Byron had begun his travesty on May 7, 1821, and had sent it to Murray from Ravenna on October 4th.[363] Unconscious of the fact that this satire was in Murray’s hands, Southey meanwhile had published his _Letter to the Courier_, January 5, 1822, vindictively personal, and containing one unlucky paragraph: “One word of advice to Lord Byron before I conclude. When he attacks me again, let it be in rhyme. For one who has so little command of himself, it will be a great advantage that his temper should be obliged to keep tune.” When this _Letter_ came to Byron’s notice, his anger boiled over; he sent Southey a challenge, which through the discretion of Kinnaird, was never delivered[364]; and he decided immediately to publish his _Vision_, which he had almost determined to suppress. Murray, however, delayed the proof, and on July 3, 1822, Byron, irritated by this tardiness and enthusiastic over his newly planned periodical, _The Liberal_, sent a letter by John Hunt,[365] the proprietor of the magazine, requesting Murray to turn the satire over to Hunt. In the first number of _The Liberal_, then, the _Vision_ was given the most conspicuous position, printed, however, without the preface, which Murray, either ignorantly or unfairly, had withheld from Hunt. A vigorous letter from Byron recovered the preface, which was inserted in a second edition of the periodical.[366] The consequences of publication somewhat justified Murray’s apprehensions. John Hunt was prosecuted by the Constitutional Association, and on July 19, 1824, only three days after Byron’s body had been buried in the church of Hucknall Torkard, was convicted, fined one hundred pounds, and compelled to enter into securities for five years. In fairness to Byron, it must be added that he had offered to come to England in order to stand trial in Hunt’s stead, and had desisted only when he found that such procedure would not be allowed.[367] In his _Vision_, Byron had at least four objects for his satire. He wished to ridicule Southey’s poem by burlesquing many of its absurd elements; he aimed to proceed more directly against Southey by exposing the weak points in his character and career; he desired to present a true picture of George III, in contrast to Southey’s idealized portrait; and he intended to make a general indictment of all illiberal government and particularly of the policy then being pursued by the English Tory party. He seized instinctively upon the weaknesses of the panegyric, and while preserving the general plan and retaining many of the characters, freely mocked at its cant and smug conceit. Through a style purposely grotesque and colloquial, he turned Southey’s pompous rhetoric into absurdity; by touches of realism and caricature he made the solemn angels and demons laughable; while, occasionally rising to a loftier tone suggestive of the spirit of _Don Juan_, he reasserted his love of liberty and hatred of despotism.