LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Samuel Rogers to Sarah Rogers, 1 December [1813]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
GO TO PAGE NUMBER:
Preface
Vol. I Contents
Chapter I. 1803-1805.
Chapter II. 1805-1809.
Chapter III. 1810-1812.
Chapter IV. 1813-1814.
Chapter V. 1814-1815.
Chapter VI. 1815-1816.
Chapter VII. 1816-1818.
Chapter VIII. 1818-19.
Chapter IX. 1820-1821.
Chapter X. 1822-24.
Chapter XI. 1825-1827.
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I. 1828-1830.
Chapter II. 1831-34.
Chapter III. 1834-1837.
Chapter IV. 1838-41.
Chapter V. 1842-44.
Chapter VI. 1845-46.
Chapter VII. 1847-50.
Chapter VIII. 1850
Chapter IX. 1851.
Chapter X. 1852-55.
Index
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‘Woolbeding: Dec. 1 [1813].

‘My dear Sarah,—Lord Folkestone sleeping here last night, I made use of him to write to you, though I have little to say. I hope all the colds are gone, as mine is, and that you persevere, as I have begun, in turning the sunshine to good account. Pray thank Patty for her kind letter, and tell her that, as we have begun again, I hope she will not suffer our correspondence to drop. The fault shall not be mine. I am sorry to hear of the robbery, but hope they will not repeat their visit. I am glad to hear that there is some chance of a good situation for Button. May it answer all our wishes! So there is an alarm about Mary! I shall break my heart if she and you don’t pay me a visit. If you can contrive it, I will endeavour to make it as comfortable to you as I
ROGERS AT WOOLBEDING137
can, under all the circumstances I am placed in. Pray do it if you can. On Friday I hope to sleep at home, and on Saturday to see you all. I have resumed my walking as usual, but now, alas! my old friend from the east is blowing, and I am half a prisoner. Little change has taken place in this family. C. Moore is gone and Sir H. Englefield come, who is a great acquisition, as we wanted a talker.1 Pray tell Maria that we have two pheasants in a dish every day. The plea is—and a very good one it is—that, if one turns out ill, the other may prove better. They are seldom lessened by above a single slice, and oft they go to the servants’ hall with a hare uncut and a hundred luxuries. The estate abounds in rabbits, and to what purpose do you think they are applied?—for they seldom appear on table. To make the sauces! This place appears more and more beautiful every time I see it, though I never see it to advantage. I have had a very entertaining letter from T. Moore. He seems happy and says he writes fifty lines a week, but who can keep up with Lord Byron? Before I return, he will be again, I see, before the public. What strange turns of fortune in this mortal world! The news from Paris is very curious. Moore has been paying a visit to some of the Strutts at Derby,2 where the Edgeworths passed some time in the summer, and where he found old E. the favourite! They have a nest of young poetesses in

1 Rogers used to say that Sir Henry Englefield had a notion that he smelt of violets. Lady Grenville, knowing this weakness, one day remarked in his presence, ‘Bless me, what a smell of violets!’ ‘Yes,’ said he with great simplicity, ‘it comes from me!’—Dyce’s Table Talk p. 156.

2 See Lord John Russell’s Memoirs of Moore, vol. i. p. 365.

138 ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES  
the family, that assemble every Sunday night and bring each her copy of verses; and it is quite surprising, he says, how well they write. They made him an honorary member of the Society. His cottage smokes and lets the rain in everywhere, but he looks up, I think, notwithstanding. Good-bye, my dear Sarah; the post is going, and I dare not read what I have written. Pray give my love to all, and believe me to be,

[Signature cut out.]

‘So Alexander Baring has taken the business of Hope at Amsterdam? The family have made it over to him at a great loss to themselves. What a change is this in his favour if it hold good as it seems to promise!’