Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Lord Brougham to Samuel Rogers to Samuel Rogers, 5 March [1853]
‘Grafton Street: Saturday, 5th March [1853].
‘My dear Rogers,—I have been prevented from writing to you by the hope
that I should have something ![]()
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like better accounts to give
of our excellent and much-loved friend Denman. The general health is as good as possible; but,
unhappily, there is very little, if any, progress in the restoration of his
speech. I need hardly add that this state in which he had been all the time I
was at Cannes, prevented me from going over to Nice, where my being, and unable
to see or communicate with him, would have given him great pain.
‘The consequence was that our poor friend, the
Duchess of Bedford, I did not see; she
had been quite well five days before her death, but walked so as to heat
herself, and then got a chill in the carriage.
‘The climate on our fine coast at Cannes has been
marvellously cold.
‘My brother (whose family I left there) writes that
they have had snow a foot deep, and often years pass without any snow at all,
and never above a sprinkling.
‘I hear that Larpent’s book is worth reading. Douro (the new Duke) strongly recommends it.
Lady Susan Hamilton is on her way
home. I saw the Duchess—her
mother—to-day quite well.
‘Yours ever sincerely,
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
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.”
Francis Seymour Larpent (1776-1845)
The eldest son of John Larpent (1741-1824), educated under William Gilpin at Cheam, at St
John's College, Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn; he was judge-advocate-general to the forces in
the Peninsula (1812-14) and employed in investigating the affairs of Queen Caroline.
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).
Francis Russell, seventh duke of Bedford (1788-1861)
Son of the sixth Duke (d. 1839); he took an MA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1808
and served as Whig MP for Peterborough between 1809 and 1812 and for Bedfordshire between
1812 and 1832. He succeeded to the title in 1833.
Georgiana Russell, duchess of Bedford [née Gordon] (1781-1853)
The daughter of Alexander Gordon, fourth duke of Gordon; in 1803, after first being
engaged to his brother, she became the second wife of John Russell, sixth duke of Bedford
and became a prominent Whig hostess. Sydney Smith described her as “full of amusement
and sense.”
