October 30, 1815, in reply to these objections Hunt sent forth this defense: "we accomodate ourselves to certain habitual, sophisticated phrases of _written_ language, and thus take away from real feeling of any sort the only language _it ever actually uses_, which is the _spoken_ language." At the same time he made a few alterations at Byron's suggestion.[59] And again the latter wrote: "You have two excellent points in that poem--originality and Italianism."[60] After the _Story of Rimini_ appeared he wrote to Moore: "Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it that will stand the test."[61] In 1818 Byron's opinion had changed somewhat:
"When I saw _Rimini_ in Ms., I told him I deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his style was a system, or _upon system_, or some other such cant; and when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless; so I said no more to him, and very little to anyone else. He believed his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be _old_ English[62] ... Hunt, who had powers to make the _Story of Rimini_ as perfect as a fable of Dryden, has thought fit to sacrifice his genius to some unintelligible notion of Wordsworth, which I defy him to explain.[63]... A friend of mine calls 'Rimini' _Nimini Pimini_; and 'Foliage' _Follyage_. Perhaps he had a tumble in 'climbing trees in the Hesperides'! But Rimini has a great deal of merit. There never were so many fine things spoiled as in 'Rimini.'"[64]
Hunt had a distinct theory of language based on a few crude principles. As his practical application of them had its effect upon Keats, a somewhat full consideration of them is desirable here. The first and most conspicuous one, promoted by what Hunt called "an idiomatic spirit in verse,"[65] was a preference for colloquial words.[66] He mistook for grace and fluency of diction, a turn of phrase that was without poetic connection and often in very poor taste. In dialogue, particularly, the effect is undignified. This professed doctrine was a fuller development[67] of the statement in the Advertisement to the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798: in Hunt's opinion, Wordsworth failed to consider duly meter in its essential relations to poetry, and while Hunt himself desired a "return to nature and a natural style" he thought that Wordsworth had substituted puerility for simplicity and affectation for nature. Hunt's acknowledged model for the poem was Dryden,[68] but Hunt's colloquial phrasing, peculiar diction, elision,[69] and loose expansion approach much more closely to Chamberlayne's _Pharronida_ (1689) than to anything in Dryden.[70] The following extract is one of many that might be cited as suggestive of Hunt's _Story of Rimini_: