The Second Part of Rogers’s ‘Italy’ was published in 1828. He had not put his name to the First Part, which had been issued in 1822, but there had been no concealment of the authorship of the poem. He had spoken of it to his friends, and in letters from them, which I have already given, it is often referred to as his. When the Second Part was published he put his name to it, and the whole poem was at once publicly recognised as

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Rogers’s. But in the days when Byron was the rage, it was not probable that a poem like ‘Italy’ would succeed. The author had had great pleasure in writing it, for it had kept alive the recollections he most desired to cherish of his Italian journeys. It had enabled him to revive the impressions which Italian art and Italian story had made upon his mind, and to live again among the scenes which had stimulated his poetical fancy and gratified his artistic taste. He was not to have the additional satisfaction of public appreciation. Anything to which the name of the author of ‘The Pleasures of Memory’ was attached was sure of audience from a cultivated few, and ‘Italy’ had that measure of success. It was talked about in literary parties, read in country houses where the author was known, appreciated and admired by many persons whose appreciation was worth having, but it was not noticed by the chief reviews nor bought by the public. From the publisher’s point of view—the most important in many respects—it was a failure. Rogers took the failure in good part. Samuel Sharpe says, ‘Mr. Rogers fancied that the cool manner in which the poem was at first received amounted to an unfavourable verdict. He was not disposed to question the taste of the public in the case of a work which was meant to please the public. So he made a bonfire, as he described it, of the unsold copies, and set himself to the task of making it better.’

This task occupied him for the next two years. He had published illustrations in many of the editions of his earlier poems, and he determined to issue an illustrated edition of ‘Italy.’ The whole poem was revised, en-

THE ILLUSTRATED ’ITALY’

3

larged, and improved, points were carefully selected for illustration, and some of the chief artists of the time were engaged to make the drawings, and to engrave them on steel. Everything was done under Rogers’s own constant direction and supervision. He chose the subjects, suggested the character of the pictures, superintended their execution, and made the illustrations almost as much his own as the letter-press they adorned. Of fifty five illustrations in the first edition—increased afterwards to fifty-six—twenty-five were from Turner’s drawings, twenty from Stothard’s, two from Prout’s, one was from Colonel Batty’s design, one from a picture of Titian’s, and another from a picture of Vasari’s. The others are mere ornaments and without names. Of the fifty engraved pictures, sixteen are by Goodall, seven by Wallis, six by Daniel Allen, five by W. Findon, four by W. R. Smith, three by J. H. Robinson, two each by H. Le Keux and J. Pye, and one each by Humphrys, W. Cooke, C. Rolls, S. Davenport, and F. C. Lewis. The three vases with no engraver’s name are by D. Allen. It is curious to note the inequalities in the price paid for the work of the engravers. The largest sums for single plates were forty pounds each, paid to Humphrys and J. H. Robinson, the former for Stothard’s picture of ‘The Nun’—

When on her knees she fell Entering the solemn place of consecration,—

and the latter for the same painter’s ‘Dancing Girls,’ on page 196. Stothard’s ‘Brides of Venice’ was engraved by C. Rolls, who received thirty-seven pounds for the work. Turner’s ‘Paestum’ and ‘Tivoli’ were engraved

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by J. Pye at a cost of thirty-five pounds each; Stothard’s ‘Jorasse’ and ‘The Fountain’ were engraved by W. Findon, who received thirty guineas for each. Goodall had twenty-five guineas each for ‘Como,’ ‘Foscari,’ and ‘The Tournament,’ and twenty guineas for Turner’s ‘Florence,’ ‘Naples,’ ‘The Campagna,’ ‘Napoleon crossing the Alps,’ and ‘The Lake of Geneva,’ as well as for Stothard’s ‘Pilgrim.’ Wallis had the same sum for engraving Turner’s ‘William Tell’s Chapel,’ ‘St. Maurice,’ and ‘St. Peter’s,’ and Smith for each of the two views of ‘The Great St. Bernard.’ The total cost of producing the whole edition of ten thousand copies, including some separate proofs of the illustrations, was 7,335l. The sale was large enough to make even this immense outlay a good investment. On the 31st of December, 1830, 3,959 copies had been sold, producing 4,252l.; at the end of the next half-year 1,416 more had gone, yielding 1,521l., and thirty illustrations 60l.—making 5,833l. On the 17th of May, 1832, the total sale had reached 6,800. That is the latest memorandum I find on the matter. There were then, the memorandum says, ‘648 copies to sell before expenses are paid.’ The rest would be profit, and there is no reason to doubt that in the course of a few years the profit was made.

The reception which was given to this magnificent book encouraged Rogers to bring out an edition of his poems corresponding with it. This volume not only reproduced the artistic success of ‘Italy,’ but improved upon it. There were thirty-five drawings of Stothard’s, thirty-three by Turner, and one by Flaxman. To these sixty-nine, were added an engraving by Daniel Allen of a

THE ILLUSTRATED ’POEMS’

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vase, and of one of Callow’s ‘Beggars,’ and another by Engleheart of Parmigiano’s ‘Boy in a Window.’ Of the engravings of Turner’s and Stothard’s designs, thirty-two were by W. Findon, twenty-seven by Goodall, four by Miller, and two by Wallis. Findon also engraved Flaxman’s ‘Sir Thomas More and his Daughter.’ The publication of this exquisite volume was a marked event in the history of art. There can be little doubt that the illustrations to Rogers’s ‘Italy’ and Rogers’s ‘Poems’ first made Turner known to vast multitudes of the English people. One of the most vivid recollections of my own boyhood is the wakening up of a new sense of an ideal world of beauty as I lingered over the lovely landscapes on these delightful pages. The ‘Village Green,’ illustrating the opening lines of ‘The Pleasures of Memory,’ the boy at the stile with the village below him—

The adventurous boy, that asks his little share, And hies from home with many a gossip’s prayer, Turns on the neighbouring hill once more to see The dear abode of peace and privacy.—

the view up Derwentwater with Lodore in the distance, and, loveliest of all, the evening vision at the end of the volume, inscribed, ‘Datur hora quieti’—still bring back much of the feeling with which one hung over them in the early days when it was hardly lawful to take the volume from the table. I venture to express this feeling of my own boyhood because there are many whose recollections of these two volumes harmonise with mine, to whom they were an education, and who learned from them to admire Turner before they had actually seen one of his paintings. Rogers did not buy the pictures

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of Turner and Stothard, he paid those artists only for the right to engrave their drawings. There are only two memorandums left of the price paid for this right. I find one entry dated Christmas Day, 1831. Paid Mr. Turner 115l. 10s. 0d. for twenty-two; 361. 15s. 0d. for seven, making together 152l. 5s. 0d. In another memorandum I find 1,522l. 10s. 0d. down, ‘for engraving large,’ 157l. 10s. 0d. ‘for engraving small.’ ‘Paid Turner 147l., paid Stothard 189l., paid for embellishments 2,016l.’ This is probably for ‘Italy.’1

The prices paid for the engravings were a little less in the second volume than in the first. Goodall had thirty guineas for the view of Grantham Church, which illustrates ‘The Wake,’ as well as for ‘Greenwich Hospital,’ for ‘Vallombrosa,’ and for ‘Columbus discovering Land.’ He had twenty-five guineas each for ‘The Gipsy,’ ‘The Village Green,’ the ‘Boy at the Stile,’ and

1 In some manuscript notes by the Rev. Alexander Dyce to his copy of Rogers’s Italy, now in the library of South Kensington Museum, he says that Rogers told him: ‘I paid Turner 5l. for each of the illustrations to my two volumes, with the stipulation that the drawings should be returned to him, after they had been engraved; and the truth is, they were of little value as drawings. The engravers understand Turner perfectly, and make out his slight sketches: besides, they always submit to him the plates, which he touches and retouches, till the most beautiful effect is produced. The mere engraving of each vignette (taking one with another) cost 40l.; the whole expense of the two volumes was 15,000l.’ ‘This vignette [“The Fountain,” p. 175], by Stothard, was done from my description of what I actually saw—an Italian girl giving her little brother water to drink in the palms of her joined hands.’ ‘I never had any difficulty with Stothard and Turner about the drawings for my works. They always readily assented to whatever alterations I proposed; and sometimes I even put a figure by Stothard into one of Turner’s landscapes. The two figures in the foreground of vignette p. 151 are Stothard’s; the standing figure in vignette p. 248 is also Stothard’s.’

COST OF THE ENGRAVINGS

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others, while Findon had ten guineas for the smaller engravings, such as ‘Sir Thomas More,’ and the ‘Two Boys in a Boat’; fifteen guineas for ‘The Judges,’ and twenty-five guineas for the larger plates, such as ‘Lady Jane Grey,’ ‘The Italian Song,’ and the ‘Concert.’ I find a memorandum of the whole cost, made at the end of the first year after the book was issued, which shows that the books cost 6,436l. 19s., advertisements 50l., and illustrations 898l. 5s. 10d. A year’s interest is added, making 7,755l. 4s. 10d. There had been received 6,354l. 2s. 6d., leaving 1,620 copies to be sold before the sum was returned. The estimate is further carried out that the sale of the whole edition would produce 2,340l. more, leaving a profit when the books were sold of 1,309l. There was something singularly appropriate to Rogers’s reputation in this association of his writings with the most perfect productions of the art of the time. He was already widely known as a patron of art. For more than a quarter of a century his house had been regarded as the model dwelling of the man of taste and refinement, and his judgment on all such matters was looked up to as authoritative. The publication of these volumes confirmed and extended this reputation. For the next twenty years there were few drawing rooms in which one of these books was not on the table, and probably there were no cultivated people who had not turned to them again and again with ever increasing delight. There had been nothing like them before, there has been nothing fully equal to them since.1

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The publication of the Second Part of ‘Italy,’ which was the immediate occasion of the issue of this adorned edition of his works, brought the productive period of Rogers’s life to its close. Fifty years passed between the time at which he was writing his first essay as ‘The Scribbler’1 for ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine,’ and that at which the success of the illustrated ‘Italy’ encouraged him to undertake the illustration of his poems. He was seventy before that edition was completed, and after its issue he wrote only the address to Lord Grey. There is, indeed, in his poems as now published, another poem, entitled ‘Written in 1834,’but in the first illustrated edition the same poem, only seventeen lines long, is headed ‘Written in 1815.’ It was, in fact, written after the battle of Waterloo, and then, in 1834, rewritten so as to bring in the greater triumph of the abolition of slavery. These pieces and the lines to Lord Grenville, headed ‘Written at Dropmore, July, 1831,’ were nearly all that he produced after ‘Italy’ was published. He did much in the way of revision, but no more original work. The short poem on Strathfieldsaye was probably written on his visit to the Duke of Wellington in 1827, and the lines entitled ‘Reflections’ had been written for ‘Italy,’ but not used in that poem. Many of the notes at the

has much greater general interest than any other of Rogers’s poems, and is likely to be read for long, if only as a traveller’s companion. The style is studiously simple; the blank verse has quite an Elizabethan flavour, and abounds in happy lines; the reflexions have a keen point, and the incidental stories are told with admirable brevity and effect. Passages of prose are interspersed, wrought with the same care as the verses, and the notes are models of interesting detail concisely put.’ 1 The Early Life of Samuel Rogers, p. 53.

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end of his poems, some of them short essays of great beauty, were written in his old age.

The Second Part of ‘Italy’ was sent to Wordsworth in sheets, as the proofs came in, but no record remains of his criticisms or other observations, if any were made. He was in London with his daughter Dora in May, 1828, on a visit to Mr. Quillinan, who had been his neighbour at Rydal, of whose younger daughter Wordsworth was godfather, and for whose deceased wife he had written an epitaph. On setting out for London he wrote to Rogers a letter which further illustrates the relations between them.

‘My dear R.,—To-night I set off for Cambridge, passing by Coleorton, where I shall stay a couple of days with the Rector. My son accompanies me; being about to undertake a Curacy in a Parish adjoining that of Coleorton, near Grace Dieu, the birth-place of Beaumont the dramatist. At Cambridge I purpose to stay till the 10th or 11th of May, and then for a short, very short, visit to London, where I shall be sadly disappointed if I do not meet you. My main object is to look out for some situation, mercantile if it could be found, for my younger son. If you can serve me, pray do.

‘I have troubled you with this note to beg you would send any further sheets of your poem, up to the 8th or so of next month, to me at Trinity Lodge, Cambridge. Farewell. My wife and daughter are, I trust, already at Cambridge. My sister begs her kindest regards. Miss

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Hutchinson is here, who has also been much gratified by your poem, and begs to be remembered to you.

This visit of Wordsworth’s to London was opportune. Scott was then in town, and about the time Wordsworth was writing this letter was dining at Rogers’s, with all his own family, and Sharp, Lord John Russell, and Jekyll. ‘The conversation,’ says Scott in his Diary, ‘nagged as usual, and jokes were fired like minute guns, producing an effect not much less melancholy.’ On May 25 he puts on record a short account of one of those great conjunctions of which Rogers’s life was fuller than that of any other man. Imagine a day at Hampton Court with Scott, Wordsworth, Tom Moore, and Sam Rogers! Scott writes on May 25, 1828: ‘After a morning of letter-writing, leave-taking, papers destroying, and God knows what trumpery, Sophia and I set out for Hampton Court, carrying with us the following lions and lionesses: Samuel Rogers, Tom Moore, Wordsworth, with wife and daughter. We were very kindly and properly received by Walter and his wife, and had a very pleasant day. At parting, Rogers gave me a gold-mounted pair of glasses, which I will not part with in a hurry. I really like S. R., and have always found him most friendly.’ This account of Scott’s differs curiously from that which Moore gives in his Diary. He tells us that Scott called for him at Rogers’s, and the three went down together, finding the Wordsworths when they got to Hampton. On the way down they talked of ghosts, and Rogers told

WORDSWORTH

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a story he had heard from Lord Wriothesley Russell of a young couple at Berlin, over whom some guilty mystery hung. As they sat in their box at the opera somebody was seen from a distance to be sitting between them, but on going to the box nobody was found but themselves.

On the first of June the Wordsworths and Luttrell were breakfasting at Rogers’s and Moore met them. Wordsworth produced an album, and Rogers, Moore, and Luttrell wrote in it. On leaving London Wordsworth went with Coleridge for a Continental tour, taking his daughter with him. In August he returned.

‘My dear Rogers,—A note will suffice to tell you that here we are after a long and pleasant ramble upon the Rhine and through Holland and the Netherlands. On Tuesday I hope to be in London; shall drive to my old quarters in Bryanston Street, intending to stay not more than three days. Should be happy to meet you again.

‘Farewell, with kind regards from my daughter, who is [in] the room where I write,

During Wordsworth’s visit to London in the spring, Cooper, the American novelist, was there, and, of course, was to be seen at Rogers’s. Moore records a breakfast at Rogers’s on the 22nd of May at which Sydney Smith came in, and told some stories of Cooper’s touchiness. Moore

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met him at Rogers’s three days later and found him very agreeable. Rogers, talking of Washington Irving’s ‘Columbus,’ said in his dry, significant way, as Moore calls it, ‘It’s rather long.’ Cooper turned round on him and said sharply, ‘That’s a short criticism.’ James Fenimore Cooper was then in the heyday of his fame. He had just written that series of novels which every man past middle age remembers as the charm and delight of his boyhood’s reading. The ‘Spy’ had appeared in 1822, and when he was in London in 1828, ‘The Last of the Mohicans,’ ‘The Red Rover,’ and ‘The Prairie,’ the three novels by which he is chiefly remembered, were fresh in the public mind. Rogers not only welcomed him to his house, but introduced him to society, and showed him, as he did many other distinguished Americans, much attention. Some three years later (Cooper himself, with his whole absence from his own country in view, makes it four) Rogers received from him an interesting account of his doings, in a letter which is especially valuable for the political speculations which that revolutionary period suggested to an intelligent observer from the new world.

‘My dear Sir,—So long a time has elapsed since we parted, that I am almost afraid to write you, though the object of my letter is a tardy but sincere expression of the grateful recollection of all your kindnesses when in London. I did write to you with the same in tent from Florence early in 1829, but some circumstances have led me to infer that by an oversight the letter was never

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

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sent—an accident of by no means rare occurrence in my correspondence. Both Mrs. Cooper and myself retain a pleasant remembrance of your good offices, and I ought to add, your good nature, while we were sojourners in the wilderness of your capital. I am willing to flatter myself with the impression that you still feel sufficient interest in our welfare not to shut your ears against an account of what we have been about during the last four years.

‘I continue, as George III. said to Johnson, to “scribble, scribble, scribble,” though with something less of advantage to mankind than was the case with the great moralist. In one sense, however, I am quite his equal, for I do as well as I can. Since I saw you I have published three tales, and am now hard at work at a fourth. The last was on a subject connected with Italy,

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the scene being in Venice, and I frequently stimulated the imagination by reading your own images and tales of that part of Europe. I know nothing of its reception among you, though I fancy there will be a disposition to drive me back again into my own hemisphere. There is a good deal of Falstaff’s humour about me in the way of compulsion, and so I may prove hard-headed enough to try my hand again. Some one told me that I was accused of presumption for laying the scene of a story in a town rendered immortal by Shakespeare and Byron. Luckily there is a sort of immunity that is peculiarly the right of insignificance, and I confess that the idea of invading the domains of your great poets never crossed my brain. I had a crotchet to be delivered of, and produced it must be, though it were stillborn. I am far from certain that it ought to be imputed as a crime to any man that he is not Shakespeare or Scott, so I shall go on with the confidence of innocence.

‘I heard through Mr. Wilkes that the picture which I wished you to accept as a feeble testimony of my recollection of your kindness was sent, and I hope it was not a bad specimen of the artist’s talent, which I take to be of a very high order. I hear he is doing wonders, and that he is attracting notice in Italy. He is studying the figure, they tell me, with signal success. I picked up a little picture the other day in the open streets that is generally much esteemed. It is a female portrait of the time of Louis XIV., of the Flemish school, we think, and certainly an original from the hand of some eminent painter. I do not remember a dozen better portraits, though it is something the worse for exposure and time.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

15

It cost me just a guinea! The only account I can find of it is a sort of tradition in a family that owned it thirty years that it is a portrait, by Teniers, of his own wife. The manner of Teniers is what may be termed silvery, and that of my portrait is rather in the style of Correggio. It is exquisitely drawn and coloured, but the face strikes everybody as being decidedly German, or at least Flemish. Could you help me to a hint, to a print, or to any book that would be likely to throw light on the matter.

‘Wonderful changes have occurred since I had the pleasure of seeing you, but I think greater still are in store. Is not the tendency of the present spirit obvious? and ought not your aristocracy to throw themselves into the stream and go with the current, rather than hope to stem a torrent that in its nature is irresistible? If your system of Government has had its advantages in its pliable character (and it certainly has avoided many great dangers by quietly assuming new shades of policy), it has also one great and menacing disadvantage, that I do not see how it can resist. The contradiction between theory and practice has left your controlling power exposed to the unwearied and all-powerful attacks of the press, for though treason can [not] be written against the king the aristocracy has no such protection. The idea of defending any limited body by the press against the assaults of the press seems a desperate experiment, for, right or wrong, there is but one means of keeping physical force and political power asunder, and that is the remedy of ignorance. To me at this distance it seems an inevitable consequence of your actual social condition that both

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your church establishment and your peerage must give way. America might furnish a useful example to warn the English aristocracy if they would consent to study it. Our gentry put themselves in opposition to the mass, after the revolution, simply because, being in the habit of receiving their ideas from the most aristocratic nation of our time, they fancied there were irreconcilable interests to separate the rich man from the poor man, and that they had nothing to expect from the latter class should it get into the ascendant. They consequently supported theories adverse to the amalgamation, and as a matter of course, the instinct of the multitude warned them against trusting men opposed to their rights. The error has been discovered, and although individuals among those who were prominent in supporting exclusive doctrines are necessarily proscribed by opinion, the nation shows all proper deference to education and character; when these are united to money and discreetly used they are of necessity still more certain of notice. Jefferson was the man to whom we owe the high lesson that the natural privileges of a social aristocracy are in truth no more than their natural privileges. With us, all questions of personal rights, except in the case of the poor slaves, are effectually settled, and yet every really valuable interest is as secure as it is anywhere else.

‘It is curious to note the effect of the present condition of England. When the prerogative was in the ascendant, Charles made six Dukes of his illegitimate sons (Monmouth included), and George IV. scarce dared his progeny. Even the first of the Hanoverian princes presumed to make a Duchess of his mistress,

FRENCH POLITICS IN 1831

17

but all that power disappeared before the increasing ascendancy of the nobles. Now the many and the few are in opposition, the King comes into the account, and we hear of lords and ladies among his offspring. A bold and able monarch would in such a crisis regain his authority, and we should again hear the phrase “Le roi y pensera.” The experiment would be delicate, but it might succeed by acting on the fears of the middle classes, the fundholders, and the timid. With the cast of character that has actually been made by Providence, I think, however, there is little probability that the drama will receive this dénouement.

‘Here we have just got out of the provisoire. The furor of moderation is likely enough, I think, to put us all back again. There is an unfortunate and material distinction between the interests of those who rule and those who are ruled to come in aid of the floundering measures of the ministry. The intentions of the “juste milieu” are obviously to make the revolution a mere change of dynasties, while the people have believed in a change of principles. Could the different sections of the Opposition unite, the present state of things would not endure a month. Neither the National Guard nor the Army is any security against a great movement, for they are more likely to go against the Government than with it. There have been some very serious steps taken in the courts here of late which look grave. The judges have exercised a right of sentencing prisoners that a jury had acquitted. There is probably some show of law for the measure, but it is a very grave and hazardous course. On the whole, I am of opinion that King Louis Philippe’s

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Civil List may be worth some two or three years’ purchase. I would not give him three.

‘But I am boring you with politics, when apology for writing at all is the most material matter. Mrs. Cooper desires to be remembered to Miss Rogers and yourself, and I beg also to be mentioned to your sister. I should like exceedingly, did you not think it encroaching on your good nature, to be mentioned to Dr. and Mrs. Somerville.

Going back to 1828, there are a couple of letters worth preserving—one from Uvedale Price, who in this year was made a baronet, and the other from Miss Fanshawe, ‘a woman of rare wit and genius, in whose society Scott

MISS FANSHAWE

19

greatly delighted,’ as Lockhart tells us. ‘I read Miss Fanshawe’s pieces, which are quite beautiful,’ says Joanna Baillie in one of her letters. Miss Fanshawe’s pieces were published by Joanna Baillie in her collection of ‘Poetical Miscellanies.’ She was the writer of the celebrated enigma often attributed to Lord Byron, beginning—

‘Twas whispered in heaven, ‘twas muttered in hell, And echo caught lightly the sound as it fell.

She writes to Rogers on the eve of her departure on a Continental tour—

‘Dear Mr. Rogers,—This is a P.P.C. card, for we are purposing in less than three weeks to traverse a little sea and much dry land (if any land be dry in such a season) and pass the coming winter at Nice. Last winter my dear invalid used to wish herself there per wishing cap, but I call for your congratulations on her now being sufficiently recovered to intend working her way thither by steam and coach, and your very good wishes I depend on receiving for those I hereby send you, together with the hope that we may all have a happy meeting next spring in London. I have a confused recollection of your having had some thoughts of visiting Switzerland in the course of the summer. In that case I hope that my adieux will not follow you, for they are certainly not worth 1s. 11d., though acting as cover to the impertinence of talking over with you, in the only way left me, your “Italy,” Part the Second. Really, it would

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be ungrateful not to thank you for the great pleasure it has given me—just given—for we don’t deal in poetry in Dover, but Mr. Bigge, whom perhaps you know, happily brought it with him. Will you have a list of my favorite poems? The opening of the first, “Rome”: oh! how it recalls my feelings when first looking round me there, save that my historical recollections were few, and classical I of course had none. “The Campagna,” of which so much has been said and sung, but never half so well. The whole as a composition is so fine, the succession of pictures so vivid, and the details as distinct and spirited as in the shield of Achilles. “The Tomb of Caius Cestius” strikes me as original, and is very touching; “The Nun” exquisite; “The Fountain,” methinks, I had before seen and admired in Part the First, but it is with everything else I want in Berkeley Square; the piece called “A Character,” not for the sake of Montrioli’s, but of the just and beautiful sentiments it calls forth; lastly, “The Felucca.” I believe people now make verse by steam, for one cannot otherwise account for the facility with which anyone writes it. Rhyme, metre, elegance, and even spirit are grown quite common—such brilliant execution and so little invention, design, or expression. All this drives the real poet to the utmost confines of simplicity, and Mr. Rogers’s Muse, conscious of her genuine loveliness, disdained, perhaps too much, the aid of ornament, and when first she visited Italy lost some of her attractions. I am glad to see her again wearing, not for display, but as proper to her rank, some choice jewels—for example—

‘When Raphael and his school to Florence came, Filling the land with splendour.

MISS FANSHAWE ON ’ITALY’

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‘I forget which poem this is in, but ’tis no solitary instance. That volume, consisting chiefly of narrative pieces and in a lower key of sentiment, I much wished had been written in prose, or interspersed with some, and now my wish is gratified. You know not your own strength in prose. It is almost an exploded art; its perfection lies in the simplicity and conciseness for which you stand unrivalled. Without the affectation of either, there is not to be found a superfluous word or sentence. All who know how to read can understand you, and all who examine style must feel the real elegance of yours. I am sure you have a virtuous horror of the slang and jargon that are now thrusting honest old English off the stage. Such overcharged epithets, such perpetual allusion to arts, sciences, and manufactures! Then, one is so palled with quotations from Shakespeare that one wishes for sumptuary laws to restrain the use of him. Some law you will desire to restrain my sputtering, but what cross fit would not be cured by your chapter on “Foreign Travel”? It is quite delicious, as Mrs. Weddell would say, and specially palatable to us vagabonds. “National Prejudices,” exactly my own thoughts on the subject, which I thank you for clothing with your own language. How this little book is liked by the world I have no means of knowing, but to one small individual it has given unmingled pleasure from the union of so much goodness and benevolence with so much talent.

‘Dover is a charming place, especially, as Gray says of Cambridge, when there is nobody in it. Next to very good society is the comfort of no society at all, or very very little, which is happily our case. Living close to

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the sea, it affords an incessant and infinite variety, and is a noble object even in its gloomiest moods. Its bright ones have not affected my eyes, which suffer a little at times during long continuance of wet, but recovered as soon as I left my beautiful enemy, the Thames. Of chalk cliffs these are, as you must know, but never perhaps stayed to make their acquaintance, the finest and boldest imaginable, and the little old town and bay I delight in. The humours of the pier do not come into our account, and we have profited only by two or three of the birds of passage who know us to be here.

‘It is high time to bring this bavardage to a conclusion, so, with kind regards to Miss Rogers, I beg you to believe me,

The letter from Sir Uvedale Price is the last. He was in his eighty-first year, and had been a frequent visitor to Rogers, who had sometimes found him a bore. He often outstayed his welcome, and Rogers had on one occasion to get rid of him by a manoeuvre. He was a very interesting person, as his letters show. He had gone with Fox to see Voltaire at Ferney, and described the interview in a letter to Rogers, which Lord Holland borrowed and never returned. He published, in 1827, an ‘Essay on the Modern Pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Languages,’ in which he anticipates some modern changes, as he had in his essays on the Picturesque led to the reform of landscape gardening.

SIR UVEDALE PRICE’S LAST LETTER

23

‘Dear Rogers,—Of all dilatory correspondents you certainly are the most so; and if you were also the dullest, the two qualities would be well suited to each other: as that is not exactly the case, you are the most tantalising. Here was I week after week in constant hope and expectation; a month passed, and then another fortnight, and at last the letter did come within the two months. I well know how constantly your time is occupied at home with a succession of visitors of every description, with all sorts of talents, whom you have the enviable art of collecting about you; and I allow a great deal for it: but I sometimes think you indulge yourself in delay, as it gives you an opportunity of making a number of the lightest, best turned excuses possible, and so prettily diversified, that your correspondent, though he may not give full credit to them all, is so amused that he cannot be angry; other parts of your letter, where my friends and acquaintance pass in review before me, are well calculated to disarm anger; but there is one small part which, if you perform what it seems to promise, will make ample compensation for your sin of delay, were it ten times as great; and if you are dying to see my new walk, I am dying to have you here and to show it you with other novelties. This new walk, you must know, Lady Sarah took a fancy to; it was made for her, and if you come, who knows whether she may not show it you herself? Come therefore, even for the chance, if you have a spark of gallantry about you;

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ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

as to passing a day or two, è un modo di parlare. “Mais parlons un peu de ma fille,” says Madame de Sévigné; and so say I, with no less parental fondness; I need not say who she is, as you have so kindly introduced her to several of your acquaintance. I have had a very obliging and satisfactory letter from the translator of Dante (a title he may well be proud of), written in a remarkably simple, natural style. I shall be very glad to cultivate his acquaintance whenever I have an opportunity; next time I come to town you must be the go-between. I have also had a very amiable and pleasant letter from Jekyll, who seems to take a more lively interest in the subject than I expected. If Brougham has read the essay it is quite as much as I could hope for. There is one person to whom I particularly wished you to offer my essay that you have forgotten—Dr. Worthington, of whose talents you spoke to me in the highest terms; I had some little conversation with him on the subject at your house, and from that little should expect very useful remarks could he be prevailed upon to put them down. Pray send for a copy to Normaville and Fell, New Bond Street, and beg his acceptance of it, and lay the blame on yourself for the delay. I wish you could also persuade Mr. Cary to criticise and communicate.

THE GREAT MEASURE OF 1829

25

This quaint octogenarian died at Foxley in September, 1829. That year had already brought Rogers a far greater loss in his eldest brother Daniel Rogers. There is a letter written to this brother in February, 1829, in which, after speaking of some domestic matters then of painful interest in the family, Rogers says—

‘The great measure1 is doing very well, though not so well as could be wished. I asked a minister the other night why they did not get a bishop to speak for them. He said, none will—and I believe the best thing expected from them is their absence (Norwich always excepted). Ireland is said to promise them a bishop or two and two archbishops. Whether the majority will be twenty or sixty is very doubtful. The commanding majority in the Commons must however tell in the other House. The Whigs are resolved to give all the support they can, though some, and Lord Holland most of all, make very wry faces at the bill they are first to swallow.2 Plunket is come, and will speak, of course. How lucky it is, now that he is in the House when he is most wanted. His peerage was lamented six months ago—but we are poor, short-sighted beings. He and the Chancellor are to dine with me in a day or two, and that reminds me of Tom. I hope he is now doing comfortably again. My new edition is only an old one newly advertised. The last was in 1826.

‘Poor Crowe is dead—at the same age as my aunt Anne. I had a very natural and affecting letter from his

1 The Catholic Relief Bill. 2 The Bill for the Dissolution of the Catholic Association.

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ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

son on the subject. One of the bitterest of the bishops is your old friend Law. So Lyttelton has opened his lips in the House. The day he took his seat, Dudley crossed the House to speak to him and took him home to dinner!’

A month after this letter was written Daniel Rogers died. He was two and a half years older than Sam, and had spent his life in quiet retirement as a country squire at Wassail Grove, near Hagley. I have already given his nephew Samuel Sharpe’s account of him,1 of his ‘delightful guileless simplicity,’ and of the enthusiasm with which he spoke of any of the studies which occupied his mind. The most perfect confidence existed between the three brothers, Daniel, Samuel and Henry; and Charles Lamb, who had met them together at St. James’s Place and at Highbury, spoke of them as a three-fold cord. Daniel was in his sixty-ninth year, and as Samuel Rogers himself was beginning to feel the approaches of age, he naturally felt deeply his brother’s loss. Two letters on the subject speak for themselves.

‘My dear Sir,—I have but lately learned, by letter from Mr. Moxon, the death of your brother. For the little I had seen of him, I greatly respected him. I do not even know how recent your loss may have been, and hope that I do not unseasonably present you with a few lines suggested to me this morning by the thought of

1 The Early Life of Samuel Rogers, pp. 80, 81.

CHARLES LAMB ON DANIEL ROGERS

27

him. I beg to be most kindly remembered to your remaining brother, and to Miss Rogers.

‘Rogers, of all the men that I have known But slightly, who have died, your brother’s loss Touched me most sensibly. There came across My mind an image of the cordial tone Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest I more than once have sate; and grieve to think, That of that threefold cord one precious link By Death’s rude hand is sever’d from the rest. Of our old gentry he appeared a stem; A magistrate who, while the evil-doer He kept in terror, could respect the poor, And not for every trifle harass them— As some, divine and laic, too oft do. This man’s a private loss and public too.’

‘Many thanks for your kind letter and for all your kindness ever since the happy days when we had no care and a long and a bright prospect before us; when we went to the toy-shop together and played at hide-and-seek in the hay-loft at Newington Green.1 Much have we had since to be thankful for, as much, perhaps, as most people, for all must have their afflictions. But they have come fast and thick upon us of late; and yours have been the heaviest of all. That you may continue to support yourself as you have done is our earnest prayer, and if the attentions of affectionate children and the recollection

1 They were cousins.

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of the many years you have devoted to them and their father can give consolation under them, you must and will. We are all rejoiced to hear of Sam’s success. He has excellent talents and his good sense will no doubt lead him to avail himself of the advantage thrown in his way. I wrote immediately to the Chancellor on receiving Edward’s letter, and by accident saw him the next day—but I fear a day or two were lost before the application was made, for the living was promised—in such a case an hour is of importance. But to tell you the truth, I have little hope of him. He is very smooth but very shuffling, and can have no motive to serve me. Lord Lyttelton’s offer is a very friendly one, and if the house was built, or certainly to be built, whether I took it or not, I should not hesitate. But considering the contingencies in this world, and our own sad experience just now shows how little we can trust to the future, it may admit of a doubt how far it is wise to consent to a scheme by which something of an engagement may be incurred which we may afterwards find it expedient to shake off. For myself I will own that the conviction that I ought to remain where everything was arranged by another for my own convenience would, such is my perverseness, make me wish to go elsewhere, as in a party I have always wished to escape when the chairs had blocked me up; but I have no right to suppose others as wayward as myself. I need not say how anxious we are that you should settle to your mind. That you will determine wisely I have no doubt, and it is an offer not to be slighted. I am hardly a fair judge, for, though I have been acquainted with your neighbour near thirty years, and have really a great respect

THE POET CROWE

29

for many parts of his character, I am not sure I should like to become his tenant on such terms. At all events, I should tell him frankly that circumstances might induce me to go, I could not say how soon, and that he must do nothing that would render it in the least ineligible for another tenant. There is, however, no judging for others; and we are confident you will decide wisely. We are very sorry that you are not to visit the sea in our part of the world. But you must not forget us on your return. Remember, we consider it as only a pleasure deferred.

Crowe, to whose death Rogers referred in the last letter to his brother Daniel, is a true but neglected poet. He was one of the poor scholars at Winchester, whom his school sent to Oxford, where he became a Fellow of New College, and afterwards Professor of Poetry, and Public Orator, with the living of Alton Barnes, near Pewsey, in Wiltshire. His chief poem, ‘Lewesdon Hill,’ published in 1786, contains many passages which Rogers greatly admired and often repeated to his friends. One of these favourites was the conclusion of ‘Lewesdon Hill,’ where the poet, who has been contemplating the beauties of nature, is recalled to earth by seeing the villagers ‘assembling jocund in their best attire’ for the May-day feast—

Now I descend To join the worldly crowd; perchance to talk, To think, to act as they; then all these thoughts That lift the expanded heart above this spot To heavenly musing; these shall pass away (Even as this goodly prospect from my view),

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Hidden by near and earthy-rooted cares. So passeth human life—our better mind Is as a Sunday’s garment, then put on, When we have naught to do; but at our work We wear a worse for thrift. Of this enough, To-morrow for severer thought, but now To breakfast, and keep festival to-day.

Crowe’s blank verse is always musical and Rogers took it as a model. In preparing for his ‘Italy’ he kept by him for constant study Milton and Crowe. Like other contemporary poets, Crowe not only found a welcome at St. James’s Place, but ready aid and counsel in his transactions with publishers. He had an eye to business. Writing to Rogers in February, 1827, to ask him to negotiate with Murray for the issue of a new edition of his poems, in which he wished to include a treatise on English versification, Crowe says, ‘If he is willing to undertake the publishing I will immediately furnish more particulars, and also submit the copy to your inspection. If the part on versification could be out before the middle of April it would find a present sale in Oxford, for this reason: there are above four-score young poets who start every year for the English prize, and as I am one of the five judges to decide it, they would (many of them) buy a copy to know my doctrine on the subject. The compositions are delivered in about the beginning of May.’ Rogers conducted the negotiation with promptitude, and in a few days Crowe wrote a letter of thanks. He died in February, 1829.

For the next two or three years Rogers’s life may again be followed in Moore’s Diary. There are nearly a

ROGERS AND HIS PUBLISHER

31

hundred references to him in Lord John Russell’s sixth volume; but curiously little about the work which was at this time filling Rogers’s thoughts. There is, indeed, a reference to ‘Italy’ in December, 1830. ‘Went to take leave of Rogers, who sends by me to Bessy a large-paper copy of his most beautiful book “Italy,” the getting up of which has cost him five thousand pounds. Told me of a squabble he has had with the publisher of it, who, in trying to justify himself for some departure from his original agreement, complained rather imprudently of the large sum of ready money he had been obliged to lay out upon it. “As to that,” said Rogers, “I shall remove that cause of complaint instantly. Bring me your account.” The account was brought; something not much short of 1,500l. “There,” said Rogers, writing a cheque for the whole sum, “I shall leave you nothing more to say on that ground. Had I been a poor author,” added Rogers, after telling me these circumstances, “I should have been his slave for life.”’ A couple of years later, when a publisher asked Moore to write a poem and have it illustrated in the manner of Rogers’s ‘Italy,’ Moore writes, ‘Asked him did he know what an enormous sum Mr. R.’s book cost him (7,000l. I think Rogers told me when I was last in town). Said he was perfectly aware of this.’

In this year, 1829, Moore had to be a good deal in London. In February he was at Rogers’s looking over Lord Byron’s letters; in May dining with him at Lord John Russell’s—‘table too full;’ and on another day finding him ‘in a most amusing state of causticity.’ Moore made a remark about the Duke of Wellington’s good

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sense, and Rogers replied, ‘Yes, I once thought Chantrey the most sensible man going; but now that he has been spoilt by vanity and presumption, the Duke is the man that takes that place in my estimation.’ On another day Rogers makes one of the few political remarks Moore reports. Talking, in June, 1829, of ‘the great mountain and mouse results of the great measure of [Catholic} emancipation,1 R. said, “All our ancient bulwarks are removed, the barriers of law are broken down, the gates of the constitution are burst open, and in enter P—— and Lord ——.”’ Another day Rogers was very amusing at breakfast when Sharp and Lord Lansdowne and Hallam were present. He told of a club to which Sharp and he belonged, called ‘Keep the Line,’ their motto, written up in large letters, being—

Here we eat, and drink, and dine, Equinoctial—keep the line.

Most of the members were dramatists, and ‘the effect of a joke upon them, instead of producing laughter, was to make them immediately look grave (this being their business), and the tablets were out in an instant.’ On the 5th of July Moore goes to spend the night at Rogers’s, ‘he having often asked me to take a bed at his house.’ Rogers tells him a clever thing said by Lord Dudley—‘On some Vienna lady remarking impudently to him, “What wretchedly bad French you all speak in London.” “It is true, Madame,” he answered; “we have not enjoyed the advantage of having the French twice in our capital.”’

1 The Catholic Emancipation Bill had been carried in the Commons on the 30th of March, in the Lords on the 10th of April, and had received the Royal Assent on the 13th of April.

LADY HOLLAND AND SIR PHILIP FRANCIS

33

Moore gives the true version of Rogers’s question to Sir Philip Francis. ‘Brougham was by, when Francis made the often-quoted answer to Rogers. “There is a question, Sir Philip (said R.), which I should much like to ask if you will allow me.” “You had better not, sir,” answered Francis, “or you may have reason to be sorry for it.”’ The addition to this story is that Rogers, on leaving him, muttered to himself,’ If he is Junius, it must be Junius Brutus.’ Rogers himself used to tell a story of Lady Holland and Sir Philip Francis. He was talking with Lady Holland when Francis was announced. ‘Now I’ll ask him if he is Junius,’ she said to Rogers as Francis was coming in. As soon as he was seated she asked him. He replied, ‘Do you mean to insult me? When I was a younger man people would not have ventured to charge me with being the author of those letters.’ Woodfall told Rogers that he did not know who wrote the letters. Rogers always maintained that they were written by Sir Philip Francis, but said that Malone persisted to the last that if they were not written by Burke, they were written by George Dyer with Burke’s help. Rogers used to tell the story of a visit Mackintosh and he paid to Marlborough, where, it was said, the name of Junius had been placed on an unknown person’s grave. They went to a bookseller’s shop to ask for directions how to find it. ‘I have heard of it,’ said the bookseller, ‘but I have not seen it.’ So said his daughter, so said the sexton, and so said Rogers and Mackintosh after a visit to the churchyard and a diligent search. Mr. Dyce was told by a friend that the tomb is at Hungerford and not at Marlborough, that it has on it the

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motto of Junius ‘Stat nominis umbra,’ and hence is called Junius’s tomb.

Rogers’s health this summer was precarious. He says in a letter to his sister Sarah, ‘I am good for little and catch cold every moment.’ But he was fully occupied with the illustrated ‘Italy,’ which was passing through the press. His memoranda of the deliveries of proofs and copies show that every part of the productive process was superintended by him with the minutest and most diligent care. A Continental journey undertaken with his sister Sarah and his niece Patty was cut short by bad health and bad weather, and when he got home he had rather a severe illness. But his attention was fully occupied, and even the interest of the political struggle was superseded by his great literary and artistic enterprise. Moore flitted occasionally through Rogers’s circle at this period as at most others, but he records little of any interest, except that on one occasion Mrs. Norton is mentioned as ‘at war all dinner time, and most amusingly, with Rogers.’

I find in Rogers’s papers a pathetic letter which suggests a painful event then far in the future.

‘Oh, Mr. Rogers, my family are absolutely in danger of wanting food. I have paid 700l. since 1827, and this does not satisfy my creditors. Do I not deserve employment and aid?

‘For God’s sake help me, and I will paint an equivalent as soon as I begin, for any aid given me now at such

WORDSWORTH

35

a crisis. Indeed, my brain begins to get bewildered at this repeated torture.

‘Yours faithfully, &c.,’ is added below the signature. There was some correspondence with Wordsworth this summer, of which three letters remain.

‘My dear Rogers,—I have this morning heard from Moxon, who, in communicating his new project, speaks in grateful terms of your kindness. Having written to him, I cannot forbear inquiring of you how you are and what is become of your “Italy.” My daughter (who, alas, is very poorly, recovering from a bilious fever which seized her a fortnight ago) tells me that she is longing to see the work—and that it would do more for her recovery than half the medicines she is obliged to take. It is long since we exchanged letters. I am in your debt, for I had a short note from you enclosing Lamb’s pleasing poem upon your lamented brother just before you set off for the Continent. If I am not mistaken, I heard, and I think from Lady Frederick Bentinck, that some untoward circumstance interrupted that tour. Was it so?

‘My dear sister, you will be glad to hear, is at present quite well, but in prudence we do not permit her to take the long walks she used to do, nor to depart from the invalid regimen. The remainder of us are well. My daughter’s illness was the consequence of over-fatigue while

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she was on a visit to her brother at Moresby, near Whitehaven. I passed with her there a fortnight, which would have flown most agreeably but for that attack. An odd thought struck me there which I did not act upon, but will mention—it was to bespeak your friendly offices among your great and powerful acquaintances in behalf of my son, who enjoys the dignity of a Rector with an income of 100l, per annum. This benefice he owes to the kind patronage of Lord Lonsdale, who must be his main-stay, and who, we venture to hope, will not forget him upon some future occasion. But you know how much the patronage of that family has been pressed upon, and it would on this account please me much could something be done for him in another quarter. I hope it is not visionary to mention my wishes to you, not altogether without a hope that an opportunity may occur for your serving him. Testimonials from a father are naturally liable to suspic1on, but I have no reason for doubting the sincerity of his late Rector, Mr. Merewether of Coleorton, who wrote in the highest terms of the manner in which he had discharged his duty as a curate. I will only add that he has from nature an excellent voice, and manages it with feeling and judgment.

‘How is Sharp in health? When he wrote to me last he was suffering from a winter cough. He told me, what did not at all surprise me to hear, that the sale of your “Pleasures of Memory,” which had commanded public attention for thirty-six years, had greatly fallen off within the last two years. “The Edinburgh Review” tells another story, that you and Campbell (I am sorry to couple the names) are the only bards of our day whose laurels are

WORDSWORTH

37

unwithered. Fools! I believe that yours have suffered in the common blight (if the flourishing of a poet’s bays can fairly be measured by the sale of his books or the buzz that attends his name at any given time), and that the ornamented annuals, those greedy receptacles of trash, those bladders upon which the boys of poetry try to swim, are the cause. Farewell! I know you hate writing letters, but let me know from inquiries made at your leisure whether you think an edition of my poems, in three volumes, to be sold for about eighteen shillings, would repay. The last of 1827 is, I believe, nearly sold. The French piracy (for in a moral sense a piracy it is) I have reason to think is against me a good deal; but unless I could sell four copies of a cheaper edition than my own where I now sell one it would scarcely [pay]. Again adieu.

‘What is likely to become of the Michael Angelo marble of Sir George—is it to be sold? Alas! alas! That picture of the picture gallery, is that to go also? I hope you will rescue some of these things from vulgar hands, both for their own sakes and the memory of our departed friend.’

‘Being sure, my dear Rogers, that you take a cordial interest in anything important to me or my family, I cannot forbear letting you know that my eldest son is soon to quit that state of single blessedness to which you have so faithfully adhered. This event has come upon

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us all by surprise; when I wrote a short time ago I had not the least suspicion of an engagement, or even an attachment in any quarter. I expressed to you some years since my regret at my son’s being disappointed of a fellowship, to which he had very good pretensions till we discovered that his place of birth excluded him from being a candidate, and you then said, I remember, “It is lucky for him, he will have less temptation to build upon the life of a bachelor, and will be far happier.” May your prophecy be fulfilled! I trust it will, for I have seen the young lady, am highly pleased with her appearance and deportment, and in a pecuniary point of view the alliance is unexceptionable. Their income, through the liberality of the father, who highly approves of the match, is, for the present, quite sufficient, for I trust their good sense will prevent them from giving an instance of the French phrase, C’est un vrai gouffre que le ménage.

‘In somewhat of a casual way I recommended in my last my son to your thoughts, if any opportunity should occur in the wide sphere of your acquaintance of speaking a good word in his behalf. Had I known this delicate affair was pending, I should at that time have probably been silent upon the subject of his professional interests. It cannot, however, be amiss for anyone to have as many friends as possible, and I need not conceal from you that my satisfaction would, upon this occasion, have been more unmingled had my son had more to offer on his part. I shall merely add that if, through his future life, you could serve him upon any occasion I should be thankful. I regret that I am not at liberty at present

WORDSWORTH

39

to mention the name of the lady to more than one individual out of my own family.

‘Do you know Mrs. Hemans? She is to be here to-day if winds and waves, though steamboats care little for them, did not yesterday retard her passage from Liverpool. I wish you were here (perhaps you may not) to assist us in entertaining her, for my daughter’s indisposition and other matters occupy our thoughts, and literary ladies are apt to require a good deal of attention. Pray give our kind regards to your brother and sister. We hope that you all continue to have good health. Do let me hear from you, however briefly, and believe me,

The above letter was evidently written before Rogers’s answer to the one before it. Rogers then replied, probably saying that he had relatives of his own in the Church; and Wordsworth then wrote the letter which follows.

‘I cannot sufficiently thank you, my dear Rogers, for your kind and long letter, knowing as I do how much you dislike writing. Yet I should not have written now but to say I was not aware that you had any such near connections in the Church; I had presumed that your relatives by both sides were Dissenters, or I should have been silent on the subject, being well assured that I and mine

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would always have your good word as long as we continued to deserve it.

‘Lord Lonsdale, to whom I mentioned my son’s intended marriage, naming (as I was at liberty to do in that case) the lady, has written to me in answer with that feeling and delicacy which mark the movements of his mind and the actions of his life. He is one of the best and most amiable of men, and I should detest myself if I could fail in gratitude for his goodness to me upon all occasions.1

‘I wish Lady Frederick’s mind were at ease on the subject of the epitaph. Upon her own ideas, and using mainly her own language, I worked at it, but the production I sent was too long and somewhat too historical, yet assuredly it wanted neither discrimination nor feeling. Would Lady F. be content to lay it aside till she comes into the North this summer, as I hope she will do. We might then lay our judgments together in conversation, and with the benefit of your suggestions and those of other friends with which she is no doubt furnished, we might be satisfied at last. Pray name this to her if you have an opportunity.

‘Your “Italy” can nowhere out of your own family be more eagerly expected than in this house. The poetry is excellent we know, and the embellishments, as they are under the guidance of your own taste, must do honor to the Arts. My daughter, alas, does not recover her strength. She has been thrown back several times by

1 On the 11th of October, 1830, Mr. Wordsworth’s eldest son, the Rev. John Wordsworth, then Rector of Moresby, was married to Isabella Christian Curwen, daughter of Henry Curwen, Esq., of Workington Hall, Cumberland, and of Curwen’s Isle, Windermere (Life, vol. ii., p. 232).

WORDSWORTH

41

the exercise, whether of walking in the garden or of riding, which she has, with our approbation, been tempted to take from a hope of assisting nature.

‘We like Mrs. Hemans much; her conversation is what might be expected from her poetry, full of sensibility, and she enjoys the country greatly.

‘The “Somnambulist” is one of several pieces, written at a heat, which I should have much pleasure in submitting to your judgment were the Fates so favourable as that we might meet ere long. How shall I dare to tell you that the Muses and I have parted company, at least I fear so, for I have not written a verse these twelvemonths past, except a few stanzas upon my return from Ireland last autumn.

‘Dear Sir Walter, I love that man, though I can scarcely be said to have lived with him at all; but I have known him for nearly thirty years. Your account of his seizure grieved us all much. Coleridge had a dangerous attack a few weeks ago; Davy is gone. Surely these are men of power, not to be replaced should they disappear, as one has done.

‘Pray repeat our cordial remembrances to your brother and sister, and be assured, my dear Rogers, that you are thought of in this house, both by the well and the sick, with affectionate interest.

From the correspondence of this summer, much of it in response to gifts of his ‘Italy,’ I select a few letters, all from distinguished persons, and each letter interesting

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for itself as much as for the writer. I have put them in chronological order, including one from Rogers to his sister.

‘My dear Rogers,—I am most thankful to you for your promise; for I would fain go off the stage as gracefully as I can. You are right in supposing that I contemplate the conclusion of my labours1 with mixt sensations: but mine are not worthy of being compared with those of the men with whom you have confronted me. To use an ignoble, but very exact, similitude, I resemble a solitary ennuyé, who regrets (for want of something else to do) seeing the remains of his dinner taken away, though he has not appetite enough to renew the charge. I heard a melancholy account of your last expedition on the Continent, last autumn, from Lord and Lady Holland; but it was, by your account, yet more deplorable than I had imagined it to have been. May this summer, if you meditate a flight, be more propitious to you, though we have hitherto had more dripping, I believe, than during any given month of the last summer. I received a few days ago from Fazakerley certain queries, sent to England by a Florentine lady, respecting Foscolo; and yesterday a letter from herself; from which it appears that she is collecting materials for a life of him. A life of him, moreover, has been already written by Pecchio, which is printing in Italy; but in which he reserves an appendix

1 He was then occupied with his spirited translation of the Orlando Furioso, which was published in the following year.

WILLIAM STEWART ROSE

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for any interesting letters of his, should any such fall into his possession. He is, however, severe in his notions on such subjects: inveighs against “our gossiping and voluminous biography”; and will make no sacrifice to the English fashion of the day. This brings me to Moore, whose book, though it would not suit Pecchio, has entertained me greatly; and I rejoice that he will so soon launch his second volume. I have just had a most useful and amusing letter from Christie, upon the taste of the English public in pictures, in answer to certain queries; which answer was to determine whether two pictures should be sent to England from Italy for sale. I think I shall have it lithographed (that is, if I can obtain his permission) and address it, as a circular, to all my Italian friends. Pray put him on this subject, if you get a good opportunity. I did not know that he was animated by such splendida bilis as has flowed from his pen. His gall, however, has not spoiled his “milk of human kindness,” as is proved by his very good-natured and disinterested advice, which will save a friend of mine from being a sufferer through exaggerated notions of English taste and English riches.

‘I rejoice to hear of your labours. You are one of those who know how to use the file; and I should think that the limæ labor et mora would be entertaining to you. Pray tell Miss Rogers that I am much gratified by her kind recollection of me, and remember me to Hallam or any common friends who care for me.

‘Believe me, my dear Rogers, your faithful and much obliged,

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‘My dear Sir,—Notwithstanding the knot you tied in your handkerchief last evening, I won’t trust you. I know you to be so beset by the choice things of this life that a tit-bit must be put to your mouth and you must be coaxed to taste it. I send you, therefore, the first volume of the “Tales of an Indian Camp.” Read anyone of the tales I have marked, or, in fact, read any tale in the volume, and if you do not feel induced to read more send back the book and I will say no more about it.

The letter from Rogers to his sister was addressed to her at Paris, where she was following the traces of the three days of July.

‘My dear Sarah,—I wish I had more to do than to thank you for your letter, and to say that I am just where you left me. A few minutes after you went from my door, Cuvier and Mdlle.1 called to inquire for you.

1 Mdlle. Duvaucel, Cuvier’s stepdaughter. Rogers had known her in Paris, where he used to say she fascinated everybody; and a wager was

CHARLES THE TENTH IN EXILE

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I found their cards when I returned, which I did after sleeping two nights in Bedfordshire. I am glad Paris is itself once more. Mr. Honey, who breakfasted with me the other day, and who was so sorry to miss you here and there, was in the thick of it, and very entertaining on the subject. He saved himself on one occasion by jumping into the Café de Paris through an open window. I fear the chairs in the garden are the worse for their campaigning, as they were piled with the omnibuses in the Rue de Rivoli. The Berrys and Lady Charlotte are come, and very eloquent, but I have not seen them. Charles X. and his party were very cheerful off Cowes. When the ships moved farther, the Duchess de Berry desired her ladies to ask where they were going: “À St. Helènes, Madame.” “Mon Dieu!” she cried, as well she might, having little geography in her head and having never heard of our St. Helens. Charles X. sent the other day to Manton’s for two guns, and is using them, I dare say, at this moment against the partridges. When Marmont came, dinners and assemblies were given to exhibit him, and the Duke of Wellington called upon him in Leicester Fields and had a long conversation with him. Beaudrain called twice on Lord Holland and gave a very plain and sensible account of the whole. The King, William, was very gracious to him, and our ministers are all couleur de rose on the subject.

‘What do you say to Mrs. Ottley’s, or, rather, Miss O.’s evidence on the inquest?1 You of course see “The

laid that she would fascinate even the giraffe. It really so happened. The great animal, twenty-two feet high, followed her like a lamb. (See Campbell’s Life , vol. iii., p. 68.) 1 See note, p. 46, on St. John Long.

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Times.” The Callcotts are come back from Scotland; she was ill on the journey, and is so still. I have seen him, not her. He asked me no questions about anybody, and seemed very formal. I suppose you have met with Washington Irving in your rambles. I have called twice on Millingen without success, and perhaps you have [seen] him. It must have been very amusing to land with Miss Slater in a foreign land, and will be very pleasant to both parties to meet again at Boulogne. I am glad you are so near the ground, and conclude you have fine weather, as we have it here. I have been twice to the Adelphi to hear Phillips in “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi fan tutte.” Two days I have spent at the Priory and three at Richmond, with the Hollands, and these visits, with two or three to Holland House, make all I have to tell of myself. I have sometimes thought of the North, but despair comes over me, and I begin to think I shall never venture far again. How to get through the day just now is rather difficult. I call on Madame d’Arblay, and Lord St. Helens, and Moxon, and Stothard, who groans more than ever and looks ill. Maltby is gone to the sea, and, I hear, means to cross it. So, perhaps, you may see him sipping his coffee, through a window of the Café de Foy. I hope you have bought some objets précieux, or, at least, ordered some. Yours is the hotel in which Charles Fox was robbed and from which he ran and overtook the thief on the Boulevards. So Mr. Lister and Miss Villiers have announced their marriage. Ottley, I see, is one of the bail for St. John Long.1 I

1St. John Long was a portrait-painter, who had discovered an infallible ointment for all complaints. The inquest of which Rogers speaks was

’JE NE SUIS PAS ROI; JE SUIS CAPUCIN’

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saw Millingen yesterday (Sunday) and he sets off to-day or to-morrow. I have now seen the Berrys, who are very animated. They were at St. Germain’s during the war in Paris, and went to Paris for a few days afterwards. Pray give my love to your fellow travellers, and believe me to be,

‘Etty is said to have been in the Louvre when an armed mob rushed through it. Have you seen him? Perhaps you will look at Brussels on your way home. I know nothing of Highbury, but conclude all is going on well there. Lady H. talks of giving you some commissions, but I shall not remind her on the subject, as I dare say you do not wish for any particularly. There is an excellent likeness of Charles—“Je ne suis pas Roi; je suis Capucin”—and there is a good caricature of the gens d’armes at war with the mob, and barricades between them. Pray buy them for me, if you meet with them on the Boulevard des Italiens.’

‘“The “Chanson des Deux Cousins” is certainly excellent; besides the merit of being so wonderfully pro-

on one of his victims, and it led to his trial and conviction for manslaughter. At a later trial it came out that he was making 12,000l. a year by his illegal practice, but his victims were the rich, and in this second trial so many fashionable people gave evidence for him that he was acquitted. On his death, in 1834, the secret of his nostrum was sold for several thousand pounds.

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phetical. And I should say that the next best are those dated from Ste. Pélagie; a proof that, whatever may be M. de Béranger’s passion for liberty, his Muse, on the contrary, is like

‘the imprisoned bird Which makes the cage its quire and sings most sweetly When most in bondage.

My dear Rogers,—Very many thanks for the welcome testimony of your kind remembrance are all that I can offer you in return, unless it be a remark or two on the subjects noticed by you; for since I came here, nearly three months ago, I have seen none but my own family; never once been at the distance of a mile from my hall-door, nor exchanged letters, but once with Lady Spencer and the same with Lord Camden, since I last wrote to you. Though I know not how in conscience I could have asked you to make us a visit, I should not have been restrained by that consideration alone. But in truth we have been, are still, and shall be for some time to come, in a state of so much confusion and uncertainty as to put all forming of plans out of our power. Lady Ashburnham will be again obliged to go to town next week on account of her wrist; the use of which she is still far from having recovered, though it is now almost six months since the injury was sustained. And when there, she

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will be detained in consequence of our house in Dover Street being restored at Michaelmas, and to examine into the state of it, and as to its furniture, so minutely as she will think necessary, and to make suitable arrangements for so numerous a family will require some time. If you should chance to pass through London, she would be delighted if you would call on her at her much cleaner and pleasanter residence in South Audley Street.

‘You bid me to prepare for a review of my book. I had rather look forward to a view of yours; and this I will have by hook or by crook, long before the next number of “The Edinburgh Review” can make its appearance.1 I think that I might hazard a guess as to who is the anonymous acquaintance of ours, to whom you allude. If I am right, I know him to be in the habit of speaking favorably of me: and therefore trust that he will treat my work with indulgence. Hitherto it has escaped even the hebdomadal critique, or rather notice, of the “Literary Gazette.” When I left London, my publishers, Messrs. Payne and Foss, informed me that I was not much in request. So that, till I received yesterday your notice to brace my nerves to the encounter of a review, I was fortifying myself to endure a similar mortification to that of the late Poet Pybus, who got rid of none but his presentation copies. This was evident from the glut of waste-paper which the market experienced soon after his

1 The review appeared as the second article in the October number of the Edinburgh. Lord Ashburnham’s book consisted of a vindication of his ancestor, John Ashburnham, groom of the bedchamber to Charles the First, from the misrepresentations and aspersions of Lord Clarendon, and of John Ashburnham’s own narrative of his attendance on the King.

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death. Alas, poor Pybus! Yet neither you nor your poem—

‘si quid mea earmina possunt, Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet ævo.

‘As Qui through all its various cases The young Grammarian slowly traces, Declining down to Quibus; By a like scale our poets try, And if the first be Laureate Pye, The last of course is Pybus.

‘I beg you to pardon me, or, rather, to make in my favour the law’s humane distinction between murder and manslaughter. It is not of malice prepense that, like “the sage Montaigne,” I have deviated from my purpose. It is not in imitation, or from affectation, but because it is as natural to me, as ever it was to him, to write very differently from what I had previously intended. Even more than this—I seldom read with so much perseverance as when I have seated myself at my writing desk: and am most disposed to talk when I have taken up a book.

‘Contrary, therefore, to my declared intention to comment on the topics of your letter, I shall let you off with observing only that, of all the changes and chances which you enumerate as having been crowded together within the narrow compass of a few weeks, the only fact that I contemplate with pleasure is simply the expulsion of that incorrigible Charles the Tenth, of whom I verily think that there is less to say in excuse than of the execrated Charles the Ninth; justification being in either case equally out of the question. But I have no intention at

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present, however unengaged, to favour you and the world with a vindication of the character and conduct of Charles of Valois.

‘My dear Rogers,—I know not whether the one of all your friends who has the most often read over and over again your poem on our beloved Italy, be the best entitled to a presentation-copy of it. But, I am sure, on that and on other accounts, the copy for which I have to thank you has not been ill-bestowed. Most especially as to what relates to Florence and its environs, with which,

‘Of all the fairest cities of the earth,

I am historically and topographically most acquainted. I have followed your traces in all directions as diligently and exactly as you did those of that celebrated giro, beginning and ending with the Santa Maria Novella. And I can say of many such walks (thanks to you) what you have said of that one—“delightful in itself, and in its

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associations.” Your new edition may, like Galileo’s villa, be justly called—Il Giojello. Yet I should be better pleased with some of the illustrations if I were less well acquainted with the subjects which they represent, the former being much less picturesque as well as poetical, especially with regard to figures and costume.

‘I hope that Lady Ashburnham will have prevailed so far at least as to obtain from you the promise of a visit. Nothing would please me more; particularly if I could contrive that you might meet some whom you would like to meet; for a family-party is less inviting than a téte-à-téte. For myself, I am growing gradually, if not rapidly, more and more a poor, infirm creature; and never expect to be the inmate of any but my own house, in town or country. Nor between these will my oscillations be of a pendulum-like frequency.1

‘Dear Sir,—I know not what hath bewitch’d me that I have delayed acknowledging your beautiful present. But I have been very unwell and nervous of late. The poem was not new to me, tho’ I have renewed ac-

1Lord Ashburnham died within a month after writing these words.

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quaintance with it. Its metre is none of the least of its excellencies. ’Tis so far from the stiffness of blank verse—it gallops like a traveller, as it should do—no crude Miltonisms in [it]. Dare I pick out what most pleases me? It is the middle paragraph in page thirty-four. It is most tasty. Though I look on every impression as a proof of your kindness, I am jealous of the ornaments, and should have prized the verses naked on whity-brown paper.

‘My dear Rogers,—Not according to a cunning plan of acknowledging the receipt of books before they have been read, but to let you know that your highly valued present of three copies has arrived at Rydal, I write from this place, under favor of a frank. My sister tells me that the books are charmingly got up, as the phrase is, and she speaks with her usual feeling of your kind attention; so does my daughter, now at Workington Hall, where she has been officiating as bridesmaid to the wife of her happy brother. The embellishments, my sister says, are delicious, and reflect light upon the poetry with which she was well acquainted before.

‘Lady Frederick is here with her father and mother. She is among your true friends. Lord and Lady L. are quite well. In a couple of days I hope to return with Mrs. Wordsworth and Dora to Rydal. We then go to Coleorton, and so on to Trinity Lodge, Cambridge, where

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Dora will pass the winter. I shall take a peep at London; mind you be there, or I will never forgive you. Mrs. Wordsworth sends her kind wishes to yourself and sister, in which I cordially unite, not forgetting your good brother. When you see the Sharps, and that most amiable person Miss Kinnaird, thank them for giving us so much of their company; and believe [me], my dear friend, eager to have your books in my hand, much of the contents being in my heart and head,

‘Lady Frederick begs me to say she is sorry they have not seen you in the North this year. We also had looked for you anxiously at Rydal.’

‘My dear Sir,—I had the pleasure of receiving, a few days ago, a large paper copy of your beautiful poem on Italy, which you have had the goodness to present for me to my son Thomas, who has availed himself of his brother Robert’s recent visit to Lancashire, to convey it safely to my hands. I do not consider this, your obliging remembrance of me, merely as an interesting and truly original poem, decorated with exquisite engravings, but as a production in which the sister arts of poetry and painting are united to produce a simultaneous effect, as brilliant jewels are only seen to full advantage when set off by a beautiful face. The art of engraving has hitherto aimed only to please the eye; but it may now be said to have arrived at its highest excellence; and

ROSCOE AND PANIZZI

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touched the deepest feelings of the mind. We must now acknowledge that the finest effects of the pencil may be produced by the simple medium of light and shadow.

‘In the state of partial seclusion from the world in which I have lived for some time past, it is a merciful dispensation that I am still able to enjoy my books: amongst these I may enumerate, as lately acquired, the works of Lorenzo de’ Medici, in four vols. folio, commented upon and published by the present Grand Duke of Tuscany, to whom I am indebted for a present—a copy of them. I also highly value a large paper copy of the “Landscape Annual,” and am at present employed in illustrating a similar copy of the translation of Lanzi’s “History of Painting in Italy,” which will be a splendid work; but none of these seem to me so truly to deserve the name of a literary gem as your delightful publication; for which I must now beg leave to offer you my most grateful thanks. This is intended to be delivered to you by my highly valued friend Sig. Antonio Panizzi, Professor of the Italian language in the London University who lived some years in Liverpool, and from whence he is just returned from visiting the numerous friends whom he has made during his residence here. He is probably already known to you by his literary works, particularly his edition of Bojardo and Ariosto now publishing; in addition to which I beg leave to add my testimony, not only to his abilities as an elegant scholar, but to his experienced worth as a sincere friend and his character as a man. It is, therefore, with great satisfaction I introduced him to your better acquaintance; being convinced

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it cannot fail of being productive of both pleasure and advantage to both parties.

‘My dear Rogers,—I have been worried to death these two or three last weeks by some troublesome business in Staffordshire, which, until it was settled, almost hindered me from thinking of anything else, or I should not have left so long unacknowledged the very gratifying present I had received. The finished excellence of the works that compose this beautiful volume, and the specimens of art, in the purest taste, by which it is adorned, render it a most desirable possession even to those that acquire it in the ordinary way; but the value of it is increased tenfold when given, as I flatter myself it is, as a mark of recollection after an acquaintance of near thirty years, from a man of whose friendship one should be proud, for the qualities of his heart and understanding, even if he had never written a single line. Accept my thanks, and believe me,

This is the last letter from Lord Dudley—the J. W. Ward of earlier years—and it pleasantly shows how completely the early friendship had been restored after the alienation of 1813. Lord Dudley died on the 6th of March, 1833.

LORD HOLLAND: SIR WALTER SCOTT

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‘My dear Rogers,—I am quite sorry to hear of your being ill, and the more so as my business, my leg, and my cold prevent my having a chance of seeing you. The House of Lords knocked me up last night in spite of two admirable speeches in their different ways, of Grey and Radnor. The latter was acute and lively as usual, but patriotic and eloquent beyond anything I have ever yet heard [from] him; a speech that must do him credit and, I must selfishly add, will do the Ministers great good with the public. Young Stothard the engraver writes to me about an office he holds and the manner in which it has been awarded, and, moreover, about the late King’s order to execute a Duchy of Lancaster seal. I do not quite understand his application exactly—but pray tell me what you know of him, and give, if you have any, some information about his office.

‘My dear Sir,—I should do my sentiments towards you, and all your kindness, great injustice did I not hasten to send you my best thanks for your beautiful verses on Italy which [are] embellished by such beautiful specimens of architecture as form a rare specimen of the manner in which the art of poetry can awake the Muse of Painting. It is in every respect a bijou, and yet more valued as the mark of your regard than either

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for its literary attractions or those which it draws from art, though justly distinguished for both.

‘I sometimes hope I shall prick up heart of grace and come to my daughter Lockhart’s in spring weather. Sometimes I think I had best keep my madness in the background, like the suivante [confidant] of Tilburina in “The Critic.” At all events, I wish I could draw you over the Border in summer or autumn, when we could at least visit some places in that land where, though not very romantic in landscape, every valley has its battle and every stream its song.

‘Pray think of this, and God bless you. I beg my

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respects to your sister, to Sharp, whom I wish you could induce to visit me with you, and to Lord and Lady Holland, if they remember such a person. The worst of this world is the separation of friends as the scene closes; but it is the law we live under.