Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Lord Byron to Samuel Rogers, 29 July 1816
‘Diodati, near Geneva: July 29th, 1816.
‘Dear Rogers,—Do you recollect a book, Mathisson’s “Letters,” which you lent me, which I
have still, and yet hope to return to your library? Well, I have encountered at
Coppet and elsewhere Gray’s
correspondent (in its appendix), that same Bonstetten to whom I lent the translation of his
correspondent’s epistles for a few days, but all he could remember of
Gray amounts to little, except that he was the most
“melancholy and gentlemanlike” of all possible poets.
Bonstetten himself is a fine and very lively old man,
and much esteemed by his compatriots, he is also a littérateur of good repute, and all his friends have a mania of
addressing to him volumes of letters, Mathisson, Müller the historian, &c., &c. He
![]()
| 228 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
![]()
is a good deal at Coppet, where I have met him a few
times. All there are well, except Rocca,
who, I am sorry to say, looks in a very bad state of health; the Duchess seems grown taller, but as yet no
rounder since her marriage. Schlegel is
in high force, and Madame1 as brilliant as ever.
‘I came here by the Netherlands and the Rhine route,
and Basle, Berne, Morat and Lausanne. I have circumnavigated the lake, and
shall go to Chamouni with the first fair weather, but really we have had lately
such stupid mists, fogs, rains, and perpetual density, that one would think
Castlereagh had the Foreign Affairs of
the kingdom of Heaven also upon his hands. I need say nothing to you of these
parts, you having traversed them already. I do not think of Italy before
September. I have read “Glenarvon”—
‘“From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, ——2 by her love or libelled by
her hate”— |
![]()
and have also seen Ben
Constant’s “Adolphe” and his preface denying the
real people; it is a work which leaves an unpleasant impression, but very
consistent with the consequences of not being in love, which is perhaps as
disagreeable as anything except being so. I doubt, however, whether all such
liens (as he calls them)
terminate so wretchedly as his hero and heroine’s.
‘There is a third Canto (a longer than either of the
former) of “Childe
Harold” finished, and some smaller things—among them a story
on the “Chateau de
Chillon”; I only wait a good opportunity to transmit
![]()
![]()
| AT SYDNEY SMITH'S AND T. MOORE'S | 229 |
![]()
them to the grand
Murray, who, I hope, flourishes.
Where is Moore? Why ain’t he
out?1 My love to him, and my perfect consideration
and remembrances to all, particularly to Lord and Lady Holland, and
to your Duchess of Somerset.
‘Ever yours very truly,
‘P.S. I send you a fac-simile, a note of Bonstetten’s, thinking you might like to see the hand
of Gray’s correspondent.’
Benjamin Constant (1767-1830)
French political theorist and novelist; author of
Adolphe
(1816).
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.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
English poet, author of “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” “Elegy written in a
Country Churchyard,” and “The Bard”; he was professor of history at Cambridge
(1768).
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.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Albert Jean-Michel Rocca (1788-1818)
Swiss Hussar, the second husband of Germaine de Staël (1816); they had a son,
Louis-Alphonse Rocca (1812-42).
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).
Sappho (612 BC c.-570 BC c.)
Greek lyric poet, born on the Isle of Lesbos.
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817)
French woman of letters; author of the novel
Corinne, ou L'Italie
(1807) and
De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she
spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.
