[212] Mac-Carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the account Hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met Shelley, or perhaps not at all. He also points out that two passages in the letter to Hunt of March 2, 1811, important in their bearing upon Shelley's political theories at this time, are identical with passages in a letter of February 22 of the same year, addressed to the editor of _The Statesman_, presumably Finnerty. (_Shelley's Early Life_, pp. 1-106.) [213] Hancock, _The French Revolution and English Poets_, pp. 50-77. [214] Letter to Miss Hitchener, June 25, 1811. [215] G. B. Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 88. [216] See the _Letter to Lord Ellenborough_. [217] Smith, _Shelley, A Critical Biography_, p. 110. [218] For Shelley's opinion on the coincidence of their political views, see the last paragraph of the dedication of _The Cenci_. [219] Hunt, _Autobiography_, II, p. 103. [220] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, p. 176. [221] _Autobiography_, II, p. 36. [222] Pp. 122, 123. [223] December 27, 1812. [224] II, p. 13. [225] _Autobiography_, II, p. 27. [226] _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863. [227] December 8, 1816, Shelley wrote to Hunt: "I have not in all my intercourse with mankind experienced sympathy and kindness with which I have been so affected, or which my whole being has so sprung forward to meet and to return.... With you, and perhaps some others (though in a less degree, I fear) my gentleness and sincerity find favour, because they are themselves gentle and sincere: they believe in self-devotion and generosity because they are themselves generous and self-devoted." (Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 328.) [228] December 15, 1816, Shelley wrote Mary Godwin: Hunt's "delicate and tender attentions to me, his kind speeches of you, have sustained me against the weight of the horror of this event." (Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 68.) [229] (_a_) _The Examiner_, January 26, 1817. (_b_) _Ibid._, February 12, 1817. (_c_) _Ibid._, August 31, 1817. (_d_) Hunt, _Correspondence_, I, p. 114; August 27, 1817. [230] Shelley said of Horace Smith: "but is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker." (Hunt, _Autobiography_, I, p. 211.) See also _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, ll. 247-253; Forman, _Works of Shelley_, III, p. 225 ff. [231] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 3; March 22, 1818. [232] _Works of Shelley_, VIII, p. 141; November 13, 1819. [233] Professor Masson says that one of Shelley's first acts was to offer Hunt L100. It is probable he refers to the occasion already discussed. (_Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other Essays_, p. 112.) [234] Dowden, _Life of Shelley_, II, p. 61. [235] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p. 331; December 8, 1816.