have formed--of restoring your shattered health and
spirits by a migration to these 'regions mild, of calm and serene
air.'

"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 eas