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Rogers on Poetical Composition—Lines at Meillerie—Letters from Mackintosh, Coleridge, Uvedale Price, and William Lisle Bowles—At Lady Hardwicke’s—The Authorship of ‘Auld Robin Grey’—Rogers at Lord Spencer’s—Captain Usher—Paris under the Allies—Letters from Richard Sharp—Rogers to his Sister—Rogers’s Twelfth-night Parties—His Love of Children—Letters to Richard Sharp.
The Diary, of which I have given a brief account in the preceding chapter, was the prose preparation for the poem by which Rogers is most likely to be remembered by posterity. He had not yet conceived the plan of his ‘Italy,’ for he was much occupied during the six years from 1813 to 1819 with his poem ‘Human Life.’ His method of composition involved this long deliberation. He described it himself in a letter, the substance of which was probably sent to more than one budding genius, or, in Southey’s words, unfledged eagle, who sent his poems to Rogers with requests for his criticism and help.
‘I need not say how much flattered I am by your request, nor how happy I should be to render any service in my power to any young man of genius, but I would recommend to him a much better scheme, if I may say so, than you propose.
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‘Let him lay aside his composition for some months and then look at it with fresh eyes, and let him in the interval read attentively some of the great masters (Milton or Dryden for instance) and then read what he has written. His good sense and feeling will then enable him to come to a much better judgment concerning himself than any criticism of mine. I may be wrong, but such was my practice, and I would recommend it to others.’
‘P.S. Few, says Sir J. Reynolds, have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. Some, says Gibbon, praise from politeness, and some criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so interested in the event.’
Rogers was not entirely faithful to the principle
contained in these last sentences. He constantly consulted his friends, and his letters to
Richard Sharp, and some of those to Moore, are full of lines, and alternative lines, of
whatever poem he has in hand at the time. This was in accordance with what seems to have
been a custom in his circle. Moore, for example, was fitfully busy at
this time with ‘Lalla Rookh,’
and in one of his letters tells his mother that Rogers’s
criticisms had twice upset all that he had done, and that he has told
Rogers he shall see it no more till it is finished. The immediate
poetical result of his continental tour in 1814 and 1815 was the production of a short
poem, which was included in the
| LINES WRITTEN AT MEILLERIE | 187 |
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Written at Meillerie, September 30, 1814.
These grey majestic cliffs that tower to Heaven,
These glimmering glades and open chestnut groves,
That echo to the heifer’s wandering bell,
Or woodman’s axe, or steersman’s song beneath,
As on he urges his fir-laden bark
Or shout of goatherd boy above them all,
Who loves not? And who blesses not the light,
When through some loophole he surveys the lake,
Blue as a sapphire stone, and richly set
With chateaux, villages, and village spires,
Orchards and vineyards, alps and alpine snows?
Here would I dwell; nor visit but in thought
Ferney, far south, silent and empty now.
As now thy Chartreuse and thy bowers, Ripaille;
Vevay, so long an exiled Patriot’s home;
Or Chillon’s dungeon-floors beneath the wave,
Channelled and worn by pacing to and fro;
Lausanne, where Gibbon in his favourite walk
Nightly called up the shade of antient Rome;
Or Coppet, and that dark untrodden grove1
Sacred to Virtue and a daughter’s tears!
Here would I dwell, forgetting and forgot;
And oft, methinks (of such strange potency
The spells that Genius scatters where he will),
Oft should I wander forth like one in search,
And say, half-dreaming, ‘Here St. Preux
has been
Then turn and gaze on Clarens.
Yet there is,
Within an eagle’s flight, a nobler scene:
Thy lake, Lucerne, shut in among the mountains,
Mountains that flank its waves as with a wall
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1 The burial place of Necker. |
| 188 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
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Built by the Giant race before the flood;
Where not a cross or chapel but inspires
Holy delight, lifting our thoughts to God
From God-like men—men in a barbarous age
That dared assert their birthright, and displayed
Deeds half-divine, returning Good for Ill;
That in the desert sowed the seeds of life,
Framing a band of small Republics there,
Which still exist, the envy of the World!
Who would not land in each, and tread the ground;
Land where Tell leaped ashore; and climb to
drink
Of the three sacred fountains? He that does
Comes back the better; and relates at home
That he was met and greeted by a race
Such as he read of in his boyish days;
Such as Miltiades at Marathon
Led, when he chased the Persians to their ships.
There, while the well-known boat is heaving in,
Piled with rude merchandise, or launching forth,
Thronged with wild cattle for Italian fairs,
There in the sunshine, mid their native snows,
Children, let loose from school, contend to use
The cross-bow of their fathers; and o’er-run
The rocky field where all, in every age,
Assembling sit, like one great family,
Forming alliances, enacting laws;
Each cliff and head-land and green promontory
Graven to their eyes with records of the past
That prompt to hero-worship, and excite
Even in the least, the lowliest, as he toils,
A reverence no where else or felt or feigned;
Their chronicler great Nature; and the volume
Vast as her works above, below, around!
The fisher on thy beach, Thermopylæ,
Asks of the lettered stranger why he came,
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| MACKINTOSH ON THE SWISS | 189 |
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First from his lips to learn the glorious truth!
And who that whets his scythe in Runnemede,
Though but for them a slave, recalls to mind
The barons in array, with their great charter?
Among the everlasting Alps alone,
There to burn on as in a sanctuary,
Bright and unsullied lives th’ ethereal flame;
And ’mid those scenes unchanged, unchangeable,
Why should it ever die?
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These verses, having been sent to Sir James Mackintosh, called forth from him the following interesting letter.
‘Dear Rogers,—A thousand thanks for your beautiful verses, which
call before my eyes our agreeable travels. The Lakes of Geneva and Lucerne are
strongly and justly contrasted. The first naturally cheerful and surrounded by
animated cultivation, or by places distinguished as the residence of men of
talent. The second tremendously sublime—a fit scene for heroic virtue. I
know not whether the Lake of Lucerne might not be characterised still more
clearly, or, to speak more truly, whether its characteristic feature might not
be more brought out. What morally distinguishes the Lake of Uri from most, if
not all, other spots on the globe, is that it is perhaps the only place where
the whole inhabitants, without excepting the most simple and least instructed,
contemplate the scenes of the noble acts of their forefathers in far-distant
times with a reverence which study, in most places, teaches the best very
| 190 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘In countries of industry and wealth the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue. Here all is quiet and unchanged. Six centuries have passed away unmarked by any events but three or four pure victories which guarded from profanation the temples of the patriots, and rooted still more deeply the devotion to their memory.
‘Excuse this talk, and believe me, dear Rogers,
Immediately on his return from Italy Rogers had been in correspondence with Coleridge, who was then living at Calne. Coleridge had
long got over his antipathy
| SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE | 191 |
‘Dear Sir,—I rejoice that you have returned in safety, “lætis quam lætus amicis,” and after having seen what no poet or philosopher can have seen in vain—the Benedictine Church of San Paolo fuori del Porto,1 the Moses of M. Angelo, his prophets, sibyls, and the central picture in the Sistine Chapel, and (I hope that I may add) that rude but marvellous pre-existence of his genius in the Triumph of Death and its brother frescoes in the Cemetery at Pisa. This, and the Moses, were deeply interesting to me, the one as the first and stately upgrowth of painting out of the very heart of Christendom, underived from the ancients, and having a life of its own in the spirit of that revolution of which Christianity was effect, means, and symbol; the other, the same phenomenon in statuary, but unfollowed and unique (for there is no analogy to it in the unhappy attempt at picture petrifactions by Bernini, in whom a great genius was bewildered and lost by excess of fancy over imagination,
1 This is commonly called ‘San Paolo fuori le Mura.’ |
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‘I feel, and shall ever retain, a grateful acknowledgment of your great kindness in replying to my letter so quickly after your return, and when both your thoughts and time must be so much occupied. I am still most desirous to undertake the translation either of Cervantes or of Boccaccio’s works, the Don Quixote and Decameron excepted, and want no other encouragement than a settled promise from some respectable publisher, such as Mr. Cadell, that he will purchase the manuscript when it is ready for the press. Cervantes will, with the Life and Critical Essay, form three large octavo volumes, each of which will form an entire work. I am about to send a volume of MS. poems in the course of a few weeks to Lord Byron, to whom I was encouraged by Mr. Bowles to write, and from whom I received a no less kind than condescending answer. I trust that they will appear to him not likely to disgrace any recommendation from him.
‘Mr. Bowles
leaves Bremhill on Monday next for
| COLERIDGE: UVEDALE PRICE | 193 |
‘Should you find an opportunity to speak to Mr. Cadell, I should be only so far solicitous about the terms as that they should not be humiliatingly low in proportion to the labour and effort. With unfeigned regard, I remain, dear Sir,
The next letter tells its own story.
‘My dear Sir,—I have often thought of you, often
wished to hear of you, and still more to hear from you, but till within these
few days (such is the profound ignorance in which we are buried here) I did not
know that you were in England. I particularly desired my son to inquire about
you, and I was very glad to hear from him that you had escaped all perils and
dangers and were returned sano e
salvo. The last letter I had from you was dated Venice; and
in that, which gave me
| 194 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘You may, perhaps, remember, though it is a long time
ago, that when you set off on your tour you carried a little MS. of mine with
you to Paris and then sent it to Dr.
Burney. If he received it and did read it he probably thought no
more of the paper or its contents, and has now forgot every circumstance about
it. It is
| UVEDALE PRICE: WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES | 195 |
‘I must now end this letter, et pour cause ; about two months ago I received a very severe blow on one of my eyes, unfortunately the best and strongest of the two, which has very much impaired the sight of it. On stating my case to Sir William Adams he said that such accidents generally bring on a cataract. Dii meliora ; as the eye is not only dim but weak, I must leave off. Lady Caroline and my daughter desire to be kindly remembered to you. They depend upon seeing you here.
There is a letter from another interesting person, who had made a great reputation as a critic and as a pleasing writer of poetry some years before.1
‘My dear Rogers,—Lawyer Williams, the barrister, a friend of Horner’s, has been here, since I came home,
1 Bowles published his Fourteen Sonnets in 1789. The Spirit of Discovery was issued in 1804. His edition of Pope, which created great controversy, appeared in 1807. |
| 196 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘Had I, contrary to my general usage, addressed Lord Lansdowne as “My Lord,” it might also appear that I spoke as less independent than I have always been, and always shall be. Dallaway ought to have addressed the Duke of Norfolk, or Crabbe his patron, the Duke of Rutland, so,—but I have no patron, nor want one, though I never forget the most trifling kindness I have ever received in the common intercourse of life; and I do not see, in my situation, why I should use a different language in public, from that which I use in private, to any man living: at the same time there is no one who would less willingly violate the common etiquette of cultivated society.
‘Your good-nature will, if I have done wrong, put the thing in such a light that no offence can be taken; indeed, I know it contrary to the nature of so noble a mind to take any.
‘I wrote some verses, in the midst of the lame and blind men at Greenwich, which I sent Lady Beaumont, as I thought them something in the way of the Father of the Lake Poets (what blasphemy! her Ladyship will say). I brought you in, I think, happily enough—
| 'AULD ROBIN GRAY' | 197 |
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‘And He, to whom sad Memory gave her shell,
And bade him tones of sweetest music swell,
Was with us.
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‘As I was struck with the circumstance of the blind man and the bird, just as it happened, I am pleased with the verses, but shall put them in my little hymn book.
‘Remember me to all at Highbury Terrace, and I hope to dine there another Sunday, and I wish I could see the same party to dine some Sunday here.
‘So no more from your’s ever,
‘Do write to me and tell me what I am to think of the public news—écrivez. You will seriously oblige me if you will let me know whether all is right about the Dedication, and, if you have had time to look over my corrections and additions, I shall find it an additional favour if you will give me your opinion with respect to the conception and execution of what has been added to the “Missionary”1 . . .’
Two entries in a diary and a letter to his sister show how Rogers spent a summer holiday this year.
‘July, 1815.—At Lady Hardwicke’s, Tunbridge Wells. “My sister Anne wrote ‘Auld Robin Gray’ into the album at Dalkeith; and somebody, on a public day there, tearing out several of the leaves, upon one of which it had been written, it became known. She had no idea
1 The Missionary of the Andes, published in 1815. |
| 198 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘August 7, 1815.—Met Glover, son of the author of “Leonidas,” in St. James’s Street. “Did Brydone go up Etna?” “I saw him at the top.” “Did you see the prospect he describes?” “We could not see an inch for the mist.” “Why was it said he did not go up?” “The fellow had provoked many by his book. They said so to vex him.”—S. R.’
‘My dear Sarah,—I hope you had no cross accidents in your way to
Wassall—that you met with no armies, no refractory mules or muleteers, no
Irish Bishops, and are now enjoying fine weather in a beautiful country with
everybody well and happy about you. As for me, I performed my journey almost
all the way alone, and, passing through Portsdown Fair, the gayest scene in the
world, had a beautiful sail to this island in the packet for one shilling!
Lord S[pencer]’s house is
deliciously seated on a green lawn among flowers and flowering shrubs, and
looking over a grove of trees to a sea so blue and smooth, and so full of sails
of all sizes and colours in perpetual motion, that one does not know which way
to
| LORD SPENCER: LYTTELTON: CAPTAIN USHER | 199 |
| 200 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘P.S. I have had a letter from Du Cane. He is delighted with the purchase of the marble, and speaks of you and his journey with you from the Maschero in a way to make me like him. He goes again to Italy in a few weeks, and asks if you have any commissions for Rome or Naples!’
Richard Sharp writes from Paris, whither the English were again flocking when Waterloo had brought lasting peace—
‘My dear Friend,—You said something about
visiting Paris in October, and I therefore cannot help informing you that a few
days ago I saw sixty pictures of the Dutch School taken away, and a hundred and
sixty-five more have since been removed. Yesterday I actually saw two noble
statues removed under the direction of a Prussian officer and a superintendent
of the gallery. Denon told me yesterday
that his heart was broken. It is generally understood that the Emperor of Austria claims all the pictures and
statues belonging to his Italian states; and that the Pope has sent a minister to demand his. Ministers are here from
all parts of Europe to require
| PARIS UNDER THE ALLIES | 201 |
‘It is impossible to give you the faintest conception of the scene now passing before our eyes. Montmartre fortified by the English, who exclude all French from their lines. Three of our regiments encamped in the Champs Elysées. Rufflius, the Prussian Governor of Paris, and Prince Schwartzenberg, live in hotels surrounded by troops. So do the Emperors of Russia and Austria—at Wellington’s door are only two sentinels.
‘Adieu.
‘P.S. I am hourly annoyed by English invitations. You would be covered by cards and notes.’
In the middle of September Rogers followed the universal example and went over to Paris. A letter to his sister is the only record of the journey.
| 202 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘My dear Sarah,—I wish you had seen the “Pie
Voleuse” with us. It was for the ninetieth time, and, though
in a little theatre on the Boulevard, charmingly acted throughout. Palaiseau is
a mountain village, and given to the life—the headdresses, I confess,
from their extravagance, disturbed me. Little
Annette’s cap of white crape resembled at a
little distance a plume of feathers. I have seen Mlle. Mars many times with great delight, and Talma, though the life is a little laborious,
as I am obliged to read Play and Entertainment before I go (a work of three
hours at least) or I don’t understand a word they say. The best dancer at
the opera—the best, they say, they ever had—is a Mlle.
Goselin; she is very young and one of a large family. When
Talma acts the orchestra is full, and the music sent
off. I begin rather to like the French tragedy. Talma
plays for his benefit next Thursday “Hamlet” and “Shakespeare Amoureux.” The lady,
some Warwickshire beauty of course, is to be performed by Mlle.
Mars. I was enrhumé for many days
last week, but the situation of the hotel consoled me a little for the
confinement, as from my windows I see the whole of the palace, and the gardens
full of orange trees, and statues, and idlers, and newspaper readers. I wish so
much that we had lodged there last year. To dine at Very’s we only cross
the street. The King goes out every day. If
you remember, there were two carriages. The last is always empty and follows in
case of accident. I suppose some king of France once broke down and
| PARIS UNDER THE ALLIES | 203 |
1 Jeffrey says to Moore, ‘I was lucky far beyond my deservings in meeting with Sam Rogers at Paris, and we had great comfort in talking of you.’—Life, vol. ii., p. 102. |
| 204 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
| PARIS UNDER THE ALLIES | 205 |
‘The horses went by our windows, one by one, in as many carts, uncovered, like dead horses, and the people stood at the doors to see them pass by. It is very strange to see an English guard in the Palais Royal and English soldiers strolling in every street. One poor fellow in a jacket accosted me the other day in a Babylonish dialect perfectly unintelligible; at last I said in despair, “Are you an Englishman?” “Thank God, I am, Sir,” he answered very briskly. We dine sometimes at Beauvillier’s, sometimes at Very’s. The first gives far the best dinner and we always see many ladies there—French and English. Why was not it so when we were there? One day when we were there, Lady Caroline Lamb came in alone. I wish Henry had come. We could have lodged him well. It was indeed a cruel thing to come in as Stothard went out. I am glad to hear from Patty (pray thank her for her kind letter—I have just received it) that you have taken possession of your alabasters.
‘Our month is out next Tuesday, and I hope to set
| 206 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I have not seen Miss Williams yet. I have called and written and have been asked to a party where I could not go. Mosbourg called and paid me a long visit. My love to Henry and Patty, and all at Highbury and at Newington.
‘P.S. You remember the avenue by which we entered Paris from Neuilly and St. Germains? The English, men and ladies, and many French ladies, ride up and down there as in Hyde Park every afternoon.
‘I have taken our catalogues from the Wagram Hotel, now removed to another street. The moment I mentioned them, our landlord pointed to them on the table tied up as we had left them. The Spanish Raphaels, so celebrated, are now in the picture gallery we saw opposite our hotel.
‘One of the Lees from Highbury is here—the only one I know. I spent a beautiful morning at Malmaison yesterday. The Emperor of Russia has bought Canova’s marbles, and they are gone with many pictures. The conservatory is the prettiest I ever saw. Mr. Davis from Mark Lane is here. He lost all the gallery. Lord Wellington reviews all the troops to-day under Montmartre—we are going to see them.
‘The Chambers are so violent as to alarm even the
Court. M. de Richelieu, the Minister, went down, and
in
| CHILDREN'S PARTIES AT ROGERS'S | 207 |
The following letters to Richard Sharp illustrate the character of Rogers.
‘My dear Friend,—To-morrow I am to exhibit a Twelfth Cake, and an electrical machine, and if you and your little ward are inclined to come and make a little noise with us, I cannot say how happy you will make us. Jekyll and his boys will not fail at half-past five, when our tea-table rites will be beginning. Oh, the evil hour in which you and I removed from Lilliput to Brobdingnag; but we may still visit the first now and then as aliens and foreigners.
This was a yearly custom. An esteemed octogenarian friend, whom I have
before mentioned, tells me that one of her most vivid early recollections is of one of
these Twelfth Night parties at Rogers’s house,
some years earlier than the one mentioned in the above letter. The beautiful rooms, she
says, were all opened, and on the table in the centre of one of the rooms was a splendid
ice-cake, half of which was made of wood. The children drew characters, and this little
girl, being the youngest, was made Queen of Twelfth Night. She remembers sitting in State
on a sofa of crimson silk, and the King,
| 208 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘My dear Friend,—Inclosed is the draft. Pray use it as you please.
‘Ten o’clock.—I am just returned from “Romeo and Juliet.” At Verona I could think of nothing else through the night. A strange romantic melancholy hung over me there, such as we remember to have felt at sixteen.
‘In a Convent Garden they showed us Juliet’s coffin—the spiracle through which she breathed, and the niche in which her lamp stood burning. I looked at it, as you will believe, with the eye of Faith.’
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