What interest can Lord Byron have in being
the poet of a party in politics?... In politics, he cannot be what he
appears, or rather what Messrs. Hobhouse and Leigh Hunt wish to make him
appear. A man of his birth, a man of his taste, a man of his talents, a
man of his habits, can have nothing in common with such miserable
creatures as we now call _Radicals_, of whom I know not that I can
better express the illiterate and blind ignorance and vulgarity than by
saying that the best informed of them have probably never heard of Lord
Byron. No, no, Lord Byron may be indulgent to these jackal followers of
his; he may connive at their use of his name--nay, it is not to be
denied that he has given them too, too much countenance--but he never
can, I should think, now that he sees not only the road but the rate
they are going, continue to take a part so contrary to all his own
interests and feelings, and to the feelings and interests of all the
respectable part of his country.... But what is to be the end of all
this rigmarole of mine? To conclude, this--to advise you, for your own
sake as a tradesman, for Lord Byron's sake as a poet, for the sake of
good literature and good principles, which ought to be united, to take
such measures as you may be able to venture upon to get Lord Byron to
revise these two cantos, and not to make another step in the odious path
which Hobhouse beckons him to pursue.
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