Clayden: Rogers and his Contemporaries

Rogers had now become an old man, and it is not the least remarkable thing in his long life that his old age was one of its busiest and most useful periods. He was seventy-five on the 30th of July, 1838, and active as he was, he had so much appearance of age that nobody guessed him a moment younger. Yet at that time he had nearly eighteen years and a half to live; twelve of them busy years—years full of an old man’s enjoyments—

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.

It was the ‘old age serene and bright,’ which his friend Wordsworth anticipated for the young lady who had

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been reproached for taking long walks in the country. He already, in 1838, spoke of himself as at the end of his course, and though he told Moore he really could not say that he had any ailment, he was frail-looking rather than strong. He used the flesh brush as old Richard Cumberland had taught him; and kept up, as far as possible, his active habits. ‘Rogers and I,’ says Moore, ‘do not trouble chairs much.’ He walked a good deal, and was not afraid of a flight of steps. For years it was remarked of him that he was to be seen walking home late at night from evening parties, looking so old and frail that nobody wondered when his active career was finally closed by his being knocked down in the street. In November, 1838, he was in Paris, and had chosen a lodging at the top of a flight of a hundred and twenty stairs. Moore puts this on record as characteristic of Rogers, whose system was, in Moore’s words, ‘to keep the physique for ever in play; if ever you once give it up, he thinks it is all over.’ The plan answered for thirteen years longer.

‘March 25th, 1838.—After we came home (from church), Senior came in, and was as lively, spirited, and active as ever, and full of projects for our convenience and pleasure. Rogers followed him, and talked, in his quiet way, about all sorts of things and people, showing, sometimes, a little sub-acid. It has always been said he will leave memoirs behind him. I hope he will, for who can write anything of the sort that would be so amusing?’

‘May 27th, 1838 (Sunday).—In the afternoon we had a very long and agreeable visit from Rogers, who showed great sensibility when speaking of his last visit to Scott, which he said he was obliged to shorten, in order to keep an appointment with other friends, and then added, as if the thought had just rushed upon him, and filled his eyes with tears, “and they, too, are dead.” It was some time before he could command himself enough to speak again.’

‘May 31st, 1838.—We breakfasted, by very especial invitation, with Rogers, in order to look over his pictures, curiosities, &c.; and, therefore, nobody was invited to meet us but Miss Rogers and the Milmans. We had a three hours’ visit of it, from ten till past one, and saw certainly a great amount of curious things; not only the pictures, but drawings, autographs, little antiques; in short, whatever should belong to such a piece of bijouterie and virtù as Rogers himself is. Nor was agreeable conversation wanting, for he is full of anecdotes of his sixty or seventy years’ experience. Among other things he told me that Crabbe was nearly ruined by grief and vexation at the conduct of his wife for above seven years, at the end of which time she proved to be insane.

‘June 3rd.—We began the day with a breakfast at Miss Rogers’s in her nice house on Regent’s Park, which is a sort of imitation—and not a bad one either—of her brother’s on St. James’s . . . she keeps autographs, curiosities, and objects of virtù, just like her brother. Best of all, she is kind and good humoured, and had invited very pleasant friends to meet us—Leslie, Babbage, Mackintosh, and her brother, who was extraordinarily agreeable and made us stay unreasonably late.’

‘I have been . . . at two very small evening parties at Rogers’s—only about fifteen persons. He is much oldened these last six months, having been very ill in the winter, and he has no longer the same vivacity of

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look that he had, nor the same appearance of vigour. He talked very little, and was almost entirely occupied with the singing of his pet, Miss Jervis. But it was perhaps more interesting to see him with her, and her ways with him, than it would have been to hear him talk. To all appearance she is a gay, wild, vivacious girl, who cares for nobody and gives full scope to that unmodified naturalness of manner which, in society, amounts to a very considerable degree of eccentricity. This makes some people say that she is half mad, and others that she is as bold as a lion. But Miss Montague, who has seen a good deal of her, tells me that she finds her very rational, and Rogers assures me that she is in reality extremely timid. . . . When she sat down to sing I thought there could not be a more formidable thing for a girl of three or four and twenty to undertake—a small room, and a small audience, and a dead silence; the Duke planted before the piano, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and others, the gravest of men and statesmen, stopped short in their conversations; and old Rogers, well known to be at all times in agonies of anxiety as to everything going off well in his house. One might have been in a little agony oneself for her if her face did not put one at ease. But she began without a shade of anxiety for herself, sang the first verse of her song and then looked brightly over to the Duke and said, “Do you like that?” and afterwards, when someone made her sing a song which she did not like herself, she seemed to have no difficulty in doing it, only saying, “Now, Duke, you had better talk whilst I am singing this.”’1

Mr. Sumner, in writing to his friend George Hilliard, in December says: ‘A friend told me yesterday what Rogers said the other day to him: “The Americans I have seen have generally been very agreeable and accomplished men, but there is too much of them; they take up too much of our time.” This was delivered with the greatest gentleness.’1

This was Rogers’s own experience for thirty years. Every prominent American went to his house, was kindly entertained, and went home to praise him and to give introductions to him to his friends. There are piles of letters from such persons, many of them full of the warmest expressions of gratitude and admiration. But his youthful recollections of the struggle for American independence, of his father’s good wishes for its success, of Dr. Priestley’s going forth from Rogers’s own house to his American exile, of other friends who had found refuge on American soil, made Rogers more than usually friendly to Americans who came to see him. He was, moreover, gratified to find that the admiration for his poetry which they uniformly expressed, existed and continued among a nation who, as he believed, stood in a relation to us such as that of posterity. Sumner continues (he is writing from the Athenæum)—

‘Bulwer was here a few moments ago in his flash falsetto dress, with high heel boots, a white great coat, and a flaming blue cravat. How different from Rogers, who is sitting near me reading the “North American,” or Hallam, who is lolling in an easy chair.2 . . .

‘My dear Sir,—You have always taken a kind notice of American literature, and this induces me to send you a dramatic poem by Miss Park; a lady something more than thirty years old, who lives at Worcester, about forty miles from us. I have not the honour to know her personally; but whatever I have heard is singularly creditable to her, so that I think you will not on any account be sorry to add her little poem to your collection of American books. I pray you, therefore, to accept it. At any rate, if it serves for nothing else, it may serve to remind you of your kindness to Mrs. Ticknor and myself, and, on our part, may be a little token to you that we are grateful for it, and shall always remember it.

‘My dear Sarah,—I left home on Saturday and making the usual stages arrived here yesterday and am now as quietly established with Maltby, in the old room, as if we had never left it. Your letter I received as I drove from the door, the postman throwing it in at the carriage window, and I rejoice to think you have done so well, wet and cold as the weather has been. From Cashiobury I went with a little interval to Holland House where I caught a cruel cold, which is not gone and has so dismayed me that I have given up everything beyond Paris. William thinks of coming here for a few days before I go, but has not yet decided between Paris and Liverpool. I think he will go to Liverpool. Lady Cork

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dined at Holland House on the 27th, and on September 5 with me, and on Friday I had a family party of Sharpes, Towgoods and Miss Slater. . . . So Mrs. Charles Kemble is dead and Mrs. Sturch. My present scheme is to set off for Paris in about a fortnight, and a letter afterwards to the P. O. will find me there. The Websters have been staying in Lady Mary’s apartments in Windsor Castle. The Hollands set off on the 5th as you say; Sir Stephen and Allen with them in the first carriage. Travelling post, they slept at Rochester and Canterbury, and a Government packet, price twenty-five guineas, met them at Dover. Pray give my love to Margaret and tell her I have not forgot my promises.

‘Dear Lord Melbourne,—Pray forgive me for breaking in upon you when you must have so much to do. You have received a representation from the Trustees of the British Museum (Lord Aberdeen has just written to inform me of it) in favour of Mr. Cary, and I am sure you mean to do something. But at his age every month is a loss, and the time will come, for, I know enough of you to know it—when you will be sorry to have overlooked him. With his translation of Dante you cannot be unacquainted, and perhaps you have looked into his translation of Pindar.

‘My dear Lord Holland,—The more I reflect on it, the more I am convinced it could not be; for a gentler, meeker spirit does not exist than Cary’s. He may write with warmth under a wrong impression—he may turn, when he thinks himself trodden upon—but, if ever I knew a man, and I have known Cary in all weathers, he cannot be what you say he was thought to be—insolent. His case is a very cruel one. He laboured long in a subordinate place; and, when a vacancy occurred, an under servant was put over his head. The measure was perhaps a just one—I cannot say it was not—but the reason could not be explained to him, though it was a reason to create an interest in every generous mind, and he gave in his resignation.

Nothing was done for a couple of years, and Rogers continued to plead. At length Lord Melbourne sent word there was a hundred a year to dispose of, and Cary should have it. That was after the defeat of Lord Melbourne’s government at the elections in 1841. Rogers sent word back that he would not mention such a sum to Cary but would wait and ask Sir Robert Peel for a larger amount. Lord Melbourne then said Cary should have 200l., and Cary told Rogers he was better pleased with it than with double the sum from Peel.

What Rogers was at this period of the very ripeness of his fame and of his social influence is shown in the Diary and Letters of Charles Sumner, who spent this winter in London. He writes in his Diary—

‘I believe I have often written you about Rogers. Of course, I have seen him frequently in society, never did I like him till I enjoyed his kindness at breakfast. As a converser Rogers is unique. The world, or report, has not given him credit enough for his great and peculiar powers in this line. He is terse, epigrammatic, dry, infinitely to the point, full of wisdom, of sarcasm, and cold humour. He says the most ill-natured things, and does the best. He came up to me at Miss Martineau’s, where there was a little party of very clever people, and said, “Mr. Sumner, it is a great piece of benevolence in you to come here.” Determined not to be drawn into a slur upon my host, I replied: “Yes, Mr. Rogers, of benevolence to myself.” As we were coming away, Rogers, Harness, Babbage, and myself were walking together down the narrow street in which Miss M. lives, when the poet said, “Who but the Martineau could have drawn us into such a hole?” And yet I doubt not he has a sincere liking for Miss M., for I have met her at his house, and he afterwards spoke of her with the greatest kindness. His various sayings that are reported about town, and his conversation as I caught it at evening parties, had impressed me with a great admiration of his powers, but with a positive dislike. I love frankness and truth. But his society at breakfast has almost

1 Life of Sumner, vol. ii., p. 41.

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obliterated my first impressions. We were alone, and he showed all those wonderful paintings, and we talked till far into the afternoon. I have seldom enjoyed myself more; it was a luxury, in such rooms, to listen to such a man, before whom the society of the last quarter of a century had all passed—he alone unchanged; to talk, with such a poet, of poetry and poets, of Wordsworth, and Southey, and Scott; and to hear his opinions, which were given with a childlike simplicity and frankness. I must confess his great kindness to me. He asked my acceptance of the new edition of his poems, and said, “I shall be happy to see any friend of yours, morning, noon, or night;” and all his kindness was purely volunteer, for my acquaintance with him grew from simply meeting him in society. He inquired after Mrs. Newton with most friendly interest, and showed me a little present he had received from her, which he seemed to prize much. I shall write to her to let her know the good friends she has left behind. Rogers is a friend of Wordsworth, but thinks he has written too much, and without sufficient limæ labor. He says it takes him ten times as long to write a sentence of prose as it does Wordsworth one of poetry; and in illustration, he showed me a thought in Wordsworth’s last work—dedicated to Rogers—on the saying of the monk who had sat before the beautiful pictures so long, and seen so many changes, that he felt tempted to say, “We are the shadows, and they the substance.”1 This same story you will find in a note to the “Italy.” Rogers wrote his note ten times over before he was

1 Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems, 1835.

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satisfied with it; Wordsworth’s verse was published almost as it first left his pen. Look at the two.’

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—I must at last submit to the mortification of sending my excuse to you for to-day, which I have too long delayed, and to which I looked forward with the pleasure anticipated by a long confinement; but since I saw you, I have been quite confined by an unaccountable sickness and fits of nausea, that come on incessantly, and plague both Sir H. H. and myself, as he will tell you. I do not know what my disorder is—I know I may as well die of that as of anything else, but I still hope to have the pleasure of seeing you first.

‘My dear Mr. Rogers,—Your very handsome present has delighted me, and demands my warmest gratitude. The book is magnificent, and quite suitable to the value of its contents.

‘The poet Wordsworth is in town. I met him at breakfast this morning at Rogers’s, who was very kind and cordial, speaking with real feeling and admiration of my mother. “Philip van Artevelde” was present, and I liked him better than when I met him on a former occasion.’

Daniel Webster was in London in the spring, and, with his wife, was a frequent visitor at Rogers’s house. Crabb Robinson, who met them at Kenyon’s in June, says that he had an air of imperial strength, such as Cæsar might have had, and that his wife also had a dignified appearance. Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor alone resembled them in this particular. Moore records his

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meeting with Webster at Miss Rogers’s. Another American, Miss Katharine Sedgwick, came too, with an introduction from Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Butler), who had known Rogers from her childhood, as the intimate friend of her father and her aunt. Her letter has an interest of its own.

Sydney Smith had published in the spring his ‘Contributions to ‘The Edinburgh Review,’ and the death of

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Courtenay, in the summer of 1839, made him a comparatively rich man, and enabled him to take the house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, in which he lived till his death in February 1845. He was eight years younger than Rogers, and died more than ten years before him. The relations between them were most affectionate. He joked Rogers as nobody else dared. ‘My dear Rogers,’ he said one day, ‘if we were both in America, we should be tarred and feathered, and lovely as we are by nature, I should be an ostrich and you an emu.’ He went with Moore and Rogers one day to see Dryden’s house. It was very wet, but Rogers, always enthusiastic about Dryden, got out of the carriage, but Moore and Smith refused. ‘Oh, you see why Rogers don’t mind getting out,’ exclaimed Sydney to Moore, ‘he has got goloshes on; lend us each a golosh, Rogers, and we will each stand on one leg and admire as long as you please.’ Responding to an invitation to breakfast, Sydney Smith writes, ‘To breakfast with you in return for your breakfasting with me, is to give you a shilling for a guinea, but if you are generous enough to accept such payment, I shall be most happy to make it.’

Crabb Robinson gives an example which came under his own notice of Rogers’s patronage of poor and deserving authors.

‘August 8th, 1839.—Breakfasted at Samuel Rogers’s with W. Maltby. There came in a plain-looking man from the North, named Miller, of free opinions and deportment. He had risen by his talents; and Rogers told us his history. “He called on me lately,” said Rogers, “and reminded me that he had formerly sold me some baskets—his own work—and that on his showing me some of his poems I gave him three guineas. That money enabled him to get work from the booksellers, and he had since written historical romances, “Fair Rosamond,” “Lady Jane Grey,” etc.’

‘My dear Sarah,—. . . Last week I passed a night at the Castle at Richmond with the Hollands, and next day saw the Dunlops, and also Mrs. Fox, who was there on her way to a dentist in town. Miss Willoughby and Miss Marsden were with her, and she looked as well as she could do with a bad cold. I passed two nights

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too at Walton with the Tankervilles, and took a peep at Hampton Court. I have twice drawn upon Edmund and Mrs. Allen, once to dine Lady Holland and once the Carlisles, who have returned from Italy. Last night the Queen dined at Stafford House, and I went in the evening. Who should call one day between eleven and twelve, but Lady Essex and Miss J.! They are frightened at the distance of Bareges, which Dr. Chambers recommended, but mean to go somewhere next week, and have set their hearts upon meeting you at Paris. They have bought a very small britzka, too small they fear to carry anything, and with a maid and a courier mean to make their way. They have parted with every face in the house, and felt never so free and happy as when the last went out of it. Maltby went to-day to Broadstairs, having no alternative, his maid wishing to go to Scotland. I shall follow him in a week or so, when I have remained a little while here. Millingen and Wilkinson are still here, and I see them often. The other day I asked the Sharpes, and M., and W., and Eastlake, and Stanfield, and Maltby, and Dr. Lepsius to dinner at a venture, and they all came. Mary, and Patty, and Sarah, and Dan are gone to the sea near Liverpool, and wish the newspapers sent there. Farewell, my dear Sarah; give best remembrances to your fellow-traveller, and believe me to be ever yours affectionately,

‘Rogers called and was pleased with the Duke. He said it was the man. He said he wished I would paint Napoleon musing at St. Helena, not so fat as he really was; that that was the only thing Talleyrand and the

appear in this volume. Miss Hogarth correctly describes them as ‘charming and characteristic.’

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Duchess De Dino objected to in my picture at Sir Robert Peel’s. I asked him what they thought of the picture. He said, most highly, but that the fatness always pained them, as they never saw him so. He said he saw him with Mr. Fox in 1802, and nothing could be handsomer than his smile. Rogers is a Whig; he lingers about Napoleon, and did not seem to think the Duke half so interesting. He told me I was a great poet, etc., and went away.’

‘My dear Sir,—If what Dr. Johnson says be true, I am somewhat “advanced in the dignity of a thinking being,” as the past and the distant at this moment predominate in my mind strongly over the present. From amidst the labors of law and the strife of politics, I transport myself to London. No sooner am I in London, than I go off to find you, to grasp your hand, to assure myself of your health, and then to sit down and hear you talk. I enjoy all this, my dear Sir, most highly, and mean to enjoy it, so long as you and myself remain on this little bit of a globe. The pleasure of your acquaintance is not, with me, the felicity of a few months only. I fund it, and intend to get a very nice annuity out of it, as long as I live. I shall be receiving a dividend whenever I think of you; and if I can persuade myself into the belief that you sometimes remember me and mine, the treasure will be so much the more valuable.

‘When you happen to see Mr. Milman, will you do me the favour to thank him for a copy of his poems, which I received with yours, and to say that I shall write to him soon?

‘One thing more. You will be pleased to hear that our excellent friend Professor Smyth’s first series of lectures—those on Modern History—are, at my suggestion, reprinting here, so as to be used as a text-book in our neighbouring University—Cambridge. This comes as near teaching posterity as a man can, and yet keep in this world. Do you remember the beautiful phrase of Tacitus about Germanicus—fruitur famâ. Well, if you or Professor Smyth will come to Boston, you can furnish a beautiful illustration of it. But I suppose you will rather trust the matter to the commentators than take the trouble in person.

‘February, 19th, 1840.—My first visit was to Rogers, whom I found remarkably well and full of kindness. Agreed with me that three men now looked up to by the people of England were the Duke, Lord John, and

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Peel. Mentioned, à propos of this, what he had told me of the Duke saying to him last year, in speaking of the ministry, “Lord John is a host in himself.”’

‘My dear Sir,—I have decided to publish “Master Humphrey’s Clock” in half-yearly volumes, each volume containing, of course, the collected numbers for that period. As the first of these will be out at the end of September, and I want to settle a point I have in my mind, let me ask a favour of you at once.

The great event in Whig circles in the autumn of

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1840 was the death of Lord Holland, at Holland House, on the 22nd of October. He was ten years younger than Rogers, but he formed the chief of the few remaining links with the great men of their earlier days. As a Whig leader in the House of Lords, first in the days of Whig depression, and afterwards in the era of their triumphs, he had won a great position in popular esteem and was regarded as the fit inheritor of the traditions as of the name of Fox. This social influence, and that of the brilliant circle he and his wife gathered at Holland House, probably did more service to his party than even his action in the House of Lords. To the Whigs generally his death was a heavy blow at an untimely moment; but to Rogers it threatened the desolation of the circle in which he was himself an oracle. He and Moore were staying at Bowood when they heard of Lord Holland’s death, and Moore tells us how they received the news.

‘31st October.—Rogers mentioned among other agree able things a curious parallel found in the “Odyssey” to the well-known story of the Indian chief at Niagara, who was lying asleep in his boat, just above the current of the Falls, when some wicked person cut the rope by which his boat was fastened to the shore, and he was carried down the cataract. The poor Indian, on waking up, had made every effort, by means of his paddle, to stop the career of the canoe, but, finding it to be all hopeless, and that he was hurrying to the edge, he took a draught out of his brandy flask, wrapped his mantle about him, and, seating himself composedly, thus went down the Falls. The parallel to this in Homer is when the companions of Ulysses, in spite of all his precautions, let loose the Bag of the Winds, and when, with the same dignified composure, Ulysses submits to his fate. The natural action of wrapping round the mantle is the same in both! Cowper thus translates the passage—

Rogers remarked, Lord Stanhope tells us, that sometimes there were great flashes of humour in Sir Robert Peel’s conversation. At a meeting of the Trustees of the British Museum somebody said, about some expensive purchases by young Tomline, ‘What would his grandfather (the Bishop) say if he could now look up?’ Peel said slyly, ‘I observe you don’t say, look down!’ ‘Rogers told us with some irritation,’ says Lord Stanhope, ‘that yesterday, at dinner, Lady Wilton asked him whether he had ever known Lord Byron.’ The Rev. Gerald Wellesley, afterwards Dean of Windsor, who was present at the dinner, told Lord Stanhope that the question was asked by Lady Wilton in good faith, and ‘that the poet, apparently much annoyed, replied, “Known him—yes, I did know him—too well.”’

There are pleasant glimpses of Rogers in Macready’s Reminiscences. One day, in November, he calls at St. James’s Place with the plan of the monument to Mrs. Siddons, into which Rogers enters warmly, and tells Macready that on the occasion of her brother’s monument (though it was really on the occasion of the great dinner to John Kemble on his retirement) she said, ‘I hope, Mr. Rogers, that one day justice will be done to women.’ On the last day of January, 1841, Dickens calls for Macready, and they go together to Rogers’s to dine. Eastlake is there, and Colonel Fox, Kenney, Maltby, Babbage, and two others, and Macready says of it: ‘A pleasant day. Showed Rogers my Committee list, with which he was pleased.’ On the 22nd of March Rogers drops in to a meeting of the Siddons Committee, and then dines at Macready’s, with Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Pierce Butler, Kenney, Dickens, Travers, and Harness. Lord Stanhope records meeting him at grand dinners at Apsley House in May and August.

‘My dear Sarah,—What will you say when you hear that I have been over-persuaded by Maltby to cross the water. Indeed, the report was so strong that we were going, that we could not help ourselves. Last Thursday I left Broadstairs for Canterbury, M. having gone to receive permission from Mr. Travers, and returned from London yesterday. I breakfasted and drank tea with Q[uillinan] and Dora twice. She seems as happy as she can be. To-day we came here, and to-morrow embark. To-night we enjoy a coal fire for the last time. To-night the sea is smooth as glass, but to-morrow it may be mountain high. Lady Essex, &c., &c., were detained here some days. I hope you mean, if you can, to see our dear friends at Stourbridge.

‘My dear Sarah,—I am so glad your journey has answered in any degree; and your last visit cannot fail, for there you will be discharging a duty, and with those who will rejoice to see you. As for our adventure, perhaps a brief journal and a comment or two will give you the best idea of it.

‘Dear Mr. Rogers,—Here is a sketch of Sir Thomas More’s House at Canterbury—I have been promised one, which I expect to be still better, and which I hope to have the pleasure of sending you soon.

‘I think I mentioned to you that the head of Sir Thomas More is in a vault in St. Dunstan’s Church at Canterbury, the first Church you come to in the suburbs on the right hand side of the road as you come from London. His body was buried, I believe, at Chelsea. As to the head, the story is that it was exposed on London Bridge for a fortnight, and that Margaret Roper “begged it” and carried it to Canterbury and placed it in the church opposite to the dwelling-house of the Ropers—now a brewery—(a brick archway remains and some of the walls of this old building). She is said to have desired that her father’s head should be placed in her arms in her own coffin, but this request appears to have been neglected.

In December there was a gathering at Bowood, of which at least three contemporary accounts have been published. C. Greville arrived there a few days before Christmas, and strongly contrasts the company he found there with that which he had left at Woburn. ‘There, nothing but idle, ignorant, ordinary people, among whom there was not an attempt at anything like society or talk; here, though not many, almost all distinguished more or less—Moore, Rogers, Macaulay, R. Westmacott, Butler and Mrs. Butler, Dr. Fowler and his wife, Lady H. Baring, Miss Fox.’ Mrs. Butler adds Babbage, and speaks of the ladies as ‘charming, agreeable, unaffected women.’ The conjunction of Macaulay and Rogers, the one forty, the other approaching eighty—the waxing and the waning social celebrities—gave the party much amusement. Macaulay was talking perpetually. His sonorous voice, his superabundant physical energy, his generally declamatory style of conversation, carried everything before it. ‘The drollest thing,’ says Greville, ‘is to see the effect upon Rogers, who is nearly extinguished, and can neither make himself heard nor find an interval to get in a word. He is exceedingly provoked, though he cannot help admiring.’ Mrs. Butler is more explicit. She makes a general remark about Macaulay’s ‘speech power,’ and says that Sydney Smith’s humorous and good-humoured rage at his prolific talk was very

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funny. ‘Rogers’s, of course,’ she adds, ‘was not good-humoured; and on this very occasion, one day at breakfast, having two or three times uplifted his thread of voice and fine incisive speech against the torrent of Macaulay’s holding forth, Lord Lansdowne, the most courteous of hosts, endeavoured to make way for him with a “You were saying, Mr. Rogers,” when Rogers hissed out, “Oh, what I was saying will keep.”’ Greville writes, ‘He will revive to-morrow, when Macaulay goes,’ and it was not Rogers only who revived, for Mrs. Butler declares that the company was so incessantly clever, witty, and brilliant, that it gave her a brain-ache. Moore gives a somewhat different account of Rogers. He says Rogers stayed more than a week, and speaks of him as ‘still fresh in all his best faculties, and improved wonderfully in the only point where he was ever at all deficient—temper. He now gives the natural sweetness of his disposition fair play. He walked over to see Bessy one or two days, through all the wretched mud of the Bowood Lane and our own, making, to us and back again, at least six miles.’ Rogers directed Moore’s attention to the passage in Macaulay’s article on Warren Hastings, which had just appeared and of which everybody was talking, and they agreed it was in some parts over-gorgeous. One day Rogers took Lord John Russell over to see Bessy. He was in high spirits for the approaching conflict—the coming event did not cast its shadow before it on this great holiday gathering of Whigs. Mrs. Butler tells of Rogers’s gift of his autograph: ‘After mending a pen for me, and tenderly caressing the nib of it with a knife as sharp as his own tongue,

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he wrote, in his beautiful, delicate, fine hand by way of trying it—

‘The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.’

Mrs. Butler did not know that the lines are from Cowper’s ‘Epistle to an afflicted Protestant Lady in France,’ and half thought they might be ‘an impromptu, a seer’s vision and friend’s warning.’ The lines were great favourites with Rogers—often on his tongue. There were two lines from ‘The Task’ which equally possessed his imagination—

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John Allen (1771-1843) Scottish physician and intimate of Lord Holland; he contributed to the Edinburgh Review and Encyclopedia Britannica and published Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England (1830). He was the avowed atheist of the Holland House set.

Sarah Austin [née Taylor] (1793-1867) The daughter of John Taylor of Norwich (1750-1826); she was a respected translator unhappily married to the legal philosopher John Austin (1790-1859) in 1819.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871) Cambridge-educated mathematician and computer pioneer, in which capacity in 1843 he published a paper in collaboration with Byron's daughter, Ada Augusta, countess of Lovelace.

Henry Hervey Baber (1775-1869) Educated at St. Paul's Schools and All Souls, Oxford, in 1807 he succeeded Henry Ellis as keeper of printed books at the British Museum and held the post until 1837.

Lady Augusta Baring [née Brudenell] (1810-1853) The daughter of the sixth earl of Cardigan; in 1827 she married the MP Henry Bingham Baring of the banking family.

Hon. Sophia Clarence Beckett [née Copley] (1828-1911) The eldest daughter of John Singleton Copley, baron Lyndhurst; in 1854 she married Hamilton Beckett.

Charles Augustus Bennet, fifth earl of Tankerville (1776-1859) Son of Charles Bennet, the fourth earl (d. 1822); educated at Eton, he was Whig MP for Steyning (1803-06), Knaresborough (1806-18), and Berwick-on-Tweed) (1820-22); in 1806 he married Armandine Sophie Leonie Corisande de Gramont.

Lady Mary Cavendish- Bentinck [née Lowther] (d. 1862) The daughter of William Lowther, first earl of Lonsdale; in 1820 she married Lord Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck, son of the third duke of Portland.

Helen Selina Blackwood, countess of Gifford [née Sheridan] (1807-1867) English poet, the elder sister of Caroline Norton and granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; in 1825 she married Price Blackwood (1794-1841), baron Dufferin; in 1862 she remarried, to George Hay, earl of Gifford.

Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838) American astronomer and mathematician; he published The New American Practical Navigator (1802).

Mary Boyle, countess of Cork and Orrery [née Monckton] (1746-1840) Literary hostess; in youth she entertained Johnson and Boswell, in age Scott and Byron. In 1786 she married Edmund Boyle, seventh earl of Cork.

Frances Butler [née Kemble] (1809-1893) English actress and writer, daughter of Charles Kemble and Maria Theresa Kemble; on a tour to America in 1834 she was unhappily married to Pierce Butler (1807-1867).

Pierce Butler (1807-1867) Wealthy Philadelphian who married the actress Fanny Kemble in 1834; they were divorced in 1863.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The author of Childe Harold and Don Juan.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC-44 BC) Roman statesman, general, and author of the Gallic Wars.

Lady Caroline Janetta Capell, countess of Essex [née Beauclerk] (1804-1862) The daughter of William Beauclerk, eighth Duke of St. Albans; in 1825 she became the first wife of Arthur Algernon Capell, afterwards sixth Earl of Essex.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and man of letters; he translated Goethe's Wilhelm Meister (1824) and published Sartor Resartus (1833-34).

Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) English poet; he was assistant-keeper of printed books at the British Museum (1826) and translator of Dante (1805-19).

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) Unitarian clergyman and American man of letters; educated at Harvard College, he published Remarks on American Literature (1830) and Self-Culture (1838).

William Frederick Chambers (1786-1855) The son of the orientalist William Chambers (d. 1793), educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was physician to St. George's Hospital (1816-39) and was physician-in-ordinary to William IV.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) English poet and philosopher who projected Lyrical Ballads (1798) with William Wordsworth; author of Biographia Literaria (1817), On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other works.

John Singleton Copley, baron Lyndhurst (1772-1863) The son of the American painter; he did legal work for John Murray before succeeding Lord Eldon as lord chancellor (1827-30, 1834-35, 1841-46); a skilled lawyer, he was also a political chameleon.

Sarah Garay Thomas Copley, Lady Lyndhurst [née Brunsden] (1795 c.-1834) The daughter of Charles Brunsden; after an earlier marriage to a Captain Thomas killed at Waterloo, she married the jurist John Singleton Copley in 1819.

Philip Courtenay (1786 c.-1842) Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the Bar in 1808 and was King's Counsel (1833) and MP for Bridgenorth (1837-41). He was a wit an epicure.

William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet, author of Olney Hymns (1779), John Gilpin (1782), and The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by William Hayley, did admiration.

George Crabbe (1754-1832) English poet renowned for his couplet verse and gloomy depictions of country persons and places; author of the The Village (1783), The Parish Register (1807), The Borough (1810), and Tales of the Hall (1819).

Sarah Crabbe [née Elmy] (1751-1813) The daughter of James Elmy; she married the poet George Crabbe in 1783 after an eight years’ engagement; in her later years she suffered from depression and insanity.

Richard Cumberland (1732-1811) English playwright and man of letters caricatured by Sheridan as “Sir Fretful Plagiary.” Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by himself was published in two volumes (1806-07).

Dorothée, duchesse de Dino (1793-1862) The daughter of Dorothea von Medem, Duchess of Courland, she was the lover of Talleyrand and spouse of his nephew. In 1831 Maria Edgeworth described her as “little, and ugly—plain, I should say.”

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Florentine poet, the author of the Divine Comedy and other works.

Thomas Denman, first baron Denman (1779-1854) English barrister and writer for the Monthly Review; he was MP, solicitor-general to Queen Caroline (1820), attorney-general (1820), lord chief justice (1832-1850). Sydney Smith commented, “Denman everybody likes.”

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English novelist, author of David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet laureate, dramatist, and critic; author of Of Dramatick Poesie (1667), Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Alexander's Feast; or the Power of Musique (1697), The Works of Virgil translated into English Verse (1697), and Fables (1700).

Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865) English painter educated at Charterhouse; he was a student of Benjamin Robert Haydon, a member of the Plymouth Institute, and was director of the National Gallery in London (1850-65).

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) Irish novelist; author of Castle Rackrent (1800) Belinda (1801), The Absentee (1812) and Ormond (1817).

John Hume Egerton, viscount Alford (1812-1851) The son of John Cust, first Earl Brownlow; he was educated at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge and was Conservative MP for Bedfordshire (1835-51).

Mary Margaret Egerton, countess of Wilton [née Stanley] (1801-1858) The daughter of the twelfth Earl of Derby; in 1821 she married Thomas Grosvenor Egerton, second earl of Wilton.

Mary Elliot, countess of Minto [née Brydone] (1786-1853) The daughter of Patrick Brydone (1736-1818); in 1806 she married Gilbert Elliot, afterwards second earl Minto. She was the granddaughter of the historian William Robertson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Harvard-educated American poet, essayist, and philosopher.

Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823) Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).

Edward Everett (1794-1865) American statesman educated at Harvard College; he was editor of the North American Review (1820-24), ambassador to Great Britain (1841-45), president of Harvard (1846-49).

Isabella Fenwick (1783-1856) Friend and neighbor of the Wordsworths; she was the daughter of Nicholas Fenwick of Lemminton Hall near Alnwick, and a relation of the poet Henry Taylor.

John Fitzgibbon, second earl of Clare (1792-1851) A Harrow friend of Byron's, son of the Lord Chamberlain of Ireland; he once fought a duel with Henry Grattan's son in response to an aspersion on his father. Lord Clare was Governor of Bombay between 1830 and 1834.

Henry Petty- Fitzmaurice, third marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863) The son of Lord Shelburne (1737-1805); he was a Whig peer, chancellor of the exchequer (1806), and President of the Council (1830).

Louisa Emma Fox-Strangways Petty- Fitzmaurice, marchioness of Lansdowne [née Thomas] (1785-1851) The daughter of Henry Thomas, second earl of Ilchester; she married Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice in 1808.

Lady Mary Anne Forester [née Jervis] (1813 c.-1893) The daughter of Edward Jervis, second viscount St. Vincent; she married 1) in 1840 David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, and 2) in 1862, George David Cecil Weld, third baron Forester. A fine singer, she was known as “the Syren.”

Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) Italian poet and critic who settled in London in 1816 where he contributed essays on Italian literature to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews.

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out with Edmund Burke.

Charles Richard Fox (1796-1873) The eldest son of Lord Holland, born illegitimately and thus barred from the peerage; he was aide-de-camp to William IV, and MP for Calne (1831-32) and Tavistock (1833-34). He was an antiquary and member of the Society of Dilettanti.

Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845) In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.

Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840) Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish and Italian; Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.

Lady Mary Fox [née Fitz-Clarence] (1798-1864) The illegitimate daughter of William IV; in 1824 she married Charles Richard Fox, the illegitimate son of Lord Holland.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728 c.-1774) Irish miscellaneous writer; his works include The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), The Deserted Village (1770), and She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

Edward Goodall (1795-1870) English line engraver who did work on illustrations to poems by Thomas Campbell, Thomas Moore, and Samuel Rogers.

Frederick Goodall (1822-1904) English painter of landscapes and genre scenes; the son of the engraver Edward Goodall, he was elected to the Royal Academy in 1862 and published Reminiscences (1902).

George Hamilton- Gordon, fourth earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860) Harrow-educated Scottish philhellene who founded the Athenian Society and was elected to the Society of Dilettanti (1805); he was foreign secretary (1841-1846) and prime minister (1852-55).

Elizabeth Leveson- Gower, duchess of Sutherland [née Sutherland] (1765-1839) In 1785 she married George Granville Leveson-Gower, afterwards duke of Sutherland, and was sister-in-law to Lord Carlisle and mother of Francis Egerton Gower, earl of Ellesmere.

Granville Leveson- Gower, first earl Granville (1773-1846) English diplomat and ally of George Canning; he was ambassador to St Petersburg (1804-06, 1807) and ambassador to Paris (1824-1828). The Duchess of Devonshire described him as “the Adonis of his day.”

Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865) The son of Captain Charles Greville (1762-1832); he was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, and was clerk-in-ordinary to the privy council. His famous Diary began appearing in 1874.

John Gurwood (1790-1845) After service in the Peninsular War he was private secretary to the Duke of Wellington; he died a suicide.

Louisa J. Hall [née Park] (1800-1892) The daughter of Dr. James Park of Newburyport; in 1840 she married Edward B. Hall, a Unitarian clergyman; her dramatic poem Miriam was published in 1837.

Henry Hallam (1777-1859) English historian and contributor to the Edinburgh Review, author of Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 4 vols (1837-39) and other works. He was the father of Tennyson's Arthur Hallam.

William Harness (1790-1869) A Harrow friend and early correspondent of Byron. He later answered the poet in The Wrath of Cain (1822) and published an edition of Shakespeare (1825) and other literary projects. Harness was a longtime friend of Mary Russell Mitford.

Warren Hastings (1732-1818) Governor-general of Bengal (1774-84); he was charged high crimes by Edmund Burke, initiating impeachment proceedings that continued from 1787 to 1795, when Hastings was acquitted.

Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) English historical painter and diarist who recorded anecdotes of romantic writers and the physiognomy of several in his paintings.

Abraham Hayward (1801-1884) English barrister and essayist who contributed to the Quarterly Review and wrote The Art of Dining (1852); his translation of Goethe's Faust was published in 1833.

Alexander Farquharson Henderson (1780-1863) Scottish physician educated at Marischal College and Edinburgh University; he opened a practice in Mayfair where he was a friend of Samuel Rogers and to the arts. He published History of Ancient and Modern Wines (1824).

George Stillman Hillard (1808-1879) Harvard-educated American lawyer and man of letters; the friend of Charles Sumner and Nathaniel Hawthorne, he published Six Months in Italy (1853).

Georgina Hogarth (1827-1918) The sister-in-law, adviser, confidante, and editor of Charles Dickens; her father George Hogarth was a legal adviser to Sir Walter Scott and her mother Georgina the daughter of the music publisher George Thomson.

Sir Henry Holland, first baronet (1788-1873) English physician and frequenter of Holland House, the author of Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia etc. during 1812 and 1813 (1814) and Recollections of Past Life (1872). His second wife, Saba, was the daughter of Sydney Smith.

Homer (850 BC fl.) Poet of the Iliad and Odyssey.

George Howard, sixth earl of Carlisle (1773-1848) Son of the fifth earl (d. 1825); he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, wrote for the Anti-Jacobin, and was MP for Morpeth (1795-1806) and Cumberland (1806-28).

William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury (1766-1848) Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he was regius professor of Divinity (1809-13), bishop of London (1813-28), and archbishop of Canterbury (1828-48).

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of The Examiner and The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and Shelley.

King James VI and I (1566-1625) King of Scotland (1567-1625) and England (1603-1625).

Anna Brownell Jameson [née Murphy] (1794-1860) Writer and art critic born in Dublin; she published Shakespeare's Heroines (1832). in 1825 she married the barrister Robert Sympson Jameson.

Joseph Jekyll (1754-1837) Wit, politician, and barrister; he was Whig MP for Calne (1787-1816) and wrote for the Morning Chronicle and Evening Statesman.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English man of letters, among many other works he edited A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote Lives of the Poets (1779-81).

John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) English actor renowned for his Shakespearean roles; he was manager of Drury Lane (1783-1802) and Covent Garden (1803-1808).

Maria Theresa Kemble [née De Camp] (1777-1838) English actress, the daughter of the musician George Lewis De Camp; she began performing at the age of eight and married the actor Charles Kemble in 1806.

James Kenney (1780-1849) Irish playwright, author of The World (1808); he was a friend of Lamb, Hunt, Moore, and Rogers.

John Kenyon (1784-1856) Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a one-time neighbor of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth who became a London host and patron and published several volumes of poems.

William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848) English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor to Queen Victoria.

Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) Prussian archaeologist who made an expedition to Egypt with Champollion in 1828-1829, and another in 1842-46.

Charles Robert Leslie (1794-1859) American-born genre-painter who came to England in 1811 and studied with fellow-Americans Benjamin West and Washington Allston; he published Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843).

William Lock (1767-1847) Of Norbury Park; English painter, the son of William Lock (1732-1810); he was the pupil of Henry Fuseli and a friend Samuel Rogers.

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).

Sir Charles Lyell, first baronet (1797-1875) Scottish geologist educated at Exeter College, Oxford; he was author of Principles of Geology (1830-33) and The Antiquity of Man (1863).

Mary Lyell [née Horner] (1808 c.-1873) The daughter of the geologist Leonard Horner and niece of Francis Horner; in 1832 she married Charles Lyell.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, first Baron Lytton (1803-1873) English historical novelist and MP who began his career with Pelham: or the Adventures of a Gentleman (1828).

Thomas Babington Macaulay, baron Macaulay (1800-1859) English poet, critic, and historian, author of The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, 5 vols (1849-61).

Charles Mackay (1812-1889) Scottish poet and journalist who wrote for The Sun and the Morning Chronicle; he published Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, and the Madness of Crowds, 3 vols (1841).

Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).

William Charles Macready (1793-1873) English tragic actor and manager, the son of William Macready (1755-1829).

William Maltby (1764-1854) A schoolmate and life-long friend of Samuel Rogers; he was a London solicitor and a member of the King of Clubs. In 1809 he succeeded Richard Porson as principal librarian of the London Institution.

Jane Marcet [née Haldimand] (1769-1858) Daughter of the Swiss banker Anthony Francis Haldimand; in 1799 she married Alexander John Gaspard Marcet. She published scientific textbooks, works for children, and Conversations on Political Economy (1816).

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) English writer and reformer; she published Illustrations of Political Economy, 9 vols (1832-34) and Society in America (1837).

Philip Martineau (1791-1860) Solicitor and taxing master to the court of chancery married to Elizabeth Frances Batty (d. 1875); they were friends of Samuel Rogers and the parents of the painter Robert Braithwaite Martineau.

Thomas Miller (1807-1874) Basket-maker, poet, and novelist; he published in Friendship's Offering (1838, 1839), The Athenaeum, and the Literary Gazette.

James Millingen (1774-1845) Educated at Westminster, he worked at the French mint and became an authority on coins and antiquities based in Paris and Italy; he was the father of Julius Millingen, physician at Missolonghi.

Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868) Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, he was a poet, historian and dean of St Paul's (1849) who wrote for the Quarterly Review.

John Milton (1608-1674) English poet and controversialist; author of Comus (1634), Lycidas (1638), Areopagitica (1644), Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.

James Montgomery (1771-1854) English poet and editor of the Sheffield Iris (1795-1825); author of The Wanderer of Switzerland (1806) and The World before the Flood (1813).

Elizabeth Moore [née Dyke] [Bessy] (1793-1865) Irish actress who married Thomas Moore in a private ceremony 25 March 1811.

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.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) English statesman and humanist, Catholic martyr; he was the author of Utopia (1516).

Lady Sydney Morgan [née Owenson] (1778 c.-1859) Anglo-Irish novelist and socialite, author of The Wild Irish Girl (1806).

Macvey Napier (1776-1847) Scottish barrister, editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and from 1829 editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St. Helena (1815).

Sarah Williams Newton [née Sullivan] (1810-1892) The daughter of William Sullivan (1774-1839); in 1832 she married the painter Gilbert Stuart Newton; after his death in 1835 she married William F. Oakey of New York.

Andrews Norton (1786-1853) Unitarian theologian educated at Harvard; he was Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature at Harvard University (1819-30).

Lady Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton [née Sheridan] (1808-1877) English poetess and novelist, daughter of Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), who unhappily married the Hon. George Chapple Norton in 1827; she was known as ‘the female Byron.’

Barbara Palmer, duchess of Cleveland [née Villiers] (1640-1709) The daughter of William Villiers, second viscount Grandison (1614-1643) and mistress of Charles II, who granted her the title in 1670. Her sexual adventures were detailed in Delarivier Manley's The New Atalantis (1709).

Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797-1879) A carbonaro who escaped to London in 1823 where he became professor of Italian at University College London before becoming an influential librarian at the British Museum (1831). He was a friend of Ugo Foscolo.

Sir Robert Peel, second baronet (1788-1850) Byron's schoolmate at Harrow, afterwards prime minister from 1834-1835 and 1841-1846.

Edmund Phipps (1808-1857) English barrister, son of Henry Phipps, first earl of Mulgrave; he was educated at Trinity College, Oxford and the Inner Temple and published financial pamphlets and The Memoirs of the Political and Literary Life of Robert Plumer Ward, 2 vols (1850).

John Poole (1786-1872) English comic writer and playwright; he contributed to the London Magazine and scored a great theatrical success with Paul Pry (1825). He spent his later years living impoverished in Paris.

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) American historian educated at Harvard; he published History of the Conquest of Mexico, 3 vols (1844).

Sir Uvedale Price, first baronet (1747-1829) Of Foxley in Herefordshire; he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and published Essay on the Picturesque (1794).

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) Dissenting theologian, schoolmaster, and scientist; he was author of The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (1767).

Dora Quillinan [née Wordsworth] (1804-1847) The daughter of William Wordsworth who in 1841 married the poet Edward Quillinan despite her father's concerns about his debts.

Edward Quillinan (1791-1851) A poet of Irish Catholic descent who pursued a military career while issuing several volumes published by his father-in-law Edgerton Brydges; after the death of his first wife Jemima he married Dora Wordsworth in 1841.

Cyrus Redding (1785-1870) English journalist; he was a founding member of the Plymouth Institute, edited Galignani's Messenger from 1815-18, and was the effective editor of the New Monthly Magazine (1821-30) and The Metropolitan (1831-33).

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) Attorney, diarist, and journalist for The Times; he was a founder of the Athenaeum Club.

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.

Margaret Roper [née More] (1505-1544) The daughter of Sir Thomas More; she purchased the head of her father after it had been exposed on London Bridge and was buried with it in her coffin. It was exhumed in 1824.

William Roscoe (1753-1831) Historian, poet, and man of letters; author of Life of Lorenzo di Medici (1795) and Life and Pontificate of Leo X (1805). He was Whig MP for Liverpool (1806-1807) and edited the Works of Pope, 10 vols (1824).

John Russell, first earl Russell (1792-1878) English statesman, son of John Russell sixth duke of Bedford (1766-1839); he was author of Essay on the English Constitution (1821) and Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe (1824) and was Prime Minister (1865-66).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

William Scott, first baron Stowell (1745-1836) English lawyer and friend of Dr. Johnson; he was MP for Oxford University (1801-21) and judge of the high court of Admiralty (1798-1828). He was the elder brother of Lord Eldon.

Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) American novelist; her works of domestic fiction include A New England Tale (1822), Redwood (1824) and Hope Leslie (1827).

Nassau William Senior (1790-1864) Professor of political economy at Oxford (1825-30) and author of Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836). He contributed to the Quarterly Review and Edinburgh Review.

Edward Adolphus Seymour, twelfth duke of Somerset (1804-1885) The son of the eleventh duke (d. 1855); in 1863 he was created first Earl St. Maur, of Berry Pomeroy.

Jane Georgiana Seymour, duchess of Somerset [née Sheridan] (1809-1884) The granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and youngest of Caroline Norton's sisters; in 1830 she married Edward Adolphus Seymour, twelfth Duke of Somerset.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The Bard of Avon.

Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) Banker and Egyptologist; he was the nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers and brother of the geologist Daniel Sharpe.

Sutton Sharpe the younger (1797-1843) London solicitor, the son of Sutton Sharpe and nephew of the poet Samuel Rogers.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851) English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works (1839-40).

Charles Brinsley Sheridan (1796-1843) The son of Richard Brinsley Sheridan by his second wife Hecca; he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and published Thoughts on the Greek Revolution (1822).

Marcia Maria Sheridan [née Grant] (d. 1884) The daughter of Lt.-Gen. Sir Colquhoun Grant; in 1835 she married Richard Brinsley Sheridan, son of Thomas Sheridan.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1809-1888) The son of Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817); he was MP for Shaftesbury (1845-1852) and Dorchester (1852-1868).

Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831) English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.

Sir Courtenay Smith (1773-1839) The younger brother of Sydney and Bobus Smith; educated at Winchester College, he was a judge in India.

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.

William Smyth (1765-1849) The son of a Liverpool banker, he was educated at Eton and Peterhouse, Cambridge, and was Professor of Modern History at Cambridge (1807). He published of English Lyricks (1797) and Lectures on Modern History (1840).

Nicholas Soult (1769-1851) Marshal of France and commander in the Peninsular War.

Robert Southey (1774-1843) Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose works, among them the Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813), History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).

Edmund Spenser (1552 c.-1599) English poet, author of The Shepheards Calender (1579) and The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596).

Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867) After service in the Navy he became a scene-painter for Drury Lane and was afterwards a marine and landscape painter and Royal Academician (1835).

Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth earl Stanhope (1805-1875) Historian and man of letters, the son of the fourth earl; he published The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713-1783, 7 vols, (1836-53).

Charles Richard Sumner, bishop of Winchester (1790-1874) The younger brother of John Bird Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury; he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was bishop of Llandaff and dean of St. Paul's (1826) and bishop of Winchester (1827).

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) American statesman; he was educated at Harvard and spent two years traveling in Europe before making his reputation as an abolitionist senator from Massachusetts.

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 c.-117 c.) Roman historian; author of 18 books of Annals and 12 books of Histories.

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854) English judge, dramatist, and friend of Charles Lamb who contributed articles to the London Magazine and New Monthly Magazine.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838) French diplomat; he was foreign minister under Napoleon.

Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886) Poet, writer for the Quarterly Review, and autobiographer; he was author of the tragedy Philip van Artevelde (1834).

John Hamilton Thom (1808-1894) Educated at the Belfast Academical Institution, he was the Unitarian minister at the Renshaw Street Chapel in Liverpool and editor of The Christian Teacher (1838).

Anna Ticknor [née Eliot] (1800-1885) The daughter of Samuel Eliot; in 1821 she married the American historian George Ticknor.

George Ticknor (1791-1871) American author and Harvard professor of modern languages who travelled extensively in Europe 1815-19.

Sir George Pretyman Tomline, bishop of Winchester (1750-1827) Tutor of Pitt the younger; he was dean of St. Paul's and bishop of Lincoln (1787) and bishop of Winchester (1820-27). He adopted the name of Tomline in 1803 in connection with an inheritance.

Colonel George Tomline (1813-1889) Of Orwell Park, the son of William Edward Tomline and grandson and heir of George Pretyman Tomline; he was educated at Eton where he was a contemporary of Gladstone and was MP for Sudbury (1840-1841), Shrewsbury, (1851-1847, 1852-1868) and Great Grimsby (1868-1874). He was one of the wealthier men in England.

Benjamin Travers (1783-1858) Surgeon at Guy's Hospital and London Eye Infirmary; he was FRS (1813) and surgeon to Queen Victoria. His first wife was Sarah Morgan, daughter of the actuary (and friend of Samuel Rogers) William Morgan.

Melesina Trench [née Chenevix] (1768-1827) Poet and correspondent of Mary Leadbeater; she was raised by her grandfather, Richard Chenevix, bishop of Waterford, and married 1) Colonel Richard St George in 1786, and 2) Richard Trench in 1803.

Richard Chenevix Trench, archbishop of Dublin (1807-1886) Son of the poet Melesina Trench, educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was one of the Apostles; he was professor of divinity at King's College, London (1847-58) and archbishop of Dublin (1864).

Henri Joseph François, baron de Triqueti (1804-1874) French sculptor married to Emily Foster, granddaughter of the British sculptor Thomas Banks.

Sylvain Van de Weyer (1802-1874) Belgian politician who was minster to the United Kingdom; he married Elizabeth, the only daughter of Joshua Bates of Baring's Bank.

Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Vane, duchess of Cleveland [née Stanhope] (1819-1901) Daughter of the fourth earl Stanhope; she married 1) Archibald John Primrose, Lord Dalmeny in 1843, and 2) Sir Harry George Powlett, fourth Duke of Cleveland in 1854.

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) Queen of England, 1837-1901.

Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) Roman epic poet; author of Eclogues, Georgics, and the Aenead.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) American statesman and orator; he was a United States senator (1827-41, 1845-50) and secretary of state (1841-43).

Frances Emma Wedgwood [née Mackintosh] (1800-1889) The second child of Sir James Mackintosh; in 1832 she married Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-91), son of Josiah Wedgwood (1769-1843). She corresponded with Charles Darwin. Maria Edgeworth described her in 1821 as “one of the best-informed and most unaffected girls I ever knew.”

Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-1891) The grandson of Josiah Wedgwood, educated at Rugby and St. John's and Christ's College, Cambridge; he worked as a police magistrate and published Dictionary of English Etymology (1857).

Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Soldier and statesman; commander in the Peninsular Campaign (1809-1813), he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was prime minister (1828-1830).

Gerald Valerian Wellesley (1809-1882) The third son of Henry Wellesley, first Baron Cowley, and nephew of the Duke of Wellington; he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge and was rector of Stratfield Saye (1836-1854) and queen Victoria's resident chaplain (1849).

Henry Wellesley, first baron Cowley (1773-1847) The younger brother of the Duke of Wellington; he was a lieutenant-governor in India (1801-02), MP for Eye (1807-09) secretary to the Treasury (1808-09), ambassador to Spain (1809-22), Vienna (1823-31) and Paris (1841-46). He was created Baron Cowley in 1828.

Richard Wellesley, first marquess Wellesley (1760-1842) The son of Garret Wesley (1735-1781) and elder brother of the Duke of Wellington; he was Whig MP, Governor-general of Bengal (1797-1805), Foreign Secretary (1809-12), and Lord-lieutenant of Ireland (1821-28); he was created Marquess Wellesley in 1799.

Sir Richard Westmacott (1775-1856) English sculptor trained under Canova; he was professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy (1827-57).

Ferdinand White (1839 fl.) The illegitimate son of Blanco White; he was an ensign in Madras (1827) and an adjutant in the 40th Regiment (1839).

Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841) Emigrated to England from Seville in 1810, studied at Oxford and was tutor to Lord Holland's son Henry; he wrote for the New Monthly Magazine and published on theology.

Augusta Emma D'Este Wilde (1801-1866) The daughter of Augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex and his Catholic (and hence illegitimate) wife Augusta Murray; in 1845 she became the second wife of Thomas Wilde, first baron Truro.

Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797-1875) Egyptologist, author of Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt (1835) and other works.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) With Coleridge, author of Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.

Elizabeth Yates [née Brunton] (1799-1860) English actress, the daughter of the actor John Brunton; she performed at Covent Garden and Drury Lane; in 1823 she married the actor Frederic Henry Yates.

Frederick Henry Yates (1797-1842) English actor and theater manager educated at Charterhouse; he performed with Charles Kemble and was a partner of Charles Mathews in the Adelphi Theatre (1825-35).

Thomas Young [Ubiquity Young] (1848 fl.) Private secretary and personal “spy” to Lord Melbourne; originally he was purser on the Duke of Devonshire's yacht. He obtained his sobriquet by being omnipresent at social gatherings.

The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal. (1802-1929). Founded by Francis Jeffery, Sydney Smith, and Henry Brougham, the Edinburgh Review was for decades a principal organ of Whig opinion in Britain.

The North American Review. (1821-). Published quarterly on the model of Britain's Edinburgh and Quarterly.

Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) Pindar in English Verse. (London: Edward Moxon, 1833).

Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844) The Vision, or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. 3 vols (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1819). A second edition of Cary's translation of the Divine Comedy was printed in 1819.

William Cowper (1731-1800) “Epistle to a Lady in France” in Theological Miscellany. (London: 1789). Written in 1781, published in Theological Miscellany VI (1789) 332-34.

William Cowper (1731-1800) The Task: a Poem, in Six Books. (London: J. Johnson, 1785). A ruminative Miltonic burlesque in blank verse.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1839).

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Master Humphrey's Clock. 3 vols (London: Chapman and Hall, 1840). First issued in parts, 1840-41.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Orations, Lectures, and Addresses. (London: H. G. Clarke and Co., 1844). A British anthology of works separately published in the United States.

Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) “Dante: with a new Italian Commentary” in Edinburgh Review. Vol. 29 (February 1818): 453-474.. Chiefly by Foscolo with additions by Sir James Mackintosh and Samuel Rogers.

Homer (850 BC fl.) The Odyssey. (800 BC c.). A Greek epic poem which in the romantic era was usually read in the translation by Alexander Pope.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, baron Macaulay (1800-1859) “Warren Hastings” in Edinburgh Review. Vol. 74 (October 1841): 160-255.

William Charles Macready (1793-1873) Macready's Reminiscences, and Selections from his Diaries and Letters. 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1875). Reprinted 1876.

Thomas Miller (1807-1874) Fair Rosamond, or, the Days of King Henry II: an Historical Romance. 3 vols (London: H. Colburn, 1839).

Thomas Miller (1807-1874) Lady Jane Grey: an Historical Romance. 3 vols (London: H. Colburn, 1840).

Andrews Norton (1786-1853) The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. 3 vols (Boston: J. B. Russell, 1837-44).

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. 3 vols (Boston: American Stationers' Co., 1838). Fifth edition in 1839.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) Italy, a Poem. 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1823-1828). In 1828 the poem was revised and expanded into two parts; in 1830 it was elaborately illustrated with engravings after paintings by J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Stothard.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) An Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems. (London: T. Cadell, 1786). An allegorical ode, a form recently made popular by the Della Cruscan poets.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) The Pleasures of Memory, a Poem. In two Parts. (London: T. Cadell, 1792). A descriptive poem in couplets reprinted throughout the nineteenth century.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) Recollections. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859). Edited by William Sharpe.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) Works. 4 vols (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1839-40). Reprinted 1840.

William Smyth (1765-1849) Lectures on History; second and concluding Series, on the French Revolution. 3 vols (Cambridge: Deighton, 1840). By the Regius Professor of History.

Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth earl Stanhope (1805-1875) Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851. (London: John Murray, 1888).

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner. 4 vols (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877-1893).

John Hamilton Thom (1808-1894) Joseph Blanco White. (London: R. Kinder, 1841). Reprinted 1845 as The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White.

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Clayden, Peter William, 1827-1902

Title: Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries 2 Vols (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1889).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description: Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed. Obvious and unambiguous compositors’ errors have been silently corrected.

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed September 2009

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License