Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Lord Holland to Samuel Rogers, July 1821
‘Dear Rogers,—I hear with great pain that you have been seriously
ill. I hope that it is one of those many reports invented, or at least
augmented, by distance, but I cannot but be uneasy till we hear from you,
especially as your neither coming here nor writing seems to confirm the rumour.
The Court here affect to speak
1 From Rogers’s poem, ‘A Wish,’ beginning ‘Mine
be a cot beside the hill.’ The lines are— ‘And Lucy at her wheel shall sing In russet gown and apron blue.’ |
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| LADY HOLLAND AND NAPOLEON | 309 |
of the great man they
dreaded and persecuted, with tenderness and even admiration—L[ouis] XVIII. is no Cæsar, but— ‘ Cæsar would weep,
the crocodile would weep, To see his rival of the universe Lie still and peaceful there. |
‘I need not tell you how gratified (even in her grief
at the loss, or rather death of such a man) Lady
H. was at his recollection of her.
‘“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.
‘Excuse hurry, which you know the idleness of Paris
always produces.
‘My Lady’s love.
‘Yours,
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.
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.
Louis XVIII, king of France (1755-1824)
Brother of the executed Louis XVI; he was placed on the French throne in 1814 following
the abdication of Napoleon.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
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).