Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers, 8 December 1812
‘My dear Sarah,—I received your kind letter here, soon after my
arrival. This is an old house, not unlike Holland House. The staircase is
unique and very striking, and under the windows is a large lake of above a
hundred acres, now frozen over and covered with wild fowl. Mr. Luttrell and Mr.
Lyttelton are here, and the company, which has been very
numerous and changeable, have every day overflowed to a side-table at dinner. I
was not, I will confess, much surprised that you were gone from Wassall, much
as I wished to find you there. It is high time, I think, that I should follow
your example, as I have wandered about long enough, and begin to wish for my
home, though I have no “wife and children dear” expecting me. I
slept one night at Syd. Smith’s
and then came on to this place, where a stage-coach set me down at the gate,
and where I have met with such a scene of old English hospitality as I never
saw before. The dinner-bells are ringing every hour of the day. Mr.
Lyttelton is shooting and hunting all day long, and indeed most
of the rest, so that there are many quiet hours
1 This is evidently a reference to his
determination to burn Moscow. |
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in their absence. To-morrow morning
I shall get to Birmingham as I can, and I hope to dine with Dan at Wassall on Thursday. I shall be very
happy to do all I can for Felix, though I think there is
another person who ought to stir first in his favour, and who can place him
above all dependence. It is too provoking that it should be necessary to
supplicate for the only child of a man who is worth more than all of us put
together. Castle Howard is indeed a magnificent place, and I now wish I had
stayed another day or two there to see more of it; but I was impatient to get
on, as I knew I must spend a little time here, having been so very long in
coming. I received a letter from Dan as you predicted. You
speak so very lightly of the sick at Newington, that I hope by this time they
are all as well as ever, though I fear it will be long before poor
Mary can jump about, and it will be a sad thing to
miss her on Twelfth-day. . . Have you seen the new theatre, and what do you
think of Betty? But I hope you will wait for these things
till I come. I thought it possible you might have brought another girl from
Wassall, but I dare say you have determined for the best. As for Moore, I have heard nothing of him, though I
dare say there is a letter from him among the heap of things lying for me in
town. Milly’s loss has vexed me not a little, and I
wish it was the only vexation of the kind in my household. I fear I must make a
great change. The book, as you say, what with vignettes innumerable, and wide
printing, is a good thick book. I much doubt whether the additions are for the
better—but others had no doubt, so I ventured. At least it seemed to make
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dramatic—but those parts I know are too few.
Sharp must find a great change in
his life, and many must miss him in the House, as his was a very active part in
the background. He must be a great loss to Grattan, with whom he always sat. I expect a very just encomium
on Mrs. Barbauld in The Edinburgh Review, from a conversation I had
in Scotland. Farewell, my dear Sarah; pray give my love to
Henry and Patty
and Mr. T. and all at Highbury and Newington, and believe me to be,
‘Ever yours,
‘Your journey across must be very practicable
just now. I hope to be in town in a fortnight.’
Anna Laetitia Barbauld [née Aikin] (1743-1825)
English poet and essayist, the sister of John Aikin, who married Rochemont Barbauld in
1774 and taught at Palgrave School, a dissenting academy (1774-85).
Henry Grattan (1746-1820)
Irish statesman and patriot; as MP for Dublin he supported Catholic emancipation and
opposed the Union.
Henry Luttrell (1768-1851)
English wit, dandy, and friend of Thomas Moore and Samuel Rogers; he was the author of
Advice to Julia, a Letter in Rhyme (1820).
William Henry Lyttelton, third baron Lyttelton (1782-1837)
Whig politician and wit, son of William Henry, first baron Lyttelton of the second
creation; a noted Greek scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, he was MP for Worcestershire
(1807-20); in 1828 he succeeded his brother as baron.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
Daniel Rogers (1760 c.-1829)
Son of Thomas Rogers (1735-93) and eldest brother of the poet Thomas Rogers; he married
Martha Bowles and lived as a country squire near Stourbridge.
Henry Rogers (1774-1832)
Son of Thomas Rogers (1735-93) and youngest brother of the poet Thomas Rogers; he was the
head of the family bank, Rogers, Towgood, and Co. until 1824, and a friend of Charles
Lamb.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
Sarah Rogers (1772-1855)
Of Regent's Park. the younger sister of the poet Samuel Rogers; she lived with her
brother Henry in Highbury Terrace.
Richard Sharp [Conversation Sharp] (1759-1835)
English merchant, Whig MP, and member of the Holland House set; he published
Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834).
Sydney Smith (1771-1845)
Clergyman, wit, and one of the original projectors of the
Edinburgh
Review; afterwards lecturer in London and one of the Holland House
denizens.
