UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class 
 
 Book Volume 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 L161 — H41 
 
SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 ’i 
 
 ♦ 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/rogershiscontempOOclay 
 
THE 
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL EOGEES 
 
 BY 
 
 p. w. ^layden 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ‘ SAMUEL SHARPE, EGYPTOLOGIST AND TRANSLATOR OF THE BIBLE ’ 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 1887 
 
 [ All rights reserved ] 
 
peoiai English, jJeb&H . . q & ^<S 5^0 3 
 
 PEEPACB. 
 
 The narrative of Rogers’s early life covers a period of 
 forty years, and naturally ends with his settlement in the 
 celebrated house in St. James’s Place. Another period 
 of more than fifty years, in which he was one of the chief 
 figures in English Society, remains to be dealt with in 
 another volume. I have ample materials for this work 
 in the shape of letters from many of Rogers’s eminent 
 contemporaries, but I shall esteem it as a great favour if 
 those who possess letters by Rogers himself will let me 
 have copies of them. 
 
 The materials for Rogers’s life were placed in my 
 hands by Miss Sharpe of 32 Highbury Place, and Mrs. 
 William Sharpe of 1 Highbury Terrace, the representa- 
 tives of his nephews and executors — the late Mr. Samuel 
 Sharpe and the late Mr. William Sharpe; and I am 
 deeply indebted to them for the generous trust they have 
 
 139299 
 
VI 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 placed in my discretion. For the use made of letters 
 and diaries I am solely responsible. I wish further to 
 express my cordial thanks to Mrs. Drummond of 
 Fredley and of 1 8 Hyde Park Gardens, for the valuable 
 and interesting letters of Richard Sharp. 
 
 P. W. Clayden. 
 
 13 Tavistock Square, London : 
 
 November 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Stoke Newington— Rogers’s Ancestors — Dr. Price --Mrs. Rogers — 
 
 Her Letters — Her Character 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Rogers’s Boyhood and Schoolmasters — His Father — William Maltby 
 — Dr. Price and the Boys — Thomas Rogers’s Politics — Dr. 
 Price’s Influence— Samuel Rogers and the Pulpit — The Coven- 
 try Election — Letters from Thomas Rogers — Samuel Rogers at 
 Home 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early Writings — ‘ The Scribbler ’ — ‘ Vintage of Burgundy ’ — ‘ Ode 
 
 to Superstition ’ — Smaller Poems 52 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Bank Partnership — Hackney College — Dr. Kippis one of his 
 Literary Sponsors — Helen Maria Williams and the Coquerels — 
 Mrs. Barbauld — Joanna Baillie —Death of Thomas Rogers, 
 junior — Letters from Thomas Rogers, senior— Visit to Edin- 
 burgh — Adam Smith, Robertson, H. Mackenzie — The Piozzis — 
 Tour through Scotland — Burns — Henry Mackenzie and his 
 works — Sir Joshua Reynolds and Burke 
 
 73 
 
Vlll 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 English feeling about France in 1789 and 1790 — Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, Adams — Diary in Revolutionary Paris — Visits to 
 Lafayette, de Chatelet, de Liancourt, the Due de Rochefoucauld, 
 etc. — National Assembly, Jacobin Club — The Theatres — The 
 King and Queen — The Populace — Journey homewards through 
 Belgium and Flanders — Dr. John Moore, father of Sir John and 
 Sir Graham Moore 115 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Helen Williams — Conversation at her house — Merry and the Della 
 Cruscans — Journey through Wales, 1791 — Mrs. Barbauld’s 
 Letter — Visit to Dr. Parr, 1793 162 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ — Letter of Criticism from Dr. Parr ; 
 
 Notes — Letter of Gilpin — Hayward’s Criticism — Estimate of 
 the Poem 210 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Diary of literary visits, parties, etc. — Dinners with Parr, Cumber- 
 land — Fox, Sheridan, and Pamela, at Stone’s — R. Sharp — 
 Summer journey to New Forest, etc. — Gilpin — Meetings of Club 
 — Cooper, Priestley, Tuffin, Stothard, Franklin, etc. — Eumelean 
 Club — Arthur Murphy — His stories of Foote and Garrick . . 239 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Death of Rogers’s Father — Richard Sharp — Rogers deciding on a 
 West-end life — R. Cumberland, R. Merry, T. Cooper — Priestley’s 
 exile — Horne Tooke’s Trial— William Stone’s Trial — Mrs. 
 Siddons and her epilogue — Dr. Moore — Early Correspondence 
 with Richard Sharp — Rogers’s Commonplace Book — Dr. John- 
 son and Dr. Priestley — ‘ My Club ’ — Rogers and Polwhele . 273 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 State of the country in 1795-6 — Reaction in Parliament — West- 
 minster election, 1796 — Dr. Moore and his sons — Rogers’s 
 domestic relations — Correspondence with R. Sharp — Brighton 
 in 1797 — Lady Jersey — A romance without a denouement — 
 Brighton in 1798 — Sarah Rogers 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ‘ An Epistle to a Friend ’ — Letters from Dr. Warton — W. Gilpin — 
 Criticisms and changes in the poem— Mr. Hayward’s criticism 
 — Rogers and Fox, Erskine — Political warfare — The Fox 
 banquet, 1798— The Duke of Norfolk — Prosecution of Gilbert 
 Wakefield — Parr and Mackintosh 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ‘The Pursuits of Literature’ — A winter at Exmouth — Classical 
 reading — George Steevens — Jackson of Exeter — Letters to 
 Richard Sharp — Dr. Moore’s ‘ Mordaunt ’ — Dr. Moore’s death 
 — Richard Sharp and Fredley — Brighton in 1801 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The King of Clubs ’ — i The Bachelor ’—Rogers building — Paris in 
 1802 — Letters to Henry Rogers, Maria Sharpe, Mrs. Greg — Fox 
 and Rogers in Paris — Fox and Mackintosh — Rogers’s new house 
 —His final settlement in St. James’s Place . . . . 
 
 INDEX . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 316 
 
 351 
 
 383 
 
 422 
 
 453 
 
THE EARLY LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Stoke Newington — Rogers’s Ancestors — Dr. Price — Mrs. Rogers — 
 Her Letters — Her Character. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century the suburban 
 village of Stoke Newington contained a group of friendly 
 households, which embraced many persons afterwards 
 known in the larger world. The pretty village green, 
 then a piece of open grass with a few ancient elms and 
 quaint Elizabethan houses round it, was a centre of 
 political and religious Liberalism. A meeting-house of 
 the English Presbyterian dissent had been built there 
 in 1708, and there the Rev. Charles Morton, the silenced 
 rector of Blissland, in Cornwall — Defoe’s teacher — had 
 kept his school. In the early part of the eighteenth 
 century, Samuel Harris, an East India merchant, who 
 had married a daughter of Queen Mary’s physician, 
 Dr. Coxe, lived in one of the houses on the Green ; and 
 in 1731 their only daughter, Mary Harris — a cousin of 
 William Coxe, the author of the ‘ History of the House 
 of Austria ’ — married Daniel Radford, a warehouseman 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 in Cheapside. Daniel Radford had come to London 
 from Chester with a capital of a thousand pounds, with 
 which he had entered into partnership with Mr. Obadiah 
 Wickes. He was the son of Samuel Radford, a linen- 
 draper at Chester, and of Eleanor his wife, third 
 daughter of the Rev. Philip Henry, one of the most 
 eminent of the clergy who had been ejected on the 
 passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662. Philip Henry 
 was the son of one of the pages of Charles I. He was 
 born in the palace at Whitehall, had been a playfellow 
 of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, had seen 
 the king beheaded, and was in politics a Cavalier. His 
 mother inclined to the teaching of the Presbyterian 
 divines, and the son, after leaving Westminster School, 
 and taking his degree at Oxford, had adhered to the 
 same side in religious matters, and had entered the 
 Church during the Protectorate by Presbyterian ordina- 
 tion. Daniel Radford, his grandson, inherited the serious 
 disposition and the religious principles of his grand- 
 father. Daniel’s father and mother, the Chester linen- 
 draper and his wife, had died early, and Daniel w T as 
 brought up by his maternal uncle, the Rev. Matthew 
 Henry, the author of the celebrated Commentary on the 
 Bible. Daniel Radford’s Diary shows the influence of 
 this ancestry and training. He was an introspective 
 person, and religious feeling tinged his life. He puts on 
 record, sometimes day by day, sometimes only year by 
 year, not the day’s events nor the year’s history, but the 
 serious reflections which the flight of time or the death 
 of friends, or family joys and troubles, suggested to a 
 religious mind. A few events of personal and family 
 
HIS MATERNAL GRANDFATHER 
 
 3 
 
 interest are noted here and there, but only for the sake 
 of recording some pious resolution or of writing down 
 some aspiration which had arisen out of them. The 
 Journal begins in March, 1715, with an extraet from a 
 devotional book, and ends in June, 1767, less than four 
 months before his death, with the expression of the hope 
 that * though I shall not die a profitable servant, yet I 
 hope to die a pardoned sinner through Jesus Christ.’ 
 In all the two-and-fifty years there is only one reference 
 to a public event, and that is an earthquake, 1 which 
 suggested a religious reflection to his mind. 
 
 Daniel Radford was born on the 24th of May, 1691, 
 and died on the 14th of October, 1767, having completed 
 his seventy-sixth year on the 4th of June, to which the 
 change of style had transferred his birthday. He had 
 settled at Newington Green on his marriage in 1731, had 
 lived there all the rest of his life, and there his only child 
 Mary had been born. With Philip Henry for his grand- 
 father, and Matthew Henry the commentator for his 
 uncle, it was natural that Daniel Radford should connect 
 himself with the small Presbyterian congregation at the 
 
 1 This entry in the Diary is as follows : ‘ In London, on Thursday, 
 8th February, 1749, betwixt twelve and one o’clock at noon, we were sur- 
 prised greatly by the shock of an earthquake which was felt in the city 
 and the country round about it. I happened to be shaving then in the 
 counting-house, and I asked the barber what the noise and shaking was. 
 He said he believed somebody had fallen down above-stairs, for indeed 
 it felt as if something heavy was fallen down. I thought it felt as if 
 the house had given way, and so most people indeed did, that were in 
 houses. But, thanks be to God ! it did very little damage anywhere as I 
 heard of, and it was over almost as soon as one felt it. And, alas ! too 
 much so has been the remembrance of the thing itself among us. But 
 shall I not fear always before, and stand in awe of, this great and holy 
 Lord God, who can, whenever He pleases, make the earth shake, with the 
 foundations thereof ? ’ 
 
4 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 chapel on the Green. The minister was Mr. Hoyle ; but 
 a man destined to European renown, and worthy of it, 
 was living near, and gave occasional help. This was 
 Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Richard Price, who became preacher 
 to the congregation in 1758. Daniel Radford and his 
 daughter — his wife had died in 1738, when Mary was 
 scarcely three years old — were thus brought into contact 
 with one of the most acute and enlightened minds the 
 eighteenth century produced, with the best intellectual 
 and social results to their connections and descendants. 
 Daniel Radford was treasurer to the congregation, and 
 at his death left a hundred pounds towards the augmen- 
 tation of the salary of the minister. 
 
 The little group of people among whom the Radfords 
 lived, was Puritan by ancestry and association, in full 
 sympathy with the Whig party in politics, and inclined 
 to latitudinarian opinions on theological questions. In 
 the sixth decade of the century there came into it a 
 young man of altogether different birth and training. 
 In Daniel Radford's Diary there is the record of the 
 deaths of his two partners : Mr. Obadiah Wickes, the 
 father, in 1748, and Mr. John Wickes, the son, in 1750. 
 On the 1st of January, 1753, he writes that he is again 
 in some concern about a new co-partnership into which 
 he has entered with Mr. Rogers. This was Thomas 
 Rogers, a glass manufacturer of Stourbridge, whose only 
 son afterwards removed to London to take part in the 
 business in which his father had thus become a partner. 
 Thomas Rogers lived at a house called ‘ The Hill ’ in the 
 parish of Old Swinford, and his name had been long 
 associated with the manufacturing industry of Stour- 
 
HIS PATERNAL ANCESTORS 
 
 5 
 
 bridge. The earliest record of the family is that the 
 will of Thomas Rogers the elder, of Amblesant, yeoman, 
 was proved on the 27th of June, 1681, by Anne, his widow 
 and sole executrix. This Thomas Rogers is described as 
 a Welshman, and an eminent dealer in glass, in Holloway 
 End, Stourbridge, He had married the daughter of M. 
 Tyttery of Nantes, in Lorraine, and left two sons, Thomas 
 and James, and a daughter, Sarah. This second Thomas 
 Rogers had a half share in the business, and was 
 apparently the father of Thomas Rogers of ‘ The Hill,’ 
 the partner of Daniel Radford. Thomas Rogers of ‘ The 
 Hill ’ — the grandson of the Welshman who had married 
 the Frenchwoman, and the grandfather of Samuel 
 Rogers — was a person of much influence and considera- 
 tion in the town and county. He had married a 
 daughter of Richard Knight of Downton ; and Richard 
 Payne Knight, the antiquary, and Thomas Andrew 
 Knight, the writer on horticulture, were his nephews. 
 He was a Tory of the old school, and lived on excellent 
 terms with the Tory gentry of the county. In the 
 picturesque and well-kept churchyard of Old Swinford 
 there are still memorials of the Rogers family ; and 
 
 Yon old mansion frowning through the trees, 
 
 of which Samuel Rogers speaks in ‘ The Pleasures of 
 Memory,’ was, in all probability, the house of Thomas 
 Rogers, his grandfather, which was not far from the 
 church. A few miles off was ‘ The Leasowes,’ where 
 Shenstone lived, and where he died in the year in which 
 Samuel Rogers was born. Close at hand, at Hagley, 
 was George Lyttelton, the friend of Pope, the patron of 
 
6 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Thomson, the poet of ‘ Blenheim ’ and ‘ The Progress of 
 Love ’ ; afterwards, author of ‘ Dialogues of the Dead,’ 
 a Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer and a peer. Farther 
 off, on the other side of Stourbridge, dwelt the Earl of 
 Stamford and Warrington, at Enville ; and round about 
 were the houses of many other country gentlemen with 
 most of whom hatred of the Whigs was the chief public 
 passion and virtue. Such was the circle in which, in 
 the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the elder 
 Thomas Kogers lived and Thomas Rogers the younger 
 was brought up. 
 
 There is no record of the date at which Thomas 
 Rogers the younger removed to London. He was pro- 
 bably just about of age when he left the Tory atmosphere 
 of the country house in Worcestershire, and plunged 
 into the entirely different moral and social conditions 
 and influences of Stoke Newington. It is evident that 
 he soon won the esteem of his father’s partner, for in 
 1 760 he was married to Daniel Radford’s only daughter, 
 Mary. The wedding took place at Islington parish 
 church on the 27th of March, 1760; and on the next 
 New Year’s Day Thomas Rogers joined his father and 
 father-in-law in the partnership, the latter advancing 
 him 2,000 1 . to make up his share of the stock-in-trade. 
 Thomas Rogers yielded quickly and fully to the new 
 influences around him. As soon as we get any glimpse 
 of his opinions we find him to be in full sympathy with 
 the political and religious Liberalism of his wife’s family 
 and friends. He was a good man of business, and pros- 
 pered in his way. In 1765 he joined George and Thomas 
 Welch, who were bankers in Cornhill, and the firm there- 
 
HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS 
 
 7 
 
 after carried on the business under the style of Welch & 
 Rogers. Meanwhile a family was fast growing up around 
 him. His eldest son, Daniel, named after his father-in- 
 law, was born on the 3rd of January, 1761 ; about Christ- 
 mas in the same year a second son, Thomas, was born ; 
 and a year and a half later, on the 30th of July, 1763, the 
 third son, w r ho was to outlive every member of the family, 
 was born, and called Samuel after his maternal grand- 
 father, Samuel Harris. Other children followed with 
 nearly equal rapidity ; Martha, afterwards Mrs. John 
 Towgood, in 1765 ; Mary in 1766, Paul in 1768 ; another 
 daughter, who lived but a day, and was never named, in 
 1770; Maria (afterwards Mrs. Sutton Sharpe) in 1771 ; 
 Sarah — the Miss Rogers who lived to within a. year of 
 Samuel, and was all through her life closely associated 
 with him — in 1772; Henry — the kind and thoughtful 
 friend of his nephews and nieces — in 1774, and Mary 
 Radford in 1776. Of these children three — Mary, Paul, 
 and Mary Radford — died in infancy, and Thomas died in 
 1788, in his twenty- seventh year. Six saw the nineteenth 
 century: Maria dying in 1806; Daniel, on whose death 
 Charles Lamb wrote a Sonnet, in 1829; Henry in 1832, 
 Martha in 1837, while Sarah lived on till January 1855, 
 and Samuel till December in the same year. These two 
 were thus the only long-lived members of a family, the 
 father and mother of which died comparatively young, 
 and of which only one other member reached the age of 
 threescore and ten. 
 
 The charm of Dr. Price’s character exerted a con- 
 siderable influence on Thomas Rogers and his family. 
 Dr. Price lived close by, and a great friendship sprang 
 
8 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 up between him and the Rogerses. A weekly supping 
 club was established which met at the houses of Dr. 
 Price, Thomas Rogers, and Mr. Burgh in turns. These 
 three, with Mr. Thoresby, the liberal and learned rector 
 of Stoke Newington, were the chief members of the club, 
 and at one of its suppers Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley 
 were afterwards introduced to each other by Dr. Benson. 
 Mr. Burgh was a schoolmaster, who kept a boarding 
 school at Newington Green, and for a time acted as 
 tutor to Samuel Rogers and his brothers. He was a 
 man of acute mind, who wrote a work entitled ‘ Political 
 Disquisitions,’ but was best known as the author of a 
 book ‘ On the Dignity of Human Nature.’ Dr. Price 
 was as great a favourite with the boys as he was with 
 their parents. They not only listened to his sermons 
 on Sunday afternoons but enjoyed his sympathy during 
 the week, in their lessons and even in their games. 
 Samuel Rogers spoke of him in after-years with the 
 most sincere affection. He would go in from his study 
 in his dressing-gown to spend the evening with the 
 family, and the children never forgot the impression his 
 conversation made upon them. ‘He would talk and 
 read the Bible to us,’ said Rogers in after-years, ‘ till he 
 sent us to bed in a frame of mind as heavenly as his 
 own.’ At other times he would take the boys and girls 
 to his house and show them scientific experiments. The 
 Equitable Assurance Society, in recognition of his services 
 in the publication of his ‘ Treatise on Reversionary Pay- 
 ments,’ his ‘ Northampton Mortality Tables,’ and other 
 writings, by which he had laid the scientific foundation 
 of Life Assurance, had presented him with some scientific 
 
DR. PRICE 
 
 9 
 
 apparatus — a telescope, a microscope, and an electrical 
 machine. It is easy to imagine the charm which these 
 instruments, then novel and unusual, had for a group 
 of lively and intelligent children. Dr. Price’s delight in 
 the company of children, and his desire to contribute to 
 their amusement and instruction, found in these toys 
 of science an unfailing source of interest and profit to 
 his young friends. But he had other and more personal 
 charms. He was a most delightful companion for boys. 
 He seems to have possessed not only a love for children, 
 but much of that boyishness and love of frolic which 
 have often characterised men of genius. In some juvenile 
 recollections of him which Samuel Bogers has left, he 
 tells several amusing stories which illustrate this unex- 
 pected side of a great man’s nature. He once challenged 
 Mr. Hulton, a commissary in the German war, and 
 commissioner of customs at Boston, a much taller and 
 more robust person than himself, to hop the length of 
 the first field between the meeting-house and Stoke 
 Newington, and won the race. On another occasion he 
 attempted to leap over a honeysuckle bush in the grass- 
 plat in the Bogerses’ garden, but to use Bogers’s words, 
 
 < he entangled the tree between his legs, and away went 
 the honeysuckle and the doctor together.’ The boys 
 said to one another that he had once leaped over the 
 New Biver ; and it was his custom every day at two 
 o’clock to run off for a swim in Peerless Pool. He had 
 frequent falls from his horse, and in Covent Garden 
 was once thrown into a basket of beans. His conscien- 
 tiousness and benevolence were exemplified in other 
 favourite stories. In a field near his house he once saw 
 
10 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 some larks struggling in the nets in which they had just 
 been caught. He cut the nets and set them free, but, 
 reflecting on the loss he had thereby caused to some 
 unknown person, returned and deposited some money 
 on the spot. In one of his strolls he suddenly remem- 
 bered that he had seen a beetle on its back, and he re- 
 turned through several fields, found it, and set it on its 
 legs. Assailed in a country walk by a footpad he mildly 
 expostulated with the man and lectured him on the 
 crime of robbery. His absence of mind was another 
 source of continual amusement. It was said that he 
 had gone down to his study to supper an hour after he 
 had eaten the meal. In conversation he turned his wig 
 round on his temples, twisted one leg round the other, 
 and folded his cocked hat into a thousand shapes. But 
 all these things endeared him to the boys as much as 
 his intellectual distinction, his tender religious feelings, 
 and his lively interest in all the questions of the day, 
 attached the elders to him. Rogers describes him as 
 4 slim in person, and rather below the common size, but 
 possessed of great muscular strength and remarkable 
 activity. With strong features, and a very intelligent 
 eye, his countenance was the mirror of his mind ; and 
 when lighted up by conversation his features were pe- 
 culiarly pleasing.’ Everybody admired and loved him, 
 and this love and admiration exerted a powerful influence 
 on the family at Newington Green. 
 
 Thomas Rogers and his wife were quite worthy of the 
 society of which Dr. Price was the most distinguished 
 member. He was a man of much vigour and decision, 
 and she is described as a tall and handsome woman, with 
 
HIS BOYHOOD 
 
 11 
 
 dark hair and eyes and a face of great intelligence. 
 Their children were not very strong. It was the time of 
 queues and cocked hats ; and Samuel Eogers says that 
 the children wore cocked hats, and he remembered 
 chasing butterflies in the fields with the quaint three- 
 cornered head-covering in his hand. The boys went to 
 day-school at Mr. Burgh’s and Mr. Cockburn’s; and 
 afterwards, when Mr. Burgh removed to Colebrook Bow, 
 Islington (where Charles Lamb lived at a later day), they 
 went over to him for lessons. There was plenty of active 
 outdoor amusement and exercise for the boys — bathing 
 in Peerless Pool, riding on the nag, sporting in the pad- 
 dock behind the house, and rambling over the open fields. 
 London was two miles away, across the fields and gardens 
 now covered by De Beauvoir Town. Perhaps the best 
 account which can be given of the father and mother is in 
 the self-revelations of their letters, many of which have 
 happily been preserved. In these letters are the only re- 
 maining records of Samuel Rogers’s boyhood ; and some of 
 them are worth reproducing for the glimpses they give us 
 of various interesting people, some of whom are famous 
 and some forgotten, as well as for the picture they make 
 of the pleasant life a prosperous middle-class family was. 
 living more than a century ago. The earliest in date are 
 from Mrs. Rogers, and were addressed to her husband 
 during a summer journey he took with Dr. Price, in 1772, 
 to visit the doctor’s native district in South Wales ; and 
 a short stay Thomas Rogers made at his father’s house 
 on the way home. The letters, from which some purely 
 business and domestic details have been omitted, show 
 what kind of woman Rogers’s mother was ; how careful 
 
12 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 of home concerns, how solicitous for her household, how 
 open to all the pleasantness of life, how entirely free 
 from that other-worldliness — as George Eliot has called 
 it — which is supposed to have accompanied a Puritan 
 ancestry and training. 
 
 Mary Royers to Thomas Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Newington Green : July 4, 1772. 
 
 ‘ My ever dear T. R., — As this method of communi- 
 cating our thoughts to each other is now the only re- 
 source left, it is with great pleasure I sit down to assure 
 you with sincerity how much I regret your absence, and to 
 endeavour in some measure to alleviate it by acquainting 
 you with all my proceedings since you left us. But, as I 
 know the anxiety that always attends you upon account 
 of every branch of your family, I must first begin by 
 assuring you that we all continue perfectly well. Tommy 
 is got quite well, and is in exceedingly good spirits. The 
 four 1 are at this time particularly happy in exercising 
 Obey’s nag about the field, and are very proud in showing 
 their horsemanship. Tommy has been twice to the bath 
 on horseback before Richard , 2 and the horse carries him 
 extremely well. We went to drink tea with Mrs. Wilson 3 
 after you left us on Tuesday, and had the pleasure to 
 meet Mr. and Mrs. Welch ; 4 Mr. Wilson also was at home, 
 and all conduced to make the visit very agreeable. On 
 
 1 The four were Daniel, Thomas, Samuel, and Martha ; Maria, the 
 youngest, was only twelve months old. 
 
 2 Sitting before Bichard on the horse. 
 
 3 Mother of Thomas and Joseph Wilson of Highbury. Thomas 
 Wilson was the great chapel-builder of the Independents, whose life was 
 written by his son Josiah. 
 
 4 Mr. Welch was Mr. Bogers’s partner in the banking house. 
 
MBS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 13 
 
 Wednesday evening we went to town to see Mr. Eaper 1 
 and Miss Raper in Norfolk Street, who both agreed to 
 dine with us at the Green next day, and Mr. Harry Raper 
 being there — and a bachelor at present — offered to be of 
 the party. The coach accordingly fetched them in the 
 morning to dinner upon beans and bacon, a couple of 
 chickens, and a piece of roast beef, and we widows and 
 widowers drank your health and Mrs. Henry Raper’s. 
 The two gentlemen and little Harry 2 walked home again 
 about seven o’clock, and Miss Raper stayed with us till last 
 night — her father and self being to return to Wendover 
 this morning. . . Yesterday morning Dr. and Mrs. Grant 
 called on us and engaged us and Miss Sally [Raper] to dine 
 with them on Thursday next. In the afternoon Mrs. Dunn 
 and family drank tea with us. . . . Mrs. Price writes to- 
 day to Bridgend, but desires I will likewise mention that 
 she and Mrs. Barker returned home to-day, safe and well, 
 about three o’clock, and very little fatigued with their 
 journey. They desire compliments to you, and many 
 thanks for the kind call you made them. . . . Your trunk 
 went this morning from the Saracen’s Head. Richard is 
 gone to have the horse shod, so I can’t tell the name of 
 the waggoner. Adieu ! my dearest T. R. I hope to hear 
 this evening that you are well, which will always afford 
 the truest pleasure to 
 
 ‘ Your ever affectionate and unalterable 
 
 ‘M. R. 
 
 ‘ Thomas Rogers, Esq. 
 
 ‘ To be left at the Post Office, Swansea, Glamorganshire.’ 
 
 1 Matthew Raper of Wendover Dean, Bucks, father of the Matthew 
 Raper afterwards vice-president of the Antiquarian Society. 
 
 2 This little Harry was afterwards Admiral Raper. 
 
14 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Mary Rogers to Thomas Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Newington Green : Saturday, July 11th, 1772. 
 
 ‘ My ever dear T. R., — Many thanks for your very kind 
 and agreeable letter, which I received on Wednesday 
 last. I assure you I would have endeavoured not to 
 have merited your hint if I had thought you had the 
 least expectation to have heard from me at Cardiff, as 
 it is, and always will be, my highest temporal wish to 
 promote your pleasure in every instance. It gave me 
 great satisfaction to hear of your health last night from 
 Mrs. Price, but don’t accuse me of recrimination if I say 
 that a line from your hand would have given your poor 
 M. R. a little more self-consequence ; but I know you mean 
 always kind to me, and therefore I ought not to com- 
 plain. I called on Saturday evening on Miss Crisp, and 
 agreed for Patty to go to day-school: 1 1. is. entrance 
 and 2 1. 12 s. 6d. per quarter, for which she learns reading 
 and working, and has five dinners per week. She began 
 on Wednesday, and seems at present very happy with it. 
 The boys left us on Wednesday in pretty good spirits. 
 Tommy continues his bathing as usual. On Thursday 
 we dined at Dr. Grant’s, and a most melting day it was. 
 There was no company but an uncle of the doctor’s. 
 They wanted us to have gone to Vauxhall in the evening, 
 but we excused ourselves, and agreed to accompany the 
 doctor and Mrs. Grant to Foote’s on Monday next to see 
 the Nabob. I came into it, as I thought it would be agree- 
 able to Miss Sally Raper. . . She talks of leaving us on 
 Wednesday or Thursday next. The doctor says there is 
 no banker in London besides yourself who would have 
 
MRS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 15 
 
 had the courage to have ventured on a journey at this 
 crisis. I suppose you have before this heard of Mrs. 
 Peach’s marriage with Mr. Lyttelton. I begin to think 
 that I have got a husband that is possessed of the art of 
 divination. . . . 
 
 ‘ We heard the other day that Mr. Gordon’s Nursery 
 was in full perfection, and Miss Sally and Miss Mitchell 
 expressing a wish to see it we took a ride there last 
 night, and it perfectly answered our expectations. We 
 laid out ten shillings with them among us, and Mr. 
 Gordon and his son were extremely polite, and made us 
 a present of a most pompous nosegay, which consisted 
 chiefly of his most curious flowers, particularly some 
 charming magnolia flowers, of which tree he has scores 
 in bloom. . . We all happily continue well, and our 
 little Maria is as lively as a bird, and, in her mother’s 
 opinion, daily increases in charms. Master Packards was 
 baptized yesterday by the name of Samuel and yester- 
 day Mr. Packards himself was seized with a fever and 
 speckled sore-throat, and was obliged to sit up in bed 
 while his son was christened. They have had Dr. 
 Grieve, and he is to be blistered to-day, but I believe 
 they don’t think him in danger. Adieu ! my ever dear 
 and own T. R. May happiness ever attend you, and may 
 your own M. R. (if Providence spares her life) grow more 
 deserving of your love ! All join in love and compli- 
 ments ; and I remain 
 
 * Your constantly affectionate 
 
 * Thomas Bogers, Esq., jun. 
 
 ‘ To be left at the Post Office, Worcester.’ 
 
 ‘M. R. 
 
16 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 There is a letter from Samuel Eogers addressed to 
 his father while he was on the same journey. It is a 
 child’s letter — he was then approaching the close of his 
 ninth year — and it gives a pleasant glimpse of a happy 
 boyhood. 
 
 Samuel Rogers to his Father. 
 
 6 19th July, 1772. 
 
 ‘ Dear Papa, — I hope you have had a good journey, 
 and hope my grandpapa and all my aunts are very well, 
 and my cousin Tommy Bowles. I went to school July 8th, 
 but school began July 6th. I had a very pleasant ride 
 back again from the Pack Horse at Turnham Green. 
 My mamma chose to leave off dipping Maria. 
 
 ‘ July the 6th I went to Sadler’s Wells, and I thought 
 it was very pretty. Me and Tommy and Dan and 
 Patty and Hannah and Nurse all went together in the 
 coach. At last the makerony started out of the floor, 
 with a long pig-tail as big as my wrist, and an artificial 
 nosegay ; and came strutting about with his fine cocked 
 hat, and his hand in his bosom. 
 
 ‘ I am, your dutiful son, 
 
 ‘ Samuel Bogers. 
 
 ‘ Thomas Eogers, Esq., jun., 
 
 ‘ At “ The Hill,” near Stourbridge, Worcestershire.’ 
 
 His mother follows this up with a letter dated from 
 Newington Green on the 21 st July. 
 
 Mary Rogers to Thomas Rogers. 
 
 ‘ I had the pleasure to receive my dearest T. B.’s 
 kind letter this morning, and am rejoiced to hear he 
 spends his time so joyously — a proof that he enjoys 
 
MRS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 17 
 
 health, and I hope spirits. Dr. Price returned home on 
 Saturday evening in perfect health, but his complexion 
 has received a very different hue. He preached on 
 Sunday morning, and Mr. Pickbourne in the evening. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Burgh dined and drank tea at Dr. 
 Price’s. . . . We went to London yesterday morning, and 
 called in Friday Street. Mrs. Bowles told me she has at 
 times suffered great uneasiness on account of the critical- 
 ness of trade, but that Mr. Welch had been extremely 
 kind to them in giving them assistance. Mr. Bowles 
 came upstairs, and seemed in exceeding good spirits, 
 and said, I think, that he wrote to you on Saturday. 
 Bessy goes to school on Thursday, so I asked Mrs. 
 Bowles to dine with us, and offered to send the chariot 
 for her. Mr. Lisle’s house is again disposed of to a Mr. 
 Coxe, a refiner in Little Britain. Did you ever hear of 
 him ? My expectations are mighty small. Mr. Farmer 
 has resigned Salter’s Hall, his health not permitting 
 him to continue it. . . . 
 
 ‘ I suppose you will receive poor Sammy’s letter 
 to-morrow. You will easily perceive that it was entirely 
 his own. He told me — a little rascal ! — that he was deter- 
 mined to tell his papa that I had left off dipping Maria. 
 
 ‘Adieu! my dearest T. R. Be ever assured of my 
 sincerest affection, and continue to love and think of 
 your number five and your own 
 
 ‘M. R. 
 
 ‘ Thomas Rogers, jun., Esq. 
 
 ‘At “ The Hill,” near Stourbridge.’ 
 
 The letters continue in the same strain. On the 25th 
 of July she tells her husband of Sammy’s illness from 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the speckled sore-throat, which seems to have been one of 
 the terrors of the time. She had heard ‘ a good deal of 
 city news,’ one item of which was that a new bank — ‘ Sir 
 Richard Glyn’s house ’ — was to open, with ‘ my Lord 
 Mayor at its head.’ In the next letter she reports that 
 Sammy’s throat is still bad, but that he continues in 
 charming spirits, and has no fever. ‘ Dr. and Mrs. 
 Price spent the evening with us last night, and Dr. Price 
 was speaking on what very advantageous terms they 
 were granting annuities on the Douglas and Heron bank 
 — provided the security was good — upon which he and 
 Mary Mitchell agreed to go to London this morning to 
 ask Mr. Welch’s opinion of it, and if they should hear 
 a satisfactory account of it to risk about 200 1. apiece.’ 
 Dan and Tom had gone to Mr. Burgh’s, as Mr. Burgh 
 was too ill to come to them. On the 29th, the day 
 before Sammy’s birthday, Tommy begins a letter, but 
 his fluency failing, as his mother says, she completes it, 
 complaining that the postman had slighted her, and 
 reporting a visit from Mrs. Cockburn, wife of the school- 
 master, to say that Tommy had fainted at school, but was 
 better again, and the doctor had advised some bark. The 
 last of this series of letters is dated on the 1st of August. 
 She tells her husband of a drive she had taken to South- 
 gate, to see the Miss Birches, but not finding them at 
 home she had gone on to Mrs. Jones’s, on the Chase, 
 
 ‘ where we were received in a very polite and friendly 
 manner. It is quite a sweet situation, and the walking 
 about so pleasant that it was nine o’clock by the time we 
 reached home, rather too late an hour now.’ She adds 
 4 1 am afraid my T. R. will think me aracketting female, 
 
MRS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 19 
 
 but everybody admires the appearance of the horses, and 
 Bichard says he is sure they have not too much work/ 
 Another item of city information is that ‘ Mr. Steed, 
 of Tower Hill, stopped a short time, to the great astonish- 
 ment of many, but he now finds that after everybody 
 is paid he will have an overplus remaining of io,oooZ.’ 
 This letter was written on the ist of August, 1772, 
 and on the ist of September Sarah Bogers was born. 
 She was the ninth child, but, as three had died, the five 
 of whom Mrs. Bogers speaks in one of the above letters 
 formed at that time her whole family. In the succeed- 
 ing summer Mr. Bogers was away from home during the 
 months of August and September, spending the earlier 
 part of the holiday in a journey to Scotland, and the 
 latter part at his father’s house. Scotch tours were then 
 just coming into fashion. Mr. Thomas Pennant made his 
 first tour in Scotland in 1769, and the beautifully illus- 
 trated quarto in which he gave the public a lively account 
 of his travels, was published in 1 77 1 . It was very widely 
 xead, and may be said to have turned the tide of holiday 
 travel northwards. His second tour was made in 1772 ; 
 but the three quarto volumes in which he told the 
 amusing story of his journey were not published till 
 1775, the year in which Johnson published his ‘ Journey 
 to the Western Isles.’ Thomas Bogers went in August 
 1773 over much of the ground covered in Mr. Pennant’s 
 first tour, and his wife sitting at home, traced his course 
 with Pennant’s volume in her hand. Her letters, of 
 which a dozen are preserved, are full of domestic, social, 
 and business details, and give further glimpses of the 
 family life at Newington Green. The earliest speak of 
 
20 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the ailments of the children, of visitors, one of whom 
 had come unexpectedly to dine because he was sure he 
 should not meet his wife, and of a lawsuit which had 
 been decided in which Mr. Rogers was interested. The 
 fourth letter is as follows — 
 
 Mary Royers to Thomas Rogers. 
 
 ‘Newington Green : August 17th. 
 
 ‘ My dearest T. R., — It is not in my power to express 
 sufficient thanks for the happiness your two last letters 
 afforded me. To know that you are well always gives 
 me sincere pleasure, but to give me so near together 
 two such strong proofs of your remembrance to your 
 happy M. R. was indeed peculiarly kind ; and I can with 
 sincerity say, my dearest T. R. that on receipt of your 
 last letter I felt an affectionate gratitude that no words 
 can express. The children all continue well, and your 
 M. R. is also quite stout, though still but poorly. Mrs. 
 Newman and Misses Sarah and Ruth Raper are come in 
 to dinner, which will oblige me greatly (and much against 
 my will) to shorten my letter. I have had letters from 
 M. M. [Mary Mitchell.] She returns home this week or 
 next and desires her love to you. Mrs. B. [Bowles] took 
 Patty to London on Sunday. She has got the measles 
 in a very favourable way. Mr. Field attends her. 5 1 
 
 £ Dr Price is returned from Lord Shelburne’s ; he 
 entirely cleared up his conduct relating to the India Bill. 
 
 1 Mr. Field, apothecary of Stoke Newington and Christ’s Hospital,, 
 father of Henry Field of Christ’s Hospital and of the Rev. William Field 
 of Warwick, the biographer of Dr. Parr ; grandfather of the late Mr.. 
 Edwin Wilkins Field. 
 
MRS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 21 
 
 He entirely disapproved of the measure, but the Duke 
 of Richmond said the Parliament had no right to make 
 such a Bill, in which respect Lord Shelburne differed 
 with him and said they had a right. 
 
 4 Mr. Burroughs has accepted of the living. You said 
 I might give Dr. Amory 1 an invitation to come and take 
 a bed sometimes on Saturday night, which I mentioned 
 to him on Sunday, and I don’t know whether he will 
 not accept of it next Saturday. We have had violent 
 storms of thunder and lightning, which have in many 
 places done much damage. Mrs. T. Rickards and her 
 little boy are gone to-day to Brighthelmstone with Mr. 
 Maitland’s family. I assure you, my dear T. R., I have 
 been a great house-keeper (I wish I could say a good 
 one). I have scarcely been off the Green since you left 
 me, not above twice or thrice in the coach. Adieu ! my 
 ever dear T. R., 
 
 ‘ And always believe me to be 
 
 4 Your constantly affectionate 
 4 M. R. 
 
 ‘ Thomas Rogers, Esq. 
 
 ‘ Post Office, Inverness.’ 
 
 The next letters were addressed to Inverary, Dumbar- 
 ton, and Glasgow ; the last containing the news of 4 the 
 death of that worthy and great man, Lord Lyttelton,’ and 
 of a visit from Mr. Rogers the elder. In another, dated 
 September 4th, she says — 
 
 4 1 had a letter from my sister Mary [her husband’s 
 sister at the Hill] on Saturday evening. She says Mr. 
 Rogers is but indifferent, though rather better than he 
 
 1 Dr. Amory was the morning preacher at Newington Green. 
 
22 
 
 EARLY LIRE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 has been. She seems to intimate that it would give him 
 particular pleasure to hear from you. Lord Lyttelton is 
 greatly lamented, as must be imagined. He has long 
 been troubled with a boil, and constant physicking for 
 that, and uneasiness of mind, Dr. Ash thinks, quite broke 
 his constitution. He left his blessing for his son, and 
 desired he might be told that he forgave him. He was. 
 speechless for some time ; and at last, exerting himself, 
 called Mrs. Lyttelton, 1 gave her his blessing, lamented 
 her situation, and said that in losing him she had lost 
 her only friend. He then called Lord and Lady 
 Yalentia, blessed them, and hoped they would continue: 
 to live in virtue, as that would give them peace at the 
 last. Mr. Rogers desires that you would give his compli- 
 ments to Mr. Lascelles, and let him know that he shall 
 be glad of the pleasure of seeing him at the Hill with you/ 
 
 On the 23rd of September she writes — 
 
 * I had the happiness to receive a very kind letter 
 from you, my ever dear T. R., on Tuesday morning, from 
 Warrington, and was pleased to think that you were 
 drawing so near to your poor deserted wife and her six 
 children, who will all rejoice to receive again their 
 rambling husband and father. You must allow me to 
 be a little saucy by way of variety, though in truth if I 
 was likely to indulge a grave vein the sentiments I con- 
 stantly feel would lead me to express my gratitude for 
 your unspeakable kindness to me during your absence, 
 your unwearied attention to your own M. R., and the 
 
 1 The wife of his worthless son, formerly Mrs. Peach of ‘The*. 
 Leasowes.* 
 
MRS. ROGERS’S LETTERS 
 
 23 
 
 kind assurances of love and affection that you were con- 
 stantly favouring her with. My heart sincerely exults 
 in the agreeable reflection, attended with the truest self- 
 congratulation, and determines to increase my assiduity 
 to promote his happiness to whom I am united by the 
 most tender and indissoluble ties ; and though above 
 thirteen years have elapsed since that — to me, happy — 
 union took place, I have the daily satisfaction to find 
 that the attachment of my heart is more and more 
 strong, and that the chief of all my temporal wishes 
 centre in him. 
 
 ‘ We have this morning been taking an agreeable ride 
 that I have been talking of all the summer : it was to 
 see Mrs. Hanson and Mrs. Berthon, and we found neither 
 of them at home. Mr. Berthon lives on the Forest, just 
 beyond Mr. Bosanquet’s. It is a pretty part of the coun- 
 try, and, I think, vastly superior to Clapham Common. 
 Samuel Derrick, our Uncle Jo’s man, is come here 
 to-day ; he came to London on Sunday, and returns to- 
 morrow morning. He says all friends are well at Derby. 
 Pray tell Mrs. Bowles that all her young folks dined with 
 us yesterday, and were very well and very merry. We had, 
 also, two of the young ladies from Miss Crisp’s, and they 
 were altogether a joyous party. I was much obliged by 
 Mrs. Bowles’s letter that I received yesterday, and beg 
 my thanks for it. Mrs. Solly and Mrs. Neal made us 
 a long morning visit yesterday. Mrs. Solly says that 
 they were prevented dining with us early in the summer 
 by the children having the whooping cough ; and that 
 they intended sending to us the week you left home, but 
 were prevented by hearing of your journey. They, 
 
24 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 however, fully intend it, but must leave it till they come 
 to London.’ 
 
 These letters sufficiently indicate what manner of 
 woman Mrs. Rogers was. They have been carefully 
 preserved by her descendants, and have kept alive the 
 memory of her virtues as a mother and a wife. She is 
 described as a handsome and accomplished woman, of 
 much vivacity, popular in society, and tenderly beloved 
 by her own household. She was firm and strict in her 
 domestic administration, but so tender and gentle that 
 these were the chief characteristics which afterwards 
 dwelt in the memory of her children. ‘ I was taught by 
 my mother,’ said Rogers to Mr. Dyce, ‘ to be tenderly 
 kind towards the meanest living thing, and, however 
 people may laugh, I sometimes very carefully put a stray 
 gnat or wasp out of my window.’ So do childhood’s 
 lessons survive, and a mother’s teaching endures. In 
 Mrs. Rogers’s diary we get another view of her character 
 — see what Wordsworth calls ‘the very pulse of the 
 machine.’ Like her father she was introspective, apt to 
 sit in judgment on herself, fond of putting her good 
 resolutions on record. In these ‘ sessions of sweet 
 silent thought,’ she, like Shakespeare in the sonnet, would 
 ‘ summon up remembrance of things past,’ and in respect, 
 not of outward happiness but of inward character, ‘ sigh 
 the lack of many a thing ’ she sought. Into this secrecy 
 there is no need that we should further look. Such a 
 diary is a sacred thing, which only love and reverence 
 should scan. It contains passages from Dr. Price’s 
 sermons which show the great influence of his thoughtful 
 
ROGERS AND HIS MOTHER 
 
 25 
 
 genius on her inward life. It was a life nobly planned, 
 and her husband’s testimony, when with dimmed eyes 
 he read this record of her pious resolutions, was that it 
 was nobly executed. ‘ In understanding,’ he says, ‘ she was 
 equalled by few ; in humility, good nature, cheerfulness, 
 benevolence, and tenderness of disposition, a constant 
 desire to please, and in the amiable discharge of every 
 relative and social duty, by none.’ She died on the i ith 
 of July, 1776, three weeks after the birth of her eleventh 
 child, who survived her only a couple of months. Samuel 
 Rogers was then within three weeks of the completion of 
 his thirteenth year. 
 
 In his poem of ‘ Human Life ’ Rogers gives a glimpse 
 of his own boyhood, and shows how vivid was his recol- 
 lection of his mother’s tenderness. 
 
 He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word 
 His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard, 
 And ever, ever, to her lap he flies. 
 
 When rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise — 
 Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung, 
 (That name most dear for ever on his tongue,) 
 As with soft accents round her neck he clings, 
 And, cheek to cheek, her lulling song she sings. 
 
 But soon a nobler task demands her care ; 
 
 Apart, she joins his little hands in prayer, 
 
 Telling of Him who sees in secret there. 
 
 And now the volume on her knee has caught 
 His wandering eye — now many a written thought 
 Never to die, with many a lisping sweet, 
 
 His moving, murmuring lips endeavour to repeat, 
 
26 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Released, he chases the bright butterfly ; 
 
 Oh, he would follow — follow through the sky ! 
 
 Climbs the gaunt mastiff slumbering in his chain 
 And chides and buffets, clinging by the mane ; 
 
 Then runs, and, kneeling by the fountain-side, 
 
 Sends his brave ship in triumph down the tide, 
 
 A dangerous voyage ; or if now he can, 
 
 If now he wears the habit of a man, 
 
 Flings off the coat so much his pride and pleasure, 
 And, like a miser digging for his treasure, 
 
 His tiny spade in his own garden plies, 
 
 And in green letters sees his name arise. 
 
 Where’er he goes, for ever in her sight 
 
 She looks and looks, and still with new delight. 
 
 In the notes to the same poem Rogers says : ‘ We have' 
 many friends in life, but we can only have one mother — 
 “ a discovery,” says Gray, “ which I never made till it 
 was too late.’’ The child is no sooner born than he clings to 
 his mother, nor while she lives is her image absent from 
 him in the hour of his distress. Sir John Moore, when 
 he fell from his horse in the battle of Corunna, faltered 
 out with his dying breath some message to his mother. 
 And who can forget the last words of Conradin when, in 
 his fifteenth year, he was led forth to die at Naples ? — “ 0 
 my mother, how great will be your grief when you hear 
 of it ! ” 5 
 
27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Rogers’s Boyhood and Schoolmasters — His Father — William Maltby — Dr. 
 Price and the Boys — Thomas Rogers’s Politics — Dr. Price’s Influence 
 — Samuel Rogers and the Pulpit — The Coventry Election — Letters 
 from Thomas Rogers — Samuel Rogers at Home. 
 
 The too early death of Rogers’s mother did not leave 
 the family without a woman at its head. When Thomas 
 Rogers married he went to live in the house of his 
 father-in-law, and he found there, living as a member of 
 the family, Mary Mitchell, who is spoken of in Mrs. 
 Rogers’s letters. She was the daughter of Paul Mitchell, 
 who had married Mary Radford, the sister of Daniel 
 Radford, and she was therefore first-cousin to Mrs. 
 Rogers. Daniel Radford had taken his niece, who had 
 been left an orphan, to be the companion of his only 
 child, and she had lived with her all through her married 
 life, assisting her in bearing the burden of her house- 
 hold cares. Miss Mitchell was a capable and cultivated 
 person, whom the children looked up to as almost a 
 second mother. She lived on with them till the home 
 on Newington Green was broken up, and then with Mr. 
 Henry Rogers at Highbury, where she died. Another 
 of the ladies of the household was Mrs. Worthington, an 
 older and more distant cousin than Mrs. Mitchell. She 
 is the Milly of the family letters, and acted as governess 
 to the children. 
 
28 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 The kind of life the family led during Samuel Rogers’ s 
 boyhood has been sufficiently shown in his mother’s 
 letters. In Mr. Hayward’s appreciative notice in the 
 ‘Edinburgh Review,’ written a few months after Rogers’s 
 death, there are some speculations on his conduct and 
 character in boyhood, which Mr. Hayward borrowed 
 from a letter written to him by Mrs. Norton, who 
 humorously constructed an imaginary first childhood 
 out of what she had known of Rogers when he was 
 verging towards second childhood. Neither Mrs. Norton 
 nor Mr. Hayward knew anything at all of Rogers’s 
 younger days. He was the very contrary of everything 
 they describe in this futile attempt to construct bio- 
 graphical details out of their internal consciousness. He 
 w 7 as sensitive, impulsive, imaginative, and emotional, as 
 all lads who inherit the poetical temperament are. He 
 was not strong enough for much athletic exercise, but he 
 took his fair share in the games and adventures of boy- 
 hood. ‘ His life was gentle,’ and his was just such a 
 boyhood as thousands of English lads are enjoying now in 
 families of some wealth and much culture, with only the 
 outward differences that the lapse of a hundred and twenty 
 years has made. His father had ideas as to the relation 
 of parent and child which have become old-fashioned now. 
 He was a somewhat strict disciplinarian. His grandson, 
 Samuel Sharpe, describes him as having dressed, accord- 
 ing to the fashion of the day, in a brown coat, with great 
 amplitude in the sleeves, and worn a cocked hat, powder, 
 and a queue. The powdered hair was, in those days, 
 not inconsistent with Whiggism ; a little later, when Fox 
 had set the fashion of leaving his hair of the colour 
 
HOME AND SCHOOL 
 
 29 
 
 nature had given it, the Whigs followed his example, 
 and with them, at least, powder went out of fashion. 
 Thomas Rogers was what would now be described as a 
 Radical, as were all the Whigs of a century since. 
 Samuel Sharpe tells us that he had voted for the Byngs, 
 father and son, at every Middlesex election, except when 
 he was displeased with the Coalition Ministry. That he 
 was a good man of business his success may be taken to 
 prove. His household was conducted with the regularity 
 which became the chief person in a Dissenting congrega- 
 tion. He read prayers with his family in the morning, 
 and they were regular in their attendance at the Stoke 
 Newington Chapel. In the next pew to them sat Mary 
 Wollstonecraft, then a girl ; and the pulpit was filled by 
 Dr. Towers in the morning and by Dr. Price in the 
 afternoon. Thomas Rogers was affectionately regarded 
 by his children, though in those days there was always 
 a certain distance between the head of the house and the 
 other members of the household. His children address 
 him in their letters with the formality now reserved for 
 strangers, and with them all his will was law. 
 
 Soon after his mother’s death Sam was sent to 
 his last schoolmaster — the Rev. James Pickbourne of 
 Hackney. Mr. Pickbourne had been librarian to Dr. 
 Williams’s library, of which Thomas Rogers was one of 
 the trustees. He had afterwards acted as travelling 
 tutor to some young men, with whom he had made the 
 grand tour. He was the author of a ‘ Dissertation on the 
 English Verb,’ and of another on ‘ Metrical Pauses.’ 
 His school was in Grove Street, Hackney. One of the 
 most lasting friendships of Rogers’s life was begun at this 
 
30 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 school. This was with William Maltby, a near relative of 
 Edward Maltby, who was afterwards Bishop of Durham. 
 Maltby writes to his friend on the 12th of December, 1781, 
 of ‘ the many joyful hours I have passed in your company 
 under the confinement of scholastic restraint,’ and now 
 that school days are over, expresses ‘ the most sanguine 
 hopes of a pure and lively pleasure from our new corre- 
 spondence and increasing friendship, the latter of which 
 I flatter myself will neither be dissolved by diversity of 
 opinion nor distance of habitation, but will be as durable 
 as sincere.’ Such anticipations are often expressed, but 
 rarely realised. In this instance they were literally ful- 
 filled. The schoolboy friendship proved ‘ as durable as 
 sincere.’ It lasted for more than seventy-two years after 
 this letter was written, and was only dissolved by death. 
 William Maltby went to Cambridge when Samuel Rogers 
 went to business, though, being a Dissenter, he was 
 unable to take his degree. He afterwards practised as a 
 solicitor, and in 1809 was appointed librarian of the 
 London Institution in succession to Porson. He was 
 relieved from duty in 1834, but continued to live in the 
 librarian’s house till he died in January 1854, in his 
 ninetieth year. His schoolboy friend survived him, and 
 erected a tablet in Norwood Cemetery to his memory. 
 
 While Samuel Rogers was still at school, Dr. Price 
 suddenly bounded into fame by publishing his great 
 work on the war with the American Colonies. This 
 obscure preacher to a small and decreasing suburban 
 congregation had already become known and esteemed 
 beyond the little circle of those who appreciated his 
 religious teaching and admired his character. He had 
 
LORD SHELBURNE AND LORD LYTTELTON 
 
 31 
 
 published in 1758 a ‘ Treatise on the Foundation of 
 Morals,’ and in 1767 a volume of dissertations, among 
 which was one on ‘ Providence ’ and another ‘ On the 
 Junction of Virtuous Men in a Future State.’ These 
 essays attracted the notice of Lord Shelburne, who read 
 them during a period of gloom and depression occasioned 
 by the loss of his wife. Lord Shelburne asked Mrs. 
 Montagu, who had recommended the book, for an intro- 
 duction to its author, and thereupon called on Dr. Price 
 at Newington Green. The interview was so satisfactory 
 to both that it was soon repeated with important results. 
 
 Lord Shelburne felt the charm of Dr. Price’s simple 
 and unaffected character ; Dr. Price respected and 
 esteemed Lord Shelburne for his serious earnestness, 
 and a friendship was begun which only ended with their 
 lives. This intercourse with Dr. Price led to Lord 
 Shelburne’s introduction to Dr. Priestley, and to Dr. 
 Price’s acquaintance with Mr. Dunning and Colonel 
 Barre. The same book which had brought Lord Shel- 
 burne to Newington Green soon afterwards brought 
 Lord Lyttelton thither on a similar errand. His 
 ‘ Dialogues of the Dead ’had been published in 1760; 
 fourteen years earlier he had written a work on the 
 ‘ Conversion of St. Paul,’ and he now went to Dr. Price 
 to talk with one of the clearest thinkers of the age on 
 the transcendent themes in which he felt so profound 
 an interest. The acquaintance thus begun between an 
 old neighbour of Thomas Rogers and his next door 
 neighbour and minister at Newington Green was cut 
 short by Lord Lyttelton’s death a few years later in 
 1773. Dr. Price was all this time becoming known for 
 
32 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 his philosophical inquiries in another direction. Ho 
 had written letters to Dr. Franklin, which had been pub- 
 lished in the ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ ‘ On the Expec- 
 tation of Lives,’ and 4 On the Effect of the Aberration 
 of Light on the Time of the Transit of Venus ; ’ and had 
 made a communication to the Royal Society on the proper 
 method of calculating the values of contingent reversions. 
 It was said by some of his friends that the labour of 
 these abstruse calculations turned his hair suddenly 
 grey. His biographer, Mr. William Morgan, 1 says that 
 in this latter paper he had corrected an error into which 
 M. de Moivre had fallen, but thinking the mistake must 
 be his own, rather than that of so eminent a mathe- 
 matician, he ‘ puzzled himself so much in the correction 
 of it, that the colour of his hair, which was naturally 
 black, became changed in different parts of his head into 
 spots of perfect white. All this must have arisen from 
 his usual diffidence in his own abilities; for no other 
 cause can be assigned for his doubts and difficulties in 
 a case which really admitted of none.’ It was in this 
 same year 1769 that his celebrated ‘ Treatise on Rever- 
 sionary Payments ’ was issued. It was followed up in 
 1772 by an ‘Appeal to the Public on the National 
 Debt.’ 
 
 These publications had prepared the way for his 
 ‘ Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and 
 Policy of the War with America,’ which was issued early 
 in 1776. The outbreak of these fratricidal hostilities in 
 1774 had deeply stirred the public mind, and one of 
 
 1 Memoirs of the Life of the Bev. Bichard Price , D.D. , F.B.S. By 
 William Morgan, F.R.S. 
 
HIS FATHER’S politics 
 
 3a 
 
 Samuel Rogers’s early recollections was, that on one 
 evening after reading from the Bible at family prayers, 
 his father explained to his children the cause of the 
 rebellion in the colonies, and told them that our own 
 nation was in the wrong and it was not right to wish 
 that the Americans should be conquered. When the 
 news of the battle of Lexington reached England — a 
 battle begun by nine hundred British soldiers firing 
 three volleys at the little troop of seventy men whom 
 Captain John Parker, grandfather of Theodore Parker, 
 had formed into the first line of the revolution — Thomas 
 Rogers put on mourning. Being asked if he had lost a 
 friend he answered that he had lost several friends — in 
 New England. The Recorder of London put on mourn- 
 ing for the same event at the same time, and Granville 
 Sharp gave up his place in the Ordnance office because 
 he did not think it right to ship stores and munitions of 
 war which might be used to put down self-government 
 in the American colonies. To this very strong and wide- 
 spread feeling Dr. Price’s Essay gave powerful literary 
 expression. It was written in the winter of 1775. The 
 battles of Lexington and Bunker’s Hill had taken place 
 in the preceding summer, and the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence followed on the fourth of July, 1776, about six 
 months after the issue of Dr. Price’s pamphlet. The 
 time of its publication was, therefore, most opportune. 
 The public excitement was more intense than anything 
 this generation has witnessed, and the book was so 
 eagerly bought that the printers, with the slow machinery 
 of those days, could not keep pace with the demand. 
 Dr. Price was urged to allow a cheap edition to be 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 printed, and he at once consented though by doing so 
 he sacrificed his pecuniary profits. In a few months 
 nearly sixty thousand copies, then an almost unparalleled 
 number, had been sold, and Dr. Price’s name was in 
 everybody's mouth. The Corporation of London — then, 
 as in so many parts of its previous history, a really 
 popular body, representative of the best Liberal feeling 
 of the time — presented him with the freedom of the city 
 in a gold box, in ‘ testimony of their approbation of his 
 principles and of the high sense they entertained of the 
 excellence of his observations on the justice and policy 
 of the war with America.’ Fame brought its incon- 
 veniences together with its pleasures. Anonymous 
 letters were sent threatening his life, and he was obliged 
 to decline correspondence with Dr. Franklin on the 
 ground that he had become so marked and obnoxious 
 that prudence required him to be extremely cautious. 
 The populace, however, loved and reverenced the coura- 
 geous advocate of popular rights. As he rode in the 
 streets of London, on his old white horse, blind in one 
 eye, clothed, as Eogers remembered him, ‘ in a great coat 
 and black spatterdashes,’ Eogers says that, Mike Demos- 
 thenes he was often diverted by hearing the carmen and 
 orange-women say, ‘ There goes Dr. Price ! ’ ‘ Make way 
 for Dr. Price ! ’ The seriousness and gentle mildness 
 of his character surprised those who only knew him from 
 his works. When the Duchess of Bedford met him, at 
 her own request, at Shelburne House, his quiet aspect 
 and unassuming manners caused her great astonishment. 
 ‘ I expected to meet a Colossus,’ she afterwards said, 
 4 with an eye like Mars, to threaten and command.’ 
 
DR. PRICE’S INFLUENCE 
 
 35 
 
 -Gibbon is reported to have expressed similar surprise 
 when he met him in Mr. Cadell’s shop. The services he 
 had rendered to freedom were acknowledged in France 
 and the United States, and in most unexpected quarters 
 at home. Congress passed a resolution inviting him to 
 become a citizen of the United States, and to assist them 
 in the regulation of their finances. In later years Turgot 
 corresponded with him, Pitt repeatedly consulted him 
 •on great questions of national finance, and a speech of 
 his in proposing the toast of union between England and 
 France was read twice in the National Assembly, the 
 members standing. He was one day at the Bar of the 
 House of Lords, when the Duke of Cumberland came up 
 and told him he had read his ‘ Essay on Civil Liberty ’ 
 till he was blind. ‘ It is remarkable,’ replied Lord 
 Ashburton, who was standing near, ‘ that your royal 
 highness should have been blinded by a book which has 
 opened the eyes of all mankind.’ 
 
 It is difficult to over-estimate the influence which this 
 admirable and estimable person exerted over Samuel 
 Rogers and his brothers in the early part of their lives. 
 Dr. Price was no mere controversialist. He was content 
 with the service he had done to freedom, and expressed 
 the desire, after the issue of his second pamphlet, to 
 remain ‘ an anxious spectator of the present contest 
 with the satisfaction of having endeavoured to commu- 
 nicate just ideas of government, and of the nature and 
 value of civil liberty.’ He held high and serious views 
 of the responsibilities of his profession as a preacher, 
 and his excursions into politics and finance were only 
 occasional divergences from pastoral work. He had left 
 
36 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Stoke Newington, in some depression at the smallness- 
 of his audience there, and had become morning preacher 
 at Hackney, but remained as afternoon lecturer to his 
 former congregation. Political celebrity, however, brought 
 crowds to hear him at Hackney, and his sermons on the 
 fast days of 1779 and 1781 were published and very 
 widely read. His profound sense of the importance of 
 the pulpit impressed itself very strongly on his young 
 admirer and disciple Samuel Eogers, and led him to 
 desire to adopt it as his profession. He used to tell 
 the story of his father one day calling the boys into 
 his room, and asking them what professions they would 
 choose in life. Samuel replied that he should like to be 
 a preacher. He thought there was nothing on earth so 
 grand. The wish was entirely due to his admiration for 
 Dr. Price and his preaching. It was afterwards overruled ; 
 but a letter is extant from the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, 
 the founder of Essex Street Unitarian Chapel, in which 
 he states that he had heard an oration from Mr. 
 Samuel Rogers, who was thinking of entering at War- 
 rington Academy as a student for the ministry. 1 The 
 choice is only now of interest as showing the bent of 
 Samuel Rogers’s mind away from business. The weak- 
 ness of his voice w T ould have disqualified him for any 
 form of public speaking. His father probably saw, more- 
 over, that it was his imagination rather than the impera- 
 tive call of special faculties and endowments, which had 
 led to his desire to preach ; and there was no sign what- 
 
 1 I have not seen the letter, but the Rev. Dr. Sadler, the editor of 
 Crabb Robinson’s Diary, clearly remembers reading it, and his accuracy 
 is unquestionable. 
 
HIS IMAGINATIVE CHILDHOOD 
 
 37 
 
 ever, in any part of his life, that he possessed the 
 peculiar powers which can alone lead to distinction, and 
 to the large usefulness which accompanies it, in the 
 profession of the preacher. Mr. Dyce, in his recollec- 
 tions of Rogers’s conversation — recollections which show 
 on every page that they are chiefly gathered from 
 Rogers’s declining days — reports a freak which, small 
 as it seems in the record, is interesting as showing that 
 as a boy he was greatly under the influence of a strong 
 imagination. There was a children’s ball at his father’s 
 house, at which many older people were present. Samuel 
 Rogers, then about thirteen, was dancing a minuet with 
 a pretty little girl, and at the moment when he should 
 have put on his hat and given both hands to his partner 
 he threw the hat among the young ladies who were 
 sitting on the benches, creating much surprise and con- 
 fusion. ‘ This strange feat,’ he said to Mr. Dyce, ‘ was 
 occasioned by my suddenly recollecting a story of some 
 gallant youth who had signalised himself in the same 
 way.’ 
 
 He probably told this story because it showed an 
 unregulated and childish form of the desire for dis- 
 tinction which was an important element of his char- 
 acter as a young man. There seemed but little chance 
 of his distinguishing himself when he left school. He 
 was the third son, and his proper place, in his father’s 
 view, was a stool in ‘the shop,’ as it was the custom to 
 call the bank. To the bank, therefore, he went. His 
 eldest brother, Daniel, had already gone to Cambridge. 
 Daniel was intended for the bar. His father thought 
 of him as the member of the family most likely to dis- 
 
38 
 
 EARLY LIRE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 tinguish himself, and probably anticipated his entering 
 Parliament and reaching the higher ranks of the pro- 
 fession. But Daniel never took either to the law or to 
 banking. He lived and died a country gentleman. 
 Thomas and Samuel were to be the bankers, and they 
 went to business instead of to the university. The 
 London of those days was a very different place from 
 the London of the present generation. Few of the mer- 
 chants or bankers lived, as the Rogerses did, away in 
 the suburbs. Some years later, when Mr. Jones Loyd 
 came to London he dwelt over his bank in Lothbury, and 
 there the late Lord Overstone was born in 1796. On 
 Temple Bar there was a ghastly relic which testified 
 to the barbarity of the times, for Rogers remembered 
 seeing one of the heads of the rebels still exposed upon 
 its pole. It was the London which Dickens has ad- 
 mirably described in ‘ Barnaby Rudge ; ’ the London 
 of the Gordon Riots. Rogers recollected the excite- 
 ment and the horrors of the time. He had already gone 
 to business when the riots occurred ; and one of his 
 most vivid recollections was that of seeing a cartload 
 of young girls, in coloured dresses, passing through the 
 streets on the way to execution at Tyburn. They had 
 been condemned to death for taking part in the riots, 
 though in all probability they had done little more than 
 look on. 
 
 There is no reason to believe that Samuel Rogers 
 exhibited any strong disinclination to go to business.. 
 The poetical temperament is often intolerant of drudgery, 
 but he had been too dutifully brought up to allow him 
 to waste time and strength in protests against conditions 
 
HE GOES TO BUSINESS 
 
 39 
 
 lie could not alter. Such sentimental complaints as 
 Kirke White afterwards indulged against the employment 
 which was generously given him in Mr. Enfield’s office 
 at Nottingham, were not likely to arise from a boy 
 nurtured in the atmosphere of the Stoke Newington 
 home. It was a disappointment to Rogers that he was 
 obliged to take to business when all his tastes and 
 inclinations led him to literature, but he submitted 
 without repining. If banking was to be his work, 
 literature should be his recreation ; and if the one was 
 cheerfully done as daily duty, the other should be joy- 
 fully sought as a source of never-ending delight. He 
 never comtemplated making literature his profession. 
 He spoke of it as mere drudgery w 7 hen it is made the 
 business of life, but thought that when it is resorted to 
 only at certain hours it is a charming relaxation. In 
 these earlier years he was a banker’s clerk, obliged to be 
 at the desk every day from ten in the morning till five 
 in the afternoon, but he never forgot the delight with 
 which, after returning home, he turned to the reading 
 and writing which occupied his evening leisure. In these 
 days, too, he was not without a lively interest in politics. 
 One day, in the general election of 1780, Wilkes came 
 into the bank to canvass Mr. Rogers. He was out, but 
 Samuel was able to assure the popular candidate for 
 Middlesex of his father’s sympathy ; and felt proud at 
 having shaken hands with him. Wilkes was a man of 
 good manners, but ugly and with a squint. He was 
 chamberlain of the city, and Rogers remembered seeing 
 him going to the Guildhall on foot, in a scarlet coat, 
 military boots, and a bag- wig — the hackney coachmen 
 
40 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 calling to him * A coach, your honour ? ’ but calling in 
 vain. When Wilkes called to canvass him Thomas 
 Rogers was probably at Coventry, where he was one of 
 the Whig candidates. His colleague was Sir Thomas 
 Halifax, and the Tory candidates were Mr. Edward Roe 
 Yeo and Mr. John Baker Holroyd, afterwards Lord 
 Sheffield. The contest was one which attracted great 
 notice at the time, and the accounts of it which have 
 been preserved illustrate in a very striking way the 
 political manners and customs of the age. Daniel 
 Rogers writes to Samuel — 
 
 ‘ Coventry: Septr. 14th [1780]. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sammy, — As I have no doubt you are anxious 
 to hear of our health, and the particulars of our situa- 
 tion, especially at such a riotous period, I have taken 
 this earliest opportunity of answering your kind letter 
 to my father by return of post.. Few words are neces- 
 sary to acquaint you with the state of the election. . . . 
 Yesterday and to-day the booth has been so encompassed 
 with a riotous mob that the poll has been adjourned 
 without proceeding to business. Every equitable pro- 
 position to prevent riot and confusion has been rejected 
 by Mr. Holroyd and Mr. Yeo ; but the sheriffs are 
 determined to persevere in adjourning the poll from day 
 to day till the freedom of election is restored. At 
 present our voters are obstructed, beaten, stripped, and 
 endangered by a hired mob of colliers and others of the 
 like stamp. The whole affair will doubtless be misrepre- 
 sented by our opponents in the London papers, but our 
 friends are convinced we have the majority of voters ; 
 and Mr. Briggs, who has examined the subject, and been 
 
THE COVENTRY ELECTION 
 
 41 
 
 remarkably active, is of the same opinion. ... With 
 compliments to Dr. and Mrs. Price, 
 
 ‘ I remain, your ever affectionate 
 
 ‘ D. Rogers. 5 
 
 This letter was written on the fifth day after the 
 poll opened. So great was the rioting that in nine days, 
 from the 9th to the 1 8th of September, only eighty-three 
 persons voted. The sheriffs, determined not to proceed 
 with the election till peace was restored, closed the poll 
 on the ninth day, and made no return. The new House 
 of Commons met on the 31st of October, but there were 
 no members from Coventry, and the sheriffs were accord- 
 ingly summoned to the Bar of the House and eventually 
 committed to prison, and on their release were repri- 
 manded by the Speaker. In December another election 
 was held, the same candidates being in the field. Party 
 feeling still ran as high as ever, and the prolonged poll- 
 ing, which lasted more than a fortnight, gave occasion 
 for all kinds of disturbance. The election is described 
 in a letter from his father to Sam. 
 
 Thomas Rogers to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Coventry : Saturday evening, 15th December, 1780. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sammy, — I have received several kind letters 
 lately from the Green, but, as yours was the last, I have 
 laid my hand first upon it. I wish I could have the 
 happiness to make one of your party this evening at the 
 Green, but, alas ! I am still confined to this region of 
 discord and contention. Coventry seems to be the place 
 where every unclean bird dwells, for of all the black- 
 
42 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 guards in the universe I think the Coventry Blues are 
 the greatest. They still seem confident of success, but 
 I think on Tuesday night they will have found out their 
 mistake. It may possibly end then, but not sooner. 
 Total number polled to-night — 2,317. They have only 
 about forty more to poll, so that on Monday morning 
 we shall soon begin to regain the 150 we first gave 
 them. I have been a good deal indisposed by a cold ; 
 but, by attending to it to-day, I am now much relieved, 
 and doubt not by Monday morning to be quite well as 
 usual. I hope to return to my children and family life 
 before this day se’ennight, and to exchange a scene every 
 way hateful for one of peace, happiness, and content. I 
 have sent you one of our new songs, which I hope will 
 please you. I beg my kind love to everybody. 
 
 ‘ I remain, in haste, dear Sam, 
 
 ‘ Your ever affectionate father, 
 
 ‘ Thos. Rogers. 
 
 4 Mr. Sam Rogers, 
 
 ‘ At Messrs. Welch & Compy’ s , 
 
 4 Cornhill, London.’ 
 
 Mr. Rogers’s anticipations were realised. The poll 
 was declared on the 28th December — Sir Thomas Halifax, 
 1,319; Thomas Rogers, 1,318; Edward R. Yeo, 1,298; 
 John Baker Holroyd, 1,295. The Tories petitioned, and 
 a Tory election committee, as was inevitable in those 
 days, unseated the Whigs and gave the seats to their 
 defeated opponents. Thomas Rogers never stood again 
 at any election. Neither the morals nor the manners of 
 elections in those times were congenial to him, and his own 
 strong political convictions were in advance of the age. 
 
A BRISTOL ELECTION 
 
 43 
 
 There is a further curious illustration of the elections 
 of the reign of George the Third, ninety years before the 
 ballot, in a letter written to Thomas Eogers during the 
 Bristol election in January 1781. 
 
 John Robinson to Thomas Rogers . 
 
 ‘Dear Sir, — I wrote you from Namptwich (sic), and 
 at the same time enclosed proposals from Harrison and 
 Houghton’s house, to which I suppose you have given 
 them an answer. I am now at Bristol, where they have 
 this day begun a contested election for a member in the 
 room of the late Mr. Lippintot, deceased. The candidates 
 are Mr. Cruger and Mr. Daubeny. They poll in tallies of 
 ten each. They have polled to-day (after squabbling about 
 three hours before the opening of the poll) six tallies each, 
 and nine single freeholders, so that they stand equally — 
 sixty-nine each. The Blues are, in their own opinion, very 
 secure of their election of Mr. Daubeny, but I think, myself, 
 from what I have heard and seen, that Cruger will run him 
 hard. He has by much, to a stranger, the greatest share 
 of popularity ; and if the gentlemen who manage for him 
 mind what they are about I am of opinion he will get 
 his election. They are extremely riotous, have already 
 pulled down the board that directed the freemen the road 
 to Daubeny’ s polling-place, and knocked down several in 
 the street of Daubeny’s party. I shall be at Coventry 
 in about eight days from this, where I shall be very glad 
 to receive a letter from you directed to the King’s Head 
 there. If I can say or do anything there pray command 
 me. I shall go from thence through Birmingham and 
 
44 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Stourbridge, where I shall do myself the pleasure of paying 
 a visit to Miss Rogers. Some gentlemen, before the poll 
 began to-day, taxed Daubeny with attempting to com- 
 promise with another party at the last election. As 
 you will see by the enclosed paper the Dissenters of all 
 denominations are for Cruger ; and the Quakers — who are 
 numerous here, and you know are in general a quiet set 
 of people — were the first who mounted the rostrum to 
 poll. I can say no more now, and you must excuse the 
 incorrectness of what I have said, for there is a noise 
 here almost sufficient to crack the drum of a man’s ear. 
 
 4 So must subscribe myself, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Your very humble servant, 
 
 John Robinson. 
 
 ‘ Bristol : Jan. 30, 1781.’ 
 
 Mr. Cruger, the Whig candidate, was defeated. He 
 had been Burke’s colleague in the Parliament of 1774 
 and made the celebrated speech in the House of Com- 
 mons : — ‘ Mr. Speaker, I say ditto to Mr. Burke ; I say 
 ditto to Mr. Burke.’ 
 
 Thomas Rogers the elder had died a few years before 
 this, and his daughters continued to live at ‘ The Hill,’ 
 where the elder members of the family from Newington 
 Green often visited them. These visits during the life 
 of their grandfather, and afterwards to their aunts, were 
 something more than journeys to the country. They 
 were excursions into another social atmosphere, another 
 political climate, another world. Thomas Rogers was 
 there every summer, and his letters to Sam give a lively 
 picture of the society of the neighbourhood. On the 14th 
 of August, 1781, he writes : 4 We were last week entirely 
 
SOCIETY IN WORCESTERSHIRE 
 
 45 
 
 taken up by Lord and Lady Valentia, who were upon a 
 visit to “ The Hill ” from Monday to Saturday. This visit 
 has brought on another from this family to Arley, Lord 
 Valentia’s house, which takes place to-morrow, and in 
 which I am compelled to take a part, We shall return 
 on Friday. I look upon these engagements as near a 
 fortnight’s loss to me. Tom left us on Sunday evening. 
 He intended sleeping that night at Lichfield, and on 
 Monday at Derby. The races were to begin to-day/ 
 On the 6th of September he says : ‘ We pass our time so 
 uniformly that I have nothing to communicate worth 
 your notice. Among the changes which have taken place 
 in this neighbourhood, chance has brought to Mr. Am- 
 phlett’s house at Clent a Mr. and Mrs. Blair, both 
 Scotch. They live in one of the polite squares, keep 
 many servants, live in a high style, and are famous for 
 musical parties. Mrs. Blair sings delightfully, and is 
 called “ the inimitable Blair.” As they visit a good deal, 
 and Mrs. Blair sings whenever she is asked, and without 
 the least ceremony, they are considered as an acquisition 
 to the county. But I am afraid they will not stay long, 
 as they are said not to think their house good enough, 
 and occasionally give themselves some consequential airs 
 of that sort which some of their neighbours do not seem 
 to relish. As Mrs. Blair is a lady of so much tone, I 
 thought I would introduce her to you. . . . We were told 
 last week that the combined fleets were in the Channel, 
 but we disregarded it ; the papers to-day confirm it, but 
 nobody seems to think it a circumstance of any moment, 
 and I suppose the same torpid indifference prevails 
 through the country generally.’ 
 
46 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 The visits to and from the Valentias were repeated in 
 later summers, and Mr. Rogers, in his frequent visits to 
 “ The Hill,” seems to have entered with great zest into the 
 pleasures and amusements of the country life to which he 
 had been accustomed in his early days. He writes on the 
 6th of October, 1783 : ‘Our Assembly is fixed for next 
 Monday, which will give us pleasure on Martha’s account, 
 as I hope there will be a smart dance. ... It is so 
 celebrated a meeting that there are generally four or 
 five hairdressers from Worcester and Birmingham come 
 over to attend the ladies, as th efriseurs of the town are 
 not found sufficient.’ In October, 1785, he reports the 
 first Assembly of the season at Stourbridge, and adds : 
 ‘ Four of your aunts and myself were there, and had 
 the pleasure of meeting Captain and Mrs. Cox and many 
 friends. He notes, moreover, two new features of country 
 life. The first mail-coach had been started at Bristol in 
 1784, and in 1785 mail-coaches spread rapidly all over 
 the country. ‘ The extension of the mail coaches, says 
 Thomas Rogers, in a letter to Sarah Rogers, on the 1 8th 
 of October, 1785, ‘makes the country towns very gay. 
 We have one comes from Birmingham to Stourbridge, 
 and from hence to Bewdley every day but Monday ; and 
 the king’s arms on the coach, and the scarlet and gold 
 livery of the coachman, please the populace much.’ 
 
 Another innovation of the time was the establishment 
 of Sunday Schools. The Rev. Theophilus Lindsey had 
 established such a school at Catterick in 1764, and Miss 
 Hannah Ball at High Wycombe in 1769 ; but the move- 
 ment had been made general by the success of the school 
 Mr. Robert Raikes had opened at St. Mary-le-Crypt in 
 
SUNDAY SCHOOLS 
 
 47 
 
 Gloucester in 1781. So in this same letter Thomas 
 Rogers reports in 1785, ‘Mr. Foley, the rector of the 
 parish, and several gentlemen, are very busy in drawing 
 up a plan for Sunday Schools. Sufficient money is 
 raised, but the school-houses are not yet fixed upon, nor 
 the masters and mistresses appointed. There will be 
 about six for boys, and the same number for girls.’ He 
 adds a wish which was realised fifty-five years after- 
 wards by some of his descendants. 4 I hope the gentlemen 
 of Islington and the Green will establish some in the 
 neighbourhood. I wish one or two could be established 
 at the Green, and the children brought to meeting, as I 
 know no place where there are so many poor people with 
 so little attendance upon public worship.’ 
 
 The autumn of 1786 finds him again at “ The Hill,” 
 and he writes to Sam, who had just returned from Brighton, 
 of some delightful excursions they had made. ‘ One to 
 Downton, to Dick Knight’s Castle, and over a lofty range 
 of hills in that neighbourhood, commanding Hereford- 
 shire, Shropshire, and part of Wales.’ The other excur- 
 sion was to Mr. Harley’s at Berrington, near Leominster. 
 4 The house not large, but taking in horses’ stables, 
 gardens, with the establishment of servants, the whole 
 may be called princely. No park and not much shrub- 
 bery, but some hundred acres of ground, beautiful in situ- 
 ation, laid out in great taste, and kept up at a profusion 
 of expense.’ In this letter he expresses the hope that in 
 Tom’s absence Sam will get early to town, and attend as 
 much as possible to Mr. Welch’s ease, doing everything 
 he can to relieve him from too much application. 
 
 In most of these letters he speaks of Sam’s health. 
 
48 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 In 1781 Sam had gone to Margate, and his father 
 strongly recommends him to take horse exercise, pro- 
 mising to send the brown mare if he cannot get a decent 
 horse by hiring. Sam had said something about dancing, 
 and his father expresses the hope that he will ‘ be so 
 prudent in the use of it as not, like Penelope, to undo by 
 night the work of the day.’ Year after year there are 
 references in the letters to a weakness of the eyes from 
 which Sam was suffering. He seems to have had a very 
 odd experience with respect to them. One of his poems 
 is entitled ‘ To the Gnat,’ and admirably describes in 
 sixteen lines the ‘ whirring wings ’ and ‘ shrill horn ’ of 
 the mosquito. If it had been written on Staten Island, 
 near New York, or in some other place haunted by the 
 scourge of continental climates, it could not have pic- 
 tured more graphically the possible horrors of an autumn 
 night ; but addressed to our poor English midge, the 
 lines seem exaggerated, and Mr. Sharpe thinks the piece 
 might have been written in order that it might end in 
 mock-heroic style with Dryden’s line — 
 
 They wake in horror and dare sleep no more. 
 
 Yet Rogers always declared that the lines literally de- 
 scribed his own experience. In his young days the gnats 
 at Stoke Newington distressed him as the mosquitos plague 
 an Englishman who without due precautions ventures to 
 sleep with an open window in some parts of the United 
 States. His eyes, he says, were often swollen with the 
 bites of gnats when he woke in the morning. This 
 annoyance was probably due to his weak health. Every 
 year during his clerkship at the bank he took long 
 
MARGATE IN 1785 
 
 49 
 
 holidays at Margate or at Brighton ; year after year sea- 
 bathing and horse exercise were recommended him by 
 the doctors, and he found benefit from them. His father 
 had to exhort him not to spend too much time in reading, 
 but to lay his favourite books aside and look after his 
 health. In the summer of 1785 he writes to his father — 
 
 ‘ Margate : 24 Septr. ’85. 
 
 1 Dear Sir, — I arrived here last Tuesday night, after a 
 very pleasant journey. The hop-picking had thrown an 
 air of gaiety over the country, and women and children 
 were everywhere singing songs and filling their baskets. 
 The weather has been very changeable, and the showers 
 so partial that yesterday when I was riding with Mr. 
 Seawell (who is here, and boards in the same house with 
 me) a very heavy shower fell within twenty yards of us, 
 and we could distinctly see the drops. Margate is rather 
 full, but the height of the season seems to be past. Mr. 
 Seawell and myself propose to take a little trip to Calais 
 next week, and on our return to Dover I shall be met by 
 Mr. Joseph Collier, who will accompany me along the 
 coast to Brighthelmstone. Mr. ffm. Maltby is there for 
 his health, which is very indifferent, and I hope to stay 
 there a week or ten days. The sea has been very calm 
 since I came, and I have bathed every morning. As we 
 shall make easy journeys every day, I mean to bathe at 
 Rye and Eastbourne. Mr. Bearcroft and his family are 
 here, and are extremely civil to me. I walked down to 
 the pier this morning, and counted twenty-four West 
 India merchantmen, which are just visible on the line of 
 the horizon. I have found the sea air have the same 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 effect it used to have, and my appetite is so keen that I 
 am sometimes ashamed of it. I beg my duty to my 
 aunts, and my love to my cousins ; and remain, dear Sir, 
 ‘ Your dutiful and affectionate son, 
 
 ‘ Saml. Rogers.’ 
 
 He was at this time preparing his first book for the 
 press, but there is not a hint concerning it in any of 
 his letters. There is, however, a letter from his sister 
 Maria, written when she was twelve or thirteen years old, 
 which supplies the material for a slight sketch of Rogers’s 
 evenings at home in these early days. Maria speaks of 
 being with him in the study when he is reading and she 
 is writing, and her only pleasure is to look up to him 
 from time to time, wishing to know his thoughts. She 
 speaks in most affectionate terms of his kindness in always 
 doing everything to oblige her, and says she is sure there 
 is not one brother in a hundred who so behaves to his 
 sister. In the Rogers’s house the law in the library 
 was that of silence when anyone was reading or writing. 
 Samuel could therefore sit and write comparatively un- 
 disturbed, and had not to learn, like Maria Edgeworth, 
 to compose amid the prattle of a family. Communica- 
 tion was to be by correspondence, and the letters were 
 put in a place in the library called the ‘ Post Office.’ 
 There Maria placed her letters, and there she found her 
 brother’s answers after he had gone to business in the 
 .morning. In this way a correspondence was carried on 
 between a brother and sister living under the same roof; 
 and Maria says of Samuel’s letters : “ If I am grave they 
 make me merry, and if I am merry I still continue so.’ 
 
EVENINGS AT HOME 
 
 51 
 
 As Samuel's eyes were weak his sisters sometimes read 
 to him, and it is easy to picture the pleasant scene in 
 the study on many an evening in those happy years — the 
 girls writing or reading or preparing their lessons, the 
 brothers sitting with them at similar work, and Samuel, 
 the literary brother, studying the poets or himself writ- 
 ing what he hoped might live, or, like a later and less 
 fortunate aspirant for fame, with old bards of honour- 
 able name, measuring his soul severely. In this way 
 he became an author. 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of IUIN043 
 LIBRARY 
 
52 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early Writings — ‘ The Scribbler ’ — ‘ Vintage of Burgundy ’ — ‘ Ode to 
 Superstition Smaller Poems. 
 
 Rogers did not begin poetical composition very early 
 in life. He did not lisp in numbers for he was probably 
 far beyond boyhood when the numbers came. He had 
 been kept at school rather longer than Walter Scott, 
 who was only fourteen when, to use his own words, he 
 4 entered on the dry and barren wilderness of forms and 
 conveyances ’ in his father’s office. Rogers entered his 
 father’s bank when he was sixteen or seventeen, and he 
 made his first literary venture before he was eighteen. 
 He went to business later than Scott, but plunged into 
 authorship much earlier than his great friend and con- 
 temporary. His first printed efforts were not in verse* 
 They consisted of a brief series of papers published in 
 successive numbers of the Gentleman’s Magazine . Like 
 most early efforts these essays are imitations ; and as 
 might be expected Dr. Johnson is the model. Rogers 
 never saw Johnson. He recordshaving met old General 
 Oglethorpe at the sale of Dr. Johnson’s library. But 
 the great autocrat of literature was still exerting his 
 undisputed sway when Rogers was meditating authorship, 
 and he felt for him not only the reverence which was 
 then universal, but that which young ambition feels for 
 
EARLY WRITINGS 
 
 53 
 
 old and established fame. One day, in early youth, he and 
 his friend William Maltby went to call on Johnson at his 
 house in Bolt Court. ‘ I had my hand upon the knocker,' 
 said Rogers, in telling the story, ‘ when our courage 
 failed us and we retreated.’ Boswell told them many 
 years afterwards that they should have gone boldly in, for 
 the great man would have received them kindly. John- 
 son died in December, 1784 — more than a year before 
 Rogers printed his first poem, so that he and his friend 
 could have had no such introduction as the presenta- 
 tion of a book might give them ; and it is not likely that, 
 in those early days, his literary friends could give him 
 an introduction to a man who would probably decline to 
 know or recognise them. Nor is there any reason what- 
 ever to think, that Rogers was sufficiently content with 
 his imitations of Johnson to have ventured to call his 
 attention to them. 
 
 These short pieces are only worthy of notice as the 
 earliest productions of a writer who afterwards attained 
 wide celebrity on a different field. It was the custom 
 of the Sylvanus Urban of those days to print in his 
 magazine short series of papers, under titles evidently 
 suggested by the Rambler. 
 
 Samuel Rogers gave his papers the title of ‘ The 
 Scribbler,’ and the following is the first number, which 
 appeared in February, 1781 : 
 
 THE SCRIBBLER, No. 1. 
 
 TJt scriptor cyclicus olim . — Hoe. 
 
 Prompted by the ambition of appearing in print the 
 Scribbler here obtrudes his compositions on the public. His 
 character may obstruct his success, but it precludes disap- 
 
54 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 pointment, for no one can conceive very sanguine expectations 
 of entertainment from the Scribbler. 
 
 Though his Essays be not favoured with a perusal, though 
 the appellation he has assumed repress curiosity or excite con- 
 tempt, the satisfaction he will feel at seeing himself in print 
 will amply compensate the mortification of neglect. 
 
 If they be favourably received it will indeed be an additional 
 pleasure ; if not, he will not be dejected, nor, like Cowley, form 
 the chimerical design of secluding himself from society and 
 renouncing the chief pleasures of life. 
 
 He solicits the contributions of all who are influenced by 
 the same motives which he has adduced for the publication 
 of his productions, but declines a correspondence with those 
 who have the vanity to aspire to literary eminence. 
 
 This Introduction may be regarded as singular, but the 
 Scribbler disdains the practice of averting the displeasure of 
 the reader by servile submission, or by affecting that diffidence 
 which he does not possess. 
 
 Had he been a native of Athens, or had he even resided in 
 Rome in the Augustan age, he would certainly have never 
 conceived the idea of appearing in print, nor have been sensible 
 of the bliss of publication. 
 
 This is a species of luxury of which the Ancients were 
 entirely ignorant ; which even the Despots of Asia had never 
 the felicity to enjoy. Applause can never be conferred adequate 
 to the merits of the discoverer of so exquisite a pleasure. 
 
 To his memory — to the memory of 
 FAUSTUS OF MENTZ; 
 
 Who by the invention of the art of printing 
 Has ultimately contributed more to the happiness of Empires 
 Than all the conquerors and legislators of antiquity, 
 
 This Bagatelle 
 
 is inscribed by his grateful admirer, 
 
 g * * * * * * * * * * 
 
 (To be continued regularly every month.) 
 
‘THE SCRIBBLER’ 
 
 55 
 
 The same strain was continued in the next number, 
 which began by describing the raptures he felt at seeing 
 himself in print. The third paper was on ‘Eloquence/ 
 the fourth was on ‘ the Ancients and Moderns/ and was 
 reproduced by Mr. Dyce in his Table Talk ; the fifth 
 was a story entitled the ‘ Pupil of Nature/ supposed to 
 be translated from the Erse, with the statement that 
 ‘ Shakespeare had probably seen it when he wrote the 
 tragedy of Macbeth ; ’ the sixth, ‘ On the Regions of the 
 Blest/ a rhapsody, with Cicero’s words for a text : £ 0 
 prseclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum animarum con- 
 cilium ccetumque proficiscar, cumque ex hac turba et 
 colluvione discedam ! ’ The seventh was on the ‘ Temple 
 of Fashion ’ quoted below ; and the eighth, misnumbered 
 seven in the magazine, is on ‘ Virtue.’ Mr. Dyce thinks 
 these papers were ‘ quite up to the standard of the 
 periodical writing of the time/ and some of them are 
 clearly superior to those which were published contem- 
 poraneously with them. The one which Mr. Dyce quotes 
 ‘ as a curiosity,’ though it shows industry is by no means 
 equal in merit to some others of the series. That on 
 the ‘ Temple of Fashion,’ quoted seventy-five years after- 
 wards by Mr. Hayward in the Edinburgh Review article 
 on Samuel Rogers is perhaps the best of the series. It is 
 written, says the Edinburgh , ‘ with a freedom and rhyth- 
 mical flow which are rarely found in essayists of eighteen. 3, 
 
 THE SCRIBBLER, No. VII. 
 
 Sed nihil est magnum somnianti. — Cic. 
 
 Reflecting the other evening on the influence of Fashion, I 
 insensibly fell asleep, and imagined myself suddenly trans- 
 ported into a magnificent temple, in the centre of which, 
 
66 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 elevated on a pedestal, stood a female of very light, capricious 
 air, attended by numbers of both sexes, who were burning 
 incense on her altar. But what astonished me most was that 
 the scene experienced a perpetual change. When she waved 
 her hand the columns of the temple, which were first of the 
 Ionic, became of the Corinthian order, the stucco wall ap- 
 peared hung with the richest tapestry, the fretted ceiling swelled 
 into a dome, and the marble pavement assumed a carpet of the 
 brightest tints. These, after innumerable transformations, 
 were revived, once more to pass through the same revolutions. 
 
 Whether she heightened with a pencil the vermilion of her 
 cheeks or clothed her limbs with a close or flowing vest ; whether 
 she collected her ringlets in a knot or suffered them to hang 
 negligently on her shoulders ; whether she shook the dice, 
 waked the lyre, or filled the sparkling glass — she was imitated 
 by her votaries, who vied with each other in obsequiousness 
 and reverence. All united in presenting their oblations — either 
 their health, their fortunes or their integrity. Though 
 numbers incessantly disappeared, the assembly receiving 
 continual supplies preserved its grandeur and brilliancy. At 
 the entrance I observed Vanity fantastically crowned with 
 flowers and feathers, to whom the fickle deity committed the 
 initiation of her votaries. These having fluttered as gaily as 
 their predecessors, in a few moments vanished and were suc- 
 ceeded by others. All who rejected the solicitations of Vanity 
 were compelled to enter by Ridicule, whose shafts were uni- 
 versally dreaded. Even Literature, Science, and Philosophy 
 were obliged to comply. Those only escaped who were con- 
 cealed beneath the veil of Obscurity. As I gazed on this 
 glittering scene, having declined the invitation of Vanity, 
 Ridicule shot an arrow from her bow which pierced my heart ; 
 I fainted, and in the violence of my agitation, awaked. 
 
 The publication of these essays in the months from 
 February to September, 1781, gave their young author 
 great encouragement. His nephew, Mr. Samuel Sharpe, 
 
HIS LITERARY TASTES 
 
 57 
 
 In his sketch of Rogers’s Life describes him as look- 
 ing forward every month ‘ to the day of these papers 
 appearing with boyish eagerness. As the magazine 
 reached him in the morning it was brought into his 
 bedroom before he was out of bed, and, month by 
 month, as he cut its wet pages, and found that the 
 publisher had decided that his essay was deserving of 
 publication, he was more and more fixed in his purpose 
 to be an author.’ None of the later pleasures, even of 
 successful authorship, equal this, the first and earliest 
 satisfaction that is given to the ‘ last infirmity of noble 
 minds.’ It is not fame, but it seems like the promise 
 of fame. It gives young energies a sense of boundless 
 opportunity in which to prove their quality, and conquer 
 the empire for which they long. 
 
 The imitation of Johnson was a passing phase; and 
 the writing of essays was soon dropped for more con- 
 genial work. In the next year, 1782, we find him already 
 engaged in poetical composition. From the first he had 
 poetry in view, and his love of poetry, even his desire to 
 be a poet, had been known and recognised from com- 
 paratively early years. In 1775 Mason published the 
 ‘ Life and Letters of Gray,’ with an edition of his poems, 
 and Samuel Rogers, then twelve years old, read them 
 with delight. Some years later, when he went to busi- 
 ness, he walked to town in the morning with Gray’s 
 poems in his hand, and could repeat them all. He 
 admired the letters as much as the poems. They had 
 for him, he said, an inexpressible charm. He thought 
 them to be as witty as Walpole’s and to have what he 
 thought Walpole’s wanted — true wisdom. But Gray was 
 
58 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 not his earliest teacher. In 1771, the year in which 
 Gray died, and when Wordsworth was but twelve 
 months old, the first and best part of Beattie’s ‘ Minstrel ’ 
 appeared. Rogers was then a boy, and it was probably 
 a year or two later, when on a summer evening he took 
 down the volume from the library shelf and read the 
 story of ‘ Edwin ’ with that kindling sympathy which was 
 the stirring within him of his own share in the divine 
 gift of genius. He never forgot that first experience of 
 the poet’s spell. It might be described in Wordsworth’s, 
 lines in his autobiographical poem — 
 
 Twice five years 
 
 Or less I might have seen, when first my mind 
 With conscious pleasure opened to the charm 
 Of words in tuneful order ; found them sweet 
 For their own sakes, a passion and a power. 
 
 This seems to have been the dawn of his genius. It 
 woke up the love of song, and sent him to study with 
 enthusiasm the chief poets of the time. He soon 
 turned from Beattie to Goldsmith, and from Goldsmith to 
 Gray. Goldsmith’s ‘ Traveller ’ was published in the year 
 after Rogers was born, and the ‘ Deserted Village ’ in 
 1770; and these were among the poems on which his 
 youthful fancy was fed. He soon went back, of course, 
 to older and even greater masters ; but his boyhood’s 
 love of poetry was nourished by the popular poets of 
 the time. One of the sweetest bits of early praise which 
 reached his ears was the description of him as ‘ a child 
 of Goldsmith.’ But he was something more. It is 
 needless to say that a young man of poetical ambition 
 in the second half of the eighteenth century was a 
 
HIS POETICAL TEACHEES 
 
 59 
 
 careful student of Pope and Dry den. Rogers sat at the 
 feet of both these great men, but his preference was for 
 Dryden. His father advised him to study Pope’s 
 4 Homer,’ but, with all his love and reverence for the poet 
 of the 4 Dunciad 9 and the 4 Essay on Man,’ he could never 
 like Pope’s translation of the 4 Iliad ’ and the 4 Odyssey.’ 
 When Cowper’s version of 4 Homer’ appeared in 1791 he 
 admired it greatly and read it again and again. The 
 gentle singer of 4 John Gilpin ’ and the 4 Task ’ was, how- 
 ever, a contemporary of Rogers, and cannot be numbered 
 among his early teachers. 1 Those teachers were Gray 
 and Goldsmith, Dryden and Pope ; but the influence 
 which the elders in the brotherhood of genius possess 
 over its younger sons, was exerted in Rogers’s case chiefly 
 by Gray and Goldsmith. Gray inspired him first and 
 Goldsmith afterwards, but he was himself from first to last. 
 In his imaginative boyhood when, like Beattie’s 4 Edwin,’ 
 though for reasons of health, rather than of feeling — 
 
 Concourse and noise and toil he ever fled, 
 
 Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray — 
 
 he may have thought himself to be not unlike that 
 hero of his favourite poem. The excitement with which 
 he first read the 4 Minstrel ’ was due to the sympathy he 
 felt with Edwin’s dreams. Such revelations of intel- 
 lectual kinship come to every boy of sensitive nature in 
 whom the first movements of great faculties take the 
 shape of ambitious hopes and plans. He does not 
 merely follow the great examples he admires but catches 
 inspiration from them. He does not consciously 
 
 1 ‘John Gilpin’ was published in the Repository in 1783, and the 
 Task ’ was issued in 1785. 
 
60 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 imitate them, but hears and obeys the call of innate 
 powers to go and do likewise. This was Kogers’s case. 
 In some lines written in earlier days, but added to the 
 second part of his ‘ Italy ’ and dated 1839, when he was 
 seventy-six years old, he says of himself — 1 
 
 Nature denied him much 
 But gave him at bis birth what most he values, 
 
 A passionate love for music, sculture, painting, 
 
 For poetry, the language of the Gods, 
 
 For all things here, or grand or beautiful : 
 
 A setting sun, a lake among the mountains, 
 
 The light of an ingenuous countenance, 
 
 And what transcends them all, a noble action. 
 
 1 In the Common Place Book is the earliest form of these lines, and 
 they are entitled ‘ Of myself -a fragment.’ 
 
 My gentle reader, hast thou yet conceived 
 A wish to know me ? Bear with me awhile 
 And ere my task is ended, thou may’st know 
 More than thou would’ st. Fortune denied me much 
 Yet gave me, with a smile, what most I value — 
 
 A passionate love for music, painting, sculpture, 
 
 For poetry, the language of the gods, 
 
 For all or grand or beautiful in nature : 
 
 A setting sun, a lake among the mountains 
 The light of an ingenuous countenance 
 And what transcends them all, a noble action. 
 
 What though my ancestors early or late 
 "Were not ennobled by the breath of kings, 
 
 Yet in these veins was running at my birth, 
 
 The blood of those most eminent of old 
 For learning, virtue ; those who could renounce 
 The things of this world for their conscience’ sake 
 And die like blessed martyrs. Health from my cheek 
 Fled ere the down was there, and rain or shine 
 From very childhood was my soul inclined 
 To sadness, such as few I hope have known, 
 
 Yet were my waking dreams, when health was mine, 
 
 Not undelightful. 
 
HIS EARLY PROSPECTS 
 
 61 
 
 Nature denied him much but gave him more 
 And ever, ever grateful should he be 
 Though from his cheek ere yet the down was there 
 Health fled ; for in his heaviest hours would come 
 Gleams such as come not now, nor failed he then 
 (Then and through life his happiest privilege) 
 
 Full oft to wander where the Muses haunt 
 Smit with the love of song. 
 
 There was not much opportunity to wander where the 
 Muses haunt in those early days. Nor was there the 
 slightest prospect at this time of that dignified leisure in 
 which his long life was to be spent. If he thought defi- 
 nitely of his future, the shape it took in the dreams of 
 his ambition was in all probability that which has been 
 wrongly attributed to him of the ‘ banker poet.’ If this 
 phrase, now often applied to him, has any meaning, it 
 describes a man who is actually engaged in the business 
 of banking at the same time that he is cultivating the 
 Muse. This is what Rogers did in his early days — but 
 in those early days only. He was then and then only, 
 in the true sense of the words, a banker poet. It was, 
 as it were, by accident that he became the chief owner 
 of the business which was afterwards carried on by his 
 brother and his nephew on his behalf; and that he, the 
 third son, was put into the position of the heir. There 
 can be no stronger evidence of the confidence with which 
 he inspired his father, who was himself a prudent and 
 very successful man of business, than that the bank 
 should have been left in his hands. It is the most con- 
 clusive proof that could be given of Rogers’s devotion to 
 business and of his capacity for it. But when he began 
 to write he was not even a partner, and when he published 
 
62 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 his first volume of poems he was only the youngest 
 member in the banking partnership, with scarcely the 
 most distant prospect of ever being anything else. The 
 world has been assured that from the first he laid out 
 his life with a view to the social distinction he afterwards 
 attained ; but such statements have no foundation. 
 They have been made by persons who have written 
 about him in complete ignorance of the kind of life he 
 lived in his younger days. It was a life of steady appli- 
 cation to business, of going to and fro between his home 
 in Stoke Newington and the bank in Freeman’s Court ; 
 of immersion for the best part of every working day in 
 the dry details of finance. This life of work was varied, 
 relieved, brightened, and consoled by the love of poetry. 
 The leisure which business left to him was spent in 
 literary occupation or in cultivating the society of men 
 of letters. But Rogers never dreamed of making either 
 literary or social success his chief pursuit. The oppor- 
 tunity for such successes came afterwards, and awoke 
 the desire for them ; but that opportunity found him 
 behind a bank counter or in a bank parlour, as the 
 genius of his country found Burns at the plough. 
 
 His first poetical composition has never been pub- 
 lished. It took the unexpected form of a comic opera. 
 The world might never have heard of this production, 
 of which Rogers himself did not desire much to be said, 
 but for a Note which, in his ‘ Table Talk,’ Mr. Dyce has 
 appended to an account given by Rogers of the time 
 occupied in the composition of his poems. In this Note 
 Mr. Dyce writes, ‘ I was with Mr. Rogers when he tore to 
 pieces and threw into the fire a manuscript operatic drama 
 
HIS EIKST POEMS 
 
 63 
 
 — “The Vintage of Burgundy ’’ — which he had written 
 early in life. He told me that he offered it to a manager, 
 who said, ‘ I will bring it on the stage if you are deter- 
 mined to have it acted, but it will certainly be damned. 
 One or two songs which now appear among his poems 
 formed parts of that drama.’ This statement is only 
 partly true. The manuscripts, for there were two copies, 
 were indeed torn, but only a portion of each was burned, 
 and the remainder is still preserved. The story of the 
 offer of the opera to a manager, like many others which 
 Mr. Dyce has reported, was told by Rogers when his 
 memory was failing. The manager to whom it was sub- 
 mitted seems, from a letter which has been preserved, 
 to have been George Colman the elder. His letter, re- 
 turning it is dated from Soho Square, April 8th, without 
 the year, and merely says, ‘ The little piece, herewith 
 returned, is, I think, a pretty drama of the sentimental 
 kind, but its success upon the stage must depend much 
 upon the music. Is not it a translation from the 
 French ? ’ This faint praise from the eminent author 
 of the ‘ Jealous Wife ’ and the ‘ Clandestine Marriage,’ 
 was probably regarded by Rogers as equivalent to con- 
 demnation, and may have convinced him that his chance 
 of literary success was to be found in a different direction. 
 
 The piece was called ‘ The Vintage of Burgundy — a 
 Comic Opera in Two Acts.’ The larger fragment shows 
 that the manuscript covered eight-and-twenty pages of 
 small, clear writing ; two of these have been completely 
 cut away, eighteen are roughly torn down the middle, and 
 eight are entire. Of the smaller manuscript much less 
 is left ; but it contains a few lines which are obliterated 
 
64 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 in the other copy. So far as the two can be com- 
 pared, the difference between them is considerable. The 
 description of it as a ‘ comic opera ’ is not borne out by 
 what remains of it ; but it exactly answers to George 
 Colman’s description, ‘ a pretty drama of the sentimental 
 kind.’ No steps seem to have been taken to get it set 
 to music, but there is on one of the manuscripts an in- 
 complete cast of the play in which the chief characters 
 are apportioned to Incledon, Johnson, Blanc, Mrs. B. 
 and Mrs. M. The little piece contained at least nineteen 
 songs, two of which are published among Rogers’s 
 poems — ‘ The Alps at Daybreak ’ and ‘ Dear is my little 
 Native Yale.’ Among those which have never seen the 
 light is one of which only part of the first verse remains, 
 the idea of which is expressed in the words of one of the 
 peasants, ‘ ’Tis the vintage to-morrow, and if you long 
 for the pure juice of the grape, you may eat a bottle of 
 Burgundy in the way Nature gives it.’ The verse may 
 be reconstructed thus : — 
 
 Let the grape’s gushing nectar ferment 
 And sing from the flask as it flows, 
 
 But with Nature’s [own gift I’m content], 
 
 I’ll quaff the [red juice as it grows]. 
 
 There are some dancing songs, sung by a Burgun- 
 dian peasant girl. One verse can be reconstructed : 
 
 Each tender youth at every pa [use] 
 
 Breathes softly in his partner’s [ear] 
 
 What most can plead a lover’s [cause] 
 
 What most she hopes yet d[reads to hear]. 
 
 Another of the peasant songs is : 
 
PEASANT SONGS 
 
 65 
 
 At the close of a summer’s day, 
 
 When all danced over the green, 
 
 With my Lubin I stole away 
 To walk by the hedge unseen ; 
 
 And my heart went pit-a-pat. 
 
 ‘ Ah, Annete ! ’ he said with a sigh, 
 
 ‘ Could I tell you what I feel ! ’ 
 
 And I blushed, though I knew not why, 
 
 At the tale he would reveal ; 
 
 And my heart went pit-a-pat. 
 
 With such softness he pressed my hand, 
 
 Such a kiss enforced his vow, 
 
 That I’d hardly strength to stand, 
 
 And I looked — I know not how ; 
 
 While my heart went pit-a-pat. 
 
 And when we returned to the green 
 So lightly we tripped away, 
 
 Such a jig had never been seen 
 Since the piper learnt to play ; 
 
 For our hearts went pit-a-pat. 
 
 One of the girls employed in the vintage is an Italian 
 girl, who has run away from a match her father wished 
 to force upon her, and is followed by the lover she 
 favours in the guise of an organ-grinder. She sings 
 the song ‘ Dear is my little Native Yale ; ’ and one to the 
 nightingale. 
 
 i. 
 
 Blest chantress of the midnight grove, 
 
 Descend and sing thy serenade ; 
 
 No parent checks thy little love, 
 
 Or bids thy ruffled plumage fade. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL BOG-ERS 
 
 II. 
 
 The moon shines through the dusky trees, 
 
 Her beams among the branches play ; 
 
 Let thy wild warblings swell the breeze, 
 
 And softly, sweetly, die away. 
 
 And when her lover finds her, and she will not accept 
 him without her father’s consent, they sing together — 
 
 Lucio. The opening floweret greets the dawn, 
 
 When genial dews impearl the lawn ; 
 
 Up springs the lark with carols clear, 
 
 When day spreads o’er the sky. 
 
 Maria . But when despair has shut the heart 
 What joy can any sense impart ? 
 
 Then, what is music to the ear 
 Or beauty to the eye ? 
 
 The piece, of course, ends happily. From the date 
 of 1782 given to the song ‘ Dear is my little Native Yale ’ 
 it is evident that it w r as the first of Rogers’s completed 
 productions, and embodied much of his early poetical 
 effort. He had kept it by him very many years, and 
 had probably re-written and published several of the 
 songs it contained, besides the two already mentioned. 
 He might have said of ‘ The Vintage of Burgundy’ — as 
 he did of the ‘ Ode to Superstition ’ — that it was written 
 in his teens, and afterwards touched up. This elaborate 
 method was followed in everything he did — even in the 
 writing of a letter of more than common importance. He 
 wrote nothing in haste, yet he always reconsidered every 
 line at leisure. He said to Mr. Dyce : ‘ During my whole 
 life I have borne in mind the speech of a woman to 
 Philip of Macedon — “ I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip 
 
HIS SECOND POEM 
 
 67 
 
 sober.” After writing anything in the excitement of the 
 moment, and being greatly pleased with it, I have always 
 put it by for a time, and then, carefully considering it 
 in every possible light, I have altered it to the best of 
 my judgment.’ This rule has the testimony of all 
 antiquity in its favour; but it belongs to antiquity. 
 The custom of the present day is to print at once that 
 which is flung off in the heat of the kindled fancy, and 
 the haste is justified of its children by the gain in 
 strength and fire, though the gain is made at some 
 expense of that grace and polish of which Rogers is one 
 of the latest examples in English literature. 
 
 His second poetical composition was the ‘ Ode to 
 Superstition,’ which has been already mentioned. The 
 writing of this poem was one of the chief occupations of 
 his evening leisure in 1784 and 1785. Like ‘ The Vintage 
 of Burgundy’ it was written and re-written, and was 
 published anonymously in the spring of 1786, with the 
 title, ‘ An Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems.’ 
 It was issued by Mr. Cadell as a thin quarto, at the price 
 of eight eenpence. The other poems were : ‘ The Alps at 
 Daybreak,’ which had been included in the unpublished 
 opera, ‘ The Vintage of Burgundy ; ’ ‘ Lines to a Lady on 
 the Death of her Lover,’ which were afterwards omitted 
 in the republication of his poems ; ‘ The Sailor,’ which is 
 dated 1786 in his collected works; and the pretty song, 
 often set to music and included in collections of poetry, 
 entitled ‘ A Wish,’ and beginning ‘ Mine be a cot beside 
 the hill.’ In describing this first venture many years 
 afterwards, Rogers said, ‘ I paid down to the publisher 
 thirty pounds, to ensure him against being a loser by it. 
 
68 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 At the end of four years I found he had sold twenty 
 copies.’ This was as discouraging a beginning as that 
 which Wordsworth and Coleridge made twelve years later 
 with their joint volume of ‘ Lyrical Ballads.’ Mr. Cottle, 
 the Bristol publisher, paid them thirty guineas each for 
 the copyright, and boldly printed five hundred copies. 
 The first piece in the volume was the ‘ Ancient Mariner/ 
 yet the sale was so slow that Cottle was glad to dispose 
 of the largest portion of the copies to a London book- 
 seller at a loss, and he gave back to the authors their 
 valueless copyright. Rogers’s publisher was at least kept 
 from loss, and Rogers himself was not discouraged by the 
 small sale of the poem. The critics were more appre- 
 ciative than the public ; he was encouraged by them to 
 own himself to be the author of the poem, and was soon 
 recognised as one of the promising writers of the time. 
 He learned too, from the reception of the ‘ Ode to Super- 
 stition,’ that it was not in lyrical poetry he was destined 
 to excel. 
 
 The first notice of the ‘ Ode to Superstition ’ was in the 
 Critical Review for June 1786. This magazine quoted 
 the first stanza of the Ode and added only two lines and 
 a half of criticism : — ‘ This exordium, and the other parts 
 of the Ode are not inferior to it, is spirited and harmonious. 
 The lesser poems are elegant and pretty.’ A somewhat 
 longer notice appeared in the Monthly Review for July 
 1786. ‘ In these pieces,’ said the reviewer, ‘ we perceive 
 
 the hand of an able master. The “ Ode to Superstition ” is 
 written with uncommon boldness of imagery and strength 
 of diction. The Author has collected some of the most 
 striking historical facts to illustrate the tyranny of the 
 
6 ODE TO SUPERSTITION’ 
 
 69 
 
 •daemon he addresses, and has exhibited them with the 
 fire and energy proper to lyric poetry. The following 
 stanzas are particularly excellent.’ The reviewer then 
 •quotes the lines — 
 
 hi. 1. 
 
 Mona, thy Druid rites awake the dead ! 
 
 Rites thy brown oaks would never dare 
 Even whisper to the idle air ; 
 
 Rites that have chained old Ocean on his bed. 
 
 Shivered by thy piercing glance 
 Pointless falls the hero’s lance. 
 
 Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly, 
 
 And blasts the laureate wreath of victory. 
 
 Hark, the bard’s soul inspires the vocal string ! 
 
 At every pause dread Silence hovers o’er, 
 
 While murky Night sails round on raven wing, 
 Deepening the tempest’s howl, the torrent’s roar ; 
 Chased by the morn from Snowdon’s awful brow 
 Where late she sat and scowled on the black wave below. 
 
 hi. 2. 
 
 Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears ! 
 
 The red-cross squadrons madly rage, 
 
 And mow through infancy and age ; 
 
 Then kiss the sacred dust and melt in tears, 
 
 Veiling from the eye of day, 
 
 Penance dreams her life away ; 
 
 In cloistered solitude she sits and sighs, 
 
 While from each shrine still, small responses rise. 
 
 Hear with what heartfelt beat, the midnight bell 
 Swings its slow summons through the hollow pile 
 The weak wan votarist leaves her twilight cell, 
 
 To walk with taper dim the winding aisle ; 
 
 With choral chantings vainly to aspire 
 
 Beyond this nether sphere on Rapture’s wing of fire. 
 
70 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 The reviewer adds : ‘ The picture of night at the end of the 
 first of these stanzas is highly poetical ; in the second the 
 gloom of cloistered solitude is well represented.’ ‘ The 
 Sailor ’ is described as an elegy ‘ harmonious and tender/ 
 and the reviewer concludes — ‘ the rest of these pieces have 
 the same character of chaste and classical elegance.’ 
 
 It is probable that a critic of the present day might 
 make a different selection of stanzas for the purpose of 
 showing the chaste and classical elegance of the poem. 
 But these passages met the taste of the time. There may 
 be no conscious imitation in them, but they are evidently 
 suggested and inspired by Gray’s ‘ Bard.’ It is needless 
 to say that this criticism gave the young author great 
 satisfaction and encouragement. He afterwards learned 
 that the writer in the Monthly Review, was the amiable 
 and accomplished Dr. Enfield, compiler of the ‘ Speaker,’ 
 and author of the ‘ History of Philosophy.’ Dr. Enfield 
 had read the poem aloud to his family. Other criticisms 
 were equally encouraging. His school-friend William 
 Maltby writing to him soon after the Ode was published 
 tells Rogers that he has just received a letter from 
 Winchester, with the Poet Laureate’s opinion of the 
 Ode : ‘ He thinks it has a great deal of merit indeed, 
 and that the reviewers have not given it more praise than 
 it justly deserves. He wishes much to know the name 
 of the author.’ The Laureate at that time was Thomas 
 War ton, whom Rogers never saw, but whose poem, ‘ The 
 Suicide ’ was one of his favourites. Rogers had made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld, who had just 
 established themselves at Hampstead, and a copy of the 
 poem was sent to them through the publisher. Mrs.. 
 
MINOR POEMS 
 
 71 
 
 Barbauld writes on the 4th of September, 1786, expressing 
 the hope that she is not wrong in addressing her thanks for 
 the book to Mr. Rogers. She adds, ‘ Charmed as she was 
 with the picturesque and striking beauties of the poems in 
 question, she wished to have made an earlier acknowledg- 
 ment of the pleasure she received, if she had known to 
 whom to make it ; and was delighted when she learnt that 
 her thanks were due to the same gentleman whose conver- 
 sation had already engaged her esteem. Mr. Barbauld and 
 herself should be happy to improve an acquaintance 
 which so many concurring circumstances lead them to 
 value.’ Rogers was then three-and-twenty, and was 
 already becoming known among his contemporaries for 
 those conversational powers for which he was widely 
 celebrated afterwards. 
 
 There are two other short pieces written about this 
 period which give indications of the true direction of his 
 muse. The first of these is entitled 6 Captivity,’ and was 
 said by Rogers to have been a favourite with Hookham 
 Frere, who said that it resembled a Greek epigram. 
 
 Caged in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake 
 When the hern screams along the distant lake, 
 
 Her little heart oft flutters to be free, 
 
 Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key. 
 
 In vain ! the nurse that rusted relic wears, 
 
 Nor moved by gold — nor to be moved by tears ; 
 
 And terraced walls their black reflection throw 
 On the green mantled moat that sleeps below. 
 
 The second is dated 1786, and is entitled 
 
 Written at Midnight . 
 
 While through the broken pane the tempest sighs, 
 
 And my step falters on the faithless floor, 
 
72 
 
 EABLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Shades of departed joys around me rise, 
 
 With many a face that smiles on me no more ; 
 
 With many a voice that thrills of transport gave, 
 i Now silent as the grass that tufts their grave. 
 
 These are early efforts in the direction of his later 
 and more successful style. It may be objected to the 
 stanzas written at midnight that tempests would not 
 ‘ sigh ’ through a broken pane, and that ‘ falters on the 
 faithless floor ’ is too alliterative. But the perturbed 
 watcher sees his own agitation reflected in the moaning 
 of the wind, which he thus exaggerates into a tempest ; 
 while the silence of the house is equally represented in 
 his mind by the faltering of his step as he treads the 
 floor, the creaking of which betrays his vigil. 
 
73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 'The Bank Partnership —Hackney College — Dr. Kippis one of his Literary 
 Sponsors — Helen Maria Williams and the Coquerels — Mrs. Barbauld — 
 Joanna Baillie — Death of Thomas Rogers, junior — Letters from 
 Thomas Rogers, senior — Visit to Edinburgh — Adam Smith, 
 Robertson, H. Mackenzie — The Piozzis — Tour through Scotland — 
 Burns — Henry Mackenzie and his works — Sir Joshua Reynolds and 
 Burke. 
 
 The few years that followed the publication of the ‘ Ode 
 to Superstition ’ were the turning point in Samuel Eogers’s 
 history, the period at which all his prospects underwent 
 a change, and life opened out before him with new and 
 boundless opportunities. As the third son he had only 
 the expectation of a share in his father’s growing business. 
 He had gone to the bank as a clerk, and in 1784, a few 
 months before he had completed his twenty-first year, 
 he had been taken into partnership. The partnership 
 deeds 1 show that Thomas Rogers the younger and his 
 brother Samuel became members of the firm on the 19th 
 of April, 1784. Mr. Olding, who had been principal clerk 
 for many years, was made a partner in 1771, at a salary, 
 and in June, 1778, his name had been added to that 
 of the firm, and his remuneration fixed at one-sixth of 
 the profits. In 1784, Thomas Rogers, jun., and Samuel 
 
 1 The deeds were in possession of the late Mr. Kemp Welch of 
 Woodlands, Parkstone, Dorset, to whom I am indebted for a transcript 
 of their contents. 
 
74 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Rogers were introduced on similar terms. The profits 
 were to be divided into sixty-eight parts, of which nine- 
 teen were to go to George Welch, nineteen to Thomas 
 Rogers, sen., and ten each to John Olding, Thomas 
 Rogers, jun., and Samuel Rogers. The name of the firm 
 was at the same time altered to that of Welch, Rogers, 
 Olding, Rogers, and Rogers — Samuel Rogers being the 
 youngest partner, and his name the last. 
 
 He was already the best known. The publication of 
 the ‘ Ode,’ and the reception it had met with from the 
 reviewers, and especially from persons known or eminent 
 in literature, to whom he had sent it, had already made 
 him the literary member of the household and the firm. 
 He was known to entertain literary ambitions, and his 
 father at least sympathised with them, and did what he 
 could to advance them. There may possibly have been 
 a little feeling among his brothers and sisters, of im- 
 patience at his desire for distinction, or at the manner 
 in which it occasionally appeared. This may account 
 for one statement recorded by Mr. l)yce. ‘ In my youth,’ 
 he reports Rogers to have said, ‘ just as I was beginning 
 to be a little known, I felt much gratified by an invitation 
 to breakfast with Townley, the statue collector, and one 
 night at home I mentioned the invitation. “ You have 
 mentioned that before,” was the remark ’ — in all proba- 
 bility a playful sally of his eldest sister, Martha. He 
 told the story, too, of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who on re- 
 ceiving an unexpected prize from the Society of Arts, 
 went with it into the parlour where his brothers and 
 sisters were sitting, but finding that none of them would 
 take the least notice of it, was so much mortified by their 
 
LITERARY FRIENDS 
 
 75 - 
 
 affected indifference that he ran upstairs into his own 
 room and burst into tears. When he narrated this story 
 of Lawrence to Mrs. Siddons, she in her turn exclaimed : — 
 ‘ Alas ! after I became celebrated none of my sisters 
 loved me as they did before.’ Perhaps this coolness, 
 where it arises, is less the fault of the family than of the 
 individual. Fame is an exacting mistress, and demands 
 an undivided service. Social success can only be pur- 
 chased at a sacrifice, and the sacrifice sometimes is the 
 pieties of home. In these early days, however, no such 
 sacrifice was asked of Samuel Rogers, or was made by 
 him. He could only have spoken of a temporary mis- 
 understanding, due to his own eagerness ; for there are 
 no signs in the family letters, that any but the most 
 affectionate relations existed between the father and the 
 children, the brothers and sisters, at Newington Green. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Rogers had, at this time, entered into a 
 new engagement which was very advantageous to his 
 son Samuel. He had sent his eldest son Daniel to 
 Cambridge ; but he was fully impressed, as the Uni- 
 tarians always were, with the inconvenience of the pre- 
 vailing system of subscription to creeds, as a condition 
 of university education. As these barriers shut out 
 their theological students from the national seats of 
 learning, they endeavoured to provide means of acade- 
 mical instruction for themselves. With this object the 
 Hackney College was founded, and Thomas Rogers 
 became its chairman. There are frequent references to 
 this college in his letters. Among the tutors there were 
 the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, and afterwards Dr. Kippis, 
 the learned and accomplished editor of the ‘ Biographia 
 
76 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Britannica.’ Dr. Kippis was in those days a frequent 
 visitor at the house on Newington Green, and many of 
 Samuel Rogers’s early introductions to literary society 
 came through him. He had friends among all parties ; 
 that hearty Tory, Boswell, while lamenting that he was 
 a ‘ Separatist,’ speaks of him as his friend, and in a note 
 to his ‘ Life of Johnson,’ in which he apologises for 
 having carelessly joined in a censure which had been 
 carelessly uttered, bears witness to ‘ the manly, candid 
 good temper which marks his character.’ JDr. Kippis 
 frequently took Sam Rogers with him to literary parties ; 
 and Rogers himself followed up the introductions thus 
 given. Dr. Price and Dr. Kippis were thus, as it were, 
 his literary sponsors. They were both Fellows of the 
 Royal Society, and had a large acquaintance among 
 scientific men. Dr. Kippis was also a Fellow of the 
 Society of Antiquaries. Samuel Rogers called for Dr. 
 Kippis one evening at Robinson’s (the bookseller’s), to go 
 with him to a meeting of that society. When Dr. Kippis 
 came down he said, ‘ Tom Warton is upstairs,’ and Rogers 
 always regretted that he had not gone up to see the 
 Laureate. The only letter from Dr. Kippis which has 
 been preserved is dated from Westminster, the 14th 
 November, 1787, and is to inform Rogers that ‘Miss 
 Helen Williams desires his company at tea on Monday 
 next. She lives at Mr. Jacques’s, the first house in 
 Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, opposite Russell Street.’ 
 In 1789 he owed to Dr. Kippis an easy entrance into the 
 best literary society of the Scottish capital. 
 
 Miss Helen Maria Williams to whom Dr. Kippis had 
 introduced him, was at that time living in London with 
 
THE WILLIAMSES AND COQUERELS 
 
 77 
 
 her mother and sisters. She was a year older than 
 Rogers and had already attained considerable success, 
 and reputation as an authoress. At eighteen she had 
 become known as a poetess, and at twenty had published 
 a novel entitled ‘ Edwin and Eltruda/ written in the 
 sentimental fashion of the time; and two years later 
 she had written a similar tale entitled ‘ Julie.’ Rogers 
 spoke of her in after years as a very fascinating person, 
 though not handsome, and he became at this period of 
 his life very intimate with her. She was a woman of 
 much conversational power, and had the charm of sym- 
 pathy and the art of bringing people together. She 
 was full of admiration for the French Revolution, and 
 in 1791 the family went to France with the intention of 
 settling at Orleans. They, however, soon removed to 
 Paris, where Rogers afterwards visited her. She was a 
 warm adherent of the Girondist party, and shared their 
 fall and imprisonment, and, but for an oversight, would 
 have been carried with their leaders to the guillotine. 
 She was liberated after the fall of Robespierre, and be- 
 came in later years an admirer of Napoleon. She trans- 
 lated the twenty-nine volumes of Humboldt’s ‘ Personal 
 Narrative ’ of his Travels into English, and wrote several 
 works on France which were a good deal more read. 
 She continued to live in Paris till her death in 1827. 
 Meanwhile her sister Cecilia had married a Frenchman 
 — M. Coquerel — and her son, Athanase Coquerel, became 
 the celebrated Liberal Protestant preacher of the Oratoire, 
 and representative of Paris after the Revolution of 1848. 
 Cecilia’s grandson, Athanase Coquerel the younger, was, 
 till his too early death, the genial and gentle, yet high- 
 
78 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 spirited and vigorous leader of the Liberal section of the 
 French Protestant Church. 
 
 Another of Rogers’s friends in these early days was 
 Mrs. Barbauld. The Barbaulds had settled at Hamp- 
 stead in the summer of 1786, where Mr. Barbauld was 
 the minister of a small Presbyterian chapel on Rosslyn 
 Hill. The congregation was one of those which had 
 already become Unitarian in theology. It is now the 
 largest Unitarian congregation in London, and is under 
 the charge of Dr. Sadler, the accomplished editor of 
 Crabb Robinson’s * Diary.’ Writing to her brother, 
 Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld says, 1 ‘ Hampstead is certainly 
 the pleasantest village about London,’ but she adds, 
 * except Avignon it is the most windy place I was ever 
 in.’ She speaks too of ‘ the long tea-drinking afternoons ’ 
 which the calls of friends imposed on her, and remarks 
 with pity on the number of young ladies. ‘ One gentle- 
 man in particular,’ she says, ‘ has five tall marriageable 
 daughters, and not a single young man is to be seen in 
 the place.’ Rogers had already visited her when she 
 writes to ask him to come again. In the letter con- 
 veying the invitation, which her great-niece, the late 
 Mrs. Le Breton, writer of ‘ Memories of Seventy Years,’ 
 dates in October, 1787, Mrs. Barbauld says — 
 
 ‘ Your visit was so short that we wish to think of any- 
 thing which may induce you to make us a longer ; and as 
 we are to have an Assembly at the Long Room on Monday 
 next, the 22nd, which they say will be a pretty good one, 
 
 1 ‘ Memories of Seventy Years ’ p. 63. Edited by Mrs. Herbert 
 Martin. 
 
MRS. BARBAULD AND MISS BAILLIE 
 
 79 
 
 I take the liberty to ask whether it will be agreeable to 
 you to be of our party, and in that case we have a bed 
 at your service. I could, I am sure, have my petition 
 supported by a round robin of the young ladies of 
 Hampstead, which would act like a spell and oblige your 
 attendance ; but, not being willing to make use of such 
 compulsory methods, I will only say how much pleasure 
 it would give to, 
 
 ‘ Sir, your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 ‘ A. Barbauld.’ 
 
 She adds a postscript to say that their dinner hour 
 is half after three. This invitation was probably ac- 
 cepted, and Rogers kept the letter all his life. He told 
 Mr. Dyce that he used to go to the Hampstead Assem- 
 blies when he was young, that there was much good 
 company there, and that he had sometimes danced four 
 or five minuets in one evening. The acquaintance with 
 Mrs. Barbauld soon became intimate, and the friendship 
 continued unbroken till her death in 1825. 
 
 Among the friends whom he made during these visits 
 to Hampstead was Miss Joanna Baillie. Miss Baillie 
 was a year older than Rogers, and died only four years 
 before him, in her ninetieth year. In these early days 
 she was unknown as an authoress, and Mrs. Barbauld 
 says, ‘ came to Mr. Barbauld’s meeting with as innocent 
 a face as if she had not written a line.’ Even after the 
 publication of the first volume of her ‘ Plays of the 
 Passions ’ in 179^, she kept the secret of her authorship, $ 
 though the warmest admiration of her writings was 
 expressed in her presence. ‘ The unsuspected author 
 
80 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 lay snug,’ says Miss Aikin, ‘in the asylum of her taci- 
 turnity.’ Her intercourse with Rogers was constant, and 
 large numbers of her letters have been preserved, but 
 they are of small importance, and are as a rule without 
 a trace of date. Her brother, Dr. Matthew Baillie, the 
 eminent physician, who lived with her, was the succes- 
 sor of Dr. William Hunter in his anatomical professor- 
 ship. 
 
 It was in the year 1788 that the first great change 
 in the prospects of Samuel Rogers took place. His eldest 
 brother Daniel was at Cambridge. Daniel Rogers had 
 definitely chosen a career which had left the banking 
 business to his two younger brothers, Thomas and 
 Samuel. He was not adapted for business, and his 
 father did not leave him, in his will, even the estates in 
 Worcestershire and elsewhere which had come to him by 
 inheritance or had been acquired during his life. Sir 
 Egerton Bridges in his chatty and egotistical autobio- 
 graphy speaks of Daniel Rogers as one of his fellow- 
 collegians, a very clever man, who had an amazing 
 memory and read much, but he adds, ‘ I never saw any 
 of his compositions.’ Daniel Rogers, in fact, did not 
 become an author. He preferred the life of a country 
 squire. Samuel Sharpe, his nephew, speaks of him as 
 ‘ a man of delightfully simple mind, a great reader, and 
 throughout life an earnest student of the ancient and 
 Eastern languages.’ In the autobiographical sketch I 
 have quoted in his memoir (p. 18) Samuel Sharpe further 
 says of his uncle Daniel : ‘ He was of delightful guile- 
 less simplicity, without a thought that was hidden from 
 you, and was liked by all his acquaintance. His father 
 
DANIEL AND THOMAS ROGERS 
 
 81 
 
 meant him for the Bar, and had great hopes of his being 
 a distinguished man. But he did not like the law : he 
 preferred classics. He married his cousin, Martha 
 Bowles, and went to live in the country, much to his 
 father’s disappointment. He dwelt first at Lincoln, 
 where he was intimate with Dr. Paley, hut he afterwards 
 removed to Wassal Grove, near Hagley, where he had a 
 farm. There I visited him, and spent my time most 
 delightfully, sometimes rambling in Hagley Park with 
 his daughters, sometimes walking over the farm with 
 him and then returning to his study, where he would 
 pull down book after book to follow a reference or trace 
 a thought, with an enthusiasm and richness of memory 
 that was most encouraging to anybody fond of know- 
 ledge. He had at that time been studying Persian.’ 
 These tastes and this disposition in the eldest brother 
 quite sufficiently account for the abandonment of the 
 bank and all its concerns to the younger brothers. 
 
 Thomas Rogers, the second son, was eighteen months 
 older than Samuel, and appears to have been devoted to 
 business. He had neither his elder brother’s distaste 
 for it, nor his younger brother’s literary ambition. He 
 would naturally have been his father’s successor in the 
 management of the bank ; and his diligence and care 
 justified the confidence reposed in him. He and Samuel 
 had become partners at the same time and on the same 
 terms, and the relations between them were those of 
 perfect confidence. They dined together every day with 
 Mr. Olding, who was the resident partner, and lived over 
 the bank. At holiday seasons they were away from 
 business by turns ; and their father wrote to them with 
 
 a 
 
82 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 equal fulness and confidence respecting business and 
 family matters during his somewhat prolonged absences 
 from town. There are no references in the family corre- 
 spondence to any ill-health of Thomas — though such 
 references are frequent with respect to Samuel — but there 
 is only the brief record that he died on the 15th of April, 
 1788. He was then in his twenty- seventh year. The 
 last letter from him is dated the 13th of August, 1787, 
 and tells his father of a journey he had just taken to 
 Ostend and Bruges, and of Sam’s setting out for Launde 
 at the end of that week or the beginning of the next. 
 His father replies on the 16th from Derby, and enters 
 into a good deal of business detail. Thomas’s death is 
 spoken of by Samuel in the second part of ‘ The Pleasures 
 of Memory,’ where, after saying that 
 
 as the softening hand of Time endears 
 The joys and sorrows of our infant years, 
 
 so, in a brighter world, 
 
 the soul, released from human strife 
 Smiles at the little cares and ills of life ; 
 
 and after imagining the spirits of the dead descending 
 to watch the silent slumbers of a friend, he invokes his 
 brother — 
 
 0 Thou ! with whom my heart was wont to share, 
 
 From Reason’s dawn each pleasure and each care ; 
 
 With whom, alas ! I fondly hoped to know 
 The humble walks of happiness below : 
 
 If thy blest nature now unites above 
 An angel’s pity with a brother’s love, 
 
 Still o’er my life preserve thy mild control 
 Correct my views and elevate my soul ; 
 
THOMAS AND HENRY ROGERS 
 
 83 
 
 Grant me thy peace and purity of mind, 
 
 Devout, yet cheerful, active yet resigned ; 
 
 Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise, 
 Whose blameless wishes never aimed to rise 
 To meet the changes Time and Chance present, 
 
 With modest dignity and calm content. 
 
 When thy last breath ere Nature sank to rest, 
 
 Thy meek submission to thy God expressed, 
 
 When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled, 
 
 A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed, 
 
 What to thy soul its glad assurance gave, 
 
 Its hope in death, its triumph o’er the grave ? 
 
 The sweet remembrance of unblemished youth 
 The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth ! 
 
 Nothing can be added to this admirable description of 
 Thomas Rogers’s character ; and no better account can 
 be given of the relations between the two brothers, or of 
 the death of Thomas. 
 
 Henry Rogers, the youngest son, was at this time in 
 his fourteenth year, and was receiving his education at 
 the Hackney College. Samuel was consequently left 
 alone with his father in the bank. He had already 
 shown much capacity for business, and the larger re- 
 sponsibility which now fell upon him found him fully pre- 
 pared by character, training, and experience to meet it. 
 < He became,’ says Mr. Sharpe, ‘ the friend and adviser 
 upon whom the father relied for help in all matters of 
 business.’ At the end of the year in which Thomas died, 
 his father was again out of health, and was advised to 
 take the Bath waters. Sam was now his chief corre- 
 spondent at home, and the letters which passed from one 
 to the other show the complete confidence which existed 
 
84 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 between father and son. In one of the letters is an 
 interesting sketch of the company in a boarding-house 
 where Mr. Rogers and his servant Thomas were taking 
 their meals. 
 
 ‘ I like my lodging-home exceedingly, and Mrs. Cottle 
 is very kind and obliging to me. There is only one other 
 lodger in the house — Sir Gervase Clifton, who has the 
 drawing-room floor ; I have the dining floor. The worst 
 of it is Mrs. Cottle has declined keeping a boarding 
 table, but very strongly recommended me to a neigh- 
 bour three doors from her, and where Thomas and I 
 board. The company is strangely made up indeed, and 
 consists of Sir Gervase, a perfect Nimrod and a very fine 
 specimen of a country knight or squire ; M. de Linne, a 
 French gentleman, young, lively, and sensible, who 
 talks English tolerably well, and has been two years 
 amusing himself in England ; Mr. Tann, a young Ger- 
 man, who speaks all the European languages, is a great 
 traveller, who laughs, talks loud, and is very comical ; 
 Major Bennet, in the East India Service, who was very 
 near being taken by Tippoo with General Matthews,, 
 but escaped captivity and perhaps death by being 
 left sick in quarters a few days before — the Major is 
 very good-natured, quiet and civil, but very gouty, and 
 I am afraid not very rich, having no servant with him 
 a Mr. Lawley, an old gentleman from Warwickshire, a 
 relative of the county member, one of the most wretched 
 beings I ever saw. He seems perfectly well, but says that 
 such is the state of his nerves that nobody can have any 
 conception of the miserable manner in which he passes 
 
HIS FATHER’S LETTERS 
 
 85 
 
 his days and nights; he has long been in this way, 
 always complaining but never pitied. The last of our 
 males I shall mention is a very well-behaved young 
 Irishman, who has lately taken orders and serves as our 
 
 chaplain.’ 
 
 The account of the women at table is defective, being 
 torn by the seal. Another letter to Sam, dated Tuesday, 
 6th January, 1789, is worth quoting, as showing what 
 the winter journey from Bath to London was nearly a 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 ‘ The severity of the weather has compelled me to 
 give up all thoughts of riding any part of the way to 
 town, and I have just taken a place in a two-day coach 
 that leaves Bath to-morrow morning at eight o’clock. 
 It stops all night at Newbury, and gets to Piccadilly the 
 next day about four o’clock. You will be so good, there- 
 fore, as to order William to be at the White Horse Cellar, 
 or coffee-house, Piccadilly, at four o’clock on Thursday 
 afternoon with the coach. But as the cold will probably 
 continue to be very intense he had better put up the horses 
 as near to the White Horse as he can ; and be in waiting 
 at the White Horse till the coach comes in. Before I took 
 my place I learnt that three places were before taken, so 
 that I hope we shall keep each other from freezing.’ 
 
 In the summer of this year Samuel Rogers made a 
 journey to the north of England and Scotland, of which 
 he has left some very interesting records in the shape of 
 letters and diaries. He had just entered his twenty- 
 seventh year, and among literary people was already 
 
86 
 
 EARLY LIRE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 beginning to be known as the author of a volume of 
 poems, and as a young man of much conversational 
 power. The journey was made on horseback, with a 
 servant on a second horse. The route was by way of 
 Stamford to York, Leeds, and Harrogate, through Settle 
 and Ingleton to Lancaster, thence by Eydal, Keswick, 
 and Penrith to Carlisle, thence by Hawick, Selkirk, and 
 Melrose to Edinburgh ; from Edinburgh to Stirling,, 
 thence to Crieff and Inverary, back to Glasgow, and 
 returning by Dumfries, Carlisle, Appleby, across York- 
 shire, and through Mansfield, Nottingham, Leicester, and 
 Northampton to London. The tour extended from about 
 Midsummer Day to the end of the first week in August. 
 Two letters to his sister Sarah will appropriately intro- 
 duce the Diary, which more fully records his conversa- 
 tions and observations. 
 
 ‘ Keswick, July 8 [1789] . 
 
 ‘ Dear Sarah, — I have this moment received Mrs. 
 Mitchell’s kind letter, and desire my best thanks to her 
 for it. I have also to thank you for yours which I re- 
 ceived at Lancaster. I wrote thence to Mrs. W. and 
 hope she has heard from me before this. On Friday 
 morning I left Lancaster, and arrived that evening at 
 Lowwood, a very pleasant lone house on the banks of 
 Windermere. The next morning I sailed on the water, 
 and had a few thunder-showers, but enjoyed the day 
 exceedingly. In the evening saw some waterfalls near 
 Ambleside, and returned to Lowwood, where the moon 
 played deliciously on the water. On Sunday I went to 
 church at Grasmere on my way to Keswick, and after- 
 wards proceeded towards that place, but was soon over- 
 
AT THE LAKES 
 
 87 
 
 taken by a heavy rain and obliged to shelter in the Yale 
 of St. John. There I stayed till nine at night, when, 
 though the rain did not abate, I was obliged to go for- 
 ward, and had a very unpleasant ride through one of 
 the most romantic tracts of country in Cumberland. 
 The next morning proved very fine, and I rode round the 
 lake of Derwentwater, saw Lodore waterfall, and the 
 Grange and Straits of Borrowdale. In the evening I 
 walked in Crow Park, a favourite spot of Gray’s. The 
 next morning proving very clear I was induced to mount 
 Skiddaw in company with a young lady from Penrith 
 (very handsome and very musical), Mr. Ewer, a first 
 cousin of Mr. Ewer of Clapham, and Dr. Coyte, a phy- 
 sician at Ipswich who has left off practice, a great 
 botanist and a very agreeable man. We rode on horse- 
 back to the summit, from whence we had a very fine view 
 of Scotland, over Solway Firth, with the Isle of Man. 
 Many of the lakes and mountains of Cumberland com- 
 posed the foreground. When we descended, we dined at 
 a charming house that looks directly up Bassenthwaite 
 lake, and returned along one of its sides to Keswick. We 
 had a very rainy evening. This morning I rode with 
 the guide up the vales of Buttermere, Lorton, and New- 
 lands ; places that my father is well acquainted with 
 most probably, and in the evening went out on the lake 
 of Keswick. In returning from ravride about six o’clock 
 I was wet through, but this was the second time only 
 that I have been obliged to change everything. I often 
 change my stockings twice a day, but in general I con- 
 sider myself as tolerably fortunate in the weather, 
 though confinement at an inn to a single man is rather 
 
88 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 dull. From the rain I derive some advantages. The 
 waterfalls are improved by it, and it affords me a 
 decent excuse for calling at the farm-houses and cottages 
 on the road, where I always find the heartiest welcome, 
 and am delighted with the simplicity and native polite- 
 ness of the inhabitants. To-morrow I bid adieu to 
 Keswick, and after spending a day or two at Ulleswater 
 shall proceed to Carlisle and Edinburgh. Any letter 
 written to me on or before Wednesday next, may be 
 directed to me at Edinburgh. I hope Henry has re- 
 covered his spirits before this, indeed I don’t doubt it. 
 Pray give my kind love and duty to my father and 
 [remember me] affectionately to Mrs. M. and Milly. 
 Tell 1 ... I won’t trouble her to write to me. I will . . . 
 her to read such letters as I write. [My ex]cuse for 
 them is that they are generally [hurried] over when I am 
 tired and heavy and impatient. Adieu ! dear Sarah, 
 believe me to [remain], 
 
 ‘ Your affectionate friend and [brother], 
 
 ‘ Samuel Eogers. 
 
 ‘ P.S. I wrote to Patty from Lancaster, and to . . . 
 from Keswick. I like my servant exceedingly ; he takes 
 great care of my horses, which are both well. I have 
 got rid of my cold. I have just read in the papers of the 
 duel between Colonel Lenox and Mr. Swift. I am sorry 
 to find the result of it, as Mr. Swift is a very agreeable, 
 sensible man. You may remember my mentioning that 
 I drank tea with him last time at Mrs. Williams’s house. 
 With respect to Dr. Kippis, if he has not sent the letters 
 
 Parts are obliterated by being torn in opening the seal. 
 
VISIT TO EDINBURGH 
 
 89 
 
 lie promised me, there would, I think be no impropriety 
 in just sending to inform him that you were sending to 
 me at Edinburgh, and to ask him if he has any letter or 
 commission to convey thither, as I had mentioned my 
 expectation of something of the kind. Indeed, he told 
 me that he should at the same time contrive to transact 
 some real business with each of the gentlemen he wrote 
 to. But I would not have it done if thought in the least 
 improper, though I know Dr. Kippis is the last man 
 in the world to take the least umbrage at it. 
 
 ‘ Miss Sarah Rogers, 
 
 ‘ Newington Green, Middlesex.’ 
 
 Another letter gives an account of his visit to 
 Edinburgh — 
 
 ‘ Stirling : July 21st, 1789. 
 
 ‘ My dear Sarah, — I received your kind letter on 
 Friday at Edinburgh, which gave me great pleasure, as 
 it assured me that you were all well. In consequence of 
 the letters my father was so kind as to enclose to me my 
 time passed so pleasantly there that I should have left it 
 with regret, if the Highlands ha d not promised me ample 
 amends. Saturday morning proving rainy I could not 
 resist the temptation of staying till Sunday, and I heard 
 Dr. Bobertson in the morning, and Dr. Blair in the 
 afternoon. They are neither of them orators, but Dr. 
 Bobertson has a serious, unaffected manner which pleased 
 me very much. Dr. Blair is very pompous in his delivery, 
 and all the great and fashionable attend at his church. 
 He gave us a sermon on censoriousness, which I under- 
 stand is soon to be published, with some others, in a third 
 volume. I have dined twice at Mr. Adam Smith’s, who 
 
90 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 is a very friendly, agreeable man, and I should have- 
 dined and supped with him almost every day if I had 
 accepted all his invitations. He took me to a club, which 
 is very select, and consists of all the first men in Edin- 
 burgh. At his house I met Mr. Mackenzie, author of 
 ‘ The Man of Feeling,’ &c., who invited me very politely , 
 but I had the resolution to refuse. Dr. Robertson called 
 upon me twice, when I had the ill luck to be out, but I 
 saw him twice at his own house, and I shall always think 
 of Edinburgh with gratitude, for the many instances 
 of attention and civility I met with there ; indeed, if I 
 were to judge from my own experience, I should think 
 that the inhabitants (at least the most eminent of them) 
 devoted their whole time to the entertainment of 
 strangers. Dr. Robertson’s deafness affects his spirits 
 very much, but with the assistance of a trumpet he can 
 converse with tolerable ease to himself and other people, 
 and is very entertaining. 
 
 ‘ I have been very much struck with the situation of 
 Hopton House and Stirling Castle. I admire the last 
 even more than Edinburgh Castle, when viewed from a 
 distance. From hence I shall go on by Inverary to 
 Glasgow, which I shall reach on Saturday, and then 
 leave my horses and proceed directly home, where I hope 
 to arrive on Friday or Saturday following. I have 
 exceeded my time, and begin to be tired of rambling, but 
 I shall be very sorry if I occasion my father to delay his 
 journey with any inconvenience to himself. Nothing but 
 his kind assurances to the contrary would have induced 
 me to extend my time as I have done. I beg my love 
 and duty to him, and desire to be kindly remembered to* 
 
SMITH; MACKENZIE; ROBERTSON 91 
 
 Mrs. M. and Mrs. W., Martha and Maria; and remain, 
 dear Sarah, 
 
 ‘ Your sincere friend and affectionate brother, 
 
 ‘ Samuel Kogers. 
 
 ‘ P.S. I am very well, and my horse seems entirely 
 recovered from his lameness. 
 
 ‘ Miss Sarah Rogers, 
 
 ‘ Newington Green, Middlesex.’ 
 
 During his stay at Edinburgh, Rogers kept a short 
 journal of his visits. The letters he had taken from Dr. 
 Price, and those which his father had forwarded to him 
 from Dr. Kippis, opened to him the doors of Edinburgh 
 society — then almost in its most brilliant period. His 
 acquaintance with the Piozzis began at the same time. 
 They were staying in the same hotel, and the landlord 
 having told them who Rogers was, and that Dr. Robert- 
 son, Mr. Adam Smith, and Mr. H. Mackenzie had called 
 on him, Mr. and Mrs. Piozzi called and introduced them- 
 selves. Rogers always said that one of the most memor- 
 able days in his life was the Sunday in Edinburgh, on 
 which he had breakfast with Dr. Robertson and heard him 
 preach in the morning, heard Dr. Blair in the afternoon, 
 took coffee with the Piozzis, and then supped with Adam 
 Smith in the evening. The following is his journal — 
 
 ‘ Edinburgh , Wednesday , Jidy 15, 1789. — Called on 
 Dr. Robertson. In the parlour hung his portrait by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. He soon entered, with his trumpet 
 in his hand. His dress was remarkably neat, and his 
 countenance very open and pleasing. Compared him 
 
92 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 with the picture, but could not trace a very striking 
 resemblance. His eye has lost much of its fire, and 
 age has given a stoop to his figure. The conversation 
 began on the English Universities, and the absurdity of 
 proposing a test to a poor boy of seventeen. He said that 
 Edinburgh contained little worth notice, but that its 
 situation was very romantic. That Gilpin had not done 
 justice to the Highlands ; he saw everything with the 
 eye of a painter, but many a scene gives pleasure which 
 will not make a good picture. Richmond hill is peculiarly 
 striking to a Scotchman for its richness and amenity, 
 but is by no means a fit subject for the artist. Advised 
 me to make the home tour, but to reverse Mr. Gilpin’s 
 route, to begin with Inverary and return by Dunkeld. 
 Said Mr. Gray devoted a month to the lakes ; that his 
 cicerone, Hodgkins, who was a sensible fellow, described 
 him as difficult to be pleased, and peevish from ill-health ; 
 that he could not ride on horseback, and would not go 
 on the water. 
 
 ‘ July 1 6. — Called on Adam Smith, who was sitting 
 at breakfast with a plate of strawberries on the table. 
 Fruit, he said, was his favourite diet at this season. 
 Strawberries were a northern fruit. In the Orkneys and 
 in Sweden they were to perfection. Said that Edinburgh 
 deserved little notice ; that the old town had given Scot- 
 land a bad name ; that he was anxious to move into the 
 new town, and had set his heart on St. George’s Square ; 
 that Edinburgh was entirely supported by the three 
 Courts — the Exchequer, the Excise, and the Judiciary 
 Courts ; that Loch Lomond was the finest lake in Great 
 Britain — the islands were very beautiful, and formed a 
 
ADAM SMITH ; ROBERTSON 
 
 93 
 
 very striking contrast to the shores; that the soil of 
 Scotland was excellent, but that its harvests, from the 
 severity of the climate, were too often overtaken by winter ; 
 that the Scotch on the borders were to this day in extreme 
 poverty ; and that when he first left Scotland, he was 
 on horseback, and was struck with the transition as he 
 approached Carlisle ; that our late refusal of corn to 
 France must excite indignation and contempt — the 
 quantity required was so trifling that it would not sup- 
 port Edinburgh for a day. Said that in Paris as well 
 as in Edinburgh, the houses were piled one upon 
 another. Spoke contemptuously of Sir John Sinclair, 
 but said that he never knew a man who was in earnest 
 and who did not do something at last Said he did not 
 know Mrs. Piozzi, and believed her to be spoiled by 
 keeping company with odd people. 
 
 ‘ July 19. — Called at two, when all the bells of the kirk 
 were ringing, to take leave of Adam Smith. His chair 
 was waiting to take him an airing. He met me at the 
 door. Asked me how I liked the Club. Had before 
 mentioned Bogle as very clever, and expressed pleasure 
 at the thought of his being there. He now said : “ That 
 Bogle, I was sorry he talked so much, he spoiled the 
 evening.” He seemed to apologise for him. Invited 
 me to supper and to dinner next day, as he had asked 
 Mackenzie to meet me. Who could refuse ? 
 
 ‘Heard Dr. Robertson in the morning. An old 
 church ; sweet singing. His manner striking, but not 
 graceful ; his voice not unpleasing. He spoke and looked 
 like a good man. The service began with a psalm, then 
 a prayer, then a psalm, then a commentary on the first 
 
94 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 •chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, which 
 lasted twenty-five minutes ; then a short prayer, then the 
 sermon, twenty-five minutes long. Text from Psalms, 
 “ Praise ye the Lord.” The second part of a discourse on 
 “ Thanksgiving ” — then a psalm, and then a prayer. He 
 seemed to direct himself particularly to us, and after 
 church, when we joined him, he enquired my route and 
 said that if I kept anything of a journal, at night I should 
 not find it dull. Keminded me of Lord Rosebery’s park. 
 “ All good things attend you, sir.” We parted. 
 
 ‘ Heard Dr. Blair in the afternoon but not distinctly. 
 A hoarse, unpleasant voice. A very neat elegant sermon 
 on “ Censoriousness ” in which was a fine parallel between 
 that vice and charity. Charity covereth a multitude of 
 sins, censoriousness makes it its business to divulge them. 
 Afterwards bowed to the corporation in the gallery on 
 the right. Walked home with the Piozzis. Drank coffee 
 with them and heard P. perform some of his music on 
 the harpsichord. 
 
 ‘ Repaired at nine to Mr. A. Smith’s : present, all the 
 •company of Friday except Bogle and Macaulay. Mr. 
 Playfair, a mathematician, and Mr. Muir from Gottingen 
 were there. Talked of Junius. Adam Smith suspected 
 “single speech” Hamilton to be the author. He was 
 told by Gibbon that when Hamilton one day paid a 
 visit at the Duke of Richmond’s in Sussex, he told him 
 that there was a devilish keen letter from Junius in the 
 Public Advertiser of that day, and mentioned some of 
 the passages. The duke was anxious to see it, but when 
 the paper came there was an apology in it for its not ap- 
 pearing. It was a letter to the Duke of Richmond, and 
 
AT ADAM SMITH’S 
 
 95 
 
 the last that appeared. As long as they were ascribed to 
 Lord Lansdowne, Burke, Germaine, &c., they went on, 
 but as soon as they were said to be Hamilton’s they were 
 dropped. Adam Smith said Turgot was an honest, 
 well-meaning man, but unacquainted with the world and 
 human nature ; that it was his maxim (he mentioned it 
 to Mr. Hume but never to Smith) that whatever is right 
 may be done. He said that Nicholas Herbert, uncle to 
 Lord Porchester, had read the list of the Eton boys and 
 repeated them four years afterwards to Lord Porches- 
 ter. He knew him well. He (A. Smith) had been in 
 Voltaire's company five or six times. Voltaire had a great 
 aversion to the States, and was rather attached to the 
 king. [Said] that his old friend the Duke of Riche- 
 lieu was a singular character, and that when he slipped 
 down at Versailles a few years before his death, said it 
 was the first faux pas he had ever made at Court. Dr. 
 Smith said he had been bastilled more than once. Dr. 
 Black said that when in Germany he [Duke of Richelieu] 
 borrowed plate of the goldsmiths and gentlemen there, 
 and never returned it. . . . Mrs. Piozzi said Pennant was 
 her cousin. She should get me to introduce her to Mrs. 
 Barbauld. 
 
 ‘ July 20. — Heard a swindler tried in the Parliament 
 House. Dined at Mr. Adam Smith’s with Mr. Mackenzie, 
 Mr. Muir, and Mr. Me Gowan. Mackenzie answered P.’s 
 description — of very soft and pleasing manners. Admired 
 Mrs. Smith’s sonnets and Mrs. Hunter’s. Adam Smith 
 said Blair was too much puffed off; was surprised at 
 Johnson’s reputation. Mackenzie enquired after Hannah 
 Moore and admired her ‘ Percy ; ’ spoke slightly of Merry 
 
96 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and [of] Blair's sermon on Sunday ; said there were few 
 in the Highlands who pretended to second sight ; that 
 there was a gentleman who pretended it to keep up 
 authority and order there ; that he was detained by rain 
 on going to see John O' Gaunt’s house in a cottage from 
 nine to one and heard some wonderful stories that would 
 have lasted till now ; mentioned an epigram on Mr. 
 Smith’s sleeping at the Boyal Society ; spoke well of 
 Emmeline and of the ‘ Sonnet on Shipboard ’ in it. Dr. 
 Hutton drank tea with us, and we afterwards went to the 
 Boyal Society. Only seven persons there. Dr. Anderson 
 read an essay on Debtors and the revision of the laws 
 that respect them, written by himself, very long and dull. 
 Mr. Commissioner Smith fell asleep. Mackenzie touched 
 my elbow and smiled ; afterwards said he should be glad 
 to see me ; sent him my book. Went afterwards to the 
 play — ‘ Hippolita ’ and the ‘ Bomp.’ Sat in the box over 
 the stage, shut in, in the Italian style, with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Piozzi, Miss Thrale, Mr. Bruce, and a very handsome 
 woman and her brother. Yery lively and pleasant. Mrs. 
 Jordan directed herself to the box. 
 
 July 21. — Left Edinburgh at six. Bode through Lord 
 Bosebery’s park to Queensferry along the Forth, and 
 there breakfasted. Walked in Lord Hopton’s grounds, 
 and was full of admiration. Had a delightful ride along 
 the Forth to Falkirk ; then saw the Carron works, five 
 furnaces, each with four cylinders. A thousand men 
 employed there. Saw the forges. Proceeded to Stirling ; 
 saw a beautiful valley on the right, bounded by the 
 Athol hill; saw Falkirk moor, and Torwood where 
 Wallace and his men concealed themselves. Much 
 
TOUR IN SCOTLAND IN 1789 
 
 97 
 
 struck with the first view of Stirling. The grandest 
 and prettiest thing in the world. 
 
 ‘ July 22. — Set out on a military road. The scene 
 gradually grew wilder till we came to Dunblane, in a 
 rich and pleasant valley. Saw the church, a monument 
 of Knox's vengeance. It was built by one of the Davids. 
 Eode through a wild country to Greenloaning, a mile and 
 a half beyond which, on the right, is the finest Roman 
 station in England, according to Dr. Robertson. It is 
 encompassed with dykes and ramparts four deep, and 
 contains three or four acres of ground. Just beyond 
 Dunblane the field of battle in the year ’ 1 5 was pointed 
 out to me on a moor to the right. Arrived at Crieff, in 
 a cultivated vale. There a girl sang me an Erse song 
 over the washing-tub. She said it was made by a young 
 man in praise of his sweetheart, but would not explain 
 it. The notes were simple and melancholy, but without 
 much harmony or sweetness. It lasted ten minutes, and 
 was sung very fast. Left Crieff, and soon entered a deep 
 valley that opened and closed as I advanced and receded. 
 Very grand and awful. Left the Inverness Road at the 
 tenth milestone, and soon passed along a considerable 
 loch and several little villages among trees. Saw a 
 woman extracting a thorn from the foot of an old High- 
 lander ; and a boy in his plaid watching sheep. Spoke to 
 two who could not speak English. Observed the cottages 
 with the smoke in them. Ascended a steep hill and soon 
 came to a beautiful view. Taymouth Castle and park, 
 through which the Tay ran, lay at my feet, and refreshed 
 my aching eyes with the softest verdure. Behind rose 
 hanging woods to a great height, and to the left opened 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Loch Tay in the bosom of the mountains, with the 
 village church of Kenmore at the head of it. Dined on 
 a trout. The village very fond of dancing. Waited on 
 at dinner by a teacher of the art. Saw the castle and 
 park. A walk on the banks of the Tay not equal to its 
 fame. Had a sweet evening walk by the lake. Saw 
 the fallow deer in the park. 
 
 July 23. — Rode along the left bank of the lake. Saw 
 the Hermitage and Fall, which rather disappointed me. 
 The views down the lake very fine, particularly from the 
 fifth stone. Gilpin rode on the other side, before this road 
 was made. The lake had a line of surf that slanted into 
 the middle for a mile ; imagined it to arise from a hidden 
 reef of rock. Several little clusters of cottages on its 
 banks. Saw the inside of one. It was divided into 
 three apartments. The door opened into the first, in 
 which was a little lean cow. In the middle room was the 
 fire, over which was a hole in the roof, and on the other 
 side was the bedchamber. Came to Killin, through 
 which runs a rocky torrent into the lake. On the 
 bank of this were several women and girls dipping 
 their clothes into the river, and spreading them out 
 on the green margin, like kings’ daughters of old. Saw 
 a girl stamping in a tub to wash. In the river is an 
 island — the laird of McNab’s burying-place. Saw a little 
 girl of four years old footing it in imitation of a reel. 
 Breakfasted at Killin. The Reel Master mentioned be- 
 fore comes here for two months in the year, and opens a 
 school for dancing. On weddings and holidays fifty are 
 sometimes collected to dance. Set off through rude, rocky, 
 and romantic country, with the river gliding on my left 
 
SCOTLAND IN 1789 
 
 99 
 
 hand; it changes its character several times. Passed 
 several hills with snow in the hollows on their summits. 
 From the hill before the inn at Killin saw up the glen 
 Dr. Robertson mentioned for miles. It is romantic and 
 woody, with a river running up it. It extends ten miles ; 
 I saw about five of it. Called, on my way to Tyndrum, 
 at a cottage, and saw an old woman at her spinning- 
 wheel who answered me in Erse. Saw several parties 
 on their travels on foot, and a boy who kept up with us 
 for some time. A Highlander thinks no more of a twenty- 
 mile stage than of a walk for an appetite before break- 
 fast. Found afterwards from a traveller that the old 
 woman I called on was a widow, and kept house for her 
 son, who was a shepherd. She said she supposed I had 
 no Erse. Dined at Tyndrum on trout, wild venison, and 
 goat’s cheese. At Killin saw a hole said to be Fingal’s 
 grave. The laird had dug it up to seek for the bones, 
 but in vain. It is a fine situation for the grave of a 
 hero — at the foot of a mountain and in full view of a 
 lake. At Tyndrum heard a Highlander whistle “ The 
 Ploughboy,” produced but lately in the comic opera of 
 “ The Farmer.” Have been waited upon everywhere but 
 hereby waiters in philibegs and maids without stockings. 
 
 ‘ At eight left Tyndrum, looked into a hut and entered 
 the door, where there was a room full of smoke and dark- 
 ness. For some time could distinguish nothing, till I 
 heard a voice that seemed to encourage me to come 
 forward. Then I saw two women over a fire, and a man 
 in bed. The man sat up, and one of the women — old, but 
 of a pleasant countenance — spoke some Erse, and then, 
 stepping out to a wooden box on the floor, took out a 
 
100 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 bowl of ewe’s milk, and saying in broken confused sounds 
 ‘ Here’s health to you, sir,’ tasted and gave it to me. I 
 tasted it, and she appeared dissatisfied, and wanted me 
 to drink more. She then came out and offered it to the 
 servant saying, “ Will you not drink some malk ? ” Her 
 honest and hearty welcome affected me. I offered her a 
 trifle, but she drew back her hand and at first refused 
 to take it. Rode through a valley shut in with black 
 mountains, and crossed, every half a mile, above ten 
 torrents or channels of torrents. Passed only two 
 villages. Arrived at Dalmally, a neat house, but they 
 could give me no bread. After supper three young women 
 came in, and each taking the corner of a napkin, sang 
 their wild melody above half an hour, moving the napkin 
 backwards and forwards. The verses were short and 
 simple, and ended in a burden that was sung by two ; 
 the song by the other. Sang a song by a dairymaid to 
 her herd in praise of her sweetheart ; a song by a man at 
 sea to his sweetheart ; a song by a lovelorn maid. More 
 melody here than at Crieff, but very melancholy and 
 rude. They looked and sang sometimes like the weird 
 sisters. In my way from Killin met a man who seemed 
 proud of showing off a little English. Asked me if I 
 came from England and was going to Icolmkill, a place 
 he said many went to. I answered I was not. He said 
 “ Just so ! ” a very common answer, as is “ Indeed it is ! ” 
 ‘ July 24. — Had a cold and dreary ride along Loch 
 Awe to Inverary, the glory of Scotland. Loch Fyne, 
 an arm of the sea above sixty miles in length, here forms 
 a bay, which, from the bold projection of the mountains 
 that rise abruptly round, has the appearance of a lake of 
 
SCOTLAND IN 1789 
 
 101 
 
 enchanting beauty. The flowing lines of the mountain 
 summits, and the frequent and natural curves formed 
 in the shore by their projection, have a fine effect. Add 
 to this the herring fishery, which impresses a busy char- 
 acter on the scene, with other vessels of greater size that 
 are continually sailing in the offing or anchored near 
 the bank. On a green lawn [surrounded] by hanging woods 
 the chieftains of the clan of the Campbells had fixed 
 their castle, and nearly on the site of that the Duke of 
 Argyll, their descendant, has erected an elegant house of 
 the same form, with turrets and battlements. He seems 
 possessed of far better taste than the rest of the Scotch 
 nobility, and has not attempted any little decorations, 
 thinking very properly that they would degrade the 
 dignity of the scene. In the house are pictures of the 
 present and the last Dukes of Hamilton, several Dukes 
 of Argyll, Lady Augusta, Lady Charlotte, the Marquis 
 and his brother, and a most bewitching portrait of the 
 Duchess of Argyll taken when she was Duchess of 
 Hamilton. 
 
 ‘ Left Inverary with a sigh, the sun shining mildly 
 on as sweet a scene as it almost ever visited. Eode 
 round the bay, commanding beautiful views, particularly 
 up the loch, towards the sea, a fine vista of mountains, 
 up which a sail was coming. Drank tea at Cairndow, 
 and proceeded through Kinglas vale, smooth to the sum- 
 mits, sprinkled with sheep, but dark from the clouds 
 that formed above it. A beautiful retrospect towards 
 Inverary, where the sun seemed smiling sweetly ; before 
 me clouds and darkness and black mountains. Took 
 many a parting look. 
 
102 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ Entered Glen Croe : rude and romantic even beyond 
 the pass through which I entered the Highlands. 
 Enormous fragments lay on each side. Saw on the top 
 between the two vales “ Rest and be thankful,” which 
 Johnson and Gilpin describe. Gilpin is wrong in his 
 account of the vales — Kinglas is smooth and Glen Croe 
 rough. Arrived at New Arrochar, a good inn, on the 
 banks of Loch Long, where the herring-boats were busy. 
 A sweet perspective down the loch. Saw a cormorant 
 flying over it. 
 
 ‘ July 25 . — Had a very fine ride along Loch Lomond 
 to Luss, the sun shining and the air calm. The reflec- 
 tion in the water not so vivid as in Cumberland. Walked 
 in the churchyard at Luss. The minister’s house a neat 
 white house in a quiet secluded situation. His name was 
 James Stewart, a very intelligent man, who furnished 
 Pennant with natural history and Erse names of birds, 
 &c. He made the tour of the northern lakes with Lord 
 Mountmorres last summer. Was rowed by a boy and 
 girl to Inchtavannach, and from the summit had a fine 
 geographical view of the southern end of the lake, full 
 of islands. Saw that where the osprey eagle builds, 
 very small and tufted with trees. Sir James Colquhoun 
 won’t suffer the nest to be ever molested. 
 
 ‘ Returned through a heavy rain. Dined and rode 
 along the lake till I came to an obelisk with a Latin in- 
 scription to the memory of Dr. Smollett. On the left, a 
 little removed from the road, is a single stone house in 
 which he was born. Rode on to Dumbarton, where I saw 
 the castle, and arrived at Glasgow in the evening. The 
 steps in Dumbarton Castle are only 183, and not so 
 
THE PIOZZIS 
 
 103 
 
 many as Gilpin states them. J. Stewart at Luss preaches 
 in English in the morning and in Erse in the afternoon. 
 He translated the New Testament into Erse, and is now 
 engaged on the Old. He has finished the Books of 
 Moses. Saw only one eagle on Loch Lomond. The 
 gardener at Inverary said he had seen twelve or fourteen 
 sail over the week before in company. Saw the garden 
 there, but found it to be only a kitchen garden. In it 
 was a small greenhouse, erected for Lady Augusta, who 
 is particularly fond of plants. The Duke is quite recon- 
 ciled to the match. Inverary, Fort William, and Port 
 Glasgow are the three rainiest places in Scotland. 
 
 ‘ July 26. — Called in the morning on Mrs. Piozzi at 
 the “ Saracen’s Head.” She dined with Dr. Blair, who 
 said that the Duke of Argyll, when in Scotland, was 
 always pleased to hear that it rained in the south, and 
 when somebody called the rain at Inverary a shower, 
 another less polite said, “ Then it is an everlasting- 
 shower.” Walked round the town with Piozzi, stepped 
 into the “ Hart Inn ” and saw some rooms. Afterwards 
 dined with them, and then walked in the public walks. 
 Mrs. Piozzi expressed great anxiety to see the reviews. 
 Said she should look carefully into them now. Said 
 Cadell had no reason to complain of his bargains with 
 her, for he had always been sharp enough. Spoke 
 rather slightly of Parsons, but highly of Merry and 
 Greathed. Found Miss Cecilia Tlirale was not more 
 than twelve, appeared fifteen. Spoke of Carpenter 
 coming 1,100 miles in nine days ; that he slept an hour 
 at Paris, another at Lyons, another at Florence; re- 
 gretted she did not mention it in her books. 
 
104 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ July 27. — Called, and walked to the college and the 
 old church with them ; the first very handsome, the last 
 bad. She talked much of Dr. Johnson. At three set 
 off in the mail to Moffat, and arrived there through 
 a wild country at half-past eleven. Saw Northern 
 Lights. Here are wells similar to but not so strong as 
 Harrogate. 
 
 ‘July 28. — Proceeded in a post-chaise with an English 
 gentleman to Dumfries, and there met my horses. The 
 country but little varied. Saw Linclouden College at a 
 distance. Dined and proceeded in a return chaise to 
 Annan along the frith, with distant views of Skiddaw, 
 and then to Gretna Green, through Solway Moss. This 
 is a pretty village in grove of trees. Here are two inns. 
 Slept at the wrong one. The right house is a small 
 house with some arms for the sign, and stands in Spring- 
 field, not Gretna Green. Saw the parson at the door — 
 a tall, sottish, good-looking fellow. His name is Parsley, 
 or Parsfield, and he is a farmer. The man who used to 
 marry them filled peat and dung carts, his name was 
 James Long and his father’s Peter. He signed his 
 name “ James Long, Peter’s son.” Lord Westmoreland 
 was married at a small ale-house by the river between 
 Gretna and Annan, where a new bridge is now build- 
 ing. They slept there afterwards. Mr. Henderson, a 
 good-natured old man, Lord Stormont’s factor, left his 
 bed for them. Everybody goes back to Carlisle imme- 
 diately after the ceremony. An officer was obliged to 
 pawn his watch there in the last spring, not having 
 30Z., the money exacted for it. The innkeeper from 
 Carlisle went with him to get it cheaply done, but he 
 
WESTMORELAND IN 1789 
 
 105 
 
 shared with the parson. It was not the landlord of the 
 “Bush.” 
 
 ‘ July 29. — Crossed the sands in a boat, and my horse 
 was led over. Breakfasted again at Carlisle, and was 
 once more welcomed there with rain. Had a pleasant 
 ride from thence to Penrith. Piozzi said that Miss C. 
 Thrale was a good-tempered girl and companion to her 
 
 mother, “ for the other daughters, you know ” Here 
 
 he stopped and shrugged his shoulders. She calls him 
 papa. Mrs. Piozzi talked of marriage, and said that it 
 was necessary to wait some time in a parish, then turning 
 to Piozzi said, “ You know, my dear, we waited twenty-six 
 days in Bath.” Miss Thrale looks unhappy, but brightens 
 up sometimes. Mrs. Piozzi calls Piozzi her master. 
 Sadly out of sorts with the Scotch for sending her to 
 Carron ; said one might as well go to one’s own brewery 
 and then to see a steam-engine. Said, “ You know why 
 the Scotch wish to send me to the Highlands ? ” Piozzi 
 hinted it afterwards and said they wanted her to con- 
 tradict Dr. Johnson. Had a most delicious ride to 
 Appleby, a richly wooded valley running on each side, 
 bounded by mountains. Saw Countess Pillar, a small 
 octagon with her arms coloured in front, a sundial on 
 each side, and the inscription behind. The stone table 
 is within a foot from the ground, and about three yards 
 from the pillar. It stands on a little hill just beyond 
 Brougham Castle, about two miles from Penrith and 
 opposite a milestone. Appleby is a small mean town 
 in a delightful valley, and consists chiefly of one street 
 running up the hill to the castle, the tower of which 
 forms a fine termination. In the castle hall are three 
 
106 
 
 EARLY LIRE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 pictures of the countess — when a child ; when married, 
 with her husband, Lord Dorset, beside her ; and when 
 married to Pembroke, a single whole length. In a small 
 room adjoining are four more pictures of her — when a 
 child, when a young woman, in her first widowhood, and 
 in her second. From all these she appears very hand- 
 some. In the picture of Lord Dorset and herself are 
 two children, one of whom alone survived her, and upon 
 it is written a very minute history of each. In a room 
 on the other side of the hall a small door is opened, and 
 in a closet appears the complete armour of her father, 
 Lord Clifford, richly gilt, his helmet, cuirass, and saddle, 
 with the stirrups lying at his foot. A curious lock on 
 his breast seems to keep it together. His gauntlets are 
 on. In the churchyard is a pretty epitaph on an officer’s 
 wife, who accompanied her husband through most parts 
 of America : — “ Who knew her living must lament her 
 dead.” Wandered till dusk. 
 
 ‘July 30. — Had a long, but not very unpleasant ride 
 over the mountains of Brough and Stainmore, having 
 several distant views. Breakfasted at Bowes, and after- 
 wards came to the spot whence James I. took his first 
 view of England ; then entered Leeming Lane, which 
 runs in a direct line for some miles between shady 
 hedge-rows, with rich inclosures on each side, till we 
 came to a large heath whence we had a beautiful view of 
 Richmond and its environs on the right and the county 
 of Durham on the left. Dined at Catterick Bridge, and 
 proceeded in the mail through a flat but rich country to 
 Boroughbridge. 
 
 ‘ July 31. — Had a pleasant ride in a return chaise for 
 
A YORKSHIRE RIDE 
 
 107 
 
 nine miles by Allerton, just purchased by Col. Thornton 
 of the Duke of York. The house is very large, but not 
 elegant. We had one view of it. Eode two miles on 
 the left to the village of Cowthorp. The celebrated oak 
 stands in a farmyard near the church. One-half of it 
 is bare of vegetation and shoots up its naked branches 
 in a very fantastic manner, the other half is not so high 
 and is full of leaves. The cavity within is very spacious 
 and lofty, about fifteen yards in circumference. In the 
 oak-tree stands an immense block, detached from the 
 tree, once the heart of it. Took away a relic. Saw 
 there a gentleman from Harrogate, in the army, who 
 measured it. Eode through Wetherby, a small town, 
 and was confined for shelter under a tree for four hours 
 with two sawyers, young men. Afterwards came on in a 
 return chaise to Ferrybridge over a country I had seen 
 between York and Leeds. 
 
 ‘ August i . — Eode through a flat but rich country to 
 Doncaster. The church is of great antiquity, and its 
 noble tower finely terminates almost every avenue to the 
 town. Enquired here of Captain Stoven my companion 
 in the mail, and found that his father is just dead. Eode 
 through a woody and pleasant tract of ground to Sand- 
 beck Park (Earl of Scarborough’s) through which I 
 passed, having a full view of the house, an elegant 
 stone structure, and proceeded to Eoche Abbey, the last 
 beautiful scene I shall visit. It stands in the centre of 
 three valleys. One is wide, floated with a lake and 
 finally terminated by Laughton spire. The others are 
 close and woody, and meet each other in the same direc- 
 tion, being enlivened by a small river that forms frequent 
 
108 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 cascades. One of these last is finely hung round with 
 high red rocks that are very beautiful, and are fringed 
 with wood. But a small part of the abbey remains, and 
 it is perfectly regular, being the east end. The parts 
 are two and are detached, but are finely connected with 
 trees. Behind is a building that was probably the 
 abbot’s apartment. This ruin afforded much employ- 
 ment to my glass. I spent an hour and a half there 
 and left it with great regret. Had a charming ride 
 through many rural scenes to Worksop. The moon 
 shone and amused me with its shiftings. 
 
 ‘ August 2. — Bode to Worksop Manor and Welbeck 
 Park (Dukes of Norfolk and Portland) — neither of them 
 very beautiful, the first the best. Breakfasted at Mans- 
 field, a small, well-built town, and heard Mr. Catloe at 
 Meeting, an ingenious young man and a pleasant 
 speaker. The Unwins were there, and it was a funeral 
 sermon for Mrs. Heywood of Nottingham, their relation. 
 The road to Nottingham lies through Nottingham Forest, 
 in a deep sand, with but few trees. Here and there we 
 have a distant catch of the country on each side, the 
 ground at Bed Hill making rather a pleasant dip 
 into the village of that name, and Nottingham in its 
 first appearance is grand. The moon was up. A hot 
 day. 
 
 ‘ August 3. — Had a pleasant view from the castle, and 
 set off from thence in the Leeds mail to Loughborough, 
 Leicester, Northampton, and Newport Pagnel — the 
 greater part of the way in the guard’s seat. From 
 thence proceeded on the 4th in post-chaises to town 
 with a Manchester gentleman.’ 
 
ROBERT BURNS 
 
 109 
 
 This Scottish journey, to which Rogers looked back 
 with interest all his life, left one source of regret behind 
 it. It enabled him to be introduced to some of the most 
 eminent persons in the Scottish capital ; but he missed 
 the most interesting of all in failing to visit Burns. The 
 fame of the great peasant poet of Scotland had not then 
 fully reached the ears of literary men in the south, 
 though Burns himself had in August 1787 addressed to 
 Dr. Moore that striking biographical letter which is still 
 the best extant account of his early days. Burns had 
 visited Edinburgh in the autumn of 1786, where his 
 coming had been prepared for by Henry Mackenzie in a 
 paper in The Lounger — a shortlived literary journal of 
 which Mackenzie was the editor. Burns had again 
 visited the capital in the winter of 1787-8, when he had 
 published the first Edinburgh edition of his poems. He 
 was more fortunate than some other eminent writers, 
 for he had received from his bookseller, Creech, nearly 
 five hundred pounds, and had taken a farm at Ellisland, 
 on the banks of the Nith, six miles above Dumfries, and 
 settled down to the business of farming. Here Rogers 
 might have found him in July 1789 — ‘ at times saun- 
 tering by the delightful wanderings of the Nith,’ as he 
 says in a letter to Mr. M‘Auley, ‘ praying for seasonable 
 weather or holding an intrigue with the Muses — the only 
 gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse.’ It was 
 a bright interval in the poet’s life, and Rogers might 
 have preserved for us a picture of him in his fields, or at 
 home with his ‘ wife and twa wee laddies,’ who, as he 
 sang, ‘ maun hae brose and brats o’ duddies,’ and who 
 had made him resolve that 
 
no 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 To make a happy fireside clime 
 
 To weans and wife, 
 
 That’s the true pathos and sublime 
 Of human life. 
 
 Burns, as we know from one of his letters to Mrs. Dunlop, 
 had just been ‘ very busy with “ Zeluco,” ’ the ‘ most 
 sterling performance,’ as he calls it, of his friend and 
 Rogers’s friend, Dr. Moore. He tells Mrs. Dunlop that he 
 had been revolving in his mind some criticisms on novel - 
 writing, which he found to be a depth beyond his research, 
 and a year later he writes to Dr. Moore : ‘ I have gravely 
 planned a comparative view of you, Fielding, Richardson, 
 and Smollett, in your different qualities and merits as 
 novel-writers.’ This comparative view is only briefly 
 hinted in a later letter to the author of “ Zeluco,” but his 
 admiration for Moore’s writings suggests a topic on which 
 Rogers and he might have talked ; and a most interest- 
 ing conversation might have been added to the pleasant 
 record of Rogers’s Scottish visit. The opportunity thus 
 lost never came again. Rogers did not revisit Scotland 
 till 1803, when Burns had been dead seven years. 
 
 This first journey to Scotland was well-timed in other 
 respects. Sixty years later, when the economical doc- 
 trines of Adam Smith had been established in Free Trade 
 legislation, it, was a satisfaction to Rogers that he had 
 seen the author of ‘ The Wealth of Nations.’ Mr. Dyce 1 
 records a story of him which is not in Rogers’s Diary. 
 
 ‘ Once in the course of conversation I happened,’ said 
 Rogers, ‘ to remark of some writer that he was rather 
 superficial, a Voltaire.’ ‘ Sir,’ cried Adam Smith, striking 
 1 Table Talk, p. 44. 
 
‘THE MAN OF FEELING’ 
 
 111 
 
 the table with his hand, * there has been but one Voltaire.’ 
 Adam Smith died on the 17th of July, 1790, not quite a 
 year after Rogers’s interviews with him. Robertson lived 
 three years longer. When Rogers breakfasted with him, 
 and afterwards heard him preach, his ‘ History of Scot- 
 land ’ had been published thirty years, and he had been 
 for as long a period one of the chief figures in the 
 Scottish capital. Rogers always remembered the kind- 
 ness with which the great historian had welcomed him, 
 and told how he had taken down a map of Scotland, spread 
 it on the floor, and, kneeling down upon it had traced the 
 route to be followed in the Highland tour on which Rogers 
 was setting out. Robertson died in 1793. Henry Mac- 
 kenzie, with whom a long friendship was begun on this 
 meeting in Edinburgh, was then in middle age. He was 
 born in Edinburgh, in August, 1745, on the very day on 
 which Prince Charles Edward landed in Scotland. He had 
 been in London in 1 765 , to study the modes of English Ex- 
 chequer practice, as Sir Walter Scott tells us in his pleasant 
 account of Mackenzie, in the ‘ Lives of the Novelists.’ He 
 had sketched the outlines of his principal work, the ‘ Man 
 of Feeling,’ during his residence in London, but had not 
 finished and published it till 1771. It was anonymous, 
 but it at once became the most popular novel of its time. 
 Like George Eliot’s * Adam Bede,’ it was the subject of 
 a false claim. A man named Eccles transcribed the 
 whole, made corrections, blottings, and interlineations 
 in the manuscript thus produced, and pertinaciously 
 declared himself to be the author of the book. Mackenzie 
 was thus compelled to own and claim his offspring. His 
 ‘ Man of the World ’ is regarded by Scott as a second 
 
112 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 part of ‘ The Man of Feeling/ while ‘ Julia de Roubigne 9 
 was written, Scott says, in some degree as a counterpart 
 to the earlier work. Rogers had read and admired this 
 pathetic story, and went to Edinburgh full of desire to 
 see its author, who was then one of the most distin- 
 guished persons in the literary society of the Scottish 
 capital. Rogers’s feeling with respect to Mackenzie at 
 this time was that with which a young writer regards an 
 author of established fame. He first saw him at Adam 
 Smith’s dinner-table, and remarks in his diary on his 
 soft and pleasing manners. Mackenzie was an admirable 
 talker. Just thirty years after Rogers had first met him 
 Mr. Ticknor, the author of the ‘ History of Spanish 
 Literature,’ records in his diary that he had breakfasted 
 one morning with Mackenzie at Lady Cumming’s. ‘ He 
 is now old,’ says Ticknor, ‘ but a thin, active, lively little 
 gentleman, talking fast and well upon all common sub- 
 jects, and without the smallest indication of the “ Man 
 of Feeling ” about him.’ Rogers and he corresponded occa- 
 sionally for five-and-forty years, and Mackenzie more 
 than once visited Rogers in London. Their sympathy 
 with each other was purely literary, for Mackenzie wrote 
 against the French Revolution in the days when all 
 liberal spirits in England were still hoping everything 
 from it. He lived on through all the changes it brought, 
 and saw the Monarchy of July, and the agitation for 
 English Reform before he died. In a letter announcing 
 his death, in January 1831, when he had got half-w r ay 
 through his eighty-sixth year, his son, Mr. J. H. Mac- 
 kenzie expressed gratitude to Rogers, ‘ for your kind 
 friendship to my father, which added so sensibly to the 
 
SIR J. REYNOLDS AND BURKE 
 
 113 
 
 enjoyment of his declining years.’ Mr. Joshua Henry 
 Mackenzie, afterwards became a judge of the Edinburgh 
 Court of Session, and his daughter, Miss Mackenzie of 
 Moray Place, Edinburgh, is now the sole descendant of 
 of ‘ The Man of Feeling.’ 
 
 After his memorable stay in the Scottish capital 
 Rogers was more than ever set on the attainment of 
 literary distinction. He came back home to work hard 
 at the poem by which he was to gain the fame he felt to 
 be his right. He was always accumulating material for 
 it, putting down happy thoughts and fortunate expres- 
 sions, and polishing a line or a couplet into the perfect 
 rhythm which distinguishes the poem. It was the chief 
 subject in his thoughts, yet it is never mentioned in his 
 letters or his diary. Perhaps it was because of this pre- 
 occupation with the work of this period of his life that 
 there is no record of 1790, except one which he mentions 
 in his ‘Recollections.’ It is a personal reminiscence 
 of Burke. On the 10th December, 1790, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds delivered his fifteenth and last discourse at 
 the Royal Academy. There was a crowded audience, 
 and the front seats were reserved for persons of distinc- 
 tion, among whom was Burke. Younger and less known 
 men, of whom Rogers was then one, were thus kept in 
 the back of the room. Suddenly a beam under the floor 
 gave way with a crash, and the people present rushed to 
 the door. As there was no sign of further disaster the 
 alarm was supposed to be a false one, and the audience 
 struggled back to their places. Some of the younger got 
 to the front, and Rogers was among them. Sir Joshua 
 concluded his lecture with a striking passage : ‘ I feel a 
 
 1 
 
114 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 self-congratulation in knowing myself capable of such 
 great sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, not 
 without vanity, that these discourses bear testimony of my 
 admiration of that truly divine man, and I should desire 
 that the last words I should pronounce in this Academy 
 and from this place should be the name of Michael 
 Angelo.’ He came down from the desk to mingle with 
 the audience and Burke went up to him, and taking him 
 by the hand repeated Milton’s lines : — 
 
 The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear 
 So charming left his voice that he awhile 
 Thought him still speaking, still stood fix’d to hear. 
 
 4 1 was there,’ writes Rogers, 4 and heard it.’ 
 
115 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 English feeling about France in 1789 and 1790— Wordsworth, Coleridge , 
 Adams — Diary in Revolutionary Paris — Visits to Lafayette, de Chatelet, 
 de Liancourt, the Due de Rochefoucauld, etc. — National Assembly, 
 Jacobin Club — The Theatres — The King and Queen — The Populace 
 — Journey homewards through Belgium and Flanders — Pr. John 
 Moore, father of Sir John and Sir Graham Moore — 
 
 While Rogers was enjoying the literary and social inter- 
 course to which his friends had introduced him in the 
 Scottish capital, events which greatly influenced the life 
 of every prominent man in Europe were taking place in 
 Paris. The destruction of the Bastille has made the 
 14th of July, 1789, a dividing line in history. It was 
 the first great victory of the populace. The Bastille was 
 at once the instrument and the symbol of despotism, and 
 its fall announced to the world the overthrow of the 
 ancient authority of a family and of a caste. The people 
 of England rejoiced in the victory almost as much as the 
 people of France. It was regarded by English Liberals 
 as the formal entry of France on the career of constitu- 
 tional government ; as the proclamation of a new era, in 
 which the old Whig toast of ‘ Civil and religious liberty 
 all the world over ’ should come to complete realisation. 
 It is difficult in these days to enter very fully into the 
 feeling of that already distant time. It is only by recol- 
 lecting how completely the near future is veiled from us — 
 
 1 2 
 
116 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 how impossible it was in 1790 and 1791 to foresee the 
 deeds of 1793 anc ^ 1 79 4 — that we can understand the 
 enthusiasm which the first movements of the Eevolution 
 aroused in men of liberal thought and training in 
 England and the United States. They beheld in 1789 
 and 1790 nothing but the rosy dawn ; they could not 
 foresee the storms which were so soon to obscure it and 
 blot the sky. Poets and philosophers, politicians and 
 divines, saw in the earliest movements of the Eevolution 
 the power and the potency of all necessary ameliorations 
 in the lot of the great masses of mankind, and the pledge 
 of the quick coming of the better time in which Christen- 
 dom, in spite of all disappointments, has passionately 
 believed and still passionately believes. Southey, Cole- 
 ridge and Wordsworth, Price, Priestley and Mackintosh, 
 Charles Fox, Charles Grey, Whitbread, Francis, Erskine, 
 Sheridan, Windham and Stanhope, and all the men who, 
 like them, had been labouring in the popular cause, felt 
 upon their faces the light and warmth of a new morning 
 for the world. Wordsworth, looking back when he wrote 
 ‘ The Prelude,’ said of those days of illusive, yet not 
 wholly illusive, hope — 
 
 Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 
 But to be young was very heaven. 
 
 Coleridge, writing his ‘ Ode to France ’ in 1797, just after 
 the moment of worst disenchantment, sang of the time 
 
 When France in wrath her giant limbs upreared, 
 
 And, with an oath that smote air, earth, and sea, 
 Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free. 
 
 Even in those daj f s Coleridge was not ashamed to 
 
ANTICIPATIONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 117 
 
 boast of ‘ the lofty gratulation 5 with which he could sing 
 ‘ unawed among a slavish band ’ and ‘ bless the paeans 
 of delivered France.’ All these men saw in the French 
 Revolution in 1790 what Milton had seen in the English 
 Revolution a hundred and thirty years before — ‘ a noble 
 and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man 
 after sleep.’ Wordsworth exactly describes the almost 
 universal feeling at the time of his own first visit to 
 France, in three lines of ‘ The Prelude ’ : 
 
 Europe at that time was filled with joy, 
 
 France standing on the top of golden hours, 
 
 And human nature seeming born again. 
 
 There were, however, other voices even then. In the 
 autumn of 1789, John Adams, who had been the first 
 Minister of the United States at the English Court, and 
 who was afterwards the second President of the American 
 Republic, expressed the opinion — I may almost say, 
 uttered the striking prophecy — in a letter to Dr. Price, 
 that nothing good could be expected of a nation of 
 atheists, and that the probable result of the Revolution 
 would be the destruction of a million of human lives. A 
 great genius of our own land — a man who united in his 
 own person the qualities of the statesman, the philo- 
 sopher, the orator, and the prophet — was then writing the 
 4 Reflections on the French Revolution ’ which were pub- 
 lished in the following year. Burke, however, stood 
 almost alone ; and when in April 1791 Mackintosh, then 
 a young and unknown man of six-and-twenty, issued his 
 brilliant 4 Yindicise Gallicae ’ it was received with almost 
 universal gratitude and admiration by the Whigs and the 
 educated middle classes, as Paine’s ‘ Rights of Man ’ was 
 
118 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 welcomed by less cultivated readers. Burke’s eloquent 
 lamentations over the disappearance of the age of chiv- 
 alry embodied the feeling with which the Conservative 
 section of the privileged classes regarded the Revolu- 
 tion. They saw in the scattering of a frightened noblesse , 
 and the limitation of the arbitrary powers of the monarch, 
 not the enfranchisement of a people whom king and 
 aristocracy had utterly impoverished and grossly op- 
 pressed, but the overthrow of institutions based on 
 privilege, which age had made venerable and picturesque. 
 Paine, in the most eloquent passage in his * Rights of 
 Man,’ said of Burke’s pathetic description of the suffer- 
 ings of Marie Antoinette that Burke pitied the plumage 
 but forgot the dying bird. He and his friends mourned 
 over the troubles of the ornamental classes, but overlooked 
 the long patience of the people on whom they preyed. 
 
 The great bulk of the English Dissenters, and of the 
 Whig aristocracy whose lead they gratefully acknow- 
 ledged, were too much occupied with the progressive 
 establishment of Liberal institutions on the other side 
 of the Channel to think much of the cost at which the 
 enfranchisement was being purchased. On the 4th of 
 November, 1789, the anniversary dinner of the ‘ Society 
 for Commemorating the English Revolution’ was held at 
 the London Tavern, with Lord Stanhope in the chair. 
 Many of Rogers’s friends were there, and Dr. Price — who, 
 earlier in the day, had preached to the members of the 
 Society, in the meeting-house in the Old Jewry, his great 
 discourse ‘ On the Love of Our Country ’ — moved a con- 
 gratulatory address to the National Assembly of France. 
 This address congratulated the Assembly, so the resolu- 
 
ENGLISH FEELING TOWARDS FRANCE 
 
 119 
 
 tion ran, ‘ on the revolution in that country, and on the 
 prospect it gives to the two first kingdoms in the world 
 of a common participation in the blessings of civil and 
 religious liberty.’ The Liberal triumph in France was 
 to lead to a similar Liberal triumph in England, and the 
 Whigs — who were the Radicals of the time — hoped to see, 
 in the words of Dr. Price’s address, ‘ a general reformation 
 in the governments of Europe, and to make the world 
 free and happy.’ On the 14th of July, 1790, the first 
 anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, there was a 
 dinner at the Crown and Anchor, at which there is reason 
 to believe that Rogers was present. Dr. Price was one of 
 the stewards of the dinner, and made the speech which, 
 together wfith his sermon in the Old Jewry on the 4th of 
 November, became the subject of some of Burke’s ‘ Reflec- 
 tions.’ This speech, read in the light of modern political 
 ideas, suggests the wonder that any human being could 
 have felt anything but the fullest and completest sym- 
 pathy with its patriotic sentiment and peaceful tone, or 
 anything but appreciation for the severe moderation of its 
 language. It suggested an alliance between the two first 
 kingdoms of the world, for promoting peace on earth and 
 goodwill to men. It was eminently worthy to be, as it was, 
 the last public testimony on behalf of civil and religious 
 liberty borne by one of the gentlest and purest spirits the 
 eighteenth century produced. Dr. Price died before the 
 second anniversary came round and brought with it the 
 brutal attack of the Birmingham mob on Dr. Priestley’s 
 house and chapel, and before the angry clouds had risen 
 which too soon turned the golden hours to weeping. 
 His name, however, was known and honoured in France, 
 
120 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and he had an extensive correspondence with some of 
 the best men of the early days of the Revolution. Dr. 
 Price never visited France himself, but his name was a 
 passport to the best society of revolutionary Paris, and 
 to be known as his friend was to be sure of a welcome in 
 circles where in 1790 and 1791 the chiefs of the move- 
 ment were to be met. 
 
 As Dr. Price’s friend, and with letters from him and 
 many other well-known Whigs and sympathisers with the 
 Revolution, Rogers went over to Paris in the beginning 
 of 1791 to see the chief scenes and persons in the revo- 
 lutionary drama. It had not yet become a tragedy ; it 
 was not yet even apparently tending to tragic results. 
 The moment was one at which the hope and antici- 
 pation raised in the previous summer had not yet 
 died away. The king and the National Assembly had 
 come to an understanding. He had accepted the new 
 constitution, and though he was almost a prisoner or a 
 hostage in the Tuileries, there were still reasons for 
 hoping that the Revolution might complete its course 
 within the limits of constitutional forms. There were, 
 indeed, signs of a different issue, but they were not dis- 
 cernible from afar. The king was already ceasing to 
 desire final reconciliation with the Revolution and its 
 leaders. Mirabeau, elected President of the Assembly 
 while Rogers was in Paris, was within three months of 
 the close of his career; and Lafayette was in retire- 
 ment. It was most significant that when, on the 28th of 
 January, Rogers and Boddington expressed to Lafayette 
 their pleasure at finding everything so quiet, Lafayette 
 made no reply, and that on the same evening Mr. Keay, 
 
JOUENEY TO PARIS 
 
 121 
 
 their English friend in Paris, told them that the people 
 were barbarous, and described how a few days before, 
 when a mob was hurrying away a man they suspected 
 to be a spy, a porkman rushed from his shop and ran 
 a knife into his head. There was the germ of all the 
 coming excesses in this event. But it was not likely 
 that foreigners would discern the signs that were hidden 
 from Frenchmen themselves. More than two months 
 after Bogers’s return from Paris, Fox spoke of the new 
 constitution as the most glorious fabric ever raised by 
 human ingenuity since the creation of man. So it seemed, 
 regarded from afar. Like Mulciber s ‘ fabric huge ’ of 
 Pandemonium in ‘ Paradise Lost,’ it 
 
 Bose like an exhalation with the sound 
 Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet : 
 
 and just at this moment 
 
 The ascending pile 
 Stood fixed her stately height. 
 
 But less than six months after Bogers saw Lafayette, 
 and within ten weeks of the time at which Fox spoke, 
 the king fled from Paris, and the prospect of transforming 
 France by peaceful change into a constitutional king- 
 dom passed away like the baseless fabric of a vision. 
 
 Bogers went to Paris, full of the feeling with which 
 all English Liberals regarded the Bevolution, in January 
 1791. He tells us, in the first page of his diary, that he 
 regarded Calais as the shore which might ‘ soon, even to 
 Englishmen, prove a welcome asylum.’ He had as his 
 companion Samuel Boddington, afterwards the partner 
 
122 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 in business of Richard Sharp. 1 The diary is a rough 
 one. It was written on the evenings of his journey, and 
 while each day’s experiences and events were fresh in 
 his recollection ; and he probably intended to rewrite 
 it afterwards. But it remains as it was written, and 
 needs no other introduction than the reminder to the 
 reader that Rogers was even more interested in the lite- 
 rary and social aspects of France than in its political state. 
 
 January 18, 1791. — The hop-grounds and cherry- 
 orchards of Kent were still pleasing amidst the dreariness 
 of winter, and we had several fine catches of the Thames 
 and its shipping. At Canterbury we snatched a passing 
 view of the cathedral, and as we approached Dover the 
 castle rose in all its majesty, and wore a chaste grey 
 tint from the reflection of a storm that brooded over it. 
 
 20 th . — The wind being contrary we made a pilgrimage 
 to the top of Shakespeare’s cliff, which towers to a stu- 
 pendous height from the edge of the ocean, and com- 
 mands the town of Dover, shut in by mountains and 
 only open to the sea. The French coast was not visible, 
 but the sea was fresh and beautiful and spotted with 
 white sails, and the air was so mild and elastic that it 
 was a luxury to breathe it. In the evening walked on 
 the pier. The brightness of the moonshine on the cliffs 
 and the water, the silver line of the horizon, and the old 
 sailors, standing in groups on the beach, and conversing 
 
 1 The name of the firm was Boddington, Sharp, and Phillips. Samuel 
 Boddington’s only child, Grace Boddington, married Sir Henry Webster, 
 then a colonel in the army. Sir Henry Webster was the second son of 
 Lady Holland and of her first husband, Sir Godfrey Webster, from whom 
 she was divorced by Act of Parliament. 
 
FRANCE IN 1791 
 
 123 
 
 in their long blue cloaks on the uncertainty of the weather, 
 formed an amusing scene. 
 
 2 1st . — Set sail for Calais with a clear sky and calm 
 sunshine, and in two hours and forty minutes gained 
 that shore which may soon, even to Englishmen, prove 
 a welcome asylum. As we landed, the national troops 
 were parading in their white uniform, and several gens 
 comme ilfaut, of both sexes were walking on the pier, with 
 large fox muffs. We were conducted across a handsome 
 square, built of white brick, and ornamented with some 
 good public buildings, the great church, the Hotel de Ville, 
 &c., to the Silver Lion, where we dined on soupe , bouilli 
 and perdrix, and received a visit from Father Martin, a 
 Capuchin friar, who introduced himself most cautiously 
 to solicit alms for his convent. Proceeded afterwards to 
 Boulogne, along a paved road which ran in a direct line 
 through a country well cultivated and uneven, and en- 
 livened with many villages scattered over it, but in some 
 parts marshy and destitute of trees. Our chaise was 
 drawn by three horses abreast, and the driver, a brisk 
 pleasant fellow, wore a large cocked hat and jack-boots, 
 with deep ruffles, gilt earrings and an enormous queue . 
 We afterwards changed horses by the light of a black- 
 smith’s shop, and in our own way met the Calais stage, 
 a huge monster, not much less than Noah’s Ark. It was 
 heavily laden with trunks and passengers, and, though 
 drawn by seven horses, rumbled along at the rate of two 
 miles an hour. Entered Boulogne by moonlight through 
 a winding avenue of trees, and after having ordered our 
 petit souper at La Vignette, we repaired to the theatre, 
 a small oblong building with a circular termination, the 
 
124 : 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 shape of every French theatre. It was very gaily painted, 
 but miserably lighted, and it smelt of pomatum like a 
 barber’s shop. In the boxes were a few abbes and officers 
 who left their seats between the acts and conversed 
 familiarly with the actors on the stage behind the curtain. 
 The comedy was admirably acted, and was often inter- 
 rupted by the most rapturous bursts of applause. The 
 entertainment began and concluded with a pas de seid. 
 
 January 22. — The market-place at Montreuil was 
 crowded as we passed through it. It was a busy scene, 
 and exactly resembled a fair in a Flemish picture. The 
 women wore a close cap, with no hat ; and their muffs 
 and powdered hair had a singular effect among baskets 
 of eggs and stalls of gingerbread. The weather was now 
 so fine — so superb, to speak the language of the country 
 — that we could here contain ourselves no longer, and, 
 leaving the chaise to follow us to the next poste we 
 mounted our bidets and cantered away in jack-boots, as 
 happy and as perpendicular as La Fleur himself. Our 
 outset was, however, such as to have discouraged less 
 enterprising spirits, for, when we had accoutred ourselves 
 for the ride, we could neither vault into the saddle nor 
 even lift our feet into the stirrup, but tottered along 
 with the hostler’s assistance amidst the titterings of the 
 landlady and her maids in the inn-yard. When we had 
 passed through Abbeville — a large town in an extensive 
 valley, and brimful of churches and convents, priests and 
 beggars — we gradually ascended the heights of Picardy, 
 whence we saw the Somme winding through green mea- 
 dows on the left. The moon was rising when we entered 
 Amiens through a deep gateway ; the convent bells were 
 
FRANCE IN 1791 
 
 125 
 
 tinkling, and the streets were lighted by lanthorns sus- 
 pended in the middle by a rope. Alighted at the Silver 
 Lion, and were charmed by the naivete and simplicity of 
 the innkeeper’s daughter, Flora, a sweet little girl about 
 ten years old. ‘ Aimez-vous les Anglais? ’ said I. ‘ J’aime 
 tout le monde ! 5 ‘ Avez-vous des soeurs ? ’ ‘ Oui, mais 
 
 elles ont des maris.’ ‘ Et vous serez mariee de bonne 
 heure ? ’ ‘ Oh qu’oui, Monsieur.’ 
 
 January 23. — When I descended into the parlour to 
 breakfast I was surprised to find there a little fellow 
 about fourteen years old, in a very fine coat, with 
 powdered hair and long queue . He advanced towards 
 me with his hands in an immense muff and with a pro- 
 fusion of bows and fine compliments. He proved to be 
 Flora’s brother, and had been deputed by his mother to 
 conduct us over the town. Under his guidance, there- 
 fore, we sallied forth to the Cathedral, a most magnifi- 
 cent piece of Gothic. The clergy had not yet taken the 
 national oath, the gates that led to the high altar were 
 sealed, and Mass was performed in the aisle. ‘ Ou sont 
 les moines ? ’ said I, as we walked through the streets. 
 
 *■ Ils sont dans leur couvent a pleurer, monsieur.’ The 
 ramparts form an amusing promenade round the town. 
 The Somme meanders on one side with convents and 
 manufactories on its banks ; and on the other rise the 
 cathedral with its taper spire, of rich filagree work, and 
 a multitude of religious houses and hotels of the noblesse 
 — among these are small flower-gardens, each intersected 
 with espaliers and gravel walks, and furnished with a 
 marble fountain and an alcove of green trellis-work. As 
 we left Amiens we saw a fiddler perched up in the corner 
 
126 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 of a street playing and singing, while he exhibited to a 
 crowded audience a scroll of pictures daubed in different 
 compartments. Proceeded through pleasant fields and 
 woods till the country made a grand fall, and presented 
 in front a very extensive plain, fading away into the 
 blue and purple tints of distance. At Breteuil we 
 passed a convent of Benedictines, with a very long and 
 elegant white front. It was a modern structure with 
 sash windows, the antique tower of its chapel rose beside 
 it, and it formed a very striking object for many miles. 
 At the door of an auberge on a little hill, we were soon 
 afterwards stopped by the entreaties of the aubergiste, 
 who asked permission for an elderly well-dressed man to 
 ride a few leagues behind the chaise. 4 C’est mon ami, 
 c’est un officier, Messieurs.’ These arguments would 
 have been irresistible, if any had been necessary, and 
 he seated himself behind. We caught a glimpse of the 
 magnificent chateau of the Due de Fitz James, with a 
 lawn opening in front, and woods intersected with 
 avenues rising behind it. 
 
 Neither the rattling of the carriage-wheels on the 
 pavi , nor the flats and sharps of the post-boy’s whip 
 could drown the brisk notes of a fiddle as we entered the 
 village of Clermont. It was a dance of the peasants, 
 and we immediately went to it, and were shown into a 
 large room, with a floor of red tile and a raftered roof. 
 There were three sets of cotillons , here called contre- 
 danse, and never had we any idea of dancing before — 
 such activity, so much soul in all their movements. We 
 were immediately pressed to dance. 4 Ne voulez-vous pas 
 danser, Messieurs ? ’ resounded from all sides. It was an 
 
FRANCE IN 1791 
 
 127 
 
 invitation not to be resisted ; and we danced ‘ Les Plaisirs 
 des Loix ’ to the tune of ‘ Qa ira.’ The very fille de chambre 
 who had conducted us from the inn was already engaged 
 in another set. Every man paid three Hards for two 
 dances, and saluted his partner when they were finished. 
 On the hill was a dance of the bourgeois , tres splendide , 
 but we chose the dance of the peasants. The band con- 
 sisted of two violins ; and some stools elevated on a table 
 against the wall formed the orchestra. Over the door 
 was this inscription, ‘ Honore, Perruquier, tient salle de 
 danse a la nation.’ When I saw the innocent gaiety of 
 the villagers of Clermont my heart bled to think of the 
 oppressions which so amiable and generous a people had 
 so long endured. Proceeded through an uneven country, 
 with woods and vineyards on either hand, till we entered 
 a long avenue that led to Chantilly, the seat of the 
 Prince of Conde. Saw the house, the gardens, the 
 stables, &c., altogether a most superb monument of bad 
 taste. The gate of the stables is, however, a striking 
 exception. The armour of Henri IY. and of the great 
 Conde are here preserved with veneration. Continued 
 through the woods of Chantilly, and passed through 
 several villages. The country soon made another fall — 
 and of equal grandeur with the former. As we changed 
 horses at St. Denis, one of them was restive and broke the 
 traces. ‘ Ha, ha ! Monsieur l’abbe Maury,’ said a boy as 
 he passed by, ‘ ne voulez-vous pas rester tranquille ? ’ 
 Over the arch of every nobleman’s gateway the coat of 
 arms was erased, and printed advertisements of the sale 
 of the Church lands were fixed on every wall. As we 
 approached Paris we saw an infinite number of avenues 
 
128 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 leading from it in all directions, like the radii of a circle. 
 Passed at the foot of Montmartre, a hill of granite 
 covered with windmills. 
 
 The clumsy coaches of all shapes that rumble along 
 without springs ; the ladies hurrying out of their way 
 with rouged cheeks and without hats ; the gentlemen 
 parading with their national cockades, immense muffs, 
 and copper buckles ; and the very beggars accosting us 
 with a powdered head, a muff, and a cockade — everything 
 was new to an Englishman ; but who could attend a 
 moment to such minutice when so many thousands were 
 beating as it were with one pulse in the cause of liberty 
 and their country, and crowding every coffee-house and 
 public walk to congratulate each other on an event so 
 favourable in its consequences to the best interests of 
 mankind ? 
 
 In the evening walked under the piazzas of the 
 Palais Eoyal, a very elegant square, full of shops and 
 coffee-houses, glittering with lights and crowded with 
 belles and beaux who were taking their evening 
 promenade. 
 
 January 26. — Breakfasted in a coffee-house, where I 
 could have passed hours in contemplating the various 
 figures that were sipping their coffee and capillaire around 
 me ; and dined at the Cafe des Quatre Nations, where 
 the scene was so diverting and the dishes were all in 
 masquerade. The moment we entered, one of the waiters 
 with irresistible grace presented us with a printed bill of 
 fare, including above two hundred different articles with 
 the several prices affixed ; from fricassees , fricandeaus 
 and ragouts down to humble bifteck, so changed in name 
 
EEVOLUTIONARY PARIS 
 
 129 
 
 and nature that we could with difficulty recognise our 
 old acquaintance. We afterwards repaired to the cirque 
 in the middle of the Palais Royal, an elegant room, 300 
 feet by 50, lighted by a long skylight and designed for 
 every species of entertainment. ‘ Ce n’est pas un cirque,’ 
 said I to a carpenter at work there. ‘ C’est un cirque 
 Frantjais,’ said he archly. Here we saw a faro table, sur- 
 rounded by adventurers, and were soon called away from 
 remarking their anxious and fluctuating spirits to view 
 an assault between La Motte, a musician in the king’s 
 band, and several other fencers. 
 
 January 1 27. — ‘ C’est une belle saison,’ said I to my 
 hairdresser this morning, ‘ C’est superbe, Monsieur,’ said 
 he. Sallied forth with a smart laquais de place , Lefevre, 
 in a chariot driven by a coachman whose scarlet cloak 
 formed a fine front screen ; over Pont Neuf, by the statue 
 of Henri IV., to the Abbe Grenet, 2 a professor in the 
 College of Richelieu — a sensible, pleasant man, but an 
 aristocrat ; disapproved of the plan of juries now before 
 the National Assembly, and said it was unsuitable to the 
 genius of the nation. Proceeded afterwards to Monsieur 
 Petrie, member of the Assembly from Tobago, a gentle- 
 man and a man of sense. He said he feared the Assembly 
 had too many irons in the fire, and that the conduct of the 
 clergy at Amiens had drawn a motion from Barnave to 
 petition the king to appoint new bishops. In the even- 
 ing went to the theatre of the Grands Danseurs du Roi 
 on the Boulevards, full of the canaille . The first piece 
 
 1 Query Jan. 26. 
 
 2 The Abbe Grenet was a celebrated writer on geography, and 
 professor of that science. He disappeared during the Revolution. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 was the conduct of the Spaniards in Mexico, and when 
 the priests were disgraced the laughter and shouts of the 
 audience were very pointed. Went afterwards to the 
 cirque , and saw some cotillons danced by the dames du 
 Palais Royal in a very capital style. 
 
 January 27. — M. l’abbe Grenet breakfasted with us, 
 and told us that the mob had last night threatened to 
 burn the house of M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, 1 and were 
 proceeding to the lanterne with an officer of the police, 
 hut were prevented. Said Marmontel 2 had changed his 
 principles and disapproved of the new government ; that 
 the Abbe Eaynal 3 was an enrage , and at Marseilles ; that 
 the Abbe Maury was the first man in France and M. 
 Eabaut 4 the most dangerous ; that he was of Eousseau’s 
 opinion that a republican form of government suited 
 small states only ; that M. d’Alembert, the great mathe- 
 matician, could never draw a right angle with his com- 
 passes ; that M. l’abbe Maury had often appeased the 
 
 1 M. de Clermont-Tonnerre fell a victim to the populace in the 
 succeeding August. 
 
 2 The author of Contes Moraux was in his sixty-eighth year. He 
 had been Secretary of the Academy from D’Alembert’s death in 1783, 
 and on the suppression of the Academies in 1791 betook himself to the 
 writing of new Contes Moraux . He died in 1799. 
 
 3 The Abbe Raynal was at that time the most celebrated French 
 historian living. In December 1790 a severe criticism on the doings of 
 the Assembly had appeared, entitled ‘ Lettre de l’abbe Raynal a l’Assem- 
 blee Nationale.’ It was by the Comte de Guibert, but embodied Raynal’s 
 sentiments. In May 1791 he wrote a letter to the President of the 
 Assembly, which was read at one of its sittings, protesting against its 
 proceedings and expressing regret that the writer had been ‘ one of those 
 who, in expressing a generous indignation against arbitrary power, had 
 perhaps put arms into the hands of licence and anarchy.’ He did not 
 emigrate, but lived in retirement through the Terror, and died in Paris 
 in 1796, in nis eightv-third year, 
 
 4 See note to page 204. 
 
MEN OF THE EE VOLUTION 
 
 131 
 
 cry of ‘ A la lanterne ! ’ by saying ‘ You may take me 
 there, but will you see the clearer for it ? ’ 1 Sallied 
 forth afterwards and left ourjletters and cards at Lord 
 Gower’s, the Due de Rochefoucauld’s, 2 de Liancourt’s, 3 
 &c. Called on M. de Keralio, 4 printer of the Mercure 
 National ; saw his daughter, a very pleasing sensible 
 woman. 5 Called at Perregaux’s, 6 and saw one of the 
 
 1 The Abbe Maury was celebrated all through the Revolution for his 
 ready wit. ‘I am going to shut up the Abbe Maury in a vicious circle,’ 
 said Mirabeau one day in the Assembly. ‘ Then you are going to 
 embrace me,’ said the Abbe to the great orator’s confusion. Hearing 
 that he was proscribed he fled, but was brought back. On retaking his 
 place in the National Assembly he said : ‘ I shall perish in the Revolution 
 or get a Cardinal’s hat in fighting it.’ He did not long fight the Revo- 
 lution, but fled again when the Constituent Assembly was dissolved, 
 and was made a bishop in partibus, and afterwards a cardinal. He died 
 at Rome in 1817. 
 
 2 The Due de la Rochefoucauld was one of the early victims of the 
 Revolution. He was stoned to death at Gisorson the 14th of September 
 1792, as he was on his way to take the waters at Forges. His mother 
 and his wife were with him. 
 
 3 The Due de Liancourt is the man who, two days before the fall of 
 the Bastille, had gone to Versailles to tell the king of the state of Paris. 
 
 ‘ It is a revolt,’ said the astonished Louis. ‘ No, sir,’ replied the Due de 
 Liancourt, ‘it is a revolution.’ He was for a time President of the 
 National Assembly. Not long after Rogers was at his house he fled to 
 England and took refuge with Arthur Young. On the death of his 
 cousin he took the title of La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 4 M. de Keralio, who had translated various works from English, 
 German, and Swedish, had translated in 1789 Dr. Price’s sermon ‘ On 
 the Love of our Country.’ He was one of the editors of the Journal des 
 Savants from 1785 till its suppression in 1792. He died at Grosley in 
 December 1793. 
 
 5 Mdlle. de Keralio was assisting her father in the editorship of the 
 Mercure National , ou Journal d'Etat et de Citoyen, and soon after 
 Rogers’s visit married M. Robert, one of her father’s colleagues. Robert 
 became Danton’s secretary, but escaped the proscription of the Dan- 
 tonists. Madame Robert, like her father, was a voluminous translator, 
 obtaining considerable celebrity. She died in 1821. 
 
 6 The banker. 
 
132 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 partners, asked after Mr. Keay and heard he was in 
 England. Dined at the coffee-house, and saw there an 
 Englishman in the navy, a sceptic in religion, and in 
 politics an aristocrat ; went afterwards to the opera — an 
 ordinary house, full of the best company. All the boxes 
 let except two. The parterre crowded, and the people 
 there moved like ears of corn. The opera ‘ Dido,’ 
 Mallieux the first woman. Saw afterwards ‘ Cupid and 
 Psyche’ — a beautiful ballet. Lahore and Nivelon won- 
 derful dancers, the first more esteemed here than Yestris, 
 only eighteen years old. 
 
 January 28. — Called on Mr. Keay, who was out — Hotel 
 des Etats Unis, Rue des Gaillons. Called on M. Hottingue 
 and M. Rougemont, 1 and were politely received. Saw 
 the Church of La Roche ; the Italian theatre, with a 
 beautiful Ionic colonnade in front ; and the Theatre de 
 Monsieur, just finished, the front a circular colonnade. 
 
 In the afternoon called at the Marquis de Lafayette’s, 
 and were introduced by M. de Chatelet, 2 through an 
 anteroom where some officers were dining, into a large 
 room where he sat at table with thirty or forty officers. 
 He rose to receive us. We then passed on to another 
 chamber, where several gentlemen were waiting. He 
 soon entered with Madame de Lafayette — a pleasing, 
 lively woman, but not handsome, who told us that we did 
 her country honour to visit it when they were but in 
 their infancy ; that she could understand English, but 
 
 1 M. Rougemont was a merchant to whom Rogers had received an 
 introduction. 
 
 2 This was probably the Due du Ch&telet, afterwards one of the 
 Generals in the army of the Republic. He was arrested as a Girondist, 
 and poisoned himself in prison. 
 
AT M. DE LAFAYETTE’S 
 
 133 
 
 was afraid to talk it. Lafayette then came up, a tall, 
 handsome man about 35. 1 He inquired after Dr. Price, 
 and asked whether he had any intention to visit Paris ; 
 said that most people could speak a little English and 
 understand him. We expressed pleasure to find all 
 things so tranquil— he made no answer. In this room 
 was a picture of the Bastille. Invited us to dine with 
 him to-morrow, and said he dined every day at four and 
 should always be happy to see us. Went to the Theatre 
 de Monsieur and saw an Italian comedy, ‘ La Pastorella,’ 
 beautifully lighted in the centre with a transparency of 
 Apollo and his rays. Came home — when Mr. Keay 
 waited upon me and spent two hours with us. Said that 
 Lafayette had nearly ruined his fortune, and would not 
 touch his allowance from the Assembly ; that the people 
 were the most barbarous in the world — that when the 
 mob on Thursday last were hurrying away the man 
 they suspected to be a spy a porkman rushed from his 
 shop and dug his knife into his head ; that Lafayette is 
 no republican. 
 
 January 29. — M. de Chatelet and another gentleman 
 called this morning. M. de Chatelet invited us to the 
 Conversation de la mere du Due de Dochefoucaidd , — a tall, 
 thin woman, very animated. Advised us to attend the 
 ‘ Comedy,’ and said that we could acquire the language in 
 two months ; that Burke’s letters were written to a 
 M. Dupont, a young man, attached to the new constitu- 
 tion, who answered him with great spirit ; that we might 
 go toYnorrow to the Assembly with M. Mirabeau, who 
 
 1 He was bom in 1757, and was therefore in his 34th year. 
 
134 
 
 EARLY LIRE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 was yesterday elected President. Wrote letters, and 
 afterwards dined at M. de Lafayette’s. 
 
 Madame de Lafayette said they should come to see 
 us after they had finished their Revolution ; talked with 
 rapture of Thomson and Gray, and thought the English 
 language more difficult to learn than the French. La- 
 fayette came late, inquired what news from England ; 
 said Pitt had a great majority and the confidence of, but 
 was no friend to, the people ; that every member of the 
 Parliament had contributed more or less to increase the 
 influence of the Crown ; that Pitt did him the honour to 
 dine with him on his return from Fontainebleau before he 
 was Minister, in company with Dr. Franklin, and then 
 told him that he had too much democracy in his prin- 
 ciples for him . 1 There were about twenty-six people, 
 chiefly officers, there. There were but two courses and 
 a dessert. After dinner, retired into the drawing-room 
 to drink coffee. Beyond this was another apartment, 
 into which he frequently withdrew with some of the 
 company. Went afterwards to the Theatre Francis, 
 and saw ‘ Le Jaloux sans Amour ’ and Auguste and 
 Theodore. The King of Prussia — very like Prince 
 Henry — was much struck with it, and suggested some 
 slight improvements in the costume. Saw there one of 
 Lafayette’s officers, who said that Lafayette, during 
 the heat of the Revolution, kept eighty men at his own 
 expense, and now supports nearly twenty besides the 
 company at his own table ; that he, the officer himself, 
 
 1 In a letter to his sister Sarah, dated the 4th of February, Rogers 
 says that ‘ Lafayette said little about the French Revolution, but was 
 very inquisitive respecting the state of politics in England.’ 
 
AT M. DE CONDORCET’S 
 
 135 
 
 had a shot through his hat at the taking of the 
 Bastille. 
 
 January 30. — Went at ten to the Salle Nationale — the 
 tribune crowded, the subject uninteresting — respecting 
 the alienation of the incomes of the hospitals. Barnave, 
 Bochefoucauld, and Mirabeau spoke a few words ; the last 
 is the best speaker in the National Assembly. On the 
 table was a bust of Monsieur Desiles who fell a victim 
 to the soldiery at Nancy. The bell rung frequently 
 by the President Mirabeau to obtain silence. Walked 
 afterwards in the Tuileries gardens, and saw the palaces 
 of the Prince of Conde and of Monsieur. Dined with 
 Mr. Keay (nobody else there), and at half-past five drove 
 to M. de Condorcet’s, formerly secretary to the Academy 
 of Belle Lettres, and found Madame de Condorcet sitting 
 in a little room with a girl of eight years of age. A 
 charming woman with an oval face, very open and ex- 
 pressive, and very fair ; a beautiful picture of two ladies 
 painted in crayons by herself. Full of patriotism. Con- 
 dorcet, being engaged below with Bochefoucauld, did not 
 appear. Drove to the Theatre Francis and saw ‘ La 
 Liberte conquise ’ — a simple representation of the taking 
 of the Bastille, interspersed with noble sentiments but 
 laid in a distant province. Between the acts ‘ Qa ira ’ was 
 played by the orchestra, and the audience beat time by 
 clapping. When soldiers clubbed their arms and em- 
 braced their fellow T -citizens the house resounded with 
 shouts for some minutes. An English nobleman is intro- 
 duced, who utters fine sentiments of liberty, and con- 
 cludes the piece with this address, ‘ Francois, vous avez 
 conquis la liberte, tachez de la conservir.’ 
 
136 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Went from thence at nine to the Club of the year 
 1789 — an elegant room with sixty or seventy members 
 there. Conversed with two, one of whom offered to 
 supply me with facts if I would give him queries. They 
 knew well that there were only two parties— for the 
 aristocracy and the crown. The apartments were three, 
 leading into each other. Proceeded afterwards to sup 
 at Madame de Canissy’ s Hotel de Brienne, Rue St. 
 Dominique, Faubourg St. Germain. Entered through 
 several rooms into an elegant apartment, where were a 
 lady and gentleman. The company consisted of Madame 
 de Canissy, a very lively, talkative woman ; her husband, 
 who resembled a Methodist minister ; Chatelet ; a bishop ; 
 a Scotchman, a very pleasant sensible man, rather dry ; 
 a foreign Ambassador with a star and ribbon ; two other 
 gentlemen, one of whom came in Chatelet ’s cabriolet ; 
 and M. de Condorcet , 1 a very sensible but very plain 
 man, and his wife as enchanting as ever. In the room 
 was an elegant bed, with a portrait of a lady hung at the 
 head of it ; and close by it was a couch on which was a 
 girl, who soon waked and was taken to the fire to warm 
 its little feet by Madame de Condorcet and afterwards put 
 to bed again. The supper was brought in on the table, 
 at which few sat down, except the ladies, and afterwards 
 it was carried out in the same manner. Chemistry, 
 Shakespeare, Junius, Burke, animal magnetism, took 
 their turns. Chatelet said Dr. Priestley's ‘ Answer ’ was 
 
 1 Mr. Hayward says : 1 He had met Condorcet at Lafayette’s table in 
 1789.’ Mr. Hayward is, of course, referring to this visit to Paris in 1791. 
 The meeting with Condorcet, here recorded as taking place at Madame 
 de Canissy’ s, is clearly the first, and there is no trace in this diary of 
 Rogers’s meeting Condorcet at Lafayette’s at all. 
 
AT THE DUC DE ROCHEFOUCAULD’S 
 
 137 
 
 far below him ; Condorcet that water could be decomposed 
 into two substances ; and the lady told a story of M. 
 de Clermont-Tonnerre, which all present confirmed as 
 true, that he actually believed and had certificates that 
 a certain woman 4 etait accouchee par le diable.’ 
 
 February i. — Sallied forth with Mr. Keay. Saw the 
 Louvre with its most elegant front, the Place de Greve, 
 the Palais de Justice with the Sainte Chapelle, the Church 
 of S. Genevieve, the Church of Saint Sulpice, the Palais 
 de Monsieur, a Eoman bath of the Emperor Julian the 
 Apostate, the Mint, and the statue of Henri IY. on the 
 Pont Neuf. M. Petrie called and said that Barnave, in 
 a colonial committee to which he belonged — Barnave the 
 leader of the Band — said he hoped we should be freer than 
 England, but feared that in a few years the National 
 Assembly w 7 ould become like the Parliament of England ; 
 that he himself knew that several things had been carried 
 by corruption. Dined at the Due de Bochefoucauld’s, 
 with twelve or fourteen gentlemen, waited on at dinner 
 by near twice the number of servants. Sat [Boddington 
 and Rogers] on each side the Duke, a little man, con- 
 tinually winking his eyes, but with an air of great good- 
 ness, and very civil. During dinner came a letter from 
 Lord George Gordon enclosing his remarks on the civic 
 oath. Chatelet said that he was confined for a crime of 
 which every man in France was guilty . 1 After dinner 
 rose immediately, and withdrew to the other room with 
 his wife. Mr. Morris from America, M. Chabot, brother 
 to Madame, M. Chatelet, &c., were there. In came 
 
 1 He was in prison for libels on the Queen of France and the 
 Empress of Russia. 
 
138 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 immediately the old duchess, such a figure never seen now 
 but in a picture-frame, lively and sensible, and a warm 
 friend to the Revolution. 1 Drank coffee and went to 
 Mr. Boyd’s (a banker), Rue de Gramont, where we were 
 soon set down to brulant — Mr. and Mrs. Boyd, General 
 Campbell, Mr. and Miss Harris, and M. Petrie. M. P. 
 said that a considerable force was sent to the West Indies 
 to quiet the contending parties there, that Barnave was 
 completely led by a creole. 
 
 February 2. — Went to the palace of M. d’Orleans, 
 and saw his pictures : several of Raphael, Rubens, and 
 Titian. Saw the duchess and all the children. Dined 
 at the traiteur’s, and saw ‘ William Tell,’ a tragedy in 
 which La Rive acted very well, and was afterwards called 
 out to make his bow. The audience beat time to ‘ Qa ira’ 
 with the same enthusiasm as before. Afterwards ‘ Le Fou 
 par Amour.’ Went to the Club of ’89. A debate on three 
 different motions to the same purpose, the exclusion of 
 the members of the Club Monarchique. That of M. de 
 Condorcet carried. Was afterwards told that the Club 
 Monarchique were friends to despotism under the mask 
 of moderation ; 2 that the Club of ’89 and that of the 
 Jacobins are much the same in principle, and act in con- 
 cert in the Assembly, but that the first are less precipi- 
 tate in their measures, and that the leaders of each have 
 a degree of jealousy of each other; that a motion had 
 
 1 In a letter to his sister Sarah describing this part of his visit to 
 Paris, Rogers says the Duchess Dowager said to him : ‘ I once wished to 
 see England, but now we are freer than you, and you must come to us, 
 not we to you. I had many infirmities, but I have not felt them since 
 the Revolution.’ 
 
 2 The Club Monarchique was first called the Club des Impartiaux. 
 
REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS 
 
 139 
 
 been made more than once to exclude those of ’89 from 
 the Jacobins, but without success ; that of ’89 are about 
 four hundred. The Jacobins much the largest. M. 
 Chatelet gave us tickets for the Jacobin Assembly. 
 
 February 3. — Saw the pictures in the Louvre, chiefly 
 French. Observed a coachman with bag and muff. 
 Dined at M. de Liancourt’s with about twenty-four men, 
 Chatelet, 1 Chabot, 2 Chapelier, 3 M. de Rochefoucauld, &c. 
 Very elegant rooms hung with good paintings and look- 
 ing into the gardens of the Tuileries. Sat by him. A 
 sumptuous dinner — two courses and a dessert. Mirabeau 
 no favourite, a man of beaucoup d’ esprit, with no mate- 
 rials of his own, but possessed of the singular talent of 
 availing himself of the ideas of other people. Three 
 bishops have taken the oath. A revolution at Geneva. 
 De Rochefoucauld twice excommunicated at Rome. Had 
 seen Lord Stanhope when at Geneva, then very active 
 
 1 This was probably Charles Louis Chatelet, who was a leading 
 member of the Jacobin Club. He adhered to Robespierre, became one 
 of the agents of the Reign of Terror, escaped on the 9th Thermidor, but 
 was arrested some months afterwards, tried, condemned, and in May 
 1795 executed. 
 
 2 Francis Chabot was in his thirty -second year. He had been a 
 Capuchin monk, and grand vicar of the constitutional Bishop of Blois. 
 He was at this time an enthusiastic clerical friend of the Revolution. 
 In the following September he was elected to the Legislative Assembly, 
 and speedily became one of the leaders of the ‘ Mountain ’ which owed 
 its name to him. He got the decree passed which turned the cathedral 
 of Paris into a temple of reason. Eventually he fell a victim to the 
 Terror, being guillotined on the 5th of April, 1794. 
 
 3 Isaac Rene Chapelier, then thirty-seven years old, was a member 
 of the Committee on the Constitution, and drew up the decree for the 
 abolition of the noblesse . He broke with the party of violence, fled to 
 England, returned to save his property, was arrested, condemned by the 
 revolutionary tribunal, and guillotined with Thouret and Despremenil 
 in April 1794. 
 
140 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 with the patriots at the same time with Mr. Wilkes, but 
 would not associate with him. ‘ I admire his public prin- 
 ciples,’ said Lord Stanhope, ‘ I think him an oppressed 
 man (at the time of the North Briton ), and would support 
 his cause, but his private character is bad, and I don’t 
 want to become acquainted with him.’ Saw Adam 
 Smith here and admired his ‘ Wealth of Nations.’ The 
 Jacobins above twelve hundred in Paris, with six hundred 
 corresponding societies in the country ; the Monarchique 
 about four hundred, professing a desire to establish a 
 constitution like that of England, but in fact something 
 worse; that and the Club of ’89 have no other 
 branches in the country. Liancourt thought their vote 
 of last night a bad one. Saw a fighting match with 
 handkerchiefs. Afterwards at the Theatre du Palais 
 Eoyal saw ‘ L’amant femme de chambre ’ and ‘ Euse 
 contre ruse, ou Guerre ouverte.’ 
 
 February 4.— Saw the king’s library and his Cabinet 
 des Estampes. Saw a Euripides with notes by Eacine. 
 Dined at the traiteur’s, saw ‘ (Edipe a Colonne ’ and the 
 ballet of ‘ Cupid and Psyche.’ 1 Went afterwards to sup 
 with Madame de Condorcet. About twelve persons at 
 supper ; three rouged girls. After supper played at a 
 game. The company fixed on a person distinguished in 
 history or in the present age, and somebody not in the 
 secret asked what advice they gave her or him (a lady if 
 the asker be gentleman and vice versa). Que conseillerez- 
 vous a mon ami ? 
 
 Same day. — Saw the Place Vendome ; the Hopital 
 
 1 Is described in a letter. f Such music, such scenery and dancing,’ 
 I think could not be excelled.’ 
 
‘ LE CONVALESCENT DE QUALITE ’ 
 
 141 
 
 des Invalides, with a most beautiful dome, the mili- 
 tary school and the Champ de Mars, the scaffold of which 
 is still standing, with the elegant heights of the village 
 Chaillot. 
 
 In the centre of the area, on an eminence, is the 
 maison in which the oath was administered — on one 
 side is written this inscription : C’est dans ce champ ou 
 ils venoient de jurer d’etre fideles a la Nation, a la Loi 
 et au Eoi. 
 
 On the opposite side were these verses : — 
 
 Les mortels sont egaux ; ce n’est pas leur naissance, 
 
 C’est la seule vertu qui fait la difference. 
 
 La loi dans tout etat doit etre universelle ; 
 
 Les mortels, quels qu’ils soient, sont egaux devant elle. 
 
 Saw the Hotel de Ville ; the long room in the Louvre, 
 430 yards in length with the exhibition room. Went 
 to Rougemont’s, where were about fourteen people, two 
 men from Neufchatel and an Italian chevalier who went 
 with us to the Italian theatre. Saw ‘ Selima and Azor ’ 
 and ‘ Le Convalescent de qualite ’ — a nobleman who having 
 been long confined by illness and, being ignorant of the 
 Revolution, is surprised to find his servants out of livery, 
 but is told that la loi Va dechire — finds that his daughter 
 whom he had destined to a convent is in love with a 
 bourgeois , and writes for a lettre de cachet to confine 
 him — is insulted with the designation of his family 
 name and an application to pay his debts — but is at last, 
 after much point and equivoque , brought to reason. ‘ He 
 bien ! demain Monsieur le Colonel, vous monterez la 
 garde.’ English horses here at sixty and one hundred 
 guineas. 
 
142 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 February 5. — Saw the family go to Mass through the 
 apartments of the Louvre. The king came first with a 
 good-humoured unmeaning face, afterwards the queen 
 bowing courteously to all about her, with the dauphin, a 
 little pale-faced boy with a kind of night-cap on his head. 
 She has a beautiful profile, but her eyes are heavy. 1 Then 
 Monsieur, very like the king, his eldest brother, and 
 his sister. Heard Mass — a most beautiful concert. 
 Raphael's ‘ Cartoons 5 and his ‘ Mass at Bolsena,’ in tapes- 
 try on the walls. 
 
 Attempted to see the king dine, but could not, having 
 frocks. In the evening at five went to Vespers, where a 
 number of men in flannel gowns and hoods chanted for 
 about half an hour in a very deep discordant tone. The 
 king and queen were there ; below were guards forming 
 an avenue up to the altar. Afterwards, at the Theatre de 
 Madlle. de Montausier (who was there), saw ‘ Le Sourd' 
 inimitably well performed by an actor, who imitated the 
 Gascon dialect. Sat in the orchestra. Dined at the table 
 d'hote by myself, B. having a headache, Saw the hotel 
 of the Prince de Salm, 2 who asks 75,000 francs for it. 
 
 February 6.— Called on Perigord. 3 Saw the remains 
 of the Bastille, about ten feet high, in an area of three or 
 four acres and surrounded by a fosse. In the centre a 
 
 1 In the letter to his sister, Rogers thus describes the king and queen : 
 The king is a very easy, good-humoured man in appearance ; but the 
 queen, I think, has neither beauty nor good-humour. She has a fine 
 profile, but her eyes are very heavy.’ 
 
 2 The Prince de Salm-Kirbourg was another of the victims of the 
 Revolution. He was guillotined on the 23rd of July 1794 at the age of 
 forty-eight. Fourteen months later his property was restored to his 
 family. His hotel became the headquarters of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 3 Charles Maurice de Perigord, then bishop of Autun, afterwards 
 Prince de Talleyrand. 
 
AT M. DE PERIGORD’S 
 
 143 
 
 staircase that led into darkness ; several cells open to 
 daylight, one of which had a cross traced on the stone — 
 the melancholy amusement of some heavy hour. Perigord 
 knew Lafayette — a man now forgotten, a courtier at 
 bottom, but a very amiable, well-meaning man. No other 
 could fill his place when he took it. He said handsomely 
 that he accepted it because he knew there was danger 
 in it. The delicacy of his constitution makes him observe 
 a regimen of rice and eggs. Waked often ten times in a 
 night, as every rumour is brought to him. P. said the 
 opera was once the finest thing in the world, on account of 
 its company, but now things were changed. Afterwards 
 saw the Gobelins tapestry, the colouring beautiful beyond 
 conception — twenty years' practice before a workman 
 weaves figures. Saw a collection of Wouvermann’s prints 
 at Bassan’s, Eue Serpent ; saw the Place Victoire, where 
 Victory is placing (or taking away) a wreath on the brow 
 of Louis XIV. Dined at the traiteur's and afterwards 
 lingered away an hour at the Ambigu Comique, a kind 
 of Sadler's Wells on the Boulevards. Bode this morning 
 on part of them, and was charmed with the villas and 
 various buildings ; they are planted on each side with 
 trees. 
 
 February 7. — Bode along the avenue from the 
 Barrier, surrounded with gincjuettes pour faire cles noces 
 etfestins, through La Chapelle to St. Denis. Saw among* 
 a crowd of monarchs Henry IV., Francis I., Hugh Capet, 
 and Turenne ; among the curiosities, the beautiful onyx 
 vase mentioned by Gray, on which is sculptured in basso- 
 relievo the rites of Bacchus, referred to the time of 
 Ptolemy. Saw relics of saints in abundance. A silver 
 
144 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 bell most musical. Went at five to the Schools of 
 Painting in the Louvre, and saw about thirty students 
 drawing and moulding in terra-cotta the figure of a man 
 who lay naked in the centre in an oblique posture, his 
 right hand extended and his left shading his eyes. The 
 same number above drawing a man suspended by both 
 his arms in pulleys. Went afterwards to the Theatre du 
 Palais Eoyal and saw the ‘ Seigneur Suppose.’ 
 
 February 8. — Rode with Mr. Keay along the road to 
 Versailles. Passed Passy, the village from which Pilatre 
 de Rosier first ascended in a balloon, and saw the house 
 in which Dr. Franklin lived, a white house with green 
 windows. At Sevres saw the beautiful china in a princely 
 house, and proceeded by several houses to Versailles, 
 now a desert. Like the deserted town in the ‘ Arabian 
 Nights 5 silence has laid her finger on it. Saw amidst a 
 number of statues Jupiter Stator before which Augustus 
 and the Caesars made vows. It had stood in the palace, 
 but commanded too much respect there. Saw the ‘ Witch 
 of Endor,’ by Salvator Rosa, ‘ Alexander in the Tent of 
 Darius ’ by Le Brun, and ‘ Charles I.’ by Vandyke ; the 
 Church of the Convent of the Augustines, and the room in 
 which the Assembly first met — all perfect in their kind. 
 Some Swiss exercising there. Dined with Mr. Keay. 
 Went afterwards to the Societe des Amis de la Constitu- 
 tion. Passed through a long arched passage, and ascended 
 by a stone staircase into a long narrow room, with a low 
 vaulted roof, formerly the library of the Jacobins. Over the 
 recesses for the books were written ‘ Historiae profanae.’ 
 4 Interpretes Scripturae.’ ‘ SS. Patres,’ &c., with several 
 portraits of nuns and abbots. An inquiry into the affair 
 
THE CONQUERORS OF THE BASTILLE 
 
 145 
 
 of La Chapelle was before them, the room full, 300 
 or 400 present. A fulmination against the Societe 
 Monarchique. The conquerors of the Bastille presented 
 themselves, three plain modest men, thanked them for 
 having been chosen members of their Society, presented 
 them with a book, and desired leave to put themselves 
 under the protection of the Society, as they had reason 
 to expect every moment to be assassinated. The 
 President replied that every citizen was under the pro- 
 tection of the law, that assassins seldom attacked men of 
 true courage, that if they maintained that character they 
 had hitherto borne they would be always dear to every 
 friend of his country, and that in the hour of danger 
 every member of that Society would stand foremost in the 
 defence of men who deserved so well of their country. 
 
 February 9. — Saw with Mr. Iveay the chapel of the 
 Carmelites in which is a beautiful Guido, but ill-engraved 
 by Strange ; and Madame La Valliere in the character of 
 a Magdalene, the chef d* oeuvre of Le Brun. Le Yal de 
 Grace, a gaudy church, and the chapel of the Carthu- 
 sians, but Le Sueur’s ‘ History of St. Bruno ’ is 
 removed to the Louvre and lies packed up. Walked into 
 the stone quarries (near Yal de Grace), that undermine 
 the city — three miles one way and a mile and a half the 
 other ; walked above half an hour ; saw a cavity into 
 which the nuns of Yal de Grace were let down when in 
 disgrace, and fed with bread, dropped down by a string. 
 Saw the workmen employed, several air-holes, could walk 
 for days a different route, many branches and turns ; were 
 conducted by a pleasant lively fellow. At Notre Dame 
 heard Mass, saw a good picture of Le Sueur’s, and from 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the top of the great tower saw the city intersected by the 
 Seine and crowded with churches, convents and palaces, 
 the environs rich and woody and gay with chateaus and 
 villages — a much better view than from St. Paul's. The 
 day favourable. The pavement of Paris bad — the stones 
 being cut square and not oblong are soon worn round by 
 the feet of the horses ; the lights of Paris dazzling, from 
 their hanging in the centre before the eyes of the coach- 
 man, but the lamp sooner cleaned and repaired from its 
 construction being an octagon with framed glass. 
 
 Dined at Perigord’s with Mr. Payn, Mr. Hartley, 
 Mr. Lockhart, and several Englishmen. Went to the 
 opera, and saw Renaud with a divertissement . 
 
 February io. — Rode with Mr. Keay by the Duke of 
 Orleans’s English garden and a barrier, a very beautiful 
 Grecian Rotunda by the side of it to Pont Neuilly, a very 
 elegant bridge, with six elliptical arches, on the top of a 
 direct plane. The country round it beautiful. Rode 
 through the Bois de Boulogne, chiefly young wood, where 
 the king generally rides every morning — to Bagatelle, 
 Comte d’ Artois’s small house, not inelegant, with a 
 garden, a false imitation of the English. Passed 
 Madrid, a gothic chateau built by Francis I. after his 
 return from Spain, inlaid with porcelain, but now ruin- 
 ous, and sentenced to fall by the National Assembly. 
 Saw Longchamps, a little hill with a nunnery on its 
 summit, in which are musical performances the three 
 last days of Passion week. A few years ago a favourite 
 opera-singer was engaged there, and the crowd from 
 Paris was far too great to be accommodated. The day 
 being fine numbers amused themselves with riding in 
 
KEY OLUTIONAR Y SOCIETIES 
 
 147 
 
 the Bois de Boulogne. The thing took, and in these 
 days every year all Paris in its best equipages pours out 
 to parade in the Bois de Boulogne. The palace of 
 Versailles, almost entirely built from a hunting seat by 
 Louis XIV., who did not like St. Germain’s, a finer situa- 
 tion, as it commanded St. Denis, where he was to be 
 buried. Saw St. Cloud, the queen’s house, where the 
 king resided last summer, a very elegant modern house 
 — the gardens are in infamous taste. A beautiful day. 
 Walked with Mr. Keay in the Tuileries — full of company. 
 Saw the dauphin’s garden and duckery at the end of it, 
 in which his name was sown in mustard seed — Louis 
 Dauphin. Fair people always inconstant and wavering. 
 W'ent to the Bouche de Fer, a debating society on the 
 principles of Rousseau, in the Circus, his bust before the 
 President, the Abbe Mailly — a numerous company. 
 Afterwards saw ‘ The Apothecary ’ and ‘ Sourd ’ at M. de 
 Montpensier’s, and looked into the Society of ’89 — nothing- 
 doing — went to the Jacobins, but it was over. If one 
 hundred millions have been spent on building it, as much 
 has been spent on going to see it. Chatelet not at the 
 Jacobins, because no favourite, as his friend Lafayette 
 is not popular. 
 
 February 12 . — A delicious day. Rode to Vincennes, 
 where is a palace in a very pleasant park, in which our 
 Henry V. died, and in which Louis XIV. first saw 
 Madame La Valliere, a chapel with beautiful painted 
 windows (mentioned by Gray) and a State prison, 
 chamber within chamber, lighted by a narrow grated 
 window and carved on the walls of each, to chase ennui 
 from the victims of tyranny. From the roof is a deli- 
 
148 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 cions view of the suburbs of Paris and the country, and 
 round each story runs a gallery with a low parapet, 
 into which some of the prisoners were taken for air. 
 Who can sigh on seeing the still gloom that pervades. 
 Versailles, the grandest palace and the most elegant 
 village in the world — who can sigh on seeing the grass 
 grow in the courts of the one and the streets of the 
 other, when he recollects that so many dungeons share 
 its downfall ? Dined at the table d’hote, and afterward 
 walked along the Seine and saw La Sainte Chapelle, 
 mixed in every group that was collected by the buffoon 
 and the ballad-singer, and walked in the Tuileries, which 
 were full of company. Saw ‘ Cupid and Psyche.’ 
 
 February 13. — At the Church of Notre Dame, from a 
 gallery, saw three cures elected by the Electoral Assembly 
 in the great aisle ; each from the pulpit delivered a short 
 discourse expressive of his attachment to the present 
 constitution. He said that his office as preacher was to 
 enlighten the people, and give energy to the laws ; that 
 heaven approved of the Confederation, and that to incul- 
 cate these sentiments would be the last employment of 
 his life. High Mass performed. Afterwards the king and 
 queen, with the two children and Monsieur and Madame 
 walked to chapel. Saw them at Mass afterwards. The 
 Tuileries gardens very full of company. Attempted 
 the National Assembly with Mirabeau’s ticket, but was 
 refused : nobody admitted there. Mr. Keay dined with 
 us on frog pie, and we went to see ‘ Didon ’ and ‘ Le Devin 
 du Village,’ an opera, the words and the music by 
 Kousseau, the fable very simple, the music in general 
 charming. To-morrow leave Paris. 
 
ROUSSEAU 
 
 149 
 
 February 14. — Mr. Keay called and spent an hour 
 with us, and said the Protestants were numerous in this 
 town, but that all calculations were very erroneous and 
 that there was no place of public worship but the English 
 Ambassador’s chapel ; that the king had allowed twenty 
 thousand a year to the opera, but not now, and owing to 
 this circumstance and the noblesse having thrown up 
 their boxes, it was in debt fifty thousand to its tradesmen ; 
 the Theatre de Monsieur also much in debt ; that in one of 
 the churches at Rouen he saw nobody but a woman flat 
 on the ground apparently in the greatest agony, that he 
 watched till she rose up and went out — he had the curi- 
 osity to see her face, it was the wickedest in the world. 
 Said that Eousseau copied music at Paris, when he had 
 about 100Z. a year, but would not accept anything more 
 than his due, as he (Mr. Keay) was told last night by a 
 lady, who took him some to copy, purposely to see him, but 
 that when she offered to leave more his wife assured her 
 that he would not suffer her to take it ; that the Revolu- 
 tion was in great measure ascribed to his ‘ Contrat Social,’ 
 but that Voltaire with his winning vivacity first led the 
 Erench to think on the subject ; that he saw him when 
 he was received at the French Comedy with great 
 honours, just after the present king had refused to see 
 him at Versailles, though in policy he should have gone 
 to meet him, and that that affair was the first blow to 
 the old government; that he knew Diderot perfectly, 
 and saw him just before his death ; his advice to him he 
 should always observe : ‘ Never let a Frenchman come 
 nearer to you than this,’ said he, stretching out his arm 
 to some distance in his usual emphatic manner. The 
 
150 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 air mild and pleasant as October, but cloudy. The 
 country soon improved with some rich distances, and 
 villages everywhere on the horizon, but was still open 
 and flat on the foreground and intersected with roads 
 planted on each side with trees in straight lines. The 
 ground almost all tillage, and the farmers at the plough — 
 a single man guides it. It is drawn by two horses 
 abreast, and no other man attends with a whip, as in 
 England. Our post-boy had ruffles and earrings, and 
 drove as fast as in England. Kecollect that in the Paris, 
 houses there are no passages, but that we always passed 
 through the eating parlour in our way to the drawing- 
 room. Saw frequently two smiths shoeing one horse. 
 At Senlis where are two or three old collegiate churches,, 
 we walked along a pleasant promenade that runs beside 
 the town and saw near twenty women washing clothes in 
 the little river Nonette, and beating them with a wooden 
 trowel. From thence passed through the Prince de 
 Conde’s woods, being now near Chantilly, along a serpen- 
 tine road to Pont St. Maxence, so called from an elegant 
 bridge with three elliptic arches on strong pillars, and 
 a good towing-path built by Maxence, who built Pont 
 Neuilly and is now engaged on Pont Louis Seize. The 
 view from the bridge very rich and woody on both sides. 
 On the roadside from Bourgot were frequently four 
 handsome stone pillars forming a square — on inquiring 
 found they were gibbets. Walked in the village, full of 
 rosy healthy children with black eyes and round merry 
 faces. On stopping to admire them a woman pleasantly 
 asked us if we would have a coop to take some of them 
 away with us. At the church door saw two little fellows 
 
ON THE ROAD TO BRUSSELS 
 
 151 
 
 striding over the pathway with spelling-books under their 
 arms. On the pillar that formed one side of the portico 
 was fixed a board full of nails, with several written 
 advertisements of wood and houses upon it, as in some 
 of the country churchyards in England. The river 
 Oise winds here very pleasantly through the valley. 
 Arrived here at half-past four, and on inquiry learnt, with 
 regret, that last night there had been a dance of about two 
 hundred people, with three or four violins, in the ‘ Grand 
 Salon ’ by the riverside, and eight dances at a time — one 
 sous for each dance. Played an noble jeu de billard , a 
 favourite game among the townspeople. In the coffee- 
 house at Versailles the labouring people of both sexes 
 drank coffee and talked politics. Saw a drunken man 
 there, the only one I have seen. 
 
 February 15. — Set out at half-past six through a flat 
 country and along a straight road. Near Gournay, 
 which lies in a hollow, the scene became more unequal 
 and woody. A chateau stands just without the town. 
 Here walked on, while the horses were changing, and had 
 an extensive but uniform view on the left, the larks sing- 
 ing and the air mild and serene. The young corn 
 springing up in different streaks with the freshest 
 verdure, and a file of beeches skirting the edge of the 
 horizon on each side, while little plots of villages appeared 
 here and there. Beyond Couchy les Pots left the chaise, 
 and walked above a mile under a row of apple-trees that 
 were planted on the field-side — the sun shining and the 
 larks still singing. Breakfasted at Boye, at the ‘ Soleil 
 d’or,’ where we were waited on by some very handsome 
 young women, the younger sisters of our landlady at 
 
152 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Pont St. Maxence. Walked on a pleasant terrace, which 
 surrounds the village, and is dignified with the name of 
 a rampart. A Hard was levied from us by some boys to 
 play for at top. At some little distance saw a convent 
 now nearly deserted by the monks of the Cordeliers. The 
 day soon turned to heavy rain which lasted till within 
 a post of Peronne — but the country continued flat and 
 the prospect extensive, diversified with streaks of corn 
 and fallow ground melting away into the softest colours 
 through the harmonising medium of a rainy atmosphere. 
 The crucifix rose frequently by the wayside, a windmill 
 was generally turning on an eminence, and several spires 
 were frequently visible at once above the horizon. Passed 
 by several orchards and soon descended to Peronne, a 
 fortified town round which the Somme is carried, and 
 into which we entered through two gateways. Ascended 
 the ramparts by a crucifix before which a well-dressed 
 woman was devoutly kneeling ; commanded on one side 
 the outskirts of the town, and on the other a valley 
 nearly half a mile wide and flooded with water, but 
 broken into little islands planted with cabbages or 
 covered with willows and rushes. Observed two little 
 towers enclosed with strong square walls that were each 
 washed by the water and comprehended about half an 
 acre. Imagined they were castles, but found them to 
 be summer-houses in which the bourgeois dine and drink 
 tea. From one part looked up the great street and the 
 market-place. Descended into the town by the crucifix 
 but the scene was changed, some children playing merrily 
 before it. Every Sunday evening is here consecrated 
 to the dance in which the bourgeois and the servants are 
 
ON THE ROAD TO BRUSSELS 
 
 153 
 
 regularly taught ; an academy is open for the latter 
 to-night. 
 
 At Marche le Pot met the Brussels diligence, a long un- 
 wieldy vehicle, containing eight inside passengers in three 
 rows, three in a kind of cabriolet in front, two in a basket 
 at the top, and an immense [mass of] luggage behind and 
 before. It was drawn by eight horses, two abreast, with 
 two postilions on the first and third near horse. It had 
 hardly moved ten yards when it fell into a deep rut ; a 
 cry of despair immediately issued from it, the passengers 
 jumped out from the front and crawled from the top, 
 and the women within desired with great fervency to he 
 let out. Above twenty people flew with ropes to restore 
 it to its proper centre, and with great efforts it was re- 
 moved from the rut without a downfall. In the mean- 
 time a cheerful fellow, who had descended from his post 
 in front with the same ease and unconcern that he would 
 have crossed a threshold, walked up to our chaise door 
 and inquired what news from Paris and whether we 
 were going to London. He said he was a Dutchman, 
 and a rope-dancer by profession ; that he had served 
 under Astley in London and also at Sadler’s Wells, and 
 was now engaged by him at Paris, to which place he was 
 going. At Boye had left the diligence from Paris to 
 Brussels where it stood — the gaze of the market-place. 
 In the bookseller’s shop in the Palais Boyal asked for the 
 ‘ History of the Bastille,’ and a well-dressed man imme- 
 diately opening it [the shopman] and unfolding a plan 
 of it, ‘There,’ said he, ‘was Marmontel confined, and 
 that,’ he added with all the unconcern possible, ‘was 
 my apartment.’ ‘You, sir?’ ‘Yes, sir, I published 
 
154 
 
 EABLY LIFE OF SAMUEL BOUEKS 
 
 something that gave offence, and I passed eight months 
 there.’ ‘ Were you well treated ? ’ ‘ Never better, sir.’ 
 
 Are lodged at the Grand Cerf, kept by the eldest sister 
 of those at Pont St. Maxence and Eoye. 
 
 February 16. — Set off at six precisely, by owl-light, 
 through the same flat country, and were driven by a 
 phlegmatic Fleming with a large round hat and a pipe 
 in his mouth. At Cambrai, a large handsome town 
 where we breakfasted, saw the cathedral, a large old 
 building, the gates of the chancel sealed, with the names 
 of the Commissioners affixed to them. A woman had 
 torn off part of the paper saying they should not keep 
 her God in gaol. Saw the tomb and bust of Fenelon, 
 with a very true Latin epitaph. The palace contiguous, 
 very old, the most modern part built by him. "Went 
 through the cloisters of the convent of Chartreuse and 
 saw a picture, by Kubens, of our Saviour taken down 
 from the Cross — very fine colouring, with some good 
 figures. Was shown it by one of the Fathers, a mild 
 cheerful man about fifty. We desired to see his apart- 
 ment ; he nodded assent and said it was but small. We 
 followed him up a brick staircase, that led from the 
 cloisters, into a long narrow gallery into which their 
 different cells opened with their names inscribed upon 
 them. His was indeed small, and consisted of a bed- 
 chamber and oratory, w 7 ith a little casement to each ; 
 altogether about twelve feet by six. I stepped into his 
 study ; there were several little phials on his desk, there 
 was but one book — a missal. He said they dined at 
 eleven, had no breakfast, but supped at six, went early 
 to bed and rose at twelve, wdien their matins lasted till 
 
VALENCIENNES AND MONS 
 
 155 
 
 one. There were but seventeen monks there. In a new 
 church lower clown saw some very good painting in bas- 
 relief. The Hotel de Ville, in the market-place, just 
 finished and very elegant. Left the town on foot, having 
 dismissed our guide — an old man who once lived in 
 England with Lord Stormont — and pursued the road to 
 Brussels, having a valley on the left in which was a village 
 shaded with trees. The country soon opened again, the 
 eye commanding a wide circle, diversified by no near 
 objects, but frequently pointed with above eight spires 
 at once. Valenciennes, which we soon approached, lay 
 low, but appeared very considerable from its towers and 
 steeples. It proved the largest town we had seen except 
 Paris, and was very strongly fortified. Walked on the 
 ramparts, but were stopped when we had completed but 
 half the circuit by a shower. Returned into the town 
 and crossed a very handsome jjlace, distinguished by a 
 pedestrian statue of Louis XV., an hotel de ville , and a 
 theatre. Saw the Hospital for Orphans, and the Citadel 
 — a modern brick building. From the ramparts had a 
 Flemish view — cold, tame, and watery. Here Boddington 
 bought a puppy of an apothecary. ‘ Otez vos cockades, 
 Messieurs.’ 
 
 February 17. — Set off before seven, and soon entered 
 the Emperor’s dominions, along a straight road planted 
 with willows, raised above the country, and terminated 
 with a church. The face of it soon improved. Mons, 
 where we breakfasted, is a large fortified town, with a 
 very handsome place, in which is the Hotel de Ville ; and 
 where the Austrian troops were exercising. The faces of 
 the people were here quite Flemish, and had lost all the 
 
156 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 French vivacity, but there were many very pretty 
 women. Between this and Valenciennes was a stone 
 pillar to the memory of the Prince of Hainault. Casteau, 
 the first post, was a very romantic village, the ground 
 broken, and the huts one above another. The landscape 
 now became English, a valley on each side full of farm- 
 houses and enclosures, and bounded by hills dotted 
 with wood. The road continued straight to Brussels. On 
 each side w r ere many Santa Marias, enclosed in a kind of 
 sentry-box and peeping through an iron lattice. Met 
 several strolling friars, one of whom was taken into a 
 coach by a fat cibbe. As we approached Brussels saw 
 low carts drawn by four dogs abreast and a horse as 
 leader. Austrian Flanders, at least that part which is 
 near the capital, is far pleasanter and more varied than 
 French Flanders. The post horse which the man rides has 
 bells. The uniform changed from blue and scarlet to 
 scarlet and yellow, and they were less scrupulous in 
 passing another traveller than in France. At Brussels 
 saw ‘ L’Amant jaloux,’ an opera, in an oblong theatre, 
 the boxes partitioned from each other and lighted within 
 — their fronts of wood, painted white, with light gold 
 ornaments, in compartments very cheerful and elegant. 
 The 'parterre full of officers. French dukes, marquises, 
 and counts here. 
 
 The glimpses of revolutionary Paris in this diary are 
 the more valuable because they give us its social rather 
 than its political aspects. It is ‘ France standing on the 
 top of golden hours/ as Wordsworth described it, though 
 without many of the signs Wordsworth saw, of ‘ human 
 
THE AUTHOR OF ‘ ZELUCO ’ 
 
 157 
 
 nature seeming born again.’ The hearty admiration of 
 England expressed to Rogers by some of the most promi- 
 nent leaders of the movement in France, was repaid on 
 the English side by the sympathy which all liberal minds 
 felt with Frenchmen. More than one illustration of this 
 feeling is given in Rogers’s correspondence. One of the 
 literary acquaintances he had made in London was Dr. 
 John Moore, the father of Sir John Moore and of Admiral 
 Sir Graham Moore, and then best known as the author 
 of ‘ Zeluco,’ the most popular novel of its time. Dr. 
 Moore had published, in 1779, 'Views of Society and 
 Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany,’ and in 
 1787 a similar book on Italy. He had also written 
 ‘ Medical Sketches * — a work which may have suggested 
 Warren’s ‘ Passages from the Diary of a late Physician,’ 
 as ‘ Zeluco ’ is said to have kindled the fancy of Byron and 
 led to the production of ‘ Childe Harold.’ ‘ Zeluco,’ which 
 has as a second title, ‘ Various Views of Human Nature 
 taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic,’ 
 was published in 1789, and Mrs. Barbauld says in her 
 Memoir of the author that it at once placed him in the 
 first rank of writers of that class. Rogers probably met Dr. 
 Moore at the house of Miss Helen Williams, and, different 
 as the two men were, a warm friendship sprang up between 
 them. Dr. Moore was a large man, with shaggy eyebrows 
 and a most expressive countenance ; shrewd and humor- 
 ous in conversation, full of knowledge of men and things. 
 He had been with the army in Flanders, had studied 
 medicine in Paris, had then practised as a surgeon in 
 Glasgow till he was forty, and had afterwards travelled 
 for five years with the Duke of Hamilton. He was in his 
 
158 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 sixtieth year when ‘ Zelnco ’ was published. Rogers had 
 probably received some introductions from him when he 
 went to Paris, and wrote to him during his stay in that 
 capital. Dr. Moore’s reply illustrates both the character of 
 the man and the feelings and opinions which were current 
 at the time. 
 
 Dr. Moore to S. Rogers . 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — I thank you very cordially for your letter, 
 which came a propos to destroy the effect of recent ru- 
 mours : of a counter revolution, of the king being in 
 danger of being ravished by two old princesses, of insur- 
 rections in all quarters, &c. — all of which your satisfactory 
 and perspicuous letter dispersed, as the fogs and clouds 
 are dispersed by the rays of the sun. The abettors of 
 despotism will be continually inventing stories of the 
 same kind, and we may expect to hear of Spaniards 
 jumping over the Pyrenean mountains, of the Emperor 
 giving peace to the Turks by the Pope’s orders, that he 
 may be at more leisure to make war on the Christians ; 
 of armies in disguise at the gates of Paris, and other 
 tales equally probable. Why should they not still hope 
 for the restoration of the Bastille, and the return of a 
 monarch in all the splendour of unlimited power ? Do 
 not the Jews still look for the coming of the Messiah ? 
 
 ‘ I envy your present opportunity very much of being 
 an eye-witness to the most complete triumph over tj 7 ranny 
 and debasing prejudices that Philosophy and the free 
 spirit of man ever enjoyed. I always loved the French 
 as an ingenious and amiable people ; I now admire them 
 as real and enlightened Franks, and am not surprised 
 
DR. MOORE ON THE REVOLUTION 159 
 
 --as many here seem to be — that the National Assembly 
 have made so little progress towards the establishment of 
 a steady free constitution, but I wonder rather that they 
 have made so much. It ought to be remembered that it 
 was an unforeseen accident (the foolish attack of Lambert 
 in the Tuileries) that threw the power so rapidly in their 
 hands, and although they had the spirit to seize it with 
 ability, yet they must have respect to the prejudices of 
 that very populace who were the immediate instruments 
 of transferring it to them. This no doubt clogs and 
 retards their progress in the rearing a stable and com- 
 modious structure of Freedom, but with a little time 
 I am persuaded ga ira a la demure perfection , and they 
 have my best wishes. Make my best compliments to M. 
 de Lafayette, and tell him so. If I can get over to Paris 
 in summer I shall carry letters to him from his friend 
 Colonel Fitzpatrick, and the Duchess of Devonshire. 
 
 ‘ I have not yet seen M. Dupont’s answer to Mr. 
 Burke. But you will bring what is most curious when 
 you come. 
 
 ‘ There is nothing new here, only some people imagine 
 that Pitt intends to send his veto by the Baltic and the 
 Mediterranean against the Empress’s seizing Constanti- 
 nople. Pour moi, je n’en sgai rien . 
 
 ‘ Adieu, my dear Bogers ! Believe me always, with 
 much esteem, sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ J. Moore. 
 
 ‘Clifford Street: February io, 1791.’ 
 
 Dr. Moore’s letter fitly ends a chapter, the notes to 
 which may be fairly regarded as the disappointing answer 
 
160 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 of history to the anticipations he expresses — anticipations 
 which Rogers, as his diary shows, fully shared. The 
 disillusion came quickly enough for them and for Europe. 
 We have but to put ourselves in their position to under- 
 stand the revulsion of feeling which in this country 
 threw back the cause of social and political reform for 
 forty years. Rogers looked back on this visit to Paris 
 in 1791 with a feeling of horror. He often spoke of 
 the men he had then seen, but he did not refresh his 
 memory by references to his diary, which he seems to 
 have put aside and almost forgotten. To read it would 
 have been indeed to walk among ruins and tombs. He 
 always recollected with a shudder that most of the men 
 he met were, at the very time he was talking to them 
 and sharing their glowing anticipations, standing, as 
 it were, with one foot in the grave. There are, perhaps, 
 few more moving spectacles in history than that of the 
 old Duchess-dowager de la Rochefoucauld, ‘ a figure never 
 seen now but in a picture frame/ talking to Rogers with 
 enthusiasm of the Revolution, declaring that she had 
 not felt her many infirmities since it began, and then 
 within eighteen months driven into exile and called to 
 witness the massacre of her son by the angry populace 
 he had lived to serve. Rogers himself, Talleyrand, and 
 Lafayette were almost the only men whose names occur 
 in this chapter who lived to see any approach to the 
 rearing of that ‘ stable and commodious structure of 
 freedom ’ which Dr. Moore hoped the French would in a 
 little time bring to perfection. The whole political life 
 of Rogers’s Whig friends in 1791, with the exception of 
 Richard Sharp, was spent under the cloud of public 
 
DISENCHANTMENT 
 
 161 
 
 disfavour and discouragement which settled down on all 
 political movements that seemed to look in the direc- 
 tion of popular enfranchisement. It was not till the time 
 of the great Reform Bill that the English people fully 
 recovered from the frightful apprehension, that triumphs 
 of philosophy and the free spirit of man over tyranny 
 and debasing prejudices, to use Dr. Moore’s words, 
 might lead in England, as they had led in France, to a 
 Reign of Terror. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Helen Williams — Conversation at her house — Merry and the Della 
 Cruscans — Journey through Wales, 1791 — Mrs. Barbauld’s Letter — 
 Visit to Dr. Parr, 1793. 
 
 The memorable visit to revolutionary Paris was only one 
 of the events of this year which Eogers has left on record. 
 On his return to London in the latter part of February, 
 he naturally resumed his morning journeys from Stoke 
 Newington to the banking house in Freeman’s Court. 
 On one of these daily journeys an event happened of which 
 he often spoke to his friends with some emotion. Mr. 
 Dyce reports it in the ‘ Table Talk ’ in his usual bald and 
 half-remembered manner, but the best and most vivid 
 account is given in the postscript to a letter addressed by 
 the Eev. John Mitford of Benhall to the Gentleman s 
 Magazine , soon after Eogers’s death . 1 Mr. Mitford, him- 
 self, in the letter, illustrates the premature confidence 
 with which some of Eogers’s friends spoke and wrote 
 about him, by expressing the opinion that Eogers had 
 left no diaries behind him. In the postscript Mr. Mit- 
 ford says — 
 
 ‘ The last drive I ever took with Mr. Eogers in his 
 chariot was one often previously made by us into the 
 City, to pay one of his regular calls on his oldest friend, 
 
 1 Gentleman' s Magazine , vol. xlv. p. 147. 
 
WESLEY LYING IN STATE 
 
 163 
 
 Mr. William Maltby of the London Institution, who had 
 been his schoolfellow more than eighty years previous to 
 this time, and who died a year or two before him, nearly 
 at the same age. In returning by the City Eoad, he 
 pulled the check-string opposite to the Bunhill Fields 
 Burial-ground, and then desired me to get out and read 
 the inscription on the stone which stands conspicuously 
 over the grave of the well-known Thomas Hardy. This 
 being done, he said : “ You see that little chapel opposite — 
 go and look carefully at the house which stands there to 
 the left of it, and then come back and get in.” This all 
 duly performed, and again seated side by side, he said : 
 ‘ 4 When I was a young man in the banking house, and 
 my father lived at Newington, I used every day in going 
 into the City to pass by this place. One day in returning 
 I saw a number of respectable persons of both sexes 
 assembled here, all well dressed in mourning, and with 
 very serious look and behaviour. The door of the house 
 was open, and they entered it in pairs. I thought that, 
 without impropriety, I might join them, so we all walked 
 upstairs, and came to a drawing-room in the midst of 
 which was a table ; on this table lay the body of a person 
 dressed in a clergyman’s robes, with bands, and his grey 
 hair shading his face on either side. He was of small 
 stature, and his countenance looked like wax. We all 
 moved round the table, some of the party much affected, 
 with our eyes fixed on the venerable figure that lay before 
 us ; and as we moved on, others came up and succeeded 
 in like manner. After we had gone the round of the 
 table in our lingering procession we descended as we 
 came. The person that lay before us was the celebrated 
 
164 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 John Wesley,- and at the earnest request of his congre- 
 gation, they were permitted to take this pathetic and 
 affectionate farewell of their beloved pastor.” ’ 
 
 Wesley died on the 2nd of March, 1791. Southey 
 does not mention this lying-in- state in the house in the 
 City Eoad, but only records that on the day before the 
 funeral, the body was carried into the chapel, ‘ and there 
 lay in a kind of state becoming the person, dressed in 
 his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band ; the old 
 clerical cap on his head, a Bible in one hand, and a 
 white handkerchief in the other.’ The crowds that flocked 
 to see him were so great that the funeral was accelerated, 
 and took place between five and six in the morning. The 
 scene which Bogers so vividly remembered, in which he 
 had been privileged to catch a glimpse of the great man’s 
 face as he lay dead, must have been an earlier and more 
 private lying-in-state than that which Southey records. 1 
 
 Two of Rogers’s distinctive characteristics were his 
 faculty of rapid and correct observation and his retentive 
 memory. He used to say that Samuel Boddington, his 
 companion in the visit to revolutionary Paris, attended 
 a series of lectures on Memory, delivered by the Stokes of 
 those days, Mr. Feinaigle, but on being asked the name 
 of the lecturer, could not recollect it. Rogers was asked 
 why he did not attend the series. He answered that he 
 wished to learn the art of forgetting. The remarkable 
 volume of his ‘ Recollections ’ published by his nephew 
 Mr. William Sharpe after his death, has shown the 
 
 1 Mr. Dyce in the last edition of his ‘ Table Talk ’ quotes Mr. Mitford’s 
 letter, and expresses the opinion that Rogers’s memory had played 
 him false. The view I have taken of the apparent discrepancy is, I 
 think, far the most likely to be the true explanation. 
 
A LITERARY PARTY 
 
 165 
 
 wonderful power he possessed of noting down the actual 
 words he had heard in a long conversation. The earliest 
 illustration which his diaries contain of this power of 
 reproducing an evening’s talk, is an account of a conver- 
 sation at the house of Miss Helen Williams. At one of 
 her literary parties he met Henry Mackenzie, whose 
 acquaintance he had already made in Edinburgh, and 
 a number of other men and women of letters, some of 
 whom were then famous, but are now forgotten, and one 
 or two of whom were then comparatively unknown, but 
 are now familiar names after nearly a hundred years. 
 
 ‘April 21, 1791. — At Miss Williams’s. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie, a man of very mild and unassuming 
 manners, was first announced, and began upon Edin- 
 burgh. “I believe,” said he, “conversation is more 
 cultivated there than here. In London the ardour of 
 pursuit is greater. The merchant, the lawyer, and the 
 physician are enveloped in their different professional 
 engagements, but the Scotchman will retire early from 
 the counter or the counting-house to lecture on Meta- 
 physics, or make the grand tour of the arts and sciences. 
 I believe we have a more contemplative turn than you, 
 and it arises partly from a defect— the little commerce 
 and agriculture we have among us. We are also more 
 national, and there is not a labourer among us that is 
 not versed in the history of his country. Local history 
 is what we are particularly fond of.” 
 
 ‘ “ I had observed it,” I said. “ Not a Highlander I 
 met but could give me the history of every pebble about 
 his village.” 
 
1(56 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie : “ I remember an innocent trick that 
 was once played on an Englishman. When Dr. Roebuck 
 was riding in Scotland, he was assured by a friend that 
 every peasant knew Greek. ‘ Let us visit, for instance, that 
 farmhouse ! ’ Dr. Roebuck assented. It belonged to 
 Wilkie, the celebrated author of the ‘ Epigoniad,’ and he 
 was at work as usual in the dress of a labourer. Dr. 
 Roebuck made an observation on tillage. ‘ Yes, sir,' said 
 Wilkie, ‘ but in Sicily there was once a different method,’ 
 and he quoted Theocritus. Dr. Roebuck was thunder- 
 struck. Wilkie was an original character. He had 
 conversed so long with the ancients that he had lost 
 every trace of the modern in his composition. When he 
 paid Edinburgh a visit at a time that party ran high on 
 some particular subject, he attacked the leading wits of 
 the day in a large circle with such spirit that he set them 
 to flight, and when his hearers, who were struck with the 
 uncouthness of his look and gesture, expressed their 
 surprise at his courage : ‘ Shall I,’ said he, ‘ who have 
 kept company so long with Agamemnon, the king of 
 men, shall I shrink from a contest with such a puny 
 race ? ’ But after all,” said Mr. Mackenzie, returning to 
 his subject, “ Dr. Johnson was perhaps right when he 
 said of us that every man had a taste, and no man a 
 bellyful.” 
 
 ‘ “ And yet you will allow that there are many ex- 
 ceptions to the last part of the rule, sir ? ” said Miss Baillie, 
 a very pretty woman with a very broad Scotch accent. 
 “Mr. Adam Smith ” 
 
 ‘“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Mackenzie interrupted with a 
 warmth he seldom discovered, “Mr. Smith was an excep- 
 
THE LAST LAYS OF ADAM SMITH 
 
 167 
 
 tion. He had twice Dr. Johnson's learning — who only 
 knew one language well, the Latin — though he had none 
 of his affectation of it. He was one of the mildest and 
 most amiable of men, a good son, an affectionate brother, 
 and a sincere friend. The last time we met was at a 
 club which was held every Sunday evening at his own 
 house. — I had once the pleasure to see you there, sir. 1 — 
 He was very cheerful, but we persuaded him not to sup 
 with us, and he said, about half-past nine, as he left the 
 room : ‘ I love your company, gentlemen, but I believe I 
 must leave you — to go to another world.’ He died a 
 few hours after. Before I came that evening he had 
 burnt, with the assistance of Dr. Black, sixteen volumes 
 in manuscript on Jurisprudence — the sum of one course of 
 his Lectures at Glasgow, as was the ‘ Wealth of Nations ’ 
 of another ; but these had not received his last correc- 
 tions, and from what he had seen he had formed a mean 
 opinion of posthumous publications in general. With a 
 most retentive memory his conversation was solid beyond 
 that of any man. I have often told him after half-an- 
 hour’s conversation — ‘ Sir, you have said enough to make 
 a book.’ Dr. Blair by these means introduced many of 
 Adam Smith’s thoughts on Jurisprudence into his lec- 
 tures, but when I told him of it — ‘ He is very welcome,’ 
 said he, ‘ there is enough left.’ ” 
 
 * I enquired after his old servant. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie : “ He was provided with a place in 
 the Custom House at the request of everybody. Mr. 
 Smith left the bulk of his fortune to his nephew, a very 
 clever young man. But perhaps the Scotch cannot 
 
 1 See Bogers’s visit to Edinburgh, p. 96. 
 
168 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 claim him entirely, for he received part of his education 
 at Oxford.” 
 
 ‘ During this conversation came Dr. Cadogan, Mr. 
 Jerningham, Dr. Baillie, and Cadell with his daughter. 
 Tea now walked in, and drew a disquisition on its merits 
 from Dr. Cadogan. Dr. Johnson’s immoderate love of 
 it was mentioned, and the remark brought him again 
 upon the carpet. Lord Monboddo’s contempt of his 
 Dictionary was mentioned. Mr. Seward (who now intro- 
 duced Mr. Merry, a very genteel, handsome man) said 
 he had silenced him with quoting James Harris’s high 
 opinion of it, and that when somebody had given John- 
 son a list of its imperfections — “Are those all?” said 
 he ; “ I thought there had been a thousand more.” Mr. 
 Mackenzie said Johnson’s greatest fault was in rejecting 
 every word from the Saxon. 
 
 * As the tea went round the sugar suggested the slave 
 trade and the late debate. 
 
 ‘ Dr. Cadogan thought it the most disgraceful evening 
 ever spent by the House of Commons. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie thought the immediate abolition 
 dangerous in its consequences in the islands. So did 
 Dr. Baillie and Mr. Cadell. Mr. Cadell said a whole 
 people was not chargeable with any solitary acts of 
 cruelty, and instanced a late case of a chimney-sweeper’s 
 apprentice. 
 
 4 Mr. Mackenzie : “You should consider not the act 
 itself, but its impression on the minds of the people. 
 An English mob would, I doubt not, massacre the 
 chimney-sweeper in a moment ; but I fear the Jamaica 
 people view barbarity with unconcern.” 
 
LITERARY TALK AT MISS WILLIAMS'S 
 
 169 
 
 ‘ Mr. Merry said he believed it indeed, and he blushed 
 for his country. 
 
 ‘ The company then rose up to read a small poem of 
 Mr. Day’s, of which Mr. Seward proposed an emendation — 
 
 4 Turns on his hunters and then valiant falls. 
 
 ‘ There were different opinions ; and different groups 
 were formed. Mr. Jerningham asked me concerning the 
 fate of Mr. Merry’s play. I fear, said he, that his style 
 is too artificial for tragedy. 
 
 ‘ In another place stood Dr. Moore, Mr. Merry, and 
 Cadell on Boswell and Johnson and Piozzi; and in 
 another stood Seward and Mackenzie and Dr. Kippis in 
 judgment on the poem. Mr. Mackenzie said that Robert 
 Burns had lately written a beautiful poem in Scotch, 
 called the “ Kirk of Alloa .” 1 It fell flat towards the 
 conclusion. 
 
 ‘Mr. Mackenzie : “ The same young man who wrote 
 the German tragedy mentioned in the Edinburgh Trans- 
 actions, has since published another, full of uncommon 
 merit and more regular, the last scene particularly 
 striking. A nobleman’s son in love with a musician’s 
 daughter is induced by his father, who is an enemy to 
 the match, to think her false, and in a frenzy he stabs 
 her. Her innocence then appears, and he stabs his 
 father and himself. The German works appear to great 
 disadvantage here, as they are translated from the French 
 only, which is very bad, the translators gliding over 
 every difficulty. I have learnt a little German since that 
 
 1 This is * Tam o’ Shanter.’ It was written for Captain Grose in 
 return for a drawing of Alloway Kirk, and published in Grose’s 
 Antiquities of Scotland. 
 
170 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 paper of mine appeared, and I am now struck with their 
 tragedies particularly, though the unities are not ob- 
 served.” 
 
 ‘ I said, only one of those was of consequence — unity 
 of character. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie : “ Mr. Smith wrote a charming piece 
 on that subject in a periodical paper at Glasgow, in 
 which Lord Loughborough engaged, but which was soon 
 dropt, the parties being discovered.” 
 
 ‘ Mr. Jerningham inquired after Dr. Beattie. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie said his spirits were naturally low, 
 and were now still lower from family affliction, the con- 
 finement of his wife, and the death of his son. He then 
 adverted to Lord Monboddo. He is a friend of the slave 
 trade because the ancients encouraged it. He bathes 
 every morning in a cold and a hot bath, and afterwards 
 anoints himself because they did so. 
 
 ‘ “ Aye,” said Mr. Seward, “ I remember that circum- 
 stance drew a pun from Johnson, notwithstanding his 
 aversion to puns. ‘ That man of Grease,’ said he. I 
 laughed at it, and he affected to be angry, and said he 
 did not intend a pun.” 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie : “ When I congratulated him (Lord 
 Monboddo) on his recovery from a fever, he assured me 
 it was not one of your modern nervous fevers but a true 
 Roman fever, a burning fever. He complains that the 
 present race have no voice now he grows deaf and often 
 desires the barristers to speak up.” 
 
 ‘ Mr. Seward : “ He is come to town partly to buy an 
 ourang-outang, that he may take him to Edinburgh and 
 teach him to talk and think.” 
 
LITERARY TALK AT MISS WILLIAMS S 
 
 171 
 
 ‘ Mr. Mackenzie : “ He has been often imposed upon 
 with baboons which have passed for that species, particu- 
 larly with one which had been taught to walk w r ith a 
 stick and was afterwards shown in Edinburgh.” 
 
 ‘ I observed that Lord Monboddo had that day se’en- 
 night asserted that no man in the House of Commons 
 could make or deliver a period but Mr. Pitt, and no man 
 recite Milton but the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 ‘Dr. Kippis : “He is a great enemy to short sen- 
 tences, but he is wrong in his notion of the sentence of 
 the ancients.” 
 
 ‘Mr. Mackenzie: “His admiration of Milton is how 
 so high, that he begins to think it unintelligible to the 
 vulgar. He once set Macklin to read it, but found so 
 much fault with him, that he threw the book to his 
 lordship saying : ‘ Do read it yourself.’ He admires Mrs. 
 Siddons, but does not think she does justice to Milton. 
 He once saw her act the lady in Comus.” 
 
 ‘ The circle now contracted to Mr. Jerningham, Mr. 
 Merry, Mr. Seward, Dr. Moore, the ladies, and myself. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Merry said he should pass the summer in France 
 and that he knew Madame de Condorcet. Asked me if 
 I had ever played at a kind of question and answer at 
 her house with the Abbe Sieyes. Mentioned also another 
 game similar to our blind man’s buff. He said Con- 
 dorcet’s house was charmingly seated on the Seine, of 
 which I knew nothing, as I had paid my visits there at 
 night. 
 
 ‘Mr. Jerningham asked me doubtingly if Paris was 
 quiet. 
 
 c Mr. Merry said he had walked at midnight to his 
 
172 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 lodgings from the Palais Royal frequently with no 
 alarm. 
 
 4 1 said I admired Madame de Condorcet, and that if 
 I left England again it would be with Sir Charles Gran- 
 dison’s resolution to form no attachment. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Merry : “ Sir Charles is translated into Italian and 
 universally laughed at by the Italian ladies, among whom 
 there are no Clementinas. Sir Charles wore a wig, and 
 the coach and six are continually coming in. Do you 
 remember Sir Charles’s wig ? Lovelace’s wig fell off in a 
 most affecting situation. Wig- stealing was once a very 
 lucrative profession, when wigs sold for fifty pounds 
 apiece. Many a man has had his wig snatched off, 
 when he put his head out of the coach window to 
 speak to his coachman.” 
 
 ‘ Mr. Jerningham said Richardson was ridiculed at 
 Florence when he was there. 
 
 ‘ Dr. Moore mentioned Voltaire’s contempt of Clarissa 
 who thought Tomlinson and — which was the good char- 
 acter ? “ Lovelace,” said Merry — a laugh. 
 
 ‘ Miss Williams said that Mrs. Siddons read Clarissa 
 at Streatham last autumn for the first time, and was 
 much struck with it. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Merry asked if she felt on the stage. I said she 
 had assured me she did. 
 
 ‘ Dr. Moore : “ It is impossible. Good acting requires 
 a cool judgment and a clear memory. It is not acting 
 your own part but another’s. What a burden must 
 so many different characters be to the memory ! Yet 
 an old actor will forget his lesson of last night, and 
 learn another for this evening, as easily as you can 
 
LITERARY TALK AT MISS WILLIAMS’S 
 
 173 
 
 change yonr clothes. What is very singular, they never 
 want more than their part of the dialogue.” 
 
 ‘ The conversation now turned upon feeling. 
 
 ‘ Dr. Moore : “ We are struck differently by the same 
 thing. ‘ I remember,’ says Eousseau, ‘ a fine picture by Le 
 Sueur — the subject, Alexander drinking the physic pre- 
 scribed by Philip, at the same time that he puts a letter 
 into that physician’s hand, a letter which accuses him of 
 an intention to poison him. Everybody was struck with 
 the piece, but particularly a boy who shuddered at the 
 sight. Upon being questioned concerning the reason, he 
 said it was to think that he could drink so black a dose.” 
 ‘Mr. Jerningham took his leave, and it was observed 
 that he was aristocratic, though one of his brothers who 
 lived at Naples has been obliged to leave it on account 
 of the freedom of his language. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Seward : “ Mrs. Montagu, too, is an aristocrat 
 and a friend to the slave trade. But I suspect her of 
 art. She has often diverted me with instances of Dr. 
 Price’s simplicity.” 
 
 ‘ I said Mrs. Montagu was a composition of art. 
 She has so long been attached to the trick and show of 
 life, as Mrs. Piozzi expressed it of her, that she has no 
 taste for the simplicity of a great mind. The genuine 
 soul of nature has forsaken her . 1 
 
 \This was not the general opinion respecting Mrs. Montagu, 
 though it is a most striking circumstance that two observers like 
 Mackenzie and Rogers should have agreed in it. Lord Bath, as we learn 
 from a note of Croker’s, said of Mrs. Montagu that he did not believe a 
 more perfect human being was ever created. Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 repeated the words to Burke with the observation that Lord Bath could 
 not have said more. ‘ And I do not think that he said a word too much,’ 
 
174 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ “ What a beautiful expression is that of Paine ! ” 
 said Mr. Merry ; and the next — “ His hero or his heroine 
 must be a tragedy victim,” &c. — and again “We have 
 dropped our baby-clothes and breeched ourselves in 
 manhood.” He seemed a warm admirer of Paine. 
 
 ‘ On the feeling of actors Mr. Seward observed that 
 Garrick affected to feel his part deeply, and that one 
 night when Johnson spoke loud between the scenes, 
 Garrick, who was acting Richard, cried out, “ Don’t talk 
 so loud, you disturb my feelings ! ” “ Pooh ! ” said John- 
 son, “ can Pouch [as he pronounced it always] feel ? ” ’ 
 
 The Mr. Seward mentioned in the above conversa- 
 tion was not the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield, the father 
 of Miss Seward the poetess, a man whom Johnson 
 described as having the ambition to be a fine talker, and 
 as going to Buxton and such places where he might find 
 companies to listen to him. It was Mr. William Seward, 
 F.R.S., of whom Johnson had spoken in a letter to Bos- 
 well in 1777. as a great favourite at Streatham, who 
 had edited a book entitled “ Anecdotes of Distinguished 
 Persons.’ Boswell acknowledges indebtedness to him for 
 several communications concerning Johnson. He was 
 forty-four at the time of the above conversation, and 
 died eight years later, in 1799. Robert Merry is chiefly 
 remembered as one of the writers attacked by Gifford in 
 the ‘ Baviad ’ and the ‘ Maeviad.’ He was the Della 
 Crusca of Gifford’s preface. He had been educated at 
 
 was Burke’s reply. Rogers knew Mrs. Montagu in her old age. She 
 was more than seventy when this conversation at Miss Williams’s took 
 place, and she died in 1800 at the age of eighty. 
 
THE DELLA CRUSCANS 
 
 175 
 
 Harrow and Christ’s College, Cambridge ; had studied 
 for the bar, and then joined the army as an officer in the 
 Guards. Having gone to Florence, where a group of 
 British poetasters were writing poems to one another in 
 the Florence Miscellany , he entered into the scheme, and 
 on his return to England became one of the leaders of a 
 school. With curious appropriateness they took their 
 name from the Della Cruscan Academy in Florence — a 
 Society formed in 1582 to winnow the chaff from the 
 Italian language and leave the pure wheat behind. The 
 English Della Cruscans were chaff without grain, bran 
 with the least possible admixture of flour : the mere 
 refuse the signature Della Crusca implied. Yet, for a 
 moment they met the public taste. Macaulay, in his 
 ‘ Essay on Byron,’ speaks of them as signs that a literary 
 revolution was at hand — ‘ There was a ferment ’ — he 
 tells us — ‘ in the minds of men, a vague craving for 
 something new, a disposition to hail with delight any- 
 thing that might at first sight wear the appearance of 
 originality.’ Hence the temporary success of writers 
 now utterly forgotten — ‘ anything which could break the 
 dull monotony of the correct school was acceptable.’ 
 ‘Macpherson and Della Crusca were to the true re- 
 formers of English poetry what Knipper doling was to 
 Luther or Clootz to Turgot.’ 1 The Della Cruscans were 
 the Spasmodics of their time. Gifford in the ‘ Baviad ’ 
 speaks of ‘ Merry’s Moorfields 2 whine,’ and rhymes it with 
 ‘ Greathead’s idiot line.’ In the ‘ Mseviad ’ he writes — 
 
 1 Essays, vol. ii., pp. 334, 335- 
 
 2 The great Bethlehem Hospital — the Bedlam of popular tradition — 
 stood in Moorfields. 
 
176 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 while Merry and his nurselings die, 
 
 Thrill’d with the liquid peril of an eye ; 
 
 Gasp at a recollection, and drop down, 
 
 At the long streamy lightning of a frown. 
 
 Mr. Jerningham’s criticism of Merry’s play that his 
 style was too artificial for tragedy was the gentle view 
 of one of his friends. Mr. Jerningham was himself one 
 of the Della Cruscans. Gifford writes : — 
 
 See snivelling Jerningham at fifty weep 
 O’er lovelorn oxen and deserted sheep, 
 
 and speaks of him as ‘ a gentleman with the physio - 
 gnomie d’un monton qui reve.’ He pours worse con- 
 tempt on Este and Topham, the parson and captain who 
 between them edited The World ; and who were literary 
 arbiters in the days when Gifford was beating pieces 
 of leather smooth, and working problems on them with 
 a blunted awl. Rogers used to say that he felt great 
 pleasure when told that Este had said of him : ‘A child 
 of Goldsmith, sir ; ’ and that, as reader at Whitehall, 
 Este read the service so beautifully that Mrs. Siddons 
 used to go to the Chapel Royal to listen to his elocution. 
 Gifford’s lash fell on this school in 1794 and 1796, and 
 scattered it to the winds. Merry went to America, and 
 Este died insane. 
 
 Rogers was now in his twenty-eighth year, and was 
 quietly at work in most of his leisure hours polishing 
 his second poem to perfection. Yet his life seems to have 
 been so full of business, visiting, and travel, that there was 
 little space left for serious work. His health was still 
 weak, and he was advised to take exercise on horseback. 
 
THROUGH BERKS TO CIRENCESTER 
 
 177 
 
 During the early summer of this year, 1791, he made a 
 journey in this fashion through a great part of Wales. 
 His quick observation and retentive memory have en- 
 abled him to hand down some valuable sketches of 
 South Wales as it was in the days of our great-grand- 
 fathers. 
 
 The diary of this journey is broken into two parts, 
 the first extending from the 17th to the 30th of June, 
 and the second from the 19th to the 22nd of July. The 
 volume containing the intervening period has probably 
 been lost. The entries chiefly consist of descriptions of 
 the scenery ; but there are now and then glimpses of 
 contemporary manners and of passing events. He 
 'begins by noting the solitude of the London streets at 
 four in the morning, which was the hour of starting, 
 and anticipates a common remark of travellers in these 
 days of railways, by saying that the rapidity of a stage- 
 coach allows no time for observation, so that the archi- 
 tecture of an Adam or the statuary of a Darner, Sion 
 Gate, and the Keystone of Henley Bridge, w 7 ere equally 
 unnoticed. He says that Abingdon market-place, and 
 Fairford church, where he probably stopped to see the 
 windows, left pleasing traces on his memory. ‘ In the 
 evening walked in the classic park of Lord Bathurst.’ 
 The day’s stage seems therefore to have been from 
 London, by way of Henley and Abingdon, to Cirencester. 
 The, next "day he ‘ rode with the keeper through Lord 
 Bathurst’s woods and saw a favourite seat of Pope,’ 
 and then on to Birdlip Hill, from which the counties 
 of Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester ‘ spread like a 
 carpet beneath ’ him. Thence through a delicious country 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 EAELY LTFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 to Ross, finding there a very agreeable and intelligent 
 apothecary, Mr. Pope, and sleeping in the house of the 
 ‘ M*an of Ross.’ The diary next day records a row upon 
 the river. 
 
 * 19th. — Left Ross at ten in a small boat with two 
 oars. The church bells chimed most musically, and the 
 sound came floating among the hills down the river 
 long after the spire had disappeared. Passed under the 
 bridge, and in a few minutes saw Wilton Castle just 
 above us on a green bank on the left, its round tower 
 and grated window mantled with ivy. These ruins 
 have no majesty, but they are very soothing, and strike 
 the mind as a first object. A little line of cottages lies 
 below them— the village of Wilton. Glided down the 
 stream under a sedgy shore on the right, the left fringed 
 with willows, and on the surface of the water floated 
 white flowers, here called greeds. . . . Ross spire con- 
 tinually sinks and rises to the eye of the voyager, and the 
 river, having formed a noble curve, now returns almost 
 up to it. A walk from the churchyard, called Kyrle’s 
 Walk, runs down to a summer-house which here over- 
 looks the river. A very steep and rich eminence, inter- 
 sected with hedgerows, among which are several cottages 
 and a little farmhouse called Weir-end, with its appen- 
 dages — a barn, a poultry-yard, and a haystack — now 
 presents itself, but soon sinks to the left, and is succeeded 
 by the humble village of Groson, a cluster of thatched 
 huts by the waterside, with their hanging gardens and 
 a succession of green enclosures ascending rapidly above 
 them. Before the most conspicuous of these huts lay 
 
DOWN THE WYE 
 
 179 
 
 several loose and newly-felled trunks of trees, and a 
 vessel lay moored near the spot. The boatman dignified 
 it with the name of a timber-yard. So far the scene had 
 never risen above the simple and humble style of pastoral 
 beauty, but its character soon changed. In front, and 
 sweeping round to the right, a superb amphitheatre of 
 wood and pasture unfolded; the Friary, a little farm 
 half discovering itself near the summit ; and on the 
 left, near the base, Goodrich Castle, with its towers and 
 battlements, gave a glimpse of the grandeur which soon 
 burst upon us. . . . Landed at the ferry, and, crossing 
 a meadow, ascended through a glade of ancient elms to 
 the ruin. The portcullises, the pointed windows, the 
 round towers were hung with large masses of ivy. The 
 structure in its present state is very extensive. Elm and 
 ash trees of considerable height have taken possession of 
 its internal courts. The daws were very clamorous at 
 our intrusion, and a white owl fluttered from the frac- 
 tured mouldings of a window. The view from it in front 
 is very rich and extensive. Directly in front, and not 
 above two miles off is Eoss spire, with the Chase, a long 
 woody ridge, in the background. Behind are hanging 
 meadows. Beturned to the boat. In our course we 
 continually passed the fisher, with his, wicker basket on 
 his b ack, angling for salmon-fry and grayling knee-deep 
 in the water. The left bank, which had as yet been low, 
 became now very steep, with cottages perched one above 
 another, half sheltered with wood, and often discovered 
 only by the blue wreaths of smoke that ascended from 
 them. One of the most observable was a basketmaker’s . 
 In his little garden, which was almost a precipice, hung 
 
180 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 linen to dry on a line, and his threshold was strewed 
 with heaps of rushes in the sun. Everything wore the 
 face of cheerful industry. Passed a fisherman’s hut, 
 which had a very fresco appearance behind a clump of 
 trees. A brown pitcher had been left on the landing- 
 place, and against the bank rested a coracle, a small 
 leathern boat. The man mentioned by Gilpin, who 
 navigated the Wye and reached the Bristol Channel in 
 one of these vessels was Luke Hughes. Near Bristol, a 
 mile beyond the river’s mouth, he was hailed by the 
 king’s yacht stationed there, the crew thinking that he 
 floated on a cask. He went on board, and was made 
 welcome, but returned to his nutshell. From either 
 hand shoots up a high promontory. On the left is a 
 chain of orchards, the apple-trees twisting into a thou- 
 sand forms, with beautiful cows grazing on the shore. 
 Pass on the right the coal wharf at Lidbrook, a busy 
 scene, but properly softened down by the woods that 
 nearly envelop it. On the left in a meadow a plain old 
 house called Courtfield. On this spot Henry Y. is said 
 to have been nursed. An ancestor of Mr. Vaughan, to 
 whom it now belongs, kept the ferry-boat at Goodrich, 
 and when Henry IY. came disguised on his way to 
 Monmouth, where the Queen lay in, he first learnt from 
 the ferryman the birth of his son Henry, and was invited 
 by him with honest exultation to drink at the alehouse 
 kept there. The king gave him this estate. This is the 
 boatman’s tale. The little church of Welsh Bicknor to 
 which Henry IY. gave gold communion plate, rose now 
 by the green hillside, with yews in its churchyard and 
 the parsonage built of grey stone close by it. Bed and 
 
DOWN THE WYE 
 
 181 
 
 blue cornflowers fringed the opposite bank. It was a 
 scene of great simplicity. A succession of cottages on 
 the left, with their orchards grazed by horses, several of 
 which were standing in different groups in the water ; 
 the water wagtail running and flying along the shelving 
 rocks on the right. A blue volume of smoke now spread 
 itself over the pointed wood which announced Cold- 
 well Eocks. . . . Here we came to anchor, and the boat- 
 men drawing water from a fine spring on the bank, which 
 gives the name to this part of the river, I dined in full 
 view of this charming perspective. While they were at 
 their repast I wandered half a mile along the river, 
 till I came directly opposite the rocks. Cottages and 
 orchards were hanging near their bases ; in the centre 
 was a lime-kiln, into which the sheep had retreated from 
 the sun, and not a single sound was heard but the tin- 
 kling of the wether’s bell, when I was roused from a 
 delightful reverie by the appearance of one of the boat- 
 men, who immediately hallooed to his comrades, who 
 were dispersed in pursuit of me. The echo among the 
 old woods gave immediate life to the scene. Re- 
 embarked, and wound round these majestic rocks. Others 
 soon towered above the wood on the left, less bold, but 
 correspondent. The village on the right is called Cold- 
 nose, the sun seldom shining upon it. . . Landed here 
 on the opposite side, and half a mile from the spring, 
 and was conducted by a woman who showed me her 
 orchard, garden, and cottage, in which was a poor soli- 
 tary jay in a wicker basket up the rocks. She lived by 
 spinning, brewed and baked for herself, made her own 
 cider, and kept only a few ducks. Said the cottagers on 
 
182 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 each side often ferried over to visit one another, that 
 winter was very dreary, but the boats which passed in 
 summer were a great amusement to them. Attended by 
 a little nephew and two girls she led me up a winding 
 path to the green summit of a projecting rock called 
 Symond’s Yat, which commanded a cluster of wooded 
 hills in the foreground, the distant and whimsical wind- 
 ings of the Wye and a wide stretch of cultivated country 
 fading away in the blue and purple tints of distance. 
 Directly before us was an immense hill, round which the 
 Wye made a circuit of above three miles. Descended, 
 and embarked at the New Weir, an iron forge, where 
 the rocks on each side tower to an immense height, often 
 in very grotesque forms. Here the river makes a con- 
 siderable fall, and we descend by a lock. This scenery 
 continued about a mile, with nearly the grandeur of 
 Matlock and the solitude of Dovedale. Passed a small 
 house, the greatest fishery on the river, with a long shed 
 to hang the coracles in, and several barked trunks, on 
 which the nets are spread. The coracles go down the 
 river two at a time, one on each side, drawing the net 
 along to sweep the river. These pairs succeed each 
 other every ten minutes. The Dean Forest still hung 
 on our right, and we now came to what is called 
 Slaughterhouse Stream, the deer, many head of which 
 are still in the Forest, having been formerly shot here by 
 the bowmen as they came down to drink. The rocks 
 continued like ruined towers mantled with ivy and brush- 
 wood, till at St. Martin’s Pool, where was the deepest water 
 in our course, they died away. . . Threaded several reefs 
 that raised a surf in the river, and shot rapidly by Dixon 
 
MONMOUTH TO COWBRIDGE 
 
 183 
 
 Church, a humble and solitary white building on the left 
 shore. A magnificent wood now rose in front and seemed 
 to preclude all further progress. As we advanced it with- 
 drew to the right, and on the left rose Monmouth spire. 
 The bridge and the town above it appeared soon after- 
 wards, and at six in the evening we concluded the 
 voyage. 5 
 
 The next day he records a ride to Eaglan, ‘ a beg- 
 garly village, 5 with a neat inn ; a visit to the Castle, ‘ a 
 most noble ruin ; 5 and on to Usk, where there was a 
 village fair. Continuing his ride he describes the view 
 of the Bristol Channel with the Steep and Flat Holms 
 and here and there a sail. At Newport — which he de- 
 scribes as ‘ a neat town on the side of a hill, the church, 
 like most others near the coast, a conspicuous landmark 5 
 — he ‘ saw several boats waiting to catch the coal at low 
 water which is washed in flakes from the mountains. 5 
 This was the coal trade of Newport in 1791. The jour- 
 ney continues over the hills and through the marsh to 
 Cardiff, where he walks round the Castle with ‘ a sensible 
 little fellow, my landlord’s son at the “ Cardiff Arms. 55 
 Next day to Llandaff, with its ruined Cathedral, ‘ part of 
 it included in the modern Cathedral, a strange medley of 
 Grecian and Gothic. 5 Then on to Caerphilly Castle, ‘ less 
 picturesque and less perfect than Eaglan, but with more 
 traces of magnificence and on an infinitely larger scale ; 5 
 and thence along the banks of the Taff and over the hills 
 to Cowbridge. On the way — 
 
 ‘ On Newbridge Hill was overtaken by two good- 
 natured, pleasant men on one horse, who had come from 
 
184 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 a large foundry twelve miles from Pontypridd — or bridge 
 built of the earth — and who accompanied me to Cow- 
 bridge. From them I learnt several anecdotes. The Welsh 
 are a very joyous social people. At weddings they often 
 muster friends and relations to the number of fifty on 
 horseback ; and often make what is called ‘ a bidding.’ 
 Each gives a crown, or some trifle, to the newly-married 
 couple, and the sum has amounted to one hundred pounds. 
 When a family are in distress there is very often ‘ a pye.’ 
 The good woman of the house makes a great many pies 
 and on a Sunday a considerable number will meet and 
 dine and dance and afterwards make her a present. The 
 relator of this story had often been of the party. At 
 weddings the bagpipe is often played, as in Scotland, 
 and at funerals the church singers always lead the pro- 
 cession with a psalm. The women here wear black 
 beaver hats, gowns of blue or blue-and-red check, which 
 descend to the knee, and a blue or black petticoat. The 
 men and boys also wear a jacket and often trousers of 
 check. About Cardigan the women wear wooden shoes. 
 The sudden drop they make in curtseying and the familiar 
 nod are very diverting. From Easter to Whitsuntide 
 the peasantry dance every Saturday night. The clergy- 
 man frequently translates his text into Welsh. . . . 
 Curacies are about 30 1. or 25 1. per annum here.’ 
 
 The journal of the next two days records the con- 
 tinuation of the ride to Swansea and Carmarthen, sum- 
 marised in a letter to his father. 
 
SWANSEA IN 1791 
 
 185 
 
 S. Rogers to his Father . 
 
 ‘ Saturday, June 25th, 
 
 ‘ [Postmark] 1791. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — I received your kind letter to-day, as 
 well as Martha’s enclosing a very long and entertaining 
 one from Mrs. Piozzi. She says an account of her little 
 fete will overtake me in the newspapers before I reach 
 Monmouth, but I have not seen it in any of them. All 
 I learn from them is that Mr. Sergeant Bond has with- 
 drawn his name from the list of stewards. I wrote to 
 you from Pill. Margam next morning gave me great 
 pleasure, but the orangery is in decay, and the view 
 along the sea-coast rather dreary. At Neath, which is 
 most charmingly situated, there was a fair. I dined with 
 the farmers — as I had done the day before with the col- 
 lectors of excise at Bridgend — and there met with a 
 gentlemanlike, sensible young man, an attorney from 
 Swansea. He offered to ride over with me, and as I 
 found him to be a man of good character I accepted 
 this offer. He offered also to go with me to the ball at 
 Swansea in the evening, and through him I danced with 
 the surgeon’s wife, a very pretty woman about twenty, 
 who has just left the Quakers. The harp was the prin- 
 cipal instrument. My sisters will smile to hear that I 
 have been kicking my heels at a Welsh Assembly. 
 
 Sir Herbert Mackworth’s house at Neath commands 
 a very beautiful stretch of country, but just before his 
 parlour windows he has erected a steam-engine and large 
 copper-works. They are actually on the lawn before his 
 house, but if they are a source of profit he may think them 
 
186 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the finest objects which it commands. Yesterday I had a 
 most delicious ride of twenty-five miles to Llandilo, where 
 I saw the ruins of Carreg Cennin, an impregnable fortress, 
 and the fairy scenes round Dynevor Castle. I find that 
 Mr. Eice, the member for the county and owner of this 
 enchanting spot, is brother-in-law to Mr. M. Dorrien . 1 
 
 ‘ To-day I made a pilgrimage to the top of Grongar 
 Hill , 2 but a mizzling rain came on before I had reached 
 it. I rode through the delightful Yale of Towy to Car- 
 marthen, which was crowded with market people. Welsh 
 is everywhere the current language, and it is curious to 
 hear children that have just left the cradle conversing in 
 sounds that are as unintelligible to me as the Sphinx’s 
 enigma. I am now on my way to Tenby, where I shall 
 stop to-morrow. . . .’ 
 
 ‘ Sunday, 26th June. 
 
 ‘ To-night I mean to sleep at Tenby, to-morrow at 
 Haverfordwest, Tuesday at St. David’s, Wednesday at 
 Cardigan, Thursday at Aberystwith, Friday at Dolgelly, 
 and Saturday at Carnarvon — at which last town I hope 
 to find a letter from the Green, at farthest, but flatter 
 myself I shall hear sooner. The weather is now cold and 
 blustering, which, I find, agrees best with me. The hot 
 days have prevented my making any progress. Pray 
 give my love to all, and believe me to be, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Your dutiful and affectionate son, 
 
 ‘ Saml. Rogers.’ 
 
 The account in the diary of Neath fair and the 
 
 1 The banker in Finch Lane, Lombard Street. 
 
 2 Made classic ground by John Dyer’s poem, published in 1726. 
 
A FAIR AT NEATH 
 
 187 
 
 farmer’s dinner, gives further glimpses of South Wales 
 in the days of our great-grandfathers : — 
 
 ‘ In one street were numbers of farmers, &c., cantering 
 and trotting and walking horses of every size and colour 
 to attract the notice of those who came to buy ; in another 
 was the trumpet sounding for the puppet-show, with bas- 
 kets of gingerbread, &c., carried by rosy-cheeked girls. In 
 another street were booths for gloves and hats and every 
 article of dress. Here stood an old woman with a roll 
 of flannel under her arms, the product of her spinning 
 wheel, and there were baskets of fleece and goose- wings 
 in abundance. The concert of voices in the Welsh lan- 
 guage was very diverting. I think it more sonorous and 
 grand than the Erse. Heard a man thunder at his cow, 
 and thought it had a very philippic air. Every woman 
 wore the black hat and flannel check, which lasts three 
 or four years in constant wear washed in cold water with 
 but little soap.’ 
 
 The dinner was with seven or eight farmers, and 
 their talk is briefly recorded : — 
 
 ‘ Lambs destroyed by bad land in half an hour, 
 thin soil never to be tilled, fern strewed in a farm- 
 yard the best manure — these were the principal topics . 
 Duels also had their turn, owing to a late fray at 
 Swansea between two farmers. A lusty man had affronted 
 a thin one, who challenged him. “ No,” said he, “ I 
 am too broad a mark, it will be unfair.” “ Then,” said 
 the thin one, “I will stand close to you, and my size 
 shall be chalked on your body, and if I don’t hit 
 within the line it shall go for nothing.” ’ 
 
188 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 He speaks of the country on the way to Swansea as 
 even then ‘ deformed with forges.’ At Swansea the 
 dance was at the Mackworth Arms, and the sensible 
 attorney’s name is given in the diary as Mr. Mansfield, 
 and the pretty wife of the surgeon is Mrs. Seycombe, 
 described as 6 a most beautiful woman.’ At Carreg 
 Cennin Castle, ‘a ruined citadel, the Gibraltar of former 
 times,’ a story was told him illustrative of the popular 
 superstitions of the time. The young man who con- 
 ducted him over the ruins led him — 
 
 ‘ back to a cottage at the foot of a rock, from which he had 
 borrowed a lantern to explore the well. At the door we saw 
 one old woman, who looked like a “poster of the sea and 
 land.” Iwalked in, and pointing to a human form which sat 
 in the chimney of a dark room he said, in a low voice, that 
 it was that woman who sixteen years ago lost her sight the 
 instant she looked on some old pieces of coin which she 
 discovered at the Castle ; that she was driving the horses 
 of a plough when the coins were turned up, and that the 
 man who guided it and who pillaged great part of them 
 and took them to a Jew at Swansea to melt shared the 
 same fate. He added with great seriousness that his 
 father and grandfather had told him that several other 
 instances of the same nature had occurred near the 
 Castle. . . . Near Carreg Cennin is a cavern, called in 
 Welsh the “Eyes of the Eiver Loughor,” branching into 
 innumerable others, which branch some over some under 
 the river which issues quietly into day, but within dashes 
 along with the noise of thunder. Is not this Merlin’s 
 cave in the “ Faery Queen ? ” ’ 
 
TENBY IN 1791 
 
 189 
 
 At Carmarthen it was market day, the streets and 
 roads were crowded, and some of the women on the road 
 were walking barefooted with their shoes in their hands, 
 others moved briskly along knitting as they went. He 
 slept that night at Tavern Spite, a neat house on a furzy 
 heath, and continued his journey in the morning, going 
 to church on the way, as it was Sunday, and hearing there 
 a good sermon. The church was hung round with flowers. 
 Tenby was reached in the afternoon, and his description of 
 it as it was in 1791 is worth quoting in his own words: — 
 
 ‘ The church and village of Tenby are situated on a 
 low cliff, hung with ivy and other vegetable tints. On 
 the left the shore is high and rocky, and a distant reach 
 of land projects into the sea beyond it, though not equal 
 in grandeur to the mountainous shore on the left of 
 Swansea. On the right, seated on a small but lofty 
 promontory which is united by a narrow isthmus to the 
 shore, are the ruins of a castle, half mantled with ivy. 
 This promontory forms a beautiful bay. Beyond it, 
 still farther to the right, within two hundred yards is an 
 insulated rock, tufted with herbage, on which are the ruins 
 of a house and where hung a few goats. The rock is of 
 rich gamboge colour, and through it the waves have per- 
 forated a small archway. Half a league beyond this, 
 still farther to the right behind the town, is Caldy Island 
 with a farmhouse on it, but with no trees. The vessels 
 in the harbour and the offing gave cheerfulness to the 
 scene. Walked to the Castle and saw a clergyman draw- 
 ing the insulated rock with a camera ; a boat was rowing 
 under it ; on the extreme point of the promontory is a 
 
190 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 lofty single tower from which the sailors were looking out. 
 Walked by a little path to the cliffs on the opposite shore 
 (the fashionable walk) and also on the sands. The scene 
 beautiful in every point of view, the church spire rising 
 nearly in the centre, and drawing the village to an apex. 
 From the little bypath which connects the front cliff with 
 the left is perhaps the best view . , . Tenby was once 
 very strong. The walls that guarded the two sides next 
 the sea are now nearly demolished, but sufficient vestiges 
 are left to trace them. On the two sides next the land 
 it is guarded by a high wall in perfect preservation, with 
 strong round and square towers at a small distance from 
 each other, richly hung in many parts w T ith ivy . . . 
 Walked again to the Castle ; the clergyman was still em- 
 ployed on his sketch. In the strait below lay some 
 boatmen on their oars, and along the perpendicular sides 
 of the rock two sea boys of their party were chasing for 
 diversion where I would not have stood for fifty worlds/ 
 
 The day at Tenby did not include a visit to Giltar 
 rocks ; and on the next day Rogers resumed his journey 
 over the Ridgeway to Pembroke. Thence the way lay 
 through shady green lanes to the ferry across Milford 
 Haven, on which magnificent sheet of water, ‘ blue as ultra- 
 marine,’ he notes ships in full sail in different directions 
 before the wind. On to Haverfordwest — ‘ the largest town 
 I have yet seen in W T ales, with the dirt and gloom of a 
 large town,’ and thence on towards St. David’s. On the 
 way he ‘ was surprised to meet a lady with a veil, and a 
 pretty woman, with an air of some elegance washing linen 
 in a rivulet with her bare feet, though only two hovels 
 
ST. DAVID’S AND CARDIGAN 
 
 191 
 
 were in sight.’ He describes St. David's as a poor village. 
 
 ‘ Except two or three neat little houses belonging to the 
 clergy of the Cathedral, no house habitable by civilised 
 beings.’ He had to put up at a hovel of an inn, ‘ the 
 canon residentiary, Mr. Holcombe, whose hospitable 
 genius has raised a caravanserai in the desert, and whose 
 musical and elegant family gave an air of enchantment 
 to the reception of the desolate traveller, being now in 
 London.’ Hiding next day through the cornfields the 
 larks were so numerous that ‘ every stalk and ear of 
 corn seemed full of melody. Never in my life was I so 
 struck with their music. It was above, below, and 
 around.’ On the way to Cardigan is the Castle of Cil- 
 gerran, which was reached by a boat up the Towy river. 
 At the village near the Castle, which was solely inhabited 
 by fishermen, were several coracles. He measured one of 
 the smallest with his handkerchief. It was exactly the 
 breadth of the handkerchief but an inch more in length. 
 At one point of the voyage a fisherman came down with 
 his coracle on his back and his paddle in his hand, to go 
 out for the night. ‘ They suffer themselves to be carried 
 down by the tide, and when they wish to return paddle 
 ashore and walk home with their vessels on their backs.’ 
 Next day he was ‘ stopt by the rain at three cottages, the 
 first best, the last worst but cheerful, with a colt neigh- 
 ing in one of its divisions, the second dark as night, a 
 spinning wheel in each.’ A little English was spoken 
 in one cottage, none in the other two. At a wayside 
 inn, called the ‘ New Inn ’ — ‘ was entertained by a sweet 
 little girl with some Welsh songs ; she had a very pleas- 
 ing voice and the tunes were equally so. They were of 
 
192 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the cheerful kind. Her elder sister, a very modest, 
 reserved, pretty girl, told me that the harper from 
 Aberystwith often slept there in his musical peregrina- 
 tions through the country, and that they sat up the whole 
 night to listen to him.’ On arriving at Aberystwith itself 
 c in the hall of the inn a poor blind girl was playing on the 
 harp most exquisitely, such airs as made Gray put his 
 last hand to the unfinished ode of “ The Bard.” * 
 
 There are here eighteen days missing from the 
 journal, but there is evidence that these were spent in 
 Central and Northern Wales. The journal opens again 
 on the 19th of July, when he is on the way out of 
 Herefordshire to Brecknock. He is up betimes, making 
 a ride of several miles before breakfast. One day he is 
 on horseback by six in the morning, the next at half- 
 past five, and the shades of evening are usually falling 
 when he concludes his day’s wanderings. The journey 
 along the road from Leominster to Brecknock is, at 
 first, ‘ through a succession of hop-grounds, orchards, 
 and villages,’ not particularly beautiful in themselves, 
 but chiefly so ‘ from the ideas of cheerfulness and comfort 
 and plenty which were everywhere excited.’ Passing 
 the old hall of Kynnersley the road soon approaches 
 the Wye — 
 
 ‘ Here we were presented,’ he says, ‘ with a striking 
 image of desolation, the wreck of a bridge. It had con- 
 sisted of several arches, and had been very elegant, but 
 fell in last spring, having had a bad foundation. Three 
 of its arches were still standing on one side, but all 
 further progress was abruptly broken off, and the river 
 
FROM THE WYE TO THE USK 
 
 193 
 
 rushed triumphantly over the shattered pieces of the rest. 
 The toll-house on the other side, the lane that led from 
 it, and the sweeping approach all reminded us of the 
 communication which now existed no longer. The ferry- 
 boat was unfit for horses, and we were obliged to follow 
 at some distance the course of the river. We were soon 
 rewarded with a beautiful reach between woody banks, 
 and soon afterwards with another less woody but more 
 extensive and distinguished by the ruins of a castle on 
 a green eminence over the river. We had now ascended 
 to high ground, and presently saw before us a rich and 
 extensive valley, skirted by distant mountains and dis- 
 closing here and there a faint catch of the Wye in its 
 passage from Plinlimmon. Descended, and by a narrow 
 bridge entered The Hay, a long scattered town on its 
 banks, with very fine woody hills behind it. The old 
 village-like church hangs beautifully on a green knoll 
 over the river, which there makes a curve to meet it. 
 Above it is a forlorn castle, part of which is glazed and 
 tenanted. As we left The Hay the same chain of hills 
 with wood accompanied us on the left ; and on the right 
 in a delicious valley wound the Wye, but seldom an 
 object of sight, though its banks were almost level with 
 its surface. Beyond it rose green and shady hills, with 
 hamlets and spires and scattered farms below them. At 
 the fourth stone the Wye made a bold turn to the right 
 and left us among the hills. . . . Nothing could be 
 more beautifully retired than the descent into Brecknock. 
 We wound between woody declivities, above which in 
 front rose the double tower of the Priory. On the right 
 rushed the little river Honddu over mossy fragments of 
 
 o 
 
191 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 rock. In the course of half a mile we came to a few 
 cottages and a water-mill, and presently we discovered a 
 rude stone arch. We then entered Brecknock. From 
 this bridge is the most enchanting view. The eye is car- 
 ried up the dell along the foaming current of the stream, 
 which is closely fringed with shrubwood and darkly 
 overhung with foliage of the freshest verdure, but of dif- 
 ferent shades. It appears to work its way through the 
 windings of a wood. On the left, loftily seated behind 
 the trees, is the Priory, a noble Gothic structure now 
 converted into a church. 
 
 ‘ Ascended to the Priory and pursued a delightful 
 path along the edge of the woody precipice which over- 
 hangs the glen, the little torrent gleaming through the 
 trees below, and soothing the ear with the dash of its 
 waters. Here and there a humble hut stands solitarily 
 on the margin or hangs on the opposite declivity, with a 
 little cabbage garden running along a ledge of the rock, 
 and literally on a level with the ridge of its thatched 
 roof. As I proceeded the path descended gradually to- 
 wards the level of the river and the glen along which the 
 Leominster road had at first wound now contracted to 
 the breadth of its current. At a forge which is near a 
 mile from the Priory this beautiful scenery ended. In 
 a little shady cove, halfway down the precipice, and not 
 far beyond the Priory, a clear spring gushes out of the 
 rock and falling over a rude ledge hurries down to the 
 river. An oblique path through the fern and shrubwood 
 descends to it on each side. It is a favourite resort for 
 water. I could have passed hours here to observe the 
 children that descend almost every minute into this 
 
THE WELSH PEASANTRY IN 1791 
 
 195 
 
 beautiful recess. It was once, according to Homer, the 
 occupation of king’s daughters, and, as we are told with 
 a beautiful simplicity in Holy Writ, the charms of Eachel 
 suffered no diminution from it. That golden age is 
 gone ; but the visitors of a spring are still interesting to 
 a contemplative mind — the fair and ruddy complexions 
 of the country, with that simple and open expression, 
 which is soon lost in the less retired walks of life, are to 
 me more interesting than the most beautiful scenery. 
 Their action always pleases and is generally graceful 
 because it is natural and unaffected. I have seen a 
 ragged shepherd boy, particularly near St. David’s, throw 
 himself down in an attitude that Eaphael would not 
 have disdained to copy ; and I have often stopt, especially 
 between Bala and Berwyn, to admire the firm and 
 graceful step of a girl with a brown pitcher on her head. 
 A little beyond the bridge the Honddu enters the Usk, 
 which forms a semicircle round the ruins of a castle 
 which stands on a rock. Part of the round tower of the 
 citadel crowns the highest point ; below on the other 
 side is the College, a small Gothic building belonging to 
 St. David’s ; part of it is employed as a school-room. As 
 I returned from the forge to the Priory had a beautiful 
 glimpse of the valley and mountains over the town. 
 From the Castle Hill commanded the whole valley, which 
 is nearly circular, and but small, rounded by green hills 
 on' three of its sides, and on the other, opening to the 
 Yale of Usk between the foldings of the mountains. The 
 evening was close and damp, with now and then a 
 drizzling rain. 
 
 ‘ July 20. — Set off at half-past five — a pleasant grey 
 
196 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 morning — and immediately entered the Yale of Usk which 
 was at first mountainous, but afterwards sank into culti- 
 vated uplands. On the right side ran a chain of moun- 
 tains, sometimes woody, sometimes richly cultivated. 
 Along the valley murmured the Usk in the sweetest 
 meadows through its fringed banks with little farms and 
 villas scattered around it. It was Nature in her neatest 
 attire. About the sixth stone ascended from the Yale 
 behind a high hill, looking down directly on the windings 
 of the river, and commanding a rich review of its progress 
 from Brecknock. At the summit were agreeably sur- 
 prised with the view of another valley with a small lake 
 (Langor’s Pool) gleaming in the centre of it. As we 
 descended round the hill we passed Tretower Castle, with 
 its grey round tower and battlements, at the foot of a 
 hill, and there re-entered the Yale of Usk, the little river 
 winding close to the road which now ran along the 
 middle of the valley. The valley grew wider, and the 
 river still more rapid ; and considerable woods masked 
 the hills on the left. It was diversified with noble pro- 
 montories and insulated hills, cultivated to the very 
 summit. The road now regained the left side and 
 taking a higher direction wound along a green terrace 
 over the river — the banks of which were now indeed 
 sometimes exposed, but which ran in a noble stream. 
 We here passed a little bridge over a tributary stream, 
 that turned a mill as it entered the Usk, and soon came 
 to Crickhowell, a village deliciously seated on a gentle 
 eminence near the Usk, looking up and down the Vale 
 for some miles. Here^again are the remains of a 
 castle on the river, and though not very considerable 
 
THE VALE OF USK 
 
 197 
 
 they have a beautiful yellow tint and are in good pre- 
 servation. The Yale soon afterwards contracted and 
 grew more woody and less cultivated as we entered 
 Monmouthshire, but a duskiness, arising perhaps from 
 the heat, spread itself over the scenes we had left. As 
 we approached Brecknock it opened on the right, and 
 on the left the hills were of great beauty, especially the 
 Sugar Loaf, which is cast perhaps in too correct a mould 
 for picturesqueness, but is cultivated almost to the very 
 summit, where it is green with shrubwood. The cheer- 
 ful little villages that were blended in beautiful confusion 
 along the sides of the opposite mountains, and the inces- 
 sant bursts of wood and cultivation which enriched them 
 continually, varied the scene. As we left Abergavenny — 
 its hills forming a grand screen on the left, and lofty 
 mountains hung with wood projecting into the Vale on the 
 right — a magnificent pass presented itself through which 
 we looked back towards Brecknock. Continued along 
 the Yale. On the left were the green swells of a park 
 belonging to Mr. Hanbury Williams, and on the right 
 ran the mountains finely clothed with wood. These, 
 however, soon shifted behind us, but the Usk still 
 accompanied us, not often visible indeed, between rich 
 uplands with little villages on its banks. At the sixth 
 stone it makes a sudden bend to the road and then, 
 taking its farewell both of eye and ear, it turns off to 
 the right between close woody declivities, and after a 
 pleasant journey of five miles arrives at Usk, where I 
 first found it. The scene soon closes on the right, but 
 a sweet valley, deficient only in water, unfolds itself on 
 the left, bounded by the Abergavenny hills, among 
 
198 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 which the Sugar Loaf lifts its pointed summit. The 
 views on each side are at last reduced to the compass 
 of a few fields, when Eaglan Castle appears, with its 
 walls and towers at a small distance, but with no great 
 degree of elevation. The Yale of Usk extends from 
 Brecknock to Abergavenny, a tract twenty miles in 
 length. This is its first and finest part. It then turns 
 on the right eleven miles to Usk, and from thence to 
 Newport, ten miles, a tract of equal extent. The river 
 there loses itself in the sea. Dined at Raglan, and 
 afterwards stole a parting glance at the Castle, still 
 beautiful as ever, not magnificent as a distant object, 
 but in itself, when viewed at hand, the most pictur- 
 esque I ever saw. The deep pointed arch of the gateway, 
 half obscured by the network of ivy that hangs from 
 it, the rich Gothic workmanship of the windows and 
 abutments, the elegance of the banqueting-hall, these 
 still please and must ever please. Returned, as I went, 
 in haste, to the great and loud merriment of a party at 
 a cottage door, particularly an arch, black-eyed girl of 
 sixteen. Rode on high ground and had a succession of 
 the most beautiful views, little hills on each side melting 
 into most delicious valleys and falling into each other 
 with the most varied forms and with the softest swells. 
 Such a charming interchange of wood and valley, 
 meadow, corn and fallow ground, all in miniature, and 
 all in the most enchanting confusion is only equalled 
 between Monmouth and Raglan, and scarcely even there. 
 From several higher points we commanded in retrospect 
 an extensive valley bounded by a noble amphitheatre 
 of distant mountains. 
 
TINTERN ABBEY 
 
 199 
 
 ‘Left the turnpike road, and turning through a 
 farmer’s fields soon arrived at a very striking spot. On 
 the right was a deep glen, so deep that the tufted tops 
 of very high trees were far, very far, below me, and a 
 torrent rushed along through them with fury, but was 
 not an object of sight. The wood on the opposite side 
 of it rose very majestically to a considerable height, and 
 on the left, directly above me was a woody declivity. As 
 I descended the depth decreased and cottages were seen 
 clinging to its sides. At last a forge appeared with its 
 gigantic hammers and its sheet of red flame, but the 
 wood around above and below it was as luxuriant as 
 ever. Down this glen, the sides of which folded over 
 each other in perspective very finely, I was let down 
 gradually among hanging cottages till a lofty wood 
 ascended in front with the Wye winding calmly round 
 it. On its green and level margin stands Tintern Abbey. 
 The church is built, as indeed all abbeys are, in the 
 form of a cross. The west window is entire, and its rich 
 framework is clear of ivy, but within is finely hung, and 
 ivy in large masses and with the freshest verdure hangs 
 everywhere over it. The arch of the south window, 
 which has lost its framework, is so deeply fringed with 
 ivy that it scarcely admits the light and the external 
 wall of the south aisle is entirely overspread with it. 
 Roger de Montgomery, the founder, lies entombed there. 
 But a very small part of the cloisters is now to be traced. 
 Adjoining to what is called the Monk’s cell a poor 
 woman has furnished a melancholy apartment. The 
 vault and its tenant correspond with Mr. Gilpin’s 
 description, but are not the same. The woman he 
 
200 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 mentions died in the workhouse. A poor girl was weed- 
 ing the fragments on the green floor. The head of a 
 monk and the body of a virgin are scattered there 
 among mouldings and cornices. A little path leads 
 directly to the river, which is shut in on all sides by high 
 hanging woods. Ascended by a bye-path, taking leave 
 of this venerable ruin through the trees. Nothing can 
 be more imposing than the perspective through its aisles 
 when the west door is thrown open. Its outside is 
 almost wholly [hidden] by the cottages that surround it. 
 Ascended up a hanging wood, on the left was the rocky 
 bed of some winter torrent, and the path itself was little 
 better. It soon closed and the trees overarched it. It 
 was now near ten, and the gloom was awful. It was 
 here that I met a figure w 7 hich I at first thought was an 
 ancient tenant of the abbey. It wore a flannel gown 
 which hung like a hood over the head. Not a lock of 
 hair appeared over a pallid but striking countenance. A 
 small black beaver hat was in one hand, and the other 
 held a staff. I asked with some degree of hesitation the 
 way to Chepstow, when it appeared to be an old woman. 
 My question drew an appeal to my charity. She was 
 returning home from the surgeon with a strengthening 
 plaster and could scarcely crawl. Gained the heights, and 
 saw the Severn with its wide waters before me, but the 
 night was cloudy and I could but just distinguish a park 
 on my left as I entered Chepstow. There I was regaled 
 with songs by a cheerful young man of the town who 
 was entertaining the landlord’s daughters — fine girls, 
 particularly the youngest — in the bar. Eead an account 
 of the riots at Birmingham.’ 
 
CLIFTON AND BATH IN 1791 
 
 201 
 
 The journey was continued in the same manner to 
 Bristol and Bath. Having dined at Beachley Passage 
 House he crossed the Severn, two miles, in six minutes 
 and a half, landing on a rough rock covered with sea- 
 weed, it being half-tide, and went by King’s Weston, 
 paying a visit to the point in Lord Clifton’s park from 
 which the celebrated view is to be seen, and thence on 
 over Durdham Down to Clifton. He notes the villages 
 and villas which spot the country, the sprinkling of 
 carriages and horses on the downs, the ‘ close and awful 
 pass ’ through which the sails rapidly succeed each other 
 along the Avon ; the Hot Wells, ‘ and the walks full of 
 walkers, French staymakers, Pall Mall milliners, and all 
 the finery and impertinence of life ; ’ and adds : ‘ I was 
 sorry to renew my acquaintance with it.’ Next day he 
 notes the picturesque aspect of St. Vincent’s rocks, 
 tastes the water at the Hot Wells, and notes the young 
 women, many apparently consumptive, who were there, 
 and one girl who ‘ drank her glass on the mail pillion.’ 
 He complains of being ‘ enveloped in black dust on the 
 road to Bath, where the Boyal Crescent on the hillside 
 strikes him with its simplicity and beauty as he enters 
 the city, which, however, ‘ wants the domes and turrets of 
 public buildings to give it magnificence ’ at a distance. 
 
 The month in which Rogers had thus been enjoying 
 the delights of home travel, which made him sorry to 
 return to all the finery and impertinence of life, had been 
 one of great anxiety to many of his personal friends. 
 His brief record on the 20th of July — * Bead an account 
 of the riots at Birmingham ’ — is like that of an outside 
 spectator of a serious social and political crisis. There 
 
20 2 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 is no need to tell in this place the painful and disgrace- 
 ful story of the sack of Dr. Priestley’s house, the de- 
 struction of his philosophical apparatus and library, and 
 the burning of the meeting-house in which he preached 
 by a drunken mob. If on the other side of the Channel 
 crimes were being committed, as Madame Poland after- 
 wards exclaimed, in the name of liberty, these outrages 
 were perpetrated in the England of Pitt and George III. 
 in the supposed interests of church and king. Rogers 
 was in full sympathy with those against whom this 
 violence was directed, but poetry and not politics was 
 still the uppermost thought in his mind. During the 
 Welsh journey he corresponded with Mrs. Barbauld, 
 among other friends, and just before the ominous entry 
 in his diary he had received from her a letter expressive 
 of her enthusiastic adherence to the Liberal side. It 
 was written on the day before the second celebration 
 of the fall of the Bastille, and the occurrence of the 
 Birmingham riots. 
 
 Mrs . Barbauld to S. Rogers . 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — For your very entertaining as well as very 
 friendly letter I thank you with all sincerity, and a m 
 truly sensible of the favour you do me by writing whe n 
 you are surrounded by such charming scenes that while 
 you bend your eyes upon paper you must lose a landscap e # 
 But why do you bid me write who have nothing to com- 
 municate, where there are neither harps nor Druids? 
 We have a lady, indeed, and she is a pretty lady, who 
 sings a Welsh song most enchantingly, but then she has 
 not the advantage of singing in a cottage ; and, moreover 
 
AN APPEAL BY MRS. BARBAULD 
 
 203 
 
 she is a married woman. I have been trying in my 
 own mind whether Miss Hagen with her fingers upon her 
 harp, will bear any comparison with an antient Druid 
 sweeping his with his flowing beard, but I find her so 
 infinitely inferior in the sublime, that I am obliged to 
 drop the similitude. I know of no news to tell you but 
 that Mr. George Maltby was at meeting yesterday, look- 
 ing very happy, and that the family of the Websters set 
 off to-morrow for Devonshire, to our great regret, as I 
 suppose they quit Hampstead entirely, 
 
 ‘ But pray, sir, what have you to say in your defence 
 for rambling amongst fairy streams and hanging woods 
 instead of being at the “ Crown and Anchor,” as you and 
 every good patriot ought to be on the 14th of July? 
 What do you say to that ? Do not you deserve at least as 
 severe a philippic as the Welsh farmer gave his cow ? 
 
 4 Muse, thy thrilling numbers dart 
 Through his ear and through his heart, 
 
 Chide the youth who holds his stay 
 Far from Freedom’s band away, 
 
 4 Hanging woods and fairy streams 
 Inspirers of poetic dreams, 
 
 Must not now the soul enthral 
 While dungeons burst and despots fall. 
 
 4 Shall peals of village bells prevail, 
 
 Floating on the summer gale, 
 
 While the Tocsin sounds afar, 
 
 Breathing arms and glorious war ? 
 
 4 Think when woods of brownest shades 
 Open bright to sunny glades, 
 
 Such the gloom and such the light 
 Of Freedom’s noon and Slavery’s night. 
 
204 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ Harps of Mona, sound once more, 
 
 With strong vibrations shake the shore, 
 
 Ne’er did your solemn cords relate 
 Eventful scenes so big with fate. 
 
 ‘Now stretched at hoary Snowdon’s base 
 Hide in shades thy long disgrace, 
 
 And blush that Freedom’s child should be 
 Far from Freedom’s Jubilee. 
 
 ‘ You see how envious I am, not being able to trans- 
 port myself to those delightful scenes you so well describe. 
 I am maliciously endeavouring to disturb the harmony of 
 your sensations, but I daresay you will disappoint my 
 malice. ... I hope when you return we shall have the 
 pleasure of seeing you soon, as we shall go into Norfolk, 
 I believe, about the beginning of August. 
 
 ‘ M. Rabaud 1 has sent a second address to the people 
 of England. It is an exhortation to peace, and urges 
 sentiments of national justice, which I hope we are not 
 disposed to controvert. 
 
 ‘ Perhaps you know that Mrs. Williams and .Cecilia are 
 set out for France, and that Helen and the rest of the 
 family are soon to follow. They pay a visit to their old 
 friends at Rouen before they settle at Orleans. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Barbauld, who has shared in the entertainment 
 of your letter, desires to join in thanks for it and in affec- 
 tionate remembrance, 
 
 ‘ I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Your obliged friend and faithful servant, 
 
 ‘ A. L. Barbauld. 
 
 ‘Hampstead: July 13th. [Postmark 1791.] ’ 
 
 1 M. Rabaud St. Etienne, a deputy of the National Assembly. He 
 was a Protestant clergyman and correspondent of Dr. Price. 
 
THOMAS ROGERS AT STOURBRIDGE 
 
 205 
 
 The excitement which the Birmingham riots pro- 
 duced spread more or less violently all through the 
 country. Thomas Rogers was well known to be in full 
 sympathy with Dr. Priestley and his friends, and there 
 were reasons to fear an attack by the mob on the house 
 at ‘ The Hill,’ where his sisters, Samuel Rogers’s aunts, 
 continued to live. Happily the danger passed over. 
 Thomas Rogers was there, as usual, in the summer, and 
 in a letter to his son, dated the 21st of September, 
 speaks of the state of feeling which then existed at 
 Stourbridge : — 
 
 ‘ I am sorry to say in answer to your postscript 
 respecting the party spirit at Stourbridge, that there 
 is some truth in the report, though the conduct of the 
 church is not quite so bad as the report makes it. Mr. 
 Parker junr., a grocer in the town, received a parcel by 
 the common carrier of the obnoxious handbill . 1 He 
 owns that he gave one of them to a clergyman in the 
 neighbourhood, but at [the] same time expressed his dis- 
 approbation of it, and his determination to burn the 
 remainder. He declares solemnly that he burnt all the 
 other copies immediately afterwards, but one of them 
 having been left in the public library and another stuck 
 up in the coffee-room at the “ Talbot,” and about six 
 more having been sent under cover from the post-office 
 in Stourbridge to as many gentlemen in the neighbour - 
 
 1 This was an address from the assembled deputies and delegates of 
 the Protestant Dissenters of England to the Protestant Dissenters of 
 Birmingham who suffered from the riots. It expressed the astonishment 
 and horror the outrages had excited, and assured the Birmingham 
 Dissenters of their warmest affection and steadiest support. 
 
206 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL E OGEES 
 
 hood, the whole of this, notwithstanding his denial, is 
 laid to his charge. This brought the young man into 
 disgrace, and many of his customers immediately sent for 
 their bills and paid them off and left his shop. Some 
 others of the Dissenters have also suffered in their 
 business. . . . The flame the handbill has occasioned 
 is scarcely to be conceived, and the violent charge the 
 whole body of Dissenters with entertaining the same 
 sentiments, and wishing for a revolution in this coun- 
 try, and conduct themselves accordingly ; but it is said 
 that at Birmingham and Stourbridge they are soften- 
 ing apace. Many of my acquaintance seem to be more 
 attentive to me than usual.’ 
 
 In a postscript he adds : — 
 
 ‘ I am inclined to think Dr. Priestley will not return 
 to Birmingham. All the respectable part of the congre- 
 gation, except about two or three, signed a very warm 
 request for his return, but he had not returned his 
 answer on Wednesday last. Mr. Taylor and Mr. John 
 Piyland were among the opponents. When I saw Mr. 
 Stone at Brighton he intimated that it was the wish of 
 many of the Hackney gentlemen to invite the doctor to 
 Hackney, and that Mr. William Morgan approved of the 
 idea. He said also if Jones went to Birmingham, where 
 he was likely to be invited, that perhaps Dr. P. would 
 be prevailed on to give chemical and philosophical 
 lectures at the College.’ 
 
 The Jones mentioned in this letter seems to have 
 gone to Birmingham as Mr. Morgan expected. He 
 
AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. PARR 
 
 207 
 
 appears also to have kept up a connection with the house 
 at Newington Green. Samuel Rogers’s advice to him to 
 call on Dr. Parr was the origin of one of the familiar 
 stories told by him and not very correctly reported by 
 Mr. Hayward in the Edinburgh Review article in which 
 Mr. Dyce’s inaccuracies are severely rebuked. The 
 story is told by the Rev. D. Jones himself in the follow- 
 ing letter : — 
 
 An Interview with Dr. Pctrr. 
 
 ‘Bm. : 13th Novr., 1793. 
 
 * Dear Sir, — Do not be surprised by the trouble I now 
 give you. Perhaps you recollect a part of our conversa- 
 tion which turned upon Dr. Parr, and your advising me 
 to introduce myself to him. This advice I took the first 
 opportunity of putting in practice. The next Saturday 
 after seeing you I set out for Warwick. Hatton, the 
 Doctor’s residence, lies in the way. I arrived at the place, 
 fastened my horse to the gate, knocked at the door, en- 
 quired forthe Doctor, and learned that he was at dinner. 
 I told the servant I would wait while he dined, when I 
 should be glad to speak to him. I was turned into a 
 parlour where was the Doctor’s picture ; it set him off to 
 the best advantage. Here I waited half an hour, con- 
 templating the oddness of the adventure. The door opens, 
 I prepare to make my bow and my speech — behold, it is a 
 servant girl come to ask my name ! Presently again the 
 handle of the door moves, I make the same preparations — 
 behold, it is a young lady whom I took to be Miss Parr, 
 and who proved to be her ! She requests me to walk 
 into the parlour. This I decline, stating that I had not 
 
208 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the honour of being known to the Doctor, but that when 
 he was perfectly at leisure I should be glad to speak a 
 few words with him. I judged it better to introduce 
 myself to him alone than before company. The young 
 lady soon left me, and she had hardly been gone any 
 time before the great man ushered himself in. I was 
 cool and composed. I approached him and thus accosted 
 him : “I hope, sir, I have not interrupted your dinner ; 
 I begged that I might wait till you were perfectly at 
 leisure ? ” “ Not at all, sir.” “ My name is Jones ; I am a 
 Dissenting minister at Birmingham. Being on my road to 
 Warwick I could not resist the inclination I felt to pay 
 my respects to Dr. Parr.” I had hardly uttered these 
 words but the Doctor’s eyes glistened. He took me by 
 the hand, squeezing it heartily, leading me round the 
 room, and asking me several times how I did. He begged 
 I would stay the evening with him, and offered to send 
 to Warwick to apprise my friends of it. I closed with 
 the offer, as I was not expected at Warwick. He then 
 introduced me to Mrs. and Miss Parr as a man of piety, 
 sense, &c. ; to another lady and gentleman as “ a thorough 
 Whig, no Tory, but one who had successfully opposed 
 them in his writings.” This was about four o’clock, and 
 the Doctor entertained me till one in the morning. I 
 was highly pleased with him. He possesses first-rate 
 conversational powers. He speaks of Dr. Priestley in the 
 highest terms. “ Ma’am,” said he to a lady there, “ he has 
 done more to promote human knowledge than any man 
 in Europe.” I have since written to him, and received a 
 very friendly reply, and have a general invitation to his 
 house, of which I mean to avail myself. 
 
A VISIT TO DR. PARR 
 
 209 
 
 ‘ I think not very highly of Brissot and his party, but 
 there was no necessity for putting so many people to 
 death. The account shocked me greatly. I dom mean 
 to try to draw you into a correspondence, but L you 
 could let me know, in a few words, how I am to conceive 
 of that event it would oblige me much. I do not urge 
 this, as it will not be long ere I see you. I thought that 
 the relation of this adventure, suggested by yourself, may 
 amuse you. Excuse the freedom, and believe me with 
 unfeigned esteem to be sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ D. Jones. 
 
 * Samuel Rogers, Esq., 
 
 ‘ Newington Green.’ 
 
 P 
 
210 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ — Letter of Criticism from Dr. Parr ; Notes — 
 Letter of Gilpin — Hayward’s Criticism — Estimate of the Poem. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld’s rebuke to Rogers for being away in Wales, 
 ‘ far from Freedom’s Jubilee,’ on the second anniversary 
 of the capture of the Bastille need not be held to indicate 
 any want of sympathy on his part with the great Liberal 
 movements of the time. His nephew Samuel Sharpe 
 reminds us that ‘ poetry was the uppermost thought in 
 his mind ; ’ and he was at that time just bringing his 
 chief poem to completion. He had been occupied with 
 it for more than six years. It was begun in 1785, as 
 soon as the ‘Ode to Superstition’ was complete, and in 
 the summer of 1791 he was just sending it to the press. 
 It had been written in the same manner as his earlier 
 poems. It was literally the recreation of a man of busi- 
 ness, his ‘ leisure’s best resource,’ as he calls it in the 
 lines prefixed to the fifth edition. With the exception 
 of his holidays, which the state of his health made some- 
 what more frequent than they might otherwise have 
 been, his whole life during these years was that of 
 a junior partner in the bank. He went into the City in 
 the morning, spent the day there, dined early with the 
 other partners at the banking-house, and rode or walked 
 
‘ ON A TEAR ’ 
 
 211 
 
 home when business was over. He had, of late years, 
 been more away from home in the evening, going with 
 Dr. Kippis to literary parties or to some literary club, or 
 to the Hampstead Assemblies, or following up his acquain- 
 tance with Mrs. Barbauld or the Baillies, the Piozzis, the 
 Williamses, or Dr. Moore. But as a rule his evenings 
 were spent in diligent reading or in equally diligent com- 
 position. The only verses which he published during these 
 years seem to have been the little poem ‘ On a Tear ’ which 
 in his works bears the date of 1791. It was apparently 
 printed in Este’s journal, The World , and reissued in 
 1791 in a i2mo volume entitled ‘The Poetry of The 
 JVorld ,’ and published by Ridgeway. In a review of two 
 of these volumes in the Monthly Revierv for September, 
 1791, the managers of the paper are thanked ‘for the 
 exertions which they have made to rescue newspaper 
 poetry from disgrace by inviting some acknowledged 
 favourites of the Muses to decorate their pages.’ The fa : 
 vourites whose names are mentioned are Mr. Sheridan, 
 Mr. Merry, Mrs. Cowley, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Jerningham, 
 Mr. Colman, Mrs. Robinson, Captain Broome, and Captain 
 Topham. Most of these belonged to the Della Cruscan 
 school, and all but Sheridan are forgotten. But the 
 critic quotes none of them. He deprecates criticism as 
 ‘ breaking butterflies on the wheel,’ and adds, ‘ instead of 
 assisting our readers to detect little faults we will tempt 
 them to admire by transcribing the following beautiful 
 stanzas.’ He then quotes the six verses ‘ On a Tear,’ 
 which have almost ever since kept their place in collec- 
 tions of popular poetry. 
 
 ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ was published by Mr, 
 
212 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Cadell early in 1792. It was described as by the author of 
 the ‘ Ode to Superstition.’ Only tw T o hundred and fifty 
 copies were printed, and they were disposed of at once. A 
 long review of the poem appeared in the Critical Review 
 for April 1792, in which it was rather severely criticised, 
 though with the admission that its defects were over- 
 powered by its beauties. ‘ The flame of genius,’ said the 
 critic, ‘ which pervaded, and so brightly glowed in the 
 “ Ode to Superstition,” demanded our applause, which we 
 shall not withhold from the present poem, though exhibit- 
 ing less 4 splendid marks of poetical inspiration ; more 
 argumentative and metaphysical.’ In June the Monthly 
 Review made the poem the subject of its first article, and 
 spoke of it with unstinted praise. 6 If the author of this 
 poem be thought happy in the choice of a copious and 
 fertile theme, which has yet by no means been exhausted, 
 he is equally so in the manner in which he has treated it. 
 Correctness of thought, delicacy of sentiment, variety of 
 imagery, and harmony of versification are the characters 
 which distinguish this beautiful poem in a degree that 
 cannot fail to ensure its success.’ This is a perfectly 
 just account of the poem ; and does not need the 
 slightest change at the end of nearly a hundred years. 
 In the same month in which it appeared the Critical 
 Review in a short notice said that though neither the 
 fiery stream of passion, nor the electric sparks of fancy 
 burn along the lines, yet a mellow tasteful tint shed over 
 it renders many of the sentiments interesting and the 
 whole soothing. These two views are curiously blended 
 by Mr. Hayward in the article written sixty- four years 
 later in the Edinburgh Review. He there said of Kogers 
 
4 THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY’ 
 
 213 
 
 that i from the moment he discovered that he was 
 destined to excel by grace, elegance, subdued sentiment, 
 and chastened fancy — not by fervid passion, lofty ima- 
 gination or deep feeling — his poetic fortune was made.’ 1 
 Sir Egerton Brydges, who had just published a little 
 volume of sonnets and poems, records in his ‘ Autobio- 
 graphy ’ that a year or two after he entered the lists ‘ came 
 out Bogers’s “ Pleasures of Memory,” which instantly 
 became popular, especially among the ladies. The lines 
 have something of a cast between Tickell, Shenstone, 
 and Goldsmith.’ 2 The popularity of the poem was 
 by no means confined to ladies. Critics, authors, philo- 
 sophers, and statesmen united in its praise. The first 
 editions seem to have been sold as soon as they were 
 published. Bogers’s early friend, William Maltby, writes 
 to him while he was travelling in the south of England 
 in July, telling him that he had called at Cadell’s and 
 learned from Lawless that the whole impression was 
 sold before the Monthly Review came out, and adding 
 ‘ he lamented that two hundred and fifty copies only were ' 
 printed, as twice the number might have been sold.’ 
 This may possibly refer to a second edition, as the work 
 was out, and copies were sent to the author’s friends 
 early in January. Bobert Merry, the almost forgotten 
 author of ‘ Lorenzo ’ and ‘ Fenelon,’ writes to Bogers 
 , from 35 Gerrard Street on the i8th of January 1792, 
 thanking him for a copy of the poem, telling him that 
 he had gone to Mr. Cadell and found out the author, 
 and urging him to put his name to it at once. During 
 
 1 Edinburgh Review , July 1856. 
 
 2 Autobiography, vol. i. p. 87. 
 
214 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the first twelve or fourteen months after its issue four 
 editions of the poem, probably of two hundred and fifty 
 copies each, were disposed of, and its popularity and 
 success were already established. In May 1793 a fifth 
 edition was published, and it was thought wise to venture 
 on printing a thousand copies. These were all dis- 
 tributed in the course of the year. This fifth edition 
 was a duodecimo of a hundred and twenty-four pages, 
 and was published at six shillings. It was prefaced by 
 the introductory lines which have ever since stood as 
 the preface to all editions of his poems. It is only fair 
 to Rogers that I should point out how completely these 
 lines embody the spirit and express the motive of his 
 poetry. He could not have sat at Dr. Price's feet or 
 been Priestley’s friend, or breathed for thirty years the 
 moral and spiritual atmosphere of blended Puritanism 
 and latitudinarianism which pervaded his Stoke New- 
 ington home, without learning to feel a high sense of 
 moral responsibility for what he wrote. 
 
 Oh, could my mind, unfolded in my page, 
 
 Enlighten climes and mould a future age ; 
 
 There as it glowed, with noblest frenzy fraught, 
 
 Dispense the treasures of exalted thought ; 
 
 To Virtue wake the pulses of the heart, 
 
 And bid the tear of emulation start ! 
 
 Oh could it still, through each succeeding year, 
 
 My life, my manners, and my name endear, 
 
 And, when the poet sleeps in silent dust, 
 
 Still hold communion with the wise and just ! — 
 
 Yet should this Verse, my leisure’s best resource, 
 
 When through the world it steals its secret course, 
 
 Revive but once a generous wish supprest, 
 
* THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY’ 
 
 215 
 
 Chase but a sigh, or charm a care to rest ; 
 
 In one good deed a fleeting hour employ, 
 
 Or flush one faded cheek with honest joy; 
 
 Blest were my lines, though limited their sphere, 
 
 Though short their date as his who traced them here. 
 
 In this last line he gives expression to the feeling his 
 frail health produced. He had less expectation and less 
 reason for the expectation of long life than young men 
 usually have. These lines were published before he had 
 completed his thirtieth year, and he lived for nearly 
 sixty -three years after they were written. He lived to 
 know that ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ had taken its place 
 as an English classic. The fifth edition, to which this 
 preface was affixed, was illustrated with a couple of whole- 
 page woodcuts from drawings by T. Stothard : the first a 
 group of children to illustrate the line — 
 
 ’Twas here we chas’d the slipper by its sound ; 
 and the second, the Shipwreck, with the ‘ faint and faded 
 Julia ’ in her lover’s arms on the shore, and the father 
 kneeling behind, his white hairs strewed in the wind. 
 This edition contained the ‘ Ode to Superstition,’ and five 
 small poems which like the ‘ Ode ’ had been previously 
 published. These were, ‘ The Sailor,’ ‘ Verses on a Tear,’ 
 
 ‘ Sketch of the Alps at Daybreak,’ ‘ A Wish,’ and ‘ An 
 Italian Song.’ The ‘ Ode ’ was illustrated by two woodcuts 
 . from pictures by R. Westall : the first, of the Fates ‘ wrapt 
 in clouds, in tempests tost ; ’ and the second to illustrate 
 the lines — 
 
 In cloistered solitude she sits and sighs, 
 
 While from each shrine still small responses rise. 
 
 Each engraving bears the words ‘ Published May 29th, 
 
216 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 1793, by T. Cadell, Strand.’ The world has been so 
 often told that Rogers got his poems beautifully illus- 
 trated because they had ceased to sell, that it is needful 
 to point out how early he began to associate his poetry 
 with the best examples of the engraver’s art. Nearly 
 all the editions of his poems contained engravings, if it 
 were only, as in the edition of 1816, pretty vignettes by 
 Stothard, engraved by Clennell, to fill blank pages and 
 the spaces at the beginning and end of a poem. The 
 popularity of £ The Pleasures of Memory,’ shown by the 
 issue of the fifth edition within sixteen months, continued 
 to increase year by year. He did not put his name on 
 the title-page even of the fifth edition, but he signed the 
 prefatory lines with his initials, and the binder labelled 
 the volume on the back ‘ Rogers’s Poems.’ From this 
 time, therefore, he was known and wherever he went was 
 acknowledged as the popular poet of ‘ The Pleasures of 
 Memory.’ In 1794 a sixth and a seventh edition, each 
 of a thousand copies, were published. In 1797 appeared 
 the eighth edition, also of a thousand; a ninth in 1798, 
 and a tenth and eleventh in 1799. In 1801 a twelfth 
 edition was called for, and the number printed was raised 
 to fifteen hundred, in addition to which a hundred copies 
 were printed on large paper ; in 1 802 the thirteenth 
 edition, also of fifteen hundred, was issued. On the four- 
 teenth edition being called for in 1803 the number 
 printed was raised to two thousand ; in 1 806 the fif- 
 teenth edition was printed, also of two thousand. The 
 sale continued at much the same rate, and the edition of 
 1816, already mentioned, was the nineteenth. Omitting 
 the sales of the first four editions, of which no clear 
 
LARGE SALE OF THE POEM 
 
 217 
 
 record is preserved, but which consisted of very small 
 numbers, and including the large paper copies, of which 
 a hundred were printed in 1801 and two hundred and 
 fifty in 1810, the total issue of the work — from the pub- 
 lication of the fifth edition in 1793 to the nineteenth in 
 1816 — was 22,350 copies. This was one of the greatest 
 literary successes of the time. When we recollect how 
 small the educated and reading world then was, and to 
 how narrow an audience a poem of culture and not of 
 passion was addressed, the steady and increasing demand 
 for ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ is a remarkable sign of 
 the poetical taste of the period, and of Rogers’s success 
 in meeting and satisfying it. These large numbers may 
 be compared with the small sale of Wordsworth’s ‘ Ex- 
 cursion,’ of which the first edition, published in 1814, 
 consisted of only five hundred copies and sufficed for six 
 years, when another edition of the same number was 
 issued, and lasted seven years. The favour with which 
 Rogers’s poem was received was, moreover, not that of the 
 unreflecting multitude. The letters published in these 
 volumes, and similar letters and notices which are scat- 
 tered all through the biographies of Rogers’s eminent 
 contemporaries, show the universal appreciation in which 
 his ‘ Pleasures of Memory ’ was held by men of taste 
 and culture. It was totally unlike anything that was 
 appearing at the time. The period had just passed of 
 which Macaulay speaks when he says that ‘ poetry had 
 fallen into such decay that Mr. Hayley was considered a 
 great poet.’ Cowper, whose Life is the work by which 
 Hayley best deserves to be remembered, had already pub- 
 lished most of his poems ; and his translation of Homer, 
 
218 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 in which Eogers delighted as Thomas Campbell also did, 
 had come out in the year before. ‘ The Task,’ which 
 had been the most popular of his poems, had appeared 
 in 1785 ; but large and rapid as its sale had been, so 
 large that Johnson the publisher told Eogers he had 
 been induced to make a handsome present to its author, 
 it did not by any means reach the success of ‘ The Plea- 
 sures of Memory.' Hayley’s popularity had already 
 faded away before that of Cowper, and the sentimental 
 school to which he belonged, and of which he had been 
 the foremost representative, had disappeared in the new 
 love of simplicity and naturalness which Cowper had 
 awakened. The Della Cruscans were the degenerate 
 descendants of the sentimental school, and were only 
 waiting for Gifford’s rough heel to crush them finally. 
 Other poets were still in embryo. Tom Moore, then a 
 boy of fourteen, though, as he calls himself, ‘ a deter- 
 mined rhymester,’ had not sent his first rhymes to the 
 Antliologia Hibernica , in which magazine he first read 
 Eogers’s poem in the numbers for January and February 
 1793 — little dreaming, he says in his memoirs of himself, 
 that he should one day become the intimate friend of the 
 author ; ‘ and such an impression did it then make on 
 me,’ he adds, ‘ that the particular type in which it is 
 there printed, and the very colour of the paper are asso- 
 ciated with every line of it in my memory.’ Byron was 
 a child just four years old. Wordsworth was in France 
 looking on at the Eevolution, riveted to the spot, as his 
 biographer tells us, by a mysterious spell, longing to 
 remain in Paris, but obliged by circumstances to return, 
 or, as he says in ‘ The Prelude ’ — 
 
CONTEMPORARY POETS 
 
 219 
 
 Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity, 
 
 So seemed it — now I thankfully acknowledge 
 Forced by the gracious Providence of Heaven — 
 
 and thus escaping the proscription which sw T ept away 
 his friends the Brissotins, with whom he says he should 
 have made common cause, and 
 
 haply perished, too, 
 
 A poor mistaken and bewildred offering, 
 
 Should to the breast of Nature have gone back 
 With all my resolutions, all my hopes, 
 
 A Poet only to myself. 
 
 Wordsworth’s first little volume of ‘ Descriptive 
 Sketches ’ came out in the year after 4 The Pleasures of 
 Memory.’ Coleridge was at Cambridge where he had 
 just gained the medal for a Greek ode, and where he 
 was regarded only as the revolutionist in politics and 
 the heretic in religion. Southey had not yet entered at 
 Balliol, where he was afterwards regarded in precisely 
 the same light as that in which Coleridge stood at 
 Cambridge. Of those who may properly be described as 
 his contemporaries, Rogers was, therefore, some years in 
 advance. He had come to fame before any one of them 
 had been heard of, and he survived them all. 
 
 The published criticisms on ‘ The Pleasures of 
 Memory ’ in the periodicals of the day have already been 
 spoken of. The chief objection urged was that of the 
 Critical Review, which discovered bad grammar in the 
 eight lines, now only six, which describe ‘ the intrepid 
 Swiss that guards a foreign shore ; ’ and strongly ob- 
 jected to the stanzas : — 
 
 That hall where once in antiquated state 
 The chair of justice held the grave debate ; 
 
220 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 on the ground that figuratively speaking the chair of 
 justice might hear, but could not ‘ hold, the debate.’ 
 Rogers, however, appears to have taken the same view 
 of the recommendations of critics which was taken by 
 Burns. When Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre asked Burns 
 whether the literary men of Edinburgh had improved 
 his poems by their criticisms : ‘ Sir,’ said the poet, ‘ these 
 gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country 
 who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for 
 weft nor woof.’ He said he had not changed a word, 
 except one to please Dr. Blair. Rogers probably changed 
 a few words — not to please Dr. Parr, but in consequence 
 of Dr. Parr’s criticisms. He sent the Doctor an illustrated 
 edition of the poem in 1796, and received the following 
 characteristic letter of acknowledgment and criticism : — 
 
 Z)r. Parr to S. Rogers. 
 
 c Hatton: June 14, 1796. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — With pleasure — no it was often with 
 delight, it was sometimes even with ecstasy, it was with 
 approbation almost always, that I have read your poem 
 on Memory. The topics are, indeed, chosen most perti- 
 nently and even happily. The imagery is rich and 
 varied, the versification is near perfection — and so near 
 that I must entreat you with a little revisal and a little 
 effort to make it quite perfect. Your Muse is so gay 
 without levity, and so serious without gloominess, that 
 she would have tamed the surly genius of Johnson him- 
 self. She holds, and has a right to hold, converse with 
 the spirits of Shenstone and Goldsmith and Gray. 
 Believe me, dear sir, when I tell you that my mind, 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 221 
 
 jaded as it has been even to indifference and insensi- 
 bility upon the common objects of poetry when treated 
 of by common minds, was roused and refreshed by the 
 uncommon excellencies of your most charming poem. 
 I love the work and I love the artist so well that without 
 further preamble I will tell him of the passages which do 
 not satisfy me. 
 
 ‘ Page 1 5 : “ resigned” is surely a feeble epithet to hap- 
 piness, nay, it is an improper one. Resignation may make 
 us happy, but happiness does not make us resigned. 1 
 
 ‘Page 17. 2 What do you mean by “the Sybil’s mut- 
 tered call,” and who is the Sybil ? And by “ muttered ” 
 call do you mean a call that was given in a muttering 
 tone ? To me this is quite enigmatical. 
 
 ‘ In the same page — 
 
 ‘ To learn the colour of my future years. 
 
 1 As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, 
 
 Long on the wave reflected lustres play ; 
 
 Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned 
 Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind. 
 
 2 Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blazed 
 The Gipsy’s fagot — there we stood and gazed ; 
 
 Gazed on her sunburnt face with silent awe, 
 
 Her tattered mantle, and her hood of straw ; 
 
 Her moving lips, her cauldron brimming o’er ; 
 
 The drowsy brood that on her back she bore, 
 
 Imps, in the barn with mousing owlet bred, 
 
 From rifled roost at nightly revel fed ; 
 
 Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest shade. 
 When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed : — 
 
 And heroes fled the Sibyl’s muttered call, 
 
 Whose elfin-prowess scaled the orchard-wall. 
 
 As o’er my palm the silver piece she drew, 
 
 And traced the line of life with searching view, 
 
 How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears. 
 To learn the colour of my future years ! 
 
222 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Does the word “ learn ” quite harmonise with the word 
 “ colour ” ? Each expression is good by itself, but they are 
 not well joined together here, and the transition is too 
 violent from a dignified literal word “ learn ” to the vivid 
 metaphorical word “colour/’ 
 
 ‘ Page 1 8 : — 
 
 ‘ Unconscious of the kindred earth 
 That faintly echoed to the voice of mirth. 1 
 
 I really do not know what you mean by “ the kindred 
 earth ” which faintly echoes, &c. 
 
 ‘ Page 19 : — 
 
 ‘ — whose every word enlightened. 2 
 
 The use of “ every ” is rather too pretty ; and, indeed, is 
 the only prettyism I have seen, and therefore it strikes 
 the more, as being more contrary to the general purity 
 and elegance of the style. 
 
 ‘ Page 2 1 : — 
 
 ‘ — yet all with magic art 
 Controul the latent fibres of the heart. 3 
 
 1 On yon grey stone, that fronts the chancel door, 
 Worn smooth by busy feet now seen no more, 
 
 Each eve we shot the marble through the ring, 
 When the heart danced, and life was in its spring ; 
 Alas ! unconscious of the kindred earth, 
 
 That faintly echoed to the voice of mirth. 
 
 2 Guides of my life ! Instructors of my youth ! 
 
 Who first unveiled the hallowed form of truth ! 
 Whose every word enlightened and endeared 
 In age beloved, in poverty revered ; 
 
 In friendship’s silent register ye live, 
 
 Nor ask the vain memorial Art can give. 
 
 3 Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
 
 Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain. 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 223 
 
 The philosophy is here better than the poetry, each 
 thought “ stamps its image,” each “ brightens or 
 fades.” Here we have imagery, very just and distinct 
 and yet varied. But is not the imagery rather too re- 
 mote from that which precedes, when we are told that 
 thoughts “ controul the latent fibres ” ? My friend, you 
 do not lead my fancy but you drag it after you here. 
 Perhaps, too, I am not quite pleased with the word 
 “ dispense ” as applied to the “ varied avenues of sense ” 
 — avenues do not dispense. 
 
 ‘ Page 24 : — 
 
 4 All touched the talisman’s resistless spring. * 1 
 
 This line, though intelligible, is obscure. I have many 
 objections and will state them to you. In the two 
 preceding lines we have ornamental description and 
 ornament, too, which throws over the mind many strong 
 images, well adapted to the scenery, as it affects the 
 senses ; but, my friend, is there not danger of confusion, 
 when, having recalled such images so pleasing to the 
 senses, you proceed in bold metaphor to speak of the 
 
 Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
 
 Each stamps its image as the other flies. 
 
 Each, as the various avenues of sense 
 Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense, 
 
 Brightens or fades ; yet all, with magic art, 
 
 Controul the latent fibres of the heart. 
 
 1 So Scotia’s Queen, as slowly dawned the day, 
 
 Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away. 
 
 Her eyes had blessed the beacon’s glimmering height, 
 That faintly tipped the feathery surge with light ; 
 
 But now the morn with Orient hues pourtrayed 
 Each castled cliff, and brown monastic shade ; 
 
 All touched the talisman’s resistless spring, 
 
 And lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing I 
 
224 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 operations of the mind ? To me it is quite enigmatical. 
 And consider, too, after the metaphor o the talisman 
 we have another metaphor of "busy tribes” that are 
 “ on the wing,” and do you think that touching a spring 
 leads us to think of beings on the wing ? I think these 
 metaphors do not follow one another well, and when 
 two metaphors immediately succeed such vivid des- 
 cription of natural scenery I feel my mind confounded 
 and fatigued. 
 
 ‘ Page 26 : — 
 
 ‘ When at his feet . . . the sage . . . reposed. 1 
 
 If you use “ when ” it should be when Tully found him 
 reposing ; if you put “ where ” the passage will be right. 
 Perhaps you were frightened by seeing the word “ where ” 
 follow so close in the next sentence. I am not quite 
 satisfied with the line where you say that “ his youth in 
 sweet delusion hung.” 2 To hang in delusion is at least 
 unusual, and though it be a fact that this happened 
 when Cicero was young, yet the circumstance of youth 
 does not add to the effect ; therefore I would have avoided 
 the word “ youth ” and have endeavoured to express it 
 in a plainer way as that which happened while he was 
 young. His mind felt the charming delusion when he 
 was young. 
 
 1 As now at Virgil’s tomb 
 
 We bless the shade, and bid the verdure bloom ; 
 
 So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time, 
 
 On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime ; 
 
 When at his feet, in honoured dust disclosed 
 The immortal Sage of Syracuse reposed. 
 
 2 The line was altered. It now reads 
 
 ‘ And as he long in sweet delusion hung.’ 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 225 
 
 ‘ Page 27 : — 
 
 4 What though the fiend’s torpedo -touch arrest ! 
 
 Dear sir, this line shocked me. The character of a 
 fiend is accompanied by an idea of violence with which 
 “ torpedo-touch ” ill accords; and again I do not like 
 the word “ arrest ” as joined to “ torpedo-touch ” — for 
 surely to arrest suggests some notion of vehemence and 
 force which is very ill-connected with the touch of a 
 torpedo. No touch can arrest, so far as touch is a slight 
 operation ; and then a torpedo-touch conveys to me, as I 
 told you before, an idea of benumbing properties 1 rather 
 than of those which arrest or seize, and by seizing stop 
 the motions of the mind. I know you can say that a 
 torpor seizes, but I should not say the touch of a tor- 
 por seizes, nor should I choose to say that this act of 
 seizing had checked any preceding emotion, whether 
 habitual or not. When we so use the word “ seize,” we 
 mean to express the suddenness of the effect, rather than 
 the vehemence of the cause. Again, in the same page 
 I do not find the word “ erase ” very appropriate to the 
 word “school,” though it agrees well enough with the 
 epithet “iron.” 2 Still, my friend, you must not have 
 
 1 It may be desirable to remind a younger generation of readers that 
 the torpedo of their grandfathers is an electrical ray-fish ( torpedo vul- 
 garis ), commonly called ‘ the cramp fish.’ 
 
 ’ l The lines here criticised are — 
 
 What though the iron school of War erase 
 Each milder virtue and each softer grace ; 
 
 What though the fiend’s torpedo -touch arrest 
 Each gentler, purer impulse of the breast ; 
 
 Still shall this active principle preside 
 And wake the tear to Pity’s self denied. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the properties of the subject merged in the properties of 
 the adjunct ; and wishing the subject were better adapted 
 to the action of erasing, I must beg leave to express my 
 doubt on the propriety of the epithet “iron ” as applied 
 under any circumstances to the subject “ school/ ’ I 
 cannot admit the transposition of “iron school of war ” 
 for the “ school of iron war ” except in dithyrambic, 
 nonsensical, meteoric odes. 
 
 ‘ Page 30 : — 
 
 4 And win each wavering purpose to relent 
 With warmth so mild, so gently violent. 
 
 I don’t understand these two lines. We generally say 
 that a stubborn , not a wavering , purpose relents ; and 
 pray what do you mean by “ with warmth so mild, so 
 gently violent ” ? I am all confusion about it. 
 
 ‘ Page 3 1 : — 
 
 4 These, when to guard Misfortune’s sacred grave, 
 
 Will firm Fidelity exult to brave. 
 
 The first line is obscure. You mean to say when em- 
 ployed, or when designing, to guard the grave, but you 
 have not said it ; and after not finding your meaning in the 
 first line we expect to find it in the second, and expecting to 
 find it ’ — [not finding it, is clearly the meaning] — c in the 
 second we are driven back to the first, and even there we 
 cannot find it without an effort — without supplying some- 
 thing which is not expressed. This effort is made more 
 painful from the structure of the second line, which is very 
 artificial. 44 These, will firm Fidelity exult to brave,” I 
 could understand pretty well, if the other construction, 
 44 when to guard Misfortune’s sacred grave ” did not inter- 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 227 
 
 vene. But the passage so intervening makes me look for 
 aid from the second, which aid is not furnished ; and the 
 second, where the ideas are thrown at a distance from the 
 subject to which it relates, finds embarrassment upon 
 embarrassment — embarrassment from the interven- 
 ing passage, and embarrassment from its own inverted 
 position in tracing its way back to that which Fidelity 
 exults to brave. Besides, my friend, I do not relish 
 the personification of Fidelity, nor do I much admire the 
 epithet“fir m,”nor do I much approve ofthe word “exult.” 
 Do you think that exultation is a very obvious property of 
 fidelity ? And if it is not obvious what are the circum- 
 stances which make it proper on this occasion ? I see 
 none. Pray reconsider the lines. 1 
 
 ‘ Page 45 
 
 4 . . . . presumes its base control. 
 
 Is this quite accurate ? I think otherwise. 2 
 
 1 It may be well to quote the whole passage, to the last two lines of 
 which this criticism applies — 
 
 Recall the traveller, whose altered form 
 Has borne the buffet of the mountain storm ; 
 
 And who will first his fond impatience meet ? 
 
 His faithful dog’s already at his feet ! 
 
 Yes, though the porter spurn him from the door, 
 
 Tho’ all that knew him, know his face no more, 
 
 His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each, 
 
 With that mute eloquence which passes speech. — 
 
 And see, the master but returns to die ! 
 
 Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly ? 
 
 The blasts of heaven, the drenching dews of earth, 
 
 The wanton insults of unfeeling mirth, 
 
 These, when to guard Misfortune’s sacred grave, 
 
 Will firm Fidelity exult to brave. 
 
 1 The line is altered to— ‘ assumes its base control.’ 
 
228 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ Page 50 : — 
 
 4 So richly cultured, every native grace 
 Its scanty limits he forgets to trace. 
 
 My ear is hurt with its scanty limits , and my under- 
 standing is totally at a loss to conjecture what you mean. 1 
 
 4 Time’s sombrous touches soon correct the piece, 
 
 Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease ; 
 
 A softer tone of light pervades the whole, 
 
 And breathes a pensive languor o’er the soul. 
 
 My mind, I am sure, feels here a very strange dis- 
 cord indeed. Again and again I have had occasion to 
 tell authors that one metaphor never can be worked into 
 another. I remember in a famous speech of Lord Mans- 
 field’s about Wilkes he was guilty of confounding two 
 metaphors. He spoke of “ the colour of his life,” and so 
 far was well. But he added to the word colour some 
 other metaphorical term, completely heterogeneous. I 
 forget what it was, and am a dunce for forgetting it, 
 though at this moment I remember a stupid attempt of 
 a stupid antiquarian to vindicate the learned judge by 
 supposing that he alluded to Heraldry. Lord Mansfield’s 
 speech was for a time admired, and when I attacked it, 
 I never found a man of sense undertake its defence. 
 Having fetched, like Parson Adams, a stride across the 
 room, and brandished my pipe, I suddenly experience 
 the “ Pleasures of Memory.” Lord Mansfield’s word was 
 “ armed ” — “ has armed the colour of my life.” His life 
 
 1 The lines now read — 
 
 So rich the culture, tho’ so small the space, 
 Its scanty limits he forgets to trace. 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 229 
 
 might be armed, but the colour of it could not be. I 
 return from Lord Mansfield to a better man and a better 
 writer. My friend, you pass too quickly from painting 
 to music ; from the sense of seeing to the sense of hear- 
 ing. There are, it is true, some words which, belonging 
 originally to one sense, are without violence transferred 
 to another. So, sweet, from taste, is applied to sound ; 
 and even to the features of a countenance, so, soft, from 
 feeling is applied both to notes and pictures. I allow 
 much to the laws and even caprices of association ; I 
 allow much to the authority of custom, which predomi- 
 nates not only in the cases just now mentioned, but in 
 many other metaphorical words, which having originally 
 a mere literal sense are also used in a metaphorical sense 
 with such frequency that we hardly perceive them to be 
 metaphorical. But none of these concessions will avail 
 towards your justification. My concessions go to single 
 words. But in your poem we have more than single 
 words — we have a train of images, we have a succession 
 of metaphors ; and when the first metaphor has been 
 preserved pure many of its appropriate terms are inter- 
 mingled with a second, and a distinct and quite hetero- 
 geneous metaphor. I cannot bear the expression of ‘ a 
 tone of light.’ A soft tone can, but a soft light cannot, 
 “ breathe a pensive languor.” Well, but even supposing 
 that you had preserved the second metaphor from sound 
 from all mixture of terms borrowed from music, still I 
 should say that to pass so suddenly from one metaphor 
 to another, from the effects of one sense to the effects of 
 another sense, would be a faulty accumulation of imagery : 
 for you will observe that you are not speaking literally 
 
230 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 of sound or literally of colours, but of both meta- 
 phorically, and according to my judgment metaphors so 
 remote ought not to succeed each other so closely, more 
 especially they ought not, because they are applied to 
 one and the same subject — the mind; and because in 
 truth they are describing one and the same operation 
 or affection of that mind. Take either of them away, 
 leave the picture and remove the music, or leave the 
 music and remove the picture, and in either case you 
 will have sufficiently expressed your meaning. I see 
 what it was which produced this confusion. The unlucky 
 word “ discord ” has produced all this discord. My friend, 
 I have observed in poets, and indeed in all speakers, that 
 the mention of one metaphorical word leads the writer or 
 speaker into the expansion of the correspondent metaphor 
 at full. Thus in “ Cymbeline ” — 
 
 Second Gentleman . — You speak him far. 
 
 First Gentleman . — I do extend him, sir, within himself, 
 Crush him together rather than unfold 
 His measure duly. 
 
 So in Horace, Sat. i. — 
 
 Dum ex parvo nobis tantundem haurire relinquas, 
 
 Cur tua plus laudes cumeris granaria nostris ? 
 
 Having dropped the word haurire he goes on with 
 the metaphor suggested by it at full — 
 
 Ut, tibi si sit opus liquidi non amplius urna , 
 
 Yel cyatko , et dicas ; Magno d e flumine mallem 
 Quam ex hoc fonticulo tantundem sumere. 
 
 I could quote you several other instances, but these 
 are enough for my purpose, and will show you the train 
 
CRITICISM BY DR. PARR 
 
 231 
 
 of your own ideas. What you have in common with 
 Shakespeare and Horace is that one metaphorical term 
 led you on to a complete metaphor. A difference between 
 you is that they preserve the metaphor well and that 
 you have not preserved it. You run on from discordant 
 tints to discordant sounds, to both of which you meant 
 to apply the correction of time, and unfortunately when 
 you got to the sounds you mingled with them the terms 
 which belonged to the tints. 1 
 
 ‘ Page 54 : — “As the stern ” and “ as when ” in the 
 third line afterwards, seem to me unfinished writing. 2 
 
 ‘ Page 59 : — “ Tenderer tints.” The comparative here 
 is very harsh to my ear, and surely it is unusual. 3 
 
 ‘ The close of the tale of Florio is admirably to your 
 purpose, and is well told ; but the introduction to it is far 
 too long and too much encumbered with circumstantial 
 description. Florio, by accident as it afterwards appears, 
 meets the lady. But what was he doing before ? Was 
 he merely wandering ? So it should seem. But why, 
 then, so much description lavished on the scenery ? There 
 
 1 The line was altered, and now reads — 
 
 And steals a pensive languor o’er the soul. 
 
 2 This, too, was altered, and the lines now read — 
 
 As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower 
 Awes us less deeply in its morning hour, 
 
 Than when the shades of Time serenely fall, 
 
 On every broken arch and ivied wall. 
 
 3 The lines are — 
 
 Fair was her form — but who can hope to trac 
 The pensive softness of her angel face ? 
 
 Can Virgil’s verse, can Raphael’s touch, impart 
 Those finer features of the feeling heart, 
 
 Those tenderer tints that shun the careless eye, 
 
 And in the world’s contagious climate die ? 
 
232 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 is no interest awakened about Florio for near two pages, 
 because we do not see any purpose he had in view. It is 
 a charming tale ; pray reconsider the introductory parts. 
 
 ‘ Page 67 : — 
 
 ‘ Each ready flight at Mercy’s call Divine 
 To distant worlds that undiscovered shine. 
 
 What is the meaning of “ each ready flight ” ? To me it 
 is nearly unintelligible. The structure, too, displeases me. 
 My friend, let us suppose this passage right. Every par- 
 ticular introduced by the word “ each ” has certain effects 
 separately assigned to it. Very well ! But when you come 
 to the last line to describe their joint effects my mind is 
 not sufficiently severed from the particular cause and ef- 
 fects immediately preceding, on which you have bestowed 
 three lines. (On looking again I suspect “ undiscovered 
 shine” refers to “ worlds.” Be it so. What is a “ ready 
 flight,” and how does a flight “ fling its living rays ? ” My 
 mistake is a proof that you have not written clearly). 
 Where the particulars in detail are so fully detailed you 
 should not have included under the same couplet a part 
 of one particular effect, and the aggregate effect of all 
 the preceding particulars. There is something awkward 1 
 
 1 The passage referred to in the above criticism is as follows. 
 Speaking of ‘ the enchantress Memory ’ the poet says : — 
 
 But is her magic only felt below ? 
 
 Say thro’ what brighter realms she bids it flow ? 
 
 To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere, 
 
 She yields delight but faintly imaged here : 
 
 All that till now their rapt researches knew, 
 
 Not called in slow succession to review ; 
 
 But, as a landscape meets the eye of day, 
 
 At once presented to their glad survey ! 
 
GILPIN’S CRITICISM 
 
 233 
 
 in this. And so much by way of stricture, were I to put 
 my commendations on paper they would fill six sheets. 
 
 ‘ Not knowing your address I write to you at Dr. 
 Bancroft’s, and pray present my best respects to him. 
 
 ‘ I am, most sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ S. Park.’ 
 
 Another letter from one of the best known men of 
 his time seems to have been called forth by a present 
 from Rogers similar to that sent to Dr. Parr. The 
 Rev. William Gilpin writes : — 
 
 ‘ Vicarshill: July 23, 1796. 
 
 ‘I received, my dear sir, your agreeable packet, and 
 return you many thanks for it, both as it was a token of 
 your esteem and as it was the vehicle of much real 
 pleasure and amusement. I am a great lover of nature, 
 and find it is an instrument on which you have the art 
 of playing many a pleasant tune. 
 
 4 But now, my dear sir, you must not call my taste in 
 question for not having read your poem before. Heard 
 of it I often have. But as I rarely go out of my own 
 parish, and live in a neighbourhood which, though a 
 very agreeable one, is not very literary, I have seldom 
 the opportunity of seeing anything new but what I pur- 
 chase myself ; and I have been so often disappointed 
 
 Each scene of bliss revealed, since chaos fled, 
 
 And dawning light its dazzling glories spread ; 
 
 Each chain of wonders that sublimely glowed, 
 
 Since first Creation’s choral anthem flowed ; 
 
 Each ready flight, at Mercy’s call Divine 
 To distant worlds that undiscovered shine; 
 
 Full on her tablet flings its living rays 
 And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze. 
 
234 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 with new publications that I have at length learnt a 
 frugal lesson — that of bridling my curiosity, which, though 
 often the handmaid of science, is as often the companion 
 of folly. From the little acquaintance, however, I had 
 with you, I conceived I should not be disappointed in 
 the present case, and therefore sent for a copy, which 
 I received the day after I got yours. 
 
 ‘ Scaleby Castle came often into my mind as I read 
 it ; which, though in some degree faded, is still a well- 
 coloured picture in my memory. The old mansion froivn- 
 ing through the trees — once the calm scene of many a simple 
 sport — the hollow toiver — the hospitable hall — the dusky 
 furniture — the garden's desert path — the martin's old 
 hereditary nest — are all ideas familiar to me : starting to 
 life and ivhispering of the past. 
 
 6 1 believe I did not tell you why Mrs. Gilpin’s recol- 
 lection and mine presented Scaleby Castle to us in such 
 different colours. It was equally familiar to us both in 
 our youth. But I knew it chiefly in its cheerful days. 
 She was a witness of its distressed state, when an uncle 
 of ours, the possessor of it, through mere imprudence 
 (cause enough, you will say) but without any vicious 
 propensity, became an unhappy, embarrassed man, and 
 was obliged to sell it. 
 
 ‘ I cannot conclude my letter without saying I think 
 the artist who has adorned your volume is a very con- 
 siderable master both of picturesque composition and 
 expression. 
 
 ‘ Mrs. Gilpin desires me to add her best respects to 
 those of, dear sir, 
 
 ‘ Your most obedient and obliged humble servant, 
 
 ‘ Will. Gilpin.’ 
 
OTHER CRITICISMS 
 
 235 
 
 One criticism on the poem which gave Rogers un- 
 failing amusement appeared in the English Revieiv , in the 
 notice of the fifth edition. The writer quotes the lines 
 describing the Gipsy, beginning c Down by yon hazel 
 copse at evening blazed,’ with the approving statement 
 that ‘ Cowper’s Gipsy is not portrayed in livelier 
 colours.’ He then marks the alliterations in the passage, 
 and adds : ‘ We have no objection to alliteration, but 
 this writer is too fond of it.’ In a note on this subject 
 of alliteration the reviewer says : * The second part 
 opens with these lines — 
 
 Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale 
 
 Oft up the flde of time I turn my sail. 
 
 Allured by the alliteration we are almost tempted to £urn 
 our Jail.’ 
 
 The extracts I have given from the poem in the notes 
 to Dr. Parr’s letter will sufficiently exhibit its character 
 to readers who may, as yet, be unfamiliar with it. Mr. 
 Hayward, one of the most genial and generous of Rogers’s 
 later critics, thinks there is no reason for surprise at its 
 immediate success. It struck, he says, into the happy 
 medium between the precise and conventional style and 
 the free and natural one. Rogers’s only formidable 
 competitor was Cowper. Crabbe’s fame was then limited, 
 Darwin never had much, and Burns was little known. 
 Mr. Hayward points out with great force the absence 
 from the poem of any passages which cling to the 
 memory, which haunt and startle and waylay. Although 
 it has long taken its place as an English classic, he says, 
 none of its mellifluous verses or polished images are 
 
236 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 freshly remembered like the ‘ coming events cast their 
 shadows before ’ of Campbell, or Scott’s ‘ Oh, woman, in 
 our hours of ease ! ’ or Moore’s ‘ Oh, ever thus from 
 childhood’s hour ! ’ or Byron’s ‘ He who hath bent him 
 o’er the dead,’ or Wordsworth’s 
 
 Creature not too bright and good 
 For Human Nature’s daily food. 
 
 In spite, however, of this shrewd and just criticism, I 
 must point out that there are many expressions borrowed 
 from Rogers’s ‘ Pleasures of Memory ’ which have passed 
 into literature, though their original source may be 
 forgotten. The ‘ treasured tales of legendary lore,’ the 
 4 dreams of innocent repose,’ the admirable line — 
 
 And the heart promised what the fancy drew ; 
 and the further line — 
 
 And breathe the soul of inspiration round ; 
 
 are illustrations from the first page or two of expressions 
 which have passed into common use. The lines — 1 5 1 to 
 i 56 — which commemorate the virtues of Dr. Price and 
 other of Rogers’s early teachers have a familiar sound 
 to readers who know not whence they come — 
 
 Guides of my life ! Instructors of my youth ! 
 
 Who first unveiled the hallowed form of Truth ! 
 
 Whose every word enlightened and endeared ; 
 
 In age beloved, in poverty revered ; 
 
 In Friendship’s silent register ye live, 
 
 Nor ask the vain memorial Art can give. 
 
 Mr. Hayward says that in the passage beginning — 
 
 So Scotia’s Queen, as slowly dawned the day, 
 
 Rose on her couch and gazed her soul away — 
 
MR. HAYWARD ON ROGERS 
 
 237 
 
 Rogers has never been excelled in the art of blending 
 fancy and feeling with historic incident and philosophical 
 reflection. Mackintosh thought the closing lines of ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory ’ equal to those of ‘ The Dunciad,’ 
 which Mr. Hayward says is like comparing Virgil’s 
 ‘ Apostrophe to Marcellus ’ with Homer's ‘ Battle of the 
 Gods.’ He quotes the lines — 
 
 Ah ! who can tell the triumphs of the mind 
 By truth illumined, and by taste refined ? 
 
 When age has quenched the eye, and closed the ear, 
 
 Still nerved for action in her native sphere, 
 
 Oft will she rise — with searching glance pursue 
 Some long loved image vanished from her view ; 
 
 Dart thro’ the deep recesses of the Past, 
 
 O’er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast ; 
 
 With giant-grasp fling back the folds of night, 
 
 And snatch the faithless fugitive to light. 
 
 So through the grove the impatient mother flies, 
 
 Each sunless glade, each secret pathway tries ; 
 
 Till the thin leaves the truant boy disclose, 
 
 Long on the wood-moss stretched in sweet repose. 
 
 He asks why verses like these have failed to lay fast 
 and durable hold of the public imagination, and thinks 
 the answer is that the linked sweetness is too long and 
 elaborately drawn out, and that the very symmetry and 
 artistic finish of a production may militate against its 
 general popularity. But this criticism begs the question. 
 Mr. Hayward did not know how largely ‘ The Pleasures 
 of Memory ’ was circulated in the generation to which 
 it was first addressed. It did attain general popularity. 
 It is now a classic — and classics are almost always for 
 the few. Rogers’s poems are poems of taste and culture. 
 
•238 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 They are adapted rather to smooth the raven down of 
 darkness till it smiles, than to stir the blood and nerve 
 the arm and set the soul on fire. Madame d’Arblay 
 accidentally uses the fit expression with respect to ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory ’ when she describes it as ‘ that 
 most sweet poem.’ It rendered literature, as Mr. Hay- 
 ward says, an ‘ invaluable service by its purity of language 
 and chasteness of tone — which immediately became the 
 objects of improving imitation and elevating rivalry.’ 
 
239 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Diary of literary visits, parties, etc.— Dinners with Parr, Cumberland — 
 Fox, Sheridan, and Pamela, at Stone’s — E. Sharp — Summer journey 
 to New Forest, etc. — Gilpin — Meetings of Club— Cooper, Priestley, 
 Tuffin, Stothard, Franklin, etc. — Eumelean Club — Arthur Murphy — 
 His stories of Foote and Garrick. 
 
 The success of ‘ The Pleasures of Memory,’ gave Rogers 
 at once a high position in the literary society of the time. 
 He soon begins to be spoken of by contemporaries as 
 ‘ the poet Rogers,’ or as ‘ Mr. Rogers, the admired poet.’ 
 His society was sought ; and wherever he went he was 
 pointed out as the author of the poem everybody was 
 reading. This was just the kind of fame for which he 
 longed. He had found the direction in which his strength 
 lay. It was not in the noise and hurry of dithyrambic 
 odes, but in smooth and polished versification ; not in 
 bursts of passion or in great flights of bold imagination, 
 but in graceful elegance of movement and restrained 
 feeling, that he was able to excel his contemporaries. 
 The time, moreover, was singularly fortunate. The most 
 barren era of English poetry was just drawing to its 
 close. The laureateship which Spenser had adorned in 
 the sixteenth century, and Ben Jonson and Dry den in 
 the seventeenth, had fallen in the eighteenth to Colley 
 Cibber and William Whitehead and Henry James Pye, 
 
240 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and through the whole century never rose above the 
 level of Pye’s immediate predecessor, the Rev. Thomas 
 Warton who had just succeeded to Whitehead when 
 Rogers’s first poem came out. It was true that Gray 
 had declined it in 1757 and Mason in 1 78 5 ; as Rogers 
 himself was destined to do in 1850. But Gray had 
 been in his grave in Stoke Poges churchyard for more 
 than twenty years, and Mason was chiefly known as 
 his biographer, when ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ ap- 
 peared. Cowper— who divides with Rogers the true 
 poetical chieftainship of the times, but whose popularity 
 was never as great among the cultivated classes as that 
 of Rogers — was out of society, cowering in the gloom of 
 religious melancholy. It is only possible to understand 
 the high position which the success of this comparatively 
 short poem gave to Rogers when we recollect that he 
 was educated in the eighteenth century, but in the midst 
 of the men by whom and the influences by which the 
 nineteenth century w 7 as moulded ; and that he wrote the 
 poem by which he was best known in later times before 
 the Lake School had risen, or Scott had been heard of, 
 or Tennyson was born. 
 
 It is quite possible that the title of the poem — ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory ’ — was suggested by Akenside’s 
 ‘ Pleasures of Imagination ; ’ and it is quite certain that 
 the success of Rogers’s poem suggested to Campbell his 
 ‘ Pleasures of Hope.’ There were the usual inquiries 
 as to its authorship, and in those days it was a surprise 
 to be told that the new poet was a young banker in the 
 City. When Lord Eldon, then Sir John Scott, was told 
 of it, he exclaimed : ‘ If Old Gozzy ’ — head of the firm of 
 
DIARY IN 1792 
 
 241 
 
 Goslings, with whom he banked — ‘ even so much as says 
 a good thing, let alone writing, I will close my account 
 with him the next morning/ Neither the partners nor 
 the customers of the firm of which Rogers was the 
 youngest member had this feeling. His father’s letters 
 are full of matters of business, all of which he seems to 
 have entrusted to his poetic son without the least fear 
 that his pursuit of poetry, as the happy occupation of his 
 well-earned leisure, would in any way interfere with his 
 application to business. The best business man is per- 
 haps the one who thinks least about it and gets farthest 
 away from it when business is over. 
 
 In these early days of his fame he kept a diary of 
 his occasional visits to literary people and conversations 
 with them. The habit was unfortunately not continued 
 long; but as in the records of his Edinburgh visit, 
 and his conversation at Miss Williams’s, so in the diary 
 for 1792 and 1793 we catch glimpses of interesting and 
 sometimes of eminent persons. 
 
 ‘ 1792. — Paid two visits at Streatham this winter. 
 Walked back to London the first time with Lysons, who 
 said Lord Orford would never go to Houghton, as it 
 would remind him of the sale of the pictures. The last 
 time saw Miss Harriet Lee and Mr. Ray, a very sensible 
 and engaging man. Danced a blind minuet with Cecilia, 
 and footed another with her mother. Mrs. Piozzi read 
 me an opera called ‘ The Fountains ’ in blank verse inter- 
 spersed with songs. Scene Dovedale. It contained some 
 touching sentiments, particularly a line in a woman’s 
 mouth — 
 
 For independent only means forlorn. 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ In January dined at Dilly’s with Parr, Cumberland, 
 Hoole, Eeed, Priestley, etc. 
 
 ‘ Parr : “ I have written a Latin epitaph for Johnson, 
 and the knowing ones will be taken in. They expect it 
 to be pompous, as it is written for Pomposo, and by 
 Pomposo the Second.” He mentioned tang ere as un- 
 classically used in Goldsmith’s epitaph, and thundered 
 against the round-robin addressed to Johnson to per- 
 suade him to write it in English. He was shocked to see 
 Tom Warton’s name in so Gothic a business. Speaking of 
 a lie against Watson’s charge : “ It was begot by Preju- 
 dice on Ignorance, and Malice was its godfather.” He 
 spoke very contemptuously of Dr. Ash. 
 
 ‘ Cumberland spoke of his grandfather Bentley as 
 gentle and fond of children. He would never count 
 money but desired it always to be placed in piles of 
 twenty guineas on the table, and he would run his hand 
 over them to feel that they were all of a height. When a 
 thief was arrested in his pantry, he (Bentley) said : “ You 
 see you can’t succeed in this trade, go and try a better.” 
 When remonstrated with for dismissing him he said 
 mildly: “What more should be done with the fellow? 
 He has failed so egregiously in this instance he will never 
 think of thieving again.” Just before he died, his wife 
 said : “I wish you had harassed yourself less with criti- 
 cism and controversy, and written more on other sub- 
 jects.” He sat musing for a little while, and then burst 
 into tears. 
 
 ‘ Somebody mentioned Griffiths, editor of the Monthly 
 Revietv. Cumberland said he did not envy him his place, 
 it was like the keeper of a bridewell. Cumberland has 
 
PARR AND CUMBERLAND 
 
 243 
 
 often found it a House of Correction. Tweddell said 
 if he had a new comedy he should sit in the pit. “ No,” 
 said Cumberland, “ sit in the green-room, and now and 
 then take a peep between the scenes to feel the pulse of 
 the house. If it is in good humour, well ; if not — why 
 take a walk ! ” 
 
 ‘Parr was afterwards in a rage with Cumberland. 
 “ Why did Hilly ask me to meet such a scoundrel ? He 
 shall tell me who I am to meet next time. To tell 
 Priestley that to attack him was to attack philosophy, 
 and when his back was turned to abuse him as a fire- 
 brand, an innovator, and a disturber ! Did the fellow 
 think I should forget his words ? And then to bring up 
 his Epic Poem. How could I tell it was his ? I might 
 have found fault with every line of it.” 1 
 
 ‘ I desired Dilly afterwards to give Hoole and Cumber- 
 land my poem. Hoole wrote a civil note . 2 * Cumberland 
 called to thank me and tell me of its faults — faults 
 which he himself had committed, and which he hoped I 
 would hear from an old writer — “ too rich, and too much 
 alliteration,” and “ the story too obscure.” He after- 
 wards sent me “ Calvary.” 
 
 1 William Maltby was at this party, and Dr. Parr met him a few days 
 afterwards and let off his anger at Cumberland’s treatment of Priestley 
 in similar terms to those recorded by Rogers. ‘ Only to think of Mr. 
 Cumberland, that he should have presumed to talk before me , before me , 
 sir, in such terms of my friend Dr. Priestley. Pray, sir, let Mr. Dilly know 
 my opinion of Mr. Cumberland — that his ignorance is only equalled by his 
 impertinence, and that both are exceeded by his malice.’ — Mr. Dyce’s 
 Porsoniana , p. 314. 
 
 2 The note is among Rogers’s letters. It is dated from 28 Pall Mall 
 
 and expresses 4 the great pleasure he has received from the perusal of 
 his elegant performance, which has given pleasure to all Mr. Hoole’s 
 
 friends who have seen it.’ 
 
244 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ At Tuffin’s, in the winter, met Romney, Horne Tooke, 
 and Priestley. Romney very animated at times. Speak- 
 ing of Pitt — “ That man,” said he, “has a nose turned up 
 at all mankind.” Of Horne Tooke he said : “His brain 
 has starved his nose.” Spoke of Hayley’s agitation at 
 the acting of Eudoxa : “ I thought I should have sunk, ” 
 said he, “ I did not dare to look at him.” 
 
 ‘ The next day with Sharpe and Tuffin ; saw Banks’s 
 statues, called at Romney’s and saw him, and also saw 
 Towneley’s collection ; and dined at the Grecian. 
 
 ‘ In the autumn of last year Dr. Priestley, Dr. Kippis, 
 Dr. Moore, Mr. Merry, Captain Brown, Major Montfort, 
 Mr. Sharpe, and Captain Moore dined with me. When I 
 published my poem Merry wrote me a very flattering 
 letter, and I dined with him and his wife. He is Count of 
 the Holy Roman Empire, which the Abbe Grenet procured 
 for him. It cost ten guineas, and his patent of creation 
 hangs in a frame in his parlour. He mentioned Sir 
 James Murray, who by twelve questions could get at 
 your thoughts. 
 
 ‘ In February, passed the evening at Stone’s with 
 Fox, Sheridan, O’Brien, the Bishop of Autun, Madame 
 de Sillery, Pamela — supposed to be her daughter — 
 Adele Princess of Orleans, and Henriette, her niece. 
 Fox said: “All titles are equally ridiculous. I believe 
 Hume wrote up the Stuarts from a spirit of opposition, 
 because it was the fashion to write them down.” He 
 spoke French fluently ; said his son (who is dumb) 
 had ideas before he had words, talked to him with his 
 fingers, and when he first entered the room flew to re- 
 ceive him with the most lively pleasure. In conversation 
 
FOX, SHERIDAN, AND PAMELA 
 
 245 
 
 his (Fox’s) countenance brightens, and his voice as- 
 sumes a pleasant tone. Dr. Priestley said afterwards 
 he was improved in manners since he saw him at Shel- 
 burne House ten years ago, when he spat on the carpet 
 and hurt Lord Shelburne, who is a man of great neat- 
 ness. “ Charles,” said Sheridan, “ have you read Parr’s 
 letter ? ” “ I read it last week,” said Fox. “ Charles,” 
 said Sheridan, “ received a long letter from Parr, to 
 dissuade him from moving for the repeal of the Test 
 Act. But as he began with not requiring him to answer 
 it Charles thought he would go a step farther and not 
 read it.” 
 
 ‘ Madame de Sillery has an air of vivacity. She said 
 Marmontel was an affected writer, of no taste or genius, 
 but cried up by a set of admirers in Paris. I mentioned 
 this afterwards to Blanchisserie, secretary to the Embassy, 
 an aristocrat. “ Tell her,” said he, “ to write as well. Her 
 best works are her daughters.” They are fine women. 
 He owned afterwards that he thought himself slighted 
 by her. He has bought Sir Isaac Newton’s house in 
 St. Martin’s Lane, and intends to ornament the front. 
 Pamela excited Sheridan’s notice. (Mirabeau used to be 
 at her feet.) She has fine black eyes, and her skin is of 
 a dazzling whiteness, but Adele struck me more, having 
 more softness in look and manner. Her fine light hair 
 descended below her knees. She plays delightfully on 
 the harp. Pamela draws. Saw them afterwards at 
 the exhibition. Dr. Priestley said afterwards that he 
 had often heard Marmontel read his tales at Madame de 
 [? Seran’s] at Paris, where the literati met every Wed- 
 nesday evening, and that his action was so violent he was 
 
246 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 afraid of sitting near him. It was there also he heard 
 d’Alembert deliver his famous eloge on Voltaire. 
 
 6 In March Dr. Aikin called upon me. On the 20th 
 of April dined with Paine at William Morgan’s, a silent 
 man, but very strong and emphatic in his language. 
 The memory of Joshua was given as a toast. “ I would 
 not treat kings like Joshua,” 1 said Paine : “ I’m of the 
 Scotch parson’s opinion when he prayed against Louis 
 XIV. — ‘ Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don’t 
 let him drop ! ’ ” He gave in his turn “ The Republic 
 of the World ” — a sublime idea. 
 
 ‘On the 23rd dined with the Antiquarian Society. 
 Nothing occurred of moment. Sat by Lysons, and con- 
 versed with Marsh on Shakespeare. Townley, Daines 
 Barrington, 2 and Dr. Douglas, the bishop, 3 were there. 
 
 ‘ On the 24th dined at Sharpe’s with Porson, who read 
 W T ill Whiston’s trial with some humour. On the 26th 
 with Lord Dacre at Edison’s, and attended the “ Friends 
 of the People ” at Freemasons’ Hall. On the 27th with 
 Dr. Aikin and Dr. Priestley at College dinner ; Dr. A. 
 thinks Moliere far superior to any comic writer in this 
 country. 
 
 ‘ On the 28th of May dined with Dr. Bates and 
 Marsden and Major Montfort at Mr. Paper’s. Marsden 
 thinks our words derived from the Latin at second hand 
 through the French. Dr. Bates said that the fish caught 
 
 1 See Joshua, chaps, x., xi., xii. 
 
 2 The Hon. Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Lord Bar- 
 rington, a lawyer and an antiquary. He died in 1800. 
 
 3 Dr. John Douglas, then in his seventy-first year. He was made 
 bishop of Carlisle in 1787, translated to Salisbury in June, 1791, and 
 died in 1807. 
 
SUTTON SHAEPE 
 
 247 
 
 in the Italian seas were often boiled by being dropped 
 into the current of a warm spring some fathoms below 
 the surface, and mentioned a curious sacrifice to a saint 
 in Sicily. 
 
 ‘ In June, dined at home with the Barbaulds and Dr. 
 Bates. Dr. B. had heard a celebrated singer sing an 
 ode of Anacreon at Angelica Kauffman’s at Rome. In 
 Sicily a lover must write an ode to his mistress before 
 she will listen to him. 
 
 ‘ June 21. — Set off for Salisbury Cathedral, Stone- 
 henge, Wilton, Bryanston, Portland Quarries, Lulworth 
 Castle, Lulworth Cove, Corfe Castle, etc. ; and met Sharp 
 at Southampton.’ 
 
 This is the first clear mention of Richard Sharp. 
 The Sharpe named in the earlier portions of the diary 
 is Sutton Sharpe, of Nottingham Place, who afterwards 
 married Maria Rogers. Sutton Sharpe was then a 
 widower, living with his only daughter, Catharine Sharpe, 
 the heroic story of whose after-life I have told in another 
 volume , 1 in which also Sutton Sharpe’s melancholy 
 history is briefly narrated. He was a man of much 
 taste and culture and at this time of considerable wealth 
 as a brewer. He had studied drawing at the Royal 
 Academy, and lived on terms of intimate friendship with 
 .Opie, Shee, Stothard, Flaxman, Bewick, Holloway, and 
 others. At his house Rogers made the acquaintance of 
 these eminent artists, and learned that love of art which 
 distinguished him in after-life. Boddington, Richard 
 
 1 Samuel Sharpe ; Egyptologist and Translator of the Bible. 
 
248 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Sharp’s partner, once remarked to Rogers in the hearing 
 or William Maltby : ‘ You know, Rogers, we owe all these 
 tastes to Sutton Sharpe ; ’ and Rogers himself, speaking 
 to Sutton Sharpe’s fourth son, the late Mr. William 
 Sharpe, said ‘ William, all I know of art I learned from 
 your father.’ A pencil drawing by Flaxman shows 
 Sutton Sharpe to have been a person of singularly noble 
 presence, though perhaps with more taste and sensibility 
 than resolution or energy. He was an intimate friend of 
 Porson, and among his frequent visitors were William 
 Maltby, Samuel Boddington, Richard Sharp, and Horne 
 Tooke. 
 
 The journey which is summarised in the last entry 
 taken from Rogers’s diary, is more fully described in 
 another of his journals, and the account is worth repro- 
 ducing as a sketch of southern England in the early 
 days of the French Revolution, and before the Napoleonic 
 wars. 
 
 ‘ June 21, 1792. — Went in a post-coach from London 
 to Salisbury. The Cathedral is the lightest and most 
 elegant piece of Gothic extant. It is, indeed, so light as 
 to lose in some degree that grandeur which is attached 
 to magnitude. The spectator at first sight thinks he 
 could almost “hang it to his watch.” Not that the 
 masonry is so very curiously wrought — for in rich 
 filagree work York Minster and the Cathedral at Amiens 
 far excel it ; but the style of its architecture is so beau- 
 tiful, and the whole is so happily put together and so 
 neatly finished, that for a moment we forget the sub- 
 lime simplicity of the Grecian school and pronounce it 
 to be perfection itself. When viewed from several parts 
 
THE SOUTH OE ENGLAND IN 1792 
 
 249 
 
 of the close, it has a very pleasing and picturesque effect 
 through the trees. 
 
 ‘ 22nd . — Eode nine miles across Salisbury Plain to 
 Stonehenge. At the sixth stone, or soon afterwards, it 
 presents itself on a small elevation. As we approach it, 
 it becomes an object of importance and is indeed most 
 interesting to a contemplative mind. When we consider 
 its great antiquity and the inexplicable mystery in which 
 its story is involved — its many barbarous purposes, among 
 which was most probably the sacrifice of human beings, 
 the sacrifice of Romans ; the shapeless masses that com- 
 pose it, their gigantic size and rude arrangement ; and, 
 to close all, its solitary station in the desert, which unites 
 on all sides with the sky — we must acknowledge it to be a 
 very sublime and imposing piece of scenery. Proceeded 
 to Wilton. What I thought there most admirable were : 
 a Venus extracting a thorn from her foot — her half- 
 closed eyelids are strikingly expressive of acute pain ; 
 the busts of Hannibal and Brutus — the last is evidently 
 a likeness, and its lineaments are sufficient alone to tell 
 his history, the face of a man who could stab his friend 
 to save his country ; a statue of Bacchus with a cup in 
 his hand and poppies hanging from his shoulders ; and 
 a bust of Sappho which is exquisitely beautiful. The 
 “ Assumption of the Virgin ” by Raphael, and a Madonna 
 by Carlo Dolci (her veil coloured with ultra-marine) 
 equal to any piece of that master, even to Domenichino’s 
 portrait of his mistress, or the picture of ‘ Christ Blessing 
 the Elements ’ at Burleigh. Continued through an open 
 and hilly country to Dorchester. Mr. Portman’s walk 
 at Bryanston, near Blandford, gave me, how T ever, some 
 
250 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 relief. It was along a very high green hank, near a 
 mile in length, in many parts perpendicular and hung 
 with noble firs and forest trees. The Stour winds below 
 it through the soft lawns of the Park, and then, skirting 
 the uplands on the opposite side, makes its exit with 
 the accompaniment of a little rock scenery. Dorchester 
 nearly encircled with a pleasant sycamore walk. Its 
 foundations are an inexhaustible mine of Roman anti- 
 quities. I left it in the evening, and soon ascending 
 Ridgway Hill (so called from a village that shelters 
 itself under it), was agreeably surprised at its summit 
 with a beautiful view of Weymouth Bay, and the Isle of 
 Portland rising with its mountainous ridge near the 
 entrance of it. 
 
 ‘ 2 4th . — Went to church, and heard a rustic band of 
 singers accompanied by the bassoon. In the evening 
 rode on the sands, the Corso of Weymouth ; and after- 
 wards, from the brow of a little eminence that overlooks 
 Weymouth, saw Portland and the windings of the coast 
 as far as Lyme to great advantage. It is an evening 
 view, and the setting sun had shed its richest hues 
 over it. 
 
 ‘ 27th. — Rode to Upwey, a retired village near 
 Ridgway, to visit a friend who had just chosen it as 
 a retreat from the bustle and glitter of Paris. It was 
 there that I saw him last and the contrast of the 
 present scene struck me forcibly. At dinner, however, 
 he regaled me with soup bouilli and an omelette ; and 
 his parrot Jacquant, his dog Azor, and an old French 
 horse on which he exercised in the Bois de Boulogne are 
 still his favourite companions. Rode with him along a 
 
PORTLAND AND LULWORTH 
 
 251 
 
 noble terrace near a mile in length, and commanding 
 the sea, and the adjacent downs pastured with sheep and 
 swelling everywhere into tumuli. Within a few yards of 
 his garden, under a green hill and overshadowed with 
 aged trees, is the fountain-head of the river Wey. 
 
 ‘ 28 th . — Passed the ruins of Sandford Castle, which 
 are situated on the edge of a cliff, and when viewed 
 from a low point make a good picture. Ferried over to 
 Portland, ascended through several villages, crossed the 
 island, and came to a very romantic scene. The cliffs 
 were here very lofty, and formed a small semicircular 
 recess. Towards their summits they were partly hewn 
 into quarries, the white diagonal strata of which con- 
 trasted with the grey and rugged crags interspersed 
 among them. It was a busy scene. A team of horses 
 were continually ascending and descending by an 
 almost perpendicular path, and a boat was employed in 
 conveying the stone to a small vessel that lay moored 
 at the entrance. Above, on the extreme verge of the 
 precipice, were the ruins of an old church and of a still 
 older castle. 
 
 ‘ 29 th . — Eode to East Lulworth, through a well- 
 cultivated country, the beauties of which were blurred 
 and almost blotted out by a wet mist that overspread 
 them. Lulworth Castle is very ancient and has an 
 air of great dignity. It consists of a quadrangle, with 
 a round tower at each corner, and the grey hue of its 
 stone finely chastens the fresh green of the trees in the 
 park around it. The village church has a very hand- 
 some tower, and stands just beside it. The effect of 
 the whole is beautiful, but some of the parts offend. A 
 
252 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Grecian portico with Ionic pillars forms a singular 
 entrance to an old castle. The balustrade that runs 
 round it, and the Grecian portico are modern additions 
 and correspond but ill with the sullen grandeur of the 
 old structure. Proceeded to East Lulworth Cove, a 
 small basin nearly encircled with high cliffs, which 
 affords a secure asylum to the little coasting vessels 
 that frequent it, and is, indeed, a very singular and 
 romantic scene. Proceeded over hills whitened with 
 sheep to Corfe Castle, the situation of which is high 
 and commanding. Two drawbridges and as many gate- 
 ways lead to the citadel, and its extensive walls give 
 ample testimony to its ancient consequence. One of its 
 round towers is fearfully inclined from its base and 
 overhangs a road that is already strewed with tremen- 
 dous fragments. A girl assured me that from her 
 infancy she had never passed it but at full speed. 
 From hence to Wimborne there is a chain of black and 
 melancholy heaths. Here and there, indeed, we were 
 relieved with a little woodland scenery, and on the 
 left we had an almost uninterrupted view of Poole 
 Harbour stretching across the country like some mag- 
 nificent river ; the sea-gulls were flying over it, and its 
 banks were bare and desolate. Slept at Wimborne, and 
 saw the Minster, which has two square towers and is 
 very ancient. Entered the New Forest, which is at 
 first dreary and black with furze but improves beyond 
 Eingwood, and at Stony Cross presents some grand 
 distances. The wood increased as we approached 
 Southampton, and the deer and other forest cattle 
 enlivened the scenery. 
 
THE ISLE OF WIGHT 
 
 253 
 
 In the evening rowed down to Netley Abbey. The 
 ground on which it stands is finely formed ; and ivied 
 windows and fractured arches, and the daw and the owl, 
 excited nameless sensations. A door in a dark passage 
 half-intimidated my fellow-travellers. Returned by moon- 
 light, through its old woods catching delicious views of 
 the river ; ferried over the Itchen. 
 
 6 July ist . — Sailed down the river by a fine breeze to 
 Cowes, breakfasted and proceeded in a chaise to New- 
 port. Went in another to Ashey Down, 1 whence we saw 
 the Channel from the mouth of the Beaulieu river to 
 Portsmouth and along the Arundel coast. To Nun well 
 Down, commanding Brading Haven, running up the 
 island (now at low water.) Shanklin Chine and 
 village, the first a rocky romantic glen that opens to 
 the sea and affords shelter to some hanging cottages — 
 the last a most retired rural spot, the ground charmingly 
 tumbled about and varied with little woods and dingles. 
 Passed John Wilkes’s, and dined at Steeple. The shore 
 is here finely broken and shut in by a semicircular 
 range of grey rocks that not very boldly but very pic- 
 turesquely overhang the village. Returned by Sir Rd. 
 Worsley’s, and from the Obelisk hill in the park com- 
 manded nearly the whole island. The general face of the 
 country was rich, varied with little hills and woods and 
 villages. 
 
 4 July 2nd . — Had a pleasant view from a hill above 
 Newport commanding the course of the river towards 
 the sea. Walked along the banks to Hurst Stake, its 
 
 1 This part of the journey was taken in company with Kichard 
 Sharp, whom he had met at Southampton. 
 
254 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 bold and beautiful twin. The succession of close wood 
 and high meadow, the cattle near the brink, the sails 
 gliding round the hills, the soft uplands on the opposite 
 side, and Newport church tower among the trees — these 
 were its principal beauties. Proceeded round Carisbrook 
 Castle, which rises on an elevated bank, and has some 
 dignity; had several grand reaches of the channel, 
 crossed Afton Down and from a field near Freshwater 
 had a foreshortened view of Yarmouth river — it was low 
 water. Sailed from Yarmouth to Lymington in forty 
 minutes, the prospect of the island and the mainland 
 very amusing. Lymington falls to the river ; the church- 
 window that looks down it, and the green meadows that 
 rise directly in front, make the perspective of its street 
 beautiful. From the Angel yard the river is seen wind- 
 ing among the trees in the valley below, and losing itself 
 in the forest. On the opposite side of the street, there 
 runs a pleasant lime-walk, commanding the Isle of Wight 
 and the Needles. The path to the baths has the same 
 view and lies through the fields. 
 
 ‘ 3 rd . — Eode to Hordle, and had a distant view of 
 Lord Bute’s. The coast here forms a grand semicircle 
 in full view of the Needles, but it is bare and desolate. 
 
 ‘4 th . — Bode to Bopehill and had a foreshortened 
 view of the river in its course through a rich valley to 
 the sea ; a fine grove of trees formed the foreground. 
 Proceeded to Mr. Morant’s, and from the front of his 
 house were enchanted. Passed through Whitley Bidge 
 woods which are very fine and crossing Heathy Dilton ; 
 returned by Yicar’s Hill, from which we saw a very fine 
 and well-wooded bank of Sir H. Burrard’s. 
 
THE NEW FOREST 
 
 255 
 
 ‘ 5 th . — Passed Vicar’s Hill and soon afterwards by 
 turning a little to the right saw a beautiful lake of Sir H. 
 Burrard’s, fringed with wood. Passed Doyley Park and 
 Pilewall ; not a thing worth mentioning except the neat 
 cottage of a clergyman’s widow, shaded with willow-trees 
 and hung with jessamine ; and proceeded to Sooley (or 
 Sowley) Pond — that from the farthest end presents a fine 
 reach — but here the Channel on the right, and the moun- 
 tainous ridge of the Isle of Wight softened down by 
 distance, very maliciously arrested our attention. Re- 
 turned through Norley Wood, full of encroaching cottages 
 and now nearly felled, and descended to Boldre Bridge 
 that commands a beautiful home view of the river now 
 reduced to a humble brook and winding among the sedges. 
 Came home by Rope Hill. 
 
 ‘ 6tli . — Followed the same track to Sowley Pond. 
 Passed a slitting mill, and at Bucklershard had a most 
 magnificent view of Beaulieu river sweeping boldly round 
 hanging woods, with the busy scene of a dockyard on its 
 shore. Dined at Beaulieu ; it was high water and the 
 lake above and below the bridge and the walk among old 
 oaks on the abbey side of the river detained us two 
 hours. Proceeded by the Fighting Cocks and through 
 the wild wood scenes ; passed over Culverley Heath, com- 
 manding a circular sweep of forest, very grand and ex- 
 tensive ; of Denny Walk, a very rich and secluded scene, 
 to the Lyndhurst road, which we entered at the sixth 
 stone — in the grand avenue that extends to Brocken- 
 hurst. Followed the turnpike road by Rope Hill to 
 Lymington. 
 
 ‘ 7th . — From Lymington turnpike, turned directly 
 
256 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 through a gate on the left, and after having ridden a 
 little among some woody scenes, traversed a cheerless 
 heath for many miles, leaving Wilverley Lodge, a lonely 
 and melancholy object, on the left, the Isle of Wight 
 visible on the horizon. At last from Burley Hill saw a 
 cultivated valley skirted with a chain of hanging woods . 
 Turned through a long narrow tract of shrubwood, and 
 crossing Markway bottom flat and marshy, in which the 
 cattle were well grouped near some water, ascended to 
 Rhinefield Lodge, which is seated among old oaks on a 
 circular knoll and commands noble views over the 
 wooded scenes of the forest. It is less rich and exten- 
 sive than the Burley view, less grand and simple than 
 Morant’s, but formed a noble station for a forest lodge. 
 The buckhounds sallied out at our approach and one of 
 the under-keepers led us into the Brockenhurst road ; 
 over a heath we proceeded to that village and there 
 entered the turnpike road from Lyndhurst to Lymington. 
 From Rope Hill there is a delightful mile, command- 
 ing the river in the valley with Vicar’s Hill, and Sir 
 H. Burrard’s plantations on the opposite heights ; the 
 Channel and the Isle of Wight in the distance. 
 
 ‘ 8th . — Rode by Rope Hill and over Boldre Bridge to 
 Boldre Church, which is seated on a hill and commands 
 pleasant views round it. Gilpin read the service and 
 preached : “ Commune with your own hearts.” His 
 manner was familiar and unaffected — his language simple 
 and correct. “ But, you say, it is now your custom to 
 swear — you may soon make it your custom not to swear.” 
 His figure apostolical, his head bald, a short man. 
 Several fine heads in the church, and the band of singers 
 
LYNDHURST 
 
 257 
 
 full of rough harmony. Returned by Mr. Morant’s and 
 Brockenhurst and Battramsley. 
 
 In the front of Mr. Morant’s the lawn is skirted with 
 aged oaks and falls with a fine swell, into a wide unculti- 
 vated valley, beyond which rise the dark woods of the 
 forest, extending like a magnificent curtain to right and 
 left as far as the eye can reach. 
 
 ‘July 9 th . — Rode by Boldre churchyard, in which 
 are two inscriptions written by the vicar. 
 
 ‘ July 10th . — Went in a chaise through a beautiful 
 country to Lyndhurst. Proceeded on horseback by 
 Minstead, and through several woods full of lawns and 
 sudden declivities to Bramble Hill Lodge, seated on a 
 green hill — on the brow of which a herd of deer was 
 assembled. A long ridge runs far above it which com- 
 mands Mr. Gilpin’s celebrated view. The foreground 
 falls with a fine sweep, and discovers a grand extent of 
 forest-wood below, with Southampton and its river, in 
 which the mouth of the Itchen was very visible, and the 
 Channel and the Isle of Wight in the distance. 
 
 ‘ At Lyndhurst is the King’s Lodge, and here gene- 
 rally resides the Ranger. His table is often during the 
 venison season furnished with twelve haunches that are 
 served up in succession; such are the refinements of 
 luxury. In a lawn near Whitley Ridge Lodge I saw a 
 forest girl with some lettuces in a basket. When dressed 
 with verjuice, the fermented juice of the crab-apple, they 
 were to furnish a dinner to a family with the humble 
 addition of oat-bread. It was only on a Sunday that 
 they could indulge themselves with meat ! What a con- 
 trast ! 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 FARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ July ii th. — Eain. 
 
 ‘ 12th . — Eain. 
 
 ‘ 13 th . — The waters of the river above the bridge 
 were out, and it now presented the appearance of a noble 
 lake, fringed on every side with the trees that skirt the 
 uplands. Eode by Walhampton and Vicar’s Hill, and 
 returned over Boldre Bridge, where there was a ferry 
 for foot-passengers. 
 
 ‘ 14th . — Eode in a chaise to Beaulieu, and proceeded 
 through Exbury woods, commanding a catch of the river 
 and Bucklershard, and a noble view of its course from 
 the sea into the forest. Its shores were wild and well- 
 wooded, and gave the idea of an unexplored and un- 
 inhabited country. Eode along the sea-shore opposite 
 the Isle of Wight and turned off to Cadlands : the lawn 
 beautiful, the garden towards the river very inferior, 
 but the situation and ground admirable. From hence to 
 Dibden, exquisitely fine. Stobland Common and Butt’s 
 Ash Farm particularly delightful. At Dibden met the 
 chaise and returned by Totton along the Lyndhurst 
 road. 
 
 ‘ 15 th . — Eode to Boldre and heard Gilpin. “ There- 
 fore, my beloved brethren, cleanse yourselves from all 
 filthiness,” &c. 
 
 ‘ 16th— Proceeded through the forest to Southamp- 
 ton ; a sultry day, concluded with a thunderstorm. 
 
 ‘ lyth . — Came by Botley, Titchfield, and Fareham to 
 Gosport, twenty-five miles. The country rich and well- 
 wooded, exhibiting several beautiful distances on the 
 left, and on the right once or twice a noble catch of 
 Southampton Water. Titchfield Abbey is a venerable, 
 
PORTSMOUTH AND CHICHESTER 
 
 259 
 
 square, castle-like mansion, with an octagon tower at 
 each corner. Its offices and gateways are in a similar 
 style, and its elevated position, when viewed from some 
 points, gives it an air of dignity. From Fareham Common 
 had a lengthened and broken view of the Channel and its 
 shipping, with the Isle of Wight beyond it. The fore- 
 ground was rich and woody and the multitude of masts 
 that rose in some parts above the trees had a singular 
 effect. Ferried over and walked on Portsmouth ramparts, 
 which nearly encircle the town, commanding the Isle of 
 Wight, here variegated with woods. Walked there again 
 in the evening. The green and leafy island in front, and 
 the busy vessels in the offing, were finely made out by 
 the evening sun. On the left, seated on the extreme edge 
 of a promontory, lay a castle, the whole of which was in 
 shadow, and the outline of its turrets and battlements 
 was distinctly marked. The general character of the 
 scene was softened, but now and then a transient gleam 
 of sunshine caught a white sail and called it out into the 
 landscape. It was the annual fair, and all was mirth 
 and mummery. 
 
 ‘ 1 8th . — Through a rich country, with woody dis- 
 tances on the left and frequent sea-views on the right, 
 proceeded to Chichester. The spire is almost equal to 
 that at Salisbury in point of elegance and lightness. 
 Passed through a beautiful country, the Goodwood plan- 
 tations festooning the woods on the left, and village spires 
 among the trees on the right. I turned aside to East- 
 ham, a very pleasant and retired village. In the church- 
 yard, which commands fields and woody hills, are three 
 epitaphs of Hayley’s. His shrubbery runs beside it, and 
 
 s 9 
 
260 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 he has a walk that looks down into a deep and woody 
 valley, glen soon afterwards, and commands the rich 
 wealds of Sussex. Rode among woods to Arundel. 
 Passed a cricket match — the country people, in scarlet 
 cloaks and white waggoner’s frocks, forming an amusing 
 line along the field in which it was played. Saw Arun- 
 del Castle, the deep fosse, now a romantic glen full of 
 trees ; the round tower, a fragment mantled with a grand 
 mass of ivy ; the castle-yard, skirted on one side by the 
 venerable gallery, &c., and on the other by the shell of 
 the chapel. In the chapel a fine head of Rubens, by 
 himself. The church ancient, with some old ivied walls 
 behind it. 
 
 ‘ Rode among woods and over downs with frequent 
 views of the sea on the right to Worthing.’ 
 
 When this pleasant summer journey was taken, ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory ’ was just beginning to receive that 
 public recognition which soon made its author famous. 
 He speaks of Gilpin and Hayley, but he had not yet 
 made the personal acquaintance of either of them. 
 Gilpin was then old. He had been the guide of a whole 
 generation to the picturesque scenery of their own 
 country, and Rogers had probably travelled through the 
 New Forest with his volume in his hand. Hayley, too, 
 was then in the full enjoyment of his evanescent fame, 
 and Rogers had not yet heard through Mr. Cadell of that 
 approval which gave him so much pleasure and pride. 
 On his return to London — which was always early, in 
 order that his father might get away on his own long 
 summer holiday — he naturally found himself the object 
 
DIAEY IN 1792 
 
 261 
 
 of increased interest. People were talking about him, 
 and his poem was being praised in the reviews and was 
 selling fast. He did not allow himself to be much more 
 tempted into society, but continued as usual to spend 
 his days in the City, and his evenings chiefly in his Stoke 
 Newington home. He was already contemplating his 
 next poem, or at least laying up the material for it. A 
 few pages of his diary record his social experiences 
 during the next eighteen months. 
 
 4 August 1 1 th . — Eode to Sevenoaks with Sharp and 
 Cooper ; saw Knole and worshipped a statue of Demos- 
 thenes. West told Sharp : “ I never showed a young 
 artist a picture he liked but he asked me where I bought 
 my colours; and Sir Joshua said a picture never pleased 
 him till after he had laboured at it again and again.” 
 
 ‘ August 13 th . — Dined at Tuffin’s with Cooper, Tooke, 
 Dr. Priestley, Dr. Crawford, etc. Politics. Whether man 
 has any natural right to property, and a free government 
 is friendly to the Arts ; decided in the affirmative. 
 
 6 August 15 th. — Dr. Priestley, Dr. Aikin, Cooper, 
 Fell, etc., dined at the Green. Dr. Priestley said De 
 Luc, when in London, said he knew it better than 
 Priestley (though Priestley lived there) and he would be 
 his guide. “ He took me,” said Priestley, “ to the Old 
 Bailey, the only time I was ever there, and bade me 
 observe the criminals at the bar. ‘ Did you ever/ said 
 he, ‘ meet elsewhere with the same lines of character ? 
 An English blackguard is not to be found out of Eng- 
 land : insolent and brutal — with a trait of generosity. 
 I was once walking in the street with Mr. Howard, 
 
262 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 when a baker dropped some pies and he damned their 
 souls to eternity ! ’ ” Mentioned a singular escape he 
 had in his laboratory at Warrington, and another he ex- 
 perienced that very morning. The American Indians 
 must be exterminated; cannot be civilised. America 
 not peopled a thousand years ago. Man created long 
 after other animals — few human bones in a fossil state ; 
 many animal bones. Coal is vegetable in a decayed state, 
 and must be exhausted in time. Cooper said America was 
 not in being a thousand years ago. Aikin and Priestley 
 said it must have been. Cooper replied that an island 
 might be raised in a night with a mountain on it. 
 Priestley : “ But not with the Andes on it ! ” Cooper 
 said : “ Those are European experiments — America works 
 on a grander scale.” 
 
 ‘ November 6th . — First meeting of the Club. Argument 
 between Aikin and Sharpe on the principles of Beauty. 
 A. maintained that the Greeks were inferior in their 
 combinations to nature. S. said that statuary could 
 soar above her by selecting and proportioning her best 
 features. 
 
 ‘ November 13th . — Dined at Sharpe’s and met Bodding- 
 ton and Stothard. Stothard said : “ If the Pantheon were 
 in London I think I should be a happier man. I often 
 take an evening walk in the park in summer to observe 
 the figures, and at a distance they portion themselves 
 into those bold simple forms that were the delight of 
 the Grecian artists.” 
 
 ‘ November 19 tli . — Drank tea at Dr. Garshore’s. Pre- 
 sent : Dr. Gillies, Dr. Bates, Mr. Planta, Dr. Kippis, 
 Mr. Parsons, Major Rennell, Mr. Marsden, etc. Talked 
 
DIARY IN 1792 
 
 263 
 
 politics with Gillies, who said he should publish Aristotle’s 
 political works with a commentary. 
 
 ‘ November 24 th. — Dined at W. Vaughan’s, with 
 Priestley, B. Vaughan, Aikin, Christie, etc. A. gave a 
 good motto for a Peerage Book — 
 
 The air hath bubbles as the water hath, 
 
 And these are of them. 
 
 ‘ 2 7th. — Second meeting of Club. Dispute respecting 
 Capital Punishments. The objects of punishment are to 
 deter by example, to reform the offender, and contrive 
 that he should make reparation to society for the injury 
 he has done her. The two last cannot be attained by 
 capital punishments. 
 
 ‘ “ A case occurs,” says Sharp, “in which the first — 
 and most important — cannot be accomplished without 
 them : A soldier runs away ; the influence of fear in that 
 man is irresistible — it overcomes the sense of shame. 
 As you cannot restrain it you must make it subservient 
 to your own purposes. He flies to escape the chance of 
 dying : make certainty of death the consequence of his 
 flight.” 
 
 ‘ December 2nd . — Bode to Streatham and slept there. 
 Present : Mr. and Mrs. Broadhead. 
 
 ‘ yth. — Dined at the Athenaeum Club. Introduced by 
 Sharp. Present : Murphy, Carr, Ogle, Blake, Parsons, 
 etc. Murphy very rancorous on politics. Said the 
 old English writers had great strength, such as Hooker, 
 etc. — but they all wrote according to the Latin Syntax. 
 Then came a new set — Temple, Dryden, etc. — who 
 were grounded on the English Syntax. Dr. Johnson 
 
264 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 returned to the Latin, and so did the Scotch except 
 Robertson. Spoke with enthusiasm of Garrick: “Were 
 he to act to-night none of you would have been here ! ” 
 said he. “ He had his faults as a man, but on the stage 
 he was a demi-god. Prior and Swift would have made a 
 Fontaine between them. Swift approached near to him.” 
 
 ‘ 1 8 th .- — Third night of the Club. Was at Paine’s trial, 
 and heard Erskine. 
 
 ‘ 19 th . — Saw Stothard at Sharpe’s, who said Dr. Bates 
 had tried to purchase the Temple at Tivoli and trans- 
 port it to England. 
 
 ‘ 2 gth . — At Parndon met James Martin and Jackson 
 Barwis. Mrs. Martin had met and conversed with 
 Mrs. Armstead (Fox’s chere amie , and originally Mrs. 
 Abbington’s maid) unknowingly at Hastings’s trial, and 
 thought her a charming woman. Said that Boehm, 
 the traveller, once left his hat as a pledge at a barrier in 
 Sweden in consequence of a wrangle about a fee, and 
 that he walked without a hat through the country, re- 
 solving not to purchase another where he had been so 
 imposed upon. 
 
 179 3, ‘ January 14 th . — Dined at McMurdo’s, with 
 Hinkley and Dr. Priestley. The dialogue turned on 
 distressing situations. Dr. Priestley remarked that Dr. 
 Franklin said of Dibbs : “If that man is not damned 
 the devil’s kept for nothing ! ” 
 
 ‘ January 1 5 th. — Mr.Raper dined at Newington Green. 
 Said that the Jesuits at Macao, when they took their 
 siesta after dinner, held an ivory ball in their hands and 
 a brass basin between their feet ; that the instant the 
 ball dropped the noise wakened them, that they then 
 
DIAKY IN 1793 
 
 265 
 
 knew they had slept, and held one wink of sleep to be 
 sufficient refreshment ; that when a European visited a 
 great man at Canton he often walked in in his waistcoat — 
 a servant carrying behind him his coat, hat, and sword ; 
 and that was considered a visit of ceremony. 
 
 ‘ February 7 th. — Went to the Club and met Priestley, 
 Cooper, etc. Cooper, speaking of Louis’s execution, said 
 he died well enough. 
 
 ‘ February 9 th ; Sunday. — Went with Sharp, Cooper, 
 Tuffin, and Weston to Stothard’s ; and afterwards to 
 Romney’s. Saw him and his statues and pictures ; a 
 warm democrat, and his gallery full of beauty — Mrs. 
 Tickell, Lady E. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Siddons, Lady Hamil- 
 ton, etc. Afterwards walked to the Park and saw the line 
 of carriages. Sharpe told Lady Hamilton’s history — 
 Joseph Boydell’s cook, afterwards Greville’s mistress — 
 the masquerade scene : “ What’s the matter, Greville ? 
 Not well ? I know what it is ; ” threw the dress on the fire ; 
 her vow to Sir William not to be his wife till he had 
 educated her. Dined at the Grecian : Politics, the arts, 
 travelling, picturesque beauty, etc. 
 
 ‘ . . . Dined at Sharpe’s. Dr. Aikin said that when a 
 Hungarian officer came to London with a letter of recom- 
 mendation to Mr. Howard, Howard walked the streets 
 with him ; and his first exclamation on seeing the wealth 
 and comfort around him was: “What a fine city to 
 plunder ! ” 
 
 4 May 3rd. — Danced at Smith’s ball. 
 
 ‘ May 6th . — Was introduced by Dr. Gillies to the 
 Athenian. Present : Dr. Bancroft, Dr. Gillies, Dr. Grif- 
 fiths, Dr. Franklin’s grandson, and myself. Dr. Franklin 
 
266 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 used to say that when a tradesman was tired of business, 
 he left off and went into the country to retire. 
 
 ‘ December gtli. — Dr. Priestley at the Hackney Club : 
 “ When I was dining at Paris fifteen years ago at Turgot’s 
 table, M. de Chatelleux — author of ‘ Travels through 
 America’ — in answer to an inquiry said that the two 
 gentlemen opposite to me were the Bishop of Aix and 
 the Archbishop of Toulouse ; ‘ but,’ said he, ‘ they are no 
 more believers than you or I .’ 1 I assured him I was a 
 believer ; but he would not believe me ; and Le Boi, the 
 philosopher, told me that I was the only man of sense he 
 knew that was a Christian. A young man of family called 
 upon me and said, with tears of joy in his eyes, that he 
 heard I was a believer. ‘ Yes,’ said I ; ‘ but I am a great 
 heretic, not such a believer as you.’ ‘ Still,’ said he, ‘ you 
 are a believer.’ ” 
 
 ‘ Dr. Franklin’s receipt for a verdict in your favour : 
 “ Have reason on your side, procure an eloquent attorney 
 to state it, an impartial judge to try it ; and then, if you 
 have great luck, you may gain your cause.” Franklin 
 said a man once came into the country where he lived 
 who asked — “ What ! do you bury lawyers ? We place 
 them in an armchair at the top of the stairs, and they 
 are always gone before morning — the devil takes them.” 
 
 ‘ A Spanish judge satisfied everybody with his sen- 
 tences : his son who succeeded him satisfied nobody. 
 “ What did you do, father ? I read their cases with all 
 possible care.” “ I did no such thing. I received their 
 
 1 The story is told in Mr. Dyce’s ‘ Table Talk,’ but the fact that the 
 two gentlemen were eminent ecclesiastics — the point of the story — is 
 omitted. 
 
DIARY IN 1793 
 
 267 
 
 papers till each party was tired of sending them in. I 
 then piled them in my pair of scales, and the heaviest 
 scale had it.” (Franklin.) 
 
 ‘ When I [Priestley] was at Bowood the last Lord 
 Lyttelton, son of the author, called on me and was sur- 
 prised to find me a believer. “ You ascribe all things to a 
 cause,” said he ; “ so far is reasonable, but what produced 
 that cause ? Why not sit down with things as we find 
 them ? ” 
 
 ‘ An inn in Yorkshire had this sign : On one side a 
 smart young man with this inscription — “ I am going to 
 law.” On the other side the young man in rags — “ I’ve 
 gained my cause.” 
 
 ‘ There was a sect at Philadelphia, Franklin says, 
 which believed that a violent death was a sure passport 
 to heaven, and many of them committed murder in 
 order to be hanged. One of these enthusiasts set off into 
 the fields early one morning with a determination to 
 shoot the first man he met. It proved to be a Quaker, 
 who saluted him so civilly that it disarmed him. He 
 met nobody else ; and, returning into the town, turned into 
 a billiard-room where some persons were at play. There 
 he stood for some time resting on his gun. At last one 
 of the players struck the ball into the pocket : “ That was 
 a good aim,” said his antagonist. “ But this is a better,” 
 said the enthusiast, as he raised his gun and shot him 
 dead. The astonishment of the company was great, as 
 you may imagine. “ Poor man ! ” said the enthusiast, 
 taking the dead man by the hand — “ I meant you no 
 harm.” He declared his motive triumphantly, and was 
 hanged. “ And what steps did the Government take ? ” 
 
268 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 I asked Dr. Franklin. “ Why,” said he, “ the sect was 
 very small, and it was thought better to hang them up 
 as they committed such crimes than to interfere publicly 
 to crush them.” 
 
 6 Dec. (no date). — Dined at Dilly’s with Reid, Pincker- 
 ton, Butler, Thomson, Boswell, Sharpe , 1 and Tuffin. 
 
 6 Dec. igth . — Dined at the Eumelean. Murphy pre- 
 ferred Swift’s verses on his own death to all his other 
 poems and his polite conversation. Said that the theatres 
 charged an author one hundred and forty guineas for 
 the expenses of his night, and he was never charged in 
 Garrick’s time (when there were actors) more than seventy. 
 Said Johnson recited well, and would often at night leave 
 the house at Streatham, and, seating himself on one of the 
 garden seats and turning it on its pivot from the storm, 
 would roar and bellow Latin hexameters and English he- 
 roics for the hour together ; that he would do the same at 
 Brighton in one of the machines, and could be heard at 
 Thrale’s on the cliff. Said the “ Confederacy ” was trans- 
 lated from a dull French play ; that he and Tooke one 
 summer evening, after they had dined together, walked 
 along Oxford Street, and ordering a pot of porter at a 
 small alehouse they sat down on the bench before the 
 door. “ This is the grandeur of human life. Those 
 scoundrels in their carriages have no taste for happiness.” 
 Wrote Johnson’s “Life” at the “Dog” alehouse, near 
 Bichmond Bridge, where I kept close for a month, and 
 hardly ever put on my shoes.’ 
 
 Arthur Murphy, the biographer of Fielding and Gar- 
 
 1 Sharpe is, in all cases, Sutton Sharpe ; Sharp is Richard Sharp. 
 
ARTHUR MURPHY 
 
 269 
 
 rick, the friend and first biographer of Johnson — to whose 
 4 talents, literature, and gentleman-like manners ’ Boswell 
 bears witness — formed with Rogers, as he had pre- 
 viously done with Johnson, a friendship which was never 
 broken. Rogers had first met him at the house of the 
 Piozzis. Murphy was then in poverty. He had spent the 
 wealth his popular plays — such as the 4 Upholsterers,’ 'All 
 in the Wrong,’ the 4 Grecian Daughter,’ and 4 Know your 
 own Mind ’ — had brought him, and was living by mis- 
 cellaneous literary work. He was in debt everywhere. Like 
 Cumberland and others he soon began to borrow money of 
 Rogers, for which Rogers got nothing but dishonoured bills. 
 He had once lent him two hundred pounds ; and, asking 
 Murphy when he meant to repay him, Murphy went back 
 with him to his chambers in the Temple and used all his 
 persuasive arts to induce Rogers to lend him more. At 
 a later time he assigned the stock and copyrights of his 
 works as security for a loan, when they had been already 
 sold to the bookseller. But he had no desire to deceive, 
 and made so humble an apology that he was easily for- 
 given. In 1803 a pension was given him, and he died in 
 1805, at the age of seventy-eight. Rogers always spoke 
 kindly of him, repeated his mot that the theatres were a 
 fourth estate of the realm ; and told to his credit that when 
 an actress with whom he had lived left him her money, 
 he gave it all up to her relations. 
 
 ’ A few further scraps of Murphy’s conversation are 
 recorded by Rogers in his Commonplace Book : — 
 
 4 4 4 1 should like to use that story of yours, Sheridan, 
 said Lord Lauderdale. 44 Would you ? ” said Sheridan. 
 
270 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 “ Then I must be on my guard in future ; for a joke in 
 your hands is no laughing matter.” Murphy considers 
 Cowley as Addison’s model. Thinks “ Boadicea,” by 
 Glover, is, in point of style, the best tragedy since Shake- 
 speare. It has a bad fifth act. The opening of the 
 “ Alchemist ” is a model of dramatic writing for effect, 
 though never followed. Close your acts well, and have a 
 good fifth act, and your play must succeed. Also, always 
 give a counter turn, a surprise in the fifth, so that nobody 
 shall foresee the conclusion. Was first struck by Dry- 
 den’s criticisms on the “Silent Woman” in his preface 
 to his plays, and afterwards read it carefully with the 
 play. Had not then thought of the stage. Afterwards 
 read Bicciboni on Moliere, d’Alembert’s “ Life of Des 
 Touches,” etc. Used to compose walking about Bagnigge 
 Wells and New River Head, and then call in at an alehouse 
 to write down a thought. Used to make three or four 
 chairs pass for his people on the stage, and would say 
 “ that chair has continued too long silent.” Kept a memo- 
 randum book for good things. When French died with- 
 out leaving him anything he said to himself : “ I have got 
 by him, however ; ” — having put him into “ Sir Bashful 
 Constant ” and the “ Citizen.” 
 
 ‘ Murphy had two inscriptions on the collar of his dog : — 
 
 ‘ My name is Prince, of honest fame : 
 
 Let other Princes say the same. 
 
 ‘ My name is Prince, from vice and debts I’m free ; 
 
 I want no Parliament to pay for me. 
 
 ‘ “Am I not in Heaven ? ” said a girl at High Mass ? 
 “No, my dear,” said Murphy, “there are not so many 
 bishops in Heaven.” ’ 
 
MURPHY’S STORIES OE FOOTE 
 
 271 
 
 Murphy was full of stories of Foote — some of which 
 Kogers has written down in his early memorandum 
 book — 
 
 ‘ “ Great as Foote was on the stage,” said Murphy, 
 “ he was greater in the green-room, and there I loved 
 to attend him. One night when I was there the last 
 Duke of Cumberland hurried in, saying : ‘ I come every 
 night to swallow all your good things.’ ‘ Do you ? ’ said 
 Foote ; ‘ you must have a damned good digestion, for you 
 never bring them up again.’ ” 
 
 ‘ In his cause before Lord Mansfield, when Lord 
 Mansfield, who had continued firm on his side through- 
 out, was at last brought over to his opponent : “ Damn 
 the trial,” says he to Murphy, “ what a crane-necked turn 
 it has taken ! It has been tried twenty times at Caen 
 Wood, and gained the verdict in my favour.” 
 
 ‘ When Foote proposed a venison feast at the “ Crown 
 and Anchor ” to Murphy and Garrick, Dr. Sehonberg 
 and two other lawyers were engaged to it. None came 
 but Foote, Murphy, and Garrick. The bill came to three 
 guineas a head, and Foote wrote to the absentees for 
 their shares. When Foote paid his, the waiter said : “ This 
 is a bad shilling, sir.” “ Is it ? ” replied Foote, “ look at 
 it, Davy.” Garrick, who was half-tipsy, said it was and 
 threw it away. “ Do you change it for him ; ” said Foote, 
 “you can make it go as far as anybody ! ” 
 
 ‘ When a collection for the poor players was proposed 
 all but Garrick attended the meeting. “ He did set out,” 
 says Foote, “ but as he turned the corner of the Adelphi 
 he met the ghost of a shilling.” 
 
272 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ When L , who had been sentenced to the pillory, 
 
 saw Foote in the pump room at Bath, whither he had 
 been ordered for the jaundice : “ Your looks mend,’ r says 
 
 L . “ Yes,” says Foote, “ I am washing the eggs 
 
 from my face.” 
 
 ‘ Murphy said: “I meant Foote in my character of 
 Dashwold, where I have used his lon-mot to the Duke 
 of Cumberland.” 
 
 * Murphy met Costello at Lord Camden’s. “ My wife 
 and I,” said Costello, “ quarrelled, and we agreed to divide. 
 I said to her — ‘ I will take one side of the house and you 
 the other.’ I took the inside and she took the outside.” ’ 
 
273 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Death of Rogers’s Father — Richard Sharp — Rogers deciding on a 
 West-end life — R. Cumberland, R. Merry, T. Cooper — Priestley’^ 
 exile — Horne Tooke’s Trial— William Stone’s Trial — Mrs. Siddons 
 and her epilogue— Dr. Moore — Early Correspondence with Richard 
 Sharp— Rogers’s Commonplace Book — Dr. Johnson and Dr. Priestley — 
 ‘ My Club ’ — Rogers and Polwhele. 
 
 The turning-point in Rogers’s life had now come. At 
 the beginning of his thirtieth year he had found himself 
 recognised as a popular poet, and had begun to enjoy 
 the kind of fame for which he longed. But no thought 
 of the social celebrity he was afterwards to attain had as 
 yet come into his mind. He was still the junior partner 
 in the bank, and day by day was occupied with its 
 business. He was on the unpopular side both in politics 
 and in religion ; and his prospects of wealth were remote. 
 ‘While his father lived,’ says Samuel Sharpe, ‘Mr. 
 Rogers’s friends had been as much chosen for their politics 
 as for their literature,’ and in the diary quoted in the 
 previous chapter we find him frequently in the company 
 of some of the chief Liberal politicians of that exciting 
 and agitated time. The house at Stoke Newington 
 was one in which Liberal politicians and Liberal divines 
 — Whigs, latitudinarians, and Unitarians — found them- 
 selves at home. The elder Rogers was, in words which 
 came into use at a later day, ‘ a Whig and something 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 more.’ Among the signatures to the celebrated Declara- 
 tion of the ‘ Society instituted for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing a Parliamentary Reform ’ under the title of ‘ Friends 
 of the People/ that of Thomas Rogers comes imme- 
 diately before that of the Hon. Thomas Erskine, M.P., 
 and Samuel Rogers directly follows on the Right Hon. 
 Lord John Russell, M.P. The names of John Towgood, 
 who had married Samuel Rogers’s eldest sister Martha, 
 and of his friends Dr. Kippis and Richard Sharp also 
 appear with those of Grey and Lambton and Sheridan 
 and Mackintosh and Whitbread, among the hundred 
 which constitute this illustrious catalogue. Dr. Priestley 
 had come to London in the autumn of 1791 ; and the 
 elder Rogers first, and his son afterwards, opened the 
 house at Newington Green to the persecuted philosopher 
 and divine. Thomas Rogers in one of his last letters to 
 his son expresses constant sympathy with the French, 
 but writing on the 13th of September, 1792, about the sub- 
 scription for France which Horne Tooke and his friends 
 were getting up, he reasons conclusively against it, and 
 tells his son : ‘ I would wish you not to have anything 
 to do with it. It is of a piece with the rest of Horne 
 Tooke’s politics, which are more of the bravado than the 
 man of true wisdom.’ This is not the criticism of an 
 opponent, but of a friend. It need not be taken to indi- 
 cate any difference between father and son. In politics, 
 as in religion and business, there seems to have been to 
 the last the fullest confidence and sympathy between 
 Thomas Rogers and his son Samuel. The beginning 
 of the year 1793, to which part of the diary given in 
 the previous chapter belongs, found Samuel Rogers still 
 
DEATH OF HIS FATHER 
 
 275 
 
 living at Stoke Newington with his father, sisters, and 
 younger brother, without any thought of change or any 
 desire for it on his part or theirs. 
 
 This state of things might to all appearance have 
 lasted many years longer, and had it done so the world 
 might never have known Samuel Rogers as the munifi- 
 cent patron of art and literature he afterwards became. 
 But in the spring of 1793 his father was seized with a 
 fatal illness, and died on the 1st of June. Thomas 
 Bogers had not been a strong man, but his death in his 
 fifty-eighth year was premature. There are no references 
 to it in his son’s diaries, nor in the family letters. It 
 was the custom of the family to be silent on such events. 
 There are, however, in the poems two stanzas headed 
 ‘Written in a Sick Chamber,’ and dated 1793, which 
 give the only account of his illness. 
 
 There in that bed so closely curtained round, 
 
 Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay, 
 
 A father sleeps. Oil hushed be every sound, 
 
 Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away ! 
 
 He stirs— yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams 
 Long o’er his smooth and settled pillow rise — 
 
 Nor fly, till morning through the shutter streams, 
 
 And on the hearth the glimmering rushlight dies ! 
 
 It is a remarkable testimony to Samuel Rogers’s 
 business faculty that so excellent a man of business as 
 his father should have left him his own share in the bank 
 and his estates. Thomas Rogers’s will practically dis- 
 inherited his eldest son Daniel in favour of his third son 
 Samuel, who thus became head of the banking firm, and 
 practically head of the family. He now found himself 
 
276 
 
 EARLY LIFE OE SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 in possession of about five thousand a year, partly derived 
 from estates and investments, but chiefly from the bank 
 in Freeman’s Court. This was a considerable fortune in 
 1793, and gave Rogers the opportunity which probably 
 woke the desire to live in the society of London. He 
 soon felt that its possession set him free to follow the 
 career to which — as he was not long in discovering — his 
 inclination, his social talents, and his ambition led him. 
 He had formed no definite plan. He probably found 
 that the residence at Stoke Newington was a hindrance 
 to the cultivation of the literary society in which he 
 delighted, and therefore, without breaking away from the 
 old home on the Green, he took chambers in Paper Build- 
 ings. The rooms had been previously occupied by Lord 
 Ellenborough, and the range of buildings in which they 
 stood has since been pulled down and a new one erected 
 on the site. Rogers lived in these chambers between 
 six and seven years. During this period he became inti- 
 mate with many well-known persons, and particularly 
 with four men, of different types of character, who pro- 
 bably exerted the greatest influence on his life. These 
 were Fox, Sheridan, Tooke and Richard Sharp. Rogers 
 not only belonged to Fox's school in politics, but was a 
 devoted admirer of the great Whig statesman and orator. 
 His ‘ Recollections ’ of Fox are among the most interest- 
 ing and valuable of the treasures his tenacious memory 
 has allowed him to preserve from oblivion, and to hand 
 down to posterity. His intimate association with the 
 Whig leaders for the first fifty years of this century 
 was begun by his acquaintance with Fox, if it may not 
 be said to have arisen out of it. With Sheridan his 
 
KICHARD SHARP 
 
 277 
 
 connection was of another kind. The great orator and 
 dramatist became the recipient of much assistance from 
 the poet ; who stood by him to the last when the great 
 world had left him to die in poverty and neglect. 
 Richard Sharp was destined to become Rogers’s closest 
 and most intimate friend. He had much to do in making 
 Rogers’s life what it afterwards became, and had more 
 influence on his poetry, as well as on his character, 
 than any other of the friends of his maturer years. 
 This admirable and popular person was already widely 
 known among men of letters for that critical force which 
 made Mackintosh call him the best critic he knew, and 
 for those remarkable conversational powers to which he 
 afterwards owed his chief authority and fame. He was 
 born in Newfoundland in 1759, and was therefore about 
 four years older than Rogers. He had written in 1784 
 a very able essay on English style as a preface to a 
 grammar published by his old schoolmaster, the Rev. 
 John Fell. He had been the intimate friend of Hen- 
 derson, the actor, and at his request had gone in 1785 
 — the year in which Henderson died — to see the new 
 * Hamlet,’ whose provincial fame had preceded him to 
 London. In 1787 he read an admirable paper before 
 the Manchester Society : ‘ On the Nature and Utility of 
 Eloquence.’ He was a strong advocate of a simple 
 style as opposed to the prevalent Johnsonian pedantry. 
 4 Johnsonism,’ he said, ‘ has become almost a general 
 disease ; ’ and he laughed at ‘ Mr. B. and Dr. P. strut- 
 ting about in Johnson’s bulky clothes, as if a couple of 
 Lilliputians had bought their great coats at a rag-fair in 
 Brobdingnag.’ He contemplated, a N t a later period, the 
 
278 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 writing of a history of the establishment of ‘ American 
 Independence/ and was encouraged to do so by his in- 
 timate friend, Mr. Adams, afterwards President of the 
 United States. He had fixed on the period between 
 1775 and 1783, but Mr. Adams assured him that those 
 were ‘ by no means the most important nor the most 
 interesting eight years of the Revolution, which had in 
 fact been effected, so far as the minds of the people were 
 concerned, in the period from 1761 to 1775.’ The design 
 of the history was abandoned, and Mr. Sharp is only 
 known to literature by a small volume of ‘ Letters and 
 Essays in Prose and Verse ’ 1 which he published towards- 
 the close of his long and interesting life. 
 
 The acquaintance between Rogers and Richard Sharp 
 began in the spring of 1792. They w r ere introduced to 
 each other by William Maltby, and soon became close 
 friends. Rogers always said that he did not know 
 Richard Sharp till after ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ 
 was published, but in the July of the year in which the 
 poem appeared they travelled together in the Isle of 
 Wight. Richard Sharp’s first letter to Rogers is one 
 acknowledging the gift of the volume, and recommending 
 Rogers to read one of his favourite books, Usher’s * Clio/ 
 It is the letter of a comparative stranger. Rogers wrote 
 to Maltby during their stay in the Isle of Wight in praise 
 of his new friend ; and Maltby, writing a letter of literary 
 gossip 2 on the 13th of July 1792, concludes by asking to 
 
 1 This book was made the subject of a very laudatory article in the 
 Quarterly Review in 1834, vol. li. 
 
 2 One item of the news is ‘ that Mr. Gibbon is coming to England, 
 and brings with him a work prepared for the press ; the subject of it is 
 not yet known.’ 
 
RICHARD SHARP 
 
 279 
 
 be remembered to Sharp, ‘ who deserves everything you 
 say of him, and can never be praised too much.’ This 
 was not merely the enthusiastic expression of an ad- 
 miring friend. It was a simple statement of the impres- 
 sion Richard Sharp produced on his contemporaries * 
 Mackintosh’s biographer speaks of Richard Sharp as a 
 friend whose good opinion Sir James Mackintosh always 
 considered a sufficient counterbalance to any amount of 
 general misrepresentation, and Mackintosh himself said 
 that he never quitted him without feeling himself better, 
 and in better humour with the world. ‘ I owe much to 
 your society,’ says Mackintosh in a letter to Sharp in 
 January 1804. ‘ Your conversation has not only pleased 
 and instructed me, but it has most materially contributed 
 to refine my taste, to multiply my innocent and indepen- 
 dent pleasures, and to make my mind more tranquil and 
 reasonable. I think you have produced more effect on 
 my character than any man with whom I have lived.’ 1 
 Francis Horner, writing to Lady Mackintosh in 1805, 
 says : ‘ Sharp I respect and love more and more every 
 day ; he has every day new talents and new virtues to 
 show.’ 2 Sydney Smith, in a letter to Allen in 1 809, says : 
 ‘ Let the child learn principles from Dumont, Sharp 
 shall teach him ease and nature ; ’ 3 and Miss Caroline 
 Fox records in her diary in 1840 that John Mill spoke 
 with much interest of ‘ Conversation ’ Sharp, and said : 
 Mt was a fine thing for me to hear him and my father 
 converse.’ These testimonies to his character and genius 
 
 1 Life of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 196. 
 
 2 Life of Francis Horner , vol. i. p. 297. 
 
 3 Letters of Sydney Smith, p. 63. 
 
280 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 are borne out by the letters and statements of all his 
 friends — and his friends included nearly every distin- 
 guished author, statesman, and man of society for forty 
 years. His life has not been written, but his name is 
 prominent in most of the memoirs of men who lived in 
 the first thirty-five years of the present century. It is 
 an honour to Rogers that such a man should have been 
 his fast friend till death divided them. 
 
 At the time this friendship was first formed Richard 
 Sharp was in business in the City, and the letters to 
 him bear the address of Fish-street Hill. He was al- 
 ready a figure in society, where his great conversational 
 powers and his unbounded goodness of heart made him 
 universally welcome. His judgment was trusted by all 
 who knew him, and in later years statesmen went to him 
 for counsel and advice. It would scarcely be too much 
 to say that he was the most popular man in London 
 society in his time. His familiar sobriquet of ‘ Conver- 
 sation ’ Sharp, indicated only his most striking faculty ; 
 but his power of sympathy, his insight, his large reading 
 and culture, more forcibly impressed themselves on his 
 friends than even his conversational powers. He soon 
 perceived the social faculty of his friend Rogers, and, when 
 the death of his father left Rogers master of a fortune, 
 urged him to leave the distant suburb of Stoke Newing- 
 ton, and to establish himself in London. Rogers felt 
 the force of his friend’s reasoning, enforced as it was by 
 that friend’s example. There was an evident struggle 
 in his mind between the love of home and the love of 
 society, and he turned it into poetry as a poet should. 
 It was the origin of his next poem : ‘ An Epistle to a 
 
RICHARD CUMBERLAND 
 
 281 
 
 Friend.’ But while writing this, which many regard as 
 the most finished and beautiful of his productions, he 
 took up his abode more and more in London. The 
 ‘ Epistle to a Friend ’ was the mental protest with which 
 he yielded to the social forces which pressed him to take 
 advantage of his fame ; and he had done his six years 
 work upon it, completed it and published it, before he 
 finally gave up Stoke Newington, and made a solitary 
 home, first in his chambers in Paper Buildings, after- 
 wards in lodgings in Prince’s Street, Hanover Square, and 
 finally in the well-known house in St. James’s Place. 
 
 Some of Rogers’s literary friends had already dis- 
 covered his amiable willingness to help them by counsel, 
 or personal , service, or money. There is an enthusiastic 
 letter from Richard Cumberland which, though without 
 date, may be mentioned here. It is written in the large 
 bold hand which well became Cumberland’s character. 
 Rogers had given him some pecuniary assistance, and the 
 old dramatist, in writing his thanks, finds it difficult to 
 moderate his gratitude. ‘ Your bounty surprised me,’ he 
 says ; ‘ I hurried back on discovering its amount, resolved 
 for the moment to entreat you to moderate your benefac- 
 tion.’ On second thoughts, however, he kept the money, 
 lest his motive in returning it should be misunderstood ; 
 and he declares his uniform and unalterable esteem 
 and love for his generous friend. The declaration was 
 no doubt sincere, and the esteem was mutual. Rogers 
 always spoke of Cumberland as a pleasant companion 
 and an excellent and entertaining talker. He was full of 
 recollections of the stage, especially of Garrick, whose 
 4 Lear ’ Cumberland regarded as the greatest piece of 
 
282 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 acting he had seen. Rogers records that he linked with 
 this high praise Henderson’s ‘Falstaff ’ and Cooke’s ‘Iago.’ 
 Garrick said of Cumberland that he was a man without 
 a skin. Cumberland used to repeat Garrick’s advice to 
 him : ‘ Make your hero expected with impatience.’ He 
 told the story, too, of Garrick playing the water wagtail 
 on the lawn at Hampton, to the great delight of Cum- 
 berland’s children, ‘ as they stood round him one year 
 under another.’ Another of Cumberland’s remarks, put 
 on record in Rogers’s Commonplace Book, was of the 
 greatest possible benefit to Rogers : ‘ I hope it will be put 
 on my tomb,’ said Cumberland, ‘ “ Patron of the Flesh- 
 brush.” I have not caught cold since I used it.’ Rogers 
 took the hint and acted on it. In his later years he spoke 
 of the use of the fleshbrush as the art of living for ever, and 
 said he had iearned it from Cumberland. The old play- 
 wright thus amply repaid Rogers’s kindness to him. He 
 had led a life of immense variety and adventure, but had 
 a grievance against the Government, and became some- 
 thing of a sycophant in his latter days. 
 
 There is a letter of this period from a friend of Robert 
 Merry’s, who, though utterly unknown to Rogers, makes 
 a pathetic appeal for help. Rogers sent him the money 
 he asked for. Robert Merry himself seems to have been 
 under similar obligations. It is, indeed, a striking 
 feature in the correspondence between Rogers and his 
 political and literary friends of three generations that 
 his readiness to do them all kinds of service is con- 
 stantly assumed and acted upon. Criticism of manu- 
 scripts, negotiations with publishers, advice on business 
 or travel, advances of money, are forms of help constantly 
 
ROBERT MERRY 
 
 283 
 
 asked and as constantly given. There are several letters 
 from Robert Merry in the autumn of 1793 which show 
 both Rogers’s helpfulness and his political associations. 
 Merry left London in September to go to Geneva with 
 his wife and Charles Pigott — another of the men who 
 got pecuniary assistance from Rogers. At Harwich, 
 however, they heard so much of the difficulties and 
 dangers of travel in Holland and on the Rhine that they 
 turned back ; and Merry went to Scarborough, whence he 
 writes to Rogers on the 17th of October. He is as quiet 
 there, he says, as if he had gone among the Alps. He 
 has an excellent ready-furnished abode, ‘ looking boldly 
 and bleakly to the sea,’ for little more than a guinea a 
 week, though in the summer it lets for from ten to four- 
 teen. He promises Rogers if he will go down by the 
 Scarborough mail — ‘ a good bed, a good fire, and capital 
 Yorkshire stingo.’ He is finishing his novel, and will 
 send it to Rogers for approval and to arrange with 
 Cadell, or any other bookseller, to bring it out. He asks 
 for all the news. ‘What is the situation of Toulon, 
 Lyons, La Vendee, Mauberge, and the Luke of York’s 
 army ? ’ He has had but two letters since he left 
 London, and both of them had been opened, so he is to 
 be addressed under cover to somebody else. Rogers is to 
 tell nobody that he is still in England. As no answer 
 came at once he wrote again, fearing that his letter had 
 been seized in the Post Office. In a third letter on the 
 8th of December he makes a political reference written 
 for the edification of Pitt’s Post Office spies : — ‘ It is with 
 much sorrow that I find those licentious and abandoned 
 regicides, the French, have been of late successful. God 
 
284 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 grant that the justice of our endeavours may meet with 
 its due reward ! ’ He is also ‘ much afflicted to discover 
 that even here a turbulent democratic spirit too much 
 prevails.’ On the 12th of December he writes again, to 
 enclose a little theatrical piece for Mr. Harris, of Co vent 
 Garden theatre. He conceals his name as author — ‘ not 
 to be exposed to Aristocratic Malice.’ He further de- 
 scribes the piece as the French play of ‘ Fenelon,’ reduced 
 to three acts. He urges Rogers to get it published if 
 Harris wall not take it, but not to let the name of the 
 translator be known — ‘ as the name of a Republican 
 would damn any performance at this time.’ ‘If Hayley 
 is a furious democrat,’ he asks, ‘what must be the scale 
 of patriotism in this country ? ’ This letter had begun in 
 Della Cruscan style : — ‘ If you knew the pleasure I receive 
 in reading your letters you would not be sparing of them. 
 They allure me from a boisterous sea of Politics to the 
 mild abode of Poetry and Peace. It is in solitude alone 
 we learn properly to estimate our comforts, and prove 
 how sweetly the voice of friendship breathing instruction 
 and delight, affects the soul. I, here, am tolerably se- 
 cluded from the w 7 orld, and scarcely view a living creature 
 except the hovering sea-gull or the lonely cormorant 
 traversing the distant waves. Yet still am I troubled by 
 the Revolutionary Struggle ; the great object of human 
 happiness is never long removed from my sight. 0 
 that I could sleep for two centuries like the youths of 
 Ephesus and then awake to a new order of things ! But 
 alas ! our existence must be passed amidst the storm ; the 
 fair season will be for posterity.’ Ten months later, on 
 the nth of October 1794, he writes in London — but 
 
COOPER AND THE PRIESTLEYS 
 
 285 
 
 giving his address as Post Office, Norwich — regretting 
 to have missed a talk with Rogers : ‘ on the existing 
 circumstances which seem to me/ he says, ‘to be ad- 
 vancing to some great catastrophe/ As things stood he 
 felt some inclination to go with Mrs. Merry to America, 
 asks Rogers to put him in the way how to proceed, and 
 promises to call shortly to replace a few pounds he 
 feared he had overdrawn at the bank. He and his wife 
 afterwards went to America, where he died in 1798. 
 Gifford’s ‘ Baviad/ published in 1794, may have had 
 something to do with this resolution ; but the ‘ aristo- 
 cratic malice ’ to which he referred in the year before its 
 issue, — meaning by that the disfavour and unpopularity 
 of advanced Liberal views in those days, and the personal 
 danger to those who held them, — was the predisposing 
 cause of his exile. 
 
 Two letters from Priestley’s friend, Thomas Cooper, 
 further illustrate the political characteristics of the times 
 and Rogers’s relation to political movements. Cooper 
 was a Manchester man who seems to have thought it 
 necessary to go where the expression of opinion was 
 freer than it was at that time in England. He had 
 dined with Rogers at the Stock Exchange just before 
 leaving London, and wrote to him from Deal about a com- 
 mission of Priestley’s 1 that he had forgotten. The letter 
 is dated Sunday, August the 24th, 1793, 5 o’clock; and 
 he says : ‘ I am not yet on board, but you may conclude 
 that the receipt of this letter at your house, ensures to 
 you my safe delivery on board ship.’ On the 14th of 
 
 1 Probably Joseph Priestley, son of the philosopher, who with his two 
 brothers was already settled in America. 
 
early life of samuel Rogers 
 
 L>86 
 
 December he writes from Philadelphia : ‘ I will be at your 
 house in February or March: incog, like other great 
 men. Mention this, with strong injunctions of secrecy, 
 do Tuffin and Sharp. I wish the enclosed letters to be 
 duly and safely conveyed, and having to write to you to 
 send Russell his letter, I do not write to Tuffin or Sharp. 
 Russell, Priestley, and T. Walker (not R. Walker nor any 
 •other of my friends or my family) know of my intention. 
 I hope to come over with a sufficient inducement for 
 others to return with me.’ This inducement was a 
 scheme wdiich had been got up by Joseph Priestley, 
 ■Cooper himself, and some other English emigrants for 
 an English settlement in Pennsylvania, near the head 
 of the Susquehanna River. As there seemed to be some 
 likelihood that his sons might fix themselves there, 
 Dr. Priestley himself on his arrival in the United States, 
 went on from New York to Philadelphia, and thence a 
 hundred and thirty miles up the country to Northum- 
 berland. This was a small town at the confluence of the 
 east and west branches of the Susquehanna, and fifty 
 miles from the proposed settlement. The scheme had to 
 be abandoned ; but Dr. Priestley remained at Northum- 
 berland, where he died on the 6th of February 1 804. 
 
 Merry's opened letters and Cooper’s secrecy illustrate 
 the dangers of that martyr age of Reform. Dr. Priestley 
 himself left London in April, 1 794, urged to do so by 
 numerous friends, who felt that he might at any moment 
 be seized as the next victim under the White Terror 
 which the frightful doings in France had conjured up 
 in England. Dr. Price had died in April, 1791 ; and 
 Dr. Priestley had succeeded him as preacher at Hackney 
 
POLITICAL PROSECUTIONS 
 
 287 
 
 .at the close of the year. Some account of conversations 
 in which Dr. Priestley, Cooper, and other Liberals took 
 part in the few years of his residence in London, has 
 already been given in extracts from Rogers’s diary in the 
 preceding chapter. After the iniquitous sentence of 
 seven years’ transportation which had been passed on the 
 Rev. Thomas Fyshe Palmer, a Unitarian minister in 
 Dundee, it was felt that no Liberal was safe. A few poor 
 men in that town, imitating the influential body in 
 London, had formed a society of Friends of the People. 
 They prepared an address to their fellow-citizens to which 
 Mr. Palmer had given literary form. It is most moderate 
 in tone and just in sentiment ; but Mr. Palmer was pro- 
 secuted for sedition, and at a trial in which the judge 
 allowed his religious opinions to be urged as grounds for 
 his condemnation on a political charge, was found guilty 
 and sentenced, and the sentence was rigorously carried 
 out. Dr. Priestley’s friends were naturally alarmed lest 
 he should fall a victim to the same malevolent tyranny, 
 and it seems probable that he was not too early in placing 
 himself beyond King George’s beneficent sway. It was 
 one of Rogers’s boasts that the exiled philosopher and 
 divine spent his last night in England under his roof. 
 
 Dr. Priestley had scarcely been gone six weeks when 
 two of Rogers’s intimate friends were arrested for high 
 treason. On the 14th of May, Mr. William Stone was 
 arrested, and after various examinations, was committed 
 to Newgate. Horne Tooke was carried to the Tower under 
 circumstances which he has himself put on record, in a 
 memorandum in a volume he afterwards gave to Rogers. 
 This memorandum is published as a note to Rogers's 
 
288 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘ Recollections 5 1 of his friend. ‘ I Mas apprehended/' 
 says Horne Tooke, * at Wimbledon, Friday, May 16,. 
 conducted to the Tower, Monday, May 19, 1794, 
 
 without any charge ; nor can I conjecture their pretence 
 of charge. Mr. Dundas, Secretary of State, told me in the 
 Privy Council that “ It was conceived that I was guilty of 
 treasonable practices/’ He refused to tell me by whom 
 it was conceived.’ Horne Tooke was tried in November, 
 and Rogers was present. He often told the story in 
 later days, especially dwelling on Erskine’s incomparable 
 pantomime. 2 The attorney-general, Sir John Scott, in 
 replying for the Crown, used arguments for which Erskine 
 was not prepared, and to which he would have no oppor- 
 tunity of reply. Erskine drew the attention of the jury 
 to himself, and by shrugs of the shoulders, shakings of 
 the head, and other significant gestures conveyed to 
 them his sense of the astonishing audacity and worthless- 
 ness of his opponent’s statements. Horne Tooke was 
 acquitted ; and as he left the court a lady, who described 
 herself as a daughter of one of the jurymen, came up and 
 asked to be introduced to him. He shook her warmly 
 by the hand and said : ‘ Then give me leave, madam, to 
 call you sister, for your father has just given me 
 life/ Juries like that which acquitted Horne Tooke, 
 not only saved the lives of .the men they refused to con- 
 vict, but saved the country itself from being compelled 
 to choose between despotism and revolution. Rogers 
 
 1 Rogers’s Recollections, p. 140. 
 
 2 Mr. Hayward (Ed. Rev. July 1856) quotes Mr. Dyce’s account of 
 Rogers telling the story, as an illustration of the carelessness by which 
 Mr. Dyce ‘ has repeatedly mad^ Rogers use phraseology he notoriously 
 disliked, and fall into errors of which he would have been ashamed.’ 
 
WILLIAM STONE’S TRIAL 
 
 289 
 
 heartily sympathised with his persecuted political friends. 
 Twenty years later — when Horne Tooke had been some 
 time dead, and Rogers had seen much of him in that 
 quiet old age in which Rogers afterwards said his man- 
 ners and conversation reminded him of a calm sunset in 
 October — he turned the circumstances of the trial into 
 poetry. Horne Tooke was evidently in his mind when 
 he wrote his ‘ Human Life.’ 
 
 It was more than a year before Rogers’s friend, Mr. 
 William Stone, at whose house at Hackney he had met 
 Paine, and who had introduced him to Fox, was brought 
 up for trial. One day in January, 1796, Rogers read 
 in the morning paper at breakfast that a summons had 
 been issued to bring him before the Privy Council. His 
 horse was ready to take him as usual to the bank, and 
 he rode at once into town and then drove in a coach to 
 Downing Street. He asked for Mr. Dundas, and was 
 shown into the presence of that Minister. He inquired 
 with some nervousness what was the meaning of the 
 announcement he had seen in the papers. Dundas re- 
 plied by asking what conveyance he had with him, and 
 learning that it was a hackney coach proposed to go 
 with him to the Home Office. There Rogers was told 
 that he was required as a witness in the trial of William 
 Stone for high treason. In March, 1794, Stone had met 
 him in the Strand, and told him a gentleman had applied 
 to him to learn the sentiments of the people of England 
 as to an invasion from France. ‘ I rather declined 
 the conversation,’ said Rogers in his evidence. ‘ I was 
 in a hurry, and I told him I had no wish to take part 
 in any political transactions at that time. It was 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 EARLY LIRE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 a time of general alarm, and I wished to shun even the 
 shadow of an imputation — as I knew when the minds of 
 men were agitated, as I thought they then were, the 
 most innocent intentions were liable to misconstruction.’ 
 In reply to further questions he said that Stone had 
 afterwards called on him with a paper, in which it was 
 shown that, however the English people might differ 
 among themselves, they would unite to repel an invasion ; 
 and he had expressed the opinion that he should do his 
 duty if by stating this, which he believed to be true, he 
 could save his country from invasion. Mr. Stone was 
 acquitted, but one result of the trial was that Rogers — 
 who, though always an ardent Liberal, had no passion for 
 politics — was less inclined than ever to take any active 
 part in the political agitations of a time when the Habeas 
 Corpus Act was suspended and there was a reign of 
 terror in England. 4 You will infect me like the plague,’ 
 he had said to his friend Stone during the conversation 
 which was the subject of his evidence ; and he avoided 
 the infection, though not by keeping away from his 
 friends. The political danger may have been one cause 
 of the discontinuance of the diary which recorded the 
 conversation at their dinner tables. The brief record of 
 the toasts drunk at Mr. Morgan’s table , 1 and of Paine’s re- 
 marks on kings might have been made evidence against 
 him had the Ministers of the day known that it was in 
 existence. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn from the gloomy aspect of 
 public affairs in those miserable times to the brighter 
 world of poetry in which Rogers loved to dwell, and to the 
 
 Chap. VIII p. 246. 
 
HOENE TOOKE, FOX 
 
 291 
 
 social intercourse with pleasant people he diligently cul- 
 tivated. As we look back to those years we can scarcely 
 wonder that Wordsworth gave up some of his earlier 
 aspirations, or that Southey went over to the reaction- 
 ary side. It is to Rogers’s lasting credit that he never 
 forsook his political friends. Poetry, and not politics, 
 was his pursuit ; but he kept to the Liberal side through 
 all the weary years of its depression and discouragement. 
 Wordsworth in the most beautiful of his early poems 1 
 speaks of the ‘ tranquil restoration ’ which the dim recol- 
 lection of Nature’s beauties had brought ; and of 
 
 — that blessed mood 
 In which the burthen and the mystery, 
 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 
 
 Is lightened — 
 
 which contact with Nature produced. Rogers felt the 
 same tranquil restoration in talk with authors and 
 literary men on the literary topics of the time, and in 
 poetry itself. He was writing his * Epistle to a Friend,’ 
 and in this year wrote the lines — which were published 
 in the earlier editions, but were afterwards omitted — in 
 which he pays his first tribute to Fox, and speaks of 
 Horne Tooke, who had just been defeated in his second 
 candidature for Westminster, with a reverence that in 
 those days few would have paid him : — 
 
 Hail, sweet Society ! in crowds unknown, 
 
 Though the vain world would claim thee for its own, 
 
 Still where thy small and cheerful converse flows 
 Be mine to enter, ere the circle close. 
 
 Tintern Abbey. 
 
292 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 When in retreat Fox lays his thunder by, 
 
 And Wit and Taste their mingled charms supply ; 
 
 When Siddons, born to melt and freeze the heart, 
 Performs at home her more endearing part ; 
 
 When he, who best interprets to mankind 
 The winged messengers from mind to mind, 
 
 Leans on his spade, and playful as profound 
 His genius sheds its evening sunshine round ; 
 
 Be mine to listen, pleased yet not elate, 
 
 Ever too modest or too proud to rate 
 Myself by my companions ; self-compelled 
 To earn the station that in life I held. 
 
 He was often with Horne Tooke at Wimbledon in these 
 years, and the talks with him in his garden, as he leaned 
 upon his spade, supplied some of the material of the 
 ‘ Recollections.’ An illustration of Fox laying his 
 thunder by has been given in the preceding chapter in 
 the extract from the diary which records the evening 
 spent with Fox and Sheridan at the house of Mr. Stone. 
 There are many other examples of the great orator’s 
 familiar moods in the ‘Recollections,’ which, as Rogers 
 himself says, ‘ shew his playfulness, his love of letters, 
 and his good nature in unbending himself to a young 
 man.’ 
 
 Rogers had long known Mrs. Siddons where she 
 performed ‘her more endearing part,’ and in the year 
 before the lines in the ‘ Epistle ’ were written she had 
 asked him to write an epilogue to be spoken by her on 
 her benefit night. The ‘ Epilogue ’ as published in 
 the Poems is said in a note to have been spoken by 
 Mrs. Siddons ‘ after a tragedy performed for her benefit 
 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, April 27th, 1795. 
 
MRS. SIDDONS 
 
 293 
 
 The stanzas are printed as they were written, not as 
 they were spoken. Mrs. Siddons made some changes 
 and abbreviations in them, for which she apologises in 
 the following letter : — 
 
 Mrs . Siddons to S. Rogers . 
 
 ‘ My dear Mr. Rogers, — I know your goodness will 
 pardon the liberties I have taken of curtailing and a little 
 altering the “ Epilogue/’ and tho’ my having two long 
 parts to perform upon my benefit night will make it 
 painful to me to speak more of it, yet as you will probably 
 let that appear among your other elegant productions 
 you will unquestionably print it as it was originally 
 written. I’m afraid my friends will think they have too 
 much of a good thing, for I am desired by those whom I 
 must not refuse to play Emmeline in “ Edgar and Emme- 
 line ” (a fairy tale) and to speak the epilogue to it, so I 
 think they will have enough of me, and all this (beside my 
 part in the play which is quite new to me) I have got to 
 learn. Pity and pardon and believe me, my dear sir, 
 
 ‘ Your very much obliged 
 
 ‘ And affectionate humble servant, 
 
 ‘ S. Siddons. 
 
 c I send you the original “ Epilogue ” to compare with 
 the copy ; and as I think the trifling alterations I have, 
 presuming on your kindness, made, will have a rather 
 better stage effect, I hope they will not be disagreeable 
 to you. Pray have the goodness to return it immediately, 
 for, as Mr. S. Lysons would say : “ I must begin and study 
 like a dragon ! ” ’ 
 
294 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Another letter from the great actress, written on an 
 ample sheet of the old-fashioned letter paper, contains a 
 ticket bearing the words : ‘ Mrs. Siddons’s Night, Theatre 
 Royal Drury Lane Company.’ It bears her monogram 
 and her written initials, for Box No. 664: — 
 
 1 With Mrs. Siddons’ comps. & thanks to Mr. Rogers. 
 With respect to the Verses — 
 
 Never let your noble courage be cast down. 
 
 ‘ April 25th, 1795.’ 
 
 He did not let his noble courage be cast down, 
 though he was free from the conceit wdiich buoys up the 
 spirits of many inferior men, and was never quite content 
 with what he had written. The ‘ Epilogue ’ is certainly 
 none the worse for the absence of that careful elaboration 
 which he gave to some of his poems, and it associated 
 his name with one of the greatest reputations of the time. 
 Mrs. Siddons spoke it after the play of ‘ Mahomet the 
 Impostor,’ in which she acted the part of Palmyra. Speak- 
 ing of the * Occasional Address ’ which followed the play, 
 the True Briton said : ‘We know not which most to 
 
 praise, its poetical merits or her delivery of it.’ The 
 changes made by Mrs. Siddons are recorded in Rogers’s 
 Commonplace Book. They are simply such as make 
 it more personal and direct. 
 
 I wake, I breathe and am myself again, 
 
 becomes — 
 
 I wake, I breathe, I am myself again. 
 
 And — 
 
 Ah no ! she scorns the trappings of her Art, 
 
 No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart ! 
 
MRS. SIDDONS 
 
 295 
 
 became — 
 
 Oh no, I scorn the trappings of my Art, 
 
 My theme is truth, my prompter is my heart. 
 
 The two lines — 
 
 Thus Woman makes her entrance and her exit, 
 
 Not least an actress when she least suspects it ; 
 
 were delivered — 
 
 Yes, fair ones, you’ve your entrance and your exit, 
 
 And most you’re acting when you least suspect it. 
 
 And the last four — 
 
 Thus from her mind all artifice she flings, 
 
 All skill, all practice — now unmeaning things. 
 
 To you, unchecked, each genuine feeling flows, 
 
 For all that life endears to you she owes ; 
 
 were delivered — 
 
 No ! from her heart all artifice she flings 
 All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things, 
 Unbounded now each genuine feeling flows 
 For all that life endears — to you she owes. 
 
 The cordial reception accorded to this ‘ Epilogue * was 
 rightly regarded by its author as a sign that his literary 
 position was already fully established. ‘ His society/ 
 says his nephew, ‘ was eagerly sought for by ladies of 
 fashion as well as by men of letters. His father when 
 young, and living in Worcestershire had mixed with the 
 men of rank in his own neighbourhood. He had been 
 intimate with the Earl of Stamford and Warrington and 
 that excellent man the first Lord Lyttelton, the poet, 
 and his son-in-law Lord Yalentia, the father of the 
 
296 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 traveller. But though such society had been cultivated by 
 the grandfather at “ The Hill,” it was by no means to the 
 father’s taste. On settling in Newington Green he was 
 glad to drop his titled acquaintance ; and he gave his son 
 the strong advice: “ Never go near them, Sam! ” But 
 their doors were now open to the young and wealthy poet, 
 and he did not refuse to enter.’ At this period he was 
 just beginning to shake himself free from business. His 
 brother Henry came of age in the summer of 1795, and 
 was at once made a partner in the bank, and gradually 
 entrusted with its management. He proved to be an 
 excellent man of business, and the elder brother soon saw 
 that he could with the utmost confidence leave everything 
 in his hands. Thus year by year the way seemed to be 
 opening to Samuel Rogers into the life of cultivated ease, 
 of literary and artistic friendships, and of social celebrity 
 and success of which he had only dimly dreamed in earlier 
 days. ‘We never go so far,’ says Guizot, ‘as when we 
 know not whither we are going ; ’ and Rogers exemplified 
 the axiom. He was gradually detaching himself from 
 business on the one hand, and from the home at Stoke 
 Newington on the other ; and circumstances concurred 
 in a striking manner to urge him forward in the course 
 to which his tastes inclined him, but with which his 
 old associations were in conflict. The home at Stoke 
 Newington was breaking up. Mary Worthington, the 
 * Milly ’ of the family letters, who had lived with Thomas 
 Rogers and his wife, and had always been the oldest of 
 the familiar faces in the Stoke Newington home, died in 
 November 1795. Samuel Rogers had entered her name 
 in his own hand in the family Bible, under the family 
 
ROGERS AND DR. MOORE 
 
 297 
 
 list: ‘Mary Worthington, born Nov. 27, 1716, died 
 
 2nd of Nov., 1795.’ In the same year his sister Maria 
 had been married to his friend Sutton Sharpe. There 
 remained at home only his brother Henry, his sister 
 Sarah, and Miss Mitchell, who, as has been previously 
 stated, lived with the family till her death in 1812. 
 
 Among the few relics of a large correspondence with 
 literary and other friends at this period are, a very 
 characteristic letter from Dr. Moore to Rogers, and one 
 from Rogers to his friend Richard Sharp. The two 
 letters curiously exhibit the relations in which he stood 
 towards these very different men. The author of ‘ Zeluco 9 
 had sent Rogers a manuscript to read and criticise ; and 
 Rogers, as was his wont even then, had kept it so long 
 that the author became anxious for its safety. The manu- 
 script was, in all probability, that of Dr. Moore’s work 
 published in the next year under the title of ‘ A Yiew 
 of the Causes and Progress of the French Revolution.’ 
 
 ‘Clifford Street: Septr. 17th, 1794. 
 
 ‘Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 16th gave me great 
 pleasure, because I really thought some mischief had 
 come on the manuscript, not one page of which could I 
 have ever renewed. I am now easy, and I beg you will not 
 put yourself to the least hurry, as I can now wait with 
 patience and tranquillity till it is convenient for you. 
 
 ‘ As for your verbal criticisms I would not give a damn 
 for them, because I have always been subject to forget 
 words and letters in writing; and I am more careless 
 in what goes to the press than in a letter to a friend, 
 because my compositor is the most accurate man on 
 
298 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 earth. What I expect from you are alterations of more 
 importance, which affect the truth and justness of the 
 observations and the spirit of the composition. If I did 
 not value your judgment in those particulars I should 
 not have troubled you on the subject, and if you do not 
 think I am able to bear the severest remark that you can 
 make with good humour, you do me injustice. Although 
 I might think your remarks ill-founded it w T ould not de- 
 stroy my friendship for you — which is founded on another 
 unalterable basis besides my opinion of your taste in 
 works of literature. 
 
 ‘ Yours sincerely 
 
 1 J. Moore. 
 
 1 P.S. — Do not show the MS.’ 
 
 The letter to Richard Sharp is a year later. It is 
 the earliest part of the correspondence between these two 
 friends which has been preserved; but it must not be 
 regarded as indicating the full nature of their intercourse. 
 They had common political relations, such as letters 
 from other persons have already indicated, and large 
 correspondence on literary topics. But they were both 
 young and both unmarried, and yet neither of them had 
 given up the intention of matrimony — though Rogers, at 
 least, was not engaged. He was, of course, regarded as 
 an eligible person, he had much of the susceptibility of 
 the poet, and there is evidence in this letter, as well as 
 in others, that he had been more than once in love. He 
 would naturally tell the story of his social successes to 
 the friend who was most in his confidence — and that 
 friend was Richard Sharp. 
 
THE MARGATE SEASON IN 1795 
 
 299 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 Margate [Oct. 15, 1795]. 
 
 ‘ My dear Sharp, — Surely I am the most miserable 
 dog alive, the most dependent on the opinion of others, 
 in heaven to-day, sent ad inferos to-morrow — now sleep- 
 less from ecstasy, now from despondency. I will live so 
 no longer. Badinage apart, I have been making experi- 
 ments on my own heart in this great laboratory by the 
 sea-side. I dropped it into the crucible, and when I looked 
 for it again, it was — shall I say not there ? No, but it was 
 not so sound as I left it. I have been fooling away a 
 fortnight, and am neither better nor happier for it. Yet 
 how long is the retrospect ! In this foolish place every 
 day is a little drama. My first week was almost entirely 
 spent in the company of a girl whose face you know, 
 whose beauty you must have felt — at least I did. She 
 seemed sinking, and I could have wept when I looked at 
 her, but she left Margate, and I looked about for some- 
 body else. My second has passed miscellaneously. Mrs. 
 Gillies has some beauty from Dover Street, and I have 
 been flattered, amused and tortured successively beyond 
 description. On Saturday when I dined there it was 
 actual war, and I did not mean to open my lips to her 
 High Mightiness again, but to-day she made me go with 
 her to the painter’s to make my criticisms on her minia- 
 ture. The white flag has resumed its place, and I think 
 will hardly be taken down again. She goes to-morrow 
 with Dr . 1 and Mrs. G[illies]. 
 
 * But what will you say when I tell you that I was at 
 
 1 Dr. John Gillies, the historian of Greece and translator of Aristotle. 
 
■300 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the last ball introduced, by her own desire and previous 
 arrangement, to a girl whose face distracted me at the 
 opera concert last winter but whose name I did not 
 know, and whose face and fortune together have turned 
 all the heads in the island ? To-day, though I had not 
 exchanged three words with her, she walked several yards 
 up to me at a review, and conversed half an hour as I 
 sat on horseback, by the clock of St. Peter’s. She is, 
 indeed, the most touching girl now left in the island, but 
 I fear she amuses herself at the expense of other people, 
 and therefore stand on the defensive. Roger Palmer has 
 been giving her dinners innumerable at Pegwell, and 
 Miles P. Andrews , 1 who has been driving about his four 
 horses, has been making love to her these six weeks, and 
 has made me the confidant of his hopes and fears. But 
 the last is just gone, full of love and hope. These, you 
 will say, are neither of them very formidable rivals, nor, I 
 believe, has the first any thought of it. When I have 
 reconnoitred the ground a little you shall know more. 
 
 ‘ Mrs. Cowley 2 is here, and is really a very agreeable 
 woman. Reynolds the dramatist is also here, and is a 
 very good-humoured fellow, though a little out of spirits, 
 from having singed his wings at the flame above- 
 
 ' Mr. Miles Peter Andrews was a member of the celebrated firm of 
 gunpowder manufacturers at Dartford. He entered Parliament as Member 
 for Bewdley in 1790, and was re-elected without opposition in 1796, 
 1802, 1806, and 1807. He had been an intimate friend of Garrick and 
 Foote, and of the ‘ wicked Lord Lyttelton,’ who left him a bequest in 
 his will. He was the author of a number of comedies and some operas. 
 His ‘ Mysteries of the Castle ; a Dramatic Tale in three Acts,’ had been 
 performed at Covent Garden Theatre with a strong cast in the January 
 before Rogers met him at Margate. He bought Lord Grenville’s house 
 and became a prominent man of fashion. He died in 1814. 
 
 2 Mrs. Cowley, the Della Cruscan poetess. 
 
SHARP AND MACKINTOSH 
 
 301 
 
 mentioned. Colonel Barre 1 is here, and Mackintosh is 
 at Broadstairs, so that I find tolerable society. I live 
 alone in a small cottage, with a vine over the front and 
 benches at the door, very cheerfully looking into a field, 
 and furnishing more room than I want at a guinea per 
 week. Parsons is not here, nor do I now expect him. 
 Weston was here for a day or two, but caught the spleen 
 and vanished before I came. My Muse is neither asleep 
 nor awake, she is very stupid. I thank you most sin- 
 cerely for your good wishes, but am sorry to say they are 
 not yet fulfilled. I shall however return with such a 
 magazine of female freaks and follies as will serve to 
 furnish many a sublime speculation when we sit in 
 council together. Adieu ! You wrote me a charming 
 letter about myself, and I blush to think that I have 
 confined myself to the same subject. If ever you should 
 pass near the precincts of the Temple will you visit my 
 nutshell and take a peep at our architectural experiments ? 
 The sublime dreams of a Piranesi vanish before them. 
 
 * Yours at all times and in all places, 
 
 ‘S. B. 
 
 ‘ Wednesday morning.’ 
 
 The reply to this letter has not been preserved, and 
 here, for a couple of years the correspondence ceases. 
 The intercourse between the friends was constant ; and 
 .was necessarily greatly facilitated by Rogers’s removal 
 from his remote suburban home to chambers in the 
 Temple. Among the friends he made in this period of 
 his life was Mackintosh. The brilliant author of ‘ Yindiciae 
 
 Colonel Barre had been a personal and political friend of Dr. Price. 
 
302 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Gallicae ’ had been eating his way to the bar to which he 
 was called in 1795. He and Richard Sharp were in the 
 habit of meeting each other at Rogers’s lodgings, where, 
 as he told Mr. Dyce, they would stay for hours talking 
 metaphysics. Rogers made no secret of his dislike of 
 the subject, though he was far from indifferent to some 
 of the most fascinating themes of transcendental specu- 
 lation. The only two occasions of offence between him 
 and Sharp arose out of Sharp’s fondness for metaphysics. 
 One day at Rogers’s chambers, Mackintosh and Sharp 
 were so intent on the abstract considerations into which 
 he did not care to plunge that he went out, paid a visit 
 and returned to find them still so absorbed that they 
 did not know he had been away. He was angry, and 
 sat down to write his letters. On a later occasion Sharp 
 and Rogers were together at Ulleswater, and Rogers made 
 a remark on the favourite topic of his friend. 4 There 
 are only two men in England with whom I ever talk 
 on metaphysics,’ said Sharp. Rogers took no offence, 
 though his sister Sarah, who was at the Lakes with him, 
 said he should have left him at once. The friendship of 
 these two men was not to be broken off by so paltry a mis- 
 understanding. If they could not talk metaphysics to- 
 gether, they talked of everything else, politics and theology 
 included. Rogers, however, knew but little of his friend’s 
 early history. He use to tell a story of a curious meet- 
 ing at Glencoe between Richard Sharp and a friend of 
 his father’s. Sharp and a friend had found the inn 
 crammed, and had been sent by the landlord to the house 
 of a laird who was willing to give hospitality to travellers. 
 They were cordially received, and in the evening talked 
 
ROGERS’ S COMMONPLACE BOOK 
 
 303 
 
 with their host of people and places they knew. The 
 host mentioned Newfoundland. ‘ Have you been there ? * 
 asked his guest. ‘ I spent some time there when I was 
 in the army/ answered the host, ‘ and the dearest friend 
 I ever had was a gentleman I knew there of the name of 
 Sharp.’ ‘ I am his son,’ said Sharp with much emotion, 
 at which the laird embraced him with a warmth which 
 found expression in tears. 
 
 There are about this date some entries in Rogers’s 
 Commonplace Book which give glimpses of the talk of 
 his numerous literary friends. 
 
 Dr. Price was told by Mr. Hume that when Rousseau came 
 with him to England he suspected that he was seduced over 
 to be poisoned ; and on the way one night, as they lay in 
 separate rooms divided by a single partition, Rousseau heard 
 Mr. Hume cry out in his sleep : ‘ I’ve got you, Rousseau ; I’ve 
 got you ! ’ Rousseau left him and went off into Derbyshire, 
 where he took it into his head that the people of England had 
 entered into a conspiracy against him, and wrote up to the 
 Minister for a guard to escort him out of the kingdom. 
 Hume, with much difficulty, prevailed on the king to grant 
 Rousseau a pension of 100L a year, but when he was informed 
 of it, he spurned it as an affront. He stayed here two years. 
 Voltaire said of him that he believed half the world were 
 employed in raising a statue to him and the other half in 
 beating it down again. 
 
 The Duke of Bedford regretted to leave his steward’s 
 . house by the park-side where he had resided while his fortune 
 was at nurse : in parvis maxima voluptas. 
 
 Du Tens, the writer, possesses an invaluable copy of 
 Madame du Barry’s 4 Memoirs.’ She says she was caught by 
 a shower in the garden at Versailles when walking with the 
 king, and that they were wet through. The Duke of Riche- 
 
304 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 lieu has in this copy written this marginal note — 4 That is' 
 not true, for I was with them and held an umbrella over her/ 
 
 Mackintosh has just paid a visit of two days at Beacons- 
 field, and was well received. M. acknowledged that, when he 
 wrote his book, he was misinformed as to the facts. 
 
 Burke often complained of the discord and intractability 
 of our language. 
 
 [Asked] Is he an important man, Warton [answered] 4 I 
 never knew anything in an important man.’ 
 
 Collins’s first performance at school contained this line — 
 
 4 And every grammar clapt its leathern wings.’ Warton ad- 
 mired Sheridan’s parliamentary speeches, not his 4 School 
 for Scandal,’ first written in two acts — a number of people 
 met together, unconnected, and not aiding the plot. Johnson 
 always abused 4 Paradise Lost,’ and said, 4 None of you can 
 read it ; ’ afterwards did not dare to attack the public opinion. 
 
 4 Comus ’ perhaps his finest piece. Fuseli thought the pas- 
 sage, 4 And from his horrid hair shakes pestilence and war ’ 
 worth all ‘Comus.’ 1 Warton thought Johnson’s criticisms 
 would soon lose all weight. Talked with great affection and 
 good humour of his brother (dead). Thought the philoso- 
 phical Dyer wrote 4 Junius,’ and Mason certainly wrote the 
 4 Heroic Epistle.’ 2 February, 1795. 
 
 Collins, says Warton, is very fine in 4 Who shall wake the 
 Spartan Fife ? ’ Armstrong thought little of him, as he com- 
 plained to Warton. Not generally admired. 
 
 These contemporary criticisms stand in curious 
 contrast to the verdicts of posterity. Fuseli’s preference 
 
 1 Incens’d with indignation, Satan stood 
 Unterrified, and like a comet burn’d, 
 
 That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge 
 
 In th’ arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
 
 Shakes pestilence and w ar.— Paradise Lost , Book ii. 
 
 2 ‘An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight, 1773, by 
 Malcolm Macgregor.’ It was afterwards acknowledged by Mason. 
 
ROGERS'S COMMONPLACE BOOK 
 
 305 
 
 of the account of Satan’s conflict with the £ grisly Terror ’ 
 to the whole of ‘ Comus ’ is characteristic of his gloomy 
 genius. It is a striking instance of unconscious self- 
 revelation. Warton’s criticism on Sheridan’s ‘ School 
 for Scandal,’ may be compared with that of Jekyll, who, 
 on seeing the piece said, ‘ Why don’t all these people 
 leave off talking and let the play begin ; ’ and both are 
 instructive instances of the weakness and shallowness 
 of contemporary judgments. Armstrong thinking little 
 of Collins will suggest to many in these days the 
 question who Armstrong was. Millions who read with 
 admiration Collins’s ‘ Ode to the Passions ’ have never 
 heard of the author of £ The Art of Preserving Health,’ 
 and would probably expect to find under that title a 
 medical treatise rather than a didactic poem . Collins 
 is better known now than Warton, and is more generally 
 admired than he was a century ago. 
 
 Here are some further recollections — 
 
 Dr. Parr. — I heard Horsley at St. Margaret’s Church. 
 He saw me as he went up into the pulpit. He sat down and 
 sweated. I darted my eye at him, and through the whole of 
 his sermon there was a most entertaining contest between his 
 fury and his fears. I was never near enough to Mr. Pitt, but 
 I always dart my eye at him. He has often bullied and 
 abused me, but he could never look me in the face. At 
 Nando’s, 19th April, ’96. 
 
 In walking up Hampstead Hill I was solicited by a beggar 
 woman with some fine children for alms , and I had only a 
 bad sixpence. I told her so ; she said she would pass it in the 
 night. What should I have done ? I said to myself, 4 Society 
 are her aggressors,’ and I gave it to her. Mr. Smith and Mr. 
 Barbauld thought I was wrong. Dr. Parr thought I acted 
 
 x 
 
306 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 right, and said the man who could have done otherwise would 
 have kept it to pass it himself. 19th Octr. ’96. 
 
 I asked Sir George Staunton when 4 The Embassy ’ 1 would 
 be published. He did not seem to know, and therefore I 
 would not ask him again. I never ask a great man a question 
 which he cannot answer. He never forgives you for it. — Dr. 
 Gillies , 24 Oc. ’96. 
 
 4 God bless your voice ! ’ said an old blind man when I 
 answered a question concerning the way this morning. 
 25 Octr. ’96. 
 
 Some other entries in the Commonplace Book, to 
 which no date is attached, but which evidently belong to 
 a comparatively early period of Rogers’s life, may be 
 conveniently added here. Some of them are curious 
 as showing the remuneration which was given to some 
 well-known people who edited or contributed to the 
 literary periodicals of the time. 
 
 In 4 The Adventurer 7 A was Bonnel Thornton, Z was 
 Warton according to Mr. Ryland, Dr. Hawkesworth’s brother. 
 H. had 2 1 . 25. for each 4 Adventurer. 7 Moore had 3 1 . 3s. for 
 each 4 World. 7 A coalition was attempted by Mr. R., but no- 
 thing could be done but printing on different days. Hill had 
 7s. 6 d. for each 4 Inspector. 7 Dr. Hawkesworth was incapable 
 of reading the mottoes prefixed to 4 The Adventurer, 7 they 
 were chosen for him. 
 
 In an anonymous preface to the edition of 4 The 
 Adventurer’ published in 1823, we are told that Dr. 
 Richard Bathurst, who was one of the members of 
 
 1 The Authentic Account of the Embassy of Lord Macartney and 
 Sir George Staunton to China in 1792 was published in 1797. It was in 
 two volumes quarto. 
 
ROGERS’S COMMONPLACE BOOK 
 
 307 
 
 Dr. Johnson’s Ivy Lane Club, is said to have written 
 the eight papers marked ‘ A.’ Dr. Joseph Warton wrote 
 twenty -four papers, and Dr. Johnson is known to have 
 written twenty-nine. Rogers’s statement about Dr. 
 Hawkes worth is rendered probable by the fact that 
 his degree was a Lambeth one, conferred by Archbishop 
 Herring, and that he was a man of no early education. 
 It is difficult nowadays to understand the esteem in 
 which 4 The Adventurer ’ was held. Horne Tooke told 
 Rogers that he could never forget the pleasure he felt 
 in retiring to read it at the age of seventeen ; and Dr. 
 Burney tells us that in his day it was in everyone’s 
 library. The scale of remuneration for it belongs to the 
 day of small things for periodical literature. 
 
 Here are other items bearing on the same subject — 
 
 Griffiths has 42s. per sheet (printed) for the authorship of 
 the 4 Monthly Review.’ — Dr. Gillies. 
 
 Millar gave 100Z. for 4 Joseph Andrews,’ Fielding’s first 
 novel. — Gadell. 
 
 Warburton wrote the preface to the first edition of 4 Clarissa.’ 
 
 Warton wrote the essay 4 On the Use and Abuse of Poetry,’ 
 quoted in 4 Essay on Pope,’ vol. i. 
 
 Colman read the 4 School for Scandal ’ before it was acted 
 to Burke, Reynolds, Windham, &c. — Windham. 
 
 Sheridan of Pitt : His is a brain that never works but 
 when his tongue is set a-going, like some machines that are 
 set in motion by a pendulum or some such thing. 
 
 Gray made Nicholls promise before he went abroad that 
 he would not call upon Voltaire. — Nicholls. Lord Hampden’s 
 father did the same. — Ld. H. 
 
308 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 When Sir C. Wren’s plan for rebuilding London after the 
 fire was rejected — 4 A set of blockheads,’ he exclaimed, 4 they 
 don’t deserve to have their city burnt.’ — Priestley . 
 
 Lord Chesterfield willing away 50,000Z. to the Dean and 
 Chapter of Westminster (with whom he had had a lawsuit) in 
 case his nephew could be proved to have ever been in Italy or 
 at Newmarket. 
 
 Garrick and Reynolds entering Rome — the first out on the 
 coach-box, the last unable to sit up or look out of the window. 
 
 When Wilkes’s windows were broken he smiled and said : 
 * Some of my own journeymen set up for themselves.’ 
 
 Lord Chesterfield in person compared to a stunted giant . 
 When driving out slowly in the Park in his old age said he 
 was rehearsing. 
 
 Mrs. Warburton, provoked by the bishop’s silence, once 
 threw a book at his head — 4 If you won’t answer me you’ll 
 answer a book.’ 
 
 Dr. Douglas in the bishop’s palace at Salisbury said to 
 the archbishop of Narbonne : 4 Your Grace should not be dis- 
 couraged when you recollect that the house in which you now 
 are, was for fourteen years a public inn ’ [during the Common- 
 wealth] . 
 
 Dr. Franklin had a mirror obliquely fixed near his window 
 by which he could see the person that knocked at his door, 
 and deny himself or not accordingly. — Este . 
 
 Florence is so pretty a town it should be only seen on a 
 Sunday. — Un Franqois. 
 
 A young man who is undazzled and unattracted by the 
 glitter of life is either above or below the common level, and 
 he is generally below it. Such a man was the Duke of 
 Hamilton. We may call it a love of ease, but it generally 
 shows a want of energy. — Aihin. 
 
.ROGERS’S COMMONPLACE BOOK 
 
 309 
 
 A regiment in France had a great regard for the memory 
 of their old Colonel, and when asked why, replied : ‘ He said, 
 “ Allons, mes amis ! ” the present says, “ Allez, mesamis ! ” ’ 
 
 Barwell lost an election by canvassing with his gloves on. 
 
 Boswell drunk at Lord Falmouth’s in Cornwall, kicking 
 about his bed at midnight, swearing at the house in which he 
 said there was no bed to lie on, and no wine to drink. 
 
 Of papers the old Duke of Cumberland said : ‘ D — n them, 
 they breed ! ’ 
 
 When Sheridan is writing he requires a great many lights. 
 — Spencer. 
 
 I will make you a Baronet. Baron, if you please. The 
 net at the end is a net only to catch fools with. 
 
 His forte was fancy — his foible was ignorance. — Burke on 
 Lord Chatham. Grattan. 
 
 The following appear to be Rogers’s own reflections ; 
 some of them recur in his poems, and some in letters to 
 his friends — 
 
 Plant nettles on the grave of a satirist — stinging nettles. 
 
 We cannot compare places, we only compare impressions. 
 ’Tis thus we deceive ourselves. 
 
 Mountains, like fine ladies, are subject to vapours. 
 
 Close to the earth there is a refreshing fragrance — lost 
 when you elevate yourself. Remark in a clover field. 
 
 More ennui in society than out of it. 
 
 Men of fashion are mannerists, and all manner is bad ; a 
 natural character, manners ever varying with the thoughts 
 and feelings, how superior to that uniform and monotonous 
 thing called high breeding ! 
 
310 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Women are ever ready to make confidants of each other 
 in everything but love. 
 
 Poets the best prose writers : Shakespeare, Cowley, Mil- 
 ton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and Addison. Burke and Rousseau 
 began with poetry, as did also Voltaire. 
 
 The heart, like a musical instrument, has a thousand rich 
 melodies, which may slumber there for ever if not called forth 
 by the various offices and duties of social and domestic life ; 
 each of which excites its peculiar set of feelings and sym- 
 pathies. 
 
 The soul of music slumbers in the shell 
 Till waked to rapture by the master’s spell, 
 
 And thy young heart, when rightly touched, shall pour 
 A thousand melodies unheard before. 
 
 A few items of chat, attributed to Richard Sharp 
 will appropriately conclude the extracts from the 
 Commonplace Book — 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds told Sharp that he never painted a 
 picture, or part of a picture, well till he had done it several 
 times. 
 
 Hoppner drew the waterfall at Melincourt, near Neath, 
 and slept at a miller’s near the spot. At night through a 
 crevice of his chamber he saw his host breaking off a piece of 
 his chalk, which he had left with his sketch below, and slily 
 treasuring it up in his bureau. 
 
 Terror is a powerful engine, but when overstrained is the 
 weakest of all. Inspire a man with fear and you are his 
 master, with despair and he is yours. 
 
 A nation in a state of despotism is like a giant asleep, with 
 his arms entrusted to a dwarf. 
 
DR. PRIESTLEY AND DR. JOHNSON 
 
 311 
 
 In the spring of 1795 Dr. Parr called public atten- 
 tion to a misstatement of Boswell’s as to the interview 
 which Dr. Johnson and Dr. Priestley had with one 
 another at the house of Mr. Paradise. 1 Boswell in a 
 note to a new edition of his third volume declared his 
 firm belief that the two men never met. He based this 
 conviction on two circumstances : firstly, that his “ illus- 
 trious friend was particularly resolute in not giving 
 countenance to men whose writings he considered as 
 pernicious to society;” and secondly, that when one 
 day at Oxford Dr. Price came into a room where 
 Johnson was, Johnson instantly left the room. Dr. Parr 
 thereupon wrote to Dr. E. Johnstone of Birmingham, 
 where in 1790 he had heard Priestley speak of the inter- 
 view, and Dr. Johnstone at once wrote to say that he 
 remembered Dr. Priestley’s statement that he met 
 Johnson under the idea that Johnson had sought the 
 interview and that it was mutually satisfactory. Mr. 
 Bearcroft wrote from Francis Street that he had only in 
 April or May, 1794, heard Dr. Priestley remind Mr. 
 Paradise of the particular civility with which Dr. 
 Johnson had behaved towards him when they dined 
 together at Mr. Paradise’s house. Mr. Bearcroft adds 
 that ‘ having mentioned the subject this afternoon to 
 Mr. Paradise, he told me that, though he did not clearly 
 recollect the motive by which he had been induced to 
 bring Dr. Johnson and Dr. Priestley together, he very 
 well remembered Dr. Johnson having been previously 
 informed that Dr. Priestley would be one of the company, 
 
 1 Mr. Paradise was a member of Johnson’s evening club at the ‘ Essex 
 Head.’ 
 
312 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and his having manifested great civility to the latter on 
 that occasion.’ To this testimony Rogers was able to 
 add his own in the following letter — 
 
 S. Rogers to Dr. Parr. 
 
 1 Newington Green : February 23rd, 1795. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — I can answer your several questions 
 distinctly. I heard of the interview between Dr. Johnson 
 and Dr. Priestley’ from Dr. Priestley himself. I have heard 
 it mentioned more than once. I understood that it was 
 not solicited by Dr. Priestley, and that if any overture 
 was made for that purpose it came from Dr. Johnson. 
 I found that Dr. Priestley thought Dr. Johnson’s 
 behaviour such as it ought to have been from one man 
 of letters to another. Johnson was very civil. 
 
 ‘ I hope that I have written satisfactorily, and am 
 happy in the opportunity which you have given me of 
 assuring you with what respect 
 ‘ I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Your most obedient servant, 
 
 ‘ Samuel Rogers.’ 
 
 There were various signs in the periodicals of 1794, 
 1795, and 1796 of the esteem in which the author of 
 ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ — was already held by his 
 literary contemporaries. A poem on his poem appeared 
 in the European Magazine , which contained the lines — 
 
 With more attractive charm the verse appears 
 Whose magic power calls back our fleeting years, 
 
 And binds with Memory’s tenacious chain 
 The airy forms of pleasure and of pain. 
 
‘MY CLUB’ 
 
 313 
 
 In another of the magazines appeared a poem in 
 Spenserian language ‘ on his ordering a great coat 
 called a Spenser.’ One of the verses ran — 
 
 0 precious Impe of Fame , Sam Rogers hight, 
 
 Who chauntest Memorie in dulcett straine, 
 
 Filling our eares and harts with such delight 
 Entraunced we live past pleasaunce o’er againe; 
 
 This amplest theme, by others minc’d in vaine, 
 
 Was by the sacred sisters nyne withheld, 
 
 Immortal guerdon for thy browes to gaine 
 
 Certes old Humber’s Bard, and he who dwel’d 
 Whylome in daintie Leasowes, are by thee excel’d. 
 
 The last references are to Mason’s and Shenstone’s 
 Odes to Memory. A more amusing reference to him, 
 and to a number of his friends is contained in a short 
 poem entitled ‘ My Club,’ which appeared in the Euro- 
 pean Magazine in July, 1795 : — 
 
 With M[arsden] I would trust my life, 
 
 With L[awrence] all my civil strife, 
 
 And steal him from Justinian’s code 
 To make him sport another ode ; 
 
 With B ... . write in purest Latin 
 From classic Celsus to Guy Patin ; 
 
 From B . . . . catch some emendation 
 Of Aristotle or of Tatian, 
 
 Impromptu P [arsons] shall rehearse 
 With ready pen in easy verse, 
 
 What R[ennell] tells how Agamemnon, 
 
 Diomede and Ajax Telamon, 
 
 Forced out from Holland and from Flanders 
 The Dutch and English Alexanders. 
 
 S[harp], too, the subtle and acute 
 Shall quickly settle the dispute, 
 
314 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 And mightiest stagirites among, 
 
 Leave his opponents in the wrong. 
 
 Meek R[ogers], whom the Muses love, 
 
 Unites the serpent and the dove ; 
 
 In business, as in rhyming terse, 
 
 Can talk of agio or of verse ; 
 
 S[eward], of anecdotes a storehouse, 
 
 Lays gratis all he hears before us, 
 
 And tells the whole long ere ’tis seen 
 In th’ European Magazine ; 
 
 B[erdmore], no common politician 
 At once is chymist and physician. 
 
 And of the Roman as was said 
 He knows his art but not his trade. 
 
 R. C . . ., whose active mind ne’er still is, 
 
 Loves Greek, we’re sure, but not like G[illies], 
 
 Tom Warton, merry wight — ah no ! 
 
 Death envied us, but left us Jo. 
 
 Another very satisfactory sign of the recognised 
 place he had taken in literature was given in the recep- 
 tion accorded by the critics to the Rev. R. Polwhele’s 
 dull poem called ‘ The Influence of Local Attachment 
 with Respect to Home.’ So much was said by the 
 reviewers of the similarity of this poem in some parts 
 to the beautiful poem, as they all called it, ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory,’ that Mr. Polwhele was obliged 
 to come forward with a laboured vindication. His 
 apology was in the form of a tu quoque. He had been 
 accused of copying some of Rogers’s notes verbatim, and 
 he admitted that he had written his own notes hastily 
 with Rogers’s before him. But as to plagiarism, had not 
 Rogers borrowed from him ? He had written an ‘ Epistle 
 to a College Friend,’ which he was almost inclined to con- 
 
ROGERS AND POLWHELE 
 
 315 
 
 sider as the prototype of the first part of ‘ The Pleasures 
 of Memory.’ Only one of his comparisons need be given. 
 He had written in his ‘ Epistle to a College Friend ’ — 
 
 While yet ’tis mine to trace the feeling hour 
 And win young Fancy from the Muse’s bower 
 Ere pressing cares, too numerous, intervene 
 To disenchant the bosom- soothing scene, 
 
 Come, nor too soon, alas ! to memory fade 
 Ye views fast fainting into sombre shade ! 
 
 The passage with which Polwhele compares this — 
 which he intimates was suggested by it — is this : speak- 
 ing of childhood’s loved group revisiting every scene, 
 ‘ the tangled wood- walk and the tufted green,’ Rogers 
 proceeds — 
 
 Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live ! 
 
 Clothed with far softer hues than Light can give. 
 
 Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below, 
 
 To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know ; 
 
 Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm 
 When Nature fades, and life forgets to charm ; 
 
 Thee would the Muse invoke ! to thee belong 
 The sage’s precept and the poet’s song. 
 
 What softened views thy magic glass reveals 
 When o’er the landscape Time’s meek twilight steals ! 
 
 The comparison of these passages — and they are 
 put in juxtaposition by Mr. Polwhele himself — not only 
 shows the ridiculous nature of his suggestion of pla- 
 giarism, but conclusively and sufficiently exhibits the 
 immense superiority of Rogers’s poem to the boasted 
 productions of the poetasters of the time. 
 
316 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 State of the Country in 1795-6 — Reaction in Parliament — Westminster 
 election, 1796 — Dr. Moore and his sons — Rogers’s domestic relations 
 — Correspondence with R. Sharp — Brighton in 1797 —Lady Jersey — 
 A romance without a d&nouei 7 ient — Brighton in 1798 — Sarah Rogers. 
 
 There are but few signs at this period of that lively 
 interest in public affairs which characterised Rogers in 
 earlier days. Many of his first friends were gone. Dr. 
 Price was dead, Dr. Priestley was in exile, William 
 Stone had only lately been acquitted on a charge of 
 high treason for which he had lain two years in Newgate 
 untried ; Horne Tooke was cultivating his garden at 
 Wimbledon, after his defeat in the Westminster elec- 
 tion ; and Fox, though he had headed the poll in the 
 same election was in a state of discouragement at the 
 gloomy aspect of public affairs ; Sheridan was enjoying 
 the temporary relief from pecuniary troubles which his 
 new wife’s five thousand pounds had given him ; and 
 Sharp, Mackintosh, and others of his political friends 
 and acquaintances were keeping comparatively quiet in 
 the vain hope of better days. In the autumn of 1795 
 there had been a great agitation in the country for 
 reform in Parliament and peace with France. This 
 agitation had been purely political, but there had gone 
 
PUBLIC AFFAIRS IN 1795-6 
 
 317 
 
 on side by side with it a social movement which had 
 serious results. There was almost a famine in the land, 
 and the utmost distress prevailed among the labouring 
 classes. The papers contained frequent reports of death 
 by starvation, and the populace, with just instinct, 
 regarded the war as the chief cause of their sufferings. 
 There had been a great meeting on Copenhagen Fields 
 on the 26th of October 1795, when a remonstrance to 
 the king had been resolved on, complaining of the 
 neglect and contempt his ministers had shown for an 
 address presented to them some time before. On the 
 29th an unparalleled multitude, estimated at two 
 hundred thousand, ten times as great, it was said, as 
 had ever been seen before, assembled to see the king go 
 to the House of Lords to open Parliament, which had 
 been called together earlier than usual in consequence 
 of the prevailing distress. While waiting for the king 
 the crowd hissed Lord Chatham and the Duke of 
 Gloucester as they passed, hooted the Duke of Portland, 
 and made hostile demonstrations against other well- 
 known members of the House of Lords. When the 
 king’s carriage appeared a storm of hisses and groans 
 broke forth, mingled with loud cries of ‘ Bread, bread ! ’ 
 ‘ Peace, peace ! ’ and ‘ Down with Pitt ! ’ Opposite the 
 Ordnance Office a stone struck one of the windows of 
 the state carriage and broke it, and the king thought 
 he had been fired at. When the king arrived at the 
 House of Lords he exclaimed to the Lord Chancellor : 
 ‘ My lord, I have been shot at.’ Later in the afternoon 
 Lord Westmoreland informed the House of Lords that 
 the king had been treated with insult and outrage by 
 
318 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the mob, and that the glass of the carriage had been 
 broken by a shot fired from an air gun from the bow 
 window of a house adjoining the Ordnance Office with 
 the object of assassinating his majesty. 
 
 These events had most painful results. The fears 
 of the sovereign and his advisers had magnified a 
 bread riot into a rebellion, as Louis XVI. had mis- 
 taken a revolution for an emeute. The meeting in 
 Copenhagen Fields on Monday was associated with the 
 riot of the following Thursday, and proclamations were 
 issued offering rewards for the apprehension of the ring- 
 leaders of the riot, and urging well-affected people to 
 assist in putting down such gatherings as that of 
 Monday, and in preventing the dissemination of 
 ‘ seditious writings.’ The Marquis of Lansdowne 
 courageously accused the Ministry of intending to seize 
 the opportunity to work on the fears of the public in 
 order to get repressive laws passed, and to increase their 
 own power at the expense of freedom. Two Bills were 
 brought in and passed, one entitled ‘An Act for the 
 safety and preservation of his majesty’s person and 
 government against treasonable and seditious practices 
 and attempts ; * and the other ‘ for the more effectually 
 preventing seditious meetings and assemblies.’ The 
 Whig leaders protested against these Acts, but did not 
 even succeed in shortening their duration, which extended 
 in the first case to the whole life of the king and in the 
 second to three years. The Duke of Norfolk declared 
 that the family of Brunswick owed its possession of the 
 throne to the principle of resistance ; the Duke of Bed- 
 ford said the measures constituted a direct attack on 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OE FOX 
 
 319 
 
 the liberty of Englishmen, and Mr. Fox maintained that 
 the Bills totally annihilated Liberty. They were passed, 
 however, and they were not allowed to remain as a dead 
 letter on the statute-book. The first result was to 
 render the Government intensely unpopular, and the 
 second was to discourage all Liberal political action 
 and movement. To these two measures, and to the 
 prosecutions which followed on them, we may attribute 
 the temporary suspension of political action on the part 
 of Rogers and his friends, though the complete dis- 
 continuation of his diary, so far as political persons and 
 movements are concerned, dates from a time just pre- 
 vious to the arrest of his friend William Stone on the 
 charge of high treason in May, 1794. 
 
 His ‘ Recollections of Fox ’ in the volume edited by 
 Mr. William Sharpe begin with a dinner at Mr. William 
 Smith’s on the 19th of March, 1796. There was a great 
 gathering of Whigs : Tierney, Courtenay, Sir Francis 
 Baring, Dr. Aikin, Mackintosh, Sir Philip Francis and 
 Dr. Parr, but the talk seems to have been of everything 
 but politics. At Sergeant Hey wood’s on the 10th of 
 December, Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, Lord Lauderdale, 
 Lambton, Aikin, Smith, and Brogden were present with 
 Fox, and still the talk seems to have been chiefly literary. 
 It is significant, however, that what Fox is reported by 
 Rogers to have said bearing on the politics of the time 
 was pitched in a key of the most profound despondency. 
 4 1 always say, and always think,’ said Fox to Rogers, 
 ‘ that of all the countries in Europe, England will be 
 the last to be free. Russia will be free before England.’ 
 A bad prophecy, but a good indication of the feeling of 
 
320 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the time. On the same evening Lord Lauderdale said : 
 ‘ I wish I was Member for Westminster/ ‘ And I wish I 
 was a Scotch Peer/ answered Fox. ‘ Why so ? ’ he was 
 asked. ‘ I should then be disqualified/ replied Fox. 
 This was said just six months after his triumphant re- 
 turn for Westminster at the head of the poll. That elec- 
 tion was the last in which Rogers gave a vote for two- 
 and-twenty years ; and he gave it not only on the Whig 
 but on what may be described as the Radical side. 1 
 Rogers voted for Horne Tooke, who was seconded on the 
 hustings by his brother-in-law, Sutton Sharpe. Rogers 
 also voted for Mr. Fox. In an edition of the speeches 
 delivered by Horne Tooke at this election, which had 
 come into Rogers’s hands, there is a note in Horne 
 Tooke’s handwriting giving the number of days he had 
 been in prison. I copy it precisely as it stands — 
 
 1774 H. of Commons • 2 days 
 
 1 7 7 7 , 1778 K.’s Bench 336 ,, 
 
 1794 Privy Council 3 ,, 
 
 ,, Tower 148 ,, 
 
 ,, Newgate 30 „ 
 
 In Prison . . 519 days 
 
 There is a curious reckoning, too, in Horne Tooke’s 
 writing, which shows that he had spoken from three and 
 a half to four hours during the fifteen days, and that he 
 had made two hundred and twenty-seven points against 
 the government, or about one point every minute. The 
 
 1 The poll closed on Monday the 13th of June, the fifteenth day of 
 the polling, and the numbers were : Fox 5,160 ; Sir Alan Gardner 4,814 ; 
 Horne Tooke 2,819. 
 
FOX’S WESTMINSTER SPEECH 
 
 321 
 
 pamphlet further contains the speech made by Mr. Fox 
 to the electors at the close of the poll on Saturday the 
 i ith of June, the fourteenth day of the voting. Mr. Fox 
 spoke quite as strongly as Horne Tooke. ‘ The law that 
 was passed in the last session of Parliament,’ said Fox, 
 ‘ has made it impossible for more than fifty persons to 
 meet without being subject to the interference of a 
 magistrate. If you take my advice the law will not 
 disturb your meeting. Meet ! Meet ! Act in obedience 
 to the law, which does not forbid your meeting, it only 
 empowers the magistrate to commit you if you act 
 improperly. Meet, then, I say ; conduct yourselves with 
 propriety and see whether anyone will dare to oppose 
 you.’ This advice was received with great cheering. 
 Mr. Fox concluded by saying : ‘ Gentlemen, I have spoken 
 plainly and openly to you and I will conclude by 
 repeating that in my conscience I believe that [the 
 character of the] Government has been by none 
 exaggerated. A more detestable one never existed in 
 British history ; and not to detain you any longer I 
 will sum up its character in two words. This Govern- 
 ment has destroyed more human beings in its foreign 
 wars than Louis XIV., and attempted the lives of more 
 innocent men at home than Henry VIII.’ In these 
 words Fox expressed a feeling which Rogers and his 
 friends fully shared, and to which Rogers frequently 
 gave expression in later and happier times. 
 
 The Westminster election probably left some soreness 
 behind it, for at one of William Smith’s dinner parties 
 at which Rogers was present with Fox and Tooke, he 
 noticed, with much pain, that Fox tried to ignore Tooke. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 At another of these dinners, Tierney and others were 
 speaking disparagingly of Pitt, and declaring that he was 
 not in earnest about the slave trade, when Fox rebuked 
 them. Wilberforce had just at this time brought him- 
 self into much unpopularity by voting for the ministerial 
 measures for the suspension of freedom. The Liberals 
 were profoundly depressed. They seemed conscious that 
 they were just entering on their long journey through 
 the wilderness. There was none of the buoyant confidence 
 which distinguished them in the halcyon days when the 
 French Revolution was young. The shadow of the Terror 
 had already rolled away from France, but it had settled 
 down on England. 
 
 Unpopular as the war was, it necessarily created an 
 interest of its own. Dr. Moore, for example, was one of 
 its opponents, but he naturally felt, as every patriotic 
 man feels, a certain pride in the successes of his country- 
 men, even when the country is in the wrong. This 
 feeling spread. Dislike of a struggle which multitudes of 
 the best Englishmen regarded as needless and wicked, 
 conflicted in the public mind with pride in their country’s 
 prowess, and that pride eventually came uppermost. 
 Dr. Moore had personal and family interests in the war. 
 He had two heroic sons actively engaged, each destined 
 to win honours, and one immortal fame. In the follow- 
 ing letter he refers both to his own literary work, and to 
 the success of one of his sons. 
 
 Dr. Moore to S. Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Monday. 
 
 ‘ My dear Bogers, — I will be happy to accompany you 
 to Mr. Smith’s on the first Monday in Christmas, pro- 
 
GRAHAM MOORE 
 
 323 
 
 vided my son Graham does not come to town at that 
 time. You will see by last night’s Gazette that he has 
 brought a fine French corvette to Spithead. Mrs. Moore 
 and I have scarcely had a fortnight of him since the war. 
 He is the most delightful fellow alive, and I cannot lose 
 a day of him, but I will know when he is to come and 
 inform you. The Melampus needs repair. 
 
 6 1 am glad you like Edward. I am told he is thought 
 too much'of a common man for a hero. Though I tried 
 to make him something of a man of this world and not 
 quite an ideal being, yet I heartily wish that heroes as 
 well as common men were more like him. I am not 
 much of a misanthrope, but I have a notion that all 
 men of humanity are a little so. That you should think 
 all Edward’s conduct very natural does not surprise me ; 
 that some who rank him with common men should think 
 so, does. 
 
 ‘ Adieu ! 
 
 ‘J. Moore. 
 
 * Do you ever see my Charles ? ’ 
 
 Edward was the hero of Dr. Moore’s second novel, 
 which Mrs. Barbauld regards as much inferior to ‘ Zeluco ’ 
 but as having many amusing conversation pieces. Charles 
 was the youngest of his five sons. Graham was the 
 third. He was a year younger than Rogers, had joined 
 the navy in 1 777, had been made a post-captain in 1794, 
 and in 1795 had succeeded Sir Richard Strachan in the 
 Melampus. In this vessel he served for five years with 
 great distinction, and then came home invalided to his 
 father’s house, where the Peace of Amiens found him. 
 
324 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 When the war broke out again he was appointed to the 
 Indefatigable , and after twelve years of active service 
 was made a K.C.B. Other deserved honours followed, 
 and in 1837 he was promoted to the rank of admiral. 
 He died at Chobham, in November, 1843. A brief 
 memoir of him was written in 1844, by Major-General 
 Sir Robert Gardiner. 
 
 The kind of life Rogers was living at this period when 
 his greatness was a ripening is shown in some family 
 letters. The first is from his sister Sarah. She was 
 visiting Mrs. Rogers at Whitehall near Stourbridge and 
 wrote to him on the 28th of November, 1796 — 
 
 ‘ Here I am at such a distance from all of you that I 
 seem quite in another world, and want very much to know 
 what you are doing in yours . . . Your time is I suppose 
 entirely taken up with engagements, attending clubs, 
 reading papers of which I have heard, etc., while I have 
 little to do but to watch for the time of the post coming 
 in that I may hear a little of what you are about . . . 
 Wherever I go I hear a great deal about you. We drank 
 tea a few nights ago at “ The Hill.” Miss Hopkins was 
 there ; she looked very handsome, and if you had heard 
 her conversation you would have thought her still more 
 so. But I shall make you too vain if I go on and repeat 
 to you what she said, for though you are sufficiently used 
 to compliments, yet, coming from the mouth of so pretty 
 a woman, I don't know what the effect might be.’ 
 
 In a letter from Nottingham Place on the 10th of 
 December, 1796, Mrs. Sharpe tells her sister Sarah — 
 
STJTTON SHARPE’S FRIENDS 
 
 325 
 
 ‘ On Sunday Sam called, and with him Mr. Hoppner, 
 who took Mr. .Sharpe to see a collection of pictures of a 
 Mr. des Enfans, 1 where there were some fine ones . . . 
 On Thursday Sam engaged to dine here, so Mr. Sharpe 
 got some other gentlemen, Mr. Tuffin, Mr. Cline, Mr. S. 
 Boddington, W. Maltby, and Stothard . . . Yesterday 
 Mr. Sharpe dined at Mr. Cline’s, where were Horne Tooke 
 and a party of gentlemen. He was not home till past 
 twelve, so -late are parties now.’ 
 
 The men named in this letter were all celebrities in 
 their time. Mr. Tuffin is now forgotten, but for many 
 years he was one of the liveliest and most interesting 
 talkers of a circle of men who made conversation a study 
 and an art. An octogenarian friend of mine still re- 
 members his white head and his amusing talk, and the 
 story he told that his hair had turned white in a single 
 night in which he had been shut up by accident in one 
 of the vaults at Windsor. Hoppner was the well-known 
 artist already mentioned in an extract from Rogers’s Com- 
 monplace Book ; Cline was the celebrated surgeon w 7 ho 
 afterwards tapped Fox for the dropsy, and was consulted 
 by Windham respecting the tumour which cost that 
 statesman his life. Of the others it is needless to speak. 
 Sutton Sharpe had married Rogers’s sister Maria in 1795, 
 and the result of this closer connection between him 
 and Rogers was, as I have already said, that Rogers was 
 brought into more frequent and familiar intercourse with 
 the chief artists of the time. It was this intercourse, 
 together w r ith Sutton Sharpe’s own direct instructions 
 
 1 This is the collection which now forms the Dulwich Gallery. 
 
326 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and influence which gave Rogers the knowledge of art 
 which made him eventually the chief authority of his 
 time on questions of taste. 
 
 These letters show, not only what his private and 
 family life was at this period, but the very affectionate 
 relations he maintained with the members of his family. 
 These relations are further illustrated by a letter to his 
 sister Sarah — 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers. 
 
 ‘Temple: io March, 1797. 
 
 ‘ My dear Sarah, — Surely the wildest dream of Mad 
 Bess herself must have been dull and insipid when com- 
 pared to what is passing in this planet of ours ! At 
 present things are indeed a little too interesting and I 
 am not yet half recovered from the stunning blow we 
 received last week. I hint this by way of apology ; you 
 will shake your head at it and pronounce it a lame one, 
 but I have been really so harassed for the last month or 
 two that I have even wanted spirits for a pun. Of you, 
 however, I often think, and again and again have I 
 begun an invocation to your friendly but fugitive spirit 
 (when will you take your flight to us ?) but in vain. A 
 thousand cares arid follies have interposed to prevent 
 me. But how shall I answer you in your own style ? 
 Beally, child, you have an admirable way of charming 
 people out of their senses ; you must surely have dipped 
 your pen, not into ink, but into some sweet intoxicating 
 spirit, prepared no doubt (for they abound in it) from 
 the old family receipt book at Cheadle. But what are 
 you about ? Are you indoctrinating yourself into the 
 
BROTHER AND SISTER 
 
 327 
 
 sublime mysteries of a cotton mill? Or, like Bonaparte’s 
 cannon, are you dealing havoc among the beaux of the 
 north ? Some sylph or sylphid has indeed whispered 
 strange things ; what she said I dare not say, but her 
 voice was so musical that we “ think her still speaking, 
 still stand fixed to hear.” 
 
 ‘ This morning I had a visitor to breakfast with me, 
 a noble stranger whom I long to introduce to your 
 acquaintance. Elegant, animated, and modest, with a 
 look of sentiment, a fine form, and the coiffure grec , in 
 short, another Imogene — the dear brother of Clementini, 
 and of as noble a family, his father being Doge of 
 Genoa. What do you say ? and yet I should not like 
 to lose you neither. But do answer, child : would you 
 like to sport a veil and a train, and receive incense as 
 her Serenissima the Marchesa Brignola among tables of 
 massive gold and curtains of crimson velvet ? In your 
 next pray say yes or no. I cannot finish this subject 
 without hinting that he talks of visiting Manchester. 
 Perhaps he may suit somebody’s taste at Cheadle. With 
 regard to our domestic annals you are in correspond- 
 ence with those who are far better qualified than I am 
 to inform you on that subject. The petites histoires of 
 Charlotte Street and Nottingham Place are in better 
 hands. My own memoirs are dull enough, and have no 
 pretensions even to furnish a little light summer reading 
 for a cit’s daughter at a watering-place. I feel, my 
 dearest Sarah, that your mind will be in a very unfit 
 state for the stuff I have just scrawled, when you hear 
 what I have just heard while I was writing, that Patty 
 has this morning lost her little boy. A few days ago he 
 
328 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 had a slight relapse , but no great danger was appre- 
 hended. The poor little object of all their anxieties is 
 now, however, no more. I have not yet heard the 
 particulars — you will, I suppose, by this post receive 
 them from Maria or Mr. T[owgood]. Pray remember 
 me very particularly to all the family at Cheadle. To 
 two of that family I am at a loss how to express myself. 
 I have deposited the little epistle in lavender, and shall 
 often turn to it with pride and pleasure. It is some con- 
 solation to a man as he advances in life that he some- 
 times receives expressions of kindness and friendship 
 from the young and the lovely, which are withheld, or at 
 least concealed, from the gayer and younger candidates 
 for their favour. Pray give my sincere and unalterable 
 love to the fair personage above alluded to. Adieu, my 
 dear girl 
 
 ‘ And believe me, ever, 
 
 ‘ Most affectionately yours, 
 
 ‘S. R. 
 
 ‘ A thousand enquiries were made about you at the 
 last City assembly. Miss Edison said she should have 
 called upon you, but she heard you were gone to the 
 north of Europe.’ 
 
 In the correspondence with Richard Sharp which 
 took place during Rogers’s absence from town in the 
 autumn of this year, there are references which throw 
 light on some parts of the life of both the writers. It is 
 incomplete, of course, for it only fills a gap in that 
 personal intercourse which, at this period was constant 
 and intimate, and by its constancy and intimacy 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH R. SHARP 
 
 329 
 
 escaped all such record. In October, 1797, Rogers was at 
 Brighton, and Richard Sharp replies to an urgent invita- 
 tion to get out of business for a time and pay his friend 
 a visit. Richard Sharp pleads his mother’s illness, the 
 approaching death of a friend who he fears has left him 
 as executor, and a fortnight’s laborious employment that 
 a West India merchant has sent him, which, he says, ‘ will 
 occupy the last two months of this distressing year. The 
 letter continues : — 
 
 ‘ I never knew before the full value of a taste for 
 reading. During the last twelve months I have had no 
 opportunity of gratifying myself in any other amuse- 
 ment. Books are always at hand, and though I never 
 meddle with them before night, yet, then, they transport 
 me from unpleasant scenes into other worlds, and inter- 
 pose a pleasant hour between the insipid or painful occu- 
 pations of the day. Johnson would have burnt this 
 letter before he had read the first page ; for he hated 
 complaining people. Your querulous fellow is always 
 selfish, and generally finds more delight in talking of his 
 own pains than in sympathising with the pleasures of 
 others. I am not so far gone as to have lost my relish 
 for your occupations, and am sincerely rejoiced when I 
 think how completely the sea air seems to have restored 
 to you both your health and your spirit. Seize the 
 precious moment ; consult your solid interest by increas- 
 ing your present name. Publish as soon as you can, that 
 you may run round the only circles where you can now 
 wish to move, and that you may be able early in life to 
 enjoy the highest possible of all intellectual pleasures — 
 
330 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 that of living with the few friends you may have se- 
 lected from every class and every rank. For a delicate 
 and discriminating man it is necessary that he should 
 see all, to select, alas ! a very few.’ 
 
 This letter appropriately illustrates the influence 
 which Richard Sharp exerted on his friend. He had a 
 high opinion of Rogers’s literary powers, and shows a 
 constant anxiety that those powers should not rust in 
 him unused. He was constantly urging him along the 
 road which his faculties and his ambition marked out ; 
 but which ill-health, a too fastidious taste, and a great 
 love of social intercourse, threatened to block. Rogers 
 owed him much in the way of stimulus and encourage- 
 ment ; he probably owed him almost as much in the 
 way of suggestion and criticism. There must have been 
 another letter from Richard Sharp, announcing the 
 death of his friend, and telling Rogers something of his 
 own troubles and difficulties, as is shown in Rogers’s 
 reply. 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp . 
 
 ‘ Surely, my dear friend, you must have conceived a 
 very sublime idea of my philosophy to think it equal to 
 such trials. But, not to reproach where no reproach is 
 due, let me express my great concern, not at my disap- 
 pointment, but at the events which have occasioned it, 
 and let me hope that you will not suffer your spirits to 
 sink under such an accumulation of troubles. 
 
 ‘ The loss of such a friend as the last from whom 
 you had experienced such an uninterrupted succession 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH K. SHARP 
 
 331 
 
 of good and kind offices, must indeed have greatly 
 affected you. After all, there is nothing so attaching as 
 kindness, indeed nothing else is worth living for in this 
 world. 
 
 ‘ That friend has, indeed, left you in a very delicate 
 and embarrassing situation, and of the motives for his 
 doing so there can be no doubt. You will, of course, 
 take no step till after you have maturely weighed it, and 
 then, whatever it is, I am sure it must be right. 
 
 ‘ With regard to myself, I live on here stupidly 
 enough, knowing nobody and not wishing to know any- 
 body. My taste, as you well know, has been too fas- 
 tidious for my happiness, and it has now become more 
 so than ever. Aikin 1 was a great comfort while he 
 stayed. He began his operations with great spirit ; the 
 weather was delightful, our situation no less so, and 
 indeed the whole scene was sufficient to intoxicate even 
 a man of his complexion. He over-fatigued himself 
 presently, a haemorrhage came on, and he left me (though 
 not sooner than he first intended) in a very melancholy 
 state indeed. I never knew half his value before. Hoole 
 and his son live within a mile of me, and are a very 
 pleasant acquisition. Mathias 2 has also given me great 
 pleasure, and G. Morgan 3 made two days pass very 
 smoothly. But the translator of “ Ariosto ” is now ill, and 
 
 1 Dr. Aikin’s health, as Lucy Aikin tells us, had visibly declined all 
 this year. He was writing the first volume of General Biography , and 
 editing the Monthly Magazine. On the day this letter was written, 
 Aikin’s friend, Dr. Enfield died. His painful illness had exerted a very 
 depressing effect on Aikin’s spirits. 
 
 2 T. J. Mathias, author of The Pursuits of Literature. 
 
 3 George Morgan, nephew of Dr. Price and brother of William Morgan 
 who wrote Dr. Price’s life. 
 
332 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the two last have vanished. The Prince and his little 
 court left us on Monday for the season. The place is 
 now joyless and deserted and the Steyne, which was 
 lately crowded with the young and the gay, is now re- 
 signed to the nets of the fishermen. In the meantime 
 I bustle about, and my regimen consists of large 
 draughts every morning of a certain pure ether, to be 
 taken only on the South Downs, and which is sweetened 
 by the effluvia that escape from the wild thyme now 
 in full blow. I had flattered myself that you would 
 have shared it with me, mais n’importe. I must bear it 
 as I can. Give me leave to hope that the alarm was a 
 false one, and that your mother is gradually advancing 
 to be what you wish her. 
 
 ‘ Adieu ! and believe me to be, ever, 
 
 ‘ Yours very affectionately, 
 
 ( O T) 
 
 ‘Brighton: Friday, Novr. 3, 1797.’ 
 
 Richard Sharp’s answer to this letter is dated the 
 10th of November 1797. A great crisis had occurred in 
 his life, the outline of which can only be dimly traced 
 in his correspondence with Rogers, but which seems to 
 have been as important as that which gave Rogers him- 
 self the wealth he was now enjoying. In this letter he 
 announces the change. His friend was dead, and had 
 left him as one of his executors and he had assumed the 
 trust. After speaking of some private matters which 
 throw no light on his personal history and have no 
 public interest, Richard Sharp says : — 
 
 ‘ It turns out that my deceased friend, as well as the 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH R. SHARP 
 
 333 
 
 living brother, have always wished that I should be the 
 representative in this world of themselves and all their 
 immense property. This I never supposed, though I 
 had reasons undoubtedly to think so. Their conduct 
 has been so singularly affectionate and so unspeakably 
 respectful to me in this matter, that I should be the 
 most ungrateful of the human race if I did not do what- 
 ever they have desired I should do. Two men, who 
 have desired to unite me to their only child and to more 
 than 150,000?. are entitled to command me, and all that 
 is mine, in every case and to every possible extent. I 
 shall, however, have but little employment in the trust at 
 present nor will it be ever complicated or difficult. . . . 
 Last night I read a paper at our Society : ‘ On the Sublime 
 and Beautiful in External Objects ’ in sounds, colours, 
 forms, and language. We were a full Club, which is 
 rather uncommon on the first night of the season. 
 
 ‘ Boddington extols your situation at Brighton ; but 
 your picture of the Steyne and of the Downs interested 
 me more than his panegyrics. I hope you write, as well 
 as ride and read. I hope, too, yet I know the perils of 
 the wish, that you have found stronger inducements to 
 stay by the sea than the desire of health or amusement. 
 Are you determined (without my excuses) to waste your 
 youth as I have done ? With all that can invite and 
 satisfy in manners, fortune, and character, will you 
 defer the chief scene of life till you must perform it 
 under many disadvantages ? Remember your own illus- 
 tration, the rivulet that became a river, and the river 
 that widened into a sea. 
 
 ‘ I have not been in my place either in the Strand 
 
334 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 or in Bond Street. Favell gave me a dull dinner with 
 Horne Tooke on Monday. He was never kinder, but 
 the spring of this curious machine seems to have lost its 
 elasticity. . . I have learnt from you, I suppose, to be 
 very jocose and entertaining “ dum angor intus, et ipse 
 meum cor edens incedo.” If I go on for another year 
 thus, I shall eclipse you in gaiety by mere dint of 
 melancholy, and shall be as sentimental and as interest- 
 ing as the most inspired poet can desire. If you do not 
 mean to envy as well as admire me, you must come 
 soon to Town, and, by cheering me with your presence, 
 bring me back again to the natural stupidity and 
 serenity of my character.’ 
 
 Bogers’s reply to this letter, written from Brighton on 
 the 14th of November, 1797, contained the following 
 passage — 
 
 ‘ Yes, my dear friend, I am indeed of your opinion 
 (though I fear you were not aware of the full meaning 
 of your words) that you would be very blamable if you 
 did not do whatever they have desired you to do. I 
 believe I have delicacy, I know I have pride, and yet, 
 were such an alternative placed before me, I think I 
 should not hesitate. But why should I say anything ? 
 I was, once, more than pleased with her. I could again, 
 I am persuaded, love her better than ever ; and if I 
 have sometimes affected to resent the little sallies of a 
 lively and open temper, it was in order to disguise them 
 to my own vanity as the effects of a pique at the dis- 
 continuance of attentions which I am now convinced she 
 never cared for, and has entirely forgotten. If she were 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH R. SHARP 
 
 335 
 
 to become the wife of my friend I am very sure we 
 should fall desperately in love with each other in a 
 fortnight. So, beware ! ’ 
 
 The self-revelation of this passage makes it an im- 
 portant contribution to Eogers’s early history. It shows, 
 at least, that he did not deliberately lay out his life from 
 the first on the plan of bachelor freedom. He makes no 
 further reply to Eichard Sharp’s hint as to deferring 
 ‘ the chief scene of life,’ unless indeed, the tone of the 
 rest of the letter, especially the reference to his flirtation, 
 may be regarded as a kind of escape from a subject 
 which had unwelcome associations. He continues — 
 
 ‘ I have nothing to send you but a diary of the 
 weather and a chronicle of visits ; I am reading French 
 novels with relentless fury, and though I am not, like 
 you, the hero of a romance, I am often acting a part in 
 one, though a very subordinate part. 
 
 * Did I tell you of my flirtation with a very celebrated 
 countess ? . . How I dined alone with her, rode alone 
 with her, spent an evening alone with her, the last she 
 spent in Brighton; and how I was domesticated with 
 her daughters ? And such daughters — but n’importe ! I 
 shall only observe en passant that if you think you have 
 any notion of what perfection a woman can attain to 
 you are quite mistaken, and should be punished for your 
 presumption. I hope the Prince is jealous of me, for I 
 am most furiously so of him. 
 
 ‘ The Hooles dined with me yesterday, and beg to be 
 remembered to you. 
 
 ‘We have had the most delicious weather — an 
 
336 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Italian sky, and the air clear as crystal from sunrise 
 to sunset. Deserted as we are, we are still cheerful, 
 tho’ we make no effort to be gay. A regiment-band 
 plays twice a day under my window ; and we form the 
 pleasantest little supper-parties imaginable, a melange 
 of cards and conversation, music and macaroni. Last 
 night it was held chez the Thompson’s ; to-night Mrs. 
 Hope opens her rooms ; and to-morrow night Mrs. 
 Dawson, a lady of great beauty and accomplishments, 
 who cost Erskine a duel some years ago. To tell you a 
 secret , I am in fashion just now — arrangements are 
 made to see me, and the favour will last three days. 
 The great Petrie is here (a Parisian acquaintance), and 
 his wife, who trails about in her equipage of four horses, 
 has invited me to Gatton ; so I shall call in my transit 
 to town. But I have played the egotist long enough, 
 and shall only add that you are in no present danger of 
 losing the picture — my pulse beats very temperately. 
 
 I am sorry I was not present the other night. Why 
 did not you send an express for me ? The Society will 
 recover itself in my opinion ; if it discovers a little 
 respect for us, I shall require no more. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Friend ! 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. R.’ 
 
 The countess to whom he thus humorously alludes 
 was Lady Jersey 1 whose acquaintance he had made 
 
 1 Frances Twysden, daughter and heiress of the bishop of Raphoe 
 wife of the fourth earl of Jersey, whom she married in 1 770. She was 
 therefore much older than Rogers. Miss Frampton (Journal p. 84) de- 
 scribes her ‘ as clever and unprincipled, but beautiful and fascinating.’ 
 
LADY JERSEY AND HER DAUGHTERS 
 
 337 
 
 during this visit, and whom he continued to visit in after 
 years. Her intimacy with the Prince of Wales was 
 one of the Court scandals of the time. It need only be 
 referred to here by way of annotation on Eogers’s letter. 
 It was about this time that he wrote the lines to Lady 
 Jersey’s youngest daughter Harriet. Her elder sister 
 was about to be married, and the younger sister had 
 written some lines on the coming event. Eogers re- 
 monstrates in the following stanzas — 
 
 All ! why with tell-tale tongue reveal 
 What most her blushes would conceal ? 
 
 Why lift that modest veil to trace 
 The seraph sweetness of her face ? 
 
 Some fairer, better sport prefer ; 
 
 And feel for us, if not for her. 
 
 For this presumption, soon or late, 
 
 Know thine shall be a kindred fate. 
 
 Another shall in vengeance rise 
 
 Sing Harriet’s cheeks and Harriet’s eyes ; 
 
 And, echoing back her woodnotes wild, 
 
 Trace all the mother in the child. 
 
 It was to Lady Jersey that Eogers once expressed 
 his regret that he was not married — a regret that he 
 often felt and expressed, especially in his later years. 
 ‘ If I had a wife,’ he said, 4 1 should have somebody to 
 care about me.’ * How could you be sure,’ asked Lady 
 Jersey in reply, 'that your wife would not care more 
 about somebody else than about you ? ’ Why he never 
 married is not known. Lady Morgan, some time after 
 his death, published a statement that he had made ‘ a 
 formal proposition for the hand and fortune ’ of Cecilia 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Thrale, before she had attained her fifteenth year. She 
 tells the story in order to support the ridiculous false- 
 hood that Rogers resented his refusal and consequently 
 accused Mrs. Thrale’s daughters of neglecting her after 
 her marriage with Piozzi. There is not the slightest 
 foundation for Lady Morgan’s story in any documents 
 Rogers has left behind. He made the acquaintance of 
 Cecilia Thrale at Edinburgh in 1789. and expresses 
 surprise at finding her to be only twelve years old. He 
 did not become acquainted with the other daughters till 
 January 1801, as will be seen by a letter to his sister in 
 the next chapter, which letter he writes ‘ after dining 
 with Mrs. Mostyn (my old friend Cecilia Thrale).’ The 
 whole of the references to the Piozzis in the diaries 
 already given disprove the insinuation that Rogers 
 stood in any such relations with them as a scornful 
 rejection by Cecilia Thrale in her girlhood would have 
 brought about. The only traces of a susceptible period 
 in his life are those which occur in his correspondence with 
 Richard Sharp, in the years between 1795 and 1801. 
 
 To the letter which contains the hint of love and dis- 
 appointment Richard Sharp replies in a long confiden- 
 tial epistle, further continuing his own romantic story. 
 Of this romance there is no continuation. In Richard 
 Sharp’s next letter he says his life ‘ for the last eight 
 days has been a stagnant pool, after tumbling down 
 cataracts and making a furious noise to very little 
 purpose.’ He continues — 
 
 ‘ My romance will not finish, I apprehend, either in 
 a church or in a churchyard, as all others do, but will 
 
AN UNFINISHED KOMANCE 
 
 339 
 
 terminate in some poor vapid conclusion, or break off 
 suddenly, yet not before there is evidence enough of a 
 want of ability and resources to carry it on to any 
 interesting end. If men and women, too, insist upon 
 it that I must play an old part, before I have run the 
 round of younger characters, why I must submit — unless 
 I choose to be hissed off the scene — to perform what 
 others may approve, how much soever it may be against 
 my own inclination. The town would not hear even 
 Garrick in 44 Romeo,’ ’ but called him to be the merry 
 bachelor 44 Mercutio,” or the melancholy and sententious 
 “ Hamlet.” If I am not to be the happy man in a regu- 
 lar comedy, I hope still to retain the old fellow in a 
 farce, or the clown in a pantomine. Tragedy is not to 
 my taste.’ 
 
 There the romance ends ; and we hear no more of it. 
 He had recovered his spirits, and turned at once to give 
 his friend that excellent advice for which he was distin- 
 guished all his life. He says — 4 Flirting with countesses 
 is sadly anti-matrimonial. The French opera spoils the 
 taste for Moliere or Racine. . . I do notjlike this regu- 
 larity of your pulse, except as it is a proof that your blood 
 is not to be warmed by the brilliancy of fashion or the 
 fever of dissipation.’ There is a curious hint, too, in 
 this letter, that even at this early period Rogers had 
 thought of 4 Columbus ’ as the subject of a poem. 4 Ah ! ’ 
 writes Richard Sharp, 4 1 hear nothing of the 44 Epistle.” 
 The watering-place obliterates the happy valley’s picture. 
 You are so busy in discovering new worlds at home that 
 44 Columbus ” is forgotten.’ 4 Columbus ’ was not finished 
 
340 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 till many years later. It was printed in 1810 and pub- 
 lished in 1812. The ‘Epistle’ was very familiar to 
 Richard Sharp. He had been consulted as to many of 
 its lines, and was an approving critic. Samuel Sharpe 
 tells us that when Rogers showed it to his friend from 
 time to time he would say : ‘ Let it alone, it can’t be 
 better.’ But Mr. Rogers was not so easily satisfied, and 
 continued to recast and to mend the rugged lines, and 
 when he again showed it to his critic, Sharp would say : 
 
 ‘ It is quite another thing.’ 
 
 In this early correspondence with Richard Sharp 
 there are further hints which show that, at this period, 
 when he was between the ages of thirty and thirty-five,, 
 Rogers contemplated matrimony, not only as a distant 
 possibility, but as a near and probable event. I have 
 pointed out some of these hints in letters already given ; 
 but if we go forward another year, there is what 
 amounts almost to the statement that he was actually 
 engaged. Mr. Hayward, in his affectionate and apprecia- 
 tive memorial article on Rogers in the Edinburgh Review , 
 says that ‘ his own version of his nearest approximation 
 to the nuptial tie was that when a young man he 
 admired and sedulously sought the society of the most 
 beautiful girl he then and still thought he had ever 
 seen. At the end of the London season she said to him 
 at a ball : ‘ I go to-morrow to Worthing. Are you com- 
 ing there ? ’ He did not go. Some months afterwards 
 being at Ranelagh he saw that the attention of everyone 
 was drawn towards a large party that had just entered, 
 in the centre of which was a lady leaning on the arm of 
 her husband. Stepping forward to see this wonderful 
 
CONTEMPLATING MARRIAGE 
 
 341 
 
 beauty, he found it was his love. She merely said : ‘ You 
 never came to Worthing.’ This story rests on the sole 
 authority of Mr. Hayward. Whether it was ‘ his nearest 
 approximation to the nuptial tie ’ seems a little doubtful 
 when we read some of his confidential communications 
 on the subject to his friend Richard Sharp. In the 
 autumn of 1798 he was again at Brighton, and his 
 letters to his sister Sarah and to his friend Sharp give a 
 vivid picture of a Brighton season at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, at the same time that they throw 
 further light on the personal history both of Sharp and 
 Rogers. 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp . 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — I have nothing to send to you ; 
 but, having said I should write I shall keep my promise 
 by reminding you of yours. On my arrival here I threw 
 myself into a temporary lodging, and then flew to 
 Worthing, where I spent three very pleasant days with 
 the Ellises. O11 my return I found Parsons in full cry 
 after me, and by him was persuaded to adopt a plan of life 
 which I relished little, though it has turned out tolerably 
 well. We have taken a house on the cliff, every room of 
 which is like the cabin of an Indiaman, commanding 
 nothing but blue sea, and there we dwell a la Gibbon, 
 having separate parlours, and breakfasting separately, 
 but dining together when we have neither of us any en- 
 gagement. This you will imagine occurs not very fre- 
 quently. When it does we generally invite a friend or 
 two. Mr. Matthew, a most elegant and accomplished man 
 of family (I use the language of the world), Mr. Walpole, 
 
342 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 our minister at Munich, and Mr. Gray, the Resident at 
 Dresden, of whom I must have spoken to you, have been 
 our occasional guests. With the company I have mixed 
 but little, not wishing to open my campaign seriously till 
 your arrival, and I have nothing to relate, though I have 
 had a dinner with Francis, a conversation with Jekyll, 
 and a most sumptuous entertainment with some Cognos- 
 centi at Concannon’s. In the morning I walk on the 
 Steyne to military music, and afterwards take a gallop 
 with the hounds or the ladies. At three there is a full 
 promenade, and the evening takes care of itself. When 
 may I expect you to join us ? We have a bed reserved 
 for you, and you must be my guest. Indeed you were 
 uppermost in my thoughts when the house was taken. 
 When will you come that we may make our criticisms 
 together on the beauties of the Steyne, and afterwards 
 steal away along the cliff to open our hearts and minds 
 to each other, and form schemes of happiness out of the 
 materials before us ? Schemes did I say ? Are we still 
 scheming ? Little did we think when we first entered 
 the world and ranked ourselves as men, that twenty 
 years afterwards we should be still only planning how to 
 live, and busying ourselves with projects of happiness. 
 Come, my dear friend ; lose no time, for my sake and your 
 own. Come and find me as ever, 
 
 ‘ Your most faithful friend, 
 
 ‘S. R. 
 
 ‘Brighton: Octr. 26, 1798. 
 
 ‘ No. 8 Marine Parade. 
 
 ‘ Parsons desires me to say everything for him. 
 
LETTER TO RICHARD SHARP 
 
 343 
 
 S. Rogers to R . Sharp. 
 
 ‘Brighton: 5 Novr, 1798. 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — A thousand thanks for your kind 
 
 letters. L ’s demands are indeed exorbitant ! Had 
 
 he asked 350^ we might have listened to him. Our rent 
 would even then for the first 13 years be 40 1 . — the sum 
 he was contented to receive for it in its best state from 
 a casual tenant while the furniture was comparatively 
 new, which together with the house will grow worse and 
 worse as the rent increases. I resign my claim to our 
 
 friend Tuffin, but should he also decline it, and L 
 
 continue firm, we may at least solicit to become yearly 
 tenants or for a short lease. Could you procure me a 
 sight of it on my way to town ? 1 
 
 ‘ Your first letter gave me concern — I will not say 
 disappointment, for you have long taught me not to be 
 sanguine. I lament exceedingly the very delicate and 
 embarrassing situation in which you are placed, but 
 doubt not that you will extricate yourself even to your 
 own satisfaction. Remember the first break of day on 
 our return out of the cavern at Castleton. What a 
 recompense for our labours. I wish I could tantalise you 
 with a description of the life I lead here, of Mrs. Schol- 
 let’s evening parties, where the young and the gay as- 
 semble nightly, to laugh, and to sing, and to play at 
 “ my lady’s toilet,” and where I have more than once 
 found myself alone among six or seven beautiful girls, 
 who paint, and play on the harp divinely, who devour 
 
 1 They seem to have contemplated taking a house together near 
 Mickleham in ‘ our valley ’ as he calls it in this letter on page 345. 
 
344 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the books you recommend to them, and who accost you 
 with that voice, cette voix argentee de la jeunesse — mais 
 n’importe; nor will I describe their form tres mignonne 
 et tres formee, ce qui est pour une fille le plus beau 
 moment. Suffice it to say that I have been charmed 
 out of my senses, and I have made one acquaintance 
 which, I hope, will last for life. Interpret this last ex- 
 pression as you please. Oh that I had you here ! 
 
 ‘ I have read a novel which has enchanted me : 
 “ Clara ” [by] Du Plessis. Have you ? If not, pray do. 
 
 I have also read the “ Confessions,” against which I had 
 conceived a prejudice, I don’t know why. I now rave 
 about them, to the astonishment of Parsons, who says he 
 has Eousseau by heart, but never could like him. But 
 is he right ? Different minds find different things in 
 the same book. The same letters and syllables pass in 
 review before the eye, but what different feelings and 
 associations are excited. In what a different sense is it 
 often confidently said in company: “I have read that 
 book.” What a charming frankness runs through the 
 “ Confessions” ! How admirably he describes his silence 
 before those he loved, his suffering “ un gros butor de 
 valet ” to pick up Mine, de Breil’s glove, his first and last 
 interview with Mme. de Warens, and above all his day’s 
 adventure with the two girls at Toune ; his want of words, 
 yet his rage for talking ; his journeys on foot, “ le grand 
 air, le grand appetit,” though I could never enter into 
 “ la liberte du cabaret ; ” his night spent in the open air 
 near Lyons — what a heavenly climate ! — his notion of a 
 fine country “ des torrens, des precipices,” not that I ever 
 loved to “ contempler au fond, et gagner des vertiges 
 
ROGERS ON ROUSSEAU 
 
 345 
 
 tout a mon aise ; ” his castle-building on the Lake of 
 Geneva, “absolument au bord de ce lac et non pas d’un 
 autre.” Cannot we say the same of our valley ? “ Son 
 
 gout vif pour les dejeunes ” [sic]. Oh that he had been 
 a Templar ! His portraits, particularly that of Venture, 
 his whole employment at Paris “ a y chercher des res- 
 sources pour se mettre en etat d’en vivre eloigne.” But 
 enough, I must have worn you out. I have a thousand 
 things to say, a thousand stories to tell, among others 
 that of our fair hostesses at Llangollen, but adieu ! the 
 sun shines, the music plays, and a lady has sent her 
 groom to say that she is already on horseback. 
 
 ‘ Yours most affect y , 
 
 ‘S. E. 
 
 ‘ The ladies, I see, have dismounted for five minutes 
 at Lady Lucan’s, and I may proceed. I wish you joy 
 of your correspondent. May the conversion be mutual ! 
 Poor Morgan ! he will certainly die of some experiment. 
 When you see Boddington tell him I hope to see him. 
 Who but Cumberland could write an epic at a public 
 place ? A propos of Miss C. she has written a play and 
 is writing a novel in concert with another girl. Who 
 could have thought it ? But your coy girls are up to 
 anything. I wish you could see Matthew. He answers 
 Parsons’s idea of a perfect man of fashion, and indeed he 
 deserves it. No attitudes, no conceit, very simple and 
 very easy ; but after all, men of fashion are mannerists, 
 and all manner is bad. A natural character, manners 
 for ever varying with the thoughts and feelings, how 
 superior to that uniform and monotonous thing called 
 
346 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROG-ERS 
 
 high breeding ! You will say I am growing sensible 
 and that it comes from living with P. I can assure you 
 I never knew before that I was so unlike him, though I 
 must confess that I sometimes envy him, and indeed* 
 a thousand others who elbow their way on in the worlds 
 A hard nature frequently imposes itself on the world 
 for a superior nature. Its confidence seems to confirm 
 its claims, and its insensibility to place it above (and 
 not below) the reach of sufferings by which a feeling 
 and shrinking nature is continually harassed and ob- 
 structed in the commerce of life. I never made this 
 stale remark so feelingly to myself as I have done since 
 I came here. I must away, to ride with two pretty 
 women, and then dress for Mr. Hope’s dinner and Lord 
 Carrington’s ball. You will think me very gay, but I 
 have long found that there is at least as much if not 
 more ennui in society than out of it.’ 
 
 A letter to his sister, written four days later, conti- 
 nues the description of the gaieties of Brighton in 1798 — 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers. 
 
 ‘Brighton: 9th Novr. 1798. 
 
 ‘ No, he has not forgotten her, nor ever will cease to 
 remember her, he can truly say, with pride and pleasure. 
 In all his castles (and night and day he is building them) 
 she still has a place, and when all his wanderings are 
 over (as they soon will be) he hopes and trusts that she 
 will not shut her heart against him, but will welcome 
 back one who is ever the same, and whose regard for 
 her is, if possible, increased, not lessened, by absence. 
 
THE BRIGHTON SEASON IN 1798 
 
 347 
 
 Yes, my dear Sarah, you are indeed often in my thoughts, 
 and whenever I shall have a home let me hope you will 
 sometimes at least deign to grace it. Its door will 
 always fly open to welcome you. Here — though perhaps 
 you will smile when I say so — I feel alone in a crowd, as 
 a thousand gay images are passing continually by me ; 
 but, like the ombres chinoises , they leave no trace, nothing 
 for the heart to fix upon, or the mind to recall with any 
 real satisfaction to itself. Yet as you wish me to send 
 you a register of the follies of the place, I must obey ; 
 though, were I to do them justice, I should exhaust 
 reams of paper, and ruin you in postage. But where 
 shall I begin ? With Concannon’s supper parties, where 
 there is charming music, which you are not compelled 
 to listen to, where French dishes are served up on silver 
 chiffoirs, and where champagne goes round with glees 
 and bon mots to an early hour ; or with Mrs. Schollet’s 
 humbler though merrier meetings, where there is more 
 beauty though less fashion, and where “my lady’s toilet” 
 and a thousand whimsies fill the room with noise and 
 disorder ; or with Miss Haldimand’s conversations, 
 where I was introduced on the first evening blindfold, 
 and where Miss Cleaver, a relation of the Huttons, plays 
 divinely on the harp, and looks as divinely ; or with Lord 
 Carrington’s ball, where I spent last night among Lady 
 Marys and Lady Bettys, where the supper shone most 
 splendidly with youth and beauty, and jellied meats and 
 grapes and pine-apples ? No, my dear Sarah, I will begin 
 with a list of the dramatis persona here, and leave my 
 whereabouts for another chapter. Here is Mrs. Arm- 
 stead (Fox is pheasant-shooting in Norfolk), who lives in 
 
348 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 a small cabin with a man and a maid, and who is read- 
 ing “ Emily Montagu ” for the third time ; Mrs. Bristow 
 who still dances a V opera , but is now in a little disguise, 
 having last winter got rid of a dropsy in a remarkable 
 manner ; Mrs. Horsley, who looks very dull and rather 
 old ; a Miss Grant, who is seldom seen, but who, without 
 entering into these gaieties, looks very cheerful and very 
 well, and makes many kind enquiries after her friends ; 
 Miss Hunt who was once to have been married to Lord 
 Wycombe, and who has three mines in Cornwall with 
 3,000 lamps burning night and day in each of them ; 
 Tommy Onslow, who is one instant seen in his phaeton 
 and six, and the very next on a docktail pony, with his 
 skirts pinned up, and his hat in his hand, bumping 
 along the London road at the rate of twelve miles an 
 hour ; General Manners, who follows the hounds in a 
 low chair, which he says he gave eight guineas for 
 twelve years ago, and which is dragged up and down 
 the hills by a tall white coach-horse ; Miss White, a 
 most charming and elegant woman about thirty-five, 
 who, after having long excited the admiration of the 
 Pump Boom by her wit and her talents, shut herself up 
 in her father’s sick-room for two long years, but he is 
 now dead and she lives at present in Sir J. Reynolds’s 
 house at Richmond on an independency of 1,200 1 . per 
 annum — you must know her ; Lady Lucan, who is illu- 
 minating a Shakespeare with her beautiful drawings, 
 and who sleeps every night in her little steel travelling- 
 bed, lest she should feel any difference between at home 
 and abroad ; and Mrs. Hope, who turns up her nose 
 alike at English peeresses and English [customs], and 
 
A ROMANTIC MARRIAGE 
 
 349 
 
 whose little girls come in regularly with the dessert 
 after dinner, with earrings, and necklaces, and white 
 gloves. But I could continue my list till Christmas, and 
 shall conclude with Mr. Spencer, who is a nephew of the 
 Duke of Marlboro’, who translated “ Leonora,” and who 
 married rather oddly. When he was at Heidelberg, a 
 mutual attachment took place between him and the 
 wife of an ex-German nobleman, who became uneasy at 
 it, and Mr. S. left the place. She was an Englishwoman 
 born there. On his departure she solicited leave of her 
 husband to hear once a year of Mr. S. The Baron con- 
 sented, and immediately wrote to Mr. S. to meet him 
 at an Inn on the road. Mr. S. came and found him 
 dead ; he had shot himself and had left a letter on the 
 table, recommending his wife as a most amiable and 
 excellent woman to the regard and protection of Mr. 
 Spencer. Mrs. S., who has nothing remarkable about 
 her, is just here. A propos, I have just received a letter 
 from Brignola ; he is well, but low in spirits, at Florence, 
 and desires his homage to you. Parsons and myself 
 are here on the edge of old Ocean, who has been taken 
 rather fractious lately. The spray wets our windows, 
 and the wind rocks our beds, and the door sometimes 
 requires three men to shut it. We live like Gibbon and 
 Dey verdun (in only one respect, I fear), breakfasting 
 separately and dining together, when disengaged. We 
 then sometimes indulge ourselves with a partie carree ; 
 and Mr. Walpole, the Munich minister, and Mr. Gray, 
 our Resident at Dresden, have formed it frequently with 
 us. We have a decent cook, and P.’s Frenchman is 
 just equal to an omelette or a fricassee . P. bathes most 
 
350 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 furiously, and parades along the cliff in a flannel robe 
 and pantaloons. By some he is taken for the Pope, who 
 has emigrated ; by others for a Carthusian friar. Your 
 More returns her best thanks for kind enquiries. She 
 still excites a little notice, and is for ever scamper- 
 ing with the hounds or the ladies. But, adieu ! my dear 
 Sarah. I must prepare myself for Lady Clark’s sup- 
 per, where there is to be a general insurrection this 
 evening. Remember me to everybody at Aspleyns and 
 Amersham. 
 
 ‘ Affectionately yours, 
 
 ‘ S. R.’ 
 
351 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 4 An Epistle to a Friend ’ — Letters from Dr. Warton — W. Gilpin — Criti- 
 cisms and changes in the poem— Mr. Hayward’s criticism — Rogers 
 and Fox, Erskine — Political warfare — The Fox banquet, 1798 — The 
 Duke of Norfolk — Prosecution of Gilbert Wakefield — Parr and 
 Mackintosh. 
 
 The ‘ Epistle to a Friend ’ was already finished when, in 
 the autumn of 1797, Richard Sharp enquired about it. 
 It had in all probability originated in conversations 
 with him, and it may be regarded as a poetical reply to 
 the arguments he had used to induce Rogers to leave his 
 suburban home and plunge into the social life of the 
 West End of London. His nephew, Samuel Sharpe, 
 speaks of it as ‘ a picture of his mind at the age of thirty- 
 five, as “ The Pleasures of Memory ” shows his mind 
 at the age of twenty-nine. The “ Epistle to a Friend ” 
 describes his views of life, and his feelings on Art, on 
 Literature, and on Society, as one who valued cheap 
 pleasures, who had lived out of town, and was separated 
 from London’s round of gaiety and glitter.’ Readers of 
 my account of Rogers’s early days will have no difficulty 
 in understanding the truth of this statement. I have 
 previously said that there was a struggle in his own 
 mind which he turned into poetry. This praise of 
 country life, from the point of view of a dweller in the 
 
352 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 town is an old theme. So Horace wrote to Fuscus and 
 Petrarch to Colonna. Dr. Aikin, as S. Sharpe points out, 
 had just translated the ‘ Epistle of Frascatorius ’ in praise 
 of a country life. It is the object of ‘ An Epistle to a 
 Friend.’ Yet the life at Stoke Newington had scarcely 
 been country life. It was life on the verge of London, 
 with many opportunities of mingling in the whirl. 
 Rogers had seen true country life, such, for example, as 
 Gilpin lived it at Vicar’s Hill, only as a spectator, or at 
 the very most as a visitor, but that may only make his 
 praise of it the more sincere. He had not failed to read 
 Cowper, the true poet of country life, and he could not 
 read him without feeling a profound sense of the quiet 
 which a close and constant communion with Nature 
 brings into the mind. He appreciated what Cowper calls 
 
 an unambitious mind, content 
 In the low vale of life ; 
 
 yet said to his soul — 
 
 Be thine to blend, nor thine a vulgar aim, 
 
 Repose with dignity ; with Quiet fame, 
 
 There is a good deal in the poem to indicate what 
 his early home had been. The partial pencil, which, as 
 he says, must 
 
 love to dwell 
 
 On the home prospects of my hermit cell, 
 
 needed the guidance of the poet’s fancy, though he pro- 
 bably drew the picture from recollections of Gilpin’s 
 parsonage at Vicar’s Hill. But the library demanded 
 no flight of imagination. It is the very place where on 
 
‘ AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND ’ 
 
 353 
 
 many an evening he had sat amid the studious silence 
 of brothers and sisters, reading ancient books and dream- 
 ing inspiring dreams. 
 
 Selected shelves shall claim thy studious hours ; 
 
 There shall thy ranging mind be fed on flowers ! 1 
 There, while the shaded lamp’s mild lustre streams, 
 
 Read ancient books or dream inspiring dreams ; 
 
 And, when a sage’s bust arrests thee there, 
 
 Pause, and his features with his thoughts compare. 
 
 — Ah, most that art my grateful rapture calls, 
 
 Which breathes a soul into the silent walls ; 
 
 Which gathers round the Wise of every Tongue, 
 
 All on whose words departed nations hung 
 
 Still prompt to charm with many a converse sweet ; 
 
 Guides in the world, companions in retreat. 
 
 There are other home touches. He had spoken in ‘ The 
 Pleasures of Memory ’ of the family portraits — 
 
 Those once loved forms still breathing through their dust, 
 Still from the frame in mould gigantic cast, 
 
 Starting to life — all whisper of the past. 
 
 In the new poem the thought is again taken up and 
 further expanded — 
 
 But could thine erring friend so long forget 
 (Sweet source of pensive joy and fond regret) 
 
 That here its warmest hues the pencil flings, 
 
 Lo, here the lost restores, the absent brings ; 
 
 And still the Pew best loved and most revered 
 Rise round the board, their social smile endeared. 
 
 1 Rogers’s note on this line is as follows — 
 — apis Matin© 
 More modoque 
 
 Grata carpentis thyma. — Hor. 
 
354 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 His nephew points out that whereas in the earlier 
 poem the family portraits are the only works of art 
 spoken of, and were 4 almost the only works of art known 
 in his father’s house,’ in the later poem we find that he 
 4 had gained a knowledge and love of art of the highest 
 class, and understood the beauties of Greek sculpture 
 and Italian painting.’ He had imbibed this love of art, 
 as has been already said, from his sister’s husband, 
 Sutton Sharpe, but he had not yet dreamed of indulging 
 it as a rich man may. The villa in the 4 Epistle ’ is a 
 small country house, plainly and economically furnished. 
 
 Here no state chambers in long line unfold, 
 
 Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold ; 
 
 Yet modest ornament, with use combined 
 Attracts the eye, to exercise the mind ! 
 
 Small change of scene, small space his home requires 
 Who leads a life of satisfied desires. 
 
 The very object of the 4 Epistle,’ as he says in his 
 ‘Preface,’ is to show how little True Taste requires to 
 secure 4 not only the comforts, but even the elegancies of 
 life.’ 4 True Taste,’ he says, 4 is an excellent Economist. 
 She confines her choice to few objects, and delights in 
 producing great effects by small means; while False 
 Taste is for ever sighing for the new and rare, and 
 reminds us, in her works, of the Scholar of Apelles, who 
 not being able to paint his Helen beautiful, determined 
 to make her fine.’ Hence, in the imaginary villa, where 
 the aim was to blend — 
 
 Bepose with dignity, with Quiet fame, 
 a severe economy reigned. 
 
‘ AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND ’ 
 
 355 
 
 What tho’ no marble breathes, no canvas glows, 
 
 From every point a ray of genius flows 
 Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill, 
 
 That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will ; 
 
 And cheaply circulates, thro’ distant climes, 
 
 The fairest relics of the purest times. 
 
 Here from the mould to conscious being start 
 Those finer forms, the miracles of art ; 
 
 Here chosen gems, imprest on sulphur shine 
 That slept for ages in a second mine ; 
 
 And here the faithful graver dares to trace 
 A Michael’s grandeur and a Raphael’s grace ! 
 
 Thy gallery, Florence, gilds my humble walls ; 
 
 And my low roof the Vatican recalls ! 
 
 In pursuance of his habit of taking counsel with his 
 friends on his works before they were published, Rogers 
 sent the unfinished manuscript of this poem to Dr. 
 Joseph Warton , 1 and afterwards in its completed state 
 to the Rev. William Gilpin. Dr. Warton returned it 
 with the following letter : — 
 
 Dr. J. Warton to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 * April 9, 1797. 
 
 ‘ My dear Sir, — I should ill deserve the friendship I 
 hope to cultivate with you if I wrote you a letter of 
 mere compliment on the poem you have so obligingly 
 sent to me. I must assure you, with strict truth, that 
 I like it much. There is in it uncommon elegance and 
 simplicity both of style and sentiment. And the notes 
 
 1 Warton had just then finished his edition of Pope, on which it is 
 said he had been engaged for sixteen years. He was in his old age. 
 He had resigned the head mastership of Winchester School in 1793, an< l 
 was living at Wickham, of which parish he was rector, where he died 
 in February, 1800. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 are very pertinent and proper. It is more to show you 
 that I have read it with attention than to wish you to 
 alter a word or two that I venture to carp a little at 
 the following words : Page i, 6 unvalued hours/ ‘ ambush'd 
 gate/ a good image certainly, but the word seems harsh. 1 
 Page 7, ‘Fountain flings .' 2 Page 8, ‘ woo dreams/ why 
 not wait ? 9, ‘ unfelt / the idea is excellent, and I cannot 
 suggest another word, yet doubt of unfelt. I lay no sort 
 of stress on these seeming blemishes, nor think them of 
 much consequence. I cannot forbear adding that I am 
 extremely struck with the concluding lines as well as 
 with the Plan and Design of the whole, and hope you 
 will finish it immediately. Own, my dear sir, that I 
 have treated you with the freedom you are pleased to 
 desire, and believe me, 
 
 ‘ Very faithfully and sincerely yours, 
 
 ‘ J. Warton/ 
 
 Rogers did right in retaining both the ‘ unvalued 
 hours ’ and the ‘ unfelt current/ The latter is com- 
 pared to life — 
 
 which still as we survey, 
 
 Seems motionless, yet ever glides away ! 
 
 Mr. Gilpin’s criticisms were more important than 
 those of Dr. Warton, and more influential. As Rogers 
 had spent his own life chiefly in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of London he probably felt some diffidence in 
 describing country life, and passing a eulogy upon it with- 
 
 1 It now reads ‘the sheltered gate.’ 
 
 2 There is now no such expression in the poem. The line is — 
 
 ‘ That here its warmest hues the pencil flings.’ 
 
THE REV. WILLIAM GILPIN 
 
 357 
 
 out taking counsel of some authority. He, therefore, 
 sent the manuscript of the ‘ Epistle ’ to the Rev. William 
 Gilpin, inviting him to make free remarks and criticisms 
 upon it. Mr. Gilpin, like Dr. Warton, was then drawing 
 towards the close of a lengthened life. He was uni- 
 versally known as the great authority on Picturesque 
 Beauty. Rogers has already described him in his diary 
 of a journey in the south of England in 1792. He 
 speaks there of * Mr. Gilpin’s celebrated view.’ Mr. 
 Gilpin was a lineal decendant of Bernard Gilpin, ‘ the 
 Northern Apostle,’ whose life he wrote and published ten 
 years before Rogers was born. He had long been known 
 as a faithful country clergyman and a writer of religious 
 and biographical books when, in 1790, he published his 
 ‘ Observations on Picturesque Beauty.’ A series of 
 works from his pen on the same subject followed in 
 rapid succession, and before the close of the century 
 Mr. Gilpin had been universally acknowledged as the 
 great modern authority on the Picturesque. In Mr. 
 Green’s pleasant ‘ Diary of a Lover of Literature ’ there 
 is a glimpse of his parsonage in 1798 which is in har- 
 mony with the sketch of the ‘ Villa ’ in Rogers’s poem. 
 ‘ Crossed the river by a causeway, and pursued its 
 course by an agreeable walk along its banks up to 
 Boldre, and returning by the upper road, struck down 
 into a woody dell at the back of Vicar’s Hill, Mr. Gil- 
 pin’s parsonage, the object of our pilgrimage ; shrouded, 
 together with its gardens, in thick foliage. Contem- 
 plated, with much interest, the residence of a gentleman 
 by whose pen and by whose pencil I have been almost 
 equally delighted, and who, with an originality that 
 
358 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 almost always accompanies true genius, may be considered 
 as having opened a new sense of enjoyment in survey- 
 ing the works of Nature.’ It is more than likely that 
 Rogers in writing the ‘ Epistle ’ had Mr. Gilpin and his 
 parsonage, with the forest scenery around it, present to 
 his memory. He had been in the neighbourhood, and 
 he had written a diary of his visit, just as he was be- 
 ginning to write the poem ; and he probably sent the 
 manuscript to Mr. Gilpin because of his personal con- 
 nection with it. Mr. Gilpin’s letter, in sending it back, 
 is interesting in itself, and is still more so as indicating 
 Rogers’s willingness to take the advice of so experi- 
 enced an observer of Nature. 
 
 Rev. W. Gilpin to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 ‘Vicar’s Hill: July 7, 1797. 
 
 * Dear Sir, — I have read your little poem two or three 
 times over, with great pleasure : I should say with in- 
 creased pleasure, for that is the truth. I have seldom 
 met with, in so short a space, so many beautiful lines. 
 But though you check criticism in a printed work, it is 
 expected you should treat a MS. with more freedom. 
 I’ll tell you, therefore, frankly, all that occurred to me. 
 
 * With regard to the whole, you seem to me (what 
 is certainly a fault, if it be one, on the better side) too 
 concise. I think your subject would not only have 
 allowed more, but disappoints us in not having more 
 — particularly in the description of the cottage and the 
 library. In describing your cottage, instead of alluring 
 us by its near and distant scenery, you give us only a 
 view of the pales and footpath. If it be a picture taken 
 
MR. GILPIN’S CRITICISM 
 
 359 
 
 from the life, and have no distant scenery, you might 
 perhaps (if you did not choose to raise the idea , by 
 telling us ivhat it had not) give us a few reflections on 
 the advantages of a cottage entirely sequestered. I 
 think, too, you might have dwelt a little more on the 
 worthies that adorn the study ; and as a poet might have 
 specified a few poets. A friend told me, the other day, 
 he had paid a visit to Lord Muncaster in the north ; 
 and that he had adorned, or intended to adorn, a room 
 with one of the chief worthies of every profession. I 
 thought the idea a pleasing one. Lastly, I was not 
 quite pleased with the conclusion of your poem. I 
 thought it might have ended better with a few pertinent 
 moral reflections. 
 
 ‘ So much for the whole. With regard to the parts , 
 I have not much to say. Most of the lines, I think, are 
 unexceptionably beautiful. Point out the green lane , 
 appears to me rather prosaic ; and I do not think you 
 have chosen picturesque figures to adorn your footpath. 
 The pannier ed ass I allow. But the pedlar is injured by 
 his profession. The satchelled schoolboy is neither a 
 novel nor a pleasing idea. The red-hooded maid is less 
 so : and the cry of cresses has too much of London in it. 
 Perhaps a man of studious hours would not be contented 
 to feed on flowers , if he were in a place, as I suppose 
 he was, which afforded more solid nutriment. Some of 
 the lines, too, on the ice-house I think are rather too 
 heroic. 
 
 ‘ But now, my dear sir, I must inform you that 
 Mason used to tell me I was among the worst poetical 
 critics he consulted. And I believe he was very right. 
 
360 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL EOGEES 
 
 But as it is not my end at present to display my critical 
 abilities, but to show my sincerity, I have no doubt but 
 your candour will accept what I have said in good part ; 
 and that you will believe me to be on this, and every 
 other occasion, 
 
 6 Your very sincere 
 
 ‘ And most obedt. humble servant, 
 
 ‘Will. Gilpin.’ 
 
 Some of the lines and expressions here objected 
 to did not appear in the published poem, and some of 
 the omissions noted are supplied. There is now the 
 full recognition of distant scenery which Mr. Gilpin 
 suggests — 
 
 Far to the south a mountain vale retires, 
 
 Bich in its groves, and glens, and village spires, 
 
 Its upland lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung, 
 
 Its wizard stream, nor nameless nor unsung. 
 
 And through the various year, the various day, 
 
 What scenes of glory burst and melt away ! 
 
 But there is no pedlar now in the poem, no satchelled 
 school-boy, the red-hooded maid becomes ‘ in her ker- 
 chief blue, the cottage maid ; ’ and the cry of cresses — 
 which as Mr. Gilpin truly says has too much of London 
 in it — has given place to the ‘ brimming pitcher from the 
 shadowy glade.’ The lines about the ice-house were 
 retained in the earlier editions, but they were afterwards 
 excised and placed in the notes, and every reader will 
 agree with Mr. Gilpin’s criticism that they ‘ are rather 
 too heroic.’ When the poem had been published it was 
 sent to Mr. Gilpin, who returned the following letter — 
 
ME. GILPIN’S CELTICISM 
 
 361 
 
 Rev. William Gilpin to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Vicar’s Hill : Ap. 16, 1798. 
 
 ‘ Dear Sir, — At the time I received your first letter, 
 and long after, I was so ill that few things in any 
 degree attracted my attention. I was so ill that, to tell 
 you the truth, I was not overjoyed at the idea of having 
 all the suffering I had undergone, or something like it, 
 to undergo again at some future period. It hath pleased 
 God, however, to give me a wonderful restoration, which 
 I should wish to return with a greater degree of religious 
 gratitude than I fear the confirmed habits of old age 
 will in general allow. I am still, however, far from 
 being well ; though I am as well as I ever expect to be ; 
 unless, on the return of the zephyrs and swallows I 
 may now and then perhaps be enabled to breathe a little 
 more freely. 
 
 ‘ Having thus talked of myself through a page, it is 
 now time to come to your villa, for the sight of which I 
 am much obliged to you. I entered your gate impressed 
 with those just sentiments, which you had so justly 
 raised. I admired the view from your windows — I 
 thought you had collected your prints with great judg- 
 ment. Many of your sulphur-gems I had never seen 
 before. Your portraits and books I thought the 
 happiest appendages of the place. I then sat down 
 with you to your elegant closet-supper . Of all kinds of 
 food, the dapes inemptce please me most : and, as it 
 fortunately happened I am now ordered to drink wine 
 (which I almost never before tasted), I drank two 
 bumpers of your excellent Falernian. In short, you 
 
362 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 have entertained me like a prince ; and I once more 
 return you many thanks. I must not forget that, as 
 I left your villa, I met a bride going to church, whose 
 beautiful simplicity and varied sensibilities were very 
 interesting. “ There,” said I, “ is Nature in its pleasing 
 innocence ; ” and I could not help thinking what a happy 
 subject it would have been for you. We painters very 
 sparingly, if ever, introduce the mixed passions into the 
 same face : but you would have had the advantage of 
 us, and might have introduced a thousand varieties of 
 delicate emotions almost at once. 
 
 ‘ Cadell has in hand one of my books of picturesque 
 travels. I sell him the copy ; tho’ our bargain is not 
 yet struck. The money is to be funded, as the begin- 
 ning of a fund for the posthumous use of my school. 
 So that they who do not purchase from a motive of 
 choice may please themselves with purchasing from a 
 motive of charity. With Mrs. G.’s best respects, 
 
 ‘ Believe me, dear Sir, 
 
 * Very sincerely and cordially yours, 
 
 ‘ Will Gilpin.’ 
 
 The bride whom Gilpin met going to church was in 
 Bogers’s volume in the short poem : ‘ To a Friend on 
 his Marriage.’ It is dated 1798. There were two other 
 short poems in the volume : the lines ‘ To a Gnat,’ and 
 the five verses, written in 1797, entitled ‘ A Farewell.’ 
 
 It might, perhaps, not be altogether impossible to 
 construct out of the slight materials furnished by these 
 two poems — the ‘ Farewell ’ and the ‘ Lines to a Friend 
 on his Marriage’ — taken together with the hint in his 
 
IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE 
 
 363 
 
 letter to his friend Richard Sharp , 1 a romantic episode 
 in Rogers’s life. But beyond those vague hints and the 
 story told by the Edinburgh Review 2 there are no further 
 traces of his having really experienced the feelings the 
 
 * Farewell ’ expresses. It is only the most prosaic 
 criticism which essays to trace the events of a man’s life 
 in his imaginative writings. One of the chief marks of 
 the true poet is the possession of the power of realising 
 situations in which he was never personally placed, and 
 of giving expression to feelings which he never seriously 
 experienced. It has not been proved that Shakespeare’s 
 mental history is to be found, as some tell us, in his 
 sonnets ; nor that Sidney, though he looked into his 
 heart and wrote, really passed through all the feelings 
 so exquisitely described in his 4 Astrophel and Stella ’ 
 sonnets. It was probably never literally true of him 
 that — 
 
 the race 
 
 Of all my thoughts had neither stop nor start, 
 
 But only Stella’s eyes and Stella’s heart ; 
 
 nor of his friend Fulke Greville that he wrote in 
 
 * Caelica ’ the romance of his own life. There is, of 
 course, no such passion in Rogers’s few lines as these 
 great Elizabethan writers express. It is only the ima- 
 ginative experience which is the same, and that is the 
 essence of such poetry. He was never engaged to be 
 married, and there is no evidence that he ever made any 
 woman an offer of marriage . 3 The nearest approach, in 
 
 1 Chap. X. p. 344. 2 P. 341. 
 
 8 I have already discussed the ridiculous statement of Lady Morgan 
 with respect to Cecilia Thrale, which is exactly on a par with her hint 
 
364 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 any of his letters, to the utterance of any feeling of disap- 
 pointment is in those from Margate and Brighton already 
 quoted ; and it is just worthy of notice that the last of 
 these was written in the same year as the ‘Farewell.’ 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, however, if some of his 
 friends suspected that these little poems had an autobio- 
 graphic character. The Rev. William Gilpin expresses 
 this suspicion in a very characteristic letter. He had 
 returned the compliment Rogers had paid him in con- 
 sulting him about the ‘ Epistle to a Friend,’ by sending 
 to Rogers the MS. of a work on North Wales for his 
 criticism and remarks. Rogers kept it so long that 
 Gilpin became anxious about it and wrote to inquire 
 whether he had asked his friend, after reading it, to send 
 it to Cadell and Davies. • Rogers, whom Gilpin had de- 
 scribed as ‘ such a ubiquitarian that I know not where 
 to find you ’ wrote from Exmouth apologising for the 
 delay, and promising to send the manuscript forthwith. 
 Mr. Gilpin then sent him the following letter — 
 
 Rev. William Gilpin to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Vicar’s Hill : Nov. 29, 1799. 
 
 ‘ I hope, my dear sir, you read my letter in the same 
 honest, sincere spirit in which it was written. I 
 certainly neither wanted my papers, nor in the least 
 doubted your care. But I had entirely forgotten whether 
 I had desired you to leave them at any place, and under 
 that forgetfulness might have suffered them to lie I 
 knew not where, nor how long. You gratified me much 
 
 as to a similar offer to her niece in the days when Rogers’s memory 
 had failed him. 
 
GILPIN ON WOKKS OF FANCY 
 
 365 
 
 with what you said of them ; but I should have been 
 more gratified if you had made any remarks that 
 would have led to amendment. I shall, however, I 
 doubt not, when I receive the papers, find a few remarks 
 bundled up with them. If not, do not again hypocritically 
 call m e friend. It has always been my chief endea.vour, 
 in all my picturesque exhibitions, to bring the objects I 
 describe, as much as I can, before the eye of my reader ; 
 remembering our old friend’s remark that things brought 
 before the eye affect us more than things only described. 
 How far I have succeeded I am not the person to judge. 
 There is, I think, another great criterion of excellence in 
 works of fancy ; and that is the power of exciting feel- 
 ings. But this belongs rather to animate than inani- 
 mate objects. Gray’s “ Elegy ’’ will be felt when Dr. 
 Johnson’s cold criticisms on words and syllables are 
 neglected. I have often read with much pleasure, among 
 other pieces which pleased me, a little poem on the 
 “Marriage of a Friend.” It is wonderfully wrought up 
 with that sort of sensibility which excites feeling : and 
 to me, who have so often, as my duty led, seen it 
 realised, it appears an admirable portrait from the life. 
 It is followed so immediately by another .poem, called the 
 “ Farewell ” (which also I like much), that I cannot help 
 thinking there is some connection between them. If 
 you are acquainted with the author perhaps you can 
 tell me whether any history belongs to them. By the 
 way, I think the Marriage Service in our Liturgy is not 
 quite so delicate as it might be. I see no reason for 
 entering so minutely into the causes of matrimony : and 
 I think I should rather have spared the young lady her 
 
366 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 hesitating speech. Her coming to the altar with her 
 friends and signing her name seem sufficient. But the 
 other parts of the Service (except one prayer) I think 
 extremely fine. You write cheerfully, and I hope you 
 are well ; but I want to know why you have been sent 
 to Exmouth ; and your saying so significantly that you 
 are sorry your sister is not with you seems to have a 
 meaning. Let me hear. With regard to myself, a 
 degree of health is a blessing at the age of 76, and I 
 have great reason to bless God for it. Coughs and a 
 few other infirmities summon me to a change, which I 
 would gladly persuade myself I do not regret. God 
 bless you ! 
 
 ‘ And believe me to be 
 
 ‘Your affect, and sincere 
 
 ‘ Will Gilpin. 
 
 ‘ Mrs. G.’s best respects.’ 
 
 ‘ An Epistle to a Friend ’ was published in the spring 
 of 1798, a year and a half before the above letter of 
 Gilpin’s was written. It had occupied Rogers, with the 
 notes, half-a-dozen years, and had undergone, as these 
 letters show, much patient elaboration and critical re- 
 review before it took its final shape. It seems to have 
 been received with some differences of opinion among 
 Rogers’s friends. Soon after it was published he wrote 
 to Richard Sharp in apparent despair — 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — I am in a peck of troubles. My 
 “ Epistle ” is universally found fault with for its crudeness 
 
‘A PECK OF TROUBLES’ 
 
 367 
 
 and obscurity. Twiss says he shall try to read it 
 again, not haying Goldsmith to refer to. The simile of 
 the floating beehives was lost upon him ; and as to the 
 
 verses to Lady ’s daughter they are, as he and 
 
 Parsons agreed, perfectly unintelligible. 
 
 ‘ What am I to do ? I stand still in horror, and dare 
 not advance a step. Pray console your unhappy friend ! 
 
 ‘ S. R. 
 
 ‘ P.S. — I shall expect you on Saturday at half-past 
 four.’ 
 
 Richard Sharp’s response to this appeal is not ex- 
 tant. The simile of the floating beehives is in the fol- 
 lowing lines, and it is now explained in a note to be ‘ an 
 allusion to the floating beehouse, or barge laden with 
 beehives, which is seen in some parts of France and 
 Piedmont.’ 
 
 So, thro’ the vales of Loire the beehives glide, 
 
 The light raft dropping with the silent tide ; 
 
 So, till the laughing scenes are lost in night, 
 
 The busy people wing their various flight, 
 
 Culling unnumbered sweets from nameless flowers 
 That scent the vineyard in its purple hours. 
 
 The note not only makes the simile perfectly intelligible 
 but renders it impossible for the dullest not to see its 
 appropriateness and beauty. The note to the verses to 
 Lady Jersey’s daughter Harriet makes them also intel- 
 ligible by simply explaining the circumstances in which 
 they were addressed to her. The 4 Epistle ’ fully justi- 
 fies in its present shape the long labour spent upon it. 
 It consists of only two hundred and twenty-two lines, but 
 
368 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 no reader can fail to perceive, as he reads it, that an un- 
 usual number of the lines have a strangely familiar sound. 
 As I said of ‘ The Pleasures of Memory ’ so, to a larger ex- 
 tent, it may be said of this much shorter poem that it has 
 many expressions which have passed into literature and 
 have become, as it were, familiar forms of speech. ‘ The 
 insect tribes of human kind,’ the contrast of home’s 
 ‘ simple comforts and domestic rites ’ with the season’s 
 i annual round of glitter and perfume ; ’ the line — 
 
 Each fleeting charm that bids the landscape live ; 
 the couplet — 
 
 There let her practise from herself to steal, 
 
 And look the happiness she does not feel ; 
 
 and other lines such as — 
 
 Guides in the world, companions in retreat ; 
 
 or — 
 
 The cheap amusements of a mind at ease ; 
 
 are surely most felicitously expressed, and have lingered 
 in the recollection of readers and writers who have 
 reproduced them without remembering their origin. 
 
 ‘ The clear mirror of his moral page,’ and 
 
 Scorned the false lustre of licentious thought, 
 
 are happy phrases from those concluding lines which 
 every reader will admit to be entirely worthy of Dr. 
 Warton’s praise. 
 
 Like his other poems ‘ An Epistle to a Friend 5 was 
 well received by the critics. The Monthly Review prided 
 itself that on the first anonymous appearance of the 
 writer it did justice to his talents, and that when after a 
 
ME. HAYWARD’S CRITICISM 
 
 369 
 
 considerable interval, he came before the world again it 
 was again forward to pay its tribute of applause to his 
 taste and genius. The ‘ Epistle ’ it regarded as ‘ of a 
 more masculine character, without falling below his other 
 compositions in elegance or in feeling. It is at once 
 correct and spirited, classic and original.’ The reviewer 
 quotes with approval some original and happy epithets : 
 ‘ His spangling shower when frost the wizard flings ; 9 
 ‘ the arrowy North ; ’ ‘ the murmuring market-place.’ 
 
 Mr. Hayward in the Edinburgh Revieiv , fifty-eight 
 years later, speaks of the description of winter in the 
 ‘ Epistle,’ as ‘ marked by the same delicate fancy which 
 is displayed in the “ Eape of the Lock” on a different 
 class of phenomena ’ — 
 
 When Christmas revels in a world of snow, 
 
 And bids her berries blush, her carols flow : 
 
 His spangling shower when Frost the wizard flings ; 
 
 Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings, 
 
 O’er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves 
 And gems with icicles the sheltering eaves ; 
 
 — Thy muffled friend his nectarine wall pursues. 
 
 Mr. Hayward adds : ‘ There is no disputing the eye 
 for Nature which fixed and carried off the image of the 
 silvery foliage woven on the white pane. At one of his 
 Sunday breakfasts Rogers had quoted with decided 
 commendation Leigh Hunt’s couplet on a fountain (in 
 Rimini) — also selected by Byron as one of the most poe- 
 tical descriptions of a natural object he was acquainted 
 with : — 
 
 4 Clear and compact, till at its height o’errun 
 It shakes its loosening silver in the sun. 
 
 B B 
 
370 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 4 “ I give my vote,” said one of the guests for — 
 
 4 O’er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves ; 
 
 and Rogers looked for a moment as if he were about to 
 re-enact Parr’s reception of the flattering visitor from 
 Birmingham.’ 
 
 In the admirable and appreciative article from which 
 this criticism and its illustrative story are taken, Mr. 
 Hayward speaks of the poem, as a whole, ‘ as conveying 
 after the manner of Horace and (in parts) of Pope the 
 writer’s notions of social comfort and happiness, as de- 
 pendent upon, or influenced by, the choice of residence, 
 furniture, books, pictures, and companions — subjects on 
 all of which he was admirably qualified to speak/ But Mr. 
 Hayward and those to whom, like Mrs. Norton and Lady 
 Dufferin, he applied for information, were in absolute 
 ignorance of the circumstances out of which the poem 
 had sprung, and of the training w T hich had so admirably 
 qualified the poet to speak on the topics he introduces. 
 He interprets Rogers’s feelings in those early days, not 
 by the struggle which called them forth, of which he 
 knew nothing and suspected nothing, but by the altered 
 circumstances of Rogers’s later life. Knowing him for 
 many years as the centre of the most brilliant society of 
 the time, Mr. Hayward could not imagine him as he was 
 when the poem was written, standing with the open door 
 before him, considering for a moment whether it was 
 best to enter and mingle with the crowd, or whether he 
 should say to his soul — 
 
 Be thine to meditate a humbler flight, 
 
 When morning fills the fields with rosy light : 
 
GRATTAN ON THE SLAVERY OF OFFICE 
 
 371 
 
 Be thine to blend — nor thine a vulgar aim — 
 
 Bepose with dignity ; with Quiet fame. 
 
 His actual mental attitude was probably that of one 
 who was conscious that he should go forward, yet who 
 •cherished an unaffected admiration for much that he 
 should leave behind, and who puts on permanent record 
 his resolution — amid 
 
 the joyous glare, the maddening strife 
 And all the dull impertinence of life — 
 
 to keep his early faith in 4 simple comforts and domestic 
 rites.’ Mr. Hayward, however, speaks of his praise 
 of modesty, simplicity, and retirement as being made 
 4 with about the same amount of practical earnestness 
 as Grattan, when he declared he could be content in 
 a small nf,at house with cold meat, bread, and beer and 
 plenty of claret.’ Grattan never made any such decla- 
 ration. The story is one of Rogers’s own, and is told 
 in the 4 Recollections : ’ 1 4 What a slavery is office ! ’ said 
 Grattan in one of his talks with Rogers, at Fredley 
 Farm, at Tunbridge Wells, or at St. James’s Place ; 4 to 
 be subject to the whims of those above you, and the 
 persecutions of those beneath you ; to dance attendance 
 on the great, to be no longer your own master. No, 
 give me a cottage and a crust — plain fare and quiet, 
 and small beer and — ’ he added, lowering his voice and 
 smiling with his usual archness — 4 claret ! ’ The con- 
 trast between these two versions of Grattan’s words is a 
 fair illustration of the difference between Rogers’s stories 
 
 1 P. 104, second edition. 
 
 b b 2 
 
372 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 as lie told them himself, and the same stories as they 
 were afterwards recounted from the imperfect memories 
 of his auditors. To compare this expression of Grattan's 
 with the tone of Rogers’s poem is absurd. The one was 
 half a joke — the other was the expression of serious 
 thoughts. Rogers had not dreamed, as yet, of the 
 exquisite home in St. James’s Place where, for fifty 
 years his friends saw him, like a picture in its appro- 
 priate frame and placed in fit surroundings, and regarded 
 him as the impersonated spirit of the scene. ‘ He 
 cultivated art as yet — ’ says his nephew — ‘ only as a 
 student and with economy. He had not begun to form 
 his own valuable collection ; and the works of art therein 
 recommended to our purchase are not pictures and 
 marbles, but copies from the antique in plaster and 
 sulphur, and engravings after Italian painters.’ He was, 
 in fact, just setting out on his career of art patronage 
 and social success. He had two homes — one at Stoke 
 Newington, the other in chambers in Paper Buildings, 
 and he was gradually deciding between them. The last 
 lines of the ‘ Epistle ’ are a record of his experience in the 
 five years before it was published — 
 
 One fair asylum from the world he knew, 
 
 Who boasts of more (believe the serious strain) 
 
 Sighs for a home, and sighs alas ! in vain. 
 
 Through each he roves, the tenant of a day, 
 
 And, with the swallow, wings the year away. 
 
 About this period he wrote in his Commonplace Book 
 the sentence which was incorporated in his last note to 
 the poem : ‘ The master of many houses has no home.’ 
 
LEAVING THE OLD HOME 
 
 373 
 
 The decision was probably taken during or after 
 his autumn visit to Brighton and the formation of 
 his friendship with Lady Jersey in 1797. In the fol- 
 lowing June, after the ‘ Epistle ’ had been published in 
 the spring, he finally gave up the home 011 Newington 
 Green, and lived in his chambers, alone. His brother 
 Henry had already taken a house at Highbury Terrace, 
 with his lister Sarah ; and his sister Maria Sharpe, who 
 had taken her children there for a summer holiday in 
 1798, speaks of Highbury Terrace at that time as ‘ quite 
 a gay place, more like the seaside than anything else.’ 
 The old house at Newington Green was put into the 
 hands of an auctioneer for sale, and Rogers’s fastidious 
 taste was greatly annoyed by the advertised description 
 of the place. 'I should never have known it,’ writes 
 Maria Sharpe to her sister Sarah, ‘ if the place had not 
 been mentioned. I read it to Mr. Sharpe and Catharine 
 without their at all making it out. I am sorry they 
 have dressed an old friend in borrowed ornaments.’ In 
 these letters there are frequent glimpses of Sam, as he 
 is always called. ‘ His room is much improved since 
 you saw it,’ she tells her sister in May 1797. He is 
 often at Sutton Sharpe’s ; and Flaxman and Opie and 
 Stothard are spoken of with Richard Sharp and the 
 Barbaulds, the Boddingtons, and the families of the 
 Towgoods and Mallets. One day there is a party at 
 Richmond to which Sam has invited them. He and R. 
 Sharp, who is present, are very fond of Richmond, but 
 R. Sharp monopolises the poet, and Maria complains 
 that he deserted them. Another time she remarks to 
 her sister Sarah : ‘ What very pretty presents he mal es 
 
374 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 to yon ! Is it not well to be the single sister ? ’ The 
 question is asked in 1 800, and for fifty years after it 
 Miss Eogers had every reason to answer yes. 
 
 It was Rogers’s custom in these years to get his 
 friends together pretty frequently to dinner and evening 
 parties in his chambers, and the meal or refreshments 
 were sent in from the ‘ Mitre ’ — still a well-known tavern 
 in a court out of Fleet Street. Among the stories he 
 told in later years Mr. Hayward has preserved one 
 which relates to one of these dinners. Rogers had 
 invited Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, Perry (of the Morning 
 Chronicle ), and other Whig notables to dinner, and as 
 usual had ordered it at the ‘ Mitre.’ These dinners 
 usually came in by instalments — as Sydney Smith 
 reminds us, when, arriving just as some portion of the 
 repast was being delivered, he exclaimed : ‘ I knew I was. 
 in time, for though the turtle had the start of me I 
 fairly headed the turbot.’ The guests on this occasion, 
 however, had the start of the turtle. The dinner-hour 
 came, the guests were in the drawing-room, but there 
 was no dinner. ‘ I quietly stole out,’ said Rogers, ‘ and 
 hurried to the “ Mitre.” “ What has become of my 
 dinner ? ” I asked. “ Your dinner, sir ? Your dinner is 
 for to-morrow ! ” I stood aghast, and for a moment plans 
 of suicidal desperation crossed my brain, when the tavern- 
 keeper relieved me from my perplexity by saying that 
 he had so many dinners on hand that mine, if ever 
 ordered, had escaped his recollection altogether. “ Many 
 dinners on hand, have you ? Then if you will send me 
 the best dish from each of them I will pay you double ; 
 and if you won’t you shall never see my face again.” 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FOX 
 
 375 
 
 As I was a good customer he chose the more prudent 
 and profitable alternative, and after an hour’s waiting 
 my guests were seated and served.’ 4 And how did the 
 dinner go off ? ’ 4 Oh, very well ! They got a bad dinner, 
 but they got a good story to tell against me.’ 
 
 He had already begun to make those notes of his 
 conversations with eminent and celebrated men which 
 gave so much pleasure to his guests in later years. In 
 the charming volume of 4 Recollections,’ edited in 1859 by 
 his nephew Mr. William Sharpe, the first conversation 
 with Fox which is recorded took place on the 19th of 
 March 1796. He had met Fox before, but this time he 
 seems to have engaged in conversation with the great 
 statesman. The first occasion illustrated the 4 playful- 
 ness ’ which Rogers in his prefatory note attributes to 
 Fox. The latter exhibits— to quote Rogers’s words — 4 his 
 love of letters and his good nature in unbending himself 
 to a young man.’ The conversation took place at the 
 dinner table of William Smith, the well-known Unitarian 
 member for Norwich, and the champion in the House 
 of Commons of the rights of Dissenters in the days when 
 the Test and Corporation Acts and other oppressive 
 measures remained unrepealed. There were present, 
 besides Fox and Rogers, Dr. Parr, George Tierney, John 
 Courtenay, Sir Francis Baring, Dr. Aikin (the eminent 
 brother of Mrs. Barbauld), Mackintosh, and Sir Philip 
 Francis. Sheridan sent an excuse. Rogers dined with 
 Fox again at Serjeant Hey wood’s on the 10th of Decem- 
 ber 1796, when Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, Lord Lauder- 
 dale, Lambton, (the member for Durham), and Brogden 
 constituted the party. On another day he puts on record 
 
376 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 his meeting Fox in June 1798 at the Park Gate at 
 Penshurst. He was mounted on a pony, and dressed 
 in a fustian shooting- jacket and a white hat. Mrs. 
 Armstead was in a whisky. This was a kind of light 
 carriage, so called because it was built for rapid motion, 
 and whisked along. Its familiar name was a tim-whisky. 
 The conversation on these occasions is made by the 
 4 Recollections ’ familiar to every reader. There is a 
 glimpse of Fox in a letter from Thomas Erskine, after- 
 wards Lord Erskine, to Rogers, published in the Notes to 
 the ‘ Recollections ’ (page 11). It is dated the 17th of 
 July 1798 : ‘ I called yesterday on Fox at St. Anne’s, and 
 found him drawing a pond to please an Eton boy, a son 
 of the Bishop of Down. I told him he was committing 
 a double crime, killing the poor fish and ruining Coss — 
 for Coss has a perpetual holiday there. He left off, 
 and we had some talk on the times. He has no hope.’ 
 There is another short letter from Erskine without date, 
 hut written on paper bearing the water-mark 1799, and 
 addressed to Rogers at Paper Buildings. It shows that 
 at this period Rogers and Erskine had not yet established 
 the close intimacy which marked their later years. 
 
 Thomas Erskine to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 6 Dear Sir, — The little, foolish, and too ill-natured 
 epigram which I gave you was incorrect ; it should 
 have been as below : — 
 
 ‘ Some newspapers to blot the fame 
 That waits on Fox’s patriot name, 
 
 By misreporting damn his praise. 
 
POLITICAL WARFARE IN 1 799 
 
 377 
 
 But then in far more bitter spite 
 Against a hapless courtly wight 
 
 They truly print what M — d says ! 
 
 ‘ Yours ever, 
 
 ‘ T. E.’ 
 
 There is no difficulty in identifying the name of the 
 4 courtly wight/ He was Sir John Mitford, Attorney- 
 General in 1799, Speaker of the House of Commons in 
 1801, and afterwards Lord Redesdale. The epigram 
 brings out one of the methods of political warfare which 
 were adopted in those early days of the press, but which 
 have been happily altogether outgrown. One of the hap- 
 piest features of political controversy in these days is 
 the fulness and fairness with which the chief newspapers 
 of all shades of politics report the political speeches of 
 their leading opponents. In these dark closing years of 
 the eighteenth century political passion ran high in this 
 country, stirred by the violent movement in France. It 
 was quite common to accuse prominent politicians of 
 being in communication with the enemy, and the usual 
 explanation given by the supporters of the Government 
 for Fox’s opposition to the war, was, that he was in the 
 pay of France. Walpole in one of his letters had made the 
 accusation against Wilkes, and it seems to have become 
 a common weapon of political warfare. Walpole said 
 that he was as sure that Wilkes was in the pay of France 
 as of any fact he knew ; and there were a thousand 
 lesser Walpoles in the last decade of the eighteenth 
 century who were not only sure of it with respect to 
 Fox, but who professed to know the exact amount he 
 received, the time it was paid, and the persons who 
 
378 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 conducted the transaction. Writing to Lord Webb Sey- 
 mour so late as the 26th of December 1805, Francis 
 Horner says : ‘ I could name to you gentlemen with good 
 coats on, and good sense in their own affairs, who believe 
 that Fox did actually send information to the enemy 
 in America, and is actually in the pay of France.’ 1 In 
 the days of the Anti-Jacobin 2 this charge was con- 
 stantly urged against the journals and the statesmen 
 that opposed the Government. The Anti-Jacobin in- 
 sinuates it against the Morning Chronicle , which, with 
 the Morning Post , were the leading journals of ‘ Jaco- 
 binism.’ The spirit of the time when Erskine wrote to 
 Rogers that Fox had no hope, is forcibly illustrated by 
 an event in which many of Rogers’s personal friends, 
 and in all probability Rogers himself, took part ; and 
 which may have tended to produce the despondency Fox 
 felt in that gloomy year. There was a great gathering 
 at the * Crown and Anchor ’ on Fox’s birthday, the 24th 
 of January, 1798. Two thousand people were present, 
 among them the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lauderdale, 
 Lord Oxford, Sheridan, Tierney, Erskine, and Horne 
 Tooke. Lord John Russell 3 was one of the stewards, and 
 presided in one of the rooms. After the health of Fox 
 had been drunk the Duke of Norfolk, as chairman, gave 
 several other toasts. These were : ‘ The Rights of the 
 People ; ’ ‘ Constitutional Redress of the Wrongs of the 
 People ; ’ ‘ A speedy and effectual Reform of the Repre- 
 
 1 Horner’s Memoirs and Correspondence , vol. i. p. 323. 
 
 2 The Anti-Jacobin issued its first number on the 20th November, 
 1797, and the last — the 36th — on July 9th, 1798. 
 
 3 Afterwards the sixth Duke of Bedford ; father of the Lord John 
 Russell of the Reform Bill era. 
 
GILBERT WAKEFIELD’S PROSECUTION 
 
 379 
 
 sentation of the People in Parliament ; ’ ‘ The genuine 
 Principles of the British Constitution ; ’ 4 The People of 
 Ireland : may they be speedily restored to the Blessings 
 of Law and Liberty ! ’ ‘ The Cause of Liberty all over the 
 World ; ’ and ‘ The Freedom of the Press, and Trial by 
 Jury.’ A chronicler of the time says that the seditious 
 and daring tendency of these toasts had not passed un- 
 noticed. The Anti-Jacobin which published a carica- 
 ture report of the proceedings, reminded the Duke that, 
 under another Sovereign than the Sovereign people, ‘ he 
 now holds the lieutenancy of the West Biding of the 
 County of York and the command of a regiment of 
 militia.’ From both these offices the Duke was imme- 
 diately dismissed. 
 
 The dangers of the times, however, came more imme- 
 diately home to Rogers and his friends by the prosecu- 
 tion of the Bev. Gilbert Wakefield for a pamphlet on the 
 Income Tax, in reply to the Bishop of Llandaff. Wake- 
 field had been a friend of Rogers’s father, who speaks of 
 him in a letter in a preceding chapter. He had come 
 to London from Nottingham in 1790 to undertake the 
 duties of the classical professorship in the college then 
 just established at Hackney, of which Thomas Rogers was 
 chairman. He failed to agree with his colleagues, and 
 left the college in 1791. He continued, however, to be 
 one of the friends of the Rogers family, and was regarded 
 by Samuel Rogers as one of those 
 
 Guides of my life, instructors of my youth, 
 
 Who first unveiled the hallowed form of truth ; 
 
 whom he apostrophises in the first part of ‘ The 
 
380 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Pleasures of Memory.’ Gilbert Wakefield’s pamphlet was 
 as mild as the toasts at the Fox dinner, but it seems to 
 have been thought that the time had come for the pro- 
 secution of some person whose position would make his 
 condemnation strike terror into others ; or, as Dr. Aikin 
 says : ‘ a victim to the liberty of the press, of name and 
 character to inspire a wide alarm, was really desired.’ 
 Gilbert Wakefield was therefore selected for the sacrifice, 
 and no pains was spared to secure his conviction. He 
 was not attacked at once. Johnson and Jordan, the 
 booksellers who sold the pamphlet, were first tried, and 
 sentenced — the former to a fine of fifty pounds and six 
 months’ imprisonment ; the latter to a year’s confine- 
 ment. Mr. Cuthell, the publisher, was also punished ; 
 and then the blow fell on the gentle scholar and divine. 
 He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years 
 imprisonment in Dorchester gaol. This fierce blow at 
 freedom of discussion created almost a panic. Gilbert 
 Wakefield’s friends did all that could be done to modify 
 the rigour of his confinement, and Fox kept up with him 
 that learned correspondence which had been begun in 
 happier circumstances, and which was afterwards pub- 
 lished. Many of the Whigs made Wakefield’s prison 
 cell the object of a pious pilgrimage ; and Rogers and 
 his sister Sarah were among them. The utmost con- 
 sideration was shown toAVakefield by his gaolers, but the 
 imprisonment shortened his life, and he died less than 
 four months after his liberation in 1801. To the end of 
 his life Rogers never failed to speak of him w T ith affec- 
 tion and regard, and of his prosecution and sentence as 
 infamous. It brought home in the strongest way to him 
 
PARK AND MACKINTOSH 
 
 381 
 
 and to his friends the full nature of the oppression 
 which they held to justify the Whigs for seceding for a 
 time from a House of Commons which kept such a 
 Government in power. 
 
 In his 4 Recollections ’ of Fox Rogers tells the story, as 
 repeated by Fox in 1805, of an apparently discourteous 
 reply of Dr. Parr to Mackintosh. The same story is also 
 told in Mr. Dyce’s book. Mr. Dyce reports Rogers as 
 saying that when he read to Parr the account of 
 O’Quigley’s death — who had been hanged on Penenden 
 Heath for a traitorous correspondence with France — the 
 tears rolled down his cheeks. His reply to Mackintosh 
 arose out of a conversation on the subject at a party at 
 which many Whigs were present. Parr said O’Quigley 
 was no impostor, that he died in the conviction that the 
 cause in which he intrigued and suffered was a good one. 
 4 1 am hurt,’ rejoined Mackintosh, 4 to hear Dr. Parr 
 employing his great talents in defence of such a wretch 
 as O’Quigley, who was as bad a man as could possibly be/ 
 4 No, no, Jamie,’ responded Dr. Parr ; 4 not so bad a man 
 as could possibly be : for, recollect O’Quigley was a priest 
 — he might have been a lawyer ; he was an Irishman — he 
 might have been a Scotchman ; he was consistent, Jamie 
 — he might have been an apostate.’ I tell the story, as it 
 is given by the Rev. C. Colton in the notes to his satire, 
 4 Hypocrisy.’ It has no meaning, however, apart from the 
 explanation Colton gives and Rogers omits, that Parr and 
 many of Mackintosh’s friends were greatly pained at what 
 some of them regarded as Mackintosh’s political apostasj^. 
 Rogers has himself recorded that Mackintosh had con- 
 fessed to Burke some change of view; and at a later 
 
382 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 period he tells us that Fox resented Mackintosh’s 
 acceptance of the recordership of Bombay from the then 
 existing Government. The slight indications all these 
 circumstances give of Rogers’s political position in the 
 closing years of the century combine together to prove 
 that he and his circle of intimate friends held firmly to 
 their Whig principles, and that though he took little 
 part in public movements, he heartily concurred with 
 them in holding aloof from all contact or sympathy with 
 a Government which was, as they held, betraying consti- 
 tutional freedom in the house of its friends. 
 
383 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 * The Pursuits of Literature ’ — A winter at Exmouth — Classical reading 
 — George Steevens — Jackson of Exeter — Letters to Richard Sharp — 
 Dr. Moore’s ‘ Mordaunt ’ — Dr. Moore’s death — Kichard Sharp and 
 Fredley — Brighton in 1801. 
 
 The contrast presented by the beginning and the end 
 of the last chapter, which opened with poetry and the 
 praise of country life, and closed with political persecu- 
 tion and danger, aptly illustrates Rogers’s life during 
 these gloomy years. How completely he was able to 
 live in his poetry, is shown by the entire absence from 
 it of any allusion to the outer world of politics. The 
 chief literary excitement of this period was caused by 
 the publication of the satirical poem, ‘The Pursuits of 
 Literature,’ which appeared in parts, the first in 1794, 
 the second and third in 1796, and the fourth in 1797. 
 There was nothing in the poem itself to call attention to 
 it. It is a feeble imitation of Gifford. But it was made 
 the vehicle of an immense bundle of Notes, full of 
 personal attacks on all the chief Liberals of the time. 
 The first part of the poem has only two hundred and 
 fifty lines ; but there are many pages which contain but 
 one line or two, and all the rest of the page is ‘ notes.’ 
 In this way the first part swelled to a volume of more 
 than a hundred pages. The authorship of the poem was 
 
384 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 at first a mystery ; and the magazines were full of spe- 
 culations about it. It was at last discovered to be by 
 T. J. Mathias. He was a friend of Rogers’s, though of 
 different politics, and Rogers had a good deal of inter- 
 course with him in succeeding years. It is a testimony 
 to Rogers’s literary position that the political satirists of 
 the period usually let him alone. One of the persons 
 attacked in the notes was Dr. Joseph Warton, whose 
 ‘ Life of Pope ’ was described as ‘ A Commonplace Book 
 upon Pope.’ He was, himself, spoken of as ‘ drivelling 
 on the page of Pope ; ’ and a dozen pages of notes were 
 devoted, with all the capitals and italics by which feeble 
 writers attempt to make their sentences emphatic, to 
 what was intended to be a very severe assault upon him 
 as a poet, a critic, and a biographer. Warton wrote to 
 Rogers about it, speaking of Mathias as his ‘ pious critic/ 
 but Rogers agreed with some of the criticism, as Warton 
 had printed some things — such as the ‘ Imitation of the 
 Second Satire of the First Book of Horace ’ — which Pope 
 had never publicly acknowledged as his own. Nothing in 
 later times has created quite such an excitement and hub- 
 bub among literary men as this book. It was an early 
 product of the reaction the French Revolution had pro- 
 duced. Scarcely a single writer who was on the Liberal side 
 escaped, and gross personalities were used in an attempt 
 to throw discredit on them. Rogers, who knew Steevens, 
 used to say that Steevens had said to Mathias : ‘ Well, 
 since you deny the authorship of “ The Pursuits of 
 Literature,” I need have no hesitation in telling you that 
 the person who wrote it is a liar and a blackguard ! ’ 
 Rogers one day asked Mathias whether he had written 
 
DKEAMINGr ON PARNASSUS 
 
 385 
 
 it, and Mathias replied : * Can yon suppose that I am the 
 author of the poem when you are not mentioned in it ? ’ 
 But some time after this Lord Bessborough, who was 
 getting up an illustrated edition with portraits, asked 
 Rogers for his portrait for the purpose. Rogers said : 
 
 < Why — there is no mention in it of me ! ’ Lord Bess- 
 borough, however, turned to the note in which the 
 observation is made that : ‘ Time was when bankers were 
 as stupid as their guineas could make them ; 5 but now 
 Mr. Dent is a speaker, * Sir Robert has his pencil and 
 his canvas, and Mr. Rogers dreams on Parnassus, and 
 if I am rightly informed there is a great demand among 
 his brethren for “ The Pleasures of Memory.” 5 
 
 After the publication of ‘ An Epistle to a Friend ’ 
 Rogers seems to have devoted himself to a general course 
 of reading and to the careful study of the principles of 
 art as applied to household furnishing. He was thinking 
 in these years of the ‘ one fair asylum from the world ; 5 
 the ‘ one chosen seat that charms with various view ; ’ of 
 
 this calm recess, so richly fraught 
 With mental light and luxury of thought ; 
 
 in which the life of the hero of the ‘ Epistle 5 ‘ steals on,’ 
 of the humble walls which, thanks to ‘the faithful 
 graver , 5 ‘ thy gallery Florence gilds , 5 and the low roof 
 which ‘ the Vatican recalls . 5 His first step, however, was 
 the taking of a course of classical literature. His health 
 at this time was very precarious, and he seems to have 
 suffered a good deal mentally from the gloomy aspect of 
 the times. In London he must necessarily live among 
 men who were absorbed in the great struggle which the 
 
386 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Whigs were carrying on against the war and the Govern- 
 ment. But away from London, whether he was at 
 Margate, or at Brighton, or travelling, he put all these 
 anxieties aside and, as his letters show, plunged into 
 the social gaieties of the place and of the season. This, 
 however, was not the case in the winter of 1799. In 
 the autumn of that year his health was so delicate that 
 Dr. Moore insisted that he should spend the winter in 
 Devonshire. There was no obstacle to his doing so. 
 The business in Freeman’s Court was falling more and 
 more under the management of his brother Henry, 
 whose ability Samuel Rogers was able to trust implicitly. 
 Henry Rogers was now five-and-twenty, and with the 
 other partners had relieved his brother of all concern 
 for the bank when it was needful for him to go away. 
 He therefore took Dr. Moore’s advice, and went to winter 
 at Exmouth in 1799-1800. 
 
 He made this enforced stay on the Devonshire coast 
 a kind of studious exile. He had left school compara- 
 tively early, and had not done much classical reading. 
 He knew a good deal of Latin, and something of Greek, 
 but he had formed the desire to make himself acquainted 
 with the great writers of antiquity. He could not now 
 rub up his classics sufficiently to enable him to read 
 them in the original, and he consequently furnished 
 himself with the best English and French translations. 
 These translations he read with the utmost care, making 
 elaborate notes and criticisms upon them as he went 
 along. There are two volumes of a diary of his readings 
 which show that almost every day had its task, and that 
 the task was well and patiently done. Three or four 
 
HERODOTUS VERSUS THUCYDIDES 
 
 387 
 
 months thus spent were felt to be well spent. They 
 made a great addition to his knowledge, and the vantage- 
 ground thus gained he never permitted himself to lose. 
 There is no need to reproduce these diaries. One of his 
 notes, however, I may extract as illustrating his views. 
 Eecording the completion of his reading of Herodotus 
 Eogers writes — 
 
 ‘ It is with regret that I take leave of this pleasant 
 old man. Of his accuracy as a naturalist Boerhaave has 
 remarked that daily observation has confirmed almost 
 all he has said, and every page shows his diligence in 
 collecting materials. Less severe than Thucydides, he 
 delights in little circumstances not closely connected 
 with his subject, and is fond of expressing on all occa- 
 sions his own thoughts and feelings. Less frequent and 
 prolix in his speeches, he sometimes rises into grandeur, 
 and particularly in the discourse of Xerxes at the Helles- 
 pont. In one respect he has greatly the advantage. 
 Thucydides has followed the order of times, Herodotus 
 that of things. Perhaps his history is too much scattered, 
 but it is written with a charming simplicity. His was 
 the vast design of a universal history, and the Greek 
 and the Barbarian have equal favour in his eyes. He 
 has given us nothing, perhaps, like the oration of Peri- 
 cles, or the closing scene at the siege of Syracuse, but 
 the invasion of Scythia by Darius is incomparably simple 
 and sublime, and perhaps no passage in any historian 
 is so interesting as his account of the defence at Thermo- 
 pylae. The slow approach of the Persian army and that 
 stillness of despair with which the Greeks await its 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 arrival, make an impression on the mind which must 
 last for life.’ 
 
 Another aspect of this Exmouth life is given in the 
 following letters : — 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Henry Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Exmouth : 23 Novr. ’99. 
 
 ‘ My dear Henry, — I answered your letter by return 
 of post, and hope you received mine. I presume the 
 business is in train, and that everything goes on to your 
 satisfaction. If I am in the least wanted let me know, 
 and I shall think little of the journey— not that I am yet 
 tired of being here, though my friend Maltby says I shall 
 soon be. I have never, indeed, in my life spent so many 
 solitary hours, yet perhaps have never been so busy, and 
 can truly say I have been less alone than I have often 
 been in the midst of society. I have read Xenophon’s 
 “ Memorabilia ” and history, and am now half-way on my 
 journey through Larcher’s Herodotus ; and have, indeed, 
 a course of reading for six months before me, even in my 
 present state of life. As to my health, I think it cer- 
 tainly as good as at Tunbridge, though my breast at times 
 is very painful, but I eat and sleep and enjoy myself. 
 My breath is rather shorter than it was, and I am a little 
 out of humour with the roads of this country, which are 
 very stony and admit of no pace safely but a jog-trot, 
 which jars me. I have, however, a little bit of sandy 
 common between me and the river, under the bank on 
 which I live, and on that I exercise in still weather. 
 The walk along the sands is very delightful, and con- 
 
EXILE AT EXMOUTH 
 
 389 
 
 tinues at low water for miles under very romantic rocks. 
 The shore is strewed with weeds and pebbles, which 
 afford much more amusement, particularly the last, than 
 I had apprehended. Lord Rolle’s hounds are within 
 three miles of me; I met them this morning on the 
 Sidmouth Road, but the distance is too great for me to 
 derive any amusement even in my way from them. 
 
 ‘ I am much obliged to you for the newspapers, which 
 come regularly. Indeed, I am very luxurious in that 
 article of news, being furnished with the three evening 
 papers regularly after sunset from the libraries. What 
 a strange world we live in ! These consuls (how they 
 must laugh in their sleeves !) will not immediately de- 
 velop their plan, whatever it may be ; but it will be 
 amusing to see what two such men, such a head and 
 such a hand, will do if left to themselves in Europe. 
 Before I left town I sent Maria the receipt for bread 
 sauce. I hope Sarah has it. I have put up a few Pira- 
 nesis in my room, and they please me every hour. It is 
 odd enough that I should find two drawings hung up there 
 of Stothard’s. Upon examining them I find they are 
 copies of two of mine by a young lady. They look very 
 well, and I am glad to find they make such good furni- 
 ture. If John should apply to you again, may I trouble 
 you to say, as from me, to anybody, that I believe him 
 to be sober and diligent, and in every respect qualified 
 to make a good servant ? My present man pleases me 
 very much ; he is cheerful and obliging, and much more 
 attentive than John. I am glad to find that Dan has 
 settled somewhere, though I wish it had been nearer 
 town. I hope it will improve upon him. I suppose 
 
390 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Bretell has acknowledged the receipt of the writings I 
 sent him. Mr. Jackson speaks with great respect of 
 Mr. Towgood’s grandfather, and enquired much after 
 his father. He says the picture is the best Opie ever 
 painted. I have not yet called upon Mrs. Towgood, but 
 certainly shall very soon. The Exeter Theatre opened 
 last Monday with Reicher, the rope-dancer from Sadler’s 
 Wells. Everybody goes to see him. How long I shall 
 stay here I don’t know. I have taken my lodgings for a 
 month. It is not, I think, impossible that I may fidget 
 for a short time a little farther westward. . . . Adieu ! 
 my dear Henry. 
 
 ‘ Believe me, ever yours, 
 
 ‘ Saml. Rogers." 
 
 The interval between this letter and the next was 
 one of studious industry. The diary of his reading for 
 these two months fills a considerable volume. There is 
 no reference in it to himself nor to the society he found 
 at Exmouth ; nothing but a careful analysis of his read- 
 ing in Xenophon, Herodotus, and Euripides, with a 
 plunge into iEschylus, of whom, however, he remarks : 
 ‘ To me not half so rich or forcible as Euripides. I 
 return to him with great pleasure.’ 
 
 The new year found him still in exile, and he writes 
 to his sister Sarah on the 3rd of January 1800 : — 
 
 * You fear Exmouth is dull. It is very quiet and I 
 can almost persuade myself I like quiet. l r ou, perhaps, 
 may like to see the dramatis persoruz . Here are Mr. 
 and Mrs. Stoughton from the Yale of Usk — neighbours 
 of the Waddingtons, very good sort of people with whom 
 
EXMOUTH ACQUAINTANCES 
 
 391 
 
 I have dined more than once. If you were to ask how 
 we became acquainted we none of us know. On the 
 first day we stared at one another, on the second we 
 looked sociably, on the third ditto, on the fourth 
 ditto, on the fifth we bowed, on the sixth spoke. 
 This is the history of an Exmouth acquaintance, and 
 indeed, what else can we do ? We meet from the four 
 quarters, and, as our object is the same, a general sym- 
 pathy leads to a general acquaintance. Last week, on 
 the underwalk, a very stately old lady, with a nod and a 
 simper, asked me how I did, and we are now very thick : 
 a Mrs. Chantrey, the very Plutarch of family biography, 
 well versed in Leicestershire anecdotes, and very full of 
 Jack Simpson’s wedding, which takes place this week. 
 Some time before, on the sands, a gentleman introduced 
 himself to me as having seen me in town. I have no 
 recollection of him, but he is a great acquisition — has 
 travelled much and lived many years in Italy. His 
 wife, Lady Charlotte Carr, is a very pleasing, sensible 
 young woman — one of the Errolls. By the means of a 
 sedan chair I have ventured out in an evening to them. 
 With the Barings, a mile off, I have often dined, but my 
 great comfort is within a door of me, by Mrs. Labouchere’s 
 fireside, where I generally find myself when my eyes ache 
 in an evening. Her cousin, Miss Stone (whose father 
 Mr. Baper knows as a brother director), is a very pretty 
 girl, and has accompanied Dolly, in the heroism of 
 friendship, to pass her winter in this retreat. They 
 decline all acquaintance, and I believe I am the only 
 person they see here, though they frequently visit among 
 the Barings. I was invited to revel out my Christmas 
 week at Cowley with the whole clan, but I did not 
 
39 2 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGEES 
 
 venture, and rather chose (a symptom of age and dul- 
 ness, you will say) to take my flight in the sunshine of 
 an October morning to Plymouth, where I expected to 
 see some fine scenery, and, indeed, I now pronounce it 
 the finest thing I have seen in Devonshire. There is a 
 walk under a stone quarry over against Mount Edge- 
 cumbe and winding along the sea-shore towards Lord 
 Boringdon’s which is divine.’ 
 
 The next letter relates to another crisis in the history 
 of his closest friend. 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 ‘ Exmouth : Jan. 26th, 1800. 
 
 ‘ What you sent me, my dear friend, I cannot tell ; 
 but it has done more than all your prescriptions. A 
 few repetitions will compleat the cure, and Darwin shall 
 make a case of it. 
 
 ‘ Your news had been, in some degree, anticipated. 
 I had not forgot you and I knew that the bank, by their 
 decision, had, at all events, most effectually stepped in 
 between you and calamity. But forgive me if I had 
 from the first no very great faith in your predictions. 
 I know when your courage leaves you. “ Man but a 
 rush against Othello’s breast,” &c. The fury of the 
 tempest has gone over you, but it has not left you as it 
 found you. Your consequence as a house is now more 
 than ever established in the world ; and your own in- 
 dividual importance is felt and acknowledged where it 
 should be. B. admired you before — he will now cling 
 to you as the man who may be truly said to have given 
 
GEORGE STEEVENS 
 
 393 
 
 him all he possesses ; and your sensations, even on that 
 account, must be very enviable. 
 
 ‘ A thousand thanks for your kind enquiries. I think 
 myself much better, and mean to return among you the 
 Stentor of clubs, and the terror of all quiet people. 
 
 ‘ Yours most affectionately, 
 
 ‘ Saml. Rogers. 
 
 ‘ P.S. So the outlaw is at last dead in his den ! How 
 has he left his books ? ’ 
 
 This reference in the postscript is to George Stee- 
 vens, the editor of Shakespeare, who had died at his 
 house at Hampstead on the 22nd of January. He had 
 been living for some years a very eccentric life, as his 
 biographer in the Gentleman' s Magazine said — ‘ in un- 
 visitable retirement, and seldom mixed with society, but 
 in booksellers’ shops, or the Shakespeare Gallery, or the 
 morning conversazione of Sir Joseph Banks.’ Rogers 
 and Sharp, however, met him occasionally there or else- 
 where, and profited by his amusing conversation. He 
 was one of those veterans of the literary profession to 
 whom younger aspirants for fame look up, and whose 
 talk of the great men among whom they lived has the 
 most lively interest to the men who are following them 
 along the toilsome way. One of Steevens’s eccentricities 
 was to go down to his printers at one in the morning 
 and in the chambers of Isaac Reed, which were kept open 
 for him, to read his proofs and get all his corrections 
 ready while the compositors were asleep. He left his 
 books, with one or two special exceptions, to his niece, 
 Miss Steevens. 
 
394 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Richard Sharp’s reply to this letter is lost. The next 
 is from Rogers. 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 ‘ Exmouth : 18 Feby. [1800.] 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — Your last letter gave me great 
 pleasure. It was not, indeed, emblazoned like Bona- 
 parte’s, nor, like Lady J.’s, scented with odour of roses, 
 but it whispered of health and leisure and peace of 
 mind. With a permit from his Maj y ’ s Comm rs I would 
 send you a few bottles of our Exmouth Elixir — for an 
 idea of its effects consult St. Leon, an authentic narra- 
 tive far better conceived than executed. Moore’s novel 
 has not yet arrived here, though hourly expected. It 
 travels, I fear, with the rapidity of a flying w 7 aggon. 
 
 ‘ Our sun is not much obliged to you for your sus- 
 picions. He descends, I can assure you, every evening 
 into the groves of Mamhead. 
 
 ‘ Exmouth, I fancy, is no longer the Exmouth you 
 saw. The walk on Chapel Hill is still the same. The 
 other to the bench round a tree has walked itself off. I 
 am sorry to hear you have had no vigour to write. Have 
 you imbibed Gray’s notion of that faculty ? 1 I fear he 
 was right. A sight of your old papers, however, will 
 surely awake it. As to myself, I expect soon to be 
 
 1 Rogers probably refers to what Gray says in a letter to Dr. Wharton : 
 ‘ I by no means pretend to inspiration, but yet I affirm that the faculty 
 in question is by no means voluntary. It is the result (I suppose) of a 
 certain disposition of mind, which does not depend on one’s self, and 
 which I have not felt this long time. You that are a witness how seldom 
 this spirit has moved me in my life may easily give credit to what I 
 say.’ 
 
CLASSICS AND POETRY 
 
 395 
 
 exhibited as a most extraordinary vegetable. I have 
 once or twice attempted to flower. You never have. For 
 an account of my last effort and of yours , see the Anti- 
 Jacobin Revieiv for January, under the article of “Re- 
 viewers Reviewed. ” Mr. Polwhele is the writer. I have 
 also much to say of L archer — Homer I defer till I can 
 procure a French translation of which I have a high 
 idea. The three tragedians I have just done — and done 
 well ; as for Euripides, he has turned my head. I wonder 
 whether anybody ever read him before. I fancy not. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Jackson is gone to Bath. He desired to be 
 mentioned particularly to you before he went. He is so 
 altered that my servant was shocked when he saw him 
 last week. The last lines he wrote me are very charac- 
 teristic. Will they be the last ? He says so, but I will 
 not look that way. 
 
 ‘ My verse is neither idle nor active. Jackson threw 
 a slur upon it some weeks ago, and it roused me to in- 
 credible exertions for four-and-twenty hours ; but the fit 
 went off and left me languid and listless. In solitude I 
 can conceive, but I cannot execute, I cannot finish. 
 
 ‘ The life I have led among those old Fograms — the 
 Grecians — has thrown me into a singular state of mind, 
 not altogether unpleasing but very ill-suited to that 
 gallipot style of painting which I have been accustomed 
 to, and which I fear the public require. 
 
 4 When you see G. P. — you are now I suppose, properly 
 purified and are not to be burnt by Act of Parliament like 
 the ships from Mogador 1 — pray thank him in my name 
 
 1 The ships — the Aurora, the Mentor and the Lark — were not burnt 
 by Act of Parliament, but by an Order in Council. The goods on board 
 
396 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 for an act of friendship he has lately done me. I think 
 myself particularly obliged to him, not so much for the 
 thing itself, though that was something, as for the 
 manner in which he did it — a circumstance which I am 
 persuaded is always the case with him. 
 
 ‘ By the way, of Manchester, Mr. Baring, who called 
 upon me yesterday, says Jackson talks of going on to 
 Manchester to consult Ferriar , * 1 if the Bath waters should 
 not relieve him. 
 
 ‘I have not seen one of the Exeter wits, though I 
 have received an indirect application to become an 
 honorary member of their club — a thing which I rather 
 like, and have consented to. Polwhele has been expelled 
 from it. Adieu ! my dear friend. 
 
 ‘ In return for these salt-water effusions I shall expect 
 a long and succinct narrative of all your whereabouts 
 from his Majesty the King of Clubs , 2 to the dirty drap 
 in Covent Garden. I am inclined to think very favour- 
 ably of myself just now, though I dare not yet think of 
 returning to you. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘S.B. 
 
 were regarded as likely to communicate infection, and the vessels and 
 cargoes were destroyed. This proceeding was the subject of a royal 
 message to the House of Commons in February, 1800, which was referred 
 to a Select Committee, and 41,400?. was voted, on the Report of that 
 committee, as compensation. 
 
 1 John Ferriar, M.D., was an eminent physician in Manchester, who 
 wrote several medical books — besides Illustrations of Sterne , and An 
 Essay toiuards a Theory of Apparitions. He died in 1815, at the age of 
 fifty-one. 
 
 2 The celebrated club bearing this name was founded at the house of 
 Mackintosh in 1801. See next Chapter. 
 
DR. MOORE’S ‘MORDAUNT 
 
 397 
 
 ‘P.S. The door opens, and “ Mor daunt ” enters. 
 Moore has written me a long letter to prove that 
 “ Pizarro ” is Sherry’s clief-d' oeuvre. I shall draw my 
 pen against him in a day or two.’ 
 
 It would be interesting to have Rogers’s reply to 
 Dr. Moore’s absurd contention that ‘ Pizarro ’ — a mere 
 translation and adaptation from Kotzebue — was Sheri- 
 dan’s chef-d'oeuvre. It was produced at Drury Lane in 
 1799, and had considerable success. Dr. Moore himself 
 was falling into the feebleness of age. ‘ Mordaunt,’ which 
 arrived in Rogers’s room as he was penning his post- 
 script, was the old novelist’s last work. Mrs. Barbauld 
 describes it as a very languid production. Moore asked 
 Rogers for criticism, and Rogers had difficulty in 
 evading the necessity of giving it. Meanwhile he writes 
 again to Richard Sharp — 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 ‘ Exmouth : Feb. 5th, 1800. 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — Your kind and entertaining letter 
 was dropped by some sylph or sylphid upon my pillow 
 this morning. You and they have my best thanks. 
 Your account of yourself I don’t like, but hope you are 
 by this time able to visit the den at Hampstead. Pray 
 let me know if it is yet unbarred, as I shall certainly set 
 off if it is. Now its tenant is dead we may see it in 
 safety. The nondescript in his nest , hard by, drew his 
 visage, I believe. Moore is, indeed, very severe upon me. 
 I should like to give him a taste of my banishment. I 
 hope you have spent your winter pleasantly. As for me. 
 
398 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 I leave my time to spend itself, and often for the hour 
 together watch the ferry-boat under my windows, think- 
 ing of nothing less than the oxen and sheep and farmer’s 
 wives that are in it. For the first six weeks the east 
 wind was here, and I can assure you tolerably venomous, 
 though I flatter myself less mortal in his bite than with 
 you. I was literally in a state of siege, the air was so 
 full of blue devils I could distinguish nothing, and my 
 world was contracted to the size of the carpet. At that 
 time, I fear, my health greatly suffered. I read for 
 once in my life, and though I felt no great inconvenience 
 at the time I have declined almost ever since. I am 
 now, however, rallying a little. The sun shines, and the 
 sky and sea contend which is the bluest. This morning 
 the wind serves, and our little fleet of coasting vessels is 
 dropping out to sea. The air is warm as summer, and 
 yet that Inquisitor in the Welsh wig sits coolly down in 
 the bustle of Bond Street and condemns me to linger on 
 till May. The very thought is frightful. I did hope to 
 return by the Ides of March. 
 
 ‘ Jackson is, I fear, in a bad way. For the first two 
 months I spent half my time with him, and his kindness 
 has affected me not a little. Among other proofs of his 
 regard he has requested me to take charge of his papers, 
 and I shall not soon forget the manner in which he put 
 out his hand on the occasion. Ever since I came into 
 this country he has faded very visibly. In a letter 
 which I have this instant received from him he says : “ I 
 cannot walk a hundred yards, nor speak half as many 
 words without fatigue. Sleep'and I are upon such bad 
 terms that three successive nights I have passed without 
 
JACKSON OF EXETER 
 
 399 
 
 closing my eyes for a single moment. This state of 
 affairs cannot last long, and I wish for a speedy change 
 one way or other.” I do, indeed, fear that my trust will 
 soon devolve to me — a trust which he had the kindness 
 to say he had long wished to leave to me. You can easily 
 conceive how interesting he is at this moment. His 
 faculties are unimpaired, but his countenance has lost its 
 youthful character. Adieu ! The annals of Exmouth I 
 must reserve for my next. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘S. R. 
 
 ‘ Shall I send you this bunch of primroses ? I gathered 
 them out of the hedge just now. How sweet they are ! 
 My best regards to B. My imagination already feasts on 
 the splendours of the Villa Boddingtonini.’ 
 
 The Jackson spoken of in the above letters was the 
 eminent composer of Church music. One of the 
 memorable events of this long winter exile at Exmouth 
 was that Rogers made the acquaintance of this inte- 
 resting and remarkable musician. He probably carried 
 with him an introduction to Jackson from Sheridan or 
 his wife. Jackson was then seventy years of age, and 
 was in ill-health. He was fond of talking about his early 
 days, and Rogers has made in his Commonplace Book 
 a sketch of Jackson’s life with extracts from his diary. 
 Jackson was the son of an Exeter tradesman. At seven- 
 teen he went to London, riding on horseback as far as to 
 Winchester, and from thence in the Winchester stage, in 
 which he was robbed. Arrived at the Belle Sauvage 
 in the dark he followed the porter through Ludgate to 
 
400 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 the Saracen’s Head in Friday Street — a Devonshire 
 house— where he had a wet bed in the attic. In the 
 morning he called on a tradesman in Watling Street 
 with a letter of credit from his father. The tradesman 
 was collecting orders in the country, and was not expected 
 home for three months ; but Jackson was accommodated 
 with two guineas by another person, to whom he was 
 afterwards able to show his gratitude. He studied 
 music under Dr. Travers, of the Chapel Royal. One of 
 his recollections was of seeing the rebel lads executed 
 on Tower Hill. He returned to Exeter to teach music, 
 and was engaged as organist at the Cathedral. His 
 compositions were popular, and he became famous. He 
 composed his music, as he told Rogers, in the organ loft 
 4 during the intervals of the music,’ as he characteris- 
 tically called all the other parts of the service. In these 
 ‘intervals of the music,’ w 7 hen less musical mortals were 
 praying, or listening to the lessons or the sermon, 
 Jackson occupied himself in writing original music with 
 a pencil. He also composed at home for an hour after 
 his family were in bed at night. He told Rogers some 
 curious stories which give further musical views of the 
 relation of music to the service. A man came on foot 
 from Honiton to request him to play ‘ They tha t in 
 Ships,’ having heard it in the church there. Unable to 
 refuse him, and ashamed to play it himself, as he had 
 played it so often, Jackson left the church and got 
 another to play it. The man came again and again ; 
 Jackson did not know him, but he always played ‘ They 
 that in Ships ’ whenever this auditor was there. ‘ It is 
 for those people,’ said he, ‘ that we compose and play. 
 
JACKSON AND THE SHERIDANS 
 
 401 
 
 and they must have their way.’ He was once struck 
 with the fixed attitude of a waggoner’s boy at church. 
 One day an unknown person grasped his arm at the 
 entrance of Willis’s concert room and whispered ‘ But 
 a leaf in a whirlwind.’ Jackson was a great admirer of 
 Defoe, and Rogers thought his imitation of him, ‘ The 
 Royalist,’ full of invention and written with a charming 
 simplicity. Jackson was an intimate friend of the 
 Sheridans. He had known Mrs. Sheridan before her 
 marriage. He spoke of Mrs. Sheridan’s countenance 
 when singing as like nothing earthly. When he called 
 on her in town after her marriage she entreated him to 
 sing and play with her, and he did so for three hours. 
 It was so unlike anything she had known for so long a 
 time that she was exceedingly grateful. Sheridan had no 
 ear or soul for music. His son Tom flourishing over a 
 quire of paper before breakfast, and burning it sheet 
 by sheet, drinking the cream and throwing wet wafers 
 against the wall, was the picture, Jackson said, of a spoilt 
 child. Jackson wished Rogers to remember that he 
 looked forward with great composure to his end, though 
 he could have wished for eleven years more, which would 
 about suffice for finishing what he had in hand. ‘ Sitting 
 with him one day on the castle walls he drew a fresh 
 elm leaf from his purse and said he had every year 
 renewed it from a tree near Bristol,’ which had for him 
 some tender associations. Jackson died in July 1803,, 
 and, as a token of his regard for Rogers, left to him his 
 copies of the first edition of £ Paradise Lost,’ and of the 
 4 Faerie Queen.’ 
 
 The further story of this visit to Exmouth with 
 
 D D 
 
402 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 pleasant sketches of society at the close of the last 
 century is contained in letters to Richard Sharp, the 
 first of which bears witness to the revived buoyancy of 
 Rogers’s spirits in prospect of spring. 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 1 Exmouth : March 2. [1800.] 
 
 ‘ My dear Friend, — Your gossiping letter possessed 
 in my eyes the elegance of a Pliny and the grace of a 
 Sevigne. I do not so much wish you “ to turn a period 
 as to tell the news.” But what have I in return to give 
 you ? Alas, the annals of Exmouth are scanty indeed ! 
 Never has it known so dull a winter. But something 
 must be done for its credit, and shall I describe the 
 evening parties where scandal and egg-wine circulate 
 hissing hot, or shall I provoke your envy by describing 
 myself “ on the yellow sands,” with a girl under each 
 arm, a blonde and a brunette, the last lively and pretty, 
 a daughter of your banker Stone, the first pronounced 
 and very truly by Lavater an angel on earth, a daughter 
 of Charles Baring, unseen by your profane eyes. No, 
 I will shift the scene, and describe the men who 
 assemble almost every day. Mr. Acland, the uncle of 
 Lady Harriet, the heroine in Burgoyne’s expedition, an 
 old man with very amiable and elegant manners, who 
 entertains us continually in his own beautiful little 
 cottage covered with myrtles, the lion of Exmouth. Mr. 
 Ducarell the oracle and friend of Francis in the east, 
 a most entertaining fellow, the Lucullus of the village. 
 His cliauffoir and silver dishes eclipse us all. Mr. 
 
EXMOUTH IN 1800 
 
 403 
 
 Anderson, the friend and fellow-traveller of George 
 Matthew, a very accomplished man, of whom I had 
 heard much. He is generally in my house every day. 
 These with an old General and Admiral who have both 
 seen service, and a Colonel Oakes, an invalid from 
 India whom Anderson calls “ The Impregnable/’ having 
 never, he says, laughed but once in his life, at some joke 
 of mine ; these make up our little party. Who should 
 be my next-door neighbour but an old flame of mine, a 
 daughter of Sir Fras. Baring’s ! Her husband, a partner 
 in Hope’s house, is in the West Indies. She is here in a 
 very retired state with two beautiful little children, and 
 her friend and coz., Miss Stone, and when my eyes are 
 weary I generally find myself in an evening by her fire- 
 side. The last bulletin from Bath is favourable, but I 
 have great fears. On Thursday I am to be exhibited at 
 the Exeter Club. My whole length over the door, as it 
 is market day, will, of course, attract numbers. Sir 
 Jno. Kennaway has written from Bath to express his 
 regret that he cannot be there ! ! But it is to be a full 
 day. You will not forget to pray for me ; I fear it will 
 bring on a relapse. As to my health, I am certainly 
 better, and begin to build castles — a good symptom you 
 will say. But I fear I am condemned to a vagabond life, 
 and if not soon re-established shall apply to the Privy 
 Council for leave to visit Lisbon or Madeira. Under 
 which of my titles I shall travel I cannot yet say, but I 
 shall certainly go incog. In any of your evening circuits 
 (for you are now a thoroughbred rout-man) have you 
 met with the King and Queen ? Did they look in at 
 Will Smith’s, the evening you were there? As they 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 have begun with Lady Cardigan, I shall expect to pop 
 upon them and the girls two or three times at least in the 
 course of an evening. 
 
 ‘ Pray write, and have no scruples on the head of 
 expense, as we have no taxes to pay this year. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. Rogers.’ 
 
 Rogers had meanwhile written to Dr. Moore about 
 ‘Mordaunt,’ and had made a rather feeble effort to escape 
 the necessity of expressing to his choleric friend and 
 physician his opinion of the book. Other people, ladies, 
 had wanted to read it, and he had been obliged to let it 
 go before he had done more than read the first volume. 
 The doctor saw through the friendly subterfuge, and 
 wrote angrily — 
 
 ‘Woodstock St. 
 
 March 3, 1800. 
 
 ‘ If you had written to me that Lady Errol, &c., had all 
 been applying to you for “ Mordaunt ” but without effect 
 until you had finished him yourself, it would have been 
 more flattering than that you had yielded him entirely 
 up, and allowed those females to have their wicked will 
 of him when you yourself had only laboured through 
 the first volume. You do not deal so with the works of 
 Lady Jersey. When you write poetry you can praise the 
 author from the works, and the works from the author — 
 e.g. Lady Jersey and her daughters. Well ! since you 
 have begun without flattery pray continue in the same 
 style, and let me have your real notion of the whole. 
 
STILL IN DEVONSHIRE 
 
 405 
 
 Don’t be afraid of finding fault ; as your friend Dr. 
 Fretful 1 says — 4 I like it.’ 
 
 4 . . . remain quietly in Devonshire till the month of 
 May and then come quietly to London where we shall be 
 very happy to find you in far better case than when you 
 left us. 
 
 4 Another expedition is going forward. What interests 
 me more, I am sure my son will be of it. I am kept 
 very uneasy about that young man, they continually pick 
 him out for new dangers. 
 
 4 The story of the Russians not being recalled, proves 
 not to be true. I am assured they are on their march 
 back. I have a suspicion that Bonaparte spread the 
 rumour of their being to act against France merely to 
 promote his vast requisition of men and money for the 
 next campaign.’ 
 
 The order to remain at Exmouth till May reduced 
 Rogers almost to despair. In the next letter to Richard 
 Sharp there is a further glimpse of Jackson — 
 
 ‘Exmouth: Mch. 28, 1800. 
 
 4 My dear Friend, — If you had read my letter atten- 
 tively (it must long ago have experienced the fate of 
 the Alexandrian Library) you might perhaps have seen 
 something which might have led you to suspect that I 
 did enjoy the pleasure of looking into a smiling and 
 open face. But your eyes were dazzled by the long and 
 splendid list of 44 Admirals, Generals, Colonels, Baronets, 
 
 Bichard Cumberland, the Sir Fretful Plagiary of Sheridan’s Critic • 
 
406 
 
 EAKLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and Clubs ” — a list which makes me think it was you 
 who gave rise to the report of poor Horatia Clifford’s 
 hunting with men. It may relieve you in some degree 
 to learn — that the Club I have never attended, the Baronet 
 I have never seen, the Colonel is sick, the General gone, 
 and the Admiral dead. 
 
 ‘ Jackson came home last week to die. His legs are 
 swelled to a dreadful size, and his dearest friends are 
 denied access to him. I rode over to Exeter the other 
 day, and near the Cathedral met a chair curtained close, 
 followed by a lady in a veil. On my way back (I had 
 spent five melancholy minutes with his poor wife) I 
 looked up and saw his tall and ghastly figure on the 
 lawn before Mount Radford, whither he had been carried 
 once more to look on sunshine and verdure. 
 
 ‘ I pushed my horse on, and rode home to pass my 
 solitary evening as gaily as I could. Indeed, I do not 
 deserve your envy, and could you have seen me under 
 all my infirmities of mind and body, you would not have 
 written the letter you did. I pass days and days with 
 no human intercourse. But I need not describe my life 
 — you cannot, I hope, conceive it — you have never sat 
 over your melancholy embers as a winter’s evening drew 
 on, and heard the gun of distress fired in the offing, and 
 reverberated among the dismal moors and hills which 
 abound in this country. 
 
 ‘ One gleam of pleasure, however, I did experience 
 last week. I owed it to the circuit, nor will I ever for- 
 get my obligation to him who paid me the visit, even tho* 
 he should become a Secretary of State. 
 
 1 1 am much obliged to you for your verses — but if 
 
WILLIAM COMBE 
 
 407 
 
 they had been better, I think I should have preferred a 
 little more of your own prose. 
 
 ‘ I rejoice to hear of Combe's escape from his cell/ 
 He will now see more of his friends. If you should visit 
 him again, pray remember me very particularly to him. 
 His name stands very high in this country. 
 
 ‘ Adieu ! my dear friend. In a few weeks when I 
 also proem my enlargement, I shall certainly visit you 
 in your Apollo, and criticise your viands and liquors. In 
 the meantime believe me to be, 
 
 ‘ Yours most affecty., 
 
 ‘ S. R. 
 
 * “ The Ghost-seer ” has greatly disappointed me. We 
 had already read the best part of it/ 
 
 A day or two after this another letter from Dr. Moore 
 brought his long correspondence with one of his oldest 
 and earliest literary friends to its close. 
 
 1 William Combe, the author of the Diaboliad and afterwards of The 
 Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque was frequently in 
 prison for debt. In his earlier days he moved in good society, and was 
 recognised as a literary man of brilliant powers and promise. He was 
 one day visiting Uvedale Price at Foxley, when Mr. St. John (author of 
 a play called Mary Queen of Scots in which Mrs. Siddons used to act), 
 who was also staying in the house, missed some money. Uvedale 
 Price suspected Combe of taking it and gave him a hint to cut short 
 his visit. Combe took the hint, and asked whether they were thence- 
 forth to be friends or acquaintances. ‘ Acquaintances,’ said Price, 
 and Combe went away. Long afterwards he met Price and Rogers 
 together in Leicester Square. They both spoke to Combe, but from that 
 time he avoided Rogers. He wrote the ‘ Letters of the late Lord 
 Lyttelton,’ which were published after Lord Lyttelton’s death ; and the 
 ‘ Letters supposed to have passed between Sterne and Eliza ’ were by 
 him. He told Rogers that it was with him, and not with Sterne, that 
 Eliza was in love, and that he once had an intrigue with her at Brighton. 
 He died in 1823. 
 
408 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ‘Woodstock St.: April 2, 1800. 
 
 ‘ I dined a few days since at your friend Boddington’s ; 
 Sharp was there, and Tuffin, and Johnson the banker — 
 all men who mingle knowledge of business and of the 
 world with extensive reading. Men who derive their 
 knowledge from books alone are more apt to speak 
 pedantically, and argue arrogantly, and often absurdly. 
 I never before was in company with Bryan Edwards . 1 
 I thought him a very sensible and entertaining man ; 
 but there is an acumen in Sharp’s observations which 
 pierces every topic he handles. He showed me a letter 
 from you, it was a little on the plaintive : to remove the 
 impression this made on him, I assured him that you 
 sometimes assumed that style because you know how to 
 be pathetic even when in good spirits, and that when 
 you were in the most cheerful mood, I was certain you 
 could write a delightful poem on the pleasures of melan- 
 choly . 2 
 
 ‘ Your having lost no ground during a winter so pre- 
 valent in east winds, forms a strong presumption in my 
 mind, that on the whole you are better, and that this 
 
 1 Bryan Edwards, M.P. He died in July 1800. 
 
 2 Is this the origin of the lines which have been sometimes attributed 
 
 to Byron, and which appear in Rogers’s poems under the heading 
 4 To ’ ? 
 
 Go — you may call it madness, folly ; 
 
 You shall not chase my gloom away. 
 
 There’s such a charm in melancholy 
 I would not, if I could, be gay. 
 
 Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure 
 That fills my bosom when I sigh, 
 
 You would not rob me of a treasure, 
 
 Monarchs are too poor to buy ! 
 
I)R. MOORE’S LAST LETTER 
 
 409 
 
 will be apparent to all your friends and even to yourself, 
 who are not always your own friend, in the course of 
 this summer. . . . 
 
 ‘ A rumour prevails that the French and Spanish 
 fleet with a considerable number of troops are ready to 
 sail from Brest— perhaps this may be done merely to 
 retard our expedition ; it seems already to have had 
 the effect. But if the enemy’s fleet actually escape from 
 Brest, the troops we had destined for the Mediterranean 
 will probably be ordered to Ireland. My son might 
 have gone in a most advantageous situation to the East 
 Indies — he has no taste for voluptuous living, and, what 
 is still rarer, none for making a fortune. When he under- 
 stood that Sir Charles Stewart had expressed a strong 
 inclination to have him on the expedition which he is to 
 command, he preferred that. For my part I heartily wish 
 they had allowed him to remain in England during this 
 summer, which will be a most anxious one to Mrs. 
 Moore and me. My son cannot add to his military 
 reputation in any subordinate command. If ever he be 
 intrusted with a supreme command he may. . . . 
 
 ‘ I now conclude with a truth, which I hope will afford 
 me pleasure to the end of my life : I am with great esteem, 
 
 * Your affectionate friend, 
 
 * J. Moore.’ 
 
 ’ The end of Dr. Moore’s energetic life was not far off 
 when this letter was written. He did not live to see 
 his eldest son, Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna, 
 entrusted with the supreme command in which, as 
 Dr. Moore expected, he added to his military reputation. 
 
410 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Dr. Moore’s health was declining, and he retired to a 
 house at Richmond, conscious that his work was done. 
 He sank gradually, and died on the 21st January, 1802, 
 in the 73rd year of his age. This is the date given in 
 the memoir by Dr. Anderson prefixed to the collected 
 edition of Dr. Moore’s works, published in 1820. But a 
 letter from his son James to Rogers dated the 23rd of 
 February announces that his father’s death took place 
 on the previous Sunday, which would be the 21st of 
 February. He left behind him two comedies, with the 
 direction that they should be submitted to Rogers and 
 Sharp, and that their opinion should be taken as to the 
 propriety of making them public or suppressing them. 
 ‘ My father,’ says Mr. James Moore, ‘ entertained the 
 highest opinion of your taste, and in giving your judg- 
 ment on the works, you must only consider his fame/ 
 The comedies were never published. 
 
 Here is one of Mr. Gilpin’s letters received in this 
 spring : — 
 
 Rev. William Gilpin to S. Rogers. 
 
 1 From my couch : the 1 3th of April, 1 800. 
 
 ‘ I left you, my dear sir, contemplating from the 
 shores of Devonshire the beautiful moving pictures of 
 the Channel. What hath since become of you I know 
 not ; and am obliged to my friend Cadell to direct these 
 my inquiries after you. Indeed I have not thought of 
 my friends these several months so much as I ought, 
 having concentrated my thoughts perhaps too much 
 within myself. Some months ago I hurt one of my 
 legs, which hath given me a good deal of trouble. Both 
 
GILPIN IN OLD AGE 
 
 411 
 
 my legs are very old ; but one, I think is more crazy 
 than the other, and this was the leg to which I gave 
 offence by neglecting a small scratch, which it received, 
 just in the part where the great Achilles was wounded. 
 This example, together with that of my friend Mason, 
 might have instructed me better, but I was stout, and 
 continued walking about till the pain became more than 
 I could well bear. I was then obliged to call in a 
 surgeon, who threw me immediately on my couch, and 
 told me if I had walked about much longer he could not 
 have answered for the consequence. He then crammed 
 me with bark and drenched me with wine, and by the 
 help of poultices, bandages, and other surgical means, 
 he hath at length (by the goodness of God) set me upon 
 my legs — but without the permission to use them. In 
 a few days, however, he promises me the use of them. 
 In the meantime I would have you to know that — 
 altho’ I was never imprisoned in like manner before, so 
 far as I remember, in my whole life — I have behaved, I 
 hope, very well under my confinement. I have always 
 spoken kindly to my wife and pleasantly to my ser- 
 vants ; and hope, indeed, upon the whole I have gotten 
 some credit in my family for my behaviour. 
 
 ‘ Now I know you have been criticising all this ego- 
 tistical narrative, but I beg you to consider how unjustly. 
 When you go to a shop, and inquire for a piece of home- 
 spun, and they ask you for it the price of the finest 
 broadcloth, you have reason to complain ; but when 
 you are charged only the price of homespun you ought 
 to be content. Now I ask you as the price of my ego- 
 tistical narrative only another egotistical narrative in 
 
412 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 return. What have you then to complain of? Go to, 
 then, and pay me honestly the price I set on my goods. 
 Let me know where you have been what you have been 
 about, and how you do since I left you on the coast of 
 Devonshire. I had, however, one more reason for my 
 egotistical narrative, but I throw it into the bargain, as 
 I conceive you will not purchase it, but with the levity 
 of other young men, will throw it behind you. It is to 
 conjure you, when you come to the age of 76, to pay 
 great attention to any hurt, however slight, you may 
 receive upon your legs. Whether it be scratch, titter, 
 pimple, itching, gnat-bite, pin-prick, cut, bruise, or what- 
 ever it is, never lose sight of it till it is fairly gone. 
 Now this piece of experience, which has cost me several 
 pounds, I give you for nothing ; and yet I fear you will 
 hardly even return me thanks for it. Tell me whether 
 you have anything on the anvil. You can never put 
 me into such a distressful circumstance as I was lately 
 placed in. A friend sent me some of his verses to look 
 over. I did not like his verses so well as I liked himself, 
 but as I know poets are an irritable race I durst not 
 tell him so. I gently told him he had put them into 
 very unfortunate hands, for the Muses and I had not 
 been on visiting terms these many years. I have not 
 yet vented my wrath at not finding any remarks of 
 yours among my papers ; but I apprehend, if I pressed 
 the matter, you would give me some such answer as I 
 gave my friend. Mrs. Gilpin joins with me in our best 
 respects ; and to your sister, if she is with you. 
 
 4 Your very affectionate 
 
 ‘ Will. Gilpin.' 
 
‘ FROM EURIPIDES’ 
 
 413 
 
 Rogers came back to London after his stay at 
 Exmouth greatly improved in health and spirits. He 
 had added something to his store of knowledge as well 
 as to his fund of health and energy. The two short 
 pieces entitled ‘ From Euripides/ in his poems are signs 
 of the mingled influences of his love of that poet, and of 
 the exquisite country in which he read him — 
 
 There is a streamlet issuing from a rock. 
 
 The village girls, singing wild madrigals, 
 
 Dip their white vestments in its waters clear, 
 
 And hang them to the sun. There first I saw her. 
 
 Her dark and eloquent eyes, mild, full of fire, 
 
 ’Twas heaven to look upon ; and her sweet voice, 
 
 As tuneable as harp of many strings, 
 
 At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul. 
 
 Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees. 
 
 The small birds build there ; and, at summer noon, 
 
 Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers, 
 
 As in the shining grass she sate concealed, 
 
 Sing to herself. 
 
 Richard Sharp was at this time settling in that lovely 
 district of Kent which is now for ever associated with 
 his name. It is not certain when he acquired Fredley 
 Farm, where he so often in later days entertained states- 
 men and orators, poets and dramatists, and the chief of 
 human kind ; but in this year he was, at least, looking- 
 forward to the purchase. Here is a short letter from 
 Rogers, which illustrates his mood at this period as well 
 as the close connection between the two friends : — 
 
414 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp . 
 
 ‘ 8 Aug., 1800. 
 
 ‘ In the hurry of pleasure, alas, my dear friend, how 
 we speak by rote ! At least I do, for I am never so in- 
 clined to be serious or melancholy as at a party of plea- 
 sure. But to the purpose : I shall be very glad once 
 
 more to attend you to Mickleham, and will be at the 
 foot of London Bridge to-morrow at one o’clock with 
 my leathern trunk. Whether curricle or gig or chaise 
 will be there in waiting I care not, so as you do not 
 fail me. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. B.’ 
 
 The next letter seems to indicate that the purchase 
 had been made. 
 
 S. Rogers to Richard Sharp. 
 
 ‘[Buxton] Sepr. 11, 1800. 
 
 ‘ Let me wish you joy, my dear friend. The work 
 has been yours, but you shall not keep the reward to 
 yourself. I will also participate in the pleasure, though 
 but an idle spectator of another’s exertions. You are 
 indeed to be envied. In a picturesque view the grandest 
 approach to the metropolis will now excite new sensa- 
 tions in your breast ; and, should you ever, like Combe, 
 visit the chapel, the evening hymn will lose none of its 
 sweetness by the recollection of having added a voice to 
 the choir. As for myself, I have been wandering, like a 
 perturbed spirit, from place to place, and in less than a 
 
WANDERING 
 
 415 
 
 fortnight shall return whence I came. You ask me if I 
 am already fascinated. I have been, more than once, 
 since we parted, but the ladies, alas ! were preoccupied. 
 At Matlock, where I waited in vain for the travellers 
 from the North Pole, I passed several pleasant hours 
 with Burgh, the friend of Mason. I am now waiting 
 for letters at a place which, like the caravanserai in the 
 desert, derives much of its beauty from the surrounding 
 desolation. ... I was much concerned to see in the 
 papers the loss Mrs. S. has sustained. 
 
 ‘ Adieu ! and believe me ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. E. 
 
 ‘ Pray tell Maltby that my Lord A., an old friend of 
 his and mine, did him the honour to make many inquiries 
 after him yesterday.’ 
 
 In the autumn he was again at Brighton, but mean- 
 while, he had written to Gilpin giving an account of 
 himself to which his venerable friend sent a charac- 
 teristic answer. 
 
 Rev . W. Gilpin to S. Rogers . 
 
 ‘ Vicar’s Hill : Jan. 23, 1801. 
 
 ‘ And so, my dear sir, you now think you have made 
 an honourable amends for all the trouble you have given 
 me. I heard last of you from the coast of Devonshire ; 
 and hearing nothing of you for months afterwards, I 
 wrote to Cadell. Cadell knew nothing of you. I desired 
 Mrs. Oviatt to inquire of some of her correspondents in 
 
416 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 London about you. I could learn nothing : nor, in fact r 
 had heard a syllable, till a few days ago, you came 
 dancing in, with all the festive confidence of a man 
 who had done nothing amiss. “ I have been in the 
 North — I have been in Wales — and I am now at 
 Brighton.” And pray, why could you not have told me 
 this, or a part of it, a year ago ? I have another quarrel 
 with you. When you write a letter in answer to one 
 you have received a year or two before, never refer to 
 any part of that letter unless you know the writer keeps 
 a copy of it ; but write de novo. For want of this 
 caution I have , been puzzled with several passages in 
 your letter, referring to things now totally forgotten. 
 Pray, did I ever break your shins ? You seem to allude 
 to some transaction of that kind : but I remember 
 nothing about it. If I did, it must certainly come 
 under the head of casualties. But my wrath is now 
 appeased. I shake hands with you ; and all is well. 
 
 4 Your epic, which you mention so enigmatically that 
 I hardly know whether you are in jest or earnest, 
 reminds me of an anecdote of Dr. Brown, author of the 
 famous “ Estimate; ” though I think I have seen it in 
 some memoirs of him in 'print. Bishop Warburton 
 (whose practice, I have heard, it was, to write civil 
 letters, and do civil things, to ingenious young men to 
 ’list them into his service) put into Brown’s hands an 
 epic poem, which had been planned by Pope. The story, 
 I think was the discovery of Britain by one of the heroes 
 who had escaped from Troy. Brown finished three or 
 four books. He was very intimate with my father, 
 though but an unpleasant man to live with ; and I 
 
A NAVAL STORY 
 
 417 
 
 remember he showed me his first book, when I was a 
 lad at Oxford. At the pillars of Hercules his hero 
 makes a pause on entering the great ocean. But alas ! 
 there his muse, like yours, forsook him. So that, it 
 seems, the Atlantic is the gulph of epic poetry. Homer 
 prudently kept snug in the iEgean ; and Virgil in the 
 Mediterranean. If they had ventured through the 
 Straits, they had probably been drowned, like Brown 
 and you. 
 
 ‘ In return for your very affecting story of the poor 
 girl who was killed by the fall of a wall, I’ll tell you one 
 which has lately given me much pleasure. In this 
 parish lives a man of the name of Harnett. He lives 
 by fishing, and dragging for oysters. His son, a lad 
 under age, used to assist him. As they were fishing out 
 at sea, about 7 or 8 years ago, a man-of-war’s boat rowed 
 briskly up to them, and carried off the lad. He was 
 very affectionate ; and, of course, disconsolate. However, 
 finding there was no remedy, he took the press-money, 
 and it was some comfort to him that he could send his 
 poor parents a guinea out of it. In the meantime he 
 bestirred himself, and became one of the best seamen in 
 the ship : insomuch that the captain took notice of him, 
 made him first his cockswain, and afterwards raised him 
 to be master’s mate. He had a little ambition to climb on. 
 But, unfortunately, he had no friend to whom he could 
 apply but the old minister of his parish. With him he 
 had made a great interest ; for he had been continually 
 sending money out of his own little stock to his poor 
 parents — not less I believe, on the whole, than 30 L, for a 
 
 E E 
 
418 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 good part of it passed through my hands. I was much 
 disposed, therefore, to serve him ; and was more fortunate 
 than I expected. I have a slight acquaintance with Sir 
 Andrew Hammond, Controller of the Navy ; to whom I 
 wrote in favour of my friend. Sir Andrew immediately 
 sent for him to be examined — and being pleased, I 
 suppose, with the young man’s sense, modesty, and skill 
 in his profession — sent him back to Spithead ; and 
 almost before he got there sent him a commission to be 
 master of the “ Harpy,” sloop of war, in which situation 
 he tells me he is quite happy. He sent me a letter of 
 thanks ; and I sent him a letter of good advice. About 
 a fortnight ago the “ Harpy ” lying at the mouth of our 
 river, waiting to convoy a Lisbon fleet, Mr. Harnett 
 came on shore to visit his parents. He visited me also ; 
 and instead of coming to the kitchen door with a 
 thrum-capon, a basket of oysters on his shoulder, and 
 a pair of shoes which were neither akin to each other 
 nor to his feet, he was introduced into the parlour — 
 dressed in a handsome uniform, and with a hat cocked 
 as bravely as the best of them. You don’t mention your 
 health. The book I have not heard of. Mrs. Gilpin 
 joins in kind remembrance to your sister and you : 
 
 4 With, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Your sincere and affect e 
 
 ‘Will. Gilpin.’ 
 
 A letter from Eogers to his sister gives an account 
 of what he was doing at Brighton in the first few weeks 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
BRIGHTON IN 1801 
 
 419 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers . 
 
 ‘ Brighton : 19 Jany., 1801. 
 
 ‘ By an unfortunate mistake at the Post Office I did 
 not get my dear Sarah’s letter till this morning. After 
 dining with Mrs. Mostyn (my old friend Cecilia Thrale) 
 I have resisted the temptation of an assembly at Lord 
 Tankerville’s, and have come home to converse a few 
 minutes with her who, I may almost say, is to me more 
 out of sight and less out of mind than anybody I know 
 in this world. I am now, however, happy to think that I 
 shall very soon see her and hear her, and can even 
 number the days of my absence from her. Brighton is, 
 as you imagine, my dear Sarah, still very gay, and you 
 will believe it when I tell you that I have for this very 
 day four dinner and three evening invitations. Indeed, 
 I am in great danger of being spoilt ; and by nobody so 
 much as yourself, in which you would be particularly 
 blameable, if you had not yourself basked in that kind 
 of sunshine without injuring your complexion by it, the 
 complexion of your mind I mean. Yesterday I spent 
 the day very pleasantly with a large family of the 
 Casamajors, who form a concert by themselves — the girls 
 and their brothers ranging round the harpsichord and 
 singing glees and anthems with a decorum and a 
 harmony which would delight you. The eldest son 
 officiated at Petersburg for Lord Whitworth with great 
 credit to himself. As to Mrs. Pigou, who is my great 
 patroness here, she is delightful. I must introduce her 
 to you. Not less so are two of Lady Tankerville’s 
 daughters, tho’ almost children, whose ambition it is 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 to retire into some cottage and enjoy each other’s society 
 for life — a la mode de Llangollen. Here is also one of Mrs. 
 Maltby’s sisters who was always a great favourite of 
 mine. She is now, alas ! married to a man of large 
 fortune, but who is well worthy of her. The ladies here 
 are in general above par, but the men as much below it. 
 The Ellises are here , 1 but live very privately. I am 
 their only guest. Here are also the Miss Thrales, Mrs. 
 Piozzi’s daughters. From some accident I have never 
 been acquainted with them, though they accuse me of 
 having shunned them. They are very elegant, sensible 
 women, and are a great addition to the society here. 
 Mrs. Pigou, the Thrales, the Tankervilles, and two or 
 three others meet at each other’s houses every day — I 
 should say every evening — and the harp and piano gene- 
 rally mingle their voices with ours in the conversation, 
 and make it very pleasant. I should not omit General 
 Forbes, the General of this district, a very amiable 
 
 1 George Ellis, F.R.S., F.S.A. ; died io April, 1815, aged seventy; 
 wrote in The Eolliad the invective against Pitt : — 
 
 ‘ Pert without fire, without experience sage.’ 
 
 In 1790 published Specimens of Early English Poetry . Wrote on the 
 formation and progress of the English language. Went to Lille with 
 Lord Malmesbury in 1797 ; changed his politics and joined the Anti- 
 Jacobin. He was much beloved by his friends, Scott addresses him in 
 the introduction to the fifth canto of Marmion : 
 
 ‘ Thou who canst give to lightest lay 
 An unpedantic moral gay, 
 
 Nor less the dullest theme bid flit , 
 
 On wings of unexpected wit ; 
 
 In letters as in life approved, 
 
 Example honoured and beloved, 
 
 Dear Ellis ! to the bard impart 
 A lesson of thy magic art.’ 
 
BRIGHTON IN 1801 
 
 421 
 
 pleasant old man who has seen a great deal of service in 
 both hemispheres. He goes np to town this week to kiss 
 hands on his promotion, and I believe I shall accompany 
 him on Wednesday. Adieu ! my dear Sarah. Give my 
 love to all, and believe me, 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 4 S. E. 
 
 * Among the persons of the drama I must not omit 
 my old friend Nicholls 1 (the M.P.), who is here with his 
 family. They have retired into the country, and two 
 months here are given them in lieu of a journey to 
 London ! ! ! With regard to the christening, I do believe 
 I should have been present if it had come to me in time. 
 You will shake your head and say I am much obliged to 
 the Post Office for saving me from a dilemma. I wrote 
 to Mr. Gilpin last week, and mentioned you particularly 
 in it. Indeed, I could not do otherwise in answer to your 
 enquiries. Pray tell Maria that I deserved more than 
 an intention to write a postscript from her. I am glad 
 Mr. Raper has dismissed his doctors. With regard to 
 the tragedy I can only tell you it rests on newspaper 
 authority. I must have written it in my sleep ; and what 
 has become of it I cannot tell. If it should be found 
 under the pillow, you shall have the first sight of it, a 
 perusal I am sure you would not endure. I am sorry to 
 hear such tidings of Quarry Bank. I am sure I should 
 soon die there of a nervous fever.’ 
 
 1 Mr. Nicholls was member for Tregony. 
 
422 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ‘ The King of Clubs ’ — ‘ The Bachelor ’ — Rogers building — Paris in 
 1802 — Letters to Henry Rogers, Maria Sharpe, Mrs. Greg — Fox and 
 Rogers in Paris —Fox and Mackintosh — Rogers’s new house — His 
 final settlement in St. James’s Place. 
 
 * The King of Clubs 5 referred to in the letter to Richard 
 Sharp was not actually established till the first year of 
 the nineteenth century. It was founded by a group of 
 friends who were in the habit of meeting at Mackintosh’s 
 house : Rogers, Richard Sharp, Scarlett, Robert Smith, 
 and John Allen. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, tells 
 us that the chief figures in its social intercourse were, in 
 addition to those already mentioned, Romilly, Dumont, 
 Tennant, and the Rev. Sydney Smith. To these were 
 added Lord Lansdowne, Lord Holland, Brougham, Lord 
 Cowper, Lord King, Porson, Payne Knight, Horner, 
 Bryan Edwards, Jeffrey, Smithson, Whishaw, Alexander 
 Baring, Luttrell, Blake, Hallam, Ricardo, and Hoppner. 
 Francis Horner speaking of visits made to the club in 
 the spring of 1802 mentions that he met there Aber- 
 cromby, Tom Wedgwood, and Maltby, and that the con- 
 versation consisted of literary reminiscences, anecdotes 
 of authors, and criticisms of books. The Club met 
 monthly at dinner at the old ‘ Crown and Anchor ’ in the 
 Strand, where the Whig Club met for some years on 
 
‘THE KING- OF CLUBS ’ 
 
 423 
 
 Tuesday evenings. The King of Clubs was one of those 
 conversation clubs which had superseded the coffee- 
 houses and the taverns in which Addison and Johnson 
 had spent so much of every day in pleasant talk. In 
 those times men prepared their observations beforehand, 
 and so led the talk as to bring them in. There is a 
 story of Richard Sharp having one day seen on the 
 desk the notes of the conversation in which his partner 
 Boddington was to join in the evening. Sharp was to 
 be of the party, and he committed to memory the pre- 
 pared impromptus of his friend, assisted him to lead the 
 conversation in the right direction, and then forestalled 
 him with his stories and clever things. There was 
 nothing unusual in Boddington’s preparations. Men 
 read books, recorded good stories, and reserved criticisms 
 on men and things for the evening talk. The two most 
 brilliant talkers in the King of Clubs were Mackintosh 
 and Sydney Smith. Sydney Smith said of Mackintosh 
 that his conversation was more brilliant and instructive 
 than that of any human being he ever had the good 
 fortune to be acquainted with. But Rogers, a still more 
 intimate friend of Mackintosh, said that he sacrificed 
 himself to conversation, read for it, thought for it, and 
 gave up future fame for it ; 1 and Mackintosh is not the 
 only man in this brilliant group of whom the observa- 
 tion may be made. 
 
 There was at one time a prospect that much of the 
 wit and learning poured into these conversations would 
 take permanent form. Rogers and his friends proposed 
 to establish a literary paper, to be called The Bachelor , 
 1 Moore’s Diary, vol. vi. p. 292. 
 
424 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL E0GEES 
 
 and published twice a week. Mackintosh tells us that 
 this paper would probably have imitated the aim, even 
 if it had not equalled the execution of the essayists of the 
 reign of Queen Anne. The men to be associated in 
 the enterprise were : Eogers, Mackintosh, Robert Smith, 
 Scarlett, and Richard Sharp. The execution of the pro- 
 ject was frustrated at the moment, and never resumed. 
 Rogers has left in his ‘ Commonplace Book ’ an outline 
 of the kind of contributions the paper was intended to 
 contain. This sketch is amusing. It is clearly Rogers’s 
 own, particularly the motto from Gray, and the outline 
 of the ‘ History of a Yoice.’ 
 
 Periodical Paper — The Bachelor . 
 
 Poor Moralist, and what art thou ? — Gray. 
 
 First — His history : his attachments and adventures. 
 
 Last — His marriage concludes the paper. 
 
 i. On War. 2. On Courtship. 3. History of an old house. 
 
 4. History of a voice, a musical cry in his cradle, cries wild 
 
 lavender and matches, frightens the birds from the corn ; 
 a ballad- singer, sings with the miners in Castleton Cave, 
 with the singers at the parish church, catches cold, a 
 deputy crier, a chorister in a cathedral, sings at concerts, 
 marries a rich deaf dowager, and sells his voice in 
 Parliament. 
 
 5. Letters. Cairo flea. An antiquarian’s conjecture in the 
 
 next century, 1895, on a board lately dug up inscribed 
 ‘ Man Traps.’ Lord Stanhope’s Reasoning Machine. 
 A Christmas in the country. A husband’s threat to a 
 wife : ‘ I’ll wear a wig.’ History of a Talker and Lis- 
 tener. Bloge upon Snuff. 
 
 Rogers, however, had at this period another occupa- 
 tion for his leisure. He was designing the dwelling 
 
DESIGNING HIS HOUSE 
 
 425 
 
 which, for more than half a century, was to be the 
 admiration and the envy of his contemporaries. We 
 may take it for granted that he had by this time given 
 up all thought of marrying, and settled down to the life 
 of a bachelor. His house, if not actually planned as a 
 bachelor dwelling, scarcely contemplated family uses. 
 He and Sir John Lubbock bought a house of the Duke 
 of St. Albans, in St. James’s Place, and made two houses 
 of it. The reconstruction thus rendered needful gave 
 Rogers an opportunity of making for himself a home in 
 accordance with his tastes, and he devoted himself to the 
 agreeable task with the most striking success. 
 
 The summer and autumn of 1802 offered him an 
 unusual opportunity for the study of art, and he went 
 into it as systematically as he had gone into classical 
 reading during his Devonshire exile. 
 
 The Peace of Amiens opened Paris to Englishmen, 
 and there was an immense outflow of visitors from this 
 country to the republican capital. It had been practically 
 sealed from about the time of Rogers’s visit in 1791 : for 
 the horrors of the Terror had closed it as much as war. 
 In 1802, therefore, there was the greatest curiosity to see 
 the city over which the revolutionary storm had swept, and 
 which had since been enriched with the spoils of Europe. 
 The Louvre contained at that time the most splendid 
 collection of pictures and statues that had ever been 
 brought together, and artists and men of taste took occa- 
 sion of the brief gleam of peace to rush over and feast their 
 eyes on the unexampled sight. Rogers’s brother-in-law, 
 Sutton Sharpe, had gone over early in September, and 
 found himself in a crowd of artist friends : Elaxman and 
 
426 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Opie, Fuseli, then at the height 
 of his fame; and Farrington, R. A., who was his com- 
 panion in the journey ; Benjamin West, president of the 
 Royal Academy, and his son Raphael West, then expected 
 to attain an eminence he never reached ; Shee, afterwards- 
 Sir Martin Shee, and President of the Royal Academy ; 
 Hoppner and his wife, and others less known to fame. 
 Erskine and his son, and Travers the surgeon, also* 
 occupy a prominent place in Sutton Sharpe’s letters. 
 In a visit which Boddington, the two Erskines, Rogers, 
 and Sutton Sharpe made together to Versailles, Sutton 
 Sharpe says : ‘ Erskine was in the most prodigious spirits. 
 Half-mad with joy he walked about the gardens, exclaim- 
 ing : “ What a delightful place — but it won’t keep people’s 
 heads on their shoulders ! ” Erskine was introduced to 
 the First Consul as an “ avocat,” but Bonaparte did not 
 understand his rank and eminence, and took no notice 
 of him.’ Millingen the antiquary, Townley, and Cham- 
 pernowne, the well-known collectors of objects of art, 
 with Dr. Garrick Moore, brother of Sir John Moore, were 
 also in Paris at this period, and formed part of the wide 
 circle of friends and acquaintances in which Rogers 
 found himself as soon as he joined his brother-in-law. 
 His old friend Gilpin, in a characteristic letter, which, 
 like all Gilpin’s letters, is worth reproducing for its own 
 sake, gave him a commission based on doubts which 
 were widely prevalent at the time. 
 
 Rev . Wm. Gilpin to S. Rogers. 
 
 ‘ My dear Sir, — I write immediately, not to answer 
 your letter, but, as you are going to France, to give you 
 
THE APOLLO BELVIDEKE 
 
 427 
 
 a commission to the Belvidere Apollo. With my com- 
 pliments beg to know whether he is the real Apollo, or 
 a fictitious one ? 
 
 About a month ago a gentleman, the Dean of Ely, 
 called upon me and informed me that Mr. Wyatt, (whom 
 also — as you are now so united by brick and mortar — you 
 may have an opportunity of consulting) told him that the 
 king had sent him to Paris, to inquire about the Italian 
 statues — that he had formerly been intimately acquainted 
 with the Apollo in Italy, and that he was certain the 
 Apollo at Paris was fictitious. Now I do not assert that 
 Mr. Wyatt told this to the Dean , but that the Dean had 
 been well informed, at least, that Mr. Wyatt had said 
 this. I shall wait, with great impatience, to hear from 
 you on your return— not only to satisfy me on the point 
 in question, but to hear you relate all the wonders you 
 have seen ; and to tell me whether you think the crying 
 or the laughing philosopher would meet with more game ? 
 For myself, though I do not exclude Paris and France 
 from the last circling rim of my benevolence, yet, con- 
 sidering the world as one great State, the French are 
 certainly placed by Providence in one of the most igno- 
 minious offices in it, that of presiding ove rgibbets and 
 whipping-posts. 
 
 After all, I think it more than probable, you may 
 not go to France at all ; but may conclude your journey 
 there, as you did that to America. If you go, may 
 heaven defend you, and preserve you safe out of the den 
 of the European Cacus ! 
 
 4 Yours, truly sincere, 
 
 ‘W. G. 
 
 ‘V. H.: Sep r . 8, 1802.’ 
 
428 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 Rogers’s letters to Gilpin have not been preserved. 
 The following letters addressed to members of his family, 
 tell the story of this visit to Republican Paris. 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Maria Sharpe . 
 
 ‘ Calais, Wednesday. 
 
 [Postmark 16 Sepr. 1802.] 
 
 ‘ My dear Maria, — After a passage of three hours I 
 sit down to fill up the interval before dinner. We had 
 above forty people of both sexes on board, among whom 
 were Mr. and Mrs. Howard. The lady sat in the body 
 of her chaise on deck. Everybody was ill except my- 
 self, who made use of the recipe you recommended to 
 me — a diachylon plaster, with great success, and I now 
 write particularly to thank you for it. My fellow- 
 traveller is delighted with the novelty of the scene, but 
 anxious to proceed. We are, however, detained for the 
 passport and must console ourselves with the Comedie, 
 which begins at half-past five. I need not describe Calais 
 to you. The people are just as we saw them ; the 
 military cocked hats are enormous ; the women’s heads 
 are as large as ever ; and six little children, not bigger 
 than Sutton , 1 or very little bigger, were dancing to- 
 gether a cotillon in the street just now, the boys ivitli 
 long tails , to a passing tambourine. We had a delight- 
 ful journey yesterday. Lord Whitworth did not make 
 his appearance, but we met on the road innumerable 
 parties of gipsies, bag and baggage. 
 
 ‘ After a grand entertainment of soup, cutlets, fish, 
 
 1 Sutton Sharpe, his eldest nephew, afterwards the eminent Queen’s 
 Counsel, whose premature death in 1843 disappointed many hopes. 
 
CALAIS IN 1802 
 
 429 
 
 fowl, partridges, &c., we went to the Comedie. The 
 Municipality sat under a very handsome canopy in a 
 kind of state box. The drop-scene between the acts was 
 inscribed with the names of Eustache, St. Pierre, &c., the 
 six heroes of Calais when besieged by Edward III ; and 
 the orchestra consisted of above twenty performers, as 
 close as they could sit, who, together with the actors, 
 made as much noise as they could. The acting was far 
 from bad. There again we saw your neighbours, Mr. 
 Howard and his wife. In a very handsome retiring-room 
 they served you with raspberry vinegar and other re- 
 freshments. Adieu ! my dear Maria. Give my love to 
 Henry when you see him, and also Sarah and Mrs. M — 
 not forgetting the children all. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. E. 
 
 * We have engaged a very old chaise to Paris a la 
 Yorick. We pay 6/6/0 !! ! To-morrow hope to sleep at 
 Abbeville.’ 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Henry Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Hotel Marigny : 13 Octr. 1802. 
 
 ‘ My dear Henry, — By two kind letters from Maria 
 and Sarah I rejoice to think you are all assembled, first 
 on your own account and next on my own, as I hope 
 soon to rejoin you, though perhaps at this moment you 
 may be scattered over the world again. As for me, my 
 life is a little better regulated and my mind more col- 
 lected, though every day is a scene of dissipation. At 
 first I was worn out before it was half spent ; but my 
 
430 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 spirits are now less hurried, and the impressions I re- 
 ceive less violent and frequent : in short, I begin to be 
 in my sober senses. Mr. Sharpe must have described a 
 fete when the garden front of the Tuileries was illumi- 
 nated and when, with other consuls, B. sat uncovered 
 for above twenty minutes in a balcony in the centre, 
 while an orchestra of above a hundred persons was 
 playing a concert below in the open air. On Thursday 
 last I was present at a very different spectacle, the 
 monthly review of the troops which were drawn up 
 horse and foot, before the Tuileries to the amount of 
 about 6,000. At eleven an old-looking plain yellow coach, 
 drawn by six blood bay horses, the coachman and pos- 
 tillion in large cocked hats, attended by many guards, 
 brought up Bonaparte at a great rate to the door of the 
 palace from St. Cloud ; and a few minutes afterwards, 
 an English post-chaise and four of the same colour, the 
 boys with silver-laced caps, brought Madame Bonaparte. 
 At twelve, in a plain blue coat with gold epaulets, he 
 mounted his white horse (given to him by the Emperor) 
 most richly caparisoned with crimson, and black and 
 gold, and attended by generals and mamelouks, whose 
 rich and grotesque habits heightened the splendour, rode 
 in a kind of managed pace up and down the several files 
 of foot and horse, which were so long and numerous that 
 he must have ridden about a mile. He then returned 
 to the centre within a few yards of me (for I was at the 
 palace window next the door) and the troops marched 
 by in succession before him. It was no sooner over 
 than six or seven well-drest women (as indeed had 
 been the case whenever he had stopped before) pressed 
 
CONSUL BONAPARTE 
 
 431 
 
 round him with petitions in their hands, which he re- 
 ceived, saying something to most of them. He then 
 alighted, and on the staircase stopped several times to 
 speak to the officers. I was there alone among the sen- 
 tinels. His profile is very strong, and his face one dead 
 tint of yellow — but not disagreeable. His eyes are of 
 light grey, and his eyebrows scarcely distinguishable. 
 His head has been said by a celebrated portrait-painter 
 here to be une tete morte, but his countenance has a 
 cheerful easy character, and exhibited, when I saw him, 
 no very remarkable degree of thought or animation, 
 though very capable of expressing both. His manners 
 are very simple and unaffected, and he took snuff and 
 scratched his head all day. It was a very noisy and 
 splendid scene, and the windows and roofs of houses 
 were crowded with spectators. Fox and Erskine dined 
 afterwards at a public dinner with him, and he had a 
 long conversation with both. The troops were very fine 
 men, and the dresses of the different corps were more 
 varied and picturesque than among us. The music was 
 very loud and unaffecting. 
 
 Last Sunday I paid a visit to Mad e le Brun, the 
 painter, and admired the floor inlaid with precious 
 woods. In the evening I went with Boddington to 
 Mad e Cabarus, who lives in a most superb house, 
 and who received us in a bedchamber, not less elegant, 
 tho’ less rich, than Madame Recamier’s. Her beauty 
 extinguished Lady Oxford who was there, and she gave 
 me an invitation to dinner every day with her, while I 
 stayed at Paris. I was introduced, I suspect, as a friend 
 of Lady Jersey’s, and the similarity of her life and 
 
432 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 history to that of her ladyship may have rendered her 
 civil to her friends. Last night we were again at the 
 Opera, and Yestris outdid himself. Surely the troop of 
 French dancers are more like gay creatures of the 
 element than mortals like ourselves. Mr. Salmon and 
 Mr. Mallet are very busy and very happy everywhere. 
 On Tuesday we dined with Tallien, who was the first 
 man in Paris for many months. I afterwards saw 
 Mdlle. Duchesnois in Andromaque, and it was the . only 
 thing like acting I have seen in Paris. Adieu ! my 
 dear Henry. In a day or two I shall write to Maria. 
 Give my love to Mrs. M. and also to M. and S., and 
 thank them for their kind letters. I am sorry you think 
 you are disturbing my imagination full of pictures, when 
 you write to me. 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 ‘S. E. 
 
 ‘ Boddington talks of leaving here on Saturday. 
 Parsons, who is sitting by me and who is come to Paris, 
 desires to be remembered to you. Eemember me to 
 Sharpe . 5 
 
 S. Rogers to Maria Sharpe. 
 
 Nov. 2, 1802. 
 
 ‘ My dear Maria, — I am happy to learn from yourself 
 that you are all assembled on the sea-shore. Pray stay 
 if you can, till I arrive, which will now, I hope, be in 
 three weeks at farthest. Thank Sarah for her kind 
 letter. In writing to one, I write to the other, for in 
 my mind you are inseparable ; and distance produces 
 only one effect upon me, to attach me to those I love; 
 
FOX IN PAEIS 
 
 433 
 
 still more strongly. I know there are different opinions 
 upon that subject and I have sometimes fancied them 
 just with regard to those who maintain them— certainly 
 not so with regard to myself. I could say a great deal 
 on this subject, but I know you will expect other things 
 from me. I forget where I left off last. Mr. Farrington 
 gave you a full account of our good fortune — how we 
 stood on the same stone step with him, Bonaparte ; 
 how he looked at us face to face ; and of the various 
 events of that eventful day. Henry is also in possession 
 of a despatch on that subject. On the next, 8th, I went 
 to the Abbe Sicard’s lecture, and was very agreeably 
 disappointed — the ingenious and expressive countenances 
 of the boys would have interested me for a whole day 
 together. In the evening saw Tamerlane — the old 
 Greek practice of dancing to a chorus is very delightful 
 and affecting to me. I had proceeded so far when I 
 was told that Mr. Fox’s carriage was waiting for me, 
 so away I went with him and Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Fox, 
 &c., &c., to the Luxembourg, which Fox had a great desire 
 to see. The next day we saw the Gobelins, the garden 
 of plants, and I afterwards dined with them, where I 
 met my old acquaintance Lafayette — once a sprightly, 
 petit maitrisk Frenchman, now mellowed into a most 
 amiable man, still very handsome, but silent, thought- 
 ful, and melancholy. Mr. Fox has finished his historical 
 researches, and is now seeing the sights. This morning, 
 the Consul being on a progress, I saw St. Cloud, a most 
 princely residence on the Seine, here a noble river. 
 The rooms are very numerous and furnished in the most 
 eostly manner with silk and velvet, porphyry, bronze, 
 
 F F 
 
434 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 and gold, but they were more gaudy than rich, a style 
 affected in their country houses. There, behind a door, 
 and among some bad pictures hangs the Madonna della 
 Sedia— in very fine preservation and surpassing, indeed, 
 all prints and copies of it. It was not brilliant, but very 
 sweet, and the little elbows and shoulders of the children 
 were painted in a way I had no conception of before. 
 The mother’s countenance rather fell short of my hopes, 
 which had been raised extravagantly, but I was hurried 
 along with many others who had never heard of such a 
 picture, and I hope to see it again. Mr. Lambert is 
 arrived here, and not alone. He is on his way to Italy. 
 Mr. Nicholls and his two daughters have also spent a 
 week here on their way to the South of France. They 
 had lived in my hotel four days before I found them out. 
 The Concannons are here, and give grand parties every 
 week, to which I have been invited, but I have not been. 
 They have Morgan the stock-jobber’s daughters with 
 them ! Mad e Cabarus also opens her house to-night 
 in great splendour, but I rather preferred Yestris and 
 the Opera. Here also has arrived, on his way from 
 Eome, Mr. Champernowne, son of Mrs. Harrington of 
 Olent, and as he proposes to set off in ten days I have 
 partly agreed to accompany him. Mr. Boddington left 
 me last Wednesday in company with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mackintosh, with whom I was to have returned. I have 
 heard from them twice on the road, as at every stage 
 they all remembered something undone. I have now 
 the whole apartment to myself, and his servant Gerard 
 has fallen to me by inheritance. 
 
 ‘ The galleries are still inexhaustible, but the 
 
PARIS IN 1802 
 
 435 
 
 painters are a great loss, for no human being enters 
 into one’s feelings now. Parsons has been there twice 
 since he left England, and Fox only three times ! I am 
 generally a kind of cicerone to the new comers, being 
 almost always there. At first sight it seems delightful 
 to introduce others for the first time to such things, but 
 you would be soon sick of it. The Miss Morgans mis- 
 took the Transfiguration for some new picture, and their 
 remarks eclipsed those in “ Evelina ” on the pictures at 
 Vauxhall. I have spent an evening with Canova, who 
 is come to take a likeness of Bonaparte for a colossal 
 statue to be placed in the grand square of Milan. I was 
 much pleased with him ; David and Kosciusko were also 
 there, as was also Le Grand, the architect who built the 
 Cornhall — since burnt ! He fondled a little pug whelp 
 in his breast the whole time, and seemed a great cox- 
 comb. In my walk one evening I was attacked by a 
 sharper who led me about to see a billiard match 
 between Clotilde the opera dancer in men’s clothes and 
 an Englishman. He wearied my poor legs while he was 
 extolling the symmetry of her form — but at last we 
 met a man on the staircase who said it was put off till 
 the morning. His intention was, it seems, to draw me to 
 the gaming table — for he has since attacked Parsons 
 and Fitzpatrick : the last the coolest gamester in Europe, 
 and the first not likely to risk his money. Surely he 
 must be very green to attack such men ! I have twice 
 seen the English taken off on the stage, and I was sorry 
 to hear the actor talk very much like ourselves. Bod- 
 dington, who could not deny it, said the actor was a 
 bad mimic and could not talk ill — but the immoderate 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 laughter of the audience convinced him of the contrary. 
 I have seen “ Puss in Boots,” and am told “ Cinderella ” 
 had a great run last year. 
 
 ‘ Adieu, my dear Maria ! Pray give my love to all and 
 a kiss sent across the ocean to four. Give my kind love 
 to Patty and hers. 
 
 ‘ To prevent a mistake I shall direct to you in town. 
 
 ‘ Ever, ever yours, 
 
 ‘ S. B. 
 
 ‘ Mr. De Grave desires to be remembered to you all. 
 Lusignan lives in very elegant apartments near the 
 Palais Royal, and is a very gay man ; I have not yet 
 seen him. The English here are still innumerable, 
 Paris being now thin of fashion ; at the theatres every 
 word you overhear is English. 5 
 
 Samuel Rogers to Henry Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Paris : Deer. 4, 1802. 
 
 ‘ My dear Henry, ... I have now fixed my day 
 
 of departure. On Friday next, the nth Dec r . I 
 
 shall turn my back on the gaieties of Paris — with some 
 regret, but with more pleasure. In the galleries, I shall 
 often wander in imagination, but the days are now so 
 dark and sad, with such little intermission, that I have 
 lately found but little enjoyment there. I have paid a 
 morning visit to Mad e du Port. I was introduced by 
 De Grave, and received with great civility as her hus- 
 band’s friend, under which name I was introduced by 
 
 her to her daughter, a very pretty girl of 16. I was 
 
PARIS IN 1802 
 
 437 
 
 afterwards told that to see the daughter is considered a 
 very great compliment, and indeed so she thought by the 
 very marked manner in which she promised me that 
 pleasure, when she stepped out for her. After a few 
 minutes she told her ‘ she might retire.’ Mad e du 
 Port is certainly the most elegant and pleasing woman I 
 have seen in France, but then I have literally seen 
 nobody. She is about 35, and still very handsome. I 
 understand that where she lives (near the Bastille, about 
 a league from me) there are above 1 50 families in obscurity 
 of the most accomplished and best bred people in France 
 — strict in their manners and life, even beyond our 
 English notions of regularity. I have since paid a dif- 
 ferent visit to M. de Lille — no longer Abbe — now a 
 married man. He received me in a large room in an 
 hotel, once belonging to the Duke of Richelieu. There 
 were two or three gentlemen with him. In a recess were 
 two beds side by side. The curtains of the nearest were 
 drawn, and a young lady was frequently called to it by 
 whispers, for there in high health, at 2 o’clock, lay 
 Mad e de Lille ! I have since dined with them, and was 
 overwhelmed with her civilities. The dinner was very 
 ill-served, and lasted near two hours. Among other 
 dishes was a roast hare, which, as she told her French 
 friends, was given in compliment to me, it being a very 
 great rarity in England, and never but at great tables. 
 After dinner she threw about her some ugly and dirty 
 English doyleys, which she also explained as the English 
 fashion, and of which I felt quite ashamed. She concluded 
 by making me swallow a dish of strong green tea, to re- 
 mind me of old England. I feel no desire to repeat my 
 
438 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 visit, tho’ I could now enjoy his conversation, which I had 
 never done before. I have seen little of the Wm. Smiths 
 for the last fortnight. Their feelings are indeed so little 
 in unison with my own that I keep out of their way. 
 The same may be said of the Edgeworths, tho’ they are 
 abundant in their civilities. I have lately looked into 
 several of the bals bourgeois , and with great pleasure. 
 The decorum and enjoyment I have seen there have 
 often sent me home to bed with very pleasant feelings. 
 Tom Boddington is returned to Paris, and enjoys himself 
 as much as so fastidious a gentleman will allow himself. 
 Last Monday I was led by fatal curiosity to hear High 
 Mass in honour of Ste. Cecilia, in the church of St. 
 Eustache. I departed before it was half over, but have 
 been confined, with intermissions, ever since. Mr. 
 Champernowne has gone directly by Havre and South- 
 ampton to Devonshire, and I shall now return home with 
 
 Mr. a very friendly pleasant man, whom I have 
 
 known slightly for some years. Happy is the man who 
 leaves Paris first ! Mr. Boddington and Mr. Mackintosh 
 sent me commissions twice on the road, and Mr. Cham- 
 pernowne has left me twenty legacies, to my utter horror 
 and dismay. Mr. Fox has also written from St. Anne’s, 
 to desire me, among other things, to bring Mrs. E. a 
 grate, shovel, and tongs ! I have just heard an unex- 
 pected piece of news — Mr. Thomas Hope’s death. It 
 comes in a letter from his brother Henry, who says a 
 merchant has written him word of it from Marseilles. 
 Adieu, my dear Henry ! Give my best love to all, and 
 believe me 
 
 ‘ Ever yours, 
 
 S. B. 
 
TO THE TOESO 
 
 439 
 
 ‘ By way of P.S., I shall add a few lines to another 
 person. N.B. — It is here for the first time committed to 
 paper, and I don’t half like it, now it is written, so for- 
 give faults. 
 
 ‘ To the Fragment of a Statue of Hercules called the 
 Torso of the Belvidere. 
 
 i And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, 
 
 (Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurl’d), 
 
 Still sit as on the fragment of a world, 
 
 Surviving all, majestic and alone ? 
 
 What though the Spirits of the North, that swept 
 Rome from the earth, when in her pomp she slept, 
 
 Smote thee with fury, and thy headless trunk 
 Deep in the dust, ’mid tower and temple, sunk ; 
 
 Soon to subdue mankind ’twas thine to rise, 
 
 Still, still unquench’d thy nobler energies ! 
 
 Exalted minds, with thee conversing, caught 
 Bright revelations of the Good they sought ; 
 
 By thee that long-lost spell in secret given, 
 
 To draw down Gods, and lift the soul to Heaven.’ 
 
 These lines are dated 1808 in their published form. 
 The only change made in them in the interval was the 
 substitution of ‘ un quelled thy glorious energies ’ for ‘ un- 
 quench’d thy nobler energies,’ and ‘ aspiring minds ’ for 
 ‘ exalted minds.’ The request from Fox to which he 
 alludes, was conveyed in the following letter — 
 
 C. J . Fox to S. Rogers . 
 
 4 My dear Sir, — Mrs. Fox says you would willingly 
 do any commission for her, and she has no scruple in 
 troubling you, 1st, to go to Fonciez’s, the jeweller, rue 
 
440 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 St. Honore, and to buy for her two little Cornelian hearts, 
 with little rings and chains to fasten them to chains 
 round the neck. Mine. Fonciez will recollect that my 
 wife looked at them and asked the price, it must not be 
 more than three louis each. 2dly, to go to the Palais 
 Royal, the first or second shop on the right (I think) as 
 you go in, to buy a pair of fire-dogs, tongs, and shovel , 
 the price altogether two louis. I meant to buy them, 
 but said I would call again, and forgot it. If you can 
 bring these things yourself we shall be much obliged to 
 you, if not, pray send the dogs, dec., to me at Quiliac at 
 Calais. The smaller things you will of course bring 
 yourself, or send by some friend. 
 
 ‘ If you will be so good as to pay for them I will settle 
 with you on your return or send an order to Perregaux, 
 and for the interest of your money I know no way to pay 
 you, but by insisting again on your reading “Isacco,” 
 which, when you have done attentively, I trust you will 
 not think of comparing “ Douglas ” with it. 
 
 ‘ I am, with great regard, dear Sir, 
 
 ‘ Yours ever, 
 
 ‘ C. J. Fox.’ 
 
 { St. Anne’s Hill, 
 
 ‘ 1 8 Nov., 1802.’ 
 
 There is a further account of Republican Paris in a 
 letter to Mrs. Greg, wife of Mr. Samuel Greg of Man- 
 chester, mother of the late Mr. Samuel Greg of Boiling- 
 ton, and of Mr. William Rathbone Greg, author of ‘ The 
 Creed of Christendom/ and grandmother of Mr. William 
 Rathbone, now M.P. for the northern division of Car- 
 narvonshire. 
 
PARIS IN 1802 
 
 441 
 
 S. Rogers to Mrs. Greg. 
 
 ‘ Paris : 5 Dec., 1802. 
 
 ‘ My dear Mrs. Greg, — You may be surprized to 
 receive a letter from Paris, and yet from me perhaps it 
 will excite no wonder. Alas — I have no ties to fix me 
 anywhere ! Many ages ago, I forget in what Olympiad, 
 I received from Manchester what demands my best 
 thanks. Of the letter I will say nothing, for it deserves 
 everything. The present was most acceptable also — for 
 Gesner was a favourite with me in early life — nor has he 
 even yet lost his charm. The translation does honour 
 to the writer, and the preface is worthy of the great 
 name you hint at. The embellishments are very elegant, 
 and you will think me sincere when I say so, for I have 
 long had some of the original drawings in my possession. 
 On the 13th of Sep r I set my foot in France. At 
 least so says my almanack, but my memory assures me 
 it was two thousand years ago, so busy have I been, 
 though to little purpose since I came here. Not but 
 that I was disappointed at the little novelty I met with 
 on the road. The pedlar on his ass and the waggoner 
 with his team wore the same huge cocked hat, and the 
 postillion had his earrings, his jack-boots, his tobacco- 
 pipe, his long queue , his harness of ropes and a whip 
 that smacked through every note of the gamut. At 
 Chantilly I wandered alone till dusk along half-dis- 
 mantled terraces and among urns and lions fast covering 
 with verdure. The old chateau is no more, and the 
 stables were occupied by a regiment of horse. The ca- 
 thedral at Amiens had lost little of its splendour, and 
 
442 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 many people were saying their masses in various parts 
 of it, but the abbey of St. Denis was filled when I saw 
 it with casks of American corn. The royal monuments 
 are removed to Paris. They are ranged chronologically 
 with a thousand others from different parts of France, in 
 the convent of the little Augustines ; and there in the 
 garden among cypresses is the tomb of Abelard and 
 Eloisa. It was noon when I arrived in Paris ; and, 
 wandering about in search of lodgings, I found myself 
 at the door of the Louvre. Who could resist ? I entered 
 with other people, and in an instant stood mute in the 
 presence of the Marbles of the Capitol, the Laocoon, the 
 Torso, and the Apollo Belvidere. I need not describe to 
 you what I felt at the sight of what I had heard and 
 dreamt of so long. I walked about — neither asleep nor 
 awake — and at last ascended a staircase, where a gallery 
 without end opened itself before me. It was, indeed, 
 “ the pomp and prodigality of Heaven.” First came the 
 pictures of France, then those of Flanders and Holland, 
 then those of Italy. Altar-pieces, which singly gave 
 celebrity to cathedrals and little cities, now hang side by 
 side, and in the multitude are passed almost without a 
 glance. I spend hours every day there. Things of such 
 excellence must be approached by degrees — and I can 
 truly say that the more I look the more I admire. Our 
 artists, who certainly came with no favourable preposses- 
 sions, were very agreeably surprised at the excellent con- 
 dition of the pictures ; and particularly of the Transfigu- 
 ration and the St. Pietro Martire of Titian. This 
 morning I saw Raphael's St. Cecilia laid on its face, and 
 about to receive a new canvas. The worm-eaten board 
 
PAEIS IN 1802 
 
 443 
 
 on which it was painted has been cut away with the 
 knife (what excellent nerves there are in France !) and 
 what I looked upon was actually the back of the thin coat 
 of paint. It is a delightful reflection that the colours of 
 such a pencil can survive the solid mass on which they 
 were laid, and may be transferred from surface to sur- 
 face while the world endures ! The gallery is open to 
 the public twice a week — to strangers every day — and 
 so also is the library, where hundreds are sitting and 
 reading constantly, at the tables in the long suite of 
 rooms, with the greatest silence and decorum. When you 
 enter you are struck with surprise at the number, for 
 from the stillness you expect nobody. The bronze 
 horses from Venice are placed over the gates of the 
 Tuileries. Bonaparte has twice exhibited himself to 
 the people since I came here. Once at his monthly 
 review in the Place du Carrousel, when, on his white 
 charger superbly caparisoned and surrounded by mame- 
 louks and general officers, he rode up and down the ranks 
 of six thousand, horse and foot. At every turn he 
 received petitions, which were delivered into his hand by 
 many well-dressed people, some of whom he questioned 
 as he ran his eyes over the papers. And once again, on 
 the evening of a festival, when the garden front of the 
 Tuileries was illuminated, and when, between the two 
 other consuls, he sat uncovered in a balcony in the 
 centre for above half an hour, taking snuff continually, 
 while an orchestra of a hundred and fifty performers 
 played and sang in the open air immediately under him. 
 At his levees he is more inclined to talk than to listen, 
 which is the case you will say with some other great 
 
444 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROG-ERS 
 
 people ; but his manners are very simple and pleasing. 
 His profile is very striking and elegant, but his eyes are 
 of a light grey, and his eyebrows scarcely distinguish- 
 able ; and his face is overspread with one dead yellow tint. 
 His head, to use the expression of a celebrated painter 
 here, is une tete de mort ; — but it is the head of a giant. 
 He measures in height but five-feet-five ; but his hat, 
 when he has left it on the table, as I have been assured 
 by those about him, has moved round the head of the 
 tallest and most robust general in his army. He lives 
 entirely at St. Cloud, which overhangs the Seine, and is 
 fitted up most sumptuously with gold and porphyry and 
 bronze. He travels very fast, attended by guards, in a 
 plain old-fashioned yellow coach and six blood horses, 
 his servants wearing cocked hats, but M e B.’s carriage 
 is a light chaise and four ct la mode Angloise. It is 
 singular to see a postilion on a blood horse under an 
 immense cocked hat. I wish I could give you a tableau 
 de Paris. But where shall we begin ? with the narrow 
 streets, where the approach of a voiture, or of a cabriolet 
 with its tinkling bell, and its cry of “ Garde ! Garde ! ” 
 produces a flight and a rout ; or with the squares and 
 bridges, where an array of shoe-blacks, formidable in 
 number and outcry, salute you with “ Ici on tond des 
 chiens et coupe les oreilles aux chiens et chats” or shall 
 we walk in the Tuileries Gardens, where there are more 
 statues than trees ; or shall we look into the bals bourgeois , 
 where a hundred couples waltz nightly ; or are you inclined 
 for a spectacle ? Will you see “ Puss in Boots ” wash 
 her whiskers with her paws, as she does every evening on 
 the Boulevards, to the delight of all the grown children 
 
PARIS IN 1802 
 
 445 
 
 or shall I introduce you to Mdlle. Duchesnois, who was 
 crowned last night in Phedre amidst tears and acclama- 
 tions ? No, rather come with me and admire “ those gay 
 creatures of the element,” the corps cle ballet, who will 
 enchant you with their delicate movements, and with 
 their beautiful groups in groves and caverns and among 
 the “ plighted clouds.” Vestris is still himself, though 
 his mistress, a celebrated dancer, died last week — and 
 was refused burial by the cure ; who, however, was sus- 
 pended for it by the Archbishop of Paris. Perhaps, most of 
 all, I have wished for you in the Abbe Sicard’s “ Academy 
 of Deaf and Dumb.” What ingenuous and speaking 
 countenances, and what triumph in their eyes, when 
 they catch and write on the wall the ideas communicated 
 to them ! The furniture here is very elegant, and your 
 old friend Mad e Recamier outshines the Consul himself. 
 Her bath and bedchamber are hung with silks of many 
 colours, and lighted with aromatic lamps and alabaster 
 vases. Her bed is an Etruscan couch, and every table is 
 supported by caryatides in bronze and gold. But you 
 must now wish to return to England. What a sad 
 variety of smells there is in Paris ! Surely snuff-taking 
 is an act of self-defence here, and what effluvia from the 
 kitchens, morning, noon, and night. Who would refuse 
 his assent here to the definition that ‘ man is a cooking 
 animal ? ’ The painters and lawyers are returned to 
 London, and are succeeded by a flight of fashionables 
 from Spa. The Wm. Smiths are here, and also the 
 Edgeworths, but I fear I am growing unfit for society, 
 for I can find none whose feelings are in unison with 
 my own, and a solitary walk along the Boulevards, and 
 
446 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 a tete-a-tete with the Apollo or the Transfiguration, are 
 my greatest consolations. Pray remember me particu- 
 larly to Mr. G., who will elucidate any obscurities in this 
 long letter ; and to each and to all of your little society, 
 not forgetting my dearest friend Betsy. Tell her I have 
 played the same part in Paris which she played in 
 London last spring, but with much less eclat. In less 
 than a fortnight I shall return to London with much 
 regret, but with more pleasure. The French are a lively 
 and clever people. Of their morals I shall say nothing, 
 though there are many noble exceptions. In the com- 
 forts of life they are many centuries behind us, but in 
 its elegancies they have no rivals ; and in their liberality 
 to strangers they are models for the rest of the world. 
 I have taken much pleasure in the environs of Paris ; 
 the little hills covered with vineyards wear still the last 
 red tint of autumn, and the sight of a great city with no 
 smoke over it is to an Englishman a phenomenon. It 
 is singular, too, that I recollect no wind through the 
 equinox here — a turbulent visitor I could well dispense 
 with in our island. In the Palais Royal the gaming 
 yields immense sums to the revenue. There are many 
 tables open from 12 at noon till 8 in the morning, 
 surrounded by young and old of both sexes. I hate the 
 sight of their illuminated windows as I return home in 
 an evening. In many of the coffee-houses there are 
 orchestras of music which continue playing and singing 
 with terrible fury from dusk till midnight. In the “ Cafe 
 des Aveugles ” there is a band of blind men and women, 
 a melancholy spectacle, and in some of the caveaux , or 
 cellars, little dramas are acted to allure company. In 
 
ROGERS, FOX, AND MACKINTOSH 447 
 
 the theatres all now sit in the parterre , a change effected 
 by the Revolution ; nor could Yorick now address them 
 with “In England we sit more at our ease.” Every 
 woman here carries her pocket-handkerchief on her arm 
 in a kind of work-bag ; and I have seen dirty nursery 
 girls with a tottering infant in one hand and their 
 ridicule in the other. The houses have no verandahs , and 
 the window curtains are of two different colours, crossing 
 each other, which have a very rich and lively effect. But 
 I have now exhausted my paper and your patience. 
 Adieu, once more ! You see I have not forgotten you, 
 though a sea lies between us, and many a province and 
 many a field of battle. 
 
 ‘ Your ever affectionate friend, 
 
 ‘ Samuel Rogers. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Eox has left us, to my great regret. He was 
 delighted beyond measure .’ 
 
 Rogers was much with Fox during this visit to Paris, 
 when some of the conversations recorded in the ‘ Recol- 
 lections ’ 1 took place. Walking in the Louvre they one 
 day met Mackintosh, whom Fox passed with a nod and 
 the briefest of salutations, telling Rogers he was angry 
 with Mackintosh for accepting the place in India offered 
 him by a Tory Government. But General Richard 
 Fitzpatrick, whom Rogers met at Fox’s dinner-table, as 
 well as at the Luxembourg and the Gobelins, told Rogers 
 that their wives were at the bottom of the coolness. 
 Fox had lately publicly acknowledged Mrs. Armstead, 
 
 1 Recollections , pp. 20-28, 35. 
 
448 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 to whom he had been married privately in 1795, as his 
 wife, and Mrs. Mackintosh had not paid her a formal 
 call. A fortnight before Rogers arrived in Paris Fox 
 had dined with Bonaparte, when the First Consul had 
 fold him that some persons thought Windham had 
 assisted in the plot to blow him up by an infernal 
 machine. Fox told Rogers that he had energetically 
 protested that the suspicion was a libel on Windham, 
 and that no Englishman would mix himself up in such 
 a business. Rogers afterwards told Windham what Fox 
 had said in his vindication, and Windham replied that 
 he would have done the same for Fox. 
 
 The next conversation with Fox recorded in the 
 ‘ Recollections ’ is dated January, 1803, and took place 
 during a visit of Rogers to Fox at St. Anne’s, ‘ a small 
 low white house on the brow of a hill commanding a 
 semicircular sweep, rich and woody.’ Rogers was then 
 busily occupied in preparing his new home, and he puts 
 on record Fox’s remarks that a distance is essential to a 
 house, and that the Green Park is the best situation in 
 London. The bow windows of Rogers’s new house looked 
 over the Green Park. He was fitting it up with great 
 care. He had made notes of household arrangements 
 he had seen in houses in which he had visited ; had given 
 much study to questions of decoration and ornament ; 
 and had designed the furniture himself, with the assist- 
 ance of Hope’s work on the subject. The mantelpiece 
 in the drawing-room was executed by Flaxman, who 
 superintended the general decoration of the walls and 
 the ceiling. Stothard designed a cabinet for antiquities, 
 ornamenting it with paintings by his own hand. By an 
 
A ‘CALM RECESS SO RICHLY FRAUGHT’ 449 
 
 accident it happened that some of the wood-carving in 
 the dining-room was executed by Chantrey. Rogers 
 only knew this five-and-twenty years afterwards, when 
 Chantrey had become famous. Much of the work was 
 done under Rogers’s personal supervision, and with 
 drawing in hand he one day received a journeyman sent 
 by a wood-carver to execute some ornamentation on a 
 sideboard in the dining-room. At dinner, long after- 
 wards, in the same room, Chantrey, pointing to the 
 sideboard, asked Rogers whether he remembered the 
 circumstance, and Rogers, who never forgot anything, 
 recollected it clearly. ‘ Well,’ said Chantrey, ‘ I was that 
 journeyman.’ The furniture and decoration followed 
 the Greek models, and one of the striking features of 
 the house was its large and beautiful collection of Greek 
 vases. ‘ Round the staircase,’ says his nephew, * was 
 added a frieze, taken from the Panathenaic procession 
 among the Elgin marbles.’ Rogers’s long studies in 
 the Louvre in the previous autumn had done much to 
 complete the formation of that perfect taste which found 
 expression in the furniture and decoration of his house. 
 
 A contemporary account of Rogers, of his house, and 
 of the company he gathered in it, is given by Dr. Burney 
 in his diary under the date of the ist of May, 1804. 
 Dr. Burney says of Rogers that ‘ he is a good poet, has 
 a refined taste in all the arts, has a select library of the 
 best editions of the best authors in all languages, has 
 very fine pictures, very fine drawings, and the finest 
 collection I ever saw of Etruscan vases ; and moreover, 
 he gives the best dinners to the best company of men of 
 talents and genius I know ; the best served, and with the 
 
 G G 
 
450 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 best wines, liqueurs, &c. . . . His books of prints of the 
 greatest engravers from the greatest masters in history, 
 architecture, and antiquities, are of the first class. His 
 house in St. James’s Place, looking into the Green Park, 
 is deliciously situated and furnished with great taste.’ 
 This account of Rogers’s house and parties in 1804 
 may be compared with a description written by Charles 
 Sumner, the American Senator, in a letter to G. S. 
 Hilliard, thirty-five years later, in January 1839: 
 ‘ You have often heard of Rogers’s house. It is not 
 large, but the few rooms — two drawing-rooms and a 
 dining-room only — are filled with the most costly paint- 
 ings, all from some of the great galleries of Italy or 
 elsewhere, most of which cost five or ten thousand 
 dollars apiece. I should think there were about thirty 
 in all ; perhaps you will not see in the world another 
 such collection in so small a space. There was a little 
 painting by Raphael, about a foot square, of the Saviour 
 praying in the Garden, brimful of thought and expres- 
 sion, which the old man said he should like to have 
 in his chamber when dying. There were masterpieces 
 by Titian, Correggio, Caracci, Guido, Paul Veronese, 
 Rubens, Barocchio, Giotto, and Reynolds. He pointed 
 out the picture of an armed knight, which Walter Scott 
 always admired. His portfolios were full of the most 
 valuable original drawings. There were all Flaxman’s 
 illustrations of Homer and the Tragedians, as they left 
 the pencil of the great artist. Indeed, he said that he 
 could occupy me for a month, and invited me to come 
 and breakfast with him any morning that I chose, 
 sending him word the night before.’ 
 
‘ONE CHOSEN SEAT THAT CHARMS’ 
 
 451 
 
 Eogers had now cut himself entirely free from busi- 
 ness. His youngest brother Henry had become the 
 active partner and working head of the banking firm, 
 and there was no occasion for the chief partner to 
 trouble himself with its concerns. His income, though 
 not large, was sufficient for one who had only a bachelor’s 
 establishment to maintain, and who led ‘the life of 
 satisfied desires.’ He had no expensive habits beyond 
 those which sprang from a determination to make his 
 house the ideal abode of the man of taste and the man 
 of letters. He had not even the ambition to become the 
 patron of poor authors, though circumstances were con- 
 tinually forcing that duty on him. His wish was to 
 surround himself with what was best, and he chose his 
 friends as he chose his pictures and his furniture — for 
 their quality in this noblest sense. It soon became 
 known that the charming house in St. James’s Place, 
 about which society was talking, was open to all who 
 had a claim to be regarded as men of letters, or artists, 
 or wits, or statesmen : though of the latter, it was chiefly 
 the Whigs who found themselves at home. 
 
 G G 2 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ACL 
 
 BOW 
 
 A CLAND, Mr., 402 
 
 Adams, John, 117, 278 
 Adele, Princess, 244, 245 
 Adventurer, the, 306, 307 
 Aikin, Dr., 78, 246, 261, 262, 265, 
 319, 331, 352, 375, 380 
 
 — Miss, 80 
 
 Aix, Bishop of, 266 
 Allen, John, 422 
 Amiens, Peace of, 323, 425 
 Amory, Rev. Dr., 21 
 Amphlett, Mr., 45 
 Anderson, Dr., 96, 410 
 
 — Mr., 403 
 
 Andrews, Miles P., 300 
 Anti-Jacobin, 378, 379 
 Anti-Jacobin Review, 395 
 ‘ Antiquarian Society,’ 246 
 Armstead, Mrs., 264, 347, 376, 
 447 
 
 Armstrong, 304, 305 
 Ash, Dr., 22 
 Ashburton, Lord, 35 
 
 Barker, Mrs., 13, 14 
 Barnave, 129, 135, 137 
 Barre, Colonel, 31, 301 
 Barrington, Daines, 246 
 Barry, Madame du, 303 
 Barwell, 309 
 Barwis, Jackson, 264 
 Bates, Dr., 246, 262, 264 
 Bathurst, Dr. R., 306 
 Bearcroft, 49, 311 
 Beattie, Dr., 170 
 Beattie’s ‘ Edwin,’ 58, 59 
 Bedford, Duchess of, 34 
 
 — Duke of, 303 
 Bennet, Major, 84 
 Bentley, Dr., 242 
 Berthon, Mrs. 23 
 Bessborough, Lord, 385 
 Bewick, 248 
 Birches, the Miss, 18 
 Birmingham riots, 200, 202 
 Black, Dr., 167 
 
 Blair, Dr., 89, 91, 94, 103, 167 
 
 — Mr. and Mrs., 45 
 
 J>ACHELOR, The, 424 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 79, 80, 166 
 
 — ’Dr. M., 80, 168 
 Bancroft, Dr., 265 
 Bank partnership, 73, 74 
 Banks, Sir J., 244 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., 78, 79, 157, 210, 
 211, 305, 323, 397 
 
 poetic appeal, 203, 204 
 
 Baring, Mr., 396, 422 
 
 — Sir F., 319, 375 
 
 Blake, 263 
 Blanc (actor), 64 
 Blanchisserie, 245 
 Boddington, S., 120, 121, 137, 
 164, 325, 333, 345, 408, 431, 
 432, 434, 435, 438 
 Bonaparte, 426, 430, 433, 444, 
 448 
 
 Bosanquet, 23 
 
 Boswell, 169, 268, 269, 309, 311 
 Bouche de Fer, Society, 147 
 Bowles, Martha, 81 
 
454 
 
 EARLY LIEE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 BOW 
 
 Bowles, Mr. and Mrs., 17 
 Boyd, 138 
 
 Brignola, Marquis, 327, 349 
 Bristol election of 1781, 43, 44 
 Bristow, Mrs., 348 
 Broadhead, Mr. and Mrs., 263 
 Brogden, 319, 375 
 Brougham, 422 
 Browne, Captain, 244 
 Bruce, 96 
 
 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 80, 213 
 Bunker’s Hill, Battle of, 33 
 Burgh, 8, 11, 17, 18 
 Burke, E., 113, 114, 133. 173, 
 304, 307, 381 
 BurheyTL^-7^49 
 Burns, Robert, 109, 110, 169, 220 
 Burroughs, 21 
 Butler, 268 
 Byron, Lord, 218, 236 
 
 C ABARUS, Madame, 431, 434 
 Cadell, 35, 67, 168, 169, 212, 
 415 
 
 Cadogan, Dr., 167 
 Campbell, General, 139 
 — Thomas, 236, 240 
 Canissy, Madame de ; , 136 
 Cardigan, Lady, 404 
 Carr, 263 
 — Lady C., 391 
 Carrington, Lord, 346, 347 
 Casamajor, 419 
 Catloe, Rev. Mr., 108 
 Chabot, 137, 139 
 Champernowne, 426, 434, 438 
 Chantrey, 449 
 — Mrs., 391 
 Chapelier, 139 
 
 Chatelet, Due de, 132, 133, 136, 
 147 
 
 — M., 139 
 Chatelleux, de, 266 
 Chatham, Lord, 309, 317 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 308 
 Christie, 263 
 Clark, Lady, 350 
 Cleaver, Miss, 347 
 Clermont-Tonnere, 130, 137 
 Clifford, Lord, 106 
 
 d’al 
 
 Clifton in 1791, 201 
 Clifton, Sir Gervase, 84 
 Cline, 325 
 
 ‘ Club Monarchique,’ 138, 145 
 4 Club, My,’ 313 
 ‘ Club of ’89,’ 136, 138, 147 
 Cockburn, 11, 18 
 Coleridge, S. T., 68, 116, 219 
 Collier, Joseph, 49 
 Collins, W., 304, 305 
 Colman, 307 
 
 — George, 63, 64 
 Colton, Rev. C., 381 
 ‘ Columbus,’ 339 
 
 Combe, W., 407, 407 n , 414 
 ‘ Commonplace Book,’ 372, 424 
 Concannon, 342, 347, 434 
 Condorcet, Madame de, 135, 140,. 
 171, 172 
 
 — M. de, 135, 136, 137, 138 
 
 ‘ Conquerors of Bastille,’ 145 
 * Convalescent de Qualite,’ 141 
 Cooper, 261, 262, 265, 285, 287 
 Copenhagen Fields meeting, 317, 
 318 
 
 Coquerel, Athanase, 77 
 
 Ath., jun., 77 
 
 Corporation of London, 34 
 Costello, 272 
 Cottle, 68, 84 
 Courtenay, 319, 375 
 Coventry election, 40, 41, 42, 43, 
 44 
 
 Cowley, Mrs., 211, 300 
 Cowper, 59, 217, 218, 240, 352 
 Coxe, Dr., 1 
 
 — W. (author), 1 
 Coyte, Dr., 87 
 Crabbe, Rev. G., 235 
 Crawford, Dr., 261 
 Crisp, Miss, 14 
 
 Critical Review , 68, 212, 219 
 Cruger, 43, 44 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 35, 271, 
 309 
 
 — Richard, 242, 243, 281, 282, 
 345, 405 
 
 D ACRE, Lord, 246 
 D’Alembert, 130 
 
INDEX 
 
 455 
 
 DAS 
 
 * Dash wold,’ 272 
 Daubeny, 43, 44 
 Day, G., 169 
 De Grave, 436 
 
 — Lille, 437 
 
 — Linne, 84 
 
 Della Cruscans, the, 175, 176, 
 218 
 
 De Moivre, 32 
 Derby, Lord, 319 
 Desiles, 135 
 Deyverdun, 349 
 
 ‘ Diary of a Lover of Literature,’ 
 357 
 
 Dilly, 242, 243, 268 
 Dorset, Lord, 106 
 Douglas, Dr., 106, 246 
 Dryden, 48, 59 
 Ducarell, 402 
 Dufferin, Lady, 370 
 Dumont, 279 
 Dundas, 288, 289 
 Dunning, 31 
 Dupont, 133 
 
 Du Port, Madame, 436, 437 
 Dyce, Rev. A., 24, 37, 55, 63, 66, 
 74, 110, 162, 164,207,266, 288, 
 302, 381 
 Dyer, G., 304 
 
 — John, 186 n 
 
 "EARTHQUAKE in 1749, 3 
 Jlj Edgeworth, 50, 438, 445 
 Edinburgh Review, 207, 340, 363, 
 369 
 
 Edison, 246, 328 
 ‘ Edward,’ by Dr. Moore, 323 
 Edwards, Bryan, 408, 422 
 Eldon, Lord, 240 
 Ellis, George, 420 
 * Emily Montagu,’ 348 
 Enfield, Dr., 70, 331 
 England, South of, in 1792, 249- 
 260 
 
 ‘Epilogue,’ 293, 294, 295 
 ‘ Epistle to a Friend,’ 281, 291, 
 351, 352, 353, 354, 355 
 
 criticism on, 368, 369 
 
 Erskine, Lord, 116, 264, 274, 288, 
 336, 374, 376, 378, 426, 431 
 
 GIL 
 
 Este, 176, 211 
 ‘ Eumelean Club,’ 268 
 European Magazine , 312, 313, 
 314 
 
 Ewer, 87 
 
 Exmouth in 1800, 403 
 
 F almouth, Lord, 309 
 
 Farmer, Rev. Mr., 17 
 Farrington, 426, 433 
 Favell, 334 
 Fenelon, 154, 284 
 Ferriar, Dr., 396 
 Field, Rev. W., 20 n 
 — E. W., 20 n 
 Fitzgerald, Lady E., 265 
 Fitzpatrick, General, 433, 435, 
 437 
 
 Flaxman, 247, 248, 373, 425, 448 
 Foote, 271, 272, 300 
 Forbes, General, 420 
 Fox, Caroline, 279 
 — C. J., 116, 121, 244, 245, 276, 
 291, 319, 320, 321, 322, 347, 
 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 
 382, 431, 433, 435, 439, 447 
 Francis, Sir P., 116, 319, 375 
 Franklin, Dr., 32, 134, 144, 264, 
 265, 266, 267, 268, 308 
 Fredley Farm, 371, 413 
 French Revolution, 115, 116 
 
 English feeling about, 116 
 
 ‘ Friends of the People,’ 246, 274, 
 287 
 
 * From Euripides,’ 413 
 Fuseli, 304, 426 
 
 G ardiner, sir r., 324 
 
 Garrick, D., 174, 264, 271, 
 282, 300, 308 
 Garshore, Dr., 262 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 52, 53, 
 54, 393 
 
 Gibbon, 35, 94, 349 
 Gifford, 174, 175, 176, 218, 285, 
 383 
 
 Gillies, Dr. John, 262, 265, 297, 
 314 
 
 Gilpin, Rev. W.. 92, 102, 233, 
 
456 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 GLY 
 
 256, 258, 260, 352, 355, 356, 
 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 
 364, 365, 410, 411, 412, 421, 
 427 
 
 Glyn, Sir R., 18 
 Goldsmith, 58, 59 
 Gordon, Lord George, 137 
 
 — riots, 38 
 Gower, Lord, 131 
 Grandison, Sir C., 172 
 Grant, Dr., 14 
 
 — Miss, 348 
 Grattan, H., 371, 372 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 26, 57, 59, 92 
 240, 307, 394 
 Greg, Mrs., 440, 441 
 
 — Samuel, 440 
 
 — W. Rathbone, 440 
 Grenet, Abbe, 129, 130, 244 
 Grey, Charles, 116, 274 
 Grieve, Dr., 15 
 Griffiths, Dr., 242, 265, 307 
 Guizot (quoted), 296 
 
 H ackney College, 75 , 83 , 379 
 Hagley, 5 
 
 Haldimand, Miss, 347 
 Halifax, Sir T., 40, 42 
 Hallam, H., 422 
 Hamilton, Duke of, 308 
 — Lady, 265 
 
 ‘ Single speech,’ 94 
 Hampden, Lord, 307 
 Hampstead assemblies, 78, 79, 
 211 
 
 Hanson, Mrs., 23 
 Harris, Mary, 1 
 — Samuel, 1 
 
 Hawkesworth, Dr., 306, 307 
 Hayley, W., 217, 243, 244, 260 
 Hayward, A., 28, 55, 207, 212, 
 235, 237, 238, 288, 340, 341, 
 369, 370, 371, 374 
 Henry, Rev. Philip, 2, 3 
 — - Rev. Matthew, 2, 3 
 Herbert, Nicholas, 95 
 4 Heroic Epistle,’ 304 
 Heywood, Mrs., 108 
 -- Serjeant, 319, 375 
 * Hill, The,’ Old Swinford, 4 
 
 KNI 
 
 Hinkley, 264 
 Holloway, 247 
 Holroyd, J. B., 40, 42 
 Hoole, 242, 243 
 Hope, 346, 438 
 
 Hoppner, J., 310, 325, 422, 426 
 Horner, Francis, 279, 378, 422 
 Horsley, Bishop, 305 
 
 — Mrs., 348 
 Hottingue, M., 132 
 Howard, John, 265 
 
 — 428, 429 
 Hoyle, Rev. Mr., 4 
 Hulton, 9 
 Hume, D., 95, 303 
 Hunt, Leigh, 369 
 Hutton, Dr., 96 
 
 I NCLEDON (the actor), 64 
 Indefatigable , the, 324 
 Independence, Declaration of, 33 
 
 TACKSON, W., 390, 395, 399, 
 O 400, 401, 405, 406 
 ‘ Jacobin Club,’ 138, 139, 147 
 Jeffrey, F., 422 
 Jekyll, 305 
 
 Jerningham, 168, 169, 170, 171, 
 172, 173, 176 
 
 Jersey, Lady, 336, 337, 373, 404 
 Johnson (actor), 64 
 — Dr., 19, 52, 53, 166, 168, 174, 
 268, 269, 304, 307, 311, 312, 
 329 
 
 Johnstone, Dr. E., 311 
 ‘ Julia de Roubigne,’ 112 
 4 Junius,’ 94 
 
 EAY, 121, 132, 133, 135, 137’ 
 144, 146, 147, 148, 149 
 Keralio, Mdlle. de, 131 
 — M. de, 131 
 King, Lord, 422 
 
 ‘ King of Clubs,’ the, 396, 422, 
 423 
 
 Kippis, Rev. Dr., 75, 76, 88, 89, 
 91, 169, 171, 211, 274 
 Knight, Richard, 5, 47 • 
 
 — R. Payne, 5, 422 
 — Thomas Andrew, 5 
 
INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 LAB 
 
 L ABOUCHERE, Mrs., 391 
 Lafayette, 121, 132, 133 
 134, 143, 147, 160, 433 
 — Madame de, 132, 134 
 * La Libertd conquise,’ 135 
 ‘ L’amant femme de chambre,’ 
 140 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 7, 11 
 Lambton, W. H., 274, 319, 375 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 318 
 La Rive (actor), 138 
 Lauderdale, Lord, 269, 319, 320, 
 375, 378 
 Lawley, 84 
 
 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 74, 75 
 * Leasowes,’ the, 5 
 Le Breton, Mrs., 78 
 ‘ Le Jaloux sans Amour,’ 134 
 Lenox, Colonel, 88 
 Lexington, Battle of, 33 
 Liancourt, Due de, 131, 139, 
 140 
 
 Lindsey, Rev. Theophilus, 36 
 Lisle, 17 
 
 Loughborough, Lord, 170 
 Louis XVI., 142 
 Loyd, Jones, 38 
 Lubbock, Sir John, 425 
 Lucan, Lady, 345, 348 
 Lysons, S., 241, 246, 293 
 Lyttelton, Mr., 15 
 — George, 5, 6 
 
 — Lord, 21, 22, 31, 267, 293, 300 
 
 M acaulay, Lord, 175, 217 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 90, 91, 
 93, 95, 109, 111, 112, 165, 166, 
 167, 168, 169, 170, 171 
 — Miss, 113 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., 116, 117, 237, 
 274, 277, 279, 301, 302, 304, 
 . 316, 375, 381, 382, 423, 434, 
 438, 447 
 
 Mail coaches, 46 
 Mailly, Abbe, 147 
 Maitland, 21 
 
 Maltby, William, 30, 49, 213, 
 278, 325, 415, 422 
 14 Man of Feeling,’ the, 90, 111 
 
 MUR 
 
 ‘ Man of the World,’ the, 111 
 Manners, General, 348 
 Mansfield, Lord, 228, 229, 271 
 Marie Antoinette, 142 
 Marmontel, 130, 153, 244 
 Marsden, 246, 262 
 Marsh, 246 
 Martin, James, 264 
 Mason, 304, 313, 415 
 Mathias, T. J., 331, 384, 385 
 Matthew, 341, 345 
 Maury, Abbe, 130, 131 
 McGowan, 95 
 McMurdo, 264 
 Melampus , The , 323 
 Merry, Robert, 103, 168, 169, 
 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 213, 
 244, 282, 283, 284, 285 
 Mill, John, 279 
 Millar, 307 
 Millingen, 426 
 
 Mirabeau, 120, 133, 135, 245 
 Mitchell, Mary, 14, 18, 20, 27, 
 297 
 
 — Paul, 27 
 
 Mitford, Rev. John, 162 
 
 — Sir John, 377 
 Monboddo, Lord, 168, 170, 171 
 Monfort, Major, 244, 246 
 Montagu, Mrs., 31, 173 
 Monthly Review , 68, 213, 307, 
 
 368 
 
 Moore, Dr., 109, 110, 157, 158, 
 161, 169, 172, 173, 244, 297, 
 322, 386, 408, 409, 410 
 
 — Dr. Carrick, 426 
 
 — Graham, 157, 244, 323 
 
 — James, 410 
 
 — Sir John, 26, 157, 409 
 
 — Tom, 218 
 
 ‘ Mordaunt,’ 397, 404 
 Morgan, George, 331 
 
 — Lady, 337, 363 
 
 — William, 32, 246, 290 
 Morning Chronicle . 378 
 
 — Post , 378 
 Morris, 137 
 Morton, Rev. C., 1 
 Muir, 95 
 
 Murphy, Arthur, 263, 268, 269, 
 270, 271, 272 
 
458 
 
 EARLY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 NAN 
 
 ATANDO, 305 
 IN Neal, Mrs., 23 
 Nicholls, John, M.P., 421, 434 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 318, 378 
 Norton, Mrs., 28, 370 
 
 O AKES, Colonel, 403 
 Ogle, 263 
 
 Oglethorpe, General, 52 
 Old Swinford, 4, 5 
 Olding, John, 73, 74, 81 
 Onslow, T., 348 
 Opie, 247, 373, 426 
 O’Quigley, 381 
 Overstone, Lord, 38 
 Oxford, Lady, 431 
 — Lord, 378 
 
 P AINE, Thomas, 117, 118, 174, 
 246, 264, 290 
 Paley, Dr., 81 
 Palmer, Rev. Fyshe, 287 
 — Roger, 300 
 Pamela, 244, 245 
 Paradise, 311 
 Paris in 1802, 426-448 
 Parker, Captain John, 33 
 — Theodore, 33 
 
 Parr, Dr., 207, 208, 209, 242, 
 243, 305, 311, 319, 375, 381 ; 
 interview with, 207 ; on ‘ Plea- 
 sures of Memory,’ 220-233 
 Parsons, 103, 263, 301, 313, 342. 
 
 345, 432, 435 
 Peach, Mrs., 15, 22 
 Peerless Pool, 9, 11 
 Pennant, Thomas, 19 
 Perigord, 142, 143, 146 
 Perregaux, 131 
 Perry, 374 
 
 Petrie, 129, 137, 138, 336 
 Pickbourne, Rev. J., 17, 29 
 Pigou, Mrs., 419, 420 
 Pinkerton, 268 
 
 Piozzi, 91, 94, 103, 169, 241, 269 
 — Mrs., 91, 93, 103, 105, 173, 
 185, 338, 420 
 
 Pitt, William, 134, 244, 305, 307, 
 317 
 
 REY 
 
 ‘ Pizarro,’ 397 
 
 ‘ Pleasures of Memory,’ 213-240, 
 312, 315, 353 
 
 Polwhele, Rev. R., 314, 315, 395 
 
 Pope, 59 
 
 Porson, 30, 422 
 
 Portland, Duke of, 317 
 
 ‘ Pursuits of Literature,’ the, 
 383, 384 
 
 Price, Dr., 4, 7, 8, 17, 18, 20, 91, 
 116, 286, 301, 303, 311, 316, 
 331; his influence, 8, 35; his 
 works, 8, 31, 32 ; stories of, 9, 
 10, 35 ; habits of, 10 ; his 
 white horse, 34 ; and Turgot, 
 35 ; and the Corporation of 
 London, 34 ; and Congress, 
 35 ; and France, 35 ; at Hack- 
 ney, 36 ; ‘ On Love of Country,’ 
 118 ; and Lafayette, 133 ; his 
 simplicity, 173 
 
 — Mrs., 13, 18 
 
 — Uvedale, 407 n 
 
 Priestley, Dr., 8, 31, 116, 119, 
 202, 205, 206, 208, 243, 245, 
 246, 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 
 274, 286, 287, 308, 311, 312, 
 316 
 
 — Joseph, jun., 285 * 
 
 ABAUD, M., 130, 204 
 
 Radford, Daniel, 1, 2, 3, 4„ 
 5, 6, 27 
 — Eleanor, 2 
 
 — Mary, 3, 6 
 
 — Samuel, 2 
 
 Raper, 13, 264, 391, 421 
 
 — Harry, 13 
 
 — Miss, 13, 14 
 Rathbone, W., M.P., 440 
 Raynal, Abbe, 130 
 R6camier, Madame, 431, 445 
 
 * Recollections,’ Rogers’s, 164, 
 292, 319, 375, 376, 381, 448 
 Reed, Isaac, 242, 393 
 Reid, 268 
 
 Rennell, Major, 313 
 Reynolds (dramatist), 300 
 Reynolds, Sir J., 113, 114, 173, 
 310 
 
INDEX 
 
 459 
 
 RIC 
 
 Ricardo, 422 
 
 Richelieu, Due de, 303 
 
 Rickards, 15 
 
 — Samuel, 15 
 
 Robertson, Dr., 89, 90, 91, 93, 97, 
 99, 111 
 
 Robinson, John, 43, 44 
 
 Rochefoucauld, Due de la, 131, 
 135, 139 
 
 — Duchesse de la, 133, 138, 160 
 
 Roebuck, Dr., 166 
 
 Rogers, Daniel, 7, 37, 38, 40, 41, 
 80, 389 
 
 — Hepry, 7, 27, 83, 296, 297, 
 373, 388, 429, 436, 437 
 
 — Maria, 7, 50 
 
 — Martha, 7 
 
 — Mary, 7 
 
 — Mary R., 7 
 
 — Samuel, ancestors, 1, 2, 3, 4, 
 5, 6 ; birth, 7 ; first letter, 16 ; 
 on his mother, 25, 26 ; would 
 be a preacher, 36 ; boyish 
 freak, 37 ; goes to business, 
 38, 39 ; and Wilkes, 39 ; at 
 Margate, 48, 49 ; ‘To the 
 Gnat,’ 48 ; studious evenings, 
 50, 51 ; first compositions, 52 ; 
 ‘ The Scribbler,’ 53, 54, 55 ; 
 calls on Johnson, 53 ; and 
 Gray’s poems, 57, 59 ; and 
 Walpole’s letters, 57 ; ‘Of 
 Myself,’ 60, 61 ; ‘a banker 
 poet,’ 61 ; devotion to busi- 
 ness, 62 ; ‘ Vintage of Bur- 
 gundy,’ 63 : ‘ Alps at Day- 
 break,’ 64 ; ‘ Dear is my little 
 Native Vale,’ 64, 65 ; ‘ To the 
 Nightingale,’ 65 ; Love-song, 
 66 ; ‘ Ode to Superstition,’ 67, 
 68, 69, 70 ; ‘ Captivity,’ 71 ; 
 stanzas at midnight, 71, 72 ; 
 method of composition, 66 ; 
 
 ’ partnership, 73, 74 ; on death 
 of his brother, 82, 83 ; journey 
 to north, 85, 86 ; at Edin- 
 burgh, 87-95 ; journey to 
 Paris, 115-145 ; at Calais, 
 124 ; at Abbeville, 125 ; at 
 Amiens, 125 ; at Clermont, 
 126 ; at Paris, 128 ; journey 
 
 ROG 
 
 to Brussels, 152, 153 ; view of 
 French Revolution, 160; con- 
 versation at Miss Williams’s, 
 165-174 ; journey in South 
 Wales, 177-200 ; letter to his 
 father, 185 ; ‘ On a Tear,’ 211 ; 
 
 ‘ The Pleasures of Memory,’ 
 212, 213-240 ; spoken of as ‘ the 
 poet,’ 239 ; Diary in 1792, 241- 
 247 ; journey in South of Eng- 
 land, 249-261 ; Diary of 1792 
 and 1793, 261-268; Common- 
 place Book, 269-272 ; turning- 
 point, 273 ; death of his father, 
 275 ; left as the heir, 275 ; and 
 R. Sharp, 277 ; asked for 
 money, 283, 284 ; and Dr. 
 Priestley, 286 ; summoned to 
 Privy Council, 289 ; at Stone’s 
 trial, 290 ; writing ‘ Epistle,’ 
 291 ; and Mrs. Siddons, 292, 
 293, 294, 295 ; his father’s 
 advice, 296 ; letter to R. 
 Sharp, 299 ; at Margate, 299, 
 300 ; Commonplace Book, 309 ; 
 letter to Dr. Parr, 312 ; verses 
 on him, 313 ; accused of pla- 
 giarism, 315 ; letter to Sarah, 
 326 ; letters to R. Sharp, 330, 
 334, 335, 341, 343, 366, 392, 
 394, 397, 402, 405, 414 ; 
 
 ‘Epistle to a Friend,’ 355, 
 356 ; 4 in a peck of troubles,’ 
 366 ; deciding on removal, 
 370, 371 ; mentioned in ‘ Pur- 
 suits of Literature,’ 384 ; and 
 the classics, 385, 386 ; at Ex- 
 mouth, 388-412 ; and W. 
 Jackson, 398, 400 ; on Melan- 
 choly, 408 n ; visit to Paris 
 (1802), 426; letter to H. 
 
 Rogers, 429 ; letters to Maria 
 Sharpe, 428, 432 ; letter to 
 Mrs. Greg, 441 ; and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Fox, 447, 448 ; his new 
 home, 449, 450 
 
 Rogers, Sarah, 7, 19, 86, 87, 297, 
 324, 390, 429 
 
 — T. (grandfather), 4, 5, 24, 44 
 
 — Thomas (father), his mar- 
 riage, 6 ; his businesses, 6 ;. 
 
460 
 
 EAELY LIFE OF SAMUEL ROGERS 
 
 ROG 
 
 his children, 7 ; his character, 
 11, 28 ; journey to Scotland, 
 19 ; his politics, 29, 274 ; 
 Coventry election, 40, 42 ; 
 
 letter, 45 ; partnership, 73, 
 74 ; President of Hackney 
 College, 75 ; letters from Bath, 
 84, 85 ; letter from Stour- 
 bridge, 205 ; on Dr. Priestley, 
 206 ; his death, 275 ; advice to 
 Sam, 296, 379 
 
 Rogers, Mrs. T. (mother), 10, 11 ; 
 letters, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 
 22 ; Diary, 24 ; death, 25 
 — Thomas, jun. (brother), 7, 14, 
 45, 73, 74, 81, 82, 83 
 Roi, Le, 266 
 Romilly, S., 422 
 Romney, 243, 265 
 Rougemont, M., 132 
 Rousseau, 148, 149, 173, 303, 
 344, 345 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 274, 378 
 Ryland, Dr., 306 
 
 S ADLER, Rev. Dr., 36, 78 
 
 Salm-Kirbourg, Prince de, 
 142, 142 n 
 Salmon, 431 
 Scarlett, 422, 424 
 Schollet, Mrs., 343, 347 
 ‘ School for Scandal,’ 305, 307 
 Scott, Sir W., 52, 111 
 Seawell, 49 
 
 Seward, 168, 169, 170-174, 314 
 Seymour, Lord Webb, 378 
 Sharp, Granville, 33 
 — Richard, 122, 160, 253, 263, 
 274, 276, 277, 278, 280, 286, 
 297, 298, 299, 302, 303, 310, 
 313, 316, 328, 329, 330, 332, 
 333, 338, 339, 340, 343, 363, 
 366, 367, 373, 392, 394, 402, 
 405 
 
 Sharpe, Catharine, 247 
 — Samuel, 28, 29, 48, 56, 80, 83, 
 210, 273, 351, 352, 354, 372 
 — Sutton, 244, 246, 247, 248, 
 262, 265, 268, 297, 320, 354, 
 425 
 
 TAN 
 
 Sharpe, Mrs. Sutton, 324, 325, 
 373, 428, 432, 436 
 
 — William, 164, 248, 319, 375 
 Shee, 248, 426 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, 20, 31, 245 
 Shenstone, 5, 313 
 Sheridan, R. B., 116, 244, 245, 
 269, 274, 276, 292, 305, 307, 
 308, 316, 374, 375, 397 
 
 — Mrs., 401 
 Sicard, Abbe, 443, 445 
 Siddons, Mrs., 75, 172, 176, 265, 
 
 292, 294, 407 ; letters from, 
 
 293, 294 
 
 Si&yes, Abbe, 171 
 Sillery, Madame de, 244, 245 
 Smith, Adam, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 
 95, 96, 110, 111, 140, 167 
 
 — Robert, 422, 424 
 
 — Sydney, 279, 374, 423 
 
 — William, M.P., 265, 319, 321, 
 375, 403, 438, 445 
 
 Smollett, Dr., 102, 110 
 ‘ Societe des Amis de la Constitu- 
 tion,’ 144 
 Solly, Mrs., 23 
 Southey, R., 116, 219, 291 
 South Wales in 1791, 177-200 
 Spencer, 309, 349 
 Stamford, Lord, 6, 295 
 Stanhope, Lord, 116, 118, 139 
 Stanley, Lord, 375 
 Staunton, Sir G., 306 
 Steed, 19 
 
 Steevens, George, 384, 393 
 Stoke Newington, 1, 6 
 
 Chapel, 1, 29 
 
 Stone, Miss, 391, 403 
 
 — William, 244, 287, 289, 290, 
 292, 319 
 
 Stothard, T., 215, 248, 262, 264, 
 265, 325, 448 
 Stourbridge, 4, 5, 46 
 Strachan, Sir R., 323 
 Sumner, Charles, 450 
 Sunday Schools, 46, 47 
 Supping Club, 8 
 Swift, Mrs., 88 
 
 T ALLIEN, 432 
 
 Tankerville, Lord, 419, 420 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 TAN 
 
 Tann, 84 
 
 Tenby in 1791, 189, 190 
 Tennant, 422 
 Tens, du, 303 
 Thomson, 268 
 Thoresby, Rev. Mr., 8 
 Thornton, Bonnel, 306 
 Thrale, Cecilia, 96, 103, 105, 
 241, 337, 338, 363, 419 
 
 — the Misses, 420 
 
 — Mrs., 338 
 Tickell, Mrs., 265 
 Ticknor, 112 
 Tierney, 322, 375 
 
 Tooke, Horne, 243, 261, 268, 
 274, 276, 287, 288, 289, 291, 
 292, 307, 316, 320, 321, 325, 
 334, 378 
 Topham, 176 
 Torso, Lines to the, 439 
 Toulouse, Archbishop of, 266 
 Towers, Rev. Dr., 29 
 Towgood, 274, 390 
 Townley, 244 
 Travers (surgeon), 426 
 Tuffin, 244, 261, 265, 268, 286, 
 325, 343 
 Turgot, 266 
 Tweddle, 243 
 
 Y ALENTIA, Lord, 22, 45, 46, 
 295 
 
 Vaughan, B., 263 
 — W., 263 
 
 ‘Vindiciae Gallicae,’ 117, 301 
 Voltaire, 95, 172, 303 
 
 AKEFIELD, Rev. Gilbert, 
 75, 379, 380 
 Walpole, 377 
 
 Warburton, Bishop, 307, 416 
 — Mrs., 308 
 
 ZEL 
 
 Warton, J., 304, 305, 307, 355 
 356, 384 
 
 — Thomas, 76, 240 
 Wedgwood, T., 422 
 Welch, George, 6, 74 
 
 — Kemp, 73 n 
 
 — Thomas, 6, 12 
 
 — and Rogers, 7 
 
 Welsh peasantry in 1791, 195 
 Wesley lying in state, 163 
 West, Benjamin, 426 
 
 — Raphael, 426 
 Westall, R., 215 
 Westminster election, 320, 321 
 Westmoreland, Lord, 317 
 Weston, 265, 301 
 Whitbread, 116, 274 
 
 White, Miss, 348 
 Whitworth, Lord, 428 
 Wickes, John, 4 
 
 — Obadiah, 2, 4 
 Wilberforce, 322 
 
 Wilkes, John, 39, 40, 140, 308, 
 377 
 
 Wilkie (author of ‘ Epigoniad ’), 
 166 
 
 Williams, Cecilia, 77, 204 
 
 — Helen Maria, 76, 157, 172, 
 204 
 
 Wilson, Mr. and Mrs., 12 
 Windham, W., 116, 325, 448 
 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 29 
 Wordsworth, W., 24, 58, 68, 116, 
 117, 156, 2-17, 218, 219, 236, 
 291 
 
 World, The, 176, 211, 306 
 Worthington, Mary, 27, 296, 297 
 Wren, Sir C., 308 
 Wyatt, 427 
 
 yEO, E. R., 40, 42 
 ‘ f^ELUCO,’ 110, 157, 297 
 
 Spottiswoode Jc Co Printers, New-street Squai'e, London. 
 

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