Charles Wells was a friend of Hazlitt and of Keats. In true Cockney fashion he sent the latter a sonnet and some roses and thus began the acquaintance. Dilke was a friend of Keats, a radical, and an independent critic in the manner of Hunt. Charles Lloyd was Lamb's friend, one of the contributors to the _Literary Pocket Book_ of 1820, and a poet of sentimental and descriptive propensities. P. G. Patmore was "Count Tims, the Cockney."[476] Although he was a correspondent of _Blackwood's_, his son has remarked that he was not _persona grata_, but was employed to secure news from London; and permitted to write only when he did not defend his friends too much.[477] "John Ketch" (Abraham Franklin) is mentioned by Lord Byron as one of the "Cockney Scribblers."[478] Thomas Hood, as brother-in-law of Reynolds, as assistant editor of the _London Magazine_, and as an imitator in a small degree in his early work of Lamb and of Hunt may be enumerated among the Cockneys, although he is not usually included. Laman Blanchard was the friend of Procter, Lamb and Hunt. He imitated Procter's _Dramatic Sketches_ and Lamb's _Essays_. Talfourd was a member of the circle and the friend and biographer of Lamb. He defended Edward Moxon when he was prosecuted for publishing _Queen Mab_. Peacock was the friend of Shelley. The Ollier brothers, publishers, introduced Keats, Shelley, Hunt, Lamb and Procter to the public.[479]
Although Byron was frequently at war with _Blackwood's_ and the _Quarterly_, and although he was closely associated with Shelley and Hunt, he was never stigmatized as a member of the Cockney School. Yet through his alliance with them he came in for some opprobrium that he would otherwise have escaped. _Blackwood's_ strove through ridicule to prevent any growth of familiarity with Hunt or his fraternity. Its attitude towards the dedication to Byron of the _Story of Rimini_ has already been mentioned. Hunt's statement already quoted on p. 95 that "for the drama, whatever good passages such a writer will always put forth, we hold that he (Byron) has no more qualification than we have" was a choice morsel for the Scotch birds of prey, enjoyed to the fullest extent in a review of _Lyndsay's Dramas of the Ancient World_: