Clayden: Rogers and his Contemporaries

It was at this time that Rogers made the attempt, which was only partially successful, to effect a reconciliation between Dr. Parr and Sir James Mackintosh. Parr regarded Mackintosh as a trimmer, and I have already given an account of an ill-mannered rejoinder Parr made to an observation Mackintosh had made about O’Quigley, who was executed as a traitor in 1798.1 The special cause of their quarrel need not be described here. Parr used to say that Mackintosh had come up from Scotland with a metaphysical head, a cold heart, and open hands. In response to an appeal by Rogers, however, he agreed to meet Mackintosh,—for ‘they had been friends in youth,’—at Rogers’s dinner table, where, as Mackintosh’s biographer tells us, Parr in the most express terms retracted the injurious things he had said of Mackintosh on imperfect information. The following letters passed on the subject.

‘Dear Mackintosh,—Dr. Parr dines with me on Thursday, 3rd of August, and he wishes to meet some of his old friends under my roof, as it may be for the last time. He has named Whishaw, and Sharp, and Lord Holland, and he says,

Rogers had had much ill-health this year. He was very far from well when Walter Scott, made a baronet in April, was in town in the London season. This accounts for a reference in the following letter.

‘My dear Rogers,—The son of an old friend, a man of much taste and science, Dr. James Russell of Edinburgh, is going to your metropolis on scientific and medical pursuits, and his father asks me for a line of introduction to some of my friends in the literary world. Alas! I have very few left. Our dear George Ellis is gone, and so are many others with whom I used to claim some interest. My tediousness must be the more liberally bestowed on those who remain, and as few have a greater share of my regard than yourself, you must look for a good portion of it. Luckily it never, or very seldom, breaks out into correspondence, but, like the philosophical parrot, pays it off by thinking.

‘Rose has been much indisposed, nevertheless killed a salmon of eighteen pounds weight after an hour and a half close struggle; this, as Robinson Crusoe says when he drinks his glass of rum, “to his exceeding refreshment.”

‘I do not much know the young bairn, but have seen him at his father’s scientific parties; a clever lad, I think. If you can, without inconvenience to yourself, shew him any notice, his respectable family here will be much gratified as well as, dear Rogers,

During the autumn Wordsworth was abroad, and returned, full of his tour, in the first week of December, when he puts on record his having met Rogers on his way through London.

‘If you do not think it too great a bore to go to the theatre—and God knows as now managed it is no small one—I want you, and any of our friends who love the art, to see an actor from Scotland, Mackay by name, who plays one single part (the Bailie in “Rob Roy”) with unrivalled excellence. The truth is I never saw anything so much like truth upon the stage. I doubt the English will not understand what a very excellent representation it is of the Scottish peculiarities, because it wants the breadth of caricature usually expected in national portraits. I therefore wish you, and one or two of my friends, to see him as something very extraordinary. He is only to play for one night. He is otherwise a respectable comedian, though not often first class, except in that particular character, and, I am told, is a deserving sort of person.

‘“L’Empereur Napoleon à Lady Holland: témoignage de satisfaction et d’estime,” were the words, and remarkably well chosen. Write me word how you are.

‘August 1st.—Found Rogers was arrived. Drove about a little with Mrs. S., then called upon Rogers at four; his sister and niece with him; received me most cordially.

‘August 2nd.—Called upon Rogers; Luttrell with him. Luttrell said that he has all his life had a love for domestic comforts though passing his time in such a different manner, “Like that King of Bohemia who had so unluckily a taste for navigation, though condemned to live in an inland town.” Walked about the Tuileries Gardens for an hour and a half with Rogers: sarcastic and amusing as usual.

‘August 3rd.—Rogers having proposed to come out to the pavilion to-day with his sister, I bustled away early with a pigeon pie and some other provisions for dinner. The Rogerses arrived before two o’clock, and went with me to Meudon and the Sèvres manufactory. Our dinner very lively and agreeable; Villamil and Lord John of the party. Rogers quite distressed at hearing from me that Lord Byron had just finished a tragedy on the story of Foscari.

‘August 10th.—Breakfasted with Rogers. Went afterwards to the Louvre with him. Rogers spoke depreciatingly of Chantrey and Canova. Said Gerard’s “Henry IVth” was “like a tin shop,” which is true; a hard glitter about it. Explained to me what is called breadth of light by Correggio’s picture of the “Nymph and Satyr.”

‘August 12th.—In talking to Rogers about my living in Paris, I said, “One would not enjoy even Paradise if one was obliged to live in it.” “No,” says he; “I dare say when Adam and Eve were turned out they were very happy.”

‘August 15th.—Breakfasted with R.; read me his story of Foscari, which is told very strikingly. Joined the Rogerses at Tivoli. Rogers, speaking as we walked home of the sort of conscription of persons of all kinds that is put in force for the dinner of the Hollands, said, “There are two parties before whom everybody must appear—them and the police.” Took leave of them: he starts for Switzerland to-morrow.’

Rogers went on to Switzerland with his sister Sarah and their niece Martha Rogers, where they stayed through September, paying a visit to his old friend J. P. Kemble at Lausanne. Mrs. Siddons and her daughter were there, and there he parted with his companions and went on alone to spend the winter in Italy. His sister and niece returned with Mrs. Siddons and her daughter by way of Paris to London, where she superintended the publication of the first part of ‘Italy.’ In a series of letters Rogers tells a good deal of the story of this interesting visit which had great results on his future.

‘My dear Sarah,—I wrote you a long letter to Paris, which, I hope, you received. It was from Milan, where I arrived on the 6th, and stayed till the 10th, during excessive rain. There I fell in with three we saw at Paris—Ellis, Sneyd, and Lord Clare. I dined with them at their hotel, and they with me at mine. There, too, I hired a Courier—a man young and intelligent, and, I think, gentle, though a Roman. He has a high character from Scarlett’s brother, whose service he lived in eleven months. He is now laid up with a lame knee, but is getting better. I left Milan and found beautiful weather all the way to this place, sleeping in our old rooms at Desenzano; but all the inns are so brushed up and painted

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you would not know them. I admire Italy more than ever, and wonder how anybody should talk of anything else. I came here yesterday and found the Beaumonts. I have passed all to-day with them and shall to-morrow, as they go the next. I have sent to the post, and, alas, there was no letter any more than at Milan, but will hope all is well. I shall stay here, I think, five or six days, and then proceed to Florence, where I hope I shall find a letter. I have been very unlucky; as to the vintage, it had not begun on the lake, and was over all the way to Venice. I have very comfortable lodgings in the Gran Britannia on the Great Canal, and the boatmen are at this moment making a great noise under my window. The Beaumonts have delightful ones on the sea opposite St. Giorgio’s Church. They were very sorry to miss you. He has some sketches, but they are none of them such as I like, memorandums like yours. He has a broken shin, but contrives to float about in his gondola; I believe we are the only English here. You will here have the alterations and additions I threatened you with in my last; I have written over each the title or number they refer to, and hope you will find the places out easily. Pray substitute the new passages instead of the old. The chapter I have given no title to I have called Italy, and have added to it eleven new lines. The notes you will insert in their places at the end. In my last I said I liked much the idea of Miss Mallet, if she would be good enough to undertake it, and if you still approve of it; but not unless you do. I hope you are now at Paris with Henry, but shall write home, and the letter will keep very well till you get it. I am very well,

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and have nothing the matter with me but gnats. Here are beccaficos innumerable, but I have met with none so good as a lark. I came here on Sunday afternoon, and went to church to hear the young ladies play on the fiddle and blow flutes and trumpets. It lasted half an hour, and was very well. You see them very indistinctly. Hoppner, the Consul, is in Switzerland with his wife’s relations. Pray, when you go to St. James’s Place, search in the drawer of the table that stands in the middle of my bedroom, and I think you will find a thin blue copy-book in a blue cover, as blue as the inside of a band-box. It contains “The Brides of Venice.” If you find it, print it in its place. If not, it must be left out altogether, as I have forgot it, and have in vain tried to recall it. Among the chapters is one entitled “A Retrospect.” Pray entitle it “The Alps” instead. I have ventured to send some lines on Mont Blanc for a note. If you don’t think them tolerable, don’t let them be printed. Which do you like best, the sixth line, those or this—

Byron remained but one day in Florence; Rogers refused to go on then to visit him at Pisa, having set his face to go to Rome. From Florence, where he stayed a week, and afterwards from Rome, he wrote the two following letters.

‘My dear Sarah,—I wrote you a long letter from Milan, and a large budget of verse and prose from Venice. At Milan I slept four nights, at Venice seven, and passed much of my time with Sir G. Beaumont at Venice, overtaking him for a day at Bologna and for an hour only here. At Bologna I waited a day for Lord Byron and crossed the Apennines with him. Our party consisted of a dog, a cat, a hawk, an old gondolier from Venice, and other sundries. His “Foscari” is already printed, and will, I fear, get the start of us. I hope you passed some time,

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321

and very agreeably at Paris. Perhaps you are not returned home yet, for I am quite in the dark, having heard nothing since we parted at the inn door that dismal morning. I begin now to be a little fidgety, but console myself with thinking all is well. Hoppner, I find, was sorry to miss me at Venice, as I was to miss him—I wished much to see the boy who lay stretched on the hearth at N. G. There is no end to the English on their road to Rome. I am at the little inn vis-à-vis Sneyder’s—now belonging to him—for that leviathan swallows up everything, and is said to be worth half a million. I have three windows at top, and the sun is upon me before ten o’clock. I am always up at seven, and out by eight, for the weather, though very cold, is sunny. Snow is on all the hills—but the sunsets are beautiful, the hills over the Cascine of a bright rose colour. I have been here just a fortnight—and had only one rainy day. Just now, however, I have a wretched cold, having committed a great folly in going with Miss Fanshawe in an open carriage to see Galileo’s house. From my windows I look over to Sneyder’s, as you know—and every morning see English carriages with mules or post-horses at the door for Rome. Lord Byron is gone to live at Pisa. He spent only one day here. I wish you had seen him set off, every window of the inn was open to see him. My dinner comes over the bridge to me, and is cold enough. To-day I mean to omit it.

‘The Beaumonts were very impatient to get to Rome. Sir G. to his old haunts at Tivoli and Albano. Lady Westmoreland is at Civita Vecchia just now. I expect a sad change in my quarters at Rome. Our old house,

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Casa Joubert, at least Lord Holland’s part of it, is now an hotel. Several have offered to hire for me, and Sneyd writes me word (I gave him a sort of commission) that he has secured for me one in Via Babuino between Piazza d Espagna and del Popolo, as you know—a sad fall from ours—and at twenty louis a month! However, he has done better than Dr. Holland, for I see by the drawing he sends me there are two fire-places. Here is nobody I know but the Dysons and Miss Fanshawe. The Ponsonbys and Bessboroughs are just arrived, but I have seen only Lord B. The boy we saw at Mornay died at Parma; “I suppose you have heard of the accident we have had? “Lord Bessborough said to me on the bridge yesterday—I could not conceive he alluded to it. Lady Ellenborough, five daughters and a son, passed through to Rome yesterday. It was but last May she returned to England. The ortolan season is over, and no orange blossoms, no violets are about in the streets, only a pink carnation and china roses. The figs are gone. I have twenty in a basket here on the table—one of the old baskets—but they are tasteless and frost-bitten, and the grapes begin to shrivel.

‘Only think—poor Lady Bessborough died this morning at the “Pelican”—Sneyders could not take her in—Lord B. mentioned her being ill and unable to see me yesterday, but he looked very cheerful and I thought nothing of it. She arrived only on Friday, travelling all night, ill, from Bologna (’twas from an inflammation in the bowels) and to-day is Sunday. After she was given over, she wrote three letters to her three children in England and took the Sacrament with great composure.

‘My dear Sarah,—Your kind letter of 2nd November came to-day, and did me a great deal of good. I am glad to find Mrs. S[iddons] and the voiturier turned out so well, though not Miss S.; a journey lets out strange things. I left Florence on 18th (the day we did), slept at Sienna the first night, Radicofani the second, and Viterbo the third, arriving at Rome about 2 o’clock on Wednesday last. I had fine weather all the way; the inns in the papal country are no better than before, not a jot. Indeed, I suffered much more than before, expecting, perhaps, something better and having no novelty to keep me up.

‘Sir George Beaumont saw the “Coronation” at Drury Lane, and says it is much the finest thing he ever saw. Have you seen it? Madame Arponi, the Austrian Minister’s wife here, is very gracious to the English; she is very strict to the Austrians, but admits

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us all, and is at home every Monday. They say her Palace is a very splendid one, but I thought I would defer my appearance and stay at home and talk to you. I sent you another long letter and large budget from Florence, directing it to Henry. I hope it arrived. It contained three more parts: “Ginevra,” “Florence,”and “Don Garzia.” I am glad you have found the “Brides.” Many, many thanks to you for your great kindness and patience under such an affliction. You will now taste some of the miseries of an author, with none of his vanity to support you under it. I am reading “Corinne” again, and with new pleasure, and get on with Sismondi tolerably well. Inclosed you will receive another, “Arqua.” Pray insert it after “St. Mark’s Place.” I was at Florence in the Chapel on the day of the Morti; the day, I believe, after All Souls’ day. At Florence I went every evening (almost) to the opera, paying a franc and a half. The last day I dined with the Mintos, who are arrived there. . . . Lady Minto is a very agreeable and pretty woman, daughter of Brydone, the traveller, and granddaughter of Robertson. They are coming on here. Ward and Fazakerly are at Nice. Lord Derby’s daughter, Lady M. Stanley, is going to marry Lord Wilton, so we shall lose her smiles at the concert.’

‘I came here a fortnight ago, and wrote you a long

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account of Rome. Last Sunday was the ceremony in the Capella Sistina. The Pope did not perform at high mass, hut as soon as it was over, two Cardinals went out and brought him in; he carried the Host under the Canopy into the Capella Paulina, but nobody went in there while he knelt but Lady Abercorn, and she by accident. The man was in the basket snuffing the lights as before. Somehow or other the whole struck me much less than formerly; and the singing particularly. But what I saw last Monday far exceeded my expectations. [To] Frascati, Sir G. Beaumont and I went together, and there, mounting donkeys, rode to Tusculum and Grotta Ferrata, through galleries or avenues of ilex and cypress along those hills, catching the most delightful views of Rome, and the Campagna, and the villas above and below us. It was sunny and clear (we have often a July without three such days) and too hot, though it was the 3rd of December. It was a day I shall never forget, and to be equalled only by the afternoons I spent with you at Albano and Mola. I am very sorry indeed to hear of Mrs. W.’s death, it must make a great gap at Amersham. Your visit will be a great comfort to them. I think I must say something about Lord Byron, but I don’t know how. Pray let the following be the note, and pray decide for me which of the two conclusions you like best. It is unnecessary for me to see it again.’

These letters show the great confidence Rogers reposed in his sister Sarah’s judgment. As the poem was to be published anonymously he could not consult his friends about lines, phrases, and words as he had consulted Richard Sharp, and sometimes Moore, about his other works, and he therefore took counsel with the sister who shared his secret. I have omitted from these letters many of the alternative passages and expressions which he leaves to her choice, but enough remain to show the important part she took in preparing the volume as well as in seeing it through the press. It was, in fact, carefully edited by Sarah Rogers.

Shelley knew Rogers but slightly. He had called at St. James’s Place to ask Rogers to assist him in a generous scheme of his for helping Leigh Hunt, which Rogers at the time was unable to do. In the intercourse which he had with Shelley during his stay at Pisa, Rogers was pleased with him, and always spoke of him afterwards with respect. He used to say that in argument Byron treated him with great rudeness, replying by such discourteous phrases as ‘Ah! that’s very well for an atheist,’ and that Shelley bore it with a quiet, gentle, and resigned manner, while firmly holding his own in argument. Rogers described in conversation his own experiences of Byron’s manner. They quarrelled constantly, and Byron said all the cruel things he could think of to mortify his guest. Rogers bore them with composure, and on the next morning Byron would meet him with an effusive welcome, an air of making it up, which immediately made them friends again.

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William Adam (1751-1839) Scottish barrister, Whig MP (1784-1812) and ally of Charles James Fox (whom he once wounded in a duel); he was privy councillor (1815) and a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

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Sir William Allan (1782-1850) Scottish painter who traveled in Russia and exhibited at the Royal Academy to which he was elected in 1835; he was president of the Royal Scottish Academy (1838).

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Lady Margaret Beaumont [née Willes] (1756-1829) The daughter of John Willes of Astrop; in 1778 she married Sir George Howland Beaumont, seventh baronet; she is mentioned by Byron in “The Blues.”

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Patrick Brydone (1736-1818) Scottish traveller who published A Tour through Sicily and Malta: in a series of letters to William Beckford, esq., 2 vols (1773). His companion in the tour was evidently Richard Glover, son of the poet.

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John Flaxman (1755-1826) English sculptor and draftsman who studied at the Royal Academy and was patronized by William Hayley.

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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.

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Samuel Parr (1747-1825) English schoolmaster, scholar, and book collector whose strident politics and assertive personality involved him in a long series of quarrels.

Pietro Vannucci Perugino (1446 c.-1523) Florentine painter praised and dispraised for the sweetness of his style.

Philippe II, duke of Orléans (1674-1723) Following the death of his uncle Louis XIV he served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723; his art collection was sold during the French Revolution.

Pope Pius VII. (1740-1823) The Pope during the Napoleonic era, 1800-1823.

Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783-1837) The second son of the third earl of Bessborough, and brother of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was MP (1806-30); after a distinguished career in the Peninsular War and being wounded at Waterloo he was governor of Malta (1826-35).

Henrietta Frances Ponsonby, countess of Bessborough [née Spencer] (1761-1821) The younger sister of the Duchess of Devonshire; in 1780 she married Frederick Ponsonby, third earl of Bessborough; Lady Caroline Lamb was their daughter.

John William Ponsonby, fourth earl of Bessborough (1781-1847) The son of Frederick Ponsonby, third earl of Bessborough (d. 1844) and elder brother of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP (1805-34), home secretary (1834-35), and lord-lieutenant of Ireland (1846-47).

Raphael (1483-1520) Of Urbino; Italian painter patronized by Leo X.

Owen Rees (1770-1837) London bookseller; he was the partner of Thomas Norton Longman and friend of the poet Thomas Moore.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) English portrait-painter and writer on art; he was the first president of the Royal Academy (1768).

William Robertson (1721-1793) Educated at Edinburgh University of which he became principal (1762), he was a highly-regarded historian, the author of History of Scotland in the Reign of Queen Mary and of King James VI (1759) and The History of the Reign of Charles V (1769).

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.

William Stewart Rose (1775-1843) Second son of George Rose, treasurer of the navy (1744-1818); he introduced Byron to Frere's Whistlecraft poems and translated Casti's Animale parlante (1819).

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Flemish baroque painter and diplomat notable for his allegorical depictions of the life of Marie de Medici.

James Russell (1754-1836) Surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and professor of surgery at Edinburgh; he was a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

James Russell (1801-1862) The son of Walter Scott's friend Professor James Russell (1754-1836); he took his MD at Edinburgh in 1823 and lived in Ayreshire but did not practice.

James Scarlett, first baron Abinger (1769-1844) English barrister and politician educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple; he was a Whig MP (1819-34) who served as attorney-general in the Canning and Wellington ministries.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) German scholar, critic, and translator of Shakespeare.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

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

Richard Sharp [Conversation Sharp] (1759-1835) English merchant, Whig MP, and member of the Holland House set; he published Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834).

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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of Queen Mab (1813), The Revolt of Islam (1817), The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821).

Sir Samuel Shepherd (1760-1840) English barrister educated at Merchant Taylors' School and the Inner Temple; he was king's serjeant (1796), solicitor-general (1813), attorney-general (1817) and a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831) English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.

Léonard Simond de Sismondi (1773-1842) Swiss historian of Italian origin; author of L'Histoire des républiques italiennes du Moyen-Age (1809-18).

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.

Edward Smith Stanley, twelfth earl of Derby (1752-1834) Grandson of the eleventh earl (d. 1776); educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a Whig MP for Lancashire, a friend of Charles James Fox, nephew of John Burgoyne, and a committed sportsman.

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

Abbé Joseph Taylor (d. 1822) The Abbé Taylor was an Irish priest at Rome, and president of the College of St. Isidore there.

Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844) Danish sculptor who with Canova led the neoclassical school at Rome.

Tintoretto (1518-1594) Venetian mannerist painter.

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

Giovanni Torlonia, first Prince di Civitella-Cesi (1755-1829) Italian banker who managed Vatican finances; he was created Princeps Romanus in 1803.

Lord John Townshend (1757-1833) The son of George Townshend, first Marquess Townshend; he was educated at Eton and St John's College, Cambridge and was a Whig MP for Cambridge, Westminster, and Knaresborough. He was a denizen of Holland House and Sheridan's literary executor.

Philip Villamil (1871 fl.) An English artist sometimes resident in Seville; he was an acquaintance of Thomas Moore whose name appears in an 1871 census.

Horace Walpole, fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797) English biographer, letter-writer, and antiquary; son of Sir Robert Walpole; author of The Castle of Otranto (1764).

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.

John Whishaw (1764 c.-1840) Barrister, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; he was Secretary to the African Association and biographer of Mungo Park. His correspondence was published as The “Pope” of Holland House in 1906.

Helen Maria Williams (1761-1827) English poet, novelist, and miscellaneous writer who resided in France after 1788; she published Letters from France (1790-96).

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.

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.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Question and Answer” in Fraser's Magazine. Vol. 7 No. 37 (January 1833): 82-84. A satirical character of Samuel Rogers, written in 1818, first published in Fraser's Magazine.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “The Two Foscari, a Tragedy” in Sardanapalus a Tragedy. The two Foscari, a Tragedy. Cain, a Mystery. (London: Murray, 1821).

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) Pleasures of Hope, with other Poems. (Edinburgh: Mundell, 1799). One of the most widely admired and frequently reprinted poems of the nineteenth century; with Samuel Rogers' Pleasures of Memory (1792) it propelled the busy “Poems of the Pleasures” genre.

Peter William Clayden (1827-1902) The Early Life of Samuel Rogers. (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1887). Continued as Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries (1889).

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake [née Rigby] (1809-1893) “Reminiscences of Samuel Rogers” in Quarterly Review. Vol. 167 (October 1888): 504-513. A review of P. W. Clayden's Early Life of Samuel Rogers.

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.

Thomas Medwin (1788-1869) Conversations of Lord Byron: noted during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822. (London: Colburn, 1824). Medwin had been invited to Italy by Shelley and was intimate with both poets.

Thomas Medwin (1788-1869) The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 2 vols (London: T. C. Newby, 1847).

John Milton (1608-1674) Paradise Lost. A Poem written in Ten Books. (London: 1667). A biblical epic on the fall of man, in blank verse.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) Human Life: a Poem. (London: John Murray, 1819).

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

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) “A Wish” in An Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems. (London: T. Cadell, 1786). Four quatrains; a much-anthologized lyric.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Rob Roy. 3 vols (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1818). Published anonymously, as the rest of the Waverley novels.

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Corinne, ou L'Italie. (Paris: Garnier, 1800). Recounts the unhappy love of an Italian poetess and a Scottish aristocrat.

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