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's literary relation with Shelley falls into two divisions;
publications written for Hunt's periodicals, and received by Hunt in
order to give Shelley an outlet of expression denied him in the more
conservative papers; and second, positive literary imitation. Besides the
poems quoted in Hunt's criticisms of Shelley, the first includes a review
of Godwin's _Mandeville_,[286] a letter of protest regarding the second
edition of _Queen Mab_,[287] _Marianne's Dream_,[288] _Song on a Faded
Violet_,[289] _The Sunset_,[290] _The Question_,[291] _Good Night_,[292]
_Sonnet, Ye Hasten to the Grave_,[293] _To ---- (Lines to a
Reviewer)_,[294] _November, 1815_,[295] _Love's Philosophy_,[296] and the
contributions designed by Shelley for _The Liberal_ and published after
his death.[297] Productions which were written for Hunt's papers, but were
not accepted, were _Peter Bell the Third_, _The Mask of Anarchy_, _Julian
and Maddalo_, a letter on the persecution of Richard Carlile,[298] letters
on Italy, and a review of Peacock's _Rhododaphne_. Hunt's failure to
accept what was sent him greatly discouraged Shelley at times: "Mine is a
life of failures; Peacock says my poetry is composed of day dreams and
nightmares, and Leigh Hunt does not think it good enough for _The
Examiner_."
_On a Fete at Carlton House_, an attack on the Prince Regent, though
perhaps directly inspired by the account in the dailies of the ball at
Carlton House on June 20, 1811, was doubtless influenced by the continued
attacks of _The Examiner_. As there are extant only two or three lines of
the poem,[299] it is impossible to judge of the extent of the influence,
but in Shelley's letters to Hogg and to Edward Graham describing the poem,
there is resemblance in tone and epithet to _The Examiner_. A letter from
Shelley to Lord Ellenborough on the occasion of Eaton's sentence for
publishing the third part of Paine's _Age of Reason_ followed a long
series of articles by Hunt on the prerogative of liberty of speech.[300]
A meeting of Reformers at Manchester on the sixteenth of August, 1819, for
the purpose of discussing quietly the annual meeting of Parliament,
universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, was dispersed by military force.
Articles setting forth the long sufferings of the Reformers, charging the
authorities with wanton bloodshed, and ridiculing the absurd trial of the
offenders, appeared in _The Examiner_ of August 22, 29, September 5, 19
and 26. _The Mask of Anarchy_, written on the occasion of the massacre at
Manchester, was sent to Leigh Hunt for publication sometime before the
first of November, 1819. The sentiment of both men is the same regarding
the affair.