Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats Part 17

[182] References to Hunt in the sonnets and other poems of 1817 are the following:

1. "He of the rose, the violet, the spring The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:"

(_Addressed to the Same_ [Haydon].) This sonnet did not appear in 1817, although it belongs to this period.

2. "... thy tender care Thus startled unaware Be jealous that the foot of other wight Should madly follow that bright path of light Trac'd by thy lov'd Libertas; he will speak, And tell thee that my prayer is very meek

Him thou wilt hear."

(_Specimen of an Introduction_, l. 57 ff.) Mrs. Clarke is the authority that "Libertas" was Hunt.

3. "With him who elegantly chats, and talks-- The wrong'd Libertas."

(_Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke_, l. 43-44.)

4. "I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, And friendliness the nurse of mutual good.

_The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet Into the brain ere one can think upon it_; The silence when some rhymes are coming out; And when they're come, the very pleasant rout: The message certain to be done tomorrow.

'Tis perhaps as well that it should be to borrow Some precious book from out its snug retreat, To cl.u.s.ter round it when we next shall meet."

(_Sleep and Poetry._)

Lines 353-404 of the same, nearly one fifth of the entire poem, are a description of Hunt's library. Mr. De Selincourt calls it "a glowing tribute to the sympathetic friendship which Keats had enjoyed at the Hampstead Cottage and an attempt to express in the style of the _Story of Rimini_ something of the spirit which had informed the _Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey_." (_Poems of John Keats._ Introduction p. 34.)

(_a_) Of this room Hunt wrote: "Keats's _Sleep and Poetry_ is a description of a parlour that was mine, no bigger than an old mansion's closet." _Correspondence_ I, p. 289. See also _Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries_, p. 249.

(_b_) Further description of the same room is to be found in _Sh.e.l.ley's Letter to Maria Gisborne_, ll. 212-217.

(_c_) Clarke refers to it in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, February, 1874, and in _Recollections of Writers_, p. 134. In the letter he says that a bed was made up in the library for Keats and that he was installed as a member of the household. Here he composed the framework of the poem. Lines 325-404 are "an inventory of the art garniture of the room."

(_d_) The most intresting record in regard to the room is that given by Mrs. J. T. Fields in a _Shelf of old Books_, who says that her husband saw the library treasures which had inspired Keats--Greek casts of Sappho, casts of Kosciusko and Alfred, with engravings, sketches and well-worn books. Among the books collected by Mr. Fields was a copy of Sh.e.l.ley, Coleridge and Keats bound together, with an autograph of all three men, formerly owned by Hunt. The fly leaf "at the back contained the sonnet written by Keats on the _Story of Rimini_."

[183] The two sonnets were published in _The Examiner_ of September 21, 1817; Keats's had been included previously in the _Poems of 1817_; Hunt's appeared later in _Foliage_, 1818.

[184] This did not appear in 1817, but belongs to this period. See _Works_, II, p. 257. For a comparison of these two sonnets with Sh.e.l.ley's on the same Subject, see Rossetti's _Life of Keats_, p. 110.

[185] _Works_, II, p. 166.

[186] Compare with _A Dream, after Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and Francesca_, 1819. (_Works_, III, p. 16.)

[187] A pocket-book given Keats by Hunt and containing many of the first drafts of the sonnets belonged to Charles Wentworth Dilke. It is still in the possession of the Dilke family.

[188] For instances of Keats's interest in politics, see _To Kosciusko_, _To Hope_, ll. 33-36, and scattered references to Wallace, William Tell and similar characters. Most of these references have already been called attention to by others.

[189] _Works_, IV, pp. 60-61. The poem follows.

[190] Colvin, _Keats_, p. 107.

[191] _Endymion_, Bk. II, ll. 129-130.

[192] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, l. 863 ff.

[193] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 756 ff.

[194] _Ibid._, Bk. II, l. 938 ff.

[195] _Keats_, p. 169.

[196] Stanza 23, l. 7.

[197] _Hero and Leander_ and _Bacchus and Ariadne_, 1819, p. 45.

[198] Mr. W. T. Arnold makes the mistake of thinking that Keats imitated Hunt's _Gentle Armour_. Mr. Colvin corrects this statement. (Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 59.)

[199] (_a_) W. T. Arnold, Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 128. (_b_) J. Hoops, _Keats's Jungend und Jugendgedichte_, Englische Studien, XXI, 239. (_c_) W. A. Read, _Keats and Spenser_.

[200] _Works_, V, p. 121.

[201] This same expression occurs in _Hero and Leander_, 1819, in the phrase, "Half set in trees and leafy luxury." Keats's dedication sonnet in which it occurs was written in 1817. Therefore Mr. W. T. Arnold makes a mistake when he says (in his edition of Keats, p. 129) it was taken direct from Hunt's poem, although the two separate words are among his favorites and Keats probably took them from him and combined them.

[202] Mr. Arnold says "delicious" is used sixteen times by Keats. (Keats, _Poetical Works_, p. 129). He quotes a pa.s.sage from one of Hunt's prefaces in which the latter comments on Chaucer's use of the word: "The word _deliciously_ is a venture of animal spirits which in a modern writer some critics would p.r.o.nounce to be too affected or too familiar; but the enjoyment, and even incidental appropriateness and relish of it, will be obvious to finer senses." In _Rimini_ this line occurs: "Distils the next note more deliciously."

[203] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 261, notices Leigh Hunt's misuse of this word in his review of _I stood tiptoe_, quoted on p.

107. See his use of the same on p. 76. In _Bacchus and Ariadne_ it occurs in this pa.s.sage "all luxuries that come from odorous gardens."

[204] This is used in _Hyperion_, II, l. 45. The expression "plashy pools"

occurs in the _Story of Rimini_.

[205] November 11, 1820.

[206] _Life of Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ly_, II, p. 36.

[207] _Imagination and Fancy_, p. 231.

[208] _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_, pp. 252-3.

[209] Palgrave, _Poetical Works of John Keats_, p. 274.

[210] _Poetical Works_, 1832, p. 36.

[211] The poem is reported to have brought 100, more than any poem sold during his lifetime. It is now lost.

[212] Mac-Carthay, who has fully treated this incident, thinks that the account Hunt gave of the matter many years later is so incoherent as to indicate that he did not receive the letter until after he met Sh.e.l.ley, or perhaps not at all. He also points out that two pa.s.sages in the letter to Hunt of March 2, 1811, important in their bearing upon Sh.e.l.ley's political theories at this time, are identical with pa.s.sages in a letter of February 22 of the same year, addressed to the editor of _The Statesman_, presumably Finnerty. (_Sh.e.l.ley's Early Life_, pp. 1-106.)

[213] Hanc.o.c.k, _The French Revolution and English Poets_, pp. 50-77.

[214] Letter to Miss. .h.i.tchener, June 25, 1811.