Moore cautiously refused the offer and the idea lay dormant in Byron’s mind until he met Shelley at Ravenna in 1821. He then proposed that they should establish a radical paper with Leigh Hunt as editor, the three to be equal partners. Power, money, and notoriety were Byron’s chief objects. He frankly acknowledged a desire for enormous gains. He designed to use his proprietory privileges to publish those of his writings that Murray dared not. At the same time Byron had, without doubt, a desire to reform home government and to repay Hunt for his public defense in 1816.[343] He may have wished to please Shelley by asking Hunt.[344] Undoubtedly he valued Hunt’s wide journalistic experience. Moore asserts that in extending the invitation, Byron inconsistently admitted Hunt “not to any degree of confidence or intimacy but to a declared fellowship of fame and interest.”[345] This, like other of Moore’s statements regarding Hunt, is not very plausible in view of the past intimacy.
The most discussed question regarding Byron’s motives in inviting Hunt is the extent of his relation to The Examiner at that time, and Byron’s knowledge of it. Trelawny states that when Byron “consented to join Leigh Hunt and others in writing for the ‘Liberal,’ I think his principal inducement was in the belief that John and Leigh Hunt were proprietors of the ‘Examiner’;—so when Leigh Hunt at Pisa told him that he was no longer connected with that paper, Byron was taken aback, finding that Hunt would be entirely dependent upon the success of their hazardous project, while he himself would be deprived of that on which he had set his heart,—the use of a weekly paper in great circulation.”[346] Moore heard indirectly in 1821 that Byron, Shelley and Hunt were to “conspire together” in The Examiner[347]—a plan nowhere mentioned in the writings of the three men concerned and most unlikely. What Trelawney “thought” conflicts with what Moore “heard.” The suggestions of both are open to doubt. Byron was most assuredly the projector of The Liberal and did not “consent to join Leigh Hunt and others.” Besides, granting that Trelawney’s opinion was based on a statement of Byron’s, even that would not be convincing, since Byron made a number of mis-statements about the matter after he grew weary of it. Questionable as the assertion is, it has been made the basis of accusations against Hunt of deliberate deceit and of breach of contract. Had it been true that there was an understanding of coöperation between the two papers, Byron and Moore would have made much of the charge. Trelawney’s opinion, first noticed by Blackwood’s in March, 1828, has been elaborated by Jeaffreson,[348] and accepted by Leslie Stephen[349] and Kent.[350] Elze, who seems to have labored under the impression that Harold Skimpole was a faithful portraiture of Hunt, states that his connection with Byron began with a falsehood.[351] R. B. Johnson says, in defense of Hunt, that the accusation “is quite unreasonable and contrary to all the evidence.”[352] Monkhouse thinks that it is doubtful if Byron reckoned on the support of the London paper.[353] J. Ashcroft Noble says that Byron had much to say about the Hunts in his letters, “and made the most of all kinds of trivial or imaginary grievances; it is simply incredible that had a grievance of such reality and magnitude as this really existed he would have refrained from mentioning it.” As proof against it, he quotes Byron’s belief in Hunt’s honesty as late as September 1822; and he points out the “obvious absurdity of the idea that in the year 1822 a weekly newspaper could be conducted successfully, or at all, by an editor in Pisa or Genoa.”[354] The strong probability, gathered from all the extant evidence, is that Byron and Shelley, in inviting Hunt to Italy, expected, and very naturally, that he would continue to share in the profits of The Examiner. Shelley, indeed, in a letter dated as late as January 25, 1822, urged Hunt not to leave England without a regular income from that journal[355]—an injunction which Hunt unfairly disregarded. It is also likely that his connection with The Examiner was one of Byron’s reasons in extending the partnership to include Hunt. But it is practically certain that there was no contract nor even understanding as regards the coöperation of The Liberal and the London paper. The question does not therefore, involve Hunt’s honor at all. If Byron expected to profit by the influence of The Examiner, his silence shows a manliness that Noble does not credit him with.
Hunt, in accepting Byron’s offer, was actuated by motives both selfish and unselfish. The fine of £1,000 imposed at the time of his conviction of libel was not all paid; The Indicator had been abandoned; The Examiner was on its last legs; his health was broken by overwork undertaken in the effort not to call upon his friends for aid;[356] an invalid wife and seven children were to be supported by his pen; his brother John was in prison. From January, 1821, to August of the same year he had been unable to write. In accepting Byron’s offer he thought to recover his health in a southern climate, to regain his political influence which had been on the decrease during the last four or five years, and at the same time to aid aggressively the liberal movement.[357] Moreover, he was flattered immensely by the prospective public association with Lord Byron. He had little to lose and a prospect of large gain. Hunt should have weighed more gravely such a step before he embarked on such a hazardous venture with so large a family, but, with a buoyancy and irresponsibility in practical affairs peculiar to himself, he clutched at the new proposition as a way out of all difficulties and did not look beyond immediate necessities. He pictured himself and his family healthy and wealthy in a land he had always sighed for. If the skies lowered, he fancied Shelley always at hand. His description of preparations for the voyage is as airy as his pocketbook was light: “My family, therefore, packed up such goods and chattels as they had a regard for, my books in particular, and we took, with strange new thoughts and feelings, but in high expectation, our journey by sea.”[358]
The part Shelley played in the invitation to Hunt is more difficult of interpretation. The original proposition to become an equal partner in the transaction he never seriously entertained. He consented to become a contributor only. His reasons for his refusal he gave to others, but, for fear of endangering Hunt’s prospects, withheld from Byron; for the same reason he dissembled at times concerning his real feelings. Yet he was equally responsible with Byron in extending the invitation to Hunt, as will be shown later. Although Shelley could not have foreseen the full consequences of such a course of action, he was deficient in frankness toward Byron and undoubtedly sacrificed him somewhat in the transaction to his affection for Hunt. While Byron continued to hold the highest opinion of Shelley, between the time of their meeting in Switzerland and at Ravenna, Shelley had experienced three separate revulsions of feeling.[359] At the time in question his distrust had returned.
Hunt’s pecuniary troubles made their relations still more difficult. This state of affairs between Byron and Shelley must have given Hunt great concern, and Shelley suspecting his distress wrote March 2, 1822: “The aspect of affairs has somewhat changed since the date of that in which I expressed a repugnance to a continuance of intimacy with Lord Byron as close as that which now exists; at least it has changed so far as regards you and the intended journal.”[360]
In January, 1821, Mrs. Hunt wrote Mary Shelley, begging that they might come to Italy. The subject was thus revived and a formal invitation was conveyed in a letter of August 26, 1821, from Shelley to Hunt. It proves beyond a doubt that Byron was the chief projector of the journal:
“He (Byron) proposes that you should come out and go shares with him and me, in a periodical work, to be conducted here; in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions and share the profits.... There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage, must, from various, yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As for myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other and effectuate the arrangement; since (to entrust you with a secret which, for your sake, I withhold from Lord Byron), nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less, in the borrowed splendor of such a partnership. You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring, in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success.... I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation, in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself.... He has many generous and exalted qualities, but the canker of aristocracy wants to be cut out.”[361]
Hunt’s answer was full of expectation and hope. He wrote that “Are there not three of us?... We will divide the world between us, like the Triumvirate, and you shall be the sleeping partner, if you will.”[362] To Shelley’s reply of October 6, thanking him for coming, Hunt answered: “You say, Shelley, you thank me for coming. The pleasure of being obliged by those we love is so great that I do not wonder that you continue to muster up some obligation to me, but if you are obliged, how much am I?”[363]
From the beginning of the enterprise Thomas Moore and John Murray scented trouble and made more. They continued their intermeddling after The Liberal was launched, and doubtless ministered to Byron’s vacillation. Hunt and Murray had disagreed over the Story of Rimini[364] and an attack on Southey in The Examiner of May 11 and 18, 1817, had included Murray as well. Moreover, Murray saw in John Hunt,[365] the publisher of the new periodical, a dangerous future rival in his business relations with Byron. After matters became unpleasant in Italy, Murray took his revenge by making public Byron’s letters containing ill-natured remarks about Hunt.[366] The relations of Moore and Hunt had been very friendly[367] but at this juncture both became too proud of having a “noble lord” for a friend.[368]
Moore, writing to Byron in the latter part of 1821, said: “I heard some time ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to Genoa with all of his family; and the idea seems to be, that you and Shelley and he are to conspire together in The Examiner. I cannot believe this—and deprecate such a plan with all my might. Alone you may do anything, but partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for the deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and I tremble even for you with such a bankrupt company.... They are both clever fellows, and Shelley I look upon as a man of real genius; but, I must say again, you could not give your enemies (the ... s ‘et hoc genus omne’) a greater triumph than by joining such an unequal and unholy alliance,”[369] an astounding statement from a man of pronounced liberal views. Byron’s answer of January 24 was indefinite and perhaps intentionally misleading: “Be assured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend.”[370] February 19, Moore advised Byron not to discuss religious matters in the new work, but to confine himself to political theories; “if you have any political catamarans to explode this (London) is your place.”[371] After The Liberal was begun, Moore wrote: “It grieves me to urge anything so much against Hunt’s interest, but I should not hesitate to use the same language to himself were I near him. I would, if I were you, serve him in every possible way but this—I would give him (if he would accept of it) the profits of the same works, published separately—but I would not mix myself up in this way with others. I would not become a partner in this sort of miscellaneous ‘pot au feu’ where the bad flavour of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. I would be, if I were you, alone, single-handed and as such, invincible.”[372]