of Hazlitt’s essays, including, however, none of his best.  Leigh Hunt himself wrote most of the rest, one of his contributions being a palpable imitation of Don Juan, entitled the Book of Beginnings, but he confesses that owing to his weak health and low spirits at the time, none of these did justice to his ability; and the general manner of the magazine being insufficiently vigorous to carry off the frequent eccentricity of its matter, the prejudices against it prevailed, and the enterprise came to an end.  Partners in failing concerns are apt to dispute; in this instance the unpleasantness which arose at the time rankled in the mind of the survivor, and gave rise to his singularly tasteless and injudicious book—­a performance which can be only in part condoned by the fact of Hunt’s afterwards expressing regret, and practically withdrawing it.  He represents himself throughout as a much-injured man, lured to Italy by misrepresentations, that he might give the aid of his journalistic experience and undeniable talents to the advancement of a mercenary enterprise, and that when it failed he was despised, insulted, and rejected.  Byron, on the other hand, declares, “The Hunts pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented;” and his subsequent action in the matter, if not always gentle never unjust, goes to verify his statements in the letters of the period.  “I am afraid,” he writes from Genoa, Oct. 9, 1822, “the journal is a bad business.  I have done all I can for Leigh Hunt since he came here; but it is almost useless.  His wife is ill, his six children not very tractable, and in the affairs of this world he himself is a child.”  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