectable, clergyman of the Church of England; and have long received all the helps
to sincerity and perfection, which Mr. Bentham has pointed out in his
remarks on that establishment. The rest depends on the natural strength of their
understandings, and what reflections they may make when they compare their father’s
practical Christianity with the theories they will see contradicted all round them. The
circumstance deeply affected Mr. Shelley: so much so, that he never
afterwards dared to trust himself with mentioning his children to the friend who stood at his
side throughout the business, and who was the dearest friend that he had. But what additional
love it generated in him towards our establishments, and their mode of reasoning, the reader
may guess. The friend in question, who had first won his regard by the liberal opinions
expressed in the Examiner, and by the unusual mode of
advising him not to print a volume of juvenile poems, (an advice which still more unusually was
taken,) has given, in that paper, an interesting account of Mr.
Shelley’s manner of * The boy is since dead; and Mr. Shelley’s
son by his second wife, the daughter of Mr.
Godwin, is heir to the baronetcy. It seldom falls to the lot of a child
to have illustrious descent so heaped upon him; his mother a woman of talents, his
father a man of genius, his grandfather, Mr Godwin, a writer
secure of immortality; his grandmother, Mr. Godwin’s wife,
the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft; and on the
side of Mr. Shelley’s ancestors he partakes of the blood of
the intellectual as well as patrician family of the Sackvilles. |
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life at this period. I quote from memory, but am correct in the
substance. Mr. Shelley, owing to time freedom of his inquiries, as well as
to the malignity of his enemies, was said to be keeping a seraglio. His friend, who partook of
some of his opinions, partook of the scandal. This keeper of a seraglio, who in fact was
extremely difficult to please in such matters, and who had no idea of love unconnected with
sentiment, passed his days like a hermit. He rose early in the morning, walked and read before
breakfast, took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the morning walked
and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither meat nor wine,) conversed with his
friends (to whom his house was ever open,) again walked out, and usually finished with reading
to his wife till ten o’clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His book
was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or the Bible, in which last he took a
great, though peculiar, and often admiring interest. One of his favourite parts was the book of Job. The writings attributed to
Solomon he thought too Epicurean, in the modern sense of the word; and
in his notions of St. Paul, he agreed with the writer of the work entitled
“Not Paul but Jesus.” For his
Christianity, in the proper sense of the word, he went to the gospel of St.
James, and to the sermon on the Mount by Christ himself,
for whose truly divine spirit he entertained the greatest reverence. There was nothing which
embittered his reviewers against him more than the knowledge of this fact, and his refusal to
identify their superstitions and worldly use of the Christian doctrines with the just idea of a
great Reformer and advocate of the many; one, whom they would have been the first to cry out
against, had he appeared now. His want of faith, indeed, ![]()
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in one
sense of the word, and his exceeding faith in the existence of goodness and the great doctrine
of charity, formed a comment, the one on the other, very formidable to the less troublesome
constructions of the orthodox.
Some alarmists at Marlow said, that if he went on at
this rate, he would make all the poor people infidels. He went on, till ill health and calumny,
and the love of his children, forced him abroad. During his residence at
Marlow, Mr. Shelley published a “Proposal for putting Reform to the
Vote” throughout England; for which purpose, as an earnest of his sincerity, he
offered to contribute a hundred pounds. This hundred pounds (which owing to his liberal habits
he could very ill spare at the time) he would have done his best to supply, by saving and
economizing. It was not uncommon with him to give away all his ready money, and be compelled to
take a journey on foot or on the top of a stage, no matter during what weather. His
constitution, though naturally consumptive, had attained, by temperance and exercise, to a
surprising power of resisting fatigue. As an instance of his extraordinary generosity, an
acquaintance of his, a man of letters, enjoyed from him at that period a pension of a hundred
a-year; and he continued to enjoy it, till fortune rendered it superfluous. But the
princeliness of his disposition was seen most in his behaviour to his friend, the writer of
this memoir, who is proud to relate, that Mr. Shelley once made him a
present of fourteen hundred pounds, to extricate him from debt. I was not extricated, for I had
not yet learnt to be careful: but the shame of not being so, after such generosity, and the
pain which my friend afterwards underwent, when I was in trouble and he was helpless, were the
first causes of my thinking of money-matters to any purpose. His last sixpence ![]()
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was ever at my service, had I chosen to share it: his house in Italy
would ever have been shared with me, had I thought it right to go thither. I went at last, with
happy views for all; and of the three who set up a work against tyranny, am the only one that
survive. It is remarkable that in a poetical epistle written some years ago, and published in
the volume of “Posthumous
Poems,” Mr. Shelley, in alluding to his friend’s
circumstances, which for the second time were then straitened, only makes an affectionate
lamentation that he himself is poor; never once hinting, that he had already drained his purse
for his friend.
From Marlow, Mr. Shelley went
with his wife and a new family to Italy, where he lived
in his usual quiet and retired manner. He had become acquainted with Lord Byron during a former visit to the Continent; and the acquaintance was now
renewed. He visited his Lordship at Venice; but it was only latterly
that he saw much of him, when they both lived at Pisa. He had the
highest admiration of his Lordship’s genius; but they differed, as might be expected, on
many other points. Lord Byron thought his philosophy too spiritual and
romantic. Mr. Shelley thought his Lordship’s too material and
despairing. The noble Lord often expressed the highest opinion of his companion’s
virtues, and of his freedom from selfishness. An account has been published of a voyage to Sicily, in which
Mr. Shelley is described as behaving with want of courage. To those
who knew him, it is unnecessary to repeat, that the whole account is a fabrication, voyage and
all. Lord Byron and he never were in Sicily, nor
ever sailed together, except on the Lake of Geneva. Mr.
Shelley’s bravery was remarkable and was the ultimate ruin of him. In a
scuffle that took place on horseback, in the streets of Pisa, with a
hot-headed dragoon, he be-![]()
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haved with a courage so distinguished, and
with so much thought for every body but himself, that Lord Byron wondered
upon what principle a man could be induced to prefer any other person’s life in that
manner, before his own. The solution of the difficulty was to be found in their different views
of human nature. Mr. Shelley would have lost his life with pleasure, to
set an example of disinterestedness: Lord Byron could do striking public
things. Greece, and an admiring public, still re-echo them. But the course of his
Lordship’s studies had led him to require, that they should be mixed up with other
stimulants.
A very melancholy period of my narrative is now arrived. In June 1822, I
arrived in Italy, in consequence of the invitation to set up a work with my friend and
Lord Byron. Mr. Shelley was passing
the summer season at a house he had taken for that purpose on the Gulf of
Lerici. He wrote to me at Genoa to say that he hoped
“the waves would never part us again;” and on hearing of my arrival at
Leghorn, came thither, accompanied by Mr. Williams, formerly of the 8th Dragoons, who was then on a visit to him. He
came to welcome his friend and family, and see us comfortably settled at
Pisa. He accordingly went with us to that city, and after remaining
in it a few days, took leave on the night of the 7th July, to return with Mr.
Williams to Lerici, meaning to come back to us shortly.
In a day or two the voyagers were missed. The afternoon of the 8th had been stormy, with
violent squalls from the southwest. A night succeeded, broken up with that tremendous thunder
and lightning, which appals the stoutest seaman in the Mediterranean, dropping its bolts in all
directions more like melted brass, or liquid pillars of fire, than any thing we conceive of
lightning in our northern climate. ![]()
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The suspense and anguish of their
friends need not be dwelt upon. A dreadful interval took place of more than a week, during
which every inquiry and every fond hope were exhausted. At the end of that period our worst
fears were confirmed. The following narrative of the particulars is from the pen of Mr. Trelawney, a friend of Lord
Byron’s, who had not long been acquainted with Mr.
Shelley; but entertained the deepest regard for him. On the present occasion,
nothing could surpass his generous and active sympathy. During the whole of the proceedings
that took place, Mr. Shelley’s and Mr.
Williams’s friends were indebted to Mr. Trelawney for
every kind of attention: the great burden of inquiry fell upon him; and he never ceased his
good offices, either then or afterwards, till he had done every thing that could have been
expected to be done, either of the humblest or the highest friend.
MR. TRELAWNEY’S NARRATIVE OF THE LOSS OF THE BOAT
CONTAINING MR. SHELLEY AND MR.
WILLIAMS, ON THE 8TH OF JULY, 1822, OFF THE COAST OF ITALY. (NOW
FIRST PUBLISHED.)
“Mr. Shelley, Mr. Williams (formerly of the 8th Dragoons),
and one seaman, Charles Vivian, left
Villa Magni near Lerici, a
small town situate in the Bay of Spezia, on the 30th of
June, at twelve o’clock, and arrived the same night at
Leghorn. Their boat had been built for Mr.
Shelley at Genoa by a captain in the
navy. It was twenty-four feet long, eight in the beam, schooner-rigged, with
gaft topsails, &c. and drew four feet water. On Monday, the 8th of July, at
the same hour, they got under weigh to return home, having on board a quantity
of household articles, four hundred dollars, a small canoe, and some books and
manuscripts. At half ![]()
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past twelve they made all sail
out of the harbour with a light and favourable breeze, steering direct for
Spezia. I had likewise weighed anchor to accompany
them a few miles out in Lord Byron’s
schooner, the Bolivar; but there was some demur about papers from the guard
boat; and they, fearful of losing the breeze, sailed without me. I re-anchored,
and watched my friends, till their boat became a speck on the horizon, which
was growing thick and dark, with heavy clouds moving rapidly, and gathering in
the south-west quarter. I then retired to the cabin, where I had not been half
an hour, before a man on deck told me, a heavy squall had come on. We let go
another anchor. The boats and vessels in the roads were scudding past us in all
directions to get into the harbour; and in a moment, it blew a hard gale from
the south-west, the sea, from excessive smoothness, foaming, breaking, and
getting up into a very heavy swell. The wind, having shifted, was now directly
against my friends. I felt confident they would be obliged to bear off for
Leghorn; and being anxious to hear of their safety,
stayed on board till a late hour, but saw nothing of them. The violence of the
wind did not continue above an hour; it then gradually subsided; and at eight
o’clock, when I went on shore, it was almost a calm. It, however, blew
hard at intervals during the night, with rain, and thunder and lightning. The
lightning struck the mast of a vessel close to us, shivering it to splinters,
killing two men, and wounding others. From these circumstances, becoming
greatly alarmed for the safety of the voyagers, a note was dispatched to
Mr. Shelley’s house at
Lerici, the reply to which stated that nothing had
been heard of him and his friend, which augmented our fears to such a degree,
that couriers were dispatched on the whole line of coast from
Leghorn to Nice, to ascertain
if they had put in any where, or if there had been any wreck, or indication of
losses by sea. I ![]()
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immediately started for
Via Reggio, having lost sight of the boat in that
direction. My worst fears were almost confirmed on my arrival there, by news
that a small canoe, two empty water-barrels, and a bottle, had been found on
the shore, which things I recognised as belonging to the boat. I had still,
however, warm hopes that these articles had been thrown overboard to clear them
from useless lumber in the storm; and it seemed a general opinion that they had
missed Leghorn, and put into Elba
or Corsica, as nothing more was heard for eight days.
This state of suspense becoming intolerable, I returned from
Spezia to Via Reggio, where
my worst fears were confirmed by the information that two bodies had been
washed on shore, one on that night very near the town, which, by the dress and
stature, I knew to be Mr. Shelley’s. Mr.
Keats’s last volume of “Lamia,” “Isabella,”
&c. being open in the jacket pocket, confirmed it beyond a
doubt. The body of Mr. Williams was subsequently found
near a tower on the Tuscan shore, about four miles from his companion. Both the
bodies were greatly decomposed by the sea, but identified beyond a doubt. The
seaman, Charles Vivian, was not found for nearly three
weeks afterwards. His body was interred in the spot on which a wave had washed
it, in the vicinity of Massa.
“After a variety of applications to the Lucchese and
Tuscan Governments, and our Ambassador at Florence, I obtained, from the
kindness and exertions of Mr. Dawkins,
an order to the officer commanding the tower of Migliarino, (near to which
Lieutenant Williams had been cast,
and buried in the sand,) that the body should be at my disposal. I likewise
obtained an order to the same effect to the Commandant at Via
Reggio, to deliver up the remains of Mr.
Shelley, it having been decided by the friends of the parties
that the bodies should be reduced to ashes by fire, as the readiest mode of
conveying them to the places ![]()
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where the deceased
would have wished to repose, as well as of removing all objections respecting
the Quarantine Laws, which had been urged against their disinterment. Every
thing being prepared for the requisite purposes, I embarked on board
Lord Byron’s schooner with my friend Captain Shenley, and sailed on the 13th of
August. After a tedious passage of eleven hours, we anchored off Via
Reggio, and fell in with two small vessels, which I had hired
at Leghorn some days before for the purpose of
ascertaining, by the means used to recover sunken vessels, the place in which
my friend’s boat had foundered. They had on board the captain of a
fishing-boat, who, having been overtaken in the same squall, had witnessed the
sinking of the boat, without (as he says) the possibility of assisting her.
After dragging the bottom, in the place which he indicated, for six days
without finding her, I sent them back to Leghorn, and
went on shore. The Major commanding the town, with the Captain of the port,
accompanied me to the Governor. He received us very courteously, and did not
object to the removal of our friend’s remains, but to burning them, as
the latter was not specified in the order. However, after some little
explanation, he assented, and we gave the necessary directions for making every
preparation to commence our painful undertaking next morning.”
It was thought that the whole of these melancholy operations
might have been performed in one day: but the calculation turned out to be
erroneous. Mr. Williams’s remains were
commenced with. Mr. Trelawney and Captain Shenley were at the tower by noon, with
proper persons to assist, and were joined shortly by Lord
Byron and myself. A portable furnace and a tent had been prepared.
“Wood,” continues Mr. Trelawney, “we
found in abundance on the beach, old trees and ![]()
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parts
of wrecks. Within a few paces of the spot where the body lay, there was a
rude-built shed of straw, forming a temporary shelter for soldiers at night,
when performing the coast-patrole duty. The grave was at high-water mark, some
eighteen paces from the surf, as it was then breaking, the distance about four
miles and a half from Via Reggio. The magnificent
bay of Spezia is on the right of this spot,
Leghorn on the left, at equal distances of about
twenty-two miles. The headlands, projecting boldly and far into the sea, form a
deep and dangerous gulf, with a heavy swell and a strong current generally
running right into it. A vessel embayed in this gulf, and overtaken by one of
the squalls so common upon the coast of it, is almost certain to be wrecked.
The loss of small craft is great; and the shallowness of the water, and
breaking of the surf, preventing approach to the shore, or boats going out to
assist, the loss of lives is in proportion. It was in the centre of this bay,
about four or five miles at sea, in fifteen or sixteen fathom water, with a
light breeze under a crowd of sail, that the boat of our friends was suddenly
taken clap aback by a sudden and very violent squall; and it is supposed that
in attempting to bear up under such a press of canvass, all the sheets fast,
the hands unprepared, and only three persons on board, time boat filled to
leeward, and having two tons of ballast, and not being decked, went down on the
instant; not giving them a moment to prepare themselves by even taking off
their boots, or seizing an oar. Mr. Williams was the only
one who could swim, and he but indifferently. The spot where Mr.
Williams’s body lay was well adapted for a man of his
imaginative cast of mind, and I wished his remains to rest undisturbed; but it
was willed otherwise. Before us was the sea, with islands; behind us time
Apennines; beside us, a large tract of thick wood,
stunted and twisted into fantastic ![]()
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shapes by the
sea-breeze. The heat was intense, the sand being so scorched as to render
standing on it painful.”
Mr. Trelawney proceeds to describe the disinterment and
burning of Mr. Williams’s remains. Calumny, which
never shows itself grosser than in its charges of want of refinement, did not spare even these
melancholy ceremonies. The friends of the deceased, though they took no pains to publish the
proceeding, were accused of wishing to make a sensation; of doing a horrible and unfeeling
thing, &c. The truth was, that the nearest connexions, both of Mr.
Shelley and Mr. Williams, wished to have their remains
interred in regular places of burial; and that for this purpose they could be removed in no
other manner. Such being the case, it is admitted that the mourners did not refuse themselves
the little comfort of supposing, that lovers of books and antiquity, like Mr.
Shelley and his friend, would not have been sorry to foresee this part of their
fate. Among the materials for burning, as many of the gracefuller and more classical articles
as could be procured—frankincense, wine, &c. were not forgotten.
The proceedings of the next day, with Mr.
Shelley’s remains, exactly resembled those of the foregoing, with the
exception of there being two assistants less. The inaccuracies of Captain Medwin on this subject I have noticed before. On both days, the
extraordinary beauty of the flame arising from the funeral pile was noticed. The weather was
beautifully fine. The Mediterranean, now soft and lucid, kissed the shore as if to make peace
with it. The yellow sand and blue sky intensely contrasted with one another: marble mountains
touched the air with coolness, and the flame of the fire bore away towards heaven in vigorous
amplitude, waving and quivering with a brightness of incon-![]()
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ceivable
beauty. It seemed as though it contained the glassy essence of vitality. You might have
expected a seraphic countenance to look out of it, turning once more, before it departed, to
thank the friends that had done their duty.
Among the various conjectures respecting this lamentable event, a suspicion
was not wanting, that the boat had been run down by a larger one, with a view to plunder it.
Mr. Shelley was known to have taken money on board. Crimes of that
nature had occurred often enough to warrant such a suspicion; and they could be too soon washed
out of the consciences of the ignorant perpetrators by confession. But it was lost in the more
probable conclusions arising from the weather. One bitter consolation to the friends of
Mr. Shelley was, that his death, as far as he alone was concerned, was
of a nature he would have preferred to many others, probably to any. A reflection, more
pleasing, reminded them, that in the rapid decomposition occasioned by the sea and the fire,
the mortal part of him was saved from that gradual corruption, which is seldom contemplated
without shuddering by a lively imagination. And yet the same imagination and suffering which
make us cling to life at one time, and give us a horror of dissolution, can render the grave
desirable and even beautiful at another. Mr. Shelley’s remains were
taken to Rome, and deposited in the Protestant
burial-ground, near those of a child he had lost in that city, and of Mr. Keats. It is the cemetery he speaks of in the preface to
his Elegy on the death of his young friend,
as calculated to “make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in
so sweet a place.” A like tenderness of patience, in one who possessed a like
energy, made Mr. Keats say on his death-bed that he “seemed to
feel the daisies growing over him.” ![]()
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These are the
feelings that servile critics ridicule, and that all other human beings respect. The generous
reader will be glad to hear, that the remains of Mr. Shelley were attended
to their final abode by some of the most respectable English residents in Rome. He was sure to
awaken the sympathy of gallant and accomplished spirits wherever he went, alive or dead. The
remains of Mr. Williams were taken to England.
Mr. Williams was a very intelligent, good-hearted man, and his death
was deplored by friends worthy of him.
The writer who criticised the “Posthumous Poems,” in the “Edinburgh Review,” does justice to the
excellence of Mr. Shelley’s intentions, and acknowledges him to be
one of those rare persons called men of genius; but accuses him of a number of faults, which he
attributes to the predominance of his will, and a scorn of every thing received and
conventional. To this cause he traces the faults of his poetry, and what he conceives to be the
errors of his philosophy. Furthermore, he charges Mr. Shelley with a want
of reverence for antiquity, and quotes a celebrated but not unequivocal passage from Bacon, where the Philosopher, according to the advice of the
Prophet, recommends us to take our stand upon the ancient ways, and see what road we are to
take for progression. He says Mr. Shelley had “too little
sympathy with the feelings of others, which he thought he had a right to sacrifice, as well
as his own, to a grand ethical experiment; and asserts that if a thing were old and
established, this was with him a certain proof of its having no solid foundation to rest
upon: if it was new, it was good and right: every paradox was to him a self-evident truth:
every prejudice an undoubted absurdity. The weight of authority, the sanction of ages, the
common consent of mankind, were vouchers only for ignorance, error, and imposture. Whatever
shocked the feelings of others, conciliated ![]()
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his regard; whatever
was light, extravagant, and vain, was to him a proportionable relief from the dulness and
stupidity of established opinions.” This is caricature; and caricature of an
imaginary original.
Alas! Mr. Shelley was so little relieved by what was
light and vain, (if I understand what the Reviewer means by those epithets,) and so little
disposed to quarrel with the common consent of mankind, where it seemed reasonably founded,
that at first he could not endure even the comic parts of Lord
Byron’s writings, because he thought they tended to produce mere
volatility instead of good; and he afterwards came to relish them, because he found an accord
with them in the bosoms of society. Whatever shocked the feeling of others so little
conciliated his regard, that with the sole exception of matters of religion (which is a point
on which the most benevolent Reformers, authors of “grand ethical experiments,” in
all ages, have thought themselves warranted in hazarding alarm and astonishment,) his own
feelings were never more violated than by disturbances given to delicacy, to sentiment, to the
affections. If ever it seemed otherwise, as in the subject of his tragedy of the Cenci, it was only out of a more intense
apprehensiveness, and the right it gave him to speak. He saw, in every species of tyranny and
selfish will, an image of all the rest of the generation. That a love of paradox is
occasionally of use to remind commonplaces of their weakness, and to prepare the way for
liberal opinions, nobody knows better or has more unequivocally shown than Mr.
Shelley’s critic; and yet I am not aware that Mr.
Shelley was at all addicted to paradox; or that he loved any contradiction, that
did not directly contradict some great and tyrannical abuse. Prejudices that he thought
innocent, no man was more inclined to respect, or even to fall in with. He was prejudiced in
favour of the dead languages; he had a theoretical an-![]()
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tipathy to
innovations in style; he had almost an English dislike of the French and their literature, a
philosopher or two excepted: it cost him much to reconcile himself to manners that were not
refined; and even with regard to the prejudices of superstition, or the more poetical sides of
popular faith, where they did not interfere with the daily and waking comforts of mankind, he
was for admitting them with more than a spirit of toleration. It would be hazardous to affirm
that he did not believe in spirits and genii. This is not setting his face against “every
received mystery, and all traditional faith.” He set his face, not against a mystery nor
a self-evident proposition, but against whatever he conceived to be injurious to human good,
and whatever his teachers would have forced down his throat, in defiance of the inquiries they
had suggested. His opposition to what was established, as I have said before, is always to be
considered with reference to that feature in his disposition, and that fact in his history. Of
antiquity and authority he was so little a scorner, that his opinions, novel as some of them
may be thought, are all to be found in writers, both ancient and modern, and those not obscure
ones or empirical, but men of the greatest and wisest, and best names,—Plato and Epicurus, Montaigne, Bacon,
Sir Thomas More. Nothing in him was his own, but the
genius that impelled him to put philosophical speculations in the shape of poetry, and a subtle
and magnificent style, abounding in Hellenisms, and by no means exempt (as he acknowledged)
from a tendency to imitate whatever else he thought beautiful, in ancient or modern writers.
But Mr. Shelley was certainly definite in his object:
he thought it was high time for society to come to particulars: to know what they would have.
With regard to marriage, for instance, he was tired with ![]()
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the
spectacle continually presented to his eyes, of a community always feeling sore upon that
point, and cowed, like a man by his wife, from attempting some real improvement in it. There
was no end, he thought, of setting up this new power, and pulling down that, if the one, to all
real home purposes, proceeded just as the other did, and nothing was gained to society but a
hope and a disappointment. This, in his opinion, was not the kind of will to be desired, in
opposition to one with more definite objects. We must not, he thought, be eternally
generalizing, shilly-shallying, and coquetting between public submission and private
independence; but let a generous understanding and acknowledgment of what we are in want of, go
hand in hand with our exertions in behalf of change; otherwise, when we arrive at success, we
shall find success itself in hands that are but physically triumphant—hands that hold up
a victory on a globe, a splendid commonplace, as a new-old thing for us to worship. This, to be
sure, is standing super vias antiquas; but not in order to “make
progression.” The thing is all to be done over again. If there is “something
rotten in the state of Denmark,” let us mend it, and not set up Sweden or Norway,
to knock down this rottenness with rottenness of their own; continually waiting for others to
do our work, and finding them do it in such a manner, as to deliver us bound again into the
hands of the old corruptions. We must be our own deliverers. An Essay on the Disinterestedness
of Human Action is much; but twenty articles to show that the most disinterested person in the
world is only a malcontent and a fanatic, can be of no service but to baffle conduct and
resolution, in favour of eternal theory and the talking about it.
Mr. Shelley had no doubt a great deal of will; but the mistake of the
Reviewer lies in giving it an antipathetical,
instead of a sympathetic ![]()
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character. This may be the fault of some
reformers. It may also be a fault of others to lament the want of will in their brethren at one
time, and the excess of it at another, but particularly the want; satirizing the sparing and
fastidious conduct of the better part of the lovers of freedom, “the inconsistent,
vacillating good,” and bewailing the long misfortunes of the world, which a few
energetic persons might put an end to by a resolute and unconditional exercise of their free
agency. The writer in question is not exempt from these inconsistencies. I do not accuse him of
want of sympathy. On the contrary, I think the antipathies which he has sometimes given way to
so strangely, and the will which he at other times recommends, and at all times sets an example
of, arise out of the impatience of his very sympathy with mankind. This it is, which together
with his own extraordinary amount of talent, and the interesting evidences of it which
continually appear, has for so long a time kept his friends in good blood with him, whatever
mood he has happened to be in; though he has tried them, of late, pretty hard. But this it is
also, which ought to have led him into a different judgment with regard to Mr.
Shelley. A greater portion of will among reformers is desirable; but it does not
follow that an occasional excess of it (if such) can or does do the mischief he supposes, or
furnishes any excuse worth mention for the outcries and pretended arguments of the opposite
party. If he will have a good deal of will, he must occasionally have an excess of it. The
party in question, that is to say, all the bad systems and governments existing, with all their
slaves and dependents, have an infinite will of their own, which they already make use of, with
all their might, to put down every endeavour against it: and the world in general is so
deafened with the noise of ordinary things, and the great working of the system which abuses
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cess in the lifting up of a reforming voice
appears to be necessary to make it listen. It requires the example of a spirit not so prostrate
as its own, to make it believe that all hearts are not alike kept under, and that the hope of
reformation is not everywhere given up. This is the excuse for such productions as Werter, the Stranger, and other appeals to the first principles
of sympathy and disinterestedness. This is the excuse for the paradoxes of Rousseau; for the extravagances of some of the Grecian
philosophers (which were necessary to call the attention to all parts of a question); and if I
did not wish to avoid hazarding misconception, and hurting the feelings, however unreasonably,
of any respectable body of men, I might add stronger cases in point; cases, in which principles
have been pushed to their greatest and most impracticable excess, for the purpose, we are told,
of securing some attention to the reasonable part of them. Mr. Shelley
objected to the present state of the intercourse of the sexes, and the vulgar notions of the
Supreme Being. He also held with Sir Thomas More, that a
community of property was desirable; an opinion, which obtained him more ill-will, perhaps,
than any other, at least in the class among which he was born. The Reviewer implies, that he
put forth some of these objections alarmingly or extravagantly. Be it so. The great point is to
have a question discussed. The advocates of existing systems of all sorts are strong enough to
look to the defence whereas, those who suffer by them are so much intimidated by their very
sufferings, as to be afraid to move, lest they should be worse off than they are at present.
They do not want to know their calamity; they know it well enough. They require to be roused,
and not always to sit groaning over, or making despairing jests of their condition. If a
friend’s excess excites them to differ with him, they are still incited to look at the
question. His sympathy moves them to he ashamed of their ![]()
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passiveness, and to consider what may be done. We need not fear, that it will be too much. At
the very least, matters will find their level, if we are our own masters under Providence; if
Nature works with us for tools, and intends amelioration through the means of our knowledge, we
are roused to some purpose. If not, or if we are to go so far and no farther, no farther shall
we go. The sweet or bitter waters of humanity will assuredly find where to settle.
The Reviewer, still acknowledging
the genius of Mr. Shelley, and his benevolent intentions, finds the same
fault with his poetry as with his philosophy, and traces it to the same causes. Of all my
friend’s writings, the poetical parts are those which I should least conceive to subject
him to the charge of want of sympathy. Is the quarrelling with constituted authorities and
received calamities, the same thing as scorning the better part of what exists? Is the quitting
the real world for the ideal in search of consolation, the same thing as thrusting one’s
foot against it in contempt, and flying off on the wings of antipathy? And what did
Mr. Shelley carry thither when he went? A perpetual consciousness of
his humanity; a clinging load of the miseries of his fellow-creatures. The Witch of Atlas, for example, is but
a personification of the imaginative faculty in its most airy abstractions; and yet the author
cannot indulge himself long in that fairy region, without dreaming of
mortal strife. If he is not in this world, he must have visions of it. If fiction is his
reality by day, reality will be his fiction during his slumbers. The truth is, Mr.
Shelley was in his whole being, mental and physical, of an extreme delicacy and
sensibility. He felt every part of his nature intensely; and his impulse, object, and use in
this world, was to remind others of some important points touching our common nature and
endeavours, by affording a more than ordinary example of their effect ![]()
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upon himself. It may be asked, who are to be reminded? how many? To which we answer, those
who have been reminded already, as well as the select portion who remain to be so; never mind
how few, provided they are reminded to some purpose. Mr. Shelley’s
writings, it is admitted, are not calculated to be popular, however popular in their ultimate
tendency, or cordial in their origin. They are, for the most part, too abstract and refined.
But “fit audience though few,” is the motto of the noblest ambition; and it
is these audiences that go and settle the world.
Mr. Shelley’s poetry is invested with a dazzling and subtle
radiance, which blinds the common observer with light. Piercing beyond this, we discover that
the characteristics of his poetical writings are an exceeding sympathy with the whole universe,
material and intellectual; an ardent desire to benefit his species; an impatience of the
tyrannies and superstitions that hold them bound; and a regret that the power of one loving and
enthusiastic individual is not proportioned to his will, nor his good reception with the world
at all proportioned to his love. His poetry is either made up of all these feelings united, or
is an attempt to escape from their pressure into the widest fields of imagination. I say an
attempt,—because, as we have seen, escape he does not; and it is curious to observe how
he goes pouring forth his baffled affections upon every object he can think of, bringing out
its beauties and pretensions by the light of a radiant fancy, and resolved to do the whole
detail of the universe a sort of poetical justice, in default of being able to make his
fellow-creatures attend to justice political. From this arises the fault of his poetry, which
is a want of massiveness,—of a proper distribution of light and shade. The whole is too
full of glittering points; of images touched and illustrated alike, and brought ![]()
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out into the same prominence. He ransacks every thing like a bee,
grappling with it in the same spirit of penetration and enjoyment; till you lose sight of the
field he entered upon, in following him into his subtle recesses. He is also too fond, in his
larger works, of repeating the same images drawn from the material universe and the sea. When
he is obliged to give up these peculiarities, and to identify his feelings and experience with
those of other people, as in his dramatic poems, the fault no longer exists. His object
remains,—that of increasing the wisdom and happiness of mankind: but he has laid aside
his wings, and added to the weight and purpose of his body: the spiritual part of him is
invested with ordinary flesh and blood. In truth, for ordinary or immediate purposes, a great
deal of Mr. Shelley’s poetry ought to have been written in prose. It
consists of philosophical speculations, which required an introduction to the understandings of
the community, and not merely, as he thought, a recommendation to their good will. The less
philosophic he becomes, reverting to his own social feelings, as in some of the pathetic
complaints before us; or appealing to the common ones of mankind upon matters immediately
agitating them, as in the “Ode to
Naples;” or giving himself fairly up to the sports of fancy, as in the
“Witch of Atlas,” or
“The Translations from Goethe and
Homer;” the more he delights and takes with him, those who did not know
whether to argue, or to feel, in some of his larger works. The common reader is baffled with
the perplexing mixture of passion and calmness; of the severest reasoning, and the wildest
fiction; of the most startling appearances of dissent, and the most conventional calls upon
sympathy. But in all his writings there is a wonderful sustained sensibility, and a language
lofty and fit for it. He has the art of using the stateliest words and the most learned idioms,
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without incurring the charge of pedantry; so that passages of
more splendid and sonorous writing are not to be selected from any writer, since the time of
Milton: and yet when he descends from his ideal
worlds, and comes home to us in our humbler bowers, and our yearnings after love and affection,
he attunes the most natural feelings to a style so proportionate, and withal to a modulation so
truly musical, that there is nothing to surpass it in the lyrics of Beaumont and Fletcher.
Let the reader, whom these pages may have rendered more desirous of knowing
Mr. Shelley, turn to the volume in question, and judge for himself in
what sort of spirit it was that he wrote the “Witch of Atlas,” the “Letter” to a Friend at p. 59, part of the “Ode to Naples,” the “Song.” at p. 141, a “Lament,” the “Question,” “Lines to an Indian Air,” “Stanzas written in dejection near
Naples,” Lines on a “Faded
Violet,” “Lines to a
Critic,” “Tomorrow,” “Good
Night,” “Love’s
Philosophy,” the “Stanzas” at p. 214, and the “Translations from Goethe and Homer.” The verses
“On the Medusa’s Head of Leonardo
da Vinci” are perhaps as fine as any thing in the book, for power. The poetry
seems sculptured and grinning, like the subject. The words are cut with a knife. But love is
the great inspirer of Mr. Shelley. His very abstract ideas are in love.
“The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling Were stored with magic treasures—sounds of air, Which had the power all spirits of compelling, Folded in cells of crystal silence there; Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling Will never die—yet ere we are aware, The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, And the regret they leave remains alone. |
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“And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint, Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis; Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint With the soft burthen of intensest bliss. |
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We have heard of ladies falling in love with Lord
Byron, upon the strength of Don Juan.
These must be ladies in towns. If ever a more sequestered heroine could become enamoured of a
poet out of the mere force of sentiment, or at least desire to give him exceeding comfort and
consolation, it would be such a poet as Mr. Shelley. The most physical
part of the passion acquires, from his treatment of it, a grace and purity inexpressible. It is
curious to see with what fearlessness, in the conscious dignity of this power, he ventures to
speak of things that would defy all mention from a less ingenuous lip. The “Witch of Atlas,” will be liked by none
but poets, or very poetical readers. Spenser would have
liked it: Sir Kenelm Digby would have written a comment
upon it. Its meanings are too remote, and its imagery too wild, to be enjoyed by those who
cannot put on wings of the most subtle conception, and remain in the uttermost parts of
idealism. Even those who can, will think it something too dreamy and involved. They will
discover the want of light and shade, which I have before noticed, and which leaves the picture
without its due breadth and perspective. It is the fault of some of Mr.
Shelley’s poems, that they look rather like store-houses of imagery, than
imagery put into proper action. We have the misty regions of wide air, “The hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,—” |
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which Milton speaks of; but they are too much in
their elementary state, as if just about to be used, and moving in their first chaos. To a ![]()
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friend, who pointed out to him this fault, Mr.
Shelley said, that he would consider it attentively, and doubted not he should
profit by the advice. He scorned advice as little as he did any other help to what was just and
good. He could both give and take it with an exquisite mixture of frankness and delicacy, that
formed one of the greatest evidences of his superiority to common virtue. I have mentioned
before, that his temper was admirable. He was naturally irritable and violent; but had so
mastered the infirmity, as to consider every body’s inclinations before his own.
Mr. Trelawney pronounced him to be a man absolutely
without selfishness. In his intercourse with myself, nothing delighted him more than to
confound the limits of our respective property, in money-matters, books, apparel, &c. He
would help himself without scruple to whatever he wanted, whether a book or a waistcoat; and
was never better pleased, than at finding things of his own in his friend’s possession.
The way in which Mr. Shelley’s eye darted
“from heaven to earth,” and the sort of call at which his imagination
was ever ready to descend, is well exemplified in the following passage of the Letter at p. 59. The unhappy mass of prostitution which exists in
England, contrasted with something which seems to despise it, and which, in more opinions than
his, is a main cause of it, was always one of the subjects that at a moment’s notice
would overshadow the liveliest of his moods. The picturesque line in italics is beautifully
true. The poet is writing to a friend in London.
“Unpavilioned heaven is fair, Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan Climbs with dimnish’d beams the azure steep; Or whether clouds sail o’er the inverse deep, Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast. |
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All this is beautiful in every land. But what see you beside? A shabby stand Of hackney coaches—a brick house or wall, Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl Of our unhappy politics; or worse. A wretched woman, reeling by, whose curse Mix’d with the watchman’s, partner of her trade, You must accept in place of serenade.” |
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These miserable women, sometimes indeed owing to the worst and most insensible qualities
on their own parts, but sometimes also to the best and most guileless, are at such a dreadful
disadvantage compared with those who are sleeping at such an hour in their comfortable homes,
that it is difficult to pitch our imaginations among the latter, for a refuge from the thought
of them. Real love, however, even if it be unhappy, provided its sorrow be without contempt and
sordidness, will furnish us with a transition less startling. The following Lines to an Indian Air, make
an exquisite serenade. “I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright; I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me—who knows how? To thy chamber-window, sweet! |
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“The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream— The champak odours fall, Like sweet thoughts in a dream; |
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The nightingale’s complaint It dies upon her heart, As I must upon thine, Beloved as thou art! |
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“O lift me from the grass! I die, I faint, I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast; Oh! press it close to thine again Where it will break at last.” |
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I know not that two main parts of Mr. Shelley’s poetical
genius, the descriptive and the pathetic, ever vented themselves to more touching purpose than
in the lines Written in Dejection near
Naples. The brilliant yet soft picture with which they commence, introduces the
melancholy observer of it in a manner extremely affecting. He beholds what delights others, and
is willing to behold it, though it delights him not. He even apologizes for
“insulting” the bright day he has painted so beautifully, with his “untimely
moan.” The stanzas exhibit, at once, minute observation, the widest power to generalize,
exquisite power to enjoy, and admirable patience at the want of enjoyment. This latter
combination forms the height of the amiable, as the former does of the intellectual character.
The fourth stanza will strongly move the reader of this memoir.
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“The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple moon’s transparent light
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†******
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.
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“I see the deep’s untrampled floor
With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown.
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
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“Alas! I have nor hope, nor health,
Nor peace within, nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth,
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned;
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround;
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;—
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
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“Yet now despair itself is mild,
Ev’n as the winds and waters are;
I could be down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death, like sleep, might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
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† A line is wanting in the Edition.
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“Some might lament that I were cold,
As I when this sweet day is done,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan:
They might lament, for I am one
Whom men love not, and yet regret;
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.”
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The pieces, that call to mind Beaumont and Fletcher, are such as the
following:—
“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. |
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“Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap’d for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.” |
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“Love’s Philosophy” is another. It has been often printed; but for the same reason will bear
repetition. The sentiment must he understood with reference to the delicacy as well as freedom
of Mr. Shelley’s opinions, and not as supplying any excuse to that
heartless libertinism which no man disdained more. The poem is here quoted for its grace and
lyrical sweetness.
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“The fountains mingle with the river,
And the river with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever,
With a sweet emotion:
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Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle—
Why not I with thine?
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“See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdain’d its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
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Mr. Shelley ought to have written nothing but dramas, interspersed with
such lyrics as these. Perhaps had he lived, he would have done so; for, after all, he was but
young; and he had friends of that opinion, whom he was much inclined to agree with. The
fragment of the tragedy of Charles the First, in this volume,
makes us long for more of it. With all his republicanism, he would have done justice to
Charles, as well as to Pym and Hampden. His completest
production is unquestionably the tragedy of the “Cenci.” The objections to the subject are, on the face
of them, not altogether unfounded; but they ought not to weigh with those who have no scruple
in grappling with any of the subjects of our old English drama; still less, if they are true
readers of that drama, and know how to think of the great ends of poetry in a liberal and
masculine manner. “Cenci” is the personification of a
will, maddened, like a Roman emperor’s, by the possession of impunity; deadened to all
sense of right and wrong by degrading notions of a Supreme Being; and consequently subjected to
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but in sensuality
or malignity. The least of his actions becomes villainous, because he does it in defiance of
principle. On the other hand, his death by the hand of his outraged daughter produces a
different meeting of extremes, because it results, however madly, from horror at the violation
of principle. The reader refuses to think that a daughter has slain a father, precisely because a dreadful sense of what a father ought not to have done
has driven her to it, and because he sees that in any other situation she would be the most
exemplary of children. This remark is made for the benefit of the curious reader, and to
vindicate Mr. Shelley from having taken up a subject out of pure scorn of
his feelings: a strange policy in any author, and not surely to be found in him. Considering
what an excellent production the Cenci is, it is certainly difficult to help wishing that the subject had been of a nature to
startle nobody; but it may be as truly added, that such a subject could have been handled by no
other writer in a manner less offensive, or more able to suggest its own vindication.
The Translations that conclude the “Posthumous Poems,” are masterly. That of the
“Hymn to Mercury,”
containing the pranks of the Deity when young, abounds in singular animal spirits, a careless
yet exuberant feeling of mixed power and indifference, of the zest of newborn life, and a
godlike superiority to its human manifestations of it, such as we might suppose to take place
before vice and virtue were thought of, or only thought of to afford pastime for mischievous
young gods, who were above the necessity of behaving themselves. I will confine myself,
however, to the quotation of a passage or two from the scenes out of Goethe’s “Faust.” They contain the Prologue in
Heaven, which Lord Leveson Gower has omitted in
his translation, and the May-day Night, which he has abridged, and
thought untranslatable. The ![]()
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Prologue in Heaven is remarkable for the liberties which a
privy-counsellor and gentleman with a star at his breast (for such the original poet is) may
take with the scriptural idea of the Divinity, and yet find readers to eulogize and translate
him. It is a parody on the beginning of the Book of Job.
Not that I believe the illustrious German intended any disrespect to loftier conceptions of a
Deity. The magnificent Hymn that precedes it, shows he can do justice to the noblest images of
creation, and improve what other poets have repeated to us of the songs of angels.
Mr. Shelley’s opinion of the Book of
Job (on which he thought of founding a tragedy) was not the less exalted, (nor, I
dare say, Goethe’s either,) because he could allow himself to make
this light and significant comment on the exordium. But it is worth while noticing these sort
of discrepancies; and to observe also, how readily they shall be supposed without being
comprehended for the sake of one man, and how little comprehended or supposed either for the
toleration of another.
SCENE—THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY.
Faust, Mephistophiles.
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Meph. Would you not like a broomstick? As for me,
I wish I had a good stout ram to ride;
For we are still far from th’ appointed place.
Faust. This knotted staff is help enough for me,
Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good
Is there in making short a pleasant way?
To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,
And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs
Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,
Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
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And the hoar pines already feel her breath
Shall she not work also within our limbs?
Meph. Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
My body is all wintry, and I wish
The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
But see; how Melancholy rises now
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,
And gives so bad a light, that every step
One stumbles ’gainst some crag. With your permission,
I’ll call an Ignis-Fatuus to our aid;
I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend! may I request that you
Would favour us with your bright company?
Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?
Pray, be so good as light us up this way.
Ignis-Fatuus. With reverence be it spoken, I will try
To overcome the lightness of my nature:
Our course, you know, is generally zig-zag.
Meph. Ha! ha! your worship thinks you have to deal
With men. Go strait on, in the Devil’s name,
Or I shall puff your flickering light out.
Ignis-Fatuus. Well,
I see you are the master of the house;
I will accommodate myself to you.
Only consider, that to-night this mountain
Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lanthorn
Shows you his way, though you should miss your own,
You ought not to be too exact with him.
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Faust, Mephistophiles, and Ignis-Fatuus, in alternate chorus.
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The limits of the sphere of dream,
The bounds of true and false, are past.
Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste.
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But see how swift advance and shift
Trees behind trees, row by row,—
How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
How they snort, and how they blow!
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Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet hurry down;
A rushing throng! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of heaven is blown!
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A profound living critic (I forget his name) has discovered, that the
couplet in italics is absurd—crags having no snouts properly so called, and being things
by no means alive or blowing! The plot now thickens. Every thing is vivified like the rocks;
every thing takes a devilish aspect and meaning; the winds rise; the stragglers of the
Devil’s festival begin to appear, and the travellers feel themselves in the “witch
element.”
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Faust. How
The children of the wind rage in the air!
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
*****
Meph. Dost thou not hear?
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear,
The witches are singing
The torrent of the raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along.
Chorus of Witches.
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air;
Hey over stock, and hey over stone!
’Twixt witches and incubi what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
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A Voice. Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone.
Chorus. Honour her to whom honour is due,
Old Mother Baubo! honour to you!
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour
The legion of witches is coming behind,
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind.
A Voice. Which way comest thou?
A Voice. Over Ilsenstein;
The owl was awake in the white moonshine;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eye.
Voices. And you my now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast, on the headlong blast.
A Voice. She dropped poison upon me, as I past.
Here are the wounds.
Chorus of Witches. Come away! come along!
The way is wide, the way is long,
But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands.
Semi-chorus of Wizards—lst.—We glide in
Like snails when the women are all away.
From a house once given over to sin,
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
Semi-chorus—2nd.—A thousand steps must a woman
take,
Where a man but a single step will make.
Voices above. Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee!*
Voices below. With what joy would we fly through the upper
sky!
We are washed, we are ’nointed, stark naked are we:
But our toil and our pain are for ever in vain.
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* A gentleman, who reads German, informs me that there must either he a
mistake of the transcriber here, or that Mr. Shelley for the moment
had left untranslated the concluding word of the line; which is not a proper name, but
means a sea of rocks—the Felsen-see.
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Both Chorusses. The wind is still, the stars are fled,
The melancholy moon is dead;
The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark.
Come away!
Voices below. Stay, oh, stay!
Voices above. Out of the crannies of the rocks,
Who calls?
Voice below. Oh let me join your flocks!
I three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt, and mount to heaven,
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
In company akin with me!
Both Chorusses. Some on a ram, and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight, who can rise not to-night.
A Half-Witch below. I have been tripping this many an hour;
Are the others already so far before?
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
Chorus of Witches. Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint, anoint—
Then every trough will be boat enough;
With a rag for a sail, he can sweep through the sky,—
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
Both Chorusses. We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the
ground;
Witch ’legions thicken around and around;
Wizard swarms cover the heath all over.
(They descend.)
Meph. What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning;
As heaven and earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us;
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:—
Where are you?
Faust.(from a distance.) Here!
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Meph. What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, Doctor, and with one step
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute.
Faust. Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—
’Twere a wise feat, indeed, to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time.
Meph. See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there,
One would not be alone.
Faust. Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke,
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones! there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
Meph. Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage
We will stay here, safe in the quiet dwellings.
It ’s an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
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Observe, here, how the author ridicules alike useless inquiries and a
selfish passiveness. The great business of life is to be social and beneficent. The witches and
their May-game are selfish and vulgar passions of all sorts, hardened into malignity, and
believing only in the pleasures of the will. Their turmoil is in vain. Their highest and most
supersti-![]()
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tious reach, to heaven recoils only into disappointment,
and a sense of hell. But the author proceeds to have a gird also at dry, mechanical theorists,
unalive to sentiment and fancy. No sophistication escapes him. Take a passage or two, eminently
infernal.
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Meph. (to Faust, who has seceded from the
dance.)
Why did you let that fair girl pass by you,
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.
Meph. That was all right, my friend;
Be it enough that the mouse was not grey.
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.
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This is an image of bad and disgusting passions detected in one whom we
love, and in the very midst and heart of our passion!—The following may be interpreted to
shadow forth either the consequences of seduction, or the miserable regret with which a man of
the world calls to mind his first love, and his belief in goodness.
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Faust. Then saw I—
Meph. What?
Faust. Seest thou not a pale,
Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away
She drags herself now forward with slow steps,
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.
Meph. Let it be—pass on—
No good can come of it—it is not well
To meet it—it is an enchanted phantom,
A lifeless idol: with its numbing look
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It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
Faust. Oh too true!
Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse
Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
That is the heart which Margaret yielded to me—
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
Meph. It is all magic: poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love.
Faust. Oh what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
Meph. Ay, she can carry
Her head under her arm, upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion.
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So do not end the pleasures given us by men of genius with great and
beneficent views. So does not end the pleasure of endeavouring to do justice to their memories,
however painful the necessity. Some good must be done them, however small. Some pleasure cannot
but be realized, for a great principle is advocated, and a deep gratitude felt. I differed with
Mr. Shelley on one or two important points; but I agreed with him
heartily on the most important point of all,—the necessity of doing good, and of discussing the means of it freely. I do not think the world so
unhappy as he did, or what a very different and much more contented personage has not hesitated
to pronounce it,—a “vale of blood and tears.” But I think it quite
unhappy enough to require that we should all set our shoulders to the task of reformation; and
this for two reasons: first, that if mankind can effect any thing, they can only effect ![]()
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it by trying, instead of lamenting and being selfish; and second,
that if no other good come of our endeavours, we must always be the better for what keeps human
nature in hope and activity. That there are monstrous evils to be got rid of, nobody doubts:
that we never scruple to get rid of any minor evil that annoys us, any obstacle in our way, or
petty want of comfort in our dwellings, we know as certainly. Why the larger ones should be
left standing, is yet to be understood. Sir Walter Scott may have no objection to his
“vale of blood and tears,” provided he can look down upon it from a decent
aristocratical height, and a well-stocked mansion; but others have an inconvenient habit of
levelling themselves with humanity, and feeling for their neighbours: and it is lucky for
Sir Walter himself, that they have so; or Great Britain would not
enjoy the comfort she does in her northern atmosphere. The conventional are but the weakest
and most thankless children of the unconventional. They live upon the security the others
have obtained for them. If it were not for the reformers and innovators of old, the
Hampdens, the Miltons, and the Sydneys, life in
this country, with all its cares, would not be the convenient thing it is, even for the
lowest retainers of the lowest establishment. A feeling of indignation will arise,
when we think of great spirits like those, contrasted with the mean ones that venture to scorn
their wisdom and self-sacrifice; but it is swallowed up in what absorbed the like emotions in
their own minds,—a sense of the many. The mean spirit, if we knew all, need not be denied
even his laugh. He may he too much in want of it. But the greatest unhappiness of the
noble-minded has moments of exquisite relief. Every thing of beautiful and good that exists,
has a kind face for him when he turns to it; or reflects the happy faces of others that enjoy
it, if he cannot. He can extract consolation out of discom-![]()
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fiture
itself,—if the good he sought otherwise, can come by it. Mr. Shelley
felt the contumelies he underwent, with great sensibility; and he expressed himself
accordingly; but I know enough of his nature to be certain, that he would gladly have laid down
his life to ensure a good to society, even out of the most lasting misrepresentations of his
benevolence. Great is the pleasure to me to anticipate the day of justice, by putting an end to
this evil. The friends whom he loved may now bid his brave and gentle spirit repose; for the
human beings whom he laboured for, begin to know him.
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LETTERS FROM MR. SHELLEY
TO
MR. LEIGH HUNT.
[I regret extremely, on the reader’s
account, as well as my own, that I have not taken better and more grateful care of the letters
which my friend wrote to me. I know not how they were lost. I thought I had preserved them
better. What I can lay before the public, I do.]
LETTER I.
Lyons, March 22, 1818.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Why did you not wake me that night before we left England, you
and Marianne? I take this as rather an unkind
piece of kindness in you; but which, in consideration of the six hundred miles
between us, I forgive.
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We have journeyed towards the spring that has been hastening
to meet us from the south; and though our weather was at first abominable, we have
now warm sunny days, and soft winds, and a sky of deep azure, the most serene I
ever saw. The heat in this city to-day, is like that of
London in the midst of summer. My spirits and health
sympathize in the change. Indeed, before I left London, my
spirits were as feeble as my health, and I had demands upon them which I found
difficult to supply. I have read Foliage:—with most of the poems I was already familiar. What a
delightful poem the “Nymphs” is! especially the second part. It is truly poetical, in the intense and emphatic sense of the word.* If six hundred
miles were not between us, I should say what pity that glib
was not omitted, and that the poem is not as faultless as it is beautiful. But for
fear I should spoil your next poem, I will not let slip a
word on the subject. Give my love to Marianne
and her sister, and tell
Marianne she defrauded me of a kiss by not waking me when
she went away, and that as I have no better mode of conveying it, I must take the
best, and ask you to pay the debt. When shall I see you all again? Oh that it might
be in Italy! I confess that the thought of how long we may be divided, makes me
very melancholy. Adieu, my dear friends. Write soon.
Ever most affectionately your’s,
P. B. S.
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* The reader will. pardon my retention of these passages, for the sake of
him who wrote them. The poem here mentioned did not deserve what Mr.
Shelley said of it. I had not been careful enough in writing it,—had
not brooded sufficiently over my thoughts to concentrate them into proper imagination;
perhaps was unable to do so. But the subject lay in those sequestered paths of beauty and
mythology, which Mr. Shelley was fond of.
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LETTER II.
Livorno, August 15, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
How good of you to write to us so often, and such kind
letters! But it is like lending to a beggar. What can I offer in return?*
Though surrounded by suffering and disquietude, and latterly
almost overcome by our strange misfortune,† I have not been idle. My Prometheus is finished, and I
am also on the eve of completing another work, totally different from any thing you
might conjecture that I should write, of a more popular kind; and, if any thing of
mine could deserve attention, of higher claims. “Be innocent of the
knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou approve the performance.”
I send you a little poem to give to Ollier for publication, but without my name: Peacock will
correct the proofs. I wrote it with the idea of offering it to the Examiner, but I find it is too long.‡ It was
composed last year at Este: two of the characters you will
recognize; the third is also in some degree a painting from nature, but, with
respect to time and place, ideal. 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 with each other, whom education and a certain refinement
of sentiment have
* Such is the way in which the most generous of men used
to talk to those whom he had obliged. |
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† The taking away of his children by the Court of
Chancery. |
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placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word
vulgar in its most extensive sense: the vulgarity of
rank and fashion 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
passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundaries of that which is ideal.
Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed from objects alike remote or
near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness.*
But what am I about? if my grandmother sucks eggs, was it I who taught her?
If you would really correct the proof,
I need not trouble Peacock, who, I suppose,
has enough. Can you take it as a compliment that I prefer to trouble you?
I do not particularly wish this poem to be known as mine, but,
at all events, I would not put my name to it. I leave you to judge whether it is
best to throw it in the fire, or to publish it. So much for self—self, that burr that will stick to one. Your kind
expressions about my Eclogue
gave me great pleasure; indeed, my great stimulus in writing is to have the
approbation of those who feel kindly towards me. The rest is mere duty. I am also
delighted to hear that you think of us, and form fancies about us. We cannot yet
come home.
* * * * *
* *
Most affectionately yours,
P. B. Shelley.
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* Let me admire with the reader (I do not pretend to be under the
necessity of calling his attention to it.) this most noble image.
† “Rosalind and
Helen.”
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LETTER III.
Livorno, September 3d, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
At length has arrived Ollier’s parcel, and with it the portrait. What a delightful
present! It is almost yourself, and we sate talking with it, and of it, all the
evening. . . . . . . . . It is a great pleasure to us to possess it, a pleasure in
a time of need; coming to us when there are few others. How we wish it were you,
and not your picture! How I wish we were with you!
This parcel, you know, and all its letters, are now a year
old; some older. There are all kinds of dates, from March to August, 1818, and
“your date,” to use Shakspeare’s expression, “is better in a pie or a
pudding, than in your letter.” “Virginity,” Parolles says,—but letters are the same thing
in another shape.
With it came, too, Lamb’s works. I have looked at none of the other books yet.
What a lovely thing is his “Rosamond Gray!” how much knowledge of the sweetest and deepest
part of our nature in it! When I think of such a mind as
Lamb’s,—when I see how unnoticed remain things
of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had
not higher objects in view than fame?
I have seen too little of Italy and of pictures. Perhaps
Peacock has shown you some of my letters
to him. But at Rome I was very ill, seldom able to go out
without a carriage; and though I kept horses for two months there, yet there is so
much to see! Perhaps I attended more ![]()
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to sculpture than
painting,—its forms being more easily intelligible than those of the latter.
Yet I saw the famous works of Raphael, whom
I agree with the whole world in thinking the finest painter. Why, I can tell you
another time. With respect to Michael
Angelo, I dissent, and think with astonishment and indignation on the
common notion that he equals, and in some respects exceeds
Raphael. He seems to me to have no sense of moral dignity
and loveliness; and the energy for which he has been so much praised, appears to me
to be a certain rude, external, mechanical quality, in comparison with any thing
possessed by Raphael; or even much inferior artists. His
famous painting in the Sixtine Chapel, seems to me deficient
in beauty and majesty, both in the conception and the execution. He has been called
the Dante of painting; but if we find some of
the gross and strong outlines, which are employed in the few most distasteful
passages of the Inferno, where
shall we find your Francesca,—where, the spirit coming over the sea in a boat,
like Mars rising from the vapours of the
horizon,—where, Matilda gathering
flowers, and all the exquisite tenderness, and sensibility, and ideal beauty, in
which Dante excelled all poets except Shakspeare?
As to Michael
Angelo’s Moses—but you have seen a cast of that in England.—I write these
things, Heaven knows why!
I have written something and finished it, different from any
thing else, and a new attempt for me; and I mean to dedicate it to you. I should
not have done so without your approbation, but I asked your picture last night, and
it smiled assent: If I did not think it in some degree worthy of you, I would not
make you a public offering of it. I expect to have to write to you soon about it.
If Ollier is not turned
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Christian, Jew, or become infected with the Murrain, he will publish it. Don’t let him be
frightened, for it is nothing which by any courtesy of language can be termed
either moral or immoral.
Mary has written to Marianne for a parcel, in which I beg you will make
Ollier enclose what you know would most
interest me,—your “Calendar,” (a sweet extract from which I saw in the Examiner,) and the other poems belonging to
you; and, for some friends of mine, my Eclogue. This parcel, which must be sent
instantly, will reach me by October; but don’t trust letters to it, except
just a line or so. When you write, write by the post.
Ever your affectionate,
P. B. S.
My love to Marianne
and Bessy, and Thornton too, and Percy,
&c., and if you could imagine any way in which I could be useful to them
here, tell me. I will inquire about the Italian chalk. You have no idea of the
pleasure this portrait gives us.
LETTER IV.
Livorno, Sept. 27th, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
We are now on the point of leaving this place for
Florence, where we have taken pleasant apartments for
six months, which brings us to the 1st of April; the season at which new flowers
and new thoughts spring forth upon the earth and in the mind. What is then our
destina-![]()
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tion is yet undecided. I have not yet seen
Florence, except as one sees the outside of the streets;
but its physiognomy indicates it to be a city, which, though the ghost of a
republic, yet possesses most amiable qualities. I wish you could meet us there in
the spring, and we would try to muster up a “lieta
brigata,” which, leaving behind them the pestilence of remembered
misfortunes, might act over again the pleasures of the interlocutors in Boccaccio. I have been lately reading this most
divine writer. He is in the high sense of the word a poet, and his language has the
rhythm and harmony of verse. I think him not equal certainly either to Dante or Petrarch, but far superior to Tasso and Ariosto, the
children of a later and of a colder day. I consider the three first as the
productions of the vigour of the infancy of a new nation, as rivulets from the same
spring as that which fed the greatness of the Republics of
Florence and Pisa, and which
checked the influence of the German emperors, and from which, through obscurer
channels, Raphael and Michael Angelo drew the light and the harmony of
their inspiration. When the second-rate poets of Italy wrote, the corrupting blight
of tyranny was already banging on every bud of genius. Energy and simplicity and
unity of idea were no more. In vain do we seek, in the fine passages of
Ariosto or Tasso, any expression
which at all approaches, in this respect, to those of Dante
and Petrarch. How much do I admire
Boccaccio! What descriptions of nature are there in his
little introductions to every new day! It is the morning of life, stripped of that
mist of familiarity which makes it obscure to us. Boccaccio
seems to me to have possessed a deep sense of the fair ideal of human life,
considered in its social relations. His more serious theories of love agree
especially with mine. He often expresses things lightly too, which have serious
meanings of a very beau-![]()
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tiful kind. He is a moral
casuist, the opposite of the ready-made and worldly system of morals.
* * * * *
* *
It would give me much pleasure to know Mr. Lloyd. When I was in
Cumberland, I got Southey to borrow a copy of “Berkeley” from him, and I remember observing some pencil
notes in it, probably written by Lloyd, which I thought
particularly acute.
Most affectionately your friend,
P. B. S.
LETTER V.
Firenze, Dec. 2, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Yesterday morning Mary
brought me a little boy. She suffered but
two hours’ pain, and is now so well that it seems a wonder that she stays in
bed. The babe is also quite well, and has begun to suck. You may imagine this is a
great relief and a great comfort to me, amongst all my misfortunes, past, present,
and to come.
Since I last wrote to you, some circumstances have occurred,
not necessary to explain by letter, which make my pecuniary condition a very
difficult one. The physicians absolutely forbid my travelling to England in the
winter, but I shall probably pay you a visit in the spring. With what pleasure,
among all the other sources of regret and discomfort with which England abounds for
me, do I think of looking on the original of that kind and
earnest face which is now opposite Mary’s
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bed. It will be the only thing which
Mary will envy me, or will need to envy me, in that
journey; for I shall come alone. Shaking hands with you is worth all the trouble;
the rest is clear loss.
I will tell you more about myself and my pursuits, in my next
letter.
Kind love to Marianne,
Bessy, and all the children. Poor
Mary begins (for the first time) to look
a little consoled. For we have spent, as you may imagine, a miserable five months.
Good bye, my dear Hunt,
Your affectionate Friend,
P. B. S.
I have had no letter from you for a
month.
LETTER VI.
Florence, Dec. 23, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Why don’t you write to us? I was preparing to send you
something for your “Indicator,” but I have been a drone instead of a bee in this
business, thinking that perhaps, as you did not acknowledge any of my late
enclosures, it would not be welcome to you, whatever I might send.
What a state England is in! But you will never write politics.
I don’t wonder;—but I wish, then, that you would write a paper in
“The Examiner,” on the
actual state, of the country, and what, under all the circumstances of the
conflicting passions and interests of men, we are to expect. Not what we ought to
expect, or what, if so and so were to ![]()
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happen, we might
expect,—but what, as ’things are, there is reason to believe will
come;—and send it me for my information. Every word a man has to say is
valuable to the public now; and thus you will at once gratify your friend, nay,
instruct, and either exhilarate him or force him to be resigned,—and awaken
the minds of the people.
I have no spirits to write what I do not know whether you will
care much about: I know well, that if I were in great misery, poverty, &c., you
would think of nothing else but how to amuse and relieve me. You omit me if I am
prosperous. * * * *
I could laugh if I found a joke, in order to put you in
good-humour with me after my scolding;—in good-humour enough to write to us.
* * * * * * Affectionate love to and from
all. This ought not only to be the Vale of a letter, but a superscription over the gate of life.
Your sincere Friend,
P. B. Shelley.
I send you a sonnet. I don’t
expect you to publish it, but you may show it to whom you please,
LETTER VII.
December, 1819.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Two letters, both bearing date Oct. 20, arrive on the same
day:—one is always glad of twins.
We hear of a box arrived at Genoa with
books and clothes; it must be yours. Meanwhile the babe is wrapped in flannel petticoats, and we ![]()
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get on with him as we can. He is small, healthy, and
pretty. Mary is recovering rapidly.
Marianne, I hope, is quite recovered.
You do not tell me whether you have received my lines on the
Manchester affair. They are of the exotic species, and are meant, not for
“The Indicator,”
but “The Examiner.” I would
send for the former, if you like, some letters on such subjects of art as suggest
themselves in Italy. Perhaps I will, at a venture, send you a specimen of what I
mean next post. I enclose you in this a piece for “The
Examiner;” or let it share the fate, whatever that fate may be, of
the “Mask of
Anarchy.”
I am sorry to hear that you have employed yourself in
translating “Aminta,” though I doubt not it will be a just and beautiful
translation. You ought to write Amintas. You ought to exercise your fancy in the
perpetual creation of new forms of gentleness and beauty.
* * * * *
* *
With respect to translation, even I
will not be seduced by it; although the Greek plays, and some of the ideal dramas
of Calderon, (with which I have lately, and
with inexpressible wonder and delight, become acquainted,) are perpetually tempting
me to throw over their perfect and glowing forms the grey veil of my own words. And
you know me too well to suspect, that I refrain from the belief that what I would
substitute for them would deserve the regret which yours would, if suppressed. I
have confidence in my moral sense alone; but that is a kind of originality. I have
only translated the Cyclops of
Euripides when I could absolutely do
nothing else, and the Symposium
of Plato, which is the delight and astonishment
of all who read it:—I mean, the original, or so much of the original as is
seen in my translation, not the translation itself. * * *
*
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I think I have an accession of strength since my residence in
Italy, though the disease itself in the side, whatever it may be, is not subdued.
Some day we shall all return from Italy. I fear that in England things will be
carried violently by the rulers, and that they will not have learned to yield in
time to the spirit of the age. The great thing to do is to hold the balance between
popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy; to inculcate with fervour both the
right of resistance and the duty of forbearance. You know, my principles incite me
to take all the good I can get in politics, for ever aspiring to something more. I
am one of those whom nothing will fully satisfy, but who am ready to be partially
satisfied by all that is practicable. We shall see.*
Give Bessy a thousand
thanks from me for writing out in that pretty neat hand your kind and powerful
defence. Ask what she would like best from Italian land? We mean to bring you all
something; and Mary and I have been
wondering what it shall be. Do you, each of you, choose.
* * * * *
* *
Adieu, my dear friend,
Your’s affectionately ever,
P. B. S.
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* Mr. Shelley would have been pleased to see the
change that took place under the administration of Mr.
Canning,—a change, which is here described by anticipation.
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LETTER VIII.
Pisa, August 26th, 1821.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. The
result of this visit was a determination on his part to come and live at
Pisa, and I have taken the finest palace on the
Lung’Arno for him. But the material part of my
visit consists in a message which he desires me to give you, and which I think
ought to add to your determination—for such a one I hope you have
formed—of restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these
“regions mild of calm and serene air.”
He proposes that you should come 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. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to
bear. 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 to 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 splendour, of such a
partnership.* 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: do not let my frankness with you, nor
* Mr. Shelley afterwards altered his
mind; but he had a reserved intention underneath it, which he would have
endeavoured to put in practice, had his friend allowed him. |
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my belief that you deserve it more than Lord
Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in
modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either
to stoop or aspire to. I am, and I desire to be, nothing.
I did not ask Lord Byron to
assist 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. I, as you know, have it
not: but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has
conferred on me. I know I need only ask.
I think I have never told you how very much I like your Amyntas; it almost reconciles me to
Translations. In another sense I still demur. You might have written another such
poem as the “Nymphs,”
with no great access of effort.* I am full of thoughts and plans, and should do
something if the feeble and irritable frame which incloses it was willing to obey
the spirit. I fancy that then I should do great things. Before this you will have
seen “Adonais.”
Lord Byron, I suppose from
* In one of Lord
Byron’s letters, having a quarrel with the memory of
Mr. Shelley, and being angry with me for loving it
so entirely, his Lordship tells me that I was mistaken if I thought
Mr. Shelley entertained a very high opinion of my
poetry. I answered, that I had already had the mortification of making that
discovery; upon which he expressed his vexation at having told it me. I did
not add, that I believed Mr. Shelley’s opinion
of my poetry to have decreased since his becoming used to his
Lordship’s libels of his “friends all round,” and that he
had latterly exhibited an uneasy suspicion that his intimacy had had an ill
effect upon his kindlier views of things in general. But I must own, that I
never looked upon Mr. Shelley’s real opinion of
my poetry as any thing very great; though his affection for me, and his
sympathy with the world I lived in, poetical as well as political,
sometimes led him to persuade himself otherwise. I suspect he had a very
accurate notion of it; greater than what vulgar critics would think just,
but as little as a due appreciation of poetry, properly so called, could
admit. |
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modesty on account of his being mentioned in it, did not
say a word of “Adonais,” though he was loud in his praise of “Prometheus:” and, what
you will not agree with him in, censure of the “Cenci.” Certainly, if “Marino Faliero” is a drama, the
“Cenci” is not: but that between
ourselves. Lord Byron is reformed, as far as gallantry goes,
and lives with a beautiful and sentimental Italian lady, who is as much attached to
him as may be. I trust greatly to his intercourse with you, for his creed to become
as pure as he thinks his conduct is. He has many generous and exalted qualities,
but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out.
* * * * *
* *
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries” in New Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 22 (January 1828)
Gifted, too, like the subject of his Memoir, with very remarkable talents, he is much more to be relied on, both in
his choice of points of view, and in his manner of handling his subject: he is not likely
to spoil a bon-mot, an epigram, or a conversation and while he can seize all that was
really piquant about his Lordship, he is infinitely above retailing the low gossip and
garbage which same memoir-writers have done, in the true spirit of a waiting-maid or a
lacquey. He possesses, moreover, one eminent qualification for the task which he has
undertaken; he has a stern love of truth; and even his enemies will give him credit for
being uniformly consistent and honest in the expression of his opinions on all subjects. In
his present work he shows himself ready to be devoted as a martyr to Truth, (for that very
word of the book is true, no reader can doubt,) and boldly exposes himself to all the
vituperation of all the slaves who hated and attacked Lord Byron while
living, but who will now come forward with a mock display of generosity, and sympathy with
the illustrious departed, of whom they will represent Mr. Hunt as the
ungrateful reviler. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
Mr. Hunt has done a bold deed
by publishing this work. We are not ourselves quite clear that he was right; but, as he is
doubtless well aware, he has at all events laid himself open to unmeasured
misrepresentation by the literary ruffians from whom he has already suffered so much. The
portion of the book which stands at the beginning, and which is alone particularly
mentioned in the title-page, refers exclusively to Lord
Byron. Mr. Hunt says, and we firmly believe him, that
he has withheld much which might have been told; but he has also told much which many will
think, or say, that he ought to have withheld. He has presented us with a totally different
view of Lord Byron's character from any that has previously appeared
in print, and this not only in general propositions, but by innumerable detailed anecdotes,
which it seems to its quite impossible not to believe, and from which it is equally
impossible not to draw very similar inferences to those which have occurred to
Mr. Hunt.
. . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
In this quarto the author exhibits himself as a person of
considerable talent, and of much literary conceit and affectation. But his deeper offence
lies in the essence of the design itself, which appears to us to be one at which an
honourable mind would have revolted. To have gone to enjoy the hospitality of a friend and
taste the bounty of a patron, and after his death to have made that visit (for avowedly
mercenary ends) the source of a long libel upon his memory,—does seem to be very base
and unworthy. No resentment of real or fancied ill usage can excuse, far less justify, such
a proceeding; and (without referring to this particular instance, but speaking generally of
the practice, now too prevalent, of eaves-dropping and word-catching, and watching every
minute action exposed in the confidence of private life, for the purpose of book-making,)
we will say that these personal and posthumous injuries are a disgrace to their
perpetrators and to the press of the country. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Mr. Leigh Hunt
is so naturally prone to unbosom himself to the public, with whom he always in his
writings strikes up a friendly confidential intercourse, that previous to the appearance of
this work the world was well acquainted with the character of all his friends of public
notoriety—with his opinions on all possible topics, and more particularly with his
opinion of himself. We looked for, and we have found nothing new in this volume, save that
which relates in some way or other to the author’s visit to Italy; for since that
event in his life he has had little opportunity of communicating with his dear friend, his
pensive public, or we should have as little to learn of the latter as of the former part of
his life. It is thus that our attention is chiefly attracted to Mr.
Hunt’s account of Lord Byron; for
he, though not entirely a new acquaintance, only became thoroughly well known to him in
Italy. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
But however we may respect the man for his acquirements, his candour, and
his natural benevolence; however we may sympathise with him through the painful
disappointments, of which he has already numbered too many, we may be allowed, perhaps, to
claim for our literature, and for those who are engaged in supporting it, some portion of
that spirit of dignity and independence, without which they would be deprived of all their
gracefulness and of much of their utility. We are not insensible to the various proofs
which we have lately seen, of a disposition that prevails among certain classes of literary
men, to degrade their pursuits into a mere matter of trade; to produce a given number of
words for a proposed reward; and to praise or to censure according to the interests and
desires of those who employ them. But we own that we were not prepared for the extreme
degree of literary servility—to call it by no severer name—which is stamped
upon the principal pages of the work now before us. Nor does the author attempt to conceal his shame. It would not, perhaps, have been very
difficult for him, by a little address, to make a better appearance in the eye of the
public. It is certain, that if he had spoken less of his obligations to his publisher, and
of his own original plan in the preparation of his volume be would have less exposed
himself, to the censure of the world. He is, however, remarkably communicative upon both
these points, imagining, most probably, that by appearing to have no reservations, his
faults, such as they are, might be more easily forgiven. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Let us not, however, be unjust to Mr. Leigh
Hunt, contemporary of Lord Byron. We
find, on referring to his preface, that he disclaims, though not with
indignation,—that, alas! he durst not—the catchpenny arrangement of the
title-page now before us, and indeed of the contents of the book itself. Had the bookseller
permitted the author to obey the dictates of his own taste and judgment, the newspapers,
instead of announcing for six months, in every variety of puff direct and puff oblique, the
approaching appearance of ‘Lord Byron and some
of his Contemporaries,’ would have told us in plain terms to expect the
advent of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his following; the
‘pale face rescued from insignificance by thought’ which Mr.
Hunt assures us he carries about with him would have fronted Mr.
Hunt’s title-page; and Mr. Hunt’s
recollections of Lord Byron would have been printed by way of modest
appendix to the larger and more interesting part of the work, namely, the autobiography of
Mr. Hunt.
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
We had given Mr.
Hunt credit for a superiority to petty resentments and vindictive feelings,
and here we find, as far at least as concerns Lord Byron, very little
else. We, who have been refreshing our memories as to all that Mr.
Hunt has, on various occasions, written of Lord Byron,
in which his poetical genius, his liberal politics, his ‘rank worn simply,’ and
his ‘total glorious want of vile hypocrisy,’ were earnestly applauded, cannot
help persuading ourselves that the portrait now presented would have been more favorable,
had the painter been freer from impulses, which it is very natural for him to possess, but
which cannot tend to the interests of the public, or to the development of truth. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Cause of complaint seems
to have existed between the parties, and the unfortunate death of Mr. Shelley rendered the situation of Mr.
Hunt, in relation to Lord Byron, one of peculiar
delicacy: we cannot allow that these circumstances could in the mind of Mr.
Hunt lead to any wilful misrepresentation; but it is not improbable that
they may have lent an unjust interpretation to circumstances meant to be taken otherwise,
and it is therefore necessary to state in the outset this caution. Mr.
Hunt, too, during their intercourse suffered all the pains of dependance: it
is needless to remark how sensitive and captious such a situation is calculated to make a
man, who if not proud in the ordinary sense of the word, is proud of the levelling claims of genius, and who saw with disgust that such claims
were not allowed to constitute equality with rank and wealth. Mr. Leigh
Hunt’s title to entire belief, when due allowance is made to the
natural influence of these partly unconscious and secretly operating causes, no one will be
hardy enough to deny; and when the denial is made, a look only upon the open, candid,
blushing and animated face of the book itself will be sufficient to contradict it. If ever
internal evidence was strong enough to quell the very thought of a suspicion, an instance
is to be found here. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
He drivels away in
the same mawkish style for several sentences, and what is the upshot? That he would have
written the book long ago, had he not preferred enjoying himself on the money, from time to
time advanced to him by Mr Colburn. He afterwards
acknowledges, “that, had I been rich enough, and could have repaid the handsome
conduct of Mr Colburn, with its proper interest, my first impulse, on
finishing the book, would have been to put it into the fire.” What mean and miserable
contradictions and inconsistencies are crowded and huddled together here! It was for money
that the book was written; he admits it, confesses it, hides it, emblazons it, palliates
it, avows it, and denies it, all in one and the same breath; yet, in the midst of all this
equivocating cowardice, in which he now fears to look the truth in the face, and then
strives to stare her out of countenance, all that he has done is still, in his own ultimate
belief, “wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;” and a man of higher
principle, more unimpeachable integrity, and loftier disdain of money, never, on a
summer’s morning at Paddington,
Lisson Grove, or Hampstead, pulled on a pair
of yellow breeches! . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
His readers will
perceive that he doe not attempt to justify his account of Lord
Byron upon any public grounds. There are those who will contend that a
public man is public property, and that it is lawful even to corrupt his servants, in order
to obtain disclosures as to his personal and domestic life; inasmuch as such disclosures
may be rendered subservient to the general good. Mr.
Hunt, however, uses no such argument as this; which, infamous though it be, has
at least a specious and unselfish appearance about it, calculated to gain the assent of the
unthinking part of the multitude. He openly avows that he borrowed money, which he could
not repay, except by violating his native feelings of right and honour, by composing a
work, which, otherwise, he would never have thought of, and which, when composed he would
have put into the fire, if his pecuniary circumstances had enabled him to pursue the
dictates of his heart. The wretched woman who, under the veil of night, offers her
attractions to those who are disposed to pay for them, may tell a similar tale. It is not
her love of vice that drives her into the streets; it is not her horror of virtue; for the
human heart is not so radically vicious—particularly not in woman—as some
philosopher have chosen to represent it: No—she must live—dire necessity urges
her to barter, her person for money, and so she goes on in her career of heartless,
ignominious depravity. Such a being we commonly call a prostitute. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Now the questions which we feel ourselves bound to ask of Mr. Hunt, are simply these:—Did the personal intercourse
between him and Lord Byron terminate in an avowal on his
(Mr. Hunt’s) part of hostility? And,
Would he have written and published about Lord Byron in the tone and
temper of this work had Lord Byron been alive? Except when vanity more
egregious than ever perverted a human being’s thoughts and feelings interferes, we
give Mr. Hunt some credit for fairness—and if he can answer
these two questions in the affirmative, we frankly admit that we shall think more
charitably, by a shade or two, of this performance than, in the present state of our
information, we are able to do. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
It appears from the
Preface that he had painted a full-length portrait of that perfect gentleman, Mr Hazlitt—but partly to oblige Mr Colburn, if we do not mistake, and partly because he
must have quarrelled—although he says not—with the amiable original, whom he
now accuses of having “a most wayward and cruel temper,” “which has
ploughed cuts and furrows in his face”—“and capable of being inhuman in
some things”—he has not given the picture a place in the
gallery. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries” in New Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 22 (January 1828)
From the charge of ingratitude, Mr. Leigh
Hunt, in various passages of his book, successfully vindicates himself, and
shows that the obligations which Lord Byron has been
represented to have heaped on him, have been ludicrously exaggerated both in number and
value. Into matters so delicate, however, we do not intend to enter. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We own that we do not think that in this and other such passages, the
publisher has been fairly dealt with by the author. The latter seems extremely anxious to
shift upon the shoulders of the former, all the blame which can attach to a work of this
description. It is obvious that Mr. Colburn wished,
and very naturally, to obtain a book that would repay him for his advances and other risks;
but it belonged to the author, if he really held any principles of honour sacred, to take
his stand upon them. If he has abandoned them, and that for the sake of the reward which he
was to get for so doing, it is clear that the taint of the transaction belongs, at least,
as much to him who receives, as to him who gives, under circumstances so humiliating. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We are constrained to add, however, that on this occasion our
‘pensive hearts’ have withstood the influence both of Burgundy and Moselle. To
our fancy, dropping metaphors, this is one of the most melancholy books that any man can
take up. The coxcombries of Mr. Hunt’s style both
of thought and language, were these things new, and were they all, might indeed furnish
inextinguishable laughter to the most saturnine of readers. But we had supped full with
these absurdities long ago, and have hardly been able to smile for more than a moment at
the most egregious specimens of cockneyism which the quarto presents; and even those who
have the advantage of meeting Mr. Leigh Hunt for the first time upon
this occasion, will hardly, we are persuaded, after a little reflection, be able to draw
any very large store of merriment from his pages. It is the miserable book of a miserable
man: the little airy fopperies of its manner are like the fantastic trip and convulsive
simpers of some poor worn out wanton, struggling between famine and remorse, leering
through her tears. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
Mr. Hunt does not appear before the world to give them an
account of events and connections of which they had previously no idea. We have all heard
quite enough of Lord Byron's munificence in receiving
into his house this distinguished gentleman and his family, to make it a prominent portion
of our general idea of his Lordship's character; and after the many statements and
insinuations, loud, long, and bitterly injurious to Mr. Hunt, which
have been founded upon the universal knowledge of this transaction, it seems to its neither
very wonderful nor very blameable, that he should at last come forward himself, and make
public his own defence. It is evident, from the whole tone of the book, that Mr.
Hunt has not stated in it a word which he does not believe. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
How anxiously we have looked for a work of
this kind, it would, we fear, be considered beneath the should be imperturbable dignity of
a reviewer to confess. We had assigned to Leigh Hunt the office of
Byron’s biographer, conceiving him on many accounts
eminently calculated for the task. His acquaintance with Byron had
been long and tolerably intimate, and, as a literary man, he was well qualified to draw
forth and accurately estimate the essentially mental qualities of his subject. His style of
composition too, seemed to us the more peculiarly adapted to the purpose, inasmuch as its
very defects in this instance resolved themselves into positive advantages,—such, for
example, as what is by many considered us over-fondness for minute details, his anatomy of
the most trivial of circumstances. We expected him to give not a bold sketchy picture,
‘beslabbered o’er with haste,’ but an elaborate portrait in which
‘each particular hair’ should be apparent, which would he not merely pleasing
to the eye, but in which the philosopher and the phrenologist might find ample materials
for deep and correct speculation. We did not look for unqualified eulogium,—we were
aware that truth would require anything but that,—but we imagined Mr.
Hunt to possess too little ascerbity of disposition for the transmutation
into vices worthy of record, what at most can be considered but insignificant overflowings
of bile, and may frequently bear even an advantageous construction. We have been
disappointed: in the present work, as far as it treats of Lord Byron,
we trace nothing of that vein of genuine and warm-hearted philanthropy by which the
writings of Leigh Hunt have been distinguished even more than by their
fancy and originality. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Of Moore,
Lamb, Campbell, &c., we are familiar with all that the author has said or
would repeat for the last or next twenty years. It is a novelty at any rate for one man of
genius honestly to give a minute and apparently honest account of the real private
character of another: but the privileges of the order to which both parties in fact belong,
may excuse the hardihood and the singularity of the scheme. Posterity invariably attempts
to rake up every peculiarity or characteristic trait from the memory of every great man;
and it is always loudly lamented when neither the investigations of antiquaries nor the
researches of ardent admirers can bring to light all that it is wished to discover.
Mr. Leigh Hunt has saved posterity any trouble in the case of
Lord Byron. We have his portrait here drawn by an acute observer
and a shrewd metaphysician, who had the advantage of living with him on terms of
intimacy—under the same roof. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Is not the tone of this passage insolent, unfeeling, and unmanly? The
writer, with flippant impatience to be insulting to the memory of a dead man, vainly tries,
by a poor perversion of the very ordinary, harmless, and pleasant circumstances, in which
he first saw the “Noble Childe,” to throw over him an air of ridicule, and to
make him and his pastime, to a certain degree, an object of contempt. But the ridicule
recoils on the Cockney. The “latter,” that is “Mr Jackson’s pupil,” that is, Lord Byron, was swimming with somebody for a wager, and that
our classic calls “rehearsing the part of Leander!” To
what passage in the life of Leander does the witling refer? “I
had been bathing, and was standing on the floating machine adjusting my clothes!” Ay,
and a pretty fellow, no doubt, you thought yourself, as you were jauntily buttoning your
yellow breeches. You are pleased to say, “so contenting myself with seeing his
lordship’s head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, I came away.” Now do
you know, sir, that while you were doing so, a whole young ladies’ ambulating
boarding school were splitting their sides with laughter at the truly laughable style in
which you were jerking out first the right leg and then the left, to get into the yellow
breeches; for your legs and thighs had not been sufficiently dried with the pillow-slip,
and for the while a man with moderate haste might count a hundred, in they could not be
persuaded to go, but ever and anon were exhibited, below the draggled shirt-tails, in most
ludicrous exposure? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt, however, fears he has gone too far in calling
himself a young man who had written a bad volume of poems; and he mentions that Lord Byron, who soon afterwards called upon him in prison,
thought it a good volume of poems; “to my astonishment he quoted some of the lines,
and would not hear me speak ill of them.” We daresay Mr Hunt was
very easily prevented from speaking ill of them; nor is there much magnanimity in now
announcing how little they were thought of by himself, and how much by Lord
Byron. This is mock-modesty; and, indeed, the would-be careless, but most
careful introduction of himself and his versifying at all, on such an occasion, must, out
of Cockaigne, be felt to be not a little disgusting and characteristic. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
We remember once hearing a midshipman giving an account of the death of
Lord Nelson, which consisted almost entirely of a
description of a musket ball that had lodged in his own buttocks, and been extracted
skilfully, but painfully, some months afterwards, as he lay on a sofa in his father’s
house at Lymington,—an account of the whole domestic economy
of which followed a complimentary character of himself and the surgeon. So is it with
Mr Hunt. He keeps perpetually poking and perking
his own face into yours, when you are desirous of looking only at Lord
Byron’s, nor for a single moment ever seems to have the sense to
suspect that the company are all too much disgusted to laugh at the absurdities of his
egotism. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Under these circumstances it was, that the author obtained the information which gives a tainted zest to his work. He did
not, be it remembered, meet with Lord Byron on the high
road of life, in the general intercourse of society; had that been the case, he might have
been justified in recording his impressions of a character, that is likely to be enquired
into with some degree of curiosity by posterity. But he never would have enjoyed the
opportunity of seeing Lord Byron in Italy, had it not been for the
noble lord’s kind intentions towards him in the first instance, and in the next
place, for an actual advance of money, sufficient to defray his travelling expences from
England to that country; so that while Mr. Hunt resided in Italy, he
could have been considered in no other light than as a dependant on Lord
Byron. For such a person therefore, to take advantage of his situation, in
order to betray to the world all his noble protector’s errors and foibles, seems to
us nothing short of a domestic treason. But to publish those foibles for the sake of gain,
and to publish nothing but those, for the sake of spleen, indicate a dereliction of
principle, and a destitution of honourable feeling, which we shall not venture to
characterize. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
The occasion of Leigh Hunt’s visit to Italy,
and its results, have been placed before the public, in consequence of their singular
nature, and of the high standing of the parties concerned, in a more prominent position
than any other portion of his life. There has been much blame and recrimination thrown
about on all sides. Mr. Hunt has stated his own case, in his work on
Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. The
case of Lord Byron has been elaborately stated by Mr. Moore, in his Life and Letters of the noble poet. It is not the place
here to discuss the question; but posterity will very easily settle it. My simple opinion
is, that Mr. Hunt had much seriously to complain of, and, under the
circumstances, has made his statement with great candour. The great misfortune for him, as
for the world, was, that almost immediately on his arrival in Italy with his family, his
true and zealous friend, Mr. Shelley, perished From
that moment, any indifferent spectator might have foreseen the end of the connexion with
Lord Byron. He had numerous aristocratic friends, who would, and
who did spare no pains to alarm his pride at the union with men of the determined character
of Hunt and Hazlitt for
progress and free opinion. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
But we confess that we have a good deal of doubt whether Mr.
Hunt has judged rightly as to the wisdom of speaking about Lord
Byron in the tone which he has assumed, considering the importance attached
by the world to the kind of favours received by our author from the aristocratic poet. We
do not question for a moment, that Lord Byron's kindnesses or
ostentations were done after a fashion, which very much tended to merge the sense of
obligation in a feeling of insulted self-respect. We are sure, from all we have ever read
or heard of Mr. Hunt, that he is really accustomed to consider his own
money as of much less consequence than money is commonly held to deserve; and that no man
would think less of the inconvenience of giving away any portion of his worldly goods by
which he could benefit a friend. But he would do well to remember that men will judge him
by their rules, and not by his; and that it is mere folly to afford new weapons against an
honourable reputation to those who have uniformly made so malignant a use of previous
opportunities. . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
In the career of social life where civilised well depend so much on their
fellow men, it must be that the noblest and proudest natures must often bend (we will not
say stoop) to receive benefits: from the king to the beggar, no one ever got through the
world without being obliged to others; and the receiver is as much to be esteemed and
honoured as the giver. But having once accepted the kindness of a friend, there is no after
act on his part, and far less any slight offence, or the mere cessation of bestowing
favours, which can form an apology for turning about to sting and wound your benefactor.
Silence is imposed, even if gratitude should be forgotten. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
Of all the grave charges brought against Lord Byron by Mr. Hunt, the only one of real and
unquestionable importance, the only one which can at all account for or justify the
soreness of feeling by which the writer is evidently actuated, is contained in the
following passage:—‘The public have been given to understand that
Lord Byron's purse was at my command, and that I used it according
to the spirit with which it was offered. I did so. Stern necessity,
and a large family, compelled me; 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 me out as if my disgraces were being counted, the sum
of seventy pounds!’ There is a meanness and an indelicacy
about this, which tends more to lessen Lord Byron, in our estimation,
than any of the peculiarities, strange and wayward as they were, upon which Mr.
Hunt dwells with such minute severity. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
If we rightly understand the drift of this argument, it means that
Mr. Hunt would have received as much of Lord Byron’s money as his lordship might have thought proper to give,
without feeling himself under the slightest obligation; but that he has since changed his
mind on the subject, ‘in practice at least,’ of which we presume the memoir of
his lordship is a sufficient example. There is much in this passage that savours of
Cobbett’s defence of his non-payment of a
loan advanced to him by Sir Francis Burdett. The
upshot of their common doctrine is this; that, whereas Messrs Cobbett
and Hunt have a high opinion of their own talents; and whereas one is
a political, and the other a miscellaneous writer, and they have not as yet amassed
fortunes by their publications—therefore, considering ‘the present state of
society,’ they need never think of refunding to any person who favours them with
pecuniary assistance! Mr. Hunt would, indeed, have us to believe, that
‘in practice at least,’ he has altered those notions of late, thereby affording
a ray of encouragement to those who might be inclined to imitate Lord
Byron’s generosity. But is he certain that if such persons were to be
found, he would not recur to his favourite doctrine? . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
He had been given to understand, forsooth!
that ‘the attachment was real; that it was rescuing Lord Byron
from worse connexions; and that the lady’s family approved of it.’ Supposing
all this to be true, does it follow that their conduct was the less criminal in the sight
of God—or less reprehensible in the opinion of good men?—But we correct
ourselves; it seems that Mr. Hunt has also a peculiar theory on this
subject, as on that of money. He tells us that he differs, very considerably, ‘with
the notions entertained respecting the intercourse of the sexes, in more countries than
one;’ by which, we suspect, he means that such intercourse ought to be subject to no
laws, human or divine. Truly, we have here a philosopher of the most agreeable
description! . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
The portrait will be acknowledged to be one of those which all who do not
know the original subject, from the reality of its look, and the force and nature of its
impression, will pronounce to be a perfect likeness; and they who did know it would place
the question beyond suspicion, unless indeed the picture is too close a resemblance to be
flattering, unless, contrary to the usage of artists, it represents deformities as well as
beauties. The ravages of the small-pox are never copied in a portrait. Biographies are
generally all so much alike, that the changes of a few names and circumstances would make
one pass for another. Eulogies deal in generals, and if a foible is confessed, it is
commonly one possessed by all mankind. Characters are seldom attempted, except by
historians and novelists; in both cases the original dwells only in the author’s
fancy. Viewed in this light, the character of Lord Byron
is perhaps the very first that was ever drawn from life with fidelity and skill; we have
him here as his intimate friends knew him—as those who lived with him felt him to be
by hourly experience. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Dignified historian! Sublime studies! What peering, and prying, what
whisper-listening, what look-eying, what note-jotting, and journalizing must have been
there! What sudden leave-taking of bower, arbour, and parlour, at nod or wink of the
master, whom he served! This was being something worse than a lick-spittle. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
With such a feeling running cold all the while at the bottom of his heart,
does this unfortunate proceed to fill page after page, through a long quarto volume, with
the meatiest details of private gossip,—dirty gabble about men’s wives and
men’s mistresses,—and men’s lackeys, and even the mistresses of the
lackeys (p. 13)—and, inter alia, with anecdotes of the
personal habits of an illustrious poet now no more, such as could never have come to the
knowledge of any man who was not treated by Lord Byron either as a friend or as a menial.
Such is the result of ‘the handsome conduct’ of Mr.
Hunt’s publisher—who, we should not forget, appears to have
exercised throughout* the concoction of this work, a species of authority somewhat new in
the annals of his calling: . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
The connexion between Lord Byron and
persons in rank, in intellect, and in every high quality of soul, so inferior to himself as
the coterie which gathered round him in Italy— and the consequences of that
assemblage, may, we think, be very readily accounted for. Lord Byron,
with the fervour of a young poet, imagined Leigh
Hunt—in prison for libelling his King—a sort of political martyr,
and thus prepossessed in his favour was led to estimate his writings by a fictitious
standard. But this fit of fancy must almost instantly have been dispelled, as the author
shews it to have been, when his lordship came into direct and constant contact with the
pert vulgarity and miserable low-mindedness of Cockney-land. We can picture him (the
haughty aristocrat and impatient bard) with Mrs.
Hunt, as painted by her partial husband, with the whole family of bold
brats, as described by their proud papa, and with that papa himself and the rest of the
accompanying annoyances; and we no longer wonder that the Pisan establishment of congenial spirits, brought together from various parts of the world,
should have turned into a den of disagreeable, envious, bickering, hating, slandering,
contemptible, drivelling, and be-devilling wretches. The elements of such an association
were discord; and the result was, most naturally, spleen and secret enmity in life, and
hate and public contumely after death. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
Few people, we believe, will discover either delicacy or good taste in the
conduct thus complacently described. In the lady we perceive a very unamiable penchant for
saying disagreeable things, not quite so smart as her affectionate husband fancies them,
and which could have lost none of their deformity when repeated by Mr. Hunt to his lordship. Then again, does it tell against Byron that he was vexed because the children were kept out of
the way? We suspect not, and really cannot help thinking that many of the causes of
difference must have originated with the party now complaining. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt, too, had had his midriff tickled by it out of all
measure,—had treasured it up among other bright and original sallies in the
store-house of his memory, and suddenly, and without warning, brought it out to annihilate
the Noble who had dared to criticise the personal appearance of “some friends of
mine.” Poor Byron, how easily wert thou abashed!
Disgust and scorn must have tied his tongue; just as they sicken the very eyes that run
over the low and loath- some recital by a chuckling Cockney, of
his wife’s unmannerly and unwomanly stupidities, mixed up with the poisonous slaver
of his own impotent malice, rendering page 27 of “Lord Byron and
his Contemporaries, by Leigh Hunt,” the most impertinent piece of printed
paper that ever issued from the press. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There is another subject upon which we must touch, though with unfeigned
reluctance, and with as much delicacy as we can. It is well known that an intimacy of an
improper description took place between Lord Byron and a
Signora Guiccoli, soon after his
lordship’s arrival in Italy, and that that intimacy continued for a considerable
length of time. Mr. Hunt was aware of this; he knew, therefore, that
the parties were living in a state of double adultery, openly violating the most sacred
duties. Yet he never seems to have hesitated an instant, about introducing Mrs. Hunt and his children to a family thus tainted in all
its relations. He complains of having been treated by Lord Byron, on
some oc-casions, with disrespect; we ask, what better
treatment did he deserve, after degrading himself and his children, by such mean
compliances? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
During this period Lord Byron wrote
occasional letters to Mr Hunt, some of which are highly
complimentary, but they soon wax somewhat cool—“My dear
Hunt,” changes into “Dear Hunt,” “Yours,
most affectionately,” drops off—and it is plain enough that his Lordship is
getting sick and ashamed of the connexion. No wonder. The tone and temper of Mr
Hunt’s character, manners, and pursuits, as given by himself, must
have been most offensive to a man of high breeding and elevated sentiments like
Lord Byron; and his Lordship’s admiration of “Rimini,” was not such as to stand against
the public disgrace of having it dedicated to “My dear
Byron.” The pride of the peer revolted, as was natural and
right, from such an unwarrantable freedom—and with his own pen, it has since
appeared, he erased the nauseous familiarity,—for Leigh Hunt
very properly substituting “impudent varlet.” . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt had been a despicable abuser of all lords, before
he had ever sat in company with one; and even now, he is embued with the rancorous dislike
of high-birth, that is the glory and the shame of the lord-hating gang to which he yet
appertains. But how quickly quailed his paltry heart, and
cringed his servile shoulders, and bent his Cockney knees, and sought the floor the
pertness of his radical-looking eyes, at the very first condescending visit from a lord!
The Examiner died within him,—all his
principles slipt out of being like rain-drops on a window-pane, at the first smiting of the
sun—and, oh! the self-glorification that must have illuminated his face, “saved
only by thought from insignificance,” when, as he even now exults to record it,
Lady Byron continued sitting impatiently in her
carriage at his door at Paddington, and sending message after
message, to the number of Two, to her lord, fascinated by the glitter of mean eyes, and
preferring, to the gentle side of his young and newly-wedded wife, the company of a
Cockney, whose best bits were distributed through the taverns for tenpence every
Sunday! . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt tells his readers that Lord Byron threw
him back his Spenser, saying ‘he could make
nothing of him’: but whether are we to believe that the noble lord, sickened (as all
Mr. Hunt’s readers have been for twenty years past) with Mr.
Hunt’s endless and meaningless chatter about the half dozen poets, good, bad, and
indifferent, whom he patronizes, was willing to annoy Mr. Hunt by the
cavalier treatment of one of his principal protegés, or that
the author of one of the noblest poems that have been written in the Spenserian stanza was
both ignorant of the Faëry Queen,
and incapable of comprehending anything of its merits? No man who knew anything of
Lord Byron can hesitate for a moment about the answer.
Lord Byron, we have no sort of doubt, indulged his passion for
mystifying, at the expense of this gentleman, to an improper and unjustifiable extent. His delight was at all times in the study of
man. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
It is equally certain, that we have now before us a
voluminous collection of Lord Byron’s private correspondence,
addressed, for the most part, to persons whom Mr. Hunt,
however ridiculously, describes as his own personal enemies—letters written before,
during, and after the period of Mr. Hunt’s intercourse with
Lord Byron in Italy; and although there occur many jokes upon
Mr. Hunt, many ludicrous and quizzical
notices of him, yet we have sought in vain for a single passage indicative of spleen or
resentment of any shape or degree. On the contrary, he always upholds Mr.
Hunt, as a man able, honest, and well-intentioned, and therefore, in spite
of all his absurdities, entitled to a certain measure of respect as well as kindness. The
language is uniformly kind. We shall illustrate what we have said by a few extracts.
Mr. Hunt will perceive that Lord
Byron’s account of his connexion with
The Liberal
is rather different from that given in the book on our table. Mr.
Hunt describes himself as pressed by Lord Byron into
the undertaking of that hapless magazine: Lord Byron, on the contrary,
represents himself as urged to the service by the Messrs. Hunt themselves. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
‘Genoa,
10bre 25th, 1822.—Now do you see what you, and your friends do by your
injudicious rudeness? actually cement a sort of connexion which you strove to prevent,
and which, had the Hunts
prospered, would not, in all probability, have continued. As it
is, I will not quit them in their adversity, though it should cost me character, fame,
money, and the usual et cetera. My original motives I already explained; (in the letter
which you thought proper to show;) they are the true ones, and I
abide by them, as I tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt,
when he questioned me on the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never
will forgive me at the bottom; but I cannot help that. I never meant to make a parade
of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer the plain truth, and I
confess, I did not see any thing in the letter to hurt him, unless I said he was
“a bore,” which I don’t remember. Had this
Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for them, I should then
have left them after a safe pilotage off a lee shore to make a prosperous voyage by
themselves. As it is, I can’t, and would not if I could, leave them among the
breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh
Hunt and me, there is little or none. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Before the First Number of this poorest of all Periodicals had left the
anvil, Lord Byron had grown sick and ashamed of the
Editor, and he “only made use of it for the publication of some things which his Tory
bookseller was afraid to put forth.” Hunt
attributes its downfall almost entirely to Lord Byron’s want of
spirit and independence. But Hunt himself, he acknowledges, grew daily
stupider and weaker in mind and body, and could indite nothing but drivel. Poor Shelley was dead—Hazlitt worse than dead—how then could the Liberal live even with “The Vision of Judgement, in which my brother saw nothing
but Byron, and a judicious hit at the Tories, and he prepared his
machine accordingly, for sending forward the blow unmitigated. Unfortunately it recoiled,
and played the devil with all of us.” Mr Hunt then tries to
attribute the death of the monster—which at its birth was little better than an
abortion—to the sneers of Mr Moore and
Mr Hobhouse. Poor blind bat, does he not know
that all Britain loathed it? That it was damned, not by acclamation, but by one hiss and
hoot? That every man who was betrayed by the name of Byron to take it
into his hands, whether in private house, bookseller’s shop, or coffee-room, called
instantly and impatiently for a basin of water, soap and towels. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We remember to have seen some numbers of the “Liberal,” the periodical publication in the management
of which, Mr. Hunt assisted Lord
Byron; and although it is written, that of the dead nothing that is not good
should be said, yet we must declare, that a more silly, a more vulgar, a more
unentertaining, or at the same time, a more ostentatious work never dishonoured our
literature. In matters of morality, it was at least of a very questionable charac-ter; in matters of religion it was offensively conceited and
profane. It perished in the disgrace it deserved, and let it therefore rest in
contempt. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
He thought, no doubt, that his own compositions
would be easily distinguished from those of Messrs. Hunt and Co.; and
that, therefore, he might benefit these needy people without materially injuring his own
reputation. Humble as was his estimate of the talents of all his coadjutors, except
Mr. Shelley, he had not foreseen that, instead
of his genius floating their dulness, an exactly opposite consequence would attend that
unnatural coalition. In spite of some of the ablest pieces that ever came from
Lord Byron’s pen,—in spite of the magnificent poetry
of heaven and Earth,—the eternal laws of gravitation held their course: Messrs.
Hunt, Hazlitt, and Co.
furnished the principal part of the cargo; and the ‘Liberal’ sunk to the bottom of the waters of oblivion
almost as rapidly as the Table-Talk, or the Foliage, or the Endymion.
. . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Among the other causes of the death of the Liberal, Mr Hunt refers to
one bitterly spoken of by Hazlitt, in a note quoted
from some manuscripts—the attacks on it in Blackwood’s Magazine. So infamous, it appears, had
Hazlitt been rendered by some able articles in this work, that he
had been excommunicated from all decent society, and nobody would touch a dead book of his,
any more than they would the body of a man who had died of the
plague. This is an incredible instance of the power of the press. What! a man of such pure
morals, delightful manners, high intellects, and true religion, as Mr
Hazlitt, to be ruined in soul, body, and estate, pen, pencil, and pallet, by
a work which Mr Hunt himself declared in the Examiner had no sale—almost the entire impression of every
number lying in cellars, in the capacity of dead stock? . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
We are not inclined to press this matter beyond its just bounds, nor, to
set a higher value upon pecuniary obligations than they deserve; but surely, in spite of
the cant and wire-drawing distinctions of the author, it must be felt by every
well-constituted and upright mind, that the acceptance of such favours ought, at least, to
prevent their acceptor from violating the grave of his friend; for, as
the world goes, money is the greatest test of friendship; find the man who gives
it liberally and generously, as Lord Byron did to
Mr. Hunt, affords the surest criterion of his regard and
affection. Yet, writhing under a recollection of bounties ill-bestowed, thus does the
quondam worshipper of that noble lord, and of his rank and title, profane his character,
when death has sealed the lips which (if utter scorn did not close them) might have
punished the perfidy with immortal ignominy. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
It is not our province to defend Lord
Byron’s character from the imputations which are here made against it.
They may be all well founded, for aught that we know; but that they are set forth in a
vindictive, not to say a malignant spirit, no man can doubt, who understands that it is the
duty of a biographer to give the lights as well as shades to his portrait, which properly
belong to it. If Mr. Hunt is to be believed,
Lord Byron had not a single virtue, to redeem or palliate the
above formidable list of vices and infirmities; whereas it is notorious, that his lordship
had done many kind and generous acts towards literary friends; that he was never niggardly
of his praise where he thought it deserved; that throughout his too brief existence, he had
been animated by an unquenchable love of liberty, and had essentially served it by his
writings, and that finally he sacrificed his life upon its altar. These things alone, not
to say a word of his transcendant genius, ought to shed a brightness on his history, which
should cast many of his infirmities into the shade. It cannot be denied, that his great
poetical talents were sullied by many impurities, but these will of themselves decay in
time, and leave his name in that fine splendour, in which it was invested when it first
obtained its ascendant in our horizon. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Much of what Mr. Hunt is pleased to call his account
of Lord Byron, is rather a dissertation upon his
character, than a history of his life. He takes a verse from the noble lord’s poems,
or a confession of an idle moment, and makes it the theme of half a dozen tiresome prosing
pages. There is little that is new in his narrative, and of that little, there is still
less that is important. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
But the great value of this
portion of the work undoubtedly is, that it gives us a far clearer and more consistent view
of the character of the singular man and celebrated writer of whom it treats, than any
other book that has hitherto appeared. We see him in these pages living and moving before
us, not merely with his wings and scars, with the power and desperation, of his poetry, but
with the circumstances and attributes of ordinary humanity. And it is now, indeed, time
that we should begin to judge him calmly and fairly; for the renown, and the all but
disgrace which alike filled the air as with an immeasurable cloud, have shrunk, as did the
gigantic genius of the Arabian Tale, into a narrow urn. It is not more than his errors
deserve to say, that they were the rank produce of a noble soil, the weeds which grow among
Asphodel and Amaranth, on the summit of Olympus, and around the
footsteps of the glorified immortals. It is good for us that books exist which display the
union of poetic ability with a scorn and a selfishness of which literature scarce afforded
us any previous example; for the works of Byron may be a warning to
every mind, the mightiest or the meanest, that there are failings and vices which will even
break the sceptre and scatter to the winds the omnipotence of genius . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Shall, then,
the public be informed of that which does not concern it; or shall we accuse the publisher
of such information of a breach of faith—of a treacherous betrayal of that which is
only revealed under the sacred confidence of domestic intercourse? We confess that these
fine words fall dead upon our ears. We see no reason that men should not be known as they
really are, but many for it; it is the first step to amendment. Had all the published lives
and characters been written in their true colours, the world would have been much further
advanced in virtue. This hypocrisy in glossing over vice—in smoothing down the
roughness and defects of character, is a kind of premium upon the indulgence of evil
passion. Though the world may have little to do with the private virtues directly; inasmuch
as these constitute by far the greater portion of its aggregate of happiness; there is no
more important subject can be discussed before it than the excellencies and failings of
eminent individuals. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
Mr. Hunt asserts, on more than one occasion, that
Lord Byron had ‘no address,’ no
conversational powers, none, in short, of those little, pleasant, companionable qualities,
for which, we believe, Mr. Hunt himself is so deservedly celebrated.
Any deficiency of this sort, we should set down as no very culpable matter; but it happens
that there are many testimonies on this subject opposed to that of Mr.
Hunt. Some of these, we confess, may not appear either to him or to
ourselves, of a very conclusive order; but what will he say to that of Mr. Shelley? It is known, that in Julian and Maddalo, Mr. Shelley
introduces us to himself and Lord Byron; and thus favorably, both in
prose and verse, does he describe the latter: ‘I say that
Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the
concentered and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and
affections only that he seems to trample, for, in social life no human being can be more
gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank,
and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men are held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much; and
there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different
countries.’ The whole portrait is worthy of quotation . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We should, indeed, have reason to blush, could we think for a moment of
entering into the details given by Mr. Leigh Hunt,
concerning the manners, habits, and conversation of Lord
Byron. The witness is, in our opinion, disqualified to give evidence upon
any such subjects; his book proves him to be equally ignorant of what manners are, and
incompetent to judge what manners ought to be: his elaborate portraiture of his own habits
is from beginning to end a very caricatura of absurdity; and the man who wrote this book,
studiously cast, as the whole language of it is, in a
free-and-easy, conversational tone, has no more right to decide about the conversation of
such a man as Lord Byron, than has a pert apprentice to pronounce
ex cathedrá
—from his one shilling gallery, to wit—on the dialogue of a polite
comedy. We can easily believe, that Lord Byron never talked his best
when this was his companion. We can also believe that Lord
Byron’s serious conversation, even in its lowest tone, was often
unintelligible to Mr. Leigh Hunt.
. . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
How insidiously the serpent slides through the folds of these passages,
leaving his slime behind him as he wriggles out of sight! There is a
Sporus-like effeminacy in the loose and languid language in which
he drawls out his sentence into what he thinks the fine-sounding word,
Sardanapalus. What if the Grand
Signior did take the youthful Byron for a woman in
disguise? The mistake of that barbarian no more proved that his lordship had an effeminate
appearance, than a somewhat similar mistake of the Sandwich Islanders proved the jolly crew
of the Endeavour, sailing round the world with Cook,
to be like Gosport-girls. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Mr. Hunt enters into an examination of the various publications which
have been broached on the subject of Lord Byron’s
life and character; and as he condescends to criticise some very paltry performances, we
are surprised that he did not bestow some attention on a paper which formerly appeared in
this magazine (for October, 1824). It is the only
sketch that has been written in the same spirit as his own; and since it remarkably
coincides in all leading points with the view above given, may be considered a confirmation
of its truth. This sketch appeared soon after Lord Byron’s
death, and attracted much attention at the time, it having been copied from our pages into
almost every other journal of the day. It was thought much too true, much too
unceremonious, and the very reverse of sentimental, the tone into which the nation struck
after the death of this remarkable person. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There are upwards of forty pages
out of one hundred and fifty, devoted solely to a dull criticism on a work, entitled,
“The Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times, of
Lord Byron,”—a spurious compilation, known to be such by any man who
has the slightest judgment. Yet does Mr. Hunt set about refuting the
numberless fabrications of this precious publication, with as much solemnity as if it had
proceeded from a respectable quarter. But his motive is evident enough. He wished merely to
eke out his memoir, and give it as imposing an appearance as possible. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
In another part of the book, Hunt
quotes a few sentences, which seem very good ones, from an old article in the Magazine on
Lord Byron,—and adds, “there follows
something about charity, and clay-idols, and brutal outrages of all the best feelings; and
Mr Blackwood, having finished his sermon,
retires to count his money, his ribaldry, and his kicks.” Here
Hunt considers Mr Blackwood as the writer of
the Critique, or Sermon in question, and indeed he often speaks of that gentleman as the
author of the articles that have kicked up such a “stoure” in Cockney-land. On
other occasions, when it suits his purpose, he gives himself the lie direct,—but
probably all this passes for wit behind the counter. Mr
Colburn, however, cannot like it: nor would it be fair, notwithstanding the
judicious erasures which he has made on the MS. in its progress through the press, to
consider that gentleman the author of “Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries,” any more than of those very entertaining but somewhat
personal articles in the Magazine of which he is
proprietor, entitled “Sketches of the
Irish Bar.” That Mr Blackwood should occasionally
retire to count his money, seems not at all unreasonable in a publisher carrying on a
somewhat complicated, extensive, and flourishing trade. It is absolutely necessary that he
should so retire into the Sanctum, at which times even we do not think of disturbing
him . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
With respect to Mr. Hunt's opinion of
Lord Byron's poetical ability, little need be said.
Whatever may be our respect for his general criticisms, in this particular instance we
entertain but little; nor need we stay to consider what he himself would say of a critic
who should acknowledge that he had read only a portion of certain works which he has no
hesitation in condemning, almost unqualifiedly, as a whole. ‘To the
best of my recollection I never even read Parisina, nor is this the only one of
his lordship's works of which I can say as much, acquainted as I am with the
others.’ There is an unpleasant assumption in this passage, which comes very
gracelessly from Mr. Hunt; at all events, it is a question whether our
dislike of the effrontery does not exceed our gratitude for the candour of the
acknowledgment. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Even as to the more solemn subject of
religion, we ought to take shame to ourselves for even for a moment considering Lord Byron and Mr. Leigh
Hunt as brother infidels. The dark doubts which
disturbed to its depths the noble intellect of the one had little, indeed, in common with
the coxcombical phantasies which floated and float on the surface of the other’s
shallowness. Humility,—a most absurd delusion of humility, be it allowed, made the
one majestic creature unhappy: the most ludicrous conceit, grafted on the most deplorable
incapacity, has filled the paltry mind of the gentleman-of the-press now before us, with a
chaos of crude, pert dogmas, which defy all analysis, and which it is just possible to pity
more than despise. . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
The confessions in this passage betray some symptoms of grace, and prove
that the writer could not entirely reconcile his mind to the despicable course of doing
wrong to the memory of his benefactor for the sake of paltry lucre, if not also for the
gratification of still baser passions. Indeed the struggle between a sense of rectitude in
this respect, and the dishonour of publishing these memoirs, is obvious in many
places. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Now a question suggests itself to us, which we are sure Mr. Hunt, with the high feelings thus entertained and expressed
by him, will thank us for asking. It is well known, that Lord
Byron took leave finally of Mr. Leigh Hunt by letter.
The letter in question we never saw, but we have conversed with those who read it; and from
their account of its contents—they describe it as a document of considerable length,
and as containing a full narrative of the whole circumstances under which Lord
Byron and Mr. Hunt met and parted, according to his
lordship’s view of the case—we confess we have been rather surprized to find it
altogether omitted in Mr. Leigh Hunt’s quarto. Mr.
Hunt prints very carefully various letters, in which Lord
Byron treats of matters nowise bearing on the differences which occurred
between these two distinguished contemporaries: and our
question is, was it from humanity to the dead, or from humanity to the living, that
Mr. Leigh Hunt judged it proper to omit in this work the
apparently rather important letter to which we refer? If Mr. Hunt has
had the misfortune to mislay the document, and sought in vain for it amongst his
collections, he ought, we rather think, to have stated that fact, and stated also, in so
far as his memory might serve him, his impression of the character and tendency of this
valedictory epistle. But in case he has both lost the document and totally forgotten what
it contained, we are happy in having this opportunity of informing him, that a copy of it
exists in very safe keeping. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Of Mr. Moore there is a very lively, pleasant, and
characteristic description. Mr. Hunt’s anecdotes about the
writer of ‘Lalla Rookh’ are,
in general, good-humoured enough; and we scarcely understand why Mr.
Hunt should have quarrelled with so distinguished and amiable a person, for
saying that there was ‘a taint in the Liberal,’
especially as he himself expresses the same thing in other words, when he talks of his
objections to the publication of the parody
on ‘The Vision of
Judgment.’ . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Of Mr
Moore he begins with drawing a favourable likeness—but having
something of the spleen towards him too, he puts on not a few touches, meant to dash its
pleasantness, and leaves it in a very unfinished state—for no other or better reason
that we can discover, than that Mr Moore most justly had said to
Lord Byron that “the Liberal had a taint in
it,” had, at a public dinner in Paris, spoken highly of
England, and in some verses written rather disparagingly of that very indulgent person,
Madame Warrens. On one occasion, he designates
him by the geographic designation of “a Derbyshire poet”—Mr
Moore, we believe, having had a cottage in that county—admitting in a
note, that at the time he had been too angry with Mr Moore to honour
him so highly as to call him by his name—and on many occasions he sneers at him for
living so much it in that high society, from which all Cockneys are of course
excluded—and saw, as has been mentioned, he threatens him with the posthumous satire
of Lord Byron.
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Moreover, his reasoning as to
Mr. Moore’s conduct with regard to Lord
Byron’s
Memoirs, seems to us to be at once vague and
inapplicable. What Mr. Hunt seems to aim at, is to make out an
inconsistency in Mr. Moore’s conduct, because he accepted 2000
guineas’ worth from Lord Byron, but would not accept the same
sum in money from Lord Byron’s family. The difference is obvious. In the one case the
present was a mark of friendship; in the other it was a payment, and might have been
thought and called a bribe. Suppose Mr. Shelley, when he dedicated
‘The Cenci’ to
Mr. Hunt, had given him the copyright; and that, if the Tragedy
had not been already published, our author had seen fit, after his friend’s death, to
throw it into the fire, would he have accepted 200l. or 200 pence
from the Society for the Suppression of Vice as a reward for his conduct? Mr.
Hunt almost always makes blunders when he talks about money-matters. He says
himself that he has no head for them; and he really ought to leave the discussion of them
to calculating stockbrokers or cool reviewers, while he writes (we hope) another
‘Rimini.’ . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
On Shelley there is a long and most
interesting article. He was the greatest man of all those who are mentioned by Mr. Hunt; he was also his most intimate friend; and the notices
we have of him are proportionally valuable. Mr. Hunt’s book,
from bearing the name of Lord Byron on its title-page,
will probably go into the hands of many persons who know nothing of
Shelley but the name. We trust that the delightful, and we are
sure, most accurate portrait drawn by our author in the book before us, and the exquisite
specimens of poetry which he has extracted from Mr. Shelley’s
works, will induce a more detailed acquaintance with the writings of one of the most
benevolent men and powerful poets that have lived in any age or country. Of the errors of
some of his opinions, taken in their broad and obvious import, few men have had the
boldness to profess themselves apologists, and fewer still have had the charity to seek
among those errors for precious, though sometimes latent, germs of truth. We will venture
to assert, that those of his doctrines which are at first sight the most awfully
pernicious, are uniformly objectionable for the form rather than the spirit, the phrase
more than the feeling. It is, on the other hand, undeniable, that his sympathies are the
fondest and the best, his aspirations the purest and most lofty. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
We took a deep interest in Mr
Shelley. Full of admiration of his genius, and pity for his misconduct and
misfortunes, we spoke of him at all times with an earnestness of feeling, which we know he
felt, and for which we received written expressions of gratitude from some by whom he was,
in spite of all his unhappy errors, most tenderly beloved. Mr
Hunt must know this; but he is one of those “lovers of truth,”
who will not, if he can help it, suffer any one single spark of it to spunk out, unless it
shine in his own face, and display its pretty features to the public, “rescued only
by thought from insignificance.” Moreover, he hates this Magazine, not altogether, perhaps, without some little reason
of a personal kind—and, therefore, as a “lover of truth,” is bound never
to see any good in it, even if that good be the cordial praise of the genius of his dearest
friend, and, when it was most needed, a fearless vindication of all that could be
vindicated in his opinions, and conduct. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Judging of his mind as displayed in
his poetry, his hopes are fierce and rushing longings; his dislike, a curse; his
sympathies, an absorbing passion; the habitual pulses of his frame are the shocks of an
earthquake. Such was the spirit, clothing in the most glorious forms of beauty the one
purpose of purifying and ennobling its kind, on which were poured out all the vials of
muddy wrath in the power of the ‘Quarterly
Review.’ Such was the spirit which, in all
but its productions, is absolutely unknown to us, except through the short notice, at the
beginning of a volume of posthumous poems, and a part of the book with which Mr. Hunt has just enlivened society and enriched literature.
His information is full and consolatory, and we find in every line the authoritative
verification of those conclusions, as to Mr. Shelley’s reverence
and practice of all excellence, and habitual belief in the goodness of the Great Spirit
that pervades the universe, which are at once a triumph of candour and charity, and an
utter confusion and prostration to the whole herd of selfish bigots. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
The articles descriptive of Shelley, Keats, Charles Lamb, &c. are worthy of them and of the writer.
They are correct and beautiful sketches, and will do much towards giving popular opinion a
right direction respecting the two first. The portraits of Keats and
Lamb are welcome ornaments to the volume; we regret that they were
not accompanied by one of Shelley. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
The author’s memoir of Mr.
Moore is too scanty, and, we may add, too prejudiced to deserve any
particular notice from us. That of Mr.
Shelley, on the contrary, is nothing but a panegyric. Of the genius of that
ill-starred and eccentric man, we have always thought very highly; his private life offers
little worthy of our admiration, and his religious principles still less. His end was
tragical, and contains a lesson that should appal the most thoughtless of his
disciples. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
So much for Mr. Leigh Hunt versus Lord Byron: the other
contemporaries that figure in this volume are, with two or three exceptions, persons whose
insignificance equals that of the author himself; and as they have had no hand, that we
know of, in this absurd exposure of themselves, we should be sorry either to waste our time
or to wound their feelings by any remarks on Mr. Hunt’s
delineations of them. Mr. Shelley’s portrait
appears to be the most elaborate of these minor efforts of
Mr. Hunt’s pencil. Why does Mr. Hunt
conceal (if he be aware of the fact) that this unfortunate man of genius was bitterly
sensible ere he died of the madness and profligacy of the early career which drew upon his
head so much indignation, reproach, and contumely—that he confessed with tears ‘that he well knew he had been all in the
wrong’? . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
Every lover
of true poetry and of an excellent and high-hearted man, must regret that his visit to
Italy was dashed by such melancholy circumstances, for no man was ever made more thoroughly
to enjoy that fine climate and classical land. Yet as the friend of Shelley, Keats,
Charles Lamb, and others of the first spirits of
the age, Mr. Hunt must be allowed, in this respect, to have been one
of the happiest of men. It were no mean boon of providence to have been permitted to live
in the intimacy of men like these; but, besides this, he had the honour to suffer, with
those beautiful and immortal spirits, calumny and persecution. They have achieved justice
through death—he has lived injustice down. As a politician, there is a great debt of
gratitude due to him from the people, for he was their firm champion when reformers
certainly did not walk about in silken slippers. He fell on evil days, and he was one of
the first and foremost to mend them. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
In the memoir which Mr.
Hunt has given of him, we frequently observe the phrase
‘conventional,’ and ‘unconventional.’ It seems, that he imagines
the community divisible into these two classes, the former including those who acknowledge
an allegiance to the general rules of society, the latter consisting of those who would
like to live according to regulations of their own. Mr. Shelley has a
conspicuous place among the unconventional, and, if we mistake not, Mr.
Hunt aspires to a similar honour;—par
nobile-fratres. The author indulges us with a long and tedious
review of his friend’s different poetical works, of course exalting them to the
highest pitch of reputation. It will avail them little. The tendency to corruption and
decay, which in a signal manner is engendered in all obscene things, pervades them to the
core, and has already bowed them to the dust, with which they will soon be covered. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Gentle Reader—Let us so arouse your imagination, that you see a
Lion sleeping in the shade, or rather couched an a conscious slumber, his magnificent mane
spread abroad in the forest gloom, and the growling thunder hushed beneath it as in a
lowering cloud. Suppose him Sir Walter. Among the
branches of a tree, a little way off, sits a monkey, and did you ever hear such a chatter?
The blear-eyed abomination makes his very ugliest mouths at the monarch of the wood; and
shrieking in his rage, not altogether unlike something human, dangles first from one twig,
and then from another, still higher and higher up the tree, with an instinctive though
unnecessary regard for the preservation of his nudities, clinging at once by paw and by
tail, making assurance doubly sure that he shall not lose his hold, and drop down within
range of Sir Leoline. Suppose him Leigh Hunt. The sweet
little cherub that sits up aloft fondly and idly imagines, that the Lion is lying there
meditating his destruction,—that those claws, whose terrors are now tamed in glossy
velvet, and which, if suddenly unsheathed, would be seen blushing perhaps with the blood of
pard or panther, were given him by nature for the express purpose of waging high warfare
with the genus Simia! . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Of the remaining notices, we are most obliged to the author for that on
Mr. Keats. The names of Coleridge and of Lamb call up to us so much more vivid ideas of the persons in question,
that we learn comparatively little about them even from Mr.
Hunt’s very pleasant sketches. But Mr.
Keats’s reputation is at present but the shadow of a glory,—and
it is also plain enough to be seen that his works, beautiful as they are, are yet but the
faint shadow of his mind. His friend has commemorated his high genius, melancholy fate, and
unmerited contumelies, in a fitting tone of feeling. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
His
was another of the bright minds at which a part of the public looked, for a time, only
through the smoky glass of the Quarterly
Reviewers. But by a just and necessary retribution, the abuse of power has
destroyed itself, and we doubt whether two hundred persons in the kingdom would now attach
the slightest importance to the most violent lucubrations of Mr. Murray’s critics. In the case of poor Keats, the mischief was irreparable; for it is clear, that whatever
predisposition to disease may have existed, the brutality of the extra-orthodox Reviewers
was the proximate cause of the death of an amiable man and a great poet, at an age when
most of his contemporaries were thinking of nothing but pounds and shillings, or the
excitements of ballrooms and burgundy, or the pleasure of covering the world with floods of
anonymous calumny. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We believe we could not illustrate our view of the whole of this business
more effectually than by simply presenting a few extracts from Lord
Byron’s private letters in which this Mr.
Keats is alluded to. Our readers have probably, forgotten all about
‘Endymion, a
poem,’ and the other works of this young man, the all but universal roar
of laughter with which they were received some ten or twelve years ago, and the ridiculous
story (which Mr. Hunt denies) of the author’s death
being caused by the reviewers. Mr. Hunt was the great patron, the
‘guide, philosopher, and friend’ of Mr. Keats; it was he
who first puffed the youth into notice in his newspaper. The youth returned the compliment
in sonnets and canzonets, and presented his patron with a lock of Milton’s hair, and wrote a poem on the occasion. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
This sounds all mighty valiant—and no one can read the words,
without believing that “Hunt sent a challenge to
Dunbar, saying, Charlie meet me if you
daur,” and that his challenge struck a cold terror into the heart of “rough old
General Izzard.” But Mr
Hunt has waxed tea-pot valiant, when recording in old age the bold
achievements of his youth. All that he did was, to ask the General’s name, that he
might bring an action against him for libel. Half a syllable, with any other import, would
have brought the General, without an hour’s delay, before the eyes of the astonished
Cockney. Hunt then kept fiddle-faddling with attorneys, and
solicitors, and barristers, for months together, till finding fees troublesome, and that
there had been no libel, but in his own diseased imagination, or guilty conscience, he
“retreated into his contempt,” and in contempt he has, we believe, ever since
remained. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There are hundreds of others who lived in the
time of Lord Byron, and had just as much title to notice as of those,
with perhaps one or two exceptions, who are here enumerated. Keats
died at the age of twenty-four, in a state little short of madness.
Campbell still lives to adorn his country, and promote the welfare
of his race. Dubois is scarcely known; Theodore
Hook, too well known for his, at least presumed, connexion with the basest
system of calumny that ever disgraced the public press; Mathews still
delights the town, and one of the Smiths, at least, has retired to Tor Hill, to die with one Reuben Apsley. Coleridge has grown
fat and idle; Charles Lamb has outgrown his visions; and as to the
rest, and even as to most of these, what had they particularly to do with Lord
Byron, that they should be denominated his
contemporaries? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
To Mr Campbell he is exceedingly
complimentary—and has, he thinks, hit off the character of that delightful poet in
two words; he is a “French Virgil.” What
that means, we do not presume even to conjecture; but be its intents wicked or charitable,
it is a mere parody on Mr Charles Lamb’s not
very prudent or defensible remark about Voltaire,—of which, a word by and by. In the midst even of his
admiration, he cannot help being impertinent; and he tells the world that Mr
Campbell gladly relaxes from the loftiness of
poetry, and delights in Cotton’s Travestie of Virgil, (a most beastly
book) and that his conversation “is as far as may be from any thing like a
Puritan.” In short, he insinuates, that Mr Campbell’s
conversation is what some might call free and. easy, and others indecent,—a
compliment, we believe, as awkward as untrue. He pretends to be enraptured with the
beautiful love and marriage scenes in Gertrude of Wyoming; but we know better, and beg to assure him that he is not.
In confirmation of the correctness of our opinion, we refer him to the Story of Rimini. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Theodore Hook he also attempts
to characterise; and to us, who know a thing or two, this is about one of the basest bits
of his book. Not a syllable of censure does he pass upon that gentleman, but a wish
“that he had stuck to his humours and farces, for which he had real talent, instead of writing politics.” Now, there is no term of
contumely and abuse allowable in low society, which Mr
Hunt and his brothers, and the rest of the gang, have not heaped upon
Mr Hook’s head, in the Examiner, as if he were excommunicated and outcast from the company of all
honest men. But Mr Colburn is Mr
Hook’s publisher, and he is now also Mr
Hunt’s; and therefore he, who takes for motto, “It is for slaves
to lie, and freemen to speak truth,” thus compromises, we must not say his
conscience, but that which, with him, stands instead of it, party and personal spite, and
winds up a most flattering account of Mr Hook’s delightful,
companionable qualities, with the slightest and faintest expression of dissent,—if it
even amount to that,—from his politics, that, his breath, which is “sweet
air,” can be made to murmur. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
And, by the way, why did Mr.
Hunt inflict on Mr. Horatio Smith so
great an injury as to say, after describing his acts of generous friendship to the
unfortunate Mr. Shelley, that he (Mr. Smith)
differed with Mr. Shelley ‘on some points,’ without stating distinctly what
those points were—namely, every point, whether of religious belief or of moral
opinion, on which Mr. Shelley differed, at the time of his
acquaintance with Mr. Smith, from all the respectable part of the
English community? We are happy to have this opportunity of doing justice, on competent
authority, to a person whom, judging merely from the gentleman-like and moral tone of all
his writings, we certainly should never have expected to meet with in the sort of company
with which this, no doubt, unwelcome eulogist has thought fit to associate his name. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Availing himself of the comprehensiveness of his title-page, Mr. Hunt has
given us memoirs of Keats, Campbell, Dubois,
Theodore Hook, Mathews, Messrs. James and Horace Smith,
Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Kinnaird, Charles Lamb, and Mr.
Coleridge, many of them it must be owned, respectable names, to whose merits
we offer no objection. But, why they should be set down as the
contemporaries of Lord Byron, we are rather at a loss to
conjecture. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
All this proves, that Mr Lamb has a
head worthy of Aristotle, and that he ought to have a
face like that of Bacon. The saying about Voltaire is most repulsively narrated; and Mr
Lamb, who took such offence with Mr
Southey for regretting that Elia’s essays had not
a sounder religious feeling, what will he say—or feel, at least—about the sad
jumble of offensive and childish nonsense, which, without having the capacity of
re-creating the circumstances in which the words were uttered, or imparting the slightest
feeling of the spirit in which they were conceived, Hunt
has palmed off upon the public as characteristic specimens of the conversation of
Charles Lamb?
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
The
200 concluding pages are devoted by the author to his own memoirs. These are sparkling and
interesting, and exhibit no falling off of talent, or lack of matter. But the entertainment
to be drawn from them is of so different a kind from that of the previous notices, and so
much less concentrated and engrossing, that Mr. Hunt certainly judged
rightly in his original plan of opening the volume with that which is personal to himself;
and thus giving us a ‘diapason ending full’ in Byron and Shelley. Indeed, we would
advise the readers of the book to proceed after this fashion; and, beginning with the last
division of work, to travel regularly backwards. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We come now to Mr. Hunt’s recollections of his
own life, to which we find a portrait prefixed, calculated to do any thing but conciliate
our confidence. We have not the honour of knowing the original; but if this portrait be at
all like him we must confess, that we should have no great fancy for his company. We
understand that he is rather displeased with his painter, or at least, his engraver,
who, he thinks, has made him look like a thief. The picture certainly does warrant the
idea, for we could almost imagine, that he had something under his cloak which he had
purloined, and was making the best of his way home with it. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt received from the hand of nature talents which,
if properly cultivated and employed, might have raised him to distinction; and, we really
believe, feelings calculated to procure him a kind reception from the world. His vanity, a
vanity to which it is needless to look for any parallel even among the vain race of
rhymers, has destroyed all. Under the influence of that disease—for it deserves no
other name—he has set himself up as the standard in every thing. While yet a
stripling, most imperfectly educated, and lamentably ignorant of men as they are, and have
been, he dared to set his own crude fancies in direct opposition to all that is received
among sane men, either as to the moral government of the world, or the political government
of this nation, or the purposes and conduct of literary enterprise. This was ‘the
Moloch of absurdity’ of which Lord Byron has spoken so justly. The consequences—we
believe we may safely say the last consequences—of all this rash and wicked nonsense
are now before us. The last wriggle of expiring imbecility appears in these days to be a
volume of personal Reminiscences; and we have now heard the feeble death-rattle of the once
loud-tongued as well as brazen-faced Examiner. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
One of
the cleverest sketches of character we remember is that of Mr. Leigh
Hunt’s father, the Rev. Isaac
Hunt, originally a barrister in America, then a fugitive loyalist, and
afterwards a clergyman of the Church of England, who lost a bishopric by his too social
qualities. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt speaks with no respect of his
father’s talents, but represents him as a graceful elocutionist. He was, we gather,
one of those comely, smooth-tongued, demi-theatrical spouters who sometimes command for a
season or two the rapture of pretty ladies, and the flutter of perfumed
pocket-handkerchiefs. Totally destitute of the learning of his new profession, and by no
means remarkable, if we are to believe his son, for clerical propriety of habits, it is not
wonderful that the creole orator was disappointed in his expectation of church patronage;
or indeed, that, after a little time, his chapel-celebrity was perceptibly on the decline.
Government gave him a moderate pension as an American loyalist; and as soon as he found
that this was to be all, the reverend gentleman began to waver somewhat in his opinions
both as to church and state. In a word, he ended in being an unitarian, and a republican,
and an universalist; and found that this country was as yet far too much in the dark to
approve either of his new opinions, or of the particular circumstances under which he had
abandoned his old ones. Worldly disappointment soon turns a weak mind sour; and stronger
minds than this have had recourse to dangerous stimulants in their afflictions. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
That is a fine filial eulogy; but still finer and more eloquent has been
the practical one of the life and writings of the son. Whoever knows anything of these,
perceives how the qualities of the mother have lived on, not only in the grateful
admiration of the poet, but in his character and works. This is another proud testimony
added to the numerous ones revealed in the biographies of illustrious men, of the vital and
all-prevailing influence of mothers. What does not the world owe to noble-minded women in
this respect? and what do not women owe to the world and themselves in the consciousness of
the possession of this authority? To stamp, to mould, to animate to good, the generation
that succeeds them, is their delegated office. The are admitted to the co-workmanship with
God; his actors in the after age are placed in their hands at the outset of their career,
when they are plastic as wax, and pliant as the green withe. It is they who can shape and
bend as they please. It is they—as the your, beings advance into the world of life,
as passions kindle, as eager desires seize them one after another, as they ire alive with
ardour, and athirst for knowledge and experience of the great scene of existence into which
they are thrown—it is they who can guide, warn, inspire with
the upward or the downward tendency, and cast through them on the future ages the blessings
or the curses of good or evil. They are the gods and prophets of childhood. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
The whole description of this charming and cordial family, is one of those
beautiful and sunny scenes in human life, to which the heart never wearies of turning. It
makes the rememberer exclaim:—“Blessed house! May a blessing be upon your
rooms, and your lawn, and your neighbouring garden, and the quiet old monastic name of your
street; and may it never he a thoroughfare; and may all your inmates he happy! Would to God
one could renew, at a moment’s notice, the happy hours we have enjoyed in last times,
with the same circles, in the same houses!” . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
For such education as he has received, he has been
chiefly indebted to Christ Hospital. Whatever reputation he has
earned in literature, he owes, and to his credit be it spoken, entirely to his own
exertions. If we were asked what we think of Mr. Hunt’s
politics, we should answer, that, generally speaking, we approve of them; liberal measures
have always found in him a steady and energetic, and sometimes, even an eloquent defender.
Several of his miscellaneous compositions in light literature, we think favourably of. They
have in them a raciness, occasionally, that reminds us of the elder masters of our
language. His poetry we think verbose, and conceited in its diction, sickly in its imagery,
cockneyfied (to use an expressive phrase) in its descriptive
passages, and poor and tawdry in its sentiments. The most interesting portion of his
memoir, is that which relates to his imprisonment; it has been already before the world in another publication, and therefore we
pass it over. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We had always understood, that Mr. Hunt,
before he was known by anything but his juvenile verses, obtained some situation in the
War-office; and that he lost this, after many warnings, in consequence of libelling the
Duke of York, then commander-in-chief, in the
newspapers; but of this story, there is no trace in the quarto before us, and we,
therefore, suppose it must have been, at least, an exaggeration. If it were true, it might
account, in some measure, for the peculiar bitterness of personal spleen with which the
Examiner, from the beginning of its career,
was accustomed to treat almost every branch of the Royal family. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt then fills several pages of his
quarto with blasphemous extracts from the last number of the Philosophical Dictionary now printing in that
commodious fashion at the Examiner press; and having used his scissars and paste as largely as he
judged right and proper in regard to the interests of the proprietors of that useful work,
he adds, ‘At these passages I used to roll with laughter; and I cannot help laughing
now, writing, as I am, alone, by my fireside,’ (p. 394). . . .
Leigh Hunt,
“Memoir of Mr. James Henry Leigh Hunt. Written by Himself” in Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 7 (April 1810)
After spending some time in that gloomiest of all “darkness palpable,” a lawyer’s office—and
plunging, when I left it, into alternate study and morbid idleness, studious all night,
and hypochondriac all day, to the great and reprehensible injury of my health and
spirits, it fell into my way to commence theatrical critic in a newly established
paper, called the News, and
I did so with an ardour proportioned to the want of honest newspaper criticism, and to
the insufferable dramatic nonsense which then rioted in public favour. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We presume the turnkeys make a pretty penny by showing the spot where the
great Mr. Hunt actually
‘sat amidst his books, and saw the imaginary sky overhead and the paper
roses about him.’—p. 425.
The Raleigh chamber in the
Tower, Galileo’s dungeon at
Rome, and Tasso’s
at Ferrara, are the only scenes of parallel interest that, at this
moment, suggest themselves to our recollection. . . .
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Italian poet, author of the epic romance
Orlando Furioso
(1532).
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
Athenian philosopher and scientist who studied under Plato; the author of
Metaphysics,
Politics,
Nichomachean Ethics, and
Poetics.
Francis Beaumont (1585-1616)
English playwright, often in collaboration with John Fletcher; author of
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
The founder of Utilitarianism; author of
Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789).
George Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne (1685-1753)
Bishop of Cloyne and philosopher; author of
A New Theory of Vision
(1709, 1710, 1732),
A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human
Knowledge (1710, 1734), and
Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous (1713, 1725, 1734).
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
King Charles I of England (1600-1649)
The son of James VI and I; as king of England (1625-1649) he contended with Parliament;
he was revered as a martyr after his execution.
Jean-Antoine-Nicholas Condorcet (1749-1794)
French philosopher; author of
Esquisse d'un tableau historique des
progrès de l'esprit humain (1794). He died in prison under disputed
circumstances.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Florentine poet, the author of the
Divine Comedy and other
works.
Edward James Dawkins (1792-1865)
The British Charge d' Affaires at Florence in 1822; he was afterwards sent to Greece as
Resident in 1828 and was promoted to Minister Plenipotentiary in 1833.
Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665)
English diplomat and author who wrote commentaries on Spenser's
Faerie
Queene and Browne's
Religio Medici and was an advocate for
sympathetic magic.
Francis Egerton, first earl of Ellesmere (1800-1857)
Poet, statesman, and Tory MP; a younger son the second marquess of Stafford, he was
educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, was chief secretary for Ireland (1828-30), and
translated Goethe and Schiller and contributed articles to the
Quarterly
Review.
Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC)
Greek philosopher who defined the object of his science as the pursuit of
happiness.
Euripides (480 BC c.-406 BC)
Greek tragic poet; author of
Medea,
Alcestis, the
Bacchae, and other
plays.
John Fletcher (1579-1625)
English playwright, author of
The Faithful Shepherdess (1610) and
of some fifteen plays in collaboration with Francis Beaumont.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
Author of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-1788).
Mary Godwin [née Wollstonecraft] (1759-1797)
English feminist, author of
Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792); she married William Godwin in 1797 and died giving birth to their daughter
Mary.
William Godwin (1756-1836)
English novelist and political philosopher; author of
An Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Political Justice (1793) and
Caleb
Williams (1794); in 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of
The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) and
Faust (1808, 1832).
Marie de Gournay (1565-1645)
The adopted daughter of Montaigne, author of
Égalité des hommes et des
femmes (1622).
John Hampden (1595-1643)
English statesman who led the parliamentarians in the political contest with Charles
I.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
Homer (850 BC fl.)
Poet of the
Iliad and
Odyssey.
David Hume (1711-1776)
Scottish philosopher and historian; author of
Essays Moral and
Political (1741-42),
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
(1748) and
History of Great Britain (1754-62).
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Marianne Hunt [née Kent] (1787-1857)
The daughter of Anne Kent and wife of Leigh Hunt; they were married in 1809. Charles
MacFarlane, who knew her in the 1830s, described her as “his mismanaging, unthrifty
wife, the most barefaced, persevering, pertinacious of mendicants.”
Thornton Leigh Hunt (1810-1873)
Journalist and son of Leigh Hunt, who edited his father's
Correspondence,
Autobiography, and
Poetical Works.
John Keats (1795-1821)
English poet, author of
Endymion, "The Eve of St. Agnes," and
other poems, who died of tuberculosis in Rome.
Elizbeth Kent (1790-1861)
The younger sister of Marianne, wife of Leigh Hunt, who lived with his family in the
1820s.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Charles Lloyd (1775-1839)
Quaker poet; a disciple of Coleridge and friend of Charles Lamb, he published
Poetical Essays on the Character of Pope (1821) and other
volumes.
Thomas Medwin (1788-1869)
Lieutenant of dragoons who was with Byron and Shelley at Pisa; the author of
Conversations of Lord Byron (1824) and
The Life of
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols (1847).
John Milton (1608-1674)
English poet and controversialist; author of
Comus (1634),
Lycidas (1638),
Areopagitica (1644),
Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
French writer and moralist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux (1581-85); he was the author
of
Essais (1580, 1595).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)
English statesman and humanist, Catholic martyr; he was the author of
Utopia (1516).
Charles Ollier (1788-1859)
London bookseller and novelist who in partnership with his brother James published Keats,
Shelley, Lamb, and Hazlitt; after the firm went bankrupt in 1823 he worked for the
publisher Henry Colburn. He was a sub-editor at the
New Monthly
Magazine.
Thomas Park (1759-1834)
English poet, antiquary, and editor; in early life he was an acquaintance of William
Cowper.
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)
English poet and comic novelist; author of
Headlong Hall (1816),
Melincourt (1817),
Nightmare Abbey
(1818),
Crotchet Castle (1831), and
Gryll
Grange (1860).
Plato (427 BC-327 BC)
Athenian philosopher who recorded the teachings of his master Socrates in a series of
philosophical dialogues.
John Pym (1584-1643)
English politician; a leader of the Puritan faction in the Short and Long
Parliaments.
Raphael (1483-1520)
Of Urbino; Italian painter patronized by Leo X.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Swiss-born man of letters; author of, among others,
Julie ou la
Nouvelle Heloïse (1761),
Émile (1762) and
Les Confessions (1782).
John Scott, first earl of Eldon (1751-1838)
Lord chancellor (1801-27); he was legal counsel to the Prince of Wales and an active
opponent of the Reform Bill.
Harriet Shelley [née Westbrook] (1795-1816)
Shelley's first wife, with whom he eloped in 1811 and who committed suicide after he had
transferred his affections to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851)
English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife
of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of
Frankenstein (1818)
and
The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works
(1839-40).
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of
Queen
Mab (1813),
The Revolt of Islam (1817),
The Cenci and
Prometheus Unbound (1820), and
Adonais (1821).
Algernon Sidney (1623-1683)
English republican writer executed in connection with the Rye-House plot; he was
respected as a martyr by the Whig party; author of
Discourses concerning
Government (1698).
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
English poet, courtier, and soldier, author of the
Arcadia (1590),
Astrophel and Stella (1591) and
Apology for
Poetry (1595).
Horace Smith (1779-1849)
English poet and novelist; with his brother James he wrote
Rejected
Addresses (1812) and
Horace in London (1813). Among his
novels was
Brambletye House (1826).
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Edmund Spenser (1552 c.-1599)
English poet, author of
The Shepheards Calender (1579) and
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596).
Torquato Tasso (1554-1595)
Italian poet, author of
Aminta (1573), a pastoral drama, and
Jerusalem Delivered (1580).
Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881)
Writer, adventurer, and friend of Shelley and Byron; author of the fictionalized memoirs,
Adventures of a Younger Son (1831) and
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858).
Charles Vivian (1804 c.-1822)
English seaman drowned with Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Edward Ellerker Williams (1793-1822)
After service as a lieutenant of dragoons in India he married and traveled to Italy with
Thomas Medwin, becoming part of the Byron-Shelley circle at Pisa.
The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary
matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.
Book of Job. (400 BC c.). Composed between the seventh and second centuries BC.
George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in
1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII,
and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824). Edited by Mary Shelley, and suppressed at the request of Sir Timothy Shelley.
