It is impossible to refrain from smiling at the recollection of the letter, in which Shelley (who declined Polidori’s challenge at Geneva on conscientious grounds, and at all stages of his career regarded duelling with reasonable repugnance) averred that, were it not for considerations moving him to do nothing of the kind, he would leave Italy forthwith, and never enter a country inhabited by Byron, unless it were to arrange their difficulties without words. To write in this vapouring vein to a sympathetic correspondent is, of course, a very different thing from sending a message of war at ten paces to so good a shot as the author of Don Juan. Enough also is known of Shelley’s letters to render it probable that (his brave words to the contrary notwithstanding) he never for sixty consecutive moments seriously thought of ‘calling Byron out.’ There is no reason to think Shelley an exception to the general rule, that men who mean fighting keep their purpose to themselves till they act upon it. But none the less does the laughably valorous epistle point to a state of discord between the recently harmonious poets, that cannot have tended to quicken or strengthen Byron’s friendliness for Hunt, whom he had valued chiefly for being Shelley’s protégé, and had selected for his literary coadjutor at Shelley’s request.
Whilst Hunt necessarily suffered in Byron’s regard from the mere decline of the last-named poet’s friendliness for Shelley, he suffered in the same respect also from a singular indiscretion into which Shelley was betrayed by his desire to serve the author of Rimini. Driven to Plymouth by stress of weather and the state of his wife’s health, Hunt, who had made the false start for Italy with an insufficiently furnished pocket, soon found himself under the necessity of begging Shelley to send him money from Pisa. To the weather-bound adventurer it, of course, appeared that, as he was bound for Italy at Byron’s invitation to co-operate with him in an important enterprise, he had a moral right to look to him for a remittance; and had he, in regard to his financial position, dealt frankly with the famous and affluent poet, few readers would decline to recognize Hunt’s title to needful assistance. It was under these circumstances that, instead of writing straight to Byron on the subject (which would have been the manlier course), Hunt wrote from England not once, but repeatedly, to Shelley, to do for his benefit what he should have done for himself, in a letter addressed to Byron. Explaining the causes of his urgent need of money, Hunt moved Shelley to ask Byron for it. As it would doubtless have been less disagreeable to him to increase his more considerable than burdensome debt to Shelley, than to open his business relations with Byron by asking for a not trifling loan, it is probable that the request to Shelley to get the money from Byron was only Hunt’s way of asking Shelley to supply it from his own pocket. Anyhow, the request caused Shelley to empty his pocket into Hunt’s hands, rather than apply for money to Byron (with whom he was still on uneasy terms, though they had recently arranged their differences) and send Hunt 150l.—a gift that reduced to less than 40l. the donor’s reserve of money for his own current expenses.
In addition to the 150l. sent to Hunt, Shelley was ready to give him any sum for which Charles the First could be sold. In brief, Shelley was ready to do anything for the relief of his protégé, with the exception of going either to Lord Byron or to the Jews. But all he could do, without taking either of these steps, was insufficient for Hunt, who, pocketing the remitted money, wrote back to Pisa that Byron must be pressed for more. Thus driven, Shelley committed the indiscretion (to which reference has been made) in writing Byron this remarkable letter:—
‘Pisa, February 15th, 1822.
‘My Dear Lord Byron,
‘I enclose you a letter from Leigh Hunt, which annoys me on more than one account. You will observe the postscript, and you know me well enough to feel how painful the task is set me in commenting upon it. Hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. My answer consisted in sending him all I could spare, which I have now literally done. Your kindness in fitting up a part of your own house for his accommodation I sensibly felt, and willingly accepted from you on his part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of imposing, or, if I could help it, allowing to be imposed, any heavier task on your purse. As it has come to this, in spite of my exertions, I will not conceal from you the low ebb of my own money affairs in the present moment, that is, my absolute incapacity of assisting Hunt farther.
‘I do not think poor Hunt’s promise to pay in a given time is worth very much; but mine is less subject to uncertainty, and I should be happy to be responsible for any engagement he may have proposed to you. I am so much annoyed by this subject that I hardly know what to write, and much less what to say; and I have need of all your indulgence in judging both my feelings and expressions. I shall see you by-and-by.
‘Believe me, yours most faithfully and sincerely,
‘P. B. Shelley.’
Written to support Hunt’s direct application to Byron for a remittance, Shelley’s affectionate concern for the whole of the Hunt party puts it beyond question, that this epistle was written sincerely in the interest of the unfortunate man of letters, and without a notion of the injury it would do him in Byron’s esteem. It was Shelley’s way of saying, ‘Do lend the poor fellow the money on my personal security;’ and to readers bearing in mind the delicacy and tension that had succeeded the previous friendly relations of the two poets, it cannot be surprising that Shelley found himself unable to make such a request of Byron, without saying at the same time that he had done his utmost for his friend’s relief. All the same, the letter gave a view of Hunt’s character and dealings, that lowered him in the regard of the poet, who with generous incaution had fitted up rooms for the necessitous family in the Palazzo Lanfranchi. Opening Byron’s eyes to several matters, it informed him, that Hunt had for some time been sponging on the slender resources of his too yielding friend; that Hunt had for some time been pressing Shelley to apply to the Palazzo Lanfranchi for money; that Hunt’s direct application to the lord of that palazzo had not been made till the petitioner had done his utmost to force Shelley to prefer the request for him; that the applicant for a remittance had constrained Shelley to join in the request he had refused to make by himself. The letter must have caused Byron to suspect that Hunt had in former years bled Shelley copiously, and have shown him how powerless Shelley was to hold his own against the cool and clever practitioner of the art of getting money, without either earning it or stealing it. Byron’s comment on Shelley’s letter must have been to this effect: ‘So that is Mr. Hunt’s way of handling Shelley, is it? He won’t handle me so easily.’
Byron’s treatment of the Hunts in Italy displayed some of his least amiable traits. He should not have failed in courtesy to Mrs. Hunt, who was a woman and an invalid. He might have been more gracious, without being less firm, to the man. It was paltry of him, in his reasonable annoyance with the equally elegant and unscrupulous adventurer, to give an untrue account of the circumstances that determined him to start the Liberal. But on learning, at the end of June, from Hunt’s lips, that he had ceased to be editor of the Examiner, and was for the moment without a crown in his pocket, or without any means whatsoever for paying the weekly bills of his numerous family in the lower rooms of the Palazzo Lanfranchi, the author of Don Juan had good reason for feeling that, besides being on his guard against pecuniary imposition, he had better let Hunt see clearly, and at once, that he (the author of Don Juan) would not submit tamely to exaction.