Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Uvedale Price to Samuel Rogers, 17 June 1815
‘My dear Sir,—I have often thought of you, often
wished to hear of you, and still more to hear from you, but till within these
few days (such is the profound ignorance in which we are buried here) I did not
know that you were in England. I particularly desired my son to inquire about
you, and I was very glad to hear from him that you had escaped all perils and
dangers and were returned sano e
salvo. The last letter I had from you was dated Venice; and
in that, which gave me ![]()
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a great desire to receive more of
them, you expressed a wish to hear from me again at Florence or Rome. What
became of the letter I wrote almost immediately in consequence I know not; but
I should be very sorry you should think I had neglected thanking you for the
very pleasant one I had received, or giving myself some claim to others of the
same kind. I can bring witnesses, if necessary, that I did fill a single letter
as full as it could hold, and directed as you desired. I beg, however, to be
understood that all this is meant to justify myself from the charge of neglect,
not to accuse you. A letter of yours from Rome or Naples would have been highly
interesting, and in truth we were all most anxious to receive one. If your
conscience tells you that you ought to have written it, there is but one way of
making us amends for the disappointment; that is, by coming here, not merely
for a day or two, this summer, and telling us vivâ voce the whole history of your travels and
adventures dal alto a basso. If you
do this I acknowledge that the amends will be ample, and I beg we may have it
soon under your own hand, that nothing shall prevent you coming in the course
of the summer or the autumn to this place, where, by the by, I have been doing
a good deal in my little way, and flatter myself that I have some interesting
things to show you.
‘You may, perhaps, remember, though it is a long time
ago, that when you set off on your tour you carried a little MS. of mine with
you to Paris and then sent it to Dr.
Burney. If he received it and did read it he probably thought no
more of the paper or its contents, and has now forgot every circumstance about
it. It is ![]()
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just
possible, however, that he may remember something of it and of what occurred to
him at the time. Any remarks of his would be very valuable, and if it would not
be giving you too much additional trouble about such a trifle, you will,
perhaps, have the kindness to find out whether he ever did receive the paper
and whether he recollects anything about it.
‘I must now end this letter, et pour
cause ; about two months ago I received a very severe blow on one of
my eyes, unfortunately the best and strongest of the two, which has very much
impaired the sight of it. On stating my case to Sir
William Adams he said that such accidents generally bring on a
cataract. Dii meliora ; as the eye is
not only dim but weak, I must leave off. Lady
Caroline and my daughter desire to be kindly remembered to you.
They depend upon seeing you here.
‘Most truly yours,
Sir William Adams (1783-1827)
Born in Cornwall, he was surgeon and oculist-extraordinary to the prince regent, knighted
in 1814. He adopted his wife's name of Rawson late in life.
Charles Burney the younger (1757-1817)
Son of the musicologist; after a scandalous youth he became a noted scholar, book
collector, and schoolmaster at Greenwich. His collection of newspapers is now in the
British Library.
Lady Caroline Price [née Carpenter] (d. 1826)
The youngest daughter of George, first earl of Tyrconnel; in 1774 she married Sir Uvedale
Price; they had a son, Robert, and a daughter, Caroline.
Sir Uvedale Price, first baronet (1747-1829)
Of Foxley in Herefordshire; he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and
published
Essay on the Picturesque (1794).
