Lord Byron’s residence at Albaro was separate from that of Mr Hunt, and, in consequence, they were more rarely together than when domiciled under the same roof as at Pisa.  Indeed, by this time, if one may take Mr Hunt’s own account of the matter, they appear to have become pretty well tired of each other.  He had found out that a peer is, as a friend, but as a plebeian, and a great poet not always a high-minded man.  His Lordship had, on his part, discovered that something more than smartness or ingenuity is necessary to protect patronage from familiarity.  Perhaps intimate acquaintance had also tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in The Liberal.  It is certain that he laughed at his affected admiration of landscapes, and considered his descriptions of scenery as drawn from pictures.

One day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his Lordship at the Casa Saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he happened to remark that he thought the view of the Alps in the evening, from Turin, the sublimest scene he had ever beheld.  “It is impossible,” said he, “at such a time, when all the west is golden and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the Deity without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and his follies.”—­“Hunt,” said his Lordship, smiling, “has no perception of the sublimity of Alpine scenery; he calls a mountain a great impostor.”

In the mean time the materials for the first number of The Liberal had been transmitted to London, where the manuscript of The Vision of Judgment was already, and something of its quality known.  All his Lordship’s friends were disturbed at the idea of the publication.  They did not like the connection he had formed with Mr Shelley—­they liked still less the copartnery with Mr Hunt.  With the justice or injustice of these dislikes I have nothing to do.  It is an historical fact that they existed, and became motives with those who deemed themselves the custodiers of his Lordship’s fame, to seek a dissolution of the association.

The first number of The Liberal, containing The Vision of Judgment, was received soon after the copartnery had established themselves at Genoa, accompanied with hopes and fears.  Much good could not be anticipated from a work which outraged the loyal and decorous sentiments of the nation towards the memory of George III.  To the second number Lord Byron contributed the Heaven and Earth, a sacred drama, which has been much misrepresented in consequence of its fraternity with Don Juan and The Vision of Judgment; for it contains no expression to which religion can object, nor breathes a thought at variance with the Genesis.  The history of literature affords no instance of a condemnation less justifiable, on the plea of profanity, than that of this Mystery.  That it abounds in literary blemishes, both of plan and language, and that there