288 Notes for the Month. [MARCH, 



fame, took somewhat opposite courses. Mr. Hunt, who had shewn (we 

 think) great genius in Rimini, wrote nothing else, in the way of poetry, so 

 good : and, from his not writing any thing new which was very striking, 

 that which he had written fell a little into disremembrance and neglect. 

 Some merciless critics, and jesters too, attacked him in " Blackwood ;" 

 and he came out of the contest any how rather than with success. In 

 the meanwhile, radical politics got rather out of fashion ; a fact which, 

 added to the obstinate self-love with which the Examiner was con- 

 ducted, considerably weakened the hold of that paper upon the town. 

 And the result was, that Mr. Hunt, as he states himself very manfully 

 and candidly was thrown, about the year 1821, with a large family, 

 into heavy pecuniary difficulty. 



All this time the fame and character of Lord Byron had been shoot- 

 ing upwards like a meteor not blazing merely through .the whole scope 

 of the literary horizon but dazzling and attracting all the world ! He 

 was the first poet, the first wit, and the first infidel of the age : and a 

 libertine, and a "peer of the realm," to boot. He wandered over 

 Europe and Asia, with the retinue almost of a prince : and with more 

 than the prestige, and the welcome, of a sovereign. The great " doffed 

 their caps" to him : the crowd shouted for him : the women fell in love 

 with him (as they would have done if he had been the devil, while so 

 much fuss was made about him) : and the very choice spirits of the age 

 confessed his supremacy. His picture was copied : his name was forged : 

 his fopperies were fashion : his words were gold measured even by the 

 syllable : and his very footman was called " Leporello !" He lived 

 abroad : for the stern coldness of our English habits cramped and chilled 

 him. He dwelt in an Italian palace. Led the life, half of a Sybarite, 

 half of a freebooter. Consorted with all tempers that were high, and 

 bold, and free. Lounged upon sofas : practised ballfiring on horseback : 

 and had a Tuscan countess (a married woman) for his concubine. The 

 slightest consideration ought to have been sufficient to shew, that such a 

 man must be the most unmanageable creature in existence ! He would 

 have all the impertinencies which attach to rank : superadding those 

 which belong to genius : and again adding (ten times greater than either) 

 those that wait upon success. He would be as aristocratic as an ensign 

 in the Guards ; and as vain as a popular actor. Splendour, and vice 

 and even folly might dwell, unchecked with him ; but at the thought 

 of homeliness or " vulgarity" a coat cut north of Oxford-street he 

 necessarily fainted. Satan himself unles he might have wrought some 

 fear on such a rogue, could never have lived with him. Theodore Hook . 

 between his jokes and his judgment in Hermitage would have managed 

 him better than any body else that we can just now think of. But, to 

 Lord Byron thus situated six years elapsed since he had even seen 

 him ignorant of all the tastes and even habits belonging to the con- 

 tract called " fashionable society," and, what was worse, proposing to 

 despise them to live with Lord Byron in his house, and be his literary 

 coadjutor his associate and domestic companion and at all points 

 most peremptorily and uncompromisingly his equal ! to do all this, 

 which Belzebub in person never could have done, unless he could have 

 played three characters at once a wit, a dandy, and a man of wealth 

 into the bargain ! out came Mr. Hunt to Pisa his very conveyance 

 over absolutely paid for with a loan of Byron's money without a shil- 

 ling in the world without a notion beyond " Port and Sherry" and 



