Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats Part 14

[44] _A New Spirit of the Age_, II, p. 183.

[45] Hunt wrote two religious books, _Christianism_ and _Religion of the Heart_. The second, which is an expansion of the first, contains a ritual of daily and weekly service. For the most part it contains reflections on duty and service.

[46] _Correspondence_, I, p. 130.

[47] Bryan Waller Proctor (Barry Cornwall), _An Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes_, p. 197.

[48] _Autobiography_, I, p. 119-120.

[49] _A Morning Walk and View_; _Sonnet on the Sickness of Eliza_.

[50] It had appeared previously in _The Reflector_, No. 4, article 10. In the separate edition it was expanded and 126 pages of notes were added.

[51] _Poetical Works_, 1832, preface, p. 48.

[52] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 28, February 9, 1814.

[53] The same volume contained a preface on the origin and history of masques and an _Ode for the Spring of 1814_. Byron said of the latter that the "expressions were _buckram_ except here and there." The masque, he thought, contained "not only poetry and thought in the body, but much research and good old reading in your prefatory matter." Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 200, June 1, 1815.

[54] See chapter V, p. 19.

[55] Nicoll and Wise, _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_, p.

330.

[56]

Who loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek For meadows where the little rivers run; Who loves to linger with the brightest one Of Heaven (Hesperus) let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.

He who knows these delights, and too is p.r.o.ne To moralize upon a smile or tear, Will find at once religion of his own, A bower for his spirit, and will steer To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone, Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are seer.

(_Complete Works of John Keats_, ed by Forman, II, p. 183.)

[57] Lowell said of Hunt: "No man has ever understood the delicacies and luxuries of the language better than he."

[58] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 226, October 22, 1815.

[59] _Ibid._, III, p. 418.

[60] _Ibid._, III, p. 242, October 30, 1815.

[61] _Ibid._, III, p. 267, February 29, 1816.

[62] _Ibid._, IV, p. 237, June 1, 1818.

[63] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 486-487.

[64] Medwin, _Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron_, p. 187.

[65] In the preface to the _Story of Rimini_ (London, 1819, p. 16), Hunt says that a poet should use an actual existing language, and quotes as authorities, Chaucer, Ariosto, Pulci, even Homer and Shakespeare. He thought simplicity of language of greater importance even than free versification in order to avoid the cant of art: "The proper language of poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks, omitting mere vulgarisms and fugitive phrases which are cant of ordinary discourse."

[66] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418.

[67] Mr. A. T. Kent in the _Fortnightly Review_ (vol. 36, p. 227), points out that Leigh Hunt in the preface to the _Story of Rimini_, avoided the mistake of Wordsworth in "looking to an unlettered peasantry for poetical language," and quotes him as saying that one should "add a musical modulation to what a fine understanding might naturally utter in the midst of its griefs and enjoyments." Kent says we have here "two vital points on which Wordsworth, in his capacity of critic, had failed to insist."

[68] _Autobiography_, II, p. 24.

[69] To be found chiefly in the _Feast of the Poets_.

[70] In 1855, in _Stories in Verse_, Hunt changed his acknowledged allegiance from Dryden to Chaucer.

[71] Canto, II, ll. 433-440.

[72] E. De Selincourt gives these three last as examples of Hunt's derivation of the abstract noun from the present participle (_Poems of John Keats_, p. 577).

[73] De Selincourt notes that these adverbs are usually formed from present participles. (_Poems of John Keats_, p. 577.)

[74] Byron, _Letters and Journals_, III, p. 418.

[75]

"For ever since Pope spoiled the ears of the town With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down, There has been such a doling and sameness,--by Jove, I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love."

(_Feast of the Poets._)

Hunt calls Pope's translation of the moonlight picture from _Homer_ "a gorgeous misrepresentation" (_Ibid._, p. 35) and the whole translation "that elegant mistake of his in two volumes octavo." (_Foliage_, p. 32.)

[76] _Feast of the Poets_, p. 38. The same opinions are expressed in _The Examiner_ of June 1, 1817; in the preface to _Foliage_, 1818.

[77] _Ibid._, p. 56.

[78] P. 23.

[79] Saintsbury, _Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860_, p. 220.

[80] Hunt, _Story of Rimini_, London, 1818, p. 11, 200 lines beginning with top of page. In the 1742 lines of the poem, there are 47 run-on couplets and 260 run-on lines. There are 7 Alexandrines and 21 triplets.

In the edition of 1832 the number of triplets has been increased to 26.

There are 46 double rhymes. In a study of the caesura based on the first 200 lines there are 70 medial, 17 double caesuras. The remaining 113 lines have irregular or double caesura.

[81] Keats, _Lamia_, Bk. I, ll. 1-200. In the 708 lines of _Lamia_, there are 98 run-on couplets, 144 run-on lines, 39 Alexandrines and 11 triplets.

The caesura is handled with greater freedom than in the _Story of Rimini_.

[82] C. H. Herford, _Age of Wordsworth_, p. 83.

[83] R. B. Johnson, _Leigh Hunt_, p. 94.

[84] _Leigh Hunt as a Poet, Fortnightly Review_, x.x.xVI: 226.

[85] Sidney Colvin, _Keats_, p. 30.