Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp, 19 March, 1835
‘My dear Friend,—I need not say how much your
letter has afflicted me. Have you written to Clark? Surely you should tell him
how you are. I look with impatience to your coming in April. Wordsworth and Southey are still here; S. having paid his daughter a visit,
and W. projecting one to Cambridge.
‘Have you read Van Artevelde? If not, pray do. I like
Taylor much. The W.’s are
staying in his house.
‘Did you read a sketch of the Duke in “The
Morning Chronicle,” January 22nd? It will remind you of
Macaulay.
‘I passed a week with Lord
Grey at Woburn before he came to town. Last night I sat an hour
with him and then went across B[erkeley] Square to Lady ![]()
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Brougham’s, where I found B[rougham] encircled with ex-Ministers—the
Duke of Richmond, Lansdowne, Melbourne, &c. Peel
evidently wants an excuse to go out, and taunts them to give it him—but
they wisely determine to let him bring on his measures. Londonderry’s appointment has already
damaged him.
‘The Duke of
Somerset called upon me to-day and I want much to see him and
talk to him about you. I have seen Lord
Sinclair and Courtney. Do you know the
Newarks? Lord Grey
says B. told him last year he was worth 25,000l. My
monthly numbers I know little about. It is a scheme of Moxon’s.1 Your
volume circulates
fast, as it ought. Babbage’s
parties are becoming blue with Lady Morgan,
Miss Jane Porter, &c. Lady Fanny Harley is about to marry a son of
the Archbishop of York.
‘Pray remember me to your ladies: I hardly know how to
be sorry for anybody who has such a singing-bird in his cage.
‘Yours ever,
‘St. James’s Place: 19th March, 1835.’
Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Cambridge-educated mathematician and computer pioneer, in which capacity in 1843 he
published a paper in collaboration with Byron's daughter, Ada Augusta, countess of
Lovelace.
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).
Lady Mary Anne Brougham [née Eden] (1785-1865)
The daughter of Thomas Eden; she married (1) the Scottish MP John Spalding (d. 1815) in
1807 and (2) Henry Brougham, first Baron Brougham and Vaux in 1819.
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).
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).
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.
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.
Jane Porter (1776-1850)
English novelist, sister of the poet and novelist Anna Maria Porter (1778-1832); she
wrote
The Scottish Chiefs (1810).
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).
Edward Adolphus Seymour, eleventh duke of Somerset (1775-1855)
The son of the tenth duke (d. 1793), educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford he was an
accomplished scholar elected to the Royal Society in 1797, the Society of Antiquaries in
1816, and the Linnean Society in 1820. From 1801 to 1838 was president of the Royal
Literary Fund.
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).
Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886)
Poet, writer for the
Quarterly Review, and autobiographer; he was
author of the tragedy
Philip van Artevelde (1834).
Charles William Vane, third marquess of Londonderry (1778-1854)
Originally Stewart; he was the half-brother of Lord Castlereagh, and served under Sir
John Moore and the Duke of Wellington, fighting at Talavera; was minister to Prussia (1813)
and ambassador at the Congress of Vienna (1814) and held a variety of diplomatic and court
positions.
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.
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.
