Clayden: Rogers and his Contemporaries

Such delightful gatherings as that which took place at Bowood at Christmas 1841 are comparatively few and far between, even in such a life as that of Samuel Rogers. Charles Greville tells us that Rogers and he left Bowood on the Monday after Christmas, and went to Badminton, where they found a party as dramatically opposite as possible to that which they left behind. We have already seen how he had previously contrasted the Bowood company with that which he had left at Woburn to join it. Mr. Everett, the new American Minister, lost little time in presenting the introduction which

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Daniel Webster had given him, and early in March, Moore speaks of meeting him at breakfast at Rogers’s, with Lord Mahon, R. Monckton Milnes, Luttrell, and others. The crowded dinners at Holland House were talked of, and Lady Holland’s bidding people to make room, with Luttrell’s well-known reply, that it needed to be made, for it did not exist. Rogers expressed an opinion that the close packing of Lady Holland’s dinners was ‘one of the secrets of their conversableness and agreeableness.’ This may have been true, as Moore thinks, but Rogers did not act on it. At St. James’s Place, at any rate, you were delivered from the crowd.

Dickens was then in the United States, from whence he wrote the following letter.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I know you will be glad to hear, under my own hand, that we are both well, though very anxious to get back to dear old home, our friends, and darling children. I am obliged to make, as perhaps you have heard, a kind of Public Progress through this country; and have been so oppressed with Festivals given in my honor, that I have found it necessary to notify my disinclination to accept any more, or I should rather say, my determination not to lead such a trying life. I have made one departure from this rule, and that is in the case of a body of readers in the Far West, at a town called St. Louis, on the confines of the Indian Territory. I am going there to dinner (it is

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only two thousand miles off), and start the day after to-morrow.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I must add one line, to remind you of your kind promise to me, the last time we saw you before we left home, that when you wrote to Charles, you would also send me a few words of remembrance. I need not say what pride and pleasure it would give me.

Sydney Smith published the second edition of his works in 1840. Two years later, he sent Rogers a copy with this letter—

‘My dear Rogers,—I have always intended to send you these volumes, but have been always unwilling to place such ordinary matter upon a library table around which the great and the wise are so often gathered. I remember, however, that you are not only an author of the highest distinction, but a politician of unblemished honesty, and that if you thought little of my powers you would still value my principles—nor was my vanity forgotten, for I trusted your guests would say, “If Sydney Smith was not a Liberal and an upright man we should not find his books on the table of Samuel Rogers.”

Wordsworth was again in London in the spring, and Moore tells us of a breakfast at Hallam’s on the 21st of May at which there was a grand display of literati, the poets being particularly in force—Campbell, Wordsworth, Rogers, and Moore being of the party; but Moore, at least, was not in the mood to enjoy it, for he says, ‘Blue to look in upon, but the whole thing ordinary enough.’ When Dickens got back from America in July, Lord Lansdowne gave a Dickens dinner, and Moore and Rogers and Luttrell were there to join in his welcome.

‘April 29th, 1842.—Breakfasted with Sam Rogers, with whom I stayed till twelve. He was as amiable as ever, and spoke with great warmth of Wordsworth’s new volume, “It is all gold. The least precious is still gold.” He said this, accompanying a remark on one little epitaph, that it would have been better in prose. He quoted some one who said of Burns, “He is great in verse, greater in prose, and greatest in conversation.” So it is with all great men. Wordsworth is greatest in conversation. This is not the first time of Rogers preferring prose to verse.’

‘May 28th, 1842.—Dinner party at Kenyon’s. Wordsworth was quite spent, and hardly spoke during

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the whole time. Rogers made one capital remark; it was of the party itself, the ladies being gone. He said, “There have been five separate parties, everyone speaking above the pitch of his natural voice, and therefore there could be no kindness expressed; for kindness consists, not in what is said, but how it is said.”’

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I took the liberty of forwarding to you by the last packet two volumes of poems recently published by my friend Mr. Longfellow. He was desirous that you should do him the favour to receive them as a token of his respect.

Here is a pretty jeu d’esprit by the Countess Russell—then Lady John Russell—who had been married in the same month in the year before. There is but little correspondence in these volumes between Lord John Russell and Rogers, though the friendship between the great Whig statesman and ‘the oracle’ of Holland House had begun early and lasted to the close of the poet’s life. I am permitted to print these lines as illustrating the friendly, and even intimate, relations between Rogers and the great Reform Minister and his family. He had accepted an invitation to breakfast, did not appear, and sent afterwards a letter of apology.

‘He said it was a great fault in young men not to listen to old ones who were talking together. A few days ago, at a dinner party, he was talking with the Archbishop of Canterbury, an old man like himself, and two young men sitting next them kept talking together all the time; if they had held their tongues and listened to the old ones they might have heard a great deal that was interesting. From his youth up, he had always listened to the conversation of older persons; there was more to be learned from conversation than from books; when a man talks, he gives you his best thoughts and observations; if you read his book, you may, perhaps, find the same, but there is so much about and about it, that it may not be worth looking for. He had begun early in life to keep a book in which he noted down all the striking things he heard in conversation; he fetched us down a very early volume, in which each page was headed, “Burke,” “Fox,” “Horne Tooke,” and so on, with an index at the beginning. In a new volume he had Talleyrand and others.

‘He set Schiller above Goethe, as poetry, however clever, is worth nothing unless it raises the feelings of the reader. Of Goethe he had read translations of “Faust,” and “Wilhelm Meister,” and thought they both contained something Satanic. In the “Sorrows of Werther,” he admired Charlotte for cutting bread and butter for her little brothers and sisters. He praised the Duke of Wellington as the greatest man in England; he met him once at a lady’s house just after the Whigs came in, in 1831, and the Duke said to him, with reference to resigning his situation at the Horse Guards or Ordnance, “They want me to become the head of faction, but that I will never be.” He said that the Duke always supported a proposition he thought good, just as willingly, though brought forward by a political enemy.

‘George the Second was very particular about the arrangement of his wardrobe and such trifles, and had the different articles of dress numbered to match. If they were brought to him out of order, he would cry out, “Shirt No. 4, stock No. 3! Am I king, or am I no king? If I am king, bring me shirt No. 4 and stock No. 3.”

‘Coleridge, who was very German, said that no man knew what happiness was unless he woke in the night and wept.1

‘Louis XIV. at Versailles made everything large but himself; to walk in his avenues he should have had seven-league boots; he remained a Lilliputian in Brobdingnag.

‘Talleyrand was a great admirer of Mme. Recamier and Mme. de Staël, the first for her beauty, the other for her wit. Mme. de Staël asked him one day, if he found himself with both of them in the sea on a plank, and could only save one, which it would be; to which he replied, “Vous savez nager, je crois.”

‘When Wilkes was dining with the Prince of Wales the King’s health was given, and the Prince asked him, “How long have you drunk my father’s health.” “Ever since I have had the honour of knowing your Royal Highness.”

‘He had received from Prescott, the American, a copy of his “History of Mexico,’ and intended in his letter of thanks to refer to Hume’s letter to Gibbon on receipt of the first volume of his history, in which he expresses his astonishment at an Englishman writing so learned a book in an age when every one had given himself up to faction. My uncle did not mean to apply it to the Americans particularly, but just as much to ourselves. Except science nothing was now written with care. Calling on Dickens he found him engaged upon a new story, which was to go to the printer’s in a week, and which he had only begun three weeks before.

‘Talking of Hume’s and Gibbon’s sceptical works, he very much blamed their publishing them, and read a letter from Gray to his friend Mason, advising him not to visit Voltaire on his journey through Switzerland, as the men were not to be honoured who robbed mankind of their best consolation in life. “If an archangel were to whisper in my ear,” said Mr. Rogers, “that there was no future life, I would not reveal it.”

‘Dryden lived at 43 Gerrard Street, and I never pass the house without taking off my hat. He used to write in the parlour on the right hand of the hall.’

Major Price was an equerry of George III., who always spoke his mind. Walking one day in Windsor Park, the King pointed out a certain tree, and said he was going to have it cut down. ‘If you do, sir,’ said Price, ‘you will cut the finest tree in your park.’ ‘You always contradict me,’ said the King; ‘everybody contradicts me; I won’t be contradicted.’ ‘Don’t, sir,’ said Price, ‘and then you will never hear the truth.’

Mr. Rogers spoke with great reprobation and dislike of Dumas, Sue, and all the modern French novelists.

Somebody praising Morton the dramatist, lately dead, Mr. Rogers said, ‘I don’t like him; and I had never offended him, but he never met me without saying, “Well, what Duchess have you been dining with?” or some ill-natured thing. I do not ask for kindness from a man, but I have a right to expect good manners.’

‘And so, dear Mr. Rogers, I have put your violets into water, for this day, but shall keep them as a precious gift and remembrance for the rest of my life.

Early in this year death brought one of the few bitter disappointments of this most successful life. I have already given some account of the orphan family of his sister Maria Sharpe, of the heroic devotion to them of their elder half-sister Catharine Sharpe, and of the remarkable success in life which every one of them achieved. The eldest of the group was Sutton Sharpe. I have given so full an account of his distinguished career in my life of Samuel Sharpe, that I need not here re-tell his story. It is enough to say that having been called to the bar in 1822, he had speedily taken a leading rank among Counsel behind the Bar. In 1841 he became a Queen’s Counsel, and at once took the lead in Vice-Chancellor Wigram’s Court, and all his friends anticipated for him the highest honours to which the profession opens the way. But at the close of the Michaelmas term, in 1842, he was attacked with paralysis, the result of overwork in his profession, and died on the 22nd of February, 1843. He was buried in the cloisters of Lincoln’s Inn, of which he was one of the benchers. In the various notices of him which appeared in the newspapers after his death the highest appreciation was universally expressed. ‘His career,’ said the ‘Examiner,’ then the leading weekly journal, ‘was one of uninterrupted success, and the most brilliant professional prospects were before him, but prosperity never in the slightest degree spoiled him, and he never forgot an old friend, nor failed to return a hundredfold an old kind-

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ness.’ As a nephew of Rogers he had many social advantages, and at the time of his death he was already contemplating that entrance on political life to which his friends had long urged him. Rogers and his sister had indulged in the very highest expectations respecting him. They had followed his career with affectionate interest, and their esteem for him, and pride in him, were very great. I have elsewhere said of him that ‘his life is an unfinished story which breaks suddenly off just at the point at which it becomes most interesting to ordinary readers. It had but little incident. It had been spent in the diligent exercise of an arduous profession, it was little known except to the members of that profession, and a large group of attached personal friends; and it had not yet touched that larger and noisier world of politics in which most lawyers complete their success and extend and consolidate their fame.’ He died in his forty-sixth year.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—If I am not at your house at seven next Wednesday, write me down an ass.

‘My dear Sir,—The moment I had finished my work yesterday and had returned to this real world, I thought to myself, “Does Mr. Rogers remember that he invited me (that is, that I asked him to ask me and he asked me) to breakfast with him on the 30th?” The transaction took place at Mr. Sartoris’s: in the presence of witnesses—and to-morrow is the day. I shall not trouble Mr. Rogers to write to me (I reasoned with myself), but at 10 o’clock I will be at his door. I will say, “A gentleman who was invited a fortnight and a day ago comes to claim his breakfast. The host may have forgotten, but the guest has not.”

Southey died, after a long decline of his physical and intellectual powers, on the 21st of March, 1843. He had been Laureate for thirty years, during which period other poets, greater than he, had arisen, and of those associated with him some had increased while he had decreased. There could be no question who should be Laureate while Wordsworth lived, and to Wordsworth it was offered at once. He accepted it with some little flutter of feeling at the idea that he must appear at Court. As usual, Rogers was resorted to, and when the time for presentation came, Wordsworth came to London and went to Court from St. James’s Place. He was to have Rogers’s Court suit, and, as Talfourd told Haydon, Davy’s sword. When the eventful moment came, Moxon was there to assist in dressing him. It was a question of getting a big man into a small man s clothes, and great was the tugging and squeezing to get him in. But it was done, and the high-priest of mountain and of flood, as Haydon calls him, went through the ordeal with dignity and success.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I send you a small print of myself, which I hope you will do me the favor to accept—I feel assured you will consider it a pardonable vanity that I should desire to be occasionally recalled to the recollections of one whose conversation and kindness has left an impression on my memory too strong to require any aid from the engraver.

‘Dear Mr. Rogers,—Tell me, for I am sure you can, what kind of door a Venetian door is—or what did Pope mean by a Venetian door. The ignorant people here declare they never heard of such a thing. Now I declare that in my youth, in my childhood, I often heard my father talk of Venetian doors, and I thought I understood that what was meant was a concealed door, intended to be invisible or unnoticed, same colour as the hangings, paper, or wainscoting of a room.

‘My dear Miss Edgeworth,—What he could mean by it I cannot conceive. I have caught cold through many a Venetian blind, and so probably had he. I am delighted to think that we shall meet so soon in London. I am just now embarking, not for Alexandria, not for Constantinople, nor for Jerusalem, but for Paris, and I am all alone. Now, if you had your wishing cap, we might go together, and how delightful it would be.

‘Dr. Holland is gone to Jerusalem, and Sydney Smith is full of his jokes on the subject. I dare say that your guess is the right one. But why catch cold at it? In town I should consult Morant, the prince of cabinetmakers, but being here he is out of my reach.

‘My dear Sir,—I have at length achieved the “Conquest of Mexico,” after a good deal more time than it took Cortes to do the work. I have directed my bookseller, Mr. Rich, to deliver you a copy on its publication in London, which will be early in November. Should it not be sent to you, you will greatly oblige me by letting me know it, as these things, I have found, sometimes miscarry.

‘Dear Mr. Rogers,—At Dr. Hare’s request I enclose a piece of Laura Bridgman’s writing. I cannot thank you enough for all the kindness which you lavished upon him; though I cannot but be aware that his own merits must have preceded any introduction of mine.

‘My friend Mr. Hillard, of Boston, took the liberty, at my suggestion, to send to you a copy of an address recently delivered by him on a literary occasion. I trust you will not deem it unworthy of acceptance.

‘My dear Sir,—In looking at Dr. Farmer’s prepared copy for publication of the little “Hudibras,” the other morning, we glanced at the note respecting Ralph, the squire of Butler’s hero. Sir Roger l’Estrange says that in reality he was Isaac Robinson, a zealous butcher. Gray adds that in a key to a burlesque poem by Butler the squire is said to have been one Pemble a tailor, and one of the Committee of Sequestrators.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—If you should ever have inclination and patience to read the accompanying little book, I hope you will like the slight fancy it embodies. But whether you do or no, I am ever,

The late Dean of Chichester was in his younger days a personal friend of Rogers’s relations at Highbury. I have heard the late Samuel Sharpe speak of him with much affectionate esteem, and widely as their religious views and political associations differed as the years went on, the friendly feeling between them was never lost. His father was a Smyrna merchant, and the future Dean was his clerk. The business failed, and the clerk, having to choose another career, turned to the Church. The elder Mr. Burgon was (as I learn from Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole) a very able numismatist, and Rogers was asked to assist in getting him an appointment in the department of Antiquities at the British Museum. The application was not immediately successful, as the following letter shows; but in May, Mr. Burgon was made a supernumerary assistant in the department.

‘Your curious edition of “Theophrastus,” which you showed me, has brought to my recollection a remark attributed to him (I think) in which he says of Aristides something very like this, “that he was just and upright in all private matters, but not always in publick affairs where the interest of the State required injustice.”

‘Now this is a startling position in ethics, and especially so when coupled with the name of Aristides, about whom we are probably as much humbugged as about all other personages we read of; but I want the above remark for a particular purpose, and if possible in the Greek. Could you supply me with it, for, as you may suppose, “Theophrastus” is not in the circulating library here or even at Hastings! But how will you ever forgive me for this trouble? and, above all (I tremble to think of it), what will you say to me if I have confounded matters and the above bit of international morality be not in “Theophrastus” at all!

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—A thousand thanks. I am really pained at having entailed so much trouble on you. I did so from having looked for the passage last year myself without success, and I had never before seen what appeared to be so good an edition of “Theophrastus” as that in your possession; I therefore thought that it might be found there. Entertaining, and indeed blood-stirring, as are Plutarch’s Lives, I believe him to have been extremely loose in his materials and mode of compilation. When we all meet together in the next world, if we are allowed to do aught save sing Hallelujahs, there will be few things more entertaining than to hear history and biography read aloud of an evening before the persons of whom they treat.

All Rogers’s Whig friends, most of the Conservatives, and many of his relations were interested in a measure which in the course of this year excited immense discussion in the country. It was called the Dissenters’ Chapels Bill, and was intended to prevent the alienation from the Unitarians, of the chapels and revenues they had inherited from orthodox ancestors, or from ancestors who erected the buildings and left the endowments at a period when the law did not tolerate heterodox worship. It originated in the Lords, where all the Law Lords were in its favour, and only nine votes were given against it in the solitary division which was taken. In the Commons it was supported by Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone, Lord John Russell, Mr. Shiel, Mr. Macaulay, and the late Lord Harrowby, then Lord Sandon. A petition was presented on behalf of the descendants of Philip Henry, the ejected clergyman. When it was handed to Macaulay for presentation, he at once thought of Rogers and asked if he had signed it. Rogers had signed it, and another from the Trustees of

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the old Meeting House at Newington Green, where he had gone with his father and mother and listened to Dr. Price. He had been made a trustee of the old chapel in his boyhood, and continued one till his death. His Nonconformist education was often the occasion of humorous remark by himself or his friends. Samuel Sharpe tells us that Wordsworth and Rogers were one day walking together in York Minster. Rogers praised its religious solemnity, with some echo probably in his words of Milton’s ‘Il Penseroso.’ Wordsworth maintained that Rogers could not admire it properly nor feel its effect as he did, because of his Presbyterian training. Walking with Luttrell along George Street, Hanover Square, he complained of being thrust off the pavement by the projecting steps of St. George’s Church. ‘That,’ said Luttrell, ‘is one of your Dissenting prejudices.’ Dining one day with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and sitting next the son of an old schoolfellow who had become a churchman and a county member, Rogers nudged him and said, ‘You and I are probably the only Dissenters here.’

‘My dear Sarah,—I am delighted to think you enjoyed yourselves at Torquay, and hope the fine weather we have had extended to you. Tom Rogers, when I desired him to call, wrote word that he had been confined for three weeks, and Edmund, whom I sent to him in my absence, said he looked very ill. Here follows my journal: September 28th, Rochester. 29th, Canterbury. 30th, Broadstairs, where I found Maltby sitting by the fireside in a nice apartment prepared for me by the hotel people. I then wrote to William, who, it seems, was touring in Ireland; also to Moxon, who came on Tuesday, October 6th, and enjoyed himself so exceedingly that when he came to town on the 9th nothing would satisfy his wife and sister but they must go too, and there they now are. October 9th, Maltby returned to town with me.

1 He died in London on the 14th of August.

2 The Rev. Thomas Madge, the eminent minister of the Unitarian chapel in Essex Street, married Ellen Bischoft, third daughter of James Bischoff, of 20 Highbury Terrace. Mr. Madge died in a venerable and revered old age on the 29th of August, 1870. My esteemed friend Mrs. Madge is still living. She has been an octogenarian for several years, and is still surrounded by a large circle of attached friends. I am indebted to her excellent memory for some interesting facts in this narrative.

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10th, went to Abinger, where I found the Campbells and Currys. Bobus came on the 12th; Fanny Smith walked over to see me with Hester, who is to be married in November. 14th, returned home, calling upon the Campbells at Ashtead on my way. All were very kind and pleasant, and you were much regretted. 15th, Maltby dined with me, and on the 16th I came by railroad to the Grange, where I now am, and where the only visitor is Lady Morley. My intention was to return home on Monday, when I had asked Caroline and Lucy (now at Newington) to dine with me, and then proceed next day to Bowood, but, on comparing notes with Lady Morley, who is going there too, and who has also changed her measures, I find that I shall just save 102 miles by going directly by post across the country. So I have written to put off my dinner, though very unwillingly, and on Monday shall go to Bowood in hack chaises, 48 miles instead of 150. There I think of staying perhaps a fortnight, and then returning home. I hope Patty is pretty well, as you don’t say to the contrary. You must not fatigue yourself, but I find that by walking and resting and walking a little again one can do enough in a day. Lord Ashburton has just offered me a quiet horse, and I long to ride, but a broken leg would be no joke at my age, and I declined it. You have a great advantage over me, for an open carriage would chill me to death, and I can scarcely keep myself alive in two shirts and a great coat. I think of next winter with dread. My love to Patty, and to Elizabeth and Becky.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—We have been greatly concerned to hear through Mr. Forster of your having been unwell, and seriously so. But hearing from the same source that you had recovered, we were, like the town ladies in the “Vicar of Wakefield” (with a small difference in respect of sincerity), extremely glad again, and to the end that we may not be made sorry once more by any flying rumours that may shape their course this way, we entreat you to let us know, under your own hand, that you are in as good health, heart, and spirits as we would have you. Believe me, dear friend, you need not desire to be in better condition than that.

‘My dear Sarah,—I came down very snugly and comfortably in my own carriage and at an expense rather less than the old postage. I found the Shelburnes, Lady Kerry, Luttrell, and the Edens, not to forget Lady H. and a couple not yet announced as such, if they are to be such—Lady Louisa, much the most agreeable, and the best looking of the Howards, James H. He has since invited me in the name of his father, Lord Suffolk, and I think I shall go and pay them a visit for a day or two. I was unwilling to write till I saw Moore, who came yesterday and is just gone. He says Mrs. M. is much better, and was very sorry not to see you. He says he did not understand you, when I assured him that you offered to come in. But he is very strange—for when I offered to return with him to-day and to see her, he said, “Don’t come to-day—and don’t walk with me. I compose as I walk.” This place is really very splendid from the autumnal tints. The house is very much as you saw it. Next week the Bunburys come and I shall certainly stay till they come on Wednesday, and perhaps not return till

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the week afterwards if I go to Lord Suffolk’s. As for my Lady H[olland], Luttrell thinks her very cross, but I think her much as usual. Dr. Babbington attends her and her usual suite—her pony chaise, groom, etc. She engaged the double carriage, in one sat Lady H., Mr. Babbington, Luttrell, and Mrs. S——; in the other sat the four servants, Harold now and then reading the newspaper to her through the window.

On the last Monday in November Rogers was startled by news which, in the course of the day, made an unusual stir in the City, and in the evening was the talk of all the social circles in London. Rogers’s bank had been robbed. I have fully told the story of the robbery in the Life of Samuel Sharpe, who was at that time the chief managing partner in the bank of which his uncle was the nominal head. On that morning, when the great iron safe in which all the valuables of the bank were kept was opened, it was found to be empty. On Saturday night 40,710l. in bank notes; more than 1,000l. in gold, and 5,000l. in bills of exchange had been locked up in it; and in the course of Sunday the safe had been opened with one of its own keys, the whole of the money and bills taken out, the door duly locked again and the key replaced. The sequel may be told in the words I have before used—

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—If anything would reconcile one to such a vexatious affair as that which has just befallen you, it must be the deep and unaffected interest which all your friends—that is all who are so happy as to enjoy some degree of your intimacy—take in it.

Lord Ashburton wrote, at the end of a week, that his first impulse had been to go to town, but that he was prevented by considering how little probable it was that his presence could be of service. After discussing the chances of recovering the notes, he said that if any momentary difficulty was caused in the working of the ordinary machinery of a bank, ‘I am wholly at your service, and I could assist without any inconvenience to myself.’

‘My dear Rogers,—I have not called upon you because I cannot, but I request you to believe that none of your friends more sincerely regrets the misfortune which has befallen you than I do. You were one of the first persons of note who noticed me when I came to London, and the kindness you began has been steadily continued; but if I had known nothing of you I should have been quite unhappy to see such a fair specimen of human happiness so cruelly and so suddenly marred. My great hope is that it will end (as all these things have always done in my time) by compromise.

‘Mrs. Sydney and I send you the most sincere good wishes, and the kindest regards.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—Lord Grey insists upon my writing to you at the risk of your being bored by it, to say how very sorry he was to hear of your having had so disagreeable an adventure, and to assure you that he must always take the most affectionate interest in all that relates to you. I need not assure you, dear Mr. Rogers, that my feelings towards you are precisely the same.

‘We are very anxious indeed about Sydney Smith. My last account of him was a better one, but it seems to be an alarming case. I have, too, been much affected by the death of my oldest and dearest friend, Lady Anne Smith; dear Mr. Rogers, it is melancholy to think how the circle of our friends is narrowed. Believe me always and affectionately yours,

Rogers, as a letter from Mr. Everett shows, sometimes lent some of the memoranda which formed the volume of ‘Recollections.’ He acted on the advice Mr. Everett gave in this letter.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I write this to tell you, in case I should not find you at home, how much I am obliged to you for the privilege of reading the memoranda contained in your golden little manuscript, herewith returned. I was half tempted to page and index it for you; but such mechanical appliances, in a collection of this kind, would be like the railway among the lakes, against which poor Wordsworth is fighting.

‘You must not forget that one of these days you are

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to show me your memoranda of the Duke of Wellington. I rejoice in the hope that you have bestowed some of that care on yourself which you have so well given to recording the wit and wisdom of others. I see your “Journal” mentioned in the manuscript; and since it is necessary to look forward to the time (εσσεται ημαρ, may it be far distant) when your living intercourse will cease to be the delight of all around you, I trust you will feel it a kind of duty to leave behind you that which will, in some degree, supply the loss, and perpetuate your intellectual existence.

The year had a gloomy close. Rogers himself was ill, Sydney Smith was dying in his house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, and his brother Bobus, infirm and blind, was only waiting for the summons. Lord Grey was lying ill at Howick, and Rogers felt, as old men must, that his friends were falling round him. Early in the new year, however, he writes to his sister in excellent spirits, commenting like a young man on the news of the day.

‘My dear Sarah,—Then, in deference to your opinion, I have resolved to continue the carriage till the 5th of April, and then to start a brougham, which I may do without much loss of dignity, as his lordship and the Duke of Devonshire exhibit themselves in theirs. I am very sorry that you are no better for the change. As for me, I dare not yet walk about, being not yet myself, though better; and as you think of returning so soon, perhaps I had better remain quiet.

‘Miss Martineau is now on a visit within three miles of Rydal. She and W[ordsworth], according to Robinson, have met at dinner, but neither of them spoke of mesmerism, nor has either of them mentioned the other since. All of the Rydal party are incredulous and sarcastic. She comes to town, and in her way means to show herself only in the larger towns. If she was Tom Thumb or the Lion Tamer she could not use grander language. I am sorry Mr. Young is ill—I suppose you mean the actor. He is greatly in error about me; for I thought myself cut by him. I am very very sorry indeed for your account of poor Fanny. Sydney Smith continues as before, confined to his bed, nor do I ever expect to see him again. I fear you have had a hurricane. Here the moons and the sunsets have been beautiful, and I was rejoicing at them on your account. Pray thank Patty for her very very kind letter, and, with my best love to all, believe me to be yours very affectionately,

‘He praised “Tom Jones” and “Joseph Andrews” very much, and wished there were an edition with the objectionable parts left out, as they are now hardly books which a father could give to his children.

‘He said it was a great mistake of authors to represent characters as perfectly good or utterly bad. Miss Edgeworth had made Attorney Case in “Simple Susan” devoid of any good quality, which was unnatural. There was no man so bad as to have no good qualities. Shakespeare never drew anyone thoroughly bad. If it were not that it would frighten people, he would undertake to show that even Judas had redeeming qualities; he felt repentance and went and flung his thirty pieces of silver at his bribers, and then, being unable to live with the feeling of his iniquity, he destroyed himself. This showed he was not utterly lost.

‘Tacitus shows by his Life of Agricola that he was a man of tender feeling and affection.

‘June 2nd, 1844.—He showed us a copy of the “Monthly Review” for 1786, containing a favourable notice of his first poem, the “Ode to Superstition,” then just published. “I was then twenty-three years old,” he said; “my sister took it up to my father, who used to sit alone reading in the evening from six till nine, when he came down to read prayers to the family. He said very little to me about it, but I thought he treated my opinions with more deference afterwards. In the course of the next six years I only sold sixty or seventy copies. In 1792 I published ‘The Pleasures of Memory,’ being then twenty-nine.” Mr. Mitford, the publisher of Gray’s “Letters,” asked if he had been occupied with the work during the whole of the six years; he said, “Yes; it was always before me.” “Italy I wrote a good deal upon the spot; I made one journey to Rome and Naples and back alone. Before I printed I showed my work to Wordsworth, Crowe, and Cary, who assisted me with criticisms as to the versification. I had great difficulty in getting out of the couplet into blank verse. I consider Crowe very

264

ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

perfect in blank verse; at first he objected to a great deal, but when completed and ready to print he said he had no fault to find.”

‘I asked him what it was upon which Dryden’s fame as a poet stood. He said upon his great command of language and the beauty of his versification. As he wrote a great deal, there were many faulty parts, but there were passages not to be equalled in any other author. “Men are but children of a larger growth,” from one of his tragedies, was very happy. He quoted a stanza from Dryden’s translation of the twenty-ninth ode of the first book of Horace, beginning “Happy the man and happy he alone,” as excellent.1 If there had been no Dryden, there had been no Pope; Pope is full of lines copied from him. Fox was a great admirer of Dryden, and considered no expression could be correctly used in English composition which was not found in Dryden; you always found him with Dryden in his hand.

‘Fox took a writing-master after he got into office, that he might learn to write plainly; he was a painstaking man, as all men are who produce anything good. All men should write well, at least legibly; all can if they will.

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Agricola (40-93) Roman general and governor of Britain whose life was written by Tacitus.

Aristides [the Just] (530 c.-468 BC) Athenian statesman who apportioned the contributions to the Delian League.

Bertram Ashburnham, fourth earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878) Son of the third earl by his second marriage, whom he succeeded in 1830. His extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts was sold to the British Museum for £45,000.

Francis Beaumont (1585-1616) English playwright, often in collaboration with John Fletcher; author of The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).

Samuel Birch (1813-1885) The grandson of the poet and lord mayor Samuel Birch (1757-1841); educated at Merchant Taylors' School, he was an keeper of oriental, British, and medieval antiquities in the British Museum.

James Rowley Bischoff (1775-1845) Wool merchant at Leeds, afterwards London; he wrote for the Leeds Mercury, the Farmer's Journal, and Gentleman's Magazine, and published A Comprehensive History of the woollen and Worsted Manufactures (1842).

Helen Selina Blackwood, countess of Gifford [née Sheridan] (1807-1867) English poet, the elder sister of Caroline Norton and granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; in 1825 she married Price Blackwood (1794-1841), baron Dufferin; in 1862 she remarried, to George Hay, earl of Gifford.

Laura Bridgman [née Dewey] (1829-1889) The first deaf-blind child in America to be taught to write; she was a student of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe at the Perkins Institution for the Blind at Boston.

Henry Lytton Earle Bulwer, baron Dalling and Bulwer (1801-1872) English diplomat, the elder brother of the novelist Bulwer-Lytton; he was a member of the London Greek Committee, ambassador to Florence (1843-8), the United States (1849), and Constantinople (1858-65). He was raised to the peerage in 1871.

Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, seventh baronet (1778-1860) The son of Henry William Burnbury; during his distinguished military career (1795-1809) he married a niece of Charles James Fox in 1807; he was under-secretary for war (1809-16), major-general (1815), and MP for Suffolk (1830).

John William Burgon (1813-1888) The son of Thomas Burgon (1787-1858), a Turkey merchant, he was educated at Oxford where he was Gresham professor of Divinity (1867); he was dean of Chichester (1876-88).

Thomas Burgon (1787-1858) A Turkey merchant whose business failed in 1841 following the loss of the Levant Company's monopoly; he was thereafter employed as numismatist in the British Museum.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish politician and opposition leader in Parliament, author of On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

Robert Burns (1759-1796) Scottish poet and song collector; author of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786).

Frances Butler [née Kemble] (1809-1893) English actress and writer, daughter of Charles Kemble and Maria Theresa Kemble; on a tour to America in 1834 she was unhappily married to Pierce Butler (1807-1867).

Samuel Butler (1613-1680) English satirist who ridiculed puritanism in his burlesque epic Hudibras (1663).

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The author of Childe Harold and Don Juan.

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).

Lady Caroline Janetta Capell, countess of Essex [née Beauclerk] (1804-1862) The daughter of William Beauclerk, eighth Duke of St. Albans; in 1825 she became the first wife of Arthur Algernon Capell, afterwards sixth Earl of Essex.

John Hobart Caradoc, second baron Howden (1799-1873) Son of the first baron (d. 1839); he was aide-de-camp to Wellington in France (1815-18), had an affair with Emily Cowper, was envoy to Egypt (1827), MP for Dundalk (1830), minister to Brazil (1847-50), and minister to Madrid (1850-58). Charles Macfarlane described him as “one of the most handsome and elegant men in Europe,” Sydney Smith as “a beauty.”

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).

William George Spencer Cavendish, sixth duke of Devonshire (1790-1858) The only son of Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire; he was Byron's contemporary at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. “Hart,” as he was known, succeeded to the dukedom in 1811.

André Chénier (1762-1794) French poet critical of the French Revolution; he was executed during the Terror.

Marcus Tullius Cicero [Tully] (106 BC-43 BC) Roman statesman, rhetorician, and philosopher.

David Cadwallader Colden (1797-1850) Son of the mayor of New York, Cadwallader David Colden (d. 1834); he was admitted to the New York Bar in 1819 and visited England in 1840.

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.

Anthony Ashley- Cooper, seventh earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885) The son of the sixth earl (d. 1851); he was asocial reformer who introduced legislation to relieve women and children laboring in coal mines and to limit the work-day for factory laborers to ten hours.

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.

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) Spanish conqueror of Mexico (1520), the subject of W. H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1844).

William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet, author of Olney Hymns (1779), John Gilpin (1782), and The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by William Hayley, did admiration.

William Crowe (1745-1829) English poet educated at Winchester and New College Oxford; he was rector of Alton Barnes, Wiltshire; he is remember for his descriptive poem Lewesdon Hill (1788). He corresponded with Samuel Rogers.

Georges-Jacques Danton (1759-1794) French revolutionary leader who was guillotined after his break with Robespierre.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Florentine poet, the author of the Divine Comedy and other works.

Sir Humphry Davy, baronet (1778-1829) English chemist and physicist, inventor of the safety lamp; in Bristol he knew Cottle, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey; he was president of the Royal Society (1820).

Mary Georgiana Emma Dawson-Damer [née Seymour] (d. 1848) The daughter of Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour and adopted daughter of Mrs. Fitzherbert; in 1825 she married the MP George Dawson-Damer. She was a friend of Lady Morgan.

Catherine Dickens [née Hogarth] (1816-1879) The wife of Charles Dickens whom she married in 1836; they separated in 1858.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English novelist, author of David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

John Doyle [H. B.] (1797-1868) Irish portrait-painter and caricaturist, a friend of Thomas Moore and Samuel Rogers; his political caricatures began appearing in 1827. He was the grandfather of Arthur Conan Doyle.

John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet laureate, dramatist, and critic; author of Of Dramatick Poesie (1667), Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Alexander's Feast; or the Power of Musique (1697), The Works of Virgil translated into English Verse (1697), and Fables (1700).

Alexandre Dumas [Dumas père] (1802-1870) French novelist and man of letters; he published Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and Les Trois Mousquetaires (both 1844-45).

Alexander Dyce (1798-1869) Editor and antiquary, educated at Edinburgh High School and Exeter College, Oxford; he published Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers (1856).

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) Irish novelist; author of Castle Rackrent (1800) Belinda (1801), The Absentee (1812) and Ormond (1817).

Sir Henry Ellis (1788-1855) English diplomat, the illegitimate son of Robert Hobart, fourth earl of Buckinghamshire; he published A Journal of the Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China (1817).

William Empson (1791-1852) Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he succeeded Sir James Mackintosh as professor of law at the East India College, Haileybury. He wrote for the Edinburgh Review, of which he became editor in 1847.

Edward Everett (1794-1865) American statesman educated at Harvard College; he was editor of the North American Review (1820-24), ambassador to Great Britain (1841-45), president of Harvard (1846-49).

Richard Farmer (1735-1797) English scholar and antiquary educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge of which he was later master (1775-97). He published Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare (1767).

John Fitzgibbon, second earl of Clare (1792-1851) A Harrow friend of Byron's, son of the Lord Chamberlain of Ireland; he once fought a duel with Henry Grattan's son in response to an aspersion on his father. Lord Clare was Governor of Bombay between 1830 and 1834.

Henry Petty- Fitzmaurice, third marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863) The son of Lord Shelburne (1737-1805); he was a Whig peer, chancellor of the exchequer (1806), and President of the Council (1830).

Henry Thomas Petty- Fitzmaurice, fourth marquess of Lansdowne (1816-1866) The son of the third marquess, educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was MP for Calne (1847-56) and under-secretary of state for foreign affairs (1856-58).

John Fletcher (1579-1625) English playwright, author of The Faithful Shepherdess (1610) and of some fifteen plays in collaboration with Francis Beaumont.

John Forster (1812-1876) English man of letters and friend of Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt who was editor of The Examiner (1847-55) and the biographer of Goldsmith (1854), Landor (1869), and Dickens (1872-74).

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out with Edmund Burke.

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.

John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) English diplomat and poet; educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was envoy to Lisbon (1800-02) and Madrid (1802-04, 1808-09); with Canning conducted the The Anti-Jacobin (1797-98); author of Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft (1817, 1818).

King George II of Great Britain (1683-1760) King of Great Britain (1727-60).

King George III of Great Britain (1738-1820) King of Great Britain (1760-1820).

King George IV of Great Britain (1762-1830) Prince Regent (1811-20) and King of Great Britain (1820-1830).

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) Author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788).

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) Liberal statesman and prime minister (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94).

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Faust (1808, 1832).

Lady Augusta Lavinia Priscilla Gore [née Ponsonby] (1814-1904) The daughter of John William Ponsonby, fourth Earl of Bessborough; she married in 1834 William Thomas Petty-FitzMaurice, Earl of Kerry, and in 1845 Charles Alexander Gore.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771) English poet, author of “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard,” and “The Bard”; he was professor of history at Cambridge (1768).

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).

Lady Mary Elizabeth Grey [née Ponsonby] (1776-1861) The daughter of William Brabazon Ponsonby; in 1794 she married Charles Grey, afterwards second earl Grey.

François-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874) French statesman and historian; he published de la Révolution d'Angleterre (1826-27) and Histoire générale de la civilisation en Europe (1828).

Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) Born in Nova Scotia, he was a judge in Canada before emigrating to England where he was MP for Launceston (1859-65); as a comic writer he published Clockmaker, or Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick (1837).

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.

George Emlen Hare (1808-1892) Episcopal clergyman educated at Dickinson College and Union College; he was professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the Philadelphia Divinity School.

Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) English historical painter and diarist who recorded anecdotes of romantic writers and the physiognomy of several in his paintings.

Abraham Hayward (1801-1884) English barrister and essayist who contributed to the Quarterly Review and wrote The Art of Dining (1852); his translation of Goethe's Faust was published in 1833.

Henry I, king of England (1068 c.-1135) The youngest son of William the Conqueror; he was king of England (1100-35).

Philip Henry (1631-1696) Nonconformist divine, ejected from his living in 1663 for refusing to use the Book of Common Prayer; his life was written by his son Matthew.

George Stillman Hillard (1808-1879) Harvard-educated American lawyer and man of letters; the friend of Charles Sumner and Nathaniel Hawthorne, he published Six Months in Italy (1853).

Sir Henry Holland, first baronet (1788-1873) English physician and frequenter of Holland House, the author of Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia etc. during 1812 and 1813 (1814) and Recollections of Past Life (1872). His second wife, Saba, was the daughter of Sydney Smith.

Homer (850 BC fl.) Poet of the Iliad and Odyssey.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) English poet and humorist who wrote for the London Magazine; he published Whims and Oddities (1826) and Hood's Magazine (1844-5).

Horace (65 BC-8 BC) Roman lyric poet; author of Odes, Epistles, Satires, and the Ars Poetica.

George William Frederick Howard, seventh earl of Carlisle (1802-1864) Son of the sixth earl (d. 1848); educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was MP, poet, statesman, and cabinet-member under Melbourne and Russell, and viceroy of Ireland (1855-58 and 1859-64).

James Kenneth Howard (1814-1882) The son of Thomas Howard, sixteenth Earl of Suffolk; he was Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Samuel Rogers described him as “the most agreeable, and the best looking of the Howards.”

Lady Louisa Howard [née Petty-FitzMaurice] (d. 1906) The daughter of Sir Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, third Marquess of Lansdowne; in 1845 she married the Hon. James Kenneth Howard, son of the Earl of Suffolk. Sydney Smith described her as “very clever and very amiable.”

Thomas Howard, sixteenth earl of Suffolk (1776-1851) Son of the fifteenth earl whom he succeeded in 1820; he was educated at Eton and was MP for Arundel (1802-06).

William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury (1766-1848) Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he was regius professor of Divinity (1809-13), bishop of London (1813-28), and archbishop of Canterbury (1828-48).

David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher and historian; author of Essays Moral and Political (1741-42), Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and History of Great Britain (1754-62).

Sir Robert Harry Inglis, second baronet (1786-1855) The son of Sir Hugh Inglis, educated at Winchester, Christ Church, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn; he was a Tory MP for Dundalk (1824-26), Ripon (1828-29), and Oxford University (1829-54), and president of the Literary Club.

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.

Joseph Jekyll (1754-1837) Wit, politician, and barrister; he was Whig MP for Calne (1787-1816) and wrote for the Morning Chronicle and Evening Statesman.

Saint Joan of Arc (1412 c.-1431) The French saint who relieved the siege of Orléan and encouraged resistance against the English.

John Kenyon (1784-1856) Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a one-time neighbor of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth who became a London host and patron and published several volumes of poems.

Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) Tory pamphleteer and licenser of the press; he published The Observator (1681-87) and The Fables of Aesop (1692).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet educated at Bowdoin College; he was the author of Hiawatha (1855) and translator of Dante (1865-67).

Louis XIV, king of France [the Sun King] (1638-1715) The son of Louis XIII (d. 1643); he was King of France 1643-1715.

Louis XVI, king of France (1754-1793) King of France 1774-1793; the husband of Marie Antoinette, he was guillotined 21 January 1793.

Sir Samuel Luke (1603-1670) English Presbyterian and parliamentarian army officer supposed to the original of Samuel Butler's Hudibras.

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).

Thomas Babington Macaulay, baron Macaulay (1800-1859) English poet, critic, and historian, author of The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, 5 vols (1849-61).

Ellen Madge [née Bischoff] (1805-1889) The daughter of James Bischoff, wool merchant (1775-1845); in 1844 she married the Unitarian preacher Thomas Madge.

Thomas Madge (1786-1870) Unitarian minister; born at Plymouth, he was assistant to Thomas Belsham at Essex Street Chapel, London (1825) and published sermons.

William Maltby (1764-1854) A schoolmate and life-long friend of Samuel Rogers; he was a London solicitor and a member of the King of Clubs. In 1809 he succeeded Richard Porson as principal librarian of the London Institution.

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) English writer and reformer; she published Illustrations of Political Economy, 9 vols (1832-34) and Society in America (1837).

William Mason (1725-1797) English poet, the friend and biographer of Thomas Gray; author of Odes (1756), Elfrida (1752), and The English Garden (4 books, 1772-81).

Richard Monckton Milnes, first baron Houghton (1809-1885) Poet and politician, a Cambridge ‘apostle’ and friend of Tennyson; he published Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats, 2 vols (1848).

John Milton (1608-1674) English poet and controversialist; author of Comus (1634), Lycidas (1638), Areopagitica (1644), Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.

Honore-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791) French Revolutionary orator and statesman whose moderate views displeased both Royalists and Jacobins.

John Mitford (1781-1859) Educated at Oriel College, Oxford, he was rector of Benhall in Suffolk, a friend of Charles Lamb and Samuel Rogers. He was a book collector and editor of the Gentleman's Magazine (1834-50).

Elizabeth Moore [née Dyke] [Bessy] (1793-1865) Irish actress who married Thomas Moore in a private ceremony 25 March 1811.

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.

George Morant (1770-1846) The founder of a long-lived firm of London cabinetmakers that specialized in picture-frames.

Thomas Morton (1764-1838) English playwright who wrote comedies for Covent Garden; The Way to Get Married (1796) became a stock piece. He is pilloried by William Gifford in the Baviad.

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.

Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St. Helena (1815).

Frances Parker, countess of Morley [née Talbot] (d. 1857) The daughter of the surgeon Thomas Talbot; in 1809 she became the second wife of John Parker, Lord Boringdon, afterwards earl of Morley. Sydney Smith described her as “the perfection of all that is agreeable and pleasant in society.”

Thomas William Parsons (1819-1892) Massachusetts poet and dentist who published a translation of Dante in 1843; his writings were collected in 1893.

Sir Robert Peel, second baronet (1788-1850) Byron's schoolmate at Harrow, afterwards prime minister from 1834-1835 and 1841-1846.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Lyric poet and founder of humanism in Italy.

Plutarch (46 c.-120 c.) Greek biographer and moral philosopher; author of Parallel Lives and Moralia.

Jules Auguste Armand Marie, Prince de Polignac (1780-1847) The son of the first duc de Polignac (d. 1817); he was a French statesman and ultra-royalist politician.

Reginald Stuart Poole (1832-1895) English Egyptologist and numismatist; he was keeper of the coins and medals at the British Museum (1870).

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet and satirist; author of The Rape of the Lock (1714) and The Dunciad (1728).

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) American historian educated at Harvard; he published History of the Conquest of Mexico, 3 vols (1844).

Richard Price (1723-1791) Dissenting divine, philosopher, and political radical who was the target of Burke's remarks in Reflections on the Revolution in France; he published Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1758).

William Price (1749-1817) The younger brother of Uvedale Price; he was equerry to George III and vice-chamberlain to the queen.

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.

Jeanne-Françoise Récamier (1777-1849) Friend of Madame de Staël and lover of Benjamin Constant; her Souvenirs et correspondance was published in 1859.

Obadiah Rich (1777-1850) American diplomat who settled in London about 1830 and became a bookseller specializing in books and manuscripts concerned with the history of America.

Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) The most dogmatic and aggressive of French revolutionary leaders; he sent Danton to the guillotine.

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) Attorney, diarist, and journalist for The Times; he was a founder of the Athenaeum Club.

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.

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 Frances Anna Maria Russell [née Elliot] (1815-1898) The daughter of Gilbert Elliot Murray Kynynmound, second earl of Minto; in 1841 she became the second wife of Lord John Russell.

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, second earl of Harrowby (1798-1882) Son of the first earl (d. 1847); educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he was a Whig MP for Liverpool and a follower of Robert Peel who held the office of lord privy seal (1855-57).

Edward John Sartoris (1814-1888) The son of a French banker, he was the husband of the singer Adelaide Kemble whom he married in 1842.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) German poet and playwright; author of The Robbers (1781), Don Carlos (1787), Maria Stuart (1800), and Wilhelm Tell (1804).

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The Bard of Avon.

Catherine Sharpe (1782-1853) The daughter of Sutton Sharpe by his first wife Catharine Purchase (d. 1791).

Henry Sharpe (1802-1873) The son of Sutton Sharpe and nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers; he was a businessman and philanthropist.

Maria Sharpe [née Rogers] (1771-1806) The sister of the poet Samuel Rogers and second wife of the brewer Sutton Sharpe (1756-1806).

Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) Banker and Egyptologist; he was the nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers and brother of the geologist Daniel Sharpe.

Sutton Sharpe (1756-1806) A London brewer whose second marriage (1795) was to Maria, sister of the poet Samuel Rogers. He studied art at the Royal Academy and counted among his friends Flaxman, Opie, and Bewick.

Sutton Sharpe the younger (1797-1843) London solicitor, the son of Sutton Sharpe and nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers.

Richard Lalor Sheil (1791-1851) Irish barrister and playwright; author of Adelaide, or the Emigrants (1814), The Apostle (1817), and other tragedies. He was an Irish MP (1830-50).

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1809-1888) The son of Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817); he was MP for Shaftesbury (1845-1852) and Dorchester (1852-1868).

Catharine Amelia Smith [née Pybus] (1768-1852) The daughter of John Pybus, English ambassador to Ceylon; in 1800 she married Sydney Smith, wit and writer for the Edinburgh Review.

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.

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).

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) French woman of letters; author of the novel Corinne, ou L'Italie (1807) and De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.

Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth earl Stanhope (1805-1875) Historian and man of letters, the son of the fourth earl; he published The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713-1783, 7 vols, (1836-53).

Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) English painter and book-illustrator, a friend of John Flaxman and Samuel Rogers.

Eugène Sue (1804-1857) Popular French novelist; he published Les Mystères de Paris (1842-43).

Charles Richard Sumner, bishop of Winchester (1790-1874) The younger brother of John Bird Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury; he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was bishop of Llandaff and dean of St. Paul's (1826) and bishop of Winchester (1827).

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) American statesman; he was educated at Harvard and spent two years traveling in Europe before making his reputation as an abolitionist senator from Massachusetts.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Dean of St Patrick's, Scriblerian satirist, and author of Battle of the Books with Tale of a Tub (1704), Drapier Letters (1724), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729).

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 c.-117 c.) Roman historian; author of 18 books of Annals and 12 books of Histories.

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.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838) French diplomat; he was foreign minister under Napoleon.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) English novelist; author of Vanity Fair (1848), Pendennis (1850) and Henry Esmond (1852).

Theophrastus ( 371 BC c.-287 BC c.) The pupil and friend of Aristotle who invented the character genre much imitated in later literature.

Titian (1487 c.-1576) Venetian painter celebrated for his portraits.

John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) Philologist and political radical; member of the Society for Constitutional Information (1780); tried for high treason and acquitted (1794).

Voltaire (1694-1778) French historian and man of letters; author of, among many other works, The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and Candide (1759).

John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833) The son of William Ward, third Viscount Dudley (d. 1823); educated at Edinburgh and Oxford, he was an English MP, sometimes a Foxite Whig and sometimes Canningite Tory, who suffered from insanity in his latter years.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) American statesman and orator; he was a United States senator (1827-41, 1845-50) and secretary of state (1841-43).

Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Soldier and statesman; commander in the Peninsular Campaign (1809-1813), he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was prime minister (1828-1830).

Benjamin West (1738-1820) American-born historical painter who traveled to Europe in 1760 and was one of the founders of the Royal Academy in London.

Sir James Wigram (1793-1866) English barrister and judge, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn; he was raised to the bench as a vice-chancellor in 1841.

Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) Scottish-born artist whose genre-paintings were much admired; he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1811.

John Wilkes (1725-1797) English political reformer and foe of George III who was twice elected to Parliament while imprisoned; he was the author of attacks on the Scots and the libertine Essay on Woman.

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.

Charles Mayne Young (1777-1856) English Shakespearean actor who began his professional career in 1798; he was admired in Hamlet. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.

The Monthly Review. (1749-1844). The original editor was Ralph Griffiths; he was succeeded by his son George Edward who edited the journal from 1803 to 1825, who was succeeded by Michael Joseph Quin (1825–32).

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.

The Arabian Nights. (1705-08 English trans.). Also known as The Thousand and One Nights. Antoine Galland's French translation was published 1704-17, from which the original English versions were taken.

Francis Beaumont (1585-1616) The Knight of the Burning Pestle. (London: Walter Burre, 1613). Reprinted 1635.

Samuel Butler (1613-1680) Hudibras. (London: 1663-1680). Butler's rugged satire on the Puritans was the ur-text of English burlesque poetry and one of the more frequently-imitated poems in the language.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale. (London: John Murray, 1813). The first of Byron's oriental tales.

Peter William Clayden (1827-1902) Samuel Sharpe, Egyptologist and Translator of the Bible. (London: K. Paul, Trench & Co., 1883).

William Cowper (1731-1800) The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. 2 vols (London: J. Johnson, 1791). Translated in blank verse.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) The Divine Comedy. (1320 c.). In the romantic era most readers encountered Dante in the English translation by Henry Francis Cary (1805-1814).

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol. (London: Chapman & Hall, 1843). Illustrated by John Leech.

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) “Simple Susan” in The Parent’s Assistant; or, Stories for Children. 6 vols (London: J. Johnson, 1800). The story occupies the second volume.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. 4 vols (London: A. Millar, 1749).

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote. 2 vols (London: A. Millar, 1742).

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Tom Thumb. A Tragedy. (London: J. Roberts, 1730). A satire on the Walpole administration.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 6 vols (London: Strahan and Cadell, 1776-1783). In Childe Harold Byron described the sceptical Gibbon as “Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.”

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) Faust. Eine Tragödie. (1808, 1832). A closet drama in two parts; Goethe worked on this poem for more than half a century.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) Wilhelm Meister. (1777-1829). A series of novels, translated into English by Thomas Carlyle.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) The Sorrows of Young Werther. (1774). A sentimental tale of adulterous love that created a European sensation.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728 c.-1774) The Vicar of Wakefield: a Tale. (London: F. Newbery, 1766). Parson Primrose is the hero of this partly-autobiographical sentimental romance.

Francis Grose (1731-1791) A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. (London: S. Hooper, 1785). Reprinted 1796.

Homer (850 BC fl.) The Iliad. (800 BC c.). The tale of Troy, generally read in the translation by Alexander Pope.

Homer (850 BC fl.) The Odyssey. (800 BC c.). A Greek epic poem which in the romantic era was usually read in the translation by Alexander Pope.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) A Dictionary of the English language: in which the Words are deduced from their Originals, and illustrated in their different Significations by Examples from the best Writers. 2 (London: J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman, 1755). A new edition edited by Henry John Todd was published in 1818.

John Milton (1608-1674) “Il Penseroso” in Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin. (London: Humphrey Moseley, 1645). Much-imitated in graveyard verse and allegorical odes.

Thomas William Parsons (1819-1892) The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri. Newly translated into English Verse. (Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1813). More of the translation was posthumously published in 1893.

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) History of the Conquest of Mexico: with a preliminary View of the ancient Mexican Civilization: and the Life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortés. 3 vols (New York: Harper & Bros., 1844).

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence. 3 vols (London: Macmillan, 1869). Edited by Thomas Sadler; reprinted with additions, 2 vols 1872.

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.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) An Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems. (London: T. Cadell, 1786). An allegorical ode, a form recently made popular by the Della Cruscan poets.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) The Pleasures of Memory, a Poem. In two Parts. (London: T. Cadell, 1792). A descriptive poem in couplets reprinted throughout the nineteenth century.

Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) Some Particulars of the Life of Samuel Rogers. (London: [1859]). By the poet's nephew; reprinted in Rogers's Poetical Works (1860).

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) Works. 4 vols (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1839-40). Reprinted 1840.

John William Ward, earl of Dudley (1781-1833) “Rogers's Poems” in Quarterly Review. Vol. 9 No. 17 (March 1813): 207-18.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Clayden, Peter William, 1827-1902

Title: Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries 2 Vols (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1889).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed September 2009

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License