“He proposes that you should come, and go shares with him and me in a periodical work to be conducted here, in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits.  He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear.  There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage must, for various yet co-operating reasons, be very great.  As to myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to intrust you with a secret, which for your sake I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less in the borrowed splendour of such a partnership.  You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success.  Do not let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either to stoop or aspire to.  I am, and I desire to be, nothing.

“I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself.  I, as you know, have it not; but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me.  I know I need only ask.” . . .

Now, before proceeding farther, it seems from this epistle, and there is no reason to question Shelley’s veracity, that Lord Byron was the projector of The Liberal; that Hunt’s political notoriety was mistaken for literary reputation, and that there was a sad lack of common sense in the whole scheme.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Mr Hunt arrives in Italy—­Meeting with Lord Byron—­Tumults in the House—­Arrangements for Mr Hunt’s Family—–­Extent of his Obligations to Lord Byron—­Their Copartnery—­Meanness of the whole Business

On receiving Mr Shelley’s letter, Mr Hunt prepared to avail himself of the invitation which he was the more easily enabled to do, as his friend, notwithstanding what he had intimated, borrowed two hundred pounds from Lord Byron, and remitted to him.  He reached Leghorn soon after his Lordship had taken up his temporary residence at Monte Nero.

The meeting with his Lordship was in so many respects remarkable, that the details of it cannot well be omitted.  The day was very hot; and when Hunt reached the house he found the hottest-looking habitation he had ever seen.  Not content with having a red wash over it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds—­a salmon-colour; but the greatest of all heats was within.