Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers, 11 September 1838
‘Broadstairs: 11th Sept., 1838.
‘My dear Sarah,—I left home on Saturday and making the usual stages
arrived here yesterday and am now as quietly established with Maltby, in the old room, as if we had never
left it. Your letter I received as I drove from the door, the postman throwing
it in at the carriage window, and I rejoice to think you have done so well, wet
and cold as the weather has been. From Cashiobury I went with a little interval
to Holland House where I caught a cruel cold, which is not gone and has so
dismayed me that I have given up everything beyond Paris.
William thinks of coming here for a few days before I
go, but has not yet decided between Paris and Liverpool. I think he will go to
Liverpool. Lady Cork
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dined at Holland House on the
27th, and on September 5 with me, and on Friday I had a family party of
Sharpes, Towgoods and
Miss Slater. . . . So Mrs.
Charles Kemble is dead and Mrs. Sturch. My
present scheme is to set off for Paris in about a fortnight, and a letter
afterwards to the P. O. will find me there. The Websters
have been staying in Lady Mary’s apartments in
Windsor Castle. The Hollands set off on the
5th as you say; Sir Stephen and Allen with them in the first carriage.
Travelling post, they slept at Rochester and Canterbury, and a Government
packet, price twenty-five guineas, met them at Dover. Pray give my love to
Margaret and tell her I have not forgot my promises.
‘Yours ever,
‘S. R.’
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.
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.
Maria Theresa Kemble [née De Camp] (1777-1838)
English actress, the daughter of the musician George Lewis De Camp; she began performing
at the age of eight and married the actor Charles Kemble in 1806.
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.
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.
