"Hunt is an extraordinary character and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times--much talent, great independence of spirit, and an austere, yet not repulsive, aspect. If he goes on _qualis ab incepto_, I know few men who will deserve more praise or obtain it. I must go and see him again--a rapid succession of adventures since last summer, added to some serious uneasiness and business, have interrupted our acquaintance; but he is a man worth knowing; and though for his own sake, I wish him out of prison, I like to study character in such situations. He has been unshaken and will continue so. I don't think him deeply versed in life:--he is the bigot of virtue (not religion) and enamoured of the beauty of that 'empty name,' as the last breath of Brutus pronounced and every day proves it. He is perhaps, a little opinionated, as all men who are the _center of circles_, wide or narrow--the Sir Oracles--in whose name two or three are gathered together--must be, and as even Johnson was: but withal, a valuable man, and less vain than success and even the consciousness of preferring 'the right to the expedient,' might excuse." December 2, 1813, he wrote to Hunt: "It is my wish that our acquaintance, or, if you please to accept it, friendship, may be permanent.... I have a thorough esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering."[329] Cordial intercourse between the two men continued after Hunt's removal from Surrey Gaol to lodgings in Edgeware Road, where Byron became one of his most frequent visitors and correspondents. In the Hunt household Byron laid aside his ordinary reserve. There are records of his riding the children's rocking horse; of presents of game; loans of books; letters presented from a Paris correspondent for _The Examiner_; and gifts of boxes and tickets for Drury Lane Theatre, of which he was one of the managers. This last Hunt would not accept for fear of sacrificing his critical independence. In _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, Hunt claims that this familiarity proceeded from an "instinct of immeasureable distance."[330]