LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
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Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
William Wordsworth to Samuel Rogers, 13 May 1817
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents
Chapter I. 1803-1805.
Chapter II. 1805-1809.
Chapter III. 1810-1812.
Chapter IV. 1813-1814.
Chapter V. 1814-1815.
Chapter VI. 1815-1816.
Chapter VII. 1816-1818.
Chapter VIII. 1818-19.
Chapter IX. 1820-1821.
Chapter X. 1822-24.
Chapter XI. 1825-1827.
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I. 1828-1830.
Chapter II. 1831-34.
Chapter III. 1834-1837.
Chapter IV. 1838-41.
Chapter V. 1842-44.
Chapter VI. 1845-46.
Chapter VII. 1847-50.
Chapter VIII. 1850
Chapter IX. 1851.
Chapter X. 1852-55.
Index
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‘Rydal Mount: May 13, 1817.

‘I presume you are in a state of earthly existence, as I have heard nothing to the contrary since we parted in a shower near the Turnpike Gate of Keswick. Need I add that I hope and wish that you may be well? In the former part of this sentence, you may have divined there lurks a charitable reproach; for you left me with some reason to expect that I should hear of, from, or about you. Though this favour has not been granted, I am not
LETTER FROM WORDSWORTH241
discouraged from asking another, the exact amount of which I am unable to calculate. A friend of mine, a near relation of Mrs. Wordsworth, is smitten with a desire of seeing the pictures brought together by the members of the British Institution, and exhibited in the evening—I feel I have expressed my meaning cumbrously and ill—he wishes to attend the evening greatly, and has applied to me to procure him a ticket, for one night, if I conveniently can. Is it in your power to enable me to gratify this laudable ambition in a worthy person? Having come to the point, I have only to add that his address is, Thomas Monkhouse, Esq., 28, St. Anne’s Street; and could you enclose him a ticket, I shall be most thankful.

‘Are we to see you among us this summer? I hope so—and also that Sharp will not desert us. How is he in health, and what does he say of Switzerland and Italy, both in themselves and as compared with the scenes in our neighbourhood, which he knows so well? Is George Philips as great an orator as ever, and do you and Dante continue as intimate as heretofore? He used to avenge himself upon his enemies by placing them in H—ll, a thing Bards seem very fond of attempting in this day, witness the Laureate’s mode of treating Mr. W. Smith. You keep out of these scrapes, I suppose; why don’t you hire somebody to abuse you? and the higher the place selected for the purpose the better. For myself, I begin to fear that I should soon be forgotten if it were not for my enemies. Yet, now and then, a humble admirer presents himself, in some cases following up his introduction with a petition. The other day, I had a letter of this sort
242 ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES  
from a poetical, not a personal, friend—a Quaker of the name of Barton, living at “Woodbridge, in Suffolk. He has beguiled me of a guinea, the promise of one at least, by way of subscription to a quarto volume of poems, which he is anxious to print partly for honour, partly for profit. He solicits my interest to promote his views. I state the fact, I do not beg—I have not sufficient grounds to go upon—I leave the affair to the decision of your own mind, only do not contemn me for abusing—’1