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BYRON'S MALAGH HAMOVES 
 
BYRON'S MALACH HAMOVES 
 
 By Henry H. Harper 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE SEVENTEENTH YEAR BOOK 
 OF THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 
 
 A FEW COPIES OF THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
 HAVE BEEN PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR 
 
 COMPLIMENTARY DISTRIBUTION BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 BOSTON-MDCDXVIII 
 
add to Lib. 
 
BYRON'S MALACH HAMOVES 
 
 By Henry H. Harper 
 
 "You know what ills the author's life assail, 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail." 
 
 The lives and reputations of most literary 
 geniuses have been more or less haunted by a 
 species of evil spirits and trouble-makers who, 
 inspired by jealousy, acrimony, or an unworldly 
 purity of mind, or some other incentive, are 
 ever ready to cry down the characters of others, 
 especially those above them. Indeed there was 
 a time when certain anonymous scribblers 
 earned their livelihood at this vocation, and 
 persons who were capable of earning but a few 
 shillings a week were given space in the maga- 
 zines to rail at men of genius. Most of these 
 had the decency, when a man died, to let his 
 remains rest in peace ; yet there were some who 
 after a man had been hounded into his grave 
 continued loudly to bark their anathemas over 
 
 [s] 
 
 rn s 
 
 548 
 
his tombstone. It is the work of one of this 
 latter type that we are now to consider. 
 
 Byron Hved in an age prolific of literary 
 genius and so-called literary critics, and both 
 he and Shelley — the greatest poetic geniuses 
 of their generation — were actually driven into 
 exile in a foreign land by the immoderate crit- 
 icism and obloquy heaped upon them by persons 
 who were as incapable of understanding their 
 true characters as they were of appreciating 
 their works. By a singular coincidence Byron 
 and Shelley both migrated to the same place in 
 Italy, and by another strange similarity of ex- 
 perience, they were both roundly censured in 
 their own country for their manner of conduct- 
 ing their unhappy matrimonial affairs, — mat- 
 ters with which the virtuous-minded critics 
 appeared to be far more conversant than they 
 were with the quality of their poetry. Which 
 would seem to prove that what is called poetic 
 license may be invoked only in literary — not 
 domestic — discords. There are still certain 
 persons who imagine that Byron's Don Juan 
 fairly reeks with the taint of liquor and immor- 
 ality, because — long before he wrote it — he 
 was said to have imbibed too freely at times 
 [6] 
 
and had improper relations with women. His 
 poetry, however, according to his own declara- 
 tion, was intended as a satire on these abuses, 
 not as a condonation or encouragement of 
 them. Even in the present enlightened age 
 most of us who have not studied the unpreju- 
 diced biographies of these two men have a sort 
 of misty notion that their standard of morals 
 was far below that of their writings, — a notion 
 derived largely from slanderous and highly fic- 
 titious statements, which like ancient mytholo- 
 gies have by oft repetition and lapse of time 
 become more or less colored with popular cred- 
 ence. 
 
 Poetry, like water, does not rise above its 
 source; and although a spring's pure waters 
 may be polluted by vandals and thus be used to 
 bring it into ill repute, those who take the pains 
 to examine the source will find it uncorrupted. 
 It is likewise possible to distort the meaning of 
 a poet's utterances, however well intentioned 
 they may be, and by turning his own words 
 against him in support of some hypothetical 
 charge it becomes an easy matter to induce the 
 general public to think ill of him when the accu- 
 sations go undenied and only one side of the 
 
 [7] 
 
case is heard. Byron wrote to a friend : "You 
 say I never attempt to justify myself. You are 
 right. At times I can't, and occasionally I 
 wont, defend by explanation; life is not worth 
 having on such terms. The only attempt I ever 
 made at defence was in a poetical point of 
 view — and what did it end in? not an exculpa- 
 tion of me, but an attack on all other persons 
 whatsoever. I should make a pretty scene in- 
 deed if I went on defending — besides, by prov- 
 ing myself (supposing it possible) a good sort 
 of quiet country gentleman, to how many people 
 should I give more pain than pleasure? Do 
 you think accusors like one the better for being 
 confuted ?" 
 
 Both Byron and Shelley were maliciously 
 misinterpreted, misquoted, misunderstood, and 
 maltreated by their contemporaries. Like the 
 prophets of old, they were without honor in 
 their own country; indeed they were branded 
 as moral lepers and demonic teachers by a class 
 of people who were as much their moral inferi- 
 ors as they were beneath them in worldly sta- 
 tion and mental caliber. It is doubtful if any 
 age has produced a more unselfish, pure- 
 minded, unobtrusive poet than Shelley; yet 
 
 [8] 
 
history records no instance of a writer charged 
 with more corrupt morals than were imputed to 
 him, — unless it be in the case of Byron. It is 
 not surprising that they both became disgusted 
 with the land of their birth; which, however, 
 was proud to claim them after their death. 
 From Italy Byron wrote to his publisher : "I 
 trust they wont think of 'pickling and bringing 
 me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall.' I am 
 sure my bones would not rest in an English 
 grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that 
 country. I believe the thought would drive me 
 mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any 
 of my friends would be base enough to convey 
 my carcass back to your soil." 
 
 Perhaps no poet of ancient or modern times 
 was ever lionized more than Byron was for a 
 short period, when he was pampered by the 
 obsequious homage of London's most fashion- 
 able set; and certainly no marble image ever 
 got a harder tumble than he did, after he 
 became entangled in his unhappy marital rela- 
 tions. But as a sheep goes to the slaughter 
 with its lips sealed, so he took his own blame 
 and that of others all upon himself and went 
 quietly away, broken-hearted and alone, to a 
 
 [9] 
 
strange land, followed by the jeers and sneers 
 of the multitude, who interpreted his silence as 
 evidence of his guilt. Little wonder that a man 
 suffering his torments should have sought to 
 assuage them by plunging into conviviality 
 with a fast set, as he did for a short time at 
 Venice. But he soon emerged, better and 
 stronger than ever, and thereafter he produced 
 his greatest literary work. 
 
 It would, of course, be superfluous to write 
 a defense of Byron in the present age. His 
 name has long since become a household word, 
 not because he or his parents were famous or 
 infamous, but because of the merit of the works 
 he left to posterity. It would also be bad form 
 at this late day to malign Byron's post mortu- 
 ary detracter, Leigh Hunt; for when a man 
 dies he should automatically become immune 
 from personal attack. Not so, however, with 
 the writings that he leaves to the world; they 
 live after him and are at all times as susceptible 
 to review as the character of their author was 
 while alive. A wrong formula is not righted 
 by the lapse of time ; and a wrong impression is 
 always subject to being corrected. An evil 
 germ does not gain license of desirability by its 
 
antiquity, and although it may He dormant for 
 a while, it may be resurrected and become 
 harmful at any time. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's book, entitled Lord Byron and 
 Some of his Contemporaries, is in substance a 
 wrong formula; it creates, or was intended to 
 create, an erroneous impression; therefore it is 
 subject to analysis and discussion even though 
 it is at present dormant and practically un- 
 known to the general reader. Besides, it is 
 more or less of a literary curiosity, and this 
 being the age of curios, it would be worth notic- 
 ing from that standpoint alone. The volume 
 also affords an interesting metaphysical study ; 
 it illustrates how a man with some talent and 
 reputation can become so stultified by prejudice 
 and egotism as to lose all sense of perspective 
 in judging the writings or acts of others; it 
 shows how accurately a man may mirror his 
 own vices and pettiness in attempting to tra- 
 duce the character of another; how possible it 
 is for an educated man to become so narrow 
 and so malignant that in attempting by foul 
 means to abuse another greater than himself 
 he provokes contempt for himself and genuine 
 admiration for the one attacked ; and it proves 
 
 [II] 
 
the truthfulness of the saying that the more 
 you do for others of a certain type, the more 
 you are slandered and held in contempt by the 
 very persons you seek to help. It sustains the 
 theory that undue familiarity with persons be- 
 neath your station and intellect encourages 
 them to regard themselves not merely as your 
 equals, but as your superiors. It recalls the 
 story of the kind-hearted boy who on finding a 
 reptile, stiff with cold, took it home and warmed 
 it before the fire, after which it bit him and 
 killed him. 
 
 Such literature is injurious, in that it pre- 
 sents a striking example of ingratitude that 
 might well cause charitably disposed persons to 
 become wary of helping really worthy people 
 who are in need ; it dries up the milk of human 
 kindness. 
 
 It is said that the good that men do lives after 
 them ; it is equally true that the harm that men 
 do lives after them, especially if it be left in 
 book form. It would be almost as bad taste 
 now to attack Hunt himself as it was for him 
 to attack Byron after he was dead ; but it would 
 not be improper to point out the iniquitous or 
 harmful qualities of the writings of Hunt, or 
 
 [12] 
 
of any one else, since they are amenable to no 
 statute of limitation. If, for example, every 
 copy of Hunt's book, including his manuscript, 
 had been buried with him, there could be no 
 excuse for digging them up; but this is not 
 true. 
 
 The author's preface to the second edition of 
 Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries 
 fairly bristles with invective against the "liars," 
 "dogs," "canting rogues," "cowards," "hypo- 
 crites," "born slaves," "calumniators," "shal- 
 low fellows," and "knaves" who, prompted by 
 a sense of common decency and justice, had 
 been stirred to resentfulness by the contents of 
 his pages on Byron. From this tirade the 
 reader passes on to what promises to be a high- 
 ly seasoned repast which the elusive preface 
 seems to foreshadow. It is so worded as to 
 lead one to suspect that it is the portal to a veri- 
 table feast of scandal and revelation, to be read 
 only in the secret of one's chamber; but the 
 anticipated feast dwindles into a mess of bones, 
 devoid of meat or marrow. 
 
 Hunt says, among other things, that he had 
 been told that his book "should put an end to a 
 great deal of false biography." It doubtless 
 
 [13] 
 
did, for when he got through there was but 
 httle left in that Hne to be added by any one 
 else. He says that had he been rich enough to 
 repay the handsome advances of his publisher, 
 his "first impulse on finishing the work would 
 have been to put it into the fire." The Judas of 
 old is also said to have faltered before he finally 
 decided to betray his Master; but his lust for 
 gold smothered his better impulses. 
 
 As to Hunt's own biography, or rather auto- 
 biography, which was printed in the second 
 volume, he says: '*I soon became tired of 
 that" — a remark which has doubtless been 
 heartily applauded by most of those who have 
 attempted to read it. He says he should have 
 made it longer, but was "warned off this 
 ground as impossible." He confesses that in 
 looking over his manuscript relating to Lord 
 Byron he "involuntarily felt an access of the 
 spleen and indignation," which he experienced, 
 "as a man who felt himself ill-treated." His 
 work therefore instead of assuming the dignity 
 and fairness of a biographical study, becomes a 
 clumsy vehicle weighted down with prejudice 
 and malevolence, supplemented by the oft re- 
 peated insinuation that he had "not told all; 
 
 [■4] 
 
for I have no right to do so," he says. There 
 is a deal of grim truth in this remark. Had he 
 told all, or rather, had he not deluded the sensu- 
 ous reader into imagining himself constantly on 
 the thin crust of some unsavory scandal, there 
 would have been nothing to keep up the interest, 
 for he related no facts but what every well in- 
 formed reader already knew, and nothing else 
 that anybody would care particularly about, 
 even if true. With a vehemence that would do 
 credit to a side-show crier, he reiterates over 
 and over again that he speaks only the truth. 
 He says he loves the truth "with a passion com- 
 mensurate to what he thought its desirableness 
 above all other things, for the security of good 
 to the world." Indeed he loved it so much, and 
 guarded it so jealously from the vulgar world, 
 that he left it for the most part untold ; especi- 
 ally that part which would have enabled the 
 reader to attribute any morals or merits to the 
 lifeless victim upon whose reputation and char- 
 acter he was performing his mental autopsy. 
 And fearing lest some incredulous person might 
 see through his designs, he adds a canting 
 appendix to the second edition, intending there- 
 by to forestall any further adverse criticism. 
 
 [IS] 
 
"I have told nothing but the truth," he says 
 again; "but I am far from having told all the 
 truth — and I never will tell it all. Common 
 humanity would not let me. But I warn them 
 [his critics] how, upon a better acquaintance 
 with the work they renew the same kind of 
 attacks; as in that case, I shall be compelled 
 to let the public see not only the whole amount 
 of what I have to object to on my own part, 
 but what their pretended hero thought and said 
 of them on his. And this, if they insist upon 
 it, it will only be less easy for me to do, than it 
 is to spare them in the meantime." 
 
 He evidently yielded to the pressure and 
 decided not to spare the community, for he in- 
 serted a footnote containing the following let- 
 ter from Byron to Shelley, which he prefaced 
 with the remark that it will "furnish a subject 
 of pleasing doubt to the public whether to ad- 
 mire such cavalier treatment of them or not:" 
 
 The only literary news I have heard of the plays 
 (contrary to your friendly augury), is that the Edin- 
 burgh Review has attacked them all three — as well as 
 it could. I have not seen the article. Murray writes 
 discouragingly, and says that nothing published this 
 year has made the least impression, including, I pre- 
 
 [.6] 
 
sume, what he has published on my account also. You 
 see what it is to throw pearls to swine. — As long as I 
 wrote the exaggerated nonsense which has corrupted 
 the public taste, they applauded to the very echo; and 
 now that I have composed within these three or four 
 years some things which should "not willingly be let 
 die," the whole herd snort and grumble, and return to 
 wallow in their mire. However, it is fit I should pay 
 the penalty of spoiling them, as no man has contributed 
 more than me in my earlier compositions to produce 
 that exaggerated and false style. It is a fit retribution 
 that any really classical production should be received 
 as these plays have been treated. 
 
 Doubtless Byron — who had once been a 
 popular idol — intended merely to condole with 
 Shelley, who was then having great difficulty 
 in arousing any public interest in his work, in 
 which Byron saw genuine merit; and if Hunt 
 expected — as no doubt he did — to detract 
 from Byron's fame by printing this friendly 
 personal letter, it was a foolish illusion. It is 
 doubtful if Mrs. Shelley would have loaned this 
 letter to Hunt if she had known what use he 
 intended to make of it. 
 
 Hunt, with his line of reasoning, would per- 
 haps have regarded the following letter from 
 
 [17] 
 
Byron to his publisher as a choice morsel, if 
 he could have got hold of it to make use of : 
 
 So you and Mr. Foscolo want me to undertake what 
 you call a "great work?" — an epic poem, I suppose, 
 or some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate 
 tasks. And then, "seven or eight years!" God send 
 us all well this day three months, let alone years. If 
 one's years can't be better employed than in sweating 
 poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. . . As to the 
 estimation of the English which you talk of, let them 
 calculate what it is worth before they insult me with 
 their insolent condescension. 
 
 I have not written for their pleasure. If they are 
 pleased, it is that they chose to be so; I have never 
 flattered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will I. 
 Neither will I make "Ladies' books" "al dilettar le 
 femine e la plebe." I have written from the fulness of 
 my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many 
 motives, but not for their "sweet voices." 
 
 I know the precise worth of popular applause, for 
 few scribblers have had more of it ; and if I chose to 
 swerve into their paths, I could retain it, or resume it. 
 But I neither love ye nor fear ye; and though I buy 
 with ye, and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will 
 neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. 
 They made me, without my search, a species of popular 
 idol ; they, without reason or judgment, beyond the 
 caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the image 
 from its pedestal ; it was not broken with the fall, and 
 
 [i8] 
 
they would, it seems, again replace it, — but they shall 
 not. 
 
 Here is another characteristic letter written 
 by Byron while in Italy to his publisher — one 
 that Hunt probably never saw : 
 
 You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe is right, 
 Hobhouse is right — you are all right, and I am all 
 wrong; but do, pray, let me have that pleasure. Cut 
 me up root and branch; quarter me in the Quarterly; 
 send round my "disjecti membra poetse," like those of 
 the Levite's concubine; make me, if you will, a spec- 
 tacle to men and angels ; but don't ask me to alter, for 
 I won't : — I am obstinate and lazy — and there's the 
 truth. 
 
 But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend Pal- 
 grave, who objects to the quick succession of fun and 
 gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not (in inten- 
 tion, at least) heighten the fun. His metaphor is, that 
 "we are never scorched and drenched at the same 
 time." Blessings on his experience! Ask him these 
 questions about "scorching and drenching." Did he 
 never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? 
 Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing 
 the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nan- 
 keen breeches ? Did he never swim in the sea at noon- 
 day with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all 
 the foam of ocean could not cool ? Did he never draw 
 his foot out of too hot water, damning his eyes and his 
 valet's ? Did he never tumble into a river or lake, fish- 
 
 [19] 
 
ing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the 
 bank, afterwards, "scorched and drenched," Hke a true 
 sportsman? "Oh for breath to utter!" — but make 
 him my compHments; he is a clever fellow for all 
 that — ■ a very clever fellow. 
 
 Among Byron's shortcomings Hunt first ac- 
 cuses him of having a father who "was a rake 
 of the wildest description," and a mother who 
 was "a violent woman." Moreover, he had an 
 inherited lameness in the form of "a. shrunken 
 foot, a Httle twisted." In describing Byron's 
 features Hunt first admits that he was hand- 
 some, then goes on to depict him thus: "His 
 jaw was too big for the upper part," and it 
 "had all the wilfullness of a despot in it. The 
 animal predominated over the intellectual part 
 of the head, inasmuch as the face altogether 
 was large in proportion to the skull. The eyes 
 also were set too near one another, and the 
 nose, though handsome in itself, had the ap- 
 pearance when you saw it closely in front, of 
 being grafted on the face, rather than growing 
 properly out of it." 
 
 This grotesque description, though intended 
 to be serious, is of course nothing more than a 
 crudely drawn caricature. It is in strange con- 
 
 [20] 
 
tradiction to Mary Shelley's journal entry on 
 Byron, wherein she writes : "Beauty sat on his 
 countenance, and power beamed from his eye." 
 His person, continues Hunt, "tended to fat and 
 efifeminancy." But we know that Byron was 
 no namby-pamby ladies' man; he was a good 
 swordsman, a crack pistol shot, a good boxer, a 
 famous long-distance swimmer, and a good all 
 around athlete. That he was no coward we 
 may see by the following letter he wrote to 
 Murray : 
 
 I have been in a rage these two days, and am still 
 biHous therefrom. You shall hear, A captain of dra- 
 goons, , Hanoverian by birth, in the Papal troops at 
 
 present, whom I had obliged by a loan when nobody 
 would lend him a paul, recommended a horse to me, on 
 
 sale by a Lieutenant , an officer who unites the 
 
 sale of cattle to the purchase of men. I bought it. The 
 next day, on shoeing the horse, we discovered the 
 thrush — the animal being warranted sound. I sent 
 to reclaim the contract and the money. The lieutenant 
 desired to speak with me in person. I consented. He 
 came [to a public inn]. It was his own particular re- 
 quest. He began a story. I asked him if he would 
 return the money. He said no — but he would ex- 
 change. He asked an exorbitant price for his other 
 horses. I told him that he was a thief. He said he 
 was an officer and a man of honour, and pulled out a 
 
 [21] 
 
Parmesan passport signed by General Count Neipperg. 
 I answered, that as he was an officer I would treat him 
 as such ; and that as to his being a gentleman, he might 
 prove it by returning the money : as for his Parmesan 
 passport, I should have valued it more if it had been a 
 Parmesan cheese. He answered in high terms, and 
 said that if it were the morning (it was about eight 
 o'clock in the evening) he would have satisfaction. I 
 then lost my temper: "As for that," I replied, "you 
 shall have it directly, — it will be mutual satisfaction, 
 I can assure you. You are a thief, and, as you say, an 
 officer; my pistols are in the next room, loaded; take 
 one of the candles, examine, and make your choice of 
 weapons." He replied, that pistols were English iveap- 
 ons; he always fought with the sword. I told him 
 that I was able to accommodate him, having three reg- 
 imental swords in a drawer near us : and he might take 
 the longest, and put himself on guard. 
 
 All this passed in the presence of a third person. 
 He then said No; but tomorrow morning he would 
 give me the meeting at any time or place. I answered 
 that it was not usual to appoint meetings in the pres- 
 ence of witnesses, and that we had best speak man to 
 man, and appoint time and instruments. But as the 
 man present was leaving the room, the Lieutenant 
 
 , before he could shut the door after him, ran out 
 
 roaring "Help" and "murder" most lustily, and fell 
 into a sort of hysteric in the arms of about fifty people, 
 who all saw that I had no weapon of any sort or kind 
 about me, and followed him, asking him what the devil 
 
 [22] 
 
was the matter with him. Nothing would do; he ran 
 away without his hat, which he never missed till he got 
 to his hotel or inn, and went to bed, ill of the fright. 
 He then tried his complaint at the police, which dis- 
 missed it as frivolous. He is, I believe, gone away, or 
 going. . . 
 
 In his estimate of Byron, Hunt assures us 
 that he is determined to be fair and sincere. "I 
 shall remain so to my dying day!" he declares. 
 But he appears to have lost sight of the fact 
 that a man's literary genius is rated by his 
 works, and not by his personal appearance or 
 what some biased person may say about him. 
 Byron was naturally sensitive about his de- 
 formed foot; and Hunt, evidently forgetting 
 that he was prodding with a pen instead of a 
 sword, sought out the most vulnerable spot in 
 his victim's anatomy. That Byron's genius lay 
 in his brain instead of in his crippled foot is a 
 fact that escaped no one, except biographer 
 Hunt. That his mother was a "violent woman" 
 and hated him and called him a "lame brat" 
 because he was physically deformed is nothing 
 new or discreditable to him. To be unfortunate 
 in the marriage relations (which Hunt also 
 touches upon) is not necessarily a disgrace to a 
 
 [23] 
 
man of genius or any one else. But to flaunt 
 such matters publicly with no actual knowledge 
 or explanation of the facts is indelicate and is 
 sure to react upon the offender, rather than in- 
 jure the one attacked. No one thinks the less 
 of genius because it springs from misfortune or 
 unhappy environment, or because it is belittled 
 by persons who are too small to appreciate it. 
 The following letter to Lady Byron — which is 
 said never to have been sent — shows Byron in 
 a different light from that in which Hunt at- 
 tempted to paint him. It may be that the orig- 
 inal was sent and Byron made this copy for 
 himself, or else the original may have been 
 returned to him unopened, as some of his letters 
 were. 
 
 I have to acknowledge the receipt of "Ada's hair," 
 which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark 
 already as mine was at twelve years old, if I may judge 
 from what I recollect of some in Augusta's possession, 
 taken at that age. But it don't curl, — perhaps from 
 its being let grow. 
 
 I also thank you for the inscription of the date and 
 name, and I will tell you why ; — I believe that they 
 are the only two or three words of your hand-writing 
 in my possession. For your letters I returned ; and 
 except the two words, or rather the one word, "House- 
 
 [24] 
 
hold," written twice in an old account book, I have no 
 other. I burnt your last note, for two reasons : — 
 firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable; 
 and, secondly, I wished to take your word without doc- 
 uments, which are the worldly resources of suspicious 
 people. 
 
 I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere 
 about Ada's birthday — the 10th of December, I be- 
 lieve. She will then be six, so that in about twelve 
 more I shall have some chance of meeting her ; — per- 
 haps sooner, if I am obliged to go to England by 
 business or otherwise. Recollect, however, one thing, 
 either in distance or nearness ; — every day which 
 keeps us asunder should, after so long a period, rather 
 soften our mutual feelings, which must always have 
 one rallying-point as long as our child exists, which I 
 presume we both hope will be long after either of her 
 parents. 
 
 The time which has elapsed since the separation has 
 been considerably more than the whole brief period of 
 our union, and the not much longer one of our prior 
 acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake ; but 
 now it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three 
 on my part, and a few years less on yours, though it is 
 no very extended period of life, still it is one when the 
 habits and thought are generally so formed as to admit 
 of no modification ; and as we could not agree when 
 younger, we should with difficulty do so now. 
 
 I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwith- 
 standing everything, I considered our re-union as not 
 
 [25] 
 
impossible for more than a year after the separation ; — 
 but then I gave up the hope entirely and forever. But 
 this very impossibility of re-union seems to me at least 
 a reason why, on all the few points of discussion which 
 can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies 
 of life, and as much of its kindness as people who are 
 never to meet may preserve perhaps more easily than 
 nearer connections. For my own part, I am violent, 
 but not ma.lignant; for only fresh provocations can 
 awaken my resentments. To you, who are colder and 
 more concentrated, I would just hint, that you may 
 sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dig- 
 nity, and a worse feeling for duty. I assure you that I 
 bear you now (whatever I may have done) no resent- 
 ment whatever. Remember, that if you have injured 
 me in aught, this forgiveness is something; and that, if 
 I have injured you, it is something more still, if it be 
 true, as the moralists say, that the most offending are 
 the least forgiving. 
 
 Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or 
 reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect 
 upon any but two things — viz., that you are the 
 mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again. 
 I think if you also consider the two corresponding 
 points with reference to myself, it will be better for all 
 three. Yours ever, Noel Byron. 
 
 While Hunt was in prison for having Hbeled 
 the prince regent, Byron visited him frequently, 
 says Hunt, "and used to bring books for my 
 
 [26] 
 
Story of Rimini, which I was then writing. He 
 would not let the footman bring them in; he 
 would enter with a couple of quartos under his 
 arm, and give you to understand that he was 
 prouder of being a friend and a man of letters, 
 than a Lord. It was thus that by flattering 
 one's vanity he persuaded us of his own free- 
 dom from it." We can well understand how 
 Hunt's vanity was flattered by such unaffected 
 kindness from a nobleman and a man of letters, 
 but we can less easily understand how after his 
 good Samaritan was dead he could have tried 
 to persuade his readers that he had any selfish 
 or insincere motives in such friendly acts. He 
 adds the spiteful remark that Byron's footman 
 must have carried the books to the door. 
 
 On October 15, 1814, while Hunt was still in 
 prison, Byron sent him a hare, a pheasant, and 
 a brace of partridges, with a note expressing 
 the hope that they were fresh ; which they prob- 
 ably were, for Hunt makes no mention in his 
 book that they were tainted. Byron closed his 
 friendly note with the hope that Hunt's ap- 
 proaching freedom would find him "in full 
 health to enjoy it." After Hunt's release from 
 prison Byron urged him to go to the theatre 
 
 [27] 
 
with him — a rather unusual compHment for an 
 English nobleman to pay one of the middle class 
 who was decidedly out of public favor. Byron 
 was then in high favor and had nothing to gain 
 from such friendship or association. Hunt ad- 
 mits that Byron often sent him complimentary 
 theatre tickets and offered the use of his private 
 box; but for these courteous favors he snarls 
 back with the contemptuous remark that Byron 
 *'was one of a management that governed 
 Drury Lane Theatre at that time, and made a 
 sad business of their direction." He says that 
 Lord Byron often called on him at his home, 
 "and took a pleasure in my room, as contrasted 
 with the splendour of his great house;" but ''he 
 had good reason to do so," says Hunt; "for his 
 domestic troubles were just about to become 
 public." Hunt, however, does not mention any 
 other English nobleman or man of letters who 
 sought out his congenial quarters as a rendez- 
 vous or as a panacea for family troubles "about 
 to become public." He says that after the fam- 
 ily disruption Byron became ill and much dis- 
 concerted; and that the public took sides with 
 the lady, "as they ought to do." Of course the 
 public "ought" to have taken the part of Lady 
 
 [28] 
 
Byron, because Hunt said she liked one of his 
 poems, which was perhaps more than the pubHc 
 did. It is a well known fact that Byron as- 
 sumed the responsibility for the differences 
 with his wife, and took upon himself the entire 
 blame for the causes that led to the separation. 
 In 1816 Byron wrote to Tom Moore : "Where 
 there is blame, it belongs to myself; and, if I 
 cannot redeem, I must bear it." But as a mat- 
 ter of fact they were wholly incompatible and 
 the blame was about equally divided between 
 the two, with Byron's mother-in-law acting in 
 the role of chief trouble-maker. 
 
 On August 26, 1 82 1, Shelley wrote to Hunt 
 from Italy, saying that he had just rented the 
 finest palace on the Lung'Arno for Byron, who 
 offered to assist Hunt in establishing a period- 
 ical in Italy, and to "restore your shattered 
 health and spirits by a migration to these 're- 
 gions mild of calm and serene air.' " Hunt lost 
 no time in accepting this flattering offer, and 
 with the two hundred pound loan he received 
 from Byron he took his whole family, consist- 
 ing of a wife and six small children, to Italy. 
 There appears to have been nothing in Shelley's 
 invitation that included all the family. He 
 
 [29] 
 
wrote Hunt to "put his music and his books on 
 board a vessel and come;" but he did not say to 
 put the whole family aboard. Immediately 
 after the Hunts arrived in Italy, Shelley was 
 drowned; this left them stranded in a strange 
 country, without money or shelter. Lord 
 Byron came at once to their assistance and in- 
 vited them all to his palace, where he gave them 
 the entire lower floor. For a man of Byron's 
 station and temperament to quarter such a 
 horde in his own home is a species of generosity 
 and human kindness rarely met with in any 
 age. But the dependent Hunt thus records his 
 appreciation: "When I got there I found the 
 hottest looking house I ever saw. Not content 
 with having a red wash over it, the red was the 
 most unseasonable of all reds, a salmon color. 
 Think of this, flaring over the country in a hot 
 Italian sun!" he exclaims. He says that 
 "everything was new, foreign and violent." 
 Also that the splendor of great mansions begins 
 upstairs, "where the house is occupied by only 
 one family, . . . unless they descend for 
 coolness in summertime," implying that Byron 
 and his household had better quarters than he 
 and his family had ! Although in hot weather 
 
 [30] 
 
they were content to swelter upstairs while 
 Hunt reposed comfortably in the cool lower 
 quarters. He grudgingly admits that the fur- 
 niture in this grand villa — which was of 
 marble and is said to have been built in part by 
 Michael Angelo — was "good and respectable." 
 He also admits that when his apartments were 
 fitted up, "Lord Byron insisted upon making us 
 a present of the goods himself." But he at- 
 tempts to disparage Byron's generosity by as- 
 serting that he (Byron) held Shelley's bond 
 for the two hundred pounds^ he received; al- 
 though he discreetly avoids mentioning the fact 
 that Byron very magnanimously refused to ac- 
 cept the amount from Shelley's estate. He does 
 not, however, claim that any part of the sum 
 was ever returned to Byron, Shelley, or anyone 
 else, or that he ever had any intention of re- 
 turning it. 
 
 When Mrs. Hunt arrived at Byron's house 
 she was ill, and he immediately called in the 
 celebrated Vacca, the most renowned physician 
 
 1 In a letter dated February 6, 1822, from Byron to his 
 financial agent in London, he said that he had loaned Hunt 
 two hundred and fifty pounds. This, moreover, was at a time 
 when Byron, although living in good style, was hard pressed 
 and was paying his creditors off by instalments. 
 
 [31] 
 
in Italy, who doubtless charged Byron a liberal 
 fee for his attendance. Hunt does not mention 
 this among his many other forgotten gratui- 
 ties ; but he does not forget to remark that al- 
 though this physician thought Mrs. Hunt 
 "would not survive beyond the year," she sur- 
 vived him by many years. 
 
 "Stern necessity and a large family," says 
 Hunt, "compelled me," when he tells of accept- 
 ing Byron's gratuities ; consequently it seems to 
 have been this "stern necessity," and what he 
 regarded as Byron's mental, moral and physical 
 shortcomings, that absolved him from every 
 obligation, robbed him of every decent sense of 
 honor, and entitled him to launch his vicious 
 attack upon the character and habits of the best 
 friend he ever had. Having profited hand- 
 somely by his munificence while alive, he also 
 profited pecuniarily by slandering him after his 
 death, and selling the manuscript to a publisher 
 who catered to the appetites of a class who are 
 always hungry for any scandal or supposed 
 weaknesses in the lives of great men. 
 
 Hunt says that he has "some peculiar notions 
 on the subject of money." His work testifies 
 that he also had some peculiar notions on the 
 
 [32] 
 
subject of gratitude and integrity. In all his 
 tirade against Byron he does not prove a single 
 fault or weakness, except by unsupported asser- 
 tions ; and even these, if true, could not be con- 
 strued by any fair-minded person as discredit- 
 able to Byron or his genius. That Byron, in 
 common with most great genuises, had his 
 faults and foibles, is an acknowledged fact ; but 
 they were not such as Hunt in his capacity of 
 alms-taker could discover or prove; therefore 
 when called to task by his critics he sought his 
 justification under the shelter of innuendos — 
 that he knew a great deal more than he could 
 tell, leading the unwary reader to imagine that 
 it was his sense of decency that restrained him. 
 The text of Hunt's book is suffused with 
 "Good Gods !" but like the preface, these start- 
 ling expletives are neither preceded nor fol- 
 lowed by any disclosures that arouse one's 
 emotions to any such violent pitch as those 
 indulged in by the author himself. Much of 
 the volume is devoted to denying the ''false- 
 hoods" of other biographers, most of whom. 
 Hunt assumes, were not merely mistaken or 
 misinformed; they simply lied, intentionally, 
 gratuitously, persistently. After devoting a 
 
 [33] 
 
great deal of space to specific refutations of 
 statements made by one biographer, he disposes 
 of all the others en bloc by saying that "in con- 
 tradicting this one I contradict twenty others, 
 the scandalous ones included." The others are 
 therefore all misleading and incomplete, and to 
 him fell the great unfinished task of revealing 
 Byron in his true darkness before the world! 
 This revelation consists chiefly in telling that 
 he was physically deformed and mentally defi- 
 cient ; that he craved admiration, and was envi- 
 ous and jealous of the fame of other writers;^ 
 that he was subject to weak impulses; that he 
 had no voice, no address, no sense of humor; 
 that he disliked the English climate, disliked 
 the manners of the people, and "did not think 
 them a bit better than other nations;" — which 
 latter fact must have given a tremendous shock 
 to Hunt's patriotic zeal. Although the English 
 
 1 The groundlesness of Hunt's charge of jealousy becomes 
 obvious in the light of Byron's own words relating to an 
 author's fame: 
 
 "What does it signify who is before or behind in a race 
 where there is no goal? The temple of fame is like that of 
 the Persians, — the universe; our altar, the tops of the moun- 
 tains. I should be equally content with Mount Caucasus, or 
 Mount Anything; and those who like it, may have Mount 
 Blanc or Chimbrorazo, without my envy of their elevation." 
 
 [34] 
 
people had jailed him for printing his exotic 
 views and slandering the prince regent he was 
 glad enough to return to them when he found 
 it impossible to earn a living elsewhere. Fur- 
 thermore, he declares that Byron was "perverse 
 and self-willed;" he "had a false opinion of 
 human nature;" he "thrust out his chin and 
 gave self-estimating nods of the head;" that he 
 "was not a generous man, and in what he did 
 he contrived to blow a trumpet or to see that 
 others blew one for him." The trumpet blast 
 that Hunt blew for him was indeed a discordant 
 dirge ; he out-slandered all the other slanderers 
 of his time, and even denounced those who 
 grudgingly admitted that Byron was a genius. 
 He declared that Lord Byron was "too much 
 admired by the public because he was sulky and 
 wilful;" that women fell in love with him, 
 "though, he could not return their passion;" 
 that "there was coarseness in the way in which 
 he would talk to women ;" that "he painted his 
 heroes criminal, wilful, even selfish, in great 
 things ; but he took good care not to paint them 
 mean in little ones.^ He took care also to give 
 
 1 Here Hunt exhibits not only a cantankerous nature, but a 
 lack of understanding. In 1822 Byron wrote to Murray, his 
 
 [35] 
 
them a great quantity of what he was singular- 
 ly deficient in, — which was self-possession; for 
 when it is added that he had no address, even 
 in the ordinary sense of the word, — that he 
 hummed and hawed, and looked confused, on 
 very trivial occasions, — that he could much 
 more easily get into a dilemma than out of it, 
 and with much greater skill wound the self-love 
 of others than relieve them, — the most com- 
 monplace believers in a poet's attractions will 
 begin to suspect that it is possible for his books 
 
 publisher, regarding a review of Don Juan: "As I take the 
 good in good part I must not, nor will not, quarrel with the 
 bad. What the writer says of Don Juan is harsh, but is in- 
 evitable. . . Don Juan will be known by-and-by for what it 
 is intended — a Satire on abuses of the present states of soci- 
 ety, and not an eulogy of vice." Another passage from the 
 same letter afifords an interesting proof of Byron's fair-mind- 
 edness and generosity, which were amply bestowed, and so ill- 
 received by Hunt. 
 
 "Now, do you see what you and your friends do by your 
 injudicious rudeness? — actually cement a sort of connection 
 which you strove to prevent, and which, had the Hunts pros- 
 pered, 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 vio- 
 lently hurt, and never will forgive me at bottom; but I can't 
 
 [36] 
 
to be the best part of him." Following this line 
 of reasoning it would be poor consolation for 
 those who think well of Hunt if they should 
 consider that his libel on Lord Byron repre- 
 sented the best part of him. 
 
 It would require a wide stretch of the imag- 
 ination to conceive of a man of Byron's stamp 
 humming and hawing and looking confused 
 over trivial matters in the presence of the man 
 who wrote the following childish comment on 
 his Don Juan : "1 will here observe that he had 
 no plan with regard to the poem; that he did 
 not know how long he should make it, nor what 
 he should do with his hero." But Hunt enter- 
 tained no such mean idea of his own poetry, 
 
 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 anything in the letter to hurt him, 
 unless I said he was 'a bore,' which I don't remember. Had 
 their Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it 
 better for them, I should then have left them, after my safe 
 pilotage off a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage by them- 
 selves. 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 be- 
 tween Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet 
 rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and 
 able man, and must do as I would be done by. I do not know 
 what world he has lived in, but I have lived in three or 
 four. . ." 
 
 [37] 
 
which he thought superior to that of Byron or 
 Shelley. He also remarks that the hats of both 
 Byron and Shelley were so small that he could 
 not get either of them on his head. 
 
 Another of Byron's many shortcomings was 
 that Hunt's wife did not take a fancy to him; 
 also that his small boys did not like him. Hunt 
 relates with much apparent glee that on one 
 occasion Mrs. Hunt by her wit "completely 
 dashed and reduced Byron to silence." One 
 day, while the Hunts were living on Lord By- 
 ron, he said to Mrs. Hunt: "What do you 
 think, Mrs. Hunt ? Trelawny has been speak- 
 ing against my morals ! What do you think of 
 that!" 
 
 "It is the first time," said Mrs. Hunt, "I ever 
 heard of them." 
 
 "This," says Hunt in reporting the conver- 
 sation, "which would have set a man of address 
 upon his wit, completely dashed, and reduced 
 him to silence." So much for Mrs. Hunt. On 
 the next page Hunt relates that Byron once 
 commented on some of his (Hunt's) friends, 
 "afifecting to be very pleasant and good na- 
 tured, and without any 'ofifense in the world.' 
 All this provoked me to mortify him; and I 
 
 [38] 
 
asked if he knew what Mrs. Hunt had said one 
 day to the Shelleys of his picture by Harlowe? 
 . . . He said he did not, and was curious to 
 know. An engraving of it, I told him, was 
 shown her, and her opinion asked ; upon which 
 she observed that it 'resembled a great school- 
 boy who had a plain bun given him, instead of 
 a plum one.' . . He looked as blank as pos- 
 sible, and never again criticised the personal 
 appearance of those whom I regarded." That 
 Byron was "completely dashed" by Mrs. Hunt's 
 remark, and looked "as blank as possible" at 
 Hunt for such asininity, is easily believable. 
 That he calmly accepted Mrs. Hunt's insulting 
 and uncalled-for reply to his jovial remark, 
 showed his tolerance and good manners, which 
 Hunt mistook for want of address ; and that he 
 did not forthwith turn them all out of his house 
 for their impudence, is an indisputable proof of 
 his great forbearance and charity. If we add 
 to these galling impertinences the annoyance of 
 having a family of six unrestrained children 
 romping and screeching about the house and 
 premises it will be seen that Byron's patience 
 alone was enough to make him famous. Mrs. 
 Marshall observed that Hunt's children were 
 
 [39] 
 
allowed ''to do exactly as they chose." And 
 Byron in writing to Mrs. Shelley about a piece 
 of Shelley's furniture that was in his house, 
 said : *'I have a particular dislike to anything 
 of Shelley's being within the same walls with 
 Mrs, Hunt's children. They are dirtier and 
 more mischievous than Yahoos. What they 
 can't destroy with their filth they will with their 
 fingers." After rhapsodizing over the quiet- 
 ude, tractableness and "self-possession" of his 
 own children, Hunt says that they were "noth- 
 ing daunted" by his Lordship's presence. He 
 says that his eldest boy surprised Byron "with 
 his address, never losing his singleness of man- 
 ner;" and that in Byron's presence the boy's 
 dignified bearing and easy manner made him 
 appear "as if he had always lived in the world 
 instead of out of it." This, Hunt says, put 
 Byron completely "out of his reckoning." We 
 may wonder that they did not also put him out 
 of his mind. Doubtless Hunt's children were 
 as good as any other children would have been, 
 neglected as they necessarily were, but this 
 afifords no reason why Byron should be con- 
 demned because he did not want them annoying 
 him and despoiling his house and premises. 
 
 [40] 
 
Hunt seems to imply that he was doing By- 
 ron a very great service in accepting his friend- 
 ship and gratuities, for in this connection he 
 remarks: "I had decHned, out of a notion of 
 principle, to avail myself of more than one op- 
 portunity of being intimate with men of rank ; 
 opportunities which, it will be easily conceived, 
 are no very uncommon thing in the life of a 
 journalist. I confess that I valued myself a 
 little suspiciously upon my self denial." He 
 complains that Byron used to sit up very late at 
 night and write on his Don Juan. But as to 
 that, it is not surprising that he should resort 
 to the night hours for concentration, since the 
 clamor down stairs in the daytime was probably 
 not conducive to poetic thoughts. Hunt also 
 declares that Byron wrote Don Juan "under 
 the influence of gin and water," — a compound 
 which, if Hunt could have got hold of, might 
 have made him better known. He says he 
 could have been included as one of the charac- 
 ters in Don Juan, but he declined the honor. 
 He tells us that after working until late at 
 night, Byron used to get up late in the morning 
 and lounge about, occasionally singing an air 
 "in a swaggering style." It is not made quite 
 
 [41] 
 
clear how Byron accomplished the feat of sing- 
 ing in a swaggering style, but Hunt says he did 
 it in "a voice small and veiled." Indeed every- 
 thing about Byron appears small, if we accept 
 Hunt's measurements. Whatever he did or 
 said or looked was suspicuously construed as a 
 fault or device. If he wrote well it was under 
 the artificial stimulus of "gin and water," or in 
 obedience to some base motive; if he sang, it 
 was with a bad voice ; if he walked, it was with 
 a limp; if he joked or laughed, his jokes were 
 bad and his laughter unnatural; if he smiled 
 and looked pleased, it was to deceive you and 
 hide his real feelings; if he gave you money, it 
 was to humiliate you; if he did you any other 
 service, it was to subject you and show his 
 superiority over you.^ 
 
 It is said that a drunken man imagines every- 
 one else is drunk but himself; that a treacher- 
 
 1 On the day Mrs. Shelly learned of Byron's death she 
 wrote in her journal: "Can I forget our evening visits to 
 Diodati? — our excursions on the lake, when he sang the 
 Tyrolese Hj^mn, and his voice was harmonized with the winds 
 and waves? Can I forget his attentions and consolations to 
 me during my deepest misery? Never! His faults being, for 
 the most part, weaknesses, induced one readily to pardon 
 them." Mrs. Shelley, who had an excellent ear for music, 
 appears to have thought better of Byron's voice than Hunt did. 
 
 [42] 
 
ous person is always skeptical of others; and 
 that a suspicious person who is constantly im- 
 puting selfish or dishonest motives to others, is 
 not to be trusted. Hunt, however, puts him- 
 self above any such imputations, for we have 
 his oft repeated assurance that he tells the 
 truth, and nothing but the truth. He loved it, 
 he said; he adored it. But after reading some 
 of his dubious, erratic statements, one is in- 
 clined to wonder if he may not have sometimes 
 reasoned after the manner of the little girl, who 
 having been caught prevaricating after promis- 
 ing to tell the truth, exclaimed, — "Oh, but I 
 didn't cross my heart and hope to drop dead on 
 the spot!" Neither did Hunt, so far as we 
 know. He says that he often differed with 
 Byron, but seldom argued, because "his Lord- 
 ship was so poor a logician that he did not even 
 provoke argument." But notwithstanding 
 Hunt's opinion of Byron, it is worthy of note 
 that Shelley thought well enough of him to 
 make him the executor of his will; and this is 
 obviously more than he thought of Hunt, who 
 regarded himself as Shelley's closest friend. It 
 appears that Byron frequently provoked Hunt 
 because he declined to argue with him on trivial 
 
 [43] 
 
points, and to avoid needless controversy he 
 oftentimes appeared to be easily convinced. 
 This exasperated Hunt, v^ho seems to have had 
 a liberal supply of long-distance argumentative 
 ammunition, and like a true sportsman he 
 thought it was more creditable to land a buck 
 at long range than to shoot a calf tied to a stake 
 in the garden. He simply mistook the clever- 
 ness of Byron's ready acquiescence for sheer 
 stupidity. Which reminds us that there is 
 nothing more disconcerting to an inveterate 
 scold than for the object upon u^hich it is vent- 
 ing its spleen to turn and vv^alk away, or to as- 
 sume an attitude of docile indifference. 
 
 Hunt tells us that Byron clung to the priv- 
 ileges of his rank; that he had only a small 
 library; that Bayle and Gibbon supplied him 
 with his chief learning; that being a graceful 
 rider he liked to be told of it ; that he knew Httle 
 of art or music — all of which could be true of 
 any man without exciting the contempt of pos- 
 terity. But when he says that the Countess 
 Guiccioli did not care much for Byron, that he 
 had no heart for anything but a feverish notori- 
 ety, and that he was a miser, he creates a record 
 of palpable untruth which must have been no 
 
 [44] 
 
less obvious to him than it is to others. We 
 have Shelley for authority that Byron gave 
 one-quarter or more of his entire income to aid 
 the poor ; and his charities were without osten- 
 tation. While in England, and at a time when 
 he was so destitute that he "could not command 
 one hundred and fifty pounds" he sent Cole- 
 ridge — whom he scarcely knew — a voluntary 
 gift of one hundred pounds to relieve him from 
 distress. 
 
 Hunt did not even like Byron's friends, who 
 he says were "nothing superior to their birth. 
 . . . They were almost all persons of 
 humble origin; one of a race of booksellers; 
 another the son of a grocer ; another, of a gla- 
 zier ; and a fourth, though the son of a Baronet, 
 the grandson of a linen draper." ^ With him- 
 self, however. Hunt had no fault to find. "As 
 to my birth," he adds, "the reader may see what 
 it was in another part of the volume; and my 
 
 ^ It seems queer that Hunt should have made this scornful 
 reference to Shelley, whom he always regarded so highly. In 
 his great enthusiasm his pen must have slipped. But still, 
 Shelley was dead; therefore, like Byron, was of no more use 
 to him. Furthermore, he had neglected to mention Hunt in 
 his will. Hunt afterwards succeeded in persuading Mrs. 
 Shelley that this was an oversight, which she corrected by 
 granting him an annuity from Shelley's estate. 
 
 [45] 
 
manners I leave him to construe, kindly or 
 otherwise, according to his own." Whatever 
 Hunt or his readers may have thought of his 
 birth and his manners, it is at least interesting 
 to know what the Quarterly Review thought of 
 them, even before he exposed himself so boldly 
 in his traitorous article on Byron. The follow- 
 ing extract from the Quarterly Review refers 
 to Hunt's dedication of one of his poems to 
 Byron, sometime before either of them went to 
 Italy : "We never, in so few lines, saw so many 
 clear marks of vulgar impatience of a low man, 
 conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, 
 and labouring, with coarse flippancy, to scram- 
 ble over the bounds of birth and education, and 
 fidget himself into the stout-heartedness of be- 
 ing familiar with a Lord." — Vol. xiv, p. 481. 
 Hunt also attempted to arouse the prejudice 
 of Americans against Byron by declaring that 
 he spoke ill of them and called them a piggish 
 lot of money-grabbers ; but it is not at all likely 
 that he ever said or thought anything of the 
 kind; for just before Hunt's arrival in Italy 
 Byron was entertained by Commodore John 
 Paul Jones aboard the flagship of the American 
 squadron then lying ofif the coast of Italy, and 
 [46] 
 
in his account of the reception, written to a 
 friend in England, he spoke in the highest 
 terms of both the officers and men. He said 
 that he was presented with a bound copy of a 
 beautiful American edition of his poems, which 
 affected him very deeply ; also that when he was 
 leaving the ship one of the ladies asked him for 
 the rose he was wearing in his buttonhole, that 
 she might take it back to America as a me- 
 mento. He immediately complied by taking 
 off the rose and giving it to her, and said he 
 felt highly honored by the request. He was so 
 impressed by the reception and by the sym- 
 pathies of the American people that for a time 
 he thought seriously of coming here to live. 
 
 Hunt says that he used to repeat the follow- 
 ing "laughable passages" (he calls them) to 
 Byron, who "hardly seemed to relish them:" 
 
 Once at our house, amidst our Attic feasts, 
 We liken'd our acquaintances to beasts; 
 As for example — some to calves and hogs, 
 And some to bears and monkeys, cats and dogs. 
 
 We said (which charm'd the Doctor much, no doubt), 
 His mind was like, of elephants the snout; 
 That could pick pins up, yet possess'd the vigour 
 Of trimming well the jacket of a tiger. 
 
 [47] 
 
When Johnson was in Edinburgh, my wife, 
 To please his palate, studied for her life ; 
 With ev'ry rarity she fill'd her house, 
 And gave the Doctor, for his dinner, grouse. 
 
 Dear Doctor Johnson left off drinks fermented, 
 With quarts of chocolate and cream contented ; 
 Yet often down his throat's prodigious gutter, 
 Poor man ! he pour'd whole floods of melted butter. 
 
 "At these passages," says Hunt, "which 
 make me laugh so for the thousandth time that 
 I can hardly write them. Lord Byron had too 
 invincible relish for a good thing not to laugh 
 also; but he did it uneasily." That Byron did 
 not fall into paroxyms of laughter with Hunt 
 at such silly doggerel commends rather than 
 discredits his sense of humor. Probably the 
 apparent uneasiness of his laughter was be- 
 cause he was laughing at Hunt instead of zvith 
 him. 
 
 One of the most persistent claims put for- 
 ward by Hunt was that Byron was petulant 
 and writhed under adverse criticism; that all 
 who disagreed with him or his writings became 
 subjects of his scorn and ridicule. On this 
 point we quote the following letter which Byron 
 wrote to Hunt, who printed it in the back of his 
 
 [48] 
 
book. It belied much that he had said of 
 Byron, but the beautiful enconiums that the 
 great bard here heaped upon him afforded too 
 good a personal advertisement to be lost. As 
 a matter of fact, few authors have accepted 
 criticism with more toleration and better spirit 
 than Byron did: 
 
 Feb. 9, 1814. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I have been snow-bound and thaw-swamped (two 
 compound epithets for you) in the "valley of the 
 shadow" of Newstead Abbey for nearly a month, and 
 have not been four hours returned to London. Nearly 
 the first use I make of my benumbed fingers, is to thank 
 you for your very handsome note in the volume you 
 have just put forth; only, I trust, to be followed by 
 others on subjects more worthy your notice than the 
 works of contemporaries. Of myself, you speak only 
 too highly — and you must think me strangely spoiled, 
 or perversely peevish, even to suspect that any remarks 
 of yours, in the spirit of candid criticism, could possibly 
 prove unpalatable. Had they been harsh, instead of 
 being written as they are in the indelible ink of good 
 sense and friendly admiration — had they been the 
 harshest — as I knew and know that you are above any 
 personal bias, at least against your fellow bards — be- 
 lieve me, they would not have caused a word of remion- 
 strance nor a moment of rankling on my part. Your 
 poem I read long ago in the "Reflector," and it is not 
 
 [49] 
 
much to say it is the best "session" we have — and with 
 a more difficult subject — for we are neither so good 
 nor so bad (taking the best and worst) as the wits of 
 the olden time. 
 
 To your smaller pieces, I have not yet had time to do 
 justice by perusal — and I have a quantity of unan- 
 swered, and, I hope, unanswerable letters to wade 
 through before I sleep; but to-morrow will see me 
 through your volume. I have been regaled at every 
 inn on the road by lampoons and other merry conceits 
 on myself in the ministerial gazettes, occasioned by the 
 republication of two stanzas inserted in 1812, in Perry's 
 paper. The hysterics of the Morning Post are quite 
 interesting; and I hear (but have not seen) of some- 
 thing terrific in a last week's Courier — all of which I 
 take with "the calm indifiference" of Sir Fretful Pla- 
 giary. The Morning Post has one copy of devices 
 upon my deformity, which certainly will admit of no 
 "historic doubts," like "Dickon my master's" — an- 
 other upon my Atheism, which is not quite so clear — 
 and another, very downrightly says I am the devil 
 (boiteux [lame] they might have added), and a rebel 
 and what not. . . 
 
 Ever your obliged and sincere, Byron. 
 
 P. S. Since this letter was written, I have been at 
 your text, which has much good humour in every sense 
 of the word. Your notes are of a very high order in- 
 deed, particularly on Wordsworth. 
 
 The ribald text of Hunt's book supplies its 
 own condemnation, and an impartial analysis 
 [so] 
 
of the confused aggregation of facts and falla- 
 cies he sets forth furnishes the most indubit- 
 able proof of Byron's greatness, both as a poet 
 and a man. If any further internal evidence 
 be required to brand the volume as a piece of 
 impertinent slander from beginning to end, it 
 is furnished by the personal letters from Byron, 
 which Hunt printed at the conclusion of his 
 rambling diatribe. Every one of these is writ- 
 ten in a spirit of manliness, gentleness and 
 magnanimity. Most of them are filled with 
 expressions of unstinted praise of some poem 
 or other literary work that Hunt had sent him 
 to read. In the whole twelve letters there is 
 not a single trace of jealousy or testiness, which 
 Hunt claims were among Byron's dominant 
 characteristics. He went so far as to preface 
 these letters with a few apologetic remarks con- 
 cerning their friendly tenor, fearing lest they 
 might belie what he had said before them — 
 which they assuredly do. "Had I wished to 
 flatter my vanity, or make a case out for my- 
 self," he says, "I might have published them 
 long ago." He also adds, in his characteristic 
 way (he appears always to have kept a trump 
 card up his sleeve) : "I have other letters in 
 
 [51] 
 
my possession, written while Lord Byron was 
 in Italy, and varying in degrees of cordiality, 
 according to the mood he happened to be in. 
 They are for the most part on matters of dis- 
 pute between us, and are all written in an un- 
 easy, factitious spirit." Strange that their 
 factitiousness should have caused them all to 
 be excluded from his book, if they would have 
 proved what he failed to prove. But we may 
 surmise that his real reason for omitting them 
 was due to other considerations. Again, they 
 perhaps lacked the salient qualities of praise. 
 Hunt's purpose in printing the letters he did is 
 only too obvious. In these Lord Byron had 
 praised his work, and he was anxious to let the 
 public know what the greatest poet of all Eng- 
 land thought of his poems. In order that no 
 personal glory might be lost, he supplied foot- 
 notes to enlighten the reader as to what piece it 
 was that Byron referred to, if he failed to call 
 it by name. He doubtless figured that they 
 would dull the edge of his sword somewhat, but 
 surely no one after reading what he had said 
 about Byron could doubt that he had, chame- 
 leon like, changed his colors since writing these 
 letters in years gone by. But no matter how 
 
 [52] 
 
much Byron had changed for the worse his 
 praise would of course hold good for all time. 
 
 Byron was gone, and could not be heard in 
 his own defence, but his letters quoted herein 
 speak for him, more eloquently than anything 
 he could have added. Indeed if he had been 
 living it is doubtful if he would have paid any 
 more attention to Hunt's fretful harangue than 
 he would to a fly buzzing and beating itself 
 against the window pane in a distant part of 
 the room. But this, after all, is a rather gratui- 
 tous speculation, for Hunt made sure that 
 Byron was dead before he attacked him. Hunt 
 said that he had reasons to believe "that the 
 opinions he entertained of breeding and refine- 
 ment puzzled Byron extremely." No doubt 
 they did, and if Byron could have risen from 
 his grave and read Hunt's memorial of him he 
 would probably have been still more puzzled at 
 the treachery of one whom he had befriended. 
 
 "Oh Truth !" cries Hunt from the depths of 
 his agonized soul, as he aims another poisoned 
 arrow at Byron's character, — "What scrapes 
 of portraiture have you not got me into !" Truth 
 has been falsely accused of many crimes, but to 
 lay these scraps of portraiture at her door is 
 
 [53] 
 
indeed a cruel arraignment. Hunt also records 
 that a *'f air friend" once said to him : 
 
 *'Good heavens ! If Byron had but foreseen 
 that you would have given the world an account 
 of him, what would he not have done to cut a 
 figure in your eyes !" We might answer, that 
 if he had been less charitable than his acts and 
 his letters show him to have been he would 
 probably have turned Hunt into the street and 
 let him walk back home. 
 
 Hunt's bilious nature seems to have brought 
 him into dispute with most of those with whom 
 he came in contact. The following is an extract 
 from Byron's letter to Murray, his publisher: 
 
 "I am sorry to hear of your row with Hunt ; 
 but suppose him to be exasperated by the Quar- 
 terly and your refusal to deal ; and when one is 
 angry and edits a paper I should think the 
 temptation too strong for a literary nature, 
 which is not always human. I can't conceive 
 in what, and for what, he abuses you. What 
 have you done ? You are not an author, nor a 
 politician, nor a public character; I know no 
 scrape you have tumbled into. I am the more 
 sorry for this, because I introduced you to 
 Hunt, and because I believe him to be a very 
 
 [54] 
 
good man ; but till I know the particulars, I can 
 give no opinion." 
 
 For the sake of a moment's diversion let us 
 read what Byron wrote to Tom Moore, the 
 Irish poet. The letter is dated April 2, 1823, 
 about a year before Byron's death : 
 
 I have been far more persecuted than you, as you 
 may judge by my present decadence, — for I take it 
 that I am as low in popularity and bookselling as any 
 writer can be. At least, so my friends assure me — 
 blessings on their benevolence ! This they attribute to 
 Hunt ; but they are wrong. It must be, partly at least, 
 owing to myself; be it so. As to Hunt, I prefer not 
 having turned him to starve in the streets to any per- 
 sonal honour which might have accrued from such gen- 
 uine philanthropy. I really act upon principle in this 
 matter, for we have nothing much in common; and I 
 cannot describe to you the despairing sensation of try- 
 ing to do something for a man who seems incapable or 
 unwilling to do anything further for himself, — at 
 least, to the purpose. It is like pulling a man out of a 
 river who directly throws himself in again. For the 
 last three or four years Shelley assisted, and had once 
 actually extricated him. I have since his demise, — 
 and even before, — done what I could : but it is not in 
 my power to make this permanent. I want Hunt to 
 return to England, for which I would furnish him with 
 the means in comfort; and his situation there, on the 
 whole, is bettered, by the payment of a portion of his 
 
 [55] 
 
debts, etc. ; and he would be on the spot to continue his 
 Journal, or Journals, with his brother, who seems a 
 sensible, plain, sturdy, and enduring person. 
 
 Byron hit the nail squarely on the head when 
 he said that he and Hunt had nothing much in 
 common. His remark in another letter to 
 Moore, that he had lived "in three or four 
 worlds," is highly significant. He lived in the 
 world of fashion and aristocracy, then mingled 
 with the so-called common people, and among 
 the faster set given to dissipation and excesses. 
 For a man to be able to associate in turn with 
 all three of these classes and to gain and impart 
 intimate knowledge of all of them, as Byron 
 did, requires a remarkable degree of versatility. 
 Little wonder that Hunt could not comprehend 
 a nature so far above him. He appeared to be 
 no more able to grasp Byron's real thoughts 
 and motives than a mouse could interpret the 
 thoughts of the lion in whose feed box he was 
 nesting. 
 
 Hunt set another seal of condemnation upon 
 Byron and his works because of his agnosti- 
 cism; but if Hunt's Christianity was of the sort 
 he preached and practised in his dealings with 
 Byron, before and after his death, we may con- 
 
 [56] 
 
gratulate Byron that he had none of it. How- 
 ever, let Byron speak for himself upon the mat- 
 ter of religion : 
 
 I once thought myself a philosopher, and talked non- 
 sense with great decorum : I defied pain, and preached 
 up equanimity. For some time this did very well, for 
 no one was in pain for me but my friends, and none 
 lost their patience but my hearers. At last, a fall from 
 my horse convinced me bodily suffering was an evil; 
 and the worst of an argument overset my maxims and 
 my temper at the same moment : so I quitted Zeno for 
 Aristippus, and conceive that pleasure constitutes the 
 TO KaXov. In morality, I prefer Confucius to the Ten 
 Commandments, and Socrates to St. Paul, though the 
 two latter agree in their opinion of marriage. In re- 
 ligion, I favour the Catholic emancipation, but do not 
 acknowledge the Pope ; and I have refused to take the 
 sacrament, because I do not think eating bread or 
 drinking wine from the hand of an earthly vicar will 
 make me an inheritor of heaven. I hold virtue, in gen- 
 eral, or the virtues severally, to be only in the disposi- 
 tion, each a feeling, not a principle. I believe truth the 
 prime attribute of the Deity, and death an eternal sleep, 
 at least of the body. You have here a brief com- 
 pendium of the sentiments of the wicked George Lord 
 Byron ; and, till I get a new suit, you will perceive I 
 am badly clothed. 
 
 In another letter he says : 
 
 I think people can never have enough of religion, if 
 
 [57] 
 
they are to have any, I incline, myself, very much to 
 the Catholic doctrines ; but if I am to write a drama, I 
 must make my characters speak as I conceive them 
 likely to argue. . . 
 
 I believe doubtless in God, and should be happy to 
 be convinced of much more. If I do not at present 
 place implicit faith in tradition and revelation of any 
 human creed, I hope it is not from want of reverence 
 for the Creator, but the created ; and when I see a man 
 publishing a pamphlet to prove that Mr. Pitt is risen 
 from the dead (as was done a week ago), perfectly 
 positive in the truth of his assertion, I must be per- 
 mitted to doubt more miracles equally well tested ; but 
 the moral of Christianity is perfectly beautiful — and 
 the very sublime of virtue — yet even there we find 
 some of its finer precepts in the earlier axioms of the 
 Greeks — particularly "do unto others as you would 
 they should do unto you" — the forgiveness of injuries 
 and more which I do not remember. 
 
 One certainly has a soul ; but how it came to allow 
 itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imag- 
 ine. I only know if once mine gets out, I'll have a bit 
 of a tussle before I let it get in again to that or any 
 other. 
 
 Hunt says that when their periodical, called 
 The Liberal, was launched "it was confidently 
 expected that money would pour in upon all of 
 us." But it failed, and the money, instead of 
 
 [58] 
 
pouring in, poured out — out of Byron's pocket, 
 for Hunt had nothing to lose. Again Hunt 
 must have failed to "cross his heart" when he 
 said that the entire blame of his failure was due 
 to Byron's lack of the promised interest and 
 support. As a matter of fact, Byron wrote to 
 his friends in all directions asking their assist- 
 ance. To his close friend, Tom Moore, he 
 wrote : 'Xeigh Hunt is here after a voyage of 
 eight months. . . He is setting up a Jour- 
 nal, to which I have promised to contribute, and 
 in the first number The Vision of Judgment 
 . . . will probably appear, with other ar- 
 ticles. Can you give us anything? He seems 
 sanguine about the matter, but (entre nous) I 
 am not. I do not, however, like to put him out 
 of spirits by saying so ; for he is bilious and un- 
 well. Do, pray, answer this letter immediately. 
 Do send Hunt anything in prose or verse of 
 yours, to start him handsomely — any lyrical, 
 irical, or what you please." Six weeks later, 
 in a friendly letter to Moore he said: "Hunt is 
 sweating articles for his Journal, and both he 
 and I think it somewhat shabby in you not to 
 contribute." ^ 
 
 1 Perhaps Moore's failure to comply accounts for Hunt's 
 
 [59] 
 
On July 8, 1822, Byron wrote to his pub- 
 lisher in England: "Mr. Leigh Hunt is ar- 
 rived here and thinks of commencing a period- 
 ical work, to which I shall contribute. I do not 
 propose to you to be the publisher, because I 
 know you to be unfriends ; but all things in your 
 care, except the volume now in press, and the 
 manuscript purchased of Mr. Moore, can be 
 given for this purpose according as they are 
 wanted." 
 
 When it became certain that the magazine 
 could not succeed under Hunt's editorship it is 
 easy to conceive that Byron lost what little zest 
 he had in the undertaking, in which he seems 
 to have become a sort of silent partner, or in 
 theatre parlance, the "angel." Shelley, who 
 was to have been a partner in the afifair, had 
 been drowned, and besides, Byron's friends 
 remonstrated with him and begged him to keep 
 clear of the project, which was adding nothing 
 to his income, but much to his list of political 
 
 spiteful remarks about him in one of the articles containing 
 his estimates of Byron's contemporaries. He admits that he 
 had an "ill taste" in his mouth when he got through with the 
 anathema on Moore, which he sought to eradicate by relating a 
 single unimportant episode that counted slightly in Moore's 
 favor. 
 
 [60] 
 
enemies, who, Trelawny said, "crowed" loudly- 
 over its failure. Byron offered to let Hunt 
 have any profits to be derived from the enter- 
 prise, but Hunt was unequal to the task of mak- 
 ing it pay. Had the Journal succeeded, Hunt 
 alone would have profited by its success; but 
 when it failed, Byron pocketed the loss and all 
 the blame. It then became a question with 
 Byron as to what to do with Hunt, who per- 
 haps felt that he should support him and his 
 large family indefinitely. Byron's letter to 
 Moore shows that he wanted "Hunt to return 
 to England," and to that end he "would furnish 
 him with the means in comfort." This addi- 
 tional charity would have cost him perhaps two 
 hundred pounds more, with no prospect of ever 
 getting any part of it back. 
 
 The Shelleys had been endeavoring for a 
 long time to get Hunt to come to Italy, and it 
 was on their account rather than on Byron's 
 that he came, though Byron furnished the 
 money. There is nothing to show, either in 
 the correspondence or in any claim advanced 
 by Hunt himself, that Byron assumed any obli- 
 gation whatever, except that he agreed to con- 
 tribute to Hunt's periodical, which he did. 
 [6.] 
 
There is evidence in abundance to show that he 
 did far more than he promised, in quartering 
 Hunt and his family in his home and in advanc- 
 ing him, or rather giving him, money to Hve on. 
 The following letter written by Byron to a 
 friend (probably Mrs. Shelley) — whose name 
 was withheld when it was given to the public — 
 does not corroborate Hunt's insistent claim 
 that he always told the truth concerning By- 
 ron's treatment of him. Perhaps no other sim- 
 ilar number of lines that Byron ever penned 
 gives one a better idea of his true character : 
 
 I presume that you, at least, know enough of me to 
 be sure that I could have no intention to insult Hunt's 
 poverty. On the contrary, I honour him for it; for I 
 know what it is, having been as much embarrassed as 
 ever he was, without perceiving aught in it to diminish 
 an honourable man's self-respect. If you mean to say 
 that, had he been a wealthy man, I would have joined 
 in this Journal, I answer in the negative. . . I en- 
 gaged in the Journal from good-will towards him, 
 added to respect for his character, literary and per- 
 sonal ; and no less for his political courage, as well as 
 regret for his present circumstances : I did this in the 
 hope that he might, with the same aid from literary 
 friends of literary contributions (which is requisite for 
 all journals of a mixed nature), render himself inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 [62] 
 
I have always treated him, in our personal inter- 
 course, with such scrupulous delicacy, that I have for- 
 borne intruding advice which I thought might be dis- 
 agreeable, lest he should impute it to what is called 
 "taking advantage of a man's situation." 
 
 As to friendship, it is a propensity in which my 
 genius is very limited. I do not know the male human 
 being, except Lord Clare, the friend of my infancy, for 
 whom I feel anything that deserves the name. All my 
 others are men-of-the-world friendships. I did not 
 even feel it for Shelley, however much I admired and 
 esteemed him; so that you see not even vanity could 
 bribe me into it, for, of all men, Shelley thought high- 
 est of my talents, — and, perhaps, of my disposition. 
 
 I will do my duty by my intimates, upon the prin- 
 ciple of doing as you would be done by. I have done 
 so, I trust, in most instances. I may be pleased with 
 their conversation — rejoice in their success — be glad 
 to do them service, or to receive their counsel and 
 assistance in return. But as for friends and friend- 
 ships, I have (as I already said) named the only re- 
 maining male for whom I feel anything of the kind, 
 excepting, perhaps, Thomas Moore. I have had, and 
 may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called 
 in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this 
 world — not much remembered when the ball is over, 
 though very pleasant for the time. Habit, business, 
 and companionship in pleasure or in pain, are links of 
 a similar kind, and the same faith in politics is an- 
 other, . . 
 
 [63] 
 
Byron's "Waltz" with Hunt must have re- 
 minded him of the young man who on taking 
 his partner for the waltz soon discovered that 
 she danced only the Fisher's Hornpipe. 
 
 Hunt does not say how he got back to Eng- 
 land, but since Shelley and Byron were both 
 dead, and could therefore neither lend nor give 
 him money, we may conjecture that he had 
 some difficulty. It appears that his publisher 
 in England had advanced him considerable 
 money, and doubtless on his return this pub- 
 lisher pressed his claim for either the money or 
 some other consideration with which to balance 
 the account. Money he had not, nor other 
 stock in trade, except the reputation of having 
 been closely associated with Lord Byron, who 
 at that time — shortly after his death — was 
 the most talked of man in England. After his 
 untimely death while devoting his services to 
 the liberation of Greece, not only did he become 
 immensely popular as a man of letters, but his 
 name was bandied about on the tongues of the 
 scandal-mongers, who displayed great eager- 
 ness to learn all about his mode of living in 
 Italy. Even when Byron was living quietly in 
 seclusion, doing the best literary work of his 
 
 [64] 
 
career, the gossips of England had him living a 
 riotous life of drunkenness and debauchery, 
 with a seraglio full of mistresses and all the 
 other concomitants of a licentious Moham- 
 medan polygamist. No one was supposed to 
 know the facts better than Hunt, who had lived 
 in the same house with him, whether in the 
 capacity of garde de chambre or garde d'ex- 
 terior it did not matter, if the public could thus 
 be let in on the secrets. It is fair to assume that 
 Hunt's enterprising pubHsher saw here a 
 chance not only to get back the money he had 
 advanced, but to make much more ; and that he 
 proposed to Hunt that he write some racy ac- 
 count of Byron's life, and of the numerous 
 mistresses he was supposed to have had/ Hunt, 
 whose "peculiar ideas" seem to have singularly 
 fitted him for such a task, agreed to undertake 
 it, provided he could tack on his autobiography 
 
 iThis is not a mere groundless conjecture. Hunt says: 
 "My bookseller had pleased me by advances of money; and it 
 was a series of circumstances connected with that liberal treat- 
 ment, which finally led me to make the book what it is." 
 Therefore as the gladiator of old entered the arena to mutilate 
 his opponent, not because he had any personal grudge against 
 him, but because he craved the glory of carnage, so Hunt 
 appears to have girded himself to flay the character of a great 
 man because he needed money. 
 
 [65] 
 
and thus get it before the public. This he spun 
 out to such length and breadth that the heavy 
 burden came near sinking the ship ; but his pub- 
 lisher managed somehow to have it cut down to 
 354 pag^s, and so put it in. It is not known 
 what was eliminated, but what remained is cer- 
 tainly a paragon of dryness and stupidity, ad- 
 mitting of no rival in the past, and perhaps not 
 in the future. In the beginning of the second 
 volume, containing his autobiography, he dis- 
 misses "Mr. Dubois" in two and a half pages, 
 "Mr. Campbell" in four pages, Theodore Hook 
 in three pages, "Mr. Mathews" in six pages, 
 "Messrs. James and Horace Smith" in eleven 
 pages, and "Messrs. Fuseli Bonnycastle and 
 Kinnaird" in as many more. He disposes of 
 Charles Lamb in seven pages, and told all he 
 thought worth while about Coleridge in eight 
 pages; while the remaining 372 pages are de- 
 voted to himself and his Appendix. In the 
 "Visit to Italy" part of his autobiography, he 
 says in the opening lines that he had often 
 thought a sea voyage "the dullest thing in the 
 world, both in the experiment and the descrip- 
 tion;" but that it "might be turned to a very 
 diflFerent account on paper, if the narrators, in- 
 [66] 
 
stead of imitating the dullness of their prede- 
 cessors, and recording that it was four o'clock 
 p. M. when they passed Cape St. Vincent, and 
 that on such and such a day they beheld a por- 
 pus or a Dutchman, would look into the interior 
 of the floating house they inhabited, and tell us 
 about the seamen and their modes of living," 
 etc. When he looked into the "floating house," 
 however, he apparently saw only the sea-sick- 
 ness and distress of his own family, whence he 
 seems to have been glad to escape to the upper 
 deck, from which he thereafter made most of 
 his observations, consisting chiefly of telling us 
 the direction from which the wind blew each 
 morning for nearly eight months, and about 
 other equally trite routine matters, as uninter- 
 esting as they are unimportant. He appears 
 not to have discovered anything even as inter- 
 esting as a "porpus" or a "Dutchman." But 
 when things got dull on deck he always had the 
 wind to fall back on ; even when it wasn't blow- 
 ing, he could amuse himself by recording his 
 prognostications. The wind often blew a gale, 
 it seems, and strangely enough, during these 
 gales "the vessel pitched and labored consider- 
 ably," so considerably indeed that it almost 
 
 [67] 
 
makes one sea-sick to read about it. If Hunt's 
 voyage was as monotonous in the "experiment" 
 as it is in his "description," it's a wonder that 
 his family ever Hved through it. But he at 
 least demonstrated the correctness of his idea 
 that in point of description, a sea voyage can be 
 made "the dullest thing in the world." 
 
 Whether Hunt knew anything really detri- 
 mental to Byron's private character is a matter 
 of grave doubt, but if he did he certainly con- 
 cealed it. From the manner in which he han- 
 dled the subject we are justified in believing 
 that he told all he knew, and probably a great 
 deal more. He does not relate a single fact 
 that could impartially be construed as a valid 
 grievance, doubtless because there was none; 
 therefore he confined himself chiefly to mean 
 insinuations and silly "tittle-tattle," as Mrs. 
 Shelley called most of the published talk about 
 Byron, and contented himself and a certain 
 class of readers with this. After the bellicose 
 preface the first few pages of the book are writ- 
 ten in a rather dispassionate tone, interspersed 
 with spleenish remarks, but as he proceeded he 
 seems gradually to have worked himself up to 
 the conclusion that he was really an injured 
 
 [68] 
 
man, and in proportion as this feeling grew, in 
 the same measure his rancor increased, until it 
 reached a point where he became positively 
 childish and incoherent. His feeble attempt 
 to belittle Byron's literary fame by traducing 
 the man himself reminds one of an ill-tempered 
 little boy crushing a fallen acorn under his heel 
 to spite the tree it grew on. Now and then 
 when his vocabulary of invectives seems to 
 have become exhausted, he wanders off appar- 
 ently in a state of sheer exhaustion to other 
 fields, or devotes himself to the restful diver- 
 sion of recording detached thoughts about him- 
 self; but on these excursions he soon replen- 
 ishes his stock of venom and returns again to 
 the attack. 
 
 Although the publication went into a second 
 edition, Hunt was vigorously assailed from all 
 quarters, even by those who were unfriendly to 
 Byron, and we may easily surmise that the 
 work cost him far more in prestige than it 
 earned him in a pecuniary way. It stands to- 
 day as a monumental and almost, if not quite, 
 unique example of puerility and ingratitude — 
 a wholly unjustifiable attack upon a dead man 
 by one who by force of circumstances had been 
 
 [69] 
 
to some small extent his confidant, and to a 
 very great extent his beneficiary. The shadow 
 he sought to cast over Byron's fame reacted 
 upon him like a boomerang, and while the star 
 of Byron shines resplendent over the entire 
 earth, that of Hunt is eclipsed by the injudi- 
 cious work of his own hand. 
 
 [ 70 ] 
 
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