Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats
John Stuart Mill · en
Hunt had tried to persuade Keats not to write a long poem. Keats wrote of
this: "Hunt's dissuasion was of no avail[122]--I refused to visit Shelley
that I might have my own unfettered scope; and after all, I shall have the
reputation of Hunt's eleve. His corrections and amputations will by the
knowing ones be traced in the poem."[123]
During 1818, Leigh Hunt in his critical work remained silent concerning
Keats, probably because of his sincere disapproval of _Endymion_ and
secondly, because he realized that his praise would be injurious. The
attacks on Hunt in _Blackwood's_ and the _Quarterly_ had foreshadowed an
attack of the same virulent kind on Keats. The realization came with the
publication of _Endymion_. The article on "Johnny Keats," fourth of the
series on the Cockney School in _Blackwood's Magazine_, appeared almost
simultaneously with his return from Scotland, and the one in the
_Quarterly_ in September of the same year. These will be discussed in a
later chapter. Suspicions of neglect on the part of Hunt murmured in
Keats's mind like a discordant undertone, although the friendship
continued as warm as ever on Hunt's part. Keats was passive, without,
however, the old sense of dependence and trust. December 28, 1817, he
writes to his brothers of the "drivelling egotism" of _The Examiner_
article on the obsoletion of Christmas gambols and pastimes.[124] In a
journal letter written to George Keats and his wife in Louisville during
December and January, 1819, the old liking has become almost repugnance:
"Hunt keeps on in his old way--I am completely tired of it all. He has
lately published a Pocket Book called the literary Pocket-Book--full of
the most sickening stuff you can imagine";[125] yet Keats suffered himself
to become a contributor to this same book with two sonnets, _The Human
Seasons_ and _To Ailsa Rock_. Again in the same letter:
"The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Mozart
and punning. I was so completely tired of it that if I were to follow
my own inclinations I should never meet any of that set again, not
even Hunt who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main when you are
with him, but in reality he is vain, egotistical, and disgusting in
matters of taste and morals. He understands many a beautiful thing;
but then, instead of giving other minds credit for the same degree of
perception as he himself possesses,--he begins an explanation in such
a curious manner that our taste and self-love is offended
continually. Hunt does one harm by making fine things petty and
beautiful things hateful. Through him I am indifferent to Mozart, I
care not for white Busts--and many a glorious thing when associated
with him becomes a nothing."[126]
Continuing in the same strain: