Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Chapter II. 1831-34.
CHAPTER II.
1831-34.
Rogers and Wellington and
Talleyrand—Rogers and
Macaulay—Death of Mrs.
Siddons—Letters from Wordsworth, Henry
Hallam, and
Brougham—Campbell and ‘The Metropolitan’—Rogers and
Earl Grey—Mrs. Joanna
Baillie—Death of Mackintosh and of Walter
Scott—Moore on
Rogers’s House—Death of Henry
Rogers—Letters from Charles Lamb,
Wordsworth,
Macaulay—Rogers’s
Tour—Letters to Wordsworth, Sarah Rogers,
and Richard Sharp—Richard Sharp on
Ministerial Changes—Rogers and the Gossip at
Brooks’s—The King and his Ministers—‘The Queen has done it
all’—Lord Brougham’s Eccentricities—Letter
from Campbell.
The period in which Rogers was occupied in preparing the illustrated edition of his poems is very barren of
correspondence. He had arrived at the time of life at which men learn with a shock that
they are being spoken of as old men by younger people. He was beginning to feel the
approach of age, though he always urged his friends not to realise that they are old, and
himself acted on the injunction. He had a good deal of ill-health, and so many friends were
gone that he began to say that a walk through the streets of London was like a walk in a
cemetery. In March, 1831, he had one of the conversations with the Duke of Wellington, which is reported in the ‘Recollections,’ and one with Talleyrand, also recorded in the same volume. It was in
October of the same year that, meeting Sir Walter Scott
on the day
but one before he set sail for
Naples, Scott told him the story of the clever boy at school whom he
could not pass, who, he noticed, always fumbled with a button on his waistcoat when under
examination, but who was utterly dumbfounded and passed at once when
Scott had cut off the button, and the boy, during examination,
found out his loss.
It is just at this period that the life of Samuel Rogers seems to touch our own times. The names we begin to meet with
are those of men, some of whom middle-aged men have personally known. It is not clear when
Rogers first met Macaulay;
but Macaulay, in writing to his sister Hannah on the 28th of May,
1831, says that on the day before, he had lounged into the ante-rooms of ‘old Marshall’s house’ in Hill Street, where he
found Samuel Rogers. ‘Rogers and
I,’ he says, ‘sate together on a bench in one of the passages, and had a
good deal of very pleasant conversation. He was—as, indeed, he has always been to
me—extremely kind, and told me that if it were in his power he would contrive to
be at Holland House with me, to give me an insight into its ways. He is the great
oracle of that circle. He has seen the King’s
letter to Lord Grey about the Garter.’ On
the 3rd of June, he says Rogers told him to write no more reviews but
to publish separate works, ‘adding what, for him, is a very rare thing, a
compliment: “You may do anything, Mr.
Macaulay.”’ On the 7th he writes to his sisters Hannah and Margaret—
‘Yesterday I dined at Marshall’s, and was almost consoled for not meeting
Rammohun Roy by a very
62 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
pleasant party.
The great sight was the two wits, Rogers and
Sydney Smith. Singly I have often seen them:
but to see them both together was a novelty, and a novelty not the less curious because
their mutual hostility is well known, and the hard hits which they have given to each
other are in everybody’s mouth. They were civil, however. But I was struck by the
truth of what Matthew Bramble, a person of whom you
probably never heard, says in Smollett’s
“Humphry Clinker”:
that one wit in a company, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a flavour: but two are
too many. Rogers and Sydney Smith would not
come into conflict. If one had possession of the company the other was silent; and, as
you may conceive, the one who had possession of the company was always Sydney
Smith, and the one who was silent was always
Rogers. Sometimes, however, the company divided, and each of them
had a small congregation. I had a good deal of talk with both of them; for in whatever
they may disagree, they agree in treating me with very marked kindness.
‘I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with Rogers. He was telling me of the curiosity which
attached to the persons of Sir Walter Scott and
Lord Byron. When Sir Walter
Scott dined at a gentleman’s in London some time ago all the
servant-maids in the house asked leave to stand in the passage and see him pass. He
was, as you may conceive, greatly flattered. About Lord Byron,
whom he knew well, he told me some curious anecdotes. When Lord
Byron passed through Florence, Rogers was there.
They had a good deal of conversation, and Rogers accompanied him
to his car-
riage. The inn had fifty windows
in front. All the windows were crowded with women, mostly English women, to catch a
glance at their favourite poet. Among them were some at whose houses he had often been
in England, and with whom he had lived on friendly terms. He would not notice them, or
return their salutations. Rogers was the only person he spoke
to.’
Three days later he tells his sister he had met Rogers at the Athenæum, and he had asked him to
breakfast and promised to make an interesting party, and, he adds, ‘If you knew
how Rogers is thought of you would think it as great a compliment
as could be paid to a duke.’ His account of the breakfast is valuable as
giving a contemporary description of Rogers’s house. He writes
on the 25th of June—
‘I breakfasted with Rogers
yesterday. There was nobody there but Moore. We
were all on the most friendly and familiar terms possible; and
Moore, who is, Rogers tells me,
excessively pleased with my review of
his book, showed me very marked
attention. I was forced to go away early on account of bankrupt business, but
Rogers said that we must have the talk out; so we are to meet
at his house again to breakfast. What a delightful house it is! It looks out on the
Green Park just at the most pleasant point. The furniture has been selected with a
delicacy of taste quite unique. Its value does not depend on fashion, but must be the
same while the fine arts are held in any esteem. In the drawing-room, for example, the
chimney-pieces are carved by
64 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
Flaxman into the most beautiful Grecian forms.
The book-case is painted by Stothard, in his
very best manner, with groups from Chaucer,
Shakespeare, and Boccaccio. The pictures are not numerous, but every one is excellent.
In the dining-room there are also some beautiful paintings. But the three most
remarkable objects in that room are, I think, a cast of Pope taken after death by Roubilliac; a noble model in terra-cotta by Michael Angelo, from which he afterwards made one of his finest
statues, that of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and,
lastly, a mahogany table, on which stands an antique vase.’
There are the usual accounts of breakfasts and dinners with Rogers in Moore’s Diary this summer. At one of these
Rogers violently opposed Moore, who had said
‘after all it is in high life one meets the best society.’
Rogers always maintained the contrary. His father had advised him
never to go near titled people, but that was based on his own youthful experience of them
in his Worcestershire home in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Rogers confessed to his nephew, Samuel
Sharpe, that he had not followed his father’s advice, but that there
was truth and wisdom in it. On the 26th was the breakfast party Rogers
had made for Macaulay, and Tom
Moore gives his account of it.
‘Macaulay,’ he says, ‘gave us an account
of the present state of the Monothelite controversy.’
Macaulay himself tells a story, which Moore
also tells, of this same occasion. Writing to his sister, he says—
‘I have breakfasted again with Rogers. The party was a remarkable one, Lord
John Russell, Tom Moore,
| MACAULAY: MOORE: CAMPBELL | 65 |
Tom Campbell, and Luttrell. We were all very lively. An odd incident took place after
breakfast. While we were standing at the window and looking into the Green Park,
somebody was talking about diners-out. “Ay,” said
Campbell, “Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.” |
Tom Moore asked where the line was. “Don’t you
know?” said Campbell. “Not I,” said
Moore. “Surely,” said
Campbell, “it is your own.” “I never saw it
in my life,” said Moore. “It is in one of your best
things in ‘The Times,’” said
Campbell. Moore denied it. Hereupon I put
in my claim, and told them that it was mine. Do you remember it? It is in some lines
called “The Political Georgics,” which I sent to “The Times” about three years ago. They made me repeat the lines, and
were vociferous in praise of them. Tom Moore then said, oddly
enough, “There is another poem in ‘The
Times’ that I should like to know the author of: ‘A Parson’s Account of his Journey to the Cambridge
Election.’” I laid claim to that also. “That is
curious,” said Moore. “I begged Barnes to tell me who wrote it. He said that he had
received it from Cambridge, and touched it up himself, and pretended that all the best
strokes were his. I believed that he was lying, because I never knew him to make a good
joke in his life. And now the murder is out.” They asked me whether I had put
anything else in “The Times.”
“Nothing,” I said, “except the ‘Sortes
Virgilianæ,’” which Lord John
remembered well. I never mentioned the “Cambridge
Journey” or the “Georgics” to
any but my own family; and I was, therefore, as you 66 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
may conceive,
not a little flattered to hear, in one day, Moore praising one of
them and Campbell the other.’
In this month of June Rogers had
lost one of his oldest friends in Mrs. Siddons. She
had not been quite happy since her retirement from the stage. When
Rogers was visiting her she often said, ‘This is the time I
used to be thinking of going to the theatre; there was the pleasure of dressing, then of
acting, but all is over now.’ Rogers was always fond of telling
stories about her. He regarded her as a far greater performer than John Kemble, and sympathised with her disappointment at
the little attention that had been paid to her at the time of her retirement, and from that
time to her death.
There is a letter of about this date which may be given in illustration
of an aspect of Rogers’s character which did
not come out frequently, but which his closer friends knew to exist. It was to a relation
who had disgraced himself, and had an opportunity of recovering his position, and did
recover it. I suppress the name as it is of no interest or importance.
‘Dear ——,—Many thanks for a letter
which, mournful as it was, gave me sincere pleasure, and over which your poor
father and mother, could they read it where they now are, would shed tears of
delight; for what signifies wealth or poverty, good report or evil report, but
inasmuch as they affect our own minds.
‘I need not say, I am sure, how sorry I am for the sad
change which has taken place in your circumstances, but much more unhappy I was
before it took place; for then how gloomy was the prospect; and how fortunate
you must think yourself, how much more so than many, in being roused to
reflection before it was too late. Providence has given you an asylum among
kind and considerate friends, you have good talents, great attainments, and
have still many years before you, and if you resolve to exert yourself, and to
assist those who have a natural claim to your exertions, what we now regard as
an affliction will perhaps be the happiest event in your life. When I look back
on mine, I feel that I am too faulty myself to blame another, and have only on
my knees to ask forgiveness.
‘Pray remember me to ——, and believe me,
‘Yours as ever,
‘S. R.’
Wordsworth, as usual, writes to Rogers for advice.
‘Rydal Mount: 14th June [1831].
‘Let me, my dear friend, have the benefit of your advice
upon a small matter of taste. You know that while I was in London I gave more
time than a wise man would have done to portrait-painters and sculptors. I am
now called to the same duty again. The Master and a numerous body of the
Fellows of my own college, St. John’s, Cambridge, have begged me to sit
to some eminent artist for my portrait, to be placed among “the
68 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
worthies of that house” of learning, which has so
many claims upon my grateful remembrance. I consider the application no small
honour, and as they have courteously left the choice of the artist to myself, I
entreat you would let me have the advantage of your judgment. Had Jackson been living, without troubling you, I
should have inquired of himself whether he would undertake the task; but he is
just gone, and I am quite at a loss whom to select. Pray give me your opinion.
I saw Pickersgill’s pictures at
his own house, but between ourselves I did not much like them. Phillips has made coxcombs of all the poets,
save Crabbe, that have come under his
hand, and I am rather afraid he might play that trick with me, grey-headed as I
am. Owen was a manly painter, but there
is the same fault with him as the famous Horn one has heard of—he is
departed. In fact, the art is low in England, as you know much better than I;
don’t, however, accuse me of impertinence, but do as I have desired.
‘We stayed three or four days at Cambridge, and then
departed for the North; but I was obliged to leave dear Mrs. Wordsworth at Nottingham, suffering under
a most violent attack of sciatica. Her daughter was left with her. We fell among good Samaritans, and
in less than a fortnight she was able to renew her journey.
‘Her stay here, however, was short. My sister was summoned to Cheltenham by our old
friend Dr. Bell, and as we did not dare
to trust her so far from home on account of her delicate state of health, Mrs.
W. was so kind and noble-minded as to take the long journey in her stead. The
poor doctor thought himself dying, but
he has rallied, and I expect Mrs. W. back
with Southey, who left us this morning
for the same place. Southey is gone upon business
connected with the doctor’s affairs. Excuse this long story, but I know
you are kind enough to be interested about me and my friends in everything.
Dora is writing by me, both she and my sister and
Wm. join me in kindest regards to
yourself and your sister.
‘Most faithfully yours,
In spite of the objection to Pickersgill’s portraits, he was eventually selected, and went down to
Rydal and painted the picture now in St. John’s College. Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘Go, Faithful Portrait,’ testifies to his
satisfaction with it. In the autumn he is anxious about Rogers’s health, and writes for information.
‘Rydal Mount: 7th Nov., 1831.
‘My dear Rogers,—Several weeks since I heard, through Mr. Quillinan, who I believe had it from
Moxon, that you were unwell, and
this unpleasant communication has weighed on my mind, but I did not write,
trusting that either from Mr. Q. or Moxon I should hear
something of the particulars. These expectations have been vain, and now I
venture, not without anxiety, to make enquiries of yourself. Be so good then as
let me hear how you are, and as soon as you can. If you saw Sir Walter Scott, or have met with Mr. and Mrs.
Lockhart since their return to town, you will have learned
70 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
from them that Dora
and I reached Abbotsford in time to have two or three days of Sir
Walter’s company before he left his home. I need not dwell
upon the subject of his health, as you cannot but have heard as authentic
particulars as I could give you, and of more recent date. From Abbotsford we
went to Roslin, Edinburgh, Stirling, Loch Kettering [Katrine], Killin,
Dalmally, Oban, the Isle of Mull—too late in the season for
Staffa—and returned by Inverary, Loch Lomond, Glasgow, and the falls of
the Clyde. The foliage was in its most beautiful state, and the weather, though
we had five or six days of heavy rain, was upon the whole very favourable; for
we had most beautiful appearances of floating vapours, rainbows and fragments
of rainbows, weather-galls, and sunbeams innumerable, so that I never saw
Scotland under a more poetic aspect. Then there was in addition the pleasure of
recollection, and the novelty of showing to my daughter places and objects
which had been so long in my remembrance. About the middle of summer a hope was
held out to us that we should see you in the North, which would indeed have
given us great pleasure, as we often, very often, talk, and still oftener
think, about you.
‘It is some months since I heard from Moxon. I learned in Scotland that the
bookselling trade was in a deplorable state, and that nothing was saleable but
newspapers on the Revolutionary side. So that I fear, unless our poor friend be
turned patriot, he cannot be prospering at present.
‘We, thank God, are all well, and should be very glad to
hear the same of yourself and brother and sister.
My son William is gone to Carlisle as my sub-distributor, how long to
remain there, heaven knows! He is likely to come in for a broken head, as he
expects to be enrolled as a special constable, for the protection of the gaols
and cathedral at Carlisle, and for Rose Castle—the bishop’s country residence which has
been threatened. But no more of these disagreeables. My heart is full of
kindness towards you, and I wish much to hear of you. The state of my eyes has
compelled me to use Mrs. W.’s pen.
‘Most affectionately yours,
‘Notwithstanding the flourish above, I have written
to my son to stay at home and guard his stamps.’
Rogers had before this fully recovered from his
illness. Moore calling to surprise him at breakfast
on the 16th of October, found him just returned from the country, entirely restored, and
full of good humour and playfulness. There is a double interest in a letter received in the
course of the autumn from another of his eminent friends.
‘My dear Rogers,—I have been unfortunate in missing you twice, yet
with the consolation that it proved you were recovered in health, which I had
heard was not as good as we all wish. For myself I am a mere rustic, but not as
yet oblitus meorum, and therefore, I hope, not obliviscendus illis. But in a fortnight more I shall be
once more in the whirl of the world, though I
72 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
have always
coveted the eddy, and shall probably do so more and more, accedente senectâ. It is no compliment to say that I prefer two
hours of your tea to four hours of most men’s claret.
‘I send you another little production of Arthur’s; it is much superior to the
other. You have candour to make allowance for the cloudy state of new wine,
which will not disguise from a connoisseur’s taste a racy flavour and
strong body. You must always keep in mind that he is not quite twenty-one, and
with this allowance I am not perhaps quite misled as a father in thinking his
performances a little out of the common.
‘Tunbridge, whatever you may fancy, is excellent
wintering. We have a very small society of people we like, and play sixpenny
whist when it might be dull else, not otherwise. . . .
‘Yours very truly,
‘Wimpole Street and Rose Hill, Tunbridge Wells.’
A brief note, not dated, but belonging to the same autumn, is the first I
find among Rogers’s papers from another
eminent person.
‘My dear R.,—I have this instant been commanded by Talleyrand to meet Don Pedro
on Friday, and I must obey, as your absolute sovereigns when they go incog., like Peter I.,
are offended if you take them at their word and don’t treat them as
sovereigns.
|
CAMPBELL AND ’THE METROPOLITAN’
|
73 |
‘Therefore I hope you will be able to put off Lord P.
and your party to any other day, except Monday.
‘Ever yours,
‘H. B.’
There are two examples in this autumn of the kind of service Rogers was always performing for his literary friends.
Campbell was in London in October negotiating
for a share in the magazine he was conducting—‘The Metropolitan.’ ‘I am ten inches taller
than when you saw me,’ he tells Mrs.
Arkwright. ‘Let the name of my brother poet
Rogers be ever sacred,’ he writes; ‘he has bought
me a share in the partnership, and with noble generosity has refused even the mortgage
of my Scotch property, as security for the debt.’ He offered to insure his
life, but Rogers would not hear of it. Five hundred pounds was
advanced, and a third share hi the magazine purchased. There was eventually some hitch in
the arrangements, and the partnership was given up. After weeks of agitation and many a
sleepless night, poor Campbell got back his money and restored it to
Rogers, who, however, offered to let him have it for another
purpose. He writes—
‘St. Leonards: 6th December, 1831.
‘My dear Rogers,—I beg leave to introduce to you Mr. Madden, whose travels and other writings
are most probably known to you. He is an extremely sensible and amiable man,
and constitutes, I may say, all my conversible society at this place.
74 |
ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
|
|
‘I am very happy to tell you that the five hundred
pounds which you so generously lent me is at my bankers’ in James’s
Street, and awaits your calling for it. Blessed be God that I have saved both
it and myself from being involved as partner in “The Metropolitan.” Respecting the history
of this transaction, though I have made it known to my friends confidentially,
yet I should not wish that there should be any public talk, for though I blame
the publisher Cochrane for swaggering
and putting on the airs of a wealthy capitalist all the time he was but a
needy, seedy . . . . still, poor devil, he may keep above water if his credit
does not sink; and he has a wife and several children, of whom it pains my
heart to think. I therefore abide by him and “The
Metropolitan” out of sheer compassion. But I have got out of
the scrape of being a sharer in the periodical.
‘The pain I suffered before I made this rescue was not
slight. Amidst the horror of bad news, public and private, I felt at times
misanthropic enough to pronounce my species all rascals. But still I recalled
your loan. Ah, there, I thought to myself, there is a fact to show that
benevolence has not left the earth. Aye, and days and sleepless nights went
over my head in which I knew not whether even that loan was not to be thrown
into a gulf of bankruptcy. All, however, is now safe. And my feeling of
obligation to you is as thoroughly grateful as if all my chimerical dreams had
been realised. I shall now go on with Mrs. Siddons’s life. Have you seen
Haynes Bayly’s song on the
“Italian Boy,” the music by
“Bishop”? Query, what
Bishop? There has been more than one composer of that
name.
‘Adieu, my dear friend. Believe me most affectionately
yours,
Moore, in recording this loan of Rogers’s, says Rogers does more
of such things than the world has any notion of, and Lord John
Russell adds, ‘Not only more than the world has any notion of, but
more than any one else could have done. Being himself an author, he was able to guess
the difficulties of men of letters, and to assist them not only with his ready purse,
but with his powerful influence and his judicious advice.’ There is an
example in Moore’s own case—for on the very day he records
Campbell’s loan, he says that
Rogers had undertaken to negotiate for him with Murray as to what sum to get for his name and co-operation
in the new edition of Byron. Rogers thought
Moore ought to have a thousand pounds. The negotiation failed, and
as Moore had a bill for 500l. falling due,
Rogers wrote and offered him the money; but an arrangement with
Longmans rendered the advance needless.
The accession to power of his political friends necessarily exerted
considerable influence on Rogers’s life. It
did not bring him back into politics, for he was never wholly out of them nor deeply
immersed in them. Lord Lansdowne’s surprise at
receiving through him Lord Grenville’s opinion
that he should join the Government in 1827 exactly illustrates
Rogers’s political position, when it is viewed in connection
with the fact that Lord Grenville entrusted him with the message.
Rogers was in fact one of the literary Whigs. The time was gloomy.
76 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
Perhaps there has never been a period in our history when so much
excitement and apprehension was in the air as at the beginning of 1832. ‘My sense
of the evil of the times and to what prospects I am bringing up my children,’
wrote Dr. Arnold, ‘is overwhelmingly
bitter.’ There was political unrest at home, there was the dread of the
cholera, there was negro insurrection in Jamaica, and there were complications abroad.
Rogers communicated some alarming news to Lord Grey, and received in reply the following letter, which I reproduce,
though unable to explain it, as it illustrates the terms on which he lived with the most
eminent political persons of his time.
‘East Sheen: 12th Janry., 1832.
‘My dear Rogers,—I unfortunately allowed the messenger to go back
to-day without an answer to your very kind note; but I hope you will not think
me the less obliged to you for it.
‘I have no doubt that there are plenty of people at work
to do all possible mischief; and as far as I am myself concerned, I care little
about it. But in a situation of so much embarrassment and danger, it requires a
degree of malignity, not common, to risk all the confusion which, in their
desire to overthrow the government, they are exerting themselves to produce.
You are quite right. If the question of Reform was settled, all our foreign
politics would go right; and the King of
Holland, whose obstinacy is encouraged by the belief
| EARL GREY: JOANNA BAILLIE | 77 |
that there will be a new
administration here which will be favourable to him, would not long hesitate in
acceding to an arrangement which is very much for his advantage.
‘If our house had not been full we should have asked you
to come to meet the Hollands. They leave us
on Saturday, and we go ourselves to town, for good, on Monday; when I hope we
shall frequently have the pleasure of seeing you. Holland
is suffering from a threatening of gout. Lady
Grey desires to be most kindly remembered to you.
‘Ever most sincerely yours,
Rogers lived so completely between the two worlds of
politics and literature—as he did also between two literary and political
eras—that a letter from Joanna Baillie, one of
the vast number he received from her, may properly follow one of Lord Grey’s.
‘Hampstead: Friday, 2nd Febry. [1832].
‘My dear Mr.
Rogers,—You once called me, and not very long ago, an
ungrateful hussey, and I remember it the better because I really thought I
deserved it. But whether I did or not, when I tell you now that I have read
Sir John
Herschell’s book twice, or rather three times over,
have been the better for it both in understanding and heart, and mean to read
parts of it again ere long, you will not repent having bestowed it upon me. And
78 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
now I mean to thank you for another obligation that
you are not so well aware of. Do you remember when I told you, a good while
since, of my intention of looking over all my works to correct them for an
edition to be published after my decease, should it be called for, and you
giving me a hint never to let a which stand where a that might serve the purpose, to prefer the words while to whilst, among to amongst, &c.? I
acquiesced in all this most readily, throwing as much scorn upon the rejected
expressions as anybody would do, and with all the ease of one who from natural
taste had always avoided them. If you do, you will guess what has been my
surprise and mortification to find through whole pages of even my last dramas,
“whiches,” “whilsts,” and “amongsts,”
&c., where they need not have been, in abundance. Well; I have profited by
your hint, though I was not aware that I needed it at the time when it was
given, and now I thank you for it very sincerely. I cannot imagine how I came
to make this mistake, if it has not been that, in writing songs, I have often
rejected the words in question because they do not sound well in singing. I
have very lately finished my corrections, and now all my literary tasks are
finished. It is time they should, and more serious thoughts fill up their room,
or ought to do.
‘I hear of your sister from time to time by our neighbours here, and of
yourself now and then. I hope you continue to brave this variable winter with
impunity. We hear also that your nephew continues to recover, though more
slowly than his friends could wish. Being so young a man gives one confidence
in the progress he
makes. My
sister and I are both confined to
the house, but with no very great ailments to complain of. We both unite in all
kind wishes and regards to you and Miss Rogers.
‘Very truly and gratefully yours,
Another eminent contemporary, who was not much in London, and was little
seen in society, makes his appearance in Rogers’s correspondence in the same month. The first volume of
‘The Curiosities of
Literature’ appeared just before ‘The Pleasures of Memory,’ and had a similar
success. But Isaac D’Israeli preferred
studious retirement to social pleasures, and hence his name is rarely met with in the
memoirs of the time. His letter is interesting from the reference it makes to his own
previous writings, but especially in the indication it gives of a literary purpose which
was never carried out. The ‘fugitive thing’ he sends to his ‘old
acquaintance’ was a pamphlet entitled ‘Eliot, Hampden, and Pym,’ which was published at
the beginning of 1832.
‘Athenæum: Monday [February, 1832].
‘My dear Sir,—Accept a fugitive thing on a
permanent topic in my “Reply” to Lord
Nugent. Should you have patience and forbearance, you will pick
up, I think, some amusement in the fifty pages.
‘But what you will find on the back of the last flyleaf
interests me more while I am addressing you. I
80 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
imagine
that you know how I formerly fully avenged the cause of Pope in
the “Quarterly”
against our amiable editor, Bowles.
“Modes,” that is myself, triumphed, and stroked his ears with much
self-complacency, for he did hear his own words resound in the House of Lords,
and more than one edition of Pope followed; and
Pope was righted. He has of late again been wronged in the recent
“Edinburgh
Review.”
‘I recollect that you have many of the first editions of
Pope. I have some, particularly the
“Essay on
Man,” in four parts, as they were published. I never could find,
as the anecdote runs, the false claim which Pope expressly
made to keep the world in doubt whether he were the writer.
‘Should anything occur to you on the subject of
Pope, your communication will delight
an old acquaintance of yours, who never imagined he should have written so much
poetry and such little verse. My intention is to enter at large into the
literary period of Pope, to mark out its influence on him,
and trace the consequences in his writings. His friends and his enemies are
well known to me, and it is an active era in our literature.
‘My visits to the metropolis are rare and short, and
should you have occasion to address me it must be at Bradenham House, High
Wycombe, where, should [you] ever stray, the sun will shine on us that day. It
is four miles from High Wycombe.
‘Believe me, with great regard, dear Sir,
‘Faithfully yours,
|
LITERATURE IS UPPERMOST
|
81 |
In Moore’s diary this year
he frequently speaks of talking politics with Rogers; but the political talk is not reported. On the 3rd of April,
Moore, Macaulay, Luttrell, Lord
Kerry, and Whishaw were at breakfast
at Rogers’s, and there were ‘some strong politics talked,
condemning Lord Grey’s hesitation to make
peers.’ Sydney Smith writing to Lady Grey enumerates Mackintosh, Whishaw, Robert Smith, Rogers, Luttrell,
Jeffrey, Sharp, Ord,
Macaulay, Fazakerley and
Lord Ebrington, and says there would not be a
dissentient voice among them on any point connected with the honour, character and fame of
Lord Grey. It is literature, however, and not politics that is
uppermost in Rogers’s circle even in the most exciting times.
The death of Sir James Mackintosh on the 22nd of May, and of Sir Walter Scott on the 21st of September, occupied a larger
place in their thoughts than even the passing of the Reform Bill.
Mackintosh was two years younger than Rogers,
Sir Walter Scott was eight years his junior. Meanwhile
Sydney Smith, who was of the same age as Walter
Scott, had been appointed by Lord Grey a Canon
Residentiary of St. Paul’s, and as his new duties called him frequently to London,
had thus become a permanent member instead of an occasional visitor of
Rogers’s circle of familiar friends. In September, 1832,
Rogers was at Bowood, and Moore reports a
conversation in which he enumerated a long list of distinguished men who had been poured
into England by Ireland, and expressed the opinion that Irishmen were beyond most other men
in genius, but behind them in sense. In March, 1833, Moore was at
Rogers’s house and there was again political talk.
‘Even he,’ says Moore (whose views
82 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
of politics are in general so manly and consistent), ‘has
got bitten a little with this new Whig frenzy, and tries to defend their apostasy; for
it is apostasy.’ The Bill which had excited
Moore’s wrath was what he calls ‘this new Algerine
Act of my friends, the Whigs, against Ireland, the Coercion Act.’ In the same
month Rogers was occupied with some business of
Moore’s, who describes him as ‘most hearty and
anxious on the subject, and (as he never fails to be on matters of business)
clear-sighted and judicious.’ In the summer Moore took
some friends to see Rogers’s house, and he says, ‘was
astonished myself at the variety and rarity of his treasures.’ The house was
at this period one of the sights of London. We meet Rogers now and
then in Macaulay’s letters. Writing at Christmas, 1832, he tells
of a party at which he says Rogers was to have been present,
‘but his brother chose that very day to die upon, so that poor
Sam had to absent himself.’ So heartlessly do we
sometimes speak and write of those who are not personally known to us. This brother was
Henry Rogers, the youngest brother of
‘poor Sam’; who, but for him, might perhaps have almost
deserved Macaulay’s pitying phrase. Henry
Rogers was a man of taste and culture, but he had chosen a quieter and more
domestic sphere than his older brother. The family of their nephews and nieces, as I have
said elsewhere, justly regarded him as a second father. It is sufficient here, however,
that I should reproduce what I have said of him in my Life of his nephew, Samuel
Sharpe: ‘Henry Rogers is still remembered by
friends and neighbours at Highbury as the light and charm of the circle he moved in. He was
the kind of man Emerson may have had in view when, in his essay
“On Character,” he wrote, “I revere the
man who is riches, so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or
unhappy, or a client, but as a perpetual patron, benefactor, and beatified
man.”’ Such was the brother about whom Macaulay writes
with such unfeeling levity. He writes of Rogers again some months
later to his sister Hannah—
‘I have been racketing lately [November 1833], having dined
twice with Rogers, and once with Grant. Lady Holland is
in a most extraordinary state. She came to Rogers’s, with
Allen, in so bad a humour that we were all
forced to rally, and make common cause against her. There was not a person at table to
whom she was not rude: and none of us were inclined to submit.
Rogers sneered; Sydney
made merciless sport of her; Tom Moore looked
excessively impertinent; Bobus put her down with
simple straightforward rudeness; and I treated her with what I meant to be the coldest
civility. Allen flew into a rage with us all, and especially with
Sydney, whose guffaws, as the Scotch say, were indeed
tremendous. When she and all the rest were gone, Rogers made
Tom Moore and me sit down with him for half an hour, and we
coshered over the events of the evening. Rogers said that he
thought Allen’s firing up in defence of his patroness the
best thing that he had seen in him. No sooner had Tom and I got
into the street than he broke forth: “That such an old stager as
Rogers should talk such nonsense, and give
Allen credit for attachment to anything but his dinner!
Allen
84 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
was bursting with envy to see us so free, while he was
conscious of his own slavery.”’
Moore says of a dinner at Rogers’s, in company with Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Byng, and Greville, ‘Talking of words that had become
degraded, Macaulay mentioned “elegant” as a word he
would not use in writing, and all agreed with him except Sydney
and myself. “You’ll stand by elegant, won’t you?” says he to
me, and on my answering—“Here’s
Moore,” he exclaimed, “as firm as a rock for
elegant.” All agreed that “genteel” was no longer fit for
use, though the word gentille, from which it sprang, was still
so graceful and expressive. In the course of the evening Smith
said to me, “You’ll be pleased to hear that there has been a very
respectable captain of infantry converted by your book.”’
A letter from Charles Lamb must be
reproduced here, though it has already been printed.1 It was
written in acknowledgment of an early copy of the illustrated ‘Poems,’ and Canon
Ainger dates it in December, 1833.
‘My dear Sir,—Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of
your publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will till
to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. “The Pleasures of
Memory” was the first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon, it had those nice wood-cuts; and
1 Talfourd’s Final Memorials
of Charles Lamb, vol. ii., p. 107; and Canon Ainger’s Letters of Charles Lamb, vol. ii., p. 291. |
| LAMB ON EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE | 85 |
I believe she keeps it
still. Believe me, that all the kindness you have shown to the husband of that
excellent person seems done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a sonnet in “The Times.” But the turn I gave
it, though I hoped it would not displease you, I thought might not be equally
agreeable to your artist. I met that
dear old man at poor Henry’s—with you—and again at Cary’s—and it was sublime to see
him sit deaf and enjoy all that was going on in mirth with the company. He
reposed upon the many graceful, many fantastic images he had created; with them
he dined and took wine.
‘I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses in “The Athenæum” to him, in
which he is as everything and you as nothing. He is no lawyer who cannot take
two sides. But I am jealous of the combination of the sister arts. Let them
sparkle apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did not Boydell’s
“Shakespeare Gallery” do me with Shakespeare?—to have Opie’s Shakespeare, Northcote’s Shakespeare,
light-headed
Fuseli’s Shakespeare,
heavy-headed Romney’s
Shakespeare, woodenheaded West’s Shakespeare (though he
did the best in “Lear”),
deaf-headed Reynolds’s
Shakespeare, instead of my, and everybody’s
Shakespeare. To be tied down to an authentic face of
Juliet! To have Imogen’s portrait! To confine the
illimitable! I like you and Stothard
(you best), but “out upon this half-faced fellowship.” Sir, when I
have read the book I may trouble you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not the flatteringest
compliment in a letter to an author to say you have not read his book yet. But
the devil of a reader
86 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
he must be who prances through it in
five minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel. It was a little
tantalizing to me to receive a letter from Landor, Gebir
Landor, from Florence, to say he was just sitting down to
read my “Elia,”
just received, but the letter was to go out before the reading. There are
calamities in authorship which only authors know. I am going to call on
Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages in Dover
Street on the morn of publication do not barricade me out.
‘With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to
your sister,
‘Yours,
‘Have you seen Coleridge’s happy exemplification in English of the
Ovidian elegiac metre?—
‘In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery current,
In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down.
|
‘My sister is
papering up the book—careful soul!’
Wordsworth and Macaulay write on the same topic.
‘My dear Friend,—Yesterday I received your most
valuable present of three copies of your beautiful book, which I assure you will be nowhere
more prized than in this house. My sister was affected even to the shedding of tears by this token
of your remembrance. When a person has been shut up for upwards of twelve
months
in a sick room it is a
touching thing to receive proofs from time to time of not being forgotten.
Dora is at Keswick to attend as
bridesmaid upon Miss Southey, who loses
her family name to-morrow. Your book has been forwarded, and we hope it will be
received at Greta Hall to-day.
‘Of the execution of the plates, as compared with the
former vol., and the merit of the designs, we have not yet had time to judge.
But I cannot forbear adding that, as several of the poems are among my oldest
and dearest acquaintance in the literature of our day, such an elegant edition
of them, with their illustrations, must to me be peculiarly acceptable. As
Mr. Moxon does not mention your
health, I hope it is good, and your sister’s also, who, we are happy to
hear, has drawn nearer to you. Pray remember us all most kindly to her, and
accept yourself our united thanks and best wishes.
‘I remain, my dear R., faithfully yours,
‘We were grieved to notice the death of the veteran
Sotheby.1 Not less than fourteen of our relatives, friends, or valued
acquaintance, have been removed by death within the last three or four
months.’
‘Gray’s Inn: 14th Jany., 1834.
‘My dear Sir,—Many thanks for your beautiful
present. Beautiful as
it is, the scrap of your writing in
1 William
Sotheby—translator of Wieland’s Oberon, of the Georgics,
the Iliad, and the Odyssey, dramatist and poet, of whom Byron said that he imitated everybody and occasionally
surpassed his models—had died on the 30th December, 1833, aged
76. |
88 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
the first page is more valuable to me than the finest
engraving in the volume.
‘The poems, as far as I have yet examined them, are all
such as I have long known and admired. I do not perceive anything new. But such
a series of illustrations I never saw or expected to see. I used to say that if
your “Italy” were
dug up in some Pompeii or Herculaneum two thousand years hence, it would give
to posterity a higher idea of the state of the arts amongst us than anything
else which lay in an equally small compass. But Italy
is nothing to the new volume. Everybody says the same. I am charged with
several copies for ladies in India. How the publishers of the annuals must hate
you. You have certainly spoiled their market for one year at least.
‘Ever, my dear Sir, yours most truly,
Moore writes on the 3rd of February—
‘Dined early with Rogers.
Nobody but himself, his sister, and young
Mason, for whom he had got a situation (a writership, I
believe) in India, and who is to sail in the same ship as Macaulay. . . . Rogers to-day quoted as a fine
specimen of Addison’s humour, the parson
threatening the squire that if he did not reform his ways, he should be obliged
“to pray for him the following Sunday, in the face of the
congregation.”’
Mr. C. Grey writes from Downing Street on the 25th of
April that his father, being very busy, desires him to say that he has spoken to the
King about Mr.
Millingen,
| MOORE’S BREAKFASTS AT ROGERS’S | 89 |
‘and that he has great pleasure in announcing His Majesty’s consent to give
him a pension of 100l. a year.’
On the 20th of July Moore
writes—
‘To breakfast at Rogers’s, where we had Lord
Lansdowne, Whishaw, and
afterwards the Duke of Sutherland, whom
Rogers had asked and forgot, till Lord
Lansdowne informed him that he was coming. “Asking Dukes and
forgetting them,” as I told Rogers, “is now-a-days the
poet’s privilege.” Conversation agreeable. The great Correggio just purchased by the Government is
pronounced, it seems, by some critics not to be a
Correggio; such is the uncertainty of all picture knowledge. Rogers, too, showed me after
breakfast a small picture of Ludovico
Caracci’s, for which he himself gave twenty-five louis at Milan;
while Lord Lansdowne, for apparently the same picture, gave, some
years since, more than 500l. in London. Wishing to compare the
two, Rogers one morning, having some artists with him to
breakfast, wrapped up his Caracci in a napkin, and all went off
together to Lansdowne House (the Lansdownes being out of town) for the purpose of
comparing the two pictures, when, as he told me, the only difference the artists could
see between them was a somewhat greater degree of finish in some parts of his.
‘August 3rd.—Took the boys to breakfast at Rogers’s, where he had Hughes the American. Some discussion about the existence of slavery in
America, and the sort of incubus it is on the breast of that country. Difficulty of
shaking it off; “the highest gentlemen,”
Hughes said,
90 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
are to be found in the Slave
States, and seemed to argue as if they were the more high and free-minded from having
slaves to trample upon. Rogers opposed to this the instance of
England; but certainly almost all free nations have had some such victims to whet their
noble spirits upon, and keep them in good humour with themselves. The Athenians had
their οίκέται, the Spartans
their Helots, the Romans their Servi, and the English, till of
late, their Catholic Irish.
‘August 6th.—Out early for the purpose of seeing Rogers off on his tour. Met him in his carriage in St. James’s
Place, quarter-past nine, and got in with him. Had wished me to go as far as the lakes
with him, and I should have liked it much could I have spared the time. Left him in the
New Road, and went to Moore’s (the
sculptor) to breakfast.’
The story of this autumn is told in a series of letters.
‘St. James’s Place: 5th August, 1834.
‘My dear Wordsworth,—I
intend to set out for the North to-morrow, and if my course is prosperous, to
be at your door on Monday or Tuesday evening, and if you are at home and
disengaged, to drink tea with you. Perhaps, too, if you are inclined, you will
accompany me onward to Lowther, where I have led Lady Frederick to expect us.
‘But all this will depend upon circumstances beyond my control. Let me,
however, hope for the best, and perhaps you will send me a line to the Post
Office at Kendal. Pray, pray say “yes.”
‘Remember me very kindly to one and all, and believe me to be
‘Yours ever,
‘Bolton Abbey: Friday morning [8th August, 1834].
‘My dear Sarah,—You see I begin at the top of the page like a
traveller who has much to tell. I set out at a quarter-past nine, and had just
driven from the door when I met Anacreon. Him I conveyed to Portland Place, and set him so far on
his way to breakfast with the celebrated H. B., who lives in the region of
Fitzroy Square. Leaving Barnet, I met, of course, the Hadley chaise. The
Colonel and Isabella were in it, but as they did not
observe me, we passed without a parley. The flies soon began to sting, and gave
me no quiet for the rest of the day; the sensation was new to me, but I bore it
pretty well. The North Road, as it calls itself everywhere in the notices, is a
noble road, running with a breadth and a directness such as I was not prepared
for, and I was carried along with such a rapidity that before nightfall I had
left a hundred miles behind me. At every stage I walked on till I was
overtaken, though I seldom was allowed above fifty yards. Still, it was a great
refreshment to me, and I arrived in good spirits and with no fatigue at Witham
Common, where I slept in a very nice lone house, after a dish of tea. So far
well—but I waked many times in the night, though I thought nothing of it,
and was in the carriage again before six o’clock.
92 |
ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
|
|
‘I shall now take a new paragraph, as I must in more
senses than one turn over a new leaf; for when I tried to walk at the next
change, I could not stir a foot. At first I thought nothing of it, and
endeavoured to walk it off. But alas, to no purpose. All would not do, so I
gave up the point. The evil, when I examined further, was in what Lady Cork would call the third finger of the right
foot. I pronounced it to be a corn, and procured some corn plaster. Then a
sore, and bought some lint—in the carriage it gave me no pain, only when
I walked—but now it burns a little. So I shall treat it as the gout, and
have just taken some physic.
‘I am here, alas, at the gates of Paradise and a
cripple. What to do I am utterly at a loss, but I have this great consolation
that I am no incumbrance to others; the inconvenience is all my own. I shall
write to the Dunmores to prepare them for a
change of measures in case I cannot surmount the obstacle. Small, indeed, it is
in appearance, but, as the Italians say, there is no little enemy.
‘Yours ever,
‘The Hollyhocks are splendid everywhere in the
cottage gardens. On the first day the showers were very frequent and heavy,
but it was pleasant in the intervals. Yesterday no rain; this morning rain,
but clearing off a little. Pray give my love to Patty.
I shall write again soon, but take it for granted that no news is good
news. I arrived here last night at dusk, and as I am comfortably lodged
shall stay till to-morrow at all events. Of the
future I can say nothing. I have just taken a
drive in an open carriage through the woods, and have seen the Strid and
had delicious glimpses of the abbey, the river, and Barden tower, which
were enough to repay me if I returned to-morrow. Barden tower, if Turner meant it at all in the first view, he must have drawn, as well as most
others, from his imagination, not his memory. The whole is a glen, but
infinitely on a greater scale, like Roslin, with a religious house at one
end and an old mansion at the other. I am now reading the “White Doe,” which,
strange to say, is not forthcoming here, but which I brought among other
things.’
A letter from Campbell received
during this journey is so characteristic that a portion of it is worth giving. I have
omitted a long paragraph which explains and supports a request for a loan, which he
afterwards found he did not want.
‘Paris: 15th August, 1834.
‘My dear Friend,—This is the anniversary of the
Ascension, and all the church bells in Paris (God damn them!) are pealing away
as if it were for a wager—at the expense of my heretical ears. In the
midst of all the confusion of ideas which this jangling has produced, I have
recollection enough left me to consider that, as my letter is to contain a
request, I had better get over that disagreeable part of it first in order to
have more pleasure in writing the rest. [Having explained about the loan, and
said that he was going to Algiers, and
94 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
meant to write a
book about the colony, he proceeds.] When I explain my sole reason for wishing
to visit Algiers, provided the means reach me, not to be known yet for a little
time, I am sure your kind heart will enter into my feelings, though I have not
had the means of joining my fate with a certain inestimable person whom you
have seen, and whom I perhaps need not name, yet our friendship is unabated,
and her anxiety about my health and welfare is as watchful as ever. In good
time I shall communicate to her my intention, but if I did so suddenly and at
present her imagination would conjure up all manner of deaths and dangers as
awaiting me—fevers, Arabs of the desert, &c. Now though I know there
is a sort of fever at present in the colony, yet I have not the least
apprehension of the climate in November, and I am one of the fearless creatures
who never catch contagion. Altogether I would rather wish that my African
scheme were not mentioned at present. I am sorry to find that neither you nor I
are half so popular in Paris as either Galt or Bulwer. They call
us the two Purists—“sed mallem mehercule cum Platone errare quam cum aliis recte
sentire.” We have both, however, gone through more than one
edition. I have said Galt. No, I am wrong. It is Allan Cunningham who is the fashion at
present, and the arrivals that have been most frequently announced are those of
the celebrated Dr. Bowring and Dr. Lardner!!!. . . . At the distribution of
prizes, however, among the élèves of the Institution for the Sourds-Muets, a
French lady sent in my name to the President, and we were transferred from a
bad station near the door to the dais, and were seated fast by the President’s chair. One of the
ex-élèves, a remarkably sprightly young
man, came up to me making signs of great cordiality, and wrote a very
complimentary note on the crown of his hat, saying that he knew English well,
and proved to me that he had read my poems, by a quotation. He sat near me and
we conversed on paper. He mentioned also your works with evident acquaintance
and admiration. I was going to say he spoke, for there was almost speech in his
gesticulations. The exhibition of the poor young creatures was touchingly
interesting—but the effect was a little spoilt by a pedantic
schoolmaster, who was their showman. I saw at one exchange of looks that my
friend, the ex-élève, had the same opinion of
him with myself, and I wrote to him, “My faith, your orator makes me
begin to doubt if speech be such a blessing, for I have been this half-hour
wishing myself deaf and him dumb.” My dumb friend rubbed his hands with a
look of delight, and immediately turned round to another ex-élève, telling him my joke on his fingers. He again told it
to his neighbour, and in a few minutes it was telegraphed through the whole
benches of the ex-élèves, and was everywhere
received with nods and smiles.
‘The heat has been intolerable here; I hope your
weather is behaving better. Somehow or other I have not seen so much of Paris
as I ought, though I have been at the opening of the Chambers, and was hugely
delighted. But I am sanguine in the hope that I shall glean a good deal of
instruction in my tour to come, and be able to send you some more interesting
accounts of it. Have the kindness to address to me: Chez
96 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
Madame Fleury, No. 43 Rue Neuve St. Augustin, Paris.
‘I beg to be kindly remembered to Miss Rogers.
Rogers meanwhile had been continuing his northern
tour, meeting with some of the most interesting people of his time.
‘Dunmore Park: Tuesday [9th September, 1834].
‘My dear Sarah,—Your kind letter I found on Saturday last on my way
from the Marshalls at Ulleswater. I
slept there two nights, coming back so far with Wordsworth from Lowther. At Carlisle Jno. W., who stamps there for his father, sat
with me while I breakfasted, and a very amiable and pleasing young man he is. I
came on to Selkirk, having travelled only eighty miles that day—a short
journey for me, and next Sunday saw Abbotsford, Melrose, and Roslin, and slept
at Edinburgh, where I stopt till noon on Monday to get my bandage re-adjusted,
and then came on to Dunmore, where I need not say how I was received. They are
all alone, and I must stay here at least a fortnight. Indeed, they will not
hear of my going then—but I hope by that time I may be off, for, as the
Greys are now at Howick, I must look in
upon them as I go by, if they are then there. But my malady, my dear
Sarah, has so damped all the little pleasure I looked
for, that sometimes I think I had better give all up at once and come back to
my own home directly. My foot is no better, and at every step
| ABBOTSFORD AS SCOTT LEFT IT | 97 |
I have to drag it after
me, but when I sit I forget it. However, when I leave this door, I have done
all I came out for, and may come back as fast as I like. At Abbotsford all is
as he left it, a small closet excepted, which is hung with his hat, his boots,
his gaiters, his pruning-knife and gardening, or rather farming, coat—a
melancholy sight, but which will become every year more and more sacred in the
eyes of his countrymen. He died in the drawing-room, in a bed fitted up for him
there. The house is really very prettily furnished in the old style; the walls
wainscot and the rooms larger than I expected to find them. Over the chimney in
his study are Stothard’s
“Canterbury Pilgrims.” I made that
roundabout, as I was afraid of arriving before my letter at Dunmore. Pray
write, and let me know your plans, and how you are. I wrote to you from
Lowther, and write to-day to Patty.
‘Ever yours,
‘S. R.
‘P.S. I have said nothing of Dunmore. It is a very
nice house in the Gothic style, and the views across the Forth are very
pleasing. Sails and steamers are passing continually at a quarter of a
mile’s distance, intercepted here and there by the trees in the Park.
‘As for him, he
struck me at first as much altered, and his first question was whether I
thought so. To-day he looks as he used to do, and I forget that so many
years have gone by since last I was here—twenty-two years, as the old
gardener tells me. The inns in Scotland have changed greatly for the
better. The hotels in Edinburgh
98 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
are palaces, and
affect a refinement and luxury that must alarm many a poor traveller. Have
you heard from Mary yet? I am glad you went to
Cashiobury on every account. As for the Wordsworths,
they have an affliction I was not aware of at first. Their daughter
Dora looks cheerful before other
people, but is in a sad melancholy way, and eats nothing, says nothing, and
goes nowhere. They are very wretched about her. The elder Dora delights, as I told you, in adorning
a little rock, four or five yards in circumference, with rock flowers. It
is as rich as a little bit of enchantment, and when she goes, as her nephew
John said very prettily, will be
her monument as long as it lasts.’
‘Howick House, Alnwick: 7th Oct. [1834].
‘My dear Sarah,—I am delighted to think you all liked Beaumaris so
much. As far as I remember it, it is beautiful, and you cannot be sorry that
you had not to see what R. Sharp
saw—the hats upon the water. He has published a third edition with many additions, and
after a short tour has set down at Torquay for the winter, but this you know
already. I left Dunmore on the 27th, spent two days with the Jeffreys at their house two miles from
Edinburgh, spent a night with the Lord
Advocate in Edinburgh, and on Wednesday came on to
Chillingham—Lord
Tankerville’s—which I left for Howick on Saturday
the 5th. The weather has been very pleasant, everybody but myself complaining
of the heat. Here
I think of
staying a fortnight, and shall then proceed southward, probably by Castle
Howard and Bishopthorpe and Sandon and Trentham. (I fear I shall be too late
for Liverpool.) But I have settled nothing. A letter to Howick will, however,
always find me, as before, a letter to Dunmore. I am sorry you think me
negligent, but perhaps I am not so much to blame, for how could I tell where
you were? When I was told to direct to Malvern you were within a day of leaving
it. So I sent my frank to Hanover Terrace, from which it might have been
forwarded to you wherever you were, the frank not losing its virtue. It must be
lying there now, as you don’t seem to know its contents. So, also, if I
had written to Beaumaris, you would have gone before it came, staying only so
long as you first intended. Perhaps you are not aware how cross the cross-posts
are. I was at Dalmeny when your last came to Dunmore. I am sorry to hear your
account of Patty. As for my foot, it is certainly better,
and Rees and I can bind it pretty well
ourselves; but I never expect it to be quite sound again. However, I have no
great right to complain—others are worse off, and as everybody here is
kind to me I am on tolerably good terms with myself. I jog on at my age as well
as most. Poor Pringle sets off for the
Cape in ten days (being ordered to a milder climate) without money, or plan, or
the prospect of any. I have just sent him 200l. at his
request, and think my money well spent if I never see it again. Poor
Miss Leach, when her uncle died, did not know a soul in Edinburgh. He caught cold at
Staffa, when he would leave the steamboat in a pouring
rain when nobody else did. It 100 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
brought on an erysipelas.
Pray give my kind love to all, not forgetting my aunt, and believe me to be,
‘Yours ever,
‘S. R.’
‘Howick House: Tuesday [21st Oct. 1834],
‘My dear Sarah,—Your kind letter came just after
Patty had sent me her namesake’s. I write to
thank you, but I have nothing to say—for we go on in one monotonous way
here. Before breakfast I lounge a little, all alone, in a very pretty flower
garden; then come many newspapers, but not much talk, as the family is rather
silent, and there are no visitors but Lord John
Russell and Lady
Russell, who came here on Thursday last for a fortnight. On Saturday
next I think of going for two nights to Lady Mary
Monck; on Monday and on Thursday to the Archbishop of York; and on the Saturday
afterwards to Castle Howard. I have not yet proposed myself to them, but I
must, having left them so abruptly before, when, in the North with Sir George Beaumont, I broke a tooth and
hurried to town, as Patty has done, for repair. Here I am
left much to myself—my foot is certainly much better, though I cannot
stir without binding, which Reece and I
manage together pretty well. For the last three or four days I have had a sore
throat and a little bile, but am getting better with abstinence. There is a
very pretty walk from the house through a deep, woody glen by a brook-side,
that brings you out on the sea beach, and the garden and the shrubberies are
most luxuriant. It is an inland place by the seaside.
At Chillingham it is wilder and more
mountainous, and the wild cattle, as white as snow, in herds at a distance, add
to the wildness. I paid them a visit on a pony, but they would not let us
approach them. What will become of me, when I leave York, I cannot say. I have
certainly a great desire to see Liverpool and the railroad, as you have done,
and I have little chance of coming this way again, but I am very anxious to get
homeward, as I feel queerish, and should not like to be ill from home. Nothing
would delight me more than to join you at Stourbridge, if you remained there,
but I fear, indeed I know, I cannot well contrive it. Farewell, my dear
Sarah—I have talked too much about myself, and
you must be well tired of me. My love to all. I have never thanked young
Tom for his landscape, or, rather, his seascape. Pray
thank him for me, I think it wonderful, and if I had done it I should have been
as vain as possible.
‘Ever yours,
‘S. R.
‘Pray direct to me under cover to the Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, York.’
The tour lasted another month, and it was the twentieth of November when
Rogers got back. He had meanwhile sent to
Lord Grey the lines beginning—
Grey, thou hast served, and well, the sacred
cause Scorning all thought of Self, from first to last Among the foremost in that glorious field. |
102 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
They are headed, ‘Written in July, 1834.’ Their significance
is in the date. Lord Grey had believed it to be his duty to propose a
Coercion Bill for Ireland, which Mr. Littleton, the
Irish Secretary, regarded as inexpedient and needless. Lord
Althorp resigned, and the Whig Government fell to pieces. On the eighth of
July Lord Grey resigned, on the ninth he communicated his resignation
to the House of Lords. It was a scene almost without its parallel. The old Minister, then
in his seventy-first year, full of the conviction that his great political career was
closing, was overpowered by his feelings. He rose, began a few words, and sat down. He rose
again and sank back. The House cheered, the Duke of
Wellington presented some petitions, which gave him a few moments to recover
himself, and then he rose a third time, and made a speech which everybody felt to be worthy
of his great and honourable career. It was not till October that
Rogers sent his lines to Howick, whither he soon followed them,
and spent a fortnight in the delightful retirement in which the great Reform Minister was
enjoying his well-earned repose. He got back to London during the curious interval which
preceded the formation of Sir Robert Peel’s
Ministry, and his letters give us important glimpses of the political talk in the Whig
circles of the time.
‘My dear Friend,—I returned last night and felt a
pain and a pleasure, for I discovered two letters, which had never been sent
me, and would have been the most
welcome of them all. I rejoice to think that your anxieties are over for the
young lady. Give my love to her, and tell her she must not do so again. As for
you, I hope you mean to have no return of your complaint. Last week the frost
came and now it is gone again.
‘I sent my election-paper to Mrs.
Philips, and it will command as many votes as there are
vacancies—ten or twelve, I believe. Your criticisms are all right, I
should say so, for I had done in every respect as you suggest, in the copy I
sent to Howick. The last line but one I felt to be weak, and tried to lift it a
little. I sent the lines in October, and it stood thus—
‘That generous fervour and pure eloquence, Thine from thy birth and Nature’s noblest gifts, To guard what they have gained. |
Good or bad, they were taken in good part; indeed, far beyond my
expectations.
‘I spent a month at Dunmore, three days at Jeffrey’s, slept one night in Edinburgh
at John Murray’s, three days at
Dalmeny, Lord Rosebery’s, three at
Lord Tankerville’s, fourteen at
Howick, ten at Castle Howard, one at Galley
Knight’s, three at the Archbishop of York’s, one at Sir C. Monck’s, three at Lord
Durham’s, three at Trentham, five at Lord Harrowby’s, and here I am. I made a
day’s excursion from Castle Howard to see Duncombe Park, or, rather, the
Riveaux Abbey there, and was richly rewarded. When at G.
Knight’s I renewed my acquaintance with Roche Abbey; but
altogether Bolton Abbey and its surroundings are worth them all.
104 |
ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
|
|
‘What a strange hubbub there is just now! The
ex-Ministers come in shoals to Brooke’s, and are hand and glove with
everybody, all but Brougham, who has gone
nowhere, not even to Holland House. “The Times” and “Courier” have run into him cruelly, as you must have seen,
and, by dwelling on the sore places, have damaged him sadly. It seems the
general opinion that his antics offended the K. highly, and among other things, his taking the seals into
Scotland without asking leave. To the dinner and the savans at Edinburgh I did
not go. The Hollands learnt first of the
change from that article in “The Times,”
and thought it a quiz. Spring Rice was told
he was out by somebody in the street. Brougham, I hear,
goes to Paris on Monday. His last gift was of a Canonry at Norwich to Sedgwick. He filled up twelve livings the last
day. Nothing to Malthus. A very pretty
living near Hertford fell to Lord Holland in October, and
he offered it to M., but he must have given up the college and he declined it.
‘The British Museum have declined to buy Mackintosh’s papers. M., junr., was with me yesterday, and talks of
publishing in the spring. He wants Lawrence’s portrait engraved, but I think I like yours by
Opie better. A patent place of 600l. per annum fell to Spring
Rice in October, and he wished to give it to him, but nobody
knew where he was, so it was given to somebody else.
‘Farewell, my dear friend. I fear I am writing
illegibly, but I write against time. Le
Marchant is going to marry Miss
Smith, a grand-daughter of Drummond
Smith, of Tring Park, with 18,000l.
|
A BUDGET OF POLITICAL NEWS
|
105 |
‘The household have behaved nobly—Lord Errol, Lord
Falkland, Lord Elphinstone,
Lord Torrington, &c.
‘Ever yours,
‘St. James’s Place: 21st Nov., 1834.’
‘Torquay: 26th Nov., 1834.
‘My dear Friend,—Not hearing from you I began to
be afraid that you had been detained at some friend’s house in the North
by indisposition. Your letter, therefore, was particularly welcome to me on
many accounts. What a remarkable tour you have had! At all times it must be
very delightful to spend some time with such excellent and distinguished
persons, but just now it must be exciting in the highest degree, and your
Conservative visits must have varied your course of conversation instructively.
‘I thank you for your unexpected aid to Mrs.
Philips, whom I had prepared to expect that you would be
engaged.1
‘Only one word more as to the verses. Pure
eloquence will always be somewhat weak. His was rather lofty and noble both in
thought and manner.
‘Your last pages were a budget of news indeed, from
town, and contained several striking facts, which I had not learnt from
Lord Denman, Gurney, or LdAbing1. From the latter I have three long confidential
letters,
1 Sharp had written to ask for his votes for a child at
the election for the Orphan Working School. |
106 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
which, of course, I cannot quote, but I shall be glad if,
in the struggle, he obtains what at his age is very important—security
and station for the latter end of life.
‘I suppose it never happened before that one Cabinet
Minister first hears of his dismissal from a newspaper and another from a man
in the street. To me it seems to be quite clear that it has long been settled
at Court to get rid of our friends as soon as Lord
Spencer died. What a treacherous fellow he must be if this be true!
‘The Tories have the King, the House of Lords, the
Clergy, nearly all the officers of Navy and Army, the majority of the
landowners, and of the opulent commercial classes. This I firmly believe, but I
believe also that these will be far from enough to support them in their
struggle against the middle ranks and the Dissenters demanding reform in Church
and State. Only think of Ireland too, which will send nearly a hundred Radicals
or exasperated Whigs. That shameful Church must go.
‘How lucky our friend Macaulay has been! I am vexed that Robert Mackintosh had not prudence enough to leave his address
in town. He lost a commission last year in the same way.
‘I could not help smiling at your account of the
reappearances at Brooks’s, where, to say the truth, Ministers could not
come without being exposed to indiscretion and some impertinence, but then they
had other means of showing that they did not forget their old friends.
‘Next to being purse-proud is being office-proud. The
Comet Brougham is gone to Paris. Why? But
| THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS IN 1834 | 107 |
how can the orbit
of such an eccentric planet be calculated? I hope the moon has had nothing to
do with it. ‘My sister and Maria
insist upon being mentioned as wishing you all good things, as does
‘Yours ever truly,
‘Holland House: 4th Dec., 1834.
‘My dear Friend,—The long and the short I believe
to be this: The K. is by all parties
thought to be very honest but very nervous. Now, there are only two men in whom
he has much confidence. To them he looks up—in them only does he think
there is safety; and having lost one, he resolved on the first occasion to call
in the other, though well satisfied with Melbourne. If Lord G[rey]
had remained in office, he would never, they say, have had recourse to the
Duke.
‘So the Whig ministers may thank themselves for having
taken Lord G. too readily at his word. The
wish of his heart was to continue another year and to carry the two Church
reforms, which he was confident he could have done.
‘The first half of my story I believe, the last half I
know to be true.
‘If our friends Lord
H[olland] and Lord
L[ansdowne] had gone out with Lord
G., which they ought to have done, H. would have brought
Lord G. back, and we should now have been in office,
or it would have brought in the Tories at once—a sad event, for they
would then
108 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
have had more time for entrenching themselves
before another session, and for working mischief abroad.
‘“Would you like a little more of the graphic?
Six Ministers were assembled at dinner at H[olland] H[ouse], on the Friday
night (the night of Lord M.’s return
from Brighton), and dispersed, thinking themselves still in office. On that
night, at half-past seven o’clock, Lord
Palmerston called at the Treasury, and was shown in to
Lord M., who had just alighted, and was sitting in his
travelling cap, by two candles, in a large room, his room of business.
“What news?” said P. “What will surprise you,” said M.,
and, saying no more, he put into his hand a paper, containing the result of
what had passed.
‘What had passed was nothing like what it is said to
be. It was very simple. The K. did not tell
the Q. till the next day, when she said,
“Ah! England will rejoice in it;” to which he answered, “That
is as it may be, Madam.” (A favourite phrase with him.) Lord G. at Howick is astounded—he thinks the
measure not only unconstitutional, but illegal—for the D., being dictator, might run away with all the
money. Lord M. writes from Melbourne very
naturally. “I was never so happy, but I suppose I shall soon be d—d
tired for want of something to do, as all are who leave office.”
‘And now a word or two about Brougham. His vagaries in Scotland, for I followed in his wake,
would fill a volume. His letter to Lord
Lyndhurst and the answer I have seen. If you had any suspicions
with regard to the moon before, what do you think now? Scarlett has also another competitor in Wetherall, for W. could not be Irish
Chancellor and Scarlett could. I
| LORD BROUGHAM AND THE KING | 109 |
earnestly wish that S. may have what he
wants, and I am told he is sure of it—Denman tells me so. In that case Wll. must have the Duchy of
L[ancaster], for he neither could nor would go to Ireland.
‘To return to the K. He has long taken a great dislike to B., and his conduct lately has settled it. His
antics and his taking the great seal across the Border without leave, brought
on the crisis. He has worn him out, too, with correspondence, having assailed
him with reams of paper, writing through Sir H.
Taylor. He thinks he has great admissions in the K.’s
answers through the same channel, but forgets that the K., also, has his. His,
I am told by those who have seen them, are beyond anything. But why, you will
say, did the K. write (or rather dictate)? He thought he must answer his
Chancellor. All now is over, however, and I believe all are heartily sick of
him. He wrote a second letter to Lord L. from Calais, still more urgent, and he
has written a third retracting all. He has taken, I hear, his seat in the
Institute.
‘I am delighted to think that you are so well off as to
society. The weather here is delightful. What then must it be with you!
Remember me most kindly to the ladies.
‘Ever yours,
‘S. R.
‘B. has taken
his new secretary with him to Paris—a dull young man, able only to
transcribe; his fellow-traveller in Scotland, Edmonds.
‘Pray write to me, without any thought or scruple
110 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
as to postage. The utmost cannot amount to the
price of one opera. But having bored you with this long epistle, I shall
spare you in future. My lady removes to Burlington Street to-morrow.
‘And now to conclude with what I ought to have
begun with—your new
volume—which I first saw in Jeffrey’s hand—notice-copy. I cannot say how
much I like the nine new articles, though I wish you had given a little
more of a Continental tour, particularly in Switzerland; but your additions
are invaluable.
‘Hallam is
in town, and Sydney [Smith], and
Whishaw. When you like you shall
meet them at breakfast. H. is but a step, you know.
‘Lord M.
communicated the news only to three persons over night—the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Chancellor. Next morning it was in the
“Times,” and
“Chronicle.”
Who sent it? The two first say, we did not. The mischievous article was
sent by him, I suppose, as a poisonous present to “The Times,” “the Queen has done it all.” These things must destroy all
confidence. Allen fights for him
against all the world.’
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English politician and man of letters, with his friend Richard Steele he edited
The Spectator (1711-12). He was the author of the tragedy
Cato (1713).
Queen Adelaide (1792-1849)
The daughter of George Frederick Charles, duke of Saxe-Meiningen and consort of William
IV, whom she married in 1818.
Alfred Ainger (1837-1904)
Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was reader at the Temple (1865-93) and a
contributor to
Macmillan's Magazine; he wrote a biography of Charles
Lamb and edited his essays (1883) poems (1884) and letters (1888).
John Allen (1771-1843)
Scottish physician and intimate of Lord Holland; he contributed to the
Edinburgh Review and
Encyclopedia Britannica and published
Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in
England (1830). He was the avowed atheist of the Holland House set.
Thomas Arnold (1795-1842)
Of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; he was headmaster of Rugby School (1827-42) and father
of the poet Matthew Arnold.
Agnes Baillie (1760-1861)
The daughter of the Scottish cleric James Baillie and elder sister of the poet Joanna
Baillie with whom she lived in Hampstead for many decades.
Joanna Baillie (1762-1851)
Scottish poet and dramatist whose
Plays on the Passions
(1798-1812) were much admired, especially the gothic
De Montfort,
produced at Drury Lane in 1800.
Thomas Barnes [Strada] (1785-1841)
The contemporary of Leigh Hunt at Christ's Hospital; he was editor of
The Times from 1817.
Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839)
English poet, playwright, and novelist; several of his songs were frequently reprinted;
he published
Weeds of Witchery (1835).
Andrew Bell (1753-1832)
Scottish Episcopalian educated at St. Andrews University; he was the founder of the
“Madras” system of education by mutual instruction; Robert Southey was his
biographer.
Charles Augustus Bennet, fifth earl of Tankerville (1776-1859)
Son of Charles Bennet, the fourth earl (d. 1822); educated at Eton, he was Whig MP for
Steyning (1803-06), Knaresborough (1806-18), and Berwick-on-Tweed) (1820-22); in 1806 he
married Armandine Sophie Leonie Corisande de Gramont.
Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1786-1855)
Musical director at Vauxhall Gardens (1830-33) and professor at the Royal Academy of
Music; he produced operatic settings of texts by Shakespeare and Walter Scott.
William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)
English poet and critic; author of
Fourteen Sonnets, elegiac and
descriptive, written during a Tour (1789), editor of the
Works
of Alexander Pope, 10 vols (1806), and writer of pamphlets contributing to the
subsequent Pope controversy.
Sir John Bowring (1792-1872)
Poet, linguist, MP, and editor of the
Westminster Review. He was
the secretary of the London Greek Committee (1823) through which he was wrongly accused of
having enriched himself.
John Boydell (1720-1804)
Engraver, print-seller, and lord mayor of London (1790); in 1786 he commissioned his
famous series of Shakespeare illustrations which he exhibited in a gallery in Pall
Mall.
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Frederick Gerald Byng [Poodle] (1784-1871)
Son of John Byng, fifth viscount Torrington; he was a dandy acquaintance of the Prince
Regent and a clerk at the Foreign Office.
George Byng, seventh viscount Torrington (1812-1884)
Son of Vice-Admiral George Byng, sixth Viscount Torrington whom he succeeded in 1831; he
was Governor of Ceylon (1847-50) and held positions at court.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Ludvico Carracci (1555-1619)
Italian baroque painter, the cousin of Annibale Carracci.
Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844)
English poet; he was assistant-keeper of printed books at the British Museum (1826) and
translator of Dante (1805-19).
Lucius Bentinck Cary, tenth viscount Falkland (1803-1884)
Son of the ninth viscount, Byron's friend; he was lord of the bedchamber to William IV,
who created him Baron Hunsdon; he was lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia (1840) and
governor of Bombay (1848-53).
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 c.-1400)
English Poet, the author of
The Canterbury Tales (1390 c.).
James Cochrane (1848 fl.)
London bookseller who published the
Metropolitan Magazine and
works by James Hogg.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
John Singleton Copley, baron Lyndhurst (1772-1863)
The son of the American painter; he did legal work for John Murray before succeeding Lord
Eldon as lord chancellor (1827-30, 1834-35, 1841-46); a skilled lawyer, he was also a
political chameleon.
George Crabbe (1754-1832)
English poet renowned for his couplet verse and gloomy depictions of country persons and
places; author of the
The Village (1783),
The
Parish Register (1807),
The Borough (1810), and
Tales of the Hall (1819).
Allan Cunningham [Hidallan] (1784-1842)
Scottish poet and man of letters who contributed to both
Blackwood's and the
London Magazine; he was author of
Lives of the most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects (1829-33).
Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848)
English essayist and literary biographer; author of
Curiosities of
Literature (1791). Father of the prime minister.
Thomas Denman, first baron Denman (1779-1854)
English barrister and writer for the
Monthly Review; he was MP,
solicitor-general to Queen Caroline (1820), attorney-general (1820), lord chief justice
(1832-1850). Sydney Smith commented, “Denman everybody likes.”
Maria Drummond [née Kinnaird] (1807 c.-1891)
The adopted daughter and heir of Richard Sharp; she corresponded with Dora Wordsworth and
Mathew Arnold.
John Nicholas Fazakerly (1787-1852)
Educated at Eton, Christ Church, Oxford, and Edinburgh, he was a member of the
Speculative Society, Edinburgh (1807) and a Whig MP for Lincoln (1812-18, 1820-26), Great
Grimsby (1818-20), Tavistock (1820), and Peterborough (1830-41).
John Flaxman (1755-1826)
English sculptor and draftsman who studied at the Royal Academy and was patronized by
William Hayley.
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Anglo-Swiss painter who settled in England in 1764 and became the friend of William
Blake.
John Galt (1779-1839)
Scottish novelist who met Byron during the first journey to Greece and was afterwards his
biographer; author of
Annals of the Parish (1821).
Charles Grant, baron Glenelg (1778-1866)
Educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a member of the
Speculative Society, MP, Irish chief secretary (1818), and colonial secretary (1835),
created Baron Glenelg in 1835.
George Nugent Grenville, second baron Nugent (1788-1850)
Son of George Nugent Grenville, first marquess of Buckingham; he was MP, lord of the
Treasury, and author of
Portugal, a Poem, in Two Parts (1812) and
Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party and his Times (1831).
He was remarkable for his corpulence.
William Wyndham Grenville, baron Grenville (1759-1834)
Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was a moderate Whig MP, foreign secretary
(1791-1801), and leader and first lord of the treasury in the “All the Talents” ministry
(1806-1807). He was chancellor of Oxford University (1810).
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865)
The son of Captain Charles Greville (1762-1832); he was educated at Eton College and at
Christ Church, Oxford, and was clerk-in-ordinary to the privy council. His famous
Diary began appearing in 1874.
Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845)
Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl
(d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).
Charles Grey (1804-1870)
The second son of Earl Grey; he was MP for High Wycombe (1831-37) and private secretary
to his father (1830-34), Prince Albert (1849-61) and Queen Victoria (1861-70).
Sir John Gurney (1768-1845)
English barrister who defended Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall in their trial for
treason and was afterwards a respected prosecutor and judge.
Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-1833)
Son of the historian Henry Hallam and subject of Tennyson's poem
In
Memoriam; he attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was one
of the Cambridge Apostles.
Henry Hallam (1777-1859)
English historian and contributor to the
Edinburgh Review, author
of
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 4 vols (1837-39) and
other works. He was the father of Tennyson's Arthur Hallam.
John Hampden (1595-1643)
English statesman who led the parliamentarians in the political contest with Charles
I.
Edward Venables-Vernon Harcourt, archbishop of York (1757-1847)
The son of George Venables-Vernon, first Baron Vernon, educated at Westminster and
All-Souls College, Oxford; he was prebendary of Gloucester (1785-91), bishop of Carlisle
(1791-1807), and archbishop of York (1807-47).
George Howard, sixth earl of Carlisle (1773-1848)
Son of the fifth earl (d. 1825); he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, wrote
for the
Anti-Jacobin, and was MP for Morpeth (1795-1806) and
Cumberland (1806-28).
Christopher Hughes Jr. (1786-1849)
Educated at College of New Jersey, he was an American diplomat stationed in Sweden,
Norway, and the Netherlands. He was a friend of Samuel Rogers and corresponded with William
Roscoe.
John Jackson (1778-1831)
English painter and member of Sir George Beaumont's circle who did work for Cadell and
Davies's
British Gallery of Contemporary Portraits.
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
John Philip Kemble (1757-1823)
English actor renowned for his Shakespearean roles; he was manager of Drury Lane
(1783-1802) and Covent Garden (1803-1808).
Henry Gally Knight (1786-1846)
Poet, traveler, and architectural historian; after study at Eton was at Trinity College
with Byron; published oriental tales; notable among his later publications is
The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy from Constantine to the 15th
Century, 2 vols (1842-44). He was a friend of Samuel Rogers.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859)
Lecturer on science and contributor to the
Edinburgh Review; he
published the
Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829-1846).
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830)
English portrait painter who succeeded Joshua Reynolds as painter in ordinary to the king
(1792); he was president of the Royal Academy (1820).
Denis Le Marchant, first baronet (1795-1874)
The son of Major-General John Gaspard Le Marchant, educated at Eton and Trinity College,
Cambridge; he held various offices and was chief clerk to the House of Commons (1850-71).
He edited Horace Walpole's
Memoirs of the Reign of George III
(1845).
Sir John Leach (1760-1834)
Whig MP for Seaford (1806-16) and vice-chancellor (1818-27); he was a much-despised
lawyer for the Prince of Wales, master of the Rolls and deputy-speaker of the House of
Lords, 1827.
Edward John Littleton, first baron Hatherton (1791-1863)
The son of Morton Walhouse, educated at Rugby and at Brasenose College, Oxford; he was MP
for Staffordshire (1812-22) and South Staffordshire (1832-35). He was Irish secretary
(1833-34), raised to the peerage in 1835.
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)
Editor of the
Quarterly Review (1825-1853); son-in-law of Walter
Scott and author of the
Life of Scott 5 vols (1838).
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
Henry Luttrell (1768-1851)
English wit, dandy, and friend of Thomas Moore and Samuel Rogers; he was the author of
Advice to Julia, a Letter in Rhyme (1820).
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
Robert James Mackintosh (1806-1864)
The son and biographer of Sir James Mackintosh; he was lieutenant governor of Saint
Christopher (1847-1850) and governor of Antigua (1850-1855).
Richard Robert Madden (1798-1886)
Born in Ireland, knew Lady Blessington in Italy, trained as a physician and worked as a
colonial administrator; he was author of
The United Irishmen, their Lives
and Times, 7 vols (1843-46) and
The Literary Life and
Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington, 3 vols (1855).
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
English political economist educated at Jesus College, Cambridge; he was author of
An Essay on the Principles of Population (1798; 1803).
John Marshall (1765-1845)
Flax manufacturer at Leeds and Whig MP for Yorkshire (1826-30); his wife, Jane Pollard,
was a friend of Dorothy Wordsworth.
Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492)
The son of Cosimo; he was a Florentine oligarch, poet, and patron of the arts.
James Millingen (1774-1845)
Educated at Westminster, he worked at the French mint and became an authority on coins
and antiquities based in Paris and Italy; he was the father of Julius Millingen, physician
at Missolonghi.
Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck, sixth baronet (1779-1867)
The son of Sir William Middleton, fifth baronet (1738-1795); educated at Rugby, he was MP
for Northumberland (1812-20) and the designer of his admired house and garden at Belsay
Hall. Sydney Smith described him as “quick, shrewd, original, well-informed,
eccentric, paradoxical, and contradictory.”
Christopher Moore (1790-1863)
Dublin-born sculptor who was working in London by 1821 when he first exhibited at the
Royal Academy.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Edward Moxon (1801-1858)
Poet and bookseller; after employment at Longman and Company he set up in 1830 with
financial assistance from Samuel Rogers and became the leading publisher of literary
poetry.
Emma Lamb Moxon [née Isola] (1809-1891)
The orphaned daughter of Charles Isola adopted by Charles and Mary Lamb; after working as
a governess she married Edward Moxon in 1833.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
James Northcote (1746-1831)
English portrait-painter and writer who exhibited at the Royal Academy; he wrote a
Life of Titian (1830).
John Opie (1761-1807)
English painter brought to attention by John Wolcot; he was a member of the Royal Academy
and the husband of the writer Amelia Opie whom he married in 1798.
William Ord (1781-1855)
Of Whitfield Hall, Northumberland; he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and was
MP for Morpeth (1802-32) and Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1835-52).
William Owen (1769-1825)
English portrait painter who began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1792, to which he
was elected in 1806; he was principal portrait-painter to the Prince Regent.
Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (1798-1834)
The son of John VI of Portugal, he declared the independence of Brazil and ruled as
emperor from 1822 to 1831.
Hugh Percy, bishop of Carlisle (1784-1856)
The son of Algernon Percy, first earl of Beverley, educated at Eton and St John's
College, Cambridge; he was dean of Canterbury (1826) and bishop of Carlisle (1827) Opposed
to reform, he was burned in effigy during the Chartist period.
Thomas Phillips (1770-1845)
English painter who assisted Benjamin West, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and painted
portraits of English poets including Byron, Crabbe, Scott, Southey, and Coleridge.
Henry William Pickersgill (1782-1875)
English portrait painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806, to which he was
elected in 1826. Among his sitters were Hannah More, Jeremy Bentham, William Godwin and
William Wordsworth.
Plato (427 BC-327 BC)
Athenian philosopher who recorded the teachings of his master Socrates in a series of
philosophical dialogues.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
Archibald John Primrose, fourth earl of Rosebery (1783-1868)
Son of the third earl, educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge; he succeeded his father
in 1814 and sat in Parliament as a Scottish representative peer (Whig) until being created
a peer of the United Kingdom in 1828.
Thomas Pringle (1789-1834)
Scottish poet, journalist, and abolitionist, who after a brief stint as one of the
founding editors of
Blackwood's Magazine emigrated to southern
Africa.
Dora Quillinan [née Wordsworth] (1804-1847)
The daughter of William Wordsworth who in 1841 married the poet Edward Quillinan despite
her father's concerns about his debts.
Edward Quillinan (1791-1851)
A poet of Irish Catholic descent who pursued a military career while issuing several
volumes published by his father-in-law Edgerton Brydges; after the death of his first wife
Jemima he married Dora Wordsworth in 1841.
Owen Rees (1770-1837)
London bookseller; he was the partner of Thomas Norton Longman and friend of the poet
Thomas Moore.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
English portrait-painter and writer on art; he was the first president of the Royal
Academy (1768).
Thomas Spring Rice, first Baron Monteagle (1790-1866)
The son of Stephen Edward of Limerick; he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and
was MP for Limerick City (1820-32) and Cambridge borough (1832-39). He was chancellor of
the exchequer (1835-39) and contributed to the
Edinburgh
Review.
Henry Rogers (1774-1832)
Son of Thomas Rogers (1735-93) and youngest brother of the poet Thomas Rogers; he was the
head of the family bank, Rogers, Towgood, and Co. until 1824, and a friend of Charles
Lamb.
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.
George Romney (1734-1802)
English painter, the rival of Joshua Reynolds and friend of the poet William Hayley; he
contributed three paintings to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery (1791).
Louis François Roubiliac (1705 c.-1762)
Lyon-born sculpture who settled in England before 1735; his portrait-busts were much
admired, among them that of Alexander Pope.
Lady Adelaide Russell [née Lister] (1807-1838)
The daughter of Thomas Henry Lister; she married (1) Thomas Lister, second Baron
Ribblesdale (d. 1832), and (2) in 1835 Lord John Russell; she died in childbirth.
John Russell, first earl Russell (1792-1878)
English statesman, son of John Russell sixth duke of Bedford (1766-1839); he was author
of
Essay on the English Constitution (1821) and
Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe (1824) and was Prime Minister (1865-66).
Dudley Ryder, first earl of Harrowby (1762-1847)
Tory MP; Pitt's second in the duel with George Tierney (1798), he was friendly towards to
abolition of the slave trade and to Catholic emancipation.
James Scarlett, first baron Abinger (1769-1844)
English barrister and politician educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner
Temple; he was a Whig MP (1819-34) who served as attorney-general in the Canning and
Wellington ministries.
Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873)
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a mathematics tutor in
1815 before being elected Woodwardian professor of geology (1818-73). He was a friend of
Charles Darwin.
Richard Sharp [Conversation Sharp] (1759-1835)
English merchant, Whig MP, and member of the Holland House set; he published
Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834).
Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881)
Banker and Egyptologist; he was the nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers and brother of the
geologist Daniel Sharpe.
Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831)
English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady
Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.
Algernon Sidney (1623-1683)
English republican writer executed in connection with the Rye-House plot; he was
respected as a martyr by the Whig party; author of
Discourses concerning
Government (1698).
Sir Drummond Smith, first baronet (1740-1816)
Of Tring Park in Hertfordshire; in 1804 he was created baronet and in 1805 he married
Hon. Elizabeth Monckton, daughter of William Monckton, second Viscount Galway.
Robert Percy Smith [Bobus Smith] (1770-1845)
The elder brother of Sydney Smith; John Hookham Frere, George Canning, and Henry Fox he
wrote for the
Microcosm at Eton; he was afterwards a judge in India
and MP.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845)
Clergyman, wit, and one of the original projectors of the
Edinburgh
Review; afterwards lecturer in London and one of the Holland House
denizens.
Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)
Scottish physician and man of letters; author of the novels
Roderick
Random (1747) and
Humphry Clinker (1771).
William Sotheby (1757-1833)
English man of letters; after Harrow he joined the dragoons, married well, and published
Poems (1790) and became a prolific poet and translator,
prominent in literary society.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
George John Spencer, second earl Spencer (1758-1834)
Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a Whig MP aligned with Edmund
Burke, first lord of the Admiralty (1794-1801) and home secretary (1806-07). He was a book
collector and patron of the poets John Clare and Herbert Knowles.
John Charles Spencer, third earl Spencer (1782-1845)
English politician, son of the second earl (d. 1834); educated at Harrow and Trinity
College, Cambridge, he was Whig MP for Northamptonshire (1806-34) and chancellor of the
exchequer and leader of the lower house under Lord Grey (1830).
Edward Stanley, first Baron Monteagle (1460 c.-1523)
The son of Thomas Stanley, first earl of Derby; fighting under Thomas Howard, earl of
Surrey, he was instrumental in the English victory at Flodden Field.
Thomas Stothard (1755-1834)
English painter and book-illustrator, a friend of John Flaxman and Samuel Rogers.
Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854)
English judge, dramatist, and friend of Charles Lamb who contributed articles to the
London Magazine and
New Monthly
Magazine.
Sir Herbert Taylor (1775-1839)
He was aide-de-camp and private secretary to the duke of York, afterwards to George III
and William IV; he was MP for Windsor (1820-23) and published
Memoirs of
the Last Illness and Decease of HRH the Duke of York (1827).
Henry John Temple, third viscount Palmerston (1784-1865)
After education at Harrow and Edinburgh University he was MP for Newport (1807-11) and
Cambridge University (1811-31), foreign minister (1830-41), and prime minister (1855-58,
1859-65).
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
English landscape and history painter who left his collection to the National Gallery and
Tate Gallery.
Sir Charles Wetherell (1770-1846)
Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he was Tory MP (1812-32) violently opposed to
reform and Catholic emancipation; he was attorney-general (1826, 1828).
John Whishaw (1764 c.-1840)
Barrister, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; he was Secretary to the African
Association and biographer of Mungo Park. His correspondence was published as
The “Pope” of Holland House in 1906.
William I, king of the Netherlands (1772-1843)
The Prince of Orange, who in 1815 had himself proclaimed the first king of the
Netherlands at the urging of the Congress of Vienna.
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)
The sister of William Wordsworth who transcribed his poems and kept his house; her
journals and letters were belatedly published after her death.
John Wordsworth (1803-1875)
The son of William Wordsworth, educated at New College, Oxford; he was the rector at
rector of Moresby, near Whitehaven (1828), Brigham (1832-75) and Plumblands (1840-75) in
Cumberland.
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.
William Wordsworth (1810-1883)
The second son of William Wordsworth; of St. Ann's Hill, Carlisle, he was a justice of
the peace.
The Athenaeum. London Literary and Critical
Journal. (1828-1921). The
Athenaeum was founded by James Silk Buckingham; editors
included Frederick Denison Maurice (July 1828-May 1829) John Sterling (May 1829-June 1830),
Charles Wentworth Dilke (June 1830-1846), and Thomas Kibble Hervey (1846-1853).
The Courier. (1792-1842). A London evening newspaper; the original proprietor was James Perry; Daniel Stuart, Peter
Street, and William Mudford were editors; among the contributors were Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and John Galt.
Morning Chronicle. (1769-1862). James Perry was proprietor of this London daily newspaper from 1789-1821; among its many
notable poetical contributors were Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Rogers, and Campbell.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
Italy, a Poem. 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1823-1828). In 1828 the poem was revised and expanded into two parts; in 1830 it was elaborately
illustrated with engravings after paintings by J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Stothard.