Conclusion

It is curious that, in the lives of three such geniuses as Shelley, Byron and Keats a man of lesser gifts and of weaker fibre should have played so large a part as did Leigh Hunt. It is more curious in view of the fact that the period of intimate association in each case extended over only a few years. The explanation must be sought in the accident of the age and in the personality of the man himself. It was an era of stirring action and of strong feeling. Men were clamoring for freedom from the trammels of the past and were pressing forward to the new day. Through the union of some of the qualities of the pioneer and of the prophet, Leigh Hunt was thrust into a position of prominence that he might not have gained at any other time, for he lacked the vital requisites of true leadership.

His personal quality was as rare as his opportunity. He had a personal ascendancy, a strange fascination born of the sympathy and chivalry, the sweetness and joyousness of his nature. An exotic warmth and glow worked its spell upon those about him. Barry Cornwall said that he was a “compact of all the spring winds that blew.” His lovableness and very “genius for friendship” bound intimately to him those who were thus attracted. There was, besides, an elusiveness and an ethereality about him—as Carlyle expressed it—“a fine tricksy medium between the poet and the wit, half a sylph and half an Ariel ... a fairy fluctuating bark.” The “vinous quality” of his mind, Hazlitt said, intoxicated those who came in contact with him.

In the case of Shelley it was Hunt the man, rather than the writer, that held him. Charm was the magnet in a friendship that, in its perfection and deep intimacy, deserves to be ranked with the fabled ones of old—a love passing the love of woman. There is no single cloud of distrust or disloyalty in the whole story of their relations.

Second to the personal tie may be ranked Hunt’s influence on Shelley’s politics, greater in this instance than in the case of Byron or Keats. Hunt’s attitude was an important factor in forming Shelley’s political creed. With Godwin, he drew Shelley’s attention from the creation of imaginary universes to the less speculative issues of earth. Indeed, Shelley’s main reliance for a knowledge of political happenings during many years, and practically his only one for the last four years of his life, was The Examiner. He was guided and moderated by it in his general attitude. In the specific instances already cited, the stimulus for poems or the information for prose tracts and articles can be directly traced to Hunt.

In regard to literary art Hunt did not affect Shelley beyond pointing the way to a freer use of the heroic couplet, and in a limited degree, in four or five of his minor poems, influencing him in the use of a familiar diction. Only in his letters does Shelley show any inclination to emphasize “social enjoyments” or suburban delights. That the literary influence was so slight is not surprising when Shelley’s powers of speculation and accurate scholarship are compared with Hunt’s want of concentration and shallow attainments. Notwithstanding this intellectual gulf, strong convictions, with a moral courage sufficient to support them, and a congeniality of tastes and temperament, made possible an ideal comradeship.

Byron, like Shelley, was attracted by Hunt’s charm of personality. An imprisoned martyr and a persecuted editor appealed to Byron’s love of the spectacular. Political sympathy furthered the friendship. In a literary way, Byron influenced Hunt more than Hunt influenced him.

Their intercourse is the story of a pleasant acquaintance with a disagreeable sequel and much error on both sides. With two men of such varying caliber and tastes, the “wren and eagle” as Shelley called them, thrown together under such trying circumstances, it could hardly have been otherwise. Their love of liberty and courage of opposition were the only things in common. Byron recognized to the last Hunt’s good qualities and Hunt, except for the bitter years in Italy and immediately after his return, proclaimed Byron’s genius; but, for all that, they were temperamentally opposed. Byron detested Hunt’s small vulgarities as much as Hunt loathed Byron’s assumed superiority.

The relation with Keats was the reverse of that in the other two cases. It was an intellectual affinity throughout. At no time were Keats and Hunt very close to each other. Nor, indeed, does Keats seem to have had the capacity for intimate friendship, except with his brothers and, possibly, Brown and Severn.

The intercourse of the two men had its disadvantages for Keats in an injurious influence on his early work and in the public association of his name with that of Hunt’s; but the latter’s literary patronage and loving interpretation when Keats was wholly unknown, the friendships made possible for him with others, the open home and tender care whenever needed, the unfailing sympathy, encouragement and admiration so freely given, the new fields of art, music and books opened up, and the pleasantness of the connection at the first, should more than compensate for the attacks which Keats suffered as a member of the Cockney School. From this view it seems very ungrateful of George Keats to have said that he was sorry that his brother’s name should go down to posterity associated with Hunt’s. Keats received far more than he gave in return.

Briefly stated, Keats’s early work shows the marked influence of Hunt in the selection of subjects, in a love of Italian and older English literature, in the “domestic” touch, in the colloquial and feeble diction, and in the lapses of taste. It is only fair to Hunt to emphasize that this was not wholly a question of influence. It was due, as Keats himself confessed, to a natural affinity of gifts and tastes, though the one was so much more highly gifted than the other. Keats soon saw his mistake. Endymion showed a great improvement and the 1820 volume an almost complete absence of his own bourgeois tendencies and of the effect of Hunt’s specious theories. Yet it was undoubtedly through Hunt that Keats in his later poems began to imitate Dryden.In connection with the work of all three poets, Hunt’s criticism is a more important fact of literary history than his services of friendship. He had, as Bulwer-Lytton has remarked, the first requisite of a good critic, a good heart. He had also wonderful sympathy with aspiring authorship. His insight was most remarkable of all in the appreciation of his contemporaries. With powers of critical perception that might be called an instinct for genius, he discovered Shelley and Keats and heralded them to the public. The same ability helped him to appreciate Byron, Hazlitt and Lamb. Browning, Tennyson and Rossetti were other young poets whom he encouraged and supported. He defended the Lake School in 1814 when it still had many deriders. He anticipated Arnold’s judgment when he wrote that “Wordsworth was a fine lettuce, with too many outside leaves.” As early as 1832 he wrote of the “wonderful works of Sir Walter Scott, the remarkable criticism of Hazlitt, the magnetism of Keats, the tragedy and winged philosophy of Shelley, the passion of Byron, the art and festivity of Moore.” To value correctly such criticism it is necessary to remember that the Romantic movement was still in its first youth at the time. His criticism of the three men in question, like his criticisms in general, is distinguished by great fairness and absence of all personal jealousy, by a delicacy of feeling that will not be fully felt until scattered notes and buried prefaces are gathered together. He was animated chiefly by an inborn love of poetry and enjoyment of all beautiful things. If he sometimes fell short in understanding Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, he was perfectly sincere and independent, and pretended nothing that he did not feel. His range of information was truly remarkable, though not deep and accurate. His style was slipshod. With the exception of the essay What is Poetry, he fails in concentration and generalization. He never clinched his results, but was forever flitting from one sweet to another. His method was impressionistic in its appreciation of physical beauty. There is no comprehension whatsoever of mystical beauty. It is the curious instance of a man of almost ascetic habits who revelled and luxuriated in the sensuous beauties of literature. The reader of such books as Imagination and Fancy and the half dozen others of the same kind will see his wonderful power of selection. His attempt to interpret and “popularize literature”—a cause in which he laboured long and steadfastly—was one of the greatest services he rendered his age, even if his habit of italicization and running comment for the purpose of calling attention to perfectly patent beauties irritated some of his readers. His critical taste, when exercised on the work of others, was almost faultless. The occasional vulgarities of which he was guilty in his original work do not intrude here; they were superficial and were not a part of the man. Through his criticism he discovered and championed illustrious contemporaries; he instituted the Italian revival in creative literature in the early part of the century; he assisted in resuscitating the interest in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature.

Hunt’s services of friendship to Byron, Shelley and Keats, his able criticism and just defense of them, have found their reward in the inseparable association of his name with their immortal ones. They easily surpassed him in every department of writing in which they contested, yet the man was strong and alluring enough in his relations with them to prove a determining and, on the whole, beneficent influence in their lives.