Memoirs, etc., of Thomas Moon,
vol. ii. p. 100), says,
"I certainly shall not be ill-natured to Rimini. It is very sweet and very lively in many places, and is altogether piquant, as being by far the best imitation of Chaucer and some of his Italian contemporaries that modern times have produced."
No two men could be more unlike than Byron and Hunt, or have less in common. Yet, with a singular capacity for self-delusion, Hunt told his wife that the texture of Byron's mind resembled his to a thread (
Correspondence of L. Hunt
, vol. i. p. 88). The friendship began in political sympathy; but two years later (see Byron's letter to Moore, June 1, 1818) it had, on one side at least, cooled. In June, 1822, Hunt came to Pisa to launch
The Liberal
, with the aid of Shelley and Byron.
The Liberal: Verse and Prose from the South
, started in 1822, lived through four numbers, and died in July, 1823. During that time Byron expressed to Lady Blessington (