| 65 |
Columbus—Letters to Richard Sharp—T. Moore—An Idyll at Hagley—Recollections of Porson, Windham, Cumberland, Horne Tooke—Tooke’s Adventures—His Funeral—Rogers and Byron—Meeting of Moore, Campbell, and Byron at Rogers’s House—Coleridge’s Lecture—‘Childe Harold’—Tom Grenville’s Criticism on the Poem—Byron and Lord Holland—Rogers at the Lakes—The Mackintoshes and Sharp—Dr. Bell—Wordsworth’s Lost Child—Rogers at Ormithwaite, Keswick, Lowther—Lord Lonsdale—Brougham—Rogers at Glenfinnart—Lord Dunmore—Letters to R. Sharp, to H. Rogers, to Sarah Rogers—Letter of Lord Holland—Rogers at Crewe.
The chief literary occupation of Rogers’s life in these years was the poem entitled ‘The Voyage of Columbus.’ The theme
is a great one, and it fully possessed his imagination. His object was to call up the great
navigator ‘in his habit as he lived,’ and at the same time to give lyrical
expression to the feelings which inspired and sustained him. He desired to transfuse into a
modern poem the spirit of the old Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century, with their
full belief in the supernatural, their strong religious feeling, and their wonder at an
achievement which seemed almost too great for unaided man. He points out in his preface
that ‘no National Poem appeared on the subject,’ and that ‘no Camoens did honour to the genius and the virtues’ of
Columbus, though the materials were surely not
| 66 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| 'THE VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS' | 67 |
‘My dear Friend,— Eccolo . Pray tell me frankly. I have not yet quite learnt to like the expression, though I think it a very important addition. If you see anything to wish altered, in language or punctuation, in the lines or the note, now is, alas! the time. “Tho’ come it will” sounds ill in my ear—what do you think?
‘“Cazziva, gifted by the Gods to know”—would perhaps throw more light on the new passage, but the line would suffer on the whole.
‘If you can call, I shall be at home every evening this week; if not, pray write me a line of advice or encouragement; for I want them.
‘“Shall” in the third line is scriptural, but I fear not grammatical.
‘How do you like the black line in “Signs like the ethereal bow”?1 I have some thoughts of altering the stops.
Unseen, unheard! Hence, Minister of Ill! Hence, ‘tis not yet the hour—tho’ come it
will!—. They that foretold, too soon shall they fulfil; |
In a postscript to a letter from Keswick, two years and a half later, he writes—
|
Say who first pass’d the portals of the West,
And the great secret of the Deep possess’d,
|
|
1 Canto xii., line 13. ‘Signs like the ethereal bow—that shall endure.’ |
| 68 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
Who first the standard of his Faith unfurl’d
On the dread confines of an unknown world;
Sung ere his coming, and by Heaven design’d
To lift the veil that covered half mankind.
Oh, I would tell of Him! My hour draws near,
And He will prompt me when I faint with fear.
. . . Alas, He hears me not! He cannot hear!
|
|
Him would I now invoke! My hour draws near,
And He can prompt me when I faint with fear.
. . . Alas, He hears me not! He cannot hear.
|
The first of these stanzas is an alternative beginning of the first canto. The present beginning is—
|
Say who, when age on age had rolled away,
And still, as sunk the golden Orb of day,
The seamen watched him, while he lingered here,
With many a wish to follow, many a fear,
And gazed and gazed and wondered where he went,
So bright his path, so glorious his descent,
Who first adventured—In his birth obscure
Yet born to build a Fame that should endure,
Who the great secret of the Deep possessed,
And, issuing through the portals of the West,
Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled,
Planted his standard on the Unknown World?
Him by the Paynim bard descried of yore,
And, ere his coming, sung on either shore,
Him, ere the birth of Time by Heaven designed
To lift the veil that covered half mankind;
None can exalt . . .
|
The last three lines of the suggested opening appear in the published poem at the beginning of the twelfth canto, which opens thus—
| RICHARD SHARP | 69 |
|
Still would I speak of Him before I went,
Who among us a life of sorrow spent,
And, dying, left a world his monument;
Still, if the time allowed! My Hour draws near,
But He will prompt me when I faint with fear.
. . . Alas! He hears me not! He cannot hear.
|
This correspondence, with its minute discussion of alternative lines and phrases, was not wholly one-sided. Richard Sharp, too, consulted Rogers about lines and phrases in his own poems. The following letter bears on Richard Sharp’s ‘Epistle to a Friend on his Marriage.’
‘My dear Friend,—The alterations are all good, but I confess there is a strength of expression in the line—
And weeds soon hide his unfrequented tomb, |
‘I may be wrong, but I think Pope or Dryden might have written the following—
He dies—no traces from oblivion save, And weeds soon hide his unfrequented grave. |
‘I am rather for “mourn his doom,” I don’t know why, than “weep his doom.” Perhaps after all I like this best—
| 70 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
He dies and is forgot—none mourn his doom,
And weeds soon hide his unfrequented tomb.’1
|
In his ‘Commonplace Book’ Rogers makes the following remarks on his own poem:—‘It was, indeed, a singular story to choose, in which almost the only passion called forth into exercise from the beginning to the end of it is Fear, the most selfish and least dignified of all the passions; and Fear in its least dignified character—a fear arising from ignorance, such as children feel in the dark. The only exception, if there is one, is the hero, but, like most other heroes, he exhibits none of the passions in any pathetic degree.’ The poem bears evidence of Rogers’s admiration for America—a feeling which lasted all his life.
|
Assembling here all nations shall be blest,
The sad be comforted, the weary rest;
Untouched shall drop the fetters from the slave.
|
The last line was prophetic; but he did not live to see its fulfilment. His Whig principles came out in the opening to the sixth canto—written, it should be remembered, in the very height of the struggle against Napoleon—
War and the Great in War let others sing, Havoc and spoil, and tears and triumphing; The morning-march that flashes to the sun, The feast of vultures when the day is done; And the strange tale of many slain for one! |
1 The lines as they stand in the poem as it was published in Sharp’s Letters and Essays read—
|
| TOM MOORE | 71 |
I sing a Man, amidst his sufferings here, Who watched and served in humbleness and fear; Gentle to others, to himself severe. |
Next to Richard Sharp, one of
Rogers’s most constant companions at this
time was Tom Moore. His life, for some years, might
almost be written out of Moore’s letters and diaries. The diary
shows that when Moore gets back to his London lodgings in 1810, after
two years’ absence, almost his first thought is of Rogers, who
is away from home. In May, 1811, Moore meets Jeffrey at Rogers’s at a
Sunday-morning breakfast, and on the following Tuesday takes his new wife to dine at Rogers’s to
meet Lady Donegal. In the summer
‘Rogers is at his brother’s in Shropshire.’ In
January, 1812, he tells Lady Donegal that
‘Rogers has been at Lord Robert
Spencer’s this fortnight past, but I have this instant got a note from
him asking me to a tête-à-tête dinner.’ A
little later he tells his mother that Rogers has sent him a most
beautiful reading-desk, which puts the rest of his furniture to the blush. ‘I took
Bessy to Lord
Moira’s,’ he writes to Miss
Godfrey, ‘and she was not half so much struck with its grandeur as I
expected. She said, in coming out, “I like Mr. Rogers’s
house ten times better;” but she loves everything by association, and she was very
| 72 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘My dear Moore,—You know me and my faults too well to be much surprised at my long silence, and now (forgive me for my selfishness) I am not sure I should have written at all but to make you write, and tell me something about yourself, &c. What have you done? Is the dramatic concluded and the epic begun? Are you now in a pavilion on the banks of the Tigris; or in the shape of a nightingale singing love-songs to a rose in the gardens of Cashmere? As for me, I have been visiting an elder brother, who, many years ago, retired from the world to cultivate his own patrimonial fields and read his Homer under the shade of his own beech-trees near Hagley. His farm is beautiful, very woody and uneven, and full of little dingles, and copses, and running waters. A green lane a mile long leads to the house, which overlooks the fields. The prospect, enlivened with a few cottages, is bound by a chain of hills, which affect almost to be mountains, and beyond these appear, every now and then, over their heads, such as are fully entitled to the name, and as blue as a blue atmosphere can make them. From one circumstance or another, it is now some years since I came here; his girls, now being lovely, are nearly grown-up, and I am half tempted to get up every time they come into the room. It makes
1 Printed in Moore’s Life and Letters, vol. viii. pp. 94-96. |
| AN IDYLL AT HAGLEY | 73 |
‘I am very anxious about your proceedings with Arnold, and am continually looking out for an opera. Have you given it a name? My sister desires to be kindly remembered to you.’
Rogers’s visit to his brother revived many old
associations. They were on the most affectionate terms,
| 74 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| PORSON; WINDHAM; CUMBERLAND | 75 |
Another friend, whose memory lingered long in Rogers’s talk, was William
Windham, who died, after an operation by Cline, on the 4th of June, 1810. He had hurt his hip in assisting to save
from fire the library of Mr. F. North in Conduit
Street; a tumour formed, and he died after its removal. Rogers
compared him to the Eddystone lighthouse, dashed at by the waves, but continuing to give
its steady light unaffected by the storm. Yet another and still older friend, a frequent
visitor at Rogers’s house, sometimes a recipient of
Rogers’s bounty, was Richard
Cumberland, the dramatist, who died in 1811. He was the Sir Fretful Plagiary of Sheridan’s ‘Critic.’ In his earlier days Rogers had seen much of
Cumberland, and learned much from him, and in later years had
abundantly repaid any obligations thus contracted. At Rogers’s
table recollections of Sir Fretful long lingered in the
talk. The next year, 1812,
| 76 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘At Genoa, Tooke went to a ball of nobles not less than two hundred years old, and was introduced by the Marquis F ——, who asked his opinion of each lady as she entered. He professed to admire all, but one appeared whom he thought truly beautiful. The Marquis
1 The ‘Recollections’ were strictly contemporary. They were put down day by day. |
| HORNE TOOKE'S ADVENTURES | 77 |
| 78 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
There are other stories of Tooke in the ‘Commonplace Book.’ One of these relates to his school-days. He ran away three times. At one school in the country he was placed with a Methodist clergyman whose house was frequented by Whitefield and other preachers. At fifteen he ran away from a school at Sevenoaks on account of some indignity, without his hat, on a rainy night. Several boys were despatched to pursue him; he concealed himself in the chimney of an old summer-house. He then ran through several lanes till he met a farmer, of whom he asked the way, and who lifted up his lantern, saying, ‘Who’s there?’ and telling him he would soon have been among the gravel pits.
1 This story is differently told by Mr. Dyce in his Table Talk of Samuel Rogers. Tooke is there said to have heard of the assassination of an Englishman who had been taken for him. This is another proof that Mr. Dyce took down Rogers’s stories in the days when Rogers’s memory was failing. |
| ROGERS'S STORIES OF TOOKE | 79 |
Tooke won 3,500l. in one night, at a party at Aix in the South of France, thought it not reputable to decamp immediately for Italy, whither he was going, played on, and lost all but 500l. He wore Sir John Dick’s embroidered coat in a sedan chair for a week to save it from being seized under Mr. Grenville’s Bill. He was invited to a téte-à-téte dinner with Lord Lansdowne. Thirty servants waited at table. ‘They are only servants,’ said Lord Lansdowne. ‘I could have been more open among thirty of your friends,’ answered Tooke.
Not only was Rogers fond of telling these stories of Tooke, which I have given in his own words, but Tooke’s own stories were current at his table as long as Tooke’s memory remained. Here are some in Rogers’s words:—
The Prince of Zell was in love with a girl he met in Poitiers, and sent to her to come and marry him. She sent word back that she was not the same woman—that she had suffered from small-pox. He persisted in his addresses. She came and was unaltered. Their only child married George the First.
A French Marquis had been divorced from his wife, and was engaged in a
lawsuit with her for the only estate
| 80 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
Old Hinchliffe drove a hackney coach, and at last, by his industry, became possessor of a stable yard in Westminster. He gave his son a college education, and he became Bishop of Peterborough.1 The Bishop one day came to him. ‘Father,’ says he, ‘you must be tired of business, and must wish to retire into the country and live in your own way. Four or five hundred a year is at your service.’ ‘No, Jack,’ he replied, ‘I will stay whore I am. I am proud of you, and I should hope you are not ashamed of me. All I have I have earned, nor shall it be said that old Ben Hinchliffe was indebted to his son or to any man living for his livelihood.’
When Sir Robert Walpole took the Dutch ambassador to his villa, he was delighted. ‘The trees are so beautiful, the views are so beautiful, and then there is no water.’
Rogers records these and other stories of Tooke’s, and adds: ‘When employed in his great work, Horne Tooke amuses himself with thinking how posterity will feel when they read it, and reflect on the persecutions he has suffered.’ Posterity unfortunately reads the great work but little, and has formed a less exalted estimate of its
1 John Hinchliffe, Bishop of Peterborough from 1769 to 1794. |
| ROGERS'S RECOLLECTIONS OF TOOKE | 81 |
| 82 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—Our friend Horne Tooke used to express his desire that his few real friends should accompany him to that “everlasting mansion” which, like Timon, he had prepared for himself. As I know he counted you one of that number, and as I believe you would like to pay this last sad tribute to his memory, I take the liberty of acquainting you that his remains will be deposited in his garden at Wimbledon on Friday next, the 27th.1
‘N.B.—We propose meeting at twelve o’clock precisely at Mr. Tooke’s house.’
In the early editions of his ‘Epistle to a Friend,’ Rogers had paid a compliment to Horne Tooke—
|
When He who best interprets to mankind
The winged messengers2 from mind to mind
|
|
1 This arrangement was not carried out. After the grave in the garden had been opened, and all the preparations made, it was determined that the body should be interred in the tomb of his sister at Ealing, where the funeral took place on Monday the 30th of March. 2 The title of Tooke’s great work is ΕΠΕΑ ΠΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΑ. |
| ROGERS ON TOOKE | 83 |
|
Leans on his spade and, playful as profound,
His genius sheds its evening sunshine round,
Be mine to listen.
|
These lines were written in 1796, and Rogers acted on them. The evening sunshine of Tooke’s genius dwelt long on Rogers’s mind, and some years after Tooke’s death he made references to him in the poem ‘Human Life,’ which, though indirect, are clear and unmistakable. No reader can fail to see that he had his old friend in mind when he wrote—
|
Thus while the world but claims its proper part
Oft in the head, but never in the heart,
His life steals on; within his quiet dwelling
That home-felt joy, all other joys excelling,
Sick of the crowd when enters he—nor then
Forgets the cold indifference of men.
|
The trial, too, though placed in an earlier age, was Horne Tooke’s, at which Rogers had been present, and the reference to him is clear—
On through that gate misnamed thro’ which before Or into twilight within walls of stone, Then to the place of trial— |
|
And now once more where most he loved to be
In his own fields, breathing tranquillity,
We hail him—not less happy Fox than
thee.
|
Rogers’s acquaintance with Byron, which began within a few months of the death of
Horne Tooke, arose
| 84 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
A note to those lines stated that, ‘on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated.’ |
| BYRON, MOORE, AND CAMPBELL AT ROGERS'S | 85 |
No record remains of the talk at this memorable interview. It was the
beginning of a friendship between Rogers and
Byron and between Moore and Byron, which
| 86 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
The host and his chief guest on this occasion were prepared to be well pleased with one another. Byron shared the admiration for Rogers’s poetry which was universal in those days, except among the little-known but fast rising school of the Lake poets. In ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ he had penned a striking eulogy on Rogers—
|
And thou, melodious Rogers, rise at last,
Recall the pleasing memory of the past.
|
| BYRON, ROGERS, AND COLERIDGE | 87 |
|
Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed lyre;
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert the country’s honour and thine own.
|
In a note to the second of these lines Byron says: ‘It would be superfluous to recall to the mind of the reader “The Pleasures of Memory” and “The Pleasures of Hope,” the most beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope’s “Essay on Man;” but so many poetasters have started up that even the names of Campbell and Rogers are become strange.’ Moore assures us that this eulogy was the disinterested and deliberate result of the young poet’s judgment. It was published two years before this first meeting with Rogers and Campbell. The acquaintance between Rogers and Byron soon ripened into friendship. In his letters to Mr. Harness and Mr. Hodgson, Byron expresses a high opinion of his taste, and within a month of their first meeting they make up a party to go to hear Coleridge—‘this Manichean of poesy,’ Byron calls him—lecture on poetry. He had already attacked Campbell’s ‘Pleasures of Hope,’ and Rogers had been present at a lecture at which Byron says he had ‘heard himself indirectly rowed by the lecturer.’ A month later, in January, 1812, Rogers and Byron were present together at another of Coleridge’s lectures, ‘not one of the happiest of Coleridge’s efforts,’ says Crabb Robinson.’1 In the same month the two first cantos of ‘Childe
1 Crabb Robinson’s remark in his diary is: ‘In the evening at Coleridge’s lecture. Conclusion of Milton. Not one of the happiest of Coleridge’s efforts. Rogers was there, and with him was Lord Byron. He was wrapped up, but I recognised his club foot, and, indeed, his countenance and general appearance.’ As Rogers and Byron were going home |
| 88 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell. |
Rogers’s criticism of ‘Childe Harold’ was that of many of his contemporaries. He sent a copy of the book, when it appeared, to Thomas Grenville, one of the elder brothers of Lord Grenville, and a life-long friend of Rogers’s. Tom Grenville, who was eight years older than Rogers, was one of the best-read men of his time, and his judgment was not likely to be warped by prejudice. Hence his letter is peculiarly valuable as an example of contemporary opinion of Byron and his works.
|
together, a crossing-sweeper addressed Byron as ‘my Lord.’ ‘He knows you,’ remarked Rogers. ‘Everybody knows me,’ answered Byron, ‘I am deformed.’ |
| BYRON AND LORD HOLLAND | 89 |
‘Many thanks, my dear Rogers, though I must own myself unworthy of ‘Childe Harold.’ It is written in a deadly spirit of scorn and hate which curdles the blood, and chills every kindly feeling, instead of cheering and promoting them. Two striking stanzas on solitude, marked by your discriminating pencil, and some vigorous poetry on Wellington’s battle, though with a cautious avoidance of his name or fame, and a wild and rich imagination nourishing a powerful and vigorous pen, do not compensate in my mind for the impression of disgust which I derive from the odious spirit of his writings.
Just at the time when ‘Childe
Harold’ was published, Rogers
introduced Byron to Lord and Lady Holland. The immediate
occasion of the introduction was the debate on the Nottingham Frame-breaking Bill, on which
Byron wished to speak. Lord Holland was Lord
Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, and Byron and he agreed as to the
absolute necessity of conciliatory measures towards the wretched people whom misery and
oppression had goaded into riot and outrage. The intercourse with Lord
Holland soon became constant, but meanwhile Rogers had
suggested to Byron that it would-be grateful to the feelings of Lord
and Lady Holland if ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ was suppressed. He was then preparing
a fifth edition, but on Rogers’s hint he resolved on withdrawing
it. He told Leigh Hunt that he did
| 90 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
In the summer of this year Rogers made a northern tour, in the remaining records of which there are many glimpses of interesting places and people. Tom Moore was living in his cottage at Kegworth, and Rogers paid him a visit by the way. Moore’s letter to Miss Godfrey, telling her of the visit, is only one more proof of the high esteem in which Rogers was held by his friends. ‘I forget,’ says Moore, ‘who the man was who set fire to his house after the Constable Bourbon had been in it; but I believe I shall do the same by mine (though for a different reason) after this memorable visit. I shall be so happy to have had a right good, excellent friend under my own roof.’ In a letter to his mother, Moore tells her of a delightful little tour with Rogers to Matlock, ‘where I was much charmed with the scenery,’ and thence to Dove Dale, ‘which delighted me still more. It is the very abode of genii.’ They parted at Ashbourne, Rogers going on to the lakes. Francis Horner, writing to his sister describing a journey he had made with Sergeant Lens, says, ‘At Keswick we found Rogers the poet staying at the inn; he was good enough to take an evening walk with us, and led us to a favourite station of his which gives the most striking prospect of the lake.’2 On the way thither Rogers writes to his sister.
|
1 Letter to Leigh Hunt in October, 1815. 2 Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, M.P., vol. ii. p. 122. |
| ROGERS AND SHARP AT ULLESWATER | 91 |
‘My dear Sarah,—Many thanks for your kind letter and
Henry’s, inclosing four five-pound notes, which
last I shall answer in a very few days. I was indeed very much surprised and
shocked to hear of J. R.’s death. Coming so soon after another, you and
H. must indeed begin to think that all are going. He was a very excellent man
and much attached to you, and I know of no other qualities in this world worth
a thought. Sharp and I came over from
Ulleswater to this place on Sunday. On Monday we saw a wrestling match for a
prize in a field near Ambleside. It had been long announced and it drew
together all the fine young men of the peasantry from far and near. It was
indeed more interesting than I expected it to be, and lasted above an hour,
there being many contests. By a foolish custom here, no women were present,
though many looked on from the neighbouring hills. Ulleswater looked very
beautiful, though we had little or no sun. Everybody was haymaking. The king,
without coat or waistcoat, attended by his daughters on the margin of the lake;
and the clergyman in the same costume, unattended, tossing his hay about in
solitary dignity in the churchyard. The Mackintoshes came here on Monday. Yesterday they went over to
Ulleswater for a night, and, Sharp going with them, I
walked to drink tea at Grasmere. It was about six miles and the sun burning
hot. I set out a little before twelve, meaning to rest myself a little at the
inn at Grasmere, before I made my appearance at W.’s. But I did not
| 92 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘The Mackintoshes stay there a day only, and then go on for Scotland. If you write after Monday, pray direct to me under cover to the Earl of Lonsdale, Lowther, near Penrith.
‘Pray give my love to all, and believe me to be,
|
1 This was a mistake, as will be seen from the letter to R. Sharp on p. 101. |
| WITH THE WORDSWORTHS AT GRASMERE | 93 |
A letter to his brother Henry is equally interesting.
‘My dear Henry,—I wrote to Sarah on Thursday the 13th, since which I have not heard; but as Lord Lonsdale writes that some letters are lying at Lowther, I hope to find one from home there. I meant to have left this place to-day, but am kept for want of horses. To-morrow I go to Lowther, where I mean to stay about ten days. I will write before I leave it. On Thursday the 13th, Sharp and the Mackintoshes returned to Lowwood from Patterdale. It was a delicious day, and after an early dinner, in M.’s landaulet and dicky, we went through Langdale to Grasmere, where we drank tea with the Wordsworths. Their little girl lies buried in one corner of the churchyard out of sight of their windows. There is a black stone (the stone of the country) at her head, and another at her feet, and the inscription is on the side from the path, so that nobody can read it unless they go on purpose. It was done by the sister unknown to them, and bears this text: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” The child was three years old. Mrs. W. cries still every day, as I learn from W. Johnny goes every day to school at Ambleside, carrying his dinner in a satchel on his back.
‘At Ulleswater I met with
Macreary the printer. He was one of a walking party
which it would have given you pleasure to see. There were two very nice girls
among them, each carrying her sketch-book and all her own baggage in her hand.
He spoke with great enthusiasm
| 94 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| AT THE LAKES IN 1812 | 95 |
‘On Sunday the M.’s left me on their way to
Edinburgh, and it rained till five o’clock. I then took a sweet walk by
the lake, which was very gay, all the townspeople being out, and many parties
on the water. The Keswick women are very dexterous at rowing. On Monday, the
17th, it was very sultry, and I rowed, or rather was rowed, about the lake,
visiting Lodore and the islands. In the evening I walked to Ormithwaite, an old
house under Skiddaw, commanding a noble view of the lake and vale of Keswick.
Its fields are full of old oaks; a path runs through them to the little village
of Applethwaite, a few scattered cottages, so called, in a crevice of Skiddaw
(I dare say Sarah remembers it), and
there I wandered till dusk. On Tuesday I spent the whole morning there,
returning at four to dinner, when Mrs. Wood regaled me
with a grouse, and in the evening walked by the lake to Friar’s Crag.
Stephen went with us to Buttermere. He remembers well
the chase Parsons gave him up Skiddaw. At Ulleswater I
looked up the mountain Parsons descended so expertly. On
Monday Cole went up Skiddaw with a party of servants, but
he had not been five minutes on the top when a cloud enveloped them. He seemed
sadly disappointed, but, however, enjoys himself very much. I shall not be
sorry to leave Keswick, not having enjoyed it much. Indeed, I am no longer fit
to be alone. Yesterday
| 96 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
He was all this time occupied with amending and polishing ‘Columbus,’ and letters to Richard Sharp are still full of alternative stanzas for his friend’s approval. The following letters to him are only parts of a series.
‘My dear Friend,—As I am à l’agonie you must not complain of my cries. It has struck me since that something more is absolutely necessary to the beginning, and I here enclose a triplet, the fruit of my visits to the Ormithwaite, which has become my dear delight. Between the village and “the fine house,” as the children call it thereabouts—under the old oaks, in that lofty path at the foot of Skiddaw—tracking your footsteps, I threw together the lines in question, and, if your cool and better judgment approves of them, which I much doubt, pray send them to the printer’s to be prefixed in the octavo edition, and sent down in a revise at night to me at the Earl of Lonsdale’s, Lowther, near Penrith. Perhaps in that case you had better furnish them with a frank; but pray don’t stir unless you give your full approbation.
I found the Marks here on Saturday not
quite ready. They had visited Ormithwaite in the morning under escort of
Stephen, and we proceeded by Borrowdale to
| KESWICK AND ORMITHWAITE | 97 |
‘The weather on the whole has been very favourable, having never prevented my tiring myself any day. I think the people of Keswick the pleasantest-looking people I ever saw; and the children are beautiful.
‘I shall spend a week or ten days at Lowther, where I mean to sleep on Friday. Lord L. writes me word that letters are waiting there for me, and they will regulate my motions northward.
‘When I walk at Ormithwaite, particularly in the field nearest Applethwaite, I think Keswick the finest lake of the three. But each vanquishes me in its turn.
‘To-morrow I mean to ride for variety and to dine at Lodore. To-day Mrs. Wood regaled me with grouse. She is an excellent lady! but I sleep in Gray’s blankets notwithstanding.
‘Upon reading the whole again, it strikes me that the pronouns we and our clash with the lyrical abruptnesses, and give an air of inflation and pomp to them. I therefore incline to give them up for the present, as Xenophon does in a great part of “The Retreat.”
‘If you call at Cadell’s, you will oblige me by asking for a copy of the octavo, on my account, and keeping it till you can get a better.
| 98 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I have been again to Ormithwaite, having kept back the letter in hope of getting from myself a better judgment.
‘I have but this moment discovered the Rev. Mr. Pitt’s inscription on the window. How I should like to see Miss Susan Hatton as she then was!
‘After all I am not sure that the Introduction will not be best as it was before.
‘I have directed two copies of the quarto to be sent to you, but, on second thoughts, I will not trouble you to send either of them to me, if you have not already. Pray keep them for me.
‘Stephen, who desires to be remembered by you, tells me that the churl, who won the belt, works with Nicholson, and has learnt his art from him, and that they divided the money between them.’
There is another letter posted on Saturday the 22nd, with further suggestions of variations, and the lament—‘I have used up all my writing paper and can get no more, the stationer at Keswick having gone to the sea for a little bathing, and shut up shop for the time.’ Another, posted on the 23rd, suggests ‘another reading, which I rather like, as it is the last.’ Sharp evidently exercised his prerogative of deciding between these various changes, and on the 25th of August Rogers writes—
‘My dear Friend,—Many thanks! Your arrogance, a
you call it, has saved me! I did not forget your
| LOWTHER CASTLE IN 1812 | 99 |
‘On Thursday, the evening before I left [Keswick], Horner and Sergeant Lens arrived—and I took them there1—and Horner went there again by himself, while I was making the circuit of the lake on a white pony. Lens was unwell and unable to walk, and their late dinner prevented Horner from visiting the parsonage and Ormithwaite. He described himself as recovered, and appeared to be so. They went off towards Edinburgh early next morning.
‘This castle is magnificent, and a fit residence for the proudest baron that broke the neck of King John. The situation, though commanding, rather disappointed me. But the river (out of sight, though within a five minutes’ walk) is exquisite. It runs for many miles (quite to Penrith) along a narrow wooded valley (I may call it a glen) with great noise and rapidity, a path follows it, on one side hanging woods feathering into it or retiring to make way for gigantic docks and other water-plants, and on the other side noble beech woods, now open, now shut, and now discovering a lawn or two, which are here (and very deservedly) called the Elysian fields. The path is generally near the water, but is sometimes at a very great height above it, which glimmers through the enormous branches of old oaks and beeches. The rock is very scanty, but very good of the kind; for sweetness it appears to me to exceed anything I can conceive on the Esk, which it most resembles. It is more unspoilt by the hand of man than
1 See Horner’s account, p. 90. |
| 100 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘Here I found Lord Morpeth. He is gone, and also Milnes [and] the Speaker, who came afterwards. Bolton of Windermere slept here the first night, and you were more than once mentioned at dinner; and Lord Lonsdale told me, in a voice which expressed some concern, that he had not heard of your being here this summer Here is now only Lord Westmoreland.
‘I find it was Sir James Graham who led on the assault that was made upon your viands. They carried me on the first day to Hawes Water. It exceeded my expectations. Its seclusion is very striking, the hills on one side rise abruptly from it, and I am indeed inclined to class it as the fourth lake; but I saw it in rain, and under umbrellas, and with three talking, laughing girls. At the upper end of it—for they took me to the end, three miles—is Mardale chapel in severe solitude. More of it when we meet.
‘To show you I have not been idle, I recommend the inclosed to your arrogance, or, properly speaking, your generosity. It is intended to close the tenth canto, but perhaps, if tolerable, had better be reserved for the next edition. You will, however, perhaps drop me a line by return of post to the post office, Hamilton. If a day later, to Glasgow. It will just catch me.
‘I inclose a line from Moore.
‘The more I reflect, the more I think your criticism
just on my triplet, and now find I can trust you. I had better make a vow to
make no additions now; but I
| VARIOUS READINGS IN 'COLUMBUS' | 101 |
‘I mistook Knight. The copies were only subscribed for—not parted with—and not a copy will stir without my directions. I take it for granted you have the quarto, and can judge of these lines with the context. Though they are, I know, very feeble, the thought perhaps may some time or other be wrought into something.
‘Brougham is unfortunately at the Carlisle Assizes. I shall try for the Nunnery. Lord Morpeth is gone to Castle Howard. Lord Alvanley comes to-morrow, and on Friday I depart.
‘I shall write to Knight, my corrector, to proceed. But if anything suggests itself, pray interfere. R. P. Knight, I fear, will be gone from Scotland.
|
‘To close the Tenth
Canto.
1
That night, transported, with a sigh I said,
“’Tis all a dream!” Now, like a dream, ‘tis
fled;
And many and many a year has pass’d away,
And I alone remain to watch and pray!
Yet oft in darkness, on my bed of straw,
Oft I awake and think on what I saw;
The groves, the birds, the youths, the nymphs recall,
And Cora, loveliest, sweetest of them all!’
|
It would be insufferably tedious to multiply these extracts sufficiently to give any adequate impression of the
1 These lines are now at the close of the eleventh canto. |
| 102 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| WORDSWORTH AND LORD LONSDALE | 103 |
In a conversation which took place during this visit to Lowther, Rogers was able to do Wordsworth an important service. As they were one day walking on the terrace, Lord Lonsdale said to Rogers, ‘I wish I could do something for poor Campbell.’ Rogers, who had just come from a visit to Wordsworth, replied, ‘I wish you would do something for Wordsworth. He is in such straitened circumstances that he and his family deny themselves animal food several times a week.’ Wordsworth had left Allan Bank in the year before, and was living at Grasmere Parsonage, where one of his children had died in the June before Rogers’s visit. Wordsworth had an hereditary claim on Lord Lonsdale, who was not unwilling to recognise it; and his attention having been called to the poet’s necessities, he not only gave him aid, but got him appointed, in March, 1813, Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland. This appointment put him in a position of easy competence for the rest of his life. For Campbell, as we shall see hereafter, Rogers himself did much in after years.
The tour was continued to Scotland, and in course of it he wrote the poem on Loch Long, entitled, ‘Written in the Highlands of Scotland,’ and dated September 2, 1812.
There is a reference in the poem to the visit paid to the same spot with his sister Sarah in 1803, and the lines which describe Glenfinnart—
|
For now we hail
Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale;
And bright indeed the path should be
That leads to Friendship and to Thee.
Oh, blest retreat, and sacred too!
|
| 104 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
Tolled duly on the desert air,
And crosses decked thy summits blue.
Oft shall my weary mind recall,
Amid the hum and stir of men,
Thy beechen grove and waterfall,
Thy ferry with its gliding sail,
And Her—the Lady of the Glen.
|
These lines derive additional interest from the following letter written during his stay in this ‘blest retreat.’
‘No, my dear Sarah, I can truly say I do not enjoy it so much as I did and
(I may say I think) as you did, when we were together, but I have no right to
complain. I am now with friends who do everything they can do to prevent my
most secret wishes. I am glad to think that you are So comfortable. Nothing
seems to be wanting but our Fanny to make Cheadle what it
once was. It is indeed very unlucky that Quarry Bank should be left the moment
you came. You are right as to your conjecture of Moore’s house. The two windows belong to the kitchen, the
bay window to the dining-room. Two small parlours (one of them his book-room)
look into the garden behind. Their bedroom is over the dining-room, the nursery
over the kitchen, and there she was sitting and peeping when I came. At
Arrochar I dined between my two voyages, and I saw the landlady, now a matronly
but a very nice-looking woman, in her garden. Alas! I had neither grapes nor
grouse, and grouse I have only seen twice since I left Lowther, though a man
goes out
| GLENFINNART AND THE DUNMORES | 105 |
| 106 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| SCOTCH EXCURSIONS | 107 |
‘I had a very kind letter from Henry the other day, and was sorry to hear such an account of poor Mary. What my plans are now I cannot say, but I fear I shall not leave Scotland before the latter end of October. Adieu, my dear Sarah! Pray give my kind remembrances to one and all who inquire after me, not forgetting Mary and Mrs. H., and believe me to be,
‘I expect my book now every day.’
‘My dear Friend,—I must again try your patience
by throwing my burden upon you. The following, though
| 108 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
|
Know I went forth, one of that gallant crew,
And saw, and wonder’d whence his Power He drew;
Yet how much more had wonder’d had I there
Known all that pass’d in earth, and sea, and air;
Then uninstructed.1
|
‘Now I will confess to you that I shall be better pleased if you continue firm for the first reading, as I hope you will do, and in that case pray send the inclosed to Knight in Bolt Court; but if the new lines (and all things are possible) strike you (bad though they are) as decidedly the best, pray let them be inserted in p. 204. But, remember, no further reference is to be made to me. I would rather that it should continue as it is, whatever may be your opinion, than that any further delay should arise. I think, the moment you read these new lines, you will wonder at my hesitation and continue firm to the old. In that case, pray send the inclosed to Knight, without a comment; and if the least preference in your mind remains for the old reading, pray send the inclosed to Knight in like manner; but if otherwise, and you should incline in the least to the new, it will only increase the page by an additional line, and I know you
| A QUIET RETREAT | 109 |
|
Great Ocean’s self! Tis He who fills
That dark and awful depth of hills!
|
‘In a week or ten days I hope to visit Loch Katherine. In the meantime, should you be commissioned to offer me the Archbishopric of York or the Chancellorship, my direct1on is at the Earl of Dunmore’s, Glenfinnart, by Greenock, N.B.
‘We receive our letters twice a week by his packet (only think of it—a packet!) and in the intervals I wander and look up a mountain vista eighteen miles in length! But pray don’t write on the subject of the poem, as I shall be well satisfied, whatever way you decide. Pray could you convey a copy to Mackintosh, paying the carriage?
‘From Lowther I flew to Luss—then rowed to
Tarbet—then crossed the isthmus on foot to Arrochar, where I met with the
Mackintoshes, and then by water came
down Loch Long to Glenfinnart, a singular voyage, as I met with a grampus, a
shoal of herrings, and (after dark) a luminous sea, no unusual phenomenon on
this
| 110 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘After all I have written I think I see a great objection to the new lines. If he saw all that passed, he would see the interposition of the good Angel in favour of Columbus, and no longer wonder. I will, however, send you the letter. I cannot close the letter without adverting to our sad loss in Mrs. Pigou. The few lines she wrote to me at parting—for I did not see her—were (now I am convinced) written under the impression that she should never see me again. How our friends (the friends of our earlier days) drop off, one by one—and how much it should teach us to value the remainder! The friends of our youth (like the wife of our youth, as Solomon expresses it) are indeed to be prized—for what can supply the place of them?’
‘My dear Henry,—Many thanks for your kind letter, which I received at
Glenfinnart, where I have remained ever since. It was my intention to spend
only a fortnight here, and then proceed with the Dunmores on my journey through some part of the Highlands, but,
my hostess having sprained her foot, I have been led on from day to day and
from week to week in the expectation of her being able to set out. We shall now
leave this place on Saturday the 3rd, and, after visiting Loch Katrine and
Dunkeld, proceed on to Hamilton, where
| LIFE IN A SCOTCH COUNTRY HOUSE | 111 |
| 112 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘My next direction will be under cover to The Lord Archibald Hamilton, The Palace, Hamilton, N.B.’
‘My dear Henry,—Your letter overtook me last week at this place, on my
arrival after a little journey of eight days through the Highlands, three of
which were fine—a large allowance, I believe, in the North. Menteith
lake, Loch Katrine, Loch Erne, Dunira, Dunkeld, Killiekrankie and Loch Leven
were the principal sights, and amply rewarded us. I say us, for the Dunmores were with me. Loch Katrine surpassed my
expectations, and is indeed the most beautiful thing ‘of the kind I ever
saw. I am here within a mile of Chatelherault, which Sarah remembers, and within two miles of
Bothwell Castle, which unluckily we did not see; but I hope to see all with her
before I die. I wrote her a long letter into
| TURNING HOMEWARDS | 113 |
‘So Scarlett has
lost, and Brougham. Creevey, I was very sure, would hang as a dead
weight round his neck. Sharp wrote me
word that he was setting off to Honiton, but I have heard nothing since. It
must have been a joyful meeting at Wassall and worth going far to see. If you
write a line on receiving this, pray direct to me at the post office,
Edinburgh; if within a week, to Alnwick, Northumberland, through which I must
pass, whether I stop at Howick or not. It was part of my scheme to spend two or
three days at Castle Howard, but it will not now, I fear, be in my power. This
is a very large old house, and so cold that I can hardly keep body and soul
together. In my room is a whole-length of the beautiful Duchess of Hamilton by Sir Joshua Reynolds. On the table in the
gallery lies the book in which visitors enter their names, and it moved me a
little to see Sarah’s and mine
there written nine years
| 114 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I am much obliged to you for your kindness to Milly, and fear James has fallen a victim to his idleness. I am very sorry indeed for Maltby.’
During Rogers’s absence on this northern tour the general election took place. Parliament was dissolved on the 24th of September and the new Parliament met on the 24th of November. Sharp lost his seat, and Sheridan was defeated at Stafford, his defeat, as Moore tells us, completing his ruin. Meanwhile Byron was at Cheltenham, and as the addresses advertised for had all been rejected, Lord Holland had persuaded him to write a prologue to be spoken on the opening of the new Drury Lane Theatre.1 The writers of some of the rejected addresses were angry at the choice of the Committee, and Dr. Busby, who had sent in a monologue which Byron satirised,2 published a pamphlet on the subject. These are the matters alluded to in the following letter.
|
1 The Address was spoken on Saturday the 10th of October. 2 The Satire is entitled ‘Parenthetical Address by Dr. Plagiary.’ Busby’s lines are quoted and laughed at thus—
|
| LORD HOLLAND ON BYRON | 115 |
‘Dear Rogers,—Where are you during this pleasant autumnal weather? Not on the warm sunny bend close to the old colonnades, as I wish you were, and hope you will be before Parliament meets. We then go to St. James’s Square. You cannot conceive how much I have missed you, both at your “accustomed bench” and elsewhere, and how sincerely I hope you will repay us for the time we have lost.
‘I am almost ashamed of having induced Lord Byron to write on so ungrateful a theme (ungrateful in all senses) as the opening of a theatre; he was so good-humoured, took so much pains, corrected so good-humouredly, and produced, as I thought and think, a prologue so very much superior to the common run of that sort of trumpery, that it is quite vexatious to see him attacked for it. Some part of it is a little too much laboured, and the whole too long, but surely it is good and poetical. What do you think of Busby? Does not his conduct exceed all that satirists have ever described of the extravagance of men smit with the love of their own verses? You cannot imagine how I grew to like Lord Byron in my critical intercourse with him, and how much I am convinced that your friendship and judgment have contributed to improve both his understanding and his happiness.
‘Lady H. has been very ill, but is better. She begs her best love, and I am, my dear Rogers,
| 116 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘P.S. We shan’t lose much, and the Ministers will gain still less, by the dissolution. What a horrible campaign in Russia! and what a wretch that Rostopschin is!”
Rogers did not return as Lord Holland hoped. He finished the year away from London. He writes to his sister.
‘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. |
| A DOMESTIC LETTER | 117 |
| 118 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘Your journey across must be very practicable just now. I hope to be in town in a fortnight.’
| ≪ PREV | NEXT ≫ |
