Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
William Empson to Samuel Rogers, 28 March 1850
‘Moray Place: Monday (28th Jan. 1850).
‘My dear Mr.
Rogers,—A three days’ illness, apparently slight in
its causes and symptoms, deprived us, at six o’clock on Saturday evening,
of our dear friend. Millar was not alarmed, nor Christison, until four and twenty hours before
his death. He suffered no pain, but from the sense of increasing weakness. Wine
and brandy (he took nothing else) had no effect on his pulse or system. What
there was of illness was a feverish cold, accompanied by a slight bronchial
cough.
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ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
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‘Mrs. Jeffrey
and Charlotte are bearing up against
this sudden and terrible calamity as well as their friends can reasonably
expect.
‘Your long and continued friendship will make you
interested in these sad particulars. He often spoke of you as the last of his
early London friends: and you know with what a sense of your kindness, I am
‘Ever yours,
Sir Robert Christison, baronet (1797-1882)
Professor of medicine at Edinburgh University who specialized in toxicology and criminal
law; he published
Treatise on Poisons (1829).
Charlotte Empson [née Jeffrey] (1814-June 1897)
The daughter of Francis Jeffrey who in 1838 married his successor at the
Edinburgh Review, William Empson.
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.
Charlotte Jeffrey [née Wilkes] (d. 1850)
The daughter of Charles Wilkes, a New York banker, and great-niece of the radical John
Wilkes; in 1813 the became the second wife of the critic Francis Jeffrey. Their daughter
was also named Charlotte.
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).
