Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats
John Stuart Mill · en
August 26, 1821 containing a critique of the third and fourth cantos of
_Don Juan_, condemned the "careless contempt of canting moralists."
January 23, 1820, there was a notice in _The Examiner_ telling of Byron's
munificence to a shoemaker; in comment _The Examiner_ said: "His
lordship's virtues are his own. His frailties have been made for him, in
more respects than one, by the faults and follies of society." January 21,
1822, appeared a reprint of _My Boat Is on the Shore_; April 22, the two
stanzas from Childe Harold beginning, _Italia, Oh! Italia_; April 29,
_Byron's Letters on Bowles's Strictures on Pope_; May 26, a review of two
of Bowles's letters to Byron; July 29, an article entitled _Sketches of
the Living Poets_.[340] The last gave a biographical account of Byron.
The general traits of his poety were said to be passion, humour, and
learning. It criticized the narrative poems as "too melodramatic, hasty
and vague." Hunt's summary of the dramas and of _Don Juan_ shows excellent
judgment: "For the drama, whatever good passages such a writer will always
put forth, we hold that he has no more qualifications than we have; his
tendency being to spin every thing out of his own perceptions, and colour
it with his own eye. His _Don Juan_ is perhaps his best work, and the one
by which he will stand or fall with readers who see beyond time and
toilets. It far surpasses, in our opinion, all the Italian models on which
it is founded, not excepting the far famed _Secchia Rapita_."[341] On June
2, 1822, _The Examiner_ reviewed _Cain_. The article is chiefly a
discussion of the origin of evil. The issue of September 30 contained a
reprint of _America_; that of November 18 denied Byron's authorship of
_Anastasius_. From July 5, 1823, to November 29 of the same year, there
appeared in the _Literary Examiner_ friendly criticisms of the sixth,
seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and
fourteenth cantos of _Don Juan_. The reviews consisted chiefly of extracts
and a summary of the narrative.
THE LIBERAL.
A letter from Lord Byron dated December 25, 1820, had proposed to Thomas
Moore to set up secretly, on their return to London, a weekly newspaper
for the purpose of giving