Leigh Hunt’s work which comes into the period of his association with Byron, Shelley and Keats falls into four divisions: his theatrical criticism, his political journals, his poetry and his miscellaneous essays. The first and the last, although important in themselves, do not enter into his relations with the three men in question and will not be considered here. His political activity is important in his relations with Byron and Shelley; his poetry in his relations with Keats and Shelley.
In Leigh Hunt’s career, the step most significant in its far-reaching effects was the establishment of The Examiner.[18] Its professed object was the discussion of politics. It contained, in addition to foreign and provincial intelligence, criticism of the theatre, of literature, and of the fine arts. Full reports were given of the proceedings in Parliament. At different times, various series of articles appeared, such as the Essays on Methodism by Hunt, and The Round Table by Hunt and Hazlitt. Fox-Bourne says that previous to Hunt’s Examiner there had been weeklies or “essay sheets” such as Defoe, Steele, Addison and Goldsmith had developed, and that there had been dailies or “news sheets” which gave bare facts, but that The Examiner was the first to give the news faithfully in essay style.[19] It soon raised the character of the weeklies. During the first year the circulation reached 2,200, a large number at that time. Carlyle said: “I well remember how its weekly coming was looked for in our village in Scotland. The place of its delivery was besieged by an eager crowd, and its columns furnished the town talk till the next number came.”[20] Redding says “everybody in those days read The Examiner.”[21]
The prospectus contained a severe criticism of contemporary journalism:[22]
“mean in its subserviency to the follies of the day, very miserably merry in its fuss and stories, extremely furious in politics, and quite as feeble in criticism. You are invited to a literary conversation, and you find nothing but scandal and commonplace. There is a flourish of trumpets, and enter Tom Thumb. There is an earthquake and a worm is thrown up.... The gentleman who until lately conducted the Theatrical Department in the News will criticise the Theatre in the Examiner; and as the public have allowed the possibility of Impartiality in that department, we do not see why the same possibility may not be obtained in Politics.”
Then followed a declaration against party as a factor in politics: party, it was declared, should not exist “abstracted from its utility”; in the present day every man must belong to some class; “he is either Pittite or Foxite, Windhamite, Wilberforcite or Burdettite; though, at the same time, two thirds of these disturbers of coffee-houses might with as much reason call themselves Hivites, or Shunamites, or perhaps Bedlamites.”[23] Although The Examiner thus firmly announced its intentions, nevertheless in the heat of political contest it soon became the organ of a group of men known as “reformers,” who were laboring and clamoring for constitutional and administrative improvement. It became the avowed enemy of the Tory party and its journals, and in particular of the ministry during the long Tory ascendancy; the enemy, at times, of royalty itself.
The prospectus likewise announced an intention to reform the manners and morals of the age. Hunt could write a sermon with the same ease as a song or a satire. Horse-racing, cock-fighting and prize-fighting were condemned; most of all the publication of scandal and crime. A passage on advertisements is humorous and still of living interest:
“the public shall neither be tempted to listen to somebody in the shape of wit who turns out to be a lottery-keeper, nor seduced to hear a magnificent oration which finishes by retreating into a peruke, or rolling off into a blacking ball ... and as there is perhaps about one person in a hundred who is pleased to see two or three columns occupied with the mutabilities of cotton and the vicissitudes of leather, the proprietors will have as little to do with bulls and raw-hides, as with lottery-men and wig-makers.”
The editorials, which occupied the foremost columns of the paper, attacked corruption and injustice of every kind without respect of persons, currying favor with neither party nor individual, and laboring above all for the people. International relations and continental conditions were kept track of, but chief prominence was given to domestic affairs. The editor warred against all abuses of power in the cabinet and in all offices under the crown. In particular he attacked with merciless persistence the Prince Regent in regard to his private life and his public conduct, and his brother Frederick the Duke of York, for his inefficiency as Commander-in-Chief of the army.[24] His definition of the English Army was “a host of laced jackets and long pigtails.”[25] He condemned the numerous subsidies of the crown, the royal pensions and salaries for nominal service. He ridiculed the divine right of kings and exposed court scandal and immorality. The chief measures for which he labored were Catholic Emancipation; reform of Parliamentary representation; liberty of the press; reduction and equalization of taxes; greater discretion in increasing the public debt; education of the poor and amelioration of their sufferings; abolition of child-labor and of the slave trade; reform of military discipline, of prison conditions, and of the criminal and civil laws, particularly those governing debtors.
It is not a matter of marvel that the paper made hosts of enemies on every side. Charges of libel quickly followed its onslaughts. Before the paper was a year old a prosecution was begun in connection with the Major Hogan and Mrs. Clarke case,[26] but it was dropped when an investigation was begun by the House of Commons. Within a year’s time after this prosecution a second indictment was brought because of the sentence: “Of all monarchs since the Revolution the successor of George the Third will have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular.”[27] The Morning Chronicle copied it, and was indicted, but both cases were dismissed. The third offense was the quotation of an article by John Scott on the cruelty of military flogging[28] but, like the others, this prosecution came to nothing.
The fourth and most disastrous misdemeanor was libel of the Prince Regent, a man of shocking morals and of unstable character. Before his appointment as Regent he had leaned to the Whig party and advocated Catholic Emancipation, but at his accession to power he retained the Tory ministry. The Whigs were greatly angered in consequence, and The Examiner took it upon itself to voice their indignation.[29] At a dinner given at the Freemason’s Tavern on St. Patrick’s day, March 22, 1812, Lord Moira, an old friend of the Prince’s, omitted mentioning him in his speech. Later, when a toast was proposed to the Prince, it was greeted with hisses. Mr. Sheridan, because of Lord Moira’s omission, spoke later in the evening in defense of the Regent, but he, too, was received with hisses. The Morning Chronicle reported the dinner; the Morning Post replied with fulsome praise of the Prince; The Examiner with its usual alacrity joined in the fray and took sides with the Chronicle, dissecting, phrase by phrase, the adulation heaped upon the Prince by the Post. The following is the bitterest part of the polemic against him: