" Later he says to
Murray, "You and your friends, by your injudicious rudeness, cement a
connexion which you strove to prevent, and which, had the Hunts prospered,
would not in all probability have continued. As it is ... I can't leave
them among the breakers." On February 20th we have, his last word on the
subject, to the same effect.
In the following sentences, Moore seems to give a fair statement of the
motives which led to the establishment of the unfortunate journal--"The
chief inducements on the part of Lord Byron to this unworthy alliance
were, in the first place, a wish to second the kind views of his friend
Shelley in inviting Mr. Hunt to Italy; and in the next, a desire to avail
himself of the aid of one so experienced as an editor in the favourite
object he has so long contemplated of a periodical work in which all the
offspring of his genius might be received as they sprung to light." For
the accomplishment of this purpose Mr. Leigh Hunt was a singularly
ill-chosen associate. A man of Radical opinions on all matters, not only
of religion but of society--opinions which he acquired and held easily but
firmly--could never recognize the propriety of the claim to deference
which "the noble poet" was always too eager to assert, and was inclined to
take liberties which his patron perhaps superciliously repelled.
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