Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers, 28 September [1836]
‘Broadstairs: Sept. 28 [1836].
‘My dear Sarah,—Your kind letter of the 19th found me here as you
guessed, for here I arrived ten days ago. Your former from Pau found me in the
act of setting ![]()
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out, and I
answered it to Marseilles, while the carriage stood at the door, on the 17th.
That night I slept at Rochester and the next at Canterbury, where I spent an
hour in the evening with Lady Byron, whom I
had not seen for twenty-two years. Here I found Maltby, who had answered my proposal with an equivocal letter
and who still hesitates, excusing himself on account of his health. So I shall
say no more to him on the subject. To tell you the truth, the prospect of going
and returning alone dispirits me, together with the chance of passing a very
short time with you two in Paris so late in the year. I wrote last week to
propose it to William Sharpe, but he was
engaged to some friends near Havre. So I am in a thousand minds and at a loss
what to do. I hope and trust you will go to Genoa, as you can never have a
better opportunity, that is, if the cholera is gone, of which I have heard only
that it has been subsiding of late in Italy—but at Marseilles you can
surely learn. Here is Miss Stephens’s brother with
his family, and at Ramsgate I met on the pier Mrs. Scott,
the Miss Biggs who is married, with another daughter. They
are at a boarding house, and inquired much about you two. I am delighted to
think you have had so prosperous a journey—you say nothing about health,
so I hope you are both well. To-day we have been to some races near Margate. At
Ramsgate I met with Mr. Webb, my fellow-traveller in 1802.
He is returning to Paris, and if I go it will most probably be with him, but
pray don’t alter your plans for me, as our stay at Paris would at all
events be so short in the cold season. Mr.
Robinson is in this neighbourhood on a visit, and one morning
breakfasts with us, talking of ![]()
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Wordsworth and Goethe. The weather here has been fine; and
the moon, at the full for the three last nights, has given us recollections of
the Mediterranean—I say us, but my companion seldom looks out after dark,
and almost always withdraws to his room at nine; to-night, having a cold, he
went at seven. His protégée is here, boarding in the house; she came,
and will of course return, with him. Mr. Coope and his
family were here and are just gone. Poor Malibran. She died, you know, at Manchester in her
twenty-seventh year. Pray give my love to Mary, and
believe me
‘Yours ever,
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of
The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) and
Faust (1808, 1832).
Maria Felicia Malibran (1808-1836)
Born in Paris; opera singer who made her debut in London in 1825 performing in Rossini's
Barber of Seville; she died of a riding accident in
Manchester.
William Maltby (1764-1854)
A schoolmate and life-long friend of Samuel Rogers; he was a London solicitor and a
member of the King of Clubs. In 1809 he succeeded Richard Porson as principal librarian of
the London Institution.
Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867)
Attorney, diarist, and journalist for
The Times; he was a founder
of the Athenaeum Club.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
Sarah Rogers (1772-1855)
Of Regent's Park. the younger sister of the poet Samuel Rogers; she lived with her
brother Henry in Highbury Terrace.
William Sharpe (1804-1870)
London solicitor, the son of Sutton Sharpe and nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers, whose
Reminiscences (1859) he edited.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
