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
Haydon's influence over Keats was at its height in 1817 and 1818.[136] His
gifts and his enthusiasm, his "fresh magnificence"[137] carried Keats by
storm. It was not until about July 1818 that a reaction against Haydon in
favor of Hunt set in, brought about by money transactions between Keats
and Haydon, and the indifference of the latter in repaying a debt when he
knew Keats's necessity.[138] Keats probably never ceased to feel that
Hunt's influence as a poet had been injurious, as indeed it was, but the
relative stability of his two friends adjusted itself after this
experience with Haydon. Affairs seem to have been smoothed over with Hunt,
and were not disturbed again until a short time before Keats's departure
for Italy, when his morbid suspicions, which even led him to accuse his
friend Brown of flirting with Fanny Brawne,[139] seem to have been
renewed.
In 1820, Brown, with whom Keats had been living since his brother Tom's
death, went on a second tour to Scotland. Keats, unable to accompany him,
took a lodging in Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town, to be near Hunt, who was
living in Mortimer Street. Brown says: "It was his choice, during my
absence to lodge at Kentish Town, that he might be near his friend, Leigh
Hunt, in whose companionship he was ever happy."[140] In a letter to Fanny
Brawne, Keats said Hunt "amuses me very kindly."[141] It is not likely,
judging from this overture, that there had ever been an actual cessation
of intercourse, notwithstanding what Keats wrote in his letters; and the
act points to a revival of the old feeling on his part. About the
twenty-second or twenty-third of June, 1820, Keats left his rooms and
moved to Leigh Hunt's home to be nursed.[142] He remained about seven
weeks with the family, when there occurred an unfortunate incident which
resulted in his abrupt departure August 12, 1820. A letter of Fanny
Brawne's was delivered to him two days late with the seal broken. The
contretemps was due to the misconduct of a servant, but it was interpreted
by Keats as treachery on the part of the family. At the moment he would
accept no explanations or apologies. He writes of this incident to Fanny
Brawne: