Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers, [9 September 1834]
‘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.’
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).
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.
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.
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.
Thomas Stothard (1755-1834)
English painter and book-illustrator, a friend of John Flaxman and Samuel Rogers.
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.