The poem refers to an incident which had taken place at Carlton House a few days before, when the Princess Charlotte had burst into tears on learning that her royal father was intending to desert his Whig adherents. No one, apparently, suspected that Byron was the author; but in the second edition of the _Corsair_ (February, 1814) the verses appeared as _Lines to a Lady Weeping_, publicly avowed by him. His acknowledgment brought upon him a storm of abuse from Tory papers--the _Courier_, the _Morning Post_, and the _Sun_--and a discussion ensued entirely out of proportion to the merit of the epigram which had excited it.[154] “How odd,” wrote Byron to Murray, “that _eight lines_ should have given birth, I really think, to _eight thousand_.”[155] It is probable that no single production of Byron’s aroused more hostile comment at the time of its appearance. Byron’s attitude towards the Regent at this period exposes him to a charge of double-dealing. In June, 1812, three months after the composition of the epigram, he met the Prince at a ball in an interview in which the two men conversed on Scott and his poetry. In relating the talk to Scott, Byron mentions that the Regent’s opinions were conveyed “with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to _manners_, certainly superior to those of any living _gentleman_.”[156] It is probable that Byron was a little flattered by the Prince’s condescension; but his own tactlessness in acknowledging his epigram prevented any further intercourse, and he subsequently became the Regent’s open enemy. Jeaffreson suggests that Byron’s avowal of the _Lines to a Lady Weeping_ may have been hastened by his sympathy with Leigh Hunt,[157] who, with his brother, John Hunt, had been tried for a libel on the Regent printed in their _Examiner_ for March 12, 1812, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500 pounds. Byron saw a kindred spirit in Hunt, and, after meeting him in prison in May, 1813, became his close friend. Hunt, on his part, stood by Byron in his _Examiner_ at the time of the latter’s separation from his wife, and dedicated to him his _Rimini_ (1816). Byron, after the unfortunate circumstances connected with _The Liberal_, modified his lofty opinion of Hunt; but in 1813 the latter was, to Moore and Byron, simply a martyr to liberal principles, a man who had been unjustly persecuted and condemned.[158] There is, however, no evidence to justify Jeaffreson’s conclusion.